He should apologize, try to get this resolved. But he waited too long.
"Good-bye, Alex. You can call Susie. I don't want her to think I'm shutting you out of her life, but you and I don't have anything else to say to each other. Give my regards to your teenage girlfriend."
She broke the connection.
Michaels blinked. He was in the middle of the sidewalk on a street in downtown London in the middle of the night, feeling as if he had just been slammed in the groin by a linebacker's knee. His ex-wife knew about his affair with Toni--who was a dozen years younger than he was, but hardly a teenager--and he was going to have to hear that in court if he contested the custody hearing for his daughter. He and Toni were both adults, but he was her boss. That wouldn't look good. The FBI frowned on such relationships, and since he didn't have any history with the new director, she wouldn't be ready to put her ass on the line to save his if this all blew up in his face.
He was--not to put too fine a point on it--fucked.
18
Thursday, April 7th
Walworth, London, England
Peel's first real assignment from his new boss was a field operation, and it was right up his alley. Much better than sitting in a drafty old shed of a church watching stats stream by on a computer's holoproj. Of course, almost anything would be better than that.
It seemed that a certain scientist, formerly one of Bascomb-Coombs's university teachers and now retired to a private consulting position, was poking around in computer territory best left alone. Old BC was about to unleash some new electro-deviltry on the world, and he didn't want his former professor to tread on him while he was about it. And while he didn't want to seriously injure his old mentor, he did want him out of the way for a day or three. Could Peel manage that?
"Level Two," Peel said to the three men in the car. "Are we clear on that?"
The trio in the back--Peel sat in the driver's seat of the big right-hand-drive Dodge four-door-nodded. "Yes, sir," they said as one. They were the youngest of his men, Lewis, Huard, and Doolittle, dressed now as low-life rowdies, in Doc Martin steel-toed boots, baggy denim pants, and black shirts cut to reveal fake tattoos on their arms and chests. The outfits came complete with false nose rings, earrings, and tight skinhead wigs that easily covered their militarily short haircuts.
Here was a picture: a trio of thumpy boys, out for a lark, trouble on the prowl. It was exactly the right image, one that authorities would not look at twice before accepting. Coppers were good about that. You gave them an obvious picture, they didn't scurry around looking for hidden meaning in the brush strokes and hues, they nearly always went for the overall model.
Level Two. The code was one he'd learned from a commando in South Africa during a training seminar there some years ago. For direct physical violence not involving guns or knives, there were five operational levels:
Level One was the mildest, consisting mainly of threats or shoves, intimidation, without physical injury to the subject.
Level Two was mild to moderate damage, bruises, perhaps a broken bone or two, equivalent to a good bar-fight thrashing. A few stitches in the local doctor's surgery, some pain pills, and day or two to rest up at home, and you'd be right as rain.
Level Three was damaging enough to require a stay in hospital, and you'd be weeks or months recovering. A serious encounter.
Level Four meant you would carry reminders of the attack with you for the rest of your life: You'd be crippled with a torn-out knee or ankle, or perhaps crushed hands; you might lose your hearing or an eye, or be otherwise maimed. Recovery would be slow and painful, and you'd never be as complete as you had been before.
Level Five was terminal. A subject was to be made to suffer much pain, to know what he had done, and to have time enough to regret having done it before passing away.
The South Africans would deny having such codes, of course. They hadn't been used officially since apartheid days, but used they still were. Many military and intelligence services around the world had similar operational codes still in place, officially or not. One simply did not talk about such things where unfriendly ears might lurk. Peel recalled an Israeli official some years back, blabbing on in public about their official policy on torture. How it was, under some extreme circumstances, justified. Oh, but the Jews had been lambasted for that when it had hit the media. Of course they used torture when they needed it. Some raghead ready to join Allah in paradise plants a bomb and they catch him before it goes off? Only a fool would sit and politely inquire about it: Excuse me, Abdul, old boy, would you mind awfully telling us where the bomb is so we might disarm it? Some more tea?
Whatever else you had to say about the Jews, they were survivors. If you kicked dirt on their shoes, they would drop a mountain on you in return. Such things didn't bother fanatics ready to die at the drop of a Koran, but more reasonable governments kept that in mind before sending sorties against Israel. Getting hit back thrice as hard as you hit somebody was still a deterrent in some quarters. And the Jews never let it pass, never. You spit on them and sooner or later--likely sooner--you'd have a fire hose blasting you in the face to think about.
If you wanted your country to survive its enemies, you did what you had to do. No one needed to run to CNN and talk about having to shove a few needles under a terrorist's fingernails to save decent men and women from being killed, now did they? It was all part of the game. You got caught, you suffered the consequences. Unfortunately, that was how Peel had been forced to resign, being ... overzealous with Irish terrorists--which, as far as he was concerned, was redundant. Whatever peace decrees were signed, the bloody Irish were never going to settle down and be civil. But some of them had died under his interrogations, word had gotten back to the rear echelons, and that was that.
Ah, well. Water under the bridge. That was when he had been a major in good standing, serving king and country. Now, he catered to another master, one who understood the reality of things, and he was already rich as a result. Not a bad trade, all in all.
The target emerged from the pub in a cloud of alcohol-fueled noise and good cheer. BC wanted him bent but not broken, just enough to put him out of active service for a few days, after which it wouldn't matter. It ought not to be too difficult to manage one old college professor.
"Here we go, boys. Move sharp--and be careful."
The target, a rotund man of sixty in a twenty-year-old tweed suit and matching Irish rain hat, sported a mostly white beard and carried a furled umbrella.
"Right, Major," Lewis said, grinning. He was the leader of the attack team. "Here's a fierce old beaky. We'll keep our heads in."
Huard and Doolittle laughed. They exited the car.
The plan was for them to amble to the professor and, once close enough, jump him. A few good thumps and they'd be away, taking his wallet. The police would see it as no more than another sad example of youth gone bad and tell the professor he was lucky to get off as easy as he did. They'd look for the trio of skinheads, but since those three wouldn't exist in an hour, their disguises burned and gone, it would be a fruitless search. A pickup vehicle waited around the corner for Peel's men, a stolen lorry with the license plates switched with those of a van parked at a nearby cinema. A simple operation, and untraceable.
The major cranked the Dodge Ram's engine to depart, which he intended to do as soon as he was sure the assault was proceeding as planned.
The three skinhead slackabouts, laughing and talking too loudly, moved to intersect the professor's path. Lewis held an unlit cigarette, and he was first to reach the target. He waved the cigarette and said something to the older man. Too far away for Peel to hear, but he knew the gist: "Allo, Gramps, gottuh match, have ye?"
Huard and Doolittle drifted out to the sides, to encircle the old man.
Peel put the truck in gear to drive off. It was going by the numbers, one, two, three--
Then, of a moment, the operation leaped past three to seventeen: The professor lunged like bloo
dy Zorro, jabbed at Lewis with the tip of the umbrella, and caught him a hard stab in the solar plexus. The team leader lost his cigarette prop and his wind as he backed off and clutched at his belly. The professor twisted to his left, swung the umbrella like an ax, and whacked Huard across the face. The shock and surprise drove him backward, too.
"Help!" the white-bearded old boy yelled in a voice to wake the dead. "Assassins! Help!"
Doolittle lunged and bounced a fist off the old man's shoulder, and the old fellow spun and slashed at him with the umbrella, missing only because the fake skinhead leaped back like he was bloody Nijinsky doing steps from bloody Swan Lake.
"Help! Help, I say!"
Several men rushed out of the pub and saw the goings-on.
Wonderful. Bloody wonderful!
Lewis recovered, stepped in, dodged another rapier-like thrust from the umbrella, and managed to land a solid punch to the old man's nose. The professor stumbled and sat down hard on the sidewalk but did not release his hold on his weapon. He swung at Doolittle's legs, caught a shin with a whack Peel heard thirty meters away, and flailed his weapon back and forth, missing only because Doolittle did another quick little nancy-boy ballet step to get out of the way.
What a bloody cock up!
The party was over. The three troops took to their heels as the growing mob from the pub rushed them. The boys were young and fit, didn't smoke, contrary to the faggot prop, and should be able to outrun a bunch of middle-aged men who'd had a pint or two. If they couldn't, they deserved what they got. Idiots.
Peel pulled away from the curb, made a turn, and glanced at the professor. Peel did not intend to relate exactly how the attack had gone, nor how it had slipped downhill. The old man probably had a broken nose, that should be enough--though it was likely he was less damaged than the three who had set upon him.
Peel watched in his rearview mirror as the first of the pub-goers reached the professor and helped him to his feet.
Hello all. Meet my friend, Corporal Disaster.
Hell's bells! He'd warned the lads to take care, but they were young and too full of themselves to even consider that one old man was a threat of any kind. Didn't expect they'd be up against John bloody Steed and his samurai umbrella, now had they?
Well. They'd know better next time. Embarrassing and painful lessons were the kind that etched themselves into one's memory.
Christ.
Friday, April 8th
Somewhere in the British Raj, India
Jay Gridley stood there, machete in one hand, his revolver in the other. He hadn't even moved yet, and already he was dripping with sweat. The jungle lay in front of him, leaves and vines woven into a thick wall of tangles, too verdant and altogether too alive. His heart pounded, and he was breathing hard. It took everything he had just to hold the jungle image, and even so, it wavered at the edges, threatening to collapse at any second.
It wasn't just the problem with concentration. Yeah, Saji's exercises had helped, the breath and meditation and all. And his grandfather had been a Buddhist, and he knew a bunch of them, so it wasn't that weird.
The big thing was, Jay was afraid. No, not just afraid, he was terrified. This was the jungle where the tiger had been, where it had leaped from cover and clawed him, ripped at his brain so he couldn't think. Maybe killing his ability to walk the web forever, and, if so, killing him, too.
He didn't have to be here. Nobody was making him go back into the jungle. But if he couldn't play computers, he might as well be dead.
He took another breath. The little handgun wouldn't even slow the tiger down, he knew, but he couldn't work the machete and hold the big double rifle ready. If it came at him again, he would get hurt again, maybe worse than before.
He could get help. Saji was willing to come with him. He wouldn't carry a gun, because he wouldn't shoot even a VR creature, but he could offer moral support. And there were other ops, some in Net Force, some not, who could link with Jay and share the scenario, some of whom would cheerfully tow a howitzer and who'd blast anything that moved. But that wasn't the way. Jay couldn't spend the rest of his life asking for help. If he couldn't walk in the valley of the shadow alone, he couldn't do his job, and if he couldn't do the thing he loved most in the world, what was the point?
He took yet another breath and let it out slowly. He was going in. If it got him, then it got him, but he was going to go down swinging the big knife and pulling the Webley's trigger if he went, and to hell with it.
He raised the machete. The VR wall of vegetation rippled and wavered. The image started to fade. Crap!
He came back into himself in front of his home workstation, soaked with sour-smelling sweat, heart still thumping madly away.
He'd been ready. He had. He was willing to do it.
Just not ready and willing enough to hold the scenario.
He blew out a sigh. Okay. He'd go back, try it again.
In a little while. When he'd had a chance to get his breath back, to rest a little. Really, he would go back. Really.
19
Saturday, April 9th
London, England
Mikhayl Ruzhyo, now looking like just another tourist, walked toward the Imperial War Museum. The building, with its centered dome and pillared front, could have almost been an Italian church, had not the approach been guarded by a pair of fifteen-inch guns, taken, according to the sign nearby, from HMS Resolution and HMS Ramillies.
Churches had been violent places through the centuries, but he had never heard of one protected by naval guns outside the front entrance.
To one side of the walkway, a tall concrete slab stood, a section of the Berlin Wall taken from near the Brandenburg Gate. He had been a teenager in 1989, when they had started taking the wall down, and the significance of it had been lost on him. What an American president had once called "the evil empire" had been much closer to home. He had known very little about the world outside his homeland in those days. He had learned too much about the world since.
The piece of the Berlin Wall had been painted to look like a giant cartoon face, done in blues and blacks, with its mouth stretched wide open. Against a dark red background in the mouth were the words "Change Your Life."
Easy for you to say.
Ruzhyo had been to London several times, usually on his way elsewhere, once on assignment to erase a wayward colleague, and he had seen a few of the tourist sights: Buckingham Palace, the Wellington Monument, Abbey Road. He and Anna had almost come to England on a holiday once, before she got sick, but something or other had prevented it. Since Anna had died, he hadn't done much tourist activity. Anna would not have enjoyed this place, but these days, war museums suited his tastes.
Inside, the main gallery was full of old tanks and artillery pieces, with various airplanes hung from the ceiling. He strolled past a Mark V tank, a 9.2-inch howitzer, a Jeep. Gray greens were the dominant colors.
The most impressive display was of a giant V2 rocket, the side cut away to show the engine, such as it was. The missile was huge, painted a dark green. It looked to him like a cartoon rocket ship, a pointed cigar with fins on the tail.
Ruzhyo stared at the V2. How frightening it must have been to civilians to see this monster dropping from the skies during the Blitz. According to the placard, more than 6,500 of the V2s and smaller V1s fell on London and South East in hard and explosive hailstorms, killing a total of 8,938 people.
How, he wondered, had they been able to come up with the exact number killed? 8,938?
If the Germans had been able to manage a decent guidance system for these beasts, they would have killed a lot more. But while they had been fearsome devices, shooting them off had been rather like launching pop bottle rockets. That they were able to hit London at all had been more due to luck than skill. Many, if not most, of the V1s and V2s had fallen harmlessly into the sea or onto the countryside. And in a war, 9,000 civilians mean little in the overall casualty count. A few drops in an ocean of blood.
&nbs
p; What men did best was to kill other men. Especially when given leave to do so in a war.
Ruzhyo strolled past a searchlight, another item painted a flaky military green; he looked at a shellacked and unpainted wooden fishing boat used during the evacuation at Dunkirk; he examined Monty's tank, one in which he'd ridden during the North Africa campaign against Rommel, when Montgomery was still a lowly general and not yet the famous field marshal.
The monuments of killing.
There were also side rooms with cryptography equipment the museum-goers could play with, and on the lower ground floor, a World War One experience, designed to look like the trenches. This floor also had a Blitz display, and a Second World War area, as well as a more modern conflict display: Korea, the Cold War, Vietnam, the Falklands, Bosnia, the Middle East. Ruzhyo quickly passed through the more contemporary presentations; they held little interest for him. He knew about those kinds of wars. Chetsnya and the invading Russians lived in his memory as real as if it had taken place yesterday and not almost twenty years past.
Even though it had been a sea of mud then, it was a much cleaner business in the trenches in France in 1915 than it was when Ruzhyo had been Spetsnaz. Cleaner in the sense that you knew who your enemies were, you knew where they were, and you had things laid out for you in black and white. Attack here, shoot there, live or die along the way. There was little skulking about and shooting people while they sat at a desk or lay in bed with a wife or mistress. Those had been his stock in trade. He knew about that kind of war.
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