Cybernation nf-6

by Tom Clancy

  Roberto looked like a big tom cat, sure of himself way past confident.

  Time to crack the whip a little. “You weren’t supposed to leave the ship. Where did you go?”

  “You know where I was, Missy. Did not the helicopter pilot you asked remember where he landed?”

  She felt herself flushing under his gaze. This wouldn’t do, not at all. She had to stay in control of the situation. “He remembered. What I want to know is why you left without telling anybody.”

  “I don’t tell anybody when I’m going to pee, either. Nobody needs to hold my hand for that, nobody needed to know about my business in Fort Lauderdale. Because it was my personal business.”

  “You have responsibilities—” she began.

  “And I do them,” he said, interrupting her. “You have a problem with how I perform, either on the job or in bed?”

  The clerk stopped stacking the candy and apparently realized he had urgent business on the far side of the gift shop. He went there in a hurry.

  She lowered her voice. “No, I didn’t say that.”

  “Or maybe I didn’t worry about telling you because I thought you might not even notice I was gone, that you might be busy.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I hear Jackson fills in for me when I’m not around. As much as he can, anyway.”

  She blinked, caught flatfooted by the statement. Okay, so he knew. But she wasn’t going to give anything away. “I don’t know what you are talking about.” She had learned that in the corporate world a long time ago — when in doubt, deny everything. If somebody had a video of you doing something, if they had ten nuns and a priest as witnesses to… whatever, it didn’t matter — you stuck to your story.

  “I mean I don’t think his equipment measures up,” he said, deliberately skipping what she’d meant. “But you would be the one to know that — you the one doing the measuring.”

  “I don’t think is the place to talk about this,” she tried.

  “You came to find me,” he said. “This is where I am.”

  “Maybe we could go to my cabin,” she said.

  “No. I don’t think so. I think maybe we don’t be so… personal, if you know what I mean. We can talk business here, in the conference room, someplace, but not your cabin. I don’t like the way it smells there now.”

  Was he dumping her?

  No, she decided. He was miffed. His manhood was insulted. Okay. He could pout for a while if he wanted, but he wasn’t ready to give her up yet. She couldn’t believe that. She had too much power that way, it was her strength. Men never walked away from her until she was ready for them to go. Never.

  “Fine,” she said. “But next time you leave the ship without telling me why and when, you might as well stay gone. I won’t have you compromising our mission. If you had gotten into trouble, been picked up by the police for something, where would that leave us? This is more important than just you, Roberto.”

  He smiled. “So you say.” He went back to selecting his aftershave.

  She felt a flash of anger so hot she wanted to kill him, right there where he stood.

  He was going to pay for this. Dearly.

  18

  Washington, D.C.

  Toni held the training kerambits she’d made, traced from her real ones onto a piece of stiff leather, then cut out and the edges rounded off to make them relatively safe. Relatively safe, because a hard hit with one could still leave scrapes and bruises. The points and inside edges of the leather blades were coated with lipstick, so that any place they touched left a red mark. Both she and Alex wore old white T-shirts and gray sweatpants that would show the marks if they were touched with the red.

  Alex himself had a longer plastic knife, one that came from a G.I. Joe toy set, the rounded point and dull cutting edge also coated with waxy red.

  Toni circled him in the empty garage — the Chevy convertible was finally repaired and sold, and he was without a project car at the moment. Gave them room to work out on rainy days such as this one.

  “You have the longer weapon,” she said. “And in a knife fight, size does matter. But I have two blades to your one, so you have to be extremely careful. Slashing is mostly defensive,” she said. “Slashing can kill you, but it’ll take longer. Your advantage is, you can stab for a faster killing stroke, but these knives are so short that I’ll have to rip out a big blood vessel to do you any damage by slashing.”

  “That’s comforting,” he said.

  He held his right hand, with the knife, in front of his face, kept his left hand under his right elbow. She could almost hear his thoughts: high-line, low-line. High-line, low-line…

  “Knowing what you can do with a weapon, or what your opponent can do, is vitally important. Against an opponent with any skill, you will almost certainly get cut in a knife fight. The trick is to limit where, and how bad. You might have to take a nasty cut to end a fight in your favor. But better to be stitched up in the ER than on life support in the ICU.”

  He’d heard her say that often enough. He nodded.

  When she came in, she did it fast, and his slash and poke was right on the edge of desperation. She got in, but she was aware of being touched on the arm and body by his blade. She jumped back as he flailed away at her again, missing.

  “Okay, what do you see? Take a look in the mirror.”

  He moved a couple of steps so he was in front of the mirror they’d picked up at a garage sale. There was a red strip on the side of his neck, and three other less-defined ruby splotches on his chest, belly, and inside his left elbow.

  “Well. Looks like I’m dead, Jim,” he said.

  “Yes, you are. Now, look at me.”

  He did so. Toni had a red long line on the outside of her right arm, and a small spot under her sternum.

  “You see?” she said. “I’m your teacher. I have been training and practicing this art for more than a dozen times as long as you have. With real knives, I would have cut your carotid and probably the radial artery in your antecubital fossa — inside your elbow crook there — plus slashing you in the gut and chest. But even so, you would have opened my arm — which I could have survived — but also stabbed me in the heart.”

  She touched the spot on her chest.

  “Without quick first-aid care, one or both of us would probably have died after that trade, but we’d both have bled. A weapon changes things.”

  “Yeah, so I see.”

  “Against a knife bare-handed, you are in deep trouble. Even with a knife of your own, you can get chopped down.”

  “And the moral of this story?”

  She smiled. “If somebody comes at you with a knife, run. If you can run, don’t attack unless there are several of them, in which case, you take one out, then run. If you stand your ground, you have to cover your centerline, that’s your advantage.”

  “But maybe we both die? That’s an advantage?”

  “Everybody who carries a knife doesn’t have great skill with it,” she said. “You have to assume they do, of course, and move as if that were the case, but the truth is, most people who might attack you with a blade wouldn’t have gotten any of those hits I did except the arm. They wouldn’t have gotten me, either. And don’t forget, I have two knives, short though they are.”

  “Bad for my wardrobe, though.”

  She smiled. “You can always buy a new sport coat, sport.”

  He smiled.

  “Okay, let’s try it again. This time, block with your free hand, dorsal side, and sector to the outside of my attacking hand when you do. Getting out of the way of an incoming knife is usually a good idea — if you miss the block, at least you don’t get skewered. After that, we’ll switch, you attack and I’ll defend. That’s when the kerambits work the best.”

  * * *

  Later, when they were in the shower washing off lipstick marks, Toni said, “There’s an exercise I want you to learn.”

  “I’m game,” Alex said. “Come closer.�
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  “Not that kind of exercise. A mental one.”

  “Oh.”

  “Don’t sound so disappointed. It’ll be a couple of hours yet before Guru and the baby get home. It won’t take long.”

  “What kind of exercise?”

  “Posthypnotic suggestion.”

  He scrubbed her back with the bath sponge. “Uh-huh. Sure.”

  “Look, I know you don’t think a lot of the spiritual and magical sides of silat. You think it’s all mumbo jumbo.”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “Give me the sponge, I’ll do your back.”

  She soaped the sponge and began scrubbing between his shoulder blades. “You don’t have to say it for me to know it. But hypnosis is a perfectly valid tool, and you can do it yourself. It’s nothing more than autosuggestion with a focus. You visualize things, practice them in your head, and it improves your skill.”

  “You sound like Jay.”

  “No, listen. Take athletes. At the Olympic level, nearly all of them use visualization to help their performances. They practice their exercises — whatever they are, from swimming to downhill skiing — in their imagination.”

  “Careful, I’m ticklish there,” he said.

  “No, you aren’t. Shut up. You ever practiced your djurus while sitting at your desk, just thinking about them instead of actually moving?”

  “Sure.”

  “Same thing. Tests on athletes show that mentally practicing can lay down nerve memory channels just like doing it for real. Not as much, but some.”

  She squatted, and soaped up his butt and hamstrings.

  “So practicing mentally is useful,” she continued.

  “Okay. So?”

  “What’s your biggest problem with silat practice?”

  “Aside from you?”

  “I’m serious.”

  He looked over his shoulder. “C’mon. How serious you expect me to take this while you’re rubbing my ass with a soapy sponge, Kemosabe?”

  She smiled. “Think of me as your teacher and not your beautiful naked wife in the shower.”

  “That’s hard.”

  “It better be. But try.”

  He nodded. “I’m too tense,” he said. “I haven’t learned how to relax when I move. I use too much muscle.”

  “Right. So what we do is, we take you to a state of relaxation and suggestibility, and teach you how to get there posthypnotically.”

  “You can do that?”

  “To a degree, yes.”

  “Okay. Is that before or after we make love?”

  “Before.”

  “Aw, come on.”

  “Maybe instead of, if you don’t hurry up.”

  He hurried.

  * * *

  When they had finished showering and drying themselves, she had him lie on his back on the bed. She stretched out next to him, but not touching him. “Okay, close your eyes.”

  He did so.

  “You comfortable?”

  “Yep.”

  “All right. I want you to imagine you are in the hallway of an office building. It’s an older place, but well-maintained. To your right is an elevator. Walk to the button that calls the elevator — it’s an old-style mechanical one. You push it, and it lights up.

  “The elevator arrives — you can see the number light up above the door. You’re on the twentieth floor. You hear a soft chime. The door opens, the elevator is empty. You step inside.”

  Michaels wasn’t having any trouble following along, but it felt kind of silly.

  “The elevator is an old one, but in good condition. It’s nice and warm in here, quiet, the light is soft. Push the button marked with the number one.”

  Michaels mentally pushed the button.

  “Above the door are the numbers for the floors of the building. Twenty is lit in red, and the elevator starts to descend. As you watch, a few seconds later, twenty blinks off and nineteen lights up, and there’s a soft chime as the elevator slowly passes the floor.

  “Eighteen lights up, again, the soft chime.

  “Now as the elevator slowly goes down, you begin to feel relaxed. The elevator settles very slowly, but you’re in no hurry, you’ve got all day.

  “As you pass seventeen, sixteen, fifteen, you become more and more relaxed. The numbers light, the chime sounds, and you are becoming even more placid, more comfortable. There is nothing but the numbers descending, the soft tones at each floor.

  “You pass fourteen, twelve, eleven, ten, nine. Save for the chime, all is quiet. The motion of the elevator is smooth, soothing.”

  Her voice was a soft drone, lulling him.

  “Eight, seven, six, five, four, three… two… one.

  “The elevator stops. The door opens. You step out into the hall. To your right not far ahead is an open door. You walk into the room, there is nobody around, but there is a couch, long, cushy, very inviting. Lie down on the couch. You are so comfortable and relaxed you don’t feel like moving a muscle, you are practically melting into the cushions.”

  Well, this wasn’t so bad, Michaels thought.

  “So there you are, warm, comfortable, relaxed, lying there on the couch. You aren’t sleepy, just slack. No worries, no noise, nothing to bother you. Your breathing is slow and even. Life is good.”

  Yeah.

  “You don’t need to move, but if you did need to, you could do so quickly and easily, because you are so relaxed, no tension to slow you down. Concentrate on how relaxed you are, see how it feels, see how simple it is to just lie here and be this way.”

  Pretty good, actually.

  “Here’s a little trick. To get back to this place, this relaxed, comfortable, no tension feeling, all you have to do is say to yourself out loud, ‘Relax, Alex.’ That’s all. If you say that, you’ll feel just like you feel now, no matter what is going on around you. You’ll breathe slow and easy, your muscles will hold you up, you’ll be able to move as quickly as you need to, but there won’t be any tightness in you. Just say, ‘Relax, Alex,’ and that’s what will happen.”

  She waited a few seconds.

  “Now, you stand up, and walk back to the elevator.

  “Good. You push the call button. The doors open right away and you step inside. Push the button for the twentieth floor. The numbers start to light up, starting with one, then two… three… four. As the elevator rises, you still feel calm and relaxed, but more refreshed now, as if you have just had ten hours of sleep.

  “You pass five… six… seven… but there’s no hurry.

  “The lights blink, the elevator chimes softly as you pass each floor.

  “You watch the numbers flash by. When the elevator gets to the twentieth floor, it stops. You take a deep breath and let it out. As the door opens, you open your eyes—”

  He blinked at her.

  She smiled.

  “That’s it? I ride an elevator down, you tell me to relax, I ride it up?”

  “Yep. How do you feel?”

  “Well, I feel fine. Great.” He raised a skeptical eyebrow at her. “That’s what being hypnotized is? There’s nothing to it.”

  “What, did you think you were going to turn into Frankenstein’s monster? Cluck like a chicken? Not be able to remember anything?”

  “Well, yeah, okay, kinda.”

  “It’s not like that. It’s a state of heightened concentration. If you do this little exercise a few more times, it will be reinforced. It’s not magic — it just allows you to focus your thoughts better. You can get pretty much the same thing by meditation or prayer.”

  “And this will work?”

  “Try it, next time you get tense.”

  “Okay. I will. But right now, I have something else in mind.”

  She laughed. “Why am I not surprised…?”

  * * *

  Later, when Guru had gotten home with the baby and they were all getting ready to go out for dinner at the new Mexican place, Michaels thought about the workout and hypnosis thing. That
short and long knife business could be taken as a metaphor for his life. Getting in close had consequences, it was more dangerous in some ways. He had a new family, and compared to his first one, it was… different.

  Toni was much more a part of his reason to get up every day than Megan, his first wife, had been. Maybe it was Toni; maybe it was only because he was older and a little wiser and able to appreciate what he had now more than he had been able to appreciate it then. He didn’t love his daughter Susie any less than he did Alex, but he certainly hadn’t been there for her in the same way. Something he’d always regret.

  Whatever. But lately, work just hadn’t been calling to him the way family did. If he won the lottery tomorrow, would he still get up and go to work every day? Ten years ago, five years ago, even a year ago, he would have said yes, no question.

  Now? Now, he wasn’t sure about that at all. Maybe he would take a few months off.

  Maybe he would take off permanently.

  It could be that part of it was because he was at the top of the mountain at Net Force. Anything higher in government was going to be some kind of political appointment, and not likely to happen. He didn’t slot neatly into either party. Most of the time, he voted Independent, sometimes one way, sometimes another, and there were times when he couldn’t bring himself to vote for anybody running. He liked to think of himself as fiscally conservative but a personal liberal. Could support a right wing Democrat or left wing Republican, but wasn’t really either. Pretty much smack in the middle of the silent majority’s road. So unless he opted for the private sector, he’d peaked out in his biz.

  Being commander of Net Force was as good as it was going to get.

  Or maybe it was a midlife crisis. He had been face-to-face with death a few times in the last couple of years, and that made a man stop and think about the meaning of it all, something he had never done much before. Being introspective wasn’t part of what he’d learned at home. When your number was up, it was up, game over, and if the old saw was true that nobody on his death bed ever said, “I wish I’d spent more time at the office,” then what exactly did you look back and wish you’d done better when you knew you were about to shuffle off?