He would make this call short, he decided. He wanted to get into that shower before Toni got out. He'd been horny all through the silat class, and it hadn't gotten any better on the ride home.
'Alex? MI-5 says they are not having you surveilled. Is there something we ought to know?' She smiled.
He thought about it quickly. 'No, I think I'm just getting paranoid in my old age.'
'Hardly old,' she said.
'I'll see you tomorrow. Sorry to bother you at home.'
'Call any time. It's never a bother.' She leaned back, and the red silky shirt or gown or whatever gaped a little at her neck, showing the top of her cleavage.
He discommed, and as he did, his male radar picked up a blip. Was that… interest? He'd only been with a few women. Since he'd gotten his divorce, Toni was the only woman he had been seriously interested in, and he was out of practice, but it sure sounded as if Cooper didn't find him totally disgusting.
Interesting. Good for the old ego, to have a beautiful and bright woman maybe possibly be interested in him. Assuming he wasn't reading the signals wrong.
Not that it mattered. He had much better waiting for him here. He started for the shower, pulling his damp clothes off as he went.
'What did she say?' Toni called from the shower.
'She said it isn't her people,' he called back.
'Then we ought to find out who it is,' she said.
He pulled the shower door open, was rewarded with a blast of hot vapor that fogged the mirrors behind him. 'Tomorrow. Got room for me?'
She glanced down. 'If you stand in front. I don't want to get stabbed in the back.'
He grinned. 'Well, look at that. I wonder where that came from?'
'A present from Ms. Cooper, perhaps?'
He frowned. 'What?'
'Well, you didn't have it before you got on the virgil, did you?'
Was she teasing him? She was smiling, but he wasn't sure.
While he considered that, the point became, well, moot.
Toni noticed. 'I was just joking, Alex.'
He was embarrassed. He grabbed the bar of soap and a wash cloth. 'Turn around,' he said. 'I'll wash your back.'
'Alex—'
'I'm really tired,' he said. 'It was a hard workout, I'm not used to it. I need to get to sleep.' It sounded lame, and he knew she knew it. He rubbed the soap into the cloth, fast, worked up a thick lather. She turned around and he scrubbed at her back. Maybe a little harder than he should.
Something was going on between them, something he didn't understand. Whatever it was, he didn't like it. Not a damn bit.
Toni didn't pursue it, though, and he was glad. He didn't really want to get into a deep emotional discussion right now. He was physically wrung out.
He was tired, but, unlike Toni, who fell asleep a few minutes after their shower, Michaels sat reading for an hour. He finally got into bed, turned off the light, and tried to sleep. After lying there for almost another hour, he realized he wasn't drifting off to sleep anytime soon. He was wound up, too tight to relax.
He got out of bed carefully, went into the bathroom, and slipped into jeans, a T-shirt, and running shoes. He dug his kick-taser out of his kit and checked the battery. The little wireless weapon used compressed gas as a propellant, was nonlethal, and fired a pair of charged darts that would knock a man on his butt if they hit him, even through clothes. The effective range was only a few meters, but that was where most gunfights were likely to happen. The old FBI shoot-out maxim concerning such encounters was, 'Three feet, three shots, three seconds.' If a guy was fifty meters away from you and pumping elbows and ass in the other direction, he wasn't real dangerous. The armorer at Net Force had told him somebody had come up with an electromesh vest that would defeat a taser's charge, but a vest wasn't a full-body suit; you could always shoot somebody in the leg or head. And it was a simple device. It had a laser sight on it. You put the tiny red dot on the target — allowed for a little spread of the needles in flight — and that's where the darts went when you pushed the button. If you weren't too far away. If your hand didn't shake too bad. He'd only had to fire the thing on the job once, and it had worked well enough then.
He tucked the taser into his back pocket, put a windbreaker on to cover it, and quietly left the room.
Michaels left the hotel via a rear exit, circled around the block, and approached the front of the place from behind where the gray Neon had been parked.
Where the guy in the Neon was still parked, sitting behind the wheel. He had his window rolled down and was smoking a cigar. Michaels could smell it fifteen meters away.
The commander of Net Force looped around the car as a bus passed, sending a blast of night air into the Neon, backwashing the cigar smoke into the vehicle. The guy in the car ducked away from the bus's wake.
Michaels pulled his taser, scooted up to the driver's side — the right-hand side in this country — and put the taser on the windowsill as he squatted next to the car.
'Hi. Are we having fun yet?'
The guy, a thin and balding man of maybe thirty-five, nearly swallowed his cigar.
'Jesus Christ! Don't do that! You scared the piss out of me!'
American, no mistaking that accent. A westerner.
On the seat next to him was a small flatscreen computer, a digital camera, and a pair of binoculars. There was also a thermos and a grease-soaked paper bag under a cardboard container with the remains of a fried fish and chips dinner. And on the floor was a large-mouth jar, empty. In case nature called.
If there had been any doubt in Michaels's mind before, this put it to rest. Mr. Cigar here was sitting surveillance.
'Okay, pal, so who are you, and why are you following me?'
'What the hell are you talking about? I don't know you—'
'Look, we can do this easy or we can do it hard. You can tell me, or I can call my friends at British Intelligence and have you picked up as a spy, stuck in a cell so deep it'll take a month for the foggy sunshine to filter down to it.'
'Hey, I'm an American citizen, I got rights—'
'This is England, friend. They don't play by the same rules. Your choice.'
Cigar considered it for a few seconds. He'd been burned, and he wasn't going to talk his way out of it. He shrugged. 'I'm a private investigator from Boise.'
Michaels blinked. A private detective?
'Who hired you?'
'I know who you are. I know you can give me a world of crap. You can stick me in a dungeon if you want, but I can't tell you who hired me. Word gets around, I'm outta business. But you're a bright guy, figure it out.'
Boise. Oh, shit! Megan.
Michaels tucked the taser away. He stood. 'Might as well go home. If I see you again, I will have the local law take you away.'
There was a long moment, then Cigar started his car. Michaels watched him drive away.
He pulled his virgil. It was the middle of the night here. They were what? Seven, eight hours ahead of Idaho on the clock.
Never mind what time it was there. Too bad if he caught her at work. He tapped the memory button, clicked on Megan's number.
'Hello, Alex,' she said. Cool. Her voice was a warehouse full of ice in the winter at the North Pole. In the shade. 'Hold on a second, let me get where we can talk.'
She came back on in a moment, and she lit her cam. She was dressed for work, her hair up. She looked good, as always.
'Megan. How is Susie?'
'She is fine. You called me at work to ask that?'
'No. I just had a few words with your balding, cigar-smoking private eye,' he said, his voice barely controlled.
