"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah. And she might have a point, too. Why do you like hanging around with Nadine?"
"She can throw, Dad. She's smart, she's funny, and she's got an arm to sell your comic collection for."
"But she's not much of a looker?"
"Not really."
"And Bella?"
"Jeez, Dad, she's gorgeous!"
"And if my memory serves, she's also got a mean streak. You remember talking to me about her when she cut you loose before?"
"Yeah."
"She thumped you pretty good once before. You got any reason to believe she won't do it again if it suits her?"
"Uh ... no. But maybe she realized she made a mistake."
"And maybe you're more desirable because somebody else wants you."
"Nadine? No offense, but I can't see that Bella would be the least bit worried about Nadine, Dad. She's fun and all, but she's not somebody you'd cross the street to get a better look at."
"If Nadine is athletic, smart, and funny, some people might find that intimidating, especially if they aren't."
"You mean Bella is jealous of Nadine?"
Howard chuckled. Tyrone spoke in the same tone of voice he might use if he'd just heard his father say he was going to fly home by jumping into the air and flapping his arms real fast.
"What else changed, son, since she dropped you?"
"Nothing." Another silence. Then, "Man."
"It's nice to be wanted," Howard said. "But you have to ask yourself who wants you, and why. You can't blame anybody for the face and form God gives them, but they can't take any credit for those looks, either. Unless maybe they've paid for a lot of expensive plastic surgery."
"What are you saying here, Dad?"
"If Bella wasn't beautiful, if she was plain or even ugly, would you want to spend time with her? Has she got something going for her other than what she looks like? Would you cross the street to talk to her if you couldn't look at her when you did it?"
This dead air was getting real expensive.
"Uh ..."
"Think about it. Let it perk for a while and see what comes out."
"Oh, man. I guess I better go. Uh, thanks, Dad."
"Say hello to Mom for me."
"I will. Discom."
"Bye, son."
Howard hooked the virgil back to his belt. He was a soldier, and he was going to be gone a lot, that was the nature of soldiering, but he worried about not being there for his son. A man had to do his job, but a man also had responsibilities to his family. Whatever else was going on, he had a son who needed a father's help. There were values that needed to be passed on, lessons to be taught. He had to remember that. It was important.
33
Wednesday, April 13th
Upper Cretaceous What will be Western Europe
Ferns as tall as pine trees loomed in the sweltering heat, and dragonflies the size of hawks flitted among the lush greenery, hunting mosquitoes that could pass for skinny sparrows. This was primeval, primordial, hot, wet, and dank in ways far beyond a tropical rain forest.
The wide-base Humvee hit a dip and a mound of humus that might grow up to be part of an oil field in twenty or thirty million years. The front wheel on the passenger side bounced into the air and clawed at nothing, but the other three studded tires had enough traction to clear the decaying lump before dropping the vehicle back on all fours.
Jay's teeth clacked together, hard.
Belted into the passenger seat, Saji said, "Damn, Jay! You want me to drive?"
Jay gunned the powerful engine. The Humvee lurched forward. "Like you could do any better."
"I don't see how I could do any worse. Unless maybe I drove off a cliff."
The damp ground leveled out a little, and the tire studs dug in and pushed the wide-track along a little faster. "It's not as easy as it looks."
"Well, the way you do it, easy isn't the word that leaps to mind."
He was trying to come up with a killer comeback when he spotted the smashed ferns. He slowed, crept a few feet closer to the downed plants, then pulled the UV over and put it into neutral. He glanced at Saji. "You can stay here while I go look. Stand by the gun, if you want."
There was a .50-caliber water-cooled belt-fed Browning machine gun mounted on the uncovered rear deck of the Humvee. Clipped to the deck was also a shoulder-operated, laser-guided antitank rocket launcher and half a dozen rockets. Jay had considered bringing rifles and shotguns but decided not to bother. Anything smaller wouldn't do the job. He would have preferred a tank and spent-uranium armor-piercing rounds to shoot from it, but, relatively speaking, the rocket launcher was the biggest thing he could carry in this scenario. Anything more powerful simply wouldn't work. Unfortunately.
"I'd rather not," Saji said. She wore a set of bush khaki shorts and shirt, with Nike waffle-stompers and knee socks rolled down. She was gorgeous in the tropical clothing. He wondered what she looked like without any clothes.
"All right. Slide over and take the wheel, then. Leave the engine running. We might need to take off in a hurry."
He alighted and walked toward the smashed fern boles over fairly springy ground covered with what looked like green moss.
He could hardly have missed the footprint: three toes and a pad, no heel. A little water had seeped into the bottom of the print, which was big enough that, if you completely filled it, you could sit down and take a bath.
Jay swallowed dryly. Jesus, look at that thing. He followed the direction of the toes. Twenty-five feet ahead was another footprint, and there was a definite path through the brush ahead of that, as if somebody had driven a big diesel tractor-trailer through the forest, knocking down anything that got in its way.
Jay stared at the trail of destruction. It wasn't a truck. Nope. It was Rex Regum, the king of kings, Carnosaur Supreme, the ultimate predator. Made your average tyrannosaur look like somebody's pet iguana. The thing could run from one end of a football field to the other end in a dozen steps. Probably was fifty feet tall, not even counting the tail.
Following its trail wasn't gonna be a problem. But like a dog chasing a car, the question was, what would he do if he caught it? That machine gun might not be enough to accomplish the job, and if he got close enough to use the rocket launcher and he missed, he wasn't gonna get a second shot.
He turned and headed back to the car. "Move over," he told Saji.
"Doesn't look as if cutting sign is going to be a problem," she said.
"No, I don't think so." He put the car in gear and started following the monster's trail.
Since his brain had more or less started working again, albeit somewhat slowly, Jay had turned the problem over and over, trying to come up with an explanation--any explanation--as to how such a brute could exist. What could have created it? And with technology as he knew it, there wasn't any answer. But as they drove down the VR path looking for the beast, he thought again about the old Sherlock Holmes dictum about eliminating the impossible and dealing with the unlikely remainder. Nothing he knew about had this kind of power, and he knew a lot about computers. But, given that the thing existed, what could be responsible? What would it take? There weren't too many possibilities, only one that made any sense, and it was theoretical; the hardware didn't exist to make it work.
But what if, by some miracle, it did exist?
"Better go left here," Saji said.
"Really? I thought I'd just drive into that big tree instead."
"Just trying to be helpful."
He shook his head. "Sorry. I'm distracted."
"Something on your mind?"
"A theory."
"Want to bounce it off me?"
Jay looked at the swatch of destruction that ran through the VR jungle. He had to catch up with Godzilla's nasty brother, but the more he knew about him, the better. Anything to clarify his thoughts was good. "Sure," he said.
Wednesday, April 13th
The Yews, Sussex, England
Hi
s lordship had gone off to his club, escorts fore and aft, and Peel was in the little church, on the telephone, currently on hold. Outside, along with Peel's regular crew, the man from Chetsnya waited in a rental car, watching for potential enemies. He should be safe here, Peel figured, but he couldn't bet his life on that.
What was he going to do about the bloody scientist? Should he kill him now?
Naturally, the first thing Peel had tried to do when he started worrying that maybe Bascomb-Coombs wasn't on the level with him was to try to withdraw the million from the Indonesian bank. Had he been able to transfer the money into England, he would have felt a lot better, and that would also have gone a long way toward assuaging his fears. Unfortunately, all kinds of electronic transactions had been disrupted, courtesy of Bascomb-Coombs's infernal computer. All Peel had been able to get from his computer log-in was a "transfer pending" notation, awaiting some final clearance that never happened.
Given the computer problems worldwide, this could have been a legitimate response. It was possible.
But it was also possible that this might be a clever ruse by Bascomb-Coombs, one easily hidden by the chaos he had himself caused. By the time things cleared up, Peel might be dead.
"This is Vice-President Imandihardjo," came a man's voice. "How may I help you?"
Peel turned his attention back to the phone. At last, the bloody Indonesian banker. "Right. I need to check the status of my account."
He could almost hear the man frown. Check an account? For this you needed a vice-president? "Your name and password, please?"
Peel gave it to him.
There was a long pause. "Ah, Mr. Bellsong, yes, I see it."
Peel shook his head. Bellsong. The song of a bell, and thus Bascomb-Coombs's little joke: peal. Same sound, different spelling as Peel.
"You have my account information?"
"Yes, sir, I certainly do." The VP's voice shifted; it now had that obsequious tone that big chunks of money sometimes brought from those who weren't rich. This was good.
"I should like to transfer part of the account into another bank."
"Certainly, certainly. If you will give me the particulars?"
Peel rattled off his English account number and password. He would move it, and once he was sure it had cleared, he would breathe a lot easier.
A moment later, the banker said, "Ah, Mr. Bellsong, there appears to be a problem with our system."
"Really?"
"Yes, sir, I'm sure it's nothing major, but I'm afraid I can't access anything but the balance. The computer won't let me make a transfer."
Peel nodded to himself. Well, well.
"Hmm. It seems that there are several dozen accounts affected. I'm sure it's only a temporary aberration."
"You mean I can't get my money out until it's fixed?"
"Ah, well, I'm afraid so, yes."
"I see." That was all Peel needed to hear. His bowels clenched and went cold. He had a sudden, deep suspicion that what the Indonesian bank would find on closer examination would be electron money: demon dollars that glittered brightly if you looked at them peripherally, but that would turn to smoke and vanish if you tried to lay your hands on them. Bascomb-Coombs was having him on.
"I'm sure this will be cleared up very soon. If you will give me a number where I can reach you, I shall call as soon as we've resolved the problem."
Right.
He gave them his number, but Peel wasn't going to hold his breath waiting for that money to clear. He'd been skewered, and he knew who was holding the shaft, too.
Time to go and have a chat with Mr. Bascomb-Coombs. Yes, indeed.
But almost as he thought this, his phone buzzed. The private line.
"Yes?"
"Hello, Terrance." Well, well. Speak of the devil.
"Hello."
"I'm afraid we have something of problem. It seems his lordship has given orders cutting my access to my--ah--toy. He has shut down all the apparent external lines and posted a guard to keep me from physically entering the building."
"Really? Why is that?"
"I suspect the old boy doesn't trust me."
Good bloody reason for that, Peel thought. Then another thought popped up. " 'Apparent external lines,' you said?"
Bascomb-Coombs had his visual mode off, but Peel could almost see him smile. "Very good, Terrance. Naturally, I have a few digital and microwave transceiver links carefully hidden around the hardware. Even a landline wired into the power supply, if anybody thinks to use jammers. They'd have to take it down to the floor-boards to cut off my connection, and since they don't know it's there, they won't. If they shut it off, they know they might not ever be able to get it up and running again."
"I see. And what does this mean?"
"I believe we shall have to deal with the old boy. Using your area of expertise."
"You think so?"
"I'm afraid I do. I must ring off now, but I'll call you back shortly. Give it some thought, would you?"
The scientist broke the connection. Peel stared at the wall of his office.
God, the man had brass balls. Here he was, trying to have Peel himself iced and pretending as if nothing had happened as he ordered him to kill their mutual employer. Bloody nerve, all right.
He would, Peel realized, be better off with both of them gone. Bascomb-Coombs had to depart this mortal coil, of course; a man who tried to have you assassinated could hardly be allowed to live. And Goswell might be in his dotage, but he wasn't completely senile. Sooner or later, he might tumble to the fact that his security chief had sold him out to the mad scientist, and that would be extremely bad. He doubted the old man would reach for his black powder shotgun to blast him, but certainly he would be able to see to it that Peel never worked in the U.K. again. With a million in the bank, such a thing hadn't worried him, but if the money was no more than a ruse by Bascomb-Coombs, then Peel would be, in a word, screwed.
If Bascomb-Coombs went missing and his lordship fell over with a stroke or heart attack, then Peel would be in the clear, nobody to tell tales. He might not be rich, but he would still be marketable. With a spotless record under his lordship, some other rich fool would find him worthy.
Victory was better than defeat, but there were times when you had to cut your losses and retreat, to survive long enough to try another tack. He had pulled in Ruzhyo because he needed a goat for taking out the old man; but now, given the change of situation, it was better that Goswell die of natural causes, so his security chief wouldn't look bad.
Bascomb-Coombs would simply disappear in such a way that nobody would ever find him.
Peel smiled. Yes, this was all unfortunate but not beyond repair. Time to fix things and get on with it. Kill them all--God will know his own. One of the early Popes had said that, hadn't he? Better them than me.
34
Wednesday, April 13th
London, England
During a lull in the increasingly frantic activity at MI- 6, Toni got on the com to call Carl Stewart.
"Hello?"
"Carl?"
"Ah, Toni. How are you?"
"Fine. Look, I'm up to my eyebrows in work, and I can't see any way to get out of it for class tonight. Sorry."
"Not a problem. We'll miss you, but I understand."
"Thanks."
After a short pause, he said, "Well, you do have to eat, though, don't you? Perhaps we can have lunch or dinner later this week?"
Toni's stomach did a small lurch. It wasn't the words but the tone of them that raised the alarm. Was he asking her out on a date? That would have been her most direct question, but Toni wasn't quite ready to ask it. Should she follow that up? Or brush it off? It was moot if she said she was too busy. But, no. She had been doing more waffling lately than she liked. It was time to start facing these things head-on.
"Are we talking about two silat students getting together for a bite, Carl? Or are we talking about something else?"
"Well, I was thinking along t
he lines of two people who found each other's company interesting and who had a deep interest--pentjak silat--in common."
A date.
Toni's knee-jerk response was to tell him she was involved with somebody and decline politely. The window for her comment opened ... and stayed open. He was a vital man, attractive, and he had a skill she much admired. If she and Stewart went to the gelanggang--the fighting floor--for a serious match, he would win; she did not doubt it. She couldn't say that about many people she knew. She was sure that even her own guru, now in her eighties, was no longer up to her level, and she was pretty confident she could keep up with most martial artists, men or women, when it came to one-on-one, however egotistical that might be. But she knew she couldn't defeat Carl. And that was, in its way, a large part of the attraction. She had a momentary vision of what it might be like to lie naked on a bed with this powerful and skilled man, and it was not an unattractive daydream. Not at all unattractive.
She felt a shard of guilt stab her. "I'm pretty much involved with Alex, Carl, and I appreciate it, but I think maybe we ought to keep things strictly professional."
"Ah, too bad. But certainly I understand. I appreciate your candor. Do let me know when you can come back to class."
"I will. Thanks."
After she hung up, Toni had a sick feeling, a cold stirring in her gut. It had, for a moment, been tempting. More so than she wanted to admit. She could have gone down that path, and it bothered her that she had even considered it. She admired Carl, maybe even had a bit of lust for him, but she loved Alex, and there was a world of difference between those two things. For just a moment there, however, she had wondered, had felt indecision, had considered it.
"Can't hang you for thinking" was an old saying that was true because nobody could know what was in your mind, but you couldn't fool yourself for very long. How could it have even crossed her mind? This was bad. Bad.
Wednesday, April 13th
Night Moves (1999) Page 25