by Tom Clancy
“Learning how to play the guitar,” Kent said.
“Really?”
“I . . . inherited one, as you probably recall.”
Thorn remembered. The Georgian hit man, what was his name? Natadze?
“How is it going?”
“Slowly. Very slowly. But I have a good teacher. She’s very patient.”
Thorn thought he caught something in Kent’s voice when he mentioned the guitar teacher, but he didn’t follow it up.
“How about you?”
“Marissa is planning the wedding. I’m supposed to go meet her grandparents soon.”
“Congratulations, sir.”
“You’ll get an invitation, if they ever get a date set.”
“I look forward to it.”
“Me, too.”
Both men grinned.
“You ever married, Abe?”
“Long ago. She passed away a few years back.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Me, too.” A beat, then: “Any luck on the Army base break-ins?”
Thorn shook his head. “Nope. I just left Jay Gridley. He was running off to check on something. General Hadden is really unhappy.”
“In his shoes, I’d be, too,” Kent said. “He lobbied hard to get the newer, smaller, high-tech bases built and running. Trying to bootstrap the military into the twenty-first century faster. That somebody was able to bust into a couple makes him look bad. Not a good idea to make the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs look bad.”
“I hear that.”
Blue Parrot Cafe
Miami, Florida
“You’re a woman,” the man said. His incredulous tone of voice was probably the same he’d have used to say, “You’re a dog.”
“Yes,” Lewis said.
“Your master sent a woman.”
Lewis had figured that he’d be one of those—a lot of the fundamentalists were. He was offended, of course, even though she wore a scarf covering her hair, along with dark glasses and a long-sleeved and modest dress, so he wouldn’t be further offended by any display of skin.
They sat at a small round table at the Blue Parrot, a tiny, mostly outdoor cafe in Miami—no way she would meet somebody like him in Washington, or even as close as Baltimore. The day was warm, the air damp, and her clothing wasn’t particularly comfortable. At least the table’s umbrella kept the direct sun off her. It was winter in the rest of the country, but down here, you could lie on the beach and cook. Had she been here for pleasure, she’d be wearing shorts and a halter top, and plenty of sunblock. She could see why so many people retired to this state. Snow three feet deep in Chicago, and people running around in thongs in Miami—old bones might prefer the heat.
The man—maybe forty, tall, dark, with a thick moustache—used the name Mishari Aziz. He wore a dark red Hawaiian shirt, white linen trousers, and sandals, and was certainly better dressed for the climate than she was.
“Mr. Aziz, it is said that a man looking for wolves will walk past a fox.”
Aziz blinked at her, as if astounded she could speak. If that line wasn’t in the Koran, something like it probably was.
He was a fanatic, but not stupid. He took her point. “Ah, yes, perhaps that is wise.” He didn’t trust women, but he was the buyer and not the seller. If he wanted to deal, he had to deal with her. Let him think she was a pawn pushed by a man, if that would put him at ease.
He sat on the aluminum chair across the table from her.
“Tell me,” he said. It was a command.
“My employer can deliver any of a number of Army bases—codes, guard routines, all the security measures in place. Included among these are some with nuclear weapons on hand.”
She saw a fanatical light flare in his eyes.
“A careful seeker will have seen examples of our ability to invade the Army’s bases at will.”
“Oklahoma and Hawaii,” he said.
They were paying attention. Hawaii was hardly past. “Just so.”
He leaned back in his chair and affected a posture of skepticism. “Blowing up garbage cans and knocking down doors? Not impressive.”
“Mr. Aziz, do you know the saying about the dancing bear? It’s not that he dances well, but that he dances at all. Our operatives were able to penetrate the Army’s defenses—they could just as easily leveled a barracks full of soldiers or stolen whatever they wished. That is what we are offering.”
“You could have struck a blow—”
“You can strike a blow,” she said, cutting him off. “We are businesspeople; we do not concern ourselves with politics.”
His jaw muscles flexed. He didn’t like being interrupted, especially by a woman, nor did he like people who didn’t take sides—especially his side. But she had something he wanted. He would swallow his anger.
“The amount of money you are asking for is great,” he said.
“One must consider what one is buying. For a working atomic weapon, ten million is not such a great amount.”
“You are not selling such a thing.”
“We are selling the key to the store wherein it resides, and a map of the pitfalls between it and the man who wants it. The rest is up to you.”
Aziz nodded to himself. “My backers will require another demonstration.”
“What will it take to convince them?”
“Something substantial. Entry, and acquisition of a thing of material value.”
“We aren’t going to deliver a nuke.”
“That will not be necessary. But they would see you recover something more heavily guarded than a trash can.”
“We can do that.”
“When?”
“A few days, a week, it depends.” She stood. He came to his feet, too. “You will see evidence of it when it happens, and we will contact you as before.”
She didn’t offer to shake hands. Neither did he.
As she left the Blue Parrot, Lewis knew she would be followed by Aziz’s operatives. She didn’t bother to look for them. She hailed a taxi, and told the driver to take her to the Dolphin Mall.
It was a bit of a drive, and she smiled to herself as they headed that way. Of course Aziz would have her followed. Knowledge was power, and if he could track her, perhaps it would give him leverage.
The mall, a few miles west of the Miami International Airport, was a huge place, hundreds of stores, a million and a half square feet. If she couldn’t lose a tail there, she didn’t deserve to be playing this game.
She enjoyed the air-conditioning in the cab. This dress, plus what she had on under it, was passing warm.
Finally, they arrived. She paid the driver and entered the mall. It was crowded, even on a weekday—shoppers, elderly walkers, mall rats. She walked purposefully to Lace and Secrets. She had been here to check it out before the meeting with Aziz. He would not have brought a female op to their meeting because he would not have considered the idea that he was going to meet a woman. A man alone in a woman’s lingerie shop wasn’t exactly rare, but he’d stand out. The help would be all over him—if the op was stupid enough to come into the place.
She browsed lingerie until she spotted her tail. A short, young, swarthy man with a moustache stood by one of the benches outside the store, pretending to look at a newspaper. He wore a white shirt and gray trousers. A few meters away, a second man, cut from the same cloth, pretended to be talking on a pay phone.
Both kept stealing quick looks at the shop.
They were amateurs. Might as well be wearing neon signs proclaiming them as undercover operatives. Here—look here!
Lewis would have grinned, but she was in persona now. So predictable. If Aziz was as smart as he ought to be, he’d have hired a blond surfer-type in shorts and a tank top for a sub-rosa op, or a barely dressed woman with a tan, who couldn’t have possibly spent her whole life under a burka. But these guys liked to keep things in the family. Lewis would bet that both of the young men out there were related to Aziz—brothers, cousins, nephews, like that
.
She went to find a clerk. A young woman with a nose ring and a pierced eyebrow, about nineteen or so, was behind the counter.
“Yes, ma’am?”
Lewis tried to look frightened. “I wonder if you might help me? My ex-husband is out there, he’s following me, and I’m afraid he’s going to kill me.”
The clerk blinked. “You want me to call Security?”
“No, I don’t want any trouble. He’s—he’s a violent man. He beat me when we together. He carries a gun. I have a restraining order against him, to keep him away, but that won’t help. If I can get away from him without him following me, that would be the best thing. Is there a back way out of here?”
She already knew that there was, but using it would set off an alarm—unless the alarm was deactivated.
“There is.”
“If I could go out that way, I could get to my car. I’m leaving town, going to stay with my sister in Houston. Can you help me, please?”
“No problem,” the clerk said.
Once she was in the hall behind the shop and the clerk had closed the door behind her, Lewis stripped off the dress. Under it, she wore shorts and a T-shirt. She pulled a pair of sandals from her bag, then left the dress, sensible shoes, and bag in the nearest garbage can. She headed for the parking lot and her rental car. With any luck, she’d be on a plane back to D.C. before Abdul and Sayed back there realized they had lost her.
There were, of course, other potential buyers. And she would contact them if Aziz didn’t work out. The next time they met, she would have Carruth and a couple of his troops backing her. You couldn’t trust a fanatic, and once Aziz realized that she could deliver, he would certainly try to avoid paying for it if he could. That was expected.
Lewis had reasons to hate the Army, but she didn’t hate her country. There was no way she would put an atomic weapon into the hands of a zealot who would kill hundreds of thousands without blinking, in the name of some warped sense of reality. He had to believe that she would, he had to know that she could give him what he wanted, so she had to demonstrate it, but it wasn’t going to happen. Not to mention that the target such a man would select might well be the town in which Lewis herself happened to be. Sure, she’d sell him the key—but there would be a nasty surprise waiting for Mr. Aziz when he tried to open that door. And the Army would give her a medal for it. How ironic was that?
8
Fine Point Salle d’Armes
Washington, D.C.
Thorn was sweating, and he hadn’t expected that.
He was fencing Jamal, just the two of them, in the small, threadbare salle he’d opened up a little while earlier.
This was his dream—or at least it was one of his dreams.
Thorn himself had come up the hard way, from a hardscrabble existence on the reservation, and fencing had been an escape for him. He wanted to help make it an escape for others, too.
So a few years ago he’d quietly bought this tiny gym in D.C., refurbished it slightly, and reopened as a salle. Then he’d put the word out on the street that he was open and looking for people who were interested in fencing.
Jamal was one of the few who’d responded.
Thorn toyed with the idea of putting in more time here, really putting forth the effort to grow this place into something big. Something like what had happened in New York City a few years back. He could hire a coach, reach out to the community, and put together something that could really make a difference in people’s lives.
But not now. A coach alone wouldn’t be enough. It would take a tremendous effort by someone with vision, with commitment to the dream. And since it was his vision, his dream, it pretty much had to be him pushing it. But he couldn’t. Not now. Not as long as Net Force demanded so much of him. But maybe, someday . . .
Jamal came in fast. Thorn threw a quick high-line parry and riposted to the open wrist, but the wrist wasn’t there. It had been a feint.
Jamal’s point dropped, circling beneath Thorn’s bell guard, then pressed lightly on the outside of Thorn’s blade, guiding it further inside and then leaping off for a quick strike to Thorn’s shoulder.
Thorn smiled and leaned back, letting Jamal’s point fall short. That had been a good try.
As he leaned back, he allowed his guard to drop further, then brought his own point up sharply, striking behind Jamal’s bell and landing solidly on the heel of his palm.
“Hey!” Jamal said. “How’d you do that? I should have had your shoulder!”
Thorn grinned. He was aware of Marissa seated on a bleacher off to the side, but he wasn’t fencing any harder just because she was watching.
Well, maybe he was fencing a little harder. . . .
“Nice try,” he said. “You set it up beautifully. The thing is, you can’t think too much. If I’d been paying attention to what you were doing, trying to anticipate your next move, you’d have had me.”
Even through the mesh mask, Thorn could see his young opponent frown. “What, then?”
“It’s like I’ve said, Jamal, anticipation will get you killed—as it would have cost me a touch just now. No, there’s a different approach I want you think about. When you fence, what do you focus on? With your eyes, I mean? Where do you look?”
Jamal shrugged. “I don’t really focus on anything. You taught me that. I keep my eyes pointed pretty much straight ahead, but by not focusing I allow my peripheral vision to see more.”
Thorn nodded. “Exactly. Look at nothing, see everything.”
“Yeah.”
“It’s the same thing with your mind. Don’t focus. Be. Don’t react to the blade. Be the blade. Be the parry. Be the touch.”
Jamal shook his head. “You’ve said this before, but I still don’t get it.”
“You will. I’ve brought some books I think you’re ready for.” Thorn gestured over to where Marissa sat on the bleacher. There was a backpack on the floor next to her. Inside was a small selection of books he’d chosen specifically for Jamal. Heugel’s Zen and the Art of Archery. Musashi’s A Book of Five Rings. Smullyan’s The Tao Is Silent. A few others.
What he didn’t say was that he’d been bringing those same books now for six months, waiting for Jamal to reach the point where they would do him the most good.
Thorn also had two other stacks of books set aside, ready for the next steps in Jamal’s growth.
“Don’t think, huh?” Jamal asked.
“That’s right. Don’t think. Be.”
“Got it. All right, let’s try it again.”
And the dance was on once again.
Washington, D.C.
Carruth didn’t see it coming, there was no way he could have. Once there, he had no real choice.
He’d driven to a new rave club in Southeast, the Cairo Mirage. Carruth wasn’t a fan of such things, buncha idiots taking drugs and dancing until they fell over, but he’d met a drop-dead gorgeous redhead who ran some kind of program for troubled kids in Anacostia. She liked to party down at clubs, and she had told him she was gonna be there, so if he wanted to get next to her—and he did—he had to go where the action was.
A woman who looked that good was worth a little noise and effort.
Southeast wasn’t exactly the best section of town, but he wasn’t worried about street trash bothering him. He was big, strong, trained, armed, and could pass for a cop. The wolves usually had better sense than to bother a lion when there were so many sheep around.
The car was a rental, so if somebody boosted it while he was inside making nice with Ms. Red, it was no skin off his nose. He found an empty spot—a no-parking curb, but if he got a ticket, so what?—and wheeled the car into it. He got out, adjusted the heavy revolver on his hip under his sport coat, and cheeped the car’s alarm. The club was a block east, and it was still early, not yet 2100; ought not to have any problems at nine o’clock on a weeknight.
He was halfway there when an MPDC cruiser angled to the curb in front of him and the cop inside tapped the
siren.
Carruth stopped and stared at the car. It was white, with the stylized American flag on the side. The door opened, and a pair of cops got out. They weren’t unsnapping holsters or anything, but they were definitely coming to talk to him.
“Evening, Officers,” he said. He smiled. What was this?
The nearer cop, a beefy guy almost as big as Carruth, probably about thirty, finished slipping his side-handle baton into his belt loop, watching Carruth all the time. “Need to ask you a couple of questions, buddy.”
Carruth kept smiling. “Sure, no problem.” But he was worried.
He was dressed in a nice jacket and slacks; he ought to look like a citizen. No reason to brace him. And no “Good evening, sir.” MPDC cops were usually polite to citizens. Not a good sign.
The second cop, shorter and thinner than the other one, and with a thin moustache, said, “Did you know there was a robbery a couple blocks back a few minutes ago? Somebody hit a convenience store.”
“I didn’t see anybody,” Carruth said. “I’m parked about half a block back, on my way to meet a lady at a club.”
The two cops approached a bit closer, but stayed well apart from each other. “Well, thing is, the robber was a big white guy in a sport coat.”
Jesus Christ, they had to be kidding—they thought he’d knocked over a 7-Eleven and he was just strolling down the fucking street like he owned it?
Carruth laughed. “Wasn’t me. I’m not a robber, I’m just on my way to meet this woman.”
“Yeah, you said that,” Beefy said. “Mind if we see some ID?”
“No problem. My wallet is in my back pocket.”
“How about if I get that for you?” Moustache said, still smiling.
“Excuse me?”
Beefy put his hand on his Glock’s gun butt.
Nine-millimeter Glocks were dangerous guns—no safety, save for the split trigger, they often went off in the hands of a nervous cop when they weren’t supposed to go off. A lot of lawsuits had been settled by big cities where badly trained police accidentally cooked citizens with those Tupperware side arms, even with the heavier New York trigger. Carruth had no use for Glocks.
