by Tom Clancy
He tucked the taser into his back pocket, put a windbreaker on to cover it, and quietly left the room.
Michaels left the hotel via a rear exit, circled around the block, and approached the front of the place from behind where the gray Neon had been parked.
Where the guy in the Neon was still parked, sitting behind the wheel. He had his window rolled down and was smoking a cigar. Michaels could smell it fifteen meters away.
The commander of Net Force looped around the car as a bus passed, sending a blast of night air into the Neon, backwashing the cigar smoke into the vehicle. The guy in the car ducked away from the bus's wake.
Michaels pulled his taser, scooted up to the driver's side — the right-hand side in this country — and put the taser on the windowsill as he squatted next to the car.
"Hi. Are we having fun yet?"
The guy, a thin and balding man of maybe thirty-five, nearly swallowed his cigar.
"Jesus Christ! Don't do that! You scared the piss out of me!"
American, no mistaking that accent. A westerner.
On the seat next to him was a small flatscreen computer, a digital camera, and a pair of binoculars. There was also a thermos and a grease-soaked paper bag under a cardboard container with the remains of a fried fish and chips dinner. And on the floor was a large-mouth jar, empty. In case nature called.
If there had been any doubt in Michaels's mind before, this put it to rest. Mr. Cigar here was sitting surveillance.
"Okay, pal, so who are you, and why are you following me?"
"What the hell are you talking about? I don't know you—"
"Look, we can do this easy or we can do it hard. You can tell me, or I can call my friends at British Intelligence and have you picked up as a spy, stuck in a cell so deep it'll take a month for the foggy sunshine to filter down to it."
"Hey, I'm an American citizen, I got rights—"
"This is England, friend. They don't play by the same rules. Your choice."
Cigar considered it for a few seconds. He'd been burned, and he wasn't going to talk his way out of it. He shrugged. "I'm a private investigator from Boise."
Michaels blinked. A private detective?
"Who hired you?"
"I know who you are. I know you can give me a world of crap. You can stick me in a dungeon if you want, but I can't tell you who hired me. Word gets around, I'm outta business. But you're a bright guy, figure it out."
Boise. Oh, shit! Megan. But — why?
Michaels tucked the taser away. He stood. "Might as well go home. If I see you again, I will have the local law take you away."
There was a long moment, then Cigar started his car. Michaels watched him drive away.
He pulled his virgil. It was the middle of the night here. They were what? Seven, eight hours ahead of Idaho on the clock.
Never mind what time it was there. Too bad if he caught her at work. He tapped the memory button, clicked on Megan's number.
"Hello, Alex," she said. Cool. Her voice was a warehouse full of ice in the winter at the North Pole. In the shade. "Hold on a second, let me get where we can talk."
She came back on in a moment, and she lit her cam. She was dressed for work, her hair up. She looked good, as always.
"Megan. How is Susie?"
"She is fine. You called me at work to ask that?"
"No. I just had a few words with your balding, cigar-smoking private eye," he said, his voice barely controlled. "Why are you having me followed?"
"Self-defense," she said.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"After you beat Byron senseless at Christmas, you threatened me, remember?" The ice in her voice melted. Now she sounded like a volcano rumbling, about ready to let go. "You told me that if he spent a night under my roof—my roof, Alex, not yours and mine — that you would have me declared an unfit mother!"
"I never said that. I never said you were an unfit mother—"
"Like hell you didn't! You said you would throw Byron up in my slutty face and go for full custody. Well, mister, two can play that game. Byron will be spending the night tonight, just like he did last night, and the night before, and just like he will be spending it tomorrow! And as many goddamned nights as I want him to be here! And you know what? He will be screwing my brains out, too!"
Just as she had always been able to do, she pushed his hot button. He lost control, snapped back at her almost reflexively. "That won't take much, screwing your brains out. By the time he gets his zipper down it'll be done."
She laughed, knowing she had made him lose his temper. When she spoke again, it was back to the ice queen: "Funny. But laugh at this, funny man. I know all about your sleeping arrangements. About sweet little butter-wouldn' t-melt-in-her-mouth Toni Fiorella. At least Byron is my age, not a child. Let's see how the court views you boinking an employee!"
Oh, shit!
"At least I'm not doing it in front of Susie," he said. Not much of a response.
"So what you're saying is, it's okay to sneak around like a preacher with a whore, but it's not okay for an engaged couple about to be married to do it? I doubt the judge here in Boise will be much impressed with that argument. You were always good at twisting the story to fit your definition of righteous, weren't you?"
He should apologize, he knew. Pour a tanker full of oil on the troubled waters, calm her down. Tell her he'd lost his temper when he'd punched out her new boyfriend — who had grabbed him, don't forget — and said things he didn't really mean. The problem was, he had meant them. Still did, though this certainly put another face on the problem. She was right. A judge wasn't going to take Susie away from Megan unless he could show she was a bad mother, and the truth was, she was a great mother. He'd thought so when they were together, and he thought so now. And he didn't want to lose his daughter. If he was limited to visiting Susie once or twice a year on holidays, their relationship was doomed. She'd grow up thinking of Byron as her father. He'd be the one who'd take her to school and to the mall and he'd be the one helping her with homework and doing the things Michaels should have been doing.
He should apologize, try to get this resolved. But he waited too long.
"Good-bye, Alex. You can call Susie. I don't want her to think I'm shutting you out of her life, but you and I don't have anything else to say to each other. Give my regards to your teenage girlfriend."
She broke the connection.
Michaels blinked. He was in the middle of the sidewalk on a street in downtown London in the middle of the night, feeling as if he had just been slammed in the groin by a linebacker's knee. His ex-wife knew about his affair with Toni — who was a dozen years younger than he was, but hardly a teenager — and he was going to have to hear that in court if he contested the custody hearing for his daughter. He and Toni were both adults, but he was her boss. That wouldn't look good. The FBI frowned on such relationships, and since he didn't have any history with the new director, she wouldn't be ready to put her ass on the line to save his if this all blew up in his face.
He was — not to put too fine a point on it — fucked.
Chapter 18
Thursday, April 7th
Walworth, London, England
Peel's first real assignment from his new boss was a field operation, and it was right up his alley. Much better than sitting in a drafty old shed of a church watching stats stream by on a computer's holoproj. Of course, almost anything would be better than that.
It seemed that a certain scientist, formerly one of Bascomb-Coombs's university teachers and now retired to a private consulting position, was poking around in computer territory best left alone. Old BC was about to unleash some new electro-deviltry on the world, and he didn't want his former professor to tread on him while he was about it. And while he didn't want to seriously injure his old mentor, he did want him out of the way for a day or three. Could Peel manage that?
"Level Two," Peel said to the three men in the car. "Are we clear on that?"
The trio in the back — Peel sat in the driver's seat of the big right-hand-drive Dodge four-door-nodded. "Yes, sir," they said as one. They were the youngest of his men, Lewis, Huard, and Doolittle, dressed now as low-life rowdies, in Doc Martin steel-toed boots, baggy denim pants, and black shirts cut to reveal fake tattoos on their arms and chests. The outfits came complete with false nose rings, earrings, and tight skinhead wigs that easily covered their militarily short haircuts.
Here was a picture: a trio of thumpy boys, out for a lark, trouble on the prowl. It was exactly the right image, one that authorities would not look at twice before accepting. Coppers were good about that. You gave them an obvious picture, they didn't scurry around looking for hidden meaning in the brush strokes and hues, they nearly always went for the overall model.
Level Two. The code was one he'd learned from a commando in South Africa during a training seminar there some years ago. For direct physical violence not involving guns or knives, there were five operational levels:
Level One was the mildest, consisting mainly of threats or shoves, intimidation, without physical injury to the subject.
Level Two was mild to moderate damage, bruises, perhaps a broken bone or two, equivalent to a good bar-fight thrashing. A few stitches in the local doctor's surgery, some pain pills, and day or two to rest up at home, and you'd be right as rain.
Level Three was damaging enough to require a stay in hospital, and you'd be weeks or months recovering. A serious encounter.
Level Four meant you would carry reminders of the attack with you for the rest of your life: You'd be crippled with a torn-out knee or ankle, or perhaps crushed hands; you might lose your hearing or an eye, or be otherwise maimed. Recovery would be slow and painful, and you'd never be as complete as you had been before.
Level Five was terminal. A subject was to be made to suffer much pain, to know what he had done, and to have time enough to regret having done it before passing away.
The South Africans would deny having such codes, of course. They hadn't been used officially since apartheid days, but used they still were. Many military and intelligence services around the world had similar operational codes still in place, officially or not. One simply did not talk about such things where unfriendly ears might lurk. Peel recalled an Israeli official some years back, blabbing on in public about their official policy on torture. How it was, under some extreme circumstances, justified. Oh, but the Jews had been lambasted for that when it had hit the media. Of course they used torture when they needed it. Some raghead ready to join Allah in paradise plants a bomb and they catch him before it goes off? Only a fool would sit and politely inquire about it: Excuse me, Abdul, old boy, would you mind awfully telling us where the bomb is so we might disarm it? Some more tea?
Whatever else you had to say about the Jews, they were survivors. If you kicked dirt on their shoes, they would drop a mountain on you in return. Such things didn't bother fanatics ready to die at the drop of a Koran, but more reasonable governments kept that in mind before sending sorties against Israel. Getting hit back thrice as hard as you hit somebody was still a deterrent in some quarters. And the Jews never let it pass, never. You spit on them and sooner or later — likely sooner — you'd have a fire hose blasting you in the face to think about.
If you wanted your country to survive its enemies, you did what you had to do. No one needed to run to CNN and talk about having to shove a few needles under a terrorist's fingernails to save decent men and women from being killed, now did they? It was all part of the game. You got caught, you suffered the consequences. Unfortunately, that was how Peel had been forced to resign, being… overzealous with Irish terrorists — which, as far as he was concerned, was redundant. Whatever peace decrees were signed, the bloody Irish were never going to settle down and be civil. But some of them had died under his interrogations, word had gotten back to the rear echelons, and that was that.
Ah, well. Water under the bridge. That was when he had been a major in good standing, serving king and country. Now, he catered to another master, one who understood the reality of things, and he was already rich as a result. Not a bad trade, all in all.
The target emerged from the pub in a cloud of alcohol-fueled noise and good cheer. BC wanted him bent but not broken, just enough to put him out of active service for a few days, after which it wouldn't matter. It ought not to be too difficult to manage one old college professor.
"Here we go, boys. Move sharp — and be careful."
The target, a rotund man of sixty in a twenty-year-old tweed suit and matching Irish rain hat, sported a mostly white beard and carried a furled umbrella.
"Right, Major," Lewis said, grinning. He was the leader of the attack team. "Here's a fierce old beaky. We'll keep our heads in."
Huard and Doolittle laughed. They exited the car.
The plan was for them to amble to the professor and, once close enough, jump him. A few good thumps and they'd be away, taking his wallet. The police would see it as no more than another sad example of youth gone bad and tell the professor he was lucky to get off as easy as he did. They'd look for the trio of skinheads, but since those three wouldn't exist in an hour, their disguises burned and gone, it would be a fruitless search. A pickup vehicle waited around the corner for Peel's men, a stolen lorry with the license plates switched with those of a van parked at a nearby cinema. A simple operation, and untraceable.
The major cranked the Dodge Ram's engine to depart, which he intended to do as soon as he was sure the assault was proceeding as planned.
The three skinhead slackabouts, laughing and talking too loudly, moved to intersect the professor's path. Lewis held an unlit cigarette, and he was first to reach the target. He waved the cigarette and said something to the older man. Too far away for Peel to hear, but he knew the gist: "Allo, Gramps, gottuh match, have ye?"
Huard and Doolittle drifted out to the sides, to encircle the old man.
Peel put the truck in gear to drive off. It was going by the numbers, one, two, three—
Then, of a moment, the operation leaped past three to seventeen: The professor lunged like bloody Zorro, jabbed at Lewis with the tip of the umbrella, and caught him a hard stab in the solar plexus. The team leader lost his cigarette prop and his wind as he backed off and clutched at his belly. The professor twisted to his left, swung the umbrella like an ax, and whacked Huard across the face. The shock and surprise drove him backward, too.
"Help!" the white-bearded old boy yelled in a voice to wake the dead. "Assassins! Help!"
Doolittle lunged and bounced a fist off the old man's shoulder, and the old fellow spun and slashed at him with the umbrella, missing only because the fake skinhead leaped back like he was bloody Nijinsky doing steps from bloody Swan Lake.
"Help! Help, I say!"
Several men rushed out of the pub and saw the goings-on.
Wonderful. Bloody wonderful!
Lewis recovered, stepped in, dodged another rapier-like thrust from the umbrella, and managed to land a solid punch to the old man's nose. The professor stumbled and sat down hard on the sidewalk but did not release his hold on his weapon. He swung at Doolittle's legs, caught a shin with a whack Peel heard thirty meters away, and flailed his weapon back and forth, missing only because Doolittle did another quick little nancy-boy ballet step to get out of the way.
What a bloody cock up!
The party was over. The three troops took to their heels as the growing mob from the pub rushed them. The boys were young and fit, didn't smoke, contrary to the faggot prop, and should be able to outrun a bunch of middle-aged men who'd had a pint or two. If they couldn't, they deserved what they got. Idiots.
Peel pulled away from the curb, made a turn, and glanced at the professor. Peel did not intend to relate exactly how the attack had gone, nor how it had slipped downhill. The old man probably had a broken nose, that should be enough — though it was likely he was less damaged than the three who had set upon him.
; Peel watched in his rearview mirror as the first of the pub-goers reached the professor and helped him to his feet.
Hello all. Meet my friend, Corporal Disaster.
Hell's bells! He'd warned the lads to take care, but they were young and too full of themselves to even consider that one old man was a threat of any kind. Didn't expect they'd be up against John bloody Steed and his samurai umbrella, now had they?
Well. They'd know better next time. Embarrassing and painful lessons were the kind that etched themselves into one's memory.
Christ.
Friday, April 8th
Somewhere in the British Raj, India
Jay Gridley stood there, machete in one hand, his revolver in the other. He hadn't even moved yet, and already he was dripping with sweat. The jungle lay in front of him, leaves and vines woven into a thick wall of tangles, too verdant and altogether too alive. His heart pounded, and he was breathing hard. It took everything he had just to hold the jungle image, and even so, it wavered at the edges, threatening to collapse at any second.
It wasn't just the problem with concentration. Yeah, Saji's exercises had helped, the breath and meditation and all. And his grandfather had been a Buddhist, and he knew a bunch of them, so it wasn't that weird.