No way. No. Fucking. Way.
Easy enough to say that when he was pretty sure it wasn't gonna happen. But if it actually did, would he drop everything and trot over?
That was a hard one. He didn't want to think too much about that one.
He gathered himself for the throw. Three steps: one, two, three!
The boomerang soared high into the air, an artificial bird climbing for the sun. And it was gonna be a long hang time, too. He could tell. That ought to shut Nadine up about whether he'd come to throw.
Sunday, April 10th
Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean
Flying the big jet wasn't a problem for the Net Force pilot, and landing it manually wasn't, either, assuming the weather in England wasn't so foul they needed a ground beacon to locate the airport. The 747's self-contained instruments weren't affected by the international snafu that had ensnarled the major computer systems. But trying to land in heavy traffic at Heathrow or Gatwick without some help from the ATCs on the ground was not at the top of any pilot's list.
"No way in hell, sir," the pilot had put it to Howard.
Fortunately, there were military bases that were self-contained in the U.K., at least insofar as flight operations went, and they could put the big bird down at one of these, even though the wait would be fairly long. Most of the still-operational bases had been hauling in civilian planes affected by the snafu, or allowing takeoffs and landings by those nonmilitary aircraft that simply had to fly: hospital planes, those moving organs for transplants, or assorted heads of state. They might be stacked up a while, waiting to land.
Fine, he had been stacked up before.
Fortunately, most military organizations were, by their nature, paranoid, and few of them put all their eggs in one basket. That half the planet's computer systems had been screwed up was bad, but not so bad that it totally paralyzed the world's armies and navies. Good soldiers always worried about such things, and good soldiers could usually convince the bad ones to have some kind of backup plan. Looked as if that chore might get easier after this, too.
They could have turned the 747 back and landed in the States, but Howard wasn't interested in letting his quarry get away again, not if they could help it. The good thing was, if they were having problems traveling, so would Ruzhyo. And he didn't think the assassin would get far on foot. Although tracking him without computers might be something of a problem itself, it would be easier if he sat still for a while.
Julio drifted down the aisle and stopped next to his seat.
"Colonel."
"Sergeant."
"You still think we can collect this boy?"
"Oh, we'll get him." Howard mentioned his reasoning.
Fernandez laughed. "Begging the colonel's pardon, but bullshit. If the guy's IQ didn't drop by fifty points when he landed, he's plenty smart enough to figure out how to rent a car or boat or even a plane from somebody and get out of England. He waves a handful of that funny Euro money at some college kid or poor fisherman or broke pilot with an ultralight, and he's got wheels or floats or wings. I'd guess the Frogs or the Spanish or anybody else across a body of water from Jolly Olde are gonna be busy trying to stop opportunistic crooks trying to smuggle trains or steamships past 'em while the computers are whacked out. His chances of getting nailed in all the hubbub are probably so close to zero as to practically be zero."
"You're assuming he wants to leave England that bad," Howard said. "Why should he? He doesn't know we're on his tail. He probably thinks he's gotten away clean."
"Would you assume that, were you in his shoes?"
Howard grinned. "Hell, no."
"Me, neither."
"Maybe he won't want to risk it," Howard said.
"I don't think this guy worries an awful lot about risk, given what we've seen out of him so far, John."
Howard nodded. That was true enough. And there was nothing to be done about it.
Julio said, "But, shoot, we could get lucky. He might step off a curb and get hit by a double-decker bus or something. Be waiting for us in a hospital somewhere, nothing but a tongue depressor to fight us with when we show up. Course, with our luck so far, he'd kill a couple of us with it, and wouldn't that look good on the obituary page? 'Assassin Kills Net Force Personnel! It was depressing, Sergeant Julio Fernandez said.' "
"I can always count on you to cheer me up, Sergeant."
"I do what I can, sir."
Sunday, April 10th
MI-6, London, England
Michaels sat hunched over a stack of hardcopy, reading that instead of using the computer. It was slow going. Toni had arrived, but left again to go collect some material from a satellite recon site that still had a viable uplink. They didn't want to risk sending the stuff from there to here, even with protected landlines. It was more reliable for somebody to collect it physically.
His neck and upper back were stiff and sore. Part of that was probably from being stuck in a chair reading for hours; part of it was tension from all the other crap going on in his head. Megan and the private eye, Toni, the whole ugly situation with this madman screwing with the world.
"Knock, knock?"
Angela Cooper came in, tapping at the door frame as she did so. She wore a dark blue blazer and a matching short skirt, with a paler blue blouse. She closed the door behind her. "How goes the war, Alex?"
"Our side is still losing."
"We've gotten a bunch of systems back on-line," she said. "We're recovering. So far, no permanent damage to sensitive material."
"That's something."
She moved to stand behind him and looked over his shoulder.
"Statistical analysis of transcontinental telephonic transmissions? My. This must be fascinating reading."
"Oh, yeah, right up there with freshman philosophy papers on German existentialists written in Chinese by Bantu bushmen."
She laid on hand on his shoulder. "Oh, dear. You're like a rock."
"I've been more relaxed," he admitted.
"You should let me work on you." She put her other hand on his other shoulder and started to knead the muscles. He had a moment of alarm. He should not allow this. But--mmm, it felt good. Her hands were much stronger than he would have thought.
"You don't have to do that." Weak. Not the same as telling her to quit.
"I don't mind. It's one of my few talents. My mother was a therapist for a time. She knew some of the more esoteric elements of massage: reiki, shiatsu, Aston-Patterning. I picked up some of it along the way."
God, but that felt good. He could feel the knots in his traps. It also felt as if his head might just nod forward and fall off his neck if she kept this up. It was not sexual, but it was certainly sensual.
"You really ought to lie down to get the full benefit," she said. She continued to work her fingers into his neck and upper back, digging in with her thumbs, working in elliptical spirals.
"However, the couch is too soft, the desk too short. But the carpet is clean. Lie on the floor, on your stomach, next to the desk there."
Like a man in a trance, Michaels obeyed. He hadn't realized just how tight he was. She was finding spots in his muscles so hard they felt like ball bearings.
Facedown, he felt her straddle him, and he opened his eyes enough to see her short skirt riding up as her knees pressed into his sides. Her butt was only lightly touching his, she wasn't putting very much weight onto him.
Oh, yes ...
"It would be better with your shirt off, but perhaps we ought to wait on a more private setting for that. Wouldn't want tongues to wag."
The way Michaels felt with her working on his back, he didn't care if all the tongues in MI-6 wagged like a pack of starving dogs being offered liver treats. An involuntary moan escaped, pressed out of him when she dug the heel of one spiraling hand into the flesh over his right scapula.
It hurt, but it was a good hurt, he could feel himself loosening under the hard pressure.
She slid backward, hovered ove
r his hamstrings, and leaned onto her hands against the small of his back. She pressed her thumbs into his buttocks, slid her fingers over his hips, circled to his back again.
Oh, man. He could get used to this.
Used to it? It could become an addiction.
It occurred to him after ten minutes or so that this would be the worst time in the world for Toni to come back. This would be difficult to explain. He should make her stop. Now.
But he didn't.
And Toni didn't come back, and after twenty minutes, Angela slid back up his body, did some stuff to his scalp, then climbed off him and stood.
He could barely move. He somehow managed to get to his feet.
She was flushed, had worked up a sweat, was glowing.
"Thank you. You just saved my life."
"It wasn't much, really. To do it right takes an hour, an hour and a half, and you have to work both sides, back and front. I have a massage table at home. Maybe you can drop by and let me give you the full treatment sometime."
A warning flash strobed his brain: Danger! Bad idea!
Then he thought about Toni and her silat workout. Stewart had put his hands all over Toni, hadn't he? What was the difference? It wasn't sex, it was harmless. It was ... therapeutic.
"Yeah, maybe we could do that," he heard himself say.
She smiled at him and he smiled back.
"I must look awful, like an old sweaty cow," she said. "I must go and repair myself. See you later."
After she had gone, he found that a small bit of tension quickly returned, despite the skilled rubdown he had just gotten. It had nothing to do with work.
What, he wondered, are you getting yourself into here, Alex?
25
Sunday, April 10th
The Yews, Sussex, England
Goswell sat in his study, in the good leather chair, and sipped at his iced gin. He sighed, and looked at the photographs for perhaps the tenth time. In this age of computer miracles, it was certainly possible to fake such things, he knew. An expert could easily put one man's face on another's body, could erase or add elements that never existed. He recalled seeing a movie once of Sir Winston Churchill--a damned fine PM, according to his father--seated next to the American President Abraham Lincoln, chatting away, when, in truth, the latter had been assassinated eight or ten years before Churchill had been born.
He shuffled the pictures. Yes, certainly it could be done, but in this case, he was just as certain that it had not been done. These were genuine enough, for the man who had taken them had not had a reason to fake them. There sat Peel, talking to Bascomb-Coombs, right there in a public eatery. Of course, Goswell thought, Peel was his security chief and Bascomb-Coombs one of his employees, and a valuable one, as well, so one could easily argue that such a meeting was well within the normal scope of Peel's duties. It was his job, after all, to keep tabs on such people, and talking to them directly was not out of the question.
Goswell took another swallow of his drink and looked at the grandfather clock. Nearly seven; supper would be ready soon.
No, Peel could certainly justify speaking with Bascomb-Coombs easily enough. The damning thing was, he had not done so. Nowhere in his reports was there any mention of such a meeting. Nor of the subsequent meetings. While not all such instances had been edited from the tally of his observations and actions, some of them certainly had been. There were other photographs.
Goswell shook his head. Damned bad show, this. Was he to believe that Peel's formerly faultless memory had begun to malfunction? And only in instances concerning Bascomb-Coombs? What a terrible world it had become when one had to have a trusted watcher himself being watched.
The question was, of course, what were these two about? That they were in league together certainly meant something.
Well. He had not gotten to be a general of industry without learning how to figure such things out.
He rattled the cubes in his nearly empty glass rather loudly.
"Milord? Another drink?"
"Yes, please. Oh, and Applewhite? See if you can find Major Peel, would you, and have him drop round after dinner?"
"Certainly, milord."
Goswell stared into the depths of the melting ice in his glass as Applewhite went to fetch more gin. He would take the quisling Peel's measure, one way or another. A damned shame, really. Good thing the boy's father was gone. It would break his heart to know his son had betrayed a trust.
Sunday, April 10th
London, England
A light rain had begun falling, and Ruzhyo figured this would be a perfect excuse.
It was Sunday, and in some cities that meant much of the commerce would be shut down, but not here in London. He caught a cab near the British Museum and gave the driver the address he wanted. It was not far from a shop on a side street near Regent's Park, a tiny slot of a storefront, long and narrow, that specialized in handcrafted umbrellas and canes. You could easily drop a couple of hundred in such a place on a handmade walking stick or bumbershoot, considerably more if you so wished. They were big on such things here, the accoutrements of a gentleman, and likely the shop could make ends meet just with such sales alone; however, there were other items to be had by a knowledgeable buyer.
The cab arrived a block from the destination. Ruzhyo paid the fare, reflexively gave enough of a tip so the hack wouldn't remember him as being either cheap or extravagant, and alighted from the taxi. The rain was coming down a little harder, and Ruzhyo made certain he didn't appear to notice the man following him as he walked. Not that his shadow was totally inept, but it would take somebody far better to tail him unnoticed once he was looking for such a thing.
When he arrived at the shop he wanted, he made a show of looking irritated at the weather, shook the water from his windbreaker, and offered what he hoped would seem a spur-of-the-moment decision to duck into the place.
It would all be for nothing if Peel knew what the shop's merchandise included, but unless things had changed recently, the Brits did not have a clue about the umbrella store.
The meeting with Peel had been interesting. His claim that he had spotted Ruzhyo by having every passport picture of every foreigner entering the country compared to a list of known agents seemed far-fetched, but Peel had managed to spot him somehow. And he had managed to put a watcher on him. Perhaps it was just luck. Or perhaps Peel's claim was true. Either way, the offer of employment had been forthcoming. Ruzhyo hadn't been all that interested in work, but then again, it wasn't as if he was in a hurry, and Peel could make it easier for him to travel, especially given all the computer problems of late. A short stopover might be to his benefit. The assignment, to stand by for a possible elimination of an English lord who just happened to be Peel's employer was intriguing, although Ruzhyo doubted he would actually attempt the deletion.
Peel's flimsy explanation as to why he couldn't do the job himself or have one of his men do it wasn't fooling anybody. It was obvious that he needed a scapegoat, a foreign agent who could be blamed for the assassination, and who better than a sneaky CIS former Spezsnaz killer? One who might well be shot full of holes himself in the aftermath of the killing while trying to escape, thus tying up all loose ends?
Ruzhyo allowed himself a small smile as the umbrella shop clerk took notice of him and nodded. Were he Peel, that's how he might set it up. Hire an expendable shooter, then delete him once the job was done; all very neat, if not terribly smart. Sooner or later, somebody would get around to asking why a man on the run from U.S. authorities would bother to stop off for a bit of murder in the U.K., motive being a necessary part of such a thing. And even the plodding British authorities would turn over every rock in sight investigating the murder of such a highly regarded man. They were still very class-conscious here. But the Brits were short-sighted about some things, always had been. Had they been paying attention, they'd probably still rule most of the world. Hubris did awful things to an empire. Likely it was that Peel had a touch of that himself.
"May I help you, sir?"
"I need a special umbrella. One with more ... heft than the ordinary."
The clerk's smile never wavered. "Ah, yes. I'll have the manager, Mr. O'Donnell, right out."
The clerk disappeared into a door behind the counter. Ruzhyo pretended to browse. There were fantastic handles on some of the canes and umbrellas, made of ivory or exotic woods, carved in fanciful shapes. Here was a tiger, there a snake, over here, a nude woman arched backward in a graceful half circle.
"Good afternoon, sir. I'm Mr. O'Donnell. I understand you need a special umbrella?"
Ruzhyo nodded at the tall, sandy-haired man in the dark suit. "Yes."
"Might I ask who recommended our shop to you?"
"That would be Colonel Webley-Scott."
"Ah, I see. And how is the colonel these days?"
The identity code was the same. Ruzhyo said, "Still dead, last I heard."
The manager smiled and nodded. "If you will step this way, sir?"
"I have a tail. No connection to you."
"Not to worry. He won't see through the window unless he has X-ray vision. Is he likely to come in?"
"I doubt that he is that stupid."
"Well, if he does, he'll see you come out of the door to the WC."
Ruzhyo followed O'Donnell through the water closet and through a hidden door to a small private room. There was a tall, green, antique safe on claw feet in one corner. As the manager opened the safe, he said, "Would you be wanting something edged or projectile, sir?"
"Do you have a multiple-projectile model?"
"We have. A five-shooter. Small-caliber, I'm afraid, only .22."
"That will do."
"Here we are, then."
He offered what appeared to be a standard umbrella to Ruzhyo, with the J-shaped wooden handle perhaps a hair thicker and heavier than normal.
Night Moves (1999) Page 19