"I hate to have to tell you this, John, but we've got a real problem."
"Worse than yesterday?"
"Yes, sir, afraid so."
"Wonderful. Spill it."
"Lindholm and Hobbs are dead, both shot in the head at close range, small-caliber rounds."
"What?"
"Their transport is gone. We've got teams in the air, deputies and state police on the ground looking, but no sign of it so far."
Howard stared at him. How could this be?
"Forensics says the teeth and skull bits we brought back are human, but they came from somebody who's been dead a long time. The blood and other bones, that piece of brain, they all belong to a member of the domestic Suidae family — a pig."
The implications hit Howard fast and hard. "He's alive. He wasn't in the car."
"Yes, sir, that's the only thing that makes any sense. He must have hidden somewhere — I've got a search unit combing the area — waited until our men were off guard, then deleted them and stole their ride."
"Shit," Howard said.
"My sentiments exactly. We underestimated this guy bad, John. He foxed us."
"Not we, Julio. Me. The buck stops here."
Fernandez stared at the floor. He knew it was true.
Howard stared into space. This was terrible. In the years he'd been running the Net Force military arm, he'd had several troops wounded in brush firefights, but he'd never had one killed. And now, because he had screwed up, he had two soldiers down. Oh, man!
And worse, the guy who had done it had gotten away.
Now what was he going to do?
"You sure you don't want to go?" Toni said.
"I'd like to, I really would," Alex said, "but I need to go over all this crap." He waved at the laptop on the bed table.
"I could stay and help you."
"I appreciate it, but you can't read it for me, you might as well take a break while you can. Go, work out, burn off some tension. You'll feel better, and you can spell me later. This class is important to you. I saw your face when you got back from it. Go. Have fun."
She nodded. She could see his point. She really did want to go to silat class, and Alex was right, her mind did work better after she exercised. "Okay," she said. "I'll be back in about three hours."
He leaned over and kissed her lightly on the lips, then smiled at her. "Take your time. I'm not going anywhere."
The cab ride though London to the school in Clapham was an adventure in itself, and by the time Toni got there, it was growing dark. But she was fifteen minutes early, time enough to change and stretch before the class started.
Inside, eight or ten students were warming up, doing djurus and practicing two-person drills. Toni went to the bathroom, changed into sweatpants, wrestling shoes, a sports bra, and a T-shirt. She joined the other students and began doing leg stretches. She could still do the splits, front and side, but it took longer to warm into them than it had when she'd been fifteen. Leg flexibility helped — not so much in the Bukti, but it was a definite advantage in Serak. The basic turnaround required a drop from a high stance to a low one as you twisted, and the lower, the better. Tight hamstrings made that hard to do.
Guru Stewart arrived, already dressed to work out. He came over to Toni. "Glad to see you made it, Guru. I'm sure we have much to teach each other."
Toni smiled. "I don't know how much I can teach you, Guru, but I sure have a lot I can learn."
He returned her smile, and she felt a small sense of triumph at being able to make him grin.
Stewart walked to the front of the room and turned around. "All right, then. Shall we get started?"
Toni felt a rush of energy as she lined up to bow in. Until now, all of her teaching had been private. She'd never actually gone through a formal class from beginning to end. She was thrilled at the chance to do it.
Michaels pored over the small flatscreen's holoproj logs, scanning files related to the British investigation of the hacker's assault. It was tedious work, made worse because they spelled things wrong: labour, colour, like that. He kept mentally correcting the odd words when he came to them, and it slowed his scan speed.
His virgil announced an incoming call.
"Telecom from Angela Cooper," the virgil's voxchip said. He had switched the device from Jay's musical joke to vox, unable to listen to the fanfare after hearing that Jay was in the hospital.
"Connect," Michaels said.
"Commander Michaels? Angela Cooper here. I have some eyes-only material to add to your reading list. Mightn't I bring it round?"
"Sure. I'll be here for the rest of the evening."
"Shouldn't take that long. I'm in the lobby."
He grinned. "Come on up."
There was a tap at the hotel room's door two minutes later. Michaels opened it to see that Cooper could dress down as well as up. She wore a pair of snug-fitting blue jeans, oxblood Doc Martin boots, and a black scoop-necked blouse. She carried another flatscreen, but if she was armed, he couldn't see where she might be hiding a taser or a pistol in those clothes. Very attractive.
"Commander."
"Come in."
She did, and offered him the flatscreen. "Not much new here, but there are a couple of things we've gotten from the Pakistanis you might want to look at."
He took the flatscreen. "How goes the airline snafu?"
"Better. Most of the affected computers have been restored. You still wouldn't want to be flying into Rio tonight unless your pilot was very good indeed, but the situation is improved. They lost a freight jet at Auckland International, three men killed, but so far, no other crashes involving loss of life."
He nodded.
The MI-6 agent looked around. "Nice room. Ms. Fiorella about?"
"No, she's at a martial arts class."
"Ah. Remind me not to get on her bad side. Well, I should be going, I don't want to interrupt you in your work. We're very happy to have you aboard, sir."
"Call me Alex, please. All this commander and sir stuff is for the office."
"Right. Then you must call me Angela."
She glanced at her watch.
"Got a hot date?"
She blinked. "What? Oh, oh, no. I was just wondering if I had time to grab a bite to eat before I'm off to my sister's. I'm supposed to baby-sit with my niece this evening. She's eight."
Michaels smiled again. "About my daughter's age."
"I didn't realize you were married."
"Divorced, actually."
"Sorry."
"Don't be. It was a relief. Except for Susan — that's my daughter — everybody is better off."
"I understand. I was married briefly myself. Awful experience, there toward the end. No children, fortunately, though I do enjoy them. Lucky for me, my sister's done all the work. Being Auntie Angie who gets to bring presents and spoil the child is ever so much more fun. How's the food here in the hotel, is it passable?"
"They make good roast beef and Rueben sandwiches in the pub," he said. He looked at the two flatscreens with the secret information. "I could use a break myself. Mind if I join you?"
"Not at all, please do."
She smiled and, for a second, Michaels felt a stab of discomfort. Toni was gone, and here he was about to dine with the beautiful Ms. Cooper.
Well, it wasn't as if he was about to dine on her. They were just having a sandwich, that was all. A man had to eat, didn't he?
Right. Sure.