“Counselor.” Alex nodded.
“This is Corinna Skye. She’s a lobbyist. Cory, this is Alex Michaels, of—”
“Net Force,” the woman said. “Yes, I know. Commander, nice to meet you, though I think we’re on opposite sides of an issue right now.” She gave him a small smile.
He took her hand. She had a firm grip. He caught the scent of some subtle musklike perfume from her, just a hint. Very nice.
“What issue would that be, Ms. Skye?” he said, releasing her hand.
“One of my clients is CyberNation. I hope you won’t hold that against me?”
Alex didn’t reply.
Tommy glanced at his watch. “Sorry, Cory, we have to run. We’re in front of Malloy’s committee in five. I’ll catch you later.”
She smiled again. “Go. The congressman hates it when you’re late. Nice to have met you, Commander. Maybe we might get together later this week? I would like to try to correct some misconceptions about my client, if you wouldn’t mind?”
What misconceptions? Alex thought. That they are evil scum who happily use terrorism to further their ends? That they are suing me and my department for a couple hundred million bucks?
But he didn’t say any of that. He only smiled in return and said, “Sure. Give my office a call.”
As they walked toward the committee meeting room, he asked Tommy, “What do you think that was all about? And why were you talking with a lobbyist for CyberNation, anyway?”
Tommy shrugged. “Hell, Commander, I’ll talk to anyone, even the enemy — no, make that especially the enemy. I’m not going to pass up any chance to gather some information.”
Alex frowned. “Don’t you worry that they might pick up some information from you?”
Tommy laughed. “About what? Our strategy is no secret. The guys on that boat were criminals. They fired first, your guys reacted in self-defense. We don’t have any secrets to give away.”
“So you think I should meet with her if she calls?”
“Oh, she’ll call, Commander. And, yes, I think you should meet with her. A word of warning, though: Corinna Skye has a reputation for doing anything to get what she wants. And I do mean anything. So be on your toes.”
Michaels just shook his head. He had the feeling it was going to be a long day…
His virgil beeped. Great. Now what?
“Excuse me a second, Tommy.” He stepped to one side and glanced at the ID. “Jay?”
“Hey, Boss. I have something real interesting here.”
“Can it wait? I’m sitting in front of a committee in two minutes.”
“I guess it can. The quick version is, I traced a nice chunk of change from CyberNation to a clerk for a Supreme Court justice.”
“What? That’s incredible!” Michaels said.
“Yeah, I thought you’d think that. I’ll fill you in when you get back to HQ. Have fun at your committee thing. Discom.”
Michaels thumbed the virgil off. CyberNation was sending money to a Supreme Court clerk? If Net Force could prove it and backtrack the money, it would be a huge victory for them. Assuming, of course, the money was for something illegal, but it just about had to be. Jay had been working this one. If the money was legit, Jay would not have had so much trouble tracking it.
“Alex? We’ve got thirty seconds.”
Michaels nodded. “We can make it. The door is right there.”
They hurried to do just that.
12
Junior didn’t like small towns. He’d grown up in one, and he knew how they worked. If somebody spit on the ground at ten o’clock in the morning, they’d be talking about it at the barber shop by noon. Everybody knew everyone’s business, and they paid extra attention to any strangers who came to visit.
This particular little town was exactly the kind of place where a man would get noticed if he wasn’t a local. In the middle of corn country, its people were mostly farmers, with the odd airline pilot or ex-military retired to the country thrown in, and maybe some weirdo artists who worked in stained glass. People like that.
This particular little town was also home to a United States senator whose family had owned property here since they stole it from the Indians. That senator was about to learn which way the wind blew.
Junior grinned. Senator David Lawson Hawkins, the upstanding Republican, was a buttoned-down widower with three grown kids and eight grandchildren, and none of that mattered. Senator Hawkins was either going to toe the line or he was going to get stomped.
Junior glanced at the GPS reader mounted on the rental truck’s dash. He had selected a pickup truck, one a couple years old, so he wouldn’t stick out as much. The truck was a big old Dodge Ram that looked like a dozen others he’d passed on the road here from Indianapolis, via the long way through Lafayette. It should buy him a few extra minutes before the locals took note of him, and that would be all he needed.
He didn’t have an appointment, and the senator’s bodyguard wouldn’t be thrilled to see him, but there was no question in Junior’s mind that Hawkins would talk to him. Junior had a conversation starter that guaranteed the man’s attention.
Junior smiled. And if the bodyguard gave him any crap? Well, maybe he would cook the sucker. Just like that cop.
He got another rush thinking about the shooting. It had been all over the papers and the news services for days. They thought it was gang-related, and that was fine with him. He’d changed out the barrels on his Rugers and used a grinder to turn the old ones into steel filings that he had flushed down a storm drain. He’d bought a new brick of ammo, too, and thrown out all the old rounds, just in case there was some way they might match the lead or something.
He was golden. They didn’t have a clue. He had bagged himself a cop and gotten away with it. One on one, mano a mano. And that feeling he’d had when he did it? He wanted it again. Soon.
Of course, you couldn’t keep going around zapping cops. Once was a skate, but twice was a pattern. If another cop turned up with a pair of.22 rounds in his head, they’d crank up the hunt for sure. As long as they thought it was gang-related, they’d bring in the usual suspects and he should be safe. But if he deleted another policeman somewhere else with the same MO, they’d start up enough steam shovels to move heaven and earth.
Shooting somebody out here would be even worse. There was only one main road in or out, and even in the blend-in truck, some fool with nothing better to do might remember it, maybe even the license plate number: Nossir, it warn’t Bill’s truck, warn’t Tom’s, warn’t Richard’s, it was a stranger’s Dodge, and yessir, I just happened to write down the numbers, kinda made me curious and all…
He had that part covered, of course. He had switched plates with a used truck on a lot in Indianapolis not far from where he’d rented the Dodge, and he’d switch ’em back when he was done. Still, it wouldn’t be smart to underestimate the cops even out here in the sticks.
Junior knew a con once who had swiped a bunch of computer gear, then put an ad in the local paper to sell the stuff. Junior thought that was crazy, but the guy hadn’t been worried. The cops wouldn’t think anybody would be that stupid, he’d said. They’d never look in the classified ads.
He’d been wrong. They looked. And they nailed him.
There were a lot of guys in cages who thought they were smarter than the police, especially the ones out in the middle of nowhere.
Junior knew better. He knew how they worked. If they were looking for a certain kind of truck, if they had that much, they might check every rental place for three states hoping to get lucky. And while he’d used a fake license and a credit card that couldn’t be traced to him, that old cowboy hat he’d worn pulled low might not be enough of a disguise.