Tad Williams - The Dragons of Ordinary Farm

Colin hadn’t really expected a helicopter, let alone the biggest helicopter he’d ever seen. Its dark hide gleamed like the shell of a beetle as it crouched on the hilltop half a mile from the road, its rotors lazily turning. It had no markings, but Colin had a feeling that the darker patch on its side was something covering a corporate logo-Stillman’s Mission Software, most likely. His stomach tightened. Several men stood waiting outside the copter’s open bay door.

Colin wasn’t simply going to walk up to them with the treasure in his hands, of course. He wasn’t a fool. He’d read plenty of spy novels and seen plenty of movies and he knew all about double crosses. He’d even thought about one of his own, substituting something for the real dragon egg before selling it, so he certainly didn’t trust Jude Modesto not to cheat him. While he was still in the shadows he took off the heavy backpack and hung it over the branch of a tree, high enough to be almost impossible to see in the dim light, and counted the trees as he fol lowed the deer path to the edge of the clearing and out into the open.

“You’re late,” said Jude Modesto. The fat man was trying to sound like an important fellow who’d been kept waiting, but he wasn’t very convincing. Stillman and his two bodyguards stood by the copter, the same two huge men who were only a couple of bad haircuts and two pairs of Lycra shorts away from looking like professional wrestlers.

“You changed the meeting time,” Colin said flatly. “It wasn’t easy for me to rearrange things.” Unlike Modesto, Colin knew that the less emotion you put into your voice, the less you had to worry about giving away how you really felt. Which, in his case, was nervous. He’d just noticed that both of the bodyguards were wearing holsters over their dark shirts. Holsters with guns in them.

Well, Needle, he reminded himself, you wanted to play with the big boys.

“And this must be… your client,” Colin said out loud, remembering that he wasn’t supposed to know what Ed Stillman looked like. But before Modesto could reply, the silver-haired man in polo shirt, shorts, and hiking boots pushed himself away from the steep side of the helicopter-it looked even bigger from up close, like a flying battleship-and stepped forward. He looked as though he was coming to shake Colin’s hand, but his own hands never left his pocket.

“And this must be the enterprising young man you told me about, Jude,” said Stillman. “He reminds me a little bit of myself when I was that age, I must say.” He smiled, showing perfect white teeth. “I’m very interested in what you claim to have to offer.” Up close, in the light from the chopper, he looked older than on first impression. Colin found himself wondering whether despite his easy, graceful movements, Stillman might be older than Gideon. “And I’m just as interested to know where you got it.”

“Uh-uh,” Colin said, trying to sound calm but tough. “I don’t claim, I don’t explain. That was part of the deal-no questions. I know you checked out that sample or you wouldn’t be here. Where that sample and the sale item both came from is a secret. Put it this way-it came back from a very special expedition.”

“And where is… the sale item?” asked Ed Stillman, as if he’d seen all the same movies and read the same books.

“Where’s the money?”

The client laughed. “Deuce-the suitcase?”

One of the bodyguards reached into the helicopter and produced a briefcase. He snapped it open and held it out. Colin could see nothing but rows of Ben Franklin’s face-one-hundred-dollar bills in bound piles.

“Five hundred thousand, right?” said Stillman.

“Please, Mr. St… I mean, please, sir, let me handle this!” Jude Modesto flapped his hands in frustration. “It’s my job.”

“Your job is done,” said Stillman, then he turned to Colin with a wide smile. “So do we have a deal? You can count the money if you want.”

Colin reached out and lifted up a bundle at random, fanned it as he’d seen in many films, then put it down and tested another. His heart was beating so fast he thought he might not be able to speak, so at first he just nodded. “Looks fine,” he said at last, gruffly.

“Then take it. Where’s my… sale item?”

“I’ll go get it.” Colin closed the briefcase, gripped its handle tight, and started toward the trees. “I’m not going to run off with the money,” he told Stillman. “I promise.”

The man in the polo shirt laughed again, as if this was turning out to be far more entertaining and enjoyable than he’d ever hoped. “No tricks, then? All right, I’m glad to hear it. And if you give me what’s promised, you’ll get to keep that suitcase and the money in it. After all, that’s how men like us do business.”

Colin hurried to the trees, trying to remember if he’d done everything right. He’d held back the egg until he’d seen the money. He’d checked the briefcase to make sure it wasn’t just a few real bills on top of bundles of cut-up newspaper or something-and here it was in his hands! Half a million bucks! All he had to do now was get the money into the bank. He wasn’t sure how he was going to explain it to his mother and Gideon when he suddenly produced enough money to save the farm, but he didn’t have to come up with an explanation right away. He could always claim he’d won the lottery. His mother might not believe it, but she’d know better than to start making a fuss about it, and Gideon would be too grateful to ask many questions.

Take that, Jenkins kids! he thought as he counted his way to the tree where the backpack hung. One in the eye for you, eh! Maybe he’d even let them come visit sometimes once Gideon was gone and the farm was his. After all, it was better to keep your enemies close-and quiet. Tyler and Lucinda Jenkins were now part of a very elite group, the tiny number of people who knew the important secrets of Ordinary Farm.

Well, knew some of the important secrets. Colin grinned.

He almost left the briefcase with the money in it back in the trees, but couldn’t bear to think of it being out of his hands that long. Instead he dangled it awkwardly from his fingers as he struggled to carry it and the heavy backpack to the helicopter.

“Here it is,” he said as he reached Stillman, who took the egg from him. The helicopter’s blades were turning a little less lazily now, as if the great crouching thing were waking up.

Stillman looked inside the backpack. “Good,” he said. “Now, get in.”

Colin stood waiting for Modesto and the client’s bodyguards to do as their boss had ordered, then realized that the billionaire in the khaki shorts was looking at him. The smile was still there, but it didn’t come close to reaching the man’s eyes.

“I said, get in.”

“What are you talking about?” Colin took a few steps back, but a huge hand curled around his bicep. One of the bodyguards had moved in behind him. “What’s going on?”

“ We’re going on,” said the billionaire. “And you’re coming with us. I’ve got lots of questions to ask about your pal Gideon Goldring and what he’s been doing here all these years in the middle of nowhere-and you’ve got lots of answers you’re going to give me.” Stillman chuckled and patted the side of the helicopter. “Besides, wouldn’t you like to ride on this baby, Colin? It’s a LePage S-99, you know. Top of the line-they make basically the same model for the military. You’ve heard of a Thunderbird gunship, haven’t you?”

“But you said no tricks!”

The billionaire rolled his eyes. “Come now, Colin-you’re a big boy. What kind of crap is that, ‘no tricks’? Since when do people dealing in illegally smuggled dinosaur eggs-and of an undiscovered saurian, to boot!-since when do people doing things like that trust each other? Give me a break! Haven’t you ever heard the old saying, ‘There’s no honor among thieves’?”