Breaking Point

by Tom Clancy

  Howard looked at the gun as he slipped the ring back on. The theory was fine. If your kid found your weapon and hadn’t been taught properly, at least he wouldn’t shoot himself or one of the neighbors. It wasn’t foolproof—somebody could snatch one of the rings and use it—but it was supposed to keep Net Force people from being shot if they lost a gun in the heat of battle. And once a month, you were to run your ring through a coder that reset the command signal, so any lost rings would no longer work after thirty days. He didn’t like it, but that was how it was going to be. End of story.

  Back at the lane, Howard loaded the revolver using his .357 ammo. The shells were a little harder to put into the chambers than they were in the Smith, but not that much harder.

  He set a stationary bull’s-eye at fifteen meters, lined the sights up. The front sight had a red dot on it, easy to see under the overhead lane lights. He squeezed off a round. He was surprised. Even though it fired the same cartridge, the recoil seemed considerably less than the Smith. Probably because it was a heavier piece, plus the barrel was a half-inch longer. He looked at the counter. A centimeter below dead center. Probably zeroed at twenty-five meters.

  He cooked off the rest of the cylinder, and managed a grouping that went maybe four or five centimeters, all in the X ring. Damn. This was great for a gun he’d never fired before. Hell, it was great for a gun he’d been shooting for years. Pointed fine, too; it felt very ergonomic in his grip.

  “Not bad for an old guy,” Julio said. “Want to get back to it?” He waved at the target.

  “You and the Beretta you sleep with against a gun I’ve just picked up? Right.”

  “Tell you what, to make it fair, I’ll go and borrow that snub .38 Special Gunny has. Ten bucks says I can beat you with that.”

  “If you are determined to give up your money, Sergeant, I will take it.”

  Fernandez grinned. “Be right back.”

  London, England

  Toni Fiorella deflected Carl Stewart’s right punch to her throat with her own strike at his face—

  Because he had his punch backed up with his left hand, the wipe was there, and he took it, and fired a backup elbow at her temple—

  Because her strike was also covered with her off hand, she had the parry for his elbow and she rolled it aside—

  Carl switched tactics, twisted, went with her move, looped his parried hand across her chest and stepped in for a throw behind her leg, the kenjit—

  Toni dropped her weight, knees bent deeply, leaned forward, and reversed the move, snapped her own foot back, caught his leg for a beset takedown—

  Carl leaned in, put his head on her shoulder, stole her base, and switched feet—fast!—and did the inside sweep, sapu dalam—

  She wasn’t quick enough with the counter, and she went down, dived and tried to make it into a roll, but he was there, tapping her on the floating ribs with the heel of his wrestling shoe, just hard enough to let her know he had the shot.

  Toni grinned, took his offered hand, and got back to her feet. The entire sequence had taken maybe three seconds.

  “Good series,” he said.

  “Yes.” They were alone in the school where he taught his classes, a version of the Indonesian martial art of pentjak silat that was similar to her own system. Toni had been training since the age of thirteen; she knew the eight djurus of the entry-level style called Bukti Negara, plus the eighteen djurus of the more complex parent art, Serak, and until she had met Carl Stewart, had never sparred with anybody who could beat her. Well, except for her teacher, Guru DeBeers. Guru was in her eighties now, still shaped like a brick and dangerous to anybody who might be stupid enough to think she was a helpless old lady, but if push came to shove, Toni knew she could best her teacher in a fight. Barely.

  That was the thing about silat; it didn’t depend on strength or speed, but more on principles. In theory, a player always expected to go up against bigger, stronger, and multiple opponents, who were probably armed, and at least as well trained. Being able to survive and even prevail under such circumstances meant your technique had to be very good, and your system absolutely scientific. There were no perfect arts that would handle every possible attack—when Toni talked to martial artists who claimed their ancient systems were complete, she’d always ask them which form taught them how to defend against a twelve-gauge shotgun at thirty feet—but some arts were more effective than others. In her opinion, silat was better than most. Of course, she would think that, given her years of training in it.

  Carl glanced at the wall clock. “Got an hour before the beginning class gets here. You want to get a cup of tea? Or coffee?”

  Toni hesitated a second, then said, “Sure.”

  There was no reason not to. Alex was back in Washington, and she was still not happy with him. She had programmed her com to bounce his calls, though he still tried to get through at least once every day. They were officially broken up, and she didn’t work for Net Force anymore. She had enough money to stay in London through the summer, if she felt like it, then she was going to have to find a job, and that would have to be back in the U.S. Meanwhile, she was learning a lot from Carl, who was easily the best silat player she had ever seen in person. He was a good twenty years older than she was, but there was an attraction that went beyond martial arts. He was in good shape, good-looking, and, she had found out by accident, rich. He hadn’t pushed it, but Carl knew she and Alex had split, and he was interested in her as a woman.

  So far, she hadn’t pursued a relationship beyond exchanging ways to beat attackers to various kinds of pulp. So far. It was tempting—Alex had done so with Angela Cooper, the MI-6 operative they had worked with on the Goswell operation, and Toni was still very much pissed off at him for that. Yeah, sure, she had stumbled with Rusty that one time, but that was before she and Alex had become lovers. That didn’t really count.

  The thing was, as angry as she was at Alex, as much as she wanted to break things and yell herself hoarse at him, she still loved him.

  It was kind of hard to get around that, loving him.

  Still, Carl was here, he wanted to get to know her better, and there were no strings on her. She had an idea that Carl would probably be a caring and considerate lover, and she and Alex hadn’t spent much time making love the last few weeks they had been together, and that had been more than a month ago. It was a thought.

  Carl was halfway to the door before Toni realized she was lost in her thoughts.

  She hurried to catch up with him.

  “I’ve been thinking, there’s a place you might like to see,” he said. “You busy Saturday morning?”

  “Not at all,” she said.

  “Fine. I’ll pick you up at your flat. Around eight A.M.?”

  “Great.”

  Quantico, Virginia

  Howard had to admit that the P&R had some advantages over the Smith. He recovered the sight picture for his second shot quicker, and the slightly longer sight radius made him more accurate. He was doing better than he usually did with the Smith, and for a new gun, that was fairly amazing. The trigger was crisp, maybe four pounds single-action, ten or so double-action. These people did good work on their hardware. Made in Plano, Texas, according to the information stamped into the black steel. Who would have guessed that? Texas.

  Even so, Julio was beating him, just barely. And using a snub-nose Chief’s Special he had never shot before, that ought to be impossible.

  After the last go-round, Howard put the Medusa down. He liked it. He could use it for a few days until the Smith was repaired.

  “Sergeant Fernandez, bring that little revolver here, I want to take a look at it.”

  “God hates a sore loser, John.”

  “Let me see it.”

  Fernandez came around the barrier, holding the .38 Special snubbie on his palm, cylinder latch up.

  Howard looked at the weapon. Stainless steel, two-inch barrel, plain ramp-and-notch sight, nonadjustable. The grips were black plastic, boot-s
tyle, cut small so as not to reveal a concealed weapon under a thin jacket. The Chief was basically a smaller version of his revolver, a J-frame to his K-frame, a five-shooter instead of a six-honker. In the hands of an expert, this gun could certainly put the bullets on target, but the short barrel and minimal sights made such a thing difficult on a good day without a lot of practice. Julio shouldn’t be able to do it right out of the box.

  “Satisfied?” He started to pull his hand away.

  Howard grabbed the revolver and turned it over. When he did, he noticed the little bulge at the top of the other grip panel. At the same time, he felt the small button on the inside of the grip, under his middle finger. “And just what is this?” He pointed the gun downrange and squeezed the grips.

  A hundred meters away, a bright red spot appeared all the way out on the back wall.

  There was a laser built into the grips.

  “You cheating bastard. You set me up.”

  Julio laughed. “Gunny showed it to me before you got here. It’s from somebody called Crimson Trace—cool, ain’t it? You adjust it with a tiny little Allen wrench, right there, and up there, and it fits inside a regular holster. Doesn’t add any appreciable mass or weight, and unlike a dot scope, you don’t even have to bring the weapon up to eye level, you can hip-shoot. Gets a couple thousand rounds per set of batteries, and you can carry a spare set in the other grip panel. They make ’em for K-frames, too, so you could get them for the Medusa or the Smith.”

  “You work for these people, too, Julio?”

  Julio laughed again and pointed at the dancing dot. “Old guys like us, we need some advantages. You can see that sucker a couple hundred meters away in the dark and, according to Gunny, it shows up okay at handgun combat range even in daylight. Wherever the red spot is, that’s where the bullet hits. If it’s foggy or you’re worried about giving away your position, you can use the regular sights, ’cause the laser don’t get in the way. Gunny says they make these for a whole bunch of guns, including my Beretta. I’m gonna get one before Joanna has our kid and we have to start putting away every penny for his college education.”

  “God hates a cheater more than he does a sore loser.”

  “No second-place winner in a gunfight, John. You know that. What do you think about the Medusa?”

  It wouldn’t do to admit to Julio how much he liked it, so he said, “I can force myself to use it until Gunny gets the Smith back on-line.”

  Julio gave him a knowing grin. “Ah. I see.”

  They’d been serving together too long for Howard to get much past his old friend. He grinned. “Okay, so it’s a great piece, you happy?”

  “You working for these people, John? Getting a commission on sales?”

  It was Howard’s turn to laugh, and he did.

  3

  Seattle, Washington

  Sitting in his Dodge Caravan, Patrick Morrison rode the ferry from Seattle toward Bainbridge Island. This was the first leg of a journey that would involve driving north after the boat ride, another ferry, then another short stint in the car, to finally arrive back at Port Townsend. The picturesque little town on the little peninsula where the Straits of Juan de Fuca turned south into Puget Sound was only about forty miles away from downtown Seattle as the crow flew, but a two-hour trip by car and boat, if you were lucky enough to make the ferry connections just right.

  Morrison owned a house on the hill in Port Townsend, where Shannon, his bride of four months, was doubtless still in bed asleep at this hour. She was twenty-five, gorgeous, a trophy wife half his age. Shannon was his second marriage, the first one having gone bad after almost twenty years. Marian had also been beautiful when he’d met her, and brilliant, which he’d always thought was the bigger attraction. But she’d let herself go, had gotten fat and lazy, and, it turned out, had been too smart—especially with her mouth. He liked intelligent women, but he found that he liked them at a distance. Too close, and they were like fire, you got burned by their brilliance. Marian had turned that heat onto him too many times, and she knew all the spots where it would hurt him the most.

  Shannon, on the other hand, was not the sharpest knife in the drawer. She wasn’t really stupid, probably about average intelligence; she thought he was a genius, being a scientist and all. Actually, he just missed the cut for genius by an IQ point or two, but he was pretty sure she would never throw that in his face. Nor would she stab him with the pointed question that, if he was so smart, why hadn’t he won a Nobel?

  Besides, Shannon knew tricks with her hands and her body that Morrison had never dreamed of doing in nineteen years of marriage to Marian. Her mouth was smart—but in an entirely different way ...

  He shifted a bit, suddenly excited by the idea of being home and in bed with Shannon. Easy, big fella, he told himself. It’s a ways yet.

  The big ferry blasted its warning horn at a sailboat that ventured too near. Sail craft generally had the right of way over powerboats, all things being equal, but a ferry hauling scores of cars and hundreds of passengers was more equal than a thirty-foot sailboat foolish enough to tack in front of it. A sailor and a retired airline pilot that Morrison knew liked to say, “If you fly your plane into a mountain, you don’t get to blame the mountain.” Nobody had any sympathy for a day sailor who cut in front of a ferry—or plowed into one, which also happened from time to time.

  Morrison opened the Dodge’s door and stepped out. The van was six years old, but a Dodge, so it was good for years if he took care of it. Not that he intended to keep it that long. Pretty soon, he’d be able to buy a new car. A fleet of new cars, if he wanted, with a ship upon which to transport the fleet, and a navy to escort it, if he so wished.

  He smiled at the thought.

  The air had that salty, seaweed tang to it, and even though it was early and there was the passage wind blowing, the day was already warm, and promised to be hot before it was done.

  He worked his way across the hard rubber gratings toward the railing—he was parked forward and on the deck under the sky, outside of the superstructure enclosure where all the foot passengers rode.

  Gulls flew past. It was a great morning.

  Of course it was a great morning. The test had gone so well he couldn’t believe it. The Chinese had clamped down on it fast, squelching the incident into official silence deeper than that in a tomb, so there hadn’t been any reports in the media, even in China. Maybe especially in China.

  Morrison had his sources, though, and he found out quickly enough. The test had replicated the experiments with animals even better than anticipated. Well within the cutoff that separated “chronic” from “acute.” It might not work on a battlefield with shifting troops, but the device would definitely work on a permanent settlement.

  He’d known that it would. Well, to be absolutely honest, he had been almost certain. There was always the worry about field testing versus the lab. One never got over that. It took only a few failures to keep that anxiety alive forever, rather like Frankenstein’s monster, shambling around in the dark looking for a friend.

  Failure, unfortunately, had no friends. Which was how Dr. Patrick Reilly Morrison, with his Ph.D. in physics from MIT, had come to be involved with the project in the first place. He’d had a spectacular failure in his extremely low frequency experiments involving chimpanzees, and he’d lost his grant and funding big-time and damned fast. It was as if he had developed a sudden case of pneumonic plague—the first sneeze, and every professional contact he knew scattered as if they were parts of a bomb—ka-blamm!—leaving him stinking of smoke and failure and very much alone. No rat leaving a sinking ship had ever moved as fast as his grad students and research assistants had bailed on him, bastards and bitches, each and every one of them ...

  He smiled at his own bitterness. Well, it really was an ill wind that blew no good, wasn’t it? If the ELF simian protocols hadn’t gone south on him, he’d never have gotten the job in Alaska, would he? And look where that had taken him. He could hardly be
positioned better, could he?

  Well, yes, he supposed, academically he could be. And certainly in pure scientific circles, with major universities begging him to come and present papers? Well, he was not at the top of that list. Ah, but if somebody just up and gave you five or six hundred million dollars, maybe more, to fund whatever research your heart desired, no strings, no oversight? Well, that would go a long, long way to assuage one’s wounded ego, wouldn’t it? People would kill for that kind of funding, and rightly so.

  Money would get you through times of no Nobel better than a Nobel would get you through times of no money, that was the cold truth.

  With half a billion in his pocket, he could thumb his nose at the journals, take his time to do whatever he damned well pleased, and when he was ready, then they’d come begging, by God! Because his theories did work after all, didn’t they?

  True, he didn’t want to take the credit for it just now, given the mode and manner in which he had finally proved himself correct, but someday it would be his to claim. Perhaps he would hire the Goodyear blimp and have it fly back and forth across the country with lights flashing and blazing it out for all to see:

  “I told you so!”

  He looked at his watch. He would go home, spend the day with Shannon, then catch a plane back to SeaTac for the flight to Washington, D.C. After the second and third tests, the events would surely be public, and it was of primary importance that he be prepared for that. He was one of the sharper knives in the drawer, and he knew that it was not enough to be smart, you had to be clever as well. Smart, clever, a beautiful young wife who thought the sun rose and set in his shadow, and rich—he had it all but the last, and that was coming, a mere matter of a few weeks or months. When you got right down to it, how important was academic recognition compared to those? He could fund research if he wanted! Be a foundation unto himself!