Net Force - Tom Clancy [93]
She said, After we lose him? You dont think we can keep up with him?
Not if the guy is a lubefoot running guilty. Hell be checking. Hell spot a tail sooner or later. If he just cycles and bails, that leaves his lines open and a trail that we can follow. So when he spots us, he has to outrun us, or lose us some other way.
Not with these tires, Gridley said. Theyre puncture-sealers.
Huh?
Never mind.
Tyrone said, If slip comes to slide, the guy can bail out of VR with a gear peel or a power cut. Probably crash his system and damage his VR program if he does it on the fly, but if he does, hes gone.
Would he do that?
I would, Gridley said. First rule of computers is to back everything up. Might take him a little while to reinstall his software and sharpen things back to where they were, but that sure beats having Net Force kick in your RW door to arrest you.
Whoa, she said.
Gridley cranked the Neons engine. Yeah, well, thats later. He looked at the Vette as it pulled out of the lot and onto the highway. Until then, hes not gone until hes gone. Buckle up.
Sunday, October 3rd, 3:00 p.m. Albany, New York
As a matter of course, Sullivan paid for the lost dog. She did it the long way. The company that dropped the envelope full of used hundreds at the kennel was the third in the chain; it got the envelope delivered to it by a second company. The second company had it brought to them by a first. The first picked it up from the lobby of a hotel where it had been left by an underage kid who Sullivan had bought a six-pack of beer for, and she had done that transaction in disguise. It was unlikely anybody would trace any of this, even if they were looking, and it dead-ended with the boy, who would remember little more than a forty-year-old woman with a warty mole on her chin.
So now she was in Albany, and now she had made her decision. She was a young woman. She might have another sixty or eighty years, given the state of medicine, maybe more. Yes, it was true, she was at her peak-mentally, physically, her skills as good as they were likely to get. After all the years of dancing on the edge, she had developed a feeling about things, almost an instinct. She had learned to trust those feelings. Right now, on some level, she knew: It was time to leave the party. Hanging around like an over-the-hill boxer to get decked by some big kid with an iron jaw was not a good idea. So. As soon as the missed target was deleted, the Selkie was going into early retirement. She would shut down all the Selkies lines. If wasnt as if she was poor. She had eight million dollars tucked away. With careful investments, the money would generate all the income shed ever need. Ten million had been a goal, but never more than a hypothetical number. And there were a couple of high-risk, but very-high-return, ventures she could invest in that were likely to pay off. She wouldnt starve.
But the one big dangling problem was Genaloni.
Probably her employer would wind up like most of the wise guys, dead or in stir. But probably wasnt good enough to risk sixty or eighty years on. She did not want to be spending any big part of those years sneaking looks over her shoulder, worrying that Genaloni might lurk behind her in the shadows.
No, Genaloni had to become part of her past. Her dead past.
It wouldnt even be that hard. The criminal types surrounded themselves with muscle and guns to protect themselves from each other. They had lawyers to take of the cops, and they figured they were immune from anybody else. Genaloni was maybe the brightest of the bunch, but he had weaknesses. The Selkie made it her business to know all about her clients before she ever took a job from them. Genaloni had a small army of thugs and lawyers, but he also had a mistress. Her name was Brigette, and while she was well off from Genalonis care, she had neither lawyers nor bodyguards between her and the world.
So. First Genaloni, then the bureaucrat in Washington. Then off for a month