Springboard (41 page)

Later, Locke went to the casinos in his official uniform, and spoke in person to the managers. Word, of course, quickly filtered back to the police, but that had been the
first
call he had made—to tell the local authorities the same thing he’d told the casino managers. So if some forgetful security guard called the police? Well, they would know that this was a military operation and to stay away. The Army always ranked above the police force; no one questioned such things.

Locke was just a bit worried. Since he was certain that Leigh was in somebody’s custody, there was a chance that the man might reveal something of the plan. True, Leigh did not know all of it. He did not know how, neither did he know when it would happen, since the date had been moved up, so even if he spilled what he knew to a questioner, they would be late to the party. Still, it was vexsome, since he had told Wu that Leigh knew nothing of their scheme. It was better that way—no need to add to Wu’s worries. Nor to have him angry at Locke for letting Leigh know anything.

Of course, Wu himself had babbled the entire plan to his spy and mistress, and while she could be trusted to go along, hoping for a big payoff, if something went crooked, Locke didn’t trust her as far as he could spit. That she would give them up to save herself was a given.

Well. One had to play the cards one was given.

Ah, but here was an unexpected trump card, one that demonstrated where the beauty of having the local military commander in on the plan came forth. Mere hours after Locke visited this worry about Leigh again, his fake antiterrorist line had rung. The call was from a local senior police official. They had received a communication from the Chinese computer authority, and as a result, had arrested a British national here in Macao. Questioning had revealed nothing of use so far, but it might be possible that this man, a foreigner; was involved in the terrorist plot, yes?

Locke had almost laughed aloud. Yes, he had told the policeman, it was possible. The Army would like to question this prisoner. They would send men to collect him and transport him back to the base for interrogation. It was not a request.

The police were only too happy to comply.

Locke pulled in a couple members of his personal team, already outfitted as soldiers, wrote transfer papers on Wu’s official stationery, and sent them to collect Leigh. How perfect was that?

The police were going to turn the only man who could blow the whistle on Locke’s operation over to him!

Leigh, unfortunately, would have an accident shortly after he came into Locke’s custody. He was a loose end Locke had planned to wrap up anyway, and this just made it easier.

That done, there was nothing else to stop them, nothing.

Jay removed his rig, stripped the casters and sensor gear and mesh off, and just let it drop on the carpet. Later, he’d shove the sweaty mesh into the ultrasonic cleaner, and use dry-clean wipes on the bits that he couldn’t immerse in the ultrasound’s liquid, but for now, he just wanted to go and take a shower himself.

It hadn’t been pretty, but it was, at last, done.

No matter how good a scenario you could spin, running down the rascals that Shing had caused to infest the military and CyberNation computers was dull, grinding work. Like pulling crab grass up by the roots, or scrubbing a dirty floor, or maybe chipping barnacles off a ship’s hull. Each bit had to be done manually, and once removed, the place where it had been had to be sanded, smoothed, wiped, repainted—remade so that the chunk removed didn’t leave a gap or hole or whatever.

It was scut work, and not Jay’s thing, but it had to be done, it had to be done
right,
and it was his project.

But, finally, it was finished. As far as Jay could tell, all traces of the tampering done by Shing and his allies were no more.

His virgil beeped in its computer dock. Seurat.

“Good evening,” Seurat said when Jay accepted the connection.

“Hey.”

“How goes it?”

Jay managed a tired grin. “We got the guy, we got his modus, and I just finished cleaning it out. The military system—and yours—are as clean as new pennies. At least as far as this hack is concerned.”

“
Très bon,
Gridley! Excellent!”

“Just part of the job, Mr. Seurat.”

“But you must call me Charles,
mon ami
.”

“I must?”

The man sounded way too happy, even though Jay had done him a good turn.

“Do you like Paris, my friend?”

“Sure.”

“Then you must come and visit. To a wedding.”

“Somebody getting married?”

“Yes. Me. I have met a wonderful woman—an American, no less. She is perfect, the most beautiful and intelligent and funny woman in the world.”

“Save one,” Jay said.

“Ah, you are married?”

“Yep. Got a baby son, too.”

“This is wonderful, no?”

“Yeah. It is. And after I take a shower, I’m going to go and spend some quality time with them. This has been a bastard of a case.”

“But you have solved it, and all is right with the world, no?”

“As close as it gets for me,” Jay said.

After he and Seurat broke the connection, Jay smiled. For him, all was right with the world. Or would be, right after he took a shower. . . .

The Net Force 747, an old workhorse but one that still did the job, droned along six miles up. Kent came awake and looked around. About half of his unit was napping, the others reading or working on their battle laptops.

Kent had four squads, ten troopers each, and thus a single platoon. Each squad would be deployed in different parts of the operation—security, communications, transportation, with the actual strike team being six or eight strong. No way could he take enough troops into China to get into a shooting engagement with the Chinese Army.

In fact, the unit would technically be spies if they were caught, because they were all going to be in civilian clothes—an uninvited, uniformed force on foreign soil was sometimes necessary, but in this case, a bad idea.

Next to him, Julio Fernandez, who looked as if he were asleep, said, “General Howard is gonna be sorry he missed this.”

“Only if we don’t screw it up.”

Fernandez grinned. “Well, at least we can blame it on the jarheads if that happens. Sir.”

Kent shook his head.

The plan, hurried as it was, seemed pretty reasonable. They wouldn’t be flying into China, but to a military base in south Taiwan, where they would transfer to a seaplane that would rendezvous with a boat in the sea south of Macao. The final leg in would be the most tricky, but supposedly, that was covered with enough bribes to make it relatively safe.

CIA and Military Intelligence, along with some intel from the Brits, would, Kent hoped, tag Comrade General Wu so that they could approach him away from his military base. They’d grab him, spirit him back to the boat, and, all things going well, haul him back the same way they’d gotten in.

All things going well . . .

Chang had a bank of three seats to himself, a rare luxury, and he had lifted up the dividing arms and made himself a short couch, upon which he was lying. He kept the center seat belt loosely fastened around himself, just in case they should hit rough air while he was asleep. It was a long flight, and sleep would be welcome.

As he dozed, he considered his trip to America. It had gone well, much better than he could have expected. He had not only seen how Net Force operated, he had done them a large favor, one which was already paying dividends. He had hardware and software he would not have been able to buy on his own, and the good will of Jay Gridley, Net Force’s top computer operative, which was worth more than gold.

More, Chang’s government had in custody a man connected to the attack on the U.S. military, and, with luck, would soon be privy to what he knew about the situation, a thing that would stand Chang in good stead with his bosses.

Who would have thought it? God, Chang realized, indeed worked in mysterious ways. . . .

A pleasant feeling altogether as Chang drifted off to the land of dreams . . .

Locke stood in the small warehouse, checking supplies. Everything seemed to be in order. This was where the operation would begin staging, less than forty-eight hours from now. Wu’s strike team—and a couple of Locke’s own men—would gather here, collect their gear, dress for their roles, and set things into motion. Once that die was cast, there would be no turning back. It would succeed or it would fail. Failure meant imprisonment or death; success meant a life of luxury beyond the dreams of most men, the ability to go almost anywhere and do almost anything Locke could desire.

The encrypted phone on his belt, smaller than his thumb and voice-operated, beeped. Locke unclipped the phone and raised it to his ear. “Yes?”

“Are things in order?” It was Wu, of course.

“Yes.”

“Good. I will see you at the rendezvous at the appointed time.”

Wu discommed, and Locke clipped the phone back to his belt. His belly tightened, the flutter in his bowels a familiar sensation, though one he hadn’t felt since he’d killed that guard in America, and not for a while before then. A mix of fear, anticipation, and . . . joy.

Jack Locke was about to put himself on the line, risking his life for another run at the sweet, sweet taste of a plan well made and executed.

It didn’t get any better than this.

Thorn wasn’t exactly sure what he’d expected, but whatever it had been, Marissa’s new townhouse wasn’t it.

The place was in a nice enough neighborhood, in a row of two-story condos that looked pretty much the same—not rich folks, not poor, a little above the middle of middle-class. No yard to keep up, at least not in front, just a sidewalk on the street and a couple of small trees in big pots.

There was an alarm system, and one that needed both a thumbprint and vox-ID to unlock the door—which appeared to be steel painted to look like wood. He also noticed wrought-iron grills over the windows, very artistic, but serving as bars to keep all but the most serious of would-be burglars out.

Thorn’s security wasn’t bad; Marissa’s was better.

“What do you have in here, gold bullion?” he asked, as she opened the door.

“Something better, I think,” she said.

When he got inside, he saw what she meant:

There were two paintings in the living room. They were fairly large, five feet by three or so, on opposite walls, directly facing each other—oils or acrylics, Thorn couldn’t tell for sure.

One was of a large, muscular black man, shirtless, in stained overalls half held up by one strap, with a red handkerchief in a front pocket, sitting in an unfinished wooden glider hung by iron chains under a wide front porch. There was a thick book on the swing’s seat next to him. The man was sweaty, and looked very warm; the painter had captured a kind of nobility in his position, as if he were royalty, but a king who worked with his hands. He had a smile that Mona Lisa would envy.

Across the room, the second painting was of a black woman. She was lean, dark, and naked, one arm stretched wide to show a muscular definition, her breasts high and small, belly flat. The artist had shaded the figure so that her sex was in deep shadow, barely hinted at. Her hair was plaited in long braids that flared and reached to the middle of her back, hung as though a strong wind stirred them to her right. She stood against a background of green land, blue mountains, and a cloudy sky, with the sky going darker and into a star field behind her head.

Both of the subjects looked to be about thirty, though it was hard for Thorn to judge—black people had always seemed to him to age better than paler-skinned folk.

“The artist is Rick Berry,” Marissa said. “You might have seen his work on some book covers, he has done a lot of that.”

“Impressive,” Thorn said. He knew quality when he saw it, and this was definitely that.

He looked at her. Caught a hint of something in her smile. “What else?” he said.

“The man is Amos Jefferson Lowe. The woman is Ruth Lewis Jackson Lowe.”

Thorn nodded. “Your grandparents, on your father’s side.”

“No points for that one, Tommy.”

He smiled. “I think my grandmother would spin like a gyroscope in her grave if she knew I had a picture of her without clothes on my wall.”

“Not mine,” she said. “My mother’s parents died when I was a child—a car accident in Alabama—a drunk in a truck crossed the centerline and hit them head-on. But Grampa and Grandma Lowe tried to make up for that. Amos was a machinist at a mill who read Shakespeare and published articles about the Bard. Ruth taught third grade for forty years, but had been a champion runner in her youth—held the state record in the mile for twenty years after she graduated. Salt of the earth—with a few other spices mixed in.”

Thorn nodded.

“They decided when I was a little girl that whenever I had a birthday, or for Christmas, or other special occasions, they weren’t going to give me toys or clothes, they would give me adventures. They took me to museums; to see sailing ships; to the tops of tall buildings where I could look down upon the world. The summer I was ten, we visited a diamond mine in Arkansas. At eleven, the Carlsbad Caverns. At twelve and thirteen, the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. I took lessons and scuba-dived the oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico when I was sixteen. When I graduated from high school, they paid for a trip to Spain; when I graduated from college, they sent me on a month-long walkabout in Australia.”