The Clan Corporate

"Oh." Mike hunched his shoulders defensively. The spooks have legitimate fears, he told himself. But how do I know they're legitimate? How do I know they're not seeing things? Then: But what do we really know about the Clan? What makes them tick?

"Some of those sneaky bastards we call allies would stab us in the back as soon as look at us," said Smith, mistaking Mike's thoughtful silence for complicity. "This isn't the Cold War anymore, and we're not up against godless communism, we're up against drug smugglers sans frontiers. If you think the Dutch are going to be any use-"

Mike, who had been to Amsterdam on business a couple of times, and had a pretty good idea what the Dutch authorities would think about drug smugglers with a plutonium supply, held his silence. Smith's venting was just that-effusions born of the frustration of fighting an invisible foe with inadequate intelligence and insufficient reach. More to the point… They've dragged me into their covert ops world, he realized. If I make a fuss, will they let me out again?

"Phase one," Mike said when Smith ran down. "When does it kick off? What should I be doing?"

Smith scribbled a note on his yellow legal pad. "I'll e-mail you the details, securely. First briefing is Tuesday, kickoff should be week after next. You'd better keep your overnight bag by your desk, and be prepared to relocate on my word." His grin widened. "In a couple of days you're going back to school, like Dr. James said. You'll be studying Spying 101. It'll be fun…"

Mike had been home for barely an hour when the phone rang.

Home wasn't somewhere he saw a lot of these days: since joining the magical mystery tour from spook central, his personal life had been patchy at best. From working the mostly regular hours of a cop-regular insofar as they varied wildly and he could be called out at odd times of day or night, but at least got shifts off to recover-he'd found himself putting in eighty- to hundred-hour weeks in one or another of the secure offices the Family Trade Organization had established. Helen the cleaner had taken Oscar in for a couple of weeks at one point, and the tomcat still hadn't forgiven him. That hurt; he and Oscar went back a long way together. Oscar had been with him before he'd been married to his ex-wife. Oscar had watched girlfriends come and go, then mostly had the place to himself since 9/11. But everyone had to make sacrifices during wartime-even elderly tomcats.

Mike had showered and unloaded the dishwasher and stuck a meal in the microwave, and he was working on a tin of pet food for Oscar (who was encouraging him by trying to get tangled up in his ankles) when the doorbell rang. "Shit." Mike put the can down. Oscar yowled reproachfully as he fumbled the handset of the entryphone. "Yes?"

"Mike?" It was Pete Garfinkle. Pete had moved sideways into Monitoring and Surveillance lately. "Mind if I come up?"

"Sure, be my guest."

By the time Pete knocked on the apartment door, Oscar was head down in the chow bowl and Mike was well into second thoughts. The microwave oven buzzed for attention just as the door rattled. "Come on in. I was just about to eat-"

"S'okay." Pete held up a plastic bag. "I figured you wouldn't turn away a six-pack, and I hit Taco Bell on the way over." The bag clinked as he planted it on the kitchen table.

Mike gri

"Glasses? We don't need no steenkin' glasses!"

Mike planted his di

"Lovely." Pete eyed Mike's food warily, then twisted the cap off a bottle. "Sam Adams good enough?"

"It'll go down nicely." Mike started on his rice and chicken as Pete poured two bottles into their respective glasses. "What's with the Taco Bell thing? I thought Nikki liked to cook."

Pete shrugged sheepishly. "Nikki likes to cook," he said. "Healthy things. Y'know? Once in a while a man's got to do what a man's got to do, 'specially if it involves a barbecue and a slab of dead meat. And when it's not barbecue season, a dose of White Castle, or maybe Taco Bell…"

"I see." Mike ate junk food out of necessity born of eighty-hour working weeks: Pete ate junk food because he needed a furtive vice and most of the ordinary ones would cost him his job. "What's she doing?"

"It's her yoga class tonight." Pete took a long mouthful of beer. "Figured I'd come by and cheer you up. Chat about a little personal problem I've been having."

Mike looked at him sharply. "Beer first," he suggested. "Then let's take a hike." Pete didn't do personal problems: he had what by Mike's envious standards looked like an ideal marriage. He especially didn't drop around co-workers' apartments to wail about things, which meant… "Is it that thing we were talking about over lunch the other day?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is." Pete managed to look furtive and scared over his beer glass, which put the wind up Mike even more. "How's the beer?"

"Beer's fine." Mike shunted his di

Outside, the air hit him like a freshly washed towel, heavy and hot and damp enough to make breathing hard for a moment. Mike waited until Pete cleared the doorway, bag of bottles in hand. "Spill it."

"Chairs first. You'd better be sitting down for this."

Mike gestured at the tatty deck chairs on the rear stoop. "How bad is it?"

"Bad enough." Pete dropped into one of the chairs and handed Mike a bottle. "Go on, sit down."

Mike sat. "I don't think anyone's listening here."

"Indoors." It was a statement, not a question.

"They lock everything down." Mike popped the lid off the beer. "Can't blame them for being suspicious of cops-we don't have that kind of home life."

"Yeah, well." Pete glanced up at the roof suspiciously, then shrugged. The rumble of traffic and the scritching of cicadas would make life hard for any eavesdroppers. "I called Tony Vecchio up today."

Mike sat bolt upright. "Shit, man! Not from work-"

"Relax, I'm not that stupid." Pete took another swig from his bottle.

Mike peered at him. He was obviously rattled. Maybe even as badly rattled as Mike was, in the wake of his little chat with Smith. Explosive collars. What else is going on? "I'm not going to like this, am I?"

"I needed to ask some questions." Pete looked uncomfortable. "We've gone native, you know? Inside FTO, surrounded by the military and their national security obsession, we've stopped trying to do our jobs properly. I don't know about you, but I swore an oath to uphold the law-remember that? Anyway, I wanted to get some perspective. Tony knew about Matt because he was there when Matt came in, so I figured he'd help."

"You wanted a priest to hear your confession."

"Exactly."

Mike sighed. "Okay, so spill it."

"Tony stonewalled!" Pete looked angry for a moment. "First he said he didn't know anything. Then he told me that he'd never heard of Matt, that nobody of that name had come in, there were no WPP admissions this year. Then he told me I'd been suspended on full pay, medical disability in the line of work, for the past ten weeks, and he appreciated how I must feel! I mean, what the fuck?"

"Shit." Mike tipped the last of his bottle down his throat, then leaned forward. "You want to know what I think."

"Yes?"

"Close call." He wiped his forehead. "Listen, what you did was amazingly stupid. If you'd asked me… shit. They've farmed us out to the military. We belong to Defense right now, we don't exist on perso