The Infiltrators (8 page)

“I didn’t think it too smart to ask Mr.
Ritmer that. For all I knew, he may have thought it over and
decided killin’ me made better sense, no matter what Lefty had
said.”

“Aghh,” Rob said in exasperation which
he chose not to explain and then motioned for Tim to
continue.

“Mr. Ritmer was pretty mad, and he
said, ‘Take me to Lefty’s boss, or we’ll throw you out this
window.’ I told him, ‘Look, mister. I’m as good as dead if I take
you to Lefty’s boss without permission, so just let me go talk to
him, and tell me what you want me to say.’

“He said, ‘Tell him I want payment for
the job I did for Lefty, and I want to make him an offer—all the
Smokeless Green he wants, twenty percent cheaper than whatever’s
he’s gettin’ it at.’

“I say, ‘How do I find you?’

“He says, ‘Tell him we’ll meet this
Wednesday at precisely 11 p.m. in the alley next to Georgie’s
Pub.’

“I say, ‘Well, I’ll tell Rob, but I
can’t guarantee nothin’.’

“He said, ‘I can
guarantee
you
something. You’ll be there, or you won’t make it to the next
sunrise.’”

Rob swallowed the last morsel of his
mammoth-sized steak and looked at Tim with predatory eyes. No juicy
steak was now vying for his attention. Rob had twenty years of mean
street experience to inform him whether Tim was going to walk out
of this meeting alive.

Rob gave a quick exhale out his nose
like an irritated bull.

“It stinks, Tim. It stinks to high
heaven. It’s too damn complicated. But that’s good for you because
it’s just a little too damn complicated for you to have come up
with.”

Tim surreptitiously breathed a sigh of
relief while attempting to maintain a posture of
granite.

“BUT,” Rob began icily, “that don’t
mean you ain’t involved. It just means you ain’t the one who
thought of it. You could be workin’ for whoever is. As a messenger,
but still workin’ for him.”

Rob grew silent. There were quite a few
factors preventing him from ordering Tim to be sent on a
seventy-foot plunge over the side of the building. Lefty had been
an ambitious SOB his whole life, and he had cheated Rob far more
than the couple times Tim was aware of. Rob, in fact, had been
considering offing his brother for quite some time but had always
invented an excuse for himself at the last second.

One thing was clear—whoever these guys
were who had knocked around his toughs as if they were a team of
fifth-grade sissies, they were nobody to mess with. Their prowess
screamed ex-military, but even that was inadequate. Just how in the
hell Lefty got connected with a group of guys like this without his
knowing about it was unsettling.

Maybe they’re just climbin’
up the ladder.

Yes, that was possible. After all, the
first guys to get knocked off were dirt-level corner dealers. Then,
their crew leader, their supplier, and the supplier’s bodyguards.
Next, Lefty and his bodyguards.

So, maybe they had just contacted Lefty
because he was next up the chain.

But how was Lefty so stupid
as to not get out of there?

Conscious and subconscious thoughts
merged, as he began to see his and Lefty’s conflicted relationship
march before his eyes. Their brutal fistfights, often followed by
sincere, albeit temporary, reconciliation. Lefty’s envy as Rob
always seemed to be a step ahead of him.

Maybe he really did have a
change of heart but was just so drunk he forgot to get him and his
men the hell out of there.

He wished he could tell himself that
was absurd—that Lefty wouldn’t get that drunk. But his drinking had
been getting worse and worse by the month, commensurately with his
envy, or so it seemed.

As much as he hated to admit it, Tim’s
story seemed plausible, and if he didn’t keep Tim alive and take
him to the meeting, it could be his last chance to meet Mr. Ritmer
on his terms. Tim’s absence could raise suspicion, and he didn’t
want to do that needlessly.

After all, he could have his men check
every surrounding rooftop for bowmen or crossbowmen or anyone for
that matter, and he would only go through with the meeting if the
roofs were both cleared of enemies and filled with his
henchmen.

His misty gaze regained its hawk-like
nastiness once he reached his decision:

“Mr. Ritmer and I agree on one thing.
You will be at that meeting, or you won’t make it to the next
sunrise. After that—we’ll see.”

Rob looked towards his bodyguards.
“Keep an eye on him. He stays with us till the meetin’.”

Tim gulped.

Chapter 11

Righty’s ego was stinging more than a
little as he flew away from the ranch, leaving from the thickness
of the surrounding woods.

He had gone from feeling like king of
the world one minute to feeling down in the dirt with the lowest
beetle.

But his boxing days had taught him how
to take a lot more than a physical whipping. He had simultaneously
learned how to deal with the emotional wounds left by having his
ego crushed like a piece of rotten fruit underneath a wagon
wheel.

When Righty had put on enough muscle in
the boxing gym to start giving out some whippings of his own, and
sparring partners would complain he was hitting too hard, there
were many present to vouch for the fact Righty had taken ten times
worse without ever complaining.

In the stillness of the night, he would
sometimes cry bitter tears, as he reflected on his helplessness
against the bigger guys and the humiliation and pain of getting the
wind knocked out of him, getting his head rattled like an empty
can, and getting his ribs sledgehammered by Big Fred’s massive
fists.

He imagined himself climbing a rope.
Below, swam sharks and other nasty creatures. Above, lay a
beautiful green meadow full of soft lush grass better than any
luxury bed. A peaceful afternoon breeze would cool him while he
enjoyed the picturesque beauty of the mountain range beyond. A
bubbling brook ran nearby and would provide water to his soothing
throat and throbbing, rope-chafed hands.

But, as he climbed, bees stung him. The
stings hurt, but he knew he only had two choices. Keep moving up or
fall to the sharks.

Though it varied greatly in the extent
to which it could revive his wind-battered spirits, it never failed
to at least pull him into the gym five days a week. And once he
stepped foot inside the hot, smelly room full of grunts and groans,
he brought to his mind again the rope, the sharks, and the
meadow.

As he flew through the air—a meeting
with Pitkins on his schedule—he found to his surprise how
powerfully he was having to focus on the old rope metaphor to lift
his spirits. He had been hit today by more than just a blow to his
ego.

A danger had been brought to his
attention, one that made even the very real threat he had faced
from Heavy Sam and still faced from both aspiring kingpins in
Sivingdel and rival kingpins from other cities look like the threat
posed by a growling, thirty-pound mutt.

There was no way Halder was bluffing.
Righty had probably learned more about how to read the human face
during his last several years of dealing with cutthroats and
traitors of the vilest sort than he had in his decades of prior
life experience. He felt he had transformed almost into a human
hound dog, his eyes scouring every part of a man’s face, eyes, and
soul, looking for the slightest trace of trickery.

Halder’s prowess at combat alone was
sufficient to quickly cross off the possibility of braggart and
blowhard. And his impenetrable eyes and intense countenance
reinforced the point.

But treachery?

That remained a topic of intense
internal discussion. On the one hand, he could have struck down
Righty while they spoke in the privacy of his cabin, so
assassination seemed it could be eliminated from the list of
possible motives Halder had for being at his ranch.

But maybe he’s here scoping
out the place until bringing some of his buds down to take it over
for themselves?

And so he decided to reveal
himself when he could have just lain low until his cronies arrived?
And he decided to warn you about the fact they’re coming for you .
. . all to make their eventual arrival easier?

No, that didn’t make any sense. This
guy was really sore with his past pals. His stated motive—revenge
against them—made the most sense.

But why?

That was what bothered him. If he
didn’t know why he was sore, he had no way of knowing how long this
resentment would last. He didn’t like the idea of forming an
alliance with someone whose only motivation for helping him against
a very dangerous organization was his resentment.

Suppose they patched things
up?

Yeah, that would be real
swell, wouldn’t it?

Sorry, Mr. Relder. My
friends and I have had a bit of a reconciliation, and your ranch is
now surrounded by two hundred men as deadly as myself. I’ll tell
you what—for old time’s sake, I’ll hold them off for five minutes
while you hightail it the hell out of here and leave your
multi-billion falon ranch behind. If you’re quick and quiet, I
think you’ve got a fighting chance.

He had already assigned a rotating
detail of five konulans to watch Halder day and night, monitor
every conversation, and alert him immediately if he attempted to
leave the ranch. He had also ordered about fifty konulans to circle
the perimeter of the ranch and alert him immediately of any
suspicious visitors.

As for Harold, he had gone ahead and
assigned a kill command. If in Halder’s presence he ever said “My
head itches today” and began to scratch his scalp, Harold would
drop from the sky at several hundred miles per hour and take care
of the problem.

But this wasn’t enough. What if he had
said too much when he told him his ability to disappear wasn’t as
absolute as he might think? Perhaps his organization used birds for
spying, and he would notice something suspicious about the
konulans.

What if he took them out with his
crossbow before they could come and warn him and the next thing he
knew he was stalking him in the woods and watching him get on
Harold?

If that little rat bastard
manages to ambush and kill Harold, you’re through. And that means
your family too . . . .

“WE NEED PHOLUNGS!!” Righty suddenly
shouted to Harold as they cut through the air at almost two hundred
miles per hour.

Righty expected Harold to be taken
aback by the odd, spontaneous request.

“I’ll begin the hunt for chicks
tonight. I’ll have to raise them from birth if we’re to have any
chance of their loyalty. It will require me to travel far to the
northernmost parts of Dachwald. That is the only place I know of
that pholungs still exist. It won’t be easy. They usually only have
about three eggs per clutch, and the strongest sibling often kills
the weaker ones while mama’s off hunting for worms and
lizards.

“Even to just find five or six, it
could take me longer than a week.”

“BLAST IT!!” Righty shouted
furiously.

There were several konulans riding on
Harold’s back with him in order to conserve their
energy.

Righty looked down at them immediately
once he heard one of them muttering away about
something.

“We know how to find pholung nests,”
Little Roger said.

Harold gulped. He had been less than
honest with Righty and had planned on surprising him by finding
pholungs far faster. But if he had done that, it would have raised
questions amongst the pesky konulans, and they just might have
figured out he was once a konulan they knew quite well:
Chip.

“I can’t spare Harold for more than a
night. NOT RIGHT NOW!” Righty said, surprised at how hysterical he
sounded.

“Could you find at least one pholung
chick per night, Harold?”

“He can!” Little Roger said happily.
“‘Cause we’ll show him where to go.”

Chapter 12

When Righty arrived at Pitkins’ door
for his lesson, he was brimming with excitement. This was just the
kind of thing he needed to get his mind off today’s lousy
trajectory and maybe even replace it with a happy
ending.