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  The doctor leaned forward in his chair. “Is that his wife?”

  “No, his mother,” Mitchell said.

  “I can do it if you wish. Occupational hazard. You get used to delivering bad news.”

  Sandovan stood up to leave. “It’s okay, doc. We know her. I think we’d better go tell her face to face. Then we’ll give her a ride down here. She’s a sweet lady. We’d appreciate it if you could talk to her personally.”

  The doctor stood up and nodded. “I will, certainly.” He paused for a moment. “What kind of people can do this to another human being?”

  Mitchell and Sandovan headed for the door. Sandovan looked back at the doc and said, “When we find out, we’ll let you know.”

  The men walked without talking back to their car. Sandovan drove slowly, as if forestalling the inevitable. After ten minutes in the car, Mitchell spoke. “Fuck around Sandman. Who’s deranged enough to do something like that?”

  Mitchell signaled to exit the expressway. “Remember that pot honcho? The guy who Hernandez said was like the CEO of a criminal corporation? I think this sounds like something he’d do.”

  “But Rammi couldn’t be a competitor of his. Why go to such lengths to get rid of a kid? These guys usually shoot ‘em or knife ‘em. What’s the sense in doing it this way?”

  Sandovan snapped at him. “How the fuck do I know? Do I look like a shrink? The only time I have someone on my couch is when you’re over watching football and drinking my beer!”

  More silence. They approached Mrs. Vargas’s neighborhood. Three small children were picking flowers from a patch of clover two houses down. “Hey,” Sandovan said. “Sorry I snapped. Guess I’m not looking forward to this conversation.”

  Mitchell looked at the well-kept house, with the flowers and the tidy lawn. He sighed. “I know. It’s going to be harsh. Not like this woman’s had an easy life so far.”

  The three children wandered past their car, each clutching a tiny bunch of flowers. Mitchell stepped out of the car, and he and Sandovan started up the walkway to the Vargas house. He watched the kids trundle down the sidewalk.

  Some mothers get bouquets, Mitchell thought, others get bricks.

  22

  The Colonel noticed his men were restless. They had been lying low for three straight days after raiding the latest house. He tried to keep their minds sharp and the morale high. Luis and Arturo were competing to see who could field strip and reassemble their weapons the fastest. Hector and Ramon were engaged in a contest of their own, to see who could do the most handstand pushups. Diego had pirated the signal from a nearby coffeehouse Wi-Fi network, so they could surf the Internet and get the news online.

  They noticed the news report of an incident at the zoo, but thought nothing of it since the media were reporting that it was a tragic accident. The Colonel and Andre were looking at a story on Diego’s laptop computer detailing the upcoming visit of Russian billionaire Pyotr Ptushko to Salento. The busy itinerary for the three-day visit to the US included a parade, trade negotiations, a dinner with the President and various other dignitaries, and some sightseeing.

  “Are you sure he is the man?” Andre said.

  The Colonel reread the last few paragraphs of the article. “Yes. This is the man,” he said.

  “He’s young.”

  “He looks young. He is actually the same age as I am.”

  “Really?” Andre said.

  The Colonel smiled. “Perhaps if he had spent as much time in the jungle as I have. Or been shot three times. Or endured seven weeks in the basement cell of the government’s secret political prison. Then he would have as many laugh lines as I have.”

  Andre looked at the scars on the Colonel’s face and hands. He chose his words carefully. “Did we take too long, Commandante? Perhaps we should have come for you sooner?”

  The Colonel shook his head. “No, Andre. The mission you and the others planned and executed was complex. There were many factors you couldn’t control. That’s why it cost us Felix and Hervé. But the important thing is that we are now free to plan the return to our country. We can expose the corruption of the new Prime Minister and restore integrity to the people’s government.”

  He looked at the photos accompanying the news report. Together they were able to get a sense of Ptushko’s protection detail.

  “I would like to meet this one,” Andre said. The photo was of Ptushko and Kara Novotna. In the background there were at least three men engaged in crowd control.

  “Why her, Andre?” the Colonel mused.

  “I like her nose. A woman like that could probably afford to have her nose fixed. But she’s kept it that way for a reason.”

  The Colonel looked at the photo more closely. “She could probably give you a nose like that. She has the deltoid development of someone who has spent a lot of time working the heavy bag.”

  Andre laughed. “You don’t think my black belt would be enough for her?”

  “I think she’d tie that black belt around your neck.”

  They agreed to disagree on the merits of wooing Kara Novotna. Once the Colonel and Andre were finished reading the story and looking at the photos of Ptushko, the men gathered to discuss their raid on the next house. They also did a debrief of the previous assault. It was the first where they had come up against an armed—although not overly dangerous—member of Otis Gaverill’s organization.

  “When Ramon jacked a round into his shotgun and woke the kid up, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a man’s eyes open that wide!” Luis said.

  “I thought they were both going to soil the bed sheets,” Ramon added.

  Barros shook his head. “To a person who has never had a weapon pointed at them, the first time is always terrifying. We have all fought together so much, we have long forgotten the first time we faced the threat of real physical violence.”

  Andre disagreed. “I remember the first time.”

  “Tell us, brother Andre,” said Barros.

  Andre continued. “I was only seven years old. A gang of bandits came down from the hills and into our village. One of the bandits raped my mother in the village square. I picked up a rock and hit him in the back with it. He put a sawed-off shotgun up against my forehead and was going to pull the trigger.”

  “What happened?” Luis said.

  “Their leader stopped him. But they took everything we had of value, except an old Enfield rifle my father had left to me. It was hidden in oilskins between some rocks near the pasture where our sheep grazed, so we could shoot the wolves. I got the rifle and found the bandits’ camp. When I saw the man who raped my mother, I put a bullet in his head.”

  The other men had never heard this story from Andre. They were rapt.

  “They must have caught you,” Ramon said.

  “Yes. They did. I could shoot better than any of them. But I could not run better,” he smiled. “They caught me within minutes, as I tried to scramble down the hillside back to the village.”

  “And?” The Colonel asked.

  “The two men who captured me wanted to kill me. But the leader was impressed with my shooting. I had killed the rapist with a single head shot from two hundred yards. He gave me some money and told me to take my mother and move into the town. His cousin was a schoolteacher there, and she took us in. That is how I eventually made my way into the army. And where I first served under the Colonel.”

  The Colonel nodded.

  Barros rubbed at the permanent grease stains on his fingers absentmindedly. “It is interesting how our paths eventually all crossed, considering the different circumstances we came from.”

  “I just have one question,” Diego said.

  “What is it?” said Andre.

  “Whatever happened to the sheep?” Diego asked.

  There was a pause, and everyone laughed. “Without me there to protect them,” Andre said, “I’m sure they were taken by the wolves or the bandits. Perhaps the remaining villagers had a giant mutton stew with groundnuts,
cassava, and peppers.”

  That got the men talking about food. They debated whose regional cuisine was the best, and the Colonel let the conversation go. It was good that the men were relaxing, their minds off high alert. He knew that their war with Otis Gaverill and his own soldiers was going to intensify. His mind was reeling with new tactics, ruses, and defensive measures. They only had another month to fulfill their plan and leave the country. It was time to escalate matters.

  Mitchell and Sandovan’s visit to Mrs. Vargas’s house had gone just as they feared. While she was a strong woman, the reality that her son had been critically injured because of his involvement with criminals was overwhelming for her. They had stayed for an hour. Then they gave her the doctor’s card and told her that he would let her know when Rammi was well enough to receive visitors. She insisted on calling him right away and going down to the hospital, so they drove her in their car.

  Back at the precinct, Mitchell called Mya and told her the bad news.

  “That poor woman,” she said. “As if she didn’t have enough to deal with.”

  “Yeah, it’s hard for her because she doesn’t have anyone to lean on,” Mitchell said.

  “The media are reporting that the zoo thing was an accident,” Mya said. “They’re saying some drunk kids got into the zoo after hours and were teasing the tiger when one of them fell in.”

  “That’s the story that the zoo, the mayor, and the police commissioner decided to float for the moment. It’ll keep the hysteria down while we try to make some sense of this.”

  Mya paused. Mitchell knew what was coming.

  “Be careful.”

  “I will.”

  Mya headed into the update meeting on the Zealot Jeans alternate reality game. The game had kicked off a week prior and was starting to gain traction in the blogosphere. Seven major cities already had online discussion forums going as to what the game might evolve into and who was orchestrating it. There were over nine hundred people actively playing, and even more observing how those people were getting from stage to stage.

  One of the most difficult levels of the game would take place in two dozen major metropolitan areas simultaneously. The team had found the hippest clubs frequented by the demographic that Zealot Jeans wanted to attract. They enlisted the help of the most reputable club promoters to generate advance buzz, and were recruiting two dozen young men and women. One couple would be assigned to attend each club. The couple would be wearing Z jeans and skin-tight black tee shirts. At precisely 1:11 a.m. on the 1st of November—the 11th month—the clubs’ lighting systems would switch to a strobe of a special wavelength for exactly one minute. The couples would get up and dance at a prominent place in the clubs, and the strobe would reveal a QR code on the front of their shirts.

  Anyone with a cell phone camera who had the presence of mind to capture the code would be immediately sent to the mobile web site of a limousine company in the city. A limo would be sent to the club for them and would whisk them off to an undisclosed location. At that location they would be served an exquisite late-night meal, and receive a clue to the next level of the game.

  The logistics of that stage were discussed in detail, right down to the chefs who would be hired for the meals and the criteria for the “undisclosed locations.” The next item on the meeting agenda was the casting of the attractive midnight messenger woman who would deliver pairs of Z jeans to the game players who achieved new levels. The door to the conference room opened, and Mya was surprised to see Garrett Lawrence walk in.

  “Garrett. What are you doing here?” she asked.

  “Well, I don’t have Shalimar on my plate anymore, thanks to Jak’s table dive. And Arlo mentioned the team was going to be casting beautiful women. I’ve got some expertise in that area, so I figured I’d sit in.”

  At this, Mya noticed Arlo roll his eyes. Two of the women around the conference table glanced at each other. One of them, Sisha Wong, looked quite shaken. Mya made a mental note to ask Sisha if she was okay.

  Mya turned her attention to Lawrence. “Why don’t I ask Dunn to put you on the agency’s feminine hygiene account. I’ve already heard your name come up in a number of conversations about douchebags.”

  She said it perfectly deadpan. A few people snickered. Lawrence turned beet red for a moment but recovered. “Arlo, your call,” he said.

  Arlo Mcphee hesitated. Technically Garrett Lawrence was higher on the agency food chain, so he didn’t want to piss him off. “I don’t mind either way, Garrett. But just don’t put any hours against the docket. This budget is already stretched, and your hourly rate will eat into it pretty fast.”

  “No problemo,” Lawrence said. He leaned back in his chair as the lights dimmed in the room.

  A projector lit up as a screen descended from the ceiling. Arlo began to run through a series of photos he’d culled from casting agents and modeling agencies in Europe. The women ran the gamut from classical beauties to very edgy looking young women who looked like they belonged in psychosis-fueled nightmares.

  They discussed the merits of each, as if appraising art.

  Sisha Wong was clearly thrown off by Lawrence’s presence. Arlo changed images and a high-contrast black and white shot of a woman in a black bra and panties appeared. She was holding a machete and the tail section of some sort of large fish, which had been hacked off, presumably by the machete.

  “Hellooo,” Garrett leered.

  Sisha excused herself and walked out of the room. Mya waited a moment, then picked up her water bottle and shook it as if checking the level. “I’ll be right back. Don’t wait for me though, Arlo,” she said.

  Mya followed Sisha back to her office. She went in and closed the door behind her.

  “Hey Sish, what’s up?”

  Sisha was surprised to see her. And more surprised that she’d closed the door.

  “Hi Mya. Um, not much. I just needed some air.”

  Mya sat down. “Garrett’s a bit hard to take, isn’t he?”

  “Oh, I don’t pay him any attention.”

  “I could tell you were upset when he came into the casting session. Anything you’d like to talk about?”

  Sisha shook her head. “No. No, that’s okay.”

  Mya stood up to go. “I know we don’t know each other all that well. But if you ever want to chat, don’t hesitate to swing by my office. We can grab lunch some time if you like.”

  Sisha brightened at the invitation. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Mya went back to the conference room, taking care to refill her water bottle. Arlo showed her the three finalists they’d chosen. All were striking looking women. One of them had an elaborate bit of ritual scarification on the skin of her upper left arm. Number two was well over six feet tall and dressed like a Masai. The third finalist was the woman in the black lingerie with the machete.

  “If we want someone truly memorable,” said Leah Jacobs, “I’d go with the girl who has the scars on her arm.”

  Leah was the woman Sisha had glanced at when Garrett crashed the meeting.

  Yann Turturro, an art director, agreed. “If she showed up at my door unannounced in the middle of the night, I’d remember her.”

  Garrett began to say something, and Arlo cut him off. “Let’s go around the room and take a straight-up show of hands.”

  The girl with the tribal scars turned out to be the overwhelming choice. Lawrence predictably voted for the woman in the black lingerie, but he wasn’t part of the tally anyway. As the meeting wrapped, Leah Jacobs sidled up next to Mya. “Did you talk to Sisha?”

  Mya steered her to one side of the door. “I tried. We agreed to do lunch some time.”

  “I think that would be a very good idea,” Leah said.

  23

  Otis, Curtis, and J.A. were in a meeting with Phineas, the organization’s weapons master. They had run through a number of alternative ballistic countermeasures for the grow houses after agreeing that all the homes with garages would ha
ve their garage door emergency pulls disabled. One of the most promising of the new security tactics was an explosive entryway. The door frames inside every home would be lined with shrapnel and explosives. If entry was forced in any way, the bomb would detonate. The only way to gain safe entry was to disarm the bomb by ringing the doorbell with four short presses of the button, then using the key to the house.

  “I like it,” said Otis. “It’s easy to remember, and packs a punch.”

  “We’ll just have to ensure that everyone does remember,” J.A. said. “It’ll mean hiring people of a greater intelligence than Vargas.”

  “Who’s Vargas?” Otis asked.

  “The kid you turned into cat food,” Curtis reminded him.

  “Ah yes. What was the reaction of the men to the motivational video?”

  “The importance of vigilance was reinforced,” J.A. said.

  Curtis turned to Otis. “Nine of the guys actually threw up when they watched the footage. Including Jesse Murdoch.”

  Murdoch was one of Otis’s toughest soldiers. He had done everything from break the arms of people skimming the crop to hit and runs with stolen vehicles.

  Otis laughed. “I’ll have to figure out some way to let Jesse know I heard he lost his lunch. Maybe I’ll send him an MP3 of ‘Eye of the Tiger.’”

  Phineas covered the last of the ideas for protecting their houses, then lifted an oak box from his briefcase and put it on the table. “Let’s talk ordnance,” he said.

  He flipped the brass latches on the box and opened it.

  “This is a Schall semi-automatic, chambered in nine millimeter. It is precision-milled out of solid steel, blued, and plasma coated. Holds ten in the mag and one in the port. They’re pricy, but I’m recommending that everyone in the upper tier of the organization carry one. It’s the most accurate, most reliable sidearm I’ve ever tested.”

  “What’s the damage?” Curtis inquired.

  “I can get ‘em for three thousand apiece. And I’ve also sourced ammo that passed muster for stopping power and fires great groups right out of the box.”

  “Done,” Otis said. “I want everyone to know we’re serious.”