Call of the Wilde

by Jenn Stark

  “Oh, trust me, General. She’ll be swayed.” Nikki cackled at his expression, now so pained, he looked like he might soon need morphine. “But how long do we think it’s going to take before we get the high sign from Trident? And who thought of that name anyway as a replacement? Did they hold a contest?” She tossed her magazine to the side as the airplane’s wheels lifted off the tarmac. “Because whoever thought it up, it’s the dumbest. Name. Ever.”

  Ma-Singh shifted in his own seat. “Except for Ant Men.”

  I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep.

  In the end, the alert came when we were over the Atlantic Ocean, still a good three hours from Geneva. And it came in the most innocuous form ever.

  A buzzing cell phone.

  Nikki jostled awake first, her gaze going over to her bag. “We’ve got cell service up here?” She frowned, then looked at the cell on her armrest. “Not mine. It’s right next to me.”

  “Your second one?” I asked.

  She turned blank eyes on me, and I flapped my hand. “Remember, you had two cell phones the other night. You used them to contact Ma-Singh. One was a burner.”

  “Right, but I don’t use that for anyone else. And Ma-Singh’s on the plane. He doesn’t need to call.”

  Perplexed, she got out of the chair and moved over to her bag, pawing through it until she pulled the phone free. When she flipped it on, her brows tented in alarm. “Son of a bitch.” She tossed the phone to Ma-Singh. “We believe it?”

  The general snatched the phone and looked at the screen, then showed it to me. It displayed a single line of text on the screen, the only text listed on the phone. The number was Unknown. The phrase was brief: Gusto.

  I frowned. “What is that, Gusto?”

  “A restaurant inside the Hotel Metropole Geneva, very swank, very pricey, very public,” Nikki said. Her gaze rested on Ma-Singh, who also seemed to know the restaurant well.

  “It was a preferred dining location of Madame Soo, another indication of the House of Wands’ knowledge of our actions and our preferences,” he said thoughtfully. “They are taking great pains to convey their superiority to us.”

  “Because they’re asshats with a chip on their shoulders?” Nikki asked.

  “Perhaps.” Ma-Singh nodded. “Or because they need us as much as we need them.”

  “Either way.” I pointed to the phone. “If Soo has patronized the establishment, I assume you’re good with their security?”

  “I am.” He nodded. “The hotel itself is quite old, and as such, we have had extensive opportunity to retrofit it over the years to our requirements, discreetly, of course. I’ll check with our local contacts in the city to see if those enhancements remain in place. They update the technology twice a year, but I’m not sure of the schedule. It will take no time to determine how long it’s been since we’ve had people inside.”

  I stared at him. “You put tech in places Soo might have randomly visited at any given point, simply in case she came back?”

  “Of course. Madame Soo was very specific about her travel needs. She chose her preferred settings with a great deal of discretion, and preferred to return to locations she knew well and who knew her well. Once this pattern was established, it was simple enough to ensure that we kept those places in order against a future visit.”

  “Of course,” I said dryly. “You think the House of Wands knows that?”

  “In this case, I am unsure. Madame Soo had not visited Geneva for more than six months prior to her death, and when she did, I seem to recall her noticing a shift in the clientele of the Hotel Metropole.”

  “Undesirables?”

  “The opposite. The hotel has always catered to the ultrarich, but it had stepped up further at her most recent visit, if I remember correctly.” Ma-Singh pointed to one of the other generals, and wordlessly, the Frenchman stood and crossed to his own bag, retrieving his laptop. Within two minutes, he looked up.

  “You are correct, General Ma-Singh,” said the man in quiet, steady tones. “Madame Soo asked us to watch the hotel, determine why it had gained such an uptick in its caliber of clientele.”

  “And did you find anything out?” asked Nikki.

  “Nothing conclusive,” the French general said. “Top management didn’t shift, but second-tier managers were all replaced. The hotel’s staff, normally quite discreet, began making such discretion the cornerstone of their service. The hotel accordingly began attracting a clientele that included famous celebrities, royalty, billionaire business professionals, financiers. Its prices increased, and its popularity did as well. It became difficult for us to secure a reservation for business clients, unless they were included in the original reservation that was placed for Madame Soo. She could, of course, bump any number of existing guests.” The general smiled at my surprised expression. “She never elected to do so, but it would amuse her to know that she could. In the event a hotel was booked, she merely transferred to another city. There were many options in Europe with suitable accommodations, some far more elite than the Hotel Metropole.”

  “Or that was the case at the time,” Ma-Singh said. “It stands to reason that the hotel has grown more exclusive.”

  “Well, we’re not moving in,” I said. “We’re conducting a business meeting. I suspect a short one. We get in, we secure their participation, we get out. There will be time later to handle the logistics. We don’t even know for sure that London is the target city.”

  “Agreed,” Ma-Singh said. He held up the phone. “Do we respond?”

  “I don’t think that’s necessary.” I settled back in my seat. “If they know where we are, they’ll know when we land. They can choose to be waiting at Gusto, or they can choose otherwise.”

  Ma-Singh nodded, the faintest smile on his face. “Then this is how we should proceed.”

  When we walked into Gusto four hours later, I was surprised at how reserved the ambiance was. Granted, people throwing around that kind of money for breadsticks and Caesar salads deserved to enjoy their meals in quiet contemplation, but even the buzz of conversation sounded excessively rich, weighed down with generations of gold.

  We didn’t need to provide our name to the concierge. Instead, the man took note of us as we entered, then gestured us forward deeper into the restaurant, well away from the grand windows that opened out onto graceful balcony seating. Moving along silently, our host turned down one hallway, then another.

  Ma-Singh had prepared me for this, but I still felt a little twitchy. The doors leading off this hallway—and there were easily a dozen of them—were all closed, each with a uniformed server at their side. Server or security guard, I wasn’t particularly sure, especially since the deeper we got into the Hotel Metropole, the beefier the doormen. Nikki wasn’t missing this either.

  “Can we choose our room based on the muscle they have out front?” she asked Ma-Singh in a not quite low enough voice. “Because I have some opinions on that.”

  Predictably, the general did not respond, and at last we reached the room apparently designated to us. Not one but two guards flanked the door, and this pair didn’t even bother with the illusion of being hotel waitstaff. Their uniforms were black, their weapons were visible, and their jawlines looked etched in granite. We’d given up our own weapons at the front desk as a matter of politesse, but I knew that each of the generals and likely Nikki as well were equipped with nonstandard weapons. Still, those wouldn’t stand up terribly well against guns, if that was what we were dealing with here.

  We stepped into the room—resplendent with a long central table set with crystal and china, and easily a dozen bookshelves lining the walls. But my attention was immediately captured by the man, a hotel manager I assumed, who greeted us…mainly because he didn’t look at all like a typical hotel manager.

  The man was perhaps about sixty years old, with a thick head of wiry gray hair, neatly cropped. Short, slender, and as sculpted as a piece of ivory, he had a patch o
ver one eye that looked like it’d been there for a while, and wore an elegant tuxedo that seemed custom fit to his trim body. Though he was impeccably, almost fastidiously dressed, he looked like he’d survived multiple tours of duty in the armies of every industrial world power, and a few second- and third-world fiefdoms as well.

  “Ma-Singh! General Le Tours, General Wei Pan. We are honored to welcome you to Gusto. Your presence here graces our establishment and brings acclaim to all our guests.”

  I shot a look at Ma-Singh. He hadn’t mentioned a welcome committee, but I didn’t have time to glare for long as the short man turned to me.

  “Madame Wilde. I am Luca Stone, the proprietor of this humble establishment. Your reputation precedes you, and it is my pleasure to explain to you the precautions we have taken to ensure your brief repast within our walls proceeds to your complete satisfaction.”

  I nodded to him, and he turned to Nikki. “Mademoiselle Dawes, it is my pleasure to meet you as well. We have heard a great deal about you and are pleased to welcome you to the inner sanctum of the Hotel Metropole.”

  I narrowed my eyes. Stone was going to great lengths to demonstrate how much he knew about us, but why hadn’t Ma-Singh warned me about this guy? The Mongolian merely stared at Stone with his flat black eyes, betraying nothing.

  Stone turned, then gestured with a flourish. The bookcases that lined the walls of the room swung outward. From behind them, trim figures emerged, each wearing black, their faces shrouded by eye masks, their mouths half-covered with headsets.

  “You will be in contact at all times with our security staff, who cannot hear anything through these walls but can hear any communications transferred through these speakers, which you can place on your clothing or in a pocket and activate as needed.” He handed one to Ma-Singh, the other to Nikki. “As our honored guests, your priorities exceed those of your visiting party. Swords above Wands, for all that they contacted us first.” I looked at him, startled, but he kept going.

  “Your food will be prepared and transferred via private kitchen, with no access to outside interference until it reaches you through these doors. The same is true of your wine, which I have personally curated for you. Nothing and no one will interrupt your meal once it has begun, nor will it terminate without your express approval.”

  He said this last to me, as if I should completely understand what the hell he was talking about. Was this the kind of party Soo used to host here? And if so, why were the House of Wands foolish enough to suggest it—unless they were that committed to ensuring our comfort for whatever conversation we were about to have?

  Suddenly, Stone placed two elegant fingers to his ear. “Excellent,” he said, though he clearly wasn’t talking to me. He listened a moment more, and his smile broadened.

  “It appears your guests have arrived. They believe that you are their guests, but we’ll keep that to ourselves, unless and until it’s necessary to inform them otherwise. At Gusto, we appreciate repeat business of the caliber of Madame Soo…and perhaps even more, a leader who displays abilities such as yours, Madame Wilde. We do our best to honor those guests who return to us time and again.”

  He turned to me, and suddenly in his hand was an elegant business card, with a name and number inscribed in a soft dove-gray font.

  “With our sincere compliments,” he said. “Should you ever have need of our assistance at a later date, I urge you to dial me directly. We would be honored to serve.”

  I managed to take the card without spontaneously blurting out a thousand questions, and Stone bowed with a grace and sophistication that perfectly suited this gilded bomb shelter in the center of a century-old hotel.

  “And now, leader and generals of the House of Swords, I will leave you to enjoy your meal,” Stone said. With a gesture, he sent the hotel guards into motion, and they floated back behind their bookcase doors, swinging the heavy shelves shut. Then, with a final bow, Stone stepped through the door to our salon and pulled it closed.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Ma-Singh’s phone buzzed before I could get my bearings, and the general pulled it free, grunting with satisfaction as he read the text. He glanced up at me.

  “Gamon has contacted our headquarters with her itinerary to meet us in London in two days’ time. She said it will take that long for her to assemble her people, but the strength of her personal guard and the resources of the House of Cups are at our disposal.”

  Nikki let out a low whistle. “I really wish I’d been there to see her meeting with Kreios.”

  “What about Mercault?” I asked, turning to General Le Tours. “When will he be contacted?”

  That general pulled his phone free and scanned it. “Envoys were dispatched from a local drop site to his château once we received confirmation of General Gamon’s message,” Le Tours said. I wasn’t surprised the general did not refer to Gamon as Madame. There was something intrinsically military about her, despite her overlay of crazy, that begged acknowledgment. “We expect to secure his agreement within a few hours. There would be no reason for him to refuse.”

  “You’ll let him know Gamon is in?”

  “Of course.” Le Tours nodded. The slender Frenchman curled his lip. “Hence my certainty of his course of action. Monsieur Mercault is driven primarily by money, and secondarily by fear. He will be made to understand precisely how much he will have to fear, in the event of noncompliance.”

  “Good. Weather update?”

  Ma-Singh swiped to another screen on his phone. “The storm threatening India has lessened. The same with New York. The disturbance in the Pacific Ocean continues to develop, as does the squall building in the Norwegian Sea. The latter is primarily notable because it is pursuing a southerly track versus primarily westward, which is more typical for the area.

  “Time for it to reach London?”

  “Approximately fifty-six hours,” he said. “We cannot be sure that the storm itself will be the trigger for any sort of action, of course. But these storms are continuing to confound meteorologists, and the timing is, of course, suspect.”

  “They’re something,” I agreed. “We just don’t know what.”

  A discreet knock interrupted us, and a moment later, a uniformed hostess stepped through the door, as proper and polite as our original concierge had been. Stone was not with her, but that didn’t detract from the quality of her delivery: five men, each of them well over six foot five, strode into the room. They moved with the precision of trained fighters, and like all my generals and Nikki besides, I was certain they were bristling with nonstandard weapons beneath their well-cut jackets. This crew looked like they could do unfathomable damage with a dish of pickled eggs.

  One of them stepped forward immediately as the rest of them ringed around. It was Island Giant, resplendent in a custom-tailored suit.

  “Madame Wilde,” he said, offering me a hard, fierce smile as he bowed. “It is at last my privilege to say well met. My name is Rangi Nakumara, and I am the leader of the House of Wands—or Trident, as we more commonly call ourselves.”

  I lifted a brow. “What, no hello smoke bombs or artillery fire?”

  He straightened, the smile remaining. “I regret that such demonstrations were necessary. We needed to confirm that our intelligence reports on you were accurate, that you had not been irreparably harmed in the recent attack you endured in Mexico at the hands of Lilith.”

  I didn’t miss his knowledge of my mother’s true name. “And you know about that how, exactly?”

  Rangi spread his hands again. “The resources of the House of Wands have been developed over not just centuries but millennia,” he said. “There is very little on this earth that we are unaware of, for all that we choose not to engage in it.”

  “Yet you’re engaging now.”

  He inclined his head, then turned to his entourage, naming them as his generals in quick succession. All four of the men had names that sounded straight out of the South Pacif
ic, but they didn’t all share Rangi’s Island Giant motif. The tall, ascetically thin black man could have hailed from anywhere, and two of the other men were Nordic, the final general with a decidedly Hispanic cast. As he finished, the door opened again, and a small army of waitstaff trooped in, bearing platters.

  We arranged ourselves around the table as if this were any business meeting between any networking colleagues, but I couldn’t help studying Rangi with some suspicion. He, in turn, surveyed the movements of the waitstaff with a practiced eye and far too much attention, as if he was not only memorizing their movements but their mannerisms and body language, down to the smallest nervous tic. His generals—all men, I noticed—occupied themselves with a similar perusal of my own team. I didn’t get the impression they were casing us in preparation for imminent violence, more the kind of study a method actor might employ, constantly gathering new material to apply to a thoroughly prepared role.

  I also didn’t miss the fact that most of these men I’d seen in Vegas, either in person or via Brody’s cell phone.

  “Where are you based, Rangi?” I asked summarily, barely waiting for the waitstaff to clear the door before launching into it. I had no idea what food had just been laid in front of us. It looked vaguely French and was way too dark to be chicken, but I wasn’t hungry anyway.

  Rangi seemed far more at ease. He picked up his knife and fork in the European tradition, studying his entrée for a moment before lifting his gaze to me. “You must understand, Madame Wilde, that we have survived as long as we have because of our discretion. It is…difficult for me to be forthcoming when there is still so much I need to know and understand about you.”

  I nodded, but I didn’t have time to waste with verbal fisticuffs. My third eye flicked on, and I studied Rangi’s energy patterns, and those of his generals. These were strong, fierce men, used to doing things their own way, but not merely because their way was the best way. It was more that their way was the only way, and a hissing, desperate electricity snapped and sizzled on the edges of their dedication. These men were tightly bound together because they were all they had left. A team used to winning, yes. But mostly because they couldn’t afford to lose.