Yeah, right. He'd learned how to feel up somebody's butt.
He knew he was being unreasonable. It wasn't the man's hands on Toni that bothered him as much as how much she was obviously enjoying herself. Probably it was just the silat, being able to work out with a guy as good as Stewart was. Probably. But he couldn't get rid of a nagging worry: What if it was more? He and Toni hadn't been getting along that well in the last couple of weeks, that business about not sending her on assignment and all. Maybe she was interested in the big Englishman in some way other than as a sparring partner?
Yeah, okay, she said she loved him. But Michaels's ex-wife had said that, too. Her reasons for the divorce had to do with his career, with him being gone all the time, not there for her or their daughter, but she had once loved him and now she didn't. Maybe she even hated him, after he punched out her new boyfriend.
He reached his room, carded the lock, stepped inside.
He didn't need this, no way, no how, not given the other crap falling from the sky right now. Why couldn't life be simple? Why was it that every time things seemed to be rolling along smoothly, something always popped up in the road ahead, puncturing tires, sending his happy trip skidding and slewing off the pavement?
And why did it always have to be so damned emotional?
The way he'd been raised, a man didn't walk around with his heart on his sleeve, whining and blubbering about his problems. His father had been career Army, and Michaels had never once seen the old man cry, not even when his dog had been run over. The old man hadn't had a lot of deep conversations with his son, but one of the deepest had been about what men did and did not do: You took a hit, you sucked it up and you kept going. You never let anybody know they'd gotten to you. If it's killing you, you smile. That keeps your enemy off balance.
As an educated man raised in a society where emotions other than laughter or anger were now okay for men, Michaels knew he didn't need to hold himself so tight, that it was no sin to feel things, but those old tapes from his childhood were hard to get past. Knowing it was okay to let go intellectually was not the same as being able to actually do it.
It wasn't just his career that had killed his marriage. That don't-show-emotions lesson had been part of the problem with his ex-wife, he knew. And now it seemed to be part of the problem with Toni.
What to do about it?
He shook his head. He couldn't deal with this now. He had a job, a nut with some magical computer gear killing people, bringing the world more grief. He had to deal with his problems the way the samurai warrior Musashi had spoken of it: When faced with ten thousand, you fight them one at a time — the most dangerous ones first.
Of course you need to be pretty damned quick to beat ten thousand, and best he get back to it right now. His emotional life would just have to wait.
He left a note for Toni, then called for a cab to take him to MI-6.
Chapter 24
It was a beautiful, sunny morning, no wind, a perfect day to throw. Tyrone glanced at his watch. Ten A.M. Where was Nadine? She was supposed to meet him at the soccer field at — wait, there she was, coming around the gym, a backpack slung over one shoulder. She saw him, grinned, and waved.
"Hey, Tyrone!"
He waved back.
There were a couple of guys practicing at the goal on the south end of the field, so they headed for the north goal, then unpacked their gear. Tyrone had brought four of his favorite 'rangs, along with pixie dust and his timer; Nadine had three 'rangs, some finger dip wind-check, and a stopwatch.
The watch was odd-looking. It was an analog, round, big, silvery.
"Wow, where'd you get that?"
"My dad bought it on a trip to Russia," she said. "You hit this button to start it, same button to stop, the big sweep hand gives you seconds, the little inner dial gives you minutes. Doesn't use batteries."
She handed it to him and he looked at it.
"Solar-powered?" He didn't see a cell.
"No, an internal wind-up spring. Good for, like, hours, then you wind it again."
"Exemplary. I got a radio like that, you crank it, it plays for an hour, never needs to be charged."
"My dad says we could save a lot of dump space for batteries if we used more springs and gravity-powered devices," she said.
"Yeah. It's the next surge."
They warmed up, rolled their shoulders and waved their arms back and forth, shook out their hands, something Tyrone had learned from watching the older throwers. There were special stretching exercises, too, to keep the muscles of the shoulders and back limber. He'd seen articles on the net about serious boomerangers who had torn ligaments and stuff by throwing too hard without warming up first, and he didn't want to put himself out of commission that way. Of course, most of the guys who hurt themselves were old — in their twenties and thirties.
Nadine went to take a few practice throws, and he watched her carefully. She was in good shape — you could see that vein in her upper arm — and she had excellent form when she threw, she used her whole body and not just her arm, what you were supposed to do. You could learn a lot watching somebody good work.
They'd been throwing for about half an hour, getting to the point where they could do some serious MTA stuff, when Tyrone saw three or four people watching them from across the field, standing in the shade of a sycamore tree by the fence. That happened a lot when he was throwing, and usually he didn't pay much attention, since if you took your gaze off your 'rang for a second, it might disappear. He knew too many guys who had lost a bright orange boomerang on a newly trimmed field, poof, just vanished. Sometimes they angled in and somehow managed to bury themselves in the grass just enough so you couldn't see them; sometimes they just… vanished. He had lost a red quad-blade once on a golf course where the grass was like half a centimeter high, no way, but there it was.
It took only one quick look to see that one of the watchers was Belladonna Wright.
He jerked his gaze back to his 'rang, found it floating toward him about thirty meters out, and stayed with it until it came close enough to catch. He managed to trap the 'rang without dropping it, but he was rattled.
Though he was trying hard not to look at Bella, Nadine picked up on it.
"Well, well. Looks like that old fire might not be out after all, hey, Ty?"
"What?"
"You and sweetie pie over there under the tree. You kinda acted like you didn't know her real well, but from what I hear, you and she spent some quality time together."
"So what if we did?"
"Nothing, nothing, not my business. I just hate to see you get cooked, is all."
"What do you mean?"
"Come on, Tyrone, gimme a bye here. Pretties like that go through guys like toilet paper. Use 'em, flush 'em, there's plenty more where the last one came from.
She's got a string of guys waiting to run around behind her and kiss the ground she walks on, just to enjoy the view from there."
"Yeah? How would you know that?"
Nadine stared at the ground. "You hear stuff."
"Anything else you hear?"
"I'm not trying to start a fight."
"Could have fooled me."
She looked up, hefted her MTA. "I came to practice. You interested in that? Or you want to wait for Miss America to crook her finger so you can go running?"