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by my office when you get a chance, would you? There has been an . . . interesting development here.”
    “Sure thing, Boss.”
    Had to be more interesting than this by-the-numbers virus hunting, Jay figured. He switched off the system and began to shuck the VR gear.
    Colonel Abraham “Abe” Kent was lying on his back in the Net Force gym with his feet propped up on a chair, his knees bent at right angles, doing crunches. He had done four sets of twenty-five, and figured he needed at least two more before his abs burned enough so he had to stop. It wasn’t fun, and it wasn’t interesting, but it was part of the regimen. A man his age didn’t get to slack off on keeping fit. Once it was gone, he might not be able to get it back. The days when he could party all night long and then run the Marine obstacle course faster than anybody else on the base were thirty years past; now he was happy if he could run the course and beat anybody without injuring something.
    He frowned through the ache in his belly muscles, still doing the crunches, alternating now from side to side, touching his left knee with his right elbow, then the right knee with the left. He wasn’t standing with one foot in the grave—at least he hoped not—but once you hit forty, you were on the downside; fifty, and the wrinkles started winning. You had to fight to keep your muscles and flexibility. Not that he had to do a lot of running if he didn’t want—at his rank he could decorate a chair and no one would think anything about it, though he couldn’t see himself doing that.
    After thirty years in the Marine Corps, the switch to commanding Net Force’s military arm was a big change. Technically, he was working for the National Guard now. Nothing wrong with the Guard, he’d known some fine soldiers from that branch, but nobody did things quite like the Corps did.
    And, as it had recently, the memory of the assassin who was also a classical guitarist came back to haunt him. Natadze, the Georgian, remained free, and that grated on Kent. He hated to fail at anything, and even though nobody else blamed him for the man’s escape, he knew he was responsible. Natadze was his job, and sooner or later, he was going to have to do something about it—
    His virgil tweeted. He stopped exercising and picked it up. This was the work phone. Whoever was calling would be more important than a few sit-ups.
    “Colonel Kent here.”
    “Abe, Tom Thorn. Would you drop by my office when you get a minute?”
    “On my way, sir.”
     
    Thorn sat in the conference room. Abe Kent was already there, and he saw Jay Gridley being directed this way by Thorn’s secretary.
    When Jay arrived, Thorn nodded at him. “Gentlemen, Net Force is about to undergo a radical change.”
    Both men looked at him, but neither one spoke.
    “A few minutes ago, John Howard came by to talk to me. What he had to say will be made at least semipublic by tomorrow, but he wanted to give me a heads-up, and I wanted to pass it along. I took the liberty of recording General Howard’s visit, so it would be easier if you saw it for yourself.”
    He touched a control, and the table’s holoprojector clicked on. The holoproj lit the air above the table, visible from any angle. The image showed Howard and Thorn in Thorn’s office.
    “Okay if I record this?” the image of Thorn said.
    “Fine by me, long as it doesn’t leave the building today. By tomorrow, it won’t matter.”
    “Okay. So what’s on your mind, John, that you had to hurry down here?”
    Howard took a deep breath. “I don’t know if you are aware that the National Guard has had something of a budget crunch of late. They’ve got funds for Homeland Security stuff, and regular operations, but special ops, such as Net Force’s military arm, have been cut into deeply.”
    Thorn gave a faint smile. “Since I go up on the Hill to talk budget more than I like, I was aware of that, General.”
    Howard nodded. “Couple that with the fact