Too Wylde (20 page)

"Uh, no," Guz said. "I'm heterosexual."

Nate tilted his head the other way. "Uh,
okay. Sure. Whatever you want, man. Friend of Deon and Jimmy,
friend of mine. I'll play Psycho Killer, The Boxer, you want The
Star Spangled Banner, I'll play that, too."

"Do you know The Frogman Song?"

"Uh, no."

"Never mind," Guz said. "Psycho Killer would
be good. Thanks."

"I'll get one of the girls to dedicate it to
you."

"Thank you!" Guz said. "So. How we gonna do
this thing?"

Deon looked at him. "Psycho Killer?"

"Classic song," Guz said. "This guy Stuart
Davis does an acoustic version, it's great."

Deon and I looked at each other.

"Guz," I said. "You are a man of deep and
abiding mystery."

"What?" Guz said.

Mr. Smith, aka Hank

Stared at the walls of his motel room. The
interview at the police station had gone surprisingly well. He'd
never done one before. His "attorney" on the other end of the
speaker-phone had done a bang up job of getting straight to it: he
was a passerby, retired law enforcement, drove into the middle of
the fight, felt himself (based on 30 years of honorable service) in
danger of his life and intervened utilizing an appropriate level of
force with a lawfully possessed weapon. End of story. Give him his
gun and a medal and send him on his way.

What was so surprising was that the cops
pretty much saw it the same way, which gave him some inkling into
the level of juice Jimmy John (or Jimmy John's friends) had in this
town. He'd given his account, his attorney listened, a stenographer
took the notes, he deferred signature until his attorney had
reviewed it formally and returned it to the PD, was told he could
pick up his gun in a week, after they had run the tests to confirm
what they needed to go, thank you very much, Mr. Smith, don't let
the door hit you in the ass, and Officer Rice will give you a ride
to your hotel. Please don't leave town without telling us, or
having your attorney inform us if you prefer.

And on his way.

Rice dropped him off and said, as Smith got
out of the car, "Hey, Smith...there's a bunch of vets, cops mostly,
we get together down at Murphy's Pub most nights for a beer, they
got great burgers, cheap, good beer, cute college girl waitresses.
While you're in town, come on down, buy you a beer or three."

"Can't drink anymore."

"Come anyway, we'll buy you some water and
blow the odor of beer all over you."

"Lemme see how things go. Thanks for the
ride."

So inside, drops for his eyes, blotting red
against the white towel he held up to his face. Stare at the wall.
Think about the debrief he had to record and transmit. A ping from
his phone: text message. Embedded in that was a link. Hit the link,
took him to a secure web-page. On the page, only one thing: the
large numeral 2.

Phase 2.

Time to step it up.

Oh, man.

How strange it was. First that cop, Nico, and
the tough one, Nina. Being cool with them; Jimmy John in the stand
and fight mode; an offer of drinks.

How long had it been since he'd had that?
Simple companionship? He had to be honest, go deep, and think of
how he'd isolated himself, hidden that scar away...the scar of his
life and what it had become.

The steel in him shifted then, just for a
moment.

Time to work.

Guess that meant that he'd passed initial
muster with the bosses; maybe the statement (and the voice stress
analysis going on the controller's side) convinced them there
wasn't much else. Though he had to rein in his hopes for that.
Until they told him otherwise, that was his story and he was
sticking to it.

Phase 2. He went over and rested his hands on
the stacked Pelican boxes. Four of them. He'd have to get another
Cherokee; he'd planned on them fitting perfectly into the back with
the rear seats folded down. Precision was everything. He drummed
his fingers on the plastic, went and sat down at the desk, took out
a local city map. Down in the Lake District, on a side street right
off the main drag of J Street, a plain looking three story brick
building, signed on front as Votron Electronic Games. Parking
meters in front with a two-hour limit, so he'd have to rotate some
cars in there. Park the Cherokee out front, with the dampening
material on the street side, walk off, set it off.

Good bye Votron Electronics, the actual
operating base for an off the shelf operation that just couldn't
take a hint, fully endorsed by the Administration and the National
Command Authority, which was just a fancy word for the President
and his cronies. Time to clean up, an election is coming...

Then it was bye bye, and off to a different
corner of the weird world, to do the things he did best.

Or not.

His bank accounts brimmed with unspent money.
His, rightfully earned, and a significant pile he'd skimmed out of
operational funds, like any good field man would, put away against
That Day. Maybe it was That Day right now.

He had his network for his medical needs, he
had money enough, places to go. Maybe he should head south, find
some gentle senorita who, for enough dollars, would tend to him and
his needs till the day he decided to punch out, or that got decided
for him. The bosses would come looking, but every field man plans
for That Day -- he'd be more difficult than you might imagine, even
with his unmistakable face. That would be the first step on the
plan, get the surgeries...but that wouldn't do much besides
cosmetics, the damage inside the European docs kept medicated with
their experimental treatments, that was pretty much undoable and
gave him a line, somewhere in the future, months, weeks, years,
days, who the fuck knew, where it would all just collapse, a
systemic failure from within, the long deferred consequences of a
long day in the Fire --

-- and what felt like a lifetime outside of
it.

He wondered what Jimmy John would say.

He wondered what would happen when he saw
Phase 3 on his secure web page.

He wondered if he would actually do it.

If he didn't, they'd send somebody else. They
were going to have to. He'd already decided that. Somebody else
wouldn't have the compunction or the hesitation.

What to do, what to do.

"When in danger or in doubt, run in circles,
scream and shout," Smith said. "Or take more drugs."

He popped a couple of pills to smooth his
mellow, ease things out, help him focus on the mechanical. Like
they said in AA -- One Day At A Time. In his case, One Minute At A
Time.

Deep thinking is dangerous for a killer.

Dee Dee Kozak

She had some thinking to do.

"So let me see if I understand this," Dee
said to Kiki. "You can see on their IP connection that someone went
on a shared computer and uploaded this. How do you know it was
Lizzy?"

"Oh, I hacked the computer camera. It's in
the back where the girls get dressed."

"Baby, there's a million men that would pay
for that. Okay. So this upload goes to a server..."

"Romanian. Lots of pirate servers out there,
totally encrypted and locked down through VPN. Porn companies,
money laundries, all the good stuff. I've been out there, not in
this one, but others. Good place for a physical server. Cash and
carry, no questions asked."

Dee brushed the hair back from Kiki's face
with great affection. "Okay, Wonder Girl. So what is that program
doing?"

"What's it done? 'cause it's over, now."

"Yeah, honey," Dee said patiently. "What's it
done."

"It activated a hidden web-page. Hidden in
that it was on the server, but locked out, I mean physically.
Someone got a signal, turned on that sub-server, and then the
software cranked it up. It's locked down, but this is what's cool:
there's a timer on it. Like a count-down clock on the splash page,
just ticking away, counting off 12 hours. Down to 9 and change
right now. So something's on that page, but unless we hack it, it's
going live in nine hours or so. That was the first thing.

"The second thing is that a 'bot was
activated. The bot has been scouring offshore banks, mostly in
Asia, but a couple in Europe, and in each one it's been sending
money -- big money -- to an account in Aruba. Protected by the
Dutch privacy laws, and pretty well locked up for security, but we
could get in there if we worked on it."

"How much money is big money?" Irina
said.

"Big money is approximately $478 million
dollars, US," Kiki said. "They run it through currency exchange to
play the rates, make a little, lose a little, but it washes pretty
good. But as far as I can tell, the final allotment comes in as
dollars and is converted to Aruban florins, rate exchange is like 1
to 1.75, and they can take it out as dollars or have it wired to US
accounts from there. It's sitting there right now, and there's more
coming in from all over."

"Who does it belong to?"

Kiki smiled so wide it looked as though her
face might slide right off. "Belongs to whoever can claim it...or
send it where they want it to go."

"Can you do that now?" Dee and Irina said
simultaneously.

"Yes," she said. "But not right now. And I
need some equipment I don't have. I need a Wacom Tablet, the latest
version, because I need to digitize and send a signature, replace
the ones on file. They'll have the original cards archived, but if
we change them in their database, they won't have any reason to go
search them out...until whoever owns it comes looking for it."

"I bet those somebodys include an old man who
likes pussy and Chinese food," Dee Dee said.

"Who is this?" Irina said.

"This old Chinese guy down at the club," Dee
said. "That's who tried to get our hacker genius to take that flash
drive."

"You told me not to," Kiki said.

"Yes, I did," Dee said. "Turned out I was
wrong, so lesson there for you. Just 'cause I'm older don't mean
I'm right all the time. But you've got a line on something a whole
hell of a lot bigger and juicier than the one million we were just
chasing around, yes? So what do you say, Irina? Wouldn't you rather
have a piece of this instead of chasing around those heavily armed
cowboys? Honey, we could leave your million right where it is and
take off for this. Aruba is a great place for shopping, and you can
get anywhere from there. What do you say?"

"If we get the money..." Irina said. "Can you
kill the African?"

"You kill the African, his mean-as-a-snake
buddy comes after you," Dee said reasonably. "That's how it goes.
Kinda like you. But we're women, and we tend to think better than
men do about these sort of things. The smart thing is take *this*
money and walk, and if you're still mad in, I don't know, five
years or so, *then* come back and kill his ass. I'll even help you.
Then. But for me, this is a no-brainer. You want to go on your own,
after Kiki and me take this fruit ripe for falling, you can go on.
But since you're here, and in a way you funded this, you can come
in for a slice and walk away much richer. Find you some of those
Russian or Estonian cowboys you're so fond of. Shoot up the whole
damn city. While I go spend this here money. What do you say,
Kiki?"

"Uh, I can go for the money. But I have to
stick around. My mom would miss me, and I want to get my
diploma."

Dee laughed. "You want to get your high
school diploma? Honey, you got a Ph.D in kick-ass bandit, what you
want that for?"

Kiki blushed. "I want one. And I want to go
to the prom."

Even Irina had to laugh at that.

"Well," Dee said. "You'll have the best damn
prom dress there is, then."

"I know a very good designer," Irina said.
"Here in the City. I will have it made for you."

"Then it's settled?" Dee said.

"Yes," Irina said. "The money."

Dee looked at Kiki. "And you?"

"Yes," Kiki said. "The money."

"Then get on the phone to the local computer,
oh, wait, they're probably closed, can you order online and get it
fedexed here tomorrow?" Dee said.

"Yes," Kiki said. "I have some good
distributors, as long as I order before midnight."

"Well, it's getting close to the witching
hour," Dee said. "Let's get it done."

Dee Dee grinned widely, stretched high and
said, "Thank goodness for the perfidy of men, ladies. If it weren't
for their love of pussy, we wouldn't be looking at a half a billion
dollar score."

Even Kiki, blushing furiously, had to agree
with that.

Nico and Nina

"You're a hell of a first date," Nico
said.

He and Nina were on foot in the back alley
behind the address on the North Side. He ran the M4, a go-bag slung
over his shoulder, watching Nina's six as she lead the way.

"You want to run with the big dogs, you pee
on the tall trees," Nina whispered back. "There."

She pointed at the sagging back porch of the
house they'd come for. No lights. Back yard overgrown with weeds.
The wire fence at the back of the yard up against the alley had
holes kicked in it. The gate that split the fence into two equal
pieces hung open, held on by a single hinge.

Nina pulled out a Surefire light, held it in
her left hand, her pistol in the right. Nico followed close behind,
his support hand resting near the pressure switch that turned on
the Surefire light mounted on the carbine front rail. She crouched
down, hands crossed in a Harries position, off hand thumb resting
on the button of her Surefire. Moved silently to the rear window of
the house, peeked in. No lights in the back, but a dim light in the
front room. Nico rolled to the corner of the house, pied around,
saw the light in the front of the house, nodded to her. She came
past him and he averted the muzzle, shifted shoulders in a sharp
Cooley switch, followed her. She inched her head around to look in
the window, held up two fingers. She ducked back past him around to
the back again, then through the side yard to look in the windows
on the other side of the house. Nico kept tracking, watching the
other houses, but no one was looking out. It was dark, it was late,
and around here, most people minded their business.