Another One Bites the Dust (25 page)

“Yes.”

I gave her the numbers in sets for ease of recall. I said them three times and made her repeat them back three times. “Tell Wu to call when it’s safe for me to come aboard the
Constance Malloy
. Tell him under no circumstance is he to try anything on his own. He will fail. We have the only means known to defeat Lung.”

She hesitated for so long I finally looked at her. She was digging in the diaper bag, hiding her face from view.

“What is it?”

Tears slurred her voice. “That our countries should cooperate is so unlikely. I fear the worst. Wu will die. Shao will be struck with grief. Perhaps Lung will kill him too. Maybe his rage will turn to Lai and me.”

Since we seemed to be going through diapering motions I unstrapped Lai and lifted him from the stroller. Good grief, the kid packed a lot of weight in a little package! “I see we’ve eaten our Wheaties for breakfast,” I told him. He grinned and, as a token of goodwill, deposited a long loud stinky in his Huggies that I was only too glad to let Ge address.

I tried not to sound harsh, though it leaked through as I said, “You tell your brother-in-law to hell with China and the United States. This is for your family. Got that?”

She nodded. So did Lai. Then he farted and we both laughed. Meeting adjourned.

CHAPTERTWENTY-SEVEN

After Ge and Lai left, I went back into the RV. Bergman sort of lunged on top of the table, realized it was me, and sank back into his original position, hunched over his toys, a magnifying glass clamped over the left lens of his regular glasses, looking like a jeweler evaluating diamonds.

“Bergman, I have an idea.”

“What.”

“Quit snapping; you’ll love it.”

He sat back. “Jasmine, I have about ten hours to make a translator that currently sounds like this”—he hit one of the laptop’s keys and a robotic voice started speaking stilted Chinese—“sound like this”—he hit another key and the computer began to replay Pengfei’s last tirade.

“Hmm, that’s quite a difference.”

“You think?”

“Bergman, this is where you shine. You’ll nail this easy. Which is why I’m sure you’ll have time for my other idea.”

He slumped so far in his seat I thought he might actually slide under the table. But his knees hit the other side and he stopped. So I went on. “The pill we wanted to feed Lung last night? Can we put it in a bullet and speed it up? You know, so the reaction is nearly instantaneous?”

As if someone had hauled him up by the armpits, Bergman rose in his seat. “What caliber?”

“Well, the bullet has to stay embedded, but I’d like to use Grief. That way the crossbow would be backup. I’d just go with that from the start, but I have to be so accurate with it, you know? This way I could hit Pengfei virtually anywhere and
bam
!”

He sat up straighter. “More like
sizzle, wap
!”

I nodded. “Cool.”

Bergman smiled. “I’m on it.”

I went back outside. Cassandra and Jericho were still talking. Cole had joined in, so laughter interspersed the conversation fairly often. I pulled up a chair and they all looked at me expectantly.

“How do you know I have something to say?” I asked.

“Cassandra told us you would.”

I made a face at her. “Remind me never to try to throw you a surprise party. Okay,” I went on. “She’s right. Here’s the deal.” I caught Jericho’s gaze. “We’re after lizard face. We’re pretty sure we have to get him tonight because by tomorrow whoever crawled up your governor’s ass may slither on into the president’s liver. Now, I know you can’t do anything official. But something is going down tonight. Hopefully it will happen on that yacht”—I pointed to the
Constance Malloy
—“far away from here. But if we can’t contain the violence, the people who are here at the festival will not be amply protected. I’ve seen the security in this place and it sucks.”

Now why is that?
asked a part of my brain that really should’ve said something earlier.
We have the potential for large crowds, so you need cops just to cope with those problems. We’ve already had a mini protest from
other-
hating fanatics, which, while pitiful in itself, could certainly breed bigger, scarier rioting if not dealt with correctly.

“Why is Lung here?” I asked.

“I take it you’re not looking for the obvious answer,” said Cole.

“He’s stolen an invaluable item that, if he can duplicate it, will make his army damn near invincible. So why isn’t he riding a rocket to China?”

Cassandra said, “Don’t you mean why hasn’t Pengfei made herself scarce?”

“Yeah, I guess I do.”

“I’m lost,” said Jericho.

I sat forward in my chair. “Look, tonight Lung will have a full Chinese crew aboard that yacht of his. He’s been biding his time, waiting for them to arrive. What’s that say to you?”

They looked at me, their faces a study in blank.

“It’s his getaway car—er, boat,” I explained. “That’s why he’s still here. He couldn’t do anything because his crew was still traveling here from China.”

“So is he leaving tonight?”

“I think so, but something else is happening first.” I turned to Jericho. “Logistically speaking, this place is primed to blow. It’s going to be packed with people. Security bites, and what people the organizers have hired are largely untrained.”

A thought hit me. “That little drama last night with the burning of our tent might even have been a test run to see how much chaos they could cause and for how long.” Then I remembered Pengfei ripping out Li’s heart. “Or not. At any rate, I would feel a whole helluva lot better if you could have this joint swarming with off-duties tonight. Just make sure if something goes down they all know you’re in charge.”

He’d begun nodding about halfway through my speech. As soon as I finished, he was off his seat and on the phone Bergman had repaired, walking away from us, strolling down the winding path toward the Acrobats’ Arena.

Cassandra watched him go, slumping a little as the distance between them grew. “He was so nice.”

“Yeah.”

“And look at that butt.”

I considered said item. “Definitely superior. But not for Cassandra hands?”

She shook her head sadly. “Another woman stands between us now. He’ll meet her within the month.”

“Is she prettier than you?”

Cassandra started to smile.

“Well?”

“No.”

“Ha!”

“Jaz!”

“Honey, we’ve got to take our victories where we can find them.”

CHAPTERTWENTY-EIGHT

Jericho returned, but not for long. Duty called. So after making plans to meet up again later in the evening, we said our goodbyes.

“What now?” asked Cole.

The three of us stood in front of the RV under the awning. I was beginning to feel guilty about leaving Bergman so much on his own, but he liked it so much better that way. I’d have to make honing his people skills a priority on our next mission together even if he didn’t think it was necessary. I said, “That’s really up to you, Cassandra. What kinds of things will we need for this disguise spell?”

She held up a finger. “I was studying that last night. Let me get the book.”

She went inside. I waited for the growly, snarly sounds that would signal the snapping off of her head by our resident neurotic, but she emerged unscathed carrying a smelly old tome bound in something that sure looked like—

“Tell me that’s not people skin,” said Cole.

“Not,” she agreed. “I think it might be lamb.”

“Lamb isn’t much better,” I told her. “You know, where I grew up between 1988 and 1990, you couldn’t even buy lamb in the grocery store.”

Cassandra shook her head sadly. “That certainly explains a great deal about you,” she said.

Cole laughed softly until I kicked him in the foot. “So,” he said, “what does the book with the creepy cover say?”

She opened it up to a place she’d marked with—I kid you not—a square of toilet paper. It creaked. Cole and I traded glances. He did a haunted house shudder and I rolled my eyes.

“Would you two stop fooling around?”

“Sorry,” said Cole.

“You’re a disruptive influence,” I informed him.

“You’d be surprised how many of my teachers said the very same thing.”

“I doubt it.”

“We need to make a shopping list,” said Cassandra. She’d brought her purse out with her. After rooting around inside for half a minute, she emerged with a small pad of paper and a pen, which she handed to Cole.

He waved the pen around appreciatively. It was wrapped with soft red material, and a spray of fine red feathers had been hot glued to the top. “Cassandra,” he said, “I hope you know that poaching Muppets is illegal in this country.”

“Just be quiet and write.” Cassandra read off the list, which included some common herbs like catmint and basil and some items I’d never heard of before like derrentia and triptity. “Where are we supposed to find that stuff?” I asked.

“Corpus Christi’s a big city,” Cassandra replied. “There’s bound to be at least one coven running a supply store here, and most likely it will be near the bay.” She came to the end of the list and stopped, though I knew she wasn’t done.

“What?”

“We need an item of her clothing.”

“Of course. Can’t we save that till the end though? You know, until I’m physically on the yacht?”

She read over the spell. “Yes,” she said slowly. “But we need something of hers—”

“What, like a lock of hair?”

Cole threw up his hands. “How the hell are we supposed to get that? We can be pretty sure they don’t spend the day on that boat. They’d be too vulnerable.”

“Actually, I had another idea. Bergman may need to help though.”

I winced. “He’s slogging through a blizzard of work as it is.”

“Then let’s leave it for now. It may even be something we can accomplish without him. First, the shopping.”

“Can I go?” asked Cole. “Oh, stop looking at me like that. Bergman won’t let me watch him, much less help. Vayl’s down for the count, and all the beautiful babes are at work.” He wiggled his eyebrows. “Or at the mall.”

Four hours later, laden with bags and, okay, a cute green dress covered with silver stars that was on sale and in the same store as the triptity, so cut out the guilt, we returned to the RV.

Cassandra opened the door and stopped with her foot on the first step. I strained to see around her, especially when I heard Bergman humming to himself.
“Bum, bump-bump, tah-dah, toodle-loo.”
I tucked my head under Cassandra’s elbow.

Bergman was dancing.

Okay, it actually resembled an old man’s attempt not to break his hip while proving he could still shake a leg at his great-granddaughter’s wedding. But still.

“Bergman,” I said, “is that your happy dance?”

He grinned at me.

“Cassandra, look,” I said. “Bergman has teeth.”

“They’re very nice,” she replied.

“Lemme in before my arms fall off!” Cole demanded. We piled inside and dropped the bags under the monitor, which revealed a lot more activity than it had in a while. I spared it another glance. The Chinese crew had arrived. But Xia Wu hadn’t called. Well, I knew I might not be able to depend on him. If he didn’t contact me by the time Vayl woke, we’d modify our plan accordingly.

I turned back to Bergman. “What’d you do?” I asked. For an answer he held up a long thin wire. It took a tremendous effort not to snatch it, but I kept my hands to myself as I asked, “Is that the translator?”

He nodded, showing those perfect white teeth again. He came toward me and draped the wire over my head. “The idea,” he said, “is to weave this into your hair. If you have it kind of hanging down by your face like this,” he demonstrated, pulling a handful of curls forward and winding them around the wire, “it should never show. Okay. Say something.”

“How is it powered? I mean, it’s so thin. Where’s the battery?”

Nobody answered. They just stared. I watched slow amazement dawn on their faces.

“Oh my God,” said Cole. “You sound just like that bitch!”

“Watch your mouth, young man,” I snapped.

Cassandra nodded. “Exactly.”

Bergman moved closer. “Now say something.”

“This is so incredible, Bergman. You are a flipping genius!”

“That’s what I thought.” He wasn’t responding to my comment. “When I stand this near I can hear the English before it’s translated. So make sure you keep everybody at least three feet away from you. And figure out how to hide your lips. Use a fan maybe.”

“How’d you do it?” asked Cole.

“Well, I couldn’t have without already having Pengfei’s voice on the computer. Other than that . . . none of your business.” He sounded very offhand, but his shelter-bea-gle eyes begged,
Feed me, pet me, love me
. I wanted to be careful with what I said though. It would suck to jinx the whole deal with too much optimism. You saw that every day on Cinemax.