Hidden Agendas

gave it just enough character so it didn't look fake. She turned the grin in his direction, and Michaels could feel the warmth of it from fifteen feet away. A stunning woman, beautiful and smart, a lethal combination. She was single, in her mid-twenties, and much too young for him at his ancient age of forty; still, she was pleasant to look at, no question.

'Sorry I'm late, sir,' Winthrop said. 'Liza's keyboard input had a short, and you know how Computer Services works; they'd be two hours getting a tech up here unless it was an emergency. And in an emergency—'

'— it would take three hours,' Michaels finished. He smiled at her. It was a standing joke in Net Force. 'Well, come on in.'

He gestured at the door, and waited for her to precede him into the office. He was merely being polite, he told himself. It wasn't just to get a look at her backside. Although, he had to admit, that was worth seeing. It reminded him of an old Flip Wilson joke, about the preacher's wife being tempted by a new dress she was trying on. The Devil said, 'Buy it, honey, buy it!' And the preacher's wife said, 'Get thee behind me, Satan!' And the Devil did, then he said, 'Mm. Looks good on you from here too…'

Michaels shook off the semi-erotic thoughts. Winthrop was a subordinate, more than a dozen years younger than he, and he didn't need any entanglements just at the moment. But it had been a long time since his divorce had become final, and things had not been too good at home for a lot of months before he'd moved out. He hadn't been in bed with a woman since.

There was only so much space in a man's life that work and hobbies would fill. You could only read yourself to sleep so many nights of the week.

He glanced up and saw Toni standing in the doorway of her office, leaning against the jamb, watching him. Michaels felt guilty, even though he hadn't done anything. He gave her a half smile, then went into his office. If he was going to leap off a cliff into an office romance, Toni would be his first choice, but that was a bad road to even contemplate. Toni was a coworker and a friend, and he certainly didn't want to damage either of those relationships for the sake of romance. Friends were harder to come by than lovers.

Well. At least that was what he'd heard. It had been so long since he'd had a lover, he had forgotten how to play that game. And it wasn't exactly like riding a bicycle.

He looked at Joanna Winthrop, who stood in front of the chair across from his desk, waiting for him. A drop- dead-gorgeous woman. Despite himself, he could easily imagine what her hair would look like unbound and spread over a pillow, what her face would look like staring up at his in passion…

He gave himself a twitch of a grin. Fortunately, his shower came equipped with plenty of cold water. And he was probably going to be using his share of it tonight.

'Thanks for fixing the keyboard,' he said.

'My pleasure.'

He moved behind his desk, sat, and gestured for Winthrop to do the same. She did so. Back to business now.

'We have a little problem, Lieutenant. Colonel Howard thought you might be willing to help us out.'

'Yes, sir, whatever the colonel wants. He thinks well of you, sir.'

Michaels looked at her. Really? A few months back, hearing that would have been a surprise. Although after the kidnapping of the mad Russian, maybe Howard did feel a bit better about having a civilian commander. Michaels had risked his job ordering that, and Howard had done outstanding work on it. Maybe a little mutual respect had come out of the mission.

'And he thinks well of you, Lieutenant. Yours was the first name he suggested when I asked him for assistance.'

'Sir, if it's all the same to you, please call me Jo, or Winthrop. This rank business isn't necessary unless we're in the field.'

'Fine, Jo. Might as well call me Alex, while we're at it. We're pretty informal around here.'

'Yes, sir. Uh, I mean, right, Alex. So, what's up?'

He smiled at her and waved his hand over his computer controls.

Chapter Three

Saturday, December 18th, 7:50 a.m. Quantico, Virginia

Colonel John Howard wore his old Gortex windbreaker, covering the S&W Model 66.357 short-barreled revolver nestled in the Galco paddle holster just behind the point of his right hip. When he had occasion to carry while out of uniform, he preferred this kind of holster. It used a plastic paddle that slipped between the waistband and shirt, so he could put it on and remove it without having to take off his belt and thread it through the loops. It was convenient, and just about as concealable as a regular belt slide or pancake holster—

Ten yards away, a mugger with a knife leaped out of the darkness and ran at him. The assassin was no more than two seconds away.

Howard shifted his hips slightly to the left, opening a gap between his jacket and body, and swept his right hand back and under the Gortex. He grabbed the wooden grips of the revolver, automatically unsnapping the thumb-break safety snap on the holster when he closed his hand. He pulled the Smith, thrust it toward the mugger as if punching him one-handed, and pulled the trigger. At this range, trying to line up the sights was too slow. Instead, you could use the whole gun silhouette to index the target.

Six feet in front of Howard the mugger stopped cold as the 91-grain Cor-Bon BeeSafe frangible bullet slammed into his center of mass at just under 1600 feet per second.

The second shot was a quarter second behind the first.

The mugger froze, and glowing red lights pulsed on his chest where the rounds impacted. Most people didn't realize just how fast a running man with a knife could move. Another half a second and the ersatz thug would have been all over him.

Howard glanced at the computer next to the shooting box. There was a small holoprojection of the mugger over the computer and stats under it. Elapsed time: 1.34 seconds from start to shot. Organ hit: heart. Estimated one-shot-stop percentage: 94. The revolver didn't hold as many rounds as an H&K Tactical pistol, but it was a kind of talisman for Howard, and he was more comfortable with it.

As he reholstered the gun, he noticed his right shoulder felt sore. Well, no, not so much sore as… tired somehow. After one draw? Seemed like he'd been tired a lot lately—

'Not bad for an old man,' Sergeant Julio Fernandez said. He was in the next shooting box at the indoor range, making a lot of smoke and noise with his beat-up old Army-issue Beretta 9mm.

'Reset,' Howard said. He grinned.

The mugger vanished. Had it been a real attacker instead of a holoprojic target, the frangible bullets would have each dumped 550 foot-pounds of energy into the man and, because the rounds were designed to fragment on impact, would have shredded the attacker's heart into mush, and they wouldn't have over-penetrated and gone on down the street to maybe kill some little old lady out walking her dog. This was a very important consideration in an urban scenario. Of course, frangible wasn't good for shooting through solid walls or car doors, but the next two rounds in the cylinder were standard jacketed hollowpoints that would do that just fine. If the mugger had been in a car, Howard could have cycled past the first two rounds, or, in a hurry, just pulled the trigger twice to get to the jacketed stuff.

'Morning, gentlemen,' he heard somebody say behind him. The wolf-ear headphones he wore amplified normal sounds, but cut out anything loud enough to damage his hearing. He turned.

It was his boss, Alexander Michaels.

'Commander. What brings you to the range on a Saturday morning?'

Michaels patted the taser clipped to his belt on his right hip. 'Requalification. Thought I'd come down when it wasn't too busy.'

Howard gave him a small smile and shook his head.

'Not a fan of the kick taser, Colonel?' Michaels asked.

'No, sir, not really. If a situation is dangerous enough to require a weapon, then it ought to be a real weapon.'