“Ego had brought him to this point, that stupid refusal to quit the case, to simply do the job according to procedure and pick up the monthly salary transfer. Now look where it had brought him, sitting right next to a crapping great fusion bomb.”

“But even she had figured out that there was no point giving up a great job and following him to the ends of the earth, when he simply refused to make any promises about, or even discuss, the future.”

“It puzzled K., at least it puzzled him looking at it from the policemen's point of view, that they had made him go into the room and left him alone there, where he had ten different ways of killing himself. At the same time, though, he asked himself, this time looking at it from his own point of view, what reason he could have to do so. Because those two were sitting there in the next room and had taken his breakfast, perhaps?”

“He had brought out the man in Alec, and now it was Alec’s turn to bring out the hero in him”

“That is beside the point,” I said, not giving him the satisfaction that he was right about anything, especially that I wanted to kiss him, although now that he brought it up, I was thinking about it. His kissable lips were very close to mine.”

“He brought the Glock up to shoulder height. He had one up the snout giving him fourteen rounds of influence.”