The Falconer’s Tale. Gordon Kent

ten seconds he said, “Okay, kids. Really.”

      Irene pulled herself free and shook out her hair, laughing. Hackbutt laughed, too—a real laugh, not a giggle.

      Piat smiled with them and opened a calendar. “Digger—you first. You need clothes.”

      Hackbutt nodded. “Irene’s been telling me that for a year.”

      “Now Uncle Sam’s paying. Irene may need some too. It’s too early to tell you the whole ball of wax—you know the rules, Digger. But let’s just say you’re going to meet some rich, powerful people. You have to be ready to be with them. Okay? I don’t expect you to become James Bond, but I need you to look the part and act the part.”

      Hackbutt crossed his arms, his scrawny elbows showing through rents in his ancient sweater. “Jeez, Jack. I’m not good at social stuff.”

      Piat looked at him without mercy. “If this were easy, we wouldn’t be paying so much money for it. Okay? This is go-no-go stuff, Digger. You have to do the social stuff. We’ll have training for it—practice, role-play. Just like in Jakarta. Okay? Same for Irene.” He tossed the last in because he wanted Hackbutt to feel that he wasn’t alone in being targeted.

      Irene’s frown caused her eyebrows to make a single, solid line on her face. Piat didn’t know her facial expressions yet. Tension? Anger? Hard to know.

      His eyes roved down his list. “Right now, I’m mostly focused on clothes. Digger, can you wear some real clothes?”

      “Like what?” Hackbutt sounded suspicious.

      “Wool trousers, for a start,” said Irene. “Green like your eyes, Eddie.”

      Piat felt as if Irene were speaking lines he’d written for her, except that he hadn’t. What a fool Dave had been to ignore her. “Exactly. Clothes. I don’t want to overdo it—you’re an American, you’d look silly in breeks—but the Arab idea of a Western gentleman is an Englishman. I need you to look the part.”

      “What’re breeks?” Hackbutt asked.

      “Knee breeches. For shooting.” Piat paused to see if Hackbutt would respond.

      “Sounds kind of faggy,” Hackbutt muttered. He clearly thought Piat was making fun of him.

      “You both have to eat meat. Not all the time. Okay? But enough so your systems don’t reject it.”

      “No way,” Hackbutt said. “I’ve given all that shit up.” He looked at Irene for confirmation.

      She gave Piat a considering look. “I won’t eat pork. Lamb or beef I can probably hack.”

      Hackbutt stared at her.

      Piat nodded. “Fair enough. Okay. I won’t hide from you that our target is Arab. He won’t eat pork, either. It’ll probably actually help his subconscious cues with you two if you don’t eat pork. Fine. Pork’s off the training menu. Anyway—you’re game for the clothes and food. Right? Okay. Conversation.”

      Hackbutt all but cringed. Irene put a hand on his knee.

      “Here’s the plan. We three eat together three nights a week. Okay? At dinner we play a game. It goes like this. Irene and I speak only when we’re spoken to. Understand, Digger? We’ll answer questions. If encouraged, we can respond and ask questions of our own, but otherwise, we just sit there. Boring dinners, Dig, unless you come to them with some prepared topics and you get them started.”

      Hackbutt looked back and forth between them. “Why you and Irene? I mean—when does Irene get the training? You’re not helping her.” He trailed off.

      Piat nodded, wondering just what to say.

      Irene picked up the ball immediately. “Sweetie—I know how to make conversation. How the hell do you think I deal with agents and gallery owners and buyers? It’s you, dear man, who can’t make small talk with a telemarketer.”

      Hackbutt nodded. “Why would anyone want to make small talk with a telemarketer?”

      “And three days a week you give me some training with the birds,” Piat said.

      Hackbutt sat up. “Really? That’s great, Jack. I didn’t know you were interested!” Then more slowly, “Oh, for the op, you mean.”

      “I have to travel with you. I’ll be with you most of the time. So I need to know enough to pass.”

      Hackbutt frowned. “The birds’ll know in a second if you don’t want to be with them, Jack. If you’re—afraid. Or fake.” He realized what he’d said. “Oh, Jack—sorry.”

      “Why? Why be sorry? You’re right. But let me have a go at it. They’re beautiful and I imagine I can make my way.” In fact, Piat was not at all sure he’d be steady with those killers flashing their beaks a few inches from his nose, but he had to try, and he’d done worse in the line of service.

      Later at the car, Piat nodded toward the dog and said, “Why’s he so unfriendly?”

      “Is he unfriendly?” Hackbutt looked at the dog as if he’d never thought about it. “He’s a nasty animal.”

      “Well, shy.”

      “Before I knew what he was like, I left the gate open and he got in with the birds and scared them. He went crazy—running around and barking and stressing them. I kicked his butt right out of there.” He was proud of himself. “I mean, I kicked him.” He thought about that, apparently with satisfaction, and then said, “Then I chained him up.”

      “Do you walk him?”

      “Annie does. Sometimes.”

      “Who’s Annie?”

      “Oh—a kid who helps with the birds sometimes. Sort of an apprentice. She likes the dog. I’ve told her, if that dog gets in with the birds again, I’ll take my shotgun to it. I won’t have the birds stressed.”

      Piat suppressed the things he might have said.

      Over the next couple of weeks, Piat, coming every other day to the farm, made more progress with the dog than he did with Hackbutt or Irene. The falconer didn’t want to become a social creature, it turned out, and he dug in his heels; Irene didn’t want to be an agent and stayed in her “studio;” the dog, on the other hand, wanted to be a real dog, and he accepted Piat’s fingers, then his hand on his head, and then a caressing of his ears. After several days of it, Piat took him off the chain and opened the derelict iron sheep fence and let them both through and up the hill. To his surprise, the dog stayed at his left knee.

      “Don’t you want to run?” Piat said. The dog looked up at him. The dog expected something but couldn’t tell him what.

      “Run,” Piat said. “Get some exercise.”

      The dog looked at him.

      “Run!” Piat said. He made a sweep with his arm to suggest the openness of the world, and to his surprise the dog took off. Later experiments showed that it was the gesture. All he really had to do was point ahead, and the dog went; if it went too far, he found he could whistle it back—it would dash to his feet and then sit, head up, ears alert.

      “What does he want?” Piat said to his new friend, the owner of the tackle-and-book shop. He’d made the shop part of his off-duty routine, cruising the books every few days and usually buying something. “The dog comes back and sits and looks at me and I don’t know what to do.”

      “It sounds like quite a good dog. Probably a herder: you get a lot of those here. They’ll herd anything—sheep, children, ducks. Quite smart, is he?”

      “Well, he sure seems to know things I don’t.”

      “Ye-e-e-s.” The man stroked his long, unshaven chin. “Sounds as if he’s been trained and expects you to know the signs. Or partly trained, perhaps—young dog, is he? Tell you what, carry