And, while he worried about that, so far at least eight or nine regular FBI agents had lost their handguns in fights and the smart guns had saved them from being shot by their own weapons. If you weren’t wearing the control device, either a ring or a watch, the guns using them simply would not go bang. Made keeping a piece at home in a drawer at night safer, too. While Howard’s son was trained to shoot, and well past that age where he might accidentally blast himself or some playmate, a lot of federal employees who carried guns as part of their daily wear had small children at home.
Well. It wasn’t really his problem at the moment, was it? He was on “extended leave,” which was probably a prelude to full retirement. Somebody else’s worry, now.
Here finally came Julio. Howard nodded at him. “Lieutenant.”
“General. Sorry I’m late. Your godson.”
“How is little Hoo?”
“Oh, he is fine. It’s Joanna and I who are tearing our hair out. How come you didn’t tell me what would happen when he got seriously mobile? One second you’re standing there trying to take a leak and he’s in the doorway, the next, he’s in the kitchen pulling stuff out of the cabinets. It’s like he can teleport — zip, and he’s gone!”
“You have to kidproof the place, Julio. Get those little latches that install inside doors and drawers, plug all the electrical outlets, put everything you value high enough so he can’t reach it.”
“Right. We thought we had done that. Yesterday, he climbed up onto a chair, leaned over, and punched the power control on the DVD player half a dozen times before I could grab him. He’s turned into this little tornado that destroys everything in his path. We clean the house top to bottom, spic-and-span, and five minutes later, there are toys, books, food, clothes, you name it, piled a foot deep everywhere. I’ve been picking peanut butter out of my running shoe soles for a week.”
Howard chuckled.
“It’s a conspiracy, isn’t it? Those of you who have had children deliberately kept the knowledge from those of us who didn’t, right?”
Howard laughed louder. “Of course. If people knew how much trouble they’d be, they’d never have kids, and the race would die off. Soon as you figure this out, you get a call from the Parent Police, and you have to take the secrecy oath.”
“Once I would have thought that was funny. Now, I halfway believe it.”
“You going to shoot, or are you going to bitch?”
“Well, sir, bitching is more fun, and probably I’m better at it, since I’m getting more practice doing that than shooting. The little brat is a full-time job. I get to sleep maybe two hours uninterrupted a night.”
“Life is hard.”
“Like you would know? How is retirement, General? You been gone a while now, you sure you still remember how to shoot? The bullet comes out of that end, right there.”
“Tell you what, Julio, I could leave this handgun on a shelf for ten years and still be able to outshoot you. I’ll spot you the first attacker, just so I don’t take advantage of a tired and bleary old man such as yourself.”
“Keep your charity. I’ll shoot your ass off half-asleep and with one eye closed.”
“Not with that beat-up old Beretta of yours, you won’t. I’ll even let you use your cheating laser grips.”
“I don’t need those to beat an armchair, nap-taking commander such as you, General Howard, sir.”
Both men laughed.
Gunny came on the intercom. “I hate to interrupt your waste of good ammunition, General Howard, sir, but you have a com.”
“Tell them to call back later.”
“It’s Commander Michaels, sir.”
Howard looked at Julio, and his old friend smiled — butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.
“You knew he was going to call me, didn’t you?”
“I’m sure I have no idea what the general is talking about.”
“He’s going to ask me to come back, isn’t he?”
“What — I’m a mind reader now?”
Howard shook his head. He went to take the call.
3
Roberto Santos prowled up and down the aisles of the private jet, a stretch 737 rigged with all the comforts needed to keep a bunch of corporate fat cats happy. No gym, but at least a couple of flat spots wide enough to lie down and stretch out. That was good, ’cause sitting for a long time on a plane trip could cause blood clots in your legs. Santos had an aunt who died that way. She was taking a trip from Rio to London, and she’d been jammed into one of those little seats between two other people for like eighteen or twenty hours. Only time she had gotten up was to go pee, and then only a couple times, ’cause she didn’t want to cause the guy sitting on the aisle any problems. For being so nice, Aunt Maria had gotten a blood clot that had cramped her leg so bad she’d started screaming. They were a thousand kilometers away from anywhere, and by the time they landed, the clot had broken loose and gone to her heart or lungs or something, and she’d been dead ten minutes before they got her off the plane.
Roberto might die young, but by God, it was not going to be from sitting in one place too long.
He dropped to the floor next to a pedestal table and did fifty quick push-ups, flipped over onto his back, and did fifty twisting crunches, alternating from side to side, to work the obliques. That was what kept a man’s stomach pulled flat, the lateral muscles, not the abs in front.
He snapped up to his feet with a gymnastic move, a kip-up, then headed up the aisle again.
Jasmine was asleep in one of the recliners up front, the chair leaned back to make a bed, her seat belt fastened across her lap. Damn, but she looked good for a woman her age. Good lay, too, she knew some tricks. Maybe he should wake her up, join the mile-high club. Well. Renew their membership, anyway.
And maybe not. She was mean as a snake if anyone woke her suddenly. Besides, they had done it on the plane before. And on trains, buses, taxicabs, and once, in a horse carriage going around Central Park in New York. Never done it on a boat, though. When they got to the gambling ship down in the Caribbean, that would be the first chance to do it there.
He grinned at the thought. Nothing was better for a man than pussy.
Besides pussy, Santos had but one passion, and that was The Game. Jôgo de Capoeira. It wasn’t just for fighting, though it gave you that. There was so much more — the music, the rituals, the manners, the company of fighting men. Yes, one learned the way to position oneself, the posicionamento, so that one could ataque or offer proper defesa. And all the flashy, acrobatic moves that impressed the unwary were necessary, but at the higher levels it was the subtle dance that played. The slight lean this way that told your opponent he could not touch you if he attacked. The shift that way that opened up an attacker like a blank book upon which you could write whatever you wished. It was art.
When first he had begun The Game, Santos had wanted only to know the fastest way to knock an opponent from his feet, the methods to throw a powerful fist or elbow or knee that would send a man sprawling. And he had learned those. But real mastery lay in the small details, the constant circle in and out that hypnotized opponents, whether one or five of them, caused confusion and missteps that an expert could use to his advantage. The real experts were fifty, sixty years old, and you could not touch them no matter how fast or strong you were, because they knew what you were going to do before you could do it. He was getting closer to that, but he was not there yet. He would be, eventually.