He nodded. That was the best way. Bastard couldn’t come back to backstab you if you cut him into enough pieces. How had they found him, though? He’d like to know, but if they weren’t around, it didn’t matter. “I can do that. They’ll be looking for trouble, though.”
“Set it up somewhere they’ll have to drive to, a long way from anything. Somewhere with one way in or out. You get there and prepare before we even tell them where. If they come armed and alert—which, you’re right, they will, of course—your troops still have the advantage.”
“They could bring a whole van full of shooters. I would, if I was them. It could get real gory.”
“You didn’t throw away the rest of those Dragons, did you?”
He grinned. “No, ma’am.”
“Find a place you like, reconnoiter, figure out what you need, let me know. But we have to do this soon. I don’t want this guy and his friends showing up for supper some night at my house.”
Carruth was not exactly thrilled to know that they’d found him, either. “Me, neither. I hear you.”
23
Net Force HQ
Quantico, Virginia
“Mr. Gridley?”
Jay stared at the image on his phone’s screen. “My number. Who else?”
“Doyle Samuels, FBI. I have some information for you.”
“Fire away.”
“As you are no doubt aware, we are conducting a joint investigation with Army Intelligence in regards to your agency’s investigation into the Army base break-ins.”
“Yeah?”
“This is in regard to Private First Class Jerome Jordan, who was one of the soldiers killed during the terrorists’ raid on Fort Thomas Braverman.”
“Right?”
“Private Jordan was the first man shot by the perpetrators. This was on the base itself. Before the destruction of the Hummer and its occupants.”
Jay stifled a sigh. Why couldn’t these feebs ever just get to the point?
“Uh huh.”
“FBI Ballistics has determined that Jordan was killed by a single round from a handgun, and that the caliber of the slug was a variation of the .500 Maximum.” The agent let that hang for a second, as if it was supposed to mean something to Jay—which it did not.
“And . . . ?”
“This is an unusual caliber for a side arm. As large as legally allowed to be made in the U.S.”
“Agent Samuels, I don’t know from guns, I’m a computer guy. Are we getting to a point here any time soon?”
“It turns out that the rifling on the round matches that of the bullets that were used in a recent shooting in the District in which two Metro officers were killed.”
“Wow.” He’d sure heard about that.
“It further turns out that the particular kind of bullet used, a .510 GNR, is custom-made in small numbers for a discriminating user group, as are the guns that will shoot it, and we have begun to gather the information on those. Given that Net Force’s computer capabilities are better than most, it might be that you can help us find the gun for which we are looking.”
“Oh, yeah, you bet,” Jay said, suddenly very interested indeed.
“I’ll have the file uploaded to your secure address.”
“Yes, sir, you do that. And thank you.”
“You will keep us posted?”
“As soon as I have something, you’ll get it.”
“Pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Gridley.”
“Likewise.”
Jay grinned as he discommed. This was a break. He had access to the Super-Cray, as much time as he wanted. He knew people who would cheerfully kill their grandmothers to be able to do that, and that was understandable—Super-Cray access was worth gem-quality diamonds. If he could come up with a proper parameter set, he could strain down to the quantum level—and if the information was out there, he could find it.
He would find it.
He grinned again, then waved his hand over the control and waited for the file to finish downloading.
Come on, come on—!
Galactic Science Fiction Convention
Phoenix, Arizona
Labor Day Weekend
The scenario was in the dealer’s room.
Such a place was passing weird, even for VR. There were thousands of people in the huge room, a convention center space across the street from a big chain hotel in Phoenix, Arizona. There were hundreds of tables stacked with moldy, old pulp magazines, sci-fi videos, and all manner of science-fiction and fantasy impedimenta, from toy ray guns that flashed lights and made electronic cheeps and chirps, to movie posters, to real swords based on those used by Conan the Barbarian and the Highlander.
It was a zoo. Noisy, packed, and very colorful. Must be a thousand people in the place milling back and forth.
Every third or fourth person in the place was dressed in some kind of science-fiction or fantasy costume—there were Darth Vaders, Captain Kirks and Mr. Spocks, Klingons, fairies, druids, Batmen, Supermen, purple aliens, and Luke Skywalkers. There were Princess Leias, in white robes and hair buns, and girls in tiny fur bikinis—some of whom looked great, some of whom looked like they—and anybody who had to look at them—would all be better served if, instead of bikinis, they had been wearing shrouds. . . .
At one point, what appeared to be the entire cast of the Rocky Horror Picture Show trooped past.
Jay shook his head. He’d read the stuff as a kid, but never really gotten into the fandom thing, though he had gone to a Worldcon once, just to see, and this was exactly what it had looked like in RW: a giant, multispecies party. . . .
Somewhere in this mob was a guy in a costume of an alien cowboy with a big six-shooter strapped on his hip, virtually speaking, anyhow. According to Jay’s Super-Cray search, this was the guy the feds were looking for, the guy who had bought the gun used to kill two Metro cops and at least one and probably a bunch of Army guys.
He hoped it didn’t turn out to be the dead and burned-up terrorist they’d found, Stark. That wasn’t going to do him any good.
Whatever.
Jay had come to one possibility he liked, a guy who had given his address as being in Alexandria, and that had turned out to be fake. Well, there was a guy with that name living there, only he was five-foot-two, a hundred and fifteen pounds, eighty years old, and in a wheelchair, and hadn’t bought any custom-made revolvers costing almost three thousand dollars. If he shot such a sucker, it would probably break both his wrists. Somebody had swiped his ID to get past the NICS registration. So, whoever did that might not be their man, but it was the best clue they had gotten so far. The guy might not be a computer player, but like any other person living in civilization these days, he left an electronic trail. His was faint, but Jay was on it.
He was in here somewhere. All Jay had to do was find him and, in this scenario, get him out of his costume and see who he really was. Then he’d pass that along to folks who could go and fetch him, and that would be that. Once the authorities had one of the terrorists in hand, they could probably convince him to give up the others.
Of course, with the mass of humanity milling around, and the hundreds of costumes in evidence, it might not be so easy to find the guy here. . . .
A very stout man wearing the costume of a Klingon warrior bumped into Jay, jolting him. “Watch where you step, p’tahk human!”