A young man wakes up in the desert. The wreckage of an ambulance lies smashed against a boulder and charred to a crisp. By the stitches on his head and face, he assumes he was the patient. But why was an ambulance driving through a desert? Where wa...
Virgil groomed his dyed blond mohawk in frustration. He had already tried several times, and he knew he could punch it up. He could write it down and read it aloud, but he believed that would subtract spontaneity and truthfulness from his words. After a few seconds of silence, he cleared his throat, took a sip of water, and put his hand on the recorder, ready to start all over. Alone, in that safe house, where only the few gray splits that slid through the blinds corrupted the darkness, he thumped the record button with a fury.
"This is a message to the head of the company. Please receive my warmest regards and my sincerest hopes that everything is going as well as it can. I'm sure you now have several questions about my person and my intentions, so I'll get straight to the point. Who I am doesn't matter, nor does where I come from or why I'm addressing you. The only thing that matters is the proposal I'm going to offer, so I'm going to ask you to forget about the counselors and advisers around you and focus your attention on what I'm about to say. You see, there have been certain...events. Events neither you nor your company have or have had anything to do with, but which affect you indirectly. If you want to know about such a great affair, my words respond to a fifty thousand dollar fee.
"Yes, I know. What right do I have to claim such an amount of money upfront in exchange for information you don't even know is verified or worth the price? What I can tell you is that this event involves an organization in the United States and a certain visionary with a Messiah complex whose findings could jeopardize the industry from which you've profited so much.
"My representative will be waiting for you tomorrow at 10 am in front of your headquarters in a black second-generation Honda Accord. We hope that you, or someone on your behalf, will get in the car so the exchange can take place. Of course, you may ask all the questions you see fit on the issue, and we will try to answer them as rigorously as possible according to our data. If by ten minutes past ten, no one has entered the car, I'll take it you've turned me down, and you will not hear from me again. Bear also in mind that I intend to send this message to your competition and they might wish to have a gut check after hearing my words. I can assure you, my tariff is a trifle compared to my information. Also understand that this is not a joke, that nobody in their right mind would bother so obsessively to get in contact with you if it wasn't for a good reason, a reason which involves the highest levels of national security, the ensuing Cold War, and the reexamination of world balance as we know it. I hope to hear from you tomorrow."
He stopped the tape. Got it this time. Seven different recordings, seven improvisations, six crap and a small victory. He took another sip of water and lay face up on the sofa, watching the hypnotic ceiling fan blades as they kept spinning. Now he only had to alter the voice of the recording and begin sending it, one by one, to all of them. If that went well, it wouldn't take long for him to replicate his speech in all possible languages and send it to every corner of the globe, and then he should think about getting a nice safe. He took a dense breath, retained it for a few seconds, and projected it as a long sigh. Mr. Seiber should never find out how he was going to make a killing in such a short time, and if everything went as planned, he would never learn. After all, it wasn't technically treason.
The phone rang. It was on the table beside the sofa, just behind his head. Virgil stretched his arm backwards to reach the receiver.
"Hello."
"I think we met at the aquarium last month."
Virgil straightened his spine by instinct where he lay across the couch.
"Yeah, I think I saw you at the dolphin tank."
"Did you like their flips?"
"I liked their flops better." Virgil sighed again, now as a full stop. "What do you want, Abel?"
"What do I want? What happened to Landau?"
"Turns out he wasn't on the damn plane. You sure you saw him?"
"Of course, I'm sure. I could see his idiotic face through a window when I refueled their plane. Do you think I just made it up?"
"No, I didn't say that. I think he really was on the plane, because when I inspected it, I saw an ashtray with two half-smoked cigars."
"Then what happened?"
"Maybe he switched planes before we got them to stop. Hard to tell."
"Then that's it? Everything's lost?"
"Not quite. I put a transmitter on the plane. From there, my partners will track down its signal. Also, you're on your way to where his brother's holed up, so we still have a leg up from two different ways. Now, if you don't mind, I'm kinda fading..."
"Wait, one more thing. I've gotten wind about progress in the case of the theft of that military prototype. They think we did it and that we've also taken Landau, and they're now readying up an infiltration team or something to sneak in and extract them from wherever they are."
"The fuck does that mean?"
"That means they may intend to enter Soviet territory. You gotta raise the alarm."
"But who stole the prototype?"
"It was Atticus. Well, one of his own, who was, incidentally, on the plane."
A striking memory flashed through the Asian's mind.
"Wait...could it be that guy who looked like a Hawaiian faggot?"
"Yeah, why? You know him or something?"
"No...it's just that...What's his name?"
"Conan, but while he was in the army, before he stole the prototype, he called himself Ulrich."
Virgil sat up like a spring, speechless. He had to work to suppress his hankering to toss the bottle against the wall from the stomach up.
"What happened to his last name?"
"Turns out he kept it for some reason. Never told me why."
"It's Seiber, right?"
"Well, yeah, but how do you know?"
"Doesn't matter. I'll get back to you."
Virgil hung up, dialed a phone number by heart, and put the handset back in his ear, all in the same motion. He finished the bottle of water as though it was a narcotic while waiting for his mentor on the other side.
"Hello."
"Boss, I have something to tell you. Something very important."
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