when the Agency contacted me and asked if I could keep an eye out for anything terrorist-related transiting through Little Nicky’s port. They said they’d pay me a couple hundred bucks a month, so I signed on.”
He took a long swig of his beer.
“Fast forward to just a few days ago. These guys come to us; they’re pirates, Indonesian types, though they’re sailing a Vietnamese eel boat. They had some rifles they wanted to put in storage. That sort of thing is done a lot on Little Nicky, too. My boss on the docks asked me to help unload these things. They were crates that looked pretty old; I’m not sure any rifle inside them would even work.
“Once everything was off loaded, I saw these guys had this other thing, something they were keeping with them. It looked like a little metal coffin. It had a large ‘Z’ carved into it and a weird locking device that looked like it needed a special key to open it.
“Three of these guys were just grunts fooling around with this box while their boss was helping store their weapons. One of them had a battery-powered screwdriver and wanted to use it to open the box. They argued for a while about whether they should try to break the lock, to see if the box would open.
“They finally decided to do it. But as soon as they did, as soon as that lid opened, this green glow came out, and seconds later these three guys standing closest to it all dropped dead.”
Batman and Twitch were stunned. “Dead?” Twitch asked. “As in no-longer-breathing dead?”
The guy nodded emphatically. “I don’t know if it was radiation, or some kind of biohazard? Or something chemical? Maybe a combination of all three,” he said. “But they were DOA, just like that.”
“Son of a bitch,” Twitch groaned. “So, it is a weapon.”
“How close were you to this box?” Batman asked the informant.
The guy sipped his beer. “I’m not sure,” he replied. “Maybe ten feet or so.”
“And the inside of this box—you said it was glowing?”
He nodded. “Like something from a horror movie.”
“Pretty powerful stuff,” Batman said.
The guy nodded again.
“Who finally closed the box?” Batman asked him.
“I did,” he said. “Shielded my eyes. Tried not to look at it. Just kicked it closed.”
Batman glanced over at Twitch. His expression told him he was beginning to smell a rat, as was Batman.
Twitch then asked: “So you got pretty close to it.”
“I did…”
“Then how come you weren’t killed? Or affected at all?”
The man suddenly tensed up.
“I don’t know,” he sputtered. “Beats me.”
Batman came nose to nose with the man.
“You want to tell us why you’re really here?” he growled at him.
The guy half smiled.
“You wouldn’t believe me if I did,” he replied.
Then without another word, he stood up, climbed onto the balcony’s railing and to the astonishment of Batman and Twitch, did a perfect dive off the railing and into the huge pool, six stories below.
“What the fuck?” Batman yelled.
The man expertly hit the water, swam a bit under the surface and then got out of the pool at the opposite end. He took a gracious bow to the delight of those people sunning themselves poolside. Then he saluted Batman and Twitch up on the balcony and ran off.
“Fucking guy?” Twitch cried out. “He was a disinformation agent? A ‘disinformant?’”
The wholly invented word, created right then and there, just tumbled out of Twitch’s mouth. But it applied.
Batman repeated the word. “A disinformant … trying to punk us.”
“But why us?” Twitch asked, scratching his head. “We’re bit players in this. Unless one of Maurice’s guys just went nuts or something.…”
Batman thought a moment, then said: “Let’s find out.…”
“Find out how?” Twitch asked him. “I’m not jumping off here.”
Batman retrieved his Glock 9 from his travel bag, and said, “Maybe it won’t be so hard to find the only soaking wet guy running around Monte Carlo.”
* * *
THEY WENT DOWN the elevator, Twitch also grabbing his handgun as they were leaving.
They arrived in the hallway just off the casino’s main lobby. As before, the lobby was mobbed with guests and dignitaries in town for the Grand Prix.
The repair sign was still on the elevator’s door and the hallway leading to the lobby was even further blocked off by yellow tape and scaffolds and what now appeared to be equipment belonging to plasterers. All this conveniently separated Batman and Twitch from the rest of the casino.