Toni said, 'Maybe this Sampson was responsible for Steve Day's death and Genaloni got nervous? Wanted to erase the link?'
Adams said, 'I don't know. It's possible. Ray Genaloni is a careful man. He doesn't step out on the street without having it checked for six blocks in all directions first.'
Michaels stared at the table. Something was bothering him, rattling around inside his head. He couldn't quite put his finger on it. Something about all this…
He sighed. 'All right. If you'd stay on top of that, Brent? Jay, you run the cane stuff as far as you can, see if you can get anything. And check out those New Orleans links — we can't spend all our efforts on the Day investigation. Anything else?'
Nobody had anything they wanted to put on the table.
'Okay. Let's get back to it.'
Michaels headed toward his office. Things were not looking good for the home team. And the clock was ticking on his job. A few more days and this might be somebody else's worry.
Maybe it was time to get out of government service. Move back to Idaho, get a job programming game computers or something, spend weekends with his daughter. Just walk away from all this.
Yeah, right. Until Steve Day's killer was caught, he wasn't going anywhere, even if they put him in charge of counting paper clips in the underground storage bins. Whatever else he might be, Alexander Michaels didn't bail when the going got rough. No way.
26
He would have preferred a walk on his quiet trail, but because he was in a hurry and could not afford the time to dawdle, Plekhanov drove the car. It was the program that was loaded, and he had planned to trash it after the unfortunate interface with the American Net Force agent — such was only prudent. And he
It didn't matter. This was just a short run to make a few minor adjustments on a legal scenario running in Canberra. The chances of Net Force seeing him were practically nil, and besides, there were a lot of blue Corvettes out there, probably tens of thousands of them.
He put the VR automobile into gear and pressed on the accelerator.
When Belladonna Wright opened the door to let him in, the first thing Tyrone noticed was that she wore tight shorts and a baggy sweatshirt with the sleeves and neck cut out to reveal a lot of bare skin.
A lot of beautiful bare skin.
The second thing he noticed was the hulking form of Bonebreaker LeMott sitting on a couch in the living room behind Belladonna.
Tyrone was pretty sure his heart stopped for at least five seconds. Then his belly rose up and lodged in his throat. And his bowels and bladder both threatened to empty. The end was near.
'Hi, Tyrone. Come in.'
The voice of self-preservation couldn't even form words. It babbled and whimpered mindlessly.
His feet didn't seem to belong to him. They took him into the house.
'Tyrone, this is my friend, Herbert LeMott. Motty, this is Tyrone.'
Bonebreaker wore a tight T-shirt and cotton shorts that strained all their seams as he came off the couch. He had muscles on his muscles. He loomed like a human tyrannosaur; Tyrone expected to hear Godzilla's shriek any second…
But Bonebreaker's voice was soft, quiet and actually fairly high-pitched. He said, 'Oh, wow, hey, Tyrone, glad to meet you.' He extended his right hand.
Tyrone took the giant hand, and was amazed at how gentle the grip was.
He had a sudden image of a cartoon mouse looking for a thorn in a lion's paw.
'It's real nice of you to help Bella out with her computer class. I never was much good at that stuff. I appreciate it a lot. If I can ever do anything for you, just lemme know, okay?'
If Bonebreaker had suddenly turned into a giant toad and begun hopping around looking for flies to eat, Tyrone could not have been anymore amazed. Holy shit!
'Okay, Bella, I gotta go, we got practice at the gym. I'll call you later.' He bent down — a long way for him — and kissed Bella on top of her head. She smiled and patted him on the back, as if he were a favorite horse. 'Okay. Be careful.'
After Bonebreaker left, Bella must have seen something in his face, because she smiled at Tyrone. 'What, did you think Motty was going to get
'The thought briefly crossed my mind.'
'Motty is a big sweetie. He wouldn't step on an ant. My room is upstairs. Come on.'
Still marveling over being alive, Tyrone followed Bella upstairs.
She had a standard home computer, and the VR gear was not top-of-the-line, but pretty decent. And it only took a few minutes for him to realize she was better at general systems than she'd let on.
He said so.
She said, 'Well, I'm okay on theory and real-time, but my network is slow.'
'You came to the right guy, then. You have another set of VR gear?'
'Right here.'
'Gear up. Let's walk the web. We'll start on one of the big commercial nets — that's easy enough for anybody to do well.'
'You're in charge, Tyrone.'
Flushed with a sudden fearlessness, he took a leap: 'Call me Ty,' he said.
'You're in charge, Ty.'
She geared up as he did, then sat next to him on the bench in front of the computer. She sat close enough that he could feel the heat from her bare leg. A hair closer and they'd be touching.
Man! He most surely did not want to forget this moment.
Life might never
And even as he thought it, he realized that there were ways it
'First squad, flank left! Second squad, take the rear!'
Small-arms fire rattled, bullets chopped bark from trees, dug furrows in the ground. They were in a city park — what was left of one — and the attack had been unexpected.
John Howard opened up with his tommy gun, felt it buck in his hands as the fat and slow.45's went off.
'Sir, we've got — ah—!'
The lieutenant went down, a stray round in the neck.
Where were they
'Third squad, suppressing fire at five o'clock! Move! Shoot—!'
His men began falling, their armor wasn't working, they were getting their butts kicked—!
John Howard jerked the VR gear off and dropped it in disgust. He shook his head. Crap.
