“Yes Sir.” Nick surveyed the crew-cut gray hair, and steely eyed humorous glint with affection. “Did some time in country, huh Kipp?”
Speicher chuckled, sitting down with a sigh in the chair Nick positioned for Speicher from his side of the table. “Yep. First Battalion, 9th Marines. Fresh out of boot camp in time for Khe Sanh. I enjoy your Diego novels more than I should. I confess to laughing every time a bad guy gets caught for a Diego interrogation, and says something stupid like ‘you’ll get nothing from me’. That Carrie lady was a hoot. She gave you the ‘you’re not Shakespeare’ dig. It’s not that I haven’t read Shakespeare, but for entertainment, I crave some action and humor. It’s too bad the old boy didn’t do more ‘Taming of the Shrew’ and less Macbeth.”
Gus, who had sat down again next to Nick during the conversation, nodded in agreement. “Taming of the Shrew’ was my favorite. I’m Gus Nason, Mr. Speicher.” Gus shook the older man’s hand.
Kipp leaned back in contemplation, and then held out his hardbound copy of ‘Caribbean Contract’. “Say… you two seem awfully close to fitting the description of Diego and Jed. Is there more to this fictional tale than a good story? C’mon… I know you were in Delta Force, Nick… and Gus here fits the bill for Jed. I’ll bet you know boats, Gus… don’t ya’.”
“You caught us, Kipp,” Nick replied. “We are indeed Diego and Jed.”
Kipp laughed and put his copy of ‘Caribbean Contract’ in front of Nick. “Sign this, ‘to Kipp, from Nick’, would you, kid. After all your real life adventures I’ve been reading about in the papers, and hearing on the news, I need to go back over all my Diego novels with a new perspective. You two have given an old man something to think about. Nice move on that guy out there in line today, Diego. It’s already on YouTube.”
Kipp held his iPhone for them to see. “Even us old geezers can have some of this newfangled technology to follow the adventures of our covert operative favorite authors. Someone loaded it on YouTube within minutes of it happening, Nick. The remarks made it plain the guy was a relative of the moron killed in your daughter’s school. Any comment?”
“You mean other than the good guys win for a change?”
“You’re right.” Kipp stood up. “It’s been a pleasure gentlemen. Thanks for taking some time with me. I look forward to reading ‘Assassin’s Folly’. I will be reading it with you two in mind. I’ll bet there was a boat involved with Jed at the helm.”
“You’re starting to annoy me, Kipp.” Nick frowned for added amusement.
Kipp walked away laughing toward the exit, book in hand. “See you boys on the other side.”
“I’m thinking maybe it’s time to turn to the romance genre. What do you think, Gus?”
“I like your thinking, but don’t do those vampire/paranormal romances,” Gus replied. “It’s creepy as hell when some good looking woman wants to cozy skin to skin with an animated cold corpse. I know you have more imagination than that.”
“Hey, partner… they’re even coming up with zombie romances. For the love of God… that has your vampire/paranormal beat by a thousand miles. I’m thinking of maybe doing a young adult one.”
“Kipp will suspect you of doing it to throw him off the trail.”
“Yeah… I doubt there would have been anything I could have said to sidetrack Kipp. If you think I’m rewriting ‘Assassin’s Folly’ to keep Kipp off the trail, you’re nuts. We’re all through here, by the way, and we still have a dog-walking ploy to work on tonight.”
“Well… shit, Nick… let’s get the hell out of here and get it done, so we can lock ourselves in that fine ass suite of yours while sipping liquor and watching the stars.”
Nick began hurriedly jamming his laptop and belongings into his pack. “We can’t overdo it though, Gus. We have another book signing tomorrow. I’m hoping it won’t be as exciting as this one though.”
“Oh great… why don’t you shoot me now. Thanks for jinxing our day tomorrow before this one’s even over.”
“You worry too much, Gus. Tonight will be a working while sipping expedition in the suite. We have to do a Kader search, and find out how many more of those assholes I’m going to have to kill. I thought maybe Dafar sent someone for me, but it was old Uncle Naseer reaching out to me from the grave. That’s a complication we didn’t need.”