The Ayatollah's Money
Page 65
Chapter 65 - The Other Guys Are Working Too
Hablibi's suite cost $1,100 a night, and that's where the boys sat, planning their big op. There wasn't enough space in the $800 a night rooms for all the brainpower they were generating. Priss said, "The first thing we gotta do is find out what's going on in that place. They're preparing for some kind of public event, and we need to know what it is if we're going to crash it."
"No, for Allah's sake, the first thing we need is weapons; real weapons, this time, not fucking pea shooters," said Lewy, glaring at Hablibi. "We need something that can deal with that Russian guy that humiliated us, and with that chick that drew a gun on us."
The Colonel said, "The what? The what that drew a gun?"
"Chick. That's American for girl. Woman. Especially a good looking one, like her. She was something, wasn't she, way she held that on us, not really pointing it, but we all knew she woulda blown us away if we tried anything." The boys drifted away for a moment, visualizing Gwen pulling her Glock from her hip, racking the slide, and assuming the shooters stance in one easy motion, casual but effective. That was a big surprise.
Hablibi wondered if the boys were being contaminated by their contact with the infidel's culture, and maybe he was partly to blame for bringing in the hookers and the booze. He better watch that. It was ok for him to get involved in that recreational stuff, him being a diplomat and all; it was part of his job to engage in the foreigner's society, but it probably wasn't healthy for assassins to do that. Their job was to remain pure at heart so as to be able to inflict maximum mayhem on the enemies of state. He said, "You guys are still sleeping on the floor, right? Not on the beds? Staying tough and rugged, not getting soft in this land of blubbery capitalism? You still shave in the morning with your pocket knives?"
Lewy looked at Priss, winked, said, "Oh, yeah, still hard as nails, don't worry about us."
The Colonel said, "We need to do both. Find out what they're doing, and get some real weapons. The only way we can watch them and maybe get inside is to use disguises." He looked at Hablibi. "While we're working on those, you need to get us the weapons; the ones we told you about before: poison, guns, radioactive matter, stuff like that. No more spudzookas, ok?"
He nodded, feeling both guilty and resentful. What's wrong with a spudzooka? Could be very effective in the right hands and with the right level of training. He bet Lewy hadn't tried very hard to attach the propane cylinder to the PVC tube. How hard could that be? But he had to admit that an assassin without a gun was like a chef without an egg beater, and that's where his guilt came from. He'd better find one of these swap meet places where you could buy guns without anybody checking up on you. His guilt was limited, however, and he went on the offensive, saying, "What kind of disguises are you going to use? Charleston is not exactly the land of dark skinned swarthy men, like us. These people all had ancestors that came from up north, cold places like France and Belgium. All that snow made their skins that ugly pale white. Shit, most of these guys only shave every other day, not twice a day like us."
Priss said, "I think I can pass as one of these college students. Dress like them, walk around staring at my cellphone every minute, bumping into lamp posts, sending messages asking people if they know of any available virgins. I can carry my new weapons in my backpack, perfect. Students are around that place all the time."
The Colonel looked at Lewy. "What about you?"
"How 'bout I try being a pizza delivery person. We saw one of them go in that place a couple of times, carrying four or five flat boxes. That'll work cause pizza is Italian, and they're swarthy like us."
"Pizza's not Italian, it's Greek," said Priss.
"Italian."
"Greek."
"Italian. From Italy. That's where it was invented, same time as perspective."
The Colonel said, "What's perspective?"
Lewy said, "It's an art thing; makes the picture look three dimensional instead of flat, like it was before the Italians invented it around 1450."
Hablibi asked, "They teach you that in assassin's school? Where'd you learn that?"
"From my sister."
"Oh, yeah, she's not supposed to know stuff like that. Where'd she learn it?"
"Never you mind. She's a good girl. Thirty-two years old, still a virgin."
The other three guys thought, 'Yeah, right.'
The Colonel took command of the situation and said, "Ok, each of you have your orders. Get the weapons and get the disguises. We need to know when the infidel's public event is going to take place, so we have to be ready. Let's go."