Steven James - The Queen

To love your children you must leave them more than the legacy of your self-indulgence, the devastation of a world raped of its dignity to make your life more comfortable, more convenient, more consumer-friendly. We are committed to leaving the next generation a planet well cared for, a garden well tended. That is what we strive for. That is why we act.

Despite their muddied philosophical roots and alleged hacktivism, Eco-Tech’s goal was certainly noble-fighting for more sustainable lifestyles and more conscientious, environmentally friendly corporate and political policies.

At first Alexei wondered if maybe they were here to combat logging of old growth forests in the area, but he found confirmation online that virgin forests in Wisconsin were now pretty much all part of national forest land and weren’t logged at all.

Still, something had to be here in this area or else Valkyrie would not have hired him to get access codes from Rear Admiral Colberg, would not have assigned him to come here to the middle of nowhere to deliver two million dollars.

In preparation for his meeting, Alexei slipped the one weapon he carried, his specially modified spring-loaded bone injection gun, into his pocket.

For close-quarters combat the device was one of the most useful weapons he’d found.

Not much larger than a Mini Maglite flashlight, the bone gun was typically used by paramedics to quickly start IVs, especially in patients in cardiac arrest or with difficult-to-locate veins. Because of the amount of force generated at the tip, it easily perforates bone and is used to implant a needle into the marrow, usually below the kneecap. After removing the needle, a catheter is left behind and then used to administer the appropriate drug.

However, Alexei didn’t typically use his bone gun to implant a catheter to administer medication. These days, when circumstances dictated it, he used it on adversaries to break bones, and in some cases, shatter them entirely.

His bone gun had been modified so that if used properly it could cripple, or even kill-although he had never gone that far with it. But he had used it twice on the C7 vertebral prominence, once while on an assignment in Amman, another time in New Delhi.

That vertebra was low enough to allow the subject to continue to breathe on his own, but that was about all he would ever be able to do on his own again. After six months both men on whom he had used the bone gun in this manner were still alive. Thinking of them in that condition had been unpleasant for Alexei, and he had anonymously paid for both men’s medical bills.

Now, on his laptop, he pulled up satellite images of the region surrounding the Schoenberg Inn and got started connecting the uplink from the transmitter in the bag to the GPS tracking device.

Unfortunately, fifteen minutes ago when Patrick called her, Tessa was already on her way to Wisconsin.

She’d decided not to bring that up.

The Walker Art Center had been closed for some sort of renovation, and the more she thought about it, the more she realized she wanted to see Sean, whom she almost never spent time with, and at least get a chance to finally meet her stepaunt. It’d be nice, after all, to connect a little more with Patrick’s family, the only one she had left.

Maybe she could even find out why Patrick and his brother didn’t exactly get on famously with each other. She’d always been curious about that.

Besides, she knew that Patrick wanted to see her, and she figured she’d have time to cruise around the Cities a little on Sunday before flying back home to Denver in the evening.

A little while ago it had started to snow, but the roads looked good to her.

Only a dusting so far.

Even if the trip took a little longer than four hours, as long as the snow didn’t slow her down too much, she would arrive in plenty of time for supper.

Tessa merged onto I-35 and headed north.

As Jake drove away, I walked up the snow-packed path toward the historic Northwoods Supper Club.

I wore my new camouflage coat, the only jacket the combination gas station/convenience store/gift shop had in my size. I didn’t really want to think about what Tessa might have to say about how stylin’ I was.

On the way here Amber had called to confirm the time, and when I asked about the location, she’d launched into a short history of the place: the site of the Northwoods Supper Club had been used as a lumberjack mess hall nearly one hundred years ago before it burned down in the 1970s. The current restaurant had emerged from the ashes and had benefited from the nostalgia of the site’s past.

A large vinyl sign hung out front with a picture of a man dressed in a blaze orange jacket eyeing down the barrel of a gun. Bold lettering announced “Welcome Hunters.” I wondered which hunting season was open in the middle of January. Bear maybe. Possibly small game-squirrels, rabbits.

I pressed the door open and stepped inside.

Huge pine logs formed the walls, and stout handmade oak tables and chairs filled the restaurant. A bar, peppered with a few customers in snowmobile suit overalls and flannel shirts, took up most of the west wall. Though I doubted it was still legal to smoke in the restaurant, the residual smell of years of cigarette smoke lingered in the air.

More than a dozen broad-antlered whitetail deer heads and one elk head had been mounted on the walls of the restaurant. Tessa, to put it mildly, was not an advocate of sport hunting, and I could only imagine her reaction walking into a place like this. I remembered the two trophy bucks mounted in Sean’s living room and wondered how I was going to navigate that situation if she did end up making it over here, but then I saw Amber seated alone near a window at the far end of the restaurant, and my thoughts of how to deal with Tessa’s potential reaction to mounted deer heads disappeared.

Amber had glanced down at her menu, and the sunlight from the window warmed her face, giving her a soft, warm glow, making her seem almost otherworldly. Angelic.

She hadn’t changed much since I’d last seen her three years ago. Amber was thirty-three now but looked at least five years younger. I’d never thought of her as beautiful in the way that a movie starlet or a model is-with perfect features smoothed over with careful layers of makeup. Rather, she made up for her relatively anonymous looks with an infectious vitality, a contagious love for life, and a disarming flirtiness that she tended to weave, without realizing it, into her frequent and endearing smiles.

She set the menu aside and looked around. When she saw me, her eyes lit up. “Pat!” I gave her a small wave and made my way to her table. She’d already stood to greet me by the time I arrived.

And then she was in my arms. Surprisingly, she still wore the same perfume-gentle and delicate and femininely alluring. The scent seemed so familiar to me. I backed away just as she turned her cheek for me to give her a kiss of greeting. Though it might have been impolite, I refrained, said instead, “It’s good to see you.”

“You too.”

I gestured for her to have a seat, but she hesitated slightly, and we ended up sitting down almost simultaneously, as if we’d planned it that way. This brought a light smile from her.

“Well.” She placed both of her hands palm-down on the table as if she were accentuating that we were officially beginning our conversation. Her coral fingernail polish looked freshly touched up. “We have a lot of catching up to do. Where to begin?”

“I’m not sure.” I looked around the restaurant, even though I’d already scanned it when I walked in. “Is Sean here?”

“He’s coming. Should be here any minute.”

“Okay.”