The Perfect Year
"You're giving
your security staff fits, you know."
The low, amused
tones of the woman behind him startled Jefferson Smith out of his near-trancelike
contemplation of the cityscape before him. Turning quickly, he relaxed
at the sight of Mari Keita, Secretary General of the UN, smiling at him
and offering him a glass of champagne. With an answering half-smile, Jeff
accepted the flute and moved over a little to allow her to join him on
the balcony.
"Yeah, well,
they've gone over the security perimeter for this party with the proverbial
fine-toothed comb, and I seriously doubt that even the most skillful assassin
could get a shot aimed up here. Del Oro Tower is at least fifteen stories
higher than any other building in the area, and since there are no definite
threats on my life at the moment, I'm going to trust my staff."
The dark-haired
woman leaned against the balcony railing without regard for the wrinkles
it produced in her light blue cocktail dress. "It's nice to see you
actually taking the possibility seriously at last," she replied, sipping
her champagne.
Jeff rolled
his eyes. "Don't start, Mari. You're as bad as Max."
"Max has a point,
I think. Your safety is very important to N-Tek."
"All right,
all right." Smith raised his hands in mock surrender. "It's New Year's
Eve, not the time to have this discussion."
Mari smiled.
"Indeed. And thank you for inviting me to the N-Tek Ball... it's nice to
have a function to attend that ISN'T a veiled diplomatic mixer."
"What are friends
for?"
For a second,
the Secretary was silent, staring at the lights of Del Oro below. "Two-thousand-one,
Jeff. The beginning of a new century, a new millenium. And yet sometimes
it seems as if we're no farther along than when we started."
He sighed. "Believe
me, Mari, I feel that way more often than not... And it's been more than
twenty-five years."
"Twenty-seven,
if you're counting from when we first met." She laughed, tossing dark hair
back over one shoulder. "Do you remember that?"
"How could I
forget? I was nineteen years old and scared stiff, wondering why in the
world Marco Nathanson had hired me to drive him around Del Oro Bay. And
then he brought YOU out, just an intern from the UN, and said he wanted
to give you a "young person's" tour of the city." Jeff sipped reflectively
at his champagne.
"Of course,
now I realize he was sizing me up, trying to figure out if I'd make a good
agent... he must have been waiting for Jim and me to graduate from the
day we first ran into him."
"Well," Mari
told him, amusement in her voice. "I think there may have been a bit more
to it than that... the man WAS an inveterate matchmaker."
Jeff blinked.
"Match- oh boy." Then he laughed. "Yeah, I wouldn't have put it past him,
actually. For a man who spent most of his time dealing with the uglier
side of reality, he was an incurable romantic."
Mari shook her
head. "Twenty-five years. Two green agents and a young diplomat... and
look where we are today, with the weight of the world on our shoulders.
It's a pity Jim isn't here... he'd be very proud of you. Especially how
you've done with Josh."
"Would he?"
Jeff returned. "I'm not sure... sometimes it's like I barely know Josh
anymore..."
"It's called
growing up, Jeff. It happens to all children someday. Although," she gave
him a keen look over her glass, "I'd imagine that having him as an agent
is a bit more difficult."
It was as though
lightning had shot out of the clear sky. Jeff stiffened as if galvanized,
then very slowly turned to fix his longtime friend with an intense, dark
gaze. "Agent?" he managed finally. "I don't know what you're talking about,
Mari."
She dismissed
that with a wave of her hand. "Please, Jeff, I'm not blind. And I've known
you long enough that I can read you like a book. Max Steel, your wonder
agent, is in fact Josh McGrath, your son."
Jeff deflated.
"How? How did you know?"
"Little things...
I've seen a great deal of him in the last two years, since you always appoint
him to my security detail. I've seen the way he sticks to you, far closer
than is common even for bodyguards. And having seen Josh again recently,
I can tell that the height, weight, and approximate bone structure are
correct. And then there's the way he looks at you when you're not watching...
like a man afraid he will lose the only thing remaining that makes his
world make sense. It's much the same way Josh used to watch you when you
first took him in.
"Besides, I've
seen you with him. As hard as you try to be impartial, the worry you feel
is obvious, at least to me. At first I assumed, like most others, that
it was simply because he and Josh were of an age. And then there's the
last thing, and perhaps I realized it only tonight. With his hair so dark,
he looks very much like Jim."
Eyes closed,
Jeff nodded tightly. "Yes, he does," he agreed softly. "Too much so, sometimes.
The way he stands, something he'll say... It's like seeing a ghost, Mari.
And it always surprises me, after all this time, how much it hurts."
His eyes drifted
open and he almost automatically scanned the ballroom for Max. As he had
suspected, he found the younger man standing beside one of the potted plants,
arms folded lazily across his chest as he leaned against the wall. A casual
observer might have assumed he was simply bored with the party, but Jeff
knew better. Those sharp blue eyes were never still, roaming over the crowd,
constantly alert for any threat. In his perfectly tailored tuxedo, Max
looked like nothing so much as a sleek and very predatory panther.
Jeff cursed.
"I brought him to the party tonight so he wouldn't sit around moping,"
he explained. "I wanted him to have fun, not to work security detail. It's
been a hell of a year for him, even if I don't know the whole story. January,
it started when he found, on a mission, the wreck of the ship his mother
died on." His laugh was almost bitter. "Only Max.
"Then something
went wrong on Team Steel... but I don't know what. Luckily they worked
the tension out for themselves... Then Laura, Josh's girlfriend, broke
up with him. He's been having problems in school... problems with his friends...
and then there was Mairot."
Mari winced.
Jeff had called her after that one, in the middle of the night, needing
SOME sympathetic ear to spill his problems to. As a result, she knew the
whole story, from Mairot's defection to the fact that Max had been very
nearly vivisected, saved only by Chuck Marshak's timely intervention.
"Rachel got
promoted, and I think that hurt him, too," Jeff continued. "I haven't heard
the two of them exchange one word that wasn't completely about business
ever since. And there are things he's not telling me... I know that. Whatever's
wrong with his life, I can't fix it. And that's worse than anything else."
"Unfortunately,
it's part of parenthood," Mari reminded him. "It's what happens when your
children grow up."
Jeff sighed,
finishing the last of his champagne. "I suppose you're right. But I don't
have to like it." He offered her his arm.
"Come on, let's
go back in. It's almost midnight, after all, and I think we've made the
security staff anxious enough for one year."
Laughing, she
accepted, and let him steer her back into the ballroom, with all its noise,
and color, and hope. And outside, the lights of the celebrating city outshone
the stars.
The End