Tom Clancy's Net Force 6-10 (152 page)
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
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.”
“Thursday’s bowling league night,” he said.
“Uh-huh. I can’t even
imagine
you in a pair of bowling shoes.”
imagine
you in a pair of bowling shoes.”
“I was the lowest scorer in my junior high class,” he said. “A solid ninety-six average. Shall I pick you up?”
“Nah. If I’m back, I’ll meet you there. Eight o’clock?”
“Assuming I can get reservations.”
“Big-time bureau commander and rich man like yourself? No problem. Eight o’clock.”
She discommed, and Thorn grinned to himself again. He did like smart, funny, beautiful women. What was not to like?
Paris, France
Unlike some of his colleagues, Seurat didn’t mind going into the city when he had a good reason. He left his car at home and took the Metro—nothing of worth in the city was more than five hundred yards from a Metro station, so the saying went, and parking in the city, like a pay telephone, was impossible to find. Nobody with a brain drove into Paris, and since the advent of mobile phones, the government assumed everybody would have one, so why have the clutter of phone kiosks everywhere?
Today was a meeting with a potential new client—a Saudi prince and businessman who was looking to start a new server in that country, and who wanted a link with CyberNation. Being a prince was not as impressive coming from that country as it was, say, from England. There were scores, hundreds, maybe thousands of them down in the desert atop the oil pools, the result of royal families in which the men could have as many wives as they could afford. An oil sheik could afford a considerable harem.
The Saudis were not as pure as they liked to pretend; much of that Muslim strait-lacing offered publicly disappeared in private. Yes, they were currently French allies, of a sort, and there was a quid pro quo, but some of the hardest drinkers, biggest womanizers, and consumers of pornography Seurat had ever met had been Saudis. If you had enough money, there was usually a way to get what you wanted, if you wanted it enough, and to make sure that people looked the other way while you enjoyed it.
And in VR, it didn’t count—since you weren’t
actually
drinking or screwing around. . . .
actually
drinking or screwing around. . . .
He glanced at his watch. Running a little later today than he wished. No time to stop at a museum or gallery. Seurat liked to drop round the Musée d’Orsay every so often and see
Le Cirque.
Georges Seurat had done many drawings, but only a few major paintings, and they were all over the world.
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,
his most famous, and the inspiration for a musical play,
Sunday Afternoon in the Park with George,
was at the Art Institute in Chicago. Others were in London, New York, San Francisco. Too few of them were in Paris. A shame, that, but buyers with enough money to afford such things lived where they lived.
Le Cirque.
Georges Seurat had done many drawings, but only a few major paintings, and they were all over the world.
Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,
his most famous, and the inspiration for a musical play,
Sunday Afternoon in the Park with George,
was at the Art Institute in Chicago. Others were in London, New York, San Francisco. Too few of them were in Paris. A shame, that, but buyers with enough money to afford such things lived where they lived.
His connection to his famous relative was known and accepted by some, if the legitimacy was sometimes argued by others. Though Georges had died a young man, only thirty-one, of meningitis or diptheria, depending on whom you believed, he had
two
hidden families. Most knew about Madeline Knobloch, of course, but few knew of his other mistress, from whom the director of CyberNation was himself descended. . . .
two
hidden families. Most knew about Madeline Knobloch, of course, but few knew of his other mistress, from whom the director of CyberNation was himself descended. . . .
The day was warm and sunny, and Seurat enjoyed the bustle and sounds of the city as he walked along the Rue Vernet, toward the Elysees Star Hotel. There was a woman he had met there once, a Spanish countess, ah . . .
He saw the Saudi prince lounging in a cast-iron chair at the outdoor cafe down from the hotel, a cup of tea or coffee on the small table before him. Such cafes were traditional in Paris, of course, though Seurat himself thought that drinking coffee and having croissants with a steady stream of noisy automobiles passing by was hardly relaxing. There were cafes on some of the pedestrian malls, streets that had been closed to vehicular traffic but not those on foot, that he found much more appealing. It was hard to appreciate the swaying walk of a beautiful woman in high heels when a moving van with a loud muffler crept past and belched smelly exhaust at you.
The prince was in a business suit that had probably cost more than the price of the average car. The prince, who liked to downplay that and be called Said, saw Seurat strolling in his direction. He raised his cup in salute.
Seurat smiled and nodded.
A sudden darkness rolled over the street. Seurat frowned and looked up, to see a rain cloud blotting the sun. That had come up fast—
A lightning bolt lanced down from the cloud, struck a group of walkers waiting to cross at an intersection, and scattered them as if a bomb had gone off in their midst.
A demonic voice began to laugh loudly as more lightning played over the street. Hail started to fall, clumps as big as golf balls, smashing down; hurricane winds blew, and people on the street screamed and ran for cover—
Merde!
The bastard whoreson hacker was at it again—!
The bastard whoreson hacker was at it again—!
Rue de Soie
Seurat stripped the sensory gear off, still enraged. Losing a potential client was bad, but not major. That the hacker was still able to attack CyberNation seemingly at will
was
major. He had already called his technical people and they were on the hunt, but he did not hold out much hope for a quick taking of prey.
was
major. He had already called his technical people and they were on the hunt, but he did not hold out much hope for a quick taking of prey.
This had to stop. And when the man responsible was caught, Seurat wanted to see him put into a hole so far down that the light of day would never touch him again.
Merde!
17
Quantico, Virginia
Getting rid of a body was not nearly as worrisome as all the forensic television shows and movies made it out to be. The main trick was to make sure the corpse wasn’t discovered before you were far enough away that the authorities couldn’t possibly link it to you. And not to leave anything really obvious around that pointed in your direction—DNA, fingerprints, or your business card. . . .
All that stuff where they took a hair and put it into some medical machine that whirred and fifteen seconds later spit out a picture of the killer? Total fabrication.
Locke had wrapped the blackmailer up in the bed’s top sheet, waited until dark, and taken the corpse to his rental car, where he put it into the trunk. He’d located the motel’s cleaning woman, waited until she had gone into an empty room to clean it, and taken a clean sheet from the stack on the cart to replace the missing one.
The next morning—one did not want to skulk around late at night with a body in one’s car trunk and risk being pulled over by a bored policeman—Locke drove to a nearby industrial district and scouted it. It took but half an hour for him to find what he was looking for. He found the number of a real estate agent on the sign in front of the building, made a call from a pay telephone, and determined the information he needed. Luck ran his way—the place was perfect.
From there, he drove to a local mall and bought supplies. From a hardware store, he purchased a hand-truck dolly, a battery-powered Skil Saw, a tree saw, and a hammer, along with a small machete, a painter’s drop cloth, and a box of green plastic leaf bags. He also picked up a set of painter’s coveralls, shoe covers, and rubber gloves, and several bottles of spray cleaner and paint thinner.
At an art supply store, he bought a large roll of plastic wrap and another of white butcher’s paper, along with a black marking crayon.
He found a cyber cafe, bought an hour on a computer, and logged on to the Internet. There, he found an appliance store, and using a PayPal account into which he had deposited several thousand dollars under a phony name months before, bought a chest freezer and arranged to have it delivered immediately to the address he had found in the industrial district.
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