Bamboo and blood

2

"You're not bamboo, you can't just bend in the wind. You're flesh and blood, much as you hate to admit it. And you will bleed like the rest of us when it comes to that."

"I'm surprised you even recognize the concept of bending, or stopped long enough to look at bamboo, for that matter."

My brother was still pale from too much alcohol, but nothing seemed to affect his air of nasty superiority. "I found out a little about what you're doing here," he said. "It's crap."

"In contrast to your mission, no doubt one of extreme urgency-so urgent that you had to drink yourself into a coma." His hotel room was bigger than mine. The bed was large enough for a whole family. I looked into the bathroom. A nice bar of soap. A little bottle of shampoo. Fresh towels everywhere. M. Beret was right, my hotel didn't measure up to this.

"I'm not answerable to you, or to anyone that you will ever deal with. Don't forget that." My brother slumped against the wall and closed his eyes. "Did you wait for me in Coppet?"

"Briefly. I was joined not only by an unknown figure that walked quickly into the shadows but also by the Swiss service, which already knew you were falling-down drunk and wouldn't show up." I gave him an extra few seconds for that information to get past the last vestiges of alcohol before continuing. "They don't like us."

My brother laughed, softly. "No one likes us. Fuck them all."

"Yes, but they all have food. Perhaps you're too busy drinking to notice."

"Food?" His eyes opened slightly. "Is that what you're here for, to crawl and beg for food? I'll bet that bastard Sohn is behind this. Sure, he picked you for the annoyance factor. He knew you'd run into me out here. He must have planned it. This is his way of getting my goat. He didn't mention I'd be here, did he?"

"You two don't get along, I take it." My estimation of Sohn was climbing with every throb in the vein in my brother's forehead.

"Sohn has no authority to send people like you overseas. None. Pretty soon, he won't have the authority to flush the toilet. Let me see your orders."

"Impossible."

"Let me see them."

"I don't have any. Can you believe it? Completely paperless." I held up two empty hands. He didn't have to hear about Sohn's instructions to me. They weren't written down, so they weren't exactly orders. "My orders were transmitted directly to the mission, apparently. I've never seen them." This was true. "No one bothered to tell me until I arrived that I'm here as part of the delegation to the talks." Not true, but the truth was none of his business. "How do you like that? Your brother, the diplomat."

"You?" He snorted. "You? You don't know the first thing about diplomacy." The phone rang. My brother cursed and grabbed it. "What is it?" He listened. "Alright, as many loaves as you can get. Yes, bakery bread is best. Yes, immediately." He slammed down the receiver. "I can't talk to you right now. Meet me tonight." He wrote an address on a piece of paper and stuffed it in my pocket.

"This time you show up, you hear me? I'm not at your beck and call." I was at my limit. Five minutes was the maximum I could take, talking to him. "And make sure you pick a spot that won't be swarming with police." Whatever he was doing here, it was something that had to be conducted in code. My brother didn't like bread, not of any kind.