by Tom Clancy
Her love life was somewhat sparse, and it appeared she tended to go for active men. She’d had brief affairs with a fireman while she was in college; an Olympic-class cross-country skier in Aspen; and, most recently, just a year or so back, a police detective-lieutenant in D.C. Nothing since that he’d been able to find. Jocks and authority figures.
Ames had noticed that kind of thing before. Sometimes, among intellectual women, there was a fondness for men with physical attributes, with a different kind of power, as if that somehow balanced things. Well, he wasn’t in bad shape, he certainly could run with her when it came to brainpower, and she seemed to enjoy his company.
He wanted her, and he was used to getting what he wanted. Determination counted for a lot. In fact, most of the time, determination to achieve a goal was more important than anything else. Given two people chasing the same rabbit, the man who wanted it the most had the edge.
The next report he was to get on dear Cory should include specifics on what kind of entertainment she liked — what DVDs she rented, movies she downloaded, plays, operas, concerts she went to, and the like. It would also tell him where she shopped, what brands she liked, what her favorite toothpaste was. All the little things would become his. The devil was in the details, and nobody knew that better than Ames.
Cory Skye was going to find herself on the receiving end of a lobbying effort unlike any she had ever known. When somebody knew everything that could be found out about you, that man could be a formidable opponent, especially when that man was an expert in waging winning campaigns for the hearts and minds of supposedly unbiased jurors.
Ames knew how people worked, mentally, socially, psychologically, and physically. He went after what he wanted, and he didn’t fail to get it.
He wasn’t planning to start now.
18
Washington, D.C.
Alex Michaels was in the garage, beginning another light workout. It was almost eight o’clock. Toni was bathing the baby, and Guru was cooking supper. Alex had to admit that the old lady’s Indonesian recipes had been pretty good, so far, at least.
Michaels was still stretching when Guru stuck her head out and said, “Telephone for you.” She tossed the portable unit to him. He caught it and thumbed it on.
“Alex Michaels.”
“Alex. Cory Skye.”
Calling him at home? “What can I do for you?”
“I came across some information you might want. Nothing illegal or immoral or anything, but possibly of some use to you.”
“Well, I appreciate that,” he said. “You can upload it to my computer—”
“Um, no, nothing in writing, I’m afraid, it’ll have to be from my lips to your ear, and even then, you didn’t hear it from me. Why don’t we meet for a drink? It won’t take long.”
Michaels felt a chill frost his spine. Was it just his imagination, or did this seem a little too coincidental? A beautiful lobbyist calling him at home to set up a circumspect — some might even say clandestine — meeting?
And she was beautiful, no question about that.
“I have a dinner at ten, I’m afraid,” she continued, “so we’ll have to make it a quickie.”
His chill turned into goose bumps, and he felt like Toni — or maybe Guru — had just kicked him in the belly.
Of course, he could be wrong. It could be absolutely innocent. The term “quickie” could mean nothing more than a short meeting, people used it for that all the time. But something about the tone of her voice told him that if he went to meet Cory Skye for a drink and a quickie, he was pretty sure that there wouldn’t be much drinking going on…
He wasn’t tempted. He’d been down that road, and even though he had never actually cheated on Toni — or on Megan before her — he had come close enough to know that he just wasn’t interested in that.
Besides, he wasn’t gullible enough to imagine even for a moment that the beautiful Ms. Corinna Skye was interested in him for himself. If the signals he was picking up were accurate — and Alex was very aware that he could simply be misreading her words — then he was certain it had nothing to do with his own personal magnetism and everything to do with the fact that he was the head of Net Force and the lead defendant in CyberNation’s lawsuit. Given what Tommy Bender had said about Mitchell Townsend Ames, Alex had no trouble imagining what that cutthroat lawyer would do with photos of himself and Corinna Skye.
And so he said, “Ah, I’m sorry, but I’m really tied up this evening. Maybe you could come by the office tomorrow?”
There was a short pause.
“Ah, well, of course you’re busy, it was just a last-minute thing, no problem. I was hoping I could work you in, but I understand. I’ll drop by your office.”
“That would be fine. Any time.”
“I’ll take you up on that. Good night, Alex. I’ll see you soon.”
Her voice must have dropped an octave on that last part.
He hit the disconnect button and dropped the phone onto his workbench. Then he pulled out his virgil — he had it clipped to his waistband even while he was working out — and sent a quick memo regarding the phone call to his files at the office. Corinna Skye’s phone records would show a call from her phone to his house; he wanted an answering memo on file in case Mitchell Ames tried to make something ugly out of it.
Corinna Skye. For a moment an image of her filled his mind. Then the image changed, morphing into Toni at work, and Alex felt himself smile.
No, Corinna Skye had nothing to tempt him with. He was happily married, and he had everything he wanted and needed right here. Everything.
* * *
While Alex read the boy a story — something about not teasing weasels — Toni watched him from the bedroom doorway, smiling. Her son laughed at his father as Alex read part of the book, doing voices for the characters.
“Again, Daddy, again!”
“Well, okay. But this is the last time.”
Guru appeared behind her, ghostlike.
“Baby is happy with his father.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Toni said, turning to look at her old teacher.
Guru had a funny look on her face. “Something wrong?” Toni asked.
Guru nodded. “My second grandson called from Arizona. My great-grandson David, he’s twelve this year, is sick. Summer cold.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
Guru nodded. “He has never been a healthy child, David. Has bad lungs, even in the desert. He catches every bug that passes by. Not like our baby here, who is healthier than a water buffalo.”
“Thank God for small favors,” Toni said.
“Yes.”
They both watched Alex read to their child. For Guru was as much his great-grandmother as Toni’s real grandma was. No question.
Mel’s Restaurant Washington, D.C.
Ames walked into the restaurant at ten P.M., crossing the threshold just as the sweep second hand on his watch touched the twelve. Perfect.
He saw Cory standing at the bar to his left. She saw him come in and waved at him.
He went over to stand next to her. “Been here long?”
“Nope, just got in. They haven’t even had time to bring my drink yet.”
Even as she spoke, the bartender came toward them, bearing a bottle of champagne and two glasses. “Veuve Cliequot Private Reserve okay?” she said. “Twenty aught seven?”
Ames smiled. Twenty aught seven was a good year for champagne grapes. The Veuve reserve went for what? A hundred, one-fifty a bottle if you bought it by the case. Probably twice that in a restaurant. If not the absolute best, it certainly wasn’t something you’d use to make mimosas with.
The bartender set the glasses down, poured a taste for Cory, and, when she nodded that it was okay, filled both glasses. He left, taking the bottle with him.
The hostess came to get them before the second sip of the wine, which was crisp, dry, with a hint of apple — Ames knew that much of the jargon. The rest of the bottle was waitin
g for them in an ice bucket at their table.
He looked around. Nothing fantastic insofar as decor, but the service so far was good, and the place was still filled with patrons this late in the evening. A beautiful woman, nice restaurant, good champagne. Definitely a promising start to the evening.
“So, tell me about your day,” she said.
He shrugged. “The usual. Gadding about, taking depositions, talking to clients, stroking a few political powers.”
“How is the suit against Net Force going?”
He sipped his champagne. “Right on schedule. Bureaucrats are easy. These have a decent lawyer, Harvard man, smart, but they always leave such paper and electron trails you can follow them blindfolded in the dark. It’s a slam dunk.”
She smiled over the rim of her glass. “Does being a doctor help more with being a lawyer, or does being a lawyer help more with being a doctor?”
“About the same. Saves me having to hire one or the other without some idea of what they know. But enough about me. How was your day?”
She dipped her fingertip into the champagne, then rubbed it gently around the lip of the glass. The stemware emitted a clear, bell-like tone. She stopped. “Sorry. Bad habit. That’s how you tell if it’s good crystal, the tone. This is pretty good.”
“We all have our little habits,” he said. “Do you know about toilet lids?”
She raised her eyebrows.
“It’s customary to stamp the date of manufacture into the underside of ceramic tank covers. So if you are in a house, and you want a quick check to see how old it is, you just look under the toilet tank’s lid.”
“What if it’s a replacement?” she said.
“It’s not a perfect system,” he said, “but if the date under the lid is, say, ‘November 1, 1969,’ then you know the house is at least that old. Could be older, but unless it was built before indoor plumbing, it probably isn’t any newer than that date.”
“Ah. Good to know.”
“A real estate agent showed it to me. If somebody is trying to sell you a house they claim is twenty-five years old, and the toilet was built thirty years ago, chances are likely they are lying.”
She laughed, took another healthy swig of her champagne.
“Am I missing a joke?”
“Not at all. We’ve been sitting here for two minutes, and already we’re having a deep philosophical discussion about bathroom plumbing.”
He laughed. A sense of humor, too. Ah, he was going to enjoy this conquest. “But let’s get back to your day,” he said. “We’ll always have Kohler… ”
19
Net Force HQ
Quantico, Virginia
Alex Michaels looked up and saw Tommy Bender standing in his doorway. “You’re like the bad penny, aren’t you? You just keep turning up.”
Tommy didn’t smile, though. “I thought I’d better warn you, Alex. You’ll be getting a copy of the records request later today, pursuant to the lawsuit.”
Michaels frowned and shook his head. “Oh, good,” he said. “That’s just what we need, putting an operative on duty, spending part of our budget pulling files so they can be used against us.”
Tommy nodded. “That’s how the game is played, Commander. And a word of caution, even though I know it’s totally unnecessary: There will be judicial review, with input from assorted federal agencies as to whether or not any material requested is vital to national security. If something should be kept secret for such reasons, it will be tended with appropriate deletions. Don’t decide that the list needs to be trimmed here. If they ask for it, give it up.”
“Of course,” Michaels said. “We wouldn’t want to do anything illegal, would we?”
“Exactly what you are supposed to say. I’ll drop by later and see how it is going.”
“It might take days,” Michaels said. “Weeks, even.”
Now Tommy did smile. “Of course. The initial order won’t set a deadline, it will merely specify that said documents be delivered in a ‘timely manner.’ They don’t expect you to shut down operations for this. But if it looks as if you are deliberately dragging your feet, the judge will not be amused.”
Alex nodded. “I understand, Tommy. We’ll be sure to smile, nod, and tell everybody we are going just as fast as we can. And thanks for the heads up.”
Tommy left, and Michaels leaned back in his chair. Just another day in paradise. He glanced at his small top drawer, the one he reserved for personal items. Inside it was an envelope that came the other day, and inside that was a job offer to head up a computer security service for a big corporation headquartered in Colorado.
He got two or three similar offers pretty much every week. He read them all, but most of them he just threw away. This one he’d kept, though he wasn’t sure he could really say why. And now, in the wake of Tommy Bender’s latest announcement, it was starting to look awfully appealing.
Colorado was certainly beautiful, and the job would be a lot less work. It pretty much had it all, a lot more money, a lot less stress, and more time for his family. On top of that, Colorado was a great place to raise a child, and it was closer to his ex-wife and his daughter, which would make it easier for her to visit. They could learn to ski. Hike in the summer. Enjoy the fresh air, if they could get far enough away from Denver.
Maybe he should talk to Toni about it. This job was never easy, and it seemed like it had gotten worse lately. There was something to be said for working in the private sector…
“Sir?” came his secretary’s voice over the com.
“Yes?”
“Ms. Skye is here to see you.”
Michaels sighed. He had forgotten all about Cory. She’d said she was coming by.
“Send her in.”
And leave the door open, too…
* * *
John Howard was walking toward his office with Julio, talking about the latest revision to the official requisition forms, when he heard something. It sounded odd, like an electric motor’s hum. “What’s that?” he said.
Julio looked at him. “What’s what?”
“That noise, kind of a low drone.”
“I don’t hear any — wait. Oh, that. It’s one of the scooters I told you about.”
As if to punctuate his words, Sergeant Franklin Kenny rounded the corner of the hall heading in their direction, riding on what looked like an old manual push lawnmower.
Oh, yes, the Segway, Howard thought. He had seen those out in the real world, and Julio had mentioned they were testing some new models.
Sergeant Kenny rolled past at a pretty good pace.
Julio frowned and said, “You know, General, I couldn’t hear the scooter until after you did. Maybe I ought to look into getting one of those little earplugs like yours.”
Howard smiled. He hadn’t told anyone about his new toy. He certainly hadn’t mentioned it to Julio. On the other hand, he hadn’t made any real effort to hide it, either. He’d just been waiting to see who would say something — or even notice — and who wouldn’t. That Julio had spotted it wasn’t a surprise. The surprise would have been if he hadn’t noticed it.
“Just so you know I’m not always asleep at the switch,” Julio said.
“Even a stopped clock is right twice a day,” Howard said. “So if you’ve got any deaf old man jokes, now’s the time.”
“Oh, no, sir, I wouldn’t do that. Now if you want to ask me if I have any stupid old man jokes, that’s a horse of a different color. I got hundreds of those. Thousands.”
“You are getting droll in your old age, Lieutenant.”
“Yes, sir, General Howard, sir, I confess that I am. I’m surprised you didn’t take care of that ear thing sooner. You’ve been deaf as a post on that side for a couple years.”
“Why didn’t you mention it before?”
Julio grinned. “Well, sir, I did. You just didn’t hear me is all.”
“Does your wife think you’re funny, Julio?”
“She thinks I’m a riot
. That’s the reason she married me. Well, that and my handsome face and dashing and courteous manner, of course.”
Howard laughed.
“I saw Gunny on the obstacle course today,” Julio said.
“Gunny? Our Gunny actually went to the obstacle course?”
“I believe he was holding up one of the barricades by leaning on it. I didn’t actually see him running the course. Anyway, he allowed as how Tyrone has been showing up for the pistol team practices.”
“Ty seems to enjoy himself,” Howard said.
“Gunny says it makes him want to cry, how good the boy is. Says if he can have him for another three months, you can start building display cases for his shooting medals. He’s got all the tools to be a world-class pistoleer. Any of the military services would snap him up to have him on their shooting squads. Pay his way through college, full-ride military scholarship. Has he considered joining the Guard’s very own Net Force troops? Gunny says he could shoot full-time, never have to get his boots muddy, if it was left up to him.”
“His mother would rather he became a doctor,” Howard said. “I think her opinion of our son joining the military in any way, shape, or form usually begins with her saying, ‘Over my dead body.’ ”
“Funny, Joanna says the same thing about little Hoo.”
“And she’s an officer and a gentlewoman,” Howard said.
Julio shook his head. “Women.”
Los Angeles, California
The jet began its final descent, and Junior put up his magazine and looked out the window. The plane was half-full, and though he was in the tourist cabin, he had three seats to himself.
Junior didn’t much like to fly, but getting from the east coast to the west pretty much meant you had to do it. The only real option was to spend the better part of a week driving it, or on a train. The drive was murder, but the train wasn’t a bad way to travel. You got to see interesting stuff, hang out where nobody could get you as long as you turned your phone off, and the rocking motion helped you sleep. You could sit in front of the big picture window in the club car drinking a beer and watching the country go by. And you didn’t have to worry about somebody hijacking the sucker and taking it to Cuba or into a building.