parked on the street, to keep the garage empty for
A couple of them moved into the driveway to block his path.
He rolled down the window, stuck his head out. “Move out of the way, please.”
The reporters descended on the car like flies on honey.
“Commander Michaels! Would you comment on the lawsuit against you?”
“—Commander, was it really necessary to shoot those men—?”
“—Commander, why did you send your wife on such a dangerous mission—?”
He tried to inch the car forward, but the pack of reporters stayed with him, like hyenas on a wounded impala. The ones in front wouldn’t get out of the way.
He honked the horn.
He stuck his head out again and glared at the two in front of his car. “Listen, I am going to drive into my garage. It would be a good idea for you to move. I wouldn’t want anybody to get hurt.” He smiled, the expression as fake as a three-dollar-bill.
The pair, both men, both with cameras, stayed where they were.
They didn’t move until the car was almost touching them, but finally, they did.
He pulled into the garage and hit the remote to shut the door. None of them followed him inside, which was good, because he would have been hard pressed not to toss them out physically.
Once the garage door was closed, he got out of the car. Tommy had told him he’d be seeing reporters, and that whatever he did he was
Toni met him at the door.
“I’m sorry about all this,” he said, waving at the garage door.
“It’s not your fault,” she said. She stood up on her toes and kissed him. “Other than that, how was your day?”
He grinned.
The grin didn’t last, though. In the living room Guru sat watching the evening news. He waved at her, and she pointed at the TV.
Michaels looked over and saw himself on the screen. He stopped.
The view was from one of the cameras that had been blocking the driveway, and a tight close-up of his face showed a flash of anger, then a smile that looked more like a leer. “Move,” he said, as he pulled his head back into the car and started forward.
They cut out the rest of what he’d said — the “It would be a good idea,” and “I wouldn’t want anybody to get hurt.” A different angle, from another camera, cut in, showed the car heading toward the cameramen in front of the car. They made it look as if he was trying to run them down.
His virgil cheeped. It was Tommy Bender.
“What are you doing, Alex? I’m watching you on the news trying to run over Channel Nine’s and Channel Four’s cameramen. Why is that?”
“Tommy, it isn’t what it looks like.”
“It never is. And remember I told you so.”
Corinna Skye leaned back in her chair and smiled. “That may be the best meal I have ever eaten,” she said.
She wore a blue silk blouse with a matching bow at her throat, both of which went with her blue eyes, and a dark maroon pleated silk skirt that stopped just above her knees. He guessed the shoes were Gucci pumps, the leather complimenting the rest of her outfit. Very classy.
Ames smiled at her. “Thank you. I can do better. Ideally, I should have prepared the sauce the day before yesterday to let it age properly. Then it would have been really good.”
“I can’t believe it could have possibly tasted any better.”
“Next time, we’ll try something different. You like moose?”
“Chocolate?”
“Not mousse,
“You’d cook Bullwinkle?”
He laughed. “You know that old TV series? It’s one of my favorites.”
She said, “Hey, Rocky, watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!” in a very good imitation of the cartoon character.
He said, “Again? That trick never works!” in as close an imitation to Rocky the Flying Squirrel as he could manage.
They both laughed.
“Shall we adjourn to the living room for after-dinner wine?”
She followed him into the room. He poured her a glass of the wine he’d selected, let her appreciate it to him, then poured his own glass. He directed her to the form-chair, while he sat on the leather couch.
The chair hummed and fitted itself to her exquisite contours. She smiled. “Ah. I’ve never tried one of these. Very comfortable.”
He shrugged. “If it isn’t comfortable, what’s the point?”
They sipped their wine for a moment. Then he said, “Well, much as I hate to bring up business, I wouldn’t want you to think I invited you here on false pretenses.”
“Heaven forbid,” she said.
“So, how goes the war on the entrenched bureaucracy?”
She put her glass down. “Better than I expected. We’ve got a couple of unexpected senators who have climbed on board the issue, and believe me, I had nothing to do with it. Also, the unofficial word is that the Supreme Court will be ruling on TransMetro Insurance versus the State of New Mexico next week, and there’s a strong rumor that they will rule for TransMetro.”
He knew this, of course. The decision concerned some minor litigation about whether or not the New Mexico regulatory agency could force the Swiss company that sold policies exclusively via the Internet to obey certain arcane state laws. By all rights, of course, the agency should be able to, but there was an oddball section of Internet laws that might prevent that. If so, there would be a precedent set that, while it wouldn’t seem relevant to most observers, would benefit CyberNation down the line. Ames thought of it as part of a basement wall: unseen, but a part of the foundation that needed to be in place.
“Good,” he said. “A little more wine?”
“I’d love some.”
He smiled. Things were going along very nicely here. He wouldn’t make a move on her tonight. Nor the next time they were together, and maybe not even the third time. Like a fine sauce, some things should not be rushed, not if they were to be enjoyed to the fullest.
And he was certainly going to enjoy Corinna Skye to the fullest. Like everything else he had ever wanted, it was only a matter of “when,” not “if.”
8
John Howard was not used to feeling ill at ease anywhere on the FBI base. This place, though, he had to admit, had him feeling decidedly nervous.
