The knowledge that Heller is about to derail the Apparatus' gravy train, combined with the would-be assassin's death threats against Utanc, spur Gris to leap into action! He races to Faht Bey's office and demands that he "Get Raht and Terb on this at once!"
It's possible to delegate too much.
Gris is reminded that Raht and Terb are incompetent morons still in the hospital after being brutalized by some prostitutes, and receives the unwelcome news that thanks to his Mobster Hospital project, every agent in the Apparatus' New York office is out looking for potential customers. Gris has finally run out of people to do his job for him. So he panics some more, yelling at the sky things like "I'm working on it!" and "I'll think of something!" to placate the mysterious enforcer leaving death threats on his pillow.
This attempt to act lasts until he thinks about Utanc, prompting him to check to see that she's still alive and not poisoned or anything. Gris decides to spend the rest of the evening camped out in front of her patio with a bushel of hand grenades, fully intending to blow the hell out of anyone he thinks is trying to sneak up on the woman who loathes him. It takes a few hours, but he eventually notes a flaw with his current plan, realizing "I couldn't sit there every night for months. It was too cold."
Gris falls sleep. Then he suddenly wakes up, all but instantly devising a plan to defeat Heller once and for: he will change location and go to New York, gather the most powerful allies imaginable, and "cook Heller's goose." Then he realizes that would mean leaving Utanc behind. An hour and another nap later and Gris wakes up with another plan, a plan of how to make Utanc accompany him to the States.
So yes, despite the dire warnings from his supervisor and Heller starting down the road of thwarting the Apparatus, Gris is going to spend the next four chapters trying to win back Utanc. I'm wondering if her character was inserted just to help pad this thing enough for Hubbard to call it a "dekalogy," because like half this book has been Gris waiting for her to arrive or trying to make her happy. (editor's note from the future: no, her character was invented mainly to make Gris the butt of a "joke" in Book 8)
Back to Chapter Three
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