LATER HE WOULD learn just how it had happened. He would learn that Dekka had placed a call to the general in command of the deadliest military force in the world, reminding him that he had pledged his full support.
The general had then called the general in charge of US Southern Command in Mayport, Florida, who in turn called the US embassy in Tegucigalpa. Half an hour later a helicopter was en route from Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras, to the country’s third-largest city, La Ceiba, a lovely resort town.
But he would learn all of that later. The eighteen-year-old had a pleasant brown face and neatly trimmed black hair, and dark eyes that seemed so much older than the rest of his face. He was the first to see three Honduran National Police vehicles, extended-cab Toyota pickups painted white and blue, skidding to a dramatic stop in the parking lot of the Quinta Real Hotel and Convention Center.
But this was not necessarily alarming. The National Police loved drama, and twice in the young man’s time working as a front desk clerk at the Quinta Real, police had come swooping in to make an arrest. So the desk clerk put on his pleasant talking-to-customers expression as five heavily armed men came stomping up to the front desk.
“Can I help you?”
They asked him to show his ID, so he did, frowning in puzzlement and beginning to worry.
“You are to come with us.”
“What? Why? Am I under arrest?”
“The Americans want you.”
He was not allowed to pack, just make a quick phone call to his mother to let her know that he would be out of town for a while. Then a helicopter landed right on the beach and took him on the hour-long flight to the airport, where he was hustled aboard a US Department of Defense Gulfstream C-37A.
Just under nine hours after he’d seen the first National Police vehicle, a confused, worried, bleary ex–desk clerk climbed down the airplane stairs at Teterboro and was hustled by two New Jersey state troopers to a waiting SUV.
An airman opened the door of the SUV and he climbed in.
“Well, hello there, Edilio.”
A slow smile spread across Edilio’s face. “Dekka,” he said. “I thought it might be you behind this.”
They hugged awkwardly but with deep affection.
“I’m sorry to do this to you, Edilio,” Dekka said as the SUV sped back toward Manhattan. “But I—we—needed someone we could trust.”
“Things must be bad,” Edilio said, half joking. Then, “You look good, Dekka.”
“Oh, so sad to see you’ve taken up lying. You used to be so honest.”
Edilio laughed. “Seriously. Good to see you, Big D.” He reached for and took her hand, and neither of them broke contact for many miles.
“You may not feel that way once you know why I’ve dragged you here.” She gave him a rundown of the situation, gratified that Edilio didn’t interrupt or protest. He just sat quietly absorbing facts, nodding, occasionally asking for some small clarification.
The four years they’d been in different worlds now seemed no more substantial than a quickly forgotten dream. Edilio had never been deported, never worked as a desk clerk; that was someone else. He was not Edilio of the Quinta Real, he was Edilio of Perdido Beach. Edilio of the FAYZ. He felt it as a physical weight settling on his shoulders, a weight made of responsibility, fear, regret, and determination. An elastic band of tension wrapped around his chest, crushing the air from his lungs, making his heart labor for each leaden beat. Even his vision changed, becoming predatory, eyes searching for threats, ready to trip the alarm that would dump the oh-so-familiar shot of adrenaline into his arteries.
Edilio of the FAYZ.
“So,” he said, forcing an upbeat tone. “You want me to help organize a group of superpowered vigilantes. Is that pretty much it?”
“Pretty much. It’s not the kind of job where I can just call a temp service or advertise on Craigslist, you know?”
“And this group of superpowered vigilantes includes a supersmart but ruthless girl who can outrun a bullet, an equally smart guy who isn’t entirely real and can project excruciating pain, a big guy who can turn into a sort of polar bear, a trans girl who can change her appearance at will, and a girl who can travel back and forth into some n-dimensional space.”
“Don’t forget Simone. She’s blue, she can fly, and her father is the very supervillain we’re after.”
Edilio smiled. “You know, I was just getting used to the fact that I would never return to the States. And now you’re asking me to be Agent Coulson.”
“Huh?”
“Agent Coulson.” Edilio shook his head in mock disapproval. “You know, Dekka, if you’re going to be living in a comic book . . . Coulson was the character who sort of organized the Avengers. He was killed in a movie and came back to life for a TV series.”
“If you say so,” Dekka agreed dubiously. “You and Malik will get along. He’s our comics guy.”
Edilio fell silent, thinking, as they crossed the bridge into Manhattan. Then he said, “We need a place, we need money, and I need to know what allies and resources we have.”
“The mayor of New York has our back,” Dekka said. “Simone has fifty grand—don’t even ask. The chairman of the Joint Chiefs and I are practically on a first-name basis. And we have a brownstone.”
“It’s a start,” Edilio allowed. “The other thing we need is weapons.”
“Weapons? We are weapons.”
Edilio shrugged. “You couldn’t take down the bug man, because your powers are great, but not for fighting a cloud of insects. You needed poison. Or a flamethrower.”
He became aware that Dekka was smiling at him, and Dekka smiling was a rare occurrence.
“What were you doing when we came barging into your life?” she asked.
“I was working the front desk of a hotel. I speak English, and a lot of the tourists are American.”
“And here you are, already plotting and planning.” More seriously she added, “Sorry, man. Really.”
Edilio leaned close as if about to divulge a great secret. “You know, Dekka, I really wasn’t all that crazy about being a desk clerk.”
“There’s a pretty good chance you get yourself killed doing this.”
“Enh,” he said with a shrug. “Lots of people have wanted me dead. Drake. Caine. Gaia herself. I’m not so easy to kill.”
And silently to himself added, Don’t tempt fate, Edilio.