Night Games Pt. 22

Troy broke away from the conversation and approached the bottom of the slide. Once he was in place, Helen slid out of the fog in her Vera Wang ensemble and down the staircase into his arms. He spun her around to the dance floor, and they began the first dance of the evening. Since Nunzio was a guest at the party, other pages ran forth and dropped air mattresses at the bottom. Julie and Susan picked up the twins and led the Ramirez children up the stairs so they could try the slide. Troy led Helen out of their way as others took the dance floor.

"Happy birthday, Petalouda." Troy said to her. Helen's response was to kiss him.

They looked to the corner of the floor where Baker's Half-Dozen had congregated. Since Gordon couldn't get up and dance yet, the others were remaining by him. Their Ultimado guard was dressed in civilian clothes for the evening and watched from nearby.

"You're not going to be able to keep them at the palace forever, you know." He advised her. "And the Ultimados have better things to do than keep guarding them."

"I said they were sentenced to life." Helen pointed out. "I didn't say it was life in prison. They're rich now, they can afford places in the city. We'll call it secret house arrest."

Troy spun Helen around and dipped her.

"Three hundred-million hours is over thirty-four thousand years." Troy told her, knowing she probably didn't want the total number right now. "I don't think Dr. Rocco and Jeanne are that far along on their robotics project." He raised her back to her feet. "How are they going to serve that?"

Helen looked over at them again. Oscar was leading Tracy the same way Troy was leading her.

"I have some ideas."

* * *

Another day dawned in San Finzione. The people went about their day. Serving tourists, making wine, making movies, and overseeing the international business empires of Società Finzione and SanFinTech. The government's corporation kept the business of the country running, and La Contessa kept it all together somehow.

On the porch of a house on the lower side of La Collina, Oscar watched his grandchildren play in the sprinkler. Violeta Ramirez stood nearby talking to his daughter-in-law. She'd brought her own children over, and they joined in the fun in the yard. His son emerged from the house with four bottles of beer. The Generalissimo's wife took one, and he handed one to his own wife before offering the third to his father, who accepted. Oscar took a drink and watched the kids try to outrun the water.

"It took you thirty-two years, dad." His son told Oscar, opening his own bottle. "But you did it. You've brought the family to San Finzione for a vacation."

"My line of work didn't give me a lot of time for vacations." He pointed out. "Or enough time with my family."

"And you're not doing that anymore?" His son asked pointedly.

"No, no." Oscar assured his son. "I've found something better here."

He set his beer down on the patio table next to his phone, which started playing Jimmy Buffett's "Pencil Thin Mustache." Oscar picked up the phone and looked at the incoming text.

"Since when do you carry a phone around?" His son asked.

"Since I got this new job. And it looks like the studio needs me." He stepped over to the Generalissimo's wife. "I'm sorry, Violeta, I'm going to have to go to work."

"I understand." She told him. "My husband has to run whenever La Contessa calls as well."

He nodded, called goodbye to the grandkids, and got into his car. Oscar waved to the Swede across the street and backed out of the driveway. He drove a few houses down Strada Della Casa to collect Tracy, who was waiting for him, before going to work.

At San Finzione's Ministry of Science, Alice Mei's phone played Tennessee Ernie Ford's original version of "Sixteen Tons." She looked at the text, then back to the experiment she was running. Three more hours on it. Alice called someone to take over monitoring, then went to get changed. When she emerged from the Ministry of Science, Franz was waiting for her at the wheel of a Lamborghini Aventador.

"Is it yours?" She asked, getting in the passenger seat.

"Since when has that mattered, Liebchen?"

"I guess it doesn't."

Spencer sat at his desk in the Ministry of Intelligence's Electronic Intelligence division. He was arranging for a shipment of guns to be lost in transit to San Finzione when the message popped up on his screen. He told Carlito Cortez, head of the division, that he had another call, and went to meet Morris and Gordon, who worked in other parts of the building, so they could ride together.

"How's the training going?" He asked the two men as they got into his van.

"Told the new students to try to take me all at once." Gordon told him. "They'll get better."

"Mine are doing well with locks." Morris added. "Couple need help with their pickpocketing."

The three vehicles made their separate ways through the streets of San Finzione to the lot of San Finzione Studios. All were waved past the gate. They convened outside a small set away from all of the others. The red light above the door indicating that it was a live set was on, as it always seemed to be. A sign next to the door said that filming was going on for a production that nobody on the lot seemed to be attached to, but all agreed would probably never see the light of day: "Blacula vs the Blerewolf."

They walked through the old film cameras and costumes stored on the set to emerge in the center, where a war room with a table similar to the one inside the War Room of Castle Finzione had been set up. None of them had been in the actual War Room, but the man who'd been waiting for them all to arrive had. If he'd wanted to, he could have told them that they got the rest of the room wrong on purpose for national security reasons. He stood with his back to the others, taking a phone call, while they all got coffee and took their seats.

"Have you found work yet?" Alice asked Tracy.

"I'll tell you what I found: forty-two million in my bank account after our last job." Tracy informed her. "You know Susan's career of doing Whatever the Hell She Wants Because Troy Set Her Up for Life? I'm thinking of giving it a try myself."

"I waste 'em with my crossbow!" Spencer said, taking the seat next to the head of the table. A couple of the others laughed. Oscar sat on the other side from him.

Mander finished his phone call and turned to the group, approaching the head of the table.

"Sorry, had to take that." He told them. "Now, then. Welcome to the real Mander Force. You all already know our biggest secret: That there are four people in the world with the power to control minds. Luckily, I know 'em, they're cool people, and they're not making me say that."

Everyone agreed. Mander sat at the head.

"I thought La Contessa would be joining us." Tracy commented.

"Some days, Her Countessness is free to do things like hunt Nazis and catch you guys. Others, like today, she's got budget meetings with the Generalissimo to take care of. That's when she'll call all of you. Now, to business."

They all raised their cups and toasted to business. Mander let them, then pressed a button on the table. A 3-D holographic image of a man's head appeared above the table and began rotating so all could get a good look.

"This is our first target." Mander briefed the others. "Simon Kiburi, former dictator of Uongo. And a rotten tosser if ever there was one. He's been living large in a resort in Macao off the gold he stole from Uongo's treasury. At least he's been smart enough not to stay in a Società Finzione place."

The image above the table changed to Kiburi relaxing in a swimming pool. A child tried to enter the pool. Kiburi angrily splashed her until the girl gave up. A holographic floorplan of the resort appeared next to him.

"Guy's got a weird thing about swimming pools; they say he wishes he'd been born a fish. While he's been doing nothing more than blowing the gold and chasing everyone else out of the pool, he's hovered on Her Countessness' To-Do List. But now the gold's running low, so he's looking to break into the heroin trade. He'll need a bundle to buy in, and there's only one way he's gonna raise it: Hand what remaining stolen treasures he took from Uongo to the Auctioneers and put them on the block. When that happens, they'll be a lot harder to recover, so Her Countessness figures he's become a priority. And she's got plenty of those, so that's why we're here."

Mander rose to his feet and towered over the table with his hands behind his back.

"Her Countessness says it'll count for a million hours of community service if you just bankrupt Kiburi, three million if you can get the treasures back. As for me? Having your own cartoon's nice, but my reward is the chance to get some proper crime in and work with a bunch of professionals. So, Tracy. Got any ideas?"

She looked up at Mander and smiled.

"A few, actually."