[SPEAKER_00]: The American, chapter 53, trouble at the garden.
[SPEAKER_00]: A shorthand missile tail, by Matthew C. McLean.
[SPEAKER_00]: For the note, Denika to work is intended.
[SPEAKER_00]: It would need to contain a day, a time, and a place.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the moment, I had none of those.
[SPEAKER_00]: I headed back to the phone near the cathedral.
[SPEAKER_00]: I kept an eye out for Russians feeling like I was dragging a long shadow behind me through the sun-drenched streets of Old Town.
[SPEAKER_00]: Visiting the phone booth so many times in such a short period made me wish at what let's set up more than one dead drop.
[SPEAKER_00]: He didn't though, so I performed the increasingly ridiculous charade of making a phone call while writing out a note.
[SPEAKER_00]: After far too much contemplation, I only wrote, meeting with Mitnick and Rotella.
[SPEAKER_00]: After a moment I added, stay away from the night governor.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hadn't yet told the lie about at-well-saving saturated by setting the fire, so I wasn't sure what kind of reception he'd get if they ran into each other, and I might need at-well yet.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stood at the telephone, paralyzed by the speed in which things were moving.
[SPEAKER_00]: I hadn't expected the meat with midnight to happen this quickly.
[SPEAKER_00]: I decided there wasn't enough time to wait for the idiots to sleep off their hangover.
[SPEAKER_00]: had an idea of where Lanzo might be though, so that would have to do.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was about to point my feet to the nearest tram station when I remembered brick and whip interrupting my meeting with Maro at a scooter shop.
[SPEAKER_00]: If one of them had told the Russians about my working at the casino, it was possible they would have mentioned the shop.
[SPEAKER_00]: As unlikely as it might be, it was there, and Moro had already demonstrated a willingness to leave me to my own fate.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought about this until I picked up the receiver to call information.
[SPEAKER_00]: I got the number for Pertite Moro Motors and dialed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Then the surprisingly short amount of time were picked up, the creaking and his bones coming out in his voice.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't waste any effort on trying to make this small talk, but had the decency to speak and French to him.
[SPEAKER_00]: I need to speak with Lanzo.
[SPEAKER_00]: I could have dropped a depth charge into the silence that followed.
[SPEAKER_00]: Eventually the words bubbled up in return.
[SPEAKER_00]: He is asleep, wake him up.
[SPEAKER_00]: The urgency I tried to channel sounded hostile so I followed with.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's important.
[SPEAKER_00]: Moro either didn't want to speak to me or took me seriously because the line went quiet.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stood and began to sweat, telling myself that it was the growing morning heat.
[SPEAKER_00]: My hand was growing damp against the receiver when a voice came on.
[SPEAKER_00]: It sounded like a hangover that had been baking on the beach.
[SPEAKER_00]: What?
[SPEAKER_00]: Things are moving fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: I repeated the phrase into the phone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Meet me at the botanical garden as soon as you can.
[SPEAKER_00]: I gave loans of a moment to process this, then asked, do you understand?
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, we, and I hung up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Stepping away from the telephone, I looked down the alley of the tall, onion domes of the cathedral.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a time in history such a place might have acted as a sanctuary, but the institution itself would have held enough authority that even men who could have breached its walls wouldn't have dared to do so.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now though, less than two decades into a new century, I could only imagine men like Satre and Mittenek breaking down its doors of what they wanted was inside.
[SPEAKER_00]: At what would probably cheer from the sidelines.
[SPEAKER_00]: The city might have been held together with some kind of holy authority back when it was just old town, but now it was held together with greed and sunshine, either church, nor government garden much respect anymore, and looking at a structure created by the last is our, it couldn't help but feel I was waiting for the next round of executions.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just a question of which side of the firing line you were going to be on.
[SPEAKER_00]: I shrugged out of the naval gazing and double-timed it to the nearest tram station.
[SPEAKER_00]: I took one west, hopped off before I hit the perthreak.
[SPEAKER_00]: In Grenoble, I headed south, walking past the blacked armor Jedi Dombry.
[SPEAKER_00]: I wondered how fast they could respond if I lifted one of their visors and punched the cop underneath it in the face.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's something about their hidden stairs that provoked the idle curiosity and part of my brain gleefully imagined the chase I could lead the mom before they caught me and beat me to a bloody pulp.
[SPEAKER_00]: If I knew I was going to get caught, it might as well lead them into a local museum, or store and causes as much havoc as possible.
[SPEAKER_00]: The image of running down the uniformly white halls of one of old towns, historical institutions, though, reminded me too much of an old Palazzo in Venice.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought of the real violence that had happened there, took the fun out of my fantasy.
[SPEAKER_00]: By the time I had arrived at the gardens, the sun was out in full force, banishing
[SPEAKER_00]: The grounds of the Botanical Gardens were in Oasis of well-tended palm trees and shrubs crowding around a glass pyramid greenhouse at its center.
[SPEAKER_00]: The vegetation grew right up next to a tonic owned walls as if the structure had pushed itself out of the ground like the plants surrounding it, making it look like an abandoned set from some sci-fi movie.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was built between the ocean and all lagoon, limiting the numbers of approach, but that's why I'd walk away as these are easy to surveil from the raised platform that was the Greenhouse's entrance.
[SPEAKER_00]: This was added to by a lack of tourists, with the beaches, casino, and glamour of old town to compete against, not many people visited.
[SPEAKER_00]: All in all, it was a good place for a clandestine meat.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't need the umbrella or the trench coat, so both of them went under my arm as I pretended to study the lagoon while scanning for Russians.
[SPEAKER_00]: There was a part of me that was disappointed I didn't see any.
[SPEAKER_00]: Imagine their black clad presence in cold, climate ancestry struggling in the Mediterranean heat made me chuckle.
[SPEAKER_00]: I realized I was spending a little too much time fantasizing about punching someone.
[SPEAKER_00]: As much as I might like to see Satra and midnight destroy one or another, despite the lies that I had been telling at well and now Rotella, all of that had become complicated enough that I was losing sight of the simple things Sophie wanted to accomplish.
[SPEAKER_00]: Get the girl out for your night or with her boy, watch everything else burned down.
[SPEAKER_00]: Okay, that last part was a broad interpretation, but I couldn't help keep the smile for my face.
[SPEAKER_00]: It did cause me to consider the motivations of everyone in this mess though, which was enough to drive at anyone mad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I tried to put that out of my mind, watching over the sun-baked garden as the warmth and misted the lagoon surrounded me, tempting me to sink in.
[SPEAKER_00]: And those sensations I found by vigilance floating in a memory of albombra, an ancient mourished temple that had been sitting in Spain long before Cheryl and I had visited.
[SPEAKER_00]: Whether it's palm trees and flags, don't pathways and surrounding fountains, the botanical gardens remind me of that place and I sighed, thinking of the peace that I had felt there.
[SPEAKER_00]: The memory pinged me with guilt as I wondered which show would think of Sophie and I, bringing Sophie to my am produced in an entirely different reaction, however, and I felt myself heat up.
[SPEAKER_00]: After a time, though, I realized that wasn't sweating from lust and bearish men or shame, but that the sun had finally shed its winter coat in my shavin' head just couldn't take it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I headed into the pyramid.
[SPEAKER_00]: Inside the greenhouse, the moisture of the lagoon and irrigation fountains misted the inside of its glass, muggy with hot house humidity.
[SPEAKER_00]: A path led the roots for us to pinnate leaves, shrub fronds and orchids.
[SPEAKER_00]: They created a canopy that covered the flagstone walks like a jungle, keeping the area cool, making staying out of sight pretty easy.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it wasn't a surprise there was no sign of lawns, though.
[SPEAKER_00]: With the vegetation obscuring my field of vision, I set myself on a roving patrol, hoping that I'd run into some point after his entry.
[SPEAKER_00]: Making these rounds, I found under the pyramid's pointed center, clearing of diamond-shaped flagstones, a bench set at each of its sides.
[SPEAKER_00]: Some caretaker are the place recognizable by the brown uniform that matched the stone, disappeared into the jungle.
[SPEAKER_00]: Either wanting to grant me privacy or wanting some himself.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just looking at the benches reminded me of how much time I had been spending on my feet lately.
[SPEAKER_00]: I sat down, folding the trench coat into my lap like some kind of traveling blanket.
[SPEAKER_00]: I still felt so war from some of the bruises that had been left on me.
[SPEAKER_00]: The idea of another Russian catching me on a wear are the only thing that kept me from dozing in the wet heat of the garden.
[SPEAKER_00]: When Lons of did emerge from the edge of the jungle,
[SPEAKER_00]: into the diamond clearing he saw me and walked over with the long strides of young man who's trying to establish his own confidence.
[SPEAKER_00]: He stopped in front of me and I lifted my head as if I'd waited as much as a bag of hammers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Despite the temperature, Lanzo was wearing his black leather jacket, visibly sweating.
[SPEAKER_00]: The perspiration adding to the continual oiliness of his hair, neither of us said anything immediately.
[SPEAKER_00]: This silence dragged on long enough that he reached into a pocket to fish out a cigarette.
[SPEAKER_00]: The careful attention and maintenance that didn't put into this place and the slight piece that had granted me made me stand and say, you can't smoke in here.
[SPEAKER_00]: The course that can look around at the garden indicating the lack of anyone else.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I stepped closer and posing my size next to his slider frame.
[SPEAKER_00]: I repeated my words with more force.
[SPEAKER_00]: Realizing there was, in fact, someone there to stop him, Lanzo turned his gaze from the garden to me.
[SPEAKER_00]: His eyes suggested that he was considering how our initial encounter might have gone if he hadn't been handcuffed.
[SPEAKER_00]: However, his desire to cooperate over road is masculine pride, and he said, let us go outside.
[SPEAKER_00]: We strode out, the near confrontation given me a small shot of adrenaline to wake me.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lanzo walked to the railing around the lagoon and lit a cigarette with a pink disposable lighter.
[SPEAKER_00]: For some reason the action may be want to pick him up and toss him into the water.
[SPEAKER_00]: But instead I looked out over the pond on making sure we were alone before I said.
[SPEAKER_00]: things are moving fast.
[SPEAKER_00]: We, you said that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I breathe slowly through my nose, calming myself in the face of what felt like disrespect towards his elder, a man trying to help him, his physical superior, lawns are wisely decided to say nothing more.
[SPEAKER_00]: Metnik, I continued, wants to meet tomorrow afternoon.
[SPEAKER_00]: We need to have everything ready by then.
[SPEAKER_00]: Lanzo bumped himself off the railing with a thrust of his hips, and for a moment I thought I could understand why Nika, or any girl, might find him attractive, but then he ruined it by speaking.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let us go talk to his last homes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I almost corrected him by saying the E-mini idiots, but I just followed him, headed out of the park.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not far, we made our way to the Augustine north-south bus stop.
[SPEAKER_00]: This close to the ocean, I could smell the tides mixed with downstream of the river.
[SPEAKER_00]: Out of whatever pathetic sense of operational security, I could maintain, I kept quiet while we waited, trying to appear as the clueless American.
[SPEAKER_00]: When the bus arrived, a few tourists exited the coach, judging by the looks, the skinny
[SPEAKER_00]: The air conditioning and padded seats of the bus were welcome, especially as it was crowded.
[SPEAKER_00]: While I had been busy, tourist seasoned truly kicked off.
[SPEAKER_00]: In that crowded coach, we traveled down a narrow parkway, the bus window is leaving a narrow sun bleached view of the city.
[SPEAKER_00]: With every pot hole we ran across, it reminded me of traveling down the narrow canyons of a desert city and a crowded Humvee.
[SPEAKER_00]: It didn't take long before my imagination conjured shattered windows and scorch marks left from explosions.
[SPEAKER_00]: That illusion was gratefully interrupted by German couple.
[SPEAKER_00]: Fared hair as they were smiling, embracing one stereotype while shattering another.
[SPEAKER_00]: They got on a baby strap to the mother's chest like some kind of suicide bomb.
[SPEAKER_00]: The father was trying his best to keep the child entertained, playing peek-a-boo, that sort of thing, as the woman held onto a commuter pole.
[SPEAKER_00]: The simple joy of the father and child made me smile and tell I saw the fatigue of the mother.
[SPEAKER_00]: A woman clearly not accustomed to the heat, she had a long day ahead of her.
[SPEAKER_00]: I stood, then wrapped Lanzo lightly with the back of my hand and said, get up.
[SPEAKER_00]: Not accustomed to taking directions, he shot back irritation.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just just stood again for him to move and with an expression of frustrated disgust.
[SPEAKER_00]: He did.
[SPEAKER_00]: The vacancy created, I gestured at the germs to the seeds.
[SPEAKER_00]: The woman hardly noticed, until her husband pointed to the empty bench.
[SPEAKER_00]: An undisguised relief came over her.
[SPEAKER_00]: and the family moved to sit down, both of the parents nodding their thanks, I nodded back and pushed along towards the one of the exits, hoping we'd be getting off this bus soon.