A Talent For The Invisible (v1.1) Read Free

he’d found one of his coded messages directed him to descend into Old Lisbon and contact the sniper who had shot and killed Colonel Cavala. The sniper was to meet him in his box at the robot fight arena.
    The climb ramps weren’t functioning, so Conger had to walk up and around to the horseshoe row of hanging plastic boxes above the ring.
    Inside Box #15 a plump man in parts of a military uniform was sitting back in a partially inflated cushion chair as he watched the robot bout below, munching on a thick link of black sausage wrapped in brown bread.
    Conger crossed the catwalk to #15 and gave the prearranged knock on the door of the plastic box.
    The plump man turned to blink at him, still chewing. “Que deseja?” he asked. “Which means …”
    “What do I want, I know.” Conger’d taken a sleep course in Conversational Portuguese only six months ago. Putting one hand near the smeared see-through wall, he made the prearranged highsign.
    “Que?” said the plump man. He took another bite of his rough hewn sandwich, then slowly began to smile. “Oh, sim, yes, of course, the American spy. Entre, which means …”
    Conger came into the booth. “Let’s have the countersign,” he told the plump man.
    The man waved his sausage at him. “I am Captain Conti Delgado,” he laughed. “Anyone here will assure you of that. I’m a well-known pugilism buff.”
    Up from below came the clang of two ancient boxing robots going at each other.
    “Even so,” said Conger.
    Sighing, the plump man placed his sandwich on the lid of a realistic imitation wicker picnic basket which was sitting between his sneakered feet. He gave the countersign. “Now, sente-se, por favor, which means . . .”
    Conger sat down on the hanging booth’s only other chair. The air-filled chair gave a mild hiss and commenced to very slowly deflate. “What can you tell me about Colonel Cavala?” he asked.
    Delgado retrieved his snack, reached his other hand into the basket.
    “Care for some blood sausage, senhor? Made from one of my own pigs.”
    He cocked his head upward. “I have a pig farm up on the outskirts of New Lisbon.”
    “No, thanks.” Conger took a vial of kelp pills from his pocket, shook four into his palm.
    “These are the most healthy pigs you’ll come by, senhor. They eat only organically grown slop and I myself give each one a shot of antibiotic once a month. Did you ever inject several thousand pigs inthe …”
    “About the colonel,” said Conger.
    Giving a shrug, Delgado withdrew his hand from the picnic hamper. An immense clattering bang rose up from the ring. “Huh, the Masked Marvel fell down. That wasn’t supposed to happen.” He took a bite out of the sausage, turning to watch Conger. “Colonel Cavala is dead.”
    “You’re certain?”
    “I know who I shoot—after all, senhor.”
    “And it was Cavala you killed?”
    Delgado laughed. “I make my living now as a freelance assassin, senhor, and have since I left the service, after many happy years on the front lines in Angola. To survive as a freelance, and perhaps the same is true in your rather specialized line of work, you have to be good and dependable. Were I to shoot more than one or two of the wrong people I’d be finished.”
    “You knew the colonel well?”
    “At one time we were extremely close,” said Captain Delgado. “That was of course before he turned into a wild-eyed radical and soft-hearted liberal. He served together in the unfortunately unsuccessful campaign to regain Goa from those wretched Indians.”
    “Then you can be sure it was him you shot.”
    “Of course,” replied the plump man. “I did my job, I guarantee you. I don’t know why NSO is so worried.”
    “I’m not with NSO.” Conger ate two kelp pills. “I’m with RFA.”
    “Ah, you RFA people are not so … not so …” He made circles in the musty air with his sausage. “Not so daring and flamboyant as NSO. I rarely if ever get any work out of your organization.”