“Call me Colin,” Macnee said, smiling. He was a short man going bald who had opted for the shaved skull look. “You must be one of the Keldara booth girls I heard about.”
“Watch her,” Thomas said, jovially. “She’s one of their militia girls, too. She’s probably packing.”
Anisa smiled thinly and shook her head. Now she was really ready to slay them.
“Not in here,” she said, laughing as honestly as she could manage and showing them into the suite. “The rooms down the corridor are held by the Keldara. When you came down the corridor you were identified in advance and swept for weapons. Mr. Macnee is carrying a small clasp knife in his right pocket. You, Mr. Thomas, have a license to carry a concealed weapon issued by the state of Pennsylvania. You scored a forty-five out of fifty on your last qualifying shoot. Your registered handgun is a Sig Sauer .40 caliber. A very popular choice I might add. I prefer the H K USP .45 myself, but the Sig is a nice weapon.”
“As I mentioned, Anisa and Greznya are much more than just pretty faces,” Mike said, walking over to the two businessmen and holding out his hand. “On the beer side, I use them for datamining and analysis.”
“And in your other business?” Thomas asked, trying to get back in control.
“I use them for… datamining and analysis,” Mike replied, smiling.
“How many enemies are in the building.” Greznya said, slithering to her feet. She’d opted for one of the sleeve dresses. With her long legs and moderate bust, it worked very well. “What type of weapons. Location of information, hostages or targets to be extracted. That sort of thing. I’m Greznya, the intel team leader.”
“All that stuff about a militia in the brochure is for real?” Macnee asked.
“Yes,” Mike said as Anisa went to get them drinks. “It’s for real.”
“We can use that, you know,” Macnee said seriously. “Beer drinkers tend to be more patriotic than the wine types. ‘Every beer you drink helps in the war on terror, so drink up’ sort of thing.”
“Not that I hadn’t thought of it.”
Mike said, smiling.
“You said they’d already had some combat action,” Thomas replied as Anisa handed him a drink. He took a sip and then looked at it.
“Elijah Craig,” Mike said, smiling. “I believe bourbon is your tipple?”
“Datamining,” Thomas replied, shaking his head.
“Yes,” Mike said. “And, yes, they’ve engaged in combat actions. Including ones that, minorly, made the news. Greznya?”
“AP picked up on the attack on our valley,” Greznya said, sliding a printout of the AP wire across to the businessman.
“Were you there?” Macnee asked, leaning over to look at the sheet of paper.
“I was on the communications end,” Greznya said.
“And intercept,” Mike added. “We knew they were coming before they did. You see, we believe in doing our homework.”
“And does that extend to the beer side?” Thomas asked, setting down the paper.
“In the main,” Mike said. “We know we can get a distributor for Mountain Tiger. We just want the best distributor we can get. Frankly, you are high on the list, but not the top.”
“In other words, we have to sell ourselves to you?” Macnee asked, smiling.
“You could put it that way,” Mike replied.
“And the ladies are here to…?”
“The ladies run the brewery,” Greznya said, smiling. “Brewing is a woman’s secret among the Keldara. And, thus, we’re going to be making most of the money from it. So… say we’re here representing the interests of the Keldara women,” she finished, leaning back and crossing her legs.
“A brewery run by beautiful women that fights terrorism,” Macnee said after he regained his voice. “My hands are getting sweaty just thinking about the marketing.”
“Are you sure that’s what’s making them sweaty?” Mike asked, gazing at Greznya in surprise. He knew that if one of the Keldara mothers was present, Greznya would be halfway out of the clan.
“No,” Macnee admitted. “What were you thinking of as terms?”
“Five euros per liter, delivered at P’Otly,” Greznya said, smiling and batting her eyes. “We also will supply the special ceramic bottles for discerning customers.”
“Out of the question,” Thomas snapped after he’d actually processed the information. “We can’t sell it for anything like a profit on this end at that rate! We’d have to charge ten dollars a bottle. No. More! That’s… impossible.”
“It is what is called an opening bid,” Greznya said, smiling and recrossing her legs as she shifted on the couch. “I’m sure you have some reasonable counter…”
“Three euors per liter, freight on board in Georgia,” Thomas said, shaking Greznya’s hand and doing the same with his head. “We’ll figure out a way to get the market to bear. Am I nuts?”
“If you are, so am I,” Macnee said in a dazed tone.
“Contracts,” Mike said, sliding them across the table. “They’re taken from the standard contract that the AABA recommends. There’s some wiggle room. And we’ll supply the first ten thousand liters at one euro per liter along with six thousand ceramic bottles at fifty cents per bottle. You might want to look for a better supply on those, if they meet the Keldara standards.”
“Will do,” Thomas said, shaking his head again as he looked over the contract. For all the daze he appeared to display at the effect of the girls, more of whom had drifted in, all dressed to the nines as they found out that the negotiations were going on, he read the contract carefully. “We can do this. We will do this. And we’re going to make lots of money doing it.”
“You’re sure?” Macnee asked.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” Thomas replied. “We’ll start the roll-out in New York. This September.”
“Ah,” Mike said. “No direct reference I hope.”
“No,” Thomas said. “But when we run the ads, we’re going to have pics of police and firefighters with the beer. Between that and the pics of your spec-ops teams, the subtext will be clear. And we’ll just let the point lie that the extra you’re paying is supporting the War.”
“And the girls,” Macnee added, smiling at the group around him.
“We’re getting a good price?” Anisa asked in Georgian. She’d been snuggling up to Macnee but othewise keeping her head down during the negotiations.
“Quite survivable,” Mike said in the same language. “It’ll mean, at a guess, about sixty euros per month per worker. A bit more for Mother Lenka and Gurum.”
“Good,” Anisa said, smiling. “I might actually be able to afford a husband.”
“And not go through the Kardane?” Greznya said, looking over at Mike and winking.
“Oh, good point,” Vanda said, grinning. “No one would want to avoid the Kardane now.”
“So I save it for when we get married,” Anisa added, shrugging. “Nothing says that you cannot enter into Kardane just because you can afford the price!”
“Oh, we so don’t want to go there…” Mike said, sighing.
“What is this?” Macnee asked, looking at the cross-talk.
“I was explaining that we’d be able to keep the brewery running at this price,” Mike said, shrugging nervously.
“There was more,” Thomas said, grinning. “I could tell.”
“You really don’t want to know,” Mike replied. “There’s a lot about the internal workings of the Keldara you don’t want to know.”
“Anything that will affect the marketing?” Macnee asked.
“Hmmm…” Mike muttered. “The Keldara are very… conservative. The girls are more or less owned by one male or another…”