CyberNation

by Tom Clancy , Steve Pieczenik, Steve Perry

  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."

  "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 the 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.

  Santos scanned for backup. It took all of ten seconds before he spotted a woman about the man's age, fifty feet away, pretending to be window-shopping as she held a cell phone to one ear, but obviously watching Yellow Shorts. She wore a sundress and straw hat, and carried a big straw handbag.

  A wife, maybe? But—no. On reflection, they had a kind of sameness about them.

  A sister, he decided.

  He would bet that Yellow Shorts had his cell phone turned on, so that the woman could listen to the conversation. Amateurs, to be sure.

  Sundress could have a gun in that bag, just as Yellow Shorts could have one in the briefcase, but Santos did not think so. The coins, he decided, might be theirs, but they needed the money, and for some reason could not get it from a dealer. A dead relative, or one gone senile, possibly?

  He did not intend to let his guard down, but he was less concerned than before.

  He waited until a couple of minutes before they were to meet, then strolled out into the mallway and toward Yellow Shorts.

  "Mr. Mayberry?"

  Yellow Shorts looked at him as if Santos were a wild gorilla escaped from the zoo. He thought for a minute the man might jump up and run away.

  "Yes. Mr. uh, uh, Ouro?"

  "At your service."

  "You're… black."

  "I am? Oh, dear."

  Mayberry gave him a tepid smile.

  "Let me sit next to you," Santos said. "I will show you mine, and you show me yours."

  He sat, opened the top of the backpack, pretended to be searching for something within, and held it so that the man could see the bills.

  In response, Mayberry opened the lid of the briefcase and showed him the coins.

  No gun.

  The Maple Leafs were in pockets of clear plastic sheets, ten to a sheet in two rows of five, stacked ten deep. Santos could tell at a glance they were real. Faking such things was possible, but these were not fakes. To be sure, he said, "May I?"

  Mayberry nodded. It seemed to Santos that the man's head would fall off, it bobbed so hard.

  Santos removed one coin and felt it. It was real enough. He tucked it back into its pocket and closed the briefcase.

  Pedestrians streamed by, unaware of the transaction taking place.

  "It would probably not be a good idea to count here, but if you wish, you may take it into the bathroom over there and do so." He handed Mayberry the backpack.

  "I, uh…"

  "It would be no problem. You could leave the coins with me for security, and your sister can watch to make sure I don't run off."

  Mayberry gasped.

  Santos glanced over at Sundress in time to see her jump as if stung by a bee.

  He smiled.

  "How could you know that?" Mayberry said.

  Santos shrugged, a lazy gesture.

  "I—there's no need to count it. I'm sure it is all there."

  Indeed, it was, but the man was a fool to trust him. In fact, Santos knew he could take the coins, and the backpack, and walk away, and Mr. Mayberry—or whatever his real name was—would do nothing to stop him. He could hardly call the police if there was some taint to the gold, and he could not physically stop him. But Santos was an honest man. He was saving twenty-five percent on the value of the Maple Leafs, a bargain. He was no thief.

  "Very well, then. Our transaction is concluded, no? Enjoy the day."

  With that Santos stood and walked away with the briefcase.

  All his business should be so easy. But just to be safe, he would take his time getting back to his automobile, and he would make sure he wasn't followed. He had another backpack in the car's trunk, and he would transfer the coins to it—just in case. Perhaps Mr. Yellow Shorts was not a terrified amateur at all, but some kind of wonderful actor and criminal genius. Perhaps he might have put a tracking device into the briefcase to allow some… more violent confederates to follow along to relieve Santos of his gold elsewhere?

  In which instance, the footpads would find themselves following a delivery truck, or wondering why their target had taken refuge in a garbage bin…

  He smiled at the thought. If pressed, he would bet all the gold in the case against a dime that this imagining was no
t so. Still, it paid to be cautious when carrying a couple of kilos of gold around, no? Men had been killed for much, much less.

  He went into a shop and found an exit in the back with a bar across the door that said an emergency buzzer would sound if the door was opened. He pushed the door open and stepped out into the warm sunshine. A short ways down was another entrance into the mall. He walked there and went back into the building.

  He had heard that there were supposed to be a couple of good Brazilian restaurants in Fort Lauderdale. Perhaps he could get a real caipirinha, heavy on the lime and light on the vodka, maybe some churrasco steak or chicken and even some torta de banana! He had not had good banana pie since he had been in the U.S.

  He would ask the car's computer where to find such a restaurant. With the money he had saved on the coins—-at least ten thousand U.S., for sure—he certainly could afford to indulge himself in some real food for a change…

  Ah. Life was good.

  17

  Net Force HQ Quantico, Virginia

  John Howard walked down the long hall to his office, oddly glad to be here.

  Tyrone was out of danger, and home, and Howard felt as if he could go back to work without worry. Julio had had an adventure, breaking up an extortionist's operation, and Gridley and crew had been working hard on the latest net assaults.

  Fortunately, he hadn't missed much.

  He'd had a couple of long talks with his son. One of the perks of having a teenager confined to bed and depending on you for everything he couldn't reach was that he was forced to talk to you now and then, if for no other reason save to ask for his laptop computer, more DVDs for his video player, or another soft drink or glass of iced tea. The boy drank like he was trying to set a record for most liquid downed. Had three piss jars by his bed full most of the time.

  Tyrone had asked about work, and Howard had given him what was available for public consumption, plus a little more. After all, his son was a computer whiz who had once helped Jay Gridley track down one of their miscreants.

  When they had gotten to Jay's theory about Cyber-Nation maybe being somehow responsible, and the prevailing attitude as to where CyberNation could go and what it could do to itself when it got there, Howard had gotten an earful.