The Council lived on Santa Muerta on and off. My cousin Missi and her twin sons, Monty and Jack; her mother, Cali; and grandmother, Dela, lived there year-round. They took care of the general upkeep, etc. The rest of us Bombay rabble visited only when summoned or for the family reunions every five years.

You think your family reunion is lame? Try a Bombay reunion. The resort is equipped with a customized conference center with auditorium. We have meals and meetings, but instead of the sack race, we have a full ropes course for team building. The only Bombays I trust are my immediate family. But on the ropes course you have to pick relatives you don't see much. I've never seen so many twitchy trigger fingers in my life. (As you can imagine, weapons aren't allowed.) The island also has a private airstrip and dock, and south of the resort are a handful of luxury beachside cabins we can use. It was a great place-until my teenage libido kicked in, since there are no girls. I stopped going there just for fun. Too bad too. It would have been a great makeout hideaway.

"You're going to meet Great-grandma Maryland!" Mom said brightly with Louis safely tucked away on her lap, a blissed-out smile on his little mug.

The way she said that sounded like we were just going over the river and through the woods to a little clapboard house with a picket fence, musty doilies, and home-baked cookies. Not the chic penthouse of an old woman who could snap a man's neck like dry pasta. Mom had really blown a fuse when I told her that Grandma wanted to inspect Louis. It would be good to have her with us. Mom was still chafing from not being there when Gin had to rescue Romi from Grandma and the Council six months ago. And honestly, in a death match between Mom and Grandma, my money's on Mom. Every time.

"Great Grandma lives on an island in the southern hemisphere?" Louis asked for, like, the fiftieth time. This wasn't a kid you could baby-talk and lie to.

"Yup," I answered. "You'll like it on Santa Muerta." As long as my family doesn't try to kill you. As long as my family doesn't try to kill you.

"And we have our own jet?" Louis raised his right eyebrow.

I nodded.

"Why does everyone have place names?"

"Well, it's a family tradition dating back for centuries," Mom answered patiently. She's so good with kids. Mom then told him about Uncle Louisiana, Uncle Petersburg, Aunt Virginia, my cousin Mississippi, and her sons, Montgomery and Jackson. Most of us shortened our first name as soon as possible. My sister, Gin, was Ginny until college, when everyone (me included) thought it was funnier for her to be Gin Bombay.

I still hadn't given my son the whole rundown on the family. At this point I figured that monosyllabic responses and head nods were the safest route.

We landed on the airstrip on the island after flying all day. I was nervous. And this was unusual for me. In my whole life I'd never taken being a Bombay very seriously. Of course, unlike Gin or Liv (short for Liverpool), I never had to introduce outsiders to the lifestyle of the rich and deadly.

But now I was worried, and most of it was for my son. I felt a twinge of affection. Louis was my son. How cool is that? Hey, he has a place name too! But don't think I'm adding "Saint" to it. That would be ridiculous.

"Dak!" Missi came running toward the plane and threw her arms around me, then Paris, then Mom. "And is this Louis?" She bent down and hugged my kid, and he responded with a big, gap-toothed grin.

"I'm your dad's cousin. You can call me Missi." She took Louis by the hand. "The Council's in the auditorium, waiting for you two." She pointed at me and Paris. "Carolina, you can come with us, if you like." She smiled broadly at Mom. Yeah, like Mom was going to let Louis out of her sight.

I loved Missi. She was kind of odd, but then, who isn't in this family? Petite with short blond hair, Missi is maybe six or seven years older than I am. She'd lost her husband when the twins were two years old, but managed to raise her teenage boys and still keep her sense of humor. I had a lot of respect for her. Especially when she electrocuted the Council just as they were about to gun us down. That woman has foresight.

Mom nodded and took Louis's other hand, and it was good to know he'd be safe. Of course, I trusted Missi implicitly. She was a good egg. It was the rest of the family I wasn't so sure about.

"Well," Paris said with a sigh, "here goes nothing."

I nodded, and silently we went into the main building and down to the conference center.

It was satisfying to see the members of the Council visibly flinch when Paris and I entered the room. Obviously they remembered our last visit. Lou, Grandma, Dela(ware), Troy, and Flo(rence) sat on the dais. I wondered if Missi had ever told them they were secretly implanted with electric devices that could zap them into twitching seniors. My guess was that she hadn't.

The Council had existed in the Bombay family since the beginning of our venture into the profitable world of assassination. Consisting of the five eldest members, they hand out assignments and keep the business running smoothly. My grandmother Maryland; her brother, Lou; and their sister, Dela, form the American branch of the family. Their cousins, Troy and Florence, are the Europeans, from England and France, respectively. I guess I never really thought about the Council much-that is, until they had Gin hunt down the family mole. The Council is also responsible for "punishing" errant Bombays. And by "punishing" I don't mean a spanking. These bastards are old and bitter and totally committed to the Bombay way of life. They would eat their own young to keep everything in working order.

"What do you have to report?" Grandma broke into my thoughts.

"Nice to see all of you, too," I replied glibly. Yeesh. Yeesh. Where were their manners? Where were their manners?

"We found out why our contracts are decreasing," Paris piped up. Brownnose Brownnose.

"I'm fine, thanks for asking," I continued. "Have a new girlfriend and a son now."

"We know all about that," sneered Troy, the English member of the Council. "The question is, what do you have to report?"

Those Brits-no sense of humor.

Paris filled them in on National Resources. He told them everything. I would have left out the part about the Web site, but that's just me.

Lou frowned. "So, they have a Web site, eh? I knew we should've gotten one of those."

Grandma looked at me. "Did you come up with the branding I asked for?"

"Oh, sure. We thought about calling ourselves Assassinations R Us and aligning ourselves with the toy magnate. We figure we could just glom onto their brand and surf the success."

Grandma narrowed her eyes. "That'll do, Dak. I won't tolerate your snarky attitude." Uh-oh. Uh-oh. I was getting dangerously close to not being spoiled by her. I was getting dangerously close to not being spoiled by her.

Paris broke in. "We figured that by finding the real problem, we could come up with a better solution. The problem isn't really branding or Web sites or promotional tchotchkes. It's the competing company itself."

"So you're saying that if we take out the competition, our problem will cease?" Dela asked.

Oooooh. It's a trap! Don't answer that, Paris!

Paris looked confused but nodded. "Well, yes. That would solve the problem."

Troy shook his head, and I hated him all over again. "We know all about National Resources. You wasted your time."

"You knew about them?" I lost my cool. "Why didn't you tell us?" I lost my cool. "Why didn't you tell us?"

Lou cleared his throat. Clearly we made a bit of an impact on the Council last time we were there. "Calm down, Dak."

"Calm down? Calm down? Are you crazy? We did all that work for nothing?" Okay, so Paris did all that work for nothing.

The members of the Council, my family, looked at one another. I was totally pissed off. Why give us the problem to solve when they knew the answer?

"Why don't we just have Dak and Paris remove the competition from the picture?" Dela suggested. "It seems silly to market ourselves when we're supposed to be a covert operation anyway."

"I agree. This nonsense about branding won't solve anything," piped up Aunt Florence, my French relative.

"Actions do speak louder than words, old man," Troy agreed grudgingly as he turned to Lou.

Grandma leveled an angry glare at him. "I want a complete marketing package! I want a Web site and logos and slogans!" Damn. Damn. Was she throwing a temper tantrum? Was she throwing a temper tantrum?

"Okay, Veruca Salt," Lou sniped. I tried to hide my smile. "But basically I agree that we need to get rid of them. What's to stop them from trying to take us out in the near future? They underbid us-so why wouldn't they come after us?"

I stepped forward. "Give us all the info you have on this generic cabal, and Paris and I will take care of it. Do you want us to recruit others, like Gin or Liv?" Maybe I could earn some brownie points with my gift-bestowing grandmother in the process.

"No," Dela answered. "Let's keep this simple. You two can take out five men, can't you? If we put too many family members on this it'll be a mess."

Grandma folded her arms over her chest. "Fine. The two of you will meet with Dela tonight in her room. She'll give you what we have and you can take it from there."

I left the room totally pissed off. If the Council knew about the competition, why ask us to go around the problem with a slick promo plan?

"We should have killed them all last time we were here," Paris muttered under his breath as we walked out.

Chapter Thirteen.

"An optimist says, 'The drink is half-full.' A pessimist says, 'The drink is half-full, but I might have bowel cancer."

-Mr. B., The Kids in the Hall The Kids in the Hall

We couldn't find Missi, Louis, or Mom, so we hit poolside, ordering rum from the cabana boys. After a few moments I could feel my blood pressure cooling and remembered something.

"Paris, you ever hear of Doc Savage?"

He rolled his eyes at me. "Not this again! I thought we were done with that, like, thirty years ago."

Bastard. "No. Not the books. Have you heard of anyone else using that name for work?" I launched into an explanation about the guy in my living room. Why hadn't I told him this sooner? "No. Not the books. Have you heard of anyone else using that name for work?" I launched into an explanation about the guy in my living room. Why hadn't I told him this sooner?

"Huh." Paris leaned back in his chair.

"That's a new one. Why was he there?"

"He said he was checking my place out for Doc Savage." I felt ridiculous even saying it aloud.

"You haven't been made, have you?"

"Either that or the pulp-fiction geeks of the world are after me for some reason." I thought about the last few jobs I'd had. Well, there was that one time I had to take out this drug dealer dressed as Spider-Man at the NYC Comic-Con. He actually tried to shoot a web at me. What a loser. You never bring a webslinger to a gunfight. Nah. That had nothing to do with it. Besides, that was Marvel Comics, not old-fashioned Lester Dent pulp.

"It's probably nothing," Paris said. "We've got more important shit to worry about."

He was right. I was pretty certain the Council would take us up on eliminating the competition.

"How many guys are in that operation?" I asked.

"No one knows." He turned and looked up at the resort. "Okay, maybe they know. It'll be tough. We'll have to work together."

Suddenly my Ralph Lauren preppy look became the soggy Ralph Lauren preppy look as Louis cannonballed into the pool. Missi and Mom sat down to join us.

"He's yours, all right." Missi winked at me.

"Well, of course he is!" Mom snapped. "Inever doubted it for a minute." Good old Mom-she always has my back.

"So, you guys going to come see me later for some stuff?" Missi asked with a giggle.

"You bet your ass I will," I said. "I still have that tricked-out Chia Pet you gave Gin last year."

Monty and Jack, both sixteen, came flying past us and dove into the pool. Monty lifted Louis and threw him through the air until he splash-landed. My son popped above the water, giggling hysterically as Jack tossed him back to Monty. They played with Louis as if he were their own brother. I got a little choked up.

"So, what's next?" Mom asked me, but didn't take her eyes off Louis.

"We meet with Dela in an hour. Looks like we'll get the lowdown on the competition,"

Paris responded.

Mom nodded. "Great. Then I'm going to take Louis to meet Mother."

I shivered a little, in spite of the heat. "And the tests are, you know, conclusive?"

Missi rolled her eyes. "Well, duh."

An hour later Paris and I found ourselves in Dela's apartment. I have to admit I'd never been in there before. And I was a little nervous that this was where the witch hunt had started against me six months ago.

"We've had our suspicions about National Resources, although your testimony confirmed it today," Dela began. "There are five assassins in the group." She handed us folders. "Each one masquerades as a professional in one industry or another. We don't have photos of them, just some basic info. You will have two weeks to hunt them down."

I opened the folder carefully. Ugh. Ugh. These National Resource guys were real scum. According to the file they took on any contract-regardless of who the vic was. There was a vague reference to the U.S. government-but nothing concrete. A list of their hits told me that they were corporate-motivated, that they'd take out anyone who was giving big business a hard time. Like Erin Brockovich and Karen Silkwoodtype hits. I hated them already. As my blood pressure rose I wondered if they knew who they were killing. At least we Bombays had dossiers on our hits, which were mostly terrorists or really bad criminals. Apparently each of the National Resource assassins had a tattoo on the inside of his forearm of Woody Woodpecker. These National Resource guys were real scum. According to the file they took on any contract-regardless of who the vic was. There was a vague reference to the U.S. government-but nothing concrete. A list of their hits told me that they were corporate-motivated, that they'd take out anyone who was giving big business a hard time. Like Erin Brockovich and Karen Silkwoodtype hits. I hated them already. As my blood pressure rose I wondered if they knew who they were killing. At least we Bombays had dossiers on our hits, which were mostly terrorists or really bad criminals. Apparently each of the National Resource assassins had a tattoo on the inside of his forearm of Woody Woodpecker.

Weird.

"You'll have to track them down one by one. You can work together. Personally I'd prefer you take them out quickly so word doesn't get out to their colleagues."

"You don't make that easy for us," I said, flipping through the pages. "The only information here seems to be the zip code where each of these guys was last seen." Talk about a needle in a haystack.

"Let me look at that." Paris snatched the files from me. He frowned as he read. "I think I can figure this out. Maybe with some help from Missi."

I threw my hands up in the air. Leave it to him to find the silver lining in a cloud of sludge.

Dela nodded, as if she had known Paris was going to say that. "I'll keep in touch by cell phone, and I expect updates regularly.

You two are lucky. Troy wanted to be the handler on this one."

I rolled my eyes. "Great. He hates me."

Dela patted my shoulder. "Don't take it personally, Dakota. He hates everyone."

We thanked Dela and left her apartment, heading for the pool bar. I got a double scotch, and Paris helped himself to a glass of beer.

That was another cool perk: free booze. How many companies with high-pressure work offer that? Of course, you wouldn't want cranky assassins when you could placate them with alcohol. Think of any of your family gatherings . . . Thanksgiving, Xmas, you know what I'm talking about. The booze helps.