Gust Front

«One more hand like that and you'll be doing the dishes for a month,» Cally said with a laugh.

«Yeah, well . . .» He tried to think of a retort but just gave up. What could he say?

His pager went off and he pulled it off his belt. The device was hooked into the property sensors, not his phone; just because he was in his sixties didn't mean he couldn't use modern technology. And it showed that they had a visitor. First motion sensors and then metal sensors had detected movement on the long road into the farm. However, the device that monitored for subspace transmissions was quiescent.

So, not Posleen then. Maybe the sheriff coming up to make sure he wasn't making moonshine. Or at least not at the house where it might get found and be embarrassing. Best not to offer him a taste of the latest batch. Although it made little or no sense at this time of night.

«We've got a visitor,» he said.

«Friend or foe?» Cally asked seriously. She tossed down the cards she had been shuffling.

«Don't know,» he said. «I guess we ought to go look.»

* * *

It was an unremarkable Ford Taurus. Probably a rental. The driver was a male. There wasn't much else Papa O'Neal could tell, even with the high-definition light-amplifying binoculars. He waited in the front room of the house, screened by the light curtains over the windows, until the car pulled up to the front and stopped.

The driver revealed in the glare of the security lights was a male, early twenties and alone. He looked faintly Hispanic—mostly because of his swarthy complexion—but could have been any of a hundred races and mixtures across the world. He was wearing an old and battered field jacket. It had a Special Forces patch on the right shoulder but was otherwise unadorned; «sterile» in the parlance of the special ops community. He also looked familiar, but O'Neal could not place the face.

Mike Senior opened the front door and stepped out, watching the stranger warily. There was no reason for a total stranger to come to the house. Come to think of it, he had never had an uninvited visitor. With the exception of the law. But it wasn't like he had much choice.

«Mike,» the guy said on first sight and his face broke into a broad grin. «Long time, 'mano!»

Papa O'Neal's face creased in thought but his expression remained wary. «Do I know you?»

«Shit.» The stranger shook his head in apparent chagrin. «How 'bout this: 'Sometimes you get the feathers, sometimes you get the bones.' «

Papa O'Neal tilted his head sideways and his mind wandered down a lot of years of memory. Then his eyes widened. «Harold?» he asked, incredulously.

* * *

«So that's the deal man. Got a new life, new identity and I've been workin' for the Man ever since. Just call me Lazarus,» he ended with a lopsided grin.

«You work for the Company?» Mike asked, leaning back in his cowhide-covered chair.

«No,» Harold said, with a shake of his head. «There really are groups nobody ever talks about.» He suddenly leaned forward in his own chair. «You know what fucked us, man. It was the bean counters in the States. The peaceniks and the politicians in uniform that would never let us do our job the right way. You know man, you did the job we were supposed to do!»

«Sure, Harold,» said Mike Senior soothingly. «But that was then, man. Different world. Different enemy.»

«No,» said the visitor with a shake of the head. «The enemy's still the same. The rear-echelon bastards that sit in their air-conditioned offices and fuck everything up for the poor bastards that have to do the job.»

«Harold,» said Mike Senior, with a gesture at Cally. She was on the other side of the room from him, behind the visitor's chair, trying to work the puzzle box. He was indicating that Harold might want to watch his language, but he also hoped it would calm him down. He did calm down, but something else happened and it snapped Mike's attention down to earth like a bolt of lightning. A sixth sense he had developed in more really bad places than he wanted to dwell on told him that something had changed in his visitor. And he didn't think it was for the good.

«Look, Mike,» said Harold, leaning forward and his voice dropping, «there's a place for you.» He nodded seriously, his eyes boring into the sergeant who had trained him so many years before. «These are the people who know how to get the job done. Sometimes there are problems, the REMFs that don't know when to crap or get off the pot. And sometimes they need a little lesson. You dig?»

«Harold,» said Mike Senior, suddenly wishing that he knew what the hell was happening, «this is my place. I'm old, man. Real old.»

«Don' matter, man. So am I,» said the visitor, spreading his arms, «and look at me! They want experienced people. And with the call-up they are getting damned hard to find. Your name popped out of the computer and it was like a sign from God.»

«I was wondering why you looked so good. Rejuv?» asked O'Neal.

«We got all the support anybody could want,» said Harold. He leaned forward and swept his hands across in a negative gesture. «Whatever you want, we can get it. No questions. Whatever you want.»

Mike nodded seriously and finally realized where they were in the conversation. This was not an offer that could be refused. Harold had told him that he was involved with a group that was outside constitutional bounds, had access to full Galactic medical technology and could obtain any weapon or support. The fact that nobody had ever had an inkling that such a group existed simply pointed out the fact that no one had ever talked about it. Ever.

Since he had no intention of joining such a group, it would require that he never be able to talk about it.

Leaving Cally in the room was a deft touch on the part of his former pupil. Harold assumed, perhaps correctly, that Mike would not want to kill him in front of the girl. Harold, on the other hand, would have no such qualms. One of the problems with being in the military is that you don't always get to choose your acquaintances or trainees. In the case of Harold, Mike Senior had always secretly despised him. The man was the Compleat Sociopath. If he shot a five-year-old girl by mistake the only thing he would feel was recoil.

This left Mike Senior in a bit of a pickle. And it was one he wasn't quite sure he was going to survive. Harold had just as much experience as he did and he was physiologically years younger. Since Harold knew that there was a chance Mike Senior would turn down the job, he was undoubtedly armed and prepared to kill Mike and Cally. He would also be prepared to ignore or end any distraction. If Mike even offered to get up it would probably terminate the interview. With prejudice.

The only thing that he could do was play along. Of course, Harold would suspect that he was playing along. That was what would make it so interesting.

«Well,» said Papa O'Neal, steepling his fingers—the moment of thought had been a flash; there should have been nothing to betray his sudden insight—«That's an interesting offer.» Just as he said it, his beeper went off. Again.

Harold leaned forward so fast it made a cobra look slow and his hand moved towards his side but Papa O'Neal simply sat very still and hoped for the best. When Harold also froze Mike smiled thinly. «Beeper.»

Harold laughed. «Huh. Yeah. Yours?» The assassin leaned forward with his hands on his thighs.

The weapon was either on his side or in a skeleton holster on the back. And who the hell could be coming to call? Papa O'Neal lifted up his shirt, exposing the beeper. The gesture looked totally normal as he pulled it off his left side. He could only hope and pray that Harold still thought he was in the dark.

Harold's hands remained in sight on his thighs. Side then. Papa O'Neal made a show of checking the beeper. «It's my son,» he lied. «He's on his way to rejoin his unit.»