Tom Clancy's Net Force 6-10 by Tom Clancy Page A

his scrawny little wife, it might make ’em think twice.”
    “You want Toni to do a demo. Why include me?”
    “Just bein’ polite, bruddah. ’Sides, she needs somebody to throw around. I’m too old to be hittin’ the mat dat way.”
    Michaels laughed. “You and me both.”
    “Think she’ll do it?”
    “Probably. I’ll ask her. When?”
    “Whenever she wants. Dey mine for a while yet. I don’t want to turn ’em loose stupid.”
    “I’ll check with her and call you back.”
    “Thanks, bruddah. Mahalo. ”
    Toni would probably jump at the chance. She enjoyed being a mother, and Little Alex was the light of both their lives, but she had mentioned more than once that she needed to get out once in a while. With her mother visiting from the Bronx—staying in a hotel, fortunately, because she snored like a chain saw—they had a baby-sitter they could trust, so they might as well make hay while the sun shone.
    He told his phone to call home, visual on.
    “Hi, Alex. What’s up?” Toni lit the comcam; she was breathing hard, in a sweatshirt. Probably just finished working out.
    He explained about the call from Presser. As he figured, she was eager to play.
    “When?”
    “You tell me, I’ll tell him. He’ll set it up. Probably in the big gym, the new one.”
    “What does he have in mind?”
    “He didn’t say exactly, but probably a short demo, then some hands-on stuff. Apparently some of the recruits are starting to think they are invincible.”
    “We can fix that,” she said. “How about we set it up for day after tomorrow, about ten A.M.?”
    “I’ll pass it on to Duane. How’s the boy?”
    “Down for a nap at the moment. He had a big yellow poo, I changed him, and he conked out, so I did djurus. ”
    Michaels smiled.
    “What are you smiling at?”
    “You. You’re so cute.” What he was thinking was, Here I am, a grown man, talking about baby poop with my wife. Isn’t life strange?
    He heard a thin squawk in the background. Toni said, “Oops. Gotta go. He’s waking up. You gonna be late?”
    “Nope.”
    “I’ll order in Thai tonight, that okay?”
    “Great.”
    The baby’s I’m-awake-cry grew louder as Toni broke the connection. Michaels smiled. Whatever was going on with work, life wasn’t so bad. The first time he’d become a father, he’d spent way too much time away from home. That had cost him his marriage, but it wasn’t all bad. Susie would always be his little girl, and he’d never have gotten together with Toni if he and Megan hadn’t split. His ex had remarried, she had a new baby boy, Leonard, and her husband was a decent guy.
    Sometimes, things worked out for the best, though it didn’t seem like they would at the time. He couldn’t complain.

6

    Mardi Gras—Fat Tuesday 1970
New Orleans, Louisiana

    The evening was warm, the smells of too many sweaty people and too many spilled beers heavy in the damp air as Jay wandered into a bar named Curly’s on Canal Street, just outside the mobbed French Quarter. The floats were still rolling, various krewes throwing beads and coins and candy to the crowds packed shoulder-to-shoulder next to the streets, and the volume was turned way up.
    Not that the bar was quiet or empty, far from it—but at least the patrons weren’t throwing hurricane glasses from Pat O’Brian’s at each other, and they all had their clothes on. A fair number of them were sailors, dressed in their whites, and while the atmosphere was festive, it wasn’t quite as manic as the bars on Bourbon Street in the Quarter had been.
    Even though it was 1970, there weren’t a lot of long-haired hippie types in here. The sixties came late to the South, and a sailor’s bar was probably not the best place to find the counterculture in any event.
    Tomorrow was Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, and the party would be over as good Catholics gave all this up—until next year, anyway.
    Jay found an empty stool at the bar and slid onto it. The bartender, a