by Tom Clancy
Ruzhyo had paid cash for his car, a Dodge SUV, used but not too old, and had done the same for the trailer, both of which he had purchased through classified ads in a Las Vegas newspaper. The land he had acquired using one of the safe names he held and, to avoid arousing undue interest, had given a substantial down payment to the seller and paid monthly notes from the same account since, automatically deducted on the first of each month. His profile could hardly be much lower.
The trailer had a generator and batteries, even air-conditioning, but he used the cooler rarely. He relished the heat.
He could not say he was happy — he had not been happy since the cancer had claimed Anna, and he did not ever expect to be so again — but he could say he was content. His life was simple, his needs few. The biggest project on his agenda was building a natural stone wall along the perimeter of his property. It might take ten years, but that hardly mattered.
Or he had been content, until today. As he scanned the rock terrain, the dust and heat-hazed hills in the distance, he knew something was wrong.
There were no signs he could see to tell him what the problem was. No helicopters overflew him, no dust clouds betrayed vehicles trying a stealthy approach. He lifted the powerful binoculars and did a slow scan of the surrounding countryside. His five acres was on a rise, slightly higher than most of the area, and he had a good view. He could see the old man's dome from the front of the trailer. He looked at it now. Nothing.
He walked a few yards up the gentle incline behind the trailer, until he could see the roof of the Methodists' cabin and the dry riverbed. No activity there.
He lowered the binoculars. Nothing to be seen, no cause for concern, but in his gut he felt that something was wrong. He headed for the trailer. He had weapons in a flat box hidden under the floor in the bedroom. Perhaps it was time to take them out and keep them handy.
No. Not yet, he decided. There was nothing at which to shoot. Perhaps the feeling was wrong; perhaps his gut was merely troubled by a badly digested meal or a parasite.
He gave himself a tight smile. He had not survived as long as he had by entertaining such rationalizations. At his best, he had been like a roach seeing a sudden light in the night. Run first, worry later. It had kept him alive when many others in his profession had died. He had learned to trust it over the years. No, something was wrong. Whatever it was would manifest itself sooner or later. Then he would deal with it.
He went into the trailer.
Chapter 3
Saturday, April 2nd
Las Vegas, Nevada
Colonel John Howard, the commanding officer in Net Force's military arm, had two surprises waiting for him at the airport when he exited one of the old, refitted business Lears they used for short hops in-country. The first surprise was that U.S. Army Tactical Satellite Operations — shortened to USAT, or sometimes informally called Big Squint — had definitely ID'd their target as the man Net Force sought.
This was not a major eyebrow-raiser, since Net Force already suspected this, or they wouldn't have asked USAT to route a bird to footprint the guy. It was, however, good to have it confirmed.
However, the second surprise was something of an unexpected shock: Howard was about to be promoted.
Military rank was a strange beast in Net Force. Officially, all of the officers and men under his command were "detached" National Guard, no matter what their prior branch of service. This was a name-only organization, a place for the paper-pushers and mouse-wavers to slot them, and unconnected to the Guard or U.S. Army in any real sense. It had to do with using military troops in civilian situations as much as anything, generally not allowed in domestic situations, but it also had to do with some strange tax law that came out in the new code's recent revisions. He didn't understand it, his boss didn't seem to understand it, and his accountant didn't understand it, but there it was.
Because of this, Net Force officer rank was more or less frozen. As CO, he could promote grunts, but only up to NCO. Howard knew he could have stayed in the regular army and, even in peacetime, eventually retired a grade or two up from where he was. Being an African-American helped that, there still being enough white liberal guilt floating around to slant things his way now and again. He never expected to get any higher than bird colonel when he retired and joined Net Force, even though the money — and, more importantly, the opportunities for action — were much better. His direct boss was a civilian, so when it came to brass, he was pretty much it.
Julio Fernandez, his top kick for as long as he'd been with Net Force and for a long time before that, delivered the news with obvious glee.
"Say again, Sergeant?" Howard said.
Fernandez stood in the hard shade of the gamp leading to the private hangar. He grinned. "Which part didn't the general understand, sir?"
"Let me rephrase that, and be succinct, it's already getting warm out here: What the hell are you talking about?"
The two of them walked toward the hangar.
Fernandez laughed. "Well, sir, the word is that the colonel will be, within thirty days from one April, offered the rank of Brigadier — that's a grade superior to colonel and inferior to major general, sir — in this bastard National Guard outfit he dragged me into."
"Held a gun to your head, did I?"
"If memory serves, sir."
Howard smiled. "Come on, Julio, what are you talking about? I haven't heard squat about any promotion, not a whisper." He tried to keep the excitement from his voice. Fernandez could be funny, but he wouldn't joke about something like this. Howard had always wanted to be a general, of course, but he'd given that hope up when he bailed from the RA.
"That's 'cause you ain't engaged to the most beautiful and bright woman in the western hemisphere — and probably the eastern hemisphere, too, John. A woman who can make a computer sing, dance, and do back flips without straining her pinkie. I saw the order myself, and it's as official as can be."
Despite his sudden rush of adrenaline, Howard said, "And Lieutenant Winthrop isn't supposed to be snooping in certain areas, now is she?"
Fernandez opened his hands, spread his fingers, and held them in an I-give-up gesture. "What can I do? I'm just a sergeant; she's my superior. What I know about computers you can put in your ear, with room left over for your finger. Besides, what's the point in being part of the world's best geek team if you can't poke around in the stuff wherever you want? It's real. Congratulations, John."
"Thanks, though I'll believe it when I see it." He felt his spirits soar. General Howard. Now there was a term.
Fernandez chuckled, reading his mind.
Howard recovered, tamped down his excitement and ego. "How is Joanna?"
"Pregnant as a crowded maternity ward. Not due until September, and I have to tell you, I don't think I'm gonna survive it. One minute I'm her angel and I can do no wrong, the next minute she takes my head off 'cause I'm breathing too loud. She eats catsup on mashed potatoes and sprinkles salt on her ice cream. She pees forty-nine times a day."
Howard laughed. "Serves you right. When are you going to make an honest woman out of her?"
"June first, so I have been told. She'd rather wait a year, it supposedly takes that long to set up a wedding, though that doesn't make any sense. Failing that, she wants to get married before the baby is born, and she doesn't want to look like a brood sow, so it's got to be by then. It's not up to me, I'm just the groom."
"Weddings and pregnancies are like that, Julio."
"I do get to pick the best man, though. You interested in the job?"
Howard nodded. "Are you kidding? I wouldn't miss watching the infamous Sergeant Julio Fernandez tie the knot for all the tea in India. Got a sex on the baby yet?"
"A boy." He grinned.
"Picked out a name yet?"
"Five of them: Julio Garcia Edmund Howard Fernandez."
Howard stopped walking and looked at his friend. "I'm honored."
"Not my idea, blame it on Joanna. Got a couple of grandfath
ers in there, too. Me, I'd have named him Bud and let it go at that. You get to be a godfather, too — another of her crazy ideas."
Howard smiled. He was going to be best man at his best friend's wedding, godfather to a boy wearing one of his names, and promoted to a general in the Net Force version of the army. You didn't get many days like this one.
"I hate to spoil the moment, but how about our fugitive?"
"No spoilers there, sir. He lives in a trailer out in the middle of nowhere, all by himself, doesn't even have a dog. Most ambitious thing he seems to do is building a rock wall along one edge of his property. He keeps a zero profile, doesn't socialize, doesn't talk to anybody, far as we can tell. Just piles up local rocks. Hard to believe this is an ex-Spetsnaz wetwork specialist with forty-four confirmed deletions to his credit."
"Well, if Vladimir Plekhanov can be believed — and the interrogation shrinks assure me that he can — the man who calls himself Mikhayl Ruzhyo is somebody whose skills are not limited to stacking rocks in the desert. We want to do this by the numbers, nice and clean, and gather him up gently enough so he's alive to answer some questions."
"No problem, piece of cake. Though I thought the Russians were our friends these days."
"I believe that is a facetious comment, Sergeant. You know as well as I do that the more we know about our friends, the better off we are."
"Amen."
"All right. Let's see what Big Squint has for us."
"Command post is in the coolest corner I could find, General."
"Let's wait on that promotion until I see it in writing, Sergeant." He grinned.
"Something funny, sir?"
"I was just picturing you as a lieutenant."
"You wouldn't!"
"If I was a general, they'd have to listen…"
The worried look on Fernandez's face was priceless.
Saturday, April 2nd The Yews, Sussex, England
Major Terrance Arthur Peel — Tap to his mates — stood next to Lord Goswell's greenhouse, behind the main house, watching as the beat-up black Volvo arrived. The groundskeeper's trio of dogs — a pair of border collies and an Alsatian — set to barking.
Peel liked dogs. He'd rather have one of those in a tent with him in the bush than the most sophisticated alarm made. A dog would let you know when you had company, and a well-trained dog could tell the difference between your friends and your enemies. And he would rip the enemy's throat out if you set him to it, too. Unlike people, good dogs were loyal.
The Volvo pulled to a halt, and the door squeaked open on the right side, disgorging a tall, spindly man of fifty, hair gone gray, with more ethnicity than perhaps his name would imply: Peter Bascomb-Coombs had a bit of the hooknose in him, Peel knew. He had done the background check himself.
Bascomb-Coombs wore an expensive, if ill-fitting, ice cream suit, a yellow silk shirt and blue tie, and handmade, pale gray Italian leather shoes. Certainly none of his ensemble was cheap. The shoes alone had to set him back three, four hundred quid. His lordship did not stint on what he paid his favored employees, and Bascomb-Coombs was favored, Jewish roots or not.
Not that the scientist's ethnic background mattered. It didn't affect the man's brain a whit, and whatever else he was, Bascomb-Coombs was as bright and shiny a penny as they came. Brilliant, a certified genius, so far ahead of the rest of his field that he was like an Einstein or a Hawking — in a class by himself — except that he couldn't keep track of a sodding social calendar. He was supposed to have been here for dinner last night, and he had simply gotten it wrong. And even if this had been the proper day, he was still half an hour late.
The stereotype of the absent-minded professor certainly had a basis in fact, if Bascomb-Coombs was the indicator. Goswell himself had shrugged off the slight. One had to suffer such things. What could one expect from the working class, geniuses or not? Goswell wasn't entirely foolish, save for his mania about the Empire, and he certainly had sense enough to know that Bascomb-Coombs was too valuable to toss away because he got a dinner date wrong.
Peel smiled and adjusted the black SIG 9mm in the Galco paddle holster on his right hip. He was a big enough man so the pistol was easily concealed under the white linen Saville Row sport coat he wore. Six-two, fourteen stone and a bit, and still in fighting shape. Naturally, his lordship wasn't the kind of man to have some thug in camouflage clothes standing about with a submachine gun, menacing guests. Peel, though retired from His Majesty's service under a cloud, was presentable. Good regiment, decent schools, still fit at forty-five, able to choose the right fork at formal dining if need be. An educated, civilized man, he could chat with the rich and famous and not seem out of place. He'd be a colonel by now, had it not been for that… unpleasant business in Northern Ireland on his final tour. Bloody country, bloody savages living in it.
The small com unit in his jacket pocket cheeped. That would be Hawkins, at the gate, confirming the arrival of the Volvo at the house, checking to be sure no terrorists had boiled from out of the car's boot to blast Peel.
"G-1 here. Package arrive?"
"Roger that, G-1. We are green at the house."
"Copy green. All clear here, as well."
Peel looked at his watch, a black-faced Special Forces analog with glow-in-the-dark tritium inserts, a gift from his men when he retired. None of them had been happy to see him go. The rest of the security team should be reporting in about… now….
"R-1. No activity here."
"R-2. Got a couple of the fat man's cows chewing cud over here, otherwise clear."
"Rover-3. Fence is clear from Grid 4 to Grid 7."
"Gate-2. Slow as bloody Christmas out here."
Peel acknowledged each of the gate guards and rovers as they called in their reports. He had ten men, all ex-army, spread out over the perimeter. This was not nearly enough for realistic coverage in a shooting situation, but most of his lordship's enemies weren't the kind of men who would try to storm The Yews to attack him. More likely they'd skewer him with sharp bonds or pointed hostile stock deals.
He grinned. Of course, his lordship had enemies who didn't know they were on his list, and now and again, they had to be… attended to, in a circumspect manner, of course. Which is how Tap Peel came to be in his lordship's service. It was because Peel's father and Lord Goswell had been classmates at Oxford, of course, and that the senior Peel had managed a knighthood of his own before he died. One kept these things in the family, or, failing that, among the chums.
Looked like rain to the north. Supposed to do that in London today. A little shower wouldn't hurt the vegetation hereabout, either, though the troops would bitch about it. Well, there was a soldier's lot, wasn't it? If you signed on, you signed on rain or shine, cold or hot, and that was that. God knew, he had stood in enough downpours, water running into his collar, cursing the officers who had posted him wherever he happened to be.
He smiled. It was a great life, being a solider. Too bad this was as close as he could come these days. Well, unless he wanted to traipse off to some third-world republic to be a hired mercenary. Hardly. In his grandfather's day, a soldier of fortune had been a more or less honorable profession, but now, a fool without any military service could answer an ad in an American magazine and wind up protecting your rear in some African jungle. Thank you, no. British fighting men were an odd lot, to be sure, but far and away a better class of soldier than one would find by advertising in a bloody magazine.
He supposed he should move inside now. Dinner would be started shortly, and there would be a round of drinks before. Bascomb-Coombs was a white-wine sort of fellow, and his lordship did not feel comfortable with men who did not drink, so Peel would go and have a sociable whiskey.
His lordship hated to drink alone.
So, a short one, two fingers, no more, to make sure his head stayed clear.
He grinned again. He had certainly had worse duty.
Chapter 4
Saturday, April 2nd
Washington,
D.C.
The National Boomerang Qualifying Championships were being held at the new Clinton High School track and field ground, and Tyrone Howard was thrilled just to be there, not to mention how ecstatic he was to actually be entered as a contestant. Sure, it was Junior Novice Division, and he was only in one event, Maximum Time Aloft, but still, it was pretty amazing. He'd only been seriously throwing for, like, six months.
Next to Tyrone, his best friend, Jimmy Joe, blinked through thick glasses at all the contestants doing warm-ups. "Yo, slip, isn't this, like, dangerous? Happens if you get cracked on the stack with one of these things? This ain't VR, it's the real O'Neal."
Jimmy Joe was VR all the way, same as Tyrone had been just a few months ago, but Tyrone thought maybe he was coming along okay on this… outside stuff. Even though it had taken him a week to convince his friend to leave the computer and go to an actual competition. He said, "So you get knocked over and wake up with a bump on your skull. Hey, you could short out a REM driver and get brain-fry, too, hillbilly."
"Oh, yeah, right, I could. Past a triple fail-safe and with like a half milliamp of vamp? Couldn't fry a pissant's egg with that. Not the same as getting whopped on the head with a big ole stick, slip." Jimmy Joe shook his head. He gleamed in the sunshine. He had to wear skinblock to walk to the bus in the mornings, and it took him two weeks in the sun just to darken from bright to white. Something of a contrast to Tyrone, who was a nice chocolate color even if he stayed inside all the time. Which he hadn't been doing much of late. He'd been a hardwired compuzoid, sure enough, and good at it, too, until that whole business with Bella blew him out of VR and into RW. Being jettisoned by her had done a doody on him, sure enough. His thirteenth year had been hard, that was a facto, Jacko.
