In Too Deep(103)

After dinner, we went back to our room. Croatian inns are not the same as American ones. Our bed was rustic, with a handmade comforter on top that most likely had been made by the owner's wife or mother. It had beautiful patterns interwoven into it, and smelled like it had been stored in a cedar chest when it wasn't being used. The bed itself was soft and thick, suspended on a real rope frame that actually worked better than any metal springs or frame I'd ever had.

Mark pulled out our tablet and turned on our little satellite uplink system. The speed wasn't exactly good enough to stream high definition video, but we didn't use it for such. Instead, we used it for keeping track of Mark's financial packages, read news, and keep in touch with certain people via e-mail. Tabby Williams, my best friend who we had saved from the Confederation, sometimes e-mailed us information about goings on in the city that you couldn't get from the local television stations. She'd become a good little intelligence officer. I hated involving her, but once Tabby sets her mind to something, you might as well agree or you're wasting your breath. The rest of the time we just swapped stories, although we were careful not to give away too many details.

"Anything new?" I asked as I quickly washed up and changed into light shorts and a tank top, not wanting to go to bed with the smell of gunpowder on my hands.

Mark sat silently for a minute, his brow furrowed. Finally, he turned to look at me, and nodded. "We need to go back. Take a look." He passed the tablet over, open to our secured e-mail. What I read shocked me. "See what I mean?"

Dear guys, the message began. Tabby was careful not to use names at all in the messages she sent us, and the address was nothing more than random numbers and letters. We had sent her the e-mail link through one of our burner phones, so there couldn't be any way to trace it back to us.

There’s rumors that a certain party is about to bring in some interesting imports from out of town. Apparently, the current market share with his nearest competitor wasn't enough for him, and he wants to have the entire market to himself. The people I know don't have a lot of details, they just know it's going to be big, and it's coming into town soon. I'd say sweeps week is upon us!

That was another thing about Tabby, she always tried to write using circumspect language. Not that it helped, even a beginner could see what she was talking about. "So what do you think she means?"

Mark thought about it for a second while he turned the tablet off and shut down the satellite link. "Most likely Owen Lynch is making a play. The Confederation doesn't trust each other enough for them to allow a member to bring in an outside party into town, it would disrupt their own internal balance as much as the city-wide balance. And they have enough ears amongst their own that nobody could pull it off without the knowledge of the rest of the Confederation. But Owen Lynch operates his group with him at the top. He doesn't need to answer to anyone. I'm not saying the Confederation couldn't be doing it, but more than likely it's Lynch."

I thought about it for a moment, then tilted my head. "So why not let him do it? He takes out the Confederation, we only have one enemy to worry about, right?"

Mark shook his head. "No, unfortunately it’s not that easy. If Lynch can consolidate power, he'll be able to put himself in a position where our chances of taking him down dwindle to nothing. We're only two people, we can't stop everything at once. He'd have the manpower and the overall power to just flood the streets and take us out by sheer force of numbers. Secondly, if we take him out directly.... well, put it this way. Let's say a week after we get back, I find out he's going to be in public and I take him out. What do you think happens the very next day?"

I nodded, seeing where Mark was going. "All of his lieutenants and underlings go nuts trying to overtop each other, fighting for their scrap of his empire."

"Exactly. It would be a street war the likes our city hasn't seen since the Roaring Twenties. It'd make the Los Angeles Gang Wars of the eighties and nineties look like patty cake. There would be out-of-towners coming in, street gangs trying to move up the pecking order, and general chaos. There would be a lot of innocents caught right in the middle."

"So we go back."





Chapter 20


Mark




Stepping off the Lufthansa Airlines jetliner, it felt strange being back in the city. I knew that Sophie and I weren't being hunted by the authorities. After all, Mark Snow had never been fingerprinted in his life, and Sophie White had apparently accepted a job with a Christian missionary group providing health care in Southeast Asia, thanks to a little maneuvering. Besides that, the passports for Marcus Smiley and Sophie Warbird were totally legit, and totally clean. I'd paid good money for them, after all.

Still, we were back in enemy territory. Regardless of if the belfry tower was still secure or not, there wasn't any place in the city that we couldn't be found. Not between the Confederation and Owen Lynch. So, our plan hinged on something totally different, hiding in plain sight.

"Mr. Smiley! Mr. Smiley!" the newspaper reporter called over as soon as we left the baggage terminal. "Do you have any statement about your coming to town?"

"Of course," I said, grinning. "I'm glad to make this city my new home. With the opportunities that have been provided for me, I am certain I can provide plenty of opportunities for the people of this city as well."