Chapter 104.
“If I look hard enough,” Jack says, “I can see my old rig in West Texas.”
Jack and Alek have taken seats on one side of a long conference table. Tipton and Marcelo and Zhi are on the other. Before they’d boarded the plane in Florence, The Host had only told them their next destination, not what the next test would be, even after teasing it.
“Will it be a grand finale? A spectacle?” he’d said coyly. “I guess we’ll have to just wait and see.”
The Host had not accompanied them on their flight to the Jetex Dubai terminal at Al Maktoum International Airport.
He said he had another important stop to make before Dubai.
So the five of them have been waiting at a mansion in Emirates Hills for the past few days.
No phones. No explanations. Just the feeling of being watched.
The door to the conference room opens now. The Host appears. Impeccably dressed as always. Dark suit, white shirt, freshly shaven, no hair out of place. He faces them from the head of the table, the city spread out endlessly behind him.
“What happened to Wyatt?” Alek says.
“Not your concern, Ms. Andrich. He’s out of the contest. That’s the only thing of import.”
“We have a right to be concerned,” Alek says. “He’s our friend.”
The Host offers her a smile as thin as paper. “He’s one less competitor. And not your friend. Trust me on that.”
He lets out that disgusting laugh of his.
“He’s a big boy,” he says. “Though so often too big for his britches.”
Jack’s voice is low and dangerous. “Cut the games. What’s next?”
“All in due time, Mr. McHenry,” The Host says. “All in due time. Right now, I have a proposition for all of you.”
He leans forward, palms on the table.
“If you can agree among yourselves who should be declared the winner,” he continues, “I will immediately present checks of $25 million to the other four.”
He lets that sink in.
“What did you just say?” Alek asks, as stunned as the rest of them.
“Hold on,” Jack says. “After all of us have fought as hard as we have, you want us to decide the winner now by a vote among ourselves?” He shakes his head. “It will all come down to a damn show of hands?”
“Basically, yes,” The Host says. “Think of it as a parting gift. A clean ending.”
“And that’s it?” Alek says. “That’s how it ends?”
“If you agree to my terms, yes,” The Host says. “It’s time for us all to move on.”
Alek hears her own breathing. Too loud.
“And if we don’t?”
His eyes brighten, like that’s the question he wanted.
“Then we proceed,” he says simply. “And I promise you: It will hurt.”
“That sounds ominous,” Alek says.
“You have no idea,” The Host says.
No one speaks as he turns to leave, giving them the room.
“Think it over,” he says.
He’s about to make another dramatic exit, Alek thinks to herself. Maybe his last. For now, his words are still hanging in the air, in this rarefied air, 147 floors up from the street.
“Wait.”
Alek’s voice stops him as he gets to the door.
“Something you’d like to add, Ms. Andrich?” he says. “You do so often like to have the last word.”
“You’re being serious?” she says. “You’d call the whole thing off—just like that—and we’d all just walk away?”
“Indeed,” he says.
He slowly shifts his gaze from one face to another, then he continues. “All but The One. He, or she, gets to stay.”