Serpent's Walk

CHAPTER ONE

Sunday, December 22, 2041

There were two men in the dank, cluttered back-office of the lithographer’s shop. He who stood in front of the table wore faded workpants and a black, leather biker’s jacket. The jacket was old and frayed, its decals flaking, its once-angry motto now illegible.

The other man sat in shadow. Posture hinted at a younger person, a sophisticated man, one who might be acceptable in the upper strata of society. The black-jacketed man could see little more than a thin tie upon a white shirt, a black ribbon painted down the middle of a dazzling highway that glowed blue-white behind the table’s one fluorescent work lamp. Two arms sheathed in lead-grey tweed extended out of the darkness that was the man’s torso, and pale fingers plucked at the dog-eared files heaped upon the table top, pallid spiders scuttling about amidst a moonscape of buff and white papers and scarred, chestnut-hued wood.

“Best we could do on short notice,” the biker said. He was a diffident, ordinary sort. His face was raddled with pockmarks, and his complexion reminded the other of red-brick walls slathered over with graffiti.

“Whatever.” The prissy, delicate fingers burrowed deeper into white paper. “Lesser, you said? Lessing?”

“Lessing. Alan Lessing.” The older man gleaned a smidgin of secret amusement from the smear of black lithographer’s ink visible upon the other’s left sleeve. He’d have the devil’s own time getting that stain out of the expensive sport coat!

“Lessing. Fought in Angola in 2030. Then in Syria during the Baalbek War. Then he came back here for a while.” His voice trailed off as he read. He looked down at the man behind the desk and finished, “A good enough man. A real mercenary.”

“Reliable?”

“How would I know? Never met him.” Leather creaked as the older man scraped thick fingers through his grizzled, grey-red hair. “It’s all in the file. American… high school, a year of college, a family that he don’t remember… and they don’t remember him.”

“A mere, though.” Coming from the younger man, the term sounded self-conscious. “Did he… uh… see combat? Real combat?”

“It’s all there. Read it for yourself.” The other’s voice took on a querulous tone as he dropped the file onto the desk. He moved to peer out the one grime-smeared window as the man behind the desk picked up the file. “God, it’s started to snow hard out there. I’ve got to get home.”

“Politics? I don’t see anything about that in here.”

“If it’s not written down, he don’t have any.”

“Any religious or racial problems? Will he cooperate with other team members? Blacks? Jews? Arabs?”

The older man snorted and wiped a stubby finger across his upper lip. “Lessing’s fought for… and against… every ethnic group there is.”

“I have to know.”

The older man turned back to the window, now an abstract study in black dirt and white snow. “He’s okay. Whatever you tell him. Come on “

“One more minute. We can settle it all here and now.”

“What more do you need? Take Lessing; he’s good. Then either you pick the team or let Lessing do it. You provide the stuff… uh, cars, weapons, whatever. I don’t want to know.”

“You won’t. Just make the contacts and get him here. Where is he?”

The finger strayed up to a surprisingly ugly, lumpy nose. “India, I think… beegeeing… uh, bodyguarding… for some American exec. Somebody who don’t want to get dead over there. India’s like most of the rest of the fuckin’ Third World now… open season on foreigners. Specially Westerners… and Saturday matinee special on Americans.”

White teeth glimmered a pale crescent in the darkness. The chair squealed as the younger man pushed it back and stood up. “Good. Get Lessing. Who’ve you got in India? DaSilva? Gomez? One of them can give him the details, and he can send out for whatever help he wants. Then fly him to Mexico City. We’ll pick him up there. Have him there by the middle of next month… January fifteenth. Let my secretary know when he arrives. You’ll get your commission through the regular channels.”

“No problem.” The older man reached for the leather gauntlets lying on the table, fumbled, dropped one into the litter of paper on the floor, and bent over to pick it up. He sighed. “And a merry Christmas to you.”

The other made no reply.