"You don't think I'm gonna wear a girl's sarong?"
"Give it up, Alex. They're unisex and one size fits all." She pulled the garments off the hangers and unfolded them in a cascade of patterned azure. One, with what looked like stars drawn by somebody tanked up on psychedelic drugs, was dark, mostly indigo; the other was also blue, but lighter, with bamboo plants done in blues and whites.
"Maybe the bamboo. Jeez, it's as big as a tablecloth!"
"Come here, I'll show you how to put it on."
"Hey, I can wrap a towel around my waist, thank you."
"And it would fall off the first time I threw you."
"You'd do it on purpose."
"Damned straight."
He smiled. She handed him the bamboo-patterned cloth, which was as big as a tablecloth, had to be seven or eight feet long by maybe four feet wide.
"Watch me."
She demonstrated the way to put it on. "Okay, you wrap it around, like so, then fold it on your left side, and back upon itself, this way. Traditionally, it'll stay in place with just folding it, but since we are going to be more active, we'll use a safety pin for the demo, one here, then fold it back to the right, another pin there, then fan-fold it back and forth narrowing it each time, like this, then roll it down in folds to make a waistline, and shorten it at the bottom, see? It should hang to your knees."
"You wish."
"Not as much as you do," she said.
He watched, tried to duplicate her moves. When he was done it looked pretty good—until he let go and it fell down in a pool around his bare ankles.
"Great. Won't that look good in front of the FBI students. The Hawaiian will laugh himself silly. Two pins, you said?"
"Yes. In your case, I think diaper pins would be best."
"Ha, ha. You are so funny."
"Yes, I am, aren't I? Try again. Keep tension on it with your elbow, here, then here, until you get the waist rolled down to lock it into place."
He did what she said, and this time when he let go, the sarong stayed in position.
"Well?"
"Have to admit, it's comfortable."
"No worse than wearing a towel wrapped around you when you get out of the shower."
"Except I wouldn't wear a towel in front of a bunch of people in public."
"You do it at the gym, don't you?"
"That's different. It's just the guys."
"Ah, now we get to it. You're worried that some strange woman might see your wee-wee?"
"No."
"Well, you should be. I don't want you showing that to other women. Small as it is."
He laughed. "I just don't want to feel like some kind of weird pervert is all. Men don't wear skirts in this coun-try."
"As opposed to a nonweird pervert?"
"You know what I mean."
"So the half-billion men who wear these are perverted?"
"I didn't say that. Speaking of which."
"Of which?"
"Perverts. I had an interesting visit with Jay today."
"Nice segue there. I'm sure Jay will love the transition. What about?"
"You aren't gonna believe it. But given the direction of the conversational road you're dragging me down…"
"Me? I'm not the low-self-esteem-I-can't-wear-a-sarong-because-people-will-think-F m-funny-looking guy here."
He shook his head.
"Okay, so what about Jay?"
"You're kidding," Toni said.
Alex shook his head. "Not according to Jay."
"And how would Jay know?"
"That was my first question, too." He grinned. "He said a good computer op has to do enough research to know the field."
"And how does his fiancee feel about this research!"
"I didn't ask."
They had moved into the kitchen, Alex still in the sarong. It was very thin cloth, and he looked sexy in it. She glanced at the carrot she was about to slice. She held it up, then used the Japanese chef's knife to lop the ends off.
"Is that an editorial comment?"
"Make of it what you will."
He laughed.
She went back to dicing the carrot for their salad. With her mother watching the baby at her hotel, they had the place to themselves. Well, for a couple more hours, at least.
Alex said, "It doesn't really surprise me, when I stop and think about it. There has always been a certain amount of porn on the net, even back in the very early days. Newsgroups dedicated to various perversions, web pages where you could download pictures or movies, even some chat-room interactive stuff. And with scenarios in VR getting better and better, it was only a matter of time."
"But fully interactive internet sex? That seems so-so—"
"Weird?"
"That'll do for a start, yeah. You wouldn't think it would be possible."
"Well, according to Jay, it's been possible since before the turn of the century. In the early days, you could buy things like full-sized silicone dolls, with functional, uh, apertures, complete with vibrators. Plug 'er in, and go to town. But that was just high-tech masturbation. Now, you can connect yourself to various, ah, machines, dial up a friend, log into a joint VR sex feelie, and what you see is what you feel. Jay says the machines started out as things like phone pagers, but got a lot more sophisticated pretty quick. Some of them can mimic a penis or a vagina, either with expandable silicone rods, or as many as sixteen sequentially motor-driven, heated silicone undulant pads."
"Do I want to hear this?"
"I dunno, do you?"
Toni thought about it for a second. "Sure. Never let it be said that after I got married and had a child I automatically turned into an old stick-in-the-mud."
"The folks who are really into this call the sex devices McCleans."
Toni finished the carrot, reached for another, and raised one eyebrow.
"It's from an old limerick, according to Jay."
"You don't need to keep saying, 'according to Jay.' I'll take your word for it."
"Um. According to—I mean, you know about haptic mice and input pens and such. The McCleans came out of research for blind computer users. The top-of-the-line units have oral/genital/anal plugs or cavities, depending on the users', ah, physical configurations and desires. The headsets come with Aromajet's DigiScents modules that can mimic certain body smells. They call these 'reekers.' There is a tongue wafer from Taste-the-Real-Thing-dot-com that is electronically controlled to offer various tastes, and naturally, they call these 'droolers.'"
"Reekers and droolers," she said. "Sounds like some kind of medical condition."
"Or a law firm," he said.
"Um. Anyway, the best units include form-fitting me-morymesh that can apply pressure in various ways, heat or cooling along any of the mesh ladders, along with vibrations."
Toni disposed of the second carrot, then went to work on a sweet purple onion. She said, "So you plug into a high-tech vibrator, or one into you, depending on your gender, slip into some mesh thingee that is really comfortable, dial up the taste and smell of warm whatever, and join your unseen loved one on a beach in VR somewhere?"
"That's what I am given to understand, yes."
"And how is it compared to the real thing?"
"Well, according to Jay—and I am in no way otherwise knowledgeable about this, believe me—it's not as good as the real thing, but it's better than being alone. And in some cases, there are sensations available you can't get with a real partner. The Electric Tongue can actually deliver enough low-amperage-but-high-voltage to make your hair stand up. Then there is the lifelike vibrating anus…"
"Yuck! This sounds totally disgusting!"
"Well, sure," he said, "because you have me. You are forever spoiled for other men and machines."
That cracked her up, as he knew it would.
"Say, fellow, is that a banana in your sarong, or are you just happy to see me?"
"It's a banana."
She laughed, and somehow his sarong fell down again.
<
br /> 8
Nicasio, California
The night was cool, but not too cold, and the winding and hilly road fairly quiet. The target and his bodyguards were on their way back from visiting some movie people who had a place in Lucas Valley. Santos didn't know a lot about movies, he did not spend much time in theaters, but this place, a ranch hidden from the road, was apparently pretty famous.
Santos had picked several places along the route where he could make his move, some better than others, but all should be workable if he did what he needed to do.
The limo passed his position, and he waited until it was a half-mile ahead of him before he started the big motorcycle's engine and pulled out behind the car. There was no worry that he would lose them, for he knew where they were going.
They weren't going to get there, though.
Thirty minutes later, the limo approached his primary location choice. But there was a car pulled off on the shoulder on the dark stretch of road, a big American se-dan, just sitting there. He didn't see anybody silhouetted in the vehicle, but that did not matter.
It was a complication, and he let the limo drive past.
Five minutes past that, the secondary site loomed, but this time, the traffic was heavier than he'd expected.
The third choice was another six or seven minutes away. If there was a problem there, then he would scrub the mission for tonight and try again tomorrow.
As the road narrowed and curved, however, Santos saw that they were alone. He checked his speedometer. The bodyguard, who liked to drive fast, was going ten miles an hour faster than the posted limit.
Perfect.
A flip of a pair of temporary switches on the handlebar lit the flashing lights and cranked up the siren.
Ahead of him the limo slowed, and pulled off in exactly the place where he hoped it would. It was dark enough so any passersby wouldn't see anything except the bike's flashing lights—that's what they'd be looking at as they went past. And he wouldn't need more than a couple minutes to do this.
The limo stopped, and Santos pulled the motorcycle up behind the car. He killed the siren, left the lights going, dismounted from the bike, and walked to the limo. The driver powered the window down.
"What's the problem, Officer?" the driver asked.
In his best U.S. accent, Santos said, "You were going a little fast there, sir. Could I see your license and registration, please?"
"Aw, come on, you're not gonna give me a ticket, are you? Out here in the middle of nowhere, no traffic?" The bodyguard opened his wallet and flashed a badge and ID card. "I'm Russell Rader, King Executive Protection Services. I'm a former LEO-FBI, retired, working a bodyguard assignment for Blue Whale. This is Mr. Ethan Dowling, the vice president." He nodded at the passenger in back, who smiled. "Cut me a little slack, okay?"
Santos pretended to think about it for a couple of sec-onds. He closed the fake ticket book he held. "Retired FBI, huh? Well, I suppose I could let the speeding slide. But did you know your license plate was about to fall off?"
"What?"
"Screw must have fallen out, it's barely hanging on. Have a look."
Santos moved back, and the driver alighted. Both men walked around to the back of the car. "Looks all right to me," Rader said.
Here was the tricky part. Santos squatted behind the car, put his right index finger on the plate holder. "No, sir, see, right here?"
As he expected, the bodyguard squatted next to him to get a closer look.
As soon as the car's occupants couldn't see them, Santos used his elbow.
Normally, a squatting man wouldn't have particularly good balance or leverage for such a strike. But Capoeira was an art based on movement in odd positions. Santos's balance was superb.
He slammed the bodyguard flush on the right temple. The man fell as if somebody had chopped off his lower half.
Good night, Mr. Rader.
Santos stood. He walked around to the passenger side of the limo, leaned down.
The second bodyguard lowered his window.
"Your friend is trying to fix the license plate, but his knife isn't going to do the job. Do you have a screwdriver in the car?"
As the bodyguard opened his mouth to speak, Santos drove his fist into the man's throat with as much power as he could. He heard the voicebox break. The man clutched at his neck, and Santos fired a second strike, this one with the heel of his hand to the man's forehead. A punch that hard likely would have broken his knuckles, but the heel of the hand was padded—you hit hard with soft, soft with hard, if you wanted to avoid damaging yourself.
The man's head snapped back. Before he could move, Santos jerked the door open and grabbed the stunned guard's neck with one hand and pinched his carotids shut. Ten seconds was more than enough. The man's eyes rolled in his sockets, showing white. He was unconscious.
Santos released his grip. He didn't want to kill him.
In the back, Mr. Dowling started sputtering: "What the—! Hey—!"
Santos could have pulled his pistol out and used it like a magic wand to silence the man, but he didn't need it. He smiled, a broad, teeth-flashing grin. "This is a kidnapping, Ethan. You be quiet, or I'll have to kill you."
The man was terrified. He shut up.
Now, all Santos had to do was immobilize the bodyguards. He hauled the second one out of the car and dragged him to the back. He expertly tied both unconscious men, using the soft cloth ties he had tucked away in his pocket. He didn't want any ligature marks on them. He placed a loop around each neck and to the wrists, so they wouldn't struggle when they woke up. He opened the trunk and hoisted the tied pair inside, then carefully shut the lid. He walked back to the bike, glanced at Dowling as he did to see if he'd make a break for it—try to get into the front seat, get the car started, or maybe just open the door and run.
Dowling sat, not moving, and Santos smiled. He hadn't thought the man had it in him. He was a good judge of such things.
He killed the motorcycle's flashing lights, unclipped them and the siren and controls from the bike, then pushed the two-wheeler into a clump of bushes nearby, so it wasn't visible from the road. Now it was just an ordinary motorcycle. By the time somebody found it, this would be all over. And there wouldn't be any way to connect it to Dowling and his bodyguards anyway—the rest of the night's business was going to happen thirty miles away on a different highway. The motorcycle wasn't stolen; it had been bought under a fake name, and there was no reason to link it to the limo. It would be another of life's little unsolved mysteries.
Santos walked to the car, opened the driver's door, and sat behind the wheel. "Just sit there quietly," he said. "We'll go for a ride, then we'll have a chat. Behave yourself, and all it costs you is a little inconvenience."
A lie, that. Dowling and his two guards would be dead within an hour, all things going as planned. But no point in upsetting the man, was there?
Net Force HQ Quantico, Virginia
It was the nightmare that had finally pushed Michaels into it. He'd awakened in a sweat, heart pounding, from a dream in which the psychotic doper Bershaw had come to his house and captured Toni. In this one, the would-be killer had Little Alex and was holding him by one ankle, getting ready to smash the baby against the kitchen counter.
Michaels hadn't been able to go back to sleep after that horrific image.
John Howard had told him whenever he was ready to give him a call. As soon as it got late enough, he did just that.
Now, they were in Michaels's office.
"I've been meaning to do this for a long time," Michaels said. "Thanks, John."
"No problem. Makes perfect sense to me," Howard said. "In your place, I'd have done it a long time ago."
"I mean, even with all of Toni's expertise, and the knives and tasers and stuff we have laying around, somebody has twice shown up at my house with murderous intent."
"I remember the last incident quite well," Howard said. "It's about time you got some more serious hardware."
/>
"Yeah. I want to be a little better prepared if it ever happens again."
"I expect this will do the trick," Howard said. "Let me show you what we have."
Michaels nodded and looked at the gun case, which seemed to be some kind of brownish-gray canvas or oilcloth, darkened here and there with splotches of lube.
He untied a string at the fat end of the cloth case and slid the weapon out.
"This belonged to my uncle," he said. "It's what they call a 'coach gun,' being the kind of weapon a lot of the stagecoach drivers used when they rode shotgun guard duty back in the Old West. This one is a European American Armory Bounty Hunter II, actually made in Russia for export. My uncle used to use it in cowboy action shooting."
"Cowboy action shooting?"
"A competitive sport. Men and women get dressed up in prel900 costumes like those that might have been worn in the Old West, give themselves names like 'Doc' or 'Deadeye' or 'The Kid,' and while in persona, shoot for scores using period weapons—single-action six-shooters, rifles, usually the lever-action kind, and shotguns."
"Really?"
"Yep. A grown-up version of cowboys 'n' Indians. Got Native Americans who wear period stuff and compete, too. Everybody wears hearing protectors and safety glasses and all, but otherwise the look is usually pretty authentic."
"Huh."
"My uncle used to love it. There were a fair number of black cowboys on the frontier. After slavery was abolished, and before Jim Crow got going, nobody much cared what color you were, long as you could ride, punch cattle okay, and could shoot snakes or rustlers if they showed up. At least that's the story I heard growing up."
"Interesting."
"It's not a particularly expensive gun, basic walnut stocks and case-hardened color. The Russians don't build 'em pretty, but they are very solid and mechanically well-made. Uses 12-gauge shells, the short ones, two-and-three-quarter inchers only. Just as well—the high-powered three-inchers would have a fierce recoil with a barrel this short."
He pivoted a lever in the middle to one side, and opened the breech. "Got twenty-inch-long double barrels, extractors that pull the shells out, but not ejectors, so it doesn't throw them on the floor. External hammers, they call them 'rabbit ears,' see? This one is a modern copy of the old ones, so the hammers don't actually hit a firing pin, but cock internal strikers. That way, you can use a hammer block as well as a trigger-block safety, here, this button. It's about as simple as you can get. You open it up, put a pair of shells in, close it, then cock the hammers. Got two triggers, one for each barrel. Slide the safety off, aim it like you would a rifle, or if somebody is in your face, poke them with it like a stick and pull the trigger."
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