Hazardous Duty - PA 8

by W. E. B Griffin

  And so it was that Miss Sarah Ward, who was twenty-two, a year out of Vassar, and the niece of the Wolf News Corporation’s senior vice president–real estate, was charged to see what the Continental Broadcasting Corporation was up to at midnight.

  Specifically, she was tasked to watch Continental’s midnight news telecast, which was called Hockey Puck with Matthew Christian.

  The show opened, as it always did, with a hockey player taking a healthy swipe at a hockey puck. The camera followed the puck down the ice as the puck went airborne and then struck a goalkeeper right in his mask, which knocked him off his feet and onto his rear end.

  A basso profundo voice, while this was going on, solemnly announced, “It’s midnight, and time for Hockey Puck with Matthew Christian. Let the puck strike where it may!”

  The camera then closed in on Mr. Christian, who his detractors said looked like a middle-aged chubby choirboy, sitting behind a desk.

  “Good evening,” Mr. Christian said. “Welcome to Hockey Puck!

  “My friends, I confess I don’t know what I’m talking about here. You watch, you decide!

  “This just in from Sin City, otherwise known as Las Vegas, Nevada.”

  The camera showed a crowd of journalists watching a Gulfstream V taxi to the tarmac before a hangar.

  “Las Vegas is hosting the fifteenth annual award ceremonies of the adult motion picture business,” Mr. Christian said. “And the word going around is that Red Ravisher is the leading candidate for the best actress award. That much we know. And here she is arriving in Las Vegas in her private jet.”

  The camera showed the stair door of the airplane rotating downward as it opened. A huge dog came down the stairs, and then a man started down the steps. The video image went into “freeze-frame mode” and a superimposed flashing arrow pointed to the man.

  “Now, and I’m willing to stake my reputation on this,” Mr. Christian said. “That is Roscoe J. Danton, the syndicated columnist who is also employed by another, here unnamed, television news organization. One understandably wonders what Mr. Danton is doing on Red Ravisher’s private jet, but one also recalls that other networks boast that they will go anywhere and do anything to get a story.”

  The video image began moving again and the camera followed the man on the stairs to the ground and then as he went to the crowd of journalists. Then the camera went back to the door of the Gulfstream.

  “And here is Red Ravisher,” Mr. Christian announced. “One cannot help but note that magnificent head of red hair and… other physical attributes… that make her, so to speak, the Ethel Barrymore of the adult film industry.”

  The camera closed in on the redhead’s physical attributes, and then went into freeze-frame mode again.

  “Now watch this carefully,” Mr. Christian said, “for we’re about to lose the picture!”

  The camera now showed the redhead walking up to a photographer, exchanging a few words with him, and then punching him so hard he fell down. The redhead then kicked him in what sometimes were referred to as a man’s “private parts,” and then picked him up. Next, Mr. Christian’s viewers saw him flying through the air toward the camera.

  And then the picture was lost.

  Miss Sarah Ward said, “Oh, my!”

  And then she saved a digital file of the story to a portable hard drive and took it across the room to the desk of the senior producer.

  “What have you got, honey?” he asked.

  “Red Ravisher, the porn star, and Roscoe J. Danton,” Miss Ward said. “Miss Ravisher threw a photographer at Mr. Danton.”

  [THREE]

  The Niccolò Machiavelli Penthouse

  The Venetian Hotel, Resort & Casino

  Las Vegas, Nevada

  0830 18 June 2007

  When the elevator door opened and Hotelier, Annapolis, and Radio & TV Stations walked off onto the upper-foyer level of the duplex penthouse suite, Max, who had been sampling the steak and eggs of the breakfast buffet on the lower floor, took the stairs of the curved staircase three at a time, put his paws on Radio & TV Stations’ shoulders—standing on his hind paws, Max was taller than Radio & TV Stations—and affectionately licked his face.

  Radio & TV Stations didn’t look very happy about it, but Charley Castillo was delighted.

  If that’s any indication, coming here was one of my very few good ideas. Max is an excellent judge of character.

  Hotelier and Annapolis, and finally Radio & TV Stations and Max, came down the stairs.

  “Thanks for meeting with us on such short notice,” Charley said, as he offered his hand to Annapolis.

  “You said it was important, Colonel,” Annapolis said.

  Castillo turned to Hotelier.

  “Good to see you,” he said. “And before I forget it, make sure I get the bill for all this.” He gestured around the suite, which he had been reliably informed was available only to those who could afford fifteen thousand dollars a night or who had been unlucky enough to lose five hundred thousand or more playing blackjack or some other innocent game of chance.

  “I told you, Colonel, your money’s no good in Las Vegas,” Hotelier said.

  “How about the CIA’s money?” Castillo asked. “I am about the Commander in Chief’s business, and on the CIA’s dime.”

  “If that’s the case, I’ll have the fellow who owns this place get me a bill, and forward it to you.”

  “Thanks.”

  “How’d things go at the airport?” Radio & TV Stations asked. “Any problems? The cars I sent were waiting for you when you got there?”

  “Your cars and… some other cars,” Castillo said, and visibly fought laughter.

  “What other cars?”

  “You had better be very careful, my darling, when you answer that question,” the Widow Alekseeva said.

  “Something happen at the airport?”

  “Yes, you could say that, I suppose,” Castillo said.

  “What?” Radio & TV Stations asked.

  “You have been warned, my darling,” Sweaty said menacingly.

  “Sweetheart, I have to tell them. I’ll be as discreet as I can.”

  “You had better be,” she said, “or the problems I will cause you will make the problems your demented President is causing you seem less than insignificant.”

  “Our demented President is causing you more problems, Charley?” Hotelier asked.

  “Yes, he is. That’s why we’re here.”

  “What happened at the airport?”

  “As well as I have been able to put this all together,” Charley said, “Las Vegas is hosting some sort of award ceremonies dealing with the adult motion picture business.”

  “The fifteenth annual Hard-On Awards,” Hotelier said. “At the Streets of San Francisco Hotel, Resort and Casino.”

  “What do they call them?” the Widow Alekseeva asked.

  “The Hard-On Awards, Svetlana,” Hotelier said. “You know, like the Oscars? The winners get golden—or at least gold-plated—little statues, called Hard-Ons.”

  “What’s a hard-on?” the Widow Alekseeva asked.

  “Moving right along,” Castillo said quickly. “Apparently one of the contenders for the… top award… is a lady professionally known as ‘Red Ravisher.’”

  “Yeah, she won last year, too,” Hotelier said. “I think she’s got five, maybe six, Hard-Ons total.”

  “I asked what a hard-on is,” the Widow Alekseeva pursued.

  Charley went on: “. . . and the, what do you call those photographers who chase celebrities around?”

  “Paparazzi,” Annapolis furnished.

  “Right. Paparazzi. Well, the paparazzi apparently heard Miss Red Ravisher was flying into Vegas in her personal Gulfstream…”

  “I hear t
here’s almost no limit to how much money those people with Hard-Ons can make,” Radio & TV Stations said.

  “. . . so when we landed and taxied to the Casey hangars in our Gulfstream,” Castillo went on, “the paparazzi apparently decided that it was Miss Red Ravisher, and that she was trying to escape their attentions.”

  “Some of the really big Hard-On stars are like that,” Hotelier said. “They forget their humble beginnings.”

  “In any event, when we got to the Casey hangars on the far side of the field, all we knew when we looked out the window was that there were three lines of limousines, and maybe fifty paparazzi waiting for us.”

  “Three lines of limousines?” Annapolis asked.

  “I didn’t know Hotelier was going to send limos,” Aloysius Casey, Ph.D., said. “So I sent five of ours. Then there was Hotelier’s line, and then the line that the dirty movie awards people sent.”

  “They were spectacular,” Castillo said. “All white, and with lines of flashing lights around the doors and windows.”

  “They call that ‘the Bride’s Carriage Model,’” Hotelier explained. “The Elvis Presley Wedding Chapel and Casino Incorporated has a fleet of them. They charge fifty dollars extra for turning on the flashing lights around the windows.”

  “I don’t want to hear anything about the Elvis Presley Wedding Chapel, thank you very much,” the Widow Alekseeva said. “I’ve gone through enough tonight.”

  “Aloysius,” Hotelier said, “the adult film industry people don’t like the term ‘dirty movies.’ They would prefer for you to call them ‘adult films.’”

  “You ever heard that ‘once a Green Beret, always a Green Beret’?” Dr. Casey asked.

  “What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “Well, I’m a Green Beret and I know a dirty movie when I see one. An adult movie is one like that Anna Karen—whatever, where the Russian broad jumps under a train at the end. That adult movie made me cry.”

  “I cried, too, Aloysius,” the Widow Alekseeva said. “That’s very sweet of you to admit it. My Carlito said she was a damned fool.”

  “Don’t mention it, Sweaty,” Dr. Casey said.

  “Well, when we saw all this activity,” Charley went on, “and knew it couldn’t possibly be for us, I sent Roscoe J. Danton down the stairs to find out what was going on. One journalist to other journalists, so to speak. Then Sweaty—”

  “I’ll take it from here, my darling, if you don’t mind,” the Widow Alekseeva interrupted. “I thought perhaps I would have a chance to see a movie star, maybe Antonio Bandana, or Clint Eastwood, so I followed Roscoe out the door. Actually, Roscoe and I followed Max out the door. Max always gets out first to attend to his calls of nature.

  “I didn’t get halfway down the stairs when this despicable little pervert started aiming his camera at me and screaming vulgar things. I’m sure he was French; they always have their minds in the gutter.”

  “I have to ask this, Mrs. Alekseeva,” Annapolis said. “What exactly did he scream at you?”

  The Widow Alekseeva blushed.

  “Go on, Sweaty, you started the story, now you have to finish it,” Charley said.

  She looked at him for a moment, and then said, “If you insist. What this miserable French pervert screamed at me—”

  “In the belief, of course, that Sweaty was Miss Red Ravisher,” Castillo injected.

  “. . . was ‘Show us your teats, Red!’” the Widow Alekseeva furnished.

  “How awful for you,” Annapolis said. “May I ask what happened then?”

  “I asked him what he had said, and he repeated it, adding, ‘I don’t have all night, and you came here prepared to show the whole world your’ . . . you know whats… ‘so out with your boobs, baby!’”

  “And then what happened?”

  “I demonstrated with him.”

  “Sweetheart, I think you mean ‘remonstrated,’” Charley said.

  “What she did,” Dr. Casey furnished, “was coldcock this clown with a one-two jab, and then when he went down, she kicked him in the… you can guess, and then she picked him up and threw him into the other bums, taking out four of them. Actually, three of them and Roscoe, who was standing there with them.”

  “And then Max got into the act,” Castillo said. “Max loves Sweaty, and it is not wise to threaten anyone a Bouvier des Flandres is fond of.”

  “And then my Carlito came to my defense,” the Widow Alekseeva said. “My knight in shining armor.”

  “And then Lester and Peg-Leg came to help,” Castillo said. “Peg-Leg hopped around on his good leg and used his titanium one like a club.”

  “By the time the cops stopped it—” Dr. Casey said.

  “And you, too, Aloysius,” the Widow Alekseeva said. “You were just as quick to rush to my side as the others were.”

  “. . . there were a lot fewer paparazzi standing up than there were before,” Dr. Casey concluded.

  “Aloysius,” Annapolis asked, “you said the police stopped it. Are there going to be any problems in that area, with the law?”

  “I don’t think so,” Dr. Casey replied. “Terence McGonagall?”

  “Captain Terry McGonagall, chief of the Las Vegas Police Department’s Celebrity Affairs Bureau?”

  “Yeah. Well, when we got to the jail, Terry was there to see who got out of the paddy wagon.”

  “I don’t think you’re supposed to use the term ‘paddy wagon,’ Aloysius,” Annapolis said. “It’s considered offensive to those of Irish heritage.”

  “I’m a Boston Irishman, Swab Jockey,” Dr. Casey replied, somewhat impatiently. “And I’ve been in paddy wagons often enough to know a paddy wagon when I’m in one. As I was saying, when we got out of the police prisoner transport vehicle, Terry was there and he talked to the cops who had busted us, and eventually they let us go.”

  “And why did they do that?”

  “Well, Terry—he and I are fellow Grand Exalted Oracles in the Knights of Columbus—pointed out that if they charged Sweaty and us with assault and battery and destruction of property, such as their movie cameras, I could charge them with criminal trespass. Charley’s airplane was parked on my property. And so far as the camera guy Sweaty took out with a right cross, Terry asked him what judge was going to believe a good-looking redheaded lady weighing maybe a hundred and twenty pounds soaking wet had broken the nose of a six-foot-five two-hundred-and-fifty-pound male. So it turned out to be a wash.”

  “All’s well that ends well, as they say,” Annapolis said.

  “That’s what I just said,” Dr. Casey said.

  “So tell me, Colonel,” Annapolis said. “What brings you to Las Vegas? How may we be of assistance to the Merry Outlaws?”

  “Well, we are having a small problem with the Commander in Chief,” Castillo said.

  “Tell us about it.”

  Castillo did.

  “Interesting,” Annapolis said. “Why don’t you start by telling us the major problem vis-à-vis the Somalia pirates?”

  “Insurance companies,” Castillo said.

  “Insurance companies?” Annapolis parroted incredulously. “I happen to own a couple of them, and I find that hard to understand.”

  “I just spent a couple days floating down the Rhine talking to a group of journalists very familiar with the situation. That’s what they told me.”

  “No offense, Colonel,” Annapolis said, “but two things occur to me. One, we all know how far we can trust journalists, and two, why should they confide in you?”

  “My Carlito owns the newspaper chain they work for,” Sweaty said, “and then I dropped into the conversation that I was formerly associated with the SVR.”

  “I’m sure they were telling us the truth,” Castillo said.

  “Under those circ
umstances, I’m sure they were,” Annapolis said. “So, what exactly did they have to say?”

  “The way I understand the situation,” Castillo replied, “is that the shipowners take out insurance on their vessels operating in those waters, on the ships themselves, and the cargoes.”

  “As well they should,” Annapolis said, more than a little piously. “Insurance is the sturdy fence protecting industry from the hazards of a very dangerous world.”

  “I don’t know what a supertanker loaded to the gills with crude oil is worth, but a bundle, since oil has been averaging about one hundred dollars a barrel. And then there’s the replacement cost of the ship itself, another—”

  “I saw some figures,” Annapolis said. “For the sake of this discussion, why not work with fifty million?”

  “The figure I got was close to one hundred million,” Charley said. “Maybe you’re thinking of what insurance companies are willing to pay out on a hundred mil policy.”

  “Far be it from me to argue,” Annapolis said, ignoring the shot. “Work with one hundred million dollars.”

  “So,” Castillo then said, “the shipowners take out insurance for the ship and her cargo. They don’t really care what the insurance costs, because they just add that cost to what they charge for moving the oil.”

  “Standard business practice,” Annapolis said.

  “So it adds about a nickel to a gallon of gas at the pump,” Charley said. “So what?”

  “So what indeed. The owners are protected. The oil flows. Or is transported. In any event, the gasoline is there at the pump when you fill up.”

  “And then the Somali pirates seize the tanker. My sources told me, incidentally, that the typical pirate is illiterate and eighteen years old.

  “Then, I was told, the insurance companies send an adjuster to Somalia, where he establishes contact with these eighteen-year-old illiterate pirates and negotiates with them. For example, the pirates start out asking for five million dollars for the tanker. The adjuster tries—and usually succeeds—in negotiating them down to two million. Or even less, if he throws in a Mercedes convertible and a Sony DVD player and a dozen triple-X adult DVDs starring the Red Ravisher.”