on the seat frame next to his right hip, and easy enough to gear down if the going got too hard.
He passed a few people he knew from the base, out jogging on their lunch hour, and he waved or nodded at them. He came up behind one young woman in a red Speedo tank top and matching skintight shorts with a fanny pack slung in back, going at a pretty good rate in his direction. She was in great shape. He admired the play of her taut legs and backside as she ran. He checked her in the handlebar mirror when he passed, but he didn't recognize the face. There were a lot of people here. She could be a Marine, one of the new FBI recruits, maybe an office worker. Or maybe she lived in town and this was the return loop.
Lately, despite his feelings for his wife — ex-wife — he had felt a few stirrings that exercise and long hours working, or playing with the Prowler, couldn't quite quell.
He sighed, shifted into a higher gear and pumped harder. Sooner or later, he'd have to jump back into the pool; he couldn't really see himself as a monk for the rest of his life. It just didn't seem quite right yet. He was out of practice — and the idea of asking a woman out was still more than he wanted to think about.
The path, a nice smooth macadam, meandered through a small stand of hardwood trees whose leaves were fast changing from greens to yellows and golds, then swung past the back of a new light industrial park, mostly office buildings or jobbers' warehouses. A beeping forklift, painted a dark red, with a big silver propane tank on the back, carried a stack of wooden pallets toward a larger stack next to the chain-link fence. The fork's motor rumbled as the driver expertly lowered the shipping platforms and backed away.
Michaels smiled. He'd run a forklift in an aluminum warehouse one summer when he was in high school, moving plate and bar to big flatbed trucks for shipment. It had basically been a simple job once you got the hang of it, uncomplicated. You picked it up
It was true what they said: Life was like high school — only bigger.
He came to the long straight stretch, a little over half a mile before it curved again, and he upshifted into top gear. He pushed and pulled hard on the pedals, the toe-clips allowing him to apply pressure in both directions. It didn't take but a couple hundred feet for his legs to get really warm, and halfway through the strip, his thighs and ham-strings started to burn really hot. He checked the speedometer. Thirty-three. Not bad. He had the windshield mounted, but without the full faring installed, the drag wouldn't let him get much faster sitting upright with just a little backward lean.
He passed another rider on a two-wheeler, cruising along at a steady, but slower, speed. The rider wore purple and yellow gear, and the bike was one of those carbon-frame Swiss jobs that easily cost twice what his trike did. He waved at Michaels as he blew past. Probably going to crank out forty or fifty miles, and save the sprint until the end. And even after that distance, Michaels knew he wouldn't be able to stay with him if the guy was a
The burn increased, but he kept pumping, holding on. When he had about a hundred and fifty yards before the curve, Michaels allowed himself to coast. He slowed, added a little brake and made it through the curve. Not much bank there — too bad. A couple more degrees and he could have taken it at speed, but he guessed the designers didn't want walkers or joggers sliding down the side of a hill if the path got wet. It did rain here from time to time.
It felt good to get out, to do something physical. He resolved to do it more often.
The Selkie slowed her run to a walk as soon as the target was out of sight on his big trike. He had seen her, of course, and given that he was a normal heterosexual male, he would have noticed her in the tight red shorts she wore. She was in excellent shape, and although running was not her preferred method of keeping that way, she could go a few miles without collapsing when it was necessary.
That the target had seen her and very likely stared at her ass didn't mean anything. He would not see her in these clothes again.
She could have killed him when he went past. Could have easily pulled the snub-nose.38 S&W revolver from the fanny pack she wore and put all five rounds the little gun carried into the target's back as he sailed past oblivious. Knocked him off his tricycle, reloaded, calmly walked to where he lay and put a couple more in the head. Even if somebody had been there to see — and no one had been — it was unlikely anybody would have been able to stop her. She was adept with the Smith, could manage NRA Expert with it, or keep up with the IPSC action shooters and their tricked-out pistols in their combat scenarios, despite the short barrel and lousy sights. It was one of the tools of her trade, and she was the best there was at that business.
But such killings were… inelegant. Anybody could point a gun and blast away, and for an adept, there was no joy to be found in such a simple method. Of course, the needs of the client had to come first. Some of them wanted it known that the target had been killed. They wanted it done bloody. And some of them even wanted souvenirs — a finger, an ear — or some normally less-visible appendage. She didn't torture and she didn't take hurry-up contracts, but if the client wanted anatomical proof the target was gone, she would supply it. Those who asked for such things didn't usually offer her much repeat business. Clients who wanted body parts to put in a jar tended to piss people off and get into fatal trouble of their own.
She nodded at a jogger coming from the other direction, but didn't make eye contact.
Good assassins deleted their targets and got away.
The best assassins could delete their targets and arrange it so nobody even suspected there had
16
The buzzer sounded and Tyrone Howard joined the exodus of students from first-period class into the dingy green halls of Eisenhower Middle School. Ahead of him, he saw Sean Hughes lumber into a guy from behind and shoulder him aside. The guy slammed into the lockers, hard. He recovered, turned, started to say something — then saw who had hit him and changed his mind.
This was a real good idea.
Tyrone slowed, to avoid getting too close. Hughes was an ox, pushing six feet tall and two hundred pounds, and at fifteen was two years older than most of his grade class. Hughes was a flicker screen who had flunked at least twice, not including summer school and private net teachers, and he got his kicks by bullying anybody who had more brains than he did — which was everybody in the school except MCMs — mentally challenged mainstreamers. And maybe a few of them were smarter, too. They had a name for Hughes, though nobody ever said it to his face.
'Essay is on a roll today, ain't he?'
Tyrone looked to his left and saw James Joseph Hatfield grinning at him.
'Essay' came from the initials S and A. Which came from 'Sore Ass,' which came from 'Brontosaurus,' which was what the computer set called Sean Hughes. Tyrone didn't know who had come up with the original nickname, but it was dead on. The guy had all the wit and grace of a big dino tanked on sleeping pills.
Jimmy Joe was a hillbilly from West Virginia, small, so white he was bright, with eyes so bad he had to wear thick glasses instead of contacts. He was also one of the best netriders in the whole school, and he held the record for completing the first ten levels of Black Mysts of Total Catastrophe fastest, not just in the school but anywhere. And he was Tyrone's best friend.
'Hey, Jimmy Joe. How's the flow?'
'Dee eff eff, Tyrone.' This stood for DFT — data flowin' fine.
'Listen, I talked to Jay Gee. He needs our help.'
'Jay Gee needs
