You can be assured this Natalya is fluent in most of the Chinese dialects.
“Portus Cale,” he added to her.
Amanda nodded and stepped away, butchering the Portuguese language as she attempted to relay his orders. He was expecting too much from her, though. She was not blessed, after all; one could not expect too much from lower humans. As long as the message reached his siblings, that was all that mattered. Enzo would have preferred to use a dead language, perhaps Coptic, but most of his Hatchery siblings were not as learned as he was.
Fifteen minutes later, all from the Hatchery stood around him in his state room. The room stayed silent until Amanda gave the signal that the room had been soundproofed. Enzo looked over at Putyatin’s dog standing at the doorway. She would get nothing from this meeting.
Enzo began speaking in perfect Portuguese. “What happened, and can it be resolved?”
Azumi, a chastised look on her face, shook her head. “Vinnick threw a third of his entire fortune into this vote. It seems the short-sighted Federal Assembly prefers money now rather than wealth later. Putyatin threw his support in with Vinnick right after your first meeting. They have been conspiring since last week.”
“Recommendations,” Enzo asked.
“Withdraw and wait for the Councilman’s death,” Akelatis said. “His heir will be weakened during a transition and will not be difficult to defeat.”
Azumi shook her head. “Sergii is competent enough and the transition has been long-planned. He is not true Hatchery, but he is not weak, either. Flua will not lose much in the transition.”
“Our situation is tense, Father,” Palos added. “We are at a severe disadvantage politically and tactically. You stand to lose everything if we are defeated.”
“But if we withdraw, we are back to a complete stalemate,” Matthew said. “Worse, if Vinnick passes and Sergii consolidates his control.”
The debate went on for another twenty minutes, but Enzo had already made up his mind. After everyone had presented their recommendations, he glanced over at the confused envoy, and spoke to his assembled. “No retreating. Prepare for the reckoning.” He turned to Amanda. “Send scouts to survey the escape tunnel. Make sure it isn’t blocked. I want full blueprints by this evening.”
“What about our shadow?” Matthew asked, gesturing over at Natalya, who was studying the meeting with unabashed interest. No doubt she had recorded this conversation from somewhere on her person and was now studying their mannerisms.
Enzo turned to Azumi. “Summon a shade team.”
“How many targets, Father?”
“All of them.”
19 Night Watch
In the years following the ESA’s passing, thousands of Penetra nets were installed in every major airport, government building, and high-value facility. It became as common to see a Penetra scanner as a metal detector. Transportation around the world became extraordinarily difficult. Prophus operations were crippled.
The political arms of both factions were wiped off the face of the Earth in many countries. Governments confiscated properties, accounts, and even entire companies. Within weeks of its passage, the Prophus were decimated to a fraction of their original strength. Fortunately, the Genjix lost even more.
Baji
Nothing made Jill stew as much as being cheated. Well, except for maybe when Roen did something asinine, which was quite often. In his defense, though, once she yelled at him about it, he rarely repeated the mistake, though he had this unique talent for finding new dumb things for her to yell at him about. She had assumed he’d eventually run out of original ways to mess something up, yet he kept impressing her with his imagination.
God, she loved that man.
Right now though, she was pissed and ripping one of her agents a new asshole. “Six thousand dollars, Hite! What did I tell you about counting that money? Do you know how many cases of ammo I can buy with that? I’m taking the missing amount out of your salary. I don’t care if you don’t draw salary.”
Jill clicked him off and briefly considered chucking her headset at the nearest wall. Then she remembered that she was running low on those and decided against it. She stopped layering the lasagna she was building, turned around to wash her hands, and saw Vladimir waiting at the doorway.
“Have you given consideration to my request,” he asked.
Persistent, is he not?
“Great, just great. This is exactly what I need right now. I don’t know how many ways I can say no before it sinks into his concrete head.”
The rich rarely accept “no” as an answer.
She put on as apologetic a face as possible. “Of course. Unfortunately, the arrangement for your transport from Las Vegas to Cuba and the transport to Panama can’t be rescheduled.”
Not to mention the four connection journey from the farmhouse to Vegas, the forged passports with set dates for St Johns once they boarded the cruise ship, or the dozens of bribes for the workers and officers on duty the day they were being moved were already arranged. Oh no, all the Russian cared about was getting things his way because he wanted to leave two weeks early. Of course she didn’t mention any of it, though she desperately wanted to take this cooking pan and hit him on the head with it.
“If it’s a matter of money…” he began.
Typical of someone from Vinnick’s faction. For a while, I thought their plan was just to buy their way to victory.
“Not a bad plan, to be honest.”
True, but it has been proven again and again that money can only buy so much before brute force wins out. Look at Athens.
Jill shook her head and said aloud. “I’m sorry. You’re set for two weeks from tomorrow, and that’s that. You might as well sit back and enjoy the fresh air.”
“You tell your boy to stay away from my Alex,” he said, his face darkening. “I know how you Americans are.”
She looked away and began to work on layering the pasta and cheese with renewed fervor, lest Vladimir see the scowl on her face. He was getting on her last nerve. This was going to be one glorious lasagna when it was done, fueled by her long list of irritations and constant worry for her husband’s welfare. It had been four days now and -
“Jill,” Shiloh, the new operative on comms loaned from Faust cut in. “We have a direct route request to Pacific Northwest command from a Mountain North Region secured encryption. Your eyes only.”
Jill’s heart rate picked up as she responded. “Double-check the crypto key as well as the route hops, then patch them through.”
Keep a good head on you. The news could be anything.
The five minutes it took for Shiloh to perform due diligence on the comm route were some of the longest of her life. A dozen scenarios ran through her head, and most of them were bad. From the scout team telling her that Roen never made it, to them reporting him dead, to… she shook her head. Every subsequent scenario was worse than the previous. There was only one possible good outcome, and considering the luck they’d had lately, she wanted to pick up this stupid lasagna and smash it against something.
“Hey, babe,” Roen’s voice said through her headset. “Babe? Jill?”
It took Jill a few seconds to regain her composure. She fought back the swell of relief that rose from her chest, threatening to have her in tears in front of Vladimir. She looked at him and shooed him away with her eyes. He must have recognized the look, because he drifted backward out of the room sheepishly.
“Where have you been?” she demanded. “You were supposed to report in right when you got there!”
“Car got ambushed on the way there. Genjix patrol. Our crypto key got shot up in the process, and I didn’t want to risk contacting you until we reached the scout team and used theirs. Why? Is everything okay? How’s Cameron?”