Free The Down Home Zombie Blues by Linnea Sinclair Page B

Petrakos. Much more than you can know.
You
don’t understand mine.”
    “Sure I do. Beam down, shoot pistol, kill zombies. End of story.”
    “Nils.” She almost spat out the unflattering term. “This is the prime reason we no longer involve nils. You have no…” and an unfamiliar word, maybe three, “planning and complexity. In a covert mission where we have no dirtside base of operations to facilitate…” More garbled words. But he began to catch some of them. It wasn’t always the word. Sometimes it was her accent, her pronunciation.
    He still couldn’t figure out why it was so important to her that he accept being sent to Paroo, but he clearly heard her frustration in dealing with the zombies. No, not just with the zombies. With his world, low-tech by her standards. It was almost amusing, except he knew that he’d be at a similar disadvantage in Artistotle’s day or, hell, even during the American Revolution. He could probably fire a musket, but riding a horse with any degree of competency was beyond him. People would peg him for a stranger, if not a total idiot, within ten minutes of talking to him.
    He knew from friends who worked undercover how important it was to be able to blend into the setting. Officers lived under false identities for months—
years
—to become part of the drug culture or a terrorist’s cadre.
    And her people’s sole operative on his world was a shrink-wrapped corpse with wet, bulging eyes.
    An idea—small but maybe workable—formed in his mind. A bargaining chip. Why hadn’t he seen this before?
    “Wayne, your agent.” He recalled what she told him in the ready room earlier. “He was key to stopping this zombie herd, wasn’t he?”
    She stopped mid-rant, studied him as if surprised he had the intelligence to ask the question. “I explained. The data in his T-MOD. This is of critical importance.”
    “But so was he, right? He lived in the apartment, what—three, four months? He spoke Engl—Vekran?”
    “As well as he did Alarsh.”
    The idea grew. If it worked, he’d be back home restringing his guitar very shortly. But he needed more information first. “Why did he choose my city, my locale?”
    “The zombies chose your locale. They like warm water, electromagnetic storm activity. Other reasons.” She shrugged. “But those are two prime factors.”
    And the Tampa Bay region was famous for its warm beaches and violent thunderstorms. “So the Guardians send Wayne, he learns the lay of the land and then provides you, the trackers, with a base of operations.” He thought of the dead man’s bungalow, heavily ringed by shrubbery. Very private. “Your people can beam in, work from there.”
    “Necessary. We can’t utilize an air attack. Our craft aren’t like yours. Your government would—”
    “I understand. I know what covert is. I’m a cop. Security,” he amended, remembering that was the term she’d used.
    “A sergeant.”
    He nodded, only half-hearing her acknowledgment. He had his bargaining chip. And, if he played his cards exactly right, he’d also have his freedom. A shiver of excitement raced through him.
Don’t get anxious. Set it up right so that she thinks it’s her idea. Then she goes back to her mission commander and makes the offer.
“What happens now that Wayne’s dead?”
    She smiled grimly. “A big headache. For me.”
    “You?”
    She nodded. “My mission.”
    “In charge of everything?” He made a circle with one hand. And if her answer was yes, he wasn’t sure if that was good or bad news.
    “I’m very good at my job, Petrakos.”
    He took that for a yes. “I know. I saw.” He had to get her on his side. More than that, he had to convince her he was on hers. “But you don’t have Wayne’s apartment to use. You have his data but not his field expertise. You don’t know shit from Shinola about daily life.” He caught her frown. Good. He used the expression deliberately to remind her she didn’t fully speak his