“Not yet,” Lucita said, giving the crowd a once-over. “If he’s smart, he’ll play along and greet me as if I was his sister.”
“I rarely find assuming people will react in an intelligent manner to be beneficial.”
“The worst thing he could do would be to sic his people on us. In which case we have to kill them, then him, and get away.”
“Just like that.”
“Just like that. We should try not to die, obviously.”
“I have some equipment that might help.” I had my modular pistol, a set of poisons disguised as chewing gum, my cellphone with its garrote wire, and a pen grenade. Ever since the Shin Bet (the Israeli FBI) killed Yahya Abd-al-Latif Ayyash with an exploding cellphone, assassination had become an ever-increasing array of strange gadgets. However, the pen grenade felt like something from a movie.
“I don’t need weapons to kill people,” Lucita said calmly. “Though I’d prefer to make it look like an accident.”
“That’s my specialty,” I said, looking up at the chandelier before dismissing it as too cartoonish.
A part of me was contemplating making an adjustment to my plan. Knowing Luigi was planning to turn on the Carnevale left me with the option of saving his life. Only the Carnevale wanted him dead, after all, and if I could prove to him they were after him now, I might be able to exert his influence to launch a direct assault on the Palace of Miracles. Lucita’s plan had the potential to eliminate her father and brother but left the Carnevale intact, which was standing between me and Marcus Gordon. Certainly, there was enough wealth on display here that Luigi could grease a few palms to get the army moving. That was a lot of ifs, ands, buts, and maybes, though. A good assassin should be willing to improvise on a mission, but I preferred things to work like clockwork. I would also have to kill Lucita, and while that was the plan, I found it wasn’t a part I was looking forward to. She was charming, if murderous, company.
Of course, who wasn’t in my social circle?
“Found him,” Lucita said, switching back to Italian.
“Hmm?” I said, faking taking a sip of my champagne. I wasn’t about to risk being poisoned, even if it would take a hefty solution to put me down.
I followed her line of sight to the next room, where I saw a gray-haired, overweight man in his fifties who had probably been quite handsome in his youth but was now on the decline. Wearing a grey pin-stripe suit, Luigi did not look like a criminal or a man deeply involved in assassination. The target was standing beside a depressed but attractive raven-haired woman in her forties, and a ten-year-old girl who was probably their youngest child. Both were dressed in clothing less expensive than the rest of the high fashion around them, which called into question how much of his vast fortune Luigi allowed his loved ones. Combine that with the fact that the girl’s wrist had been broken recently, and I wondered how much Luigi loved his family at all.
“What are your policies on children?” Lucita said.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Lucita narrowed her gaze. “Think about it.”
“Ah.”
I’d never killed any, never even thought about the possibility, but now I was being confronted with the question. Were younger lives intrinsically more valuable than older ones? Quite the opposite. A surgeon, for example, has significantly more value than a young girl. Yet there was a strange sensation that this was not the right attitude to take.
Curious.
“I’m a Letter,” I said, deciding it was better not to frame any moral objections at this time. “Life has no inherent meaning beyond the bottom line.”
“I like them,” Lucita said. “We should go talk to him about his daughter in order to arrange for a more private meeting with Mondo upstairs.”
“Assuming he cares.”
Lucita glared at me.
“Just saying.”
“Most fathers do,” Lucita said, walking forward.
I followed.
I attempted to call Marissa in order to get some additional information on the situation, but strangely, I received no response. It was possible her shift had ended and she was being replaced by another Assistant. Unlikely, but possible. Yet there should have been a response.
Which made me wonder whether the home office still existed.
No, it was probably just a glitch.
Probably.
Reaching Mondo and his family, I saw Luigi’s face fall at the presence of Lucita, and his eyes conveyed a look of genuine fear as Lucita leaned down to give his daughter a pinch on the cheek.
“Such a lovely young girl,” Lucita said cheerfully in Italian. “I’m sure she’ll grow up to be a beautiful lady.”
“Ah, could you excuse us for a moment, Maria?” Luigi said to his wife. I couldn’t tell if he was worried about his daughter or himself. Though really, they weren’t mutually exclusive. “Please take Alyssa with you.”
Lucita made a dismissive wave of her hand. “Oh, don’t be silly, we’re old friends. No need to send them away.”
The menace was entirely understated, but I could tell Luigi was terrified.
We had him.
Lucita gestured to me. “This is my friend—”
“I know who he is,” Luigi said, staring at me. “I know what he is.”
I felt a surge of memories pass through my consciousness, like someone turning on a spigot and then turning it off in rapid succession.
I saw Luigi Mondo among the politicians and financers watching over me. I was fourteen years old, bald, and holding a pistol at a firing range as I shot at the targets that popped up in front of me.
I saw Universiti soldiers, some of the world’s best mercenaries, leading me and two dozen other children on a run across snowy hills. We were dressed like soldiers despite our age and barely felt the cold as we moved up the side.
I saw myself getting married to the brown-skinned, dark-haired woman from my dreams.
I saw the birth of our child.
None of this made sense. Universiti hadn’t changed its name from Black Forest until 2011, yet its soldiers were wearing the modern uniform in my vision. I wasn’t a child soldier, I was certain of it, yet there was the image in my head. What was going on? Was I cracking up? God, did I need to be mind-wiped again?
“We need to speak, Minister,” I said, forcing those thoughts down. It seemed I had much to talk with Luigi about.
Assuming I wasn’t just going insane.
Maria, Luigi’s wife, looked between us, then to her husband. “Luigi, is something wrong? Do I need to get security?”
“No,” Luigi said, taking a deep breath and putting on a relaxed expression. “Nothing’s wrong. These are just some business associates and I’ve made some decisions that upset them.”
“Well, tell them to fuck off,” Maria said. “You’re going to be the president!”
“Yeah, fuck off!” the little girl said, staring up at us.
I smiled. I was starting to like his family.
Too bad I was about to break it up.
Luigi took a deep breath and looked past us before nodding. “I’ll go with you, upstairs. Perhaps we can come to some sort of arrangement.”
Lucita smiled. “Of course.”
Lucita hadn’t noticed what he looked at, but I did. Turning my head, I caught a glimpse of an extremely tall man in the attire of a security guard.
The Smiling Killer.
Shit.
Chapter Sixteen
As Luigi Mondo broke away from his family and started walking toward the grand staircase to the upstairs, certain he was a dead man; I took Lucita by the arm and whispered, “Your brother is here.”
The appearance of the Smiling Killer was an unexpected wrinkle. He wasn’t exactly inconspicuous, and the Caesar wasn’t the sort of person to send backup. Given someone had just tried to kill his daughter, it was possible he was there as a bodyguard, but it was equally possible he had another mission. The Smiling Killer had been listed as “highly unstable�
�� among his many other more charming qualities, like preferring to kill people with a machete if he managed to get them up close. It was also possible he could be here to monitor my actions with Lucita, or kill me. The Caesar was no fool, and an attack on Lucita so soon after my arrival might be something he was suspicious of.
Assuming his mole didn’t outright inform him of my presence as an infiltrator.
Dammit, too many unknowns.
Lucita’s eyes widened at the mention of her brother. In an equally low voice to mine, she replied, “Fuck. Sending him is no small matter.”
“I thought you said Alonzo was incompetent.”
“Incompetence can be measured in many ways, and he’s very good at the killing part of our business. He is one of those who murder because they like it. If he’s here, he’s almost certainly brought his gang as well. Each of them is as modified as I am.”
“Perhaps we should abort.” It was a general policy for Letters. You didn’t let your targets pick the time and place for attack; you did. Better to retreat and strike again another day than subject yourselves to exposure. It was the difference between an assassin and a soldier at the end of the day.
Lucita’s response put my definition to lie, though. “I am not one to run away from a fight.”
I clenched my teeth and was about to say something nasty when a thought occurred to me. I had entertained it earlier before dismissing it, but given the changing circumstances, it seemed like a much better idea now. “There might be an alternative to our situation.”
“Which is?”
“Divide our enemies and conquer them.” I needed to keep Lucita from her brother for multiple reasons, not the least being he could know I was here to bring about the end of her father’s organization. I also saw another opportunity to weaken the Carnevale and possibly bring about its end.
“I’m listening.”
I put together the idea quickly in my head, trying to figure out how all of the dominoes would fall if I changed my plan. It was a risky but necessary part of this operation to make some educated guesses. “Luigi thinks I’m a member of the Society because of my appearance. We can convince him you are now with them and ready to turn against the Carnevale. Then we use his guards against Alonzo and company, or flat-out call the military down on your foes.”
Lucita blinked. “That will never work in the long term.”
“It only needs to last long enough to kill him. As for my former masters, you said yourself they’re not going to be a problem for much longer.”
“You are a duplicitous snake. I’m starting to like you.”
“Only starting?” I gave a false reassuring smile.
Lucita rolled her eyes. “Don’t push it.”
“I believe this is a risk worth taking.”
Lucita closed her eyes, and then looked at the figure who was already halfway up the stairs. “All right. Like my father’s namesake, we have already crossed the Rubicon. I must be willing to do everything I can to destroy him, even work with—ugh—the government.”
“Not a fan, I take it.”
“Look around you,”
“I see.” Truth be told, I wasn’t sure where a woman who belonged to a family of assassins formed by a fascist relic of the Cold War had room to judge, but we were running out of time.
I needed to contact the Society and see if I could press on Mondo to make use of this plan. I had permission to kill Mondo, but they still might be able to exert some influence on him.
The worst case scenario, at least as far as I could tell, was we’d just have to kill him. Well, actually, the worst case scenario was any number of people killed me and Lucita, but that was splitting hairs.
Walking with my temporary partner toward the grand staircase, I decided to bypass the presently absent Marissa and contact Persephone directly. It was a breach of protocol, but since I wasn’t getting any response from my Assistant, I figured I was justified in doing so.
Much to my surprise, I was answered by S rather than Persephone. A little square appeared in the top right-hand corner of my vision showing her sitting behind Persephone’s desk. Her hair was tied up in a bun and she was wearing a black jacket over a business suit dress. “G? My God, I thought you were dead.”
“What?” I responded, trying not to show my surprise to Lucita.
“You’ve been off the grid since you arrived in Italy. Marissa scrambled your signal as well as Delphi’s ability to monitor you. Persephone was about ready to issue a kill order on you. They thought you were involved with her escape.”
“Escape?” My blood ran cold.
“Is something wrong?” Lucita asked, taking my arm as we walked up the stairs past security.
“Just the usual,” I said, feeling my mouth go dry. “People trying to kill me, treachery, and lies.”
“Ah, Tuesday,” Lucita said.
Inside my stomach was churning and I felt like vomiting. I’d spoken with Marissa at length since my arrival, even made arrangements for a hit, and she’d gone rogue during it? What the fuck was going on?
S, meanwhile, explained my situation. “Marissa was the mole. She set up Lisa Simple with the aid of outside contractors, but our investigators saw through that. It was to buy her some time, though, as she ditched her monitors. Somehow, she broke her conditioning or was never conditioned in the first place. We’re investigating everything she’s been involved in since the beginning, and that, unfortunately, includes you.”
I thought of the first time I’d made love to Marissa, not long after we’d both barely escaped from an assassination gone wrong involving anti-government terrorists calling themselves the John Brown Brotherhood. The excitement and adrenaline had made us tear each other’s clothes off in the safe house, and we’d had sex on the hood of a 2013 Mercedes Benz.
I thought about the time Marissa and I had first discussed my desire to find out about my past in violation of protocol. I’d been trying to seduce her for some time but hadn’t made much progress. So I dropped the facade and simply explained to her how much I wanted to know who I was and where I came from.
I thought about how Marissa loved playing video games that involved violently shooting people and had to explain the appeal to me.
And she was obsessed with Chinese noodles.
I had been betrayed before, but this was something that felt a whole order of magnitude different, like someone had kicked out a ladder I hadn’t even realized I’d been standing on and now I was falling to the ground in slow motion.
“I see,” I responded, unsure of what else to say.
“Give me a status update, now. I’m temporarily in command and we’re running blind here.”
“Understood.” I gave S a short rundown of the situation. I considered leaving off the fact that the International Refugee Society had been exposed to Washington by the Carnevale, but S was the one on the other line and I wasn’t about to endanger her in order to get revenge. God, I was starting to see the point Persephone had about human ties making a mess of a person’s loyalties. Right now, I would give anything to return to my early days as a soulless automaton. Suddenly, my whole mission here seemed unimportant. Trite. “We’re about to kill Luigi Mondo.”
“Don’t,” S responded, her voice having an urgent stunned quality to it. “Luigi Mondo is a huge patron of the Society. You are not approved for killing him.”
Great. This just kept getting better and better. My mind was swimming with all the possibilities this new information presented as well as the ache of realizing I’d been played for a fool. Elements of Marissa being the Carnevale’s mole didn’t make sense, though—like why did the Zombie break her finger if she was their informant? Why was she taken prisoner? Why hadn’t she blown my cover? I was almost embarrassed that my thoughts included the stereotypical “Was anything she felt for me real or was it all a lie?” I tried to force it all down and focus instead on the contract.
“How did she do this? Where is Persephone?” I tried not to show any con
cern in my thoughts to S, but somehow, I knew my wife picked up my absolute distress.
“I’m sorry, G. I truly am.”
“Please, answer the questions.”
“All right.”
Lucita and I reached the top of the stairs, turning to the right to follow Luigi into his office past a hardwood door. There were numerous cameras throughout the hallways and the upstairs guards included men with modified assault rifles and heavier weapons. Luigi was prepared for cyborgs as well as regular assassins, leading me to think we might just be walking into the lion’s den.
Truth be told, I didn’t care. Right now, if Luigi’s men or the Smiling Killer’s came out and murdered me, I would have barely noticed.
No, I needed to push that away.
I wanted to live.
Is this what life with attachments was like? Being a slave to another person?
If so, it was foolhardy.
I focused instead on the mission.
It was easier that way.
S explained just how Marissa pulled off her coup. “She inserted some kind of root-kit into Delphi which gives her unprecedented access to the entire mainframe. We’re still trying to find it, but it’s not like we can just reboot her from a previous save. What makes her useful is the connections she’s formed with all of the information she monitors. As for Persephone, she’s in Washington D.C. with her contacts. It’s possible she knows what’s coming or maybe… I dunno, shit. Can you stop Mondo from being killed?”
“Possibly.” I needed to get ahead of this immediately. I had no idea what was waiting for us in Mondo’s office and it was entirely possible he was calling security now to order our detainment. I needed to get him to trust us and as good as I was with manipulating people, I wasn’t that good.
Not without leverage.
Stopping in front of the door, I directed Lucita to the bannister overlooking the party and whispered into her ear, “I see your brother’s men. We need to point them out.”
Lucita nodded, coming to look over the bannister. “Where?”
“S, I need you to call Luigi Mondo immediately and tell him he needs to work with me and Lucita to take these people down. Tell him it’s a plan by the Society or whatever else you need him to do. Also, to lend us his security forces.”
Agent G: Infiltrator Page 13
