man.
The Chinese money was out of reach, but--there was more where that had
come from. Because if he had been telling the truth--and Ventura had
no reason to doubt that he had been--Morrison had told him where to
find the secret that had just caused more than a dozen people to die.
And the Chinese weren't the only oysters in the ocean who had pearls.
Yeah, okay, it was a bad deal all around, a major disaster, a perfect
example of Murphy's Law. But now that it was done, Ventura had to get
on with his life. That moment was past. If you drove down the road
looking only into your rearview mirror, you were going to plow into
somebody ahead of you. Time to look forward.
Somebody could still benefit from all this, and it might as well be
him. He could even drop the price a little. He didn't need four
hundred million, he could get by on half that. No point in being
greedy, was there?
He drove toward the airport in Burbank. He had a flight leaving in an
hour. It would probably take the screenwriters longer than that to
figure a way out of the storeroom.
Yes. He had a course of action now. He knew what he was going to
do.
Wednesday, June 15th Quantico, Virginia
'I just got a call from Julio Fernandez,' Jay said.
'John Howard is home.'
'That was quick,' Toni said.
Michaels nodded at her.
'Yeah. Old soldiers never die, but they don't hang out in hospitals
tempting fate if they can help it.'
They were in the conference room at HQ. Somebody had put a pot of
coffee and a box of assorted pastries on the table. Michaels picked up
a bear claw, examined it, and put it back. He selected a glazed donut
instead. A nice sugar rush and a little caffeine, just what he needed,
so he could rot his teeth, court diabetes, and raise his blood pressure
all at the same time.
Hell with it. Given the way things had been going lately, what
difference would it make? He took a big bite of the donut.
'Julio says Howard's ready to come back to work now.'
'He can take a few days off and heal. So can you.'
Jay shook his head.
'I'm fine. I want to be here for this. It'll be a lot less strenuous
in VR. I can ride the net here, or I can do it at home, but I'm gonna
ride somewhere.'
'All right,' Michaels said. ''Let review what we have.
According to your Mr. Fiscus, the man we are looking for used to be
some kind of freelance hired assassin who supposedly got out of that
business and into body guarding a few years back. Aside from 'Dick
Grayson,' he uses a variety of names, among them Diego, Gabriel,
Harbor, Colorado, and Ventura. Is he Hispanic, do we think?'
Jay laughed, then said, 'Ow.' He pressed his hand against his sore
rib.
'What?'
