Cybernation

“Ah. I see.”

“No, you don’t. But you will.”

“Are you sure you wouldn’t just rather stay home and enjoy the quiet? Just the two of us in the house? Alone?” He waggled his eyebrows. “Guru can take Alex to the park for a couple of hours—”

“We are going out. I am not going to become one of those women who, if she ever gets the chance to talk to anybody, prattles on about what color her little darling’s last poop was when she changed his diaper.”

“What color was it?”

“Go get dressed, Alex,” she said. Her tone was ominous.

* * *

The roadhouse was called the Stone Creek Pub and Grill, and it was far enough out into the Virginia countryside that it took a while to get there. There were a lot of trees, so there was plenty of oxygen in the air when they found a parking spot in the crowded lot. And there were animals living in the area, too — less one skunk somebody had run over, adding a fragrant stink to the evening breeze.

“Jeez, what an odor,” Toni said.

“You wanted to come here.”

The place appeared to be a converted barn, lots of open woodwork and bare walls with old metal signs and horse harnesses and such hung on the walls. They managed to find a table, and it was noisy, filled with people, and busy. Still, Michaels was fine once he had gotten up and past the inertia. Toni was right; they needed to get out more. Having her back at work was good, but hardly restful. Becoming parents had put a big crimp in their lives. Michaels really didn’t mind, since he would usually just as soon stay home as go out after a hard day at the office. But it was all too easy to turn into a couch potato who stayed home all the time, warm and secure in the nest. The baby hadn’t helped that. It was easier to be where they had everything they needed; if they went out, they had to pack diaper bags with bottles and clothes and rattles and stuff, and it was a hassle. He had gone through that with Susie when she’d been a baby, but he had forgotten, it had been so long.

The waitress came, took their orders for pints of beer. Toni got something called Ruby — beer “with a hint of raspberry,” ick — and he got one called Hammerhead, which seemed appropriate. The waitress promised to be back for their sandwich orders in a few minutes.

The band consisted of a woman in jeans and a work shirt with a guitar slung around her neck, a guy with a fiddle, another on a double bass, and one more with a mandolin. They cranked up and started playing a lively tune that did have a folksy-bluesy sound to it. The harmony was pretty good, and the song was something about doing cartwheels on a gravel road or some such. The woman singer — Michaels assumed she was Diana and the men were the Song Dogs — had a pleasant voice and an animated face. When she sang lead, she belted it out pretty cleanly, and she sang a nice harmony for the bass player in a couple of places.

She had her web page address painted on the front of her guitar.

Well, you could hardly get away from that, even here in the country. Hank Williams would have been amused.

The beer came, and as she promised, the waitress dutifully took their sandwich orders. Michaels went for the barbecued chicken, Toni got the Reuben, and they decided to split a small order of fries.

The band began another song. The words were hard to hear, given the noise of the diners, but everybody seemed to be having a great time. And, Michaels had to admit, he was feeling pretty good himself. It had been a long time since he and Toni had been out together.

The band got through another tune and the food arrived. The basket of fries was huge, the sandwiches also generous, and the waitress brought catsup and vinegar and mustard and plopped them onto the table. Along with a ream of napkins.

“I’m glad we decided to get a small order of fries,” Toni said.

He saw why they had gotten all the napkins as soon as the barbecue sauce squished out of the sandwich and ran down his chin.

For the band’s next number, a harmonica player appeared from somewhere to sit in; the Song Dogs sang about traveling on the railroad and long stretches of empty prairie, and the blues harp wailed like a train whistle, long and mournful.

Michaels watched Toni, enjoying the look of pleasure on her face as she watched and listened to the band. This was what life was all about, wasn’t it? Watching your woman have a good time, and being a part of that? Drinking beer, eating greasy fries, listening to a band — how much better did it need to be? He could do this. Definitely.

And maybe that’s what part of your problem has been lately, Alex, hmm? Too much willingness to drop work and go home to play with the baby? To lie in bed with Toni when before you’d have been up and at work before anybody else got there?

Michaels felt a stab of guilt at that thought. It was true. Yes, he still did a good job. But for the last few months, his heart just hadn’t been in it the same way. He wasn’t a company man the way he had been before. He wanted to enjoy this wife, this baby, in ways he hadn’t enjoyed his first wife and child. He had put them second, behind work, and as a result, he had lost them. He wasn’t going to lose Toni and the baby.

Was that fair to Net Force? Didn’t the agency deserve a boss dedicated to it first, before anything? When he thought about it, yeah, maybe. Then again — who could do a better job than he was doing? Even at three-quarter speed, he was still faster than anybody else around, wasn’t he?

Uh-huh. Now there’s a great rationalization.

Come on, he told himself. Isn’t it better for the company if I’m relaxed, comfortable, at ease with myself? Doesn’t a happy worker do a better job?

There’s an even funnier one, Alex. Give us another.

He was beginning to get seriously pissed off at his inner voice when his virgil cheeped. He and Toni exchanged looks. This was not apt to be good news.

16

Casablanca, Morocco

June 1937

The wind off the desert was hot, dry, and carried in it a mix of powdery dust and fine sand that swirled through the alley as if alive, changing into an irritating, gritty mud as it got into Jay’s eyes.

A good touch, that, he thought. Even if he did have to think so himself.

Here in Northern Africa as in Europe, everyone knew war was on the horizon, if not exactly where and when it would arrive, and things were about to change, as they would change everywhere.

Jay stepped into the nightclub and out of the wind, amid the babble of half a dozen languages. There were well-dressed foreigners in their silk and linen suits, mostly men, a few women. Natives, dressed in colorful robes and hats designed to keep the sun and sand out, sat at some of the small round tables, drinking something mysterious from brown bottles.

It was almost like film noir: dark and moody with stark contrasts everywhere.

The ceiling fans twirled slowly, barely stirring the warm air. The piano player worked on some heart-breaking torch number, and a native bartender cleaned drink glasses behind a long, curved mahogany bar that had been age-polished to a dull gleam. A mirror behind the bar reflected the racks of liquor bottles: scotch, bourbon, gin, vodka, absinthe…

Standing at the bar drinking scotch neat was Jacques, Jay’s contact. Jacques wore a double-breasted ice- cream suit with a red handkerchief in the coat pocket, spats over his white leather shoes. He had slicked-back black hair and a pencil-thin mustache. He was a spy, of course, Algerian, and probably too long out in the cold. Or the heat, as it were.

“Bon jour,” Jacques said as Jay approached the bar. “Emile, a drink for my friend!”

The bartender gave Jay a fish-eye look. “What may I serve you, friend?”