Chasing the White Lion James Hannibal (essential reading TXT) 📖

The images flashed in Talia’s mind. She caught her breath. “Davian. Tyler’s Moldovan driver.”

Pell offered a short bow over his plate. “At your service.”

A golf clap from Tyler interrupted them. “Well done. Both of you. I love good dinner theater.”

Talia failed to suppress a chagrined smile. “You’ve been waiting six months for this, haven’t you?”

“Correct. I didn’t have another position for him after Moldova, until today.” Tyler gestured at each of them. “Pell, Talia. Talia, Pell.”

“So he’s another grifter.”

Talia heard a snort from the far end of the table. She looked, but Val had already turned her attention to Conrad, who had brought out a tray of tortes.

“Pell is a chameleon,” Tyler said. “In any given setup he might be the moving eyes in the painting, the needle in the haystack, the fly on the wall—”

“Or in zee ointment, yes?” Pell took on the affectations of a pretentious Frenchman, earning a quizzical look from Darcy.

Finn, accepting a torte from Conrad, took an interest in the conversation. “So is Pell a first name or a last?”

“Can’t say as I remember.” The chameleon matched Finn’s voice to a tee. “I hardly ever use it anyway.”

“Don’t do that.”

“Do what, mate?”

Finn’s expression went flat. “That put another shrimp on the barbie accent.”

“My Australian’s better than yours.”

“Don’t be daft. I’m from Melbourne, born and raised.”

“Not bad, mate. Not bad.” Pell didn’t miss a beat. “But next time, try sinking your glottis into the schwa.” He stuck his chin out, holding his Adam’s apple. “Mel-buhrn.”

Finn took his plate of tortes to Mac’s end of the table, muttering to himself. “Twice in one day. What’s the matter with people?”

Pell became the Moldovan driver again. “What is the thing that is eating your friend, Miss Talia? Was it something I said?”

A fit of giggles buried her answer. She turned to Tyler. “Okay. Stage One is complete. Where to next?”

“The Isle of Milos. I’m getting back into gunrunning. Special appearance. One night only.”

CHAPTER

THIRTY-

EIGHT

HANGAR 13

LINZ AIRFIELD

PRAGUE, CZECH REPUBLIC

CONRADWOULDNOTBEACCOMPANYING the crew to the Greek Isles. He saw them off at the hangar with a basket of donut-like cinnamon-sugar pastries he called trdlenik, and which Mac called turtlenecks.

He took Talia aside while the others loaded the aircraft and pressed one of the pastries into her hand. “I want you to be careful from this point forward. Boyd and his people. They are no joke, and they may have connections we have yet to trace.”

She could read between the lines. “You mean Jordan. Did Tyler put you up to this?” Talia gave him her for shame look. “Don’t feed his hover-mom syndrome, Conrad.”

“I wish you would learn to lean on him.”

“Maybe I’m not ready. You know our history.”

“Then learn to lean in general. This new life you’ve found is not solitary. The children of God have each other, and most of all we have him.” Conrad set his basket aside and took her hands. “You are strong and courageous, my child. So strong, and so courageous. But remember what follows those words from Moses to Joshua.”

An eidetic memory, and everyone expected her to have the Bible memorized. “I . . . haven’t read that part yet, Conrad.”

He smiled. “Give it a look. Joshua, like you, was strong and courageous—not on his own, but because God was with him.”

Twenty minutes later, the stars above the cloud layer twinkled in the morning sky, projected in real time on the walls and ceiling of the jet cabin. Fortunately, Tyler’s supersonic AS2 came well-equipped with an espresso machine.

Val, knees tucked into a long knit sweater, clutched an oversize mug topped with milk foam. “Why did we leave so early, Tyler? You know my rule about never being up before the sun.”

“Except when there’s money to be made. And there’s a great big pile waiting at the end of this particular rainbow.” He threw a roll it motion at Eddie.

“You do realize I’m a human being, right?” Eddie stepped out in front of the whole-wall video display with his tablet. “Not a remote control?”

Darcy poked his calf with a bare toe. “Don’t be so sensitive, mon chou. Tyler’s hand is the remote, no? That makes you the computer.”

This seemed almost enough to satisfy his ego. He glanced at Tyler. “A supercomputer?”

“Sure. Okay. A supercomputer.”

“Like maybe a neuromorphic, quantum array with—”

“Hey!” Talia clapped her hands together. “Quit being such a snowflake and get on with it.” The whole outburst came out louder than she intended.

Finn passed her his coffee. “Take this. Sounds like you need it more than I do.”

The wall switched from the passing twilight sky to a simple chart with animal pictures and dollar figures. “What the boss was getting at when he snapped his fingers at me—”

“I didn’t snap them. I rolled one in the air.”

“—like the man in the yellow hat with Curious George, is that an enormous challenge still lies before us. We’re in the Jungle, but now we have to work our way to the top of the food chain.”

The chart listed Val and Talia’s current level of hawk at three hundred thousand each in annual earnings for the syndicate. To reach cobra, they’d have to hit one million each.

Eddie gestured to the next rung up. “Our goal is panther. That’s ten million in annual earnings. Each.”

Finn let out a low whistle.

“And I’m just getting started.” Eddie switched to a picture of the Bangkok towers. The text in the sky above them listed the three panthers who had earned invitations to the previous year’s Frenzy. Their dollar figures were higher.

Talia read the lowest out loud. “Fifteen million buys one seat. We want two. That’s thirty million US, assuming the numbers play out like last year.”

“And that’s where our next stage comes in. Stage One was Val’s. The plan for Stage Two is Tyler’s brainchild.” He gave Tyler a nod. “Boss?”

“We need a minimum of thirty million. My plan gets us forty-five.”

Tyler had mentioned something at dinner about running guns. Forty-five million dollars could buy a whole lot of guns, an