by Tom Clancy
“Meet me,” Sabotine repeated. “I’ll be there at noon tomorrow. Got it?”
She cut the call at her end, and David stared at the dead display in bewilderment. It was bad enough that Sabotine had made the connection from the sketchy information in the news item. But she was pressing him to meet, to talk with her.
One thing David already knew. He could not handle this girl.
He was still trying to gather his thoughts when the system chimed again.
Please let it be Sabotine, changing her mind, David prayed.
Instead, he found himself confronting Leif’s image. “I figured you’d be up late, watching the news,” David’s friend said. “I’m sure you’ll be happy to know that Nick D’Aliso’s death is national news.”
Leif’s lips twisted. “That didn’t come out right. We’re hearing about the murder even up here in New York. I’d think you’d be less than thrilled to hear all this crap about a ‘Download of Death.’”
Then it was David’s turn to grimace. “I’ll never see the news in quite the same way again,” he admitted. “But right now I’ve got worse troubles.”
He told Leif how Sabotine had put two and two together— and gotten David Gray as the answer. “She wants to meet me tomorrow at some cafe in Georgetown—talk this out,” he said in dismay.
Leif’s response was quick. “Be there,” he said decisively.
David was horrified. “Are you crazy?” he demanded. “I would rather wrestle alligators than try to deal with Sabotine MacPherson in the mood she’s in.”
“You won’t have to do it single-handed,” Leif promised. “I’ll be there with you.”
“I think she’d be too much, even for you,” David replied. “Besides, are you sure your folks would be happy with this decision?”
Leif didn’t look happy, but he said, “I’ll clear it with Mom and Dad—somehow. When and where are you supposed to meet?”
“It’s a place called the Musket House Cafe.”
“Georgetown.”
David nodded. “That’s right. Sabotine says she’ll be there at noon.”
“Then I’ll be on the first Metroliner of the morning,” Leif said. “I’ll swing by, pick you up, and we’ll face Sabotine MacPherson together.”
“Oh, yeah.” David’s conflicting emotions showed in his tone. “I hope you know what you’re getting into.”
“You should be glad for what I’m helping you get out of.”
Leif cut the connection, and David headed to the living room to tell his folks that his friend would be dropping by.
Hoping it wasn’t a mistake, he decided not to tell them why Leif was coming to town.
Georgetown was still Washington’s most aggressively quaint— and expensive—neighborhood. It was also a prime tourist destination, as the Sunday crowds along the narrow streets showed.
David glanced glumly out the windows of the taxi he shared with Leif as they rolled down Wisconsin Avenue. “So what is this Musket House place? Another place cashing in on colonial times? Ye Olde Coffee Shoppe?”
“It’s not that bad,” Leif assured him. “But it’s located near that house where the owner used Revolutionary War musket barrels to build his fence.”
David gave him a look. “What?”
Leif grinned. “I forgot. Matt is the history buff. And to know about this place, you either have to be into history—or be a tourist.”
Sure enough, out-of-towners were pointing at the railings on the fence down the block as the boys got out of the cab. The Musket House Cafe, however, was cheerfully modern, with big windows, lots of glass, blond wood walls, and comfortable chairs.
Leif deftly snagged a table with a good view of the street, and they settled in. David looked dubiously at the menu. “I’ve had whole meals for what these people charge for a cup of hot chocolate.”
“Fun-on-the-Run Meals from Burger Palace don’t count,”
Leif replied. “Besides, it’s cocoa, it’s good, and they serve real food here.”
“You’ve eaten here before?”
“It’s a good nonalcoholic place to hang out in Georgetown,” Leif said, browsing through the brunch menu. “We’ve got a few minutes before Sabotine is supposed to show. Order whatever you like—my treat.”
“I’m not hungry,” David grumped, pressing a hand to his still-sour stomach.
But somehow, a platter of eggs, ham, home fries, and English muffins appeared in front of him beside his too-expensive hot chocolate. David surprised himself by eating a decent amount of it.
He pushed away his plate, glancing at his watch. “She’s late,” he said. “Maybe she changed her mind about seeing me. Maybe she’s not coming.”
“Keep hoping,” Leif snorted good-naturedly, his eyes on the crowd passing outside the window. “Hey, there’s a pretty girl.”
David glanced over and saw Sabotine MacPherson heading for the cafe’s door.
“You can pick ‘em,” he muttered. “That’s her.”
Sabotine walked in quickly. She seemed surprised to find someone sitting with David.
“This is Leif Anderson,” David said. “He’s a friend of mine, from the Net Force Explorers.”
The girl reacted a little to the mention of Net Force. “I’m hearing that name a lot, lately,” she said. “Luddie has had a meeting with Jay Gridley—and his underlings have been duk-ing it out with our lawyers.”
She shook hands with Leif, ordered coffee, then took off her jacket, setting it on the back of her chair as she sat down. “I can’t beat around the bush with this. There isn’t time.” Sabotine glanced at her watch. * ‘I ditched my driver in a boutique I know which happens to have a back door.” She managed a wan grin. “He thinks I’m trying on clothes.”
Sabotine’s expression grew more serious as she focused on David. “I want to know about this download. What did Nicky send you?”
“I don’t think—” David began.
But Leif, who’d been watching Sabotine sharply, interrupted. ‘Tell her.”
David glanced at his friend. “Are you sure?”
At Leif s nod, he began. “There was a program icon in my virtual in-box. It activated when I picked it up. At first I thought it was a game—”
He went through the whole sequence of events—the fear, the chase. Running through the memories again, he saw why he thought it was a Hardweare game. The details he remembered came in flashes, overlaid with a heavy seasoning of emotion. During most of the “run away” parts, the background seemed almost like a blur. Only things that directly impacted him, like the wall with its mural, or the splinter, came through clearly.
Sabotine shuddered as he came to the end, nearly spilling her coffee. “And that alley you saw—that fence—those were the same things that were shown on the news yesterday?”
“I can’t prove it,” David admitted. “The downloaded file just disappeared after the system crashed. But that’s what I saw.”
“And you think it was Nicky’s m—” Sabotine choked on the word—“murder.”
Suddenly David was reminded of the Shakespeare quote Luddie had spouted—about how bitter it was to see happiness through someone else’s eye. Well, he now knew it was worse to see death that way—through another person’s eyes. “He had his vest on. He could have instructed it to upload everything he was experiencing to anyone he knew who was online at the time.”
She took a deep breath. “Did you see who did it?
Leif had sat silently through David’s recitation, just watching Sabotine. Now he spoke. “You’re afraid it was your father—or your brother. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
“I—I’m just afraid all the time.” Sabotine pressed her hands against the tabletop, trying to stop their trembling. “Everything is going out of control. People getting killed—”
She made a little noise of distress when she saw her watch. “I’ve got to go. My driver will be getting suspicious.”
Sure, David thought. That’s as good a way
as any to avoid questions after you ‘ve gotten the information you want.
He glanced at Leif, who just shrugged his shoulders. They couldn’t keep her there.
“I’d like to pay for this,” Sabotine offered, gesturing toward their food.
“Don’t worry about it,” Leif assured her. “We can handle the freight.”
She gave him an uncertain smile, thanked them both, then dashed out of the restaurant. She was in such a hurry to leave, she didn’t even bother to put her jacket on right. She just slipped it over her shoulders, cape-fashion. David and Leif sat silently watching as she ran out the door.
“Well,” David finally said to Leif, “you paid a lot of money for some okay food—and we know nothing we didn’t know before.”
“We know she’s worried that someone in her family might be connected to D’Aliso’s killing,” Leif said. “And—hey!”
In the crowded street outside a burly man bumped into Sabotine. Another big guy grabbed her.
And the two of them began trying to push her into a waiting car!
An inch up and over, and she’d have gotten an eye, Leif thought. She wasn’t bad.
The other guy stood flat-footed, Sabotine’s jacket still in his hands. She directed a kick, not to the parts he’d normally protect, but toward his shin, raking it from the knee down and ending by stomping on his instep.
This girl has had self-defense training of her own — the mean and dirty kind, Leif realized.
By now the boys were across the sidewalk and nearly on top of the big guys. The grabber—apparently the brains of the operation—gave it up as a bad job. He jostled his co-kidnapper into the back of the car and jumped in himself. The waiting driver was the most professional of the three. He immediately gunned the engine, and, with a screech of tires, the bad guys were out of there.
Leif jumped back to avoid getting clipped by a fender. In a moment the only signs of the fracas were the still-screaming Sabotine; her jacket on the ground, one arm of the expensive hand-woven material now bearing a tire print; and the rub-berneckers staring at it.
Leif reached out and put his arm around Sabotine. It was the most useful thing he could think of to do at that instant. She was clearly losing it—and the fact that she was a remarkably pretty girl had nothing to do with his actions, nothing at all, he assured himself. I’d do the same thing for anyone that upset. He looked around at the shocked and staring faces of the crowd surrounding them.
It was inevitable, Leif supposed, that a crowd would gather—all the people attracted by the noise, not to mention the rather agitated cafe manager who was more interested in the boys than Sabotine—their precipitous departure hadn’t included paying the check.
Leif could see David ducking around people, angling into the street while also trying to avoid getting hit by any passing motorists. He returned to where Leif stood with Sabotine’s jacket in one hand, and his other arm around the girl’s shoulders. She was trembling so badly, it was like holding on to one of those vibrating therapeutic back cushions.
At least she’s stopped screaming, Leif thought. I was beginning to wonder if the noise would damage my hearing.
“Virginia plate,” David reported. “I think I’ve got it memorized, but I’d like to write it down.”
He got his chance as soon as they returned to the cafe. Leif paid the tab while Sabotine drank a glass of cold water and tried to calm down.
“Whoever trained you did a good job—more important, so did you,” Leif complimented the girl. “Is your skill in fighting part of the famous Hardweare security obsession?”
“Personal reasons,” Sabotine replied curtly. Then she shook her head. “Sorry. After that rescue, I should be thanking you, not snapping at you.” She drew a long, shuddering breath. “One of the first things I did after money began rolling in was to enroll in an antikidnapping course. You see, this has happened to me once before.”
David was as shocked as Leif, if his expression was any indication. Leif looked at his friend again. Still shocked. Well, I guess I heard her right, Leif thought. She said she got kidnapped before.
Sabotine looked at the floor, her long, dark hair veiling her exotic features. “During the court thing—the custody fight between my father and my brother—Dad hid me with friends of his from the Movement.”
Even though her voice was so low it was barely audible, Leif could sense the capital M on Movement.
“Luddie hired people—deprogrammers—to get me out. They did, but it was pretty brutal.”
The words Leif had been about to say died on his tongue. He’d been planning to ask Sabotine a couple of tough questions while she was still rattled by the attempted abduction. But now he didn’t have the heart. Under her surface calm, he could sense that her internal springs were wound up about as tightly as they would go.
Sabotine was on the verge of flying apart—not surprising after a brisk shot of adrenaline from her struggle and die obviously traumatic memories this new kidnap attempt had stirred up.
“What can we do to help?” he asked.
She looked at her watch. “I’ve got to get back to that store
I snuck out of,” she said, worried. “My driver is probably just about out of patience by now.”
With Leif on one side of her and David on the other, Sa-botine set off along Wisconsin Avenue, then turned onto a side street. Watching her tense expression as she hurried along, Leif felt a little sad. Here was a healthy, bright, beautiful girl, reduced to an unhappy pawn in a case of family infighting. It was such a waste. Life was meant to be enjoyed.
Sabotine’s face was tight with worry as her heels clicked down the block. She turned again, this time into one of Georgetown’s mews, a sort of high-toned alleyway. The rear end of a row of quaint old houses now turned into trendy shops faced them. One back door was open. An obviously worried salesgirl stood beside it. Leif could almost taste her look of relief when she saw Sabotine.
“Can I make a suggestion?” Leif said. “Buy a new coat to wear home—so nobody sees this.” He gestured to the tire-print markings on the arm of the jacket she wore now. “It might raise questions that you don’t want to answer.”
“Right,” Sabotine said. “Thank you, guys—for everything.” She caught each boy’s hand and gave a tight squeeze. Then she went dashing through the store’s back door, which closed and bolted behind her.
Leif and David were left staring at a solid metal black-painted security door. It had very little in the way of charm. The door obviously hadn’t come with the original building, but had been added when the boutique started carrying very expensive merchandise.
“So much for cracking that nut,” David said, acknowledging defeat. “So what do we do now, professor?”
Leif turned away and headed out of the mews, aiming for the main drag. “We go where we should have gone ever since Nicky da Weasel got murdered,” he said. “We go to Net Force!”
A couple of calls on Leif’s wallet-phone determined that Captain Winters was once again spending his free time as an unpaid file clerk in his office. He was surprised to hear that Leif was in Washington, but agreed to see the boys in his office as soon as they could get there.
An expensive cab ride brought Leif and David to Net Force headquarters. Luckily, Leif could afford it.
It was almost a shock to see the captain wearing jeans and a sweater. Even in the informal clothes, he gave the impression of being in uniform. A pile of paper stood by the door. “For the shredder,” Winters said. “None of it is classified, so I guess I needn’t worry about leaving you two spybusters around it.”
Leif could feel the blood rushing to his face. Back in his days in the Marines, Captain Winters had had a reputation for being able to take his subordinates apart when necessary without ever raising his voice. As Leif now could vouch, the captain hadn’t lost his touch.
“There’s more Hardweare-related stuff we think you should know about,” Leif said.
“We’ve already heard about
Nick D’Aliso’s murder,” Winters said.
“Yes, sir,” David said. “But did Detective O’Connor give you the full story about that last download? I was the recipient.”
From the look on Winters’s face as he listened, the D.C. detective hadn’t thought it necessary to share David’s story. Winters frowned when he heard about their meeting with Sa-botine MacPherson, and his eyes positively blazed when they described the kidnapping attempt.
“Did you report this to the police?” he demanded.
“No, sir,” Leif said. “We decided to come to you.”
“It’s what—half an hour since this incident occurred? There’s no chance of catching these guys now.”
“I didn’t think there was much chance of catching them after they drove away,” Leif said. “And Sabotine was much more interested in minimizing the effects of the attempt than bringing charges against the guys who did it. What police officer was going to act on our say-so?”
“I do have the license plate of the getaway car,” David offered, digging out a slip of paper.
Winters took it and moved around to his computer. After a couple of orders he glared at the hologram display and threw up his hands in disgust. “Just reported stolen in Fairfax County.”
He looked at the boys and tried to soften his tone. “Well, you’ve gone to the cops, and you’ve come to me, and you’re going to get the same response from me that they gave you, I’m afraid. You can’t offer hard proof of anything. The content of D’Aliso’s download—even this kidnap attempt—it’s just your word. I believe what you say, but I can’t take official action.”
“Speaking of action,” David said, “the guys who staged the kidnap attempt must have been crazy. They tried to snatch Sabotine in a crowded shopping area full of traffic.” He shook his head. “Do you think some gunslinging terrorist types have gotten involved?”
“Not necessarily,” Winters replied. “Lots of cold-blooded professionals stage kidnappings in urban areas like Georgetown. It’s not so crazy as it sounds. Crowds can help conceal foul play. If that girl’s jacket hadn’t come loose, she’d have been inside the car before anyone would have noticed. There’s an entrance to the Rock Creek Parkway nearby. They could have been heading out of town in minutes.”
