“So your sources claim. May I assume, Mr. Valentine, Ms. Song, that this isn’t merely some convoluted trick to sow dissent among my . . . business alliances? Or perhaps even an attempt to get me to take care of Exodus’ problems for you? My understanding is that you are currently short staffed.”
“That’s a polite way to say that half of us died recently,” Ling stated.
“I’m unfailingly polite. However, if I found out you were lying to me in the hopes that I’d remove Katarina Montalban on your behalf, I would be greatly offended, and the limits of my courtesy would be severely tested.”
Romefeller had been a perfect gentleman, but I assumed when he got offended people got murdered. Hell, why else would somebody hire Tailor?
“Don’t take our word for it. Perhaps a discrete look into Katarina’s affairs would be in your best interests,” Ling suggested.
“She is . . .” Romefeller tried to find the right word. “Erratic. If you had come to me with this outlandish story about anyone else, I would have dismissed it out of hand. But Katarina, even an allegation like this is plausible. Frighteningly so.”
“Don’t you have people that can police your own? It seems like you know full well how dangerous Katarina Montalban is. Why would you let her be a member of your secret club when she’s a nut job?”
Romefeller scoffed. “Secret club?”
“Is this really the time to be coy?” I leaned forward and tapped one of the all-seeing eyeballs on his desk. “I know about the Illuminati, so does she, so do you. There’s nothing to be gained from pretending otherwise.”
“I assure you, Mr. Valentine, that you know nothing. We are merely a confederation of altruistic individuals dedicated to human progress and enlightenment. If anything, we have stood as a balance against the aggressive, militaristic, meddling of your nation’s darker elements.”
“You pull strings in secret.”
“We organize and guide decision-makers, so that humanity can achieve its potential. Amongst members of my club there is an order, and there are rules.”
“To hell with your rules. Big Eddie Montalban paid off Gordon Willis to have Dead Six murder his own brother, so he could take over. That sounds pretty dirty to me.”
“Each family refrains from interfering in other families internal affairs, unless it threatens the security of all. Though loosely allied, each of us has our areas of interest, whether geographic, or pertaining to certain industries, and we do not meddle in each other’s business.”
“Turf.”
“A crude way to put it. We merely manage events behind the scenes for the greater good of all. Do you really believe that a system so complex could survive without guidance? No. Society requires management, and that role had traditionally been quietly filled by the families. The Montalbans were once a respected family. Sadly, things went rather astray for them after Rafael’s untimely death.” He looked pointedly at me as he said that. “Perhaps if such a powerful family had remained under sound leadership, we wouldn’t be having this predicament now.”
My eyes narrowed. Sure, maybe if I’d not shot Rafael with a .44 and tossed him from a moving helicopter into the Persian Gulf with his hands tied, everything would be sunshine and happiness. “If you’re fishing for an apology or something, you won’t get one. I made the best decision I could with the information I had.”
“There is no use dwelling on the past.” Romefeller down his drink, and poured himself another. He offered drinks to us as well. I declined again, but Ling accepted this time and had a shot of brandy. After taking a sip, the billionaire was quiet for a few moments, and looked contemplative. “Rafael was a friend of mine, and a colleague of many years. We rarely saw eye-to-eye, and he would argue with me to the very end, but we were friends. I never thought I’d be sitting here sharing a drink with his killer.”
“I never thought the Illuminati were real, and that I’d be explaining to them how the sister of a guy I killed is trying to burn the world down with a shadow-government plot.” I shrugged. “It’s been a weird day for all of us.”
“Burn it?” Romefeller shook his head sadly. “Perhaps you do not know Katarina nearly as well as you think you do. Yes, she is destructive, but she is not suicidal, nor is she a nihilist. She was the unloved bastard child of a harsh, manipulative man, who spent her life trying to prove herself worthy of their family name, first to her father, and later to her brothers, the rightful heirs. Rafael humored her, and Eduard tormented her in what was rumored to be vile and despicable ways, yet she never quit. Deprived of her family name, she still rose through their organization using intelligence and cruelty, until now she is the last of the Montalbans. Someone who has risen above so much does not simply throw it all away out of spite. No, Katarina does not want to burn the world, she wants to rule it.”
“But if Blue was designed to destroy your organization, that means Kat thinks you’re what’s in her way.”
“A reasonable assumption.” Romefeller was quiet for a long time. I could tell there was a lot going on in there, but he showed very little of it. He played the affable businessman really well, but beneath that he was something else entirely. “Mr. Valentine, I don’t mean to pry, but I must ask . . . how did Rafael die? How did . . . how did it happen?”
“He didn’t suffer, if that’s what you’re wondering. I pulled the trigger. He looked me in the eye. He didn’t beg or plead. It was dignified.” I kept it vague, because I didn’t know what Tailor had told his new boss.
Romefeller seemed satisfied with that, and nodded. “Good, good. I respected Rafael, but his inability to keep his family under control has brought us nothing but trouble. His brother Eduard used you. He was . . . well, I needn’t get into that. To say he was an embarrassment doesn’t nearly go far enough.”
Embarrassment, to describe Big Eddie? Romefeller was a master of understatement.
“Sir,” Ling said, “we come to you with all of this in hopes that you understand our sincerity. Your organization and mine have clashed over the years, but right now we have a larger problem and a common enemy. We would not be coming to you with this if we could take care of it ourselves, or if we thought the normal authorities would stop her, and, to be blunt, she is one of your own.”
“I do not jump to conclusions,” he cautioned. “However, if you are correct, this has the potential to spiral out of control. Whatever else you may think of my associates, we are a force for order and stability. I will look into this.”
“That’s it?” I scoffed. “You’ll look into it?”
Romefeller’s expression grew stern. The cordial businessman was replaced with the kind of hardliner you’d expect to run an international conspiracy. “You’ve made assumptions about my people, yet not all of what you believe about us is incorrect. I assure you, Mr. Valentine, when the all-seeing eye turns its mighty gaze upon you, the results can be most unpleasant.”
Again with the understatement.
VALENTINE
Zurich, Switzerland
SEPTEMBER 10th
Tailor and I had a lot to discuss. I hadn’t seen him since our escape from Zubara. I had been wounded and was recovering on a freighter that belonged to Exodus. Tailor and the other survivors of Dead Six decided to disembark in Mumbai, India, and dispersed from there. Tailor had been my best friend, like a brother to me, but we didn’t part on good terms. Basically, he had wanted me to go with him and I—if not in so many words—told him to go fuck himself.
In my defense, the woman I loved had just been killed and I had a traumatic brain injury, so I hadn’t been in the best state of mind. Years had passed since then, and I never imagined I’d see Tailor again. The survivors of Zubara were liabilities, and Majestic would kill any they found. So I figured he would be dead or in hiding. I certainly never expected to find him working for a European billionaire in Switzerland.
Both of us had been through a lot, it seemed, and I wanted to catch up. Not just because he was an old friend; Tailor was also secur
ity for a big shot whose help I needed. That’s how I found myself in one of the nicest McDonald’s restaurants I’d ever been in sitting across from Tailor.
Ling had gone back to the hotel, and Tailor had told his mooks he was taking a lunch break, so it was just the two of us. I thought about telling him that Skunky was with me—Jeff Long had been our sharpshooter on Switchblade 4—but I thought it better to keep that to myself. Right then I wasn’t sure where Tailor’s allegiances lay, and we could always have our Switchblade reunion later.
“Are you sure this is where you want to eat, Val?” he asked as we sat down. “You know I actually make good money now, right?”
I opened my box of McNuggets and peeled the lid off of a little tub of barbecue sauce. “I’ve missed good old American junk food. I don’t get to eat out much, and the people who do the shopping where I’m staying like to eat healthy. I’m sick of it. If I have to suffer one more plate of kale and baked fish I’m going to flip the fuck out.”
“Where are you staying?” Tailor asked, sipping a Dr. Pepper.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, bluntly.
“Eat a bag of dicks. I wasn’t gathering intel. I was going to say you could crash at my place while you’re in town, asshole.”
“What are you doing working for Alastair Romefeller?”
“What are you doing with Exodus?” He shot back.
Fair question.
“Isn’t it obvious? They saved my life.”
“What happened after we got off that boat?”
I didn’t answer his question. “What happened to the others? Hudson and the other survivors, I mean.”
“Everybody went their separate ways. We were stranded in India with no documentation and nothing but cash on hand.”
“I don’t want to say I told you so, but I told you so. I stayed on the boat for a reason.”
“You stayed on the boat because you were being a mopey bitch.”
I glared at Tailor. He just grinned at me. “What happened to Hudson, at least?” He was one of the original members of our four-man chalk in Zubara. We’d gone through a lot together.
“Last I heard he made it back home to Detroit, legally dead and living under an assumed name. He has cousins there or something, if I remember right.”
Like everyone selected for Project Heartbreaker, Hudson had no immediate family. It made us easier to dispose of without anyone noticing. “Good. I’m glad. Detroit is a good place to disappear.” Motor City hadn’t been doing so well. I hadn’t been there in years, but I’d heard half the city was abandoned and crime was sky high. A place like that wasn’t a bad choice to hide when there were people looking for you.
I paused for a moment to chew my nuggets. I had to know the truth. “Tailor, level with me, man. How in the hell did you end up working for Alastair Romefeller? Zurich is a long way from India.”
Tailor looked out the window and sighed. We were on the ground floor, and the street outside was lined with parked cars and bicycles. Pedestrians went about their business, walking, talking on phones, or going shopping. Zurich was a clean and beautiful city, a model of modern Europe.
“Remember the last time we had lunch like this?” he asked.
“Yeah. Ruth’s Chris, Las Vegas.”
“Do you remember what I told you about the real world? Look at those people out there, Val. They don’t live in the real world. They live in their own little worlds, worried about phone reception and going on holiday or some stupid soccer match or whatever. I study medieval history, you know, as a hobby.”
I interrupted. “You? Study? Really?”
“Shut up. Yeah, I study medieval history. Europe went from centuries and centuries of warfare, topped off by the two most destructive conflicts in human history, to decades of peace and prosperity. That didn’t happen by accident. World War Two is what happened when the people I work for lost control and got sidelined. They’re not some shadowy cabal secretly controlling the world. They’re just people with the means, who got together to ensure peace. They make sure the right people, stable, reliable people, get into positions of political power. No more crazies, no Hitlers or Mussolinis. They do what they do so those people,” he nodded at the pedestrians, “only have to worry about whatever stupid bullshit they worry about.”
“That sounds exactly like a shadowy cabal secretly controlling the world,” I pointed out. “Also, a lovely defense of fascism.”
“Oh, fuck off.” This time Tailor scowled, and I grinned. “It’s not even like that, Val. We’ve both seen what happens when order breaks down, shit, we made a living off it. You think the world has to end up like Mexico? Or Africa? You see how nice this place is? This is what the world can be like if we let it.”
I wasn’t about to get into a political and economic debate with Tailor, but his last comment did cause me to raise an eyebrow. “Wow. You sound like a true believer. You’ve changed.”
He smiled and shook his head. “I believe in the big-ass paycheck I get, and the nice flat in the city they provide for me.”
“Flat? You’re calling apartments flats now? Jesus, you’ve been Europeanized.” It sounded all the more hilarious to me with Tailor’s southern accent. “But you didn’t answer my question; how did you end up working for the Illuminati?”
“That’s a stupid fuckin’ name for it,” but Tailor looked thoughtful as he took a bite of his burger. Chewing gave him time to think of an answer that wouldn’t sound like bullshit. “They found us in India. They’d been keeping an eye on Zubara from the start, but after we killed Rafael Montalban they got real interested. It wasn’t too hard for their intelligence guys to locate a bunch of bewildered Americans stranded in India. They offered us jobs, some of us took ’em up on it.”
“So that’s it? A job? What kind of job?”
“Like you have to ask.” Like me, Tailor was good at one thing, and it wasn’t the sort of thing you bragged about in a public place.
“So now you’re all in, lecturing me about World War Two and world peace? I don’t buy it. This isn’t like you.”
“How do you figure?”
“I told your boss, and I’m assuming he told you, about Katarina Montalban. The woman is a dangerous lunatic, and he’s all, ‘oh, we need more proof,’ and ‘hey, let’s not jump to conclusions.’ The Tailor I knew would tell his boss to let him go put a bullet in the bitch and be done with it.”
“There are rules. These people have their own way of doing things. It keeps everything stable.”
“See? This is what the hell I’m talking about. Since when does William Jefferson Tailor give a fuck about the rules, or stability?”
“Not so loud,” he warned.
“What? Your real name? Oh, like it matters. The sheep around us aren’t paying attention and you know it. This isn’t like you at all. You know damned well how to solve this problem, and stop this Project Blue from happening. We need to find and kill Katarina Montalban. Problem solved, problem staying solved.” I’d been warned that killing her wouldn’t stop anything, but I didn’t buy it. If we could get close enough to her to put her down, then we could track down the rest of the operation and interrupt it.
“It doesn’t work like that!” Tailor snapped. A couple of nearby restaurant patrons looked up at us briefly, before returning to their meals. He exhaled heavily and lowered his voice. “Look, Val. These guys have their rules and their methods. A lot of it doesn’t make sense to me, either, but they’ve been doing this for hundreds of years and they’re pretty set in their ways. I’m not in a position to change the way things get done. I’m just the hired help.”
“Bullshit. You’re a fucking sellout.”
“Fuck you. I have a pretty impressive résumé, you know. After Rafael Montalban bought it, people like Romefeller started to get real worried about their personal security.”
“You helped kill him!”
Okay, that had been a little too loud, and since most people around here understood English, several
people looked our way.
Exasperated, Tailor put his face in his hands, shook his head, then put his hands flat on the table and tried again. “No shit, Sherlock. Who better to help him plug the holes than a guy who had been involved in that mess? He knew it wasn’t personal. Besides, what else was I going to do? I’m sure as fuck not going back to East Knoxville, even if it was safe to return to the States, and we both know it’s not. Hudson’s living in a shack out of Mad Max to stay off the grid. I got a pretty good gig here. More than a gig, man. I’ve got a life.”
I looked at him for a long moment. Tailor was totally sincere. “Holy shit . . . There’s a woman, isn’t there?”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“It has everything to do with everything. You met someone and now you’re all settled down. Domesticated. Housebroken!”
Tailor got even more defensive. “What’s wrong with that? I’m over forty, Val. I’ve been all over the world and done all kinds of crazy shit, but I’m tired. I’m too old to be out there door-kicking, riding around in helicopters, and all that. Now I go home every night and Sophia makes me dinner. I sleep in a real bed, wear nice suits, and make six figures without having to roll around in the mud. Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve stabbed somebody? Like fucking forever! That’s a good life.”
“Okay . . . how’d you meet her?”
He was still pissed at me, but you could tell he was proud because Tailor immediately took out his phone and showed me a picture. She was a really attractive blonde woman, younger than him by at least ten years, with her hair done up in a tight braid. “This is her. She works as a bartender in the Widder Bar, a few blocks from here.”
“So you went out for a drink and one thing led to another, huh?”
“It helped that I grabbed a drunk asshole tourist who was harassing her and showed him the door. Tossed him out on his face, actually.”
“Well, look at you, all civilized, big salary, nice apartment, and a pretty girl.”
Alliance of Shadows (Dead Six Series Book 3) Page 13