We were in the main dining area, where the walls were brick and covered with pictures and other memorabilia from Italy. Our table was larger than the others, but they all had white, floorlength tablecloths and small vases with colorful fake flower arrangements.
Hugo had been standing when I arrived, and he continued to stand. I wondered about that until I realized he didn’t have a choice. The table and chairs were too tall to properly accommodate him. So he stood and glared at me.
I nodded at him. “Hugo,” I said.
I saw a flash of dark yellow and realized Hugo had bared his teeth at me. If intense staring could cause a person to explode, I was doomed.
A young man approached us and said, “The kitchen’s not open yet, but I can bring you a pot of coffee and a bagel or pastry if you wish.”
“No liver?” Hugo snarled, without taking his eyes off me. I suddenly realized what made his stare so intimidating: he never blinked. In fact, he hadn’t blinked once since I’d arrived.
The server seemed confused. “I’m not a waiter. I’m just a busboy, so I don’t know the menu very well. I can probably scrounge up some lox or cream cheese.”
No one said anything, so I said, “I think we’ll just talk, but thanks for the offer.” Then I thought of something and added, “Could you remove the flowers?” I didn’t think Victor would put a bug in the flower arrangement, but why take a chance?
The busboy left with the flowers, and I started things off. To Hugo, I said, “You know, for a spiritual adviser, you’re pretty pugnacious.”
“Fuck you!” he screamed.
I shrugged. I was beginning to get used to the unblinking stare. To Victor, I said, “Do you need to frisk me? Make sure I’m not wearing a wire or tape recorder?”
Victor said, “Not … neces … sary. I … scanned … you … already.” He lifted his head slightly to indicate the screens.
I didn’t believe for a minute that he had the ability to scan me or he would have mentioned the gun I’d taped to the small of my back.
Victor said, “Just … don’t … reach for … the gun … behind … you.” Then he said, “Hu … go will … do most … of the … talking … for ob … vious … reasons.”
“That’s fi ne,” I said, wondering what else his wheelchair could do. “So tell me: how did you hijack the spy satellite?”
“That’s proprietary,” Hugo snapped. “Military experiment. Need-to-know basis only.”
“Yeah, well I need to know,” I said. “I’ve been ordered to find the people who breached the satellite’s computer system, and kill them. I’m asking you nicely here, but this is nonnegotiable.”
Hugo sneered at me as if I were an insect. “Is that a threat?”
I sighed. “I came here hoping to strengthen our relationship, but if it’s not to be, I can always just snap your necks.”
Hugo still hadn’t blinked, but he turned to face Victor. “May I approach?” he asked. Victor nodded. Hugo unzipped Victor’s jacket. Victor’s entire torso was covered with explosives.
I tried to act unaffected, as if this sort of thing happened all the time. But I don’t think I fooled anyone. Still, I pressed on. “Where’s the detonator?”
Hugo looked down at the table. At first I didn’t understand. Then I said, “You’re joking.” I slid my chair back a couple of feet and slowly lifted the tablecloth. There were two midgets under the table. One had a .38 pointed directly into my crotch. The other had a detonator taped to his left hand. His right index finger hovered just above a large red button. I took a deep breath and nodded to the two midgets under the table. “Relax, okay?” I said. Then I put the tablecloth back the way I’d found it.
“Actually,” I said, “I don’t care how you hijacked the satellite. I just want to be able to tell my boss why it won’t happen again.”
“He already knows. They installed a patch to block us.”
“Does it work?”
“It does,” Hugo said. He smiled and added, “For now.”
Victor said, “We … won’t … breach it. I pro … mise.”
I studied my vertically challenged employer a moment. He had a boyish face, made puffy from what I assumed to be years of drug use. I was about to say something when he suddenly flashed a smile. Not just any smile, or a creepy one, but a full, genuine, winning smile. Encountering it this way, in such an unexpected manner, startled me more than seeing the explosives on his body or the midgets under the table. Victor scrunched up his face in a way that reminded me of kids on a playground, him being the last kid hoping to be chosen for a team, the kid no one wants to pick. Then, in a small, vulnerable voice, he said, “Can we … just … be friends?”
It was an amazing moment to witness, an instant transformation from deadly to helpless. At that moment, he seemed sweet, almost adorable. If Kathleen had been there, I’m sure she would have said, “Aw, how cute.” But Kathleen wasn’t there, and she didn’t have a gun aimed at her crotch.
“Good enough,” I said. “I’ll try to keep my people off your backs. So what happened to Monica?”
Hugo said, “You know Fathi, the diplomat?”
“Father or son?”
“Both. But the father, the UAE diplomat, we sold Monica to him.”
Victor and Hugo were full of surprises, so why should I have been shocked? But I was. In fact, I was so stunned, I couldn’t think of a sensible question. So instead I said, “Was she alive at the time?”
Hugo laughed. “He wouldn’t have much use for a dead sex slave.”
I tried to wrap my brain around it. “Is she still in the country?”
“Her body is.”
So she was dead after all. Darwin would be pleased. But something still didn’t compute. “You hired me to kill Monica, and I did. Then you tracked me on spy satellite, grabbed her body, brought her back to life, and sold her as a sex slave. Now she’s dead again, right? Well pardon the pun, but that seems like overkill. Why didn’t you just hire me to kidnap her?”
Hugo said there were two reasons. First, it would have been a conflict of interest, since they planned to sell her to terrorists and I’m a counter-terrorist. Second, they wanted to see if they could bring her back to life after a trained assassin had done his best to kill her.
“So I was what, part of a medical experiment?”
“Yes.”
Hugo reminded me that their army of little people included scientists, microbiologists, and specialists in almost every field of research. One of their people had developed a revolutionary antidote to botulinum toxin, and since they had targeted Monica anyway, she would be their first test. They figured I’d give her the most potent injection possible, which I did. If she survived, they’d sell Monica to Fathi. If not, they’d keep working on the antidote.
“And it worked,” I said.
“That is correct. We intend to make one hundred million dollars selling the antidote to the military.”
“Our military?”
“Ours, theirs, whoever.”
“Back to the conflict of interest,” I said. “I’m not comfortable working with you if you’re also working with terrorists.”
Hugo sneered. “That is absurd. Your government works with terrorists every day. They call it infiltration. We do the same. We infi trate them for our own purposes, which shall not be revealed to you.”
Though my head was swimming, I managed to ask him about the two other targets they wanted me to kill. Hugo said they were part of a social experiment.
“First a medical experiment, now a social experiment.”
Hugo said, “That is correct.”
“Can you give me the Cliff s Notes on that?” I asked. Hugo looked at Victor before answering. Victor nodded. Hugo turned back to me and said, “Victor wishes to understand the true nature of evil. Before you injected Monica, we gave her a chance to name two people who caused her pain in her life. You will kill those two people and get two names from each. Victor believes we all have at least two people who have caused irreparable harm in our lives. You will exact vengeance for all the victims.”