Hidden Agendas

groggy. What it felt like was overtraining, but he hadn't been working that hard, no more than maintenance stuff. And there wasn't anything pressing at work: some training exercises in the high desert in Washington state coming up, and some winter work in the snow, in the hills of West Virginia, in mid-January. Other than that, nothing.

Could he be getting old?

No, he was only forty-two. He knew guys ten years older who could run him into the ground; it couldn't be something that simple.

No? Some folks age faster than others, don't they, Johnny boy? Remember your twentieth high school reunion? Some of the guys you graduated with had so much gray hair and so many wrinkles they looked old enough to be your father. You'd pass them on the street, you'd never know who they were. Maybe your clock is running fast…

Howard shook his head. He didn't need to be going down that road, thank you very much. He didn't even have any gray hair yet, and he looked better than he had at twenty, with more muscle. Maybe he just needed some vitamins.

He pushed away from the chair and stood. It wasn't going to do anybody any good sitting here thinking about being old, not when his mother-in-law would turn into a black volcano spewing hot bile if he was late fetching her. That woman had a mean streak on her, and a mouth to go with it. He'd best get moving.

Nadine was in the kitchen, working on supper, and Howard started in that direction, to tell her he was fixin' to take off. Might as well stir up Tyrone while he was at it.

The boy was in his room. But instead of being glued to the computer chair as he usually was, he was lying on the bed, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling.

'You okay, son?'

'I'm fine.'

'About time to go pick up Nanna.'

Tyrone turned his head slightly. 'I think I'll stay here.'

'Excuse me?'

'I mean, I'll see Nanna when she gets here.'

Howard stared at his son as if he had. suddenly sprouted horns and a tail. Not go to pick up his grandmother? What happened to the boy who used to chant, 'Nanna! Nanna! Nanna!' over and over, bouncing all over the car the entire way to the airport? Who'd practically knocked the old bat down, hugging her and dancing around like he was demented?

'She'll wonder where you are.'

'She's gonna be here for a week.'

It was that girl, of course. Girls turned boys into adolescent beasts struggling to crawl out of a mud pit of raging hormones. And Tyrone was officially a teenager now, becoming quiet, sullen, withdrawn, and about as communicative as a fence post.

'You can have your calls forwarded—' Howard began.

Abruptly, Tyrone sat up, then stood. 'I'm going to the mall,' he said.

Howard felt a stab of anger. 'Wait just a second, mister. You don't tell me what you're doing; you ask.'

Tyrone came to attention, executed a crisp, snappy salute, and said, 'Yes, sir, Colonel Howard, sir!'

Rage enveloped Howard. He had to restrain himself from reaching out and slapping the boy. He was tired, he didn't feel great, and he was about to spend an hour and a half going to and from the airport to pick up a woman who had never liked him and who had never been shy about telling him he wasn't good enough for her daughter. What he sure as hell didn't need was lip from a kid who thought his old man was a fossil who'd ridden to school on the back of a grass-eating dinosaur.

For a few seconds, Howard didn't say anything. The rage abated just a hair as he remembered he'd once been young and stupid himself, sure that his parents couldn't begin to recall through their aged fog how it had been to be young. But even so, if he'd pulled his father's chain the way Tyrone had just pulled his…?

Howard had a temper. Once, when he'd been about six or seven, his little brother Richie had snuck up behind him while they were playing cowboys and Indians and clonked him on the head with the butt of his toy revolver, to knock him out like they did on television. It hadn't knocked him out, but it had sure pissed him off. He'd bellowed like an angry buffalo, turned around, and chased Richie across the street toward their house, fully intending to brain the little bastard when he caught him.

Their father, who'd been in the front yard trimming the azalea bushes, had heard Richie screaming and moved between him and Howard.

'What's going on here?' his father had said.

And Howard, eyes and mind blurred with killing rage, had yelled something supremely stupid: 'Get out of my way!' and then swung his own toy gun at his father's legs to move him aside.

The next thing he remembered, he was lying on the ground, looking up into the warm summer afternoon, wondering how he had gotten there. The old man had cuffed him upside the head and straightened him out instantly.

Howard, who had never raised a hand to Tyrone, now knew how his father must have felt. He offered a silent apology to the old man. Sorry, Pop.

And Tyrone, who up until lately had been a model son, looked down at the floor and said, 'Sorry, Pop,' echoing Howard's thoughts.

Adolescent angst. Think back, John. Remember how it was that nobody understood how you felt, nobody could possibly know how you felt.

'All right, forget it. I'll get Nanna, you go ahead to the mall. She'll understand.'

He saw the boy take it in, think about it. Loyalty to his grandmother warred with his infatuation for his girlfriend.

This time, loyalty won.

'No, I'll go with you to the airport. If I don't, Nanna will blame you.' He grinned.

Howard returned the grin. There Tyrone was. Back, for at least a moment.

Nadine, with the instincts of a wife and mother sensing trouble, drifted into the doorway. 'Hey, you two. Everything okay back here?'

Howard turned to look at his wife, still the most beautiful woman he'd ever known, more so after fifteen years of marriage. 'Everything is just fine,' he said.

At least for now, it was. But Tyrone was only thirteen. They had six more years of this to look forward to.

Lord, Lord.

Tuesday, December 21st, 8:15 p.m. Washington, D.C.

Naked, Platt lay on his stomach on the bed in the little hotel on C Street, not far from the Library of Congress. A woman, who was also naked, straddled the small of his back, leaning into her hands, pushing and digging into the muscles of his neck and shoulders, the traps and delts. Her thighs and crotch felt warm against his skin.

She actually gave a pretty good massage, which was unusual for outcall girls. Most of ‘em just gave a few half-assed wipes with their fingertips, maybe a little scratchy-scratch with their nails, but this girl was putting something into it. He'd give her a good tip for that. She was tall, a little thin, no tits, but a great ass. And her hands were a lot stronger than you'd guess by lookin' at her.

'Damn, honey, you hard as a rock,' she said, pressing hard with her thumbs into the trigger points just under the scapulas. It hurt, but it was a good kind of hurt.

'You ain't seen the half of it, baby,' he said. 'Wait till I roll over.'

She laughed. 'Yeah, I noticed you pretty big, for a white boy.' She wasn't talking about his muscles. 'What line of work you in, Mr. Platt?'

'I'm an expediter,' he said. 'For a big import/export business. I travel a lot. Get to travel all over the world, make things happen.'

'That a fact? I always wanted to go overseas. Never been out of the country. I always wanted to go to