State Of War (2003)

by Tom - Net Force 07 Clancy

  "Cuddle?"

  "An old person's term," Howard said.

  Tyrone grinned real big.

  Howard said, "People used to live inside some of the buildings, like this one. See that window on the side, right there? Usually the people that owned or managed them."

  "No kidding?"

  "Nope. Your gramma took me to one when I was a little boy, when they were living down in Florida. I still remember it. If you didn't want to sit in your car, there were benches next to the snack bar where you could sit outside and watch the show. They were only open in the late spring, summer, and early fall. After it got cold, they shut them down for the season, even in Florida. They were huge places, took up a lot of real estate. I think television mostly killed them off."

  "Huh."

  Tyrone looked at the poem again. "So, okay, it's a theater. But what's all this about toothpick vampires and Kools and Pik and stuff?"

  Howard cast his memory way back, trying to recall the experience. He had stayed with his grandparents one summer when they'd still lived in Florida. He had been young, six, seven, and they had gone to the drive-in five or six times. And maybe a time or two when he'd been in California, as a teenager.

  "Well, the vampires would be mosquitoes. Kools were a brand of cigarette--that's what the older kids used to do, sneak off from their parents and smoke--and Pik? I think that was a coil of bug repellent you burned, kind of an incense, that kept the mosquitoes away."

  Tyrone nodded. He tapped something into his keyboard. A sub-image lit, a crawl of words. "Oh, okay, here we go--'The Merry Go Round Broke Down.' That's the name of the music they play on the Merrie Melody cartoons!"

  "Really?"

  Tyrone was getting into it now. "I guess this part had to do with sucking face in the cars," he said.

  Howard smiled. The boy was fifteen. They'd had the birds and bees talk a long time ago. Though he couldn't imagine having this kind of poem to deconstruct when he'd been in school, things changed.

  "And this part is easy. I got it, Dad."

  "Yeah?"

  "Well, I understand what the writer was talking about. He's wishing they still had outdoor movies, right?"

  Howard said, "Well, English was never my best class, but I think he's talking about more than that. What I think is that he's looking back on his innocence. That's what he's wishing he had--the good old days when his life was mostly in front of him and not behind him. The drive-ins were just a part of it, they represent something larger than just themselves."

  "You really think so?"

  "Yeah. And that youth is wasted on the young. You don't miss it until you are too old to do anything about it."

  "Huh. You think that's true?"

  "How would I know? I'm still a young man myself. Ask Gramma next time you see her."

  They both laughed.

  Tyrone said, "This idiot teacher does this all the time. Gives us stuff to analyze that doesn't have anything to do with our lives. Why couldn't he give us a poem we could understand based on our own experience?"

  "Because then you wouldn't have to stretch," Howard said. "If you only work from inside your own comfort level, if you don't have to sweat a little, you don't learn anything new. Maybe he's not such an idiot."

  "I'll reserve judgment on that."

  "Oh, I almost forgot. Gunny found something for you."

  He handed Tyrone the box. And was rewarded with a very large grin as the boy opened it.

  Maybe all youth is not wasted on the young, he thought. Maybe the old folks benefit from it a little now and then. . . .

  29

  Net Force HQ

  Quantico, Virginia

  Michaels scanned some files on his flatscreen as he walked down the hall on his way to grab a quick lunch. There was a time when he would have changed into spandex and a T-shirt and taken his recumbent trike to a local Chinese or Thai restaurant and burned off a few calories in the process. But not today. The weather forecasters were predicting temperatures near body heat, and humidity almost as high. On a day like that, the air-conditioned cafeteria didn't sound so bad. Besides, the trike was at home for Toni to use, if she wanted.

  And the food was usually pretty good.

  He saw John Howard just ahead, also heading toward the cafeteria.

  "John," Michaels called.

  "Commander." Howard slowed for him to catch up.

  "You see the new EHPA/HEL from DARPA?"

  Howard shook his head. "No, can't say as I have."

  Michaels passed his flatscreen over. "Check it out."

  EHPA stood for Exoskeletons for Human Performance Augmentation; HEL the Human Engineering Laboratory, at UC Berkeley; and DARPA was for the Defense Advanced Reasearch Projects Agency, which was funding the beast. The project had been around for ten or twelve years, and was finally to the stage where they had a full-strength product they thought worth field-testing.

  Howard looked at the screen. It showed a soldier in chocolate-chip camo outfitted in the experimental exoskeleton. He was holding a barbell loaded with plates over his head in a military press.

  Michaels hadn't had time to do more than scan the article, but already knew quite a bit about the project. The basic unit was a blend of tightly wound carbon fiber, spider silk, and lightweight metals, securely strapped to the soldier's limbs. The suit had articulated aircraft-aluminum and titanium joints at the shoulders, elbows, wrists, hands, waist, hips, knees, and ankles. It came with special boots and metal half "gloves," too.

  A series of hydraulic pistons attached to the geared joints were dual-powered. The bulk of the work was done by Nanomuscle's revolutionary memory-metal actuators, like those found in cars and boats. These memory-metal "muscles" were backed by several standard electric motors clamped to the frame. Everything was run by a small backpack tank of hydrogen and a fuel cell, and operation was coordinated by an onboard computer chip with a built-in failsafe.

  With sensors that picked up normal muscle movements, developed originally by medical technicians for artificial limbs for amputees, the exoskeleton would greatly augment a man's abilities. A trooper who could bench press two hundred pounds without the suit could push five hundred with it. Any movement that the frame could handle was likewise augmented. One moment, a man could be standing at ease; the next, he could squat and lift a car's rear end clear off the road, with the suit doing most of the work. They weren't good for running faster, but using one you could climb longer, work harder, and even lock it so you could stand unmoving for hours. It would even let you sleep standing up.

  The exoskeleton could make a small woman stronger than any man. A man would be almost as strong as a gorilla.

  "We can get one for testing, if you want to try it out," Michaels said. "The National Guard has six available, and I have the clout to snag us one."

  The general grinned, teeth flashing white against his dark skin. "That would be interesting. Not to mention it would be nice to have something to surprise Lieutenant Fernandez with for a change." He passed the flatscreen back to Michaels.

  "I'll put in a requisition," Alex said.

  "Thank you, Commander."

  Michaels nodded. "Toni wanted me to tell you she's still working on your gun grips," he said, changing the subject.

  Toni, who did scrimshaw, had decided to do a set of faux-ivory stocks for Howard's sidearm, the Net Force logo on one side, and, unbeknownst to him, a portrait of his wife on the other panel.

  "She doesn't need to do that," Howard said.

  "She wants to. She'll have a little time to play with them, since she's going to be home for a few days."

  "Trouble?"

  They reached the cafeteria, collected trays and flatware, and stood in the food line.

  "Not for us," Michaels said. "Guru's great-grandson is sick, Phoenix or somewhere, and she's gone to visit him."

  "Nothing serious, I hope?"

  "Pneumonia, and she says the doctors aren't too worried. Anyway, we're without a sitter until she gets b
ack."

  "You looking for one? A baby-sitter?"

  Michaels arrived in front of the fried chicken. He took two pieces, then added a third. "You have somebody in mind?"

  "Well, my son Tyrone could use some work. He missed out on a regular job because he had a class he wanted to do this summer. He's on the fast track to graduate early. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't mind baby-sitting Alex. He's been doing that kind of thing for the last year or so, mostly neighbors, and little Hoo--Lieutenant Fernandez's son."

  "Really?"

  "Sure. Only the Good Lord knows why, but he likes kids. If Toni wanted to work half-days or something, I imagine he'd be up for it. He has some new computer gear he wants to buy, and I told him I'd go half but that he had to earn the rest."

  Howard passed on the fried chicken, selecting a hamburger steak for himself.

  "Well, that would be helpful. Let me ask Toni."

  30

  The Peach Pit

  Atlanta, Georgia

  Junior sat at the table with the three bikers, Buck, Dawg, and Spawn. Seemed like half the businesses in Georgia had the word "peach" in their names.

  Even armed as he was with two guns, Junior wouldn't have wanted to be in here alone. At the very best, he'd only get twelve shots off before the remaining gang members stomped him. The basic biker code that the Hell's Angels had come up with a long time ago was simple: One on all, all on one. Most other clubs took that one for their own. If you looked funny at one rider, you were looking funny at the whole club.

  He might shoot six, eight, ten of them, but then they'd get him. And that was assuming none of them pulled their own pieces when the first round cooked off, which would be a stupid assumption. He'd bet dollars to pennies that every one of the people in that bar--men and women both--was carrying something lethal.

  As long as he had an honor guard, though, he was probably okay.

  The Peach Pit was like a dozen other biker bars Junior had been in: loud music, a lot of smoke--a mix of tobacco and marijuana--and worn-out dancers and waitresses. There was the usual mix among the riders, too: Little weasely looking ones, and others the size of small countries; young, old, fat, buffed, long hair, skinheads, bald; all wearing their colors. They sat at tables or the bar, played pool or the old-style pinball machines, and drank beer by the bottle or pitcher. The big image on their jackets, their colors, was a skeleton wearing a Confederate uniform with a cap, one hand up, giving the world a bony finger. "Gray Ghostriders" was written over that, and "MC" underneath the rebel skeleton.

  The women here were hard-looking, sporting a lot of blond and red dyed hair, with purple and blue eye shadow. Most of them wore tank tops and jeans, no bras, and there were enough tattoos on the bikers and old ladies visible to make a mural that would practically cover the whole outside wall. There was a row of bikes parked out front that together probably cost as much as a fleet of Cadillacs. You might not have the rent, your old lady could be in jail and you couldn't make bail, but you didn't cheap out when it came to your scoot. A man had his priorities, and in the biker's world, it was his ride.

  Darla, who might or might not be Joan's sister, wasn't in yet, but her shift was supposed to begin in half an hour.

  Junior figured God owed him one on this whole deal, and if Darla showed up, Junior was willing to call it even.

  He was starting on his third beer when Darla came in, through the back door, because he didn't see her until she was at the bar.

  And glory be, right behind her was Joan!

  God had paid off, in spades. About time something went his way.

  Now the next part might be a little tricky, since Darla was known to the local bikers and Junior wasn't. He wanted to ease into this, get close enough to Joan to grab her and run before any ruckus.

  But before he could even think about the best way to go about it, Joan looked right at him. He saw her see him.

  A cold feeling washed over him.

  Joan leaned over and said something to her sister--and there was no doubt about Darla being related, they looked like two peas in a pod--who nodded. Then in a voice that could shatter glass and must have carried five hundred yards, Darla screamed:

  "Yankee MC!"

  Everybody stopped what they were doing and looked. Darla was pointing her finger right at him.

  Junior didn't know the name, but he wasn't slow. Being a member of the Yankee Motorcycle Club was definitely not the thing to be in this bar. It could be fatal.

  Any idea he had of talking his way out of it went away when Buck, his buddy, looked at him and said, "Junior? You ride with the Yankees?"

  "No way," Junior said. "She's lying!"

  But the time for talk was done. Junior jumped up and ran. He angled for the bar, and as he gathered speed, he reached for his guns. He had maybe a second before the bikers came to life, and he'd have to stretch that to get clear.

  He pulled his revolvers and started blasting as soon as the barrels were clear of the holsters. It didn't matter what he shot, he just wanted to make a lot of noise in a hurry, get people scrambling for cover. When guns start going of in a bar, any bar, people hit the floor. They might reach for their own guns, but only after they made sure the first shots didn't hit them and they could get a fix on the shooter.

  He swung his right hand up and pointed it at where Darla and Joan had been, hoping maybe to tap Joan on the way out, but they had already moved, and he didn't see them.

  Then the back door was there in his face. Junior twisted and hit it sideways, shoulder leading. It popped open. He went through, realized he was clicking on empty with both revolvers, and churned his feet for all he was worth. The rental car was to the side, fifty yards away, and if he could get to it and crank it before the riders raised their heads and then boiled out of the bar, he'd be okay. They'd be looking for a man on a hog; serious bikers didn't ride in rental cars. Maybe they wouldn't even notice him, but if they did, he'd be reloading first thing he got rolling.

  It was a lot easier to shoot out of a moving car than it was from a two-wheeler, especially those with long rakes on the front forks: You needed both hands on the handlebars until the scooter got going enough to steady it. He couldn't outrun them in the rental, but he could drop a couple, maybe three bikers in the road. The rest would have to slow to get around them.

  And with any luck, enough of them would be paranoid enough so that they'd worry that this whole deal was a trap. After all, they had to know that no Yankee MC biker would be stupid enough to go into enemy territory alone. They'd have to think--once they had time to think at all--that he'd have a posse waiting out there to waylay anybody chasing him. Bikers didn't mind fighting, they'd do it at the drop of a hat, knock each other's teeth out just for fun, but they didn't like to be suckered. They liked things on their own terms.

  Junior got to the rental car, which he'd left unlocked, jumped in, and shoved the key into the ignition. As soon as the engine was running, he rammed it into gear and peeled out. He thumbed open the cylinder on his right-hand gun, tapped the ejector hard with the butt of his other gun, and spewed empties all over the seat. He dropped the second gun, pulled a speed-loader from his pocket, shoved it into the cylinder, twisted the release, dropped the loader, and snapped the cylinder closed. He rolled the window down and fired two rounds at the bar's front door as he passed it, reached the street, and floored the accelerator.

  He was half a block away before he saw anybody in the parking lot. By then, he had reloaded his left-hand gun. Out on the road, he had a chance, even if they came after him. They'd have to come from right behind him and he was good enough that he could pick them off if they got too close.

  He shook his head. Well, this was royally messed up. Now Joan knew he was after her, and after he had gotten this close, she'd really go to ground. This was bad. This was a disaster.

  The mirror stayed clear after a mile, and Junior decided that maybe the Gray Ghostriders weren't that interested in running him down. Of course, Buck, Dawg, and Spawn
were going to have some explaining to do, and even if the bar crowd bought it, and probably they would, that wouldn't do Junior any good. Junior was in deep trouble now, no matter what.

  Washington, D.C.

  Toni said, "Here is his diaper bag, in case you want to go for a walk or something. The stroller is on the front porch, and he can walk for a couple of blocks okay, but then he'll get tired and want to ride or be carried."

  "Yes, ma'am," Tyrone said. He was a polite young man. His mother had dropped him off and would be coming back to pick him up later. Toni liked Nadine Howard; she seemed a down-to-earth person, and a great mom, too, if Tyrone was any indication.

  "He likes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, but he'll eat tater tots, ham and cheese, or fish sticks. In the fridge and freezer." She waved in the direction of the kitchen.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "He can have two peppermint candies if he eats his lunch. He'll try to get you to give him more." And he usually manages to finagle his mama out of three, sometimes four.

  "Yes, ma'am."

  "He might want a bottle of milk if he gets sleepy. Sometimes he takes a nap after an outing. That's okay, to give him a bottle."

  Tyrone smiled.

  "Here is my office number, and here is the number for my virgil. If you have any problems, anything at all, call me."

  "Yes, ma'am," Tyrone said. "I'm sure we'll be fine."

  Toni was a little amused at herself for being worried, but worried she was. C'mon, girl, John Howard's son can certainly keep a two-year-old in check for a few hours.

  When it came time to leave, Toni was afraid that Little Alex might get teary-eyed and clingy, but he was busy stacking Lego blocks with Tyrone. "Bye, sweet boy. Mama has to go to work for a little while."