Changing of the Guard (2 page)

Outside, a twelve-year-old flatbed truck, a German machine with a hundred and fifty thousand kilometers on it, sat parked on the side of the building that would grow shady when the sun began its morning climb. Not that he would be there when it did, but it was an old habit to prepare for the sun when it came.

He lit the cigarette with a throw-away yellow plastic Bic and inhaled deeply. He did not wear a good watch openly, though he had one in his pocket—no point in pushing his luck when it came to drawing attention—but there was a clock on the counter, he had checked it against his watch when he had come in, and it was accurate. According to the clock, it was just past seven A.M. Kokmak was five minutes past the appointed meeting time, and Celik was ready to head for his truck. The rules were simple: If a meeting did not take place at the appointed time, it was not going to take place. All operatives knew this. You were on time or you missed it.

When he had been a young man, training under the old agent they called “Hard Ass,” the need for punctuality had been indelibly impressed upon him. “You will be on time,” Hard Ass had said to the class of green trainees. “This is not open for question. If you are to meet another operative near the new fountain in Ankara at noon, you will
be
there at noon. If your automobile has a flat tire on the way, you will have allowed time to repair it and arrive on time. If you fall and break your leg, you will splint it and hop if necessary. Anything short of a nuclear bomb is not an acceptable excuse for tardiness. And the bomb better have killed you.”

They all had code names in those days, and the names stayed with them. Celik meant “steel.” One of the trainees, Hasare—“Insect”—had started to ask a question: “But what if—?”

Before Hasare could finish his query, Hard Ass had stepped over to him and driven a fist into Hasare’s belly. When the trainee doubled over, trying to catch his breath, Hard Ass clubbed the man behind the ear with his elbow, knocking him to the floor, unconscious. Hard Ass turned and looked at the class. “Was there anybody else who did not understand me when I said this was not open for question?”

Well, certainly there was nobody who would admit to it—

“Steel,” Kokmak said, interrupting his memory. “Sorry I am late. A fire in the street, a vendor’s stall. The road was blocked.”

Celik shrugged. The old man came over bearing another coffee cup and a fresh pot. He put the cup down in front of Kokmak, poured it full, added more to Celik’s cup, then shuffled away.

“You have it?”

Kokmak nodded. His personal fragrance drifted across the table, a mix of dirt, sweat, and fear, sour and pungent. He held a folded newspaper in one hand.

“I have a long drive ahead of me.” Celik’s voice was barbed.

“Of course.” He laid the newspaper on the table, sipped at the coffee, then blew on it to cool it. “Vile,” he said. “You’d think that a Turk would know how to make good coffee, no?”

Celik wasn’t interested in the culinary opinions of a man who showed up late for a meeting. He picked up the newspaper, tucked it into his jacket pocket, and stood.

Before he could move, however, he saw Kokmak glance toward the cafe’s door. It was quick, just a flicker of the eyes, but it was enough to send a chill through Celik’s bones.

There was no one there. So why would Kokmak be looking at the door?

Celik’s years as an operative for the Turkish MIT had put him into some dangerous situations; more than once, he had barely escaped critical danger, and not always unscathed. One of the reasons he was still alive was that he always trusted his instincts when they told him trouble was near.

Death waited just outside the front door. He was certain of it.

Celik reached for his cup of fresh coffee, as if to take a final sip. “Peace be upon you,” he said.

Kokmak started to come to his feet, “And upon you—” he began.

Celik tossed the coffee into the man’s face. Kokmak screamed.

Celik ran for the kitchen, shouldered the old man aside, and sprinted past the grandson, who looked up from a pot on the stove in surprise. They’d be watching the truck, they might already be outside, and he did not have a weapon. He looked around, saw the wooden block of kitchen knives on the counter, pulled out a short and stubby carving blade and hefted it. It would have to do—

“Hey!” the young man said. “What are you doing?”

“Men with guns are about to come through your front door,” Celik said. “Men with no love for Turks. Best you and your grandfather leave, if you don’t want trouble.”

The old man came through the beaded curtain and glared at Celik. In the background, Kokmak continued to scream through his burned lips.

Celik grabbed the door handle. As he did, he felt it start to turn. He jerked the door open, surprising the Irani soldier holding on to the handle outside, pulling him off balance. As the startled man tried to regain his footing, Celik stabbed him with the short knife, twice in the throat. The soldier’s eyes went wide and he clutched at his neck with both hands, dropping the assault rifle he held.

Celik grabbed the fallen weapon and leaped through the door.

He was alone. A trio of rusty, battered oil drums, used for rubbish and trash, stood next to the door. He ran for the south end of the alley, assault rifle held ready to fire. There should have been more men at the back. Why weren’t there? Sloppy, but he would thank Allah for the favor of it later.

He rounded the corner, cut away from the front of the cafe, and ran along a narrow street, looking for a vehicle. They hadn’t spotted him yet. If he could get a car or a truck, if he could get out of town, if he could make it to the border, he’d be safe.

He had a gun, that would get him a vehicle.

His lungs were on fire after a block. All those cigarettes coming back to choke him. Fine, he could cough later.

He rounded a corner and saw a young man about to climb onto a big motorcycle, an old BMW. Perfect!

“Hey!” Celik called. “You on the bike!”

There was no time for finesse. The young man turned to look, and Celik slammed the assault rifle’s butt into the man’s nose.

He straddled the motorcycle, pressed the starter button. The motor came to life quickly—good, good! Holding the weapon pointed over the handle bars, he clicked the foot shifter into gear and turned the throttle, rocked the bike off the stand, and started up the street.

He was beginning to feel better. He had a weapon, he had transportation, he was headed for home!

A pickup truck full of soldiers was parked ahead of him and he went past at full speed. An unwise move. They screamed something at him, but he kept going. He was a hundred meters away and gathering speed, thinking he could certainly outrun that loaded truck on the motorcycle, when they started shooting.

No matter. They wouldn’t hit him at this distance!

He was wrong. The bullet punched through his back, low, at the right kidney, went right on through him—he looked down and saw the exit wound, a welling red crater the size of his thumb. It felt as if he had been hit by a hammer, but he didn’t fall, didn’t put the bike down. Maybe it wasn’t a fatal wound. It didn’t hurt that bad.

If he could just get across the border, he’d be okay. They’d find him a doctor. If he could just get back to Turkey, he’d be all right.

Alex Michaels put the gold ink pen given to him by the late Steve Day into the box, next to a laser pointer and a couple of mechanical pencils. Amazing how much crap you picked up when you sat behind a desk in the same spot for a few years: rubber bands, paper clips, batteries, flashmem cards . . . It was not as if he hadn’t cleared out a desk before, but this time was different. He was leaving government service for the private sector, moving far away in time and space, into a new life with his wife and son.

It felt strange. Unreal, somehow.

Would he miss running Net Force? Sure, no question. There was a great satisfaction in being part of the solution to America’s problems. Under his direction, the organization had nailed some very bad people, and, however briefly, made the world a safer place. Given the times, that was not a bad thing. But it was time to move on. There were some things more important than a job—any job—and his family was one of those things.

His work had put them at risk, and that simply wasn’t acceptable. He didn’t mind dying for his country, if it came to that, but he was not going to let his wife and child die—not for any reason. If a man didn’t take care of his family, he wasn’t much of a man, no matter how well the rest of the world might think of him.

He opened the drawer on the right side, saw the
kerambit
case nestled there. That pair of short, hooked knives had saved his life and that of his family, when Toni had been pregnant. Coupled with his knowledge of the esoteric Indonesian fighting art called
pentjak silat
, he had been able to stop a madman bent on rape and murder. But such occasions should not arise, should not
have
to be dealt with, and removing his family from harm’s way was much smarter than contending with such adversaries.

He had done his part. Now let somebody else stand in the line of fire. He would not miss that aspect of it.

“Commander?” came his secretary’s voice over the intercom.

“Yes?”

“Thomas Thorn is here.”

“Ah. Send him in.”

Michaels looked around. Being here had been good. Leaving was good, too. . . .

 

The secretary showed Thorn into the office. Michaels, on his feet and apparently packing personal belongings into boxes, came from around his desk and extended his hand. When they shook, Michaels used his left as well, clasping Thorn’s hand in a firm grip, but not a crusher.

“Commander Michaels,” Thorn said. “I’m Tom Thorn. A pleasure to finally meet you, sir.”

Michaels smiled, showing a lot of laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. “Just ‘Alex’,” he said. “You’re the Commander now. I’ve heard a lot about you. Have a seat.”

Thorn started for the couch. “No,” Michaels said. “Behind the desk. It’s yours.”

Thorn paused.

“I’m serious,” Michaels said. “When I walk out the door, I might look back, but I’m essentially gone. I’ve got all my stuff almost cleaned out.” He waved at a box on the desk. “It’s your house now.”

Thorn nodded. “Okay.” He moved around the desk. Michaels sat on the couch.

“I’m not sure I’m ready for this,” Thorn admitted.

Michaels laughed again. “You came up with the basic VR interface most people still use. Half of our high-end software packages here are systems you wrote, or based on those you did. You’ll feel right at home.”

Thorn smiled. Well, yes, that was true. And it was also true he wasn’t
that
worried—he had run his own company until he sold it, and had been on the boards of several major corporations since. How different was managing a government computer agency from running a private one? People were the same.

“Any questions I can answer, just ask. For computer stuff, you have Jay Gridley; he is the best there is. General John Howard will still be on board at military operations for another week or so, and his replacement, Colonel Abe Kent, is, by all accounts, a first-class military man. I don’t have an assistant at the moment, but there’s a pretty good pool of qualified folks who know the systems, either here or over at the regular FBI shop.”

Thorn thought about it. He did have one question, but asking it would no doubt make Commander Michaels uncomfortable at the very least. After a moment, he decided to ask it anyway. He needed to know.

“I understand that you are leaving for personal reasons, Commander,” he said, “and that John Howard’s departure is also by his choice for the same rationale. And your assistant—your wife—gives the same justification. Do you mind if I ask what those are? I don’t want to step into a hornet’s nest of politics here—if you’re being dumped because you screwed up or peed in somebody’s Frosted Flakes, I’d rather know it coming in. It seems awfully coincidental that the Commander of an agency and his top lieutenants all decide to bail at the same time.”

That got him a big grin.

“Good question,” Alex said. “But there’s no conspiracy to worry about. I was a little more hands-on as Commander than I should have been. Got into the field a few times when it would have been smarter to stay in the office. Mostly, computer criminals are chair-warmers, not known for their exploits in RW. A few of them are more . . . active. A couple of times, I found myself in situations that were physically dangerous. When I was single, that wasn’t a problem. Once I got married and had a child at home, going into harm’s way wasn’t just about me.”

Thorn waited. He had heard that Michaels was a cowboy who liked to go into the field, and that he had some kind of martial arts training he had used a few times. Not a good idea for the head of the agency to be doing that. Not smart. Not something he was going to be guilty of, for certain. Leave the field work to those who got paid to do it.

Michaels paused. A cloud seemed to pass over his face as he obviously remembered something unpleasant. “We had a couple of incidents involving deranged criminals, and the last one put my wife and son in some danger. Toni and I decided that was not going to happen again.”

“You could have stayed in the office from then on,” Thorn offered.

Michaels shook his head. “Too late. The criminals involved didn’t really know me, only that I was Net Force’s Commander. They found out where I lived and went to my home because they had seen or heard who I was from my public appearances.”

“You surely rated bodyguards?”

“Yes. Had some, for a time.”

There was another pause. Thorn waited, not speaking.

“You aren’t married, are you? No children?”