Like a rock skipping across the surface of a pond, only the information that was in easy view was even touched upon, and that only briefly. The depths below were hidden and, for all practical purposes, inaccessible.
Being ignorant of the truth never stopped men like Senator White, however. And while he wasn’t the dimmest bulb of the string, his wattage was hardly what you would call blinc ing on his best day.
” “Commander Michaels, what exactly are you trying to tell this committee? That Net Force doesn’t care if some man makes public information about how to build bombs that kill young newlywed girls?” “No, sir. Senator White, I did not say that.” Michaels was beginning to get pissed off, and his reply was a little more clipped and sharp than it ought to be. Black leaned over, put his hand over Michaels’s microphone, and whispered, “Take it easy, Alex, it’s only eight-thirty. We’re going to be here all day.
He’s just playing to C-SPAN’S cameras and the audience at home.” Michaels nodded, and under his breath said, “He’s a fool.
“So when did that become a liability for holding public office?” Michaels grinned. Glenn was right. It was going to be a long session; no point in losing his temper.
Michaels usually kept a low profile at these things, and that was considered a good idea. Let them rant. When it came to the actual vote, the sound and fury before didn’t count for much. He knew that. So… White went on: “It sounds to me as though you’re saying that Net Force has more important fish to fry. Commander.
And I have to tell you, sir, from where I sit, your oil doesn’t seem hot enough by half.” He must have a new speech writer, Michaels thought. Somebody trying to downplay his rich man image and give him a little folksy touch. Good luck, writer boy.
Michaels knew that his boss, Walt Carver, the Director of the FBI, was in the audience behind him.
So far, Carver had been able to keep White at bay, using his network and friends from when he’d been in the Senate, but White was getting more aggressive all the time. At the very least, Michaels had to put on a decent performance while on the hot seat, and not embarrass himself or the Bureau.
“I’m sure I don’t know as much about oil as the honorable senator from the state of Ohio does.” Michaels hadn’t really planned to say that, it just kind of slipped out.
There were a few chuckles. It was a small dig at White’s wealth, some of which had come from petroleum shipping, a business run by his grandfather.
White frowned. Michaels held his smile in check. Maybe it wasn’t smart to pull the lion’s tail, especially when the lion had you in the cage with it, but it sure felt good.
“There seem to be some serious problems in your organization,” White said. He shuffled through some hardcopy.
“We are talking about issues of national security, about which I will not speak in public, but these are grave matters that Net Force is failing to address properly.” He looked at Michaels.
“What is the point in funding an agency that doesn’t do its job. Commander Michaels?” “I’m sure. Senator, that you know much more about agencies that don’t do their job than I.” More laughter, but Michaels caught a warning look from Glenn, and it was easy enough to interpret: Easy, boy. Not smart to get into a fight with the man who controls the microphone.
Especially not smart to make him look bad on TV. Michaels sighed. He had to watch his mouth.
And even if he did, it was going to be a very long day.
Tuesday, December 21/, 10 a.m. Dry Gulch, Arizona A day’s ride from Black Rock was the Western town of Dry Gulch. Jay Gridley hadn’t been disposed to spend that much time in the scenario, so he’d logged in on the edge of town.
Black Rock had been a bust, no sign of the bad guys, so Gridley had moseyed on.
It was close to high noon, and the sun hammered the bleached road so dry that clouds of reddish-gray dust hung in the windless air after every step his faithful steed Buck took.
Just before he reached the outbuildings behind the blacksmith’s shop and livery, Gridley took the U.s. marshal badge from his Levi’s pocket and pinned it on his shirt. The silver gleamed brightly in the hard, actinic light. He didn’t want anybody catching that mirror-shine on the trail, but in town he wanted the official muscle the badge offered.
Like Black Rock, Dry Gulch looked like a place from a Western cowboy vid, circa the mid-1870’s. The main street-and the only street –was fairly wide, situated between rows of false-front shops. Here, among others, were the dust-spackled Tullis Good Eats Cantina, Dry Gulch General Store, Mabel’s Dress Shop and Tailors, Honigstock and Honigstock Attorneys-at-Law, King Mortuary and Undertakers, the Dry Gulch Bank, the La Belle Saloon, and the sheriff’s office and city jail.
Jay nodded and tipped his hat at an elderly woman in a long dress crossing the street.
“Howdy, ma’am.” His, The old lady gave him a suspicious glare and hurried on, stepping onto the boardwalk next to the storefronts. The walk was a foot higher than the street, and that made sense. It probably flooded here during the infrequent rain, and you’d want to be above all that sudden mud.
A couple of boys chased barrel hoops down the dirty road, driving the flat metal rings with short sticks, laughing. A quail offered his song in the distance, not the usual “bobwhite” whistle, but the more urgent “baby! baby! baby!” mating call.
Jay reined Buck up in front of the sheriff’s office. A gray-whiskered old man sat on a wooden chair, whittling on a big stick with a jackknife. He looked like a miner, with a leather vest over a grubby red-and-black checkered shirt, tan once upon-a-time canvas pants, and black boots.
The saddle gave out a leathery creak as Jay put all his weight into the left stirrup and dismounted.
He wrapped Buck’s reins around the horizontal hitching post.
The old man spat a foul-looking brown stream at a lizard scurrying along the boardwalk looking no doubt for shade.
Missed him by two feet.
“Missed “im, damn,” the old man said. He had a voice that sounded as if it had been soaked in a barrel of whiskey, then pickled in heavy brine, and then left out in the desert for thirty or forty years.
Jay nodded at the old man and started for the door.
His boots clumped on the boardwalk.
“You loo kin for the shurf, he ain’t around,” the old man said.
Jay stopped.
“Where would I find him?” “Boot Hill!” The old man cackled until the laugh turned into a wheeze, then a cough. He spat more tobacco juice, but the lizard was already well out of range.
“Damn, missed ‘im.” “There a deputy around?” “Yep–planted right next to the shurf!” This brought on another round of cackling, wheezing, and coughing.
Must have been sitting here praying for a stranger so he could say that.
When he managed to get his breath back, the old man said, ” “The Thompson Brothers came to stick up the bank three days back. I “spect you being” a marshal, you know who they are.
They kilt two tellers, the shurf, and the deppity. Shurf got one of “em, and Old Lady Tullis blowed ‘n her one off’n his horse as they were ri din” out, cut him down with that old 12gauge coach gun she keeps behind the counter o’ her cantina.
Course that left three of “em still ri din” hellbent for leather, but they didn’t get no money and they ain’t likely to come back to this town real soon, nosiree Bob!” “What’s your name, old-timer?” “Folks “round here call me Gabby.” I can’t imagine why.
“Well, Gabby, I’m trackin” down some shysters from back East. Bad hombres.” “Ain’t been no tin horns stop off here lately,” Gabby said.
“Maybe some passin’ through on the stage. Wells Fargo office’s down tother end o’ town.” He pointed with the stick he’d been carving on.
“Past the whorehouse there.” “I’m obliged. Gabby.” Jay walked back to Buck, mounted, and walked the horse toward the Wells Fargo office. He nodded again at Gabby. Of course, the old man could be a firewall. Might be the sheriff was snoozin’ in his office, his feet propped up on his desk or in a cell bunk. Or maybe he was havin’ a drink at the cantina or the La Belle, and Gabby had been posted there to stop any strangers lookin’ to talk to the local law. Jay would check out the stagecoach office, check with the telegrapher– he saw the telegraph poles so he knew the town was wired–and if he didn’t get anything there, he would circle back and bypass Gabby to be sure he was tellin’ the truth.