started threatening to sue for child support.”
“Child support?”
“Yeah, child support. You.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Don’t.” Moy started around the desk toward him.
“This is pure bullshit.”
Moy pointed to his face and pressed toward Jack. “Yeah, then look at these eyes and look in a mirror.”
Jack stared at Moy’s eyes, and a sensation slithered through his body that left him thinking how the universe had just shifted on its axes.
“The fuck’s going on?”
A voice behind them.
Jack turned, and a thick, short man in a tuxedo entered. Behind him was another, taller man.
The Mr. Fixit guy from Greendale—the guy who came to repair the blinds. Theo.
Behind him was some physician Jack had met outside. A Dr. Jordan Carr. And Mr. Fixit was holding a shiny silver pistol on Jack.
JACK HAD BEEN GONE FOR OVER twenty minutes, and Rene was beginning to worry.
As she looked around the crowd, she spotted Louis Martinetti. He had slipped away from her and his daughter and wife, who were now talking to some FDA officials. They were laughing over something. Meanwhile, Rene tracked Louis moving through the crowd toward the rear of the hall and corridor leading to the staircase to the executive offices.
She excused herself from the people she was with, saying she was going to find a rest room. She scanned the crowd, but Louis had disappeared.
CORPORAL LOUIS MARTINETTI SLID BEHIND a tall bush growing out of a pot. The entire headquarters staff was assembled. It was like a Who’s Who of the North Korean General Command. Operation Buster. The big payoff.
He surveyed the crowd—most of them officers of the 23rd Brigade, a few regulars standing guard, ready for some grunt command. He didn’t know how much time had passed as he remained staked out—ten minutes, twenty, an hour. But suddenly his body clenched.
Corporal Martinetti raised his field glasses and adjusted the sights. And his heart leapt up. Colonel Chop Chop had stepped out from the masses. And he was heading for private consultation with Blackhawk.
“THE REAL QUESTION IS: WHAT DO I do with you now?” Moy said. “You are my son.”
“A mere technicality.”
“Ah, yes, a slip of biology. But I still can’t let you go, you know.”
“What’s this?” Carr looked confused. “I thought Teddy was—”
“He is also, and it’s a long story,” Moy said. “I’ll tell you later.”
“He hasn’t got anything on you,” Teddy said to his father.
Jack looked at his half-brother or whatever the hell he was. His overly developed body was pressed into a tuxedo, making him look like a small orca. And it all came clear to Jack as he stared into the stolid eye of the gun barrel: this Teddy had visited him at Greendale in his Mr. Fixit role under the cover name Theo Rogers so the staffers wouldn’t connect him to Gavin Moy. (He probably even used a false ID.) And his purpose was to determine if Jack remembered anything because Moy must have told him that Jack was his blood son out of wedlock; and Theo/Teddy here was checking up on Jack’s recall, maybe in protection of his father, maybe sweating potential conflicts over who was rightful heir to the Moy fortune. Whatever, the guy had come out to spy on him.
“No, but he’s the type who won’t let go. Unfortunate, but it’s in the blood.”
“If I suddenly disappear,” Jack said, “people are going to wonder, and there are a hundred of them downstairs who saw me.”
“I’ll get the boat,” Teddy said.
“Oh, look at that,” Jack said. “A chip off the old block, bro.”
“Fuck you, asshole.”
“And silver-tongued at that.”
“Yes,” Moy said. “The boat.”
“Another replay, right? First your lover, now her son.”
Moy looked point-blank at Jack. “I don’t care who you are. I don’t like you. And I’m not going to let you fuck things up for me. I’ve worked more friggin’ decades to get here than you’ve been alive. And you mean nothing to me. Nothing.”
“Wait a minute,” protested Carr. “I don’t think this is a good idea.” And he looked from Moy to Teddy. “Really. He suddenly disappears, and people are going to get suspicious.”
Teddy snapped at Carr. “No time to turn chickenshit.”
Carr flashed a look at Jack. “But he’s right—a lot of people saw him tonight.”
Teddy nodded toward a rear door. “He went for a stroll on the rocks and slipped. It worked in Bryce.”
“Get him out of here,” Moy said.
Teddy jabbed the pistol at Jack. “Move it.”
Jack turned. Behind them in the shadows was an older man aiming something barrel-like at them. “Hold it right there. Hands behind your heads, legs spread, and don’t move.” He stepped into the light.
Louis Martinetti.
He must have been wearing his tux over his fatigues, because he was dressed for combat, with a chest full of medals, including a Purple Heart. When they turned, Louis dropped down to a squat behind a table with flowers shooting out of a huge Chinese porcelain vase. The problem was that he was holding a furled umbrella on the gunman. Suddenly Louis began shouting over his shoulder for his men to advance on the eastern flank of the compound. They had the colonel and Blackhawk cornered.
“What the fuck?” Teddy said. He began to swing his gun arm toward Louis, who ducked behind the table making shooting noises.
Someplace in the shadows of the outer office Jack heard a scream. “Louis, no!”
Rene.
A shot rang out, and instantly Jack heard a grunt as Louis fell backward. He had dropped his umbrella and was clutching his arm.
Before Teddy could get off a shot at Rene, Jack flew at him, knowing instantly that in his condition he was no match for Teddy. So he sunk his teeth into Teddy’s wrist. The guy screamed and released the gun, but not before catapulting Jack off of him. But Jack grabbed the pistol and rolled away, his muscles paining him with the effort. It passed through his mind that he had not held a gun for a couple years, since target practice with Vince at the police range. But now a gun felt good in his grip.
The next moment exploded with a scream from Rene as Teddy made a move to stomp Jack. Without thought, Jack took aim and squeezed the trigger. And Teddy hit the floor with a huge grunt, grabbing his leg. The bullet had hit him in the calf.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw Moy pick up a crystal sculpture of his company’s logo to hurl at him. But Jack flashed the gun at him. “Drop it or you’re dead,” Jack said.
Moy dropped it and Jack pulled himself to his feet, holding the pistol in both hands.
“I should have taken care of you, too,” Moy said.
“Yeah, you should have.”
