Net Force nf-1

by Tom Clancy

  It could have been a coincidence, some hacker exploring, but he did not believe that, not for a moment. No, he was sure that it was a Net Force operative, using the information gathered during the chase. Had the positions been reversed, had he been tailing somebody in VR, he could have tracked somebody with what he would have gotten during that run. As much as it galled him to admit it, if he could do it, so could someone else.

  He had underestimated them once. He would not do so again.

  So. Either they knew who he was, or they were close to figuring it out. If it was still the latter, with the resources of Net Force at their disposal, it would be only a matter of time.

  And then? Ah, then was when it would get interesting. They had no hard evidence, he was certain of that. And in order to get such evidence, they would have to probe a lot deeper into his system than they could possibly have managed thus far. And if they did know who he was, they would know how impossible that was going to be. They would know his capabilities. The key to his cipher existed only inside his brain, it was not written down anywhere, and they couldn't legally force him to divulge it. Without the key, his coded files might as well be blocks of iron — nobody could open them, nobody.

  Plekhanov leaned back in his chair, steepled his fingers and considered the problem. Knowing who he was was not the same as proving what he had done. He had, of course, run scenarios in which Net Force or some other law enforcement organization had uncovered his identity before his plan came to full fruition. As unlikely as that possibility had seemed, he was too old and too experienced to have not at least considered it. In his worst case scenario, they knew who he was and they had proof of what he had done — the net rascals, the bribery, the killings, all of it.

  There was a point beyond which even that would not matter. Once his people came to power, he would be practically invulnerable. Extradition requests would not be denied outright. That would be impolite. An investigation into the charges against the valuable and honored friend of the people would, however, eventually come to the conclusion that it was not in the best interests of the country to turn him over to the Americans. Not that his people wouldn't throw him to the wolves if they thought they could get away with it. They would. Fortunately, the newly elected officials would not only owe him for their jobs, there would exist also a detailed record of how they got those jobs. To abandon him to the beasts would mean those responsible would fall off the sleigh with him. He had learned a long time ago that self-interest was more dependable than any amount of gratitude.

  This was distressing, of course. A blot on an otherwise perfect plan, but not crippling, not this far along. He would keep a careful watch on things, proceed with extra care, but keep going as before. Ruzhyo was in place. Any sudden activity from Net Force, and the Rifle could be fired to offer them more confusion. Past a certain point, nothing they did would matter, and that point was fast approaching.

  Wednesday, October 6th, 7:06 p.m. Quantico

  Michaels was still chewing on the news that Ray Genaloni was dead, along with his mistress and a bodyguard, as he wound the meeting down. Richardson had already gone.

  Alex had a couple of final assignments for his own people.

  "Jay, run scenarios on what Plekhanov might be after. Tie all the pieces you have together. Is there any way to figure out where he's been, who he's seen, both in VR and RW?"

  "Maybe. He'll have his files locked, but we've got an ID and we might be able to backwalk some of his movement."

  "Do so, please."

  Jay nodded. He left.

  Michaels said to Howard, "I need you to do something for me. Work up a plan that would involve a sub-rosa extraction of Plekhanov from Chechnya."

  Howard stared at him. "Sir?"

  "Assume for a second that we can't get the Russian legally extradited. What would it take for a team to go in and get him? Could it be done?"

  Howard didn't hesitate. "Yes, sir, it could be done. How sub-rosa are we talking about?"

  "We wouldn't want our troops marching down the main street in full dress uniform waving the stars ‘n' stripes; on the other hand, if something went wrong, we wouldn't leave them hanging. Dog tags under civilian clothes. Some kind of contingency plan if the extraction went sour. This is your area of expertise."

  "I see. I can work this up, sir, but realistically speaking, what are the odds of getting such a go-ahead?"

  "I'd say the chances are slim and snowball, Colonel, but as far as this scenario is concerned, we're talking the NRA slogan about guns and self-defense here."

  " ‘Better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it'?"

  "Exactly."

  "Sir. I'll work it up ASAP." Was that a new sense of respect in his voice? Even a little warmth?

  "Thank you, Colonel."

  Michaels went back to his office. Toni walked along with him.

  "If Genaloni had Steve Day killed, he's beyond our reach now," she said.

  "Somebody saved the people the cost of a long and expensive trial, yeah. What I'm wondering is — who did it? And why?"

  Toni shrugged. "He's a mobster. They swat each other like people at an outdoor summer barbecue slap mosquitoes."

  They got to his office. Toni followed him in.

  He frowned. "This wasn't a casual, reactive swat. Somebody very professional did this, an expert. Three dead people in a quiet neighborhood and nobody saw anything. They capped Genaloni and his mistress inside the house, came out, dropped the bodyguard in the back, knowing there were four hardwared bodyguards out front. We're not just talking cool, we're talking about somebody with supercooled liquid in their veins. Anything I don't have here?" He waved at his computer screen.

  "Our forensic report is still preliminary. All we got is a boot print in the neighbor's yard. He's a little guy, whoever he is."

  Michaels raised an eyebrow.

  She called up the prelim: "See. Print looks like a man's size four or five. Depth in the ground says he weighed maybe one-fifteen, one-twenty. Cat-burglar build."

  Michaels shook his head. There was something about this rattling around in his mind… "I don't like it," he said, "it's too neat."

  "Sometimes things just… happen, Alex, and they aren't directly connected. You can't predict them. Somebody turns up in the right place at the right time, the circumstances are ripe, things just get out of hand."

  He looked at her. What was she talking about? It sounded more like an apology than an explanation.

  She looked uncomfortable. She said, "What I'm saying is, somebody had it out for Genaloni. Maybe the timing is a coincidence."

  Something occurred to him. He tapped his keyboard, called up a file.

  "What?"

  He didn't look up. "What size did you say this killer's shoe was?"

  "Four or a five. Forensics will know better when they get the cast back to the lab and do a like-surface comparison."

  "Let me ask you a question. Women's shoes and men shoes, how do they compare size-wise?"

  "Depends on the cut and maker, but usually the woman's shoe will be a couple of numbers larger than the same size in a man's. Why do you—? Oh."

  "Yeah. According to the computer extrapolation on the woman who picked up the dog in New York — and who came back and paid for losing it a few days ago, using a series of couriers like before — that woman wears a six. And weighs between a hundred and fifteen and a hundred and twenty-five pounds."

  "You think it's the same person?"

  "Coincidence only stretches so far. Our theory assumes that the woman who tried to kill me, who we think might have killed Steve Day, works for Genaloni. We know she was in New York to pay for the lost dog, and a few days later, Genaloni is killed by an expert who is about the same size. What does that say to you?"

  "Could be the same person. But if she was working for Genaloni…?"

  "Exactly. Why kill him?"

  "Maybe he didn't want to pay her for missing you," she said.

  "Maybe, bu
t it doesn't feel right, all of this." He thought about it for a second. "What if we're wrong about who had Steve Day killed? What if it was somebody who wanted to blame it on Genaloni? So maybe he found out and this woman deleted him. Maybe she's working for somebody else."

  "That's a stretch."

  "Yeah, it is, but consider: Day's assassination was by a team, and it was planned okay, but the execution was sloppy. A bunch of guys with submachine guns spraying all over the place, and even so, Day got one of them. Doesn't seem like this woman's style. She seems more adept than that."

  "She missed you."

  "Only because the dog barked. A second later or earlier, I'd be history."

  "So what are you saying here? There are two sets of killers?"

  "I don't know. But it's a possibility. We assumed that Day's death was due to his long battle with organized crime. The way it was done, his history, that would make sense. But what if we're wrong? What if somebody else did it? What if it wasn't connected to OC at all?"

  "Okay, let's assume for a second you're right. Who? And why? Why would anybody want to take you out?"

  "What do Day and I have in common?"

  "Net Force. You took over as Commander when he died."

  "Exactly. What if the attacks weren't on us personally, but on the heads of Net Force?"

  "From two different sets of killers?"

  "Yes."

  They both thought about that for a moment without saying anything else.

  There was a quick knock. They looked up to see Jay Gridley standing there.

  "What's up, Jay?"

  "Put in for my raise, Boss. We got her. The assassin. A positive ID."

  35

  Thursday, October 7th, 8:48 a.m. Quantico

  Toni sat in her office, looking at the information Jay had developed. There was no photo or holograph to go with it. It was old material, and not much of that.

  The fingerprints of the suspected assassin, lifted from the wall of a Holiday Inn in Schenectady, New York, had a match: They belonged to Mora Sullivan, an Irish national, the daughter of an IRA man killed by the British. When the prints were taken, little Mora had been eight years old. And from then on, there was no further record of the girl or woman in any of the computer systems linked to Net Force — which was most international police systems. She had vanished. Or, as Jay had said, somebody who knew what they were doing had cracked her records and vanished them, leaving no trace and no trail. The only reason they had these prints was luck, because they were hardcopy from an Irish police station that hadn't gotten around to being uploaded until they'd been discovered with a few hundred other sets of prints years after they'd been taken.

  So what they had was her age, nationality and natural hair and eye color, along with her prints. Not a lot of help in recognizing her, given her ability with disguises. With wigs or hair dye, contact lenses and gloves, she could hide all of that; a little makeup and padded clothes, and her true age changed. She had already demonstrated that she could look a hefty forty or a frail seventy, and according to her records, she was only thirty-two. Even if they'd gotten a picture of little Mora, she and whatever she called herself now weren't going to look much alike.

  Still, more was better. When they finally ran her down, they'd be able to get a positive identification.

  Toni's phone announced an incoming call. The caller ID strip lit with the name.

  Her stomach twisted. Rusty. She'd been expecting the call, since he was returning hers, but even so, it tripped her fight-or-flight reactions. Sleeping with Rusty had been a mistake, she knew that, but she hadn't been able to figure out a way to tell him yet. She had put him off, but it wasn't fair to keep spraying fog at him. And it wasn't something she could tell him over the phone.

  "Hello."

  "Guru Toni. How are you?"

  Why did he have to sound so cheerful? "Fine. Busy. The usual."

  "What's up?"

  "I'm not going to be able to get to the gym for a workout today," she said. "Too much going on."

  "No problem. I have studying I ought to be doing. Tomorrow?"

  "Listen, I can break loose for a few minutes around lunch today, if you want to grab a quick cup of coffee?"

  "That would make my day."

  She winced at how happy he seemed when he said it. It would make his day, all right, but not in the way he thought.

  "How about Heidi's?" This was a coffee shop near the complex. It was a small, quiet place. They had lousy coffee and worse food, so there wouldn't be a crowd around when she told him.

  When she dumped him.

  "Great! See you then," he said.

  They discommed.

  Toni blew out a big sigh and stared at nothing. Yeah, Great.

  Somebody somewhere had surely written a book on how to tell a man you still liked, but didn't want to sleep with again, that you still liked him — but didn't want to sleep with him again. She wished she had read it. How did you just up and blurt it out? Look, it was a lot of fun screwing our brains out, and I like you and all, but I don't want to have sex with you anymore because it was a spur-of-the-moment mistake and, nothing personal or anything, but I love somebody else. Even though he doesn't think of me in that way. Sorry. So, how about them Orioles, huh?

  Toni tried to think how she would feel if the roles were reversed. It would be hard to be dumped, especially if she was in love with the man blandly telling her they should just be friends from now on. That was close enough to the relationship she had with Alex to be painful. If they'd slept together and he'd said it to her, she didn't think she'd be able to stand it.

  Did Rusty love her? He had not said so in those words, but he certainly was attracted to her strongly. And since the sex had been good, he might have trouble understanding. The problem was, he hadn't said or done anything wrong; it wasn't his fault. But no matter how she polished and shined it up, no matter how many pretty flowers she covered it in, it was still going to be a rejection: I don't want you anymore.

  Worse, it didn't matter what Rusty thought — he didn't have any choice. It was a done deal, not open to negotiation, end of discussion. So sorry.

  That it was already decided didn't make it any easier. She didn't want to hurt him, but it was either cut him off clean with a sudden slash, or poke him with a needle and let him slowly bleed out. That was the easier way. She could be too busy to see him, too busy to work out, too busy to answer his calls. His FBI training would end soon. He'd be posted as a junior agent to some field office a thousand miles away — a nasty part of her realized that if she wished it, she could even pull a few strings to arrange a distant posting — and that would be the end of it. A slow leak, eventually running dry, with Rusty probably wondering all the while what he'd done wrong.

  That was the coward's way, to stand back at a distance and avoid the confrontation. She had been taught to face things head-on, to move in close and do what was needed to finish things. It was more dangerous, but it was quicker and cleaner.

  Quicker. Cleaner. Harder.

  Then again, maybe all he wanted to do was get laid. He was male, she wasn't so ugly people crossed the street to avoid her — maybe sex was all he had in mind? That would make it easier.

  She wished she had somebody to talk to about this, a girlfriend to ask for advice, but there was nobody locally. She thought about calling her friend Irena back in the Bronx, but it didn't seem fair. They hadn't talked in months, and it didn't feel right to call her just to cry on her shoulder. Besides, Irena had never been a heavy dater. She'd had a couple of boyfriends before she got married, and she was madly in love with Todd. Toni had never told her about Alex, how she felt, and she would have to do that, to put the Rusty thing into context. Otherwise, why would she want to dump him, with all he had going for him?

  No, she'd have to do this on her own.

  She was not looking forward to it.

  Thursday, October 7th, 8:56 p.m. Quantico

  John Howard paced in his office while the compu
ter put together yet another scenario for the theoretical snatch of the Russian programmer. So far, Howard had run five operation plans, with the computer's estimates of their chances at success ranging from sixty-eight percent down to less than twelve percent. He did not like these numbers. Given his knowledge of ops out of the standard Strategy and Tactics modules, without at least an eighty-percent success estimate, people were likely to get hurt, maybe die. Could be the enemy lost troops, could be he did. The former was better than the latter, but in this particular combatsit, both were bad.

  Sometimes you had to fight the battle, no matter what the odds, but he didn't like going in knowing he was going to lose people.

  The big elements were stable, but the small variables were always the problem. The more of those he had information on, the better he could program the Op S&T mod, but — how to determine some of these? A straight-up fire-fight in a big field in the middle of nowhere was easy. But what, for instance, could you do to predict the traffic pattern on the streets of any large city during a covert operation? An unexpected wreck on a major artery during rush hour could cause a total stoppage; you had to figure on alternate routes, and you had to assume that if you wanted to take those routes, others caught in the jam would also want to use them. But even if you planned on a big truck overturning, how could you figure out where and when it might do so?

  You could not, unless you put it there yourself.

  If you reckoned on an assault during off-peak hours, early in the morning or in the middle of the night, say, that offered other problems to replace the ones you solved by choosing that option. Local police noticed activity in the middle of the night they might ignore during the day; if discovered, it was much harder to hide, and outrunning air pursuit on the ground for any distance was nearly impossible. They had helicopters everywhere now, even in countries where most of the population still lived in grass huts.