Free Blackjack Dead or Alive (The Blackjack Series Book 3) by Ben Bequer, Joshua Hoade Page B

actor in the same elevator as them. “It is you,” she said.
    I nodded. “And now that you know who I am, are you going to tell me your name?”
    “Annit Svensdottir, attorney at law,” she said, reaching out with her hands. I took her slender fingers into mine. “And I am at your service.”
    And that’s how I met my new attorney.
     
     
    She was Icelandic, though from her sharp features, dark hair and skin I would have marked her as Spanish, maybe Portuguese. But she knew almost every language in the mainland, and her fluency in English was almost uncanny.
    “So you want to hide out, then,” she said, now versed in my plan. “I recommend the Balkans, maybe Romania or Hungary.”
    “Why there?”
    We were sitting at the table with Annit using her long fingers to tap across the map on her cell phone.
    “Why not somewhere in the far east? Like Pakistan or Malaysia?”
    She shook her head.
    “Those places have a lot of attention, thanks to Al-Qaeda and war on terror. Did you know that Malaysia is the largest Muslim country in the world? Just trust me and forget it. Anyway, do you speak any language from up there?”
    It made sense. Why hide out in one of the places they were monitoring the most?
    “I don’t speak Hungarian either,” I said.
    “It’s Europe, everyone speaks English. And the Balkans are perfect because you will fit in. You have black hair and light skin and blue eyes, just like many of the people there. And it’s a haven for crime and the authorities are weak. But it’s still not so far off that you can’t buy whatever you need. Computers and whatever.”
    “Having fun?”
    She paused, and let a smile play on her face.
    “You sure I shouldn’t turn myself in,” I said with a smirk. “It would be the right thing to do.”
    She hissed dismissively between her teeth and took a drink from the emptying bottle of wine. “I would sooner hire you as my assistant than leave you to their justice,” she said, infusing the last word with more contempt than I thought someone in her profession could muster. “I work for a private firm, but plenty of governmental paperwork finds its way across my desk. Clients, just like you, set up to take a fall, covering the crimes of those in power the whole way to prison.”
    “To be fair, I did some of those things.”
    She shook her head and said, “I saw the list of charges. I also saw you take on Lord Mighty in Washington. Did you know they had cameras tracking your whole fight?”
    “I didn’t. How could they follow us? He was moving so fast, and we were all over the district.”
    “The original was mostly a blur, but one of your advocates out there slowed it down and recut it so we could see what you did.”
    I sat back flabbergasted. The resources and talent that must have gone into hacking that information and then re-rendering it must have been staggering. Part of me hoped it was some kid with a chip on his shoulder who wanted to see the truth, but in my gut I knew it was Haha. Portraying me as both heroic and villainous was one of the main undercurrents of his social experiment. Still, it was nice that someone understood I had done some good. I would thank him for it before I ended him.
    “What about your firm and your other clients?”
    She shrugged, “Why should they care if they don’t know?”
    I nodded, liking the answer. “So the Balkans, huh?”
    “I think,” she said. “That or maybe Russia, but the authorities are much stronger there. And they have lots of heroes.
    “What about Iceland” I said.
    “Can you beat Der Valkyr,” she said, referring to a group of heroines that protected the islands of her home.
    I laughed, “Easy.”
    “Then you can come visit,” she said. “Father won’t like you much, but he never liked any of my friends.”
    “He wanted you to be a fisherman,” I said, recalling Iceland’s primary industry.
    “No, he wanted boys and he got three girls. But fuck him, I’m an attorney in one of the