The Triggerman Dance

Olie's is dark and cool and quiet when they walk in from the parking lot. It is a few minutes after noon and the last of the lunch rush—a young couple with a two-year old—comes through the swinging saloon door while Titisi holds it open. They young mother thanks him, but looks at him askance.

Holt takes a look at the long, picnic-style table near the jukebox, the same one he's used for the last thirty years. He is the kind of man who likes to do things the same way, time and time again, if that way works. But as he looks at the table—certainly no different than it was a year ago—a little voice begins to stir inside him. Vann Holt is also a man who listens to his voices. The voice says nothing, just a little infant-like whine, a protest or complaint of some minor nature.

"Let's sit over there," he says, motioning to a table on the other side of the room. "That looks good."

"We always sit here, Dad."

"Now we're sitting there, Valerie."

So they sit there. Holt takes a seat with his back to the wall, which is festooned with an ancient promotional beer sign that features an ersatz running waterfall with bears playing in it. Valerie sits to his left, and Lane Fargo to his right. Across from them are Titisi and Randell, and Holt is pleased to see they are now talking about the security consultants Titisi wants to employ in Kampala.

"Number of ways to go about it," says Randell, nodding.

"Competent, responsible men," says the Ugandan, somewhat obligingly, as he looks at Holt, then back to Randell. "The kind of men who can organize, train, lead. Men like you."

Holt hands out the plastic-covered menus, feigning disinterest in the business. Consultants, he thinks: young armed men willing to take risks for money, willing to kill for it. Mercenarie or the trainers of mercenaries—what was the difference?

Of course, Randell knows this, and Titisi knows he know it, but there is a certain latitude regarding definitions that must be offered at this stage. It is a courtesy. There is always the chance—very remote here, but possible just the same—that Titisi has been spun by the Federals, and his real mission is to offer Liberty Operations an opportunity to hang itself. Holt has had those opportunities before, and he is expert at keeping his company on the legitimate side of international law as it applies to security, investigations and military consultation. But gray areas do exist. Holt knows he can smell a rat from about ten miles away, though Titisi has thus far emitted a reassuring air of greed and menace, good indicators of honest intentions and trustworthiness. It always amazes Holt how cruel governments can be to their own people, in the name of helping them. On the other hand, Holt knows that Titisi can be thinking the same thing: that Vann Holt, ex-Federal, may have finally been manipulated into blowing the whistle on certain clients. It is little comfort to Titisi that he and his nation are the smallest of potatoes. At this stage, the Holy Trinity is vagueness, optimism, courtesy.

The burgers arrive and are great. Valerie, who does not like red meat, gets a grilled fish sandwich and a big salad loaded with thousand island. Lunch goes along perfectly.