State of War

3

Mitchell Townsend Ames leaned back in his form-chair and listened as the servomotors quietly hummed and adjusted the unit to fit his new position. The chair was a marvel of bioengineering. Top-grain leather and graded biogel padding covered a pneumatic/hydraulic frame of titanium. Driven by six electric motors, and using pressure sensors and fast relays, it matched his every movement, molding itself to his position within a second. When he sat up and leaned forward, it became a straight-backed office chair. When he leaned back a little, it rearranged itself into a lounger. And if he chose to stretch out fully, it turned into a bed.

Eleven thousand dollars and change, the chair was guaranteed to be the most comfortable thing you ever sat on or your money cheerfully refunded. So far, the company that made the form-chair had sold almost five thousand of the things, and nobody had asked for their money back. It was a great toy.

Ames owned six of the custom-made form-chairs: one in his medical office, the second in his legal office, the third and fourth in his New York apartment and house in Connecticut, respectively, and the fifth at his mistress’s apartment in London. The last one he kept here in his “clean” office, which was the only place he met with people like Junior.

Almost seventy thousand dollars for half a dozen chairs. A lot of money for a little comfort. If he wanted, though, he could have bought a hundred more form-chairs without his accountant ever raising an eyebrow. After all, he had won half a dozen class-action tort cases — one chair for each successful suit — against major pharmaceutical companies. Each one had netted upward of a hundred million dollars. His percentage had been considerable. He could retire today with an annual income of well over a million dollars from the interest alone. What were a few toys when you had that kind of resource?

Still, the man seated across from him was in a cheaper and more conventional chair: comfortable, but nothing like a form-chair.

Marcus “Junior” Boudreaux laughed his raucous, crow-like laugh. “You shoulda seen his face, Doc,” he said. “He looked like he swallowed a live water moccasin.”

Ames shook his head. “Overkill,” he said.

Junior looked at him. “Huh?”

“You didn’t need to tell him the girl was fourteen. She could have been eighteen or eighty — in his position, any kind of sexual impropriety can be fatal. You could have even told him she was a whore who had set him up and it wouldn’t have mattered. He’s married, he’s elected, and it’s the family vote that keeps him in office. You don’t need to use a cannon to swat a fly.”

Junior shook his head. “Better safe than sorry, I figured.”

Ames shrugged. It didn’t really matter. He dismissed the senator with a short wave. “What about the new clerk?”

“No problem there, Doc. The man is happy to take our money. He gets fifty up front. If it comes out of Lassiter’s office that the court should hear it, he gets another fifty grand. If the court votes our way, he gets two hundred. He’s working for us.”

Ames sighed and nodded. Yes, having a clerk for a Supreme Court justice on your payroll was a valuable thing indeed. Most people had no idea how much weight these young lawyers carried. The judges depended on their clerks for all kinds of input, and what got read or ignored was in large part due to how the clerks presented it.

As of this moment, Ames had two clerks. Better yet, they were from different sides of the political aisle, one a Democrat, the other a Republican. At least, that’s what their judges were. Ames didn’t care about the clerks’ own politics, as long as they did what they were supposed to do.

And what they were supposed to do was further Ames’s agenda. Or, more precisely, the agenda that he was being very well paid to further, which was the same thing.

“Very good.” Ames unlocked the top right drawer of his desk and pulled it open. Next to a 9mm SIG Neuhausen P-210, the finest production pistol made in that caliber, was a big manila mailer full of crisp thousand-dollar bills. Ames pulled the envelope out and put it on the leather blotter in front of him.

The gun had cost a couple of thousand at most. It had been tuned, so it was maybe worth another grand. Even so, he’d rather lose the fifty grand in the mailer than the pistol. Money was only money, but a good shooter was a treasure.

He had quite a collection of handguns, and the two most valuable were together worth two and a half million dollars. One, a German Luger made for testing as a possible sidearm for U.S. troops back in the early 1900s before they adopted the Colt slabside 1911, was in.45 caliber. Only four of such had been made. Two of those had been destroyed during testing, one was in the hands of another collector, and the last had been produced without records and kept by the man who’d made it, a supervisor at the gun factory in Germany. His great-grandson had sold it to Ames for a flat million.

Someday, Ames hoped to convince the other collector to part with his, so he’d have a pair.

His other prize was a Colt Walker-Dragoon.44 percussion, model 1847. One of the Texas Ranger Company guns, it was in excellent condition. It had been oiled and packed away within a year or two of its manufacture, and stored in a chest in Texas. A massive piece, it weighed more than four and a half pounds and had a nine-inch barrel. Tests had shown that the gun had been fired, but not much, and there was hardly a blemish on it. He had paid one point two million for it at an auction three years ago. He would have paid twice that and considered it a bargain.

Junior reached out and took the envelope. He raised an eyebrow and looked over at Ames.

“Fifty thousand,” Ames said. “Call me when that runs out.”

Junior nodded. Grinning hugely, he rose and left the office.

Ames glanced at his watch. It was a simple-looking timepiece, really, nothing fancy. Just a concave-backed rectangular black face with hour, minute, and a sweep second hand, art-deco numbers, and a monthly calendar, on a leather band. If you didn’t know watches, you would think it was just like dozens of others of the same general design, but it wasn’t. It was one of Hans Graven’s handmades.

Graven produced only four of these a year, every piece hand-tooled. The case was machined out of platinum, and any spot that had to endure friction within was jeweled with rubies. It was waterproof and self-winding. Ames had a little mechanical box at home that would gently rotate the watch every so often, if he couldn’t wear it for some reason, to keep it running.

The watch had a mineral crystal, the band was of select giraffe leather, and the movement was guaranteed to gain or lose no more than thirty seconds a year. It was also guaranteed for a hundred years against anything—breakage, theft, or loss. Four hundred and fifty thousand dollars it had cost, not counting the trip to Switzerland to pick it up. Graven did not ship his watches. If he couldn’t put them onto a buyer’s wrist himself, they didn’t leave the shop.

Another toy, but it amused him that it cost so much and looked so simple. The nouveau riche could be ostentatious in displaying their wealth, but Townsend Ames had more class than that, even if he didn’t come from old money.

He stood and punched the button on his phone that automatically called the limo. He had to get moving. He had rounds to make at the hospital. None of his patients were about to die, of course. Ames was a family practitioner, after all. When his patients got real sick, he sent them to specialists.

After his rounds, he would head directly to his law offices. Being a doctor/lawyer did tend to keep a man busy. He could have slowed down, of course, but it was all about winning, and Ames was that: a winner.

He intended to prove that yet again in that little matter of the lawsuit regarding the Caribbean gambling ship. His associates should have that ready to file this afternoon. Ames needed to go over everything and make sure it was all in order. After that, he had scheduled a meeting with that Washington lobbyist for a drink around five, what was her name? Skye?

A busy day on the schedule. He glanced down at the gun again and grinned. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Hey, Boss.”

Michaels looked up and saw Jay Gridley leaning against his office doorway. Yesterday’s trip to New York was still on his mind. The FBI director had essentially offered Net Force’s services to the Home Security folks on some new net-terrorism threat they had uncovered. Michaels wasn’t very happy about it. Net Force didn’t need another pair of eyes looking over their shoulder. Besides, Home Security wasn’t known for its subtlety. Michaels believed that they had a legitimate and vital mission, and he both respected and appreciated the job they had to do. Still, they had stepped over the line a few times in places where even he wouldn’t have gone.

Civil liberties tended to get trampled in times of national emergencies. Michaels knew that you had to err on the side of safety when it came to American lives, of course, but he also knew that the nature of any bureaucracy was to perpetuate itself, and the term “national security” could be stretched to cover an awful lot of activities.

“Hey, Jay. What’s up?”

“Not much new. I got a little follow-up on that thing I sent you.”

“We are talking about CyberNation, here, aren’t we?”

“I’m pretty sure we are,” Jay said, standing up straighter and taking a step inside Alex’s office. “They are dancing their usual twisty dance to distract anybody watching, but yeah, I’d bet on it.”

Michaels shook his head. The CyberNation problem had been a nasty one, and in the end had involved a shoot-out on a gambling ship in the Caribbean. Worse, it had put Toni at risk, something he still regretted, even though she hadn’t been hurt.

Unfortunately, Net Force had only gotten a few of the players when all was said and done. Not surprisingly, those arrested had been disavowed by the rest of organization as rogues and traitors. CyberNation itself was still out there, a great, big, ugly can of worms. And it looked as if the organization was about to score a major victory, too.

What they couldn’t do with terrorism, the director had told him only yesterday, they might be able to do with the ballot box. The latest round of bills to recognize the virtual nation, as they liked to call it, were being pushed hard, and actually had a chance of getting passed.

The idea just wouldn’t go away.

“What have you got?” Alex asked.

“Well, I’m sure they are funneling money to places where it ought not to be going. I haven’t been able to nail it down yet, but I will.”

“Keep on it. Let me know.”

“Sure, Boss.”

“What about the other thing? The virus?”

“Still running it down. Nothing yet, but it doesn’t look like much of a threat.”

The intercom chirped. “Alex, the director is on line one.”

Michaels nodded at Jay and picked up the receiver.

“Yes, ma’am?” he said.

Melissa Allison, the first woman director of the FBI, had been a pretty good boss. Mostly, she left Net Force alone, and mostly, she backed them up when they got into deep waters. And since she knew where a lot of political bodies were buried, she had good clout. It could be a lot worse.

“Alex, I just heard from Legal that a five-hundred-million-dollar wrongful death lawsuit has been filed against Net Force as a whole, as well as General John Howard and you in particular, on the behalf of the families of Richard A. Dunlop, Kyle J. Herrington, and S. Jackson Britton.”

“Who?” Alex asked. “Those names don’t ring any bells. And we haven’t killed anybody recently that I know of.”

“They were CyberNation employees who died during the assault on the gambling ship Bon Chance last year.”

Alex shook his head. CyberNation again.

“If I recall correctly, Madam Director, these men were firing weapons at Net Force operatives and only shot in perfectly justifiable self-defense. And the international maritime court that covers such things on the high seas found that to be the case.”

“That doesn’t matter in a tort action, Commander. This is civil, not criminal. If you sell somebody a cup of hot coffee and they turn around and spill it on their lap, they can sue you and win millions. People who have broken into houses for the purpose of burglary have sued the homeowners because they tripped on the rug while hauling the television set out. What’s more, they have actually won damages. We live in a litigious society.”

Unbelievable. “Swell,” he said.

She ignored his sarcasm. “You’ll be getting a call from Net Force legal council Thomas Bender, who’ll be coordinating the defense with FBI Legal and DOJ. You are, of course, covered under the governmental umbrella, but you might want to consider retaining private counsel just to be on the safe side. And give General Howard a heads-up, as well.”

“Yes, ma’am. Thank you.”

She discommed, and he pressed the button for John Howard.

A lawsuit. Wonderful. Just what they all needed right now.

Junior liked to get to the combat range in the middle of the morning on a weekday when he could. Those were the slackest times, and he would usually have the place to himself. The only other people who ever showed up at those times were some of the cleanup guys working at the old closed-up Naval Surface Weapons Center just south of there.

You’d think they could pop off rounds on the base, though. Clearly there was plenty of room for it. Seven hundred acres, it had been more or less shut down since the mid-nineties, but they still hadn’t cleaned up all the contaminants, oil, and PCBs. At least that was what Junior heard from the reclamation contract guys who came by here to shoot. Every time they thought they were done, they’d find some more that needed doing.

Junior laughed at the thought. His tax dollars at work.

Today was a good day, though. There was only one local deputy cooking off nines down in bay five. Junior’s favorite bay, B1, was open.

He backed his car into the slot. It was just a cut-out in the side of a hill, probably done with a backhoe and Cat, with dirt and rock walls rising from the ground at the entrance to about twenty feet high at the back.

He got out, pulled his shooting bag from the trunk, and put it on the old plywood table.

This bay had a reactive target, a kind of big sawhorse-shaped thing made out of heavy steel extrusion with falling plates mounted above, just below eye level. The frame’s crosspiece extrusion was angled so that if bullets hit it, the rounds would be deflected into the ground. The six targets, each of which was made of half-inch-thick tool steel and a little bigger around than a salad plate, were hinged at the bottom. You simply set up the plates, backed off, and shot them. A hit would knock the plate over backward. The thing was, they were set for IPSC minor power factor. That meant you needed at least a warm.38 or a 9mm special to knock ’em over, and major power factor stuff was a lot better — a.357, 40, or.45, like that. With what he was using, he could make ’em ring, but not knock ’em over.

But there were ways to get around that.

He pulled the can of flat-white spray paint from his bag and walked toward the target. Along the way, he stooped and picked up half a dozen used shotgun shells. Some shooters always left the brass and plastic hulls, which was good for him.

He set the falling plates up, and used the shotgun shells to lean and prop them in such a way that a light tap would knock ’em over. Then he sprayed each target with a light coat of white paint, enough so that a hit would show up as a dark splotch.

He went back to the shooting table and pulled his earphones out, along with a box of ammo and two speedloaders. The earphones were Wolf Ears — electronic jobs that would shut off loud noises but let you hear regular sounds. He slipped those on, put the speedloaders in his jacket pockets, picked up the spray paint, then stepped away from the table and walked to where he was twenty-one feet from the targets.

He put the paint down. Straightening, he took a deep breath, let part of it out, cleared his jacket on both sides, and fast-drew both his revolvers simultaneously. He didn’t use the sights, but indexed the guns like pointing his fingers. He shot the far left target first, using the gun in that hand, squeezing the trigger twice for a double-tap. Then he shot the one on the far right with his right-hand piece, again firing twice. Even as the first two targets clanged and fell, he worked his way back and forth, alternating from left to right.

He cooked both guns dry.

Five seconds, twelve shots, six targets, two each, all hits.

He holstered his left gun, thumbed the latch and shoved the cylinder out on the right one, and popped the empties out with a fast palm hit on the extractor rod. He pulled a speedloader from his pocket and reloaded the revolver, holstered it, then repeated the reload with the left piece. Both guns holstered, he took the spray paint and moved to inspect the targets.

The hits were all close to the center and usually a couple inches apart, except for the second right-hand one, which had two gray splotches in a binocular hit, but slightly high. Not bad, though. They would have hit a man in the mouth.

He set the targets back up, shotgun shells in place, and repainted them.

He was using a pair of tuned Ruger SP101s, two-and-a-quarter-inch barrels, in.22 Long Rifle caliber. “Mouse guns,” most serious shooters would call them. The.22 LR round was fast, but tiny. A.38 Special or 9mm bullet would be three or four times as big. According to Evan Marshall’s Stopping Power Stats, the smaller.22 would only knock the fight out of a man with a torso hit maybe one time in three. Given that a hot.40 or.357 round would put that same man down and out better than nine and a half times out of ten, most shooters felt that thirty percent was pretty crappy. Sixty-six percent odds the guy would keep coming if you shot him certainly wasn’t something they’d want to risk their life on.

Junior grinned as he reached the firing line. A body shot with a mouse gun might get you killed by return fire or an angry guy swinging a tire iron, but a head shot? That was something else. If you put a forty-grain.22 round in a guy’s eye, it didn’t matter how tough he was.

Junior used to like talking trash to the big-bore guys when they’d laugh at his.22s. Tell you what, he’d say, You let me have the first shot, then you can shoot me as many times as you want with your rhino killer. What you think about that, hah?

Nobody had taken him up on it.

Putting the paint down, he turned back to face the targets. Without a pause, he drew, pointed, and emptied both guns.

Six for six.

He reloaded and went to reset and repaint the targets. Yeah, the little Rugers would kill you as dead as a howitzer, if you were good enough to put the bullets where they needed to go, and they had some advantages over the hand cannons. They were small and lighter to haul around. They were quieter. They didn’t have any recoil to speak of. And ammo was cheap. You could shoot all day for a few dollars.

Best of all, when he was on the road and couldn’t make it to the combat range, he could take a little drive out into the country just about anywhere, walk into some woods, shake up some cans of Coke, put ’em against a backstop, and start blasting away. He could spew fizz all whichaway and not bother anyone more than a few hundred yards away. Fire off a.357 and it sounded like an big bomb going off, ka-whoom! You would hear that sucker for miles.

Of course, he had given himself some additional advantages. Bill Ruger’s little guns were built like bank vaults. You could drop one off a tall building and it would still shoot. The SPs were also head and shoulders above an S&W or Taurus for reliability. That made ’em a little stiff right out of the box, the actions a little hard, but a couple hours with a Dremel and some polish and he had rounded the triggers and hammers. That had slicked up the actions so they each had a nice eight-pound DA pull, and broke like an icicle at just over two pounds single-action, smooth as oil on glass, no creep. New springs and spec lube, too.

Four-inch barrels would have been better, accuracywise, but they were harder to conceal in summer clothes. The factory stocks were too small for his big hands, so he had switched to Pachmayr’s hard rubber Compacs, which were the perfect size, and not going to slip if his palms were sweaty. He could have put Crimson Trace laser grips on ’em, but that was too much of an advantage, made it way too easy. He’d had a pair of custom holsters made for ’em, Kramer horsehide, as good as you could get.

And he took care of things from the ammo end, too. He used CCI Minimags exclusively, the solids, not the hollow points. He’d buy a brick, a full five hundred rounds. Then he’d sit in front of the TV with the sports channel on and his little Dillon scale and weigh each cartridge. It turned out that seven or eight out of ten rounds weighed fifty-one grains. All the fifty-ones went into one box, the other stuff into another — he used those for his little lever-action Winchester rifle. It didn’t really matter how much they weighed; it only mattered that the ones he carried all weighed the same.

When that was done, he would use the little headspace gauge he had made. With that, he could check to make sure the bullets were all the same size and shape. Any that were deformed or a hair too long or short went into the rifle box.

Every round he carried in his revolvers or speedloaders was as close to exactly the same size and weight as he could make them. It didn’t matter if they all shot a hair high or a hair low, as long as they all went to the same place. Consistency, that was the key. An old silhouette shooter had showed him that, and it worked.

Finally, because rimfire ammo could sometimes go bad, oil or lube seeping into them, he changed the rounds in his guns and speedloaders once a week, and the old ones went into the rifle box.

Of course, a snub-nose revolver wasn’t going to be a tack-driver at any kind of range, no matter how good a shooter you were. Still and all, it didn’t have to be. All he needed to be able to do was hit somebody in the head at seven yards, which was the longest range of most gunfights. The FBI used to say, “Three shots, three feet, three seconds,” was the average shoot-out.

Out to seven yards, he could point-shoot heads all day long pretty damn quick, yeah. But just in case, when he was working on the action, he’d kept the spurs on the Rugers’ hammers. That way he could cock ’em for single-action if he had to. Given just a little time to aim, he could hit that same target at twenty-five yards single-action, holding one gun two-handed, nine times out of ten. At fifty yards, the head shot simply wasn’t going to happen except by luck, but he could put them all into a torso at that range. The.22s might not be a manstopper to the body, but six hits would give a man something real serious to think about. There weren’t too many gunfights at fifty yards anyhow.

Back at the firing line, he reset himself. Taking a deep breath, he drew and cooked ’em off…

Six for six.

He smiled. Damn, he was good.

At least, he was good when the targets weren’t shooting back. He was going to have to do something about that soon, yeah, or else stop looking at himself every time he passed a mirror. Pretty soon, yeah.