Lekya slammed his hand down on Jake McCrae's desk. "I don't care if
you don't want to scare people; we have a right to know if our lives are in
danger!"
Jake looked up at the burly gypsy and nodded, his fingers
interlaced in front of his chin, his mouth resting on his thumbs. "You're
right, of course, Lekya. Trust me, left to myself I would have told you
immediately."
"Then why not?"
"The FBI, Lekya. They insisted I keep it under wraps. They swore
that nobody was in any danger."
"How they know that, huh? They have ESP Fox Mulder on the case, eh?"
"They didn't say, of course, but they led me to believe that they
had some sort of agent-in-place, someone who'd infiltrated the Tiger, Tiger
organization. They indicated that they knew exactly where and when the
group would strike... and that they'd be there, waiting. Like I said, they
assured me that there was no danger."
Lekya stood away from the desk, mollified somewhat. "We still
should have been told."
Jake shook his head. "Don't you think I wanted to, Lekya? Do you
think I liked having to keep any word of danger, no matter how remote, away
from my people, my circus? But these people in the FBI are professionals;
we have to assume that they know what they're doing."
"Hmmph. They give you good reason not to tell us?"
"In fact, yes, yes they did. They felt that the more people that
knew about the threat, the more likely it would be to get out that they had
infiltrated the group; and, in that case, not only would their agent be in
danger but there was also the risk that the group would change its plan of
attack, hitting us when the FBI wasn't expecting it... catching us
unprotected. And I had my own reason as well."
"Which was?"
"Safety. If everyone in the show is looking over their shoulder for
terrorists, they won't be concentrating on the job at hand... mistakes
could be made, people could be hurt, or die. Picture an aerialist hearing a
balloon snap and thinking it's a gunshot, and missing a catch... it could
easily happen."
Lekya grunted and nodded, thinking about what could happen to him
in the cage if he reacted to a bursting balloon with a moment's fright; the
cats could sense the fear, and attack. He pushed the image out of his mind.
"Can I see the note?" he asked.
"Sure, Lekya," Jake replied, "I have it right here."
Jake reached into a drawer and pulled out a folded piece of paper,
one which had obviously been read, and read, and read again. On the paper
was a photocopy of a letter composed of cut-out pieces of newsprint.
"The FBI has the original, of course," Jake explained.
"Too bad. Would have liked to give Sasha a big sniff. Might
recognize the hand that put it together... then remove same hand from arm."
Jake covered his hand with his eyes and shook his head, grinning.
"I wonder if terrorists can sue in cases like that."
"They can find lawyer to try, no problem."
Lekya looked at the note. The copying process had rendered some of
the print illegible, but the note was in the main fairly readable. It said:
"Greetings Bastards.
"Your inability to recognize the innate evil of the torture and
exploitation you wreak upon your non-human prisoners is despicable. You are
not the first, nor the worst; yet you shall make a fine example for the
others, we do believe.
"You shall be brought to bleed.
"Make peace with your Gods now."
On the bottom, in lieu of a signature, two photos of tigers had
been combined in a way that made it appear that the photo showed one tiger
with two heads."What's this at the bottom?" Lekya asked.
"FBI guys told me that it's the way Tiger, Tiger signs all of its
messages. Pretty weird. That's one of the things that hasn't made it into
the press... and so I guess it's the best way to tell if a message from the
group is real or just some copycat playing around."
"And this would be...?"
"Genuine, naturally. The agents told me that there are two or three
other identifying factors as well, though they wouldn't say what those
were."
"The part that sounds like it was written by a maniac,
doubtlessly," Lekya snorted. "But that is whole thing."
"You see why I'm taking this very seriously, don't you, Lekya?"
"I see. Not necessarily agree with tactics, but I see your motives."
"So this will stay our secret?"
"Some secret, I find out about it from customer. Still, I will say
no more." Lekya looked down at the message once again. "You have another
copy of this?"
"Yes, why-?"
Lekya spat in the center of the paper, balled it up, and tossed it
in the trash can, muttering something in Romanian. Then he nodded,
satisfied. "I am hardly the everyday stereotype gypsy," he said, "But even
so I can still handle a curse as well as the next guy."