Free Six Bullets by Jeremy Bates Page A

mind?”
    He shrugged.
“Something private, away from the crowd.”
    “The Caribbean?”
    “And lie around
on a beach?”
    “Well?”
    “What about a
safari?” he suggested.
    She was
surprised. “As in Africa?”
    “Dubai’s on the
same clock as Kenya, or Tanzania. If there’s an emergency, and I have to get
back for whatever reason, it’s only a couple hours flight. You could come.
Check out the hotel. The movers and decorators are finishing up this week.”
    Scarlett
considered it. In her head she saw an acacia tree silhouetted against a
sapphire sunset. Giraffes and zebras and elephants gathered at a watering hole.
Antelope grazing on the savanna. Elegant game resorts and tented camps. It
sounded nice. She could almost hear Elton John singing “Circle of Life . ”
    “All right,” she
said, warming to the idea. “I’m game.”
     

Monday, December 23, 11:11
p.m.
London, England
     
    Like the devil , the fugu was known by many
names—blowfish, puffer fish, globefish, balloon fish, toadfish, more. The second
most poisonous vertebrate in the world, it was a nasty piece of work, its
neurotoxin ten thousand times more deadly than cyanide. If ingested, the poison
numbed the lips and tongue, induced vomiting and muscle paralysis, and
eventually caused death from suffocation. If you somehow survived, chances were
good you’d end up in a prolonged coma, cruelly conscious of everything
happening around you, a kind of hell on earth.
    The Irishman
Damien Fitzgerald had one such fugu on the cutting board in the kitchen,
cold and dead. He picked up what the Japanese called a fugu hiki —a thin,
single-edged carbon blade—and removed the eyes. He sliced a circle around the
mouth, stuck his fingers into the incision, and peeled back the skin. It came
off cleanly, like the shell off a hardboiled egg. A jelly-like substance coated
the denuded meat. He scrubbed it away with water and salt. Gutting the sucker
was the tricky part. Most of the neurotoxin was contained in the liver and
ovaries. If you ruptured either, the poison would seep through your skin and
into your flesh. So very slowly, with the precision and dexterity of a surgeon,
he removed the internal organs and filleted what remained of the meat into thin
strips, cutting upward against the bone. Afterward he placed the sashimi onto a
plate and poured himself a glass of a ’96 Domaine Laroche Chablis. Before he
could sit down and enjoy his dinner, however, his computer beeped.
    Fitzgerald popped
a piece of the fish into his mouth—it was gelatinous but not fishy tasting—and entered
the study, where the floor-to-ceiling bookcases were filled with thousands of
books on the history of warfare. He was going through the centuries in
chronological order, a hobby he’d begun shortly after his wife and
eight-year-old daughter were brutally murdered nine years ago. He’d started
with the Battle of Megiddo in 1469 BC—or BCE, if you cared to be politically
correct—and was currently up to the Battle of Talasa in 751 AD, a conflict
between the Arabs and the Chinese for control of a major river in Central Asia.
The Chinese lost, which was a shame for them. Had they won, Central Asia today
might have been Chinese, not Muslim.
    The computer, a
MacBook, was on the desk in the corner. He sat down in front of it and logged
into specially encrypted software. He had one new email message:
    How’s my favorite
assassin, Redstone? If you’re not keeping up, the FBI is still holding its
collective dick over the last job. All they’ve got is the killer wears size 12
loafers. Next time don’t step in the fucking blood, yes? See the attachment,
per usual. There’s good news and bad news. Bad news—the first guy we used
fucked up, so you’re cleanup on this one. The good news—the mark’s going to
Africa for a few days, which, if you’re quick, should make things a little
easier than usual. Shit happens in Africa, right?
    Good luck, God
bless. M.
    Fitzgerald spent
the next