Breaking point - By Tom Clancy & Steve Perry & Steve Pieczenik Page 0,88
know him.”
Jay felt a sudden surge of excitement. Aha! Gotcha! “K.S.?”
“Yeah, stands for ‘Killer Spook.’ Ain’t seen him in a while. He never give me a real name, so I just called him K.S.”
“How is it that you know him?”
“Oh, he’s been coming around for—must be five, six years now. We first did a little business back in, what? ought-four or ought-five. Sold him some fourth-gen spookeyes—starlight scope image intensifiers, Army Ranger surplus, off an old SIPEsuit. He’s bought a few things since then, some of it in person, some of it over the wire. What are you looking for him for? He’s not into computer stuff.”
“I am not at liberty to say,” Jay said. “It concerns an ongoing investigation.”
Fiscus shrugged.
“Why ‘Killer Spook’?”
Fiscus showed the tooth-gap again. “I asked around, some people I know. Rumor was, this guy made a living doing odd jobs for various folks, including a few guvamint ones. Black bag ops, wetwork, stuff you don’t want to show up on the books, you know what I mean?”
This was getting better by the minute. Colorful ole Vince here was giving him all kinds of information. This exterior investigation stuff was a walk in the park—why did the field ops make it sound so tough? Must be worried about job security.
“What kind of weapons you guys carrying now?” Fiscus asked. “I heard that issue was some kinda pansy stun-gun.”
“Kick-tasers,” Jay said. That was true. Jay did have a compressed-gas electric dart gun. His was in a drawer somewhere at home. Or maybe at the office—he hadn’t seen it in a while. Since he wasn’t a field agent, he didn’t have to qualify with the weapon, and he had only fired the thing once, a long time ago. He did all his shooting in VR.
“Now about this K.S. guy,” Jay said. “Where might I find him?”
“Well, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to ask you why you need him again,” Fiscus said.
“Like I said, I can’t tell you that.”
“You wanna bet?” Fiscus raised his whiskey-soaked voice a couple of notches. “Vic, Rudy! C’mere!”
Two fairly young men in green-on-green camouflage shirts and pants tucked into gleaming combat boots seemed to materialize from nowhere behind Jay. The pair of them were huge, five, maybe six hundred pounds combined.
Uh-oh.
Jay had seen enough vids to know he was maybe in a little trouble here. He was alone, unarmed, and it looked as if he was about to make the unwilling acquaintance of Vic and Rudy. Maybe it was time to see if discretion was indeed the better part of valor. He smiled nervously and started to head for the door.
“Whoa, hold up there, Mr. Net Force Agent.”
Jay looked at Fiscus and saw that the man held a big, dark metal pistol. “You aren’t supposed to have that in the District. It’s illegal.”
“Do tell. Take your hands away from your belt and put them where I can see them.” He waved the pistol.
Jay had another sudden flash. The only reason Fiscus had told him any of this stuff about the man he’d come looking for was because he didn’t expect Jay to be able to act on it—or tell anybody else.
He had seen a lot of vids.
Jay suddenly had a vacuum in his belly that must rival deepest space. This was not VR. He couldn’t just ax a command and drop back into his office. That gun was real.
He was turned slightly so Fiscus couldn’t see his right hip. He double-triple-pressed the panic button on his virgil—one-two-three, one-two-three—then slowly moved his hands away from his body.
“Take it easy,” Jay said. “Let’s be reasonable here.”
“That’s real good, Mr. Agent. Now, let’s mosey on into the back room, and have ourselves a little talk, hey?”
Woodland Hills, California
Morrison leaned against the counter in the bathroom, staring at himself in the mirror. His face had a psychedelic cast to it—it was as if he was seeing a stranger.
He washed his hands, bent, and rinsed out his mouth. He had the little gun in his sport coat pocket, but the small weight of it bumping against his right hip was not comforting. He was scared, frightened to the point where all he wanted to do was to take off at full speed and run until he couldn’t keep going. He wanted to find a place to hide when he got there and sleep until all this somehow went away.
He looked at the frightened man in the mirror again. Running and hiding wouldn’t do any good now. It was too late.