make the call. Ventura might be able to run, but he couldn't hide, not
as long as he drove his rented car. And that car, according to Jay,
was parked not far from here, and had been there for at least fifteen
minutes.
Michaels certainly didn't plan to try and take the guy down on his own.
This was the man who had out shot John Howard, and the general was no
slouch when it came to guns, a lot better than Michaels was. He didn't
even have a gun with him, only the issue taser, and while that would
knock a man on his ass with a single hit, you had to be pretty close to
get that hit. He had no desire to go up against a highly skilled
killer who was certainly better armed and more desperate than he was.
No, Michaels had a strike team in place, five minutes away--as close as
they could get 'without risking alerting their quarry-ready to move on
his signal. He'd watch, make sure the guy showed up, and then get all
the help he needed. At least Net Force would get partial credit for
the capture.
And if they were lucky, maybe the workings of the mind control ray as a
bonus. That would go a long way to making up for all the mistakes.
He looked at the map. He was still a couple of miles away. Might as
well make the call he had been putting off. He pushed the button for
Toni's phone. Her message came on before even one ring.
'Hey, you've reached Toni Fiorella. Leave a message and I'll get back
to you soon as I can.'
He frowned. Was she not taking any calls? Or just not taking his
calls? Well, okay, it was the middle of the night here, so it was the
wee hours in D.C. Maybe she was just asleep and had turned off the
ringer.
'Toni, it's me. Just calling to see how you're doing. I-well, look,
I'm sorry about everything. I'll be back in town tomorrow, let's sit
down and talk about it, okay?
We can work all this out.'
He thumbed the discom button, tucked the virgil back onto his belt.
After he collected Ventura, that would give Toni something she could
pass along to her new boss.
He had to hatch this egg before he could count it as a chicken,
though.
Wednesday, June 15th Port Townsend, Washington
Ventura had studied the overview maps hi sops had done of the
neighborhood when he'd taken on Morrison as a client. He knew as much
about the houses and inhabitants for a block in either direction as a
team of good surveillance ops could learn in a short time. He knew
which houses had dogs, which houses had kids, which houses had night
owls who stayed up watching vids until all hours. And, fortunately,
there weren't a lot of any of these close to Morrison's.
So it was that Ventura now sat in the backyard of the house behind
Morrison's, nestled into a gap between a small metal utility shed and a
couple of cords of firewood.
From the look of it, the wood was fir, alder, and madrona, a good
combination. The fir, when dry, would burn very quickly. The alder
