State of War nf-7 Read online

  The data in that packet was obviously a little higher priority than the info in the log, given a measure of protection, and speeded up slightly. Around him, Jay could see more shapes in the water, some gators, some logs.

  Another set of gator nostrils and eyes slid past the air boat. Jay looked at the space between the eyes and nostrils — about twelve inches, he figured.

  Now there’s a big one.

  It was an old gator hunter’s rule of thumb: The distance between the inside of the nostrils and the eyes in inches was the approximate size of the animal in feet. This one should be about twelve feet long.

  But when he looked for the gator’s wake, it was wrong: Instead of a tail tip sloshing water ten to twelve feet behind the eyes and nostrils, it was way too short — only about two feet.

  Well, well.

  Had he been looking at a computer monitor, he would have just seen that the checksum for the data packet he was looking at didn’t match. In his experience, that didn’t happen with legitimate data. Somebody was trying to make a big thing look small.

  Time for a closer look at Mr. Gator.

  He reached for his ketch-all pole — an extended piece of stainless steel tubing with a steel noose at one end that could be used to snare dangerous animals — and turned the air boat to follow the gator. The creature must have been imbued with some form of simplified warning system, because as soon as he started tracking it, it sped up.

  Fast. Much too fast for a gator, unless it was jet-powered.

  Jay grinned. Looked like he was going to get a chance to use his boat after all.

  He accelerated rapidly, the roar of horsepower shoving the air boat after the gator. It looked like the critter was making for a branch off the bayou, just ahead. Jay pushed the throttle harder, and cypress trees whipped past. A low-hanging section of Spanish moss smacked him in the face.

  Sometimes, he was too good, maybe.

  The gator was fast, but no match for his boat. As he got closer, Jay lowered the ketch-all so its noose was just ahead of the gator. At this speed he’d have to be quick, lest the water rip the pole out of his hand.

  He dipped the loop into in the water and yanked on the loop that drew the steel rope taut. The pole pulled hard at his arms, and had the gator been as long as advertised, it would have been a very unpleasant experience. But, of course, it was only a shrimp, just as he had figured.

  Right yet again. It was a burden, sometimes. People got to expecting it.

  He killed the engine and unbuckled his seat belt before lowering the gator onto the deck of his boat.

  The two-foot-long beast was most unhappy, it thrashed and smacked its tail against the tough aluminum, making a thunking sound. Jay hand-over-handed his way down the ketch-all. He reached down and squeezed its jaws shut — not difficult, as its more powerful muscles were designed to bite, not open its mouth — and slipped another noose over its snout, pulling it tight.

  Gotcha.

  What he’d actually done of course was rascal the address of the gator’s destination so that it came to him instead of going to its original destination. But a gator chase was much more exciting than that.

  Jay flipped the gator and looked at its belly. No seams.

  Nice work.

  Well he had ways around that, too.

  He took a small skinning knife and slit the belly of the gator open. Instead of warm guts, however, pages of information spilled out, only the top one damaged by his rapid opening of the gator. He glanced at the writing on the first page and grinned.

  Well, well. Look at this. How interesting…

  2

  Net Force Shooting Range

  Quantico, Virginia

  General John Howard arrived with his son Tyrone. They stopped to talk to Gunny at the check-in station. He was a master sergeant, but he’d always be “Gunny” to the shooters who came here.

  “General. And is this Tyrone? You’ve grown some since I saw you last.”

  Tyrone, at that voice-breaking fifteen-year-old stage, smiled and nodded. “Yes, sir,” he said.

  “You shooting rifle today, sir?” Gunny asked the general.

  “No, the sidearm. Tyrone hasn’t had a chance to shoot the Medusa.”

  “What load do you want?”

  “Some nines, some.38 Special, a few.357s,” Howard said.

  “Is your ring up to date, sir?”

  Howard nodded. The electronic control ring he wore, that all Net Force and FBI active agents wore, controlled the firing of his personal weaponry. Well, except for the old Thompson submachine gun his grandfather had left him. He hadn’t wanted to screw around with that; it was a collectible item, probably worth more than his car — not that he would ever sell it.

  “You need me to fit Tyrone with a ring?”

  “No, he’s got his own. Has Julio shown up yet?”

  “Yes, sir, he’s already on the line. Lane six.”

  “I figured,” Howard said. “He needs all the practice he can get.”

  Gunny chuckled.

  “Am I missing a joke here, Sarge?”

  “With all due respect, sir, you and Lieutenant Fernandez both need all the practice you can get. If all the Net Force ops shot as slow and bad as you do, it’d be more effective for them to throw their weapons than fire them.”

  Howard grinned. He was, he knew, a better-than-average shooter with a handgun, and superior to most with a long arm. But Gunny here could shoot the eyes off a fly with either hand with a pistol, and with a rifle he could drill neat patterns in targets so far away you could drink a beer waiting for the bullet to get that far. Figuratively speaking. And Howard was never a man to stand on ceremony with his men.

  Gunny gave them a box with the revolver ammunition in it along with two pairs of electronic earmuffs and shooting glasses. Howard and his son slipped the sound suppressors on before they went through the heavy doors to the range itself.

  There were a couple of shooters firing pistols, and they saw Julio in the sixth lane, blasting away at a holographic target with his old Army-issue Beretta. He had fitted the pistol with Crimson Trace laser sights, built right into the grip, and that had improved his shooting somewhat. With the built-ins, all you had to do was point the weapon, you didn’t have to line up the notch-and-post, and you could shoot as well from the hip as from the classical sight-picture pose. When it was properly calibrated, your bullets would hit wherever the little red dot was when you squeezed the trigger. Yeah, you still had to be able to hold the weapon steady, but it was a distinct advantage for older eyes.

  Julio, who had talked him into his current sidearm, a Phillips & Rodgers Model 47, also called “Medusa,” had been trying to get Howard to put the laser grips on that. So far, however, Howard had resisted. They weren’t that expensive, a few hundred dollars, which was cheap when it was your life on the line, but Howard had an old-fashioned streak running through him that made him slow to adopt such things — at least for his personal use.

  Julio finished cooking off a magazine, looked up, and saw them. He smiled. “Hey, Tyrone. How’s the leg?”

  “Doing just fine now, Lieutenant.”

  Julio looked at Howard. “You told him to call me that, didn’t you? Have to keep rubbing it in.”

  “Well, I figured you might as well get some use out of the title. In no time at all, you’ll be a captain.”

  “Might as well be hung for a sheep as a goat,” Julio said.

  “Might as well. You okay with Tyrone shooting a few with us today? He’s never been much interested in handguns, and I thought he might like to see how hard they are to score with compared to a rifle.”

  “Why would I object to that, sir? I mean, compared to the way the general does it, even a first-timer who didn’t know the muzzle from the butt could hardly do any worse.”

  “A general could have a lieutenant shot for such sass,” Howard said.

  “Yes, sir, but the only general I know? He’d have to have somebody else do it for him, otherwise
he’d waste a whole lot of the taxpayers’ money on ammo before he scored a hit.”

  Tyrone laughed, and Howard grinned again. Twenty-odd years of soldiering together gave him and Julio a camaraderie that was way past commander and enlisted man, at least when there wasn’t anybody else around, and Tyrone was family, so he didn’t count.

  “Well, let’s just see, Lieutenant, if your mouth is writing checks your butt can’t cash, shall we?”

  “Yes, sir. You want me to use my left hand? Stand on one foot?”

  “Why? You still owe me ten bucks from last time when you used both your hands and feet. I’m not the least bit worried.”

  Julio smiled.

  Washington, D.C.

  Guru was watching the baby — having a live-in baby-sitter was a gift from God, no doubt — and Toni took the opportunity to go for a ride on Alex’s recumbent trike. He usually kept the three-wheeler at work, but she’d had him bring it home so she could get back into shape. Since the baby had been born, there never seemed to be enough time to work out, and while she had kept up with her silat practice, she had gained an inch on her thighs and hips she just couldn’t seem to get rid of, no matter how many times she did her djurus. She could get a pretty good burn pumping the pedals, and the trike would allow her to hit the muscles from a different angle than the martial arts moves did. She hoped.

  Of course, riding a trike in Washington traffic was an invitation to serious bodily harm, even with strobe flashers and a bright orange pennant flying from a tall whip antenna eight feet up. She had promised Alex she would use the new bike lanes and paths winding in and out of the park not far from their house. She had also chosen to go out in the middle of the morning on a weekday. That was the best time to go out, since there was hardly anybody using them.

  She was on a straight stretch that ran for about half a mile along the fenced border of the park. Nobody was in sight, and the paved path was dry. It was cloudy, but still muggy, and the sweat drenched her bike shorts and T-shirt as she upshifted into high gear and began to do some serious cranking on the pedals. The trike was very stable on a straightaway, and the brakes were good, so she wasn’t worried.

  The warm afternoon air blew past at a speed somewhere about thirty-five miles an hour by the time she peaked, pedaling as hard as she could, and she started to slow down three hundred meters from the end of the run. Trying to take that curve at this speed would have her eating macadam in a hurry.

  Her legs burned, but that was what she wanted.

  Since Guru had come to live with them, Toni could have gone back to work full-time, but she hadn’t. Nor had she wanted to. The baby came first, even though he was not really a baby anymore. He was walking, talking, turning into a little boy more and more every day. He was smart, quick, and beautiful, and even leaving him alone for a few hours was hard. Yes, there were times when she enjoyed the break. And yes, she missed work, because it challenged her in ways staying home did not. Still, if push came to shove and she had to make a choice, she’d be a housewife and mother.

  Fortunately, it hadn’t come to that. When your husband was your boss, you could be flexible. Besides, since she’d retired from the mainstream FBI job, she was technically a “consultant,” which apparently satisfied the legal department…

  Her com chimed. She was down to a fairly safe speed now, so she pulled the phone’s clip from her shorts’ hem. The caller ID sig told her who it was.

  “Hey, babe,” she said.

  “Hey,” Alex said. “Where are you?”

  “Riding the trike.”

  “Oh, good.”

  “What does that mean? You think I need to ride it? That I’m fat?”

  There was a long pause.

  She laughed. “I’m just kidding, Alex. You are so easy.”

  “Yeah, right. I’ve been down this road too many times before, thank you very much. You are not fat. I was merely expressing happiness that you could get out and enjoy yourself. It’s supposed to rain later today.”

  “So I heard. What’s up?”

  “I’ve got to fly to New York for a meeting with the director and the Home Defense folks. Should be a quick turnaround, I’m catching the bureau’s Lear, so I won’t have to wait in the lines for a commercial flight. I should be home for dinner, but just in case I’m running late, I wanted you to know.”

  “Thanks, sweetie. You be careful.”

  “I will be. I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  After he discommed, Toni tucked the phone away and concentrated on her triking. She was glad Alex wasn’t taking the shuttle. It had been a while since any bad terrorist stuff had happened on the planes, but after the really nasty events of 2001 and some of the ugly ones since, flying just wasn’t the same.

  Sure, everyone did it, and mostly they tried to put it out of their minds. Life was full of risk. You could get run over just crossing the street. Still, she always had a twinge of worry every time Alex flew, even on the company jet. Yes, there were sky marshals on most flights; yes, as a federal agent, Alex could carry his taser; and yes, he finally had some skill in fighting. But as everybody knew, against a suicidal fanatic, all bets were iffy.

  They would have to get to the root of the cause to stop it, and some of the world’s grudges went back thousands of years. How do you change the attitude of somebody whose people had grown up hating since the days when they were building pyramids?

  Slowly. Very slowly. Meanwhile, you kept your guard up and if somebody did try something, you flattened them. The price of liberty was vigilance.

  Toni rounded the curve. A pair of mothers were pushing strollers, both women wearing broad-brimmed hats, and both strollers with lids up and blankets draped to keep the babies shaded. Toni smiled, feeling a kinship with these women. She had a child. Mothers were all connected in some way, weren’t they?

  She passed the walkers, smiled, and waved. She could turn around up ahead and head back the way she had come. With any luck, that straight stretch would still be empty, and she could cut loose again. And then go home and see her beautiful, brilliant, wonderful son.

  Net Force Shooting Range Quantico, Virginia

  Tyrone had gone to wash his hands and use the toilet, leaving Howard and Julio at Gunny’s desk.

  Julio was the first to try to describe what had just happened.

  “Lord, John, I never saw anything like that,” he said. “The kid is a natural pistoleer. Give him a month to practice and he’d shoot the pants off Gunny here.”

  Howard nodded. It had been quite a surprise to see his teenaged son pick up a pistol and have it become an extension of his hand. No fumbling, no hesitation. He put the first round into the target dead-on and kept putting them there the rest of the session. He did it with Howard’s revolver and Julio’s semiauto equally well, too. It was as if he had been shooting handguns for years, but Howard knew he hadn’t. This had been his very first exposure.

  Stunned and amazed, Howard had asked him if he’d practiced in VR, but Tyrone had said no.

  Gunny nodded. “You want to send him down here to train, sir, I’ll put him on the pistol team. We could use the help.”

  Howard shook his head. Having his son turn into Wild Bill Hickock had never been part of his vision for the boy. Yes, he wanted him to be able to handle firearms, and yes, he wouldn’t be too unhappy if the boy was a little more physical instead of plopped in front of his computer as much as he was. Tyrone had learned how to throw a boomerang, and that got him out into the sunshine more, which was good. And he had a girlfriend, so he was learning those aspects of manhood, too. But a shooter? Howard had never thought about it.

  It was obvious the boy had a talent for it. But was he interested in pursuing it? And if he was, did Howard really want him to pursue it?

  Well, his inner voice said, it’ll keep him off the streets, won’t it?

  “I’ll ask him,” he told Gunny.

  “You do that, General, sir. A talent like that, it would be a waste not
to encourage it.”

  Maybe, Howard thought.

  Maybe.

  3

  Dutch Mall Office Building

  Long Island, New York

  Mitchell Townsend Ames leaned back in his form-chair and listened as the servomotors quietly hummed and adjusted the unit to fit his new position. The chair was a marvel of bioengineering. Top-grain leather and graded biogel padding covered a pneumatic/hydraulic frame of titanium. Driven by six electric motors, and using pressure sensors and fast relays, it matched his every movement, molding itself to his position within a second. When he sat up and leaned forward, it became a straight-backed office chair. When he leaned back a little, it rearranged itself into a lounger. And if he chose to stretch out fully, it turned into a bed.

  Eleven thousand dollars and change, the chair was guaranteed to be the most comfortable thing you ever sat on or your money cheerfully refunded. So far, the company that made the form-chair had sold almost five thousand of the things, and nobody had asked for their money back. It was a great toy.

  Ames owned six of the custom-made form-chairs: one in his medical office, the second in his legal office, the third and fourth in his New York apartment and house in Connecticut, respectively, and the fifth at his mistress’s apartment in London. The last one he kept here in his “clean” office, which was the only place he met with people like Junior.

  Almost seventy thousand dollars for half a dozen chairs. A lot of money for a little comfort. If he wanted, though, he could have bought a hundred more form-chairs without his accountant ever raising an eyebrow. After all, he had won half a dozen class-action tort cases — one chair for each successful suit — against major pharmaceutical companies. Each one had netted upward of a hundred million dollars. His percentage had been considerable. He could retire today with an annual income of well over a million dollars from the interest alone. What were a few toys when you had that kind of resource?

  Still, the man seated across from him was in a cheaper and more conventional chair: comfortable, but nothing like a form-chair.