Net Force (37 page)

    Strapped to her right inner thigh, almost to her groin, was a sheath knife, also of ceramic, full-tang, with a plastic handle. The blade was a
tanto-style
, with the angled point, and was both short and very thick. Ceramic tended to be brittle, and it needed thickness to keep from snapping if it was going to be used for stabbing, and not just throat-cutting.

    The standard security setup at most government buildings, which were, after all, limited in their funding for such things, involved picture or fingerprint identification tags, metal detectors and uniformed guards. If you had business in such a place and were not an employee, the process could be as detailed as the security force was willing to use. A computer check of your ID, a search of your carry-in and your person, somebody from inside assigned to accompany you wherever you went-these were all standard for basic Level Three access. Net Force was a Level Three through Level One building; that meant that getting into the building itself needed only L3 techniques. More private areas would have tighter wards-palm or retinal scanners, knuckle readers, vox codes and such. She wasn’t going to slip through those to her target’s office and knock on his door, not without a lot more time to prepare. But, then, she didn’t really have to.

    Getting to a hard target wasn’t necessary-if the target made itself easy and came to you.

    With even the smallest computer knowledge, it was easy enough to find low-level employees-secretaries, receptionists, maintenance people-who had worked for Net Force only a short time. Choosing one who was unmarried and living alone that she could look like, was even easier. The Selkie, after all, could look like almost anybody…

    Thus it was that Christine Wesson, a not-too-ugly brunette with brown eyes, age twenty-nine, came to the end of her short and probably undistinguished life. And now, a woman who looked enough like Wesson to pass for her to anybody who didn’t know her very well, wearing her clothes, came to the southwest entrance-the busiest one-of Net Force HQ. It was a thank-God-it’s-Friday, and a crush of day-shift employees arriving for work stood in line at the reader, waiting their turns to slide their ID cards through the scanner slot. It went fast. One swipe, a green light, and you were in.

    The Selkie already knew the card was valid, since it had gotten her into the parking lot-in the late Christine Wesson’s eight-year-old rattle-infested Ford.

    Christine herself was wrapped in plastic bags in her bathtub, under a hundred or so pounds of melting crushed ice that should keep the neighbors from complaining about the smell-at least for long enough that the Selkie could finish her work and be gone.

    Once inside the facility, there were several places she needed to check out, and several other places the Selkie could stay to avoid hanging around in the halls.

    Two years ago, security people at the interim Pentagon had been found enjoying vids surreptitiously taken of women-and a few men-using the rest-room facilities in the building. Public outcry had been loud and immediate-but the military was long-used to ignoring whatever whim-of-the-moment the uninformed civilian public wanted. However, the idea that somebody might see a four-star general’s wee-wee as he took a whiz had bothered the brass no end. And who knew but there weren’t similar spy-eyes in Congressional Johns? It was amazing how fast some laws could get written and passed when they were really important. As a result, surveillance gear in federal buildings had been restricted-at least the cameras were supposed to be kept out of bathrooms. The fake Wesson could park herself in a stall with a book and kill a couple of hours. She could dawdle over lunch in the cafeteria. She could go to the outside smoking area for a frowned-upon, but still legal, low-tar-low-nicotine cigarette, a pack of which had been in Wesson’s purse. With her ID tag twisted on her blouse, she’d be anonymous. Nobody knew her, and it was a big bureaucracy.

    While the target was safe in the high-security area, he would surely come out to a less-secure area, if she could find the right reason.

    Somehow, she had to figure out the right reason during the next few hours.

    Sooner or later, of course, the office where Wesson worked would probably notice she had not shown up. They might call her apartment, and get the answering machine. No problem, unless, for some reason, those concerned thought to check the building’s security computer. If that happened, they would see that Christine Wesson had arrived for work at her normal time-which might cause some raised eyebrows. If she was here, where was she? To stall that, the Selkie had asked more or less politely if Christine would do something for her. She had been more than willing. So, Christine Wesson had called her supervisor in the Office Supply Section in which she worked, and told her she would be a few hours late, that she had an important personal medical errand to run. The supervisor had no problem with that, and a few hours could easily stretch to noon. Then a timed-e-mail would show up at the supervisor’s terminal from Wesson, explaining that things had run late. A lot later than anybody but the Selkie knew. At the least, the e-mail would buy the rest of the day. Which should be more than enough.

    

    
Friday, October 8th, 12:18 p.m. Quantico

    Toni went through her
djurus
, pausing after each one to do the corresponding
sambut
. She was the only woman working out. There were a few other men in the gym today, but Rusty was not among them. When she’d told him she wasn’t going to be sleeping with him anymore, she thought he’d taken it rather well. No obvious anger, no tears, just a kind of surprised acceptance. “Oh?” It had gone much better than she’d hoped or expected.

    Except that she hadn’t heard from him since. She’d said she was going to try to be in the gym today and she expected him-he hadn’t missed a class before-to show up.

    Surprise. So maybe it hadn’t gone as well as she’d thought.

    She came up from the squat in
Djuru Three
, threw the right-vertical-forearm strike, then punched, continued to rise, alternating the next two punches.

    She hoped Rusty wasn’t going to quit class. She had been enjoying having a student, and learning a lot in the process of teaching.

    But of course, it was his choice.

    What was it with men that they could be your friend, then your lover, but they couldn’t go back to just being friends if the other didn’t work out?

    She finished the series and shook her hands out. She was still tight.

    A brunette in office clothes walked to the water fountain and smiled and nodded at Toni. Toni didn’t recognize the woman, but she nodded absently back. Solving the Rusty problem didn’t solve the Alex problem. How was she going to get him to notice her?

    The brunette went into the locker room. Toni dismissed her from her thoughts, but a moment later, the brunette came out, all upset.

    “Excuse me, miss,” she said. “There’s a lady having some trouble in there-she looks like she’s having some kind of seizure! I called Medical but, oh, I’m afraid she’s going to hurt herself! Can you help?”

    Toni nodded. “Sure.”

    She followed the brunette into the locker room.

    

    
Friday, October 8th, 12:18 p.m. Quantico

    Jay Gridley and John Howard had joined Michaels in the small conference room. He knew protocol said he should keep these two meetings apart, the need-to-know business the spooks were always hammering at everybody, but he figured his top people needed to know what each was doing. Besides, if he happened to feel like it, there wasn’t much Jay Gridley couldn’t find out from a computer system he’d helped design and install.

    “Jay?”

    “Okay, Boss, here’s the way it lays out.” He waved the presentation computer to life. “We’ve been able to piece together some of Plekhanov’s itinerary over the last few months. I can give you the details and show how brilliant we were in making some connections, if you want.”

    “I’ll stipulate to your brilliance,” Michaels said. “Let’s hear a bottom line.”

    “All right. This is iffy, you understand, but what it looks like is, he’s trying to buy himself a government or two.”

    Michaels nodded. Lobbyists did that all the time, and as long as they kept within the legally established limits, that was acceptable.

    “Some of the people he connected with are less careful than Plekhanov. We think he’s got a good chance of deciding who the President and Prime Ministers for two, maybe three CIS governments are going to be in the next elections, including those in Chechnya, where he lives. We don’t have any direct proof, of course. We’d need his files for that.”

    Howard said, “What do you suppose our chances are of getting him turned over to us if the head of the government we ask owes Plekhanov big-time?”

    It was a rhetorical question. Michaels said, “I don’t much like this, Jay.”

    “Well, then, you’re really going to hate this next part. Some of those people we were able to put in Plekhanov’s vicinity? There are a couple of generals in there.”

    Howard looked at Jay. “Great.”

    Michaels said, “You think he’s planning some kind of coup?”

    Jay shrugged. “No way to be sure. But given the way this guy moves, yeah, I’d have to say it’s a possibility.”

    Michael turned to Howard. “Colonel?”

    “It would make sense, sir. Getting himself elected into power would be easier, but if I were him and willing to stage big-time computer theft and sabotage, maybe worse, I’d want a backup plan. Sometimes when ballots don’t work, bullets will. A key military commander on your side, control of the media, nobody knows what’s going on until it’s too late-it would be good insurance.”

    Michaels stared at the other men, each in turn. “So, even if we could come up with proof that this guy was about to buy himself an election and then get somebody in power to believe us…”

    “He’d probably bag the election and start a civil war instead,” Howard said. “By the time anybody from outside got there, the party would be over, a done deal.”

    “Shit.”

    “Yes, sir,” Howard said. “I believe that about sums it up.”

    Michaels blew out a big sigh. Jesus. What a can of worms this was turning out to be!

    “Okay, Colonel. You have some happier news for me?”

    “Relatively speaking, sir. My best-case scenario for the operation to, ah,
collect
Mr. Plekhanov comes in at seventy-eight percent.”

    “That’s good, isn’t it?”

    “I would prefer a higher percentage from the S&T computer, but anything over seventy percent is considered militarily acceptable. Although no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy.”

    “I’ll want to see it,” he said.

    “Sir. Right here.”

    Alex’s secretary came in. “Commander? Toni Fiorella on the private line.”

    He waved her out. “Gentlemen, let me take this call.”

    The colonel and Gridley nodded, and went back to looking at their presentations.

    “Hello?”

    “Commander Michaels? This is Christine Wesson, from Supply? I was working out in the gym and Deputy Commander Fiorella asked me to call you-this is her virgil unit. She’s had an accident, Medical is on the way, but I think maybe she’s got a broken leg.”

    Toni was hurt? “A broken leg?”

    “One of the exercise machines fell over on her. She says she’s okay, she just wanted to let you know she’d be late for her meeting. But between you and me, she’s in a lot of pain.”

    “I’m on my way,” he said.

    The two men looked up at him, having heard his end of the conversation as they pretended to be busy.

    “Is Toni okay?” Jay said.

    “Apparently. Some kind of exercise equipment failure. Medical is on the way, but I want to check on her. You two put your heads together and see what more sense you can make out of this mess. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

    “Sure thing, Boss.”

    “Sir.”

    Michaels started for the hall.

    

    
Friday, October 8th, 12:28 p.m. Quantico

    Half in and half out of the shower stall, the Selkie held the gun aimed at the woman sitting cross-legged on the tile floor inside. If anybody came in, they would not see Fiorella, nor would they see the gun. The Selkie was tempted to shoot her, but she didn’t want to risk the noise-or to waste any of her precious ammunition. If something went wrong, she might need the gun to escape. She also might need the woman to get the target in here; after that, Fiorella was as dead as Michaels. The Selkie would use the stubby ceramic knife strapped to her thigh under her skirt to do both of them. Shut them up in a shower stall, rinse away any blood spatter, and she could be halfway across Maryland before anybody discovered the bodies. A double deletion inside Net Force HQ-they’d be talking about that forever.

    Fiorella twitched.

    “Keep your hands on your head,” the Selkie said.

    “You can’t get away with this.”

    “If you wiggle crooked, it won’t matter to you.”

    “We know who you are.”

    “Uh-huh.”

    “You’re not as good as you think-Mora Sullivan.”

    That surprised her. How the hell had they found that out? She had a quick spasm of panic, fought it down. Sullivan was just another name now, one more disposable ID. Still… “We’re going to have to have a little talk before I leave,” the Selkie said.

    The woman was scared-and well she should be-but she said, “I don’t think so.”

    Another gutsy woman. Damn. Too bad she had to kill her.

    “Toni?” came a voice from outside the locker room’s door.

    “In here!” the Selkie said. “Hurry!”