by Tom Clancy
“Toni—”
“Don’t get me wrong, Alex. When you catch him, I’d like five minutes alone with him, assuming he lives that long. But once this is over, I’m finished with this business, Alex. Done. It’s time to get away from a place where killers come to our house after our son.”
He nodded, then realized that the nonvisual connection wouldn’t show that and said, “I understand.”
“Do you?”
“Yes. And I agree.”
And he did. If something happened to his child because of the work he did, he would never forgive himself. “How is Little Alex?”
“He is fine, he thought it was all a game Tyrone was playing. But I am serious about this.”
“I heard you the first time. I’ll turn in my resignation as soon as we have Ames in custody.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
After he disconnected, Michaels reflected on how much he had changed over the years. There was a time when the job was everything. It had cost him his first marriage, and had distanced him from his own daughter. There was a time when an ultimatum like the one Toni had just given him would have put his back up and led to a screaming fight. But somewhere along the way, he had grown up and realized what was really important in his life. His wife and son were irreplaceable. Net Force could find another commander. His family could never replace him.
“Commander?”
General Howard stood in his doorway. “Yes?”
“Lieutenant Fernandez and I have come up with some ideas we’d like to run past you.”
“I’m all ears.”
* * *
Howard laid it all out, watching as Michaels took it in. When he was done, Michaels said, “Good. How soon can we get started?”
“ ‘We’?”
“You don’t think I’m going to sit home like I’m supposed to, do you? I never have before, why start now?” He grinned. “Besides, if they fire me, maybe I can draw unemployment.”
Howard grinned back and shook his head. “We’re talking a small unit. A couple of little jets are already fueled up and ready to fly. No reason we can’t get it set up for tomorrow night.”
“Don’t tell me I was right about going after dark.”
Howard smiled again. “Every little bit helps. Besides, it’ll give us more time to plan, and maybe run through this thing a time or two in VR.” He paused. “Speaking of VR. Will Jay be coming along, too?”
Alex shook his head. “I don’t think so. He’ll be staying here, continuing to dig for information on Ames. When we bring him in, we’ll need everything we can get to hold him and make this stick.” He paused, then added, “Besides, when this is all over, Jay might be the senior man left around here.”
Howard grinned. “Now there’s a sobering thought.”
Michaels just nodded.
“Well, sir, I had better get to it.”
Michaels offered his hand, and Howard took it.
“I really appreciate this,” Michaels said.
“Don’t forget, my son was there, too.”
Michaels nodded. “No, I won’t ever forget that.”
* * *
Howard met Julio at the air base. The lieutenant was supervising the loading of one of the stripped business jets Net Force’s military used for relatively short-range hops.
“How are we doing, Lieutenant?”
“Just fine, sir. We got the easy stuff on board. The rest is being hauled from the warehouse by truck. We’ll be packed and ready to rock by 0200.”
“Good. Go home, get some sleep, and be back here by 0600.”
“Yes, sir.”
Howard looked at his watch. He should go home and get some sleep, too.
Washington, D.C.
When Howard got home, Tyrone was in the kitchen, fixing himself a sandwich. Dagwood would have been proud of the concoction Tyrone was cobbling together — three different kinds of meat, two cheeses, lettuce, tomato, pickles, sliced onion, three slices of bread, mayo, mustard, catsup. It was a monster.
Howard decided to keep it light. He said, “Lost your appetite, huh?”
Tyrone said, “Yeah, I can’t seem to make myself eat much.”
Howard waited a second, then said, “So how are you, son? You okay?”
Tyrone blew out a soft sigh. “I don’t know.” He paused in his sandwich construction.
Howard nodded. He’d been through this with seasoned veterans, longtime soldiers who’d trained for years but never had to actually shoot another person. When they did, it hit them, sometimes hard.
And Tyrone was no seasoned soldier. He was just a fifteen-year-old boy.
“Tell me about it, son.”
Tyrone gave a little shrug. “I shot a man, Dad. This guy was alive yesterday. Now he’s dead.”
Howard nodded. “You’re right, Tyrone,” he said. “That’s a serious thing, and never, ever something done lightly. But you didn’t cause that situation, son.”
“I know,” Ty said. “That man was coming to kill Little Alex. Probably, anyway. But it’s for sure that he was going to kill me. I saw him point that gun at me. I saw his finger tighten.” He looked at his father. “He tried to kill me, Dad. No one’s ever done that before. The thing is, I still keep feeling that I should have tried something else. Shooting him in the shoulder, maybe.”
Howard shook his head. “You did the right thing, son,” he said. “We’ve talked about weapons before, about things like stopping power and the different calibers. That.22 of yours makes a great target piece, but it’s not very good at stopping a man.” He looked directly into Tyrone’s eyes, ignoring the sandwich, ignoring the way his son’s hand had started to shake slightly, ignoring everything but the communication, the contact, that was happening between them at this moment. “You did the right thing, Ty. Had you tried anything else, had you shot him in the shoulder, you would probably not have stopped him. He’d have fired back at you, and he’d have killed you, and then he would have done whatever he’d come to do to Little Alex.” He paused again, letting that sink in for a moment, and then he repeated. “You did the right thing. You did the only thing. He gave you no other choice.”
Tyrone nodded, but Howard wasn’t sure how much his words had helped. Ty was in a spot where words could only do so much. He had to work through this on his own. His dad could be there for him, to answer some of the tough questions, and to point him in the right direction, but it was up to Ty to get through this.
John knew he would, though. He was a good kid, with a good heart, and a good head on his shoulders. And besides, everything Howard had just told him was the truth. He had done the right thing, the only thing.
“Thanks, Dad,” Ty said. He picked up his sandwich and took a huge bite. “I love you.”
At least, that’s what it sounded like he said. It was hard to tell around that mouthful of sandwich.
Howard smiled. “I love you, too,” he said. “And I am very, very proud of you, Ty.”
* * *
Michaels and Toni were in bed, the baby sleeping between them. Alex had his right hand resting on Little Alex’s chest, rising and falling slightly with his son’s breathing. His left hand rested on the pillow, holding Toni’s hand tenderly.
“Guru will be back tomorrow,” she said.
“That’s good.”
“What time are you leaving?”
“John wants to take off around six thirty.”
“You be careful,” she said, giving his hand a small squeeze.
Alex smiled. “Ames is a lawyer, not a Navy SEAL.”
Toni shook her head. “He has guns. He belongs to a gun club.”
“I’ll be careful,” Alex said.
They lay quietly for a moment. “So, what do you think about Colorado?” Alex asked.
“Colorado?”
He nodded. “I got offered a job as head of corporate computer security for Aspen International, remember? Twice the money, half the work, complete with a car, expense account, and
country-club membership.”
She hesitated. “Maybe I was a little upset before,” she said.
Alex shook his head. “No, hon, you were a lot upset. And you had a right to be. You weren’t wrong. It’s time to move on.”
Another long pause. “We’ll have to get a house big enough for Guru, and for when Susie comes to visit.”
Alex smiled. “They have big houses out there. I bet we could find one.”
Toni looked at him, her eyes holding his steadily for a long moment. “Are you sure about this, Alex?”
“I have never been more sure about anything, Toni. Well, except that marrying you was a good idea.”
That got a big smile from her.
He loved to make her smile.
39
Odessa, Texas
Ames arose at dawn, showered, dressed, made himself a cup of coffee, and then hiked to the emergency escape hatch past the garbage dump. Once there, he climbed the three flights of stairs up to the surface. The door, a hydraulically operated vaultlike monster, was designed to keep out the riffraff fleeing atomic attack. Disc-shaped, it was slightly larger in diameter than a manhole cover, two feet thick, and hinged like a jeweler’s loupe. It pivoted on a massive, tempered pin as big around as a large man’s arm. It was camouflaged on the surface by a flat stretch of sand on a motorized frame that raised up on command. When the sand frame was in place, the entrance was virtually invisible. And even if you knew it was there, opening it would be a major chore without the proper keys, codes, and commands.
Ames used the periscope hidden in a creosote bush to check and make sure nobody was around. When he was certain that everything was clear, he pushed the door control button. It took thirty seconds for the sand frame to rise high enough for the door to pivot open.
He climbed up and out, standing under the sand frame, which now stood some seven feet above the ground.
This was the best time of day if you wanted to go outside here in the summer. It was as cool as it was going to get this time of year, and only the jackrabbits and birds were stirring. There were no other humans for as far as he could see, though a distant jet contrail arrowed across the pale, cloudless sky, too far away for him to hear the craft that created it.
Quiet, peaceful, and all his…
He spent ten minutes or so breathing the fresh air, glad to be out of the confines of the bomb shelter, laying his plans for the coming days and weeks. Satisfied, he went back inside, shut the door and lowered the frame, and headed back along the echoing tile corridor toward the kitchen. He had in mind salmon hash and eggs for breakfast this morning, and maybe a mimosa to wash in down.
He grinned. Wonder what the poor folks are doing this morning.
Bush Air Force Base Odessa, Texas
The Net Force jet was nearly there by the time dawn broke locally, pacing the sun from the east. They would have all day to get set, plenty of time.
Michaels, surprisingly, had fallen asleep on the trip, and awoke as the craft began its descent toward the new Air Force base a couple of hours away from their target. Howard had arranged to borrow some trucks from the Texas National Guard, Net Force technically being a part of the Guard, at least for accounting purposes. In theory, the vehicles should be there when the jet landed.
After they were down and the unloading process under way, John Howard joined Michaels in the back of the mobile operations center, which was essentially a canvas-covered flatbed truck. Despite this, it was air-conditioned, after a fashion.
“For the computers,” Howard said. “The personal tactical units don’t need it, but the bigger ones get goofy once the air temp rises above body heat.”
“Is it going to get that hot here?”
“West Texas in the summer? Oh, yes. It’ll be cooler after dark, but we will have to load and move out in the daylight.”
Alex looked at him. “Do you really think this will work, John?” he asked. “It seems like an awfully big place to assault with only ten men.”
A forklift wheeled past bearing a pair of wooden crates bigger than coffins. There were three more like them still on the jet.
General Howard said, “I think so. The truth is, though, that either we nail it with ten men or we wouldn’t be able to do it with a hundred. Like you said, it’s a big place, and surprise will work better for us than sheer numbers.”
Alex nodded. He’d known that already, of course, but this entire operation was going forward on his say-so alone. He had the final word on go/no go, and he still could cancel it at any time up until they actually entered Ames’s bomb shelter. After that things got a lot dicier.
* * *
Ames had plenty to distract him. He had full net capabilities as well as satellite-reception radio and video. He could get five hundred television channels from around the world, and local programming from the radio stations in Addis Ababa, if he wanted. He had a library to rival those in many small towns in hard copy alone, legal tomes, medical books, not to mention thousands of novels, entertainment vids, and musical compositions on DVD and minis, should his net connection somehow go out. He had a gym, a lap pool, a shooting range, a basketball court, and even a six-lane bowling alley. He had food, wine, and a pharmacy deep enough to take care of a hundred people all sick with different diseases.
He had art on his walls, paintings by masters. He had sculptures. He had three of his favorite chairs, and a computer-operated bed of biogel that was the most comfortable in the world.
He had everything he needed, except a challenge.
Ames shrugged. There was nothing he could do about that right now. His plans were in place. Net Force was tied up by the lawsuit, afraid to do anything, and every day they delayed brought the passage of the CyberNation bill closer to reality.
Everything was moving along nicely. All he had to do was wait.
And that, he’d found before, was the one thing he did not do well.
He shrugged. That’s why he had this place stocked as well as he did. He needed the distractions.
Thinking about them, he decided that he felt like doing a few laps in the pool, then maybe a little shooting at the range. It would be good to keep a sound body and sharp eye to go with the sound mind…
Upton County, Texas
The staging area was twelve miles away from the target, and at five o’clock in the afternoon, it was a hundred and three degrees Fahrenheit. The only shade came from the trucks and a few scraggly willow trees along an almost dry creek bed.
Howard saw Julio coming toward him, wiping his face with a rag.
“I hope these things don’t go belly up in this heat,” Lieutenant Fernandez said.
Behind Howard, Michaels said, “Is that likely?”
“I hope not. It’ll be a long walk home if they do.”
The things to which Julio was referring were the five specially fitted Segway scooters that Howard, Michaels, Julio, and two troopers would be riding toward the target from the south while the other five soldiers rolled in on the position from the north.
The little electric scooters wore stealth gear, the latest generation of polycarb fiber sheathing, all sharp angles and smooth surfaces. They had used similar camo on trucks. It worked, especially on civilian-grade radar and Doppler, but it wasn’t perfect. That was why the troops in the truck would be feinting from the north as Howard and the others sneaked in from the opposite direction.
If Ames was awake when they rolled in, and if he had his radar on, he would see a nice, fat blip thrown by the truck, and, with any luck, not the scooters. They wouldn’t be totally invisible, but they would be fuzzy and dim enough so he probably wouldn’t notice them.
The plan was to pull the truck to within a mile or so and stop it. The men would get out and move around, offering enough activity to occupy a watcher’s attention. Even if he had FLIR or some kind of spookeye starlight scope, the hope was that he’d be focused on the obvious threat. Which wouldn’t seem imminent, since they wouldn’t be close to any of the known entra
nces.
Meanwhile, Howard and the strike team from the south would get there, get inside, and grab the guy before he knew what hit him.
In theory, anyway.
The commander had asked the big question: Just how did they get into a secure facility designed to keep everything up to and including nuclear radiation out? Digging through thirty or forty feet of dirt wasn’t a chore for ordinary men with shovels, not if they were in hurry, and the doors were more than likely going to be locked.
Howard thought he had an answer, but that remained to be seen. If the plans they had of the place were accurate, if they could get there undetected, and if the other new gear worked, they had a shot at it.
If, if, if.
“We’re pretty much ready to roll,” Julio said. “I think I’m going to take a nap.”
Julio ambled off and climbed into the back of the truck with the computer gear in it. Howard nodded. It was at least twenty degrees cooler in there. He’d find room — and sleeping curled in relative cool was better than stretched out on the dirt in the middle of a Texas summer day.
“It’s not a bad idea, getting some rest,” Howard said. “We won’t start our run until midnight.”
Michaels looked dubious.
“One of the first things you learn as a soldier is to eat and sleep whenever you can,” Howard said. “Never know when you’ll get the chance again, once things start cooking.”
* * *
Ames put on an old Marx brothers’ movie around six, fixed himself a sandwich and a microbrew beer when that was done, and headed for bed. Though there was no real reason for it, he was tired. A couple of hours in the magic bed would fix him right up.
* * *
Michaels looked at his watch. It was five of twelve. The day’s heat had died down considerably, but it was hardly what you would call “cool”—it was still about eighty or so, he guessed.
Howard, dressed in chocolate-chip camo that matched the clothes Michaels himself wore, even to the spider-silk body armor, walked over to where Michaels stood.
