The Archimedes Effect by Tom Clancy Page A

father’s suicide note had specified that she still should, as they had always planned—but eventually, she had realized that the Army needed to pay for what had happened to her father. And since they weren’t going to do that voluntarily, she would make them pay.
    She climbed into her car, dropped the gas receipt on the seat, and started the machine’s anemic little engine. It had taken years to get into a position where she had enough power to hit the Army hard enough to cause it pain. It would never be as bad as what she had felt, the Army was too big to deal that kind of blow, but it would sting. It would be embarrassing, it would cost them in time and effort and money, and they would never know who had done it, or why. Maybe she would leave a time capsule somewhere, to be opened after she died, explaining it all. Or maybe she wouldn’t.
    She pulled out onto the street. It had taken a long time to set it up, but it was coming to pass, just as she had planned. If vengeance was a dish best served cold, then hers was certainly that. But she expected that it would taste perfect when it was done.

The Fretboard
Washington, D.C.
    Jennifer Hart said, “How are your fingertips?”
    It was nearly nine P.M. Given his job, it was hard for Kent to take off in the middle of the day for guitar lessons, but Jen was willing to meet him here at eight. The shop was closed, but she had a key, and they didn’t seem to mind her teaching whenever she wanted.
    The first time he’d showed up, he’d apologized for cutting into her evenings.
    She’d laughed. Most evenings, her social life consisted of sitting in an overstuffed chair trying to read a book with her cat curled in her lap, she’d said.
    Kent said, “Fine.” In truth, the fingers on his left hand were all sore—the ends felt blistered, and his thumb ached from pressing too hard into the back of the guitar’s neck. He figured it would pass as he developed calluses and more specific strength in the hand. No point in making a big deal out of it.
    She grinned at him, and he enjoyed watching the smile lines form around her eyes and mouth. “Uh huh. Going to be stoic, huh?”
    He smiled in return. “Too late to change now,” he said.
    She took a black silk cloth and began to wipe the fretboard and body of her guitar. He had a similar scrap of cloth in his case, and he did the same for his instrument. Even with clean hands, there was a certain amount of natural oil and grit that worked their way into the strings, causing, she had said, corrosion. A quick wipe with a cloth after playing helped slow that down.
    Kent had learned about strings, tuners, humidifiers, all manner of esoterica connected to maintaining a classical guitar in some semblance of form, and he had no problem doing what was necessary. His grandfather had taught him how to sharpen a knife and keep it oiled when he’d been a boy; the old man had never had any patience for a man who didn’t take care of his tools.
    “You’re coming along pretty well,” Jen said.
    “It’s a lot harder than you make it look,” he said.
    She finished wiping her instrument, and tucked it into the case, then latched it shut. “Of course. Anybody with a little skill in anything makes it look easier to somebody just trying to learn.”
    “So, am I ever going to learn enough to justify owning this beast?” He held the guitar up in one hand, then lowered it into his case.
    “Truth? You probably aren’t ever going to sit on a concert stage and make people want to go home and toss out their Segovia recordings. But if you practice and keep learning, three or four years from now you’ll be able to play some very nice things that people will enjoy hearing—and you won’t have to worry that your instrument is holding you back.”
    He nodded. “Good enough. Though that’s hard to see after a fumbling rendition of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star,’ or ‘Scales on an E-string.’ ”
    She laughed. “Everybody’s got to