Michaels leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers in front of his face for a second, then quickly put his hands down on the desk. He’d read somewhere that steepling your fingers was a sign of feeling superior, and while he certainly felt he had the upper hand in this discussion, he didn’t want to give anything away. He said, “Even if we did, what good would it do you? DEA has jurisdiction. We turn the information over to them, they make the arrest. End of our participation.”
George hesitated for a second, then said, “Of course. We wouldn’t want to usurp the DEA’s legal position. But a heads-up from you would allow us to, ah… begin negotiations with that agency from a position of knowledge. I’m sure we can convince them that the nation’s best interests would be served if we were allowed to question the criminal before he was locked away to await a long, drawn-out trial.”
Michaels smiled again. George would know this conversation was being recorded, and he didn’t want to say anything that sounded remotely illegal, but it was easy enough to read between the lines here. One developed a certain expertise in verbal fugue working in Washington. You said one thing, you meant something else, and you used expression or tone or gestures to make sure your listener got it. Tape recordings missed visual clues, and even videos couldn’t pick up between-the-lines stuff.
George’s fugue was simple: You give us the dope dealer, we rattle his cage real good and get what we want,
Interesting.
Michaels’s immediate gut reaction was to tell Mr. Zachary George to scuttle back to his NSA hole and not let the door hit him on the way out. But he had learned a thing or two about political survival in this town, and peeing in somebody’s corn flakes was not a smart move, especially when they had clout. NSA knew where a lot of bodies were buried, some figurative, some no doubt quite literally, and a direct confrontation, while it might be emotionally satisfying, was not the smart move. It wasn’t just Michaels, it was his agency, and he had to keep that in mind. A hard lesson, but one he was learning better and better all the time.
“Well, I suppose we could keep you in the loop,” Michaels finally said. “As a courtesy to a brother agency.” There was no real fugue here, he wasn’t going to give them squat, but he strived to leave that impression:
George flashed his crooked smile again. “We would appreciate it, Commander. I’m certain we can return the favor in some small way.”
The meeting was over, George had said what he came to say, and it was but the matter of another minute to exchange good-byes before the man left.
Interesting, indeed. So the National Security Agency had some kind of clandestine operation involving drugs. Not really that big a surprise, when you thought about it. There were more sub-rosa operations going on at any security agency than you could shake a stick at, some well-known in the trade, some hinted at, and some surely buried so deep that nobody had happened across them yet. Net Force was fairly public, but they didn’t air certain articles of their laundry in public. And for sure the FBI had its own black-bag ops skulking about in the shadows. It was all part of the game. You couldn’t sneak up on somebody if you had to yell at him through a bullhorn and flash your warning lights. Even local police departments knew you sometimes had to use unmarked cars.
When and if they came across the drug dealer, then Michaels could decide whether to let NSA know about it. Probably they wouldn’t. Almost certainly not in time to do anything nasty with the knowledge. If NSA swooped in and grabbed the dope dealer from under the DEA’s nose and someone figured out that it was Net Force who gave the guy up, heads would roll.
Right now, it was a moot point anyhow. They didn’t have anything to give.
Before he could get back to his reading, the intercom cheeped again.
“Sir, Agent Brett Lee is here. He doesn’t have an appointment, but he seems, ah… quite insistent on seeing you.”
“Show him in.”
Lee arrived in a huff, glowering. “What the hell is Zach George doing here?!”
“Nice to see you, too, Mr. Lee.”
“You didn’t answer my question!”
“Nor do I intend to. What goes on in my office is none of your damn business.”
Lee stepped forward, as if he planned on doing something physical.
Michaels was tired and cranky. He came to his feet, ready to move.
But Lee stopped, having apparently realized that throwing a punch at the head of Net Force might not be a smart career move.
Too bad. Michaels felt like decking him. This clown had no right storming into his office demanding anything.
“You and George are up to something, and I’m warning you, it better not get in our way! My boss will be calling yours,” he said, still red-faced and angry.
“I hope they have a pleasant conversation, Mr. Lee. But right now, I’m busy, so if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.” He sat and reached for his viewer.
In another second, Brett Lee was gone, leaving an angry wake behind him.
This was a
10
When Drayne shuffled into the kitchen with just the tiniest headache from drinking most of two bottles of champagne, he saw Tad sprawled on the couch and dead to the world.
Good. One of these trips, Tad wasn’t gonna come back, but he was glad it wasn’t this time. He’d miss the guy. Tad was balls-to-the-wall and full-out, not too many like him. And loyal; you couldn’t buy that.
Drayne opened the cabinet over the microwave oven and dug through the vitamins until he found the ibuprofen. He shook four of the brown tabs into his palm, swallowed them dry, and put the bottle back. There were rows and rows of vitamin bottles there, he was a big believer in such things, but he wouldn’t take those until he had some food in his stomach. He took so many vitamins and minerals and assorted other healthy supplements that doing so on an empty belly was apt to make him nauseated. His normal intake each morning amounted to maybe twenty, twenty-five pills, caps, caplets, or softgels.
Two grams of C, two caplets; three E’s, 1200 IUs; 120 mg of ginkgo biloba, two caplets; two Pain Free tabs, that was 1,000 of glucosamine and 800 of chondroitin combined; couple of fat-burners, mostly chromium picolinate and L-caritine; 705 mg of ginseng, three softgels; 50,000 IUs of beta-carotene in two gelcaps; 100 mg of DHEA, that was four pills; couple of saw palm — he didn’t really need that yet, but better to get a head start on prostate problems, as much screwing as he did — two gels, 320 mg; five mg of Deprenyl to keep the gray matter from rotting; and however many creatine caps he thought he needed when he was on the cycle, those varied from day to day, depending on how hard he hit the weights.
He waited until bedtime before he took the multiple and his melatonin, plus a couple of other odds and ends. That many pills down the hatch every day, dry-swallowing four ibuprofen was nothing. The stack seemed to work for him, and as long as it did, he’d keep it up. Prevention was better than a cure.
Champagne was his only vice — well, unless you counted sex — and he made sure he was covered on the health stuff. He ate pretty well, exercised regularly, even wore sunblock these days. He planned to live a long, rich, full life, unlike Tad, who’d be dead in a year, tops, and probably a lot sooner.
He’d tried to talk Tad out of them, the Hammer trips, but Tad was who he was, and if he did quit, he’d turn into somebody else. Drayne could live with the guy running at half speed, but Tad couldn’t, and that was that.
Misty-Bunny-Buffy was gone, slipped out in the night sometime. He figured she had a steady boyfriend or a husband she had to get back to, sleeping with a producer to maybe get a job didn’t really count, especially not if you were home before dawn. He was done with her, anyhow. She’d been great, but she’d only be new once, and there was no point in going spelunking in caves where he’d already been, was there? Unless they were spectacular
