and if he had come out shooting, we'd have clotheslined him, right? Deleted him cold?'
'Yes.'
'So, tactically, he was surrounded, outnumbered, and outgunned. The way we saw it, he either gave up or died.'
'We saw it that way. We were wrong.'
'Yes, sir. He beat us, straight up, and he did it with the tools he had. I wouldn't have been able to do it. You wouldn't have, either, would you?'
'No.'
'You'd have gone down shooting.'
'Probably.'
'Me, too. And we'd be dead. Ruzhyo isn't. And he's on the loose.'
'You admire this guy?'
'Man beats me at my game, oh, yeah. I'm pretty good at what I do; so are you. This guy, he's a formidable enemy, and when push comes to shove, those are the ones we want to face off with, aren't they? You remember the shoot-out in Grozny?'
Howard nodded. He remembered.
'Those revolutionaries we took down weren't in our league. They never had a chance once we decided to scoop 'em up. Screwed, blued, and tattooed. You remarked on your disappointment on the flight home. How… easy it was.'
'I remember.'
'This ice man we're after, he's not easy. He's in our league — hell, maybe better than we are. Catching him will mean something, won't it?'
'Damn straight.'
'It's not a war, John, but it's not a walk in the park. You're pissed off because the guy whipped us, not because he shoots people. The samurai killed a lot more people than the ninja ever did. It's not about body counts. It's about winning.'
Howard couldn't stop a small grin. 'When did you get to be such a… Taoist philosopher, Julio?'
'I'm about to be a married man with a child. It makes a man think.'
'Well, go home and take care of your bride-to-be. You aren't doing any good here.'
The warning chime on Howard's computer peeped. A flagged subject.
'Go ahead, computer,' Howard said.
'Subject A-1 located,' the computer said.
Howard reached for the computer. Damn! They had him!
Well, if they could get there fast enough. Wherever there was.
PART TWO
Base, Angle, Leverage
Chapter 20
Peel stood watching Bascomb-Coombs, once again not having a clue what the man was doing. But BC liked an audience, so he gave him a running commentary.
'Here we go. We insert the passwords we have ras-called from the gatekeepers, thus… and we are in. A straight shot to the inner doors, which we also open with no effort at all….'
He tapped at the keyboard, his fingers dancing like little elves over the thing. He hummed to himself and laughed softly.
'Poor sods. They've rebuilt their walls and made them twice as thick and high as they were, but it doesn't matter, you see. There still must be the pass-through, and no matter how narrow the gates, if you have the keys, you are unstoppable! Voila!'
He turned from the computer screen, all awash with complex lines and clots of numbers and letters that Peel did not comprehend. 'How is your desire for power, Terrance?'
'Excuse me?'
Bascomb-Coombs pointed at the keyboard. 'Come over here and press this key, and for a few milliseconds you'll be the most powerful man in the world. You will have more of an effect on more people's lives than anyone else on the planet.'
Peel stared at the man but didn't move.
'Ah, you hesitate. You must know the dictum, 'With great power comes great responsibility'?'
'Churchill?'
The scientist smiled. 'Spider-Man, actually. Sure you don't want to do the deed?'
Peel shook his head.
'Well. Onward and upward, then.' He tapped the key once, smartly. 'That ought to give the rabble something to think about.'
'Commander Michaels?'
Michaels looked up from his desk. He didn't recognize the man standing there, he was just another of the young and clean-cut types running around the place, dressed in a suit and tie. Could have been an FBI agent, save that his clothes were cut better. 'Yes?'
'DG Hamilton wanted me to deliver this to you, sir.'
He handed a silvery disk about the size of a quarter to Michaels. 'If you'll thumbprint here, sir?' He held a print reader out. Michaels pressed his right thumb against a small gray panel on the device. The messenger looked at the readout and was apparently satisfied with the print match. 'Thank you, sir.'
Michaels looked at the tiny computer disk. If you were worried about your computer system being burgled and you didn't trust your electronic protection, there were ways to circumvent your fear. The easiest method was to disengage your computer from all contact with other machines, strip out all communications right down to the hardwiring. If it was unplugged and not firewired or optically linked to any other computer in a network, local or external, you were safe.
Nobody could sneak in your house if you didn't have any doors or windows.
Of course, you couldn't get out, either, and that was a problem.
So if you isolated yourself, you accepted input only via secure and scanned disks. And if you needed to reach out to another computer, you sent them a hand-carried disk. It was slow, it was cumbersome, but it was safe.
Michaels stuck the disk into his reader and had his viral software crunch it. Even though it was supposed to be secure, you still checked, always.
The software — the best antiviral/antivermal/Betty Crocker program MI-6 had — dutifully reported that the coin-sized disk was clean, no sign of viruses, worms, or unwanted pastries.
Michaels ran the disk. Things were looking up on a few fronts. The airline reservation and flight control computers were, by and large, back up and running smoothly. That was the good news.
The bad news was, they hadn't been able to backwalk the hack that had caused the problem in the first place. It just… stopped past a series of firewalls and foolpits.
'Good afternoon, Alex.'
He glanced up at Angela. She was in a green T-shirt, faded and kind of tight jeans, and tennis shoes. His surprise at her outfit must have showed. She smiled and said, 'Casual Saturday.'
