by Tom Clancy
“I thought Buddhists weren’t supposed to be cynical.”
“Nope, not according to Saji. You can be pretty much anything and still be a Buddhist. Cynical works.”
“Except, apparently, a flesh-eater,” Fernandez said.
“Well, actually, that, too. Some parts of the world, like Tibet, where food is scarce, meat is okay. As long as you do it with the right attitude.”
Fernandez laughed. “Yeah, I can see you praying over a Whopper, chanting and all. Bet they’d love that at BK.”
“You obviously have never been to a D.C. Burger King,” Jay said. “You could do a Hawaiian fire dance over your fries there and nobody would look twice.”
Fernandez laughed. He looked at Michaels and said, “Maybe one of their people is into drugs. Could be they are looking at some kind of internal security.”
Howard blew out a small sigh. “There’s another possibility that springs immediately to mind. Military applications.”
Michaels looked at him.
Howard continued. “If you have a compound that makes a man think he’s faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive, when you put a weapon in his hands and point him at an enemy, you could have something of military value, assuming there are controls in place.”
“Didn’t the Nazis try that kind of thing?”
“Yes, sir, and other armies have tried it since, from speed to steroids. Nobody has come up with something cheap and dependable enough yet, but if they did, it would certainly have useful applications.”
“Would you use such a thing, General?”
“If it was safe, if it was legal, and if it would give my people an advantage over an enemy? Bring more of them back alive? Yes, sir, in a heartbeat.”
“From what the DEA has given us, this stuff is neither safe nor legal.”
“But it might be made both. Legal is the easy part, if it’s useful enough. Safe might be harder, but it might be possible to make it so, and a lot of services would be willing to explore the possibility. And there are some armies with fewer scruples about testing things on their own people than we have.”
Jay said, “When did the U.S. military develop scruples, General? Remember The Atomic Café? ‘Here, men, put on these goggles when you look at the nuclear explosion. And don’t worry about that glowing dust if it gets on you, just brush it off, you’ll be fine.’ ”
“That was a long time ago,” Howard said.
“Yeah? What about Agent Orange in Vietnam, or the vaccines against nerve gas and biowarfare in Desert Storm? Or the new, improved, supposedly safe defoliants in Colombia?”
Before Howard could respond, Michaels said, “Give it a rest, Jay. We didn’t come to argue about the military’s checkered history. And whatever happened, we can hardly blame General Howard, can we?”
Jay shut up, having expressed his standing liberal attitude.
“All right. If there’s nothing further, I’ve got a ton of files to review.”
* * *
Forty-five minutes later, as Michaels sat developing eyestrain scanning computer files using his new sharp-goggles, supposedly designed to keep the letters so clear you wouldn’t get eyestrain, there was a tap at his door.
“Jay.”
“Boss. I uploaded what I could find on this George guy. I didn’t know if you’d get to it before he showed up.”
“Thanks, Jay, I appreciate it.”
After Jay left, Michaels found the file and read through it. Not much. There was a brief bio on Zachary George, place and date of birth, education, family, and shorter work history. Seemed Mr. George had been with the NSA since leaving college fifteen years ago, and the only references to his status there was a GS number only a grade below Michaels’s own before he was booted upstairs.
“Sir?” came the voice of his secretary over the com. “Your nine o’clock is here.”
Well, speak of the devil. “Show him in.”
Mr. George wasn’t particularly impressive upon first look. Average height, average weight, brown hair cut short but not too short, fair skin, and clothes that were standard midlevel bureaucrat: a gray suit expensive enough to look decent, not so expensive as to stand out in your memory. Black leather shoes. Put him in a room with four other people, and he’d be invisible. The guy in the comer who looked totally average? No, no, not him, the guy next to him.
Michaels stood and extended his hand. “Mr. George.”
“Commander. Good of you to see me.”
“Well, we like to keep relations good with our fellow agencies. Spirit of cooperation and all.”
“With all due respect, sir, bullshit. Almost anybody at my agency would cut the throats of everybody at yours if they thought it would gain them two brownie points at review time. And that’s pretty much my experience with all the security agencies I’ve dealt with.”
Michaels had to smile at that. “Don’t sugarcoat it that way, tell me what you really think.”
George returned the smile, and whatever he was up to, he was interesting.
“Have a seat.”
The NSA man sat, leaned back, crossed his ankle over his knee. “You figured out what it is I’m up to yet?”
“I have some thoughts. Why don’t you just tell me?”
George smiled again. It started on the right side and worked its way across his face. “Well, sir, I don’t want to make it too easy for you.”
“Much as I’d like to fence with you, I do have a couple of other things on my plate. Twenty questions isn’t high on the list. Talk or walk.”
George nodded, as if that was what he expected to hear. “Sir. You may be aware that there are qualities connected to this drug we spoke of that might be of use to certain of our military organizations.”
“That thought has crossed my mind.”
“As it happens, my agency has a… research facility engaged in studying certain pharmaceutical aids for possible use in… field operations.”
“Really?”
“More information is need-to-know, I’m sorry. Suffice it to say, we would be very interested in speaking with the chemist who has come up with this compound when you find him.”
“Why aren’t you talking to the DEA?”
George smiled. “We have. Frankly, we don’t think the DEA has much of a chance of catching the guy.”
“It is their area of expertise, isn’t it?”
“Then why did they come to you for help?”
That was a good point, but Michaels didn’t speak to it. Instead, he said, “And why didn’t you just go after the dealer on your own? NSA has a finger in just about every pie there is, don’t they?”
“True. And as a result, we are stretched somewhat thin. Net Force has had some excellent results in its short history, and continuing to speak frankly, your computer operatives are better than anybody else’s. Including ours. You probably know we’ve tried to, ah… recruit some of them.”
Michaels smiled. He knew. “No luck?”
“Oh, yes, plenty of luck… all bad. Your organization seems to engender a very high degree of loyalty.”
“We try to treat our people right.”
“So it seems. But the bottom line is, we think you’ll uncover this dealer before either the DEA or our own ops will, and we’d like you to keep us in mind when you do.”
Michaels leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers in front of his face for a second, then quickly put his hands down on the desk. He’d read somewhere that steepling your fingers was a sign of feeling superior, and while he certainly felt he had the upper hand in this discussion, he didn’t want to give anything away. He said, “Even if we did, what good would it do you? DEA has jurisdiction. We turn the information over to them, they make the arrest. End of our participation.”
George hesitated for a second, then said, “Of course. We wouldn’t want to usurp the DEA’s legal position. But a heads-up from you would allow us to, ah… begin negotiations with that agency from a position of knowledge
. I’m sure we can convince them that the nation’s best interests would be served if we were allowed to question the criminal before he was locked away to await a long, drawn-out trial.”
Michaels smiled again. George would know this conversation was being recorded, and he didn’t want to say anything that sounded remotely illegal, but it was easy enough to read between the lines here. One developed a certain expertise in verbal fugue working in Washington. You said one thing, you meant something else, and you used expression or tone or gestures to make sure your listener got it. Tape recordings missed visual clues, and even videos couldn’t pick up between-the-lines stuff.
George’s fugue was simple: You give us the dope dealer, we rattle his cage real good and get what we want, then we turn him over to the DEA.
Interesting.
Michaels’s immediate gut reaction was to tell Mr. Zachary George to scuttle back to his NSA hole and not let the door hit him on the way out. But he had learned a thing or two about political survival in this town, and peeing in somebody’s corn flakes was not a smart move, especially when they had clout. NSA knew where a lot of bodies were buried, some figurative, some no doubt quite literally, and a direct confrontation, while it might be emotionally satisfying, was not the smart move. It wasn’t just Michaels, it was his agency, and he had to keep that in mind. A hard lesson, but one he was learning better and better all the time.
“Well, I suppose we could keep you in the loop,” Michaels finally said. “As a courtesy to a brother agency.” There was no real fugue here, he wasn’t going to give them squat, but he strived to leave that impression: Why, sure, we’ll scratch your back. What will you do for us?
George flashed his crooked smile again. “We would appreciate it, Commander. I’m certain we can return the favor in some small way.”
The meeting was over, George had said what he came to say, and it was but the matter of another minute to exchange good-byes before the man left.
Interesting, indeed. So the National Security Agency had some kind of clandestine operation involving drugs. Not really that big a surprise, when you thought about it. There were more sub-rosa operations going on at any security agency than you could shake a stick at, some well-known in the trade, some hinted at, and some surely buried so deep that nobody had happened across them yet. Net Force was fairly public, but they didn’t air certain articles of their laundry in public. And for sure the FBI had its own black-bag ops skulking about in the shadows. It was all part of the game. You couldn’t sneak up on somebody if you had to yell at him through a bullhorn and flash your warning lights. Even local police departments knew you sometimes had to use unmarked cars.
When and if they came across the drug dealer, then Michaels could decide whether to let NSA know about it. Probably they wouldn’t. Almost certainly not in time to do anything nasty with the knowledge. If NSA swooped in and grabbed the dope dealer from under the DEA’s nose and someone figured out that it was Net Force who gave the guy up, heads would roll.
Right now, it was a moot point anyhow. They didn’t have anything to give.
Before he could get back to his reading, the intercom cheeped again.
“Sir, Agent Brett Lee is here. He doesn’t have an appointment, but he seems, ah… quite insistent on seeing you.”
“Show him in.”
Lee arrived in a huff, glowering. “What the hell is Zach George doing here?!”
“Nice to see you, too, Mr. Lee.”
“You didn’t answer my question!”
“Nor do I intend to. What goes on in my office is none of your damn business.”
Lee stepped forward, as if he planned on doing something physical.
Michaels was tired and cranky. He came to his feet, ready to move. Go for it, pal. Let me show you what my wife taught me!
But Lee stopped, having apparently realized that throwing a punch at the head of Net Force might not be a smart career move.
Too bad. Michaels felt like decking him. This clown had no right storming into his office demanding anything.
“You and George are up to something, and I’m warning you, it better not get in our way! My boss will be calling yours,” he said, still red-faced and angry.
“I hope they have a pleasant conversation, Mr. Lee. But right now, I’m busy, so if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” He sat and reached for his viewer.
In another second, Brett Lee was gone, leaving an angry wake behind him.
This was a very interesting development. Much more fun than reading reports on a dull morning.
10
Malibu, California
When Drayne shuffled into the kitchen with just the tiniest headache from drinking most of two bottles of champagne, he saw Tad sprawled on the couch and dead to the world.
Good. One of these trips, Tad wasn’t gonna come back, but he was glad it wasn’t this time. He’d miss the guy. Tad was balls-to-the-wall and full-out, not too many like him. And loyal; you couldn’t buy that.
Drayne opened the cabinet over the microwave oven and dug through the vitamins until he found the ibuprofen. He shook four of the brown tabs into his palm, swallowed them dry, and put the bottle back. There were rows and rows of vitamin bottles there, he was a big believer in such things, but he wouldn’t take those until he had some food in his stomach. He took so many vitamins and minerals and assorted other healthy supplements that doing so on an empty belly was apt to make him nauseated. His normal intake each morning amounted to maybe twenty, twenty-five pills, caps, caplets, or softgels.
Two grams of C, two caplets; three E’s, 1200 IUs; 120 mg of ginkgo biloba, two caplets; two Pain Free tabs, that was 1,000 of glucosamine and 800 of chondroitin combined; couple of fat-burners, mostly chromium picolinate and L-caritine; 705 mg of ginseng, three softgels; 50,000 IUs of beta-carotene in two gelcaps; 100 mg of DHEA, that was four pills; couple of saw palm — he didn’t really need that yet, but better to get a head start on prostate problems, as much screwing as he did — two gels, 320 mg; five mg of Deprenyl to keep the gray matter from rotting; and however many creatine caps he thought he needed when he was on the cycle, those varied from day to day, depending on how hard he hit the weights.
He waited until bedtime before he took the multiple and his melatonin, plus a couple of other odds and ends. That many pills down the hatch every day, dry-swallowing four ibuprofen was nothing. The stack seemed to work for him, and as long as it did, he’d keep it up. Prevention was better than a cure.
Champagne was his only vice — well, unless you counted sex — and he made sure he was covered on the health stuff. He ate pretty well, exercised regularly, even wore sunblock these days. He planned to live a long, rich, full life, unlike Tad, who’d be dead in a year, tops, and probably a lot sooner.
He’d tried to talk Tad out of them, the Hammer trips, but Tad was who he was, and if he did quit, he’d turn into somebody else. Drayne could live with the guy running at half speed, but Tad couldn’t, and that was that.
Misty-Bunny-Buffy was gone, slipped out in the night sometime. He figured she had a steady boyfriend or a husband she had to get back to, sleeping with a producer to maybe get a job didn’t really count, especially not if you were home before dawn. He was done with her, anyhow. She’d been great, but she’d only be new once, and there was no point in going spelunking in caves where he’d already been, was there? Unless they were spectacular — and past a certain point, they didn’t seem to get much better — why bother? Might be a better one just ahead.
He looked at his watch, one of those Seiko Kinetics that you never had to wind or replace the batteries in; it ran off some kind of tiny generator that charged up a capacitor or something every time you moved your wrist. Watch would run as long as you could wiggle your arm a little, guaranteed for life. And if things got to the point where he couldn’t wiggle his arm a little, there wouldn’t be any reason to worry about what time it was.
At the moment, it was almost ten A.M.
He sighed
. Too late to get in a workout or a jog on the beach. Better go take a shower and then get rolling. He had to drive out to the desert to restock his mobile lab, and it was a couple hours each way, even if the traffic was good. He could take his vitamins with him, get something to eat later. He needed to be back by six, he had a dinner with the Zee-ster, that was always good for some laughs. If Tad had been mobile, he’d have sent him, but he wasn’t and that was that, too.
Well, at least it looked as if the weather was okay. Once he got past the smog curtain, he could drop the top and enjoy the sunshine. Great thing about SoCal was that you could pretty much do that year round. Yeah, it rained in the winter and actually got chilly a couple times in season, but he’d spent many a January day lying on the beach cooking under a warm sun. Sure, the water got colder, but with a wet suit, you could surf any time. Not that he’d done much of that lately. Too busy working. Have to remedy that pretty soon.
He grinned. He wondered what his father would say if he knew how much money little Bobby had tucked away. Or how he had earned it. The old man would blow a gasket, that was certain, you’d be able to see the steam coming out his head for fucking miles. Thirty years with the Bureau, as straight an arrow as ever put on a suit, his old man, a guy who’d always paid his own parking tickets rather than flash his FBI badge at a meter maid.
And for what? What had all that nose-to-the-grindstone, johnny-be-good crap gotten his old man?
It had gotten him retired to a condo in Tucson, Arizona, just him and that little terrier of his, Franklin, living on a pension and bitching about how the world had gone to hell in a handbasket. Actually, Drayne kinda liked the dog. Best thing his old man had done since Mom died was get a dog, not saying much. First week he’d had the beast, it had come back inside carrying a big ole dead rat it had caught. Rat almost as big as the dog, and you’d have never thought by looking at the little barker that he had it in him. Drayne liked that.
It had been more than a year since he had gone to visit his father. Franklin must be pushing nine or ten by now, probably middle-aged in dog years.