Night Moves by Tom Clancy, Steve Pieczenik Page B

structure; still, he half expected to see James Bond or Q or somebody skulking through the halls on the way to do the king's business. They sat on a comfortable couch in the office of the director-general, Matthew Hamilton. Along with Hamilton were Angela Cooper, Minister of Parliament Clifton Wood, and himself. Toni had stepped out of the room to call the FBI director.
"... would be in our mutual interests to resolve this matter as soon as possible," the minister said. "I agree," Michaels said, "though I don't understand how we can be of much help here. You have your own people."
Wood and Hamilton exchanged quick glances. Hamilton cleared his throat and took the lead. "Well, yes, but you see, that's something of the problem. Both MI-5 and MI-6 want to jump right on this, and there tends to be some ... professional rivalry." Cooper gave Michaels a brief flash of a smile. So much for her downplaying such things. "It is our thought that a joint task force with the head of Net Force in charge might move things along faster.
Neither Security nor Secret Intelligence want to give up their autonomy to each other, but with a third-party ally ..." he let it drift to a stop, raised his eyebrows and spread his hands. Michaels nodded. Politics. Of course. And there was more than met the ear here, too, if they were willing to bring in a foreign service to mitigate the situation. He couldn't imagine the FBI and the CIA

allowing British Intelligence to come in and take over a joint operation.
No, there was a lot more going on here than they were telling. The door opened, and Toni stepped back into the room, clipping her virgil to her belt as she entered. She gave Michaels a short nod.
So. The director had put them on the hook. He nodded back at Toni, then looked at Hamilton. "We will, of course, be happy to help in any way we can." That brought smiles from all three Brits. Michaels wished he felt like smiling. What he wanted to do was go home. He had Jay in the hospital, the legal problems with his ex-wife, and whatever else might have gone on while he was away. His virgil cheeped. Michaels frowned. It was set to refuse all but priority-one calls. He pulled the unit from his belt and looked at it.
Incoming call from Colonel Howard.
"Gentlemen, if you will excuse me for a moment?" The MP and MI-6 commander both smiled and nodded again. Michaels stepped into the hall. Maybe it was good news. Monday, April 4thWashington, D.C. Tyrone Howard headed for his locker, keeping an eye out for Essay, the terror of the hall. Since Bella had dumped him, Tyrone's semi connection to Bonebreaker Lemott, Bella's jock high school boyfriend, had become uncertain. Essay knew that his chances against Bone-breaker were zippo, and so for a time being Bella's friend had conferred a certain kind of immunity against the brain-dead thug. Essay--from the initials S.A., which stood for sore ass, which came from Brontosaurus--would just as soon thump you as look at you, and Tyrone's chances against him in a fight were also zippo, so it paid to be on the alert. He made it to the locker without seeing Essay. Maybe he'd been kicked out of dear old Eisenhower Middle School for smoking again. That would be nice. He was dumping his carry bag into the locker and not paying attention when somebody said, "Hey, Tyrone!"
He turned. It was Nadine Harris, the boomerang girl. "Hey, Nadine."
She drifted over through the traffic flow, moving gracefully, like a swimmer treading water. "You got morning schedule, too. Exemplary."

"Yeah. Who's your anchor?" "Peterson," she said.
"He's okay. I had him for Media One. What kind of register you got?" "Eng Two, Math Three, Bioscience One, Media Two, Physical Three, History Two." "That's pretty heavy redge for the quarter," he said. She shrugged.
"Not so bad. I tested high 'cause my last school was a couple steps ahead. How about you?" "Eng Two, Math Three, Media Three, Comp Four, and, uh, MH One." "Talk about my redge being heavy, whee-doggy,