“Definitely annoyed, but that won’t stop them Chinese. You’ve got the data that they need in your head. You’re the key player now.”
“You’re just realizing that?”
“It’s not necessarily something to be happy about. It puts you in danger.”
“I’m not scared.”
“Then, Leo, you’re not as smart as you think you are.”
Chapter 45
Gravenholtz hated Miami. He had been waiting three days to meet Fong, the Chinese ambassador to Nuevo Florida, and still no word from Baby when it was going to happen.
Miami was hot and sticky, and everyone spoke too fast in this mixed-up language, part Spanish and part English, so that he couldn’t understand but every second or third word. Fuck ’em. He understood well enough that a redhead who burned, but didn’t tan, was at the low end of the totem pole. Even the white people were brown as coconuts, and they were the ones giving him the dirtiest looks. Hard to imagine it was once part of the US of A. Shows you what can happen if you let folks push you around. Meanwhile, Baby acted as if she were right at home, speaking the lingo as well as anyone, which was weird for a country girl born and raised in Dickson, Tennessee. He shouldn’t have been surprised. Everything about Baby turned out to be different from what he supposed. Shit, the Colonel wouldn’t have believed it, but Gravenholtz had seen the proof.
Three days ago, Royce had set the Chinese chopper down in the middle of the Everglades, right where Baby said to, and before the blades hardly slowed, all these Asian guys with guns stepped out of the palmettos.
Royce was about to open up with the Gatlings and blow these gooks to ground chuck when Baby patted his hand, said, Don’t worry, they’re Fong’s men. Deeks and Cunningham were relieved, but Gravenholtz was still pissed about having to caravan to the embassy, and worried about his wounds getting infected. Fuck the ambassador and his fear of creating a diplomatic incident, Gravenholtz didn’t like the idea of landing in a god-damn swamp. He scratched the blood crusted along his back and side, patted the bandage on the ear that Rikki had half sliced off. If there was a God above, which he fucking doubted, Gravenholtz prayed for another chance to go one-on-one with that guy. He’d hold himself back and make Rikki suffer-pounding out his teeth, beating his bones to jelly, leaving the vital organs for last.
The flight from the Colonel’s base camp had been a real ass-clencher. Royce kept the chopper at treetop level, the ground a blur as Deeks puked his guts out into his boot, while Royce and Cunningham laughed their asses off, yelling, One more time! Baby swatted them for teasing Deeks, changed the dressing on Deeks’s hand, and told him he was going to be just fine, which was bullshit, since two of Deeks’s fingers had been shot off by groundfire leaving camp. When they stopped for fuel at a little airport in Georgia, Cunningham tried to make amends, killed the gas attendant for his boots. Real nice boots too, hand-tooled and everything, but Deeks just complained the rest of the way that they were too tight. You can’t win with some folks.
The chopper smelled like throw-up, and Royce’s and Cunningham’s cigars didn’t help, but Gravenholtz had to admit, the chopper’s avionics and stealth tech worked perfectly-they zipped right across the border into Nuevo Florida and never tripped the radar or anything else. Smooth ride until they set down in the Glades.
Baby stepped onto the saw grass, the back of her neck shiny with sweat, told Gravenholtz to bring the canister. He was about to tell her to stay put, wait until he checked things out, when she looked back at him with that fuck-me-please look and he grabbed the canister and hopped down, showing off his muscles.
Royce hesitated, his hands on the controls for the chopper’s machine guns, but by then the Asian guys had slung their guns and were dragging coolers of iced beer out of the weeds. Deeks and Cunningham whooped it up, jumped down-Royce slipped out of the pilot’s harness, swatted at the mosquitoes that drifted around him.
You go ahead, I’ll be right there, Baby said, letting Gravenholtz walk ahead of her.
Gravenholtz saw her out of the corner of his eye…saw her reach for something, and then she shot Royce and Deeks and Cunningham, shot them in the back of the head, bam-bam-bam, as if she were swatting flies. She put away the pistol, grabbed Gravenholtz’s hand, and kissed him.
Whoeee, she said, I’ve been wanting to get rid of those three since Alabama.
Gravenholtz stood there for a second, trying to decide what to do. Royce and Deeks and Cunningham had been with him since the border wars…proud rednecks, no weakness, no mercy, but he was in the middle of nowhere, facing down a dozen armed men. The armed men were no big deal; it was Baby beside him making happy sounds as if he was balls-deep on a rainy afternoon that sealed it. Gravenholtz held up a hand, caught the cold beer one of the Asian guys tossed him.
Nobody said a word on the ride into town, which was fine with him, because he was damn tired. And sore too where Rakkim had stuck him. Never been cut like that before, even by a Fedayeen blade. Enough to make most men doubt themselves, but Lester Gravenholtz wasn’t most men. He figured they were going to the Chinese embassy, but, nope, instead they drove up to a private entrance of the fanciest hotel Gravenholtz had ever seen. Fit-for-a-king swanky, and right on the beach. He didn’t like the change of plans, and really didn’t like the idea of him and Baby getting separate rooms, but he held his piece, said, sure, later will be greater, and gave her a wink.
He barely had time to check out the suite before there was a knock on the door, and these four doctors walked in as if they owned the joint. Indians or Arabs they were, skinny little gooks with white jackets and cases of surgical instruments. More gooks wheeled in an operating table and lights and machines with dials and hoses. Doctors seemed real impressed with him, yammering away as they examined him, touching his red hair, gently probing his wounds while he ground his teeth. He guessed stitching him up was real tricky, what with his second skin impervious to their scalpels, but they did this microsurgery thing with lasers, using the existing knife cuts from Rikki to get inside. Real smart gooks. They stitched his ear back up, then filled him full of antibiotics and probably something else, because all he did for practically the next three days was sleep.
Once, he woke up and saw Baby looking down at him, same expression she had just before she blew away Royce and Deeks and Cunningham.
A few hours ago he woke up feeling good. Supergood. Then Baby called, said get ready, because she had a surprise. He asked if they were finally going to the Chinese embassy, but she just laughed. Now here he was, walking with Baby down a marble hallway, barefoot, wearing these gauzy white pants and shirt, a fruity-ass outfit that made him almost glad Royce wasn’t here to see him.
Baby kissed him just before they came to an ornately carved door. “I’m glad I kept you,” she whispered.
Gravenholtz didn’t like the sound of that, not at all, but the doors swung open. Two men inside led them deeper into the room, young guys, dressed all in white like Gravenholtz.
Another set of doors opened and the two young guys stayed outside while Baby and Gravenholtz walked in. An older man turned away from a window overlooking the beach-they must have been forty or fifty stories up.
Baby bent down on one knee, which was the weirdest thing Gravenholtz had ever seen her do, weirder even than killing his three raiders. She tugged at Gravenholtz’s leg but he stayed standing.
“That’s all right, my dear,” said the geezer, smiling as he walked toward them. Spring in his step too, as if he was enjoying himself. “He’ll learn manners soon enough.”