Net Force - Tom Clancy [94]
The Selkie smiled. It was good to have a new goal.
29
Sunday, October 3rd, 11:05 p.m. The North Euro Asian Highway
He had, Plekhanov realized, a tail.
He cursed briefly in Russian, vented his anger, then put it away. Done was done, the past but prologue. He had to make adjustments.
The car shadowing him was one of those ubiquitous little sedan things, like millions of others on the net and in the Real World, and he wouldnt have noticed it, save that he was doing a standard side-road loop-the-loop to check for just such problems. This was the third of his evasive maneuvers, and while he had not spotted the tail before, he had to assume it had been with him for some time. How long had he been under surveillance? That was merely the first of several questions, wasnt it? Who was it? How had they found him? What was the best way to rid himself of them?
He swung the Corvette back onto the main road. Best to pretend he did not see them. Better the devil one knew than the devil one did not.
The gray car followed, maintaining a fairly long distance, but assuring him he was right. They would be gathering information generated from his vehicle-vectors, construction, code modules, all things that, in the hands of an expert, could eventually point to him. VR was a metaphorical place, but the images had real underpinnings. They could be recorded and perhaps traced-especially since if it was Net Force, they had enough computer power to brute-force their way through programmer profiles. The longer they stayed with him, the fewer possibilities they would have to sift. Before, he could have been one of tens or hundreds of thousands; now, every minute they stayed with him, that number fell. Every programmer had a style-and the best of them had styles that were as nearly as individual as fingerprints or DNA profiles. If they stayed with him long enough, they would suck his true identity out-or get so close theyd find him on a first or second pass through their strainers. It was a matter of knowing what to look for, of which questions to ask the search system.
Damn!
He was on the North EuroAsian Highway now, already through the Baltics and almost home. He couldnt go there, of course, but a sudden course change would engender suspicion in his pursuers. Too, he had to assume they werent alone. There could be cars rolling ahead of him, others waiting at intersections for him to pass. If the little gray car was that of a Net Force or affiliated agent, then there almost certainly would be others around.
All right. He could turn off on the India Highway a hundred kilometers ahead, lead them south and away from home. He could park the car, go into a restaurant, bail from the scenario-
No, what was he thinking? That kind of panicky reflex would leave them the car and a possible way to trace it.
Something else
It had worked once. Maybe it would work again. Maybe he could lose the chase car, take a side road, maybe duck other pursuit. Get away from this scenario and dump it.
Certainly worth a try.
He slowed, allowed the following car to draw a bit nearer. When he was ready, he drew the spikes from the pouch he carried, and with a quick and practiced hand, scattered them across all four lanes behind him, a sharp-pointed shower-
The pursuer swerved, missed most of the caltrops, but still ran over a few.
Aha!
His bright flare of triumph went dark quickly. The gray cars tires did not deflate, nor did it slow. If anything, it speeded up.
Damn, damn! They must suspect who he was, at least in this persona and vehicle. They knew what to expect, had hardened their program against his defense. Unfortunately, he didnt have much else in the way of armament-at least nothing that would stop people as good as these had to be. He had plenty of smoke-and-mirror programs, but they wouldnt do the trick here.
If he couldnt shake them, he couldnt lead them very far, either. They already knew too much. He could not take the risk theyd