He took a couple of swallows of his beer, dark brew called Terminator Stout. She nodded at his glass. 'Came from America originally, that,' she said.
He looked at the beer. 'Really?'
'Indeed. Some microbrewery on the West Coast. Chap from London passing through tasted it, liked it, started importing it. Only taken a couple hundred years for you Americans to produce decent beer. Another hundred years or so, you might make a decent roadster.'
'I beg your pardon,' he said. 'Chevrolet did that with the Corvette in the 1950s.'
'Know about cars, do you?'
'A little.'
'Well, it didn't take them long to muck it up, the Corvette, did it? It might have started out okay, but after a few years, it ballooned into a monster, didn't it? Bigger body, bigger engine, electronic this and that, until it was as huge as a town car and cost more than a Cadillac sedan.'
He grinned. 'Well, yes, that's true.'
'Now, you take a classic '50s or '70s MG,' she began.
He snorted, cutting her off. 'Please. Take it to the dump. They should have offered the thing with a mechanic as standard equipment. Your average vintage MG spent more time in the shop being tuned than it ever did on the road.'
'Well, all right, some of them were a bit finicky, but that's a small price to pay for the driving experience.'
'Ha! You mean the towing experience. You tell the Automobile Club you own an MG, they won't even take your phone calls.'
She smiled at him.
The food arrived, and the smell of the batter-fried halibut and potatoes enveloped them in a wonderful aroma. He wasn't just hungry, he was starving!
After ten minutes of chowing down and a second round of beers, Michaels felt much better. This was nice, having a late dinner and enjoying a conversation not connected to work. They talked about Japanese and Korean roadsters, the new South African Trekker, and he told her about the Prowler and Miata he had restored.
Next thing he knew, it was two A.M.
'We probably should get going,' he said. 'Work and all.'
'How is the muscle tension?' she asked.
'Not as bad as it was.'
She put her hand on his neck, slid it lightly down to his shoulder. 'You're still tight as a violin string. She paused. Said, softly, 'My flat is just up the road and around the corner. Would you like me to give you a massage?'
Maybe it was because he was so tired. Or maybe it was the two pints of beer and the good food. Or maybe it was because she was really a handsome and intelligent woman who obviously enjoyed his company.
Whatever the reason, Michaels nodded at her. 'Yes. I'd like that.'
Chapter 27
Jay moved with all the stealth he could manage, which wasn't very much, considering how rattled he was and the terrain through which he moved. Tracking the beast was not a problem; the brush was trampled and smeared with blood, and the trail led Jay in a straight line, a sign of animal panic. The tiger ran straight away, making no attempt at stealth.
Or so it seemed. It had sneaked up behind him once before, and Jay wasn't going to get caught unaware again. He kept a constant watch, head swiveling as if he were watching a tennis match in the round.
At the base of what looked to be a huge boablike tree, the blood trail disappeared.
Jay looked up.
Thirty feet above the ground, the tiger coughed and charged down the tree trunk,
Jay didn't think. He whipped the shotgun up, spot-welded his cheek to the weapon, and fired. He recovered from the recoil using his whole body and fired again.
The tiger fell off the tree. Jay dodged to his right, swung the gun around at waist level, and pulled the trigger as the thing hit the ground hard, five feet away, hard enough to shake Jay where he crouched, gun blasting.
He lost count of how many times he shot. It seemed like one continuous roar—
Now, the tiger wasn't even twitching.
Now, Jay drew a shuddery, deep breath, his first in a while.
The animal that had clawed his brain apart was dead. He had killed it.
Even as he bent to examine it, though, he knew it wasn't the thing he sought. Oh, yeah, it had attacked and damaged him, but now that he had killed it, he knew this was but a security program, not the creature that had ripped open the unbreakable cages of the world's most advanced computer systems with impossible strength. It was the most dangerous thing Jay had ever faced in VR, but this was just a watchbeast, put in the jungle to take care of snoopers, nowhere near the power of what had casually left it behind.
The real monster was still out there. And Jay knew this shotgun wouldn't slow it down if it spotted him.
Jesus.
It was three A.M., and Toni couldn't sleep. The big bed in the French hotel was comfortable enough, the room insulated and high enough above the city streets so the traffic noise was but a quiet drone. She'd had a fairly quiet day, gotten a lot of material collected and assembled, and had a delicious, fattening supper. She'd even gotten a workout in the hotel's gym and spent half an hour in the spa, letting the roiling hot water bubble and relax her. She should be conked out like a baby.
Her mind was buzzing, and the sense of disquiet she felt might be due to the work, but it wasn't that. No, it was Alex. Something was wrong between them, and she didn't know what it was. He was upset with her, she could feel it, even though he denied it, and she didn't know what to do about it.
Oh, she had tried to find out:
Then he'd flashed her a tight smile that looked sincere but was hollow.
How could you get past that? How many times could you ask without being a nag? Once you'd asked and been answered, how much could you harp on it? Wasn't it his responsibility? If he said everything was all right, didn't she have to accept that?
Well, with men, no. Not in her experience. They weren't wired the same way as women. They'd say one thing and mean something else entirely.
Who could she talk to about this? She had girlfriends who would listen and offer advice, back in the States. Or maybe she could call her mother. What was the time difference between Paris and the Bronx? Six hours? It would be nine o'clock at night there, Mama would probably be dozing out in front of the flatscreen TV by now. Besides, this wasn't really the kind of thing you talked about with Mama. She'd been dealing with Papa for so long there was only one way to do such things in her mind, and besides that, Toni doubted if Papa had ever voiced a complex emotional thought to anybody in his whole life:
