Guru De Beers had become part of the family, was included in all the gatherings: Christmas, Easter, Thanksgiving, birthday parties, weddings, graduations. She had finally given up smoking that nasty old pipe, but she still drank half a gallon of coffee a day and ate whatever she pleased. And even though she was in her eighties.
Guru could still give most big strong men fits if they bothered her enough. She was slower and frailer, but her mind and skills were still sharp.
Toni hadn’t been to Mass except with Mama on home visits for a long time, but she offered a silent prayer: Please let her live.
Net Force HQ, Quantico, Virginia Michaels hadn’t managed to get back to sleep after Toni left for New York, so he was a little tired. Fortunately, as slow as things were, he could probably take off early.
He had a partial staff meeting scheduled, and when he got there, his people were already at the conference table.
John Howard, Jay Gridley, and the just-promoted Julio Fernandez. A few months ago, Femandez’s wife, Joanna, would have been there, as would Toni. He missed seeing them.
“Good morning,” he said.
“Commander,” Howard and Fernandez said in unison.
“Hey, I thought it was your turn to bring the doughnuts, boss,” Jay said as Michaels sat.
This was an old joke; they never ate doughnuts at the morning meetings.
“You didn’t give up sugar when you gave up flesh?” Fernandez said.
“Very funny, Julio.” Michaels raised an eyebrow.
Fernandez answered the unasked question: “Our computer wizard here is turning Buddhist. No more eating flesh for him. Gonna step around ants on the sidewalk, too, I expect, chanting from mani pad me hum while he does.” Michaels shook his head. Never a dull moment around here.
“Okay, what do we have? John?” General Howard led off with his weekly report.
New gear, new troops, old business. Things were slow. They’d be taking various units out on training runs over the next couple of weeks, unless something came up.
Jay didn’t have a lot to report, either.
“Nothing on your dope dealers,” he finished.
“The DEA’S info was pretty sparse and dead-ended quick. I’ll run some other things into the mix and see what comes up.” Michaels turned to Howard.
“I sent a report your way, but in case you haven’t had a chance to read it, we’re helping the DEA run down some kind of new designer drug that turns the users into temporary supermen. And sometimes it makes them jump off tall buildings.” Howard said, “Yes, sir, I saw the report.
Thor’s Hammer.” Michaels said, “Here’s another little twist. I got a call from an NSA guy yesterday. He’s made an appointment to come see me today, in about an hour, my secretary tells me. He says it’s about this designer drug thing. I’m curious as to why.” “What’s his name?” Jay asked.
“The NSA guy?” “Last name, George, first name, Zachary.” Jay shrugged, but tapped it into his flat screen manual keyboard.
“Never heard of him, but I’ll scope him out.” “John?” “Doesn’t ring any bells with me, either,” he said.
“I can check with my Pentagon contacts.” “Why would the National Security Agency be interested in this?” Michaels asked.
“Dope isn’t in their mission statement, is it?” Howard said, “Mission statements aren’t worth the paper they are written on, sir. Everybody stretches them to fit whatever they need.” Michaels smiled. He had done that himself more than a few times, and everybody here knew it.
“I suppose I can wait until the man gets here and ask him, but I somehow doubt he’ll be entirely forthcoming.
Anybody have any thoughts I might pursue?” “Overspent their budget and need a little extra cash?” Jay said.
“Wouldn’t be the first time an agency sold drugs to make up a shortfall.” “I thought Buddhists weren’t supposed to be cynical.” “Nope, not according to Saji. You can be pretty much anything and still be a Buddhist. Cynical works.” , “Except, apparently, a flesh-eater,” Fernandez said.
“Well, actually, that, too. Some parts of the world, like Tibet, where food is scarce, meat is okay.
As long as you do it with the right attitude.” Fernandez laughed.
“Yeah, I can see you praying over a Whopper, chanting and all. Bet they’d love that at BK.” “You obviously have never been to a D.c.
Burger King,” Jay said.
“You could do a Hawaiian fire dance over your fries there and nobody would look twice.” Fernandez laughed. He looked at Michaels and said, “Maybe one of their people is into drugs. Could be they are looking at some kind of internal security.” Howard blew out a small sigh.
“There’s another possibility that springs immediately to mind. Military applications.” Michaels looked at him.
Howard continued.
“If you have a compound that makes a man think he’s faster than a speeding bullet and more powerful than a locomotive, when you put a weapon in his hands and point him at an enemy, you could have something of military value, assuming there are controls in place.” “Didn’t the Nazis try that kind of thing?” “Yes, sir, and other armies have tried it since, from speed to steroids. Nobody has come up with something cheap and dependable enough yet, but if they did, it would certainly have useful applications.” “Would you use such a thing. General?” “If it was safe, if it was legal, and if it would give my people an advantage over an enemy? Bring more of them back alive? Yes, sir, in a heartbeat.” “From what the DEA has given us, this stuff is neither safe nor legal.” “But it might be made both. Legal is the easy part, if it’s useful enough. Safe might be harder, but it might be possible to make it so, and a lot of services would be willing to explore the possibility. And there are some armies with fewer scruples about testing things on their own people than we have.” Jay said, “When did the U.s. military develop scruples, General? Remember The Atomic Cafe7 “Here, men, put on these goggles when you look at the nuclear explosion.
And don’t worry about that glowing dust if it gets on you, just brush it off, you’ll be fine.” was “That was a long time ago,” Howard said.
“Yeah? What about Agent Orange in Vietnam, or the vaccines against nerve gas and biowarfare in Desert Storm? Or the new, improved, supposedly safe defoliants in Colombia?” Before Howard could respond, Michaels said, “Give it a rest. Jay. We didn’t come to argue about the military’s checkered history. And whatever happened, we can hardly blame General Howard, can we?” Jay shut up, having expressed his standing liberal attitude.
“All right. If there’s nothing further, I’ve got a ton of files to review.” Forty-five minutes later, as Michaels sat developing eyestrain scanning computer files using his new sharp goggles supposedly designed to keep the letters so clear you wouldn’t get eyestrain, there was a tap at his door.
“Jay.” “Boss. I uploaded what I could find on this George guy.
I didn’t know if you’d get to it before he showed up.” “Thanks, Jay, I appreciate it.” After Jay left, Michaels found the file and read through it. Not much. There was a brief bio on Zachary George, place and date of birth, education, family, and shorter work history. Seemed Mr. George had been with the NSA since leaving college fifteen years ago, and the only references to his status there was a GS number only a grade below Michaels’s own before he was booted upstairs.
“Sir?” came the voice of his secretary over the com.
“Your nine o’clock is here.” Well, speak of the devil.
“Show him in.” Mr. George wasn’t particularly impressive upon first look. Average height, average weight, brown hair cut short but not too short, fair skin, and clothes that were standard midlevel bureaucrat: a gray suit expensive enough to look decent, not so expensive as to stand out in your memory. Black leather shoes. Put him in a room with four other people, and he’d be invisible. The guy in the corner who looked totally average?
No, no, not him, the guy next to him.
Michaels stood and extended his hand.
“Mr. George.” “Commander. Good of you to see me.” “Well, we like to keep relations good with our fellow agencies. Spirit of cooperation and all.” “With all due respect, sir, bullshit.
Almost anybody at my agency would cut the throats of everybody at yours if they thought it would gain them two brownie points at review time. And that’s pretty much my experience with all the security agencies I’ve dealt with.” Michaels had to smile at that.
“Don’t sugarcoat it that way, tell me what you really think.” George returned the smile, and whatever he was up to, he was interesting.
“Have a seat.” The NSA man sat, leaned back, crossed his ankle over his knee.
“You figured out what it is I’m up to yet?” “I have some thoughts. Why don’t you just tell me?” George smiled again. It started on the right side and worked its way across his face.