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  You could have heard a pin drop just before the players got started, the quietest theater Kent could remember being in, and despite the size of the theater, which could probably hold twice as many people as were there, the nylon-stringed guitars had enough volume to carry all the way to the rear seats, which is where he’d sat, looking for Natadze.

  Kent hadn’t seen him, but he had heard the music just fine.

  The luthier displays afterward were also impressive. Objects of art, most of them, guitars that looked great and made sweet music—when somebody else picked them up and played them. Kent’s musical talent was zero, except that he liked to listen to all kinds—from classical to jazz to rock to country, whatever—if it was done well.

  The hunt for Natadze had come up empty. The former hit man for Cox hadn’t shown up looking for a new guitar. Kent would have spotted him, even if he’d changed his appearance, he was sure of that.

  Well. It had been a remote possibility at best.

  He had talked to Otto Bergman, once the makers had started packing their stuff away to leave. He’d identified himself, and told the man why he was there. Bergman, who was sixty-something, white-haired, wrinkled, and tanned more than Kent would have thought a guitar-builder would be, had pointed out the very instrument that Natadze had ordered.

  “I don’t have that many at any given time,” the man had said. “And since that one seemed destined to stay at my shop forever, I figured I might as well get some use out of it. It belongs to Net Force—you could take it with you, if you wish. It’s just taking up space at my place, and if your man was going to try and get it, he would have done so by now.”

  The idea of hauling an eight-thousand-dollar guitar across country rattling around in the back of a C-130 didn’t appeal to Kent. He might hitch a ride on something a little more upscale, a C-40 or maybe even a C-12 or C-21, and that would be more like flying commercial, but still.

  As if the man could read his thoughts, Bergman had said, “I outfit my guitars with Josey Herumin cases, Colonel. They are made of carbon fiber and Kevlar, custom-fitted. Josey gives me a deal on them because I buy five or six a year, and they add eight hundred dollars to the price of the guitar. You could drive a truck over one of them and it wouldn’t hurt the guitar inside. I have a picture of a Toyota pickup with one of the front wheels resting on a Herumin case, and tire doesn’t even dent it.”

  “How do you know I’m really from Net Force and not some con man trying to steal one of your instruments?”

  “How would you know I have one belonging to Net Force? I didn’t tell anybody, and I’m assuming they didn’t, so if you know, either you are with them or a very clever thief.” He paused, and looked at Kent intently. “You aren’t a crook, are you?”

  “No.”

  “Good enough for me. Anyway, I’ve been paid for it. Wouldn’t cost me a thing if you swiped it.” He grinned, then, his face softening. “Besides, you’d be the guy who has to deal with Net Force.”

  Which was how Kent came to have a very expensive classical guitar in the closet of his motel room, inside a black case you could use for stopping bullets.

  He had a paperback book he’d picked up at the airport, one of those military history things done by some big-name writer and a former general, and he read for thirty or forty minutes before he turned off the light and went to sleep.

  Kent came awake in an instant. He’d heard something, some noise in the room with him that ought not to be there.

  His side arm was on the floor next to the bed and he reached down and pulled it from the holster. He thumbed the safety off and cocked it. That sound seemed very loud. There was a small flashlight on the bedside table, a butt-button job he carried when he traveled, in case a fire or some other disaster cut the power. He grabbed the light, then carefully rolled over the bed and onto the floor to his left, away from the front door. He crossed wrists so that the light and the gun’s muzzle were aimed in the same direction, then he thumbed the light button on.

  He did a fast sweep of the room with the light. Nobody there.

  The little metal safety loop-latch on the door was still in place—nobody had come or gone that way.

  He came up to a low crouch and worked his way to the bathroom.

  Nobody in there, either.

  He straightened up. Must have been something outside that sounded closer than it was. He switched on the overhead light.

  He was only a meter or so away from the closet, and there, he saw two things immediately:

  The guitar case was gone.

  There was a stack of hundred-dollar bills on the floor where the case had been.

  He knew immediately what had happened.

  He ran to the door. He flicked off the safety loop and unlocked the door, jerked it wide, jumped outside and dropped low, and spun three-sixty as he looked for a target—

  Nothing—

  He was in his skivvies, with a pistol in his hand, and fortunately, at three in the morning, no civilians were standing around in the parking lot to have heart attacks when they saw him. He came up from his crouch, all alone.

  Natadze!

  The bastard had come into his room—had to be through the bathroom window—taken the guitar, and left what Kent was sure was going to be five thousand dollars in its place.

  Son of a bitch!

  After he hurriedly got dressed, Kent searched the parking lot and the area around it. Natadze wasn’t there.

  Sure enough, his room’s bathroom window had been the point of entry—there were tool marks on the frame, where somebody had forced the sliding glass panel open, and what he took to be shoe heel or sole scuffs on the painted wall.

  The guy had balls, no question. To break into his room, take the guitar, and then pay for the sucker? That was nervy.

  But maybe worse was, Natadze had spotted him, figured out who he was and what he was doing, and managed to tail him—without Kent having a clue. That really galled.

  Of course, Kent should have considered that if he would recognize Natadze at first sight, then Natadze might know him as well. Back when they’d been after Cox, Natadze could have seen him. Or maybe just found an image of Kent somewhere—a lot of Net Force information was available to the public, and certainly Kent’s appointment to head the military wing hadn’t been any kind of state secret. Natadze could have found that out easily enough.

  Well, that didn’t really matter. What did matter was that the guy had been within a couple meters of Kent while he snored away. If Natadze had wanted to, he could have just as easily shot Kent dead as not, and that made him feel worse still.

  Why hadn’t Natadze shot him? Why had he left the money? What kind of man was he, to do that?

  Despite his anger, Kent felt a grudging admiration building for the guy. He had made a couple of big points: He hadn’t stolen the guitar, and he could have iced Kent, but had chosen to let him live.

  Had to give the man credit for style.

  But that wouldn’t slow Kent from trying to find him.

  There were two security cams at the motel. One was inside the lobby, set to scan anybody approaching, or at the front desk; the other cam watched the parking lot. Kent waved his ID, made some vague threats about Homeland Security, and the night clerk was only too happy to let him view the recorder.

  Natadze wasn’t on the hard disk. There was a good shot of Kent twirling around in his underwear, waving his gun, though.

  If Natadze had a car, he hadn’t pulled it into the lot, so he was thinking ahead.

  Half a step ahead, just like before.

  For a few seconds, Kent considered calling the state police and trying to set up roadblocks. But what information did he have to give them? Natadze could have changed his looks entirely—hair color and style, could have grown a beard, gotten colored contact lenses, maybe even had plastic surgery.

  He didn’t know what the fugitive would be driving, wearing, anything. The only certain identification would be the guitar, but Natadze could hi
de that—under a blanket on the floor, in the trunk, anywhere. Was Kent going to ask the state police to stop and search every car with a man alone? Who was even to say he was alone? He could have a girlfriend, a confederate; for that matter, he might be on a bus or a train by now.

  Too many variables, not enough information.

  So close. But he might as well have been on the moon, for all the good it did Kent.

  16

  CyberNation

  Jay wandered through a cityscape that looked like Metropolis, Gotham, and the Blade Runner version of L.A., all rolled into one, with a little Tokyo sprinkled in for flavor. The architecture ranged from modern to Gothic to art deco, from 1890s San Francisco to skyscrapers taller than the twin towers in Kuala Lumpur.

  Whatever else it might offer, CyberNation had an infrastructure that was something to see. It was huge. Nothing but city, as far as you could see, farther than you could walk in two days.

  And Jay now had the keys to the buildings.

  Well, not all of them, but enough to keep him busy for the next couple of years, even if he didn’t feel like picking locks or kicking in doors—which he could always do.

  It was gigantic, but not evenly built. Most of it looked fuzzy through Jay’s new viewer, though there were parts where it seemed as if somebody else had gotten their hands on a pair of those same glasses and started smoothing things. As he walked down the sidewalk, which, in this scenario, appeared to be a lot like Fifth Avenue in New York on a busy afternoon, full of pedestrians, the road clogged with cars, trucks, bicycles, and Segways, Jay tried to take it all in.

  He passed sensoria, where customers could step in and experience canned fantasies—be an action hero, a great lover, explore another planet, or whatever struck your fancy.

  There were restaurants, bars, schools, stores, everything you’d find in an RW city, plus things available only in VR: sex shops where your partner could be a particular movie star or group of stars; clubs where you could hunt down and shoot the most dangerous game—other humans. Russian Roulette parlors where you could bet your VR life.

  Behold the vices for your enjoyment. . . .

  Jay hadn’t begun to see it all, but he was willing to bet that anything legal in VR anywhere would be available in CyberNation, and probably some stuff that wasn’t legal. Kiddie porn wasn’t legal, though there were some weird cartoon exceptions to that, but Jay didn’t expect to find that here. The whole issue was too emotionally charged, and the chance of it backfiring against them was too great.

  Drug-dispensing VR gear accessories for your suit were in the same category—prohibited by CyberNation, he thought—but for different reasons. These actually were legal, but they required a doctor’s prescription. Jay knew there were ways around that, and he was sure that CyberNation knew all of them, but he doubted they offered them. CyberNation wasn’t strong enough to flout the laws of RW.

  Not yet, anyway.

  There were any number of other esoteric perversions that CyberNation probably didn’t want to risk as well. Other than those, the sky was the limit—or not; you could fly to Mars or Alpha Centauri, if you wanted. In VR.

  He passed a huge library with the word “Knowledge” over the door.

  He paused in front of a map shop that offered views from spysats—you gave them your GPS coordinates and they could zoom into your backyard with enough resolution to see what newspaper your wife was reading on your deck.

  It was easy to see the selling points for a place like this. Why waste your time in the RW, which was messy and dangerous, when you could come to CyberNation and experience everything you ever desired, and all from the comfort of your own home? Don full sensory gear with penile or vaginal accessories—delivered to you as part of your sign-up package—and you could have any kind of sex you wanted with anybody, without the risk of catching some disease.

  It was true that VR food didn’t offer any sustenance, but that was part of the appeal—you could eat all you wanted and never get fat. Yes, the stims for food weren’t perfect yet, the electrode cap that cranked up your brain centers had a way to go, but the wireless taste-bud lozenges were getting up there. They could deliver a fairly good approximation of a lot of things using the basic sweet-sour-salty-bitter tropes, along with the nares odor-gen gear. And CyberNation’s proprietary suitware was cutting-edge—Jay had some of it in his own sense-suits.

  In top-grade mesh, you could experience tropical heat, arctic cold, or any temperature you considered perfect. With the best sensory-stim, you could feel the sand under your feet, the hard coolness of a rock face you were climbing, or the water around you as you flippered along in your scuba gear to explore for sunken treasure. Still not as good as the RW in a lot of cases, but without the risk—or the discomfort—and getting better all the time. For many, the dream was better than the reality. And Jay was hardly one to point fingers, given the time he spent suited up and in VR.

  There was, however, trouble in the city, otherwise Jay wouldn’t be here.

  He caught a taxi and gave it the location Seurat had provided: “Take me to the Garden of Perpetual Bliss,” he said.

  The cabbie nodded and turned on his sat-radio. “Any kind of music you wanna hear?”

  “How about classic rock, late sixties? Beatles? Rolling Stones?”

  “You got it, pal.”

  Paul McCartney began singing and playing “Black-bird.” An antiracist song, according to Sir Paul, and easy to see from a distance, though apparently at the time few had understood the message.

  Wasn’t that always the way?

  Net Force HQ

  Quantico, Virginia

  In his office, Thorn listened to Abe Kent’s report on his encounter with Natadze, nodding but not speaking. When the colonel had finished, Thorn said, “You’re sure it was him.” It wasn’t a question.

  “No doubt in my mind. I don’t see how it could have been anybody else. Who would take a guitar and leave the exact amount he owed the builder in its place? Who could know how much that was?”

  Thorn sighed. “I don’t see how there was any way you could have known he’d follow you—I wouldn’t have bet a penny against a dollar he’d have even been there.”

  “I would have won the small bet, but I lost the game.”

  “Don’t blame yourself, Abe.”

  “I’d love to have somebody else to lay it off on, but it was my mistake. I should have had a contingency plan. It never crossed my mind, and it should have.”

  “Done is done,” Thorn said. “What now?”

  “I know where he was, and when. If it’s okay with you, I’ll get Gridley’s people to run a search on security cams in the area—motels, car-rental places, the whole package. He was at the guitar thing in Lincoln, he followed me—maybe he missed a step along the way.”

  “You think there’s much chance of that?”

  “Frankly, no. It was a fluke that we tied him to the Cox deal in the first place. A lucky break that he happened to be passing by a bank machine while somebody was using it, and that some woman ran a red light in front of him and we got pictures. Can’t bank on luck again.”

  “Cox paid for it all,” Thorn said. “Blown to pieces in his own car. We’ve officially moved on.”

  “Natadze is a loose end. And we’re sure he was the guy who took Cox out.”

  “Depending on how you look at it, he did us a favor. Given the politics and money involved, Cox would have died of old age before we could have put him away, and even that was iffy.”

  “He’s still a killer. And I owe him.”

  Thorn nodded again. He understood that. “All right. Pass it along to Jay’s group and see what they come up with. Good luck.”

  “Thank you, Commander.”

  After Kent was gone, Thorn thought about that case. What a mess it had been. Old Soviet Union spies, hit men, a crooked billionaire . . .

  His intercom buzzed. “Sir? Marissa Lowe on one.”

  Thorn smiled. “Got it.”

 
; He waved the phone to life and got a visual. Marissa, who did several things for the CIA, including being the liaison between that spook group and Net Force, was a strikingly handsome woman with skin the color of coffee and just a little cream.

  “Hey, Tommy.”

  “Hey, yourself. How’s . . . ? Where are you again?”

  “Classified, I’m afraid. You don’t need to know.”

  He laughed. She was a funny woman. Smart, too, though she tried to play that down.

  “When are you coming back to town?”

  “More classified information, my boy.”

  “But eventually?”

  “I believe I can stipulate to that much, yes.”

  “What a terrible operative you are—see, I just wormed information out of you. What if I were a spy? I could set up a surveillance, knowing you’d be coming to Washington sooner or later. Catch you, just like that!” He snapped his fingers.

  She laughed, and he liked being able to make her do that.

  “I want to see the requisition you put in for your surveillance team, Tommy. The little box where they ask for approximate cost and time for the team to be in the field. You gonna write ‘eventually’?”

  “I’m the boss, I don’t need to fill out no stinkin’ report.”

  She laughed again.

  “I hear there’s a new restaurant opening up in Foggy Bottom,” he said. “Italian, being run by the guy who used to be the chef at Gianelli’s.”

  “Ah. And . . . ?”

  “Well, if I had some idea when you’d be back, I could make reservations. Treat you to dinner.”

  “Must be nice to be rich,” she said. “But I wouldn’t know, being a lowly GS-13 barely scraping by.”

  “Oh, yeah, rich is good. You could marry me, then when we divorce, you could get half, then you’d see.”

  “You put that in writing?”

  They both laughed.

  “Hypothetically speaking,” she said after a moment, “if you were to make a reservation at this new restaurant for, say, Thursday, maybe you wouldn’t have to dine alone.”