Zero Hour

“Succeed or fail,” Benazir said.

Earl nodded again, hands stuffed in the pockets of his coat. As always the office was silent around him except for the sounds of pumped and filtered water in the octopus tank in the wall.

He waited. Hard, hard as hell, keeping his feet under him… though it didn’t help that Zaheer’s bullet was still floating around in the red muck between his ribs, probably just about to give his heart a last cold kiss.

Hush baby, you hush.

Yeah, Earl thought, the old fire-engine-red truck he’d driven for so long would be ditching off the highway of life any time now. He had stuffed the hole in his chest with fistfuls of gauze more than once, wrapped himself around with fresh bandage tape before showing up at the office, but all that had done was soak up the blood under his shirt and coat — well, the coat, anyway — and keep it from gushing out of him like water from a bathtub spout.

Now Benazir rose, came around the desk, stood in front of Earl.

“The money will be yours without condition,” he said. “I would, however, wish to know how you managed to escape what has just begun to trickle its way into the news. Those men on motorcycles…” Benazir shrugged, let the sentence trail. “How?” he said.

Earl remained very still. If he took even a single step forward, backward, or sideways, he figured it would leave him flat on the floor. Of course, it wasn’t his feet he had to be able to move.

“Well,” he said, and pulled his Sig nine from his pocket, “it went kind of like this.”

Benazir’s face barely showed any reaction. After a few seconds he blinked slowly, let his eyes stay shut for another span of seconds, and released a long breath as he opened them.

“You never did think you’d have to pay up the balance, did you?” Earl said. “Never thought I’d be around to ask for it.”

Hasul shook his head.

“No,” he said. “I never did.”

Earl looked at him with his gun between them, tightened his lips to hold back a cough. No sense messing the carpet with what would come out of him.

He motioned toward the aquarium with the pistol.

“Gonna give you a choice, Hasul,” he said. “You can let your poisonous friend Legs give you a tickle or you can deal with my friend Siggy here. Either way, it ought to be quick.”

Benazir remained nearly expressionless, staring at him with his dark brown eyes.

At length he nodded, strode toward the tank, removed the wood-veneer feeder panel from the wall above it, and set it down on the floor.

“I believe I knew,” he said softly, and turned his head to look at Earl as he rolled up his shirt sleeve.

Earl grunted.

“Kinda believe you did, too,” he said. He raised the gun a notch higher, his finger around its trigger. “Now go on, Hasul. Say hi to Legs for me… and I promise, I’ll see you by-and-by.”

Hasul stared at him another moment, gave him a nod, and then turned and slipped his hand into the aquarium.

Darting from its habitat cave, the octopus was quick to wrap its venomous tentacles around him.

* * *

The vid-conference between Megan Breen in San Jose and Noriko Cousins and Tom Ricci in New York took place almost immediately after the federal agents left Noriko’s office.

It was no coincidence that their visit to Sword-Manhattan, and the reasons for it, were the main subjects of discussion.

“It boggles me that you let this happen,” Megan was telling Noriko. “A threat of the magnitude you uncovered… how could you not immediately report it to the authorities? The list of protocols you violated is so long, I can only begin to list them from memory. NYPD, the FBI, Homeland Security — all of them should have been informed.” She paused, shook her head. “This was a Code Red national-security emergency. Millions could have died—”

“But they didn’t die, and the reason they didn’t is because we didn’t wait to move,” Noriko said. Her lips tightened. “All it cost was the lives of two of my men.”

Megan looked at her from across the country.

“I’m not questioning the actions you took,” she said. “It’s the notifications you should have — and could have — made when they were taken.”

Noriko stared at the video screen from her chair at the conference table, glanced over at Ricci, glanced back at the screen. Started to say something, then stopped. And then stared at the screen some more.

“I had reasons that I can’t share,” she said simply.

Megan looked at her.

“Reasons,” she repeated.

Noriko gave a nod.

“Reasons,” Megan repeated a second time, incredulous. “Noriko, listen to what I’m saying—”

“She can hear you,” Ricci said abruptly. “You want to put this on somebody, put it on me.”

Megan shook her head.

“I don’t understand,” she said.

“My source gave me his tip on the condition that we handle everything ourselves,” Ricci said. “He wanted time to get himself out of the city before it went into lockdown, and I told him he could have it. Better that than have him leave without talking.”

There was a prolonged silence. Megan inhaled, exhaled.

“This mysterious source you’ve mentioned… you could have told him whatever you wanted for his information,” she said. “Do you really think letting him have things his way was worth putting UpLink under fire? Our reputation, our contacts… were they worth jeopardizing for him?”

Ricci looked at her with his icy blue eyes and merely shrugged.

“No,” he said. “They were for my promise.”

* * *

“Yes, sir, may I help you?” the salesman said from behind his counter.

Malisse nodded.

“The cocobolo rosewood humidor,” he said. “The one in your window, with the beveled glass lid…”

“I know which you mean,” said the salesman, looking sharply down his nose at Malisse. “It is a one-of-a- kind.”

Malisse tugged at his earlobe.

“I see,” he said. “Well, I’d noticed it earlier, and was wondering about its price”

The salesman looked at him, and quoted a dollar amount with what appeared to be delighted scorn.

Malisse tried not to choke on the exorbitant figure. With his flight back to Antwerp booked for the morning, he had returned to the tobacconist’s on a whim… and a foolish whim it had been to think he could afford the cigar case.

Indeed, Malisse thought, he was probably undeserving of it. Certainly undeserving. He had failed to determine anything conclusive about the sapphires. He had not learned whether they were authentic or fakes. He knew nothing more than before about their origins, or the identity of the scoundrel in the outback coat who had doubtless been set to meet the late, unfortunate Hoffman before his fall. He had done nothing, nothing of consequence in New York City but sample its sweets and return a briefcase full of money to Hoffman the middleman’s bereaved widow.

Yes, Rance Lembock would offer to pay him despite his disappointment. And no, Malisse would accept nothing but expense money from the old survivor of genocide. How could he presume to justify the purchase of the humidor to himself?

“Ah, sir… if you don’t mind?”

Malisse looked at the salesman, plucked from his reverie.

“Don’t mind what?” he said.

“I have other customers waiting,” the salesman said with a wave toward some presumably invisible person