Net Force by Tom Clancy Page A

not understand. Nor would he have time to worry over it. Fate had reached into the lottery basket and closed his cold hard fingers.
        Luigi Sampson’s number had been drawn.

10

        
         Friday, September 17th, 2:30 p.m. New York City
        Ray Genaloni was mad enough to kill somebody with his bare hands. The man who stood in front of his desk, one of Luigi’s bodyguards, was not delivering good news and he was the only target of opportunity-but that would be a bad idea, to kill him. Instead, Ray kept his temper held down, as if pressing a lid on a boiling pot to keep the steam from escaping.
        “Excuse me, Donald,” Genaloni said, “but what exactly do you mean the FBI doesn’t have him?”
        “We sent the lawyers, Boss. The feds say they didn’t pick up Luigi.”
        “But you and Randall say they did?”
        “We had just come out of Chen’s. There were two of ‘em, another one in the car. Luigi made them, and Randall and I know feds when we see them. Their IDs checked out, they are on the New York Bureau list, the car they were in had no-hit plates-which we ran through our police contacts and found they were blind-issued to the New York City FBI motor pool. They got him, all right.”
        “Then why are they telling the lawyers they never heard of him?”
        Donald shook his head. “I don’t know.”
        Genaloni sat silent for maybe fifteen seconds. He saw the bodyguard’s sweat. Good. Let him be nervous. Finally, he said, “That’s all. Go find something to do.”
        After the bodyguard left, Genaloni sat and stared at the wall. What the hell were the feds up to? Why were they putting the squeeze on him? Luigi was stand-up, they could threaten him with anything they wanted and he wouldn’t give them shit, but We-ain’t-got-him was a new game. And it was one he didn’t like. They were up to something and whatever it was, he didn’t fucking like it.
        Fine. They want to play cloak-and-dagger? No problem. He had a knife sharp enough to shave with just sitting around doing nothing. All he had to do was reach out and grab it. We’ll just see about this crap .
        He picked up his phone. “Scramble, code two-four-three-five, Sunshine,” he said.
        The phone said, “Scrambled.”
        He punched in a number.
         We’ll just see about this crap .
        
        “I understand,” Mora Sullivan said, knowing her voice would not give her away.
        She waved the phone off, stood and began a measured pacing.
        Three steps this way, turn, three steps back, turn, then repeat, as she began to assimilate the assignment. The Selkie did not sit and meditate. Yes, she could be still when necessary, when the stalk required it, but at this stage the Selkie thought best when she moved, when she was on her feet, exploring avenues, watching for side roads, scheming.
        She could become anything, anybody, and the world was her chew toy, but this would be a dangerous one. There could be no room for error. Nearly always on her assignments there was wiggle room, space for small mistakes. Though she never left anything undone if she knew about it, there had been occasions when she had made errors. Tiny things, those errors, not wide pathways upon which a pursuer could have traveled to catch her. But now and then, she had missed something. She was the best, but even the best could overlook some bit of business, realizing it only afterward, when it was beyond her control to repair.
        Step, step, step, turn -
        People had not noticed the little clues she had accidentally dropped, because most people never thought to look for them. And eventually the links had rusted away under time and weather, become no more than stains on her trail, small, dark blotches that offered nothing to normal vision.
        But this time? This time there would be a microscope turned upon her actions. Police officers, no matter what their organization,