largest in the world, had offered him a job.
Ostensibly, Ms. Henkel was looking for somebody to run their computer security department, and who better than the man who ran the computer security service for the United States government? She had, she had said, heard great things about him. Would he be interested in speaking with her personally about this? She could have one of the corporate jets pick him up and fly him to Mannheim for a chat. She mentioned a starting salary that translated to roughly four times what he was making as a government employee, plus stock options and a medical and retirement package that would, in twenty years, make him a fairly wealthy man. He could also bring two or three of his best people with him if he elected to accept the job, of course, and with hefty increases in their salaries, too.
It was tempting to think her offer was exactly what she said. A recognition of his ability to manage a complex technical operation. An offer tendered on merit. A deserved and great opportunity.
Michaels smiled at that. He had never considered himself the brightest light on the string, but neither had he thought he was the dimmest.
What this was about, of course, was this damned purple capsule everybody wanted so badly. Probably Ms. Henkel wanted it to move her company from fourth largest to third or maybe even first place. Or maybe she wanted it so the Germans could gear up for another war with supersoldiers. It didn’t really matter. But she was assuming that if she paved a road with platinum for him to get there, Michaels would bring the secret of the stuff with him. It would be interesting to see if the job offer became real if he didn’t happen to have that information at hand or didn’t want to give it up. Or even how long his new job would last if he did.
He smiled again as he thought about telling Toni: “Hi, honey, I’m home! Guess what. We’re moving to Germany!”
He chuckled at that thought.
He’d declined the offer with appropriate regrets and thanked Ms. Henkel politely.
Whatever the hell was in that mysterious capsule must be very interesting indeed.
He could have requisitioned a Net Force jet, but having risen on merit as a colonel in the regular army before taking command of the Net Force military arm, John Howard had a few friends still active in other services. An old Air Force buddy who had likewise risen high in the ranks got him second seat on a fighter going across the country. The training flight had to refuel midair, of course, but since it didn’t land, Howard was more than two hours ahead of Mr. Brett Lee’s commercial flight and waiting at the airport for him when he got off the plane. A small victory but worth the effort for the look on the face of a man who had left Washington, D.C., an hour before Howard had and well knew it.
Lee filled him in on details as they drove toward Beverly Hills.
“The suspect’s name is George Harris Zeigler, age thirty-one.” He looked at Howard as if expecting some response, but the name didn’t mean anything to him, and Howard said so.
“He’s a fairly well-known actor,” Lee said. “A pretty boy who plays action heroes, has the teenage girls all hot for him. They call him the Zee-ster.”
“There you go,” Howard said. “I’m neither teenage nor female. And not much of a movie fan.”
“In any event, we have the warrants, and our surveillance teams have him at home. He lives in a big, gated estate in Beverly Hills.”
“Of course he does.”
“We’re going in hot and fast. We need to do this quick enough to get samples of the drug. He has bodyguards and a commercial security system. It is unlikely he is the chemist. He flunked out of high school before becoming an actor, but we think he either sells or gives the stuff to his friends, especially his female friends. He doesn’t need the money; he gets fifteen or twenty million dollars each for the movies he stars in. And you’ve never heard of him?”
“I guess I need to get out more,” Howard allowed.
Lee glared but then forced a smile. It was his operation, and he would be giving Howard his assignment. He’d have the last word. “You will be assisting the agents covering the
“Must be nice. How many agents do you have going into the house?”
“Sixteen.”
“Ah. Well, if he gets past you, we’ll do our best to try to stop him.”
Lee didn’t speak to that, and Howard leaned back in the seat, looking out the window.
When they got to the staging area, a local park, Howard pulled his gear out of his tactical duffel bag. He had his side arm, the Medusa, his blue coveralls, and the spidersilk vest with “Net Force” stenciled in big phosphorescent yellow letters across the back. He strapped on his revolver, slipped into the coveralls, and tabbed the vest into place. It was class-one armor with full side panels and a crotch drape. The tightweave silk and overlapping ceramic plates would stop any handgun round and most rifle bullets, assuming the shooter went for the body and not the head or legs. Somehow, he didn’t think an actor who let himself be called the Zee-ster would be doing much blasting. Rich folks generally fought with lawyers, not firearms. And his chances of getting past a whole slew of DEA agents armed with subguns were slim and snowball.
Howard had wanted to bring his old Thompson, the ancient.45 submachine gun his grandfather had gotten when he was an unofficial deputy in the preintegration days, but he thought that might be a bit ostentatious in front of the cameras. And there were sure to be news copters flitting around pretty quick in this kind of operation. Dead-eye John Howard and his Chicago typewriter might not provide the image Net Force wanted.
During the briefing, Howard memorized the maps, met the two agents who’d be watching the garage with him — their names were Brown and Peterson, a tall woman and a short man, respectively. Lee, despite his quick fuse, gave a pretty good sitrep and assignment layout. Everybody synchronized their watches and slipped into tactical radio headphones set to a narrow-band opchan. Whatever the DEA’s political agendas, they had done enough drug busts to know how to enter a secured residence efficiently.
They’d borrowed a tactical truck from the local police force, and it went through the heavy steel gate as if it were paper. The cars followed the truck in, five vehicles, and made for their assigned locations. Howard wasn’t sure, but it seemed to him there were more than sixteen agents leaping from cars and hurrying toward the house.
Brown, Peterson, and Howard alighted and moved to the garage. Brown had an electronic master key she triggered, and the signal worked; the garage doors rolled up, all six of them.
Peterson moved to stand behind the door from the garage into the house, his handgun pointed up by his ear.
Brown crouched behind the car closest to the door, a seventies Charger, a muscle car lovingly painted in maybe twenty hand-rubbed coats of metalflake candy-apple red.
He looked around. Which car would he take if he was in a real hurry? Probably the Cobra. Nah, better would be the Viper, which was essentially a rocket with wheels. They’d have to use roadblocks; nobody would be catching that sucker from behind.
He walked over to the Viper and looked into the little convertible.
Lying in plain view on the passenger seat was one of those zippered plastic bags, like for sandwiches.
Inside the bag were four big purple capsules.
Howard grinned. Son of a bitch!
Brown and Peterson were intent on the door. Orders from Lee rattled over the operations channel on the headset. They had crashed the front door, after some effort, and were entering the residence.
Howard reached down, picked up the bag, opened it, and shook one of the capsules into his palm. He looked at the two DEA agents. He could have been invisible as far as they were concerned.
He slipped the cap into his coverall pocket, zipped the bag closed, and dropped it back onto the car
