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

woman of maybe thirty, with dishwater blonde hair and a harried look, spotted him.
    “What can I get you, mister?”
    “Beer.”
    She nodded, reached into the cooler, came up with a cold can of Jax, opened it, and slid it to Jay.
    In his research for the scenario, Jay had learned that Jax was a local brew, and there was a rumor (which was untrue) that the water they used in making it was drawn straight out of the Mississippi River, passed through a strainer no finer than needed to keep the crawfish out, and mixed with the other ingredients just like that. Given that there was a major petrochemical complex eighty miles upriver that used and discharged a lot of the water, and this was just before the days of OSHA and the EPA looking over everybody’s shoulder, the river would have been pretty vile for a whole lot of reasons. According to the locals, it was like the old saw about only mad dogs and Englishmen going out into the noonday sun, only in this case, only mad dogs would drink the water in New Orleans. They said that fishing was easy at night up over the levee, because the fish all glowed in the dark . . .
    The can was icy, and the beer cold enough so it didn’t have that bad a flavor. Besides, even if it was poison, it wasn’t going to kill Jay in VR.
    Next to Jay, a sailor, a petty officer, held a leather cup with a pair of dice in it. “Wanna roll for drinks?” he said.
    Jay shrugged. “Sure.”
    The navy man shook the cup a couple times, upended it on the scarred wooden bar, and lifted it. He had a four and a two.
    Jay took the cup, put the dice in it, rattled them around, and poured them onto the bar. Six and a two.
    “You win,” the sailor said. He held up two fingers so the bartender could see them, then pointed at himself and Jay. The woman came over, put two more beers on the bar. The sailor put a couple dollar bills on the bar, the woman took them, then hustled off.
    “David Garret,” the sailor said, offering his hand.
    Jay shook his hand. Davy in the Navy. “Jay Gridley,” he said.
    “You . . . Korean? Japanese?”
    Jay grinned. “Part Thai,” he said. “Born here, though.”
    Garrett shrugged. “No offense. I just got back from duty in Southeast Asia, off the coast of Vietnam.” He pronounced the last part of the name so it rhymed with “ma’am” and not “mom.”
    “Picked a good time for shore leave.”
    “Hell, yeah. I been balling chicks left, right, and center. One big party. Had to stop and top off my tanks before I get back into it.” He waved vaguely at the door.
    Jay took another swig of his beer and said, “So, you being a Navy man, you probably know about all that business with the minefields.”
    “Minefields” in this case was VR scenario-speak for the problems with the net and web.
    Garret finished his beer, put the can down, picked up the fresh one. “No more than anybody else,” he said, offering another shrug.
    “What do you hear about it?”
    “Usual stuff. Somebody seeded a whole bunch of the suckers where our ships would run into ’em. Nobody knows who, but I got a buddy in Navy Intelligence says it might have been CyberNation did it.”
    Jay was surprised to hear this. “CyberNation?”
    “What I heard.”
    Jay thought about that. Why would CyberNation want to disrupt the web? With it down, that could only hurt their business.
    Maybe not , said Jay’s little internal skeptic.
    No? Why?
    Remember the detail shop guy?
    Jay looked at the dirty mirror behind the bar, got a glimpse of himself looking thoughtful. Ah.

    Net Force HQ Quantico, Virginia

    In the commander’s office, Jay sprawled on the couch, looking at the boss.
    “And what exactly does this reference mean?” Michaels said. “Detail shop?”
    “Well, if the CyberNation folks did do it, they are smarter than I would have guessed.”
    “I’m listening.”
    “Last time I went home to visit my folks, there was a local scandal. A guy had gone into business detailing cars—waxing, buffing,