> > Not necessarily. So far, as far as he knows, his plan is working > > swimmingly. If Vlad displayed such intimate knowledge of his plan, > > I suspect that would surprise him, and thus make him more wary. > > Dumb question perhaps, but why doesn't Mellar speed the process along by > either covertly putting out word on the Jhereg street that he's at CB or He made no secret of his location. He knew that they'd find him plenty soon, and would no doubt be sending assassins shortly thereafter (as, in fact, they did). > by having a hit done on himself (and arrange to have it be permanent but > not Morganti)? Does he care if it's Morganti or not? I don't think so. People with that big a vengeance-jones on are usually willing to sacrifice *anything*. >Even if the work got traced back to him eventually, the > war would be well underway. Basically he's standing around daring the > best minds in the Jhereg and Dragon to outthink him - why wait? Because he thinks that the odds of his plan being discovered are greater if he hires an assassin himself than if he lets the Jhereg do it for him. And I think he was right to think so. He couldn't have anticipated that he would face an opponent with Vlad's cleverness and resources, as Vlad wasn't even born until the plan was quite far along. Alexx Opinions expressed are my own and not necessarily those of my employers. alexx at carolingiaSPAMBL@CK.org http://www.panix.com/~alexx "There are things that are so serious that you can only joke about them." -- Heisenberg