'It's good for us to get away for a while,' she said.
'I'm having a good time.'
'Me, too,' he said. And he was. He hadn't thought about Net Force for
the better part of an hour, easy.
Seattle, Washington
Morrison pushed an electronic card across the table to Ventura.
'Here is the retainer. A hundred thousand.' He'd had to drain his
savings and take out a second mortgage on his house to get the money.
Ventura's services weren't cheap--thirty thousand a month for the basic
plan, and it went up from there--but he was supposedly the best there
was, and Morrison knew he needed the best. He'd be broke by the end of
July if the deal didn't happen, but there wasn't any real doubt that it
would, only with whom and for how much. He needed to stay alive until
then, of course.
Ventura took the card with its embedded credit chip, turned it in his
fingers, then tucked it into the inside pocket of his sport coat.
'Beginning when?'
'Immediately,' Morrison said.
Ventura took a small phone from his pocket, touched a button, and said,
'We're on,' then put the phone away.
Morrison couldn't help but look around. The restaurant was not all
that crowded, but he couldn't see anybody who looked like a bodyguard
lurking about.
Ventura smiled.
'You won't see them.'
'Them?'
'There are two opsin here with us, two more outside.
Now, I need some information if I am going to protect you properly.
Let's start with the level of threat and the reason. Who might be
wanting to kidnap or kill you, and why?'
Morrison nodded. Here's where it got tricky. He could offer a good
story and probably have the man buy it. Or he could tell the truth.
Since his life was going to be on the line, he did not want to make a
misstep here.
'I'm not certain of the 'who' yet. Probably the Chinese, but it could
be the Russians or maybe the Israelis. The 'why' is because I am in
possession of certain, ah, highly useful information they would like to
get their hands on.'
'From HAARP?'
Morrison blinked, taken aback for a moment. Well. Of course, the man
would have checked him out. And it really wasn't all that much of a
leap to that assumption.
Still, his estimate of Ventura's abilities did go up a notch.
Morrison considered his response, and while he was doing it, Ventura
said, 'Doctor, I don't much care what it is you are doing, but if I am
going to keep you alive, I want to know what I am apt to be dealing
with. It makes a big difference in how we proceed, you understand? If
you boinked somebody's wife and he wants to beat you to a pulp, that's
one thing. If we are going to be dealing with the secret police of a
