She grinned. “Glad that the top VR jock at Net Force approves!”
Then: “Because I’ve got something to tell you.”
This was it. What could be this important? What could be such serious news that she’d come to work and get him — in VR — and show him her most private meditation?
“Saji? Is everything okay? Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. You might need to take a deep breath, though.”
“Me?”
His face must have shown his confusion, because she smiled, and then took his hand. “Well, yeah. You’re going to be a father.”
He felt an immense sense of relief — she was okay—
And then: Me? A father?
It was like being hit in the head with a hammer.
He realized she was waiting for him to say something — anything.
“Wow,” he said, stunned. “I mean, wow!” he added, putting some excitement into the word. “That’s… that’s… great!” He grinned.
Saji seemed relieved. She grinned back at him.
She took his hand and squeezed it.
“I wanted to wait until you got home, but I just couldn’t. I’m so excited, Jay! We’re going to have a baby!”
He grinned back at her, enjoying her excitement.
He wasn’t completely sure about his own, but he knew he’d rather take this leap with her than anyone else.
A baby. He was going to be a father. Whoa. Talk about unreal scenarios.
9
Risks were unavoidable in Eduard Natadze’s line of work. He knew that and accepted that. What he would not accept were unnecessary risks — especially those caused by sloppiness or overconfidence.
He expected no trouble from his current target. He knew Jay Gridley’s habits backward and forward, and knew that the computer jock posed no challenge for him. But still he took no chances.
He had made sure that he was not carrying a photo of Jay Gridley, or anything else that would connect him to Net Force’s top computer jock. The only thing he did carry was an electronic receiver, but even that was simply a standard player with a couple of nonstandard tunings he could wipe with a touch. He didn’t expect to be stopped and searched — they did not do such things here in America — but still, he took no chances. Besides, he did not need any photos. He had already studied his quarry and would know the man when he saw him. He would recognize the automobile the man drove, its license number, and he knew all the likely routes from Net Force HQ to Jay’s home.
He was prepared, at least insofar as he could foresee any problems. He had a transmitter on Jay’s car, a bug stuck under the vehicle’s rear bumper with a powerful magnet, out of sight, to be sure he wouldn’t miss him. He knew where his target was going. If he lost Jay before they reached the operations area, he would just hurry to the secondary pickup point and catch him there.
Natadze was two hours early, just in case, and parked in a place where no one would bother him, in a lot outside a shopping area. He wore a fake moustache, not an obvious one, a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, and had a Band-Aid on his chin, all things that a potential witness would notice, and none of which would be any use to authorities. He would not have to keep a close watch; the bug would tell him as the man approached. It was, as the basketball players said, a slam dunk.
As he waited, Natadaze mentally played a favorite guitar piece, Tarrega’s “Recuerdos de la Alhambra,” a composition generally used to separate the men from the boys when it came to demonstrations of tremolo virtuosity, that multiple strum on a single string with machinelike speed and precision. He liked Eduardo Fernandez’s version, perhaps because they shared a similar first name. Certainly he was not in that man’s class when it came to execution, but on a good day, he could get through it without too many bobbles. And, of course, in one’s imagination, there were no dropped or slurred notes, no nail noises or string squeaks.
It was much easier to be perfect in the theater of the mind.
Jay was still not quite able to get his thoughts around the concept of being a father. Yes, they had discussed it in theoretical terms, but the sudden and unexpected reality of it was simply too slippery to grasp.
Him. Jay Gridley. Some small person looking up at him, holding out his arms, saying, “Daddy, Daddy, pick me up!”
The term “mind-boggling” was way too mild. This was astounding. Earth-shaking. A tsunami of emotion.
When he passed the gate, the on-duty guard may have waved — Jay didn’t notice. He was running on autopilot, replaying the scenario with Saji over and over again, trying to put it into perspective. He kept enough of his attention on the road, once he started driving, so as not to hit anybody, but traffic patterns on the way home were the least of his concerns.
A child was a major responsibility. He knew he didn’t have a clue about how it would really be, but it seemed like, all of a sudden, his life was going to change in major ways, and that was a disquieting idea. He liked to keep things under control, to have a handle on life, and a baby was a variable that might not be so easy to deal with.
A baby. A little human being that he and Saji would make. It was an amazing thing every time he came at it again.
He was halfway home, on a slow stretch of road with lots of stop-and-go traffic, red lights, creeping along as fast as maybe twenty-five before he had to slow down again. A car in the next lane suddenly swerved in front of him and slammed on its brakes.
Jay shook himself from his mental fugue. He hit his own brakes and skidded off onto the shoulder, heading toward a call box on the side of the road.
Jay screeched to a halt, barely missing both the call box and the other car. The other driver pulled to a quick stop in front of him. Breathing hard, feeling the sudden sweat on his palms, Jay got his first good look at the other car.
It was a dark maroon full-sized sedan. As it rocked to a halt, the driver’s door opened and the driver hopped out. A medium-sized man with a moustache, he wore black glasses and a bandage on his chin. He was dressed in jeans and a sweatshirt.
The guy’s expression was bland. Jay couldn’t tell if he was coming to apologize or to take a swing at him, but he undid his seat belt and opened his own door.
Then he noticed that the man heading his way had a gun in his hand, held low by his leg.
For a heartbeat, Jay froze.
He had long ago been issued a taser, a high-voltage hit from which would knock a pro wrestler on his butt, but it was in a drawer at the office.
He had enough presence of mind to grab his virgil and thumb in the emergency code, even though Net Force would never be able to get anybody here in time to do Jay any good. Then he slammed his door shut and threw the car into reverse.
The gun man was ten feet away as he spun the wheel and stomped on the gas pedal—
Rubber burned, smoke spewed from the spinning tires. The car slewed sideways, glancing off the call box behind him with a solid clunk—
The gunman raised the revolver and pointed it at Jay—
The hole in the barrel looked as big as a cannon—
The man lurched, as if he had lost his balance, and fired—
The windshield starred, and the world went red.
Somebody ran into Thorn’s office in a big hurry. The man in uniform said, “Sir, we have a distress beacon. General Howard and Colonel Kent are in Situation Control and they request your presence immediately!”
Thorn followed the man.
In SC, a room he had seen but never been in, people were busy. He saw both John Howard and Abe Kent, on handheld Coms.