Gale Force Page 0,15

away. He sounds serious."

"He's looking for independent confirmation," Lewis said. "Print reporters have to prove a story before publication. He's fishing."

"He's got really big bait. Whale-sized."

Lewis shook his head. "Then we'd better handle it. If we don't, he'll catch us at a weak moment and get somebody to admit to something. Tell him we'll meet with him."

"We will?"

"Both of us," he said, and grinned. "Tell him to pick a dark, smoky bar. They love that kind of spy shit. Besides, we need anonymity."

"And scotch," I muttered. "Lots of scotch."

Due to the excuse of the emergency, our appointment with Mr. Garrett was in a week, in New York City. He'd offered to come to Florida, but the last thing I wanted was for him to run into some busy, annoyed Warden who blurted out the truth just to get him off their backs. We were working here.

A week. I had a week, in conjunction with the other Wardens, to come up with a good fiction to feed the hungry reporter - one that would induce him to back off. Alternatively, we could go for the big hammer - get someone in the UN or the U.S. government to tell him to back off, but that would pretty much prove his whole case for him. I felt an itch between my shoulder blades, as though somebody had drawn target crosshairs right below my neck.

As it happened, there wasn't a lot for the Wardens to do about the earthquake; on the surface, it quickly became one of those weird leading-this-hour stories on the major news networks for half a day, then slipped into obscurity. It was all over but for the insurance claims, which were going to be considerable. No fatalities, only light casualties.

We'd been damned lucky.

I never finished my breakfast. By the time I felt composed enough to eat, the waffles were cold, tasteless hunks of dough, and I needed to lose a couple of pounds, anyway. Considering how nervous I already felt about facing Phil Garrett in a week, that wasn't going to be a challenge.

In the interest of having a comfortable place to work, I went home. Well . . . comfortable was a stretch right now, since half the complex had burned to the ground, and the half left standing had sustained smoke and water damage.

Curiously, my apartment was perfectly fine. Not a water stain, not a smoke smudge. It even smelled newly cleaned.

David had done me a favor. Again.

I had a secure phone setup in my office area, and VPN access to the Warden's database systems back in New York; I logged in and began reviewing files. Earth Wardens who specialized in detecting and handling radioactivity were few and far between, and a lot of them were dead, missing, or had quit over the last few years. It had been tough on everybody. First we'd had internal strife within the organization, and then the Djinn had found a way to destroy the rule book that bound them to servitude, and launched their own high-body-count conflict.

We were lucky to have as many Wardens as we did, but we weren't exactly spoiled for choice these days.

My best bet was a naval officer named Peterson, but he was on a carrier in the Persian Gulf. Second best choice was an ex-army guy named Silverton. No address listed, just a cell phone. He was shown as NFA - no fixed address. In other words, Ex-Sergeant Silverton was either homeless or liked living out of a suitcase and hotels. Since he could afford a cell phone, I supposed it was the latter.

The phone call with Silverton revealed nothing much, other than he was available and could be on the ground in Fort Lauderdale in eighteen hours. I authorized his travel - paperwork was going to survive the nuclear winter, along with cockroaches - and set about typing up my incident reports on the earthquake. When that got old - which I admit, it did quickly - I began surfing the Net for bridal information. I had a wedding to plan, after all. These things don't run themselves, unless you're so famous you can not only get your wedding services for free, but have people pay for the exclusive coverage.

Hmmm, now that was an idea. . . .

I was looking at wedding cakes when the phone rang - the secured line. Paul Giancarlo's raspy, Jersey-spiced voice said, "We've got a fuckin' note taking responsibility for the earthquake down there."

"You've what?"

"Let me read it