Snake Eye by William C. Dietz Page A

made a ritual out of dunking a fresh tea bag into the hot liquid. His voice was pitched intentionally low. “Thank you. It’s good to see you as well.”
    A tired-looking waitress arrived, offered Lopa some coffee from a nearly empty pot, and slopped some of the noxious brew into his cup. “So,” Eason said as the waitress waddled away, “I understand you need some help.”
    “Yes,” Lopa agreed solemnly. “I do. How soon can you begin work?”
    “Today,” Eason replied laconically. “If that’s convenient.”
    “The sooner the better,” the terrorist said as he brought the coffee cup up to his lips. Having been threatened by the ELA for two months a corporate executive had been gunned down in Los Angeles two days before—and Lopa wondered if Eason had been the triggerman. Not that it mattered. The coffee tasted horrible so he put it down. “What will you need?”
    “You mean what will we need,” Eason answered levelly. “Either we work together or we don’t work at all.”
    Though not adverse to using violence to achieve his ends Lopa preferred to let others pull the actual triggers whenever possible. But, having spent his cell on the university sanction, the cell leader was out of foot soldiers. He frowned. “Why?”
    “Because I’m a pragmatist,” Eason replied. “The task you have in mind involves a high level of risk. One way to control that risk is to ensure that everyone who knows about the activity participates in it. So, assuming you want my assistance, it will be necessary to stay by my side until the project is complete. The choice is yours.”
    Lopa understood what the hit man was getting at but didn’t like the notion of providing anyone with that kind of a hold on him. Still, Christina Rossi would be a lot harder to kill than Aspee had been, which meant that he was in need of help. “I see,” the terrorist responded neutrally. “Tell me something…. How did you wind up in this line of work anyway?”
    Eason smiled thinly. He could see the other man’s hesitancy and practically smell his fear. Lopa was stalling for time. “I put in twenty years at a nuclear waste facility. They told me it was safe even though they knew it wasn’t. I’ll be dead twelve months from now—but not before I send a few of them to hell ahead of me.”
    Now Lopa understood why the hitman looked the way he did. As for Eason’s desire to get back at “them,” well that was what everyone within the resistance movement wanted to do, although various subgroups were focused on different aspects of the same problem. His anger was fueled by a childhood spent in migrant labor camps, his politics were Che Guevara’s, and his methods were those of Mao Tse Tung. “I’m sorry,” the terrorist said sincerely. “That’s why the battle must go on.”
    “Exactly,” Eason agreed emotionlessly. “So, what will it be? Are we going to tackle the project together? Or should I leave you with the check?”
    The knowledge that Eason was going to die, and sooner rather than later, made Lopa feel better. He smiled. “We’ll do it together.”
    They shook on it, and when Lopa took the assassin’s hand, he noticed that it was very, very cold.
    Having lucked into a parking spot, Rossi fed what seemed like an excessive amount of money into the gray meter, and eyed the newly refurbished building on the far side of the street. Her face had been on TV a lot lately, so there was the risk that Joe Chow would recognize the agent should they run into each other in the lobby, but that wasn’t going to happen since the snakehead was busy losing money at a tribal casino north of Everett. Just one of the habits that kept little Chow from amassing the kind of fortune that his father had.
    Confident that her visit would go undetected, Rossi crossed the street, mounted a short flight of stairs, and entered a well-appointed lobby. The agent spotted the office, pushed open the door, and saw the man she knew to be Jack Dexter beyond a