Chapter 5

“Can we film the operation?
Is the head dead yet?
You know the boys in the newsroom
got a running bet.
Get the widow on the set.
We need dirty laundry.”
-Don Henley, “Dirty Laundry”

The Sovereign County and Nation-State of San Finzione maintained the European tradition of the two-hour midday break. It was often said that nothing happened between 12 and 2 in San Finzione.

On this day, though, something was happening at 12:22 in the afternoon. La Contessa’s Eurocopter EC 115 helicopter flying overhead was a familiar sight to the citizens below, even if it was flying much faster than usual. A second helicopter in the sky at the same time flying from the nearby army base was not. What was even more strange to the people below was that La Contessa’s only flew a short distance to the city’s largest hospital and the second helicopter appeared to be heading toward St. Francis de Sales park. The park and St. Francis de Sales Cathedral at the end of it were a No-Fly Zone. Cameras and phones were produced to record the strange event.

In the park, Lady Maria Louisa Francesca de San Finzione sat on a blanket spread out on the grass under a shady tree by the duck pond. Her boyfriend, Stavro, was sprawled out on the blanket with his head in her lap as Maria peeled grapes and fed them to him, both of them laughing at how corny the sight of them must be to onlookers walking the paved paths at the bottom of the hill.

“Hey,” Stavro told her between grapes. “Remember the last time we were on a blanket in this park?” Maria smiled and blushed. She thought she heard sirens, but thought nothing of them; figuring that Great-Grandmama must be going somewhere. She didn’t connect them to the sound of the helicopter growing louder as well.

“I think we might get stares if we did that again today.”

Stavro opened his mouth to respond and then saw the nearby park-goers looking up in the sky and pointing. He sat up, and Maria turned as well to see a helicopter that was not La Contessa’s, but a military one, and it was descending to hover about thirty feet away from them.

The two of them rose to their feet as the military and police vehicles whose sirens had been getting increasingly loud could be now seen driving through the park and onto the grass toward them with flashing lights. They came to a stop and Capitan Ortega and four Ultimados, all carrying Heckler & Koch UMP40 sub-machine guns, emerged from an armored transport and ran towards them. Stavro stepped in front of Maria, memories of another incident they’d had involving men with guns and helicopters still fresh in his mind months later.

“Capitan Ortega,” Maria shouted over the still-running engines. “What is all this?” Three of the Ultimados stood in a semi-circle behind Maria to form a shield. The fourth reached out to take hold of Stavro’s arm and try to pull him aside when Ortega shouted an order to the man to halt.

“Señor Poldouris,” he said, turning to Stavro. “I need you to stand aside. No one will attempt to take Lady Maria against her will.” They had explicit orders from La Contessa in matters involving Lady Maria. That was one of them; there was a sub-list about Stavro. He turned back to her.

“There has been an attempt on La Contessa’s life. I can only say more once we get you to safety.”

Maria nodded and hunched down amongst them. Stavro, Ortega, and the fourth soldier closed ranks around her to make the front half of her human shield as they ran her into the armored transport. Everyone piled in and the transport and its escort drove swiftly toward the castle.

Susan Bailey was driving in the good direction for 4 AM Seattle traffic, and made it to the road that her home was on in a little less than half an hour. She’d found the BBC World Service on the satellite radio before she’d left Rachel’s place, and had been listening for information as she drove home.

They’d reported that the attack had come during a stop on the castle tour, that the assailant had posed as a tourist and attacked her with a knife of some kind. They then said that La Contessa had been rushed by helicopter to the nearest hospital, that the castle was in lock-down, and that Lady Maria de San Finzione had been moved to a secure location. Susan listened to them rephrase those five details in as many ways as possible before pulling into her driveway and looking at the house across the street. A light was on in the house, like always. That would be convenient.

She got out of her car and started storming across the street and up their lawn. As her heels hit grass, she realized that the shoes she was wearing weren’t good for storming up to someone’s door in the pre-dawn hours with the intention of pounding on it and yelling, so she took them off and stuffed them into her purse before continuing to storm.

A use for the accursed shoes came to Sue as she reached the door. She took one back out of the purse and pounded on the door with it in one hand as she rang the doorbell with the other.

“Open up, you fuckers,” she shouted. Susan worried for a second that Troy & Julie might’ve heard that, but then remembered that they’d be in bed, and all the bedrooms in their house had been soundproofed, so the repeat was much louder.

The door opened. It was Eric. His husband Rob was coming down the stairs. Eric appeared to be dressed as if going out for a pre-dawn jog. Rob was dressed as if he were heading to work in a jean-casual office.

“Susan,” Eric asked. “What???”

“Look,” she said, barging in past him. “You’ll want to close that fucking door.” Eric nodded and did it.

“All right, you know who I am, and I figured out who you two really are some time ago, so let’s cut the shit; what’s going on with her?” The two of them looked confused; a fraction of a second too late for her liking.

“Who,” Rob asked. “The lady on the TV? We were just watching that.”

“Yeah,” she replied. “The lady on the TV that isn’t even fucking ON right now, but you’ve somehow heard about. Contessa Helena de San Finzione, your fucking boss! What’s going on with her?”

“Susie, sweet...” Eric started saying before she stomped up to the taller man’s face and shouted up at him.

“MY name is SUSAN, asshole! Your fucking files should have told you that! If there’s another name to call me right now, it’s SUE!

“You don’t think I noticed that you showed up two weeks after the thing in Uongo? Yeah, I know all about that, because we talked while it was going on. The next week, the old couple across the street gets an offer on their house for enough money to retire to Florida. The week after, a really buff gay couple, calling themselves THE GREENS, for fuck’s sake; moves in. A gay couple who, in four months, have shown absolutely no signs of affection toward each other,” Sue emphasized each word of the rest of the sentence, making it sound like each word was a sentence on its own as she pointed out their outfits.

“Who. Don’t. Even. Fucking. JOG! Together. But despite supposedly running some nebulous internet business that justifies always being home and deliveries at all hours; have the discipline to somehow maintain tri-athlete physiques. And finally, you’ve both been FAR too cool about the nice neighbor lady suddenly transforming into a RAGING CUNT and stomping into your house at 4:30 in the morning to hysterically accuse you of being spies NOT to be! You two are FUCKING Ultimados and Helen sent you to protect them after what happened to Maria!”

The two men remained silent. Susan sat on a stool and collected herself.

“Troy and Julie probably made you on day one and haven’t said because they’re worried that I’d be pissed off at her. I haven’t said anything to her or them because I know she did it out of love, and I get where she got her warped understanding of love.”

Susan looked down at the floor.

“And I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same in her position either. I’m not mad at you or her, I’m mad at the situation.” She looked back up to them.

“You know how much they mean to her. I assure you that she means just as much to them. And when I leave here, I have to go home and walk in on the two people I love most in all the world in the midst of their either peaceful sleep or joyful copulation to tell them that someone just stabbed the woman that they both refer to as ‘my first girlfriend.’ I NEED to give them more than what the news is saying.

“You two have got to have some kind of hotline or direct link to her; you can tell me SOMETHING.” She took a deep breath.

“And you have to be aware of what the four of us can do. I’m not in their league yet, but I’m pretty sure I can make you tell me if that’s the way you want this to play out.”

Silence hung for a few seconds. Eric broke it, dropping the Southern California accent he’d been using for months for an Italian one.

“One of the Ultimados who dispatched the assassin was a field medic. He was able to start tending to her wounds immediately. We know that she has been stabbed multiple times and lost consciousness. We have men escorting Lady Maria and Signor Poldouris to safety; our Capitan is with them. There has been no word of any other attack.”

“Thank you, that’s something.” Susan said. They nodded.

Rob turned on the television and walked over to a rack of DVDs, grabbing one in a blank case with a blue Sharpie-drawn S on the spine. His accent became Spanish.

“La Contessa prepared a video in the event that we had to reveal ourselves to you.”

Susan sighed and walked over to the couch in front of the TV.

“I have to go tell them, but I’ll take any excuse I can get to put it off a little bit longer.” Rob nodded and played the disc.

The screen filled with the image of Contessa Helena de San Finzione lighting a cigarette while she sat at what Susan now recognized as the computer in her study. She looked like she’d either been awake for some time or had woken up in the middle of the night to record this and ran a hand through her hair before speaking.

“Hey, Susan. No, I’m not psychic, Troy and Julie will probably each get their own videos soon. I’m guessing that you’ve already met Enrique and Roberto if you’re watching this. Logically, the fact that I’m not telling you this stuff face-to-face would also mean that at this time, there’s some reason I can’t.”

She paused the recording. When it returned, Helen’s hair looked a bit better and she was lighting a new cigarette before continuing.