Cybernation nf-6

by Tom Clancy

  And maybe that’s what part of your problem has been lately, Alex, hmm? Too much willingness to drop work and go home to play with the baby? To lie in bed with Toni when before you’d have been up and at work before anybody else got there?

  Michaels felt a stab of guilt at that thought. It was true. Yes, he still did a good job. But for the last few months, his heart just hadn’t been in it the same way. He wasn’t a company man the way he had been before. He wanted to enjoy this wife, this baby, in ways he hadn’t enjoyed his first wife and child. He had put them second, behind work, and as a result, he had lost them. He wasn’t going to lose Toni and the baby.

  Was that fair to Net Force? Didn’t the agency deserve a boss dedicated to it first, before anything? When he thought about it, yeah, maybe. Then again — who could do a better job than he was doing? Even at three-quarter speed, he was still faster than anybody else around, wasn’t he?

  Uh-huh. Now there’s a great rationalization.

  Come on, he told himself. Isn’t it better for the company if I’m relaxed, comfortable, at ease with myself? Doesn’t a happy worker do a better job?

  There’s an even funnier one, Alex. Give us another.

  He was beginning to get seriously pissed off at his inner voice when his virgil cheeped. He and Toni exchanged looks. This was not apt to be good news.

  16

  Casablanca, Morocco

  June 1937

  The wind off the desert was hot, dry, and carried in it a mix of powdery dust and fine sand that swirled through the alley as if alive, changing into an irritating, gritty mud as it got into Jay’s eyes.

  A good touch, that, he thought. Even if he did have to think so himself.

  Here in Northern Africa as in Europe, everyone knew war was on the horizon, if not exactly where and when it would arrive, and things were about to change, as they would change everywhere.

  Jay stepped into the nightclub and out of the wind, amid the babble of half a dozen languages. There were well-dressed foreigners in their silk and linen suits, mostly men, a few women. Natives, dressed in colorful robes and hats designed to keep the sun and sand out, sat at some of the small round tables, drinking something mysterious from brown bottles.

  It was almost like film noir: dark and moody with stark contrasts everywhere.

  The ceiling fans twirled slowly, barely stirring the warm air. The piano player worked on some heart-breaking torch number, and a native bartender cleaned drink glasses behind a long, curved mahogany bar that had been age-polished to a dull gleam. A mirror behind the bar reflected the racks of liquor bottles: scotch, bourbon, gin, vodka, absinthe…

  Standing at the bar drinking scotch neat was Jacques, Jay’s contact. Jacques wore a double-breasted ice-cream suit with a red handkerchief in the coat pocket, spats over his white leather shoes. He had slicked-back black hair and a pencil-thin mustache. He was a spy, of course, Algerian, and probably too long out in the cold. Or the heat, as it were.

  “Bon jour,” Jacques said as Jay approached the bar. “Emile, a drink for my friend!”

  The bartender gave Jay a fish-eye look. “What may I serve you, friend?”

  “Absinthe,” Jay said. What the hell, it wasn’t going to drive him mad here.

  The bartender shook his head and went to fetch the bottle.

  “Hot day, no?” Jacques said.

  “Hot enough.”

  The bartender returned with a dark green glass bottle. He poured a small bit of the liqueur, which was also as green as an emerald, into a glass. Then he poured a shot glass of cold water over a perforated teaspoon full of sugar and allowed it to drip into the container. The absinthe’s green turned a smoky, opaque white as the sugared water mixed with it. Without the sugar, it would have been too bitter to drink, and even so, it still bit the tongue pretty hard.

  Jay knew from his research that the drink, which was partially made from wormwood, was illegal most places, and was traditionally used by artists and writers. Van Gogh had used it, and the theory was that absinthe was what had driven him mad enough to lop off his own ear. It was supposed to eat holes in your brain with regular use. How charming.

  Jay raised his glass to Jacques. “Good fortune,” he said.

  “Bon chance,” Jacques replied. They clinked glasses, then drank.

  “You have some information for me?” Jay said, after they put their glasses down.

  “Oui, my friend. I believe I have exactly what you want. At a price, of course.”

  Jay raised an eyebrow. “Whatever it costs, I’ll pay it. Tell me.”

  But before he could speak, there was an explosion. A gunshot, Jay realized, as he saw the blood blossom on Jacques’s chest, over the heart.

  What the hell—? This wasn’t part of the scenario—!

  Jay dropped to the floor in a deep squat and looked around in time to see a native dressed in one of those funny Shriner hats and a white-and-blue striped robe run out of the club.

  Jay got up and sprinted for the exit, chasing the man. Who was this? How had he breached Jay’s VR construct?

  In the alley, Jay saw the assassin running away. Bullshit!

  Jay took off. Whoever he was, he wasn’t nearly fast enough to outrun Jay Gridley in his own damned scenario!

  But even as Jay gained on the running man, he realized he wasn’t going to catch him. The reason — reasons, actually, at least six of them — appeared right in front of him.

  Half a dozen men, bare-chested, in basketball shorts and shoes, holding baseball bats, chains, knives, and what looked like a pitchfork, stepped out of the shadows between Jay and his quarry.

  “Yo, yo,” one of the basketball players said. “What’s your hurry, baby?”

  These guys were anachronisms — they didn’t belong here, weren’t right for the time, even if they’d been Jay’s constructs. And they weren’t.

  What the hell?!

  As they moved toward him, Jay realized he didn’t belong here, either. He didn’t have time to come up with any kind of effective defense. The scenario was blown.

  He bailed.

  Net Force HQ Quantico, Virginia

  Jay pulled the sensory gear off and threw it at the computer console.

  There hadn’t been any real danger, of course, only to his construct. After the business with the mad Brit, he had made damned sure there was no way to turn his computer into what was effectively a capacitor that might be able to deliver an electric charge through the sensory connections. But it was galling anyhow, to be forced out of your own scenario!

  How had this happened? Somebody would have to know where he was, be able to get past his wards, and be good enough to reprogram the input without Jay spotting him. For all practical purposes, it ought to be almost impossible — well, at least with a player of Jay’s skill it ought to be. That it had happened was irritating — and scary.

  It had to be one of the guys who had bollixed the net and web. They’d already shown how good they were, and now they were putting it right in his face.

  Now it was getting personal.

  He swore again. He needed to figure this out. And, as much as he hated the idea, he also needed to let the boss know. If nothing else, it meant they were getting closer. You didn’t get that kind of response if you were wandering around in the woods lost somewhere. He must be trampling awful close to somebody’s hidden marijuana patch.

  Washington, D.C.

  Toni listened to the music with one ear, and Alex’s conversation with the other. It didn’t take long for her to figure out it was Jay Gridley on the other end of Alex’s virgil.

  After a minute, Alex broke the connection.

  “What’s up?”

  He shook his head. “Jay thinks he’s getting closer to the bad guys who screwed the net.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Maybe not. He says they must have set him up. Gave him a place that he thought he could get some information, then when he went in, they jumped him — electronically speaking.”
r />   “Yes?”

  Alex explained it to her. Apparently Jay had been rousted from his own scenario. Which must have really bent him out of shape, Toni knew. She’d never met a computer geek who didn’t think he was God’s gift to electrons.

  “But other than a bruised ego, no harm done, right?”

  Alex nodded. “That’s how I see it. But as he pointed out, whoever did it must know he’s looking for them. And they knew where he might be apt to look. Which means he’s maybe on the right path.”

  She nodded. “Maybe. Or maybe they just set a whole bunch of snares and one of them snagged Jay. He gets his foot out, goes charging down the trail, and maybe he’s heading exactly opposite of where they are.”

  “Could be. I don’t have Jay’s expertise to say.”

  “But it sounds as if the bad guys do. Not good.”

  “No.”

  “Do we need to go home? Or to the office?”

  “No, no reason for that. Jay was just giving me a heads-up. I asked him to keep me in the info stream.”

  “So, you wanna dance?” She nodded at the band.

  A few couples were up, moving to the music.

  He grinned. “Might as well. Can’t get any work done here, can I?”

  On the Bon Chance

  Keller leaned back in the form chair, stretched his neck and shoulders, removed the sensory head- and handsets. He smiled. “Well, Jay, old son, that must have been a shock, hey? About to download a juicy bit of information and blap! your source gets potted and the alley is full of NBA villains.” He chuckled. “I hope you had autosave on. You’ll want to go back and look at it again, I am sure.”

  He stood, bent at the waist, touched his toes, bounced a little. He straightened, sat back in the chair, took a couple of deep breaths, and let them out, then reached for the wireless headset. By now, Jay would have had time to think about what had happened, figured it out, and gotten pissed off enough to jump back into the net to hunt down whoever was responsible. Keller knew he would have done the same thing in Jay’s shoes.

  So. Now we give old Jay a new place to look. But carefully. He won’t hit the next trap as easily. It needs to be… more subtle.

  Keller slipped the gear on. Boy, this was gonna be fun.

  * * *

  Jasmine Chance was not a fanatic about it, but she did do enough exercise to stay in shape. It was harder to be a femme fatale if you were built like an overripe pear — a size six on top and size fourteen on the bottom. She used the stairclimber and the weight machines in the ship’s gym for forty-five minutes a day. She wasn’t going to be winning any Olympic events, but she was tight enough to make most twenty-five-year-old women jealous. Not bad for somebody past forty.

  She leaned against one of the mirrored walls and took a big slug from her water bottle. She was hot, and sweaty enough so her headband wasn’t stopping it all from running into her eyes. She wiped her face with a towel. Another fifteen minutes and she’d be done. Then she could shower and maybe have ’Berto help her stretch some other muscles. Yes. She’d give him a call, have him meet her in her cabin in half an hour or so. That would be pleasant.

  But when she punched in his name on the ship’s intercom, there was no answer.

  She tried his phone. Got a leave-a-message recording.

  Chance frowned. Maybe he was taking a nap, had the intercom and his phone turned off? Wasn’t supposed to do that, but everybody did.

  She called Security.

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Is Roberto Santos in his cabin?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  She waited a couple of heartbeats. “All right. Do you know where he is?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  She waited a few seconds, shook her head at the literal-mindedness of the security officer. “Would you mind telling me where? And if you say, ‘No, ma’am,’ I guarantee you’ll be looking for a new job in about thirty seconds.”

  “Yes, ma’am. He took a chopper to the Mainland about an hour ago. He’s probably in Florida by now.”

  Now she really frowned. What? She hadn’t told him he could leave the ship! What the hell was he doing?

  Why the hell was his com turned off?

  “Anything else, ma’am?”

  “Yes. Get me the pilot of the helicopter — call me when you have him.”

  She shut off the intercom. This was unacceptable. Unacceptable! Who did he think he was?

  She threw the towel on the floor and headed for her cabin. She would find out exactly where Santos had gone, and he had better, by God, have a very good goddamned reason for going there!

  Fort Lauderdale, Florida

  Santos drove his rental car to the area called Sunrise, to the Saw Grass Mills Mall. It was a huge place, full of outlet stores, acres of parking, most of it occupied. There was a very ugly construction near an entrance, some kind of modern art perhaps, that looked like a giant unfinished house frame, colored the same shade as a pink flamingo.

  These North Americans were nothing if not gaudy, especially in Florida.

  He glanced at his watch. He was forty-five minutes early, and that was good. He wanted to be here in plenty of time to set things up.

  He wore tan linen slacks, alligator leather shoes with rubber soles, and a pale blue sport shirt, and while it was winter, it was certainly warm enough so that he did not need a jacket. He did, however, wear a long and loose tan suede leather vest, under which he had concealed a.45 Colt Commander in a waistband holster over his right hip. The weapon was small enough to hide under a vest, but fairly potent. A hit from just one of the bullets would make any attacker pause and think seriously about stopping what he’d had in mind before he was shot. And while guns were not his joy, he knew well enough how to use one. And in this case, he would be a fool not to have a gun, for there was enough money involved to be tempting to many people.

  He found a spot more or less in the shade of a building and pulled into the slot. When he came back, it would be by a long and roundabout method, to assure that he was not followed.

  The meeting was going to be in the middle of the mall, people moving past left and right, in plain view, so the chances of either side trying to steal from the other were lessened. Not completely impossible, a robbery, but he thought it unlikely.

  At stake was a fair amount of cash. Hardly a fortune, but enough to buy outright, say, a new and fairly well-made automobile. The cash he had in a cheap black nylon backpack on the seat next to him, in nonsequential twenty-and fifty-dollar bills. Amazing how much room it took.

  What he was supposed to buy with those thousands of dollars was a hundred coins, Maple Leafs, almost pure gold. And the reason he was meeting the seller in a mall was because the price of those coins was three-quarters market value.

  Which meant, of course, that the deal was in some way illegal. Probably the coins were stolen, but there were other reasons they could not be sold to a legitimate dealer: a divorce, perhaps — one spouse trying to avoid splitting the proceeds. Or maybe someone’s grandfather passed away and they were avoiding the inheritance penalty. Or just somebody who did not wish to pay income tax on the proceeds.

  Whatever. The reason did not matter to him, only the price. If the coins were good, where they came from was not important. They would join his others in the bank vault, and eventually wind up back home. There were no serial numbers on coins.

  It was too good a deal to pass up, but because of that, Santos was cautious. Thus he had brought the gun. He would be alert before, during, and especially after the transaction. The gun was cocked and locked, and it would be the work of half, maybe three-quarters of a second to have the pistol out and firing.

  If the deal was some kind of sting, the seller would find that he, too, had a stinger.

  The place was huge. He saw signs for a Banana Republic, a Hard Rock Cafe, cinemas, Disney, Neiman Marcus, Calvin Klein, dozens and dozens of others. Such choices they had in the States.

  The mall was too cool, and t
he air itself smelled stale. These norte americanos did not know how to live with warmth. They hid from it, kept it at bay with air conditioners that cranked up when the temperature wasn’t even hot enough to melt an ice cube on the sidewalk.

  He found the arranged spot in the mall, a place with skylights, benches, and potted tropical trees: thirty-foot-tall palms, small banana trees, like that. The floor looked to be wood, or some clever fake. He passed the place, strolled down the mall, looking for somebody who might be paying too much attention to that area.

  A loop in both directions came up clear. There were a lot of people milling about, in and out of the stores, and it was noisy. Parents put children on little choochoo trains, couples strolled along hand in hand, old people exercised in pairs, moving quickly in their thick-soled walking shoes. He saw nobody who seemed to be watching the appointed rendezvous. He did see a couple of uniformed security guards on patrol, and that was good.

  He found a small shop selling sporting gear from where he could watch the meeting place, and he stood there and pretended to look at fishing reels.

  A few minutes later, his coin seller arrived.

  The man was fifty, overweight, red-faced, wearing a Hawaiian shirt with blue blossoms against a black background, yellow Bermuda shorts, and leather sandals. He had a cell phone clipped to his belt. He carried a briefcase. A hundred ounces of gold — that was only 2.8 kilograms, 6.25 pounds, not very heavy. The man looked around nervously, wiped his face with a handkerchief, then sat on one of the benches. He put the briefcase on his lap, both hands gripping it tightly, and looked from side to side, searching for Santos.

  Santos hoped the security guards didn’t come back. The man was entirely too nervous. He looked guilty just sitting there.

  Appearances could be deceiving, of course, but this man in yellow shorts did not look dangerous. He looked terrified, and exhibited none of the coolness Santos would expect from a professional thief. Amateurs were bad — he’d rather deal with pros — but this Yellow Shorts here seemed to be no more than he appeared.