Net Force

24

Grigory the Snake had won three hundred in chips, playing at the five-dollar blackjack tables in the big pyramid-shaped casino; to celebrate, he was getting drunk and talking about looking for a prostitute. The drinks were free as long as he kept playing. The prostitute would likely take most of his winnings, in exchange for which he would have a few moments of loveless pleasure — and run the risk of catching a deadly disease.

Ruzhyo did not know how prevalent HIV was among American trulls. In parts of Africa and Southeast Asia, eight of ten whores would be infected. Of course, there were vaccines for the more common strains of the disease, but it seemed as if a new strain developed every week. And the Snake had bragged more than once that he did not use a condom under any circumstances. The Snake could catch something, rot slowly and painfully, and it was all the same to Ruzhyo. He did feel sorry for Grigory's wife, who might also contract the disease before her husband had the grace to die. And sorry for her that she had married such a buffoon in the first place…

Ruzhyo stood next to an electronic slot machine, listening to the jarring and obnoxious chords blare from the other machines as people methodically and joylessly pumped the handles or punched the buttons that operated the devices. No one seemed to be having a good time. There were no smiles, no backslapping, just intense manic concentration, as if by so focusing, the winning bars would magically line up and pay off. Now and then, they did, and along with flashing lights, the cacophony of the machine forced to give up its gold added more to the general noise, Look, it said, people do win! Put in more money! You could be next!

Greed was supposed to be fun, but apparently it was only fun if you were winning.

He did not know why he had gone along with the Snake for this outing. Ruzhyo was not a gambler. Cards, dice, wheels, these were things beyond his control. The risks did not interest him. There was nothing to be gained but money, no more pleasure for him in winning than there would be in losing.

Perhaps he was trying to prove to himself that he could still relax and have a good time; if so, this had not been the way to demonstrate it. It was not yet midnight, and he was tired, of the clamor, of the din of machines and unhappy voices of people in the casino, and especially he was tired of Grigory the Snake. Already the man had made it clear to the other four players at the table that he was a Russian war hero. Soon, he would be talking about his medals. Ruzhyo did not wish to hear those stories again. Ever.

The days when Ruzhyo could party all night and then work the next day without sleeping were long past. Decadent living was for the young or the stupid.

Winters came to stand next to Ruzhyo. The American wore a black T-shirt with the logo of another casino, one shaped like a lion, upon the back. He wore Levi jeans, a broad belt with a large, shiny buckle and black cowboy boots. He had a brownish, watery-looking drink in one hand. He looked as if he belonged here. He sipped at the liquid and frowned. "Lizard piss," he said. But he took another sip. "Welcome to the adult version of Disneyland, pard. You catch that whole River of Death and Boat business on the way in? Dog-headed gods and Ra and all? Christ, it looks like a ride in Yesterday land. The Mummy's Pyramid Boat to the Other Side."

Ruzhyo glanced at his watch.

"Our boy racking up a few bucks?" Winters asked.

"He is ahead, yes. Three more hands and he plans to leave, to seek professional female company."

"Now there's an idea. Might as well blow your money on blow jobs. That way you could have a good memory to show for it. Not like gambling and losing."

"Grigory has a system."

Winters laughed, took a final slug of the drink, then put the glass of ice cubes on the floor next to his feet. "A system? Hell, you got money and a system, the casino will send a plane to pick you up. They'll give you your room and food and drinks for free. Only thing that works besides cheating at twenty-one is card-counting, and if they spot you doing that, they throw you out. And our boy Griggy ain't got the smarts to count cards past the three or four in his hand, much less the multiple decks in the shoe. I grew up over a bar with poker tables and slot machines in it. Trust me, you stay at the tables, the house always wins."

Ruzhyo looked at Winters, then back at the Snake. "I am going back to my room," he said.

"I'll watch Griggy here for a while. Maybe keep him out of trouble."

Outside, it was cool, even after a day when the afternoon temperature had been near body heat. A gusty desert wind stirred the dry, dusty air. The fronds of the palm trees planted around the parking lots of the giant black pyramid streamed like organic flags. A bright beam of light erupted from the top of the structure, right at the apex. So brilliant and hot was the beam that it sucked dust into itself and hurled it upward and into the night sky. A searchlight would be pale and anemic by comparison with this laser-like ray shooting from the pyramid.

Disneyland for adults. Yes. Decadent in the extreme.

And what was he going to do when this assignment was over? Where would he go? Not home, to the suffocating memories he could not help but have every time he looked around. Perhaps he would move into a desert like the one surrounding this artificial green spot. Away from everybody, to become a recluse, kept company only by spiders and scorpions and real snakes. To be parched dry during the day and to lie on a cot in the chilly nights and listen to the wind scouring the sand, with perhaps the distant howl of a coyote…?

He smiled at his fantasy. No, he would not move to the desert. He would accept another assignment from Plekhanov — for there would always be more assignments from a man like Plekhanov — and he would do it. And he would keep on doing them until one day he came up against a younger, faster, hungrier opponent. And then it would be over.

He would not leap from a bridge, nor swallow his pistol barrel, nor would he run away and hide. He would continue to do the only thing he had ever really known how to do, and he would do it as well as he could. It was what he had. Aside from Anna, it was all he had ever had. It was his path, and he would follow it until it ended.

The dry wind followed him as he walked toward his hotel.

Toni bent over, touched her toes, then dropped into a deep squat. Her knees popped. She stood, and shook out her legs. She was one of only three people in the Net Force gym. Most people didn't work Saturdays, and normally she wouldn't have worked, either, but until they had something on Day's death, plus the new business about Alex, she wasn't going to be taking any days off. Hardly anybody would.

She looked up, and saw Rusty come out of the men's locker room. She hadn't expected to see him here today. The FBI trainees usually got weekends off at this stage of their schooling.

"Guru," he said, offering her a short bow.

"Rusty. I didn't think you'd be here today."

"Well, I knew you'd be working and I didn't have anything else on my schedule. I mean, if it's okay?"

"Sure."

Toni found she enjoyed teaching. It did force her to think about her own form, to make certain it was right before she tried to pass it along. Guru had been right; the teacher learned as much as the student.

They loosened up for another five minutes, stretching and rotating joints. "Okay, let's begin," she said.

He faced her. They bowed in and she started him on the first djuru.

As Rusty went back and forth, repeating the simple block-elbow-punch combination, Toni corrected his form, demonstrated the footwork, adjusted slightly the positions of his hands. She had always had to do a motion dozens or hundreds of times before it sank in, but Rusty was a quick student. He picked up the lessons pretty fast.

After ten minutes of djuru practice, Toni stopped him.

"Okay, today we're going to work on sapu and beset moves."

He nodded, but looked puzzled. "Uh-huh."

She smiled. "Sapu is a sweep, uses the inside of the foot or leg. It means, literally, ‘broom.' Beset is a drag, using the heel or back of the leg. Step in right side and throw a right punch."

Rusty nodded, and obeyed. He threw his fist hard, because to do less was to have to do it over again. She double-blocked with her open hands and then stepped in with her right foot just to the outside of his. "Okay, you see where our feet are? I am outside your attacking foot. We call this luar. Okay, back up and punch again, same way."

He complied.

This time, she blocked and stepped inside. "This position is to the inside, or dalam."

He looked down. "Luar is outside, dalam is inside. Okay."

"Right. In silat, there are basically four positions you can assume in relation to an attacker's feet. So I could have either of my feet forward in relation to yours — left or right on the outside, left or right on the inside. If you came in with a left lead, I'd have the same positions available for that foot, too. So, I've got four basic responses no matter which foot you put forward."

"Okay."

"Punch again, slow this time. The first technique I'll show you is called beset luar."

"Which hand?"

"Doesn't matter. What you can do right, you can do left. What you can do inside, you can do outside. What you can do high, you can do low."

"Sounds like something I should be writing down."

"Don't worry about it. You'll hear it again. And again. And again. Silat is not about hard and fast techniques. It is about laws and principles. It takes a little longer to learn it this way, but once you do, you'll have something you can use anytime. Obviously I have to show you specifics, but the goal is become a generalise. Punch again, slow."

He stepped in and threw a lazy straight right fist at her nose.

"Okay, here's the block, from the outside. Then I shove your arm out of the way and around, like so." She rolled his arm down and across his body to the outside, held onto it just above the elbow with her left hand. "Now, I step in, right foot, and put it right behind your foot. Straight step, not around, like this." She showed him the wrong way, then the right way. She exaggerated the step, turning it into a stamp. "I put my hip against yours, and I cork it inward, just like the djuru stance, do you see? Shoulders and hips square?"

"Yeah."

"This is my base. Then with my left hand, I pull your arm down and slightly behind me. This is the angle. Humans only have two feet, so no matter how they stand, they are always weak in at least two directions. You're strong right now forward or backward, but if I make a diamond pattern using your feet as the center line, you have no power at ninety degrees."

"Geometry," he said, grinning.

"Absolutely. So then I use my right hand up here on your neck. I could have punched or poked, but for now, I just put it there. Elbow down. This is my leverage. So now I've got all three — base, angle and leverage. What happens?"

"I go down?"

"Right. And if I add just a hair of drag with my right foot against your foot, the beset, then you go down a little faster."

She applied a little pressure, tugged with her foot, and Rusty dropped flat onto his back. He slapped the mat hard. He came up.

"One more time," she said. "Slow, so you can see it."

He punched. She blocked, stepped in, corked her hip against his thigh. "It's important to get in close, so you can feel your attacker move," she said. "In silat, you stick to your attacker. It feels dangerous, especially if you are used to outfighting, but if you know what you're doing, inside is the place to be. Use your eyes for distance, your body in close, so you can sense motion without having to see it. You feel my hip, how it's pressed in there?"

"Oh, yes, ma'am, I surely do feel that."

She dropped him again. She'd caught the not-so-veiled sexual tone in his voice. She grinned. If he liked that, wait until she stepped inside and showed him the dalam.

Alex Michaels prowled the hall, too wired to eat. Gridley was working the background on the cane the hitwoman had tried to use against him, and he had people doing seines on the net, following up on the New Orleans VR bank robbery. All the information they could gather was flowing into Net Force, and there wasn't anything he could do to hurry it up. He had a meeting with his top people scheduled for 1:30 p.m., and until then, nothing new to pick at.

He knew Toni usually worked out at noon, and it gave him a place to go, so Michaels headed toward the gym.

When he got there, he saw Toni and the big FBI trainee she had taken on as her student in her martial art. They were standing face-to-face, legs entwined, her waist pressed against his crotch. As Michaels watched, the man reached across Toni's chest, appeared to cup her right breast, then twisted awkwardly and threw her to the practice mat.

Michaels stopped and frowned. For some reason, he felt a stab of irritation.

Toni laughed, rolled up and faced her student again. They moved, he punched, she ducked under his arm and upended him with a move Michaels couldn't quite follow. They both laughed as the feeb trainee came up again. She said something to him, moved in close, pressed her hip against the inside of his thigh.

At this point, the man saw Michaels and said something to Toni. She turned and spotted him standing by the door.

"Hey, Alex."

Again, that surge of anger filled him. What was this? Toni had the right to teach this yahoo anything she wanted to teach him, it wasn't his business. He knew that. But still, that nagging irritation in Michaels resolved itself all of a second into something he could identify:

He felt jealous.

Bullshit. Come on. Toni was his second in command, that was all. They didn't have any romantic notions about each other. And even if they had, it would be stupid to act on them. He was her boss, and office romances were dangerous.

Certainly if she wanted to spend her lunch hour rubbing up against this feeb bodybuilder, that was her affair.

He shook his head, tried to rid himself of the thought as if it would sling away like water after a shower.

"Alex?"

"Hmm? Oh, sorry, I was just passing by, on my way to the cafeteria. I'll see you at the meeting."

He turned and walked away. Toni's personal life was her own. Period. End of story. He had enough to worry about on his own, thank you.