Chapter 24

“I’d like to help you, Tom, in any way I can.
I sure appreciate the way you’re working with me.
I’m not a monster, Tom. Well, technically, I am.
I guess I am.”
-Jonathan Coulton, “Re: Your Brains“

Leonard Whyte CBE paced around his suite as the sounds of gunfire and explosions thundered from one floor above him; in the La Contessa Suite at the Seattle Hotel de Società Finzione. He wore a blue suit, identical to the one he’d given the vagrant before sending him to his death the night before. This helmet was for his own use, though, and didn’t contain an incendiary device like the other one.

There were still ropes hanging from the balcony of the suite above, down onto the balcony of his own suite, from the grappling hooks that the mercenaries had used to climb to the floor above and plant C-4 charges on the steel shutters that protected Contessa Helena de San Finzione from them about a minute ago.

There was a frantic knock at the door. He picked up his pistol from the table. If the Ultimados had won the fight upstairs and figured out where he was this quickly, they’d have kicked it in and chucked grenades, rather than knocked. Leonard looked over at the frightened sign-language interpreter that he’d hired to relay his orders to the men. He pointed the gun at the man.

“Be a good chap and see who’s at the door, would you?” Whyte said, cocking the hammer.

Whyte had been terrifying the sign-language interpreter over the past few days with the instructions that he was giving and the fact that Leonard wouldn’t allow him to go home. The absolute certainty that, at this point, he “knew too much,” and there was no way that Whyte was going to allow him to live after killing this woman, did not help either. Because of this, Whyte added to his instructions.

“Don’t just open it, use the peephole. And remember that I have this aimed squarely at your back if you try to make a break for it.”

The interpreter gulped and did as he was told, knowing that trying to open the door and flee was probably his one chance at survival; but also that the man who had the mercenaries prevent him from escaping and made his life a nightmare since he accepted the job was completely serious in his threat. He knew now that Whyte would absolutely shoot him in the back if he thought he’d try it.

“It’s them.” He said, after looking through the hole. “Three of them, anyway.”

Whyte looked dumbfounded. He’d been skeptical about their chances of success, but never imagined that any of them would make it back alive. He let out a “Fuck!” under his breath as he realized he’d probably have to pay them now. From his own pocket, no less; since his companies’ assets were done for. After he dealt with Miss Parker, he’d have to rebuild his empire on what would be left of his own fortune, so every cent mattered now.

“Well, let them in, I suppose.” Leonard said. The men were wearing body armor, but he might still have enough bullets to kill four men, if he could use the lack of hearing of three to his advantage and catch one or two in the back of the head before the others noticed what was happening.

He opened the door. The three men stormed past him into the room. The interpreter realized that they were now between Whyte’s gun and himself, and this was his one chance at self-preservation, so he bolted out the door and around the corner while he had the opportunity. The three men continued walking directly toward Leonard Whyte CBE.

“What are you...” Whyte started to ask, before realizing that they couldn’t hear him anyway, and seeing the look in their eyes. He aimed for the one in the middle’s head and fired, putting a round through it. The man’s body dropped to the floor, and the other two continued toward him, seemingly oblivious to the loss of their teammate. Leonard turned to another and was able to shoot both, dropping the second, before the third was upon him, yanking the gun out of the old man’s hand.

Whyte’s scream changed from coming out the speakers of the helmet to directly from his mouth as the last mercenary pulled it off of his head with the last of his strength before succumbing to his wounds.

“Hi, Leonard.” A familiar voice said, from the balcony behind him. He started to turn before the voice added “Don’t move.” He immediately found himself unable to compel his body to complete the action of turning around and froze in place. Seeing, just out of the corner of his eye, Contessa Helena de San Finzione and Mander standing on the balcony, guns pointed at him.

“Also,” She added. “Dun-dun-DAAAAA!!!”

Contessa Helena de San Finzione lit a cigar, then lit Leonard Whyte CBE’s cigar. She sat in an easy chair across from the man who’d made her life hell for the past two months, seated on the couch, and looked at him. She’d worn the black leather jacket she’d taken from the Triad goons back in San Finzione, but now paired it with a matching skirt and shoes.

The interpreter had run straight into Dr. Tenente Paul Maisson of La Squadra de Ultimados as soon as he’d made it around the corner. He’d subdued him, and Helen ordered him and Mander to take him up to her suite and give him a drink or something. As soon as Maisson had let him talk and he’d told him that Whyte had been keeping him prisoner, Helen ordered them not to let him leave until she could learn how much he’d been involved; and if he was really being held against his will, what he knew and that she’d allow him to remember.

“Mander had an idea about tracking you down via your interpreter.” She told him, taking a puff. “Turns out that there’s a lot of them in Seattle, and almost all of them were booked up because of STRANGERS and unreachable. Still, it was a good idea.”

Whyte took a sip of the double brandy that she’d allowed him to have. She did the same from her own, feeling a little buzzed at having drunk more alcohol today than she normally did in a week. Everyone else had returned to her suite, leaving Helen and Leonard alone.

“I figured you’d appreciate the misdirect.” Helen continued. “With Mander and I using the same ropes your men used to grapple up to my suite to get down to you. Pretty scary from fifty-one floors up, but the Ultimados showed me how to do it back at the warehouse, then it was fun. Like driving a semi for the first time.”

Whyte nodded.

“I’m fully aware that I’m not walking out of this suite alive, Contessa. You’re going to win whatever happens next, I know. However, while we’re finally having this little face-to-face, I hope you’ll at least pay me the courtesy of telling me what happened up there.”

“Oh, absolutely, Leonard.” Helen said with a smile, blowing a smoke ring. “And I’m glad we’re on the same page on your Leaving Alive status. But I’ve wanted to talk to you like this for a while now. We’ve got all the time in the world. Well, I do, anyway. No reason not to be civil about it. Speaking of, that ‘If I die, Contessa Helena de San Finzione killed me with her mind powers’ video you left with your solicitor pal in London? Thanks for telling me about that. I mean, I know I made you tell me with my mind powers and all, but still. We have ‘cultural attaches’ at the London embassy, they’ll see to it, possibly him, too.”

“Well,” He said, smiling back, taking another drink, and dipping the end of his cigar in the brandy. “For what it’s worth, I’d planned to skip out on the bill anyway.”

They shared a small laugh at that.

“As for what happened upstairs,” Helen explained. “The first guys in the windows were wiped out before they even set foot inside. I managed to take control of three of the others. The fourth turned out to be an old friend of Mander’s. Recognized him and went “Mander?” He told the Ultimados to hold their fire and went over to talk to him. Mander knows sign language! Who’da thunk, right? So, Mander told him ‘Oi, Bluey!’ He calls him Bluey. ‘Look, whatever this crafty butcher’s payin’ ya, this bird’ll triple it. I know they all say that, but she’s a geezerette, she’s on the level.’ He could’ve started at double, but Bluey dropped his gun and assumed the position, just like Mander did when we met. They’re upstairs having a pint now. He assured me that these guys were rotten tossers, though; and I have learned to trust his judgment on the subject of rotten tossers. Plus, I DID promise you a suicide charge in return. Except this one was just to disarm you and get that helmet off your head if they had to use a blowtorch. So, I guess I HAVE sunk to your level now.” She thought for a long puff. “I wouldn’t call that a victory if I were you. I’ve sunk lower, and I will again.”

“But how’d you control them?” Whyte asked with a puff of his cigar. “Your power doesn’t work on people who can’t hear you.”

Helen dipped the end of her cigar in the brandy as well and blew another smoke ring.

“Let me tell you something about myself, Leonard. I’m what they call a polyglot. I know, it sounds like the Pokémon that nobody likes. Like you’ll go to the toy aisle, and they’ll be sold out of Pikachu, and Jigglypuff, and Squirtle; and there’ll one sad, lonely little peg of Polyglots on an otherwise empty rack. I’m sorry if that reference is lost on your generation, sir.”

“My grandchildren weren’t born worthless, Helena. It took them a couple of years to get good and entitled. And even at my age, knowing nothing else about Pokémon, who the fuck doesn’t know the Pikachu Monster?”

“Good. I got your Uncle Milty reference this morning; my Real Father educated me in ‘the classics,’ so I wanted to be sure. No, polyglot is the term for someone who speaks and uses multiple languages. And I love languages, Mr. Whyte. All of them. I’ve learned every one I’ve been able to. I mean, I’m the kind of nutty about them that I’ll get the mood to sit down and just read a few pages from a Norwegian-to-Inupiaq dictionary like it’s a regular book. And I’m reasonably certain that I HAVE that actual dictionary, Leonard. Three shelves in Castle Finzione’s library are devoted to translation dictionaries, because reading them like that is literally a thing that I sometimes do for fun! Some people like to do the crossword, this is my thing.

“And I deeply love that the country that it is my privilege to rule had four official languages before I even got there! I am, by no means, a morning person; I’m simply used to being on the schedules of elderly men. So, I DO have a habit of getting up with the sun. My first thought when I wake up in the morning; well, second after ‘Holy shit, it wasn’t a dream, I really DID fall in love and marry a handsome king who died, and now I have to rule his country’ is ‘I rule an entire fucking nation of fellow polyglots! I will be employing multiple languages all day today! How fucking cool is that?’”

“About as cool as Mr. Equals’ James Bond obsession. But don’t let me interrupt you, Helena.”

She didn’t.

“So yes, all the ways that people on this planet communicate with each other have always fascinated me, and I wanted to learn them all! I wanted to be able to understand anyone and everyone’s thoughts and ideas and express my own back to them. Every new one that I’ve mastered throughout my life has given me a thrill that no lover has ever been able to match. Even Troy and Vincenzo are tied for a close second. You own ... well, WILL have owned, a phone company until your shareholders unload their stock on me for pennies on the dollar and I shut it down; or weed out your cronies, wipe your name from everything, make Leonard Whyte CBE and his electronics empire go the way of Betamax and Zune; absorb everything into Società Finzione, and give my nation another new industry to branch into. Still deciding, both ideas have their merits. Oh, I say ‘another,’ because we’re getting a film industry within the next couple months.”

“Oh, who do you think you’re fooling, Helen. We all know that Mr. Equals is going to make you take the ‘don’t put my half-million legitimate employees out of work’ option. Shame I’ll never catch one of your pictures.” Whyte said, attempting to blow a smoke ring himself, but failing. Helen responded with a perfect ring, followed by a second, bigger one.