11
October 20th.
Antonin Zarovich:
Alexi catches me just as I’m shutting my notebook, quick so no one else sees what I’ve just been fed. Good and faithful servant (no—he’s so much more than that, it dishonors him to even think of him so), he brings me a fresh drink and sits quietly until I’m ready to put words to what I’m thinking.
It’s hard. It’s just too big.
I’m glad Alexi’s here. The way he looks at me, the way he carries himself… His absolute confidence in me radiates and feeds me, reminds me of what I am.
“We… We have been presented with a… a most interesting proposal, old friend.”
Breathe. I have to breathe. I have to take it in.
“Who is the client?” he asks me for the one thing I dare not tell him. Thankfully, Heinrich picks that moment to return from arranging our relocation.
“We’ll be ready to move within the hour, Warlord.”
“Time to enjoy a sunset,” I tell him, looking over my closed notebook and out across the cityscape, dark silhouettes against a deep orange and violet sky. “And a drink.”
Heinrich takes my suggestion to heart and heads for his precious martini shaker. He only gets to the heart of the matter as a point of idle conversation:
“You were saying to Number Six as I came in: We have been approached?”
“On quite an impressive scale,” I downplay. “The world is about to become a very interesting place.”
“And?” he presses like he’s barely interested. “What are they paying us for?”
“Just a small thing, to start,” I tell him. “Sending a message of sorts.”
“Someone would like to reply to the UN proposal?” he guesses. I nod, still at a loss for words.
He shakes and pours his drink with his usually fetishistic flair. I notice he doesn’t ask who is contracting us. Just
“I take it I should begin recruiting procedures?”
“Yes,” I command, as if this is nothing. “A fresh pawn—no one who would make any of their various registries. Someone in-country, local.”
“American national?”
I nod. He considers it for a moment. Smiles as he savors his drink. “Easy enough. I believe we have cultivated some promising instruments. I’m assuming this will be a one-time employment?”
“Yes.” And I try to feel something appropriate: I have just condemned some child to a violent death. Again.
“Skill level?”
“Experience will not be a prerequisite,” I tell him. “Only determination.”
“And target security?”
“High. Executive level.” I stop and try to enjoy the drink Alexi has so lovingly poured for me—I try to approach the meditative reverence of a tea ceremony. But I cannot focus. “I will give you the parameters as they solidify. But we will need an undetectable weapon in Manhattan within three days. We won’t have the time to deliver one across borders. Contact your new friend Benjamin—time to see if he can and will deliver what he promises.”
Alexi raises his eyebrow at the power and significance of the name I invoke, but he doesn’t question.
“And our client?” Heinrich presses, finally asking (or realizing he hasn’t asked) the question.
“Has already begun transactions offshore. They prefer to remain anonymous.”
He smiles again. Finishes his drink.
“Do you anticipate a sting?” he asks.
“That remains to be seen. Prepare for it, as usual. This one may just be worth the risk.”
Grayman Book One: Acts of War Page 58