'Why are you having me followed?'
'Self-defense,' she said.
'What the hell are you talking about?'
'After you beat Byron senseless at Christmas, you threatened me, remember?' The ice in her voice melted. Now she sounded like a volcano rumbling, about ready to let go. 'You told me that if he spent a night under my roof—
'I never said that. I never said you were an unfit mother—'
'Like hell you didn't! You said you would throw Byron up in my slutty face and go for full custody. Well, mister, two can play that game. Byron will be spending the night tonight, just like he did last night, and the night before, and just like he will be spending it tomorrow! And as many goddamned nights as I want him to be here! And you know what? He will be screwing my brains out, too!'
Just as she had always been able to do, she pushed his hot button. He lost control, snapped back at her almost reflexively. 'That won't take much, screwing your brains out. By the time he gets his zipper down it'll be done.'
She laughed, knowing she had made him lose his temper. When she spoke again, it was back to the ice queen: 'Funny. But laugh at this, funny man. I know all about your sleeping arrangements. About sweet little butter-wouldn' t-melt-in-her-mouth Toni Fiorella. At least Byron is my age, not a child. Let's see how the court views you boinking an employee!'
'At least I'm not doing it in front of Susie,' he said. Not much of a response.
'So what you're saying is, it's okay to sneak around like a preacher with a whore, but it's not okay for an engaged couple about to be married to do it? I doubt the judge here in Boise will be much impressed with that argument. You were always good at twisting the story to fit your definition of righteous, weren't you?'
He should apologize, he knew. Pour a tanker full of oil on the troubled waters, calm her down. Tell her he'd lost his temper when he'd punched out her new boyfriend — who had grabbed him, don't forget — and said things he didn't really mean. The problem was, he had meant them. Still did, though this certainly put another face on the problem. She was right. A judge wasn't going to take Susie away from Megan unless he could show she was a bad mother, and the truth was, she was a great mother. He'd thought so when they were together, and he thought so now. And he didn't want to lose his daughter. If he was limited to visiting Susie once or twice a year on holidays, their relationship was doomed. She'd grow up thinking of Byron as her father. He'd be the one who'd take her to school and to the mall and he'd be the one helping her with homework and doing the things Michaels should have been doing.
He should apologize, try to get this resolved. But he waited too long.
'Good-bye, Alex. You can call Susie. I don't want her to think I'm shutting you out of her life, but you and I don't have anything else to say to each other. Give my regards to your teenage girlfriend.'
She broke the connection.
Michaels blinked. He was in the middle of the sidewalk on a street in downtown London in the middle of the night, feeling as if he had just been slammed in the groin by a linebacker's knee. His ex-wife knew about his affair with Toni — who was a dozen years younger than he was, but hardly a teenager — and he was going to have to hear that in court if he contested the custody hearing for his daughter. He and Toni were both adults, but he was her boss. That wouldn't look good. The FBI frowned on such relationships, and since he didn't have any history with the new director, she wouldn't be ready to put her ass on the line to save his if this all blew up in his face.
He was — not to put too fine a point on it — fucked.
Chapter 18
Peel's first real assignment from his new boss was a field operation, and it was right up his alley. Much better than sitting in a drafty old shed of a church watching stats stream by on a computer's holoproj. Of course, almost anything would be better than that.
It seemed that a certain scientist, formerly one of Bascomb-Coombs's university teachers and now retired to a private consulting position, was poking around in computer territory best left alone. Old BC was about to unleash some new electro-deviltry on the world, and he didn't want his former professor to tread on him while he was about it. And while he didn't want to seriously injure his old mentor, he did want him out of the way for a day or three. Could Peel manage that?
'Level Two,' Peel said to the three men in the car. 'Are we clear on that?'
The trio in the back — Peel sat in the driver's seat of the big right-hand-drive Dodge four-door-nodded. 'Yes, sir,' they said as one. They were the youngest of his men, Lewis, Huard, and Doolittle, dressed now as low-life rowdies, in Doc Martin steel-toed boots, baggy denim pants, and black shirts cut to reveal fake tattoos on their arms and chests. The outfits came complete with false nose rings, earrings, and tight skinhead wigs that easily covered their militarily short haircuts.
Here was a picture: a trio of thumpy boys, out for a lark, trouble on the prowl. It was exactly the right image, one that authorities would not look at twice before accepting. Coppers were good about that. You gave them an obvious picture, they didn't scurry around looking for hidden meaning in the brush strokes and hues, they nearly always went for the overall model.
Level Two. The code was one he'd learned from a commando in South Africa during a training seminar there some years ago. For direct physical violence not involving guns or knives, there were five operational levels:
Level One was the mildest, consisting mainly of threats or shoves, intimidation, without physical injury to the subject.
Level Two was mild to moderate damage, bruises, perhaps a broken bone or two, equivalent to a good bar- fight thrashing. A few stitches in the local doctor's surgery, some pain pills, and day or two to rest up at home, and you'd be right as rain.
Level Three was damaging enough to require a stay in hospital, and you'd be weeks or months recovering. A serious encounter.
Level Four meant you would carry reminders of the attack with you for the rest of your life: You'd be crippled with a torn-out knee or ankle, or perhaps crushed hands; you might lose your hearing or an eye, or be otherwise maimed. Recovery would be slow and painful, and you'd never be as complete as you had been before.
Level Five was terminal. A subject was to be made to suffer much pain, to know what he had done, and to have time enough to regret having done it before passing away.
The South Africans would deny having such codes, of course. They hadn't been used officially since apartheid days, but used they still were. Many military and intelligence services around the world had similar operational codes still in place, officially or not. One simply did not talk about such things where unfriendly ears might lurk. Peel recalled an Israeli official some years back, blabbing on in public about their official policy on torture. How it was, under some extreme circumstances, justified. Oh, but the Jews had been lambasted for
Whatever else you had to say about the Jews, they were survivors. If you kicked dirt on their shoes, they would drop a mountain on you in return. Such things didn't bother fanatics ready to die at the drop of a Koran, but more reasonable governments kept that in mind before sending sorties against Israel. Getting hit back thrice as hard as you hit somebody was still a deterrent in some quarters. And the Jews never let it pass, never. You spit on them and sooner or later — likely sooner — you'd have a fire hose blasting you in the face to think about.
If you wanted your country to survive its enemies, you did what you had to do. No one needed to run to CNN and talk about having to shove a few needles under a terrorist's fingernails to save decent men and women from
