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Zack realized the man had been reading the New Testament, and he wondered if the billionaire had always been religious, or if he had simply found religion the moment he knew people were actively trying to murder him.
Hinton launched out of his chair as if he were twenty; his face brightened and Zack now thought he looked ten years younger than he had five seconds earlier.
Bounding across the room, his hand outstretched, he smiled. “Mr. Zack Hightower, your reputation precedes you.” His New Zealand accent was strong, a little nasal and high, his words cropped tightly.
“Pleased to meet you, sir.”
“Anton,” he corrected, then looked at Gareth. “You did tell him to call me Anton.”
Gareth shrugged sheepishly. “Lot going on. I forgot to brief him on your legendary informality.”
Hinton said, “Just want everyone in my orbit on the same playing field.” With a little grin that looked forced through wet eyes, he said, “I might be the dickhead in the Louis Vuitton kicks, but you’re the gentleman with the gun, so I’m certainly no higher on the pecking order around here.”
The glint of a smile remained on the man’s face, so Hightower figured he’d better mirror it. He smiled back. “Yes, sir.”
“My rule about ‘sir’ is this. If you call me ‘sir,’ then I call you ‘sir.’ There’s no need. We are all the same, everyone on this big blue marble. Our earthly vessels make us look different, but none of us are any more or less than anyone else.”
Zack wasn’t certain how to reply, or even exactly what the man in front of him had just said, so he simply nodded.
Hinton motioned to a sofa and chairs around a little coffee table in front of a gas fireplace, and he and Zack sat.
Wren said, “I’ll leave you to get acquainted. I need to get back to work on tomorrow’s plans.”
Hinton directed his attention to the American as the Brit left, closing the doors behind him. “Let me start by stating the obvious. I truly appreciate you taking this job, especially after what happened to poor Emilio.”
“I’ll do my best. If we can work together, then I can keep you safe.”
“I’m at your command. I pushed back against Gareth. He wanted to cancel the appointment yesterday. If I had…” His voice trailed off.
“If you had,” Zack said, “they would have come for you here. Or somewhere else. You can’t blame yourself for what happened.”
Hinton nodded a little, looking off into space, and then he turned back to Zack. “I want you to know that I’m truly quite terrified about what is going on. Both for myself—I do not want to be murdered, obviously—but also for my friends, colleagues, even my competitors. The people who have died in the past three days were all known to me. I’ve at least crossed paths with every last one.”
“I’m sorry,” Hightower said.
Hinton looked like he was going to cry for a moment, and then he brightened. “I’m sure Gareth told you we’re heading down to Havana.”
Wren had most definitely not mentioned this. “He just told me he was trying to work out which of your properties—”
“Cheeky monkey.” Hinton held up a hand, then pressed a button on the phone on the side table next to the couch. “Kimmie,” he said when the call went through. “Grab Gareth and tell him it’s Cuba. Only Cuba.”
“Yes, sir,” the woman replied.
Anton said, “You’ll love it there.”
“Why do you have a place in Cuba? You’re a New Zealander, right?”
“Officially, no. I was born in New Zealand, but now I’m Maltese.”
“Maltese? Like…from Malta?”
“I’m what’s derisively known as an ‘investment citizen.’ ” When Zack just stared back blankly, he said, “I bought my way into citizenship in Malta. Helps me with taxes, with travel, with not having to bow to the government back in Wellington. I once considered starting my own country, I just couldn’t get the Philippines to sell me an island.” He shrugged. “It’s fine. Running a government sounds pretty cool till you realize you have to be in charge of collecting everybody’s garbage. Then it’s a pain in the ass.”
Zack was having trouble following the man’s fast-talking, stream-of-consciousness style of communication, so he tried to steer the conversation back to something he felt he needed to know. “I’ll be damn good at protecting you, but I’m not the sharpest tack in the room when it comes to business. Can you explain to me, in the most layman’s terms possible, just exactly what it is you do?”
Anton smiled pleasantly, seemingly happy to be asked the question. “I started as a programmer when I was a teenager. Tomer Basch was my roommate at MIT. We became best friends, then we became partners. We founded a tech start-up, then another. Eventually, we sold our companies, went our separate ways, but stayed close, and eventually we opened an AI lab in California, developing all sorts of low-cost artificial intelligence products for the average homeowner. That fizzled out a few years ago as our interests diverged.”
“I read about Basch on the plane ride over. He was killed in Haifa. My condolences.”
