“You eat another bite of that damned guinea pig and I swear the next thing you’ll see is my Technicolor yawn.”
Dan “The Man” Currington glanced over at his friend and teammate and lifted a brow. In the two days they’d been in the little city nestled in a high valley of the Andes Mountains, Dagan Zoelner had yet to sample the local delicacy. And since it was an unwritten rule among operators—and men in general, come to think of it—that outgrossing each other rated just under out-insulting, outshooting, and outfighting each other, he reached into the tinfoil-wrapped snack he’d purchased from a street vendor, pulled off a drumstick, and sucked the juicy grilled meat from the bone. The devil in him insisted he chew slowly and make nom-nom noises.
Zoelner’s upper lip curled back. He shuddered and scooted to the opposite end of the bench, tucking his chin into his scarf.
Mark one for the Dan Man! Dan put a checkmark in the W column of his imaginary scoreboard of life.
“For the record,” he said, licking his fingers and absently noting the way the cool, dry air whispered down from the mountaintops, interrupting the rhythmic burble of the fountain at their backs and teasing the ends of his hair, “I’ve eaten way worse. Undercooked, day-old goat meat in the Qandil Mountains of Iraq comes to mind. That shit’ll grow some pretty radical hair on your chest. I guarantee.”
Although they were lounging lazily on a park bench in the big square in the center of the city, Dan’s eyes clocked the movements of every tourist that passed by him. Cusco was bustling with travelers hoping to make it down to Machu Picchu before the rainy season set in and the area around the ancient Incan ruins turned soupy. But it was one particular face he was looking to find, the same face he’d been looking to find for what was beginning to seem like an eternity. Fuckin’-A.
“Also for the record,” he continued conversationally, keeping up the appearance that he and Zoelner were just part of the crowd, sightseers out enjoying the day, “they don’t call it guinea pig. They call it cuy. And it’s kinda g—”
“Since apparently we’re putting things on the record today,” Zoelner interrupted, “I’d like to add that, for the record, it’s a rodent.”
“So’s a rabbit. A guy like you musta eaten a rabbit at some point, right?”
“Wrong.” Zoelner shot him an emphatic look. “When it comes to meat, I’m a fan of the big three. Beef, chicken, and pork. The holy trifecta of barnyard animals. And what the hell do you mean by a guy like me?”
Dan stuck his tongue in his cheek. Zoelner had been pricklier than a porcupine the last forty-eight hours. And Dan would have chalked up his bad mood to the fact that they’d yet to complete their assignment to capture and exfiltrate hombre numero uno on Uncle Sam’s shit list, except that Chelsea Duvall had joined their little clandestine venture two days ago. And that had made their dynamic duo a tension-filled trio and—
“He means that besides being a grumpy Gus pain-in-the-butt, you’re a guy with a job that requires you to go on missions to the ass-ends of the earth, where the holy trifecta of barnyard animals sometimes isn’t on the menu.” A rusty-sounding female voice echoed through their tiny earpieces.
And speak of the devil.
“Funny. I don’t remember opening this conversation up to comments from the peanut gallery.” Zoelner scowled. He always scowled when talking to Chelsea…or about Chelsea. The two had been coworkers back in the day. And Dan supposed they were sort of coworkers again, given that Chelsea had officially been named the CIA’s liaison to Black Knights Inc.
“And for the record,” Chelsea continued, as if Zoelner hadn’t spoken, “rabbits were part of the scientific order Rodentia until sometime around the turn of the twentieth century. They’ve since been reclassified to something called Lagomorpha, which means they aren’t technically rodents anymore, but—”
“I don’t give a fiddler’s fuck what they’re classified as,” Zoelner interrupted. “My point is, I haven’t eaten one. And in case you were both unaware”—he slid Dan’s half-consumed snack a wary glance—“there’s always chicken available. Always. Or beans! Dear God, what’s so wrong with getting your daily dose of protein from an innocuous little legume?”
“Nothing’s wrong with it,” Chelsea admitted. A subtle smacking noise sounded over the airwaves. “It’s just that beans are bland, not nearly as tasty as other, say, meatier choices.”
Zoelner blanched just as a bus made to look like a trolley car trundled by on the brick street in front of them, belching exhaust fumes into the crisp mountain air. “Are you eating something, Chels?” he inquired hesitantly.
“I skipped lunch,” came Chelsea’s reply. “And when I heard Dan chewing, I realized my belly button was rubbing a sore spot on my backbone. So I asked the baker’s son to go out to get me a snack.”
“What kind of snack?” Zoelner ventured to ask.