Taylor nodded. “I’ll see to it that Commander Bowyer has the prisoner prepped and ready to move by the time you meet him at the security checkpoint.”
“Thank you.” Japhara bowed his head, then turned for the door.
“Hey, Japhara?” Taylor added. “Do us both a favor. The next time you need me for something? Pick up a comm and call first.”
The alien chuckled. “Take care of yourself, Van Zant. As it seems is becoming habit, the Sumatozou are in your debt.”
Taylor reclined in his seat and returned his focus to the rain once his visitor had departed the clubhouse. Shortly thereafter, someone else knocked at his door. “It’s open.”
Billy Dawson entered the room, having returned a few days earlier from the Eagles’ mission with the Duplato. “So the mystery man behind the curtain turned out to be Japhara after all. How’d it go?”
Taylor kept his eyes on the rain. “I’ll have to get back to you on that.”
* * * * *
Epilogue
In a less than fortunate twist for beachgoers, the rain shower that had drenched Japhara’s visit to the Eagles’ campus in Jax hadn’t been a one-morning affair. It was more like 23 mornings on account of a major tropical system that had rolled through off the Atlantic Ocean and squatted on the American Southeast like a fat man on a toilet.
On one particularly gloomy morning about three weeks in, Taylor had had his fill of being stuck in his office, watching for animals walking two by two into a boat. So he handed off command to Billy for the day, boarded the pickup truck he kept out back of the clubhouse, and headed for Cocktail Junction to blow off some steam.
“Wait, don’t tell me,” Rex said upon seeing Taylor enter the Hell House. “A burger all the way with fries—mustard on the side—and a frozen 22-ounce mug of Long Branch Light piss water.”
“Who needs psychic hookers when I’ve got you, Rex?” Taylor grinned and nabbed a seat at the bar.
“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t just compare me to a prostitute,” Rex said with a frown.
Taylor shared a chuckle with his friend then watched him vanish into the kitchen to put in the burger order.
Always good to be back. Taylor traded ‘hey, bud’ waves with Normitt as the latter headed for the jukebox to make his usual selection.
“Sometimes you wanna go,” the singer began.
Meet me outside.
Taylor narrowed his gaze at the strange line of text in the lower-right of his field of vision. Someone was speaking with him via pinplants. Who is this? Taylor asked with a thought.
Outside, the text repeated. Back alley. Now.
Taylor glanced around the bar. All he saw were regulars and a pair of Cochkala shooting pool in the back. He asked again, Who is this? This time, he got no response.
Figuring if someone meant him harm they probably wouldn’t have called first, Taylor decided to satisfy his curiosity and find out who wanted to talk. On my way.
A trio of flyers streaked the slate-gray sky overhead as Taylor exited the Hell House’s back entrance, then trotted through the rain into the alley, seeking shelter.
A lone figure was waiting under a nearby carport when he rounded the corner. Short, slender, and clearly human, the woman was elegantly dressed in a hooded satin cape that touched the ankles of her uniform, and wide-lens sunglasses, which covered much of her bronze-skinned complexion.
So much for facial recognition protocols. Taylor folded his arms. “Let me guess. The future’s so bright, you’ve gotta wear shades.”
The woman pulled back the hood, removed the sunglasses, and pulled something from the inside of her cheeks.
Didn’t see that comin’. Taylor pocketed his hands in his jeans. “Sansar Enkh. Of all the surprise guests I might’ve expected to meet at Happy Hour, I’ll admit, you’re a bit further down the list than most.”
“I have not come to drink with you, Chief Van Zant,” the venerable Asian merc commander said. “My apologies for the disguise. Sadly, your country has declared me persona non grata inside your borders so certain precautions had to be taken.”
“Call me Taylor, please.” He smiled. “And I suspect that might have something to do with the fact that you melted down most of the nation’s computer systems in your last encounter with us.”
Sansar shrugged. “I wasn’t responsible for the virus—it was the Science Guild’s AI—and I tried to give your government the solution before their computers ate themselves. They weren’t interested in talking to me.”
“Something to do with all the other things you’ve done to them, I suspect.”
“Perhaps.” The woman’s thin lips formed a wry grin.
“So,” Taylor said, “what can I do for the Golden Horde?”
“We’ll get to that,” Sansar said. “First, you said you weren’t expecting me. I presume by your tone that you were looking for someone…bigger?”
Okay, so she’s connected me to Japhara. “Him or someone like him, yeah.”
“Can I ask why?”
Taylor proceeded with caution. “My crew and I brought a person of interest to him a few weeks ago. Someone who’d been disappearing other Sumatozou, along with various members of numerous other races.”
“You’re referring to Master Akoya Vello,” Sansar said.
Taylor arched an eyebrow.
“Who do you think interrogated your renegade Sumatozou after Japhara removed him from your custody?” Sansar pointed to herself. “I must confess, I’ve wondered for quite some time how someone of your, shall we say, ‘status,’ would come to be in league with a grand latura. Now I have my answer.”
Taylor wrinkled his nose. “You know about the Latura Corps?”
“It’s my job to know as much as possible about as many things as possible,” Sansar said. “As it happens, the Golden Horde just did a mission against the Science Guild, also at the behest
