Michaels smiled and walked back into the house.
Might as well see what he had for supper.
In the kitchen, he dug around in the freezer and came up with a choice of Gardenburgers or teriyaki chicken sandwiches. He shrugged. The Gardenburger was going to get freezer-burned if he didn’t eat it pretty soon, but hell with it, he wanted the chicken. He tore the plastic bag to vent, and stuck the sandwich into the microwave to thaw.
So, that was how it had gone. The phone had rung one evening, and a man with a lot of money who knew somebody who knew somebody asked about the Prowler.
Michaels figured out what the car had cost him, what the parts had added to that, and how much labor it had taken him to rebuild the engine and the transmission and linkage and body work. He added thirty percent to that, and named a figure.
The potential buyer agreed with the number so fast that Alex realized he could have asked for more. Then again, he didn’t restore old cars to make a living– although it was nice to know that if he ever decided to chuck Net Force he probably could survive that way.
All you needed was a garage and some tools, and he already had those…. The microwave began its repetitive cheep, and as he reached for it, the phone also called him.
“Hello?” “Uh, yeah, hello? I’m looking for Alex Michaels. The guy who does car stuff?” Well, think of the Devil.
“You found him.” “Oh, hey. My name is Greg Scales, I got your name from Todd Jackson.” Todd Jackson was the man who had bought the Prowler.
“How are you, Mr. Scales? What can I do for you?” “Well, uh, I’ve got an old car Todd thinks you might be interested in.” “What kind of car?” “It’s a Mazda MX-5, a 1995.” Michaels’s eyebrows went up. MX-5 was better known in the U.s. as the Miata. A little drop-top two-seater, a lot smaller than the Prowler. He wasn’t a big fan of Japanese hardware-he liked the big Detroit iron–but a Miata? He’d always thought those were on a par with the little MG Midgets. Fun.
And in “95 they still had the flip-out headlights too. Barn doors, they called them.
“S. tell me a little about the car.” “I have to be honest with you. Mr. Michaels, I don’t know a lot about it. It belonged to my father, who passed away in November. He bought the car new after I’d left home. He drove it for a few months, but he didn’t really have the reflexes for it–my mother was afraid he was gonna kill himself in it-so after a while, he put it in storage.” Interesting.
“What, kind of shape is it in?” “I can’t really say. Dad pulled the tires off it and put the car up on jacks in his garage– my folks live down in Fredericksburg–he drained all the fluids out of it, coated everything with Armor-All and some kind of grease, then put a cover over it. The tires are in plastic bags in the garage. As far as I know, it’s been sitting like that for about sixteen years.” Michaels felt a surge of interest. You heard about these things, low-or-no-mileage cars stored in somebody’s barn for future sale. He’d never happened across one himself, but it was a common fantasy among car people–a rare model in near-mint condition, inherited by some relative who didn’t have a clue what it was worth and who’d sell it for pocket change.
He moved to the kitchen computer terminal, next to the pantry, and called up the Classic Book.
Even though the car was only sixteen and technically not a classic, it would be in there. Given the average half-life of cars since the eighties, sixteen was fairly old.
Mazda, Mazda, ah, there it was…. “S. what do you figure the car is worth, Mr.
Scales?” “Greg, please. I don’t know. But Todd says if you’re interested, you’ll offer me a fair price.” Michaels looked at the computer readout. Hmm.
Classic Book said the little two-seater convertible wasn’t cheap if it was a ’95 in good condition. And one that had been on jacks, assuming it was in better shape for being stored, would be worth even more. Still, he could swing it, given what he’d made on the Prowler. He’d have to see it first, of course.
“I’m interested, Greg. I’d like to take a look at it. But I’m not going to be able to get to Fredericksburg until Saturday.
Can you sit on it that long?” “No problem. It’s been in the garage for years, it can wait a couple of more days.” Michaels nodded at the unseen speaker.
“Good.” He got directions and a time, then hung up.
Well, well. Interesting how things worked out. With any luck at all, he’d have a new project car pretty soon. Sure would help that empty garage. And having a goal outside of work was always good.
Time for the teriyaki.
Thursday, January 13th, 9 a.m.
Bissau, Guinea-Bissau Hughes rode in a bullet-proof Cadillac limo from his hotel toward the new Presidential Palace, and the ride was not particularly impressive. Even though the former President, Joao Bemardo Vieira, and his African Party for the Independence of Guinea-Bissau and Cape Verde, had dragged the locals kicking and screaming into the modern era, it was still a third world country.
Actually more like a fourth- or fifth-world country.
Half-dressed natives worked and shopped in outdoor market stalls that dotted the streets among office buildings.
There were open sewers just off the main roads, and a lot more dirt roads than paved ones. Finding a working public telephone was a rarity.
Agriculture and fishing were the main economic activities-ninety percent of the million and a half souls here worked on fanns or boats, or processed the crops or fish that came from the land and sea. The primary exports were cashews, peanuts, and palm kernels, and they imported four times more goods than they shipped out–which wasn’t saying much. The main local non-agricultural products were soft drinks and beer. National debt was high, exploration of minerals was minimal, and Guinea-Bissau was quite simply among the poorest countries on the planet. Most people here ate rice, and not much of it, and considered themselves lucky to have that.
If they lived to be fifty, they were well ahead of the game. Less than forty percent of the population was literate, most of those men.
Education was not wasted on women here–maybe one in four could read more than her own name.
There were no railroads, only a couple thousand miles of badly paved roads, one airport big enough for international flights to land at, and it was cheaper to use local pesos for toilet paper than it was to buy toilet paper. You didn’t offer a left hand to greet people here…. Given a choice, almost nobody civilized would choose to live in Guinea-Bissau. Unless they were at the top of the food chain. The very top.
At least it was the dry season. During the monsoons, you didn’t walk, you waded.
Hughes leaned back in the car seat and stared at the multicolored swatches of pitiful humanity walking or standing along the street, staring at the passing limo. He was on his way to meet President Femandes Domingos, a not particularly-bright man who had somehow lucked into the job.
Fortunately, Domingos was bright enough to know a good deal when he heard it. The Presidente had been out of the country, had spent much time in Johannesburg and London and Paris, and had developed a taste for things nearly impossible to enjoy in his own country without a lot more money than he could currently steal.
These things included fine wines, finer women, and expensive evenings at the casinos in Monaco.
If things went as planned, Hughes would make Domingos richer than he had ever dreamed of being, and able to indulge his tastes in more pleasant circumstances than the dirty streets of Guinea.
Domingos in turn would make it possible for Hughes to–for all practical purposes–eventually own the entire country.
Even a third-world pit such as this one currently was had an inestimable value–or it would, in the right hands. Political asylum alone was worth a fortune, not to mention what was hiding under the ground.
Yes, Guinea-Bissau definitely had potential, in the right hands.
In his hands.
“The Compound is just ahead, sir,” the driver said.
He was large, white, and had a clipped, posh-English accent. On the seat next to him lay a submachine gun, and Hughes knew that under his chauffeur’s coat the driver also carried a large caliber pistol, and from what else he knew, the man had the ability to use both weapons expertly.
He was an ex-British military operative of some kind, hired to make sure the President’s special guests got where they were supposed to get in one piece. There wasn’t much chance of being assassinated by locals, but the neighboring countries, such as Senegal and Guinea, were always wrangling with Guinea-Bissau or each other, sending ratty armies across ill-defined borders to loot and rape, and there was some small possibility of terrorism from saboteurs.