He sipped his tea. And when Peel approached, the rabbit decided to remove himself. Perhaps it somehow knew that Peel was an excellent shot with his ever-present pistol and that to stay might be unwise.
"My lord?"
" 'Morning, Major. Do sit down and have some tea."
"Thank you, my lord." Peel seated himself. A decent chap, the image of his father, old Ricky. He poured himself a cup of tea, black, no sugar.
"I've been thinking about this scientist fellow of ours."
"Bascomb-Coombs," Peel said.
"The very one. I've been thinking perhaps we should keep a close eye on him, if you know what I mean. He is valuable enough, but with the things he has tucked away in his head, we wouldn't want to have a falling out, now would we?"
"I shouldn't think a falling out is likely, my lord."
"Well, no, hardly. But one must be diligent and prepared, what?"
"I understand completely. As it happens, I have anticipated that you might feel this way, so I've set a watch upon our Mr. Bascomb-Coombs."
"Have you? Excellent. You're a good lad, Peel."
"Thank you, my lord. I appreciate your confidence in me."
Goswell smiled and sipped at his tea. It was good to have men like Peel around, men who knew how to do things without having to be led by the hand. Men of decent breeding who wouldn't embarrass one with social blunders or rash actions. More like him, and the Empire would never have sunk so low.
"Should Mr. Bascomb-Coombs should ever think to become a problem, my lord, we are of course prepared to deal with him in an ... expedient manner."
"Ah, well, very good, then. Have a scone."
Peel smiled and gave him a short nod. Such a good fellow to have around. Pity about all that Irish business. Still, the regiment's loss was Goswell's gain. Would that he had another dozen like Peel. Good help was so hard to come by these days.
"Excellent scones, my lord."
"I'll have Applewhite tell Cook you said so."
This is how a gentleman was supposed to breakfast. On a sunny spring day at one's country estate, on tea and good scones, in the company of decent fellows. Indeed.
Sunday, April 3rd
London, England
Toni and Alex sat in a small restaurant near their hotel, having coffee and breakfast. She said, "We have a flight leaving from Heathrow at noon. I couldn't get us on the Concorde or on a direct, so we'll have to change planes at Kennedy for a cropduster to Dulles."
Alex sipped his coffee, then said, "You could stay here. There's no need for you to kill your vacation."
"Stay here by myself? What fun would that be?"
"Well, this silat class you found sounds interesting."
"Two hours in the evening. If you go, I'm going. You'll need me at work."
He stirred his eggs around with his fork, not really interested in eating them. "Over easy," he said. "If these things had been fried any harder, you could play hockey with them."
"I'm sorry about Jay," she said.
"The doctor said he would be fine. Probably no lasting effects."
"Even so."
"I can't believe that he was injured due to something that happened in VR." Alex stared at the hard eggs.
"You saw the reports from the Brits and the Japanese. Same thing happened to their people, and they were both poking around in the same area Jay was."
"It still doesn't seem possible."
"Neither does breaking the code for the Pakistani train. Whoever did that is leaps and bounds ahead of us. They know things we don't."
"There's a cheery thought."
She looked at him. He seemed terribly glum. "Something else on your mind, Alex?"
He prodded the eggs a final time, then put his fork down. "Well, yeah. I didn't want to bother you with it."
"Go ahead, bother me. What?"
"I got a notice from my ex-wife's lawyers on an e-fax this morning."
"And ... ?"
"Megan is suing for total custody of Susan."
"Oh, no."
"Oh, yeah. Maybe I shouldn't have decked her new boyfriend."
"You said she was planning to do it before that."
"Yes. But that probably didn't help. Or that I said if he slept over again with Susie in the house, I'd throw an adultery charge at her."
"You were angry."
"Uh-huh. And stupid. She's not a bad woman, it's just that she knows how to get under my skin."
"Don't make excuses for her. She's a bitch."
He smiled. "Unfortunately, she's a bitch who is the mother of my only child, and she wants to take my daughter away. To have that bearded teacher become Daddy instead."
"What did your lawyer say?"
"What lawyers always say. Don't worry, he'll handle it, Megan won't win."
She reached across the table and took his hand. "It'll work out. You're too good a person; any judge will see that."
He smiled again, turned his hand up and squeezed hers. "Thanks. I love you."
"That's why I'm here."
She had loved Alex for a long time, and even though he could sometimes be exasperating, with the way he bottled up his emotions and the way he tried to shield her from things, in the grand cosmic scheme of things, these were minor problems. They'd get them worked out, eventually. She was sure of it.
Sunday, April 3rd
Las Vegas, Nevada
Despite his resolve to get to bed early, the depth of the night found John Howard standing in a parking lot outside the Luxor Hotel and Casino, staring into the sky. He'd just taken a long midnight walk. A crisp, dry wind blew and whirled among the cars, stirring dust. The parking lot was surrounded by palm trees and other vegetation not native to this area. The Nevada summers were hot enough to convince the trees they could thrive--as long as they were watered--but the palms looked somehow uncomfortable as they stood around the edges of the concrete, swaying in the breeze, as if they knew they didn't belong here.
From the apex of the giant black pyramid that was the Luxor, a tight ring of spotlights, focused into one large ray, beamed straight up into the night. The heat from the laserlike column that shot up was intense enough that it sucked air and dust into itself, shoving it heavenward in a fountain of photons. Night had to watch Las Vegas from a distance; the city didn't allow the dark to come in.
Howard observed the boiling light beam. A moth that ventured too close to that white column would find itself roasted and blown halfway to the moon real quick.
There was something incredibly decadent about the whole city of Las Vegas, and the Luxor was a good example of it. More than four thousand rooms, at least half a dozen theme restaurants, a casino that never shut down, an Olympic-sized swimming pool, plus a boat voyage to the Land of the Dead, right in the atrium. It was ancient Egypt by way of Walt Disney, and for a dollar, you could tug on the arm of an Egyptian deity and take a chance on the big payoff. Place your bets, ladies and gentlemen, place your bets....
He had gone in and looked around and been amazed, but also overwhelmed, by it all. Here outside the massive structure, whose entrance was marked by a giant obelisk that shamed Cleopatra's Needle, and guarded by a sphinx in much better repair than the big one in Egypt, Howard got a sense of how truly rich the United States was. A nation that could produce such places as this, designed for leisure, for entertainment, for the millions who could afford to come and play here, well, that said a lot about such a country. He could hardly blame the owners, whose goal was to separate suckers from their money. They had done a great job. But as attractive and over the top as it was, there was something ... repellent about it at the same time.
Las Vegas called to the party-loving hearts in people, the carpe diem, grasshopper, be-here-now-and-devil-take-tomorrow psyches. But it also called to the dark side, the desperate, the greedy, the addicted. It was plastic and neon and all that was cheap and shoddy about America. But it was also fun.
Howard laughed and began the hike back toward his own motel room. Gett
ing to be a philosopher in your old age, eh, John? Next thing you know, you'll be sitting in a dark room contemplating your navel.
He laughed again. Well, maybe not just yet.
Sunday, April 3rd
Stonewall Flat, Nevada
Ruzhyo awoke from a troubled sleep, coming alert all at once as he had learned to do years ago in Spetsnaz. He listened but heard nothing out of the ordinary. After a few minutes, he got up, went to the bathroom, then walked to the door of the trailer and opened it. Naked, he looked into the desert.
The night was clear, and stars beyond counting hung in the sky, hard, glittery pinpoints. A breeze blew and stirred the scrub and sand, but there was nothing else moving. No signs of life.
He rubbed at his chin. He had not shaved in several days, and perhaps it was time to do so.
A moment later, he closed the door. Something was wrong. Danger lurked outside his door. Even though he could not see nor hear it, he knew it was there.
He sighed. Now it was time to take the guns out and make ready. There were other things to check, too, preparations he had made when first he arrived. If Death had come to claim him at last, he would not feel sorrow, but if he lost the battle, he would do so trying his best to win. It was rusty and not used of late, but all he had left was his craft. He would display it as best he could.
Ruzhyo went back to the bathroom. He would wash his face and shave, then he would get dressed and make his preparations for war.
8
Sunday, April 3rd
London, England
Michaels and Toni were checking out of the hotel to catch a taxi to the airport when the desk clerk said, "It might be a good idea if you rang your air carrier, sir."
"Oh"
"Yes, sir. We've just gotten word that there's been something of a problem with flight schedules out of Heathrow. And out of Gatwick, as well, I'm afraid."
The clerk, as it turned out, was a master of understatement. Michaels's attempts to connect with British Airways were unsuccessful. All incoming lines, he was told by a recording, were temporarily busy, and would he please try again later?
While he was doing just that, Toni caught him by the arm and pulled him over to a television set in the hotel pub. The BBC had broken into regular programming for a special bulletin: Apparently nearly all the computer systems at the world's largest airports had gone bonkers. These included not only the ticketing and reservations computers but the flight control systems and auto-nav landing beacons as well. A quick check showed problems in Los Angeles, New York, Dallas--Fort Worth, Denver, Sydney, Auckland, Jakarta, New Delhi, Hong Kong, Moscow, Paris, and London. Passenger air travel at major terminals around the world had been brought to a virtual halt in a matter of minutes. Airline personnel were trying to manage, but without computers, the process was next to impossible. In many places, you couldn't buy a ticket or get a seat assignment. If you could, there wasn't likely to be plane waiting--assuming you could find the proper gate--and if you did find a plane, it wasn't going anywhere any time soon.
Today, at least, man was apparently not meant to fly.
"Jesus," Michaels said.
"It's a mess, all right. And you know what?"
Michaels nodded sourly. "Yeah. Somehow, it's going to become our mess."
He knew he shouldn't have said that, knew that the bored god who stood watch for fools was ever alert for just such comments. The response wasn't long in coming.
"Commander Michaels?"
Michaels found himself staring at a tall, green-eyed woman of maybe thirty. She had short, dishwater-blonde hair, and was dressed in a dark, conservative suit, with a skirt almost to her knees, and sensible flats. When she took a step toward him, he figured she was a gymnast. Or a dancer, maybe. Very nice ...
"Yes?"
"My name is Angela Cooper, I'm with MI-6." She pulled out a wallet with a holographic ID and showed it to him. "Would you and Ms. Fiorella be good enough to accompany me? Minister Wood and Director-General Hamilton would like very much to have a word with you."
"We're supposed to catch a plane," he said.
Cooper nodded at the television, then gave him a small smile. "I'm afraid that's unlikely in the near future, sir. And if we are going to repair that problem, we could use your help. We've cleared it with your director."
Michaels looked at Toni. She raised her eyebrows in a what-the-hell expression.
Well, why not? It would probably beat sitting in a crowded waiting room at the airport. Besides, he had heard a lot about the MI-6 building; it would be interesting to see it, if nothing else.
Something about Angela Cooper grated on Toni. As Cooper drove the three of them through the London streets in the big right-hand-drive Dodge toward Vauxhall Crossing, Toni tried to pin it down. The woman was attractive, polite, and well-spoken. She was probably about the same age as Toni, give or take a year, and if she was an agent with MI-6, they probably had a lot in common. On the face of it, there didn't seem to be any reason to dislike Ms. Cooper. Maybe it was chemistry. Or maybe it was the expression on Alex's face when the woman had accosted them. That quickly veiled look of male interest. Alex said he was in love with her, and Toni believed him, but men were hard to fathom at times. If she hadn't been standing there, what would Alex's response to the tall dirty-blonde have been? Would he have flirted? Done more?
She didn't like herself for feeling jealous. There was no reason to believe Alex was unfaithful to their relationship, even in his thoughts, but it was how she felt. Nobody ever said love was logical. Or if they did, they lied.
"This is Vauxhall Bridge Road," Cooper said. "It's a straight shot across the Thames from here. You'll see our building coming up on the left, just there. It's right off the tube station." She pointed, and Toni leaned forward from where she sat in the rear to look.
The MI-6 building was an imposing and--for London--quite unusual-looking structure. The stone appeared to be cream-colored, there were lots of windows, and there seemed also a bunch of green on it--glass, Toni assumed.
Seated in front next to Cooper, Alex said, "I thought internal security was MI-5's responsibility, that MI-6 handled matters in foreign countries."
"Rather like the FBI and CIA?" Cooper said. "Well, to a degree, yes. But there is some overlap. Over the last few years, MI-5 has shifted many of its resources to focus on Northern Ireland and against organized crime and benefit fraud. The consensus at HQ is that this computer threat is probably foreign, which gives us some small leeway to look into it. We're all on the same team, after all."
Alex smiled. "That doesn't sound a lot like the FBI and CIA."
Cooper smiled back at him, flashing her perfect teeth. "Yes, of course, we have our interdepartmental rivalries as well. And MI-5--we call it Security Service, SS--does get a bit sticky if we tread too hard on their territory. But our ministers are rather put out by all this business, and so SIS--that's us at MI-6, the Secret Intelligence Service--are helping out a bit. The truth is, our computer system is better than SS's, so we're rather on point. Although I suspect we are somewhat behind you in the States in that regard. We've heard very good things about your organization over here. You're an offshoot of CITAC, aren't you? InfraGard?"
She was referring to the old Computer Investigations and Infrastructure Threat Assessment Center the FBI had created in the mid-nineties to deal with computer crime.
"Not exactly," Alex said, "but there's a connection, yes. You've obviously done your homework."
Cooper smiled again, another high-wattage, even-toothed, white flash.
Toni definitely did not like her, no question, and if Alex didn't stop grinning like a fool at everything Ms. Cooper said, he was going to be in trouble.
Obviously done her homework. Yeah. Right.
Sunday, April 3rd
Stonewall Flat, Nevada
Ruzhyo's preference for a handgun was a small caliber, like those he had grown accustomed to in Spetsnaz. In fact, such weapons were as efficient as the bigger bores t
he Americans preferred, if one could place the shot properly. A .22 in the eye was easily worth a .357 round in the chest, and it was much easier to shoot the small-bore pistol well: there was almost no recoil, little noise and muzzle flash, and a longer barrel made the weapon more accurate.
Americans were generally taught to shoot for the center of mass, and a bigger bullet was an advantage, given the relative weakness of all handguns, but they could have taken a page from the Israelis or Spetsnaz in that regard. With enough practice, head shots came naturally.
When he had come to stay here in the desert, Ruzhyo had bought two guns, both used. The first was a target pistol, a Browning IMSA Silhouette model, based on the company's Buck Mark design. It was a straight blow-back semiauto, held ten rounds in its magazine, and had a nine-inch barrel topped with a Tasco ProPoint sight. The sight was electronic. It created in the field of vision a tiny, red, parallax-free dot. Operation was simple: You chambered a round, turned the sight on, and put the dot on a target, and if you squeezed the trigger with care, that dot was where the bullet went. At ten meters, he could center-punch a dime with the Browning. At a hundred meters, with the gun propped on a secure rest, Ruzhyo could hit a hand-sized target all day long. He had, in practice, hit a human-sized target at almost three hundred meters, once he zeroed in and knew how much the bullet would fall and drift. Even such a small pellet as the Browning spat would be disconcerting if it hit you solidly at that distance. Not the best choice for long-range gunnery, but in theory, the ammunition he used, CCI Minimags, could fly a mile and a half. A rifle was a better weapon, of course, but the pistol could be hidden under a coat if need be, and still be used to strike a man in the head at distances well beyond that at which most shooters could operate most service handguns.
Night Moves (1999) Page 7
