basketball players said, a slam dunk.
As he waited, Natadaze mentally played a favorite guitar piece, Tarrega’s “Recuerdos de la Alhambra,” a composition generally used to separate the men from the boys when it came to demonstrations of tremolo virtuosity, that multiple strum on a single string with machinelike speed and precision. He liked Eduardo Fernandez’s version, perhaps because they shared a similar first name. Certainly he was not in that man’s class when it came to execution, but on a good day, he could get through it without too many bobbles. And, of course, in one’s imagination, there were no dropped or slurred notes, no nail noises or string squeaks.
It was much easier to be perfect in the theater of the mind.
Jay was still not quite able to get his thoughts around the concept of being a father. Yes, they had discussed it in theoretical terms, but the sudden and unexpected reality of it was simply too slippery to grasp.
Him. Jay Gridley. Some small person looking up at him, holding out his arms, saying, “Daddy, Daddy, pick me up!”
The term “mind-boggling” was way too mild. This was astounding. Earth-shaking. A tsunami of emotion.
When he passed the gate, the on-duty guard may have waved — Jay didn’t notice. He was running on autopilot, replaying the scenario with Saji over and over again, trying to put it into perspective. He kept enough of his attention on the road, once he started driving, so as not to hit anybody, but traffic patterns on the way home were the least of his concerns.
A child was a major responsibility. He knew he didn’t have a clue about how it would really be, but it seemed like, all of a sudden, his life was going to change in major ways, and that was a disquieting idea. He liked to keep things under control, to have a handle on life, and a baby was a variable that might not be so easy to deal with.
A baby. A little human being that he and Saji would make. It was an amazing thing every time he came at it again.
He was halfway home, on a slow stretch of road with lots of stop-and-go traffic, red lights, creeping along as fast as maybe twenty-five before he had to slow down again. A car in the next lane suddenly swerved in front of him and slammed on its brakes.
Jay shook himself from his mental fugue. He hit his own brakes and skidded off onto the shoulder, heading toward a call box on the side of the road.
Jay screeched to a halt, barely missing both the call box and the other car. The other driver pulled to a quick stop in front of him. Breathing hard, feeling the sudden sweat on his palms, Jay got his first good look at the other car.
It was a dark maroon full-sized sedan. As it rocked to a halt, the driver’s door opened and the driver hopped out. A medium-sized man with a moustache, he wore black glasses and a bandage on his chin. He was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt.
The guy’s expression was bland. Jay couldn’t tell if he was coming to apologize or to take a swing at him, but he undid his seat belt and opened his own door.
Then he noticed that the man heading his way had a gun in his hand, held low by his leg.
For a heartbeat, Jay froze.
He had long ago been issued a taser, a high-voltage hit from which would knock a pro wrestler on his butt, but it was in a drawer at the office.
He had enough presence of mind to grab his virgil and thumb in the emergency code, even though Net Force would never be able to get anybody here in time to do Jay any good. Then he slammed his door shut and threw the car into reverse.
The gun man was ten feet away as he spun the wheel and stomped on the gas pedal—
Rubber burned, smoke spewed from the spinning tires. The car slewed sideways, glancing off the call box behind him with a solid
The gunman raised the revolver and pointed it at Jay—
The hole in the barrel looked as big as a cannon—
The man lurched, as if he had lost his balance, and fired—
The windshield starred, and the world went red.
Somebody ran into Thorn’s office in a big hurry. The man in uniform said, “Sir, we have a distress beacon. General Howard and Colonel Kent are in Situation Control and they request your presence immediately!”
Thorn followed the man.
In SC, a room he had seen but never been in, people were busy. He saw both John Howard and Abe Kent, on handheld Coms.
Kent was closer. “Colonel?” Thorn said.
Kent waved him to silence. “Yes, yes, got it.”
Across the room, Colonel John Howard looked up from his Com and over at Kent. “Two minutes ETA, General.”
“Copy,” Howard said. He went back to his Com.
Kent discommed and turned to Thorn. “Sir. Jay Gridley’s distress beacon was activated two minutes ago. That spot, there, on the computer holoproj, that’s his location.”
Thorn looked at the map. “That’s only a couple of miles from here. On the road.”
“Yes, sir. We have a copter with a tactical team on the way.”
“A car wreck?”
“Unknown, sir. But it’s nearly impossible to trigger the virgil’s beacon by accident, and protocol says you don’t do it unless it is life or death. General Howard is on the horn with the state patrol.”
Thorn nodded. “All right.” Not much else he could do. This was the military arm’s area of expertise. Best he not get in their way.
Howard discommed and came over to where Thorn and Kent stood.
“Commander. VSP is en route. No reports from the scene yet. We don’t have a sat in position to footprint it. Our team will be there in a minute. All we can do is wait.”
“This happen very often?” Thorn asked.
“No, sir,” Howard said. “It’s not something Gridley would have done for a minor accident.”
“Lord. I hope he’s all right.”
“Yes, sir,” Howard said. “Me, too.”
In his car, leaving the scene, Natadze cursed long and loud in his native Georgian. The smell of gunpowder clung to his clothes, sharp and acrid. His ears still rang — he hadn’t worn plugs, there wasn’t supposed to be any shooting.
Damnation! It had gone so unbelievably wrong. He hadn’t expected the man to try to run — it was not in his character, he was a photon pusher, a desk jockey. As soon as he saw the gun, he should have turned into a stalked rabbit and been unable to think. He didn’t have anywhere to go, anyhow, the box had been almost perfect—
He had aimed at the front tire, to try and stop the car, but in an incredible bit of bad luck, at that exact instant, he had stepped on something on the shoulder of the road, a rock, a crushed can, something — and his ankle had buckled just as he fired. The gun went off on the upswing as he tried to regain his balance, and he saw the windshield take the round, saw it crack as if in slow motion, saw the subject’s head snap to the side as the bullet or some fragment of it hit him. Saw blood welling. Stood there stunned long enough for Jay’s car, his foot still spasming on the accelerator, to lurch around and into traffic and get T-boned by a pick-up truck, which was then rear-ended by an SUV. Tires squealed, traffic snarled to a stop, and Natadze’s chance to grab his target was over.
He shook his head, disgusted with himself.
Hauling a dead or dying man away made no sense. The subject wouldn’t be doing any code work, but neither was he going to be telling anybody what he had learned. Natadze had failed.
He was screwed. He had to get out of here before the authorities showed up. He quickly tucked the gun away — most people wouldn’t know what they had seen, but he couldn’t hang around long enough for anybody to regain their wits.
