Jones, no Jane Bond. Undercover was always the hardest and riskiest thing any investigator could do, and this was undercover in a whole world that considered me no better than a pet monkey and would treat me the same or worse.
Then we started through the simulation exercises. They had a room in the big house rigged up kinda like they thought Vogel's Safe Room was-but they wasn't sure- complete with secret passage, and they took me in there naked and in light but limiting arm and leg chains to where a big guy about Vogel's size and weight played the mark. The first three days of this, twenty times a day with analysis, I never even come close to takin' him, and I got real discouraged. Still, every time I blew it they took me aside, showed me a recordin' of the whole thing, and explained what I done wrong, what tricks I fell for, what opportunities I missed. I learned quick-this was my ass on the line, and I wanted to live to spend that bread. By the fourth day of trainin', I took not only the fellow playin' Vogel but two other guys even bigger and meaner about half the time. By the time there was only two days left, I was takin' all comers in that room three out of four times.
It wasn't good enough, but it had to do.
We also had all sorts of briefin's, goin' on and on and makin' us all memorize everything till we talked it in our sleep. Timing, other things, and most important the emergency procedures in case it went down wrong. I knew just what was gonna happen when and if, and there were only a few things they didn't tell me, 'cause if I didn't know then I couldn't be made to tell Vogel.
That night, we got dressed up in fancy-colored silks forthe last real night we'd have until it was over. The way I talked, the last thing I wanted was guests and a dinner party, but this weren't no last meal. The ones comin' to dinner were the folks with the five million bucks-the Security Committee.
"You got to do all the talkin'," I told Sam. "I couldn't open my mouth 'round nobody now."
"Yeah, well, I'll try, but you're what they've come to see and neither Aldrath nor I like it much."
"Huh?"
"Babe, these guys dreamed up this thing and passed the job of actually doing it down to Aldrath, who passed it on to Bill and then to us, but until now it's just an abstract thing to them. Beyond Bill, Aldrath, Jamispur, and a tight circle of security personnel who have their brains laundered every morning to make sure they're secure, nobody knows who is doing this, or when, or anything else. Now all of a sudden the whole damned committee shows up and demands to meet with us. They're all corporate class people- untouchable even by Aldrath unless he catches them with a smoking gun in their hands standing over a freshly dead body. They're all ambitious up-and-coming corporate types, sort of like Congressmen. They're a potentially leaky bunch and you can do a lot in forty-eight hours."
"But thurely the Thecurity Committee is checked out!" Trouble was, I was startin' to get used to talkin' like a black Elmer Fudd.
"People leak things for their own advantage. If one of 'em gets concerned with a bigwig he's trying to impress and gets pressed on what's being done about this security threat, he might blurt it all out just to make an impression, or leak it if there's rumors going around that he hasn't been very effective. Now, we're going to block out that whole time line from the Labyrinth, so nobody and no messages go in or out until you're safe, and anybody who leaves here not on our team will be monitored like a hawk, but these are big shots used to intelligence work. It's an extra added pain in the ass."
I couldn't help but notice that the Security Committee was all male. In fact, I found out when I pressed, just about all the senior officers were men. It wasn't that this place wasout-and-out sexist, but women somehow never made it to the top spots. Some of it was that these guys tonight were mostly in their seventies and maybe had a hundred
Then we started through the simulation exercises. They had a room in the big house rigged up kinda like they thought Vogel's Safe Room was-but they wasn't sure- complete with secret passage, and they took me in there naked and in light but limiting arm and leg chains to where a big guy about Vogel's size and weight played the mark. The first three days of this, twenty times a day with analysis, I never even come close to takin' him, and I got real discouraged. Still, every time I blew it they took me aside, showed me a recordin' of the whole thing, and explained what I done wrong, what tricks I fell for, what opportunities I missed. I learned quick-this was my ass on the line, and I wanted to live to spend that bread. By the fourth day of trainin', I took not only the fellow playin' Vogel but two other guys even bigger and meaner about half the time. By the time there was only two days left, I was takin' all comers in that room three out of four times.
It wasn't good enough, but it had to do.
We also had all sorts of briefin's, goin' on and on and makin' us all memorize everything till we talked it in our sleep. Timing, other things, and most important the emergency procedures in case it went down wrong. I knew just what was gonna happen when and if, and there were only a few things they didn't tell me, 'cause if I didn't know then I couldn't be made to tell Vogel.
That night, we got dressed up in fancy-colored silks forthe last real night we'd have until it was over. The way I talked, the last thing I wanted was guests and a dinner party, but this weren't no last meal. The ones comin' to dinner were the folks with the five million bucks-the Security Committee.
"You got to do all the talkin'," I told Sam. "I couldn't open my mouth 'round nobody now."
"Yeah, well, I'll try, but you're what they've come to see and neither Aldrath nor I like it much."
"Huh?"
"Babe, these guys dreamed up this thing and passed the job of actually doing it down to Aldrath, who passed it on to Bill and then to us, but until now it's just an abstract thing to them. Beyond Bill, Aldrath, Jamispur, and a tight circle of security personnel who have their brains laundered every morning to make sure they're secure, nobody knows who is doing this, or when, or anything else. Now all of a sudden the whole damned committee shows up and demands to meet with us. They're all corporate class people- untouchable even by Aldrath unless he catches them with a smoking gun in their hands standing over a freshly dead body. They're all ambitious up-and-coming corporate types, sort of like Congressmen. They're a potentially leaky bunch and you can do a lot in forty-eight hours."
"But thurely the Thecurity Committee is checked out!" Trouble was, I was startin' to get used to talkin' like a black Elmer Fudd.
"People leak things for their own advantage. If one of 'em gets concerned with a bigwig he's trying to impress and gets pressed on what's being done about this security threat, he might blurt it all out just to make an impression, or leak it if there's rumors going around that he hasn't been very effective. Now, we're going to block out that whole time line from the Labyrinth, so nobody and no messages go in or out until you're safe, and anybody who leaves here not on our team will be monitored like a hawk, but these are big shots used to intelligence work. It's an extra added pain in the ass."
I couldn't help but notice that the Security Committee was all male. In fact, I found out when I pressed, just about all the senior officers were men. It wasn't that this place wasout-and-out sexist, but women somehow never made it to the top spots. Some of it was that these guys tonight were mostly in their seventies and maybe had a hundred
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