2. Jaantzen
1811 Words
2
Jaantzen
Willem Jaantzen is fifteen breaths away from pulling the trigger. He’s counting them: One, two . . . The bulk of the pistol feels like a living thing nestled against his chest.
Ahead, Mayor Thala Coeur of Bulari is shaking hands with the Cormoran ambassador, welcoming him to New Sarjun’s capital city, her teeth gleaming white in that picture-perfect smile as she turns to the cameras. She’s changed little these three years, rust-colored skin still glowing and taut, hair plaited into a cascade of tiny braids — not bound brash with gold as she’d once done when she controlled only the Nova neighborhood, but more classically styled these days. Appealing to all her voters.
Three, four.
It’s hot today, baking. Mirages shimmer up from the sidewalks, and all through the crowd fans are snapping open and shut, misters floating above, wafting down cooler breezes on their turbine gusts.
Jaantzen glances up at one of the misters for a split second, catches the gold glint of the surveillance cam in the center. Wonders if this is one of the Bulari Police Department’s, or one of Toshiyo’s. He can’t tell the difference, and he doesn’t care. That’s why he hires the sharpest people he can find — to ensure that moments like this go off without any hitches.
To say that Willem Jaantzen has spent three years dreaming of this particular moment would be misleading. He’s thorough, not excessive. Dedicated, not single-minded. He’s spent three years preparing, yes.
Three years obsessing, no.
Ahead, Coeur exchanges a joke with the ambassador, claps him too heavily on the shoulder. The man flinches, and Jaantzen feels a hint of pride for his city, almost. Coeur may be wearing the veneer of civility, but the fierce woman who styled herself Blackheart when she ran Bulari’s most powerful crime organization is still there beneath the surface.
Good.
Jaantzen gets no pleasure from slaughtering sheep.
Jaantzen’s earpiece crackles and he hears Toshiyo’s telltale clearing of the throat. “What is it,” he snaps.
“Boss. Julieta Yang’s calling.”
Jaantzen blinks. Twice.
Breathes.
“Have her speak with Manu.” That’s the plan, not Toshiyo calling in to interrupt him after she’s given him the all clear. Manu Juric is the executor of all that comes after this moment.
“Boss, I tried that.”
Not a surprise. In Bulari’s underground, Julieta Yang is one of his fiercest rivals and oldest friends, yet they rarely speak about business. If she had a petty business matter to discuss, she’d have had one of her daughters call.
No. Julieta Yang called because she, Julieta, has something to say to him, Willem. Right now.
Coeur turns for another photo op, holding her million-mark smile only slightly longer than the camera before turning towards the entrance to the Indiran Alliance Embassy. Her security guards scan the crowds, their eyes skimming over Jaantzen.
Nine, ten.
“Boss?”
Right now, Jaantzen should be making his peace. He clenches his jaw and tries to blend in, another face in the crowd. He’ll look into Coeur’s eyes in the moment, but if she recognizes him too early, the game’s over.
And she will recognize him. She will know it’s Willem Jaantzen who finally got his revenge.
Eleven, twelve.
He wants to ignore this call, ignore Toshiyo and get on with his plan. Since Toshiyo gave him the go-ahead he’s seen only one face in his mind’s eye: Tae’s.
He wonders if Coeur ever thinks about Tae and his children.
He wonders if she ever holds her own family close in the dark and marvels that their fragile little lives have lasted this long in the b****y wars of Bulari’s underworld.
“Boss?”
It’s time, but his hand isn’t reaching for the g*n.
“How long is the mayor’s speech slated to be?” he murmurs.
Toshiyo’s relief is evident in her voice. “Thirty minutes. They’ll be leaving out the Commerce Street entrance.”
Coeur offers her arm to the ambassador, and they both walk up the stairs.
Willem Jaantzen melts back into the crowd.
“What in sweet damnation does Yang want?”
Jaantzen finds a corner table in a cafe he trusts and Toshiyo patches the call through to his earpiece. Julieta Yang won’t answer a video call, only voice. She’s convinced video calls are easier to track, no matter what anyone else tells her. One of the mister drones has followed him from the plaza; it dips its wings twice, Toshiyo’s signal.
Willem Jaantzen doesn’t relax.
“Madame Yang,” Jaantzen says, waving away the waiter, the owner’s son. The boy hovers, watchful yet discreet and visibly nervous. He’s not used to being alone around Jaantzen. “How may I help you today?”
Julieta Yang’s voice is cool and aloof, gone papery around the edges with age in the years since they first met. He’d been a fool child just getting started in the game, and she’d come herself to deal with him for poaching on her territory. All these years later, and she can still make him feel like a fool child with the right tone.
“My people have intercepted troubling news about mutual friends of ours,” she says. Never for the small talk, Julieta goes straight to the point — “Life’s too short to pretend to care how someone is doing,” she’d told him once.
Jaantzen doesn’t ask; waits for her to tell him. He’s sweating more than usual — he can smell himself through the expensive suit and the nice cologne: the sharp bite of adrenaline. His body had prepared itself for the inevitable hail of bullets and is having trouble adjusting to the fact he’s still alive.
“The Alliance attacked Silk Station three days ago,” Julieta says. “By all accounts, they destroyed it.”
An echoey silence in Jaantzen’s head; the restaurant seems hushed. There but for the grace of God go we all, one fiery explosion away from having no family, one volley of torpedoes away from having one’s entire organization, everyone one cares for and protects, completely destroyed. He signals to the owner’s son for a glass of wine.
“Any survivors?” he asks once he’s sure the horror won’t color his voice.
“Yes,” she says. “There was enough warning for some of the family to flee before the Alliance began firing. Reports are still coming in.”
“Raj and Lasadi?”
“The Nanshe was apparently mobile when the Alliance attacked. It was boarded and prisoners were taken. We haven’t been able to learn whether Raj and Lasadi were among them.” A pause. “I was hoping you could do that. It’s more your expertise.”
“I can connect you with Toshiyo — ”
“I don’t need your surveillance team,” Julieta snaps. “My surveillance is the best. I need your political connections.”
Jaantzen checks the time on his comm, takes a sip of the wine. He has ten minutes to get back in place by his count; as if on cue, Toshiyo sends an update: She’s wrapping up. 10min to exit. You good boss?
Jaantzen’s not good.
Raj and Lasadi Dusai have taken care of themselves and their family for decades. If the Alliance got them this time, it’s because they stretched past their limits, picked the wrong pocket, slit the wrong throat.
They’d nearly done it seventeen years ago when they tried to turn over a ship containing one Willem Jaantzen. Fortunately, the result of that encounter had been lifelong friendship.
Julieta Yang’s business would be taking a dip with the loss of the Dusais and their steady supply of pirated goods, but he knew that wasn’t the only reason she was upset. Raj and Lasadi Dusai, once you’d met them, were infectious. Their business partners often found themselves unexpectedly becoming friends.
If Raj and Lasadi planned right, their family — their daughter; he thinks of her with a pang and moves on — will be taken care of. Like Jaantzen’s people will be.
Jaantzen has taken care of everything. His legitimate businesses are all shielded from backlash through layers of red tape, his illegitimate ones dissolved and the assets put into a fund to be distributed by Manu Juric, who will ensure that everyone is comfortable during the transition.
Right now, Jaantzen should be thinking about Tae and his children. Preparing to see them, should that be his option in the ever-mysterious afterlife.
He doesn’t need to be thinking about the Dusais.
“I’m in the middle of something right now,” he says. He’s not telling Julieta what. He doesn’t need her blessing — or her chiding.
A sharp breath on the other end of the call. “Ah, yes. I heard what you’ve planned for today, and I think it idiotic.”
He doesn’t ask how she knows, and in seven minutes it won’t matter. He drains the glass of wine and authorizes a hundred-mark transfer to more than cover the bill. He stands, nods to the owner’s boy. “I thought you’d appreciate the chance to soak up some of my territory,” he tells Yang.
“Those idiots in the Sendera Dathúil would get there before me, you know that, Willem. Things are good in Bulari now. Balanced. Don’t toss the lot of us into the churn.”
“That’s not my concern, Julieta. I’m taking care of my people. You can take care of yourself, Raj and Lasadi can take care of themselves, and the Sendera can go to hell. I’m paying my own debts today.”
The mister is trailing behind him, veering from hanging plant basket to hanging plant basket like a working drone would. His comm buzzes: Toshiyo. 5min boss. Ahead, he can hear the noise of the crowd; he starts to slip into the outskirts, blending in.
Julieta Yang is still in his ear, but he’s already gone, scanning the plaza to check the guards, check the misters. He’s working his way to the front of the crowd.
“We have learned one thing,” Julieta says, and his attention snaps back to the conversation, caught by her tone. She’s been holding back a card, and she’s ready to play. He tenses. “We know they’ve captured the daughter.”
Jaantzen doesn’t answer, but he’s doing the math. How old is the girl now? He hasn’t seen her since she was just starting to walk, when Raj and Lasadi brought her with them on one of their many trips planetside. She’d been about the same age as his daughter Sora had been when —
Now she’d be fourteen — no, fifteen.
Now the Alliance has the girl, will they treat her as a child, or as an adult, a traitor?
“Raj and Lasadi made you godfather, didn’t they?” Julieta asks, but it isn’t a question, and again he doesn’t bother wondering how she knows. Julieta Yang’s specialty is expensive luxury goods and even more expensive information — both of dubious origin.
“She’s being held in Redrock Prison,” Julieta says, like she’s telling him tomorrow’s weather forecast. “Here. On-planet,” like there might be other Redrock Prisons. He can almost hear her examining her cuticles with feigned disinterest.
Two minutes.
“You know people who could help, don’t you,” says Julieta, and for a moment he thinks he hears worry in her voice. “There’s nothing I’ll be able to do about it.”
The last time he saw the girl, she was all gangly limbs and graceless toddler exuberance, that same glorious joy and innocence as his Sora and Mikal, yet so different in her fierce desire to break free from her parents’ orbit.
There’s a flurry of activity in the guards by the door; the moment is here. He hasn’t seen Starla in years, but he’s seen Raj, he’s gotten updates on his goddaughter, he’s made renewed promises over business dinners to take care of her if anything ever happened to Raj and Lasadi.
Ahead of him, Coeur is walking out, flashing that smile and a palm-out wave to the crowds below her. Her gaze dances over him, and the pistol in its holster burns hot and fierce. He buttons his coat.
“Dammit, Julieta,” he says.
“Let me know what you find out,” she says. “I’ll help where I can.”
- Writer
