Net Force (1998) Read online

  "They say that's where CyberNation's programmers came from."

  "Yeah? I hadn't heard that. I heard nobody knew where they came from."

  "Rumors." He shrugged. "So much for the sordid tale of a political career gone south. I gotta get back and file my story."

  "Not a lucky man, your Prime Minister."

  "Oh, he's real lucky--thing is, it's all bad. This ain't America where the politicians can get away with such things, you know. It don't play with the family vote over here. Plus it is well known that Sukho's wife's brother was one of the Secret Bandit Warlords before he died. Word is, the wife's still got a couple SBW nephews out in the jungle who would just as soon cut you in half as look at you. The Prime Minister's wife is in big shame over this. Some pictures were of her, taken from a hidden camera, and I bet she didn't know about 'em." He waved at the burned-out limo. "I was Sukho, I'd tap my Swiss accounts and retire someplace in a galaxy far, far away. And I'd do it under another name, and with fifty grand's worth of false teeth, hair dye, and plastic surgery, while I was at it."

  "I'd have thought his computer security would have been better than normal, given what he had to hide and him being a PM and all."

  "Yeah, you'da thought so. My guess is, next guy selling a pick-proof OS around here is gonna make a fortune."

  "Here and everywhere else."

  "I scan that. See you, Jay."

  "Later, Chuanny."

  After his cousin was gone, Jay considered the situation. So Thailand was going to get a new Prime Minister. That might or might not have much effect on the world, but he had to figure that whoever was doing this rascal had picked his targets carefully. To what end, Jay didn't know, but his gut feeling was that it was a real bad end.

  He better get back himself. The boss would want to know about the newest developments.

  On the way, however, something else caught his attention.

  Holy shit!

  "Alex? I think you better see this."

  Michaels looked up and saw Toni in his doorway.

  "In the conference room," she added.

  He followed her. The big-screen viewer was on. CNN.

  A newscaster was doing a voice-over as images flashed across the large screen.

  "Bombay, India--known by the locals as Mumbai--is the capital of Maharashtra and the major economic power of western India. Located on the shore of the Arabian Sea, it is a city steeped in culture. From the Victorian facades of the British Raj, to the tourist ghetto of Colaba, to the pulse-of-the-city Fort, eighteen million people call Mumbai home. Most of them are dirt-poor."

  There was an aerial shot of the city. Stock footage.

  Michaels glanced at Toni and raised an eyebrow. Why did she want him to see a documentary on India?

  "This is the sidebar," she said. "Wait a second and they'll get back to the main story." She sounded grim.

  "Modernization has brought at least some of Bombay into the twenty-first century," the newscast continued. "And modernization has reared its ugly head here today."

  The image shifted. Two buses had crashed together in an intersection. One of the red double-deckers lay on its side; the other was tilted, resting against the back of a fruit truck. Some kind of yellow-orange melons were scattered and shattered all over the street. Bodies were laid out along the narrow street's narrower sidewalks. Rescuers ran to the buses, pulling more dead or injured from the wrecks. A man covered with blood wandered in front of the camera, yelling something over and over. A small boy sat on the curb, staring at a woman lying next to him who was obviously dead.

  "All over the city, computer-controlled traffic signals apparently turned green at the same instant."

  Another image. A major intersection with at least a dozen cars melded together by impacts. The cars were on fire, and an explosion rocked the scene, knocking the cameraman down. Somebody cursed in English: "Shit, shit, shit!"

  Here was a high-angle helicopter shot--scores of cars, trucks, motor scooters and bicycles compacted into jagged masses. The voice describing the event was excited, but not overly so: "There are at least fifty known dead in a massive traffic pile-up on Marine Drive, with hundreds more injured, and estimates of other traffic fatalities in the city go as high as six hundred--"

  Again the image shifted, showing a train station. A passenger train lay crumpled like a child's toy next to a stretch of track. Freight cars were scattered among the coaches, some of them turned onto their sides.

  "At Churchgate Railway station, malfunctioning train signals apparently caused the collision of a Central Railways passenger train northbound from Goa, with a freight train heading south. At least sixty are known dead at this point, with more than three hundred injuries. We have unconfirmed reports of electric commuter trains colliding in suburban areas with fatalities, but travel in the city is impossible and we are unable to get to those locations except by air."

  Another scene shift. A twin-engine airplane, engulfed in flames. Bodies--and parts of bodies lay scattered around it like broken dolls.

  "Air traffic control malfunctions have reportedly caused at least four plane crashes. This one, a sightseeing flight filled with Japanese tourists, crashed into the yellow basalt monument known as the Gateway to India at the north-eastern end of the Colaba tourist district, killing all twenty-four on the aircraft and at least fifteen on the ground, with dozens more injured. We have unconfirmed reports that an Air India jet with two hundred and sixty-eight passengers on board has crashed into Back Bay just south of Beach."

  "My God," Michaels said. "What the hell happened?"

  "The computer programmer." Toni's voice was grim.

  "Somebody did this on purpose?"

  "That's what it looks like. Jay is on it, but he's too busy to talk about it right now."

  Michaels watched a rescue truck, lights flashing, frozen in gridlock. Jesus. They were dealing with a madman. A homicidal madman. Until he was caught, nobody was safe.

  Monday, September 27th, 8:41 a.m. Quantico

  No real progress had been made on Steve Day's death.

  Oh, the labs had cataloged all kinds of hair and fiber and bullet casings, but in the end, none of it meant anything without the people, clothes and guns the things belonged to--and they didn't have any of those.

  Alex Michaels was more than a little bothered. He sat at his desk, staring into the wall. He knew there was nothing to be done about it; the best minds in the FBI were hard at work looking for the smallest clue, and standing there yelling "Hurry!" wouldn't help.

  It wasn't as if he didn't have other things to worry about. As head of Net Force, he'd suddenly found out what it meant to have the buck stop on your desk. Aside from having to assign high-level cases to make sure they were handled right, there was all the political bullshit. He had to justify what his organization was doing, why they did it, and how much it cost, first to the Director, then, if they were feeling snoopy--and they always were--to Congress. He had to appear in front of Senator Cobb's Security Committee on Thursday to answer questions about something Day had done a year ago that had mightily upset the Senator. Cobb, unaffectionately known as Tweety Bird in intelligence circles--"I taught I taw a puddy tat!"--was always imagining conspiracies, no matter where he happened to look. Cobb thought the military was scheming to violently take over the reins of government; that the Germans were secretly re-arming themselves to eat Eastern Europe; that the Girl Scouts were Commies. He had been the bane of Steve Day's life, and it looked as if he was going to be giving Michaels the same grief.

  And if that wasn't enough, the political side of the job required a lot more of something else Michaels hated--socializing. Since he'd taken over, he'd gone to four black-tie political soirees, suffering through vulcanized chicken or salmon cooked to blackboard-eraser consistency. All of these events had featured after-dinner speakers who could put a room full of dexadrine addicts into a suspended animation that made Sleeping Beauty look like an insomniac.

  No, this was definitely not
a part of the job he enjoyed. At least he didn't have to worry about building appropriations. That was the Director's job. And given all the new structures that Net Force had recently constructed, was in the process of constructing, or was planning on constructing, that would be a major chore in itself. J. Edgar Hoover would never recognize the FBI Compound, it had grown so large in just the last five or six years. It was a small town unto itself.

  He stared at the pile of hardcopy and the blinking To Do list on his computer screen. He had a stack of stuff to read, things to sign, all the minutiae of any mid-level office manager that had to be taken care of, regardless of the more important things that had to wait. And it wasn't going to get done if he just sat there and stared at it.

  It was going to be a long day. And when it was done, he would go home to his empty condo, eat a meal alone, watch the news, read his mail and slog through reports on his flatscreen. Probably fall asleep reading--that was what happened most of the time. Either that, or get called out to one of the Nights of the Boring Politicos.

  He missed Megan. He missed his daughter. He missed having someone to share his day with, to care that he came home, that he lived or died. . . .

  He shook his head. Poor you. You're just so damned sad, aren't you?

  Michaels chuckled. The Island of Self-Pity was a waste of time; he never could stay there very long. He had a job to do, and he was part of the solution and not part of the problem, wasn't he? Hell with the rest of it.

  He reached for the hardcopy.

  Monday, September 27th, 9:44 a.m. New York City

  "Yes, I'll be there," Genaloni said. His voice was curt and he was irritated, but he tried, as always, to hold onto his temper. "Good-bye."

  He put the phone's receiver down gently when what he wanted to do was slam it into its cradle hard enough to break both. Women. Jesus.

  As wives went, Maria was probably as good as any. She stayed home, took care of the kids, supervised the maids and butler and cook and gardener, was active in charity affairs. He'd met her in college. She was smart, and she'd been drop-dead gorgeous when he'd married her. She worked out, and had spent some time under the knife, so she was still damned attractive for a woman her age--hell, any age; and if anything, she had gotten smarter, too. She looked good on his arm, was always dressed better than anybody else in any room they went to, but she was a pain in the ass sometimes. Because she was smart and good-looking, and because she came from a rich family, she was used to getting her way. She wanted his time, and she always wanted it most when he least had it to give. He was going to have to break a date with Brigette, his mistress, to go to some cure-a-disease ball his wife wanted him to go to, and he wasn't happy about it.

  That Maria probably knew about Brigette and had done this on purpose also crossed his mind.

  There was a tap on the doorjamb. He looked up and saw Johnny the Shark Benetti standing in the open doorway. Shark was a good name for Johnny. He was young, quick, and could cut you to tatters with a knife no longer than your finger. The Shark also had a degree in business from Cornell. As people in his organization retired or went away for legal reasons, Genaloni replaced them with equally tough but more educated ones. Sure, smart people had their drawbacks--too much ambition was usually part of the package, but you could deal with that. Bury a guy chin-deep in money, and mostly he would think long and hard before messing with the golden goose. Ignorant people caused more trouble in the long run. And in any event, you always watched your back--you never totally trusted anybody .

  Johnny the Shark was holding Sampson's place until he returned.

  If he returned. Whatever was going on with that, it stunk, and Genaloni didn't like it a damn bit.

  "Yes?"

  "Hey, Ray. Nobody we can touch has anything to say about Luigi. We put some serious money on the table, reached out to everybody who owes us favors, nothing. He's invisible."

  "Keep looking." At least one fed was going to be sorry about this business, although there was no way to tell when the guy was going to buy it. The Selkie took his time, and it didn't do any good to try and hurry him.

  The intercom cheeped.

  "What?"

  "It's your wife again."

  "Jesus. I'm not here, okay? And I forgot my cell phone, too."

  "Yes, sir."

  Genaloni shook his head. He looked at Johnny, who was smiling.

  Smiling. Jesus. "You're married, what, a year and a half?"

  "Two years, come December 14th," Johnny said.

  "Still on your damned honeymoon. Come back and see me in fifteen years and let's talk about women."

  That brought another grin.

  Genaloni shook his head. Johnny was twenty-four, which meant he still knew everything. Genaloni was old enough so that he realized he knew less every year that went by. "You study any history?"

  "It was my minor."

  Genaloni did know that, but it never hurt to let the help think you were a little slower than you actually were. And he was something of a history reader himself, when he had the time. He said, "You know who Mary Katherine Horony was?"

  Johnny searched his memory. Frowned. "Doesn't ring a bell."

  "She was Hungarian, a hooker, went by the name of Big Nose Kate."

  "Oh. Doc Holliday's girlfriend?"

  "Good to see that degree means something. Kate was a whore, a drunk, a brawler. She screwed and drank and fought her way across the Old West, ran with Holliday, the Earps, some other real dangerous dudes."

  Johnny nodded. "Uh-huh."

  "She could have quit once she hooked up with Doc, but she couldn't settle down. She kept going back to the life, even while she and Holliday were together. And even when she was at home, she wasn't your shy and demure type. She broke him out of jail once after he gutted a man with a Bowie knife, and she clubbed a guard half to death to do it. She had a whorehouse in Tombstone in the 1880's, first one in town. Did it in a big tent, ran a dozen girls and sold a lot of cheap whiskey. People used to fight and get shot up there all the time. Plus she and Doc also used to beat the shit out of each other--and he didn't always wind up on top.

  "After Holliday croaked from TB, old Kate kept whoring around for years. Got married, left her husband, moved around, kept kicking her heels up until she wound up in a nursing home. Died in 1940. She was ninety years old."

  "Fascinating," Johnny said. He raised an eyebrow.

  "So, here was this woman, a whore--which in those days was a damned dangerous job--with these hardcases all around her who'd just as soon shoot you as look at you. A woman who used to punch out Doc Holliday, one of the stone-coldest killers ever, and she was living in neighborhoods where you could get raped and murdered and nobody would blink."

  "And your point . . . ?"

  "Kate outlived them all--the job, Holliday, the killers, the booze, the bad towns, everything." Genaloni smiled. "She died of old age." He paused, then said, "You know what the cavalry men used to say out in Dakota when they were trying to wipe out the Sioux? 'If you're captured by the Indians, don't let them give you to the women.'

  "A woman can cut off your nuts, cook 'em with onions and make you eat them--and smile the whole time she's doing it. Remember that. No matter what your bride says, no matter how good she is in bed, you keep your business to yourself. The prisons are full of guys who blabbed shit to their women and then pissed them off. Women are good for a lot of things, but you don't trust one with your life. Never."

  "I'll remember that."

  "Good. Now go find out why the feds are hiding Luigi."

  After the kid had gone, Genaloni smiled to himself. That wasn't a bad little lecture. He'd have made an okay professor, he always figured.

  Tuesday, September 28th, 6:54 p.m. Washington, D.C.

  In her guise as Phyllis Markham, the Selkie gimped her way toward the target's house, the little poodle doing his imitation of a watering can on every other bush or tree along the way.

  The guards in the surveillance cars were gone. Sh
e had been disappointed to see them leave. There were times when she'd been set upon a mobster or gunrunner or politico with a dozen guards crawling all around, and that had made the job more difficult. But one guy, who didn't have a clue he was a target, no protection except maybe a house alarm? It took some of the fun out of it.

  At her level, she mostly made her own challenges.

  She'd been on this more than a week, and she was ready. She knew the target's habits. When he ordered Chinese food delivered, she knew he liked the hot and spicy chicken with noodles. When he went for his morning run, she could have run half a block in front of him and stayed with him all the way. She knew when he went to a fund-raiser, where he tried to sit if he wasn't assigned a table, and what time he would make his excuses and leave. She knew about his ex-wife and kid in Idaho, the car he played with in his garage, and that his assistant had the hots for him, to judge from how she looked at him. And that he didn't have a clue about that. She knew how tall he was, how much he weighed, where he got his hair cut and that he hadn't really wanted his current job. She knew much about the target--just not why he had been chosen.