Too Wylde (18 page)

"Don't be. You know Jimmy John?"

"Wylde?" Rice paused, a beat too long that
told Smith what he wanted to know. "No. Not really. He's friends
with Detective Capushek."

"Broken nose?"

"Don't ever call her that where she can hear
you."

"Tough one, huh?"

Rice grinned and nodded. "Yeah. She's a
fucking ball buster. Rumor was she was a dyke, but she's not. Just
don't date anybody on the PD. Keeps herself to herself. She was the
only woman ever invited to try out for SWAT. Kicked ass, but
decided not to do it. She's top gun in Special Investigations,
works for LT Fabruzzi, puts her on all the hot shit. Serious
gunfighter, too. She's been in about eleven shootings, all straight
up gunfights, and they buried every one that she ran across."

"How'd she get that broken nose? She's a
beautiful woman you take that away."

"She never talks about it. Rumor was she got
it broke on the job up in Minneapolis, before she came down here.
Don't ask her, either. Pisses her off."

"I'll remember that. Appreciate you driving
me down here."

"No worries. This the place?"

"Yeah."

They pulled into the Motel 6. "Nice spot,"
Rice said, straight faced.

"It's cheap. And they leave the lights on for
you."

They laughed.

"I'll wait here," Rice said.

"Thanks. I'll need a few, got to get my meds,
give myself a shot."

"Need any help?"

"No. I'm good. Thank you."

Smith limped off, moving slowly, the very
picture of a tired, near-crippled man. Till he got in his room.

"Fuck me swinging," he said, the words
hissing between clenched teeth. He grabbed his med go-bag, hit the
series of shots and added a little shot of happy juice to bring him
back to some semblance of nice and calm. It was all he could do not
to go over and push the button the charges stacked neatly in
Pelican cases against the wall and blow himself up and end this
goat fuck.

"How did I get here? How the fuck did I get
here?" he said. "Rhetorical question."

No sterilizing this, with a fucking cop
sitting outside. Pelican cases all locked, gear secured in locked
duffel bags looped with cable locks to the cases. And the motel
management knew better than to go in his room when he wasn't there.
Micro-cams in place. He picked up the spare iPhone, turned it on,
tapped the board to call up the interior of the room from the
remote web-server, set it on frame every two seconds for capture as
well as real-time on call...spare gun, identical Glocker from his
stash, and restock his mag pouches, okay, ready to roll...docs in
place.

Now the part he was dreading.

He took the secure phone, tapped in a number,
which took him to a voice proxy on a VOIP connection, which further
connected him via a VPN tunnel to a server in a place far, far
away...

"402," a mechanical voice answered.

"402, this is Domino 37."

"Domino 37, ID sequence."

He spelled it out, slowly and clearly. "D. O.
M. I. N. O. Tree. Seven."

A moment of silence while voice stress and
vocal signature were run through a complex algorithm against a
detailed computer digitization of his voice.

"Stand by." Silence. Then a human voice. "Go
ahead, Domino."

"Backstop activated. Street crime compromise.
Police involvement."

Smith studied a small hand-held electronic
device he held which blocked any and all electronic bugs that might
be active within 100 yards.

"Understood. Are you injured?"

"No."

"Are you in custody?"

"No. I am being transported for a
statement."

"Fatalities."

"Yes."

A faint clicking, someone tapping on a
keyboard. "Backstop is active, I'll be on the phone. Do you need to
refresh any points?"

"No."

"As soon as you're clear, we'll need a
brief."

"Understood. That will come via voice
packet."

"Yes. Standing by."

"Thank you."

"Yes."

The phone went dead.

"Ah," Mr. Smith, aka Hank, aka a dozen
different names over the years, sighed. "I am well and truly
fucked."

He stared at the blistered egg white that was
his face in the mirror. "It's a fine mess you've landed us in,
Ollie."

And then he put on his best semblance of a
happy face, and went out the door.

Irina Komorov, Meet Kiki

"And who is this?" Irina demanded.

"Your new Best Friend Forever, Rina," Dee
said, throwing her purse into an overstuffed armchair. "Set up over
there, baby."

Irina held both hands up. "Who is this? I
want to know!"

"Kiki, meet Rina. Rina, meet Kiki," Dee
said.

"Hey," Kiki said.

"Who is Kiki?" Irina said.

"Rina, shut up," Dee said. "Kiki is part of
the crew. And, right now, a whole hell of a lot more important than
you. Got it? Kiki is handling the money. You know, the thing that
makes the world go round? The thing you promised me so I would take
care of the loose ends? Which, by the way, we have to talk about,
because one of those loose ends almost bit me in my fine firm ass
earlier today."

Irina had to take that in. It wouldn't do to
lose her temper; she had too much to lose. Slipping the leash here
would not be easy, either.

"You are the computer girl?" Irina said.

Kiki looked at Dee to take her cue, then she
shrugged her birdlike shoulders and said, "Yeah."

"Good," Irina said. "I hear you are
good."

"I am."

"Good."

"Well, now that everything is *good*, we're
going to get the fuck out of Kiki's way and let her work her magic.
Kiki, what do you need?"

"An outlet and some space."

Dee cleared the work-station and set the
chair in front of it. "Here you go. Gotta love a hotel with an
executive work station. You want something to drink? Water?"

"Mountain Dew."

"Honey, that shit will rot...okay. Mountain
Dew. That's what we got room service for. What to eat?"

"M&Ms. Peanut."

Dee Dee laughed. "I suppose you want me to
pick out all the blue ones first, right? You better hack like a
rock star, baby."

"Oh, I do," Kiki said.

"I know you do," Dee Dee said. "So. First. I
want you to run the sourcing on that strip club. Second. I want you
to talk me through the money transfers. Third. I want you to move
some of that money to some different accounts. Can do?"

"Yep."

Irina pulled a chair up. "I can watch?"

"Whatever," Kiki said.

This was important, Irina thought. And I do
not understand how it is done. I am dependent on a little girl to
do this. She leaned forward, studied the monitor intently, the
scrolling code, the multiple windows, the steady clacking of keys,
while Dee Dee called in an order.

"Yes. M&Ms. How hard is that? Fine,
charge it to the room. And not the small packs. If you only have
the small packs send up, oh, ten or so of them. Thank you!"

Dee went into the bathroom.

"How long have you done this?" Irina
said.

"Since I was 6 or 7."

"How old are you now."

"I'm....almost 14."

Irina took that in. "You are very smart. You
are a genius?"

The girl reddened. "I don't know about
that."

"I think maybe you are. I do not know anyone
who can do this. And I know many people."

"It's not so hard."

"If you have a gift."

Kiki shrugged, embarrassed.

"Whatever."

She crouched like a predatory bird over the
keyboard. Irina studied the girl's face. Very young. Smart, too
smart, and very sensitive in the way of young girls who have not
yet known hard things. Though many things seem hard when you are a
young girl. Rina was selling herself at 14, and some part of her,
buried deep inside, was angry at this brilliant young girl, who had
a skill that didn't require her to be on her knees in front of fat
old men.

"Can you teach me this?" Rina said.

Kiki looked up, surprised. "Uh, I dunno. I've
never taught anyone. I don't think that I want to."

"I will pay you."

"She's got a job," Dee Dee said.

Irina turned and looked up at the assassin,
who had been standing there for some time. There was a knock at the
door. Dee went and let a waiter wheel a cart in, who accepted a
signature and left.

"Here you go, kiddo," Dee said. "All the food
groups. Chocolate, sugar, caffeine, sugar, corn syrup, more sugar.
Throw in some red meat and a cube of butter, we'd have it
licked."

"Helps me think," Kiki said defensively.

"You thinking makes me money," Dee said. "So
eat up. Think. Make us money."

Kiki ripped open a pack of peanut M&Ms,
washed them down with a glass of Mountain Dew from a fine goblet.
Grinned and worked the keyboard.

Irina watched her and watched Dee. Wanted
one, and hated the other.

Tony Po

Stared out the window and remembered
Vientiane. Laotian girls, delicate and fine boned, so amazingly
soft, their skin smoother than silk. Black coffee softened with hot
milk on the terrace of a fine hotel. Custom silk suits. The jungle.
Triple canopy and the plod and suck of mud beneath his sandals.
Poppy fields. So beautiful in the light, their orange blossoms
turning to follow the sun. And the long rows of bamboo sheds where
the opium was processed, the poppy bulbs milked.

Sacks of raw opium, and then, later, with the
help of the pragmatists of the CIA, processing into heroin at
select forward camps, conveniently built beside airstrips. The
money paid for guns and equipment and food and shelter for the
families of the stolid brown men who lined up to take their pay and
follow the white men, among them the Tony Poe from whom he had
borrowed his name.

Money.

Stacks of it. And then, later, the
sophistication of moving it around. Though Tony, with the canniness
of a multiple war survivor, made sure to keep a good portion in
gold. Gold people understood. You can take gold anywhere and turn
it into whatever you need. Easy to assay, easy to carry enough to
get a start. Easier than diamonds. That required an expertise you
had to find. Gold you can test with a kit yourself. Diamonds were
harder that way, though a good way to transport significant value
from one place to the next before the crack down on blood diamonds.
And in the age of the Internet, moving money was done with the
touch of a few keys.

Or the uploading of an expensive custom
program.

Like the one he held in his hand.

And what was moved, in this instance, could
not be unmoved. Without him and his willing participation. The
wonders of technology cut both ways, and that was what he was
counting on. He was a survivor, of many battles, many wars, and
many dealings with ruthless men. And he had dealt, ruthlessly, with
those who'd crossed him.

But now...

He was an old man. A toothless lion
surrounded by the young lions, dependent on their tolerance. Or so
they thought. Because what he had, more than any of them, was his
experience and his long memory and his long list of friends for
whom he had done many favors.

And money.

And most of all what they feared the
most.

Secrets.

The things they wanted hidden, he knew. And
he had a way to bring them out into the light.

Nothing frightens the dark-siders more than
that.

Other than losing their money.

He grinned at that thought. From the days of
moving gold to the days of moving electrons. He didn't know how to
do it, but he knew how to talk to the young kids who did, the ones
who were knee-high nieces and nephews as children and who Uncle T
had put through college, paid for their tuition and their spending
money and their nice new shiny cars. They paid it back, as dutiful
family did, with the kind of favors they were trained to do, and
Uncle T had been sure to identify early on the ones who were good
with electronics, who liked to tinker with computers and coding and
hacking and video games, and those ones got extra attention, a
little extra money, and encouragement (and when necessary, a sharp
slap) to keep them in school to get the best computer degrees.

He weighed the flash drive in his hand.

The bosses had sent men to kill him for this.
Because he was tired of working and was ready to retire, but the
sure hand of Tony Po was needed; he was a good earner, the best
earner there was. It wasn't just what he knew, it was who he knew,
and what he knew about them, that maybe him almost untouchable, and
very very rich -- not just in the bank, but in the currency of
favors and access. That, sometimes, maybe most of the time, was
worth more than dollars in the bank. Or stacks of gold heaped high
in a hidden vault.

He was rich in luck, too. This he knew. More
than once he'd felt the urging that was his lucky guardians nudging
him: "Talk to this person, talk to that person." And when he did,
good things happened. Like seeing that beautiful dancer, and just
knowing she would do this favor for him.

Now it was in play.

The program was running.

If they hadn't come for him, he would have
sat with it longer. The problem with a threat is that sooner or
later you have to act on it or demonstrate it in order for it to be
effective. Some people are never cowed, some recover from being
cowed, and some will always be easily cowed by the appearance of
strength or a threat.

Tony had been threatened by experts. His body
bore the scars of a man who'd endured more than one violent
encounter. They had come to him to make good on their threat. And
he, in turn, had made good on his. So now it was in play.

"Hey!" he said to his bodyguard. "You better
get some more friends over here. I don't think those guys are going
to let this go."