Robert Ferrigno - Sins of the Assassin

“What did you mean, Baby and Gravenholtz didn’t have everything?”

“Have you had the fried chicken? I kind of got hooked on that stuff-Hey! Lay off.”

“I asked you a question,” said Rakkim.

Leo rubbed his arm. “You should learn to appreciate me.” He punched in his food order. The computer beeped: sorry, unavailable. Leo snorted, accessed the main control panel as his fingers flew over the touchscreen: order received. He turned to Rakkim. “I think a little respect is in order, that’s all. I mean, I did my job.”

“I said Baby and Gravenholtz had the canister.” Rakkim picked up the fork, spun it around two fingers. “You said they didn’t have everything.” He pressed his fingers together, bent the fork in half. “So, Leo…this is the time for you to use that big brain of yours, look into my eyes, and tell me what the fuck you’re talking about.”

“Sure.” Leo nodded. “No need to get all macho opera about…okay, okay. Gravenholtz and Baby have the isotope, which is a huge loss for us, granted, but without the data on the cores, they can’t make a hafnium bomb. The isotope might as well be cat litter.”

“I told you, they have the cores.”

Leo handed Rakkim the fork. “Could you straighten this out for me, please?” Leo waited. “They’ve got the cores, but they don’t have the data on the cores.” He beamed. “I changed all the critical formulations while I downloaded them. The data is so tangled up they’ll never be able to untie it.”

The auto-waiter chimed.

Leo jumped up, retrieved his double order of fried chicken.

“You…encrypted the data while you were downloading it?” said Rakkim.

“Not exactly encrypted it, quite a bit more secure than that actually, but in your terms…yes.” Leo crunched into a fried chicken leg. “I’m good. I’m even better than my dad thought.”

“You’ve been in a coma for the last three days. That’s how good you are.”

Leo wiped grease off his chin. “I’m not perfect. Yet.”

Rakkim watched him eat. “So, it’s a draw. We can’t use the information in your head without the isotope, and the isotope is useless without your information.”

“That’s what I said.”

“So, it’s a stalemate?”

Leo gnawed at a thigh, the fried skin crackling off in chunks. “I despise a stalemate. That’s for gutless grand masters afraid to lose. It’s an insult to the game. I really wish you had been able to hang on to the isotope. No offense.”

Rakkim glanced at his watch. He’d have to message Sarah at their next stop so she could update the president with the good news.

“What about Mr. Moseby?” said Leo.

“He had a rough time, but he’s going to be okay-”

“I don’t mean that. I mean what did he think of me? Was he impressed?” He licked his fingers. A bit of chicken was stuck to the corner of his mouth. “I intend to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage, so I hope I made a good impression.”

“Oh, yeah. He was…just totally…overwhelmed.”

Leo grinned, head bobbing. “I get that a lot.”

Rakkim watched him. “Leo…are you really okay?”

“I’m way beyond okay.” Leo belched. Reached for a chicken wing. “I heard these two guys talking back at the Colonel’s camp…they said the best aphrodisiac in the world is where you beat a raw egg into a lukewarm Coca-Cola.” He gestured with the chicken wing. “Got to be a fertile egg and a lukewarm Coke. Then you eat a raw oyster and wash it down with the egg’n’Coke and wango. They didn’t say aphrodisiac, of course. They said ‘blue-steel hard-on,’ but-”

“Kid, the last thing you need is an aphrodisiac.”

“I wasn’t talking about me.” Leo slid his teeth over the wing, stripped the meat away in one smooth movement. “I meant you. I’m not even at my sexual peak yet, but you, I mean you got to be over thirty years old.” He chewed with his mouth open. “Fedayeen, big deal, you’re still on the downward slope.”

Rakkim smiled at him. “Just one raw egg in the Coke?”

“That’s all it takes. According to these two guys.” Leo peered out the window, watched the barren landscape whip past. “I’ve been thinking about Baby. She…she was really something, wasn’t she?”

Rakkim remembered the last time he had seen her, Baby pulling Gravenholtz into the chopper, her face lit up, triumphant.

“I think she liked you,” said Leo. “I think maybe you kind of liked her too.” He drew an intricate geometric figure on the glass with his fingertip. “I notice things, Rikki. People think I don’t see what’s going on, but I do.”

“Baby’s beautiful. So is a cobra. I wouldn’t want to take either of them to bed.”

Leo shook his head, continued with his drawing, one of those multi-sided shapes that Leanne had made out of paper. “The problem isn’t that I noticed, Rikki. That problem is that she noticed too.”

Rakkim stayed silent for a few miles, listening to the whoosh of air as the train raced on. “Leo?”

“Uh-huh.”

“What happens when the Chinese realize the data cores are useless?”

“It might take them a while,” said Leo, making minute additions to the geometric figure he had drawn on the window.

“But when they do?”

Leo looked over at Rakkim. “Well…they’ll probably be annoyed at Baby and Mr. Gravenholtz.”

“Definitely annoyed, but that won’t stop them Chinese. You’ve got the data that they need in your head. You’re the key player now.”

“You’re just realizing that?”

“It’s not necessarily something to be happy about. It puts you in danger.”

“I’m not scared.”

“Then, Leo, you’re not as smart as you think you are.”

Gravenholtz hated Miami. He had been waiting three days to meet Fong, the Chinese ambassador to Nuevo Florida, and still no word from Baby when it was going to happen.

Miami was hot and sticky, and everyone spoke too fast in this mixed-up language, part Spanish and part English, so that he couldn’t understand but every second or third word. Fuck ’em. He understood well enough that a redhead who burned, but didn’t tan, was at the low end of the totem pole. Even the white people were brown as coconuts, and they were the ones giving him the dirtiest looks. Hard to imagine it was once part of the US of A. Shows you what can happen if you let folks push you around. Meanwhile, Baby acted as if she were right at home, speaking the lingo as well as anyone, which was weird for a country girl born and raised in Dickson, Tennessee. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Everything about Baby turned out to be different from what he supposed. Shit, the Colonel wouldn’t have believed it, but Gravenholtz had seen the proof.

Three days ago, Royce had set the Chinese chopper down in the middle of the Everglades, right where Baby said to, and before the blades hardly slowed, all these Asian guys with guns stepped out of the palmettos.

Royce was about to open up with the Gatlings and blow these gooks to ground chuck when Baby patted his hand, said, Don’t worry, they’re Fong’s men. Deeks and Cunningham were relieved, but Gravenholtz was still pissed about having to caravan to the embassy, and worried about his wounds getting infected. Fuck the ambassador and his fear of creating a diplomatic incident, Gravenholtz didn’t like the idea of landing in a god-damn swamp. He scratched the blood crusted along his back and side, patted the bandage on the ear that Rikki had half sliced off. If there was a God above, which he fucking doubted, Gravenholtz prayed for another chance to go one-on-one with that guy. He’d hold himself back and make Rikki suffer-pounding out his teeth, beating his bones to jelly, leaving the vital organs for last.