“Follow our lead,” Ardanuy had told me just before we infiltrated the underground conference. “And save any accusations for the Q and A no matter what slander they sling. Better to take it on the chin than come off as amateur.”

This advice seemed at odds with the example they set, Ardanuy and Dunn both leaping from their seats with canes brandished as soon as Tanzer issued her proclamation. Before I could, as Ardanuy had instructed, follow their lead, both men were swarmed by members of the audience packing truncheons of their own. I stood, resolute in that moment to save my mentors, when something bit my hand and I dropped the pistol Dunn had given me. Staring down in horror, I saw a fat weasel dangling from my palm, blood running down the beast’s greedy throat, and when I moved to tear it away with my free hand I felt tiny, sharp claws settle on my shoulder. I froze. (more…)

Dunn’s flight had arrived late and so we drove through the night, past Pensacola, past New Orleans, arriving in Baton Rouge just after daybreak. Both professors sat in the backseat, which did not put me any more at ease, and only the throbbing pain in my legs from the drubbing Dunn had administered kept me awake. Ardanuy directed me to a ramshackle motel on the edge of the bayou called the SoCo Inn. The carpets were damp and the mattress smelled like an overfull ashtray someone had urinated on but I was beyond caring, and as Dunn and Ardanuy sat down at the warped card table in one corner of the room I passed out. (more…)