Point Of Impact (2001)

by Tom - Net Force 05 Clancy

  There were racks and racks of items, ranging from Van de Graaff generators to home dissection kits to chemistry sets to huge telescopes.

  Lord, he'd wander around in here forever.

  "May I help you, sir?"

  Michaels turned to see a woman who looked as if she might be the perfect TV grandmother smiling at him. She was short, slight, wore her gray hair in a bun, a pair of cat's-eye reading glasses hung from a string around her neck, and she had a white sweater draped over her shoulders. The blue print dress she wore went almost all the way to the floor. She looked to be late sixties.

  "Yes, ma'am," he said. "I'm looking for a stereomicroscope."

  "Ah, yes, aisle nine. What kind of working distance would you need between the lens and object?"

  Michaels didn't have a clue. "I don't know."

  "Perhaps if you told me the purpose?"

  "Um, it's for my wife. She's pregnant and has to stay at home, so she's taken up scrimshaw."

  Granny beamed and nodded. "Congratulations! Your first child?"

  "Yes." Well, it was his and Toni's first child. And their last, too, according to Toni.

  "If you'll follow me."

  He did, and in due course, they arrived at aisle nine and a rack of optical equipment, most of which he couldn't put a name to. None of it looked cheap, however.

  Granny said, "Your wife will need a focus distance at least the length of her inscribing tool, eight or nine inches. This unit here will give her a foot, so that will do it. It's a Witchey Model III, and it comes with ten times and twenty times. Much more power than she needs, but if you put an oh point three times auxiliary lens on it, right here, that will give you three times and six times, which should be sufficient for scrimshaw. Just to be sure, we can add in another lens that will ramp it up to five times and ten times."

  Michaels nodded, not really understanding what she was talking about.

  "We could use an articulating arm, but probably a standard post mount would be fine." She looked around and leaned a little closer toward him. "My supervisor would just as soon I sell you a fiber-optic shadow-free ring light to go with it, but frankly, you can get a gooseneck lamp and a hundred watt bulb and save yourself three hundred dollars."

  Michaels blinked. "Uh, thank you."

  She gave him a perfect grin, full of smile wrinkles and dimples. "The basic scope is eight hundred dollars, and the two lenses normally retail for about one hundred dollars each, but I can knock a bit off that. Say, nine hundred and fifty dollars all total? And I'll throw in a gooseneck lamp at a discount, too."

  Michaels blew out a small sigh and nodded. The profit he'd made on the Miata rebuild was pretty much shot after the honeymoon and the Chevy, but he had a thousand or so left. Toni wanted this but wouldn't buy it for herself, and the truth was, he was feeling guilty about not being more supportive about the pregnancy. It was his son she was carrying, after all, and the least he could do was try to make her enforced inactivity more bearable.

  "I'll take it," he said.

  Granny laser-beamed another smile at him. "Excellent. If you'll follow me, I'll have one brought up to the checkout counter."

  Michaels followed her toward the front of the store. On the way there, a pair of small boys ran past on the cross aisle in front of them. A second after they passed, there was a crash, yells, then what sounded like glass shattering.

  Granny said, "Shit! You little bastards! You're not supposed to be running in here!" Whereupon she herself took off at a good sprint. The long dress's hem kicked up enough for Michaels to see that Granny wore a pair of flaming red Nike SpringGels, high-end running shoes that went for almost two hundred bucks a pair.

  He had to smile. Another example that things were not always what they appeared to be.

  Quantico, Virginia

  John Howard, in shorts, a T-shirt, and his old sneakers, was working up a pretty good sweat on the obstacle course near Net Force HQ. There were a few Marine officers he recognized running the course, a few FBI types, and there, just ahead on the chinning bars, none other than Lieutenant Julio Fernandez.

  Julio saw Howard but kept doing his chins, palms forward and hands a little wider than his shoulders.

  Howard stopped and watched. He counted eight before Julio gutted out the last one and let go, then leaned forward and started rubbing at one bicep.

  "How many did you do?"

  "Twelve," Julio said.

  Howard raised an eyebrow.

  "Yeah, yeah, I know, I used to do fifteen, sometimes twenty on a good day. I haven't been getting out here as often as I should."

  "The joys of family life," Howard observed.

  "Yes, sir, that's for sure. I wouldn't trade it for anything, but it does change things some. Before I met Joanna, if I woke up in the middle of the night and felt like it, I could suit up and hit the gym or go run a couple miles, whatever. Now when I wake up in the middle of the night, it's to the sound of a crying baby. Changing a diaper full of gooey yellow poop at three in the morning was never in my flight plan. I don't think I've had three hours of sleep at any one stretch for three months.

  "How'd you do it, John? How'd you live through a tiny baby?"

  Howard laughed. "I stopped working out. I stopped going to have a drink with the boys after dinner because I was falling asleep in my chair watching TV. You have to change your priorities."

  "Yeah, I hear that. I can see it all now: I'm gonna wind up like a certain fat old general, too stiff and tired to walk from the couch to the bed. It's a pitiful thing to think about."

  "Fat old general? You want to run the course, Lieutenant, and see just how fat and old I really am? Perhaps I should give you a handicap. Ten seconds? A minute?"

  "Your ass, General, sir. I might be in terrible shape, but that's compared to a twenty-five-year-old SEAL, not a man your age."

  "I'm not a man my age, Julio. I'm getting better every day."

  "You got your stopwatch?"

  Howard smiled. "As it happens." He pulled the watch from under his shirt where it hung on a loop of old boot-lace.

  "Start it. I'll see you at the end. Time you get there, I can probably shower, shave, and catch up on my sleep."

  "Go, Lieutenant. The clock is ticking. But be careful of your heart."

  Julio smiled, and took off.

  On the way home, Michaels's virgil played a few bars of Franz Liszt's Les Preludes, a somber, regal musical sting that, according to Jay Gridley, was the basis for the theme that announced the Emperor Ming in the old Flash Gordon movie series in the '30s. Buster Crabbe, the swimming champion, had starred in those, Jay had told him. Jay had been to what had once been Buster's house, as a boy in SoCal. It had a big swimming pool in the backyard. Talking a bigggg pool...

  It was Susie. He saw her tiny picture appear on his virgil's screen, and he activated his own minicam so she could see him.

  "Hey, yo, Daddy-o!"

  " 'Daddy-o'? What happened to 'Dadster'?"

  "Oh, that's so yesterday," she said. "You really did go to school with the dinosaurs, huh?"

  "It's true. I had to hike a prehistoric trail ten miles long every morning, in the tropical heat, uphill both ways, and be careful of stepping into the tar pits. You have it easy, kiddo."

  "So Mom says."

  "How are you?"

  "Fine."

  "Everything going okay with, ah, Byron?"

  "Yep. He's a good guy, really."

  Michaels felt his belly clutch. He had thought he was going to lose contact with her after the nasty business with Megan, but somehow, his ex-wife had relented. Thank God for large miracles.

  "I'm glad to hear it," he said. Boy, that came hard.

  "He argued with Mom something awful about letting me see you."

  Michaels felt the heat begin in him, threatening to rise and shut off his breathing and vision. That bastard!

  "Didn't like the idea, huh?" he managed to say, faking a smile. She could see him, after all.

  "Oh, no, Da
ddy-o, it was Mom who didn't like it. Byron said it wasn't right to keep a father from seeing his daughter. He wouldn't give up until she agreed."

  Michaels's anger turned to wonder. "Really?"

  "Yeah, he doesn't like you much after you insulted Mom and knocked him down, but he tries to be fair. He's just not you. I miss you, Dad."

  As always, that broke his heart. "Me, too. You tell Byron thank you for me, would you?"

  He debated for a moment about whether to tell his preteen daughter that she was going to have a new little brother. Well, half brother. Then he decided she ought to hear it from him.

  "I have some news for you. Did you know you're going to have a baby brother in a few months?"

  "Mom told?" she said. "She told me I couldn't say anything to you. But it's not a brother, it's a sister."

  For a moment, he couldn't track what she said, it was as if she had spoken words he understood but arranged them wrong. What she said made no sense.

  Then it came to him:

  Megan was pregnant!

  "Daddy-o, where'd you go?"

  "Huh? Oh, sorry, sweetie, I'm in my car, I had to, uh, switch lanes."

  "Pretty cool, huh?" she said. "A baby sister. Almost none of my friends have any that little. Chellie's got a brother who's two, and Marlene's got a sister who's like one, but nobody else's mom is preggers."

  "Pretty cool," he said. "Congratulations."

  Susie's slip brought up a whole wave of things he didn't want to think about. He loved Toni, and she loved him in a way Megan never had. He was over his ex-wife, finally. Well, almost over her. There was always that little wonder about the road not taken, even though the roads they had traveled the last few years had been pretty ugly. But she was Susie's mother, and there had been some good times. Wonderful times, at the beginning.

  Now that she was having another man's baby, the old jealousy tried to rear its viperlike head, and for a moment, he almost let it.

  No. That serpent was dead.

  And now what did he tell Susie about her half brother? Should he say anything? He didn't want to get into any kind of competition with Megan for his daughter's affection as much as he didn't want to lose it.

  And yet, if he was going to continue to be part of Susie's life, Toni was also going to be a part of it, as would their unborn child.

  Sooner or later, word would get back to Megan; somehow it always did, and he would rather Susie hear it from him.

  "Well, Li'l Bit, it looks like you are going to be really cool."

  "Huh?"

  He smiled into the virgil.

  19

  Santa Monica, California

  The Safari Bar and Grill was first on Tad's list. This was an old but little-known watering hole not far from Santa Monica City College. The food was good, the drinks generous, and the place was far enough off the main drags so the locals had mostly kept it hidden from the tourists.

  Tad approached the assistant manager on duty and gave him the bullshit story he'd worked up.

  "Say, man, I got a problem maybe you can help me with?"

  The assistant manager, a smiling black guy of thirty with nice teeth, dressed in khaki safari shorts and matching shirt, said, "What's the problem, bro?"

  "Okay, look, a while back, my brother and his wife were having some difficulties. I uh, got together with her to, you know, help them out. We had lunch here a few times."

  "Uh-huh, so?"

  "One thing kinda led to another. My sister-in-law and I, well, we, ah, stepped over the line, you know what I mean?"

  "You punching your brother's wife? That's bad biz, bro. Gonna make Thanksgiving dinners a bitch."

  "Yeah, yeah, I know. It just happened, you know. Anyway, they got their shit worked out okay, they're back together. But my brother, he's a jealous type, and he suspects that while they were on the outs, his wife maybe did some stuff she shouldn't have done."

  "He's right, too, idn't he?"

  Tad looked at his boots. "Yeah, and I feel like shit about it, okay? But he only suspects, he doesn't know, and he sure as hell don't know about me. The thing is, my brother is big and kinda mean, and he's with the cops, and if he starts poking around and finds out his wife and I spent any time together, I'm fucked."

  "I hear that."

  "So like I said, we were in here a few times, had a few drinks and a few laughs, and if he shows up here somehow and gets his hands on your security tapes, I could be in deep shit."

  The assistant manager smiled. "Not to worry, my man. You here further back than a week, he won't find nothing. We record three days at a time. Nobody sticks up the place or starts a fight the police need to see, we start the disk over again. No permanent records."

  Tad smiled. "Hey, man, I appreciate you tellin' me this." He pulled a couple of tightly folded twenties from his pocket and extended his hand. When they shook hands, the twenties pressed into the assistant manager's palm, and he grinned and nodded. "No problem, bro. You be more careful now, you hear? That pussy will kill you, you not careful."

  After the Safari, Tad rumbled the big Dodge along surface streets to two other restaurants within a few miles of each other and ran the same story.

  At the Sun'n' Shore, it played pretty much the same, except for the time. The security cams there recorded over the old stuff after only twenty-four hours. Not to sweat it.

  At the Irish Pub, they had cams, but all they did was feed a couple of show monitors, no tapes or disks.

  Tad was feeling pretty good about this. He had three more places to hit, and he was done. He could take the Hammer cap and get the trip rolling, they were all gonna be this easy.

  But of course, just to fuck up that plan, the Berger Hotel, on the hill overlooking the ocean, was more of a problem. A lot of well-off people with well-known faces came here and got a room to get laid in, and the bar was dark and quiet. And when you had folks with fame and money in your house, you were smart to spend a little more on security to make sure the rich and famous didn't get ripped off. That was bad for business.

  So at the Berger, they kept their recordings for a year on long-running superdense video diskettes, SDVDs. The system wasn't full-frame twenty-four-a-second vid, but blink cams that snapped stills every few seconds. You didn't get full motion stuff that way, but you could store a lot more time on a lot less space, and the cams were set to take snaps often enough so you couldn't walk across the lobby without being caught. A still picture that showed faces would do the trick.

  Tad ran the sister-in-law number on the assistant manager of the hotel, some kid who looked like he was just out of college with a degree in hotel management, and got sympathy, but that was all.

  The kid, a pale, green-eyed, dishwater blond in a dark suit and tie, said, "I'm sorry, sir, it is against hotel policy to allow anybody to see the security recordings."

  "Even the cops?"

  "Well, of course, we cooperate with the police in criminal matters."

  "So if my brother shows up and flashes his badge, he gets the SDVD? And my sister-in-law and I get drummed out of the family? Not to mention by brother kicks the shit out of me, maybe breaks an arm or two?"

  "I... I wish I could help, really."

  "Look, if I knew the date we were here, couldn't you get that diskette out and, uh, misfile it? Accidents happen, right? Somebody could have put that into the wrong file drawer or something, couldn't they? It would have been like a month ago. If anything had happened on that day, the cops would have come looking for it by now, right?"

  The kid was wavering.

  Tad brought out the heavy artillery. "C'mon, man, I made a big mistake, but it's done. Nobody got hurt, and as long as it never gets out in the open, nobody ever will. I love my brother. What he don't know won't hurt him. Or me. Put yourself in my shoes."

  The kid wanted to help, but he was skittish.

  Tad went for the throat: "Enter it... nobody will ever know. I sure won't tell, and it's not like you'd be doing anything criminal. It would be worth
a lot to me to keep my brother from finding out. Look, I just sold my car. I got enough for a down payment on a new one, plus about a thousand bucks extra. You get me the diskette, I give you the thousand. Everybody comes out ahead. My brother doesn't find out I screwed up, he and his wife live happily ever after, and even if anybody ever comes looking for the recording--which they probably won't--all they'll think is that it got mislaid. Hell, you could even put a blank one in the slot, and they'd probably just think the cams were out of whack... if anybody ever bothered to look. Cut me some slack here, please."

  Everything Tad said made a certain kind of sense. And the bottom line was, who would know or ever find out? Not to mention that a thousand bucks tax-free cash was surely more than this kid took home in a week. A week's pay and then some for a thing nobody would ever miss? How tempting was that?

  The kid licked his lips. "What was the date?" he asked.

  Tad kept his face serious, even though he wanted to smile. One born every minute.

  When Tad got back into the Dodge and cranked it up, he had the SDVD, a little silver disk about the size of a half-dollar coin. He broke it in half, broke those pieces in half, and stuck them in the ashtray. He lit a cigarette with a throwaway Bic, dialed the flame up to high, and torched the diskette pieces. They smoked but didn't catch fire, just melted into sludge after a minute. The greasy smoke coming off the molten diskette did stink up the car something fierce, so he rolled down the windows to let the smoke escape.

  So much for that.

  Two places left on Bobby's list, and neither one of them was going to be as tough as the hotel. One was a movie house the Zee-ster rented to show one of his pictures to a hundred of his closest friends at the moment, the other was a gym where Bobby and the Zee-ster had worked out together a couple of times. Probably neither of them even had security cams, but if they did, between his sister-in-law story and a pocket full of cash, he didn't foresee any problems. People would help you out if the story was good enough, and if they were a little reluctant, a fat wad of green went a long way to moving things along. Everybody had a price; you just had to find it.