One of the two issues of Xero drawn by Eduardo Barreto rather than ChrisCross, issue 9 is a waiting game. Level 0 "Closer" Xero (aka, super-awesome basketball player Trane Walker) is cooped up in an American Embassy in Bulgaria. A CIA section chief named Tony somehow became aware of Xero's existence and tried to use him to kill a weapons dealer named Draga. This is did not work, and now Xero's trying to kill Tony. But a) Tony's on American soil at the moment, and b) since Tony works for the government, there's a question of if Xero can kill him. That's being argued over by Xero's boss, Decker, the Attorney General, the Department of Justice, and the Central Intelligence Director.
The caption boxes use a series of abbreviations for those, but then there's a handy key at the bottom of the page. Since I think all this is a book Trane's brother is writing years after the fact, odd that he would take that approach.
So Xero waits, and Tony waits and they play golf, and Tony generally acts like a smug prick because he knows who the blonde white guy is, and why he's there. While Xero dreams about killing him and deals with a persistent headache.
Back in the States, Xero's brother Tre is in the midst of a huge bender. He was sleeping with the local sheriff's daughter and she broke up with him, because she was tired of being unfaithful to her reverend boyfriend. Who is also one of Tre and Trane's teammates. And guess who has come to visit Tre and use the power of the Lord to free him from the evils of the demon liquor?
Rev notices one of Sabrina's jackets hanging in what Tre calls his 'shrine' to her. He's also been spritzing her perfume on his sheets, which Rev smells. Rather than resort to violence, Rev does something worse: He prays. Tre's not even worth throwing away his vows to God for. That can't be good for the ego.
Meanwhile, their other teammates, The Doctor and Twig ("The WhIte Guy") are involved in a charity street game of sorts. Twig is more than a little unnerved that the refs are wearing Kevlar and packing heat, and that there are an awful lot of boxes full of cash being toted around by other people with guns. The Doctor assures him that these are just friendly wagers and that their victory will get a bunch of local children some new sneakers. If they survive.
Through all the waiting, Xero has left a gap in the sensor net he established to make sure Tony didn't slip away, and it's centered on the foosball table. Once Tony finds it, Xero is sure Tony will ask him to play and try to kill him there. At which point Xero can kill him on grounds of self-defense. The moment comes, and Xero walks away instead, to continue reading Confederacy of Dunces and wait for confirmation to act. When he next speaks to Decker, Decker tells him it's his call.
Which Xero knows would never happen. The reason Draga got away from Xero is he's a 'techno-merc' who can hack the system that sends Xero information. This whole time Xero's been seeing Tony, he's really been sitting across from Draga, manipulating the information (the source of the headaches) and pretending to be Decker. Now Draga's gone, leaving Xero a taunting message that he'll see him in St. Louis.
Then the Embassy blows up. As for the charity basketball game?
Well, The Doctor doesn't appear to have been lucky in love, but Twig gradually gets in the spirit of the game, flattening a guy grabbing his jersey. Doctor scores a winning bucket, then has a bullet go through his Afro and hit some other guy in the head. Time to, as the song says, take the money and run.
{12th longbox, 160th comic. Xero #9, by Christopher Priest (writer), Eduardo Barreto (artist), Jason Scott Jones (colorist), Willie Schubert (letterer)}
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