At that moment, Arkham Batman had only one thought in his head—Is this even English?
What did it mean to "lend money at usurious rates to the League of Assassins"?
Yet he did not hesitate for even a second before turning to Schiller. Schiller stepped forward, cleared his throat, and said, "Ma'am, I am the president's financial advisor. You may direct any professional questions to me."
Talia flung down a stack of contracts and crossed her arms. "Through a double-contract scheme, you raised the interest on this loan to 22%, ten percentage points higher than even black-market loan sharks. What, is the Federal Government really that short on money?"
"More than that, I'm concerned about why the League of Assassins needs to borrow money," Arkham Batman said. "Your father should be quite wealthy, shouldn't he?"
"Ahem." Natasha suddenly coughed twice. Arkham Batman turned to look at her.
Before his gaze had even shifted away, Talia said through gritted teeth, "Some bastard got hold of our assassin list. Many of our bases across the continents were ambushed and wiped out, and quite a few of the assassins we painstakingly trained were killed. My father has quite a few investments, but not enough liquid funds. And who knows where the governments of all those countries got their information—they seized this opening and began relentlessly hunting down the League of Assassins. We need money to quickly restore our defenses. Otherwise, we'll have to retreat into the desert like those losers."
Now Arkham Batman understood why Natasha had coughed—this was clearly the CIA's handiwork.
Then he understood: Schiller and Natasha were a classic money-and-murder duo. Schiller handled the money, Natasha handled the murder. Add Nick to coordinate everything, and they were practically unbeatable.
"Sorry, miss, but this is no double contract." Schiller pretended to