by Tom Clancy
Natadze stayed off the books as much as he could. Those few elements of his persona that had to be public were mostly false — licenses, credit cards, even magazine subscriptions. It was hard to track prey if you couldn’t even identify it, and Eduard worked hard to be as untrackable as possible.
He arrived home at the same time as the FastAir Express carrier’s truck. He had made an arrangement with the delivery man, claiming that evening rounds were more convenient for him, and had made it worth the man’s time to provide the extra service. It was amazing how many problems would just disappear if you threw enough money at them. Another lesson that Mr. Cox had taught him.
Despite the situation with Jay Gridley, he felt his spirits lift immediately when he saw the truck: The new Bogdanovich had come!
The delivery man exited the blocky truck, carrying a large box that Natadze immediately knew to be the guitar for which he had been waiting. He met the man at the front gate, signed the acceptance form, gave him a sizeable tip, and hurried inside.
It was but the work of a moment to open the box, dump the biodegradable packing peanuts onto the floor, and get to the cased instrument. The case itself was one of Cedar Creek’s custom models, a kind of hound’s-tooth pattern against a dull yellow background. They made good ones, Cedar Creek, and were priced remarkably cheap. Not something you would trust to the airlines to manhandle, but then you wouldn’t trust a steel vault to the airlines.
He hurriedly opened the six latches and looked at the guitar.
Bogdanovich was, as were some of the other underrated American luthiers, such as Schramm and Spross, doing outstanding work at very reasonable prices. He was, Natadze believed, a New Yorker who now lived in northern California. Natadze already owned one of his guitars, a spruce-front, maple-back model he had found in a San Francisco shop some years ago. That one had a tone as good as instruments costing five times as much, and he had been impressed enough that he ordered a new one custom-made for him. Fortunately for him, Bogdanovich hadn’t been discovered yet, and the waiting time was still relatively short. If you wanted a Smallman, for instance, the Australian maker’s list was several years deep, and Natadze was still waiting on one of those. Bogdanovich’s list, fortunately, was only a few months, and to judge from the tone of the one Natadze already had, he was able to run with the best.
He picked up the guitar, turned it slowly. Built on the standard Torres/Hauser pattern, this one was western red cedar-topped, with Indian rosewood back and sides. It had a Spanish cedar neck, ebony fretboard, and Sloane tuners. It was French polished only on the front, with a harder lacquer on the sides and back. Beautiful just to look at, but the test, of course, was the sound.
He pulled up a chair, closed the case for a foot prop, tuned the guitar, and ran through several scales, going up the neck.
Ah. No dead notes, no buzzes.
He plucked an E-chord in first position. The notes were sharp, clear, warm — cedar was more mellow than spruce — and they rang with a long sustain. He plucked the E again, high up the board. Perfect. He belled the harmonics at the twelfth. Excellent!
He retuned the trebles, and played “Blackbird,” one of his warm-up pieces. The guitar filled the kitchen with beautiful music.
Yes! It sounded almost as good as his Friedrich!
Well, all right, not quite that good, but still. How bad could things be, when such guitars existed?
He would have to send a note to Bogdanovich, but not for a while. First, he needed to play this beauty for a couple of hours.
Perhaps he could play the sonata by Nikolai Narimanidze, a countryman. People did not realize how many excellent composers and musicians came from Georgia. If they knew much about the country at all, it was usually that it was Stalin’s birthplace, and that the semisweet wines were decent.
Well. That was not important now. Now, he could forget his worries for a few hours and do what he liked to do best.
University Park, Maryland
John Howard stood in his kitchen, watching the coffee drip through the gold mesh filter. Nadine was working on breakfast, still in her bathrobe. Toni Michaels came into the kitchen, also in a robe. Howard nodded at her. “Alex still asleep?”
“In the shower,” Toni said.
“I hope there’s some hot water left,” Nadine said. “I think my son is part fish, as long as he stays in there.”
“Alex won’t die if the water gets cold. How is Tyrone?”
“Doing better,” Nadine said.
Toni nodded and didn’t push it.
Howard looked at the coffee pot. They had a bond, the Michaels family and his. Tyrone had saved their son’s life — and his own — and that would never go away. He’d had to kill a very bad man to do it, and there had been some trauma connected to that, even though the boy had dealt with it better than a lot of men did.
The coffee was done and poured when Alex Michaels came into the room. He nodded at the others, and accepted a cup of the fragrant brew from Toni. He sipped at it. “Morning.”
“Nearly afternoon,” Toni said. “Slug.”
“Eight-fifteen is not anywhere close to noon,” Michaels said. “Just because you like to do crosswords at five A.M.—”
“First batch of pancakes is about ready. How is little Alex?” Nadine asked.
“Great,” Michaels and Toni said as one.
Howard smiled.
“Guru is teaching him Javanese,” Toni said. “And already showing him how to stand for djurus.”
Howard shook his head. He had met the old woman they called “Guru” several times. She was in her eighties, squat, and a master of the martial art that Toni and Michaels studied, Pentjak Silat.
Toni, who could toss black-belt fighters around like toys, said the old lady was a lot better than she was, and Howard believed her. He had seen her move, and had seen Michaels move, and he wouldn’t have wanted to face either of them without a weapon in hand. Preferably a gun.
“Anything new?” Michaels asked.
“No.”
A silence settled upon the kitchen, broken by Nadine. “Who wants the first stack? Toni?”
“Sure,” Toni said. “I haven’t had homemade pancakes in ages.”
“You ever think about learning how to cook? You could have them more often,” Michaels said. But he was smiling.
“This from a man who burns water?”
He smiled.
Howard turned the conversation to what they were all thinking about: Jay Gridley. “The FBI is trying to run down the shooter,” he said. “They are interviewing people who were still at the scene when the state troopers got there. Some who came forward, some who didn’t but whose license plates were caught on the troopers’ car cams. It doesn’t look real promising so far. The AIC, Peterson, says if it was a pro hitter, he won’t have left any big clues. So far he’s been right. The only thing people noticed — those who noticed anything at all about the guy — was that he had a Band-Aid on his face.”
Toni and Michaels nodded, but didn’t speak.
“What about you two?” Howard asked.
“We flipped a coin,” Michaels said. “If Jay doesn’t come around in the next day or two, I’m going to Colorado, Toni will stay here for a while.”
“It could be months, or even years,” Howard said carefully. What he didn’t say was, Or he might not come out of it at all.
“Yes,” Alex said simply.
“We’ll see how it goes,” Toni added. “If Jay is still in there and it’s at all possible for him to wake up, he will. He’s a fighter.”
Howard nodded and sipped at his coffee. She was right.
He hoped.
18
In the Dream Time
Jay lay on his back on the bench and laughed as the stack of weights on the Universal Gym tried to come down and crush him. An errant shaft of sunlight from a high window played on the chrome, the glint of light harsh.
Gonna crush you, Gridley!
Not gonna happen, Iron.
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Jay knew he looked like a demigod, hugely muscled, thews and sinews grotesquely rippling, power radiating from him.
Conan the Gridley. Hah!
He heaved, hard, and felt something give in the machine. The stack of weights hit the top of their range, something broke, and part of a shattered plate flew free. It arced across the room and hit the wall, clang! and fell to the floor with a clunk.
Pumped, he stood and shoved the old Universal aside, enjoying the sound of it screeching across the concrete floor, a primal testosterone buzz rolling through his body.
“Who was that you were gonna crush?” he said aloud.
He was strong. This was the power of comic-book heroes, of mythological characters.
Would it be enough?
He had managed to gain more control over his environment, at least. The gym and his other exercises were a testament to that.
But it was still weird. He couldn’t program things like he could in VR. There were no objects to code, no places to do input. The illusions he created were simultaneously more real and unreal than anything he’d ever done in VR. Things acted on their own with patterns he would never be able to create with software, fractal shades of reality that came from within, unlike anything he could achieve through a program.
Like his VR scenarios, this was a metaphor. He was training his will, to increase his mental activity until he could get out.
The idea had come from a memory of the previous coma’s rehab. He’d been weightlifting, an exercise for which he saw no use whatsoever, but had been forced into, and he’d accidentally put the pin into the wrong notch. He’d started his press, thinking it was his normal weight, and had been shocked to find it so heavy. Unwilling to admit defeat, he’d strained, inching the stack up slowly, bit by bit. It had become a test of will — no inanimate pile of metal was going to beat him!
Jay toweled the sweat off. He was as ready as he could be, and he hoped it would be enough.
To match his training metaphor, he’d entered himself into a strongman contest. He’d seen one on ESPN once while channel surfing. It had fascinated him to see these modern Samsons doing what they did.
Each event in the contest he’d planned would test his willpower, help him focus. The brain-wave states of Delta, Theta, Alpha, and Beta were going to be achieved through doing something else, just like VR.
Jay continued his preparations, stretching his legs, now as thick as tree trunks. He was glad for Spandex.
Otherwise I’d be shredding clothes like the Hulk.
There was a musical fanfare from outside, and it was time for the contest. He headed out into a brightly sunlit arena.
“And here representing geeks everywhere, is Smokin’ Jay Gridley!” The loudspeaker blared again, this time the theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Also Sprach Zarathustra.
Jay grinned as he stalked across the arena. Just ahead was the competition.
Alpha, Beta, Theta, and good old Delta.
Of course there was no real competition — only the mental activity borders between layers of his consciousness. Each had a Greek letter embroidered on his gear, making him identifiable. Delta looked weak; Jay already knew he could beat him. Theta looked tougher, but Jay was sure he could take him. Beta and Alpha grinned. Those were the real challenges.
Alpha held his arm up, pinched his biceps and shook his head.
Beta sneered and then pointed his index finger at the ground.
You going down, Jay.
Even though he’d seen similar behavior in many of the other constructs in his dream state, it was still impressive. None of the characters had ever used these mannerisms before, and he found their independence unnerving.
Relax, Gridley, it’s all in your mind.
So he grinned back and waved at them.
I can be unpredictable, too.
Today’s contest had four events. All Jay had to do was beat everyone at their own game, one-on-one, and he’d be free.
He hoped.
He and Delta moved toward rows of metal kegs, each of which weighed a couple hundred pounds. Past that, twenty-five feet away, was a platform, just over waist high. The goal was to put as many of the kegs as you could up onto the platform. All within seventy-five seconds.
Jay knew that Delta could do about four kegs, maybe five. They took their positions, and after what seemed like an eternity, the shot starting the event went off.
Jay wanted an edge in this race, so when he picked up his first keg, he tucked it under an arm and then picked another one with one hand. He heard a murmur in the crowd as he did this, and looked up for a moment at the watchers to see Theta frowning. Beta and Alpha sneered.
Go! He lurched forward, almost falling. Delta, who had just picked up the one keg, was out in front, but not by much.
Jay put the kegs down on the platform and ran back for more. He picked up two more, and saw that although he was slower compared to Delta, he was still a keg up.
Go! He picked up another pair and made it back to the platform. He ran back.
Two more. Beside him he saw Delta returning for his fourth keg.
Faster.
He picked up the pace and pushed, his entire body pumping, blood rushing, heart pounding, will straining. As his fifth and sixth kegs touched down on the platform and he turned back for more, he heard the buzzer go off.
“Gridley, six kegs, the winner!” called the announcer.
Yes!
Delta glared. Jay smiled.
One down.
The next contest used medicine balls. They were fifty pounds each, and had to be thrown at a plywood target. The target was big, to reduce the difficulties in aiming; the bottom of the target was a little higher than three feet off the ground.
This was Theta’s event, and Jay watched him pick up a ball, lean back, and thrust forward.
The ball flew and slammed into the plywood target, a little more than halfway up. He was strong, too, no question about it.
Jay was up next. He concentrated on the sequence he’d been practicing for months — or perhaps it was just days or even hours. Time was so subjective here.
He picked up the heavy ball. He wanted to do more than win; he wanted to smash the competition, to make them worry.
I can do this.
He took several deep breaths, hyperventilating. For what he wanted to happen, he’d have to hit the target high. Okay. This one’s for you, Theta.
Theta leaned against a railing nearby, smirking.
Laugh at this!
Jay bent deep, twisted, wound it up. When it seemed as if he were going to cramp from turning into himself so tightly, he expanded.
Fire all muscle cells, this is NOT a drill!
The twist was followed by two short steps as he lined up and fired the medicine ball with every bit of his focus.
All he had to do was hit the target.
What he did was break it.
It was only the upper right corner. Plywood was tough stuff, made up of criss-crossing wood fibers. The chances of him punching through were nonexistent. But by catching the corner just so, he knew he could tear the corner off, like ripping a book cover.
He’d done it in practice, so it wasn’t so amazing to him. But the audience gasped, Theta slumped, and he had the satisfaction of seeing Alpha and Beta glance sharply over at him.
That’s right boys, you’re next.
And then he was through Theta.
Alpha’s event was tougher. It was a tire flip, with huge tractor tires weighted with water. They lay flat on the ground, and you had to pry them up using a dead lift, raise them onto their treads, and shove them over, then repeat the sequence. Seventy seconds was the time limit.
The contest was tougher, not just because he was already tired, but because his consciousness level had climbed. It was harder to hold all of his constructs together. Things were starting to go fuzzy at the edges.
The first couple of flips went okay. He caught the balance of the wa
ter within the tire at just the right time, and it almost seemed to flip itself. He looked over and saw that Alpha was dead even with him.
And that nearly lost him the game.
He shifted balance slightly, and the water sloshed backward, almost toppling the tire backward on the next flip.
He let out a low hiss, angry with himself.
Do or die, Gridley!
He shoved with everything he had, felt the water shift, and the tire went over.
He kept after it now, pushing hard. Four, five, six, seven, eight…
The buzzer sounded.
He glanced over, and saw Alpha was half a revolution back. He’d won!
And suddenly things got even more indistinct. The arena shrank to a smaller size, more of a large room now, everything tighter. Alpha, Theta, and Delta were smaller, too, all standing on a platform off to the left, watching as he and Beta moved toward two huge logs set on the remaining platform.
Log press.
Each log was maybe twelve inches in diameter, with hand slots cut into it at shoulder-width. The contest was pure strength, total number of reps in seventy seconds.
This is it.
This was the hard one. He’d never beaten Beta, never made it out, didn’t know if he had what it took.
Beta looked over at him as if he could read his mind.
He probably could, too.
Jay had failed every time he’d tried to win against Beta before.
So he’d trained differently this time. He’d had a realization. It wasn’t about the end, it was all about the competition itself.
The gun sounded and they began.
He didn’t count his reps, but focused on the feeling, the burning of muscles, the lightness of the weight. He’d trained with heavier logs than this; all he had to do was keep going.
He glanced over at Beta, and saw him straining but keeping the same pace. Jay tried to shut Beta out of his thoughts. He’d lost last time because he’d pushed harder when he thought Beta was going down. A mistake.
It’s not about him, it’s about me.
He tried not to think at all; he worked, seeking the joy of work, wanting the play of muscle, the power. It came down to that. Enjoying the contest for itself, the test of his body; the play of his skin over his muscles, the sensation of the weight rising through the air, rough bark against his hands, the pine-sap smell of the recently cut wood. Not the goal, but the moment…