Total pages in book: 196
Estimated words: 180438 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 902(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 601(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 180438 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 902(@200wpm)___ 722(@250wpm)___ 601(@300wpm)
“What about the other kid? The one that we didn’t find?”
“I sent Lorde after her.”
“Ah! So that’s what you were up to with him. How do they like the bikes?”
“I don’t care. What the hell does she want now?” My delightful offspring was calling.
“What is it Lucretia Borgia?”
“Daddy, are you spying on me?”
“Why are you eating poison, little girl?” I didn’t bother answering her because she knew the answer to that better than anyone.
“It’s an ancient custom, daddy. I read it in one of your books.”
“Uh-huh, what do you want?”
“Speaking of books, Daddy, guess what.” I knew before she said it that I wasn’t going to like what came out of her mouth next.
“Speak!”
“The silk road.”
“What about it?”
“Nia was looking at some radar from the area, and we think we found something.”
“What the hell radar does she have that can spy all the way out there?”
“She made it. Anyway, we think we found tunnels out there. You wanted to know how they were getting the kids in and out across international lines without raising the alarm right. Well, we think there are lots of places like the catacombs that interconnect, and this might be one of them.”
“What does this have to do with my books? I don’t recall reading anything like this before.”
“Marco Polo Daddy, he went on a trip to Cathay, and it got me thinking about that route and what it was used for and the fact that it’s been pretty much nonexistent for a while. Why would they let a system like that that was in place for so long and served such a purpose become defunct?”
“Mengele, go read Mary Poppins or some shit.”
“You told me that fairy tales aren’t real, remember? And besides, sugar shouldn’t be used with certain medicines because it might offset the chemical balance.”
“Okay, okay, okay. The silk road, I’ll look into it.”
“I’m sending you the information now.”
She hung up the damn phone again. “Where the hell did she get that annoying habit?”
“From you, who else? She mimics every damn thing you do. Think about that.”
“Dafuq!”
“Later, what was that about the silk road?”
I started telling him just as the information came in. He got to it before me, and I watched as he all but jumped around the room. “Fucking genius, why didn’t we think of that?”
“Because nobody has the damn time. What does that say? And how did they get radar in the damn Orient?”
He went deaf, dumb, and blind at that one. “I’m warning you right now when they set off an international incident, I’m sending the asshole law right to you.”
“Calm down; it’s not illegal, exactly. People have drones all over that place. But this is…. damn, I gotta get them some new toys for their computers.”
“Who are we sending out there? I’m already sending Jace, Flanagan, and Zak to Lorde with their women because he’s taking his girl with him, and she’ll need to be protected once Flanagan finds his woman, that is. Who do we have left?”
“It might not be wise to send the SEALs out there, not yet; there might be questions if they go near the Gobi Desert, seeing as they’re military men. Talk about an international incident.”
“Xin still up to his shit out there?”
“Roger that.”
“So that’s why Lorde got spooked.”
“I didn’t catch that; why do you think he was spooked?”
“It was in his breathing; it changed when I mentioned the Gobi. He probably thinks I’m spying on him.”
“Are you?”
“That’s not my forte. My daughter, on the other hand.”
“She wouldn’t do that; she has more class than that.”
“That’s what I thought, but the chambers of her mind are beyond me sometimes.”
“Don’t stress Colt; she’s doing well, she’s doing very well.”
“Yeah, but she’s ten. She should be running on the beach with her little friends, not spending all her time in a lab eating poison.”
“She does, she has moments like that, and when we get back, we’ll all make sure they do.”
“You see, look. The three of them are heading out to have fun.” I looked at the screen, and my eye started to twitch.
“Are you fucking blind or stupid? What the hell do they have strapped to their backs, and where the hell are they going?” Instead of heading to the beach, they headed in the opposite direction into the woods that surround the private island with high-powered compound bows on their backs.
“We don’t have eyes back there, Mancini.”
“Um, maybe they’re just going to practice.”
“The practice range is in the opposite direction, and those are not the bows I got them to practice with. What or who the hell is my kid hunting Mancini? Where’s Russo?”
“Um.”
“Say um one more time. Find his ass.”
“I don’t think he’s the problem; look at the screen.” Flanagan’s Poppy, his father-in-law, and his uncle-in-law came out on the lanai looking like beach bums.