Chapter 23

“Whitaker, I don’t give a shit what you think you need to do,” Aubrey yelled into her mobile. “A military satellite just destroyed a car in our driveway and Sal Bartolucci bled all over my favorite couch, the one you bought me in Brussels. Get your ass here now or I’m cutting your balls off and sending them to your mother by FED-EX overnight. No excuses, you whiny little shit.”

Mikel leaned over to Nicola, “Why did you shoot him in the balls?”

Speaking out of the corner of her mouth, “I was aiming for his chest, but that gun is a cannon compared to the peashooters I shot at school. I locked in my stance to make sure I didn’t go high but that big boy blew me backwards. Good shot, huh?”

“Poetic justice,” Mikel said gravely. “He’ll never boff again.”

“Or pee straight,” Nicola said with a snort of laughter. She stopped. “Do you think Louisa will be okay?”

“I don’t know,” Mikel said, waffling his hands slightly. “The paramedics said the baddies pistol-whipped her and threw her into the bushes. They couldn’t gauge the damage to her neck, only observing that there was damage. They put her in big head blocks and sent her to hospital.”

Mikel’s phone rang. “Hey, Hyun.”

“Hey, yourself. There are all sorts of reports coming in of a military strike northwest of the city. What did you do?”

“Me? Assassination squad came calling from the Crusado Corporation,” Mikel said. “For the record, they were sent to take out the Zandt family as part of a plan to take control of the Zandt consortium of worldwide corporations. I can vouch that the attempted hit happened because I was there. Their front man took a bullet in the balls as the assassins came rolling in, fired by one of the Zandt women defending themselves.” He paused for the comment. “Yeah, him.”

He listened for a few minutes, watching Nicola’s face shift into boredom. “What? Really? Cool. Say hello to everyone at the office. You’re not there? Where? You go, girl. Bye.” He hung up and rubbed his fingers over his forehead and eyes.

“What?” Nicola asked.

“There was another space borne laser attack in Lisbon about an hour after the attack here. The strike took out an entire building.”

Nicola smirked. “Cool. It’s cool having A.I. for friends.”

“Yeah,” Mikel said, not wanting to expand on the subject. “Do you know how to work the coffee machine?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“If the FBI or the CIA or the detectives decide to haul us down to one of their offices, we are going to be in for a long, long set of interrogations,” Mikel said. “This incident is one for the books.”

She gave him a look of sympathy. “This is the Zandt family compound, first of all. They hijacked our maid and broke through our security. Second, they were killed by a military satellite. We may be rich, but we don’t own one of those. Finally, Sal was in our house and the Castle Doctrine trumps all.” She dropped her voice. “Plus, mom took her little pistol from her purse and shoved it halfway down his ass. Yeah, she wiped it first and put his fingers on it before she planted it. The gun has no serial number too. No one fucks with the Zandt family.”

Mikel took another deep breath to calm himself. “Coffee?”

“If I made it, then we would have to share it with all these interlopers and do-gooders and buttwipes who cling to everything. Play it cool. A passel of our attorneys will be here shortly and then everything will settle down to another surreal sense of normal. Then daddy will arrive, and the unicorns will come out from hiding and shit rainbow turds all over the property.”

“Rainbow turds?”

“They make the magic mushrooms grow sooo big,” Nicola said with a crooked smile. “We also package them in bright four-color boxes and sell them to the trendy wannabeasts at a 500% markup. They will take their turds with them to their meetups in the afternoons with their besties and to their club de jure after nightfall, giving us viral marketing and vertical integration.”

“Who are you?” Mikel said with consternation on his brow. “Are you having a break from reality? Do you need to sit down?”

Nicola snorted. “This is the true face of the Zandt family, Mikel. We are stone-cold sane and focused on the revenue streams. You heard my mother screaming into the phone and thought she was demanding cuddling and consolation after a traumatic event from her loving husband. She needs to accelerate her P.R. preparation through the next news cycle, propagate a marketing campaign for Zandt Industries, and put daddy in front of her choreographed vids. My first thought after your cue to your reporter friends was, if Zandt was good enough for Crusado to commit murder, Zandt is good enough for your investment portfolio. The word wonks can knock it down to a digestible soundbite, you know?”

“Now I do,” Mikel said. “What do we do now?”

“Mother is going to relocate to the beach house if I know her,” Nicola said, tapping her chin. “She will do whatever she can to avoid the unwashed public as much as humanly possible. She will have to take Poppy with her or finally shove her into an institution. As for me, I’m not sure how many hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars I have access to at the moment, but it is more than enough to snatch up one of those houses in Downing, where we caught the train. Maybe the college property is on super sale.”

Mikel let out a sad little laugh. “My reporter friend is traveling there as we speak. She may already be there. I never imagined everyone would be taking my advice, well, that kind of advice.” He sighed. “We are still alive, I guess. I should probably follow my own guidance and get out of the city permanently, however long permanently is, knowing what we know.”

Two members from the federal investigative team came and sat down across the dining room table from the two of them. The older man had a buzz cut that was all grey and he wore no-nonsense glasses. He took off his glasses and cleaned the lenses with a cloth he pulled from inside his jacket.

“Mr. Barajas, there is a warrant out for your arrest from the Department of Justice,” he said, adjusting his glasses across the bridge of his nose. “The original content said you were a material witness, and you were being served with a subpoena. Now, there is an indictment for committing domestic terrorism. Such an accusation is a bit unbelievable for a columnist for the lovelorn. Care to explain.”

Mikel pulled out his mobile and placed it on the table. “I am the only emissary to the rogue A.I. that everyone, especially our government, is seeking. I don’t go anywhere unless the A.I. tells me to go. I am not issuing a threat; I’m just explaining the circumstances. The vehicle out front was destroyed by the A.I. Their bosses in Lisbon had their building destroyed in the same manner afterward.”

“Hmm,” he replied. “What you are saying is that if we attempt to take you into custody, the A.I. would prevent it.”

“Watch and learn,” Mikel said. He hit the messaging app and the microphone. “Aria?”

“Aria is not available. All updates have been sent to Aria and she sends her confirmation.”

Mikel shook his head before replying. “Venetian Merchant?”

“Hallo, my friend,” the speaker sounded with an indistinct European accent.

Mikel gestured at the phone. “Would you please confirm the laser strike at the Zandt compound earlier today and the strike in Lisbon following?”

“I hold the world but as the world, Gratiano; a stage where every man must play a part, and mine a sad one,” the voice from the mobile recited.

“What?” the FBI agent exclaimed.

“He’s quoting The Merchant of Venice,” Mikel said while pushing his hair back on his head. “Surely you remember Shakespeare from your education.”