The Repairman- The Complete Box Set

by L. J. Martin

  "Get your ass off the phone and I’ll get him on his way."

  "10-4," I say, and disconnect. Then I grab up the radio. "Dirt Dog, let’s make him nervous with some tracers and buy some time. The Little Bird is only minutes away."

  "Roger that," BeBe comes back.

  The ANA chopper turns between us, flying only a hundred feet off the deck, and I see tracers begin to stream from Dirt Dog, now a little over a half mile behind us. I’m able to mop the blood out of my eyes, but I’m still not getting a good visual.

  The chopper breaks away and gains altitude. He circles wide and comes in behind Dirt Dog. I wonder if the pilot knows our M2HB’s are forward facing. I see the trail of a rocket as he tries to put one up Dirt Dog’s butt, but it explodes at least a hundred yards behind him.

  "Dump off here," I yell at Skip, "so we can face him." And almost as soon as I get it spit out, he’s turned off the bank and dirt flies over the top of the rig as he digs into the desert floor with the nose, but the little beauty bounces high and lands kicking up rocks behind.

  "Stop so I can set up. If he fires, kick it in the ass," I say, and Skip slides to a stop on a grassy knoll.

  Skip yells back, "The way that fuckhead shoots we might be better off sitting still."

  Dirt Dog is coming fast. I can see the muzzle flashes of the smaller M240 front-facing belt-fed gun, and the chopper is ranging back and forth behind Dirt Dog trying to get into position for another shot with either rocket or cannon.

  Even though he’s out of range, I start firing, hoping to distract him. I’m not overly thrilled to be so successful as he breaks our way.

  Dirt Dog follows our lead and drops down off the berm and I’m afraid they’re going to roll trying to get down to flat ground, but they don’t.

  "Hit it!" I yell at Skip, and again he snaps my neck by popping the clutch, and we’re flying through the underbrush.

  Frank, the young Marine, tries to bring the M5 he carries up to face the chopper, but I yell at him. "Let’s stay dark. He probably can’t see us if we don’t give him a muzzle flash."

  The kid nods and lowers the weapon.

  Dirt Dog is coming our way, too fast through the brush, and damn near runs over us but slides to a stop passing us closely on the driver’s side, then I hear the guys all yell. Blood’s in my eyes again and I can’t see.

  "What?" I ask.

  "The Little Bird just made a pass at the ANA. The bad guys are peeling off and headed for home."

  "God loves fools and Marines," I mumble. I pick up the sat phone and hit the redial.

  "You still on top the sod?" Pax answers.

  "Yeah, and we’d like a ride...any old MH will do." I dig in a clip pouch and come up with my GPS and hand it to Frank. "Hey, Fang, can you read this thing? I can’t see."

  Then I go back to the phone. "Get your pencil, numb nuts. Frank will give you our coordinates."

  "Who’s Frank?" Pax asks.

  "Hitchhiker we picked up. He was tired of the shit bag’s hospitality. Crummy room, no Jacuzzi."

  And Fang gives him our position, then hands the phone back to me.

  I encourage Pax, "Let’s get out of here before light and before the ANA sends some fixed wings after us."

  "He’ll be there in less than ten," Pax says, and clicks off.

  We spend nine minutes patching up wounds, and the big MH roars overhead before we can finish. We line up on either side of a clearing and use the DPV’s headlights to give him an LZ.

  Now if we can make the border, we’re home free.

  It’s goodbye to the DPVs…and I was just getting attached to the little hot rods.

  We just get to sleep on the tarmac of the Uzbek airport, when the G4 taxis over to the MH. It looks like, now that we’re sans our desert vehicles, we’ll be going home in style.

  Everybody’s gotta be somewhere.

  As soon as we’re wheels up, BeBe, with his SEAL medical training, cleans and applies WoundSeal to the three of us who’ve been whacked. Skip is by far the worse for wear with a through and through on his left side. He’ll need to be checked out and treated by some experts to make sure he hasn’t split a bowel. Peritonitis can kill quickly.

  We’re on a long approach to Rome’s Fiumicino Airport when the co-pilot is shaking me awake.

  "Some guy named Pax is on the radio and wants me to tell you to turn your sat phone on."

  I snake it out of my webbing, now parked on the seat next to me, and see the bats are dead. "She’s out of poop," I tell the kid.

  "You can call on your cell phone in a few minutes. We’re down in fifteen."

  "Tell him, please." The young Marine, Fang, is across the aisle from me, and I see he’s awake.

  "You doin’ okay, kid?" I ask.

  He grins from proverbial ear to ear. "Great, had my first ham sandwich and rum and coke in four years."

  "You’ve been held by the shit bags for four years?"

  "Yes, sir. I bet I’m fifty pounds lighter, shy a few teeth and an ear, but all I can think of now is if my mom thinks I’m dead…and my girlfriend. I can’t wait to get to a phone."

  "I got one call to make then you can borrow mine."

  "And a razor. I wish I could stuff this fuckin’ beard up a couple of goat-fucking haji butts."

  He’s going to be fine, I decide, with a smile. At least until he finds that his girlfriend has likely married his best buddy…but then I’m a skeptic.

  I’m not surprised when the G4 taxies past the commercial terminals then the fixed base operators and on to a private hanger. Nor am I surprised to see Commander Thomas Scroder awaiting our deplaning; however the two standing beside him are somewhat of a surprise. His beautiful niece, Sophia, who I presumed had long returned to the states; and a uniformed Marine general. If we are about to be placed under military arrest there would be some military police standing by. I’m happy I see none.

  All my guys stand aside as they drop the stairs, so I take the lead.

  The general is the first to greet me, his hand extended. I salute first. "Sorry, general, old habits."

  "Son, you pulled off a hell of a mission."

  Scroder is close behind him. "Mike, this is Marine General Patrick Bohanson, who really shouldn’t be seen with the likes of y’all," he laughs heartily before continuing, "but he insisted. He’d like to hang a medal on you, but you’d hafta re-up."

  "Thanks, but no thanks. I still have a little private business to take care of."

  Sophia is right behind her uncle and steps forward, and I’m happy to say, does not extend a hand but throws her arms around me. "You’re hurt," she says, "that’s ugly," eyeing my forehead from eight inches away. I’d forgotten what a woman smelled like…roses on a warm ocean breeze. I take a deep breath, and am glad I still can.

  "Nothing a few stitches won’t take care of," I say, then turn back to the general. "I’d like to introduce you to my guys, and to someone who I believe you owe four years of back pay."

  "The hell you say," he says, with a curious look.

  The two Blackthorn guys are in the door of the plane and Scroder looks up and gives me a big smile. "Great job, Mike." He moves forward and embraces both guys as they reach the macadam. They look like hell, but they’re ambulatory, and haven’t stopped smiling since we were wheels up.

  Frank ‘Fang’ Pucherelli is at the bottom stair, looking in the semi-darkness like a Sunni Mullah. "General, hard to tell it now, but I’d like you to meet PFC Frank Pucherelli whose last bivouac was a dungeon in Mazer-I-Sharif. Four years hard time, I’d guess. He caught a ride out with us."

  The general looks a little stunned, but returns Fang’s salute then steps forward and extends his hand. Frank shakes, and his eyes tear up and begin to streak his cheeks.

  "I’m sorry, sir, it’s just…."

  "Welcome home, son," the general says, and I half think he’s going to cry as well.

  The general yells at someone deeper in the hanger and a vehicle is fired up and comes out of the d
arkness, followed closely by a military ambulance. A big, black, Chrysler town car with a young Marine as a driver stops and the driver jumps out and opens a rear door.

  The general turns to Scroder. "I’m taking this young man in my car to the Camp Darby hospital. The ambulance will take the rest of you to an Italian facility."

  Skip is pale as hell.

  I lay a hand on his shoulder. "Let’s get you to a hospital."

  Scroder steps up. "We’ll have him, and the rest of you who need treatment, treated privately."

  "Gentlemen," the general says, and shakes with all of us, then climbs in the backseat beside Frank, and waves. The last thing he says is, "I wasn’t here, y’all know that," and nods as the young driver closes the door behind him.

  I turn to Commander Scroder. "And I guess our mission didn’t happen."

  He laughs. "What mission?"

  "So long as it’s not, what money?"

  "The money’s real," he says. "I don’t guess I can take y’all to lunch after our company doc gives you the once over?"

  "I thought you’d never ask."

  "Weatherwax is on his way and will join us at the Palazzo. My hotel, the Palazzo Montemartini, where I have rooms for all of you."

  I finally begin to let down and exhale a long breath. "I don’t imagine they have a hot bath."

  "Odds are," Scroder laughs. "Odds are good. Then tomorrow the G4 will haul all of you back to Miami."

  "Can’t do it quite yet," I say.

  "You going on vacation?" Sophia asks.

  "Yeah, across the Adriatic to somewhere in Serbia."

  "You don’t know where you’re going?" she asks.

  "Got to find a bad guy."

  24

  Scroder, Hank, TooBad, Sophia and I—the Blackthorn guys and Skip are spending the night at a hospital—are in a restaurant near the Spanish Steps in old Rome, a place way too fancy for the BDU’s we’re still wearing. I have eighteen stitches near my hairline, but all in all, we came out great.

  We’re into our third glass of vino when Pax walks in.

  And he’s walking with that old firm stride so I know he’s feeling way better. He gives me a fist bump and goes straight to Sophia and busses her on the cheek. Then pulls up a chair from a nearby table and wedges it between the beautiful blonde and me—the rotten bastard.

  I laugh, and give way.

  He eyes my forehead and laughs. "Good thing it’s your head cause we know that’s the hardest thing on your bod. Too bad you keep that two dollar military cut…if you had my curly locks you could cover that up."

  I give him a tight smile. "Since there’s a lady present, I won’t say what I’m thinking, curly."

  We play catch up for a while and finally he leans over and says in a low voice, "Guess who I have a line on?"

  "I wish we were in Montana and it was a big brown trout, but, no, who?"

  "Edvin Gashi, need I remind you…."

  "Where is he?"

  "Ain’t tellin’."

  "Bullshit. Where is he? I want his ass."

  "You cut me out of this Afghan gig, but you ain’t cutting me out of Gashi."

  "I didn’t cut you out. You’re in for a sixth."

  "The money ain’t the point and you know damn well it isn’t. Gashi and his boys put me in the hospital, wrecked my joint, and killed three of my people—."

  "Yeah, good friends of mine. You’re still in no condition—."

  "Fuck you, Reardon. I know where he is, and you don’t, so maybe I’ll just leave you suckin’ hind tit this time."

  I stare at him for a long moment, and he knows I’m pissed but he couldn't give a shit. Finally, I cave. "Okay, you can go along, but you’re staying out of the action—."

  "Again, in case you lost your hearing in all the gunfire and explosions going on in Mazar, fuck you. I’m letting the air out of that fat fuck, personally. You’re welcome to watch, or you’re welcome to take these boys home and see what’s going on at the shop. I’m going after Gashi."

  "You’re a friggin’ hardhead, but okay. So, where is he?"

  Pax laughs loud enough that the others turn to see what’s going on.

  "What?" Scroder asks.

  Pax laughs again before he answers. "Mike here thinks I was born in the night, which I was, but not last night."

  Scroder and the others laugh, and go back to their conversation.

  Sophia has been listening in, and leans forward and gives us both a smile. "I wish I didn’t have to go back to D.C. It sounds like you boys are in for some more travel."

  "Yeah," I say, "where?"

  Pax smiles. "I’ll tell you when we're on the plane. I’m going."

  "You da man, Paxman," I say, but am shaking my head.

  Albanian Edvin Gashi slipped out of our grasp after he and his partner, as reprisal for screwing up a scheme of theirs, bombed Pax’s place of business in Las Vegas, in an attempt to kill Pax. They did manage to put me in the contract management business for many months rebuilding his office, and Pax in the hospital for a couple, and far worse, three of his employees in the grave. Rosie, his chubby little secretary, was a particularly good friend of mine and I loved her dearly. I swore then I’d put all the bastards responsible in hell. Most of them are.

  But not the worst of them, Edvin Gashi.

  Now that Pax has run fat man Edvin Gashi down—it’s hard to hide from Pax if you touch a computer anywhere in the world—it looks like I’ll have a chance to even up the score. Or Pax will, if he has his way.

  It’s late morning, after picking up Skip at the private hospital which takes care of Blackthorn guys, when we report to their office on top of a heavily redone Renaissance four story building not far from the Vatican.

  Pax, Skip, Hank, TooBad and I are seated in a semicircle around Scroder’s large desk, his back to ceiling-high windows with the Vatican in the distance.

  "Do you know what these are?" he asks, his look rather smug.

  All of us shrug at the pile of folded papers on his desk.

  "Bearer bonds," he says. "Three point five million dollars in two hundred thousand dollar increments, plus or minus as they’re in Euros."

  TooBad sounds a little disgusted. "What the hell are we supposed to do with those. I’m pretty sure the restaurant won’t take them."

  "They’re negotiable at any major bank in the world. That’s the good news, the bad is you better hang on to them because just as the name implies, whoever is the bearer will get paid. They ain’t registered anywhere, and if you tell anyone where you got them, Blackthorn will have plausible denial. You weren’t working for us."

  I jump in. "Three point five million? We didn’t bring the suitcase home. You only owe us two point five mil."

  "We have it on good reliable reports that the suitcase was in the limo, as was Zazai and his Chechen buddy, Ackmed, the cousin of the Afghani president. We’ve warned the police in Mazar to stay away from the wreckage and are flying in a hazmat crew…they should be there by now. You cleaned house, it seems. And more importantly, you brought our guys home. A little worse for wear, but home."

  So I turn to my guys. "I’m holding out a sixth for Killer Carlos Juarez’s family. TooBad, you know where they might be?"

  "Sure, I’ve been to his folks for supper. Compton."

  "Just a mom and pop?"

  "He has…had…a couple of sisters."

  "Get their full legal names and in the morning we’ll find a Barclay’s bank and convert a sixth to cashier’s checks, a twenty-fourth in each of their names."

  "Carlos didn’t speak to one of his sisters," TooBad says, with a shrug.

  "Unless you’ve got Killer’s last will and testament, I’m cutting checks to each of them separately."

  "I guess Carlos won’t complain," he says, with a sardonic laugh. "But I’ll bet his sister will regret not speaking to him."

  I turn back to Scroder. "You know of a Barclays?"

  "Better than that, I play golf with their local guy, a VP. Angelo’s a
good guy. We have some accounts with them."

  We do the town up until the wee hours and, to both my and Pax’s chagrin, Sophia gives us each a peck on the cheek and at three AM heads for her hotel room…alone, damn it.

  As Pax and I head for the suite we’re sharing, I razz him. "Hey, hotshot, I thought you were the world’s number one lady killer."

  He laughs. "Off my game…however, she told me she’d jump my bones but it would hurt your feelings. Particularly since you’re so damned ugly."

  "Hey, this new scar is just another beauty mark."

  "Butt ugly, or do I repeat myself."

  "Semper fi, fuckhead," I say, and head for my end of the suite.

  "Get some rest. I’ve got us tickets out of here on a noon plane."

  "Oh, yeah, where to?" I ask.

  "Scroder took care of our travel docs, Mr. Long. Richard Long, one of your favorites. I’m Alex Bell…you know, Alexander Graham Bell. Not a dickhead, like you, Dick, whose last name should actually be stubby."

  "I’m glad you’ve taken care of business. Now, where to?"

  He gives me the finger and closes his bedroom door.

  Tomorrow, we're on the hunt for Edvin Gashi, and unless I miss my bet, it’s off to Bosnia or Serbia.

  Both of us need civvies, so after we hit the bank and take care of biz, Scroder takes us shopping. We go typical tourist, with hiking shorts, light ankle boots and walking shoes, pullovers, and lightweight jackets long enough to hide belt holsters. Both of us buy floppy brimmed hats.

  We finish our banking and Scroder hauls us to the airport. As we’re walking through the doors, I finally ask again. "Okay, Mr. Bell, where to."

  "You wouldn’t know if I told you. Lastovo."

  "Where?"

  "Lastovo."

  "And where do we get some weaponry?"

  "Boat."

  "What the fuck, over?"

  "Boat. A boat is bringing us more than we could ever use to kill one fat fuck of an Albanian."

  "So, is this Lastovo in Abania?"

  "Croatia."