Jennifer Rardin [Jaz Parks series book 2] Another One Bites The Dust

lessons on how to bounce without spitting up. Within a couple of minutes Ge squatted beside me. Though she smiled at the baby she spoke to me.

 “Shao gone to airport to pick up his brother, Xia Wu. He asks have you spoken to police yet?”

 I nodded to Jericho. “That’s him.”

 Ge looked so relieved I nearly patted her shoulder. But she clearly thought we were being watched, so I played along.

 “What he say?” she asked.

 “Something bad has happened and powerful people are trying to cover it up,” I told her. Her hands tightened on the sides of the stroller, but otherwise her expression remained serene. “The regular police have been ordered away from here.”

 I lowered my voice. “I am not regular police, but I do work for the U.S. government.” I tickled Lai under the chin, making him giggle madly. “I can’t tell you why I’m here, only that your family will be safer when my job is done. If I give you a phone number, will you remember it?”

 “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 theConstance 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 andbam !”

 He sat up straighter. “More likesizzle, 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 theConstance 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