Private Lives nfe-9 Read online

  Then the terrifying close-up of James Winters was replaced by the image of Tori Rush, looking very serious.

  “New Mafia or not,” she said, “it might be wise to remember that Stefano Alcista’s enemies are not all criminals.”

  Tori’s segment ended, and an ad came on. But Matt Hunter still faced the holo set, feeling slightly numb.

  I always thought Tori Rush was kind of hot, he thought. Not anymore. If she could do that to the captain, she’s cold. He shuddered. Cold as ice.

  Megan O’Malley blinked through her connection to the Net — and opened her eyes to the virtual meeting hall of the Net Force Explorers. The crowd was bigger than usual, so she had a bit of a job finding her friends. And when she did, none of them — not even Mark Gridley — could explain why a special national meeting had been called.

  At eight o’clock on the dot one of the walls receded to create a small stage where James Winters stood. But he wasn’t alone.

  “Dad!” Mark Gridley blurted out. Jay Gridley, the head of Net Force, stood beside him. Behind them were two more men — strangers.

  “Welcome to this special meeting of the Net Force Explorers.” Captain Winters followed his usual ritual for officially starting a meeting, then hesitated. “I think I’ll let the boss take over from here,” he said.

  Jay Gridley stepped forward. “Captain Winters suggested this meeting, and asked that I be here so that you’d be the first to hear about this situation — and you’d get the story straight from the source, without any exaggerations or distortions.”

  “What situation?” Megan hissed at Mark Gridley. “What story?”

  All she got was a baffled shrug in reply.

  “Last night a national newsmagazine broadcast raised certain questions about one of our agents,” Gridley went on. “I don’t think those questions are valid, but for the good of the agency I do think they should be answered fully. So I’ve asked Hank Steadman, the head of our Internal Affairs division, to conduct an investigation of that agent.”

  “Hangman Hank, that’s what I’ve heard the regular agents call him,” Megan heard somebody mutter in the crowd. “He’s head of the rat squad.”

  The older of the two other men on the virtual stage stepped forward. “My people will try to do their jobs as quickly and unobtrusively as possible,” Steadman said. “But it’s official Net Force policy that while the investigation goes on, the agent under investigation, Captain James Winters, will remain off duty.”

  A storm of murmured protest broke out among the Net Force Explorers at this announcement. Captain Winters took the podium and raised his voice. “I realize this is going to be tough on you, just as it’s tough on me. And I’m touched by your loyalty. But rules are rules, and I can hardly ask you to remember that axiom if I don’t follow it myself. This is the way things have to be,” he said, “while Captain Steadman makes his necessary, routine…and hopefully brief…investigation.”

  Jay Gridley gave a quick, emphatic nod.

  Megan noticed, however, that “Hangman Hank” Steadman’s nod wasn’t as positive.

  Jay Gridley took over the meeting again. “Think of it as Captain Winters finally being able to take some vacation time. We all know how hard the man works. A little peace will do him good,” he said. “While Captain Winters is away, your Net Force Explorers liaison will be Agent Len Dorpff.”

  Megan finally turned her attention to the fourth man on the stage. Compared to the rest of the men, Agent Len Dorpff looked like a kid. In fact, several of the kids in the crowd facing the podium looked older than he did. Dorpff had an eager, awkward kind of face. With freckles. Worst of all, at least from Megan’s point of view, his ears stuck out.

  “Agent?” David Gray muttered in scorn as he looked at the man. “He doesn’t look old enough to have finished college, much less the FBI Academy. Looks to me like Net Force scraped the bottom of the barrel to come up with him.”

  “Looks like it,” Leif Anderson agreed. “In Gridley’s defense, it was short notice, and a temporary assignment at that. He probably didn’t want to put someone too valuable into the position.”

  Dorpff stepped out front and center, like a cadet about to speak to his class.

  “Men,” he began. Then he broke off, his face going a dull red as he scanned his audience. Roughly half the kids there — maybe more — were girls. Megan wasn’t the only girl who bristled at the agent’s unthinking comment.

  “People,” Dorpff hastily changed his opening. “Young…people.”

  He’s babbling, Megan thought.

  The young agent finally got back to his prepared speech, seemingly grabbing at his cue cards like a drowning man at a lifeline. “I’ll be stepping into some pretty big shoes for this assignment, but Captain Winters has been kind enough to brief me—”

  “Clearly not enough,” a female voice said with enough volume to make Dorpff blush again.

  “I hope we’ll be able to work together to keep things running during the captain’s absence.” Dorpff’s words came out in a desperate rush.

  Megan glanced around at her friends, who looked about as stunned and unhappy as she did. She didn’t care how old Dorpff was or what he looked like as long as he was up to the job. But Megan wasn’t sensing a comfortable level of competence about this man. He was in over his head and going down three times — almost before he even started.

  We’ve got to do something, she thought. With this clown running things, the Explorers won’t last a week!

  4

  The crew that Megan liked to think of as the “D.C. Nine” got together after the surprise Net Force Explorers meeting to talk. Matt Hunter’s virtual workspace was as crowded as the O’Malley living room had been during the broadcast of Winters’s interview — although, thanks to the miracle of Net technology, the visitors didn’t have to worry about having enough chairs to sit on or space to park them in. Megan, Andy Moore, Maj Green, David Gray, Catie Murray, Daniel Sanchez, and Mark Gridley floated among clouds and stars around the unsupported marble platform Matt was using as a desk these days.

  The non-Washington members of the group were a bit later linking in. Leif was in New York City, but he appeared virtually in Matt’s space soon enough, rubbing the sides of his head as he took his place in the crowd. P. J. Farris was in Texas with his father. He was the last to “arrive,” dressed in the boots, brush-popper shirt, and blue jeans he often wore when he was on his family’s ranch.

  Even though Matt was the one who had invited everyone in, Megan started the ball rolling. “I can’t believe anybody here is happy with the dimwit they brought in to replace the captain,” she said.

  “Tell us about it,” Maj grumbled. “Why would they bring in somebody so wet behind his ears? From the way he shot himself in the foot just by opening his mouth today, you have to wonder what he was like on the firing range.”

  Megan was in no mood for joking. She came right out with what was on her mind. “We’ve got to do something to get Captain Winters out of trouble and send Agent Dork back wherever he came from.”

  “It’s just for a little while,” Matt pointed out.

  “Yeah?” Megan shot back. “Then how come nobody mentioned exactly how long that ‘little while’ would be? If this was going to be an open-and-shut sort of investigation, wouldn’t somebody have given us an estimated time of completion? And even though Winters tried to pass it off as a pain-in-the-butt standard annoyance, I noticed that ‘Hangman Hank’ Steadman didn’t lighten up. He looked about as serious as a hearse throughout the whole thing.”

  “Megan, you’re making it sound like Winters is going to be fired,” Mark Gridley protested. “My dad would never—”

  Megan cut him off. “A week ago, you’d have told me your dad would never have suspended the captain.”

  Mark opened his mouth, then shut it.

  “So what are you suggesting, Megan?” Andy wanted to know. “You thinking of sending nasty e-mail to Jay Gridley? That would be kind of cool — tryin
g to flame the head of Net Force—”

  “For however long you got away with it,” David, the usual voice of reason, cut in. “I figure the FBI would be knocking on your door in about fifteen minutes.”

  “I don’t think that’s the way—” Matt began.

  “So we’re just supposed to sit like statues while Captain Winters gets crucified?” Megan demanded. She rounded on Mark before he could even speak. “And don’t try telling me about how he’ll be protected. The minute Tori Rush put the story on Once Around the Clock, it became political. And everybody knows how politics runs in this city.”

  “Okay, then. What can we do?” Leif Anderson asked sarcastically. “Are we supposed to turn the reign of terror from whatsisname — that McGuffin guy — to this news-babe instead?”

  Megan didn’t have an answer, and Matt jumped in. “Now, wait a minute!” he said. “The captain asked us specifically to leave McGuffin alone. If we do anything to a network newsperson, it will just make matters worse for Captain Winters.”

  “But we’ve got to do something,” Daniel Sanchez said. “Maybe you guys can afford to blow off an adult who believes in us — who listens and tries to help out. I can’t.”

  Megan glanced at this unexpected ally. She knew that Daniel had a tough family situation — a lot rougher than anyone else in this group. But he had a point. Most of the kids in this room were able to depend on their parents and some of their teachers in a pinch. But none of the kids had enough adults they could count on to back them in a tough spot that they could afford to lose one.

  Even Matt was silenced by Daniel’s words. He thought for a second, and a glimmer of an idea began to form. “Maybe we can do something to show that we back Captain Winters one hundred percent,” he said. “Even the captain couldn’t complain about us showing our opinion of him — as long as we don’t go after someone else.”

  “That sounds good, but I don’t think it goes far enough. The HoloNews network headquarters is up in New York,” Leif said. “Maybe I can poke around up there and see what’s going on.”

  “I want to help, too,” Mark Gridley unexpectedly spoke up. “I could try to get into Dad’s files and find out how the investigation is going.”

  “You sure you want to do that?” David Gray’s expression was serious as he looked down at the Squirt.

  The younger boy merely nodded. “Yeah, I know. Spying on the head of Net Force. It’s probably fairly high on the ‘not a bright idea’ list.” Mark’s round, tanned face suddenly tightened. “But even if I get caught, what’s Dad going to do to me? Especially when I tell him why I did it. I’m pretty sure it’ll be all right, as long as we don’t try anything nasty.”

  Megan looked around at the others, strong emotion momentarily robbing her of her voice. She cleared her throat. “That’s not going to be enough,” she finally said. “None of it is. I’ve been doing some research on Hangman Hank. He used to be with the FBI until he was brought into Net Force about a year ago. Apparently, one of the higher-ups in the FBI thought at the time that Net Force’s internal affairs needed tightening up. You know how it is. Computer types never look buttoned down enough to government bigwigs. Or, more likely, maybe the FBI just wanted to get rid of the guy. Jay Gridley’s tried to get him moved somewhere else, but the man’s got good connections. He’s a political appointee, the kind that’s tough to get shed of. Anyway, this guy’s never been a field agent, even in the FBI. He’s always specialized in internal security and investigations. And he always gets something on the people he investigates. It’s his theory that nobody has clean hands. And maybe he’s right. You can’t be out on the streets as a field agent and run things one hundred percent by the book all the time.”

  The others didn’t say anything. But she could see from their faces that this was something they’d already heard or at least suspected. After all, how many times had they jumped into action because the hands of Net Force were officially tied? Even though they knew he was innocent, Captain Winters could be in serious trouble if the Internal Affairs department decided to go on a witch hunt.

  “With Steadman on your case, if you’re lucky, you either wind up humiliated or with a wrecked career. If you aren’t lucky, you end up behind bars. And he’s going to go all-out on a high-profile case like this one.”

  “We’re with you,” Leif said. “What can we do to help?”

  She blinked, hoping to hide the tears that suddenly sprang to her eyes. “Do you think the piddling stuff we’re offering to do will really help?”

  Megan didn’t allow herself to wait for an answer. Choking back her frustration and fear, she cut the connection and vanished from Matt’s space.

  Seconds later Matt floated open-mouthed in his virtual workspace, staring at the spot where Megan had stood.

  “Well,” Leif said, “that was a bit more exciting than most of our after-meeting get-togethers.”

  “Even more exciting than most meetings I’ve been to,” Mark agreed. He made a production of looking at the virtual watch on his wrist. “Maybe I should be heading out, too.”

  “You really going to do what you said you would?” Andy Moore asked.

  Offended, Mark gave him a quick look. “I said I would.” Then he vanished, too.

  Mark’s exit seemed to open the door for everybody else. A couple of people, David Gray among them, apologized as they left. Matt didn’t say much to them as they vanished, one after another. After Megan’s outburst, what more was there left to say?

  Soon Matt’s virtual sanctum was empty except for himself and Leif Anderson.

  “I thought you’d be in a hurry to pull out and begin your investigation of Tori Rush.” Matt couldn’t keep the bitterness out of his voice. “Maybe you’ll discover she was a centerfold model before she went into news. That way we’ll have some interesting pictures to look at — even if Captain Winters gets shafted.”

  “I don’t think Tori Rush will be that easy a nut to crack,” Leif said. “At best, I’m hoping all her innuendos will turn out to be nothing.”

  “But that didn’t stop you from stepping in and giving Megan a little backup there.”

  Leif just raised his eyebrows. “Yeah. And you saw how much she thanked me for it.” He sighed. “No matter what we do, I know Megan’s going to be stirring things up, pushing the envelope to help the captain. As long as she thinks some of us might help her, at least she’ll stay in touch. And that’s a good thing. We don’t need her out there as a loose cannon.”

  Matt shuddered. “Okay. You’ve got a point there.” He turned troubled eyes toward Leif. “But you were at the last meeting — the last regular meeting — where Captain Winters asked us to lay off.”

  “He asked us to lay off McGuffin, and not to mess around with Steve the Bull Alcista.” Leif spread his hands, the picture of innocence. “And I will observe those requests. I’m not going near either of them. Neither are you.”

  Matt had to laugh. “When the time comes for you to decide what you’re going to be when you grow up, you should consider being a lawyer.” He shook his head. “Or, as my Irish grandmother pronounces it, a liar.”

  Leif gave him a thin-lipped smile. “It’s a possibility,” he said. “Do you have any ideas on what we as a group can do to tell Winters we all still love him?”

  “Nothing very definite — or very helpful,” Matt admitted. “A picket line with a couple of cardboard signs would look more pathetic than supportive. And where would we go? The HoloNews office here in D.C.? Their headquarters in your town?” He managed a sour smile. “Or maybe Jay Gridley’s office?”

  “Hangman Hank Steadman’s office.” Leif’s grin was wicked. “He’d love the media coverage.” Then he got more serious. “I’ll bet it’s not just the kids here who’d want to help. We’ll want to do something national — something on the Net.”

  “You think I can get David to hack in and stick a message of support on all of America’s phone bills?” Matt suggested.

  Leif laughed. “A littl
e extreme, maybe, but I think you’re heading in the right direction.”

  The humorous glint in Matt’s eyes faded. “Watching that meeting last night — it was like being told that Captain Winters had contracted some terrible disease. I just want to send him a giant get-well card.”

  “Why don’t you?” Leif said. “Draft up a petition, something like that, and send it out to all the chapters. See if you can get every member to sign on.” He shrugged. “It shouldn’t be too hard. Look how quickly you guys got things rolling when you began banging the drums to roast Jay-Jay McGuffin’s tail.”

  Matt slowly nodded. “You may have something there. Not exactly a petition, but a statement of support from all the Net Force Explorers, individually and together.”

  Leif shrugged. “I’d sign it.”

  Matt looked at him. “And to tell the truth, that sort of surprises me. The captain has roasted your tail from time to time over some of the stuff you’ve pulled. He trusts you only about as far as he can throw you.”

  Leif wasn’t smiling at all as he leaned forward. “Look, I really like Captain Winters. Maybe it’s because of that suspicion, that continuous back and forth when we talk. I respect him for it. He’s usually right, too. I almost always am up to something when he thinks I am. Or maybe it’s something more than that. Remember what Daniel said? How he likes Captain Winters because the captain believes in him? Well, you’ve got to believe in something in this life. Me, I believe in James Winters.”

  Leif looked a little embarrassed, as if he’d said something he shouldn’t. “Do me a favor and don’t spread that around, okay? It would ruin my rep as a cool, cynical playboy-in-training.”

  “Yeah, right,” Matt muttered as his friend finally blinked out of his space. “That rep fits you to a T.”

  Matt’s “giant get-well card” project succeeded far beyond anything he’d expected. All the local chapters enthusiastically jumped on board when he contacted them. Signatures began pouring in for his statement of support. Even kids who hadn’t been reporting in for meetings lately — including a few kids who’d been in the hospital — signed on to help Captain Winters. In days Matt had the signatures of every recorded Net Force Explorer.