Jaycenia. Tayloronia. Needs work.
"So here's the situation," Tiny was saying while J.C. mused. "The whole problem of who's gonna be the successor country at the UN is such a political mess that nobody wants to touch it. So they turned it over to a priest. An archbishop."
"I get it," Andy said. "He's gonna be on the side of the religion in the country, right? I mean, the same religion he is."
"Wrong," Tiny said. "What you got in the country--the two countries--is Roman Catholics and Eastern Unorthodoxes. So the UN made up a commission, and at the head of the commission they put this Eastern Orthodox archbishop from Bulgaria or Poland or someplace, that wouldn't automatically agree with either side, in fact he'd automatically disagree with the whole crowd, and the commission he's in charge of is gonna decide. Which means, he is. And the word is, the archbishop, being another kind of nut--"
"A religious nut," Andy suggested.
"The world is full of those," John said. "If they were a money crop,"
Tiny agreed, "nobodyd ever go hungry again. Anyway, the archbishop decided, this saint's relic is the crucial factor. It's the thing gives the legitimacy to the country, makes the straight line back to the founding, before the AustroHungarians and all those people, so whoever's got the bone has to be the legitimate heir."
"And he won't mind," John asked, "if Grijk's bunch steal it? Are you sure of this?"
"That's not the way it works," Tiny said.
John nodded. "I didn't think it was gonna be."
"The way it works," Tiny said, "the bone was in the cathedral at Novi Glad, and Novi Glad's now the capital of Votskojek--so those are the--Grijk, I wish you wouldn't keep doing that every time I mention the name of the place; it's getting me all geechy."
"I will try," Grijk said, "do restrain myselv."
"Thank you. Where was I?"
John said, "Still the capital."
"Right. So they got it, they got the bone right there. So to stall things a little, the Tsergovians told the UN that isn't the real bone, it's a fake, so the bone was brought to New York to authenticate it."
John said, "How you supposed to do that? You can't put an eight-hundred-year-old bone on a lineup, get a positive ID."
"They turn it over to the scientists," Tiny explained. "They can do these tests, tell you is it a human bone, the right bone from the left leg, is it that old, did it have gangrene, all that stuff."
"So Grijk's people are screwed," John said, and Grijk nodded sadly.
"Unless," Tiny said, "we can switch bones before the tests get finished, and they just got started. We would've been ahead of them completely if it hadn't been for this little delay about money, but that's okay, that's nothing for you to worry about."
"You're right," John said.
"Meantime," Tiny went on, "Tsergovia's telling the UN the other guys're fulla shit, that's a fake bone, and when the scientists prove it's a fake bone Tsergovia will come out with the real one. The archbishop will get mad at Votskojek--mmmmm."
"Sorry," said Grijk.
"Keep trying," Tiny urged him, and told the others, "The arch bishop'll get mad at Votskojek for blasphemy with the relic, and the commission will recommend that Tsergovia inherits the seat, and the good guys win."
"I'm not sure about that last part," John said, "but never mind, I get the idea. So where's the bone now, in some lab somewhere?"
"Oh, no," Tiny said. "Both countries got these UN missions, only they're what they call observer missions now, until they get a seat, and Votskojek's got tight--very good, Grijk--got tight security on the bone by keeping it in their mission and only letting the scientists study it inside there."
"And where is this mission?" John asked.
"On a boat in the East River," Tiny said.
"A boat," John said, while the others looked troubled. "So we row out to it, is that the idea?"
"Naw, it's tied up to a dock in the East Twenties," Tiny said, "where there used to be a ferry across to Long Island City a long, long time ago. The