by Michael Todd
Madigan checked her watch. “Half past ten.”
“The commandant communicated that the convoy to the Staging Area that we’ll hitch a ride with will leave at sixteen hundred, so we have some time to kill,” he said with a nod. “Let me get the dishes and we’ll go.”
“Why bother?” she asked and pushed out of her seat. She still had trouble keeping her balance. “It’s not like we’ll make any more food here anyway.”
“Because it’s the nice thing to do,” he said, and his jaw jutted stubbornly.
She rolled her eyes.
“What do you think?”
Sal winced as he tasted the vodka. It was strong, that much was obvious. He could feel the vapor burn his nostrils as he swallowed, and the sensation continued all the way down his esophagus.
The man who made the sale tilted his head at his reaction. He quickly shook his head.
“I’m not that used to vodka,” Sal explained as he still tried to process the burn in his mouth and throat. He coughed gently. “I don’t actually drink that much. If you want a professional opinion, ask her.”
The liquor rep, a pot-bellied man with a look that suggested he’d been in the military some decades before, looked at Kennedy. She regarded the glass with an impressed look on her face.
“This is some good shit, Vlad,” she said with a chuckle. “Nice and smooth. How much of it do you have?”
“We are still small operation,” he said with a thick accent. “We are all former soldiers and mostly sell to former soldiers, so while our product is good, it is still made in the small scale.”
“How much do you have to sell in bulk to us now?” Sal asked.
“Twenty crates.” He grinned. “Twenty bottles each.”
“How much for each crate?” Kennedy asked.
“I sell bottles at fifty dollars each,” the man said. “If you buy crates, the price is reduced to thirty dollars each bottle.”
“How much is that?” Kennedy asked.
“Six hundred bucks a crate,” Sal interjected before the Russian could say anything. “Twelve grand for all twenty.”
“That’s not even that hard,” Kennedy snarked at his math skills and rolled her eyes before she shifted her focus to Vlad. “That’s a really reasonable price. What’s up with that?”
“Production costs are lower,” he said with a shrug. “Besides, it’s not a big brand, so we have to keep prices low for sales.”
Sal nodded. “Fair enough.”
“Although,” Kennedy cut in, “there will be problems if we find out that you filled half the bottles with wood alcohol of the break-your-bones variety.”
Vlad started to chuckle but cut it off quickly when she gave him an icy look.
“It’s fair,” he said quickly. “We are here on legal contract, so any complaints from customers, especially from outside of Russian compound, is huge problem and it compromises our sales.”
She nodded. “That’s a good point. Besides, if this stuff sells well, we’ll probably come back for a return visit. You can’t ever have…too much pocket change.”
“We can’t take it out of the company funds, though,” Sal said. “We’ll have to buy it with our own personal accounts.”
Kennedy nodded. “So we split the costs of…shall we say, ten cases?”
Sal nodded.
“Excellent!” Vlad said with a big grin.
“What are the transportation costs?” Sal asked quickly.
“What are you talking about?” Kennedy asked.
“Small operations like this always charge transport costs,” Sal said and looked at Vlad. “Look, we leave at sixteen hundred hours, so how much will it be to have the cases dropped off at the convoy?”
“Shall we say fifty dollars?” Vlad asked.
“Sounds good,” Sal replied. “We will need an invoice, of course.”
“Of course, I print up right now. Drink to seal deal?”
“Better than any handshake,” Kennedy said as the Russian grinned and poured another three shot glasses full.
“Cheers!” she lifted her glass, and they all clinked and swallowed the contents quickly. She glanced at Sal as he set his glass down. Normally, after two shots in such short succession, he would have been flushed and grinning like an idiot, but there was no sign of drunkenness now. Interesting, she thought and tilted her head to regard him curiously.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She shook her head as Vlad headed back into his office to print their invoice.
“How much do you think we can flip these cases for in the Staging Area?” Sal asked.
Kennedy shrugged. “I have no idea. If anything, I’ll pay you for some of them and use them to drown my sorrows.”
He nodded. Usually, he would have cracked something funny about what kind of sorrows she might have after last night, but he stopped himself. He still needed to maintain some level of professionalism when they weren’t in private.
She smiled and winked at him, having apparently come to the same conclusion.
Chapter Thirty
Sal and Kennedy were among the first to arrive at the area where the convoy prepared to leave. He wasn’t sure why the Russian base would send a convoy to the Staging Area since they had only recently set up, but it was rather fortuitous timing.
“I heard that they offered helicopter rides for people yesterday,” Kennedy informed him. “One of the officers headed to the Staging Area to check up on our friend Gregor and apparently, they try to save as much money as possible with these things so when someone goes, it’s a tentatively open invitation to virtually anyone who needs to get over there. However, since there weren’t that many people who had business on the other side of the Zoo, the chopper was almost empty.”
“Well, we’ll have to settle for ground-based travel with the rest of the non-VIPs,” he quipped with a small grin. Since the convoy wouldn’t actually pass through the Zoo and the vehicles themselves were all equipped with armor and weapons, they hadn’t needed to suit up. That was a relief since Sal wanted to have the suits inspected before they went back into the jungle with them. With an efficiency that surprised him a little although he wasn’t sure why, the suits were already delivered and placed beside the crates of vodka when they arrived fifteen minutes before the convoy was due to start out.
So, barring a bounty hunter raiding party or—and Sal really hoped that this wouldn’t become a thing—the animals came out of the Zoo and attacked the roads, they would be relatively safe. Even so, he opened the crate that he’d packed his suit into, pulled out the sidearm that had come with it, and tucked it into the belt of his pants. Kennedy did the same.
“Can’t be too careful, right?” he said when a couple of the crew members sent them questioning looks. The men chuckled and spouted a couple of words in Russian that Sal hadn’t heard before. Considering his time spent on international multiplayer forums, he had picked up little more than a smattering of the language.
“They think that we’re being smart,” Sal said when Kennedy looked confused. “Or something.”
“Oh, well, color me reassured,” she retorted and made sure the weapon tucked into the back of her pants was covered by her shirt.
It was thirty minutes past four before the teams that were supposed to head out trickled in, and an hour after that before everyone was finally ready to go.
“It looks like these guys are worse at punctuality than we are,” Kennedy commented as they settled in.
Sal nodded. “Do you regret where you put your gun?”
Kennedy nodded. “Oh yeah.”
He grinned as they got underway. It was a good thing that she wasn’t bothered about what they’d done the night before. While he did like teasing her about it, there was also a need to be professional, and that would be difficult when all it took to get his mind in the gutter was to see how she walked. He was usually so good about stuff like that.
His scientific mind reminded him that his “usually” had slipped considerably a
nd protested the reality that he’d been impractical and had not run more tests. He reassured himself that he would have plenty of time for that later if all went well and neither of them died. Now was not the time to draw conclusions about what he was or wasn’t good at.
It wasn’t that long a drive. The Zoo took considerably longer to cross because it was difficult to get vehicles through—and actually impossible in the roughest terrain—and moving on foot was even slower. Sal still wasn’t sure how the Russians had managed to get their vehicles in and out so quickly to evacuate him, his team, and the Russian-merc squad, but he would definitely look into it. From what he’d heard, all their own attempts had ended when the Hammerheads broke down and more had to be sent in to get them all out again.
As things stood, the drive around the Zoo took them the rest of the day, all night, and halfway into the morning of the next day before he caught sight of the expansive complex that comprised the Staging Area. With the jungle spreading as quickly as it was, they had begun to put up walls and defensive perimeters around the complex. These emulated the concept of the walls that they tried to build around the Zoo itself but in reverse.
A few hours later, the vehicle with their belongings finally managed to pull up at Kennedy’s apartment.
“I can store the booze at my place and we can look for a buyer together,” she said with a grin that almost dared Sal to make a joke about it.
He liked to think that he was unpredictable and decided to prove it by ignoring the opportunity. Her quick look of surprise was satisfying. “I’ll get the suits to Boulos and have him do what’s needed. We should be able to move back into the Zoo by tomorrow if he doesn’t try to pull anything.”
Madigan still looked mildly disappointed but nodded. He grinned because he so easily read her mind, but he gripped her by the shoulder before she turned to unload the crates. “Stop by my place later. I have something I want to show you.”
She tilted her head in sudden interest. “Well, I think I can make it over later today if that works for you.”
“That works. I’ll see you then.”
He didn’t have the rapport with Boulos that Kennedy did, and he certainly lacked the kind of intimidating look that normally kept the armorer in line. Even so, the man seemed to associate Sal with Kennedy and so gave him less trouble over the pricing for the repairs than usual. It was a relief. He had been cramped in a tight, bumpy vehicle for hours on end and the entire trip hadn’t been conducive to real rest or sleep. Added to the strenuous activity of the night before that, he was exhausted, even though it was barely an hour after noon by the time he actually returned his place after picking the key card up at the commandant’s office.
Surprisingly, Kennedy stood outside, waiting for him.
“What…what are you doing here?” Sal asked.
“You said you wanted to talk to me about something,” she replied with an easy grin. “You almost never want to talk to me about something that’s not important.”
“Well, yes, it is,” he admitted as he opened the front door to his little apartment. “But I didn’t think you would take it seriously, especially since there are two hundred bottles of supposedly prime vodka stacked in your house.”
“Please,” Kennedy snorted as he took her hand and dragged her inside. “I have some self-control. I also have functioning muscles capable of carrying my sexy ass all the way over here, so I don’t think I need you to hold my hand, Sal.”
He smirked and released it. “Sorry. I’m just excited.”
“Look, I can give you a blowjob, but I think that’s it for me now,” she said pointedly as they moved into his bedroom. “I still need a couple of days for recovery.”
“What?” he asked and moved past the bed toward the closet where his safe was. “No, that’s not what I was talking about. I need to show you something.”
He gestured for her to sit on the bed as he tapped his long, complicated passcode sequence into the safe’s keypad. They waited in silence for the couple of seconds for it to unlock before he retrieved a cubic container. It was slightly rectangular and tall, but it wasn’t heavy. Sal put it down on the bedside table for Kennedy to see. He removed the film that was supposed to keep the contents of the glass container hidden.
“Holy shit,” she murmured as she leaned in closer and narrowed her eyes. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Well, if what you think it is happens to be a fully formed and blossoming Pita plant…” Sal paused for dramatic effect but couldn’t restrain his grin. "Then yes, that’s exactly what it is.”
“Fuck.” She stared at it in obvious disbelief. It still wasn’t fully grown. Most of the plants were bush-sized, at least a meter tall, and spread evenly and thickly over the ground. It seemed that the lack of natural light—the downside of keeping it in a safe—had affected the growth pattern.
“Do you know what the standing price for one of these is?” she asked when she managed to drag her gaze from it and the four blooming flowers. “There are a couple of companies that offer upwards of seven million, and there’s talk of ten.”
“Well, yeah, I do know,” Sal said with a small smile. “I call her Madie.”
“How do you know that it’s a girl?” Kennedy asked, and then her eyes widened. “Oh, ‘Madie!’ That explains so much.”
“Okay?” Sal said and narrowed his eyes. He decided it was safer to ignore all that might imply. “Moving right past what her name explains, the flowers of the Pita plants have both stamens and carpels, which means that, like most flowering plants, it’s hermaphroditic. That’s not…not really important, but yes, she’s a she, and she’s called Madie. Named after you.”
Kennedy smirked. “I think I’m flattered. Anyway, when did you get ‘Madie’ out? I don’t remember us surviving the kind of shitstorm that comes with plucking these babies.”
“Sure you do,” Sal said. “It was on our first trip in. It hadn’t blossomed yet, so I took the chance that we wouldn’t call down all the kinds of hell that comes with pulling a plant out. I was…half right. They were still pissed, but not as much. And only the ones that were around. Remember? You got shot in the leg by those bounty hunters?”
“Oh, yeah,” Kennedy said with a smirk. “Fun times.”
“Fun times?”
“Yeah. But that’s not the point right now. I mean, you weren’t even close to a Ph.D. then, and you managed to pull something that not even the best, brightest or most funded—not necessarily in that order—were able to do.”
“I’m still not a Ph.D.,” Sal said with a grimace. He would have to finish his dissertation sometime. Eventually. One of these days.
“You should have told me,” Kennedy said. “We’re partners in this, and I have to be able to trust you to tell me the truth about things.”
Sal nodded. “I know, and I’m sorry. I honestly didn’t trust anyone when I got her, and while I’ve run tests, I wasn’t sure if I could tell anyone about her. It seemed easier to keep you out of the loop, and I made up all kinds of excuses, like giving you plausible deniability—” He paused when she snorted derivatively. “Yeah, I know, bullshit, but still. That’s why I’m filling you in on it now.”
Madigan nodded. She supposed that he could have kept it a secret indefinitely, and the fact that he had opened up to her about something that had happened before they were partners was a sign of trust.
She sighed and shook her head. “Why haven’t you sold it yet?”
Sal shrugged. “I’m not really sure. It’s not that I don’t want the money. I could probably push the price up to at least twice what they’re offering once I give them the results of the tests that I’ve run. But I’m not sure that I’m ready to trust anyone or any corporation willing to drop that much money on this.”
Kennedy narrowed her eyes and paused to think about what he’d said. When she finally arrived at her conclusion, she looked at him in surprise. “What? You’ve tested this stuff on yourself—is that what you’re telling me? Is that
why you can fuck for that long?”
He backed away instinctively as her voice rose. “I’ve taken small doses of the unfiltered stuff from the flower. There is a correlation to my dosing myself with the blue stuff and my newly acquired…ahem, prowess, but considering that my sex life wasn’t even that active before any of this, I’m not sure if it’s actually a direct result of that, or maybe the fact that I’m young, and you have the ability to get a boner out of— Nope, nope, I will not make that joke.”
She grinned. “Thanks for that. And thanks for the compliment, no matter how badly you worded it.”
Sal chuckled. “Well, yeah. I kind of had a crush on you ever since our first trip. I’m not really sure that I would have believed that you ever came here that first night if you hadn’t left your panties with your initials on them. Well, the panties were the giveaway, the initials more…pointed the finger, I guess.”
She pushed from the bed and approached him with a small smile on her lips. “So…a crush, huh?”
Distracted, he lowered his eyes to trail his gaze over her form. “Well…yeah.”
“You named your plant after your crush?” Kennedy asked with a smile and leaned up to kiss his lips softly.
“I did name my ten-million-dollar-plus plant for my crush, yes,” he said with a small smile. “Do you want to fuck?”
“Unless you give me a dose of that blue stuff from Madie, I don’t think I’ll be able to,” she said regretfully and kissed his chin.
“Well, you did say a blowjob was on the table,” Sal said with a sly smirk. “But if you like, I can give you something for the pain.”
“Well, I guess we could start off with a blowjob anyway,” she murmured and leaned closer. “I seem to recall that you liked that. But I’ll want a rematch for the sex Olympics in a week or two.”
“Well, give me a moment and I’ll be right with you.” He kissed her gently.
Chapter Thirty-One
Courtney looked up from her empty breakfast plate when there was a knock on the door. Supplies arrived every week, but she’d had enough of the dehydrated stuff and the repetitive food that they served at the mess hall, so she’d put some work into stocking up on fresh food. It wasn’t the best. Getting groceries out into the desert was always troublesome, but occasionally, the variety and freshness made it worth the effort.