Night Moves (1999)

by Tom - Net Force 03 Clancy

  It wasn't comfortable, this hack through the jungle, but there was no good way to make this tracking scenario a cake walk. No matter what he created, it wasn't going to make the job easier. If he made a haystack, the needle he'd be looking for would be microscopic; if he created a beach, he'd be trying to find a sand-colored smudge on a particular grain of sand. It was hard, period, end of mission statement, we don't need to see his ID, move along.

  But he was getting closer, nonetheless.

  A fat albino python sunned itself on a big branch to his left, well off the trail, no danger. Gridley grinned. It was the dog that didn't bark in the night that had pointed him in the right direction. The player who had broken the encrypted code in Pakistan was better than anybody Gridley had ever gone up against, no question. Better than the redneck from Georgia, better than the mad Russian, and--as much as he hated to admit it to himself--better than he was. This guy was a master, he'd have to be to do what he did, and he had not left a trail.

  Well, not exactly. The tiger had left an also--a trail of omission, "TOO," thus brought to "also"--a concept that was impossible to convey to anybody who didn't know the VR field in and out, and exceedingly difficult to understand if you did know. It was a lot like trying to make sense of subatomic physics; it was counterintuitive. The tiger who had eaten the goat went this way because there was no trail and ... because nobody could have gone this way.

  Gridley hacked at a branch with heart-shaped dark leaves as big as dinner plates. The branch fell. The weight of the double rifle slung over his shoulder was oppressive, the belt with the holstered Webley revolver dug into his side. There was no trail here, but he was sure the tiger had gone this way. He cut another branch, tossed it aside--

  He was right. It had gone this way.

  He got only a glimpse of it as it leaped. A flash of orange and black, huge teeth, a paw as big as a dragon's.

  Then the tiger slapped Jay Gridley's head with that monstrous paw and the world went red--and away.

  6

  Sunday, April 3rd

  London, England

  Alex Michaels came out of a troubled dream to the sound of his virgil playing the Aaron Copland fanfare. He sat up and glared at the device where it sat next to his bed in the recharger. What was cute in the afternoon wasn't so funny at two in the morning, even when it woke you from a nightmare about your ex-wife.

  Next to him, Toni stirred.

  Michaels got up, grabbed the virgil and killed the call tone, then headed for the bathroom. Once there, he turned on the light, shut the door, and activated the phone circuit. After glancing at himself in the mirror, he left the visual mode off. Naked, with a sleep-wrinkled face and pillow-hair, wasn't his best look.

  The call was from Allison's office.

  "This is Alex Michaels."

  "Hold for the director, please."

  Yeah, right. Wake him up in the middle of the night, but couldn't be bothered to make the call herself?

  She came on almost immediately.

  "Michaels, we have a situation here. One of your men, a ... Jason Gridley? ... has had some kind of stroke. He is in the hospital."

  "What?"

  "He was found when the shift changed at the controls of his computer."

  "A stroke? But--how? He's a kid! There's no history of stroke in his family."

  "You'll have to ask the doctors about that." There was a pause. "I understand that Gridley is your point man on virtual reality scenarios."

  "Yes." Jesus, a stroke? Jay? He couldn't get his mind around that. Jay was in his twenties.

  "Could this have had anything to do with the investigation we are conducting into the situation in Pakistan?"

  What was she talking about? "No, no way. You can't get hurt by a computer in VR mode, even with the power jacket at maximum, there's not enough juice. Why would you even ask?"

  "Because a British Intelligence computer operative and one in Japan have also had cerebellar events similar to Gridley's, both of them in the last few hours."

  "Not possible. I mean, it's not possible that they were caused by their computers."

  "Nonetheless, Commander, it seems a striking coincidence that these events happened. And I am given to understand, unofficially, that these two computer operatives were also investigating the Pakistani situation."

  "Jesus."

  "Perhaps you might want to cut your vacation short."

  "I--yes, you're right. I'll book a flight out as soon as I can get one."

  "Good. Keep me informed."

  Michaels stared at his reflection in the mirror. Never a dull moment.

  "Alex?"

  He opened the door. Toni, fogged with sleep and beautifully nude, stood outside the bathroom. "Who are you talking to?"

  "The boss."

  Then he gave her the bad news about Jay.

  Sunday, April 3rd

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  "Son of a bitch!"

  "Should I take that personally, Sergeant?"

  Howard smiled at Fernandez, but the expression was tight and forced. He could well understand his friend's frustration; he was pissed off, too.

  The tactical computer was down. It had flickered back to normal operation from the British flag a couple of times but then had lost the satellite signal and had been unable to regain it. The techs had fiddled with things, and it turned out not to be their system, but USAT's. Howard had talked to the OOD there, but it wasn't going to help. Major Phillips was polite but terse: His system was acting up, and begging the colonel's pardon, but he had his hands full trying to unsnarl the bastard and could he have somebody call him back ASAP?

  That had been hours ago, and still the feed wasn't accessible.

  Howard looked at his watch, then at Fernandez. "Okay, that's it. We're scrubbed. Tell them to stand down."

  As he expected, his top kick wasn't happy with that. "Colonel, we don't need the feed from Big Squint. This guy is in the middle of the desert. We can eyeball it."

  "Negative, Sergeant, that's not the protocol."

  "Sir, troops have been taking territory without satellite coverage for thousands of years. It's one guy alone in a trailer. We got two squads and enough gear to fill up a boxcar! How hard can it be?"

  "Come on, Julio, you know the rules. There's no leeway for emergency bypass here. Like you said, it's one guy. He's been there for months, he doesn't know we're here, and we've got the roads in and out covered. He's not going anywhere, and even if he wanted to, he couldn't. This is as by-the-numbers as it gets."

  Fernandez mumbled something.

  "Say again, Sergeant?"

  "Sir, this is bullshit. If twenty troops can't take down one man without help from big bird, we ought to turn in our uniforms and retire. Go sit on the bank of a catfish pond, drown worms, and wait to die. Sir."

  Howard's grin this time was real. "I hear you, Julio, but it's our protocol for this op-sit. The RA guys will fix their system sooner or later. Tell the troops to take the night off. Go see the casinos, watch a show, enjoy the lights of Vegas. Be back here at oh six hundred, and we'll reset."

  Fernandez shrugged. Unexpected liberty was always good, and this was, after all, Las Vegas. A man with a little money in his pocket could get into all kinds of trouble without having to work too hard. "Well, sir, since you put it like that, I suppose we'll just have to suffer through the wait."

  "And remember, you are practically a married man now, Sergeant."

  "Yes, sir, of course. But I'm not a dead practically married man. I can still look."

  The two grinned at each other.

  Howard headed toward the nearby motel where Net Force had booked enough rooms for his troops. It still felt weird to be bivouacked not in a tent under the stars but at an air-conditioned motel. It made more sense, of course. A military group camping anywhere around here would draw more attention than it would with its vehicles garaged and its troops tucked away out of sight.

  He planned to call home and talk to his wife and son,
grab a shower to wash some of the heat and dust off, and maybe find a nice restaurant for some dinner. They had good food in Las Vegas, especially at some of the casinos, and it was cheap, too. They figured they were going to get your money at the slots or the tables, so they might as well make it attractive to stay there and eat, to give them more chances at it. And you could play keno right at your table while you chowed down. Most places served breakfast, lunch, or dinner twenty-four hours a day. Once you stepped into the wonders of Gambling Land, time stood still. They didn't leave a lot of clocks around to remind you that you needed to be getting along home, either.

  It had been a few years since he'd been here, but Howard didn't think it would have changed all that much. You could stick the kiddies in free day care or turn them loose in Warner Bros. World or the Hard Rock, and go lose their college education money. Fun for the whole family and a long way from the old days when the mob ran everything.

  The motel was low key and also cheap, Net Force being like most other government agencies that way. GS employees didn't need to be staying at the best hotels on the taxpayer's credit card. It didn't look good, especially at election time.

  There was an old-fashioned mechanical slot machine next to the Coke machine, and Howard shook his head at that. He wasn't a gambler. Oh, he'd buy a lottery ticket now and then or put a fiver on a soccer or baseball pool. He would root for the Orioles, maybe even cover a friendly bet on them, but he wasn't infested with gambling fever. The odds always favored the house, and the only way to look at games of chance as far as he was concerned was to consider them entertainment. You wanted to play in the casinos, you took a few dollars and spent them, just as if you were paying for dinner and a show. Once they were gone, that was it, you quit, end of story. You didn't dig into your pocket to win back what you'd lost, and if you happened to come out ahead by the time you were supposed to leave, you went home and put the money in the bank.

  His father had taught him that. If you play somebody else's game, most of the time they are going to win. Better to spend your money where it will do you some good.

  Howard's room was small, clean, and the water pressure in the shower was not as bad as he'd expected. After he cleaned up, he unpacked his duffel, slipped into a pair of no-iron khaki slacks and a short-sleeve shirt, and found some clean socks and his old loafers. Always paid to take civilian clothes if you were working anywhere near a town. One minute you were a soldier, the next you were a civilian. With the variation in hairstyles these days, nobody could tell by looking.

  So, call home, visit with the family, then grab a bite to eat. And after that? Maybe come back to the room and read. After all, he had to get up early, and while the rare bacterial infection he'd had a while back that made him feel old and tired had been cleared up, the days when he could party all night long and then go straight to work without missing a beat were long past. If he was going to be up and ready to roll at 0600, he was going to have to get to bed at a decent hour.

  He grinned at himself in the mirror. Maybe Fernandez was right; maybe he should retire and go drown worms in a catfish pond.

  Nah. Not yet.

  Sunday, April 3rd

  Quantico, Virginia

  When Jay Gridley awoke, he had a moment of panic: Where was he?

  There was an IV going into his left hand, a tube running from his penis into a bag attached to the side of the bed, and wireless pickups stuck to his chest and his head. There was a cuff around his left upper arm. He wore one of those shortie open-backed gowns.

  A hospital, okay, he got that. And something must have happened to him for him to be here. An accident?

  He couldn't remember. He started to look at his arms and legs more carefully, to see if anything was missing or damaged. No, they were there, and he wasn't feeling any pain--

  A tall, short-haired brunette in green scrubs appeared next to the bed. She took Jay's right wrist in her hand and looked at her watch. She was about thirty, very attractive. She smiled at him. "Hey," she said.

  He couldn't feel her fingers on his wrist. In fact, he couldn't feel his right arm at all. Couldn't even relate to it. As if that arm she was holding belonged to somebody else. What--?

  She said, "You're in the Neuro Ward at the base hospital. You had a CVA, a cerebrovascular accident. A stroke. My name is Rowena. I'm the floor nurse this shift. Do you understand?"

  A stroke? How could that be? He said, "I understand." But what came out of his mouth instead was a horrible, slurred, slack-lipped sound: "Awo unnersan."

  His incipient panic expanded into full-blown terror.

  The nurse put her hand on his chest, on the left side. He felt that. "Easy. Your doctor is on the way, she'll explain it all to you, but listen, don't worry. You've got some transient paralysis on the right side. It's going to go away. What happened to you was not major. The drugs you are on are going to fix the damage. It'll take a few days, maybe a couple of weeks, okay? But you are going to be all right."

  Gridley felt his panic abate a little. He was going to be all right. He clutched at that, trying to get a tighter grip on it. He was going to be all right.

  Unless she is just telling you that so you don't lose it, his inner voice said.

  Another woman entered the room, a short, heavyset bleached blonde. She also wore green scrubs, and she carried a flatscreen. Without preamble, she said, "I'm Dr. West. Some time yesterday afternoon you had a small CVA--a stroke. There were no clots or major bleeders apparent on the CAT and MEG brain scans, and the cause is idiopathic--that means we don't know what caused it. Your vital signs are normal, your blood pressure, respiration, and pulse are all fine, and your blood chemistry is within normal limits. Aside from the CVA, everything is great. You have what we think is a transient hemiplegia or hemiparesis, and we expect full resolution of that. You following me?"

  Gridley nodded, not wanting to hear his own voice.

  "Good. You'll be here for a day or two, then we'll let you go home. Physical therapy starts this afternoon. Somebody will come in and show you some exercises."

  The doctor glanced at her watch. "Got to run. I'll check in on you later, with a bunch of medical students. People will come and go, draw blood, give you meds. Try to get some rest."

  Dr. West handed the flatscreen to Rowena and left.

  Get some rest?

  Yeah, right. Part of his brain had exploded and he was supposed to rest? No way. Not gonna happen. He didn't want to just lie there and worry about it, either, but what choice did he have? He was tubed and wired, and he wasn't going anywhere.

  Lord. How could this have happened?

  7

  Sunday, April 3rd

  The Yews, Sussex, England

  Applewhite brought Goswell's tray and set it on the table. Vapor rose from the teapot's spout--it was a bit cool out here in the garden, but crisp and bracing. Goswell nodded. "Thank you, Applewhite."

  The butler poured a cup of tea, adding one lump of sugar and a squeeze of lemon. "More scones, sir?"

  "I think not. A telephone, if you would."

  "Certainly, milord."

  Applewhite produced a mobile from his jacket pocket before Goswell could even take a sip of the tea. He shook his head. Technology. A mixed blessing, to be sure, but fortunately, one that had served him well, financially and otherwise.

  "And what was our scientist fellow's name again?"

  "Peter Bascomb-Coombs, milord."

  "Ah, yes, of course." Goswell repeated the man's name into the phone, then held it to his ear. It rang thrice.

  "Yes, what is it?" He sounded irritated. Well, of course, these kinds of fellows always did.

  "Geoffrey Goswell here."

  "Oh. Lord Goswell." That changed his tone quick enough, eh what? "What may I do for you?"

  "Not much, my boy. I was ringing you up to see about that, ah ... small matter we discussed recently over supper."

  "Ah, yes, well, it is proceeding apace, my lord. There have been a couple of minor setbacks, but
I have taken care of them, and we should be back on schedule right enough."

  He was properly cautious, the scientist. Even though Peel had assured him that his mobile phone and the scientist's were both secure against eavesdroppers, Goswell hated to have things of this nature spoken aloud outside the confines of his own home.

  He nodded, then realized the man couldn't see him because this mobile didn't have cameras and whatnot connected to it. "Right, then. And those, ah, curious fellows you spoke of?"

  "They are no longer curious, my lord. They have other things to occupy their minds at the moment."

  "Very good, then. I'll ring off now."

  Applewhite appeared and took the mobile, put it away. "Will there be anything else, milord?"

  "Yes, see if you can hunt up Peel, would you? I'd like to have a word with him if he's available."

  "At once, milord."

  Applewhite departed to fetch the major. That, at least, would give Goswell time enough to sip his tea before it got cold.

  From the corner of his eye, Goswell caught a motion. He looked directly that way and saw a rabbit over in the flower bed, nibbling on some greenery. Cheeky bastard! He wasn't fifty feet away! Of course, the dratted rabbits never came out when he had his shotgun at hand; they were smart enough to know that wasn't wise. His vision was not as keen as once it was, but he could, by God, still pot a thieving rabbit at fifty feet with either barrel of his Purdey fowling piece, thank you very much. He considered calling Applewhite and telling him to collect his shotgun so that he could blast the offending rabbit but decided against it. It was too lovely a morning to ruin with shotgun noise, satisfying as it might be to teach the bunny some proper manners. Better to have the care-taker loose his dogs on the things. They seldom caught one, the dogs, but they had such fun chasing them, and the rabbits tended to clear off for a time thereafter.