State of War

wood — with lots of bookshelves. There was music coming from hidden speakers, an old show tune. He grinned.

The senator sat behind a big desk made of the same kind of wood as the paneling. It had a burl to it. Pecan, he was sure of it, or maybe some kind of maple.

“Have a seat, Mr… ?”

“Just call me ‘Junior,’ Senator.”

Hawkins was sixty-something, leathery, tanned, and fit. He had salt-and-pepper hair cut in a flattop. He wore a plaid cotton shirt, jeans, and work boots.

Senator good ole boy, Junior thought, but this time he hid his grin.

“Wait outside, Hal,” the senator said to the bodyguard. “And close the door, would you?”

Hal nodded, stepped out, and shut the door softly behind him.

As soon as the door closed, Senator Hawkins turned back to Junior, his expression growing ugly. “Now you want to give me a good reason why I shouldn’t have Hal take you outside and stomp you into a pile of greasy hamburger?”

“Your call, Senator,” Junior said. “But you know I’m not so stupid as to come here with the only copy of that picture. You can also be sure that I have people who know where I am, and who have more pictures like it — and some a lot worse. Something happens to me, you know what comes next.”

“You son of a bitch.”

Junior frowned. “You’re a smart man, Senator, and you’ve been in politics half your life. How long did you figure to keep something like this a secret?”

“It’s been forty years so far,” he said.

Junior nodded. “The wife, the kids, the grandkids, they’re all good cover, but that doesn’t matter now, does it? What’s done is done.”

The senator sighed, and Junior could see him give up. “What do you want?” he asked. “Money?”

“No, sir.”

Hawkins stared at him.

“I need one thing, one time only. I need a vote. In return you get all the copies of all the pictures, and we never say another word to each other as long as we live.”

Senator Hawkins glared at him. “And I’m supposed to trust a blackmailer.”

“It’s not like you have a whole lot of choice here, Senator.”

Hawkins thought about it. “What if I say no?”

“Then the pictures — all of them — show up on the web and tomorrow’s front page. You want your grandchildren knowing you’ve been sharing long weekends up in Pennsylvania with another man? The brother of an appeals court judge? That you’ve been swinging the other way since before you met Grandma?”

Hawkins shook his head. “No, I don’t want that.”

“Fine,” Junior said. “Then we can do business.”

There was a long pause, and Junior felt just a twinge of nervousness. You could never be sure in a situation like this. The guy might just lose it and go off, and with his guns in the truck, he didn’t feel real comfortable. Hal would stomp him like a roach. Sure, the senator would pay for it, but that wouldn’t help Junior any.

Finally, Hawkins said, “I don’t know who you work for, Junior, but let me tell you this. If this gets out, I’m ruined. If that happens, I won’t have anything left to lose. Hal out there has friends. They’ll find you, and you will tell them who sent you, before they put you out of your misery, and whoever your people are will suffer the same fate as you. You understand me here?”

Junior felt a chill. This man was dead serious, Junior had heard enough people calling it straight to know it when he heard it. The senator was telling him it was easier to do what Junior wanted than it was to kill him, but that if it went wrong, he could do that. Would do it.

He nodded. “Yeah, I hear you.”

“All right. What is it you want?”

Junior told him.

“That’s it?” He looked stunned. “My God, you didn’t need to do this. You already had my vote.”

“The man I work for doesn’t take chances,” Junior said.

Junior left. After he was back in the truck, with his guns in their holsters, he felt a whole lot better. Hawkins would be a nasty enemy, and Junior was just glad to be done with him.

Washington, D.C.

There were some good things about living in Washington, Toni thought. One of them was that news got old fast. The phone would still ring now and then with calls from the media, but at least the reporters were gone from the sidewalk. They were off making somebody else miserable, which meant that Toni’s life could begin to get back to normal.

She was even thinking about going into the office today. Alex needed her help, no question about that. Between the lawsuit and normal Net Force operations, things were getting a little thick.

Toni had lost a few steps, she knew. She wasn’t quite as sharp as she’d been before she quit to have the baby. Like silat, work was a skill, and if you didn’t hone it, it got a little dull.

That didn’t worry her, though. She knew she could get it back if she really wanted. The question was, did she really want it? And that question did worry her, at least a little.

A year ago, two years ago, it would never have occurred to her that she might not want to go back to work. Before Alex — and especially before Little Alex — her work was her life. She had never imagined that anything— silat, her parents or siblings, or any future family of her own — could ever replace her job as the single biggest focus in her life.

She had been wrong. She had found something that mattered more to her. And it was making her think about things in a way she never had before, to ask herself questions that would have been unthinkable just a short time ago.

It didn’t have to be that way, of course. She had known plenty of women who had done both, raised a family and maintained a career, but it had seemed to Toni that something always suffered, even among the best and brightest. It was a matter of time, not effort or ability. There were only so many hours in a day, only so much you could do, no matter how much you wanted to do more.

And that was the point she kept coming back to. There were other people who could do her job at Net Force. Other people could help with investigations and administration. But who could step up and be a mom to her son?

No one, of course. She knew that. Even Guru couldn’t replace Toni. Not when it came to her family.

The worst of it was, there was just no way to know. Not in time, anyway.

At Net Force, at the FBI, at most jobs, the results of your decisions showed up quickly. Oh, some investigations stretched out over months or years, but for the most part you made a decision and you knew pretty quickly if you were right or wrong.

Being a parent didn’t work that way. You made your decisions on how to raise your child. You figured how and when and why to discipline him and how to encourage him. You determined when to lead by example and when to give a lecture. And after each decision, after each opportunity to teach or scold or praise, you had no idea if you had made the right call. You wouldn’t know — couldn’t know — until someday in the far future when your son was grown and you saw the fruits of your labor.

But even then, really, how would you know? If your child turned out happy and productive and successful and loving and all the other things you hope and pray for him, how would you know how much was due to your parenting and how much was just luck, or genetics, or other influences?

You wouldn’t. You couldn’t. And knowing that made making parental decisions — and especially major parental decisions — that much harder.

She sighed. Why hadn’t anybody told her about such things before? How did she go from having all the answers to her life, to having things all planned out and comfortable, to feeling as if she were standing on a trail leading into an unknown wasteland, next to a sign that said, “Beware! Here Be Dragons!”

Being Mommy was a lot harder than being a federal agent. Or kicking somebody’s tail in a fight. Much harder.