REGENCE HOOKE HAD NEVER BEEN A MAN TO WASTE TIME. WHILE it was true what his daddy always said re: idle hands doing the devil’s work, Hooke reckoned that active hands must surely perform that work more effectively. So while other men might have hidden under the duvet waiting for Homeland Security or the Feds to follow a trail of blood from the Marcello debacle to Slidell’s Deluxe Inn, Constable Hooke got busy on the phone and rethunk his strategy vis-à-vis Vern the Boar Island dragon, who was no doubt back on his patch pissing away his immortality.
First and foremost, Regence no longer believed that Vern’s power could be harnessed, an idea he’d been tinkering with. This meant that Vern had to go, which could be challenging, but there was not room in this ward for them both. Plus Vern was injured now and, even more importantly, Hooke knew that he could be injured a lot more. No doubt the dragon and his pet boy were high-fiving each other over Regence Hooke’s demise, so they would never even see him coming. It was true that Vern would be healing more with every hour that passed, which would diminish Hooke’s own advantage, but even so, better to lay low for a couple of days, let the cinders settle, make a plan, and gather his troops.
Just leave, idiot! said his little voice. You got a bag of cash and big prizes, so head on down south of the border and find yourself a Tijuana rose.
But Hooke refused to listen to sense. My name is Regence. I am a king and I will have my kingdom.
He would never happen across another chance like this one. He had seen men seize their fortunes before, in Iraq. A man had to be ready for the vacuum, and when it came, he had to be willing to step into it. There was certainly a vacuum in the French Quarter now, and nature abhorred a vacuum. Regence Hooke is just the man to plug that hole, he thought, but not just yet. First, I need to dispose of one scaly impediment to my ascension.
And it cost him not a second thought that he fully intended to be the cause of an ancient species’s extinction. In fact, he’d had a little practice in this area, having hunted and killed the last Caspian tiger seen in Iraq because it happened to wander into his sights during a desert stakeout.
He smiled at the memory. That tiger had had the self-same smug look that Vern favored.
You think you’re top of the food chain, don’t you, Vern, buddy? Well, you can discuss that with the tiger when you see him.
HOOKE HUNKERED DOWN for a few days and kept an eye on Fox 8 while he worked the prepaid phone he’d picked up in RadioShack over on Gause. The Marcello “bombing” was the lead story for two days straight; then it dropped down to the second segment, but the various Vern videos boasted insane numbers on YouTube and Instagram and would go on to hang around home pages for years. Explanations ranged from “big dog” to “publicity stunt” to “total hoax,” with only the usual conspiracy-peddlers actually employing the term “dragon.” The people who believed it tended to believe that sort of thing, and the folks who didn’t did not. So in many ways, it was business as usual, though the Marcello crater did become something of a shrine for the LOTRingers.
None of which Hooke could give a good goddamn about. All the constable listened for was his own name, and whether it would find its way into the narrative.
It did not. There was not a peep re: Constable Regence Hooke.
There was plenty of chatter about Ivory Conti and his place in the criminal underworld, but no mention of a mere constable out of Petit Bateau. Why would there be? So far as his own office was concerned: Regence Hooke was on vacation. Plus the one thing Hooke was grateful to Vern for was the lack of survivors. The dragon appeared to have carbonized everybody who might ever have had dealings with Constable Hooke in the Marcello.
It occurred to Hooke that he was free and clear, should he wish to remain that way, but this was a fleeting notion.
Free and clear so long as he kept his head way down. Who the hell wanted to live like that?
If there is a hell, then I’m going there anyway, so I might as well earn the ticket.
And if there wasn’t a hell, then that would mean he had won at life.
On the third day, Hooke emerged from his motel room.
The third day, he thought, like Jesus coming out of that cave, huh, Pops?
The motel was not bad as these places go, but Hooke had finer things planned for his future. No more highway roadside stops for him.
I want to live somewhere that ain’t within hollering distance of a Chick-fil-A—and no McDonald’s neither, for that matter.
He didn’t intend to go all Ivory-bling like every wannabe gangster he’d ever met. “But I won’t be stepping out into a goddamn parking lot,” he promised himself.
Dark wood. There would be a lot of dark wood, polished to a high shine. And one of those lounge chairs that came with a footstool. A coffee machine built right into something so it couldn’t be moved.
Hooke laughed aloud at himself and his fancies.
You’re a rube in that world, son. What you gotta do is cozy up to someone with class.
Someone like Elodie Moreau, he’d daydreamed until recently, but since her boy had joined the ranks of his abductees and survived, that was, he had to admit, a little unlikely now.
Still, Hooke thought, there’s more than one way to skin a cat.
And by “cat” he meant Cajun lady.
And her son.
And a dragon.
So, three cats in all.
HOOKE ARRIVED AT the Seabrook Diner maybe forty minutes in advance of his noon rendezvous and ordered himself a twenty-ounce rib eye with the works. It came on an enamel tray with fries, mashed potatoes, biscuits and gravy, and kale chips, for some reason. He followed it with two beers and a slice of lemon pie submerged in whipped cream fresh from the nozzle. It was nice to be eating out in the open again, so to speak, and he enjoyed every mouthful.
The constable briefly considered actually paying for his meal, but decided that would send the wrong message, and so he contented himself with tipping the waitress and advising her good-naturedly that she might increase her percentages if she got those front teeth straightened out.
The diner had that vintage-Airstream kinda look that a lot of these places went for in thereabouts. Maybe the proprietors thought folks would be bamboozled into believing themselves in Happy Days or some shit by the red vinyl booths and menus secured under a sheet of acrylic bolted to the table.
While the girl cleared, keeping her lips buttoned, Hooke set out Ivory’s notebook and his own map. Time for business.
He knew he was being surveilled through the diner window: Of course he was. He’d expect nothing less. No doubt there was a weapon trained on him right now, maybe two, but that was all right; they wouldn’t go pulling the trigger unless they were real stupid. Or green. And these people were neither.
A thought occurred. They could be crazy.
He hadn’t accounted for crazy.
But that was the thing about crazy: You couldn’t account for it. Hooke had once ridden shotgun on an arms heist from an air base south of Basra where Colonel Faraiji, who had underwritten the operation, was forced to slit his own driver’s throat during the robbery when the driver had lost his nerve and threatened to start shooting.
The colonel had commented later to Hooke, “My friend, when you work with disturbed people, it is like building your house on sand.”
As usual, Hooke had wished the colonel didn’t feel the need to talk in riddles, but now he appreciated the elegance of the image.
Have I built my house on sand? he wondered.
If he had, it was too late to do anything about it now. He wouldn’t even hear the bullet that killed him.
He tugged at his left sleeve to reveal his watch, a fake Rolex he’d picked up in some souk or another. The thing still ran just fine, in spite of a dunking in the bayou. He raised his wrist and tapped the watch face for the benefit of anybody scoping him from the tree line across the highway.
Tick tock, ladies and gentlemen. We all got places to be.
Five minutes later, three striking individuals trooped in. Hooke studied them as they entered the diner and knew by their demeanor that he’d chosen well.
They’d all checked out their exits and sight lines. Pros, every one of ’em: a real kill-team.
Vern, that’s all she wrote for you, buddy. If I can put one hole in your scaly hide, these guys will cook your goose for sure.
From Ivory’s extensive list of bent cops, he’d chosen three pet pigs, all military trained. Two he’d heard of already. There was ex-marine sniper Jing Jiang, four feet eleven inches of laser accuracy who had once, according to barrack legend, put a 9mm slug into the eye of the Jack of Clubs through the window of a moving transport. That was Gunnery Sergeant Jing Jiang’s specialty: moving targets. They said crazy things about Jing Jiang: Her old man was a ninja, her weapon’s barrel was forged from the samurai sword of her ancestors, all sorts of stereotypical shit like that. One thing her current peer group in SWAT air support could agree on was that when they strapped Officer Jing Jiang into a chopper harness, she rarely missed who she was shooting down at.
Hooke was almost disappointed in her: Imagine going from decorated sharpshooter to working for Ivory. Ain’t nobody’s ancestors would be proud of that gear shift.
I shall be her redemption, Hooke thought, and that made him smile. Like a bloody limb makes a shark smile.
Second on the list was Army Corporal Jewell Hardy, originally from the south side of Detroit. Bare-knuckle bouts brought her to Hooke’s attention; apparently she supplmented her army pay with illegal bouts off-base. She had to be quietly discharged when she stoved in one head too many during a tour south of Doha, as most folks were not aware the US even had a base in Qatar. Kid was barely twenty-five and already bigger than three average GI Joes strapped together, with fists like anvils and a forehead like the front end of a snow plow. Now she was a patrol officer, stomping the French Quarter beat with NOPD, and breaking bones for Ivory on the side. In looks, she was reminiscent of a grizzly bear in crew cut and moisture-wicking sports gear.
That girl will relish wrestling a dragon if she gets close enough, thought Hooke. And she just might get close enough.
And finally, the sailor: a lieutenant from the US Coast Guard, New Orleans sector, an Oregon native who grew up shooting the Celestial Falls long after they were closed down to kayakers. Some dumbass from NYC getting himself tangled up in his life vest and choking to death trying to live-stream his adventure put a stop to all that, so DuShane Adebayo sidestepped into the navy, a route which Hooke could appreciate, and put his nautical skills to good use manning a Riverine small boat buzzing the Fifth Fleet in the Persian Gulf. Word had it that DuShane did more than guard the fleet, spending his downtime during the oh-darks nipping ashore for shipments of opium and local girls to amuse the waterlogged salts. Lately, DuShane was turning a blind eye for Ivory in a different gulf, or rather, he had been. Now the lieutenant was at a loose end, with only his legit wages, and there weren’t many people who could survive on what the USCG shelled out.
This guy is starving for extracurricular employment, thought Hooke, and I have just the job interview.
So the lineup was as follows:
Officer Jing Jiang, all J.Crewed up, looking twenty-two, although Hooke knew she was forty.
Patrol Officer Jewell Hardy, the baby of the group, in sports gear, like Ivan Drago’s sister.
And Lieutenant Adebayo in camo vest and Beavers baseball cap, with a sour face that would curdle cream.
That’s okay, thought Hooke. I’ll cheer this little bunch up quick enough.
He was expecting the silent treatment from the bunch, in case this was a wire sting, although Hardy, he reckoned, might get a little verbal on account of her age, but it was Jing Jiang who let fly.
“What the fuck is going on here, Hooke?” said the countersniper, sliding in opposite him. “Cryptic messages? Summoning us here? Summoning? You think you’re some kind of samurai warlord? I shoulda popped you from the parking lot. Fuck, I could’ve been back in New Orleans eating muffulettas by lunchtime.”
A hothead sniper? thought Hooke. That’s unusual. “I don’t know about that,” he said. “Traffic is pretty heavy on the bridge this time of day. You mighta got held up.”
Jewell Hardy’s chuckle sounded like a log going through a chipper. “Hooke is right, traffic on the bridge can be a sonuvabitch.”
Youngsters, thought Hooke, warming to Hardy.
DuShane Adebayo sat, an intense-looking bony-faced man with gray twists in his goatee, sweat sheening his high forehead. He was a mouth-breather, sounded like, which could be a deal-breaker if Hooke was planning on sharing a sniper hide, but for water work it should be fine.
“This is some bullshit,” said DuShane. “Are you shaking us down here, Constable?”
The “Constable” was thrown in so Hooke would know he was made.
“No, Lieutenant, I ain’t shaking no one down,” said Hooke equably. “What we got here is a trial by fire, followed by a business opportunity.” He felt something nudging his groin under the table, flattening his ball hair. A silencer, he reckoned. Looked like Jing Jiang was not in the mood for no preamble.
Trying not to think about the bullet six inches from his nuts, Hooke got directly to the point. “Okay, people, here’s the situation. Ivory is gone. We step in and move the black tar up from Mexico for starters. Then we sever ties with South America and switch to guns only. We cut out highways by using the Pearl River. Simple. Between the four of us, we marshal Ivory’s pet pigs—that’s what he called us—and we run this operation with a little military precision. I got nearly a hundred names in Ivory’s notebook. Outta those I picked you three, ’cause you’ve all seen considerable action. All we gotta do is what we were already doing, only more so. There ain’t none of us think that Ivory was officer material, am I right? All he had going for him was an inheritance. Little prick was pouring cash into that operation and barely breaking even. In six months we could all of us here be millionaires. In ten years we’ll be billionaires.”
Hooke was waiting for a reaction to his speech, but it did look like his chosen disciples were chewing things over and finding themselves pretty much in agreement with every point.
“Billionaire”: that was the word that did it. A word like that carried weight. Hooke felt the silencer retreat a little, and his ball hair spring back into place.
Jewell Hardy spoke first. “Billionaires, huh? I bet you didn’t run no numbers on that, Hooke. I bet that there’s a sales pitch.”
“Maybe,” said Hooke, “but it’s there or thereabouts. And I can hand over a hundred grand cash, right now, for today’s work.”
He laid three envelopes on the table, slowly and deliberately.
“One hundred thousand. Each,” he said, tapping each packed envelope. “For twenty-four hours. After that you can walk away and I ain’t gonna bother you again, but could be you like the sound of being a billionaire?”
Hardy chuckled. “They even got your constable stamp on the front of the envelope. Nice touch.”
“So you don’t forget where they came from.”
“Might be you’re full of shit, Hooke,” said Adebayo, cracking a smile and looking like a different person. “But I do like the sound of a hundred grand.” The pilot pocketed his haul. “Now tell me about this trial by fire.”
SQUIB WAS BACK in the Pearl Bar and Grill lockup. Same old, same old, he thought.
Except this time he had himself a key—more than a key, in fact. A fob.
It might be fobs were commonplace out in the world where people had electric gates and hybrid automobiles, but Squib was having himself a right old time clicking the hell out of that fob on account of it being the first one he’d ever held.
“Fob,” he said, grinning like a loon. “Fob. Yep, got me a fob.”
It was stupid, he knew, dicking around with electronics when his boss was languishing in the shack, but a big part of fifteen-year-old Squib was still only nine and the buttons on this plastic teardrop were super-satisfying to press, especially with the corresponding flashing light.
“That’s right, Charles Jr.,” he told his big-dicked friend, who was not even in the vicinity, “you keep fiddling with your equipment; I got me an infrared multifunctioned fob.”
After this Squib indulged himself in a thirty-second laughing jag; then he knuckled down to business. After all, he had to get Bodi Irwin’s cruiser loaded, unloaded at the shack, and back here before sunup.
Too many people up on Vern as it is, he thought. I don’t want no one quizzing me on why Bodi is fine with me ferrying supplies into the swamp.
Squib surely did hope that Vern would not regain his senses while he was about his errands. The dragon might not be too thrilled to see strange humans in his shack.
At least he ain’t in a position to fry my momma, thought Squib. I’m certain of that. He was as certain of Vern’s condition as he’d ever been of anything; otherwise he would never have left his momma holding the reins upriver. Boss man is in that in-between place he talked about, so I gotta get some juice into him before he crosses to the other side.
Vern was so out of fat that his body had shut him down in midflight; he wasn’t going to be shooting off any bolts anytime soon, not until he’d glugged down a couple of drums.
So Squib was back in the lockup, but there was another difference, too, the second one being that on this occasion he was wearing a dragon skin with the head hooked over his own head like a scaly Batman mask, the arms tied about his waist and the rest trailing behind him like a bridal train.
This is probably offensive to dragons for some reason, he thought. What say I never tell Vern it even happened?
Even so, Squib snapped off a quick selfie, just in case he ever needed to stick it to Charles Jr.
The Pearl Bar and Grill had its own landing out back for locals who outfoxed the drunk-driving laws by cruising in for their beers. Even then, some guys got too wasted to even keep a boat between two banks of a river and so spent the night in their pirogues, tied up at the jetty, which explained all the alcoholic mosquitoes in the region. Bodi Irwin went even further to secure his custom by running a booze boat round the local inlets picking up strays.
“The three ins,” Bodi always said. “Inlets, infirm, and inebriates: pick ’em up and deliver them to my door. Maybe it’s time you did a shift on the booze boat.”
Seemed like Squib would have himself another job if Vern ever gave him a slack minute—but first things first was to get his number one boss back to his regular disagreeable self.
Squib fobbed himself through the rear gate and onto the dock. There was only a single vessel moored at the wooden jetty, Bodi’s own flat-bottomed aluminum cruiser, which bore the Pearl Bar and Grill logo along both sides in speech bubbles coming out of an artist’s impression of a manga-looking Honey Island monster, which Squib knew would piss Vern off no end.
All clear then, thought Squib. Lock and load—or in this case, load and lock.
He laughed again, reckoning that he was funnier than Vern gave him credit for. Sometimes he thought of cracks so fast that Jimmy Kimmel would crap himself, but all Vern did was roll those slitted eyes all the way round and say something like, “Shit, boy, I ain’t paying you to talk like you got hit in the head. Ain’t you got some work to do?”
The lights went out, and Squib waved his arms a little to activate the halogen spots.
Less thinking, more moving, he thought.
It took him maybe thirty minutes to roll half a dozen drums onto a trolley, one at a time, wheel them down to the jetty, then unload at the other end. It didn’t help none that he was down four digits in total, and three of his stumps were giving him trouble even though his momma had stuffed the toes of his Converse with cotton wool. It also didn’t help that the trolley hadn’t seen a squirt of oil since before he was born, and the jetty was probably Civil War era and was short a mess of its planks. Nevertheless, Squib persevered because he was the world’s only executive assistant to a dragon, and that was a position he was eager to hold on to. He wrestled the six drums onto the Pearl’s deck, and the booze boat settled a little lower into the river.
Still plenty of clearance, thought Squib. She could take another couple easy and still pull up at Boar Island without no trouble.
But time was ticking on and he could always make another run tomorrow. Best be on his way. He fobbed the electric fence, then cast off from the Pearl’s jetty and went motoring upriver on low revs, keeping the churn down so even if someone did hear an engine at this god-awful hour, they wouldn’t be able to tell which dock it’d slunk from.
Unless they’re watching me with some kinda night-vision optics, thought Squib, and risked another ten percent on the throttle.
HOOKE AND HIS newly minted drug lords, minus Jing Jiang, were loading their gear into Willard Carnahan’s RIB at the Petit Bateau dock maybe three hundred yards south of the Pearl Bar and Grill while Squib was giving his fob thumb a workout.
“This is a nice goddamn boat, brother,” DuShane Adebayo commented, testing the inflatable tube running around the gunwale with the heel of his fist. “Stable as all hell. Nice-sized deck. Even these groundhogs couldn’t turn this shit over. Where’d you get a rig like this, Hooke?”
Hooke thought of Carnahan keeling over into the swamp and that mutant-big turtle breaching right out of the murk. “A gift,” he said.
“Yeah, sure,” said DuShane, tossing his gear onto the deck. “I bet you get a lotta gifts, right, Regence?”
In truth, Hooke would have preferred his own cabin cruiser, which felt a lot more substantial than this glorified dinghy, but the lieutenant was all smiles and nods, and he knew his stuff on the water. Also, Hooke’s cruiser was buried in swamp sludge twenty feet off the coast of Honey Island, so it wasn’t like he had a choice in the matter.
“Do what you gotta do, Lieut,” he said. “We’re heading out as soon as Jiang shows up.”
He had been sincerely hoping that Jing Jiang might be able to swing a chopper, but the markswoman had laughed at both this suggestion and his offer of the Barrett .50-cal, opting instead to retrieve her own sniper rifle from an off-duty stash.
“I gotta swing by a place for a thing, then I can put a hole in the New Orleans monster without getting within a thousand yards of it,” she’d said.
Hooke was fully aware that the team didn’t really credit his dragon story, not in their bones. They had all watched the footage and heard the chatter around the Quarter, but a thing like Vern had to be seen in person to be believed. If the shoe was on the other foot and he was the one being sold a line about dragons, then he, too, would take the wad of cash and watch how this thing played out, maybe see if it led to where the rest of Ivory’s loot was at.
Tonight we are testing the waters in every way, Hooke thought. And the best thing is, killing a dragon ain’t even illegal.
His gaze was drawn to the flash of Bodi Irwin’s big halogens across the road in his yard. Hooke didn’t really give much of a crap about someone snooping round back of the diner; this seemed like pretty routine law-and-order stuff. But he didn’t need a monkey wrench in his own works at the moment. Technically, nothing unlawful was going down, but if these dockside shenanigans were stress-tested, then it was likely they would all be out of jobs, at the very least.
It’s prob’ly some dumbass burglar getting barbecued by Bodi’s fancy fence, he thought, but decided maybe it would be prudent to check it out, because who knew what the hell might be going on in this sleepy backwater town where dragons dressed like men and carried cell phones.
Might find myself a unicorn wearing suspenders, he thought. Or a vampire chained down in the diner parking lot.
So after patting his vest to check for his monocular, he trotted to the end of the jetty to see what the light show was about, and a couple of minutes later he was mighty glad he had, for it looked like Lady Luck was smiling down on him brighter than the lopsided grin of the Louisiana moon.
There’s the kid, right there, wearing some kind of romper suit. “Well, if that don’t beat all,” said Hooke, delighted. “I guess good things do come to those who wait.”
“Wait?” said Jewell Hardy, appearing beside him. “We only been here an hour or so.”
“It’s a saying, Hardy,” he said, zipping the monocular into its pouch. Wasn’t much need for it anyhow on a night like this. Sometimes when the stars were out in force, the swamp had a shine to it, like the whole river glowed with phosphorescence. Made the details stand out—even the shadows were sharper. “Ain’t no call to dissect everything I say.”
“Just making conversation, boss.”
“Ain’t no bosses,” said Hooke. “We’re all partners here.”
Hardy punched him playfully on the shoulder. “Whatever you say, boss.”
The constable found that he was warming to Jewell Hardy, which wasn’t like him. “I like you, Jewell,” he said. “I surely do hope you make it through the night.”
Hardy considered this comment. “You’re serious about this dragon fella Vern, right, Hooke?”
“Right Hooke,” he thought. Nice.
“Yeah, I’m serious,” he said, keeping his eyes on Squib. Kid’s limping a little. “Three hundred large worth of serious. What do you think, this is all some kind of elaborate setup?”
“Nah, I can’t figure an angle for that level of convolution,” said Hardy. “But maybe you’re crazy. No offense.”
“I gotta say, I’m a little offended. But you’re young, so you get a one-time pass.”
Hardy pocketed an imaginary pass. “Appreciated, chief.”
“And to put your mind to rest, I ain’t crazy, though it might be better for you if I was.”
“’Cause if you ain’t crazy, then I gotta take on a dragon, right?”
“That’s right, Jewell.”
Hardy stretched both arms in front of her, clenching her fists till they creaked. “If you guys can draw his fire, then I reckon me and old Vern will have ourselves a time.”
Hooke didn’t doubt it. He recognized a stone-cold killer when he saw one.
Takes one to know one.
Still, Vern had been at this business for centuries. “From what I hear, Vern favors his right hand. Also, those wings of his wrap around a motherfucker. You go in there, you ain’t coming out.”
Hardy nodded, taking it in.
“In-jab-out,” said Hooke. “Keep dancing. You dance, girl? Sometimes the big ones don’t dance.”
“I dance fine,” said Hardy. “I fought a tiger once in-country. You hear about that?”
He still had his eyes on the Pearl’s yard. “Yep, I heard. Heard they pulled that cat’s teeth and claws.”
“That they did. Weren’t no need. I could’ve done it anyway.”
“I hope so, girl, ’cause with Vern, teeth and claws are present and correct. Still, could be it won’t get that far.”
“Could be it will,” said Hardy. “I sure hope so.”
Kids, thought Hooke. Every one of them invincible. Jewell Hardy cannot wait to get up close with the creature who will most likely kill her.
It occurred to him that he had never even heard Hardy come up to him. Big and sneaky. Like those Trojans in the wooden horse.
“Say, Hardy,” he said, “you see that kid down there? It’s gonna take him a couple of minutes to fetch another barrel.”
Hardy grinned. “Way ahead of you, Hooke.” And she took off down the dock.
DUSHANE ADEBAYO WHISTLED from the boat, and Hooke turned to see Jing Jiang stepping down into the RIB cradling a rifle case like it was her firstborn.
“We heading out?” said DuShane.
Hooke checked on Squib again. The boy was done loading barrels of oil, looked like, and there was no sign of Hardy. He mused on this. Barrels of oil. Barrels and barrels. Looks like the dragon needs him some fuel.
Which would mean . . .
Vern is on empty, he realized. There ain’t never gonna be a better time.
“Cast off, Skipper,” he said, walking down the jetty. “Plans have changed a bit. I hope you’re as sneaky as they say because I need to follow that kid upriver without him knowing. Is that a thing we can do?”
DuShane frowned in exasperation, like, Why do I have to deal with these landlubber idiots all the goddamned time?
“Just tell me, DuShane,” said Hooke, thinking that maybe the Adebayo attitude might need some adjustment in the near future.
DuShane patted one of the RIB’s twin outboards. “These babies are muffled, Constable, so all’s we gotta do is hang back a little and that kid won’t hear jack over his own engine. The only way he cottons on is if he decides to row that tug upriver.”
“Well, all right then,” said Hooke, deciding to keep it all congenial for the moment. “You good, Jiang?”
Jing Jiang was all decked out in camo, including a lightweight balaclava. “Good to go. I’m gonna set up on the prow, put one in the eye of this so-called dragon. Turns out to be a guy in a suit, then thanks for the easiest hundred grand I ever made.”
“Listen to me, Jiang,” said Hooke slowly. “First we ground the beast, then we assess. There’s no kill shot till I give you the signal. This bastard has Rebel gold, and I want him to part with it before he dies.”
Jiang’s eyes narrowed in the balaclava’s slit. “I’ll try, Hooke, but sometimes the call has gotta be made by the finger on the trigger.”
Hooke pinched the bridge of his nose, like, I’m holding back my temper here. “Jing, girl, we ain’t on no official op. This here chain of command only got one link in it. I want you to do what I say to the letter. Ground him and let me work. Okay?”
But apparently Jing Jiang didn’t get to be the world’s preeminent female sniper by being easily intimidated. “I hear you, Hooke. And I understand you got all that testosterone swilling around your lusty balls. But if this Vern guy is a real live dragon, perhaps he won’t let you work. Perhaps I’ll have to make a split-second decision. You okay with that, Constable?”
Hooke nodded. He knew that a remote kill would be the best outcome all round, but a part of him didn’t want it to go down like that, even if there hadn’t been loot at stake.
What we got here is biblical, he thought. Be a shame to finish it long-distance.
A man only got so many epic nights in his life. Maybe he and the Hardy girl could beat Vern to death with their bare hands.
Beat a dragon to death. Now that would be something.
Also, “lusty balls.”
Nice.