Kingmaker Read Free Page B

casket was yanked further along the track and the surgical cluster was replaced by a chubby face with saggy eyes and a black beard shaped along an ample jawline. The man smiled.
    “Good morning, Tin Man!” he announced enthusiastically through a thick Russian accent. “I am Bogdan! Welcome to America!”
    Alexei sat up and pulled off his helmet. The queue he was in was stopped, but the lines parallel to him were still operating. The steel appendagesmade minute adjustments on multiple axes as they applied their implements in perfect coordination. Various organs and entrails were carefully detached or gathered and spooled from wet red abdominal, chest, and cranial cavities, then placed in molded dishes which were conveyed along separate paths. The robotic instrument cluster to his right was being sterilized in a simmering vat as a fresh corpse was brought into position. There was a total of at least twenty working lines with caskets identical to his placed about two meters apart from one another, and although he couldn’t see what was beyond this room, he assumed the remains were bound for more discreet tissue, chemical, and genetic analysis. The air smelled of acidic and caustic vapor.
    He climbed down and stood unsteadily on the concrete floor as the circulation returned to his legs. The man before him was short and heavy and seemed to be trying to augment his stature with a thick black bouffant. He had a bag hanging from one shoulder and a smug grin on his plump lips.
    “A few more seconds and the Americans would have possessed the famous heart of the Lion.”
    “Where are we?”
    “South Carolina. Folly Beach. Home of the biggest insurgent processing plant in the country.”
    “How did you stop the line?” Alexei asked him.
    The fat man gestured behind him. “It was no problem. The kill switch is right on the wall.”
    “How long do we have before someone notices?”
    “I am told each line has fifteen minutes to repair itself before a technician is sent in.”
    “Does anyone know you’re here?”
    The fat man’s laugh rebounded off the high ceiling. “Not even my wife, Tin Man. She thinks I’m spending a week at the beach with some whores. Maybe there will still be time, no?”
    “Did you bring water?”
    “I have everything you requested,” Bogdan said, and then his smile faltered. “As long as you have the money.”
    Alexei unzipped the top portion of his suit and removed a thick envelope. The fat man took it and thumbed through the notes.
    “A private jet would have been a lot cheaper,” he said. “And a lot more comfortable.”
    He took a brushed steel canister from the bag and handed it to Alexei. Alexei unhinged the top and tipped it back twice, pausing to breathe in between.
    “Give me the protein.”
    Bogdan handed Alexei a single white tube. Alexei ripped off the top and squeezed the paste into his mouth. When he’d swallowed it all, he finished the canister of water.
    “Show me the rest.”
    The fat man widened the top of the bag and began presenting its contents. “A twenty-five centimeter tungsten carbide tactical combat knife with serrated blade. A Gryazev-Shipunov 10mm pistol with four twenty-round magazines. Two packs of Sobranie black blend unfiltered cigarettes—very good, by the way—and, of course, a passport. Congratulations, Tin Man. You are an American now!”
    Alexei took the passport and opened it. “Alexei
Drovosek
? Not very subtle.”
    “You are the Woodcutter now, no?”
    Alexei motioned for the bag and Bogdan passed it to him. He began verifying the contents for himself.
    “With all due respect, Tin Man,” Bogdan said, “I think you are wasting your time and your talents here.”
    Alexei did not look up. “What makes you say that?”
    “Everything there is to own in America is already owned by someone. This is not the land of opportunity it once was. Do you know the Thirty-first Amendment?”
    “What about it?”
    “Every year it gets more and more support.