Hidden Agendas Part 24

Sat.u.r.day, January 15th, 3:05 p.m. Fredericksburg, Virginia From under the Miata's hood, Alex said, "Okay, try it again."

Behind the wheel, Toni said, "Okay," and turned the key in the steering wheel ignition. The motor coughed, deeper than it had before.

"Give it a little gas, pump the pedal!"

She did. After a second, the engine caught and began a throaty rumble.

"Yes!" she and Alex said at the same time.

They were alone in the garage. Greg Scates, the car's former owner, had come and gone. Alex had taken a quick look at the Miata, then as soon as he'd seen the odometer, had said to her, "Jesus, it's only got nine hundred miles on it!"

He'd made the man an offer right then. Greg had been surprised at how much the offer was. Way more than he'd expected.

Alex had transferred the agreed-upon sum from his credit card to Greg's account and waved bye-bye as the man left.

Now Alex closed the hood, wiped his hands on a red rag, and grinned at Toni.

They'd been working on the car for several hours. They had found the tires, which were in remarkable shape inside plastic bags, and pumped them full of air using a little compressor that ran off the van's electrical system. They'd put the wheels back on the car. They had added gasoline, oil, water, transmission and brake fluid, and other lubricants, replaced the battery, and tinkered with the fuel injector. Alex had done something with the plugs and wiring, cleaned preservative off various components, fiddled with this seal and that one, and now, finally, the tiny car purred.

He had, Alex had told her, every intention of driving the thing home, even though the license tag was years out of date. "Be worth the ticket if we get caught," he said.

He cleaned the grease from his hands, walked around to the open driver's door, and looked down at her. "It'll need a new top," he said. "And a set of new belts, plug wires, some other minor stuff. Paint is in pretty good shape, but I'm not that fond of arrest-me red. Maybe a nice teal," he said.

She grinned back up at him. She'd gotten a little dirt under her fingernails too, helping him put the wheels back on the car and pa.s.sing him tools. He had been like a little boy, all excited, pointing out stuff to her. "Look at this. Look at that!" He'd gotten completely lost in the work, and in the doing of it had also lost years of responsibility. It pleased her to see him this way. So relaxed. Having so much fun.

"So, let's take her out for a little spin," he said.

She started to get out of the car.

"No, go ahead, you drive. You can use a manual s.h.i.+ft, can't you?"

"Sure."

He finished wiping his hands, circled around the back to the pa.s.senger side, and got into the car. The garage door was already open, and the bright afternoon beckoned. Toni put the transmission into reverse and carefully backed out onto the driveway to the street, turned the wheel, and started to s.h.i.+ft into first.

"Wait a second," he said. He twisted in the seat, caught the rear window zipper, and pulled it across behind her. He pressed the thin plastic rear window down behind the stabilizer bar, reached across in front of her, and undid the roof latch on her side, then the one on his side. With one hand he accordioned the top, folding the heavy black material down and behind them.

"Voila!" he said. "Convertible! It's not too cold for you, is it?"

"Nope," she said.

"All right then. Let's see how she rides."

Toni eased the clutch out-it was a bit stiff and it squeaked-and the Miata scooted forward. The short-throw stick made s.h.i.+fting up the gears fast and easy, and pretty soon they were rolling along a four-lane highway at sixty. It was a responsive beast, the steering tight, and cornering was a delight. She took a thirty-mile-per-hour curve at fifty, no problem.

"It's quieter than I thought it would be," she said. "And not as windy."

He said, "Push it up to about seventy and watch."

Traffic was light, so Toni goosed it a little.

At seventy, the wind seemed to slacken, as did the noise. She said as much to Alex.

"Yep, it's quieter at seventy than at fifty-five. That was part of the aerodynamic design. Isn't this great?" He grinned at the road in front of them.

A few miles up the highway, Toni pulled into a supermarket parking lot.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"Nope. Your turn. You've been itching to take the wheel since we hit the street."

He grinned again. Boy, she liked seeing that. He jumped out of the car and hurried around to the driver's side as she moved over into the pa.s.senger seat.

Behind the wheel, he checked his outside mirror first, then the inside one. Then he looked across at the outside mirror on the pa.s.senger side. "That one's a little off," he said.

She reached out to adjust the mirror.

"Hey, I can get it," he said. "One of the joys of a car this small. Watch." He leaned over, reached across her chest, and grabbed the mirror. "See? Can't do that in the snail van."

Stretched out across her, one hand out of the car on the mirror, he glanced up at her face from a few inches away.

She could smell him, his sweat, his aftershave, and there he was, the back of his arm almost touching her breast, his mouth close enough to kiss.

Without thinking anymore, she did just that. Leaned a hair forward, put her lips on his, and kissed him.

Are you out of your mind, mind, Toni Toni?

The sudden jolt of panic shot through her like an electrical charge. Oh, no! What had she done?

She pulled back to break the kiss.

Alex brought his hand away from the mirror, put it behind her head, and held her there. He worked his lips, opened his mouth, and found her tongue with his.

There must be a G.o.d, Toni thought.

Sat.u.r.day, January 15th, 12:15 p.m. Eastern Oregon No two ways about it, Howard was trapped.

He had been lucky, in that the waist-thick fir had enough branches on it to break the main trunk's descent enough so it hadn't smashed him to a pulp. But the tree's bole had come to rest on the back of his left calf, and had pinned him to the ground face-down. He managed to clear away a few small branches on his back and thighs so he was able to struggle to a sitting position, his b.u.t.t against the trunk. His left leg was pinned, his right leg free, but stuck more or less straight out in front of him.

Not the most comfortable position he'd ever been in. There was no pain in the caught leg. Was that good? Or bad?

He could still wiggle his left foot, feel his toes inside the insulated boot, so that was comforting. Might not even be broken, the tibia or fibula, but that didn't matter.

What mattered was that his virgil was safely locked to a nice D-ring on his pack, over there by his cook stove. It was only about ten feet away, but given the present circ.u.mstances it might as well be ten million miles. He wasn't going anywhere.

He had tried to lift the trunk, then to shove it off using his free leg, but that was not going to happen. He had about fifty feet of tree on him, and even positioned a lot better than he was, probably couldn't have moved it with his muscle power alone. Where it rested on his calf, the tree was about as thick as a telephone pole.

This was not a good situation.

He was in the middle of nowhere, staked to the snowy ground like a bug to a display board, his electronics out of reach. He was dressed for the weather, but come sundown it was going to get very cold, and sleeping face-down in the snow with the air temperature below zero was not generally a good idea.

Of course, if he went more than twenty-four hours without beeping in they'd call, and if he didn't answer they'd come and find the virgil and him with it, but by then he might already be a Howard-sicle. And they wouldn't come looking before noon tomorrow.

No, all in all he would have to say this was definitely not good.

He took a deep breath, blew it out, and watched the breath-fog hang in the air. It wasn't that that warm. In fact, it seemed twenty degrees colder than it had when he'd got here a few minutes ago. warm. In fact, it seemed twenty degrees colder than it had when he'd got here a few minutes ago.

"Okay, John," he said. "Let's take stock here. What have you got in the way of good news?"

He had a lighter in his jacket sh.e.l.l. There were a lot of dead needles among the green, and a whole lot of branches, albeit somewhat cold and damp, but he was pretty sure he could make a fire. So he wouldn't freeze if he did it right. He might even be able to burn through the trunk. Break the weight enough to be able to s.h.i.+ft the tree off his leg.

Or start a small forest fire in which he got cooked real good.

Hmm. Put that one on the backup list.

What else?

Well, he had his sheath knife. He reached back on his right hip, found the handle-there was a comfort-and pulled the knife from its scabbard.

The knife was a Cold Steel Tanto, so called for the angled, j.a.panese-sword-style point, and was eleven inches long, five of that the cutting edge. It was a full-tang, the blade was three-eighths-of-an-inch thick across the backstrap, and it wore an artificial rubber handle, crosshatched for a good grip, and was b.u.t.ted and guarded with bra.s.s fittings. A fine weapon, able to kill a man with one thrust from somebody who knew what he was doing, but it had not been designed for chopping away a tree bigger around than his thigh. Still, it was what he had, and he knew if he could twist himself around long enough, he could eventually cut through the wood. It might take a long time, but it wasn't as if he was going anywhere...

He felt better, knowing he had at least two options.

Well, okay, three-he could always cut his leg off from the knee down, right?

He smiled to himself.

"Okay, any other possibilities here, John? Maybe cut your jacket into strips, make a lariat, and try to la.s.so your pack? It's only about ten feet, you could probably manage it, and then you'd have your virgil back."

Yeah, and wouldn't that that look great. Old Man Howard lets a tree fall on his stupid sorry a.s.s, and has to call for help. Too bad he froze to death without a jacket before somebody could break a copter loose to go and get him look great. Old Man Howard lets a tree fall on his stupid sorry a.s.s, and has to call for help. Too bad he froze to death without a jacket before somebody could break a copter loose to go and get him...

Maybe not. Put that one right before setting the tree on fire.

He looked down at his pinned leg. Hold on a second. There was yet another option, the LAIC Maneuver.

LAIC-Look At It Crooked.

If you couldn't solve a problem going in through the front door, what about the back door? When you had an enemy too strong to attack head-on, flanking him would sometimes work.

Howard looked at his leg and grinned. The limb had pretty much squished the snow out of its way under the weight of the tree. He'd bet it was close to or on the ground below, but even frozen dirt wasn't as hard as wood, was it? Especially with that nice warm leg lying on it, thawing it out and all.

All he had to do was dig a hole under his s.h.i.+n, come in from the side, hollow enough out so the leg would drop. When the calf got below ground level, the tree would be resting on the edges of the hole, and all he'd have to do would be to pull the leg out, right?

Look at it crooked.

It made sense. It made a lot more sense than trying to play Paul Bunyan with a knife, or cooking himself into Howard the d.a.m.ned fool crispy critter, didn't it?

He laughed. "Dig, baby, dig. You do this right, n.o.body will ever have to know it happened."

He s.h.i.+fted his position a bit, and cleared away the snow down to the dirt next to his trapped leg. No blood. That was good.

The topsoil was mostly sand, and the rocky clay under it was was frozen, but it took less than an hour to excavate himself. In the end, his bigger worry was that the pot he'd set to heating to make his lunch would burn up, the water having boiled away, but he managed to get to it and throw it into the snow to cool before that happened. frozen, but it took less than an hour to excavate himself. In the end, his bigger worry was that the pot he'd set to heating to make his lunch would burn up, the water having boiled away, but he managed to get to it and throw it into the snow to cool before that happened.

The ankle wasn't even sprained, the snow under the leg having cus.h.i.+oned things enough so his pants weren't even torn. His foot was sore, but not so much he couldn't walk on it, and Howard felt immensely pleased with himself as he ate his delayed lunch.

Okay, so he was older. He could could learn to fight smarter, not harder. Growing old might be h.e.l.l, but hey, it still beat the only other option, didn't it?

Ah, John, you are quite the philosopher, aren't you?

That's me.

There was nothing like a victory to give you a sense of control. It might be an illusion, but it sure felt good in the moment. Yes, sir, it did.

Chapter Thirty-One.

Sat.u.r.day, January 15th, 3:20 p.m. Fredericksburg, Virginia Somebody honked their car horn and laughed as they drove past, but Alex didn't care. The pa.s.sion he'd thought frozen when he split from Megan was not dead, not even wounded. G.o.d, Toni felt so good. Her lips were warm, soft, her hands on his back pulled him closer, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against his chest- His virgil cheeped, and the incoming tone was the cla.s.sical music sting he'd programmed from Les Preludes Les Preludes that indicated a Priority One call. that indicated a Priority One call.

d.a.m.n!

He broke the kiss and leaned back. Fumbled with his virgil.

"Wow," Toni said. She was flushed and breathing heavy.

"Yeah. Hold that thought, okay?"

He tapped the speaker b.u.t.ton on the virgil. "Michaels."

"Commander, Jay Gridley. Sorry to bother you, Boss, but, well, the s.h.i.+t has just hit the fan."

"What?"

"The Fried s.e.x guys just crashed the U.S. Internet Bank System. I hope you got some money in your pocket, 'cause you ain't gonna be cas.h.i.+ng your federal check today."

"f.u.c.k!"

"Yes, sir, Boss, that is the key and operative word around here. The bank guys are foaming at the mouth, and the ripple effect is jamming through the net like a cattle stampede. Everybody and his kid sister have thrown up firewalls and lockouts, and the whole NorAm Net is one big c.r.a.ppy mess."

"Damage control?"