NEAL STEPHENSON

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“Send someone out to pick up the abandoned pizza car. And give the driver a day off,” Uncle Enzo says.

The lieutenant looks somewhat taken aback that Uncle Enzo is concerning himself with such a tiny detail It is as if the don were going up and down highways picking up litter or something. But he nods respectfully, having just learned something: details matter. He turns away and begins talking into his radio.

Uncle Enzo has serious doubts about this fellow He is a blazer person, adept at running the small-time bureaucracy of a Nova Sidiia franchulate, but lacking in the kind of flexibility that, for example, Y.T. has. A classic case of what is wrong with the Mafia today. The only reason the lieutenant is even here is because the situation has been changing so rapidly, and, of course, because of all the fine men they lost on the Kowloon.

Ky comes in over the radio again. “Y.T. has just contacted her mother and asked for a ride,” he says. “Would you like to hear their conversation?”

“Not unless it has tactical significance,” Uncle Enzo says briskly. This is one more thing to check off his list; he has been worried about Y.T’s relationship with her mother and was meaning to speak with her about it.

Rife’s jet sits on the tarmac, engines idling, waiting to taxi out onto the runway. In the cockpit are a pilot and copilot. Until half an hour ago, they were loyal employees of L. Bob Rife. Then they sat and watched out the windshield as the dozen Rife security drones who were stationed around the hangar variously got their heads blown off, their throats slit, or else just plain dropped their weapons and fell to their knees and surrendered. Now the pilot and copilot have taken lifelong oaths of loyalty to Uncle Enzo’s organization. Uncle Enzo could have just dragged them out and replaced them with his own pilots, but this way is better. If Rife should, somehow, actually make it onto the plane, he will recognize his own pilots and think that everything is fine. And the fact that the pilots are alone there in the cockpit without any direct Mafia supervision will merely emphasize the great trust that Uncle Enzo has placed in them and the oath that they have taken. It will actually enhance their sense of duty. It will amplify Uncle Enzo’s displeasure if they should break their oaths. Uncle Enzo has no doubt about the pilots at alL