"One other thing," Hughes said. "That bombing in Louisiana."
"Oh, yeah. Terrible thing."
"Worse than terrible. The kid who did it got the formula for the explosive off the net. A supposedly top-secret military formula."
"No shit?" White leaned forward, and his face came close to the translucent holoproj of the two combatants. He waggled his fingers and the image vanished.
"I think this plays right into your hearings on Net Force. They are supposed to stop such things."
"That's true."
"You might want to mention it when the budget hits the table. I'll have Sally work up the report on the bombing. That young woman guard who was killed was in college, a newlywed, about to graduate."
"A shame," White said. "Tell Sally to highlight that part."
"Of course."
The intercom chimed. Bertha. "Sir, your limo is here for your two-thirty."
Hughes stood. "I'll be in my office," he said. "And I'll meet you for the staff meeting at four."
"Thanks, Tom."
After the senator was gone, Hughes went down the hall to his own office. He nodded at Cheryl, his secretary.
"Anything pressing?"
"Louis Ellis called from Dayton. He's going to be in D.C. next Thursday and he wants the senator's ear for a few minutes."
"Have Bertha pencil him in for half an hour in the morning." Ellis, one of White's father's drinking buddies, had contributed half a million to White's last reelection campaign, more or less legally via various PACs. He'd also given them that much cash under the table, a nice chunk of which had found its way into Hughes's own safety deposit box, where it joined a thick sheaf of crisp hundreds already there.
Hughes had been very careful about living beyond his means. His public face was exactly what was expected for a senator's chief of staff making a paltry ninety grand a year. But under various guises, Hughes had a fat line of electronic credit. Still, it never hurt to have some hard currency in case of emergencies.
If his plans went as expected, he'd be able to use the bills in his box to light his Cuban cigars, if he felt like it.
"Anything else?"
"Your massage therapist called. She will be at your house at seven."
Hughes nodded. Brit would give him a good massage, that was true enough. But that was only half of the service she provided.
He went into his office and closed the door behind him.
Hughes's office was a spartan affair whose only artwork was a Picasso on the wall behind his desk. He didn't particularly care for Picasso, but a picture worth that much on an office wall certainly impressed people who did care about the old Spanish dauber. Depending on his mood, he would give different stories when asked about the painting. Sometimes, he told them he'd bought it at a garage sale for fifty bucks just to watch their jaws drop. Other times, he said a woman had given it to him in gratitude for his lovemaking abilities. Once in a great while, he told the truth — that the painting was a gift from his boss — but that was never as much fun.
He sat behind the desk in a wooden teacher's chair. In fact, the chair had once belonged to his high school civics teacher, Charles Joseph, who had told Hughes he would never amount to anything. He kept the chair to remind him that where he was going in the not-too-distant future was going to be beyond old Joseph's — or anybody else's — wildest dreams. Senator White and his family would look like paupers compared to Hughes. Everything was going as planned.
He grinned. That was the trick, wasn't it? But he was well on the way. He was, Hughes reminded himself, the smartest man he knew. He could pull it off.
No doubt in his mind.
The com chirped.
"The Vice President is on three," Cheryl said. "I'll take it," Hughes said. "But let's let him wait a few seconds. We don't need an uppity Vice President, do we?" Cheryl chuckled, and Hughes felt pretty good himself. So far, so good.
In his office, Alex Michaels looked at the clock blinking in the corner of his default holoproj, a bucolic scene of a modern-day cattle drive blocking automobile traffic on a back road in Colorado. Michaels had worked one summer on a dude ranch while he was in college. He hated cows as a result, and the picture was another one of Jay Gridley's little jokes. The young man loved to do such things. Thought he was funny.
Michaels grinned. Jay was pretty funny, though Michaels preferred that somebody else be the butt of the young man's jokes.
But the clock said that it was ten minutes past the time Lieutenant Joanna Winthrop was supposed to be here for her meeting, and that didn't go with what he'd read about her in her history jacket. He touched the intercom's manual control. His secretary was a temp, filling in for Nadine, who was on vacation. Maybe she had made a mistake.
"Liza, isn't Lieutenant Winthrop on for two-thirty?"
"Yes, sir, Commander," the young woman said. She sounded rattled. "She's uh, here, sir, but, uh, she's occupied."
Occupied? Michaels went out to see what was going on.
On the floor next to his secretary's desk, with a rat's nest of red, white, and blue wires in her lap, sat Joanna Winthrop. She had a pocket tool of some kind, probably a Leatherman, and was using it to twist two of the colored wires together.
He had not forgotten how attractive she was, but it still came as something of a shock to him to see her.
Winthrop was one of the most beautiful women Michaels had ever seen. She was tall, lean, had long, natural honey-blond hair pinned up, and green eyes that put expensive emeralds to shame. She wore a blue jumpsuit and black boots that would have made most women seem dumpy. On her, the drab clothes looked positively sexy.
She glanced at Michaels. "Hello, Commander," she said. She shoved the tangle of wires under the desk, stood, closed her folding pliers, and said, "Try it now."
Liza tapped at her command module's keyboard. "Hey! It works. Thank you!"
"No problem," Winthrop said. She flashed a radiant smile, perfect save for one slightly crooked tooth that gave it just enough character so it didn't look fake. She turned the grin in his direction, and Michaels could feel the warmth of it from fifteen feet away. A stunning woman, beautiful and smart, a lethal combination. She was single, in her mid-twenties, and much too young for him at his ancient age of forty; still, she was pleasant to look at, no question.
"Sorry I'm late, sir," Winthrop said. "Liza's keyboard input had a short, and you know how Computer Services works; they'd be two hours getting a tech up here unless it was an emergency. And in an emergency—"
"— it would take three hours," Michaels finished. He smiled at her. It was a standing joke in Net Force. "Well, come on in."
He gestured at the door, and waited for her to precede him into the office. He was merely being polite, he told himself. It wasn't just to get a look at her backside. Although, he had to admit, that was worth seeing. It reminded him of an old Flip Wilson joke, about the preacher's wife being tempted by a new dress she was trying on. The Devil said, "Buy it, honey, buy it!" And the preacher's wife said, "Get thee behind me, Satan!" And the Devil did, then he said, "Mm. Looks good on you from here too…"