“I won’t tolerate this language, Commissaria.”
“Achrotzyber?”
“Yes, Companion?”
Despite my blurred vision, I saw the Maggiore flinch when he heard my Companion’s growling voice.
“We should leave this place. Can you carry me to the sea?”
“Of course.”
“You can’t simply walk away now!” the Carabinieri officer protested.
“It won’t be simple, and I can’t walk by myself yet, but I will leave you anyway, Mr. Maggiore. For cleaning up here, you don’t need me.”
Chapter Sixty-three
“How are you?” was Davide’s very first question once I had arrived in his hideout north of Rome after a long ocean journey and a short, very unpleasant walk. Andrea had seen me approaching—hobbling—and instantly called him outside.
“It doesn’t hurt so much anymore, thank you.”
“Good—welcome back, Velvet.” He gave me a quick hug. “And congratulations for the spectacular success of your missions. Mmm—I don’t know whether I should be angry with you for keeping your Companion’s existence a secret. In any case, it was a smart propaganda trick to show the Cosa Nostra that they’re facing a Dragon—they won’t recover from that strike soon!”
“It was no propaganda trick, Davide. I hadn’t planned to unveil the Dragon’s existence to anyone in Italy, even if there were much too many witnesses in Tokyo to keep the secret for much longer.”
“But you’ve changed your plans.”
“When the mission was at stake, I subconsciously called for support, and Achrotzyber heard my Call. That’s why he came—to protect my life.”
“Oh. Was it so close?”
“If the guy with the steel plate in his skull would have pulled the trigger when he could, we wouldn’t talk now.”
“Oh damn—how did it get that far?”
“Actually, I had planned to leave as stealthily as I had come. Until the fireworks outside started.”
“Ah, okay. Yes, Rossi overstepped his competencies. I will talk with him. It can’t be allowed that he interferes with such an important operation.”
“He didn’t know about me.”
“The principle. What if we had planned another mission one or two days later without giving the Families an advance warning? He just can’t decide operations of this reach alone.”
“He had to. The Capo was digging in. Two days later, the Carabinieri would have suffered most severe losses. Even so, some of his men have sprung the trap, haven’t they?”
“I don’t have the detailed report yet—we only talked by phone. Yes, there were casualties on our side, but that wasn’t our main topic. He wanted to complain about you, your mission and your insolent behavior afterward, and I’ve brushed him off and told him that we’d be living on a razor-edge without Velvet. When he heard your cover name, he fell silent.”
“Be gracious with him. You need commanders who don’t use their heads only to carry their hat around. He’s shown initiative in the right place at the right time and struck quite successfully.”
“So you wouldn’t have had to act? What if you had planned to strike the next night?”
“Then I’d hardly been able to get in unhurt—no, he’d have failed with the main goal. The Capo would have left through the sewers. Moreover, he wouldn’t have looted any intel.”
“What intel?”
“Before I invaded the Capo’s bedroom and eliminated him, I cracked and browsed his server and his safe. There are a few pieces of news we should urgently discuss.”
Chapter Sixty-four
“You’re a wonderful woman,” Davide stated for the umpteenth time. “No, you’re a woman full of wonders.”
Thereby, his right hand gently caressed my left nipple. We were both reclining on our backs, my head on the right side of his chest, and staring up at the stars.
I didn’t comment on his remark. The day had been long and exhausting, and now I only wanted to enjoy.
“Your findings on the organization’s infrastructure will be of good use for our people when we continue to tidy up our country. I still can’t entirely understand that you were calmly taking your time spying on that man thoroughly while on such a dangerous mission.”
My position was somewhat impractical for a shrug, not regarding the fact that my shoulder hadn’t entirely healed yet. “Old habit, I assume. Velvet is a thief. Back then, I’d only have been intruding to spy, as the killing only came when I started taking the Cartel apart.”
“Anyway. You also have a knack for filtering out important information. And a tremendous memory. Photographic?”
“So to say.” My Analogy wasn’t his business.
“Well. And you’ve got a Dragon as Companion. What exactly does that mean?”
“Among Dragons, as much as a marriage.”
“Oh.”
“But Dragons aren’t jealous. Achrotzyber doesn’t know sex yet, and that wouldn’t work between us anyway. So relax.”
“How did you meet him?”
“He was about to kill me.” And I him. “Then we saw each other and recognized that we’re kindred spirits. So I’ve stolen him from the Dragon cultists and the Cartel.”
“Stolen.”
“Yes.”
“And here I am, a policeman, and talk to an admitted thief. You don’t have ethical problems with that?”
I heard the undertone referencing to our earlier discussion—the contrast to my problems with killing.
“No, not at all. The Cartel stole my life, I’ve stolen my new life back. That’s evening out.”
“And what about our society’s values? This kind of set-off doesn’t fit in.”
“Jelly piss on values! Our society’s values allow individual persons to gamble away our national wealth and the jobs of thousands by betting with money they don’t own. If it works, the gamblers reap the benefits, if it fails, the poor may pay for the loss. That’s no role model I’d like to follow. I only gamble with the criminals’ money and my own life. If it works, I’m supplied for a while and in addition have helped a few people. If I fail, only I am dead.”
After a while he said, “I’m glad you didn’t fail.”
“Me too.” I turned on the side and plucked at his cock. “Come, let me feel once again how glad you are.”
Chapter Sixty-five
“Hey, Jo!”
I didn’t have to turn around to recognize Andrea’s voice, but to give him a friendly smile. He was a truly nice guy, and he had a very skilled tongue—and there I didn’t refer to his pronunciation.
“Yes, Andrea?”
“Here’s someone who wants to talk to you.” He stepped aside and let a new visitor enter the living room.
“Oh. Hello, Alan.”
“Hello, Jo.” He came close and greeted me with a brief hug. “I’ve already heard how it went. But you’re looking good. Recovered well?”
“Sure. I’m scuff-proof.”
“You’re a wild person, Jo. Those who don’t fear you, don’t know you.”
“If you say so. Why are you here?”
“The President sends me. I shall relay to you his gratitude for your mission that’s so inestimably valuable for the free world and so on. Do you want the full text?”
“No, thanks.”
“Thought so. Yes, and then he’d like to invite you for a meeting in Atlantic City.”
“Atlantic City? Did he clean up there, too?”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Alan.”
“Okay, okay, no, it could be there are still a few little problems.”
Naturally. And I should pull his chestnuts out of the fire. “Sorry, I’m not finished here yet.”
“Our Marines can do the rest.”
Sure. But I choose who I hit the sack with myself. “Nevertheless, I have to decline.”
Alan made a sad face. “The President makes the f
urther support for the Italian government from his Marines dependent on Italy disconnecting from you. Put differently—that they show you the door.”
“That sounds like Nick. Understood, but my answer remains No.”
“The President has taken into account that you might not be very—cooperative. You should consider whether you want to anger him.”
“I don’t give a shit. He should consider whether he wants to piss me off.”
“He wants you to come back at any cost.”
“Sure he does. He can’t stand the idea that my Dragon Companion and I aren’t under his control, isn’t it so?”
“There you’re surely right.”
“See. And that’s exactly why right now I’m not inclined to meet him. I’m not his property.”
“He said, you also should think of Mandy.”
That hit me like a club—only thanks to my Analogy did I manage not to show my consternation. Mandy? The girl I had saved from the Syndicate’s hands in Manhattan? And Nick thought he could blackmail me with her?
I couldn’t allow that. In any case, this threat required a clear, unmistakable answer.
“Mandy, ah yes. Actually, I don’t care about Mandy. Do you know why I crushed the Cartel headquarters? Do you think I did it because America means so much to me? It was only about stopping the torture of young women in the catacombs. Otherwise, the Marines could have done it all alone. And do you know why I went to New York? Only to explore. I should point out targets to the Marines. Do you know why I intervened anyway, why I risked my ass? Because the leaders there regularly tortured and killed young women. I don’t tolerate such. If Nick wants to continue this tradition, America will need a new President very soon.”
In Washington, and especially in and around the White House, there were very many fusion reactors. You could let these devices melt down, as I had done in Tokyo—or as it almost had happened to me. However, you also could change them into a fusion bomb, as Laetitia Lionheart must have done for her suicide attack on the Asia lander.
“Collateral damage doesn’t mean much to me, Alan. I’m sad for it, but I do what’s necessary. Alone, that you stoop to deliver me such a message, makes you an accomplice—no, don’t try to fool me. Without the blackmailing message, blackmail can’t work, and you know that. You’ve betrayed me, and you’ve betrayed your country.”
“To bring you back is important for America.”
“But not covered by your constitution. The physical integrity of your citizens is. I don’t tolerate traitors around me, Alan. You’ve disappointed me once before. There won’t be a third time.”
“No, Jo, there won’t, and please don’t call me a traitor. Yes, you’re right, it won’t work without the messenger, but you’re entitled to know what happens around you. If I hadn’t told you, you might have returned to America some day and been surprised by what you’d encountered there. I’ve told the President, okay, I’ll deliver the message, but he shouldn’t hope that he’d like the result. And for me, I’ve decided—I won’t go back.” He lowered his head. “Call it quitting or deserting, but I won’t play this cynical game any longer.”
A cynical game, yes, but one that I wouldn’t play along, either. Sad for Mandy, if Nick would implement his threat, sad for Nick, sad for America.
Nick had made a big mistake. He had thought I could be blackmailed. He had thought I’d place the well-being of a single hostage above my own well-being. He had thought I’d be willing to place a single nation’s welfare above the welfare of mankind altogether, which only a free nano-carrier and her Dragon could stand up for.
But my way was the way of a Dragon, not of a human—that I saw clearly before me now. Even if some of them might regard me a traitor for it.
To be continued…
About the Author
I am Valerie J. Long, born in 1963. I live and work in Germany as an IT project manager. I like role playing games, and I like putting my ideas on paper. I like all kinds of Science Fiction and Fantasy, I like music, and I like making you bite your nails off.
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