unofficial
connections' at the
Pentagon.”
“ All
the more reason to keep me in.”
McCutcheon
tugged at his pants again. He knew Bruckner would say that. “You'd
have to go in completely un-wired. Ross is extremely on top of his
game; if you go in transmitting he'll know it. We'd have to rely
strictly on the slipdisk. No offense, kid, but I'd have to be crazy
to let a rook do this.”
Bruckner
raised his chin. “You know the only difference between me and
that MIT security guard?”
“ Kid...”
“ He
didn't sign up for it.”
Chapter 12
August 26, 10:00 a.m.
Glenda’s
interview at the bank was in thirty minutes. She checked the time and
saw that she'd been listening to her mother for at least half that. A
mild headache threatened as she sat at the old hardline phone trying,
like hell, to keep the woman from going off the deep end. The last
thing Glenda needed was to have to worry about her parents worrying
about her. She’d done enough of that as a teenager, even
getting arrested a couple of times, testing personal boundaries, and
grappling with a puberty-induced stubborn streak. She squinted hard,
raising a vein in her temple. Cabin fever had set in after just one
night in the dinky motel room.
“ Mom,
I told you, I’m fine,” Glenda said for the fourth time.
“It was just some sleazebag who couldn't take 'F you' for an
answer; it was nothing.”
“ Your
father thinks you should come back home,” Louise said, stifling
the plea in her voice, “at least for a little while.”
“ Mom,
Daddy’s been trying to get me to come back home ever since I
left. I’m not just going to turn tail and run at the first sign
of trouble.”
Their
conversation was temporarily broken by an incoherent rant from
somewhere on Louise's end. Glenda’s father could no longer keep
quiet as he drained the wet bar in the dining room, attempting to
thaw his blood at the news of his daughter being accosted. It was
renown, throughout the land, that to mess with Jeremiah Jameson’s
little girl was to enact the wrath of God almighty. Once, when she
was in the fourth grade, Glenda had come home sopped with tears after
a classmate at school had viciously taunted her before an audience of
unsparing children. A sweep of layoffs at the auto plant had kept her
father out of work for several months, and Glenda had qualified for a
discount lunch voucher. Some buck-toothed little piss-ant in the
lunch line had noticed and given her the Oliver Twist treatment the
rest of the day. Ordinarily, Jeremiah would've gone twelve rounds
with a grizzly bear if it had given his daughter that kind of shit. But, he couldn’t just
go smacking around a nine-year-old kid, no matter how much the little
turd had it coming. By the time the clatter of car parts had drawn
Louise to their garage, her husband had demolished every shelf in the
room and had reduced his workbench to firewood. He was just standing
there, the old Louisville slugger stiff in his pulsing fists. “They
hurt my baby,” he kept snarling in a voice that had to be
shredding his vocal cords. “They hurt my baby!”
It
took nearly an hour for Louise to settle the man. Meanwhile, little
Glenda had been eating chocolate pudding and laughing at her favorite
cartoons in the family room, tears long since dry.
Glenda
heard her father shout something again from the background. “ Oh,
knock it off, Jeremiah! She’s not getting a gun!” she
heard her mother respond. Not surprising. Glenda's distaste for
firearms was practically an inherited trait. Louise couldn't stand
them. From Jeremiah Jameson's perspective, his wife had become
considerably easier to live with after he gave up hunting when Glenda
was still in grade school.
“ Mom,
will you please tell him it’s not that serious. Statistically,
if I’d had a gun in the place, I would’ve been the one more
likely to get shot. Everybody and their mothers are walking the
streets with a damn gun. I’m not contributing to that. It
connections' at the
Pentagon.”
“ All
the more reason to keep me in.”
McCutcheon
tugged at his pants again. He knew Bruckner would say that. “You'd
have to go in completely un-wired. Ross is extremely on top of his
game; if you go in transmitting he'll know it. We'd have to rely
strictly on the slipdisk. No offense, kid, but I'd have to be crazy
to let a rook do this.”
Bruckner
raised his chin. “You know the only difference between me and
that MIT security guard?”
“ Kid...”
“ He
didn't sign up for it.”
Chapter 12
August 26, 10:00 a.m.
Glenda’s
interview at the bank was in thirty minutes. She checked the time and
saw that she'd been listening to her mother for at least half that. A
mild headache threatened as she sat at the old hardline phone trying,
like hell, to keep the woman from going off the deep end. The last
thing Glenda needed was to have to worry about her parents worrying
about her. She’d done enough of that as a teenager, even
getting arrested a couple of times, testing personal boundaries, and
grappling with a puberty-induced stubborn streak. She squinted hard,
raising a vein in her temple. Cabin fever had set in after just one
night in the dinky motel room.
“ Mom,
I told you, I’m fine,” Glenda said for the fourth time.
“It was just some sleazebag who couldn't take 'F you' for an
answer; it was nothing.”
“ Your
father thinks you should come back home,” Louise said, stifling
the plea in her voice, “at least for a little while.”
“ Mom,
Daddy’s been trying to get me to come back home ever since I
left. I’m not just going to turn tail and run at the first sign
of trouble.”
Their
conversation was temporarily broken by an incoherent rant from
somewhere on Louise's end. Glenda’s father could no longer keep
quiet as he drained the wet bar in the dining room, attempting to
thaw his blood at the news of his daughter being accosted. It was
renown, throughout the land, that to mess with Jeremiah Jameson’s
little girl was to enact the wrath of God almighty. Once, when she
was in the fourth grade, Glenda had come home sopped with tears after
a classmate at school had viciously taunted her before an audience of
unsparing children. A sweep of layoffs at the auto plant had kept her
father out of work for several months, and Glenda had qualified for a
discount lunch voucher. Some buck-toothed little piss-ant in the
lunch line had noticed and given her the Oliver Twist treatment the
rest of the day. Ordinarily, Jeremiah would've gone twelve rounds
with a grizzly bear if it had given his daughter that kind of shit. But, he couldn’t just
go smacking around a nine-year-old kid, no matter how much the little
turd had it coming. By the time the clatter of car parts had drawn
Louise to their garage, her husband had demolished every shelf in the
room and had reduced his workbench to firewood. He was just standing
there, the old Louisville slugger stiff in his pulsing fists. “They
hurt my baby,” he kept snarling in a voice that had to be
shredding his vocal cords. “They hurt my baby!”
It
took nearly an hour for Louise to settle the man. Meanwhile, little
Glenda had been eating chocolate pudding and laughing at her favorite
cartoons in the family room, tears long since dry.
Glenda
heard her father shout something again from the background. “ Oh,
knock it off, Jeremiah! She’s not getting a gun!” she
heard her mother respond. Not surprising. Glenda's distaste for
firearms was practically an inherited trait. Louise couldn't stand
them. From Jeremiah Jameson's perspective, his wife had become
considerably easier to live with after he gave up hunting when Glenda
was still in grade school.
“ Mom,
will you please tell him it’s not that serious. Statistically,
if I’d had a gun in the place, I would’ve been the one more
likely to get shot. Everybody and their mothers are walking the
streets with a damn gun. I’m not contributing to that. It
Similar Books
