by Declan Finn
* * * *
Most people would say that wearing a black three-piece suit in swampland is stupid. For most people, they would be right. The man approaching the shack was five-foot-ten, but held himself with such self-confidence that it was imaginable he could summon forth a desk and executive office from the muck. His hair was goldfish blond, his eyes a marble blue. He wore a dark, rich paisley tie and a blue shirt, like an upscale undertaker…which, in a way, he was.
He gently stepped up the three wooden steps onto the shack’s open front porch. The door was open a crack, and he could see the mess of printer’s ink all over the broken plank floor. He gently clicked his tongue and slightly shook his head from side to side. He crouched down to the threshold of the door, taking out his Zippo lighter. He held it in his right hand, and covered it with his left as he sparked the flint—not the wick, just the flint—against the door’s threshold.
The printing solvents caught fire and became a river of flame. It was bright enough to be quickly noticed by the three counterfeiters inside, who quickly grabbed their shotguns. The bright tendrils of fire were flowing direct for the marine batteries, which were none too well sealed.
With Curly in the lead they blew a new back door out of their wooden lodgings. Once the well dressed gentleman heard the first report, he smiled and gave a slight chuckle. He stood up and stepped down the stairs, casually strolling around the house, watching as the counterfeiters fought their way into the waiting hands of the New Orleans office of the Secret Service, federal shotguns at the waiting. Fortunately Stooges One, Two, and Three had wasted their ammunition blasting their way to safety.
Moments after they were approached, even Curly was gentlemanly enough to knock down the officers in time for a loud tripartite explosion that rocked the earth and splintered the small shack into match sticks.
Shrapnel flew and flaming bits of newly hatched currency rained down on the police, the Feds, and the criminals.
One of the cops whistled. “Are we sure this ain’t a meth lab?”
The three brothers promptly tried to get away while the cops were still processing what had happened.
Larry clearly had the most experience in running away. He scampered away from the cluster of cops and Feds, still clutching his shotgun. Then made his way towards the swamp, edging away from the still roaring fire.
But he found himself trapped by a sharp dressed man with a .45 aimed at his Adam’s apple. The only other ways to go were blocked by the Feds and the still sputtering, flaming wreckage.
“Who the hell r’yew?” Larry bellowed.
The man said nothing, but calmly marched Larry backwards, at gunpoint back to the crowd of federal officers.
“This is the Secret Service,” a big black man drawled in a deep Southern accent into the bullhorn. “Drop your weapons, and put your hands atop your heads.”
They had no choice. They dropped their guns and waited as the agents slapped cuffs on them.
Larry sputtered. “All that art, you bast--”
Curly hissed. “You shut up. We may yet git outa this.”
He then turned to the large black Secret Service agent. “Yon project is all smokin’ out back, so what you gotta hold us on? There ain’t much what we were doin’. Just a prank, you know? For Moe’s girlfriend’s birthday we were gonna fill an old hot-tub full’o cash.”
The black Southern Fed stared a gimlet eye at the three of them.
“We have your fingerprints on counterfeit cash you spread out throughout the county. Remember your test batch, that ol’ Moe over there couldn’t resist spending at a GameStop near Chattanooga? Your Uber driver got some of it, too.”
“You don’t know that’s what we were doin’. We made monopoly money, cause we sure know that spending fakes is illegal.” Curly said, still confident. “Ol’ Moe coulda got that bad’n anywhere.”
“Larry’s fingerprints were in the ink. That’s plenty to put you away right there, plus the evidence chain, your illegally acquired equipment… You’re done, boy. Give it up.”
Curly turned to Larry, staring daggers.
“I told you to keep your mitts off the paper until it was dry!”
The black man walked to his colleague, laughing, “Wayne, sometimes, I don’t know what to do with you.”
The shorter man smiled. “You and DC have the same problem, Jerry.”
The hicks were being dragged passed Wayne when Agent Gerard Hopkins said, “You boys sure are dumb if Mister Williams here could smoke you out…in more ways than one.”
“Wayne Williams?” one of the prisoners growled. “Ain’t yew the one who kill’ them chillin—?”
Wayne moved with such blistering speed he was back where he stood, looking as serene as before, when the prisoner doubled over in pain. Everyone else saw a blur, and that was all.
Wayne’s superior gave a dismissive glance at the prisoner. “Take him to the hospital prison ward,” Jerry said. “He’ll live till then.”
Gerard glanced at Williams, who nodded. “It’s just a rib,” he confirmed. “He’ll live.”
The two walked toward their Grand Marquis when Hopkins said, “Wayne, the problem with you is you can’t even let us lie for you. When we say we don’t know how he broke his rib, we mean it. How did he break it?”
“Magic, Jerry. Magic. Do we have any more of these types around? Or are we just going to sit around for the rest of the day, being bored out of our minds?”
Hopkins shrugged. “Unless something new comes in, boredom shall reign.”
Wayne sighed. His shoulders slumped. “I hate this job some days.”
“Why did they send you down here, anyway?” he drawled. “I heard you had a fancy job up in Washington a ways back. Now you’re the entire Secret Service in Mississippi?”
Williams walked around to the passenger side door and looked at his friend. “When will you understand what the term ‘Can’t tell you’ means?” He yanked on the handle. “Check that: I could tell you, but somebody would probably kill you.”
Hopkins laughed as he opened the driver’s side door. “There are times when I really don’t have any idea what to make of you.”
“Trust me, it’s safer that way.”
As Gerard spoke and drove, Wayne didn’t even hear him. He wondered how he could ever explain to his friend and boss what he could do. It would sound odd to explain that he knew ninety ways to kill with his bare hands, and discovered half of them on his own.
Besides, if he did explain why he was sent there, why he was put out of the way, the repercussions would have been ugly.
The ringing derailed his Amtrak of thought.
“Yes, sir,” Agent Hopkins said into his car phone. “Yes, sir,” he repeated, as Williams wondered what was going on.
“We’ll be right there, sir,” Gerard finally informed the one on the other end of the line. He hung up and glanced over at Wayne. “It seems, my friend, someone wants to talk with you. Someone wants you at FBI HQ. You’ll be on the first plane out.”
“The J. Edgar Hoover building?” Wayne murmured. He smiled. “About time he came for me. I was getting bored.”
Chapter 2
Catherine Miller sat in the corner booth in the back of the bar, her amber eyes casually scanning the patrons over her drink. Her skin tone held the same color as a light cappuccino; just tan enough to look exotic, but light enough to veil the Farsi ancestry of her mother. No matter what, though, men seemed to find her dazzling with long, flowing blonde hair.
She gently tapped the side of her glass with her fingertip, waiting for him to show up. Some people couldn’t even be on time for their own blasted funerals, could they?
She scanned the bar. Got him!
“Shirley, yes?” asked the handsome gentleman on her right as he approached, speaking in a slight Eastern European accent. Her round face lit up in not-so-fake joviality, smiling at the tall, elegant gentleman in the suit. She noted that both of his bruisers hung back two tables.
Why do handsome arms dealers send out for prostitutes to get laid? Catherine wondered as she said, “Yes. Mister Marcovich?”
“Yes. May I sit down?” he asked as he slid in beside her. “I hope you have not been waiting long.”
“No,” she lied. “May I get you a drink?”
“Why not?”
She smiled at him. Her slinky red dress gave hints of almost everything, making her body even more memorable than her not-unattractive face.
“It seems we have a long night ahead of us,” he said, looking at her, while with his right hand he waved the waiter over.
“It’ll go fast enough,” she said, playing with a matchbook between two of her long, slim fingers.
* * * *
Marcovich barely closed the hotel room door before his hands were all over her. They slid down her back when he felt her grasp his vulnerable spot, gently. He took a hand away and reached for his fly.
Catherine’s left hand came up and she drew the bright red nail of her little finger across his throat, spinning—right—out of the way at the same time, avoiding the spurts of blood from his throat. Anthony Marcovich, arms dealer to the world, only saw his world go black, without sound or feeling.
Catherine Miller smiled briefly and dropped her purse. Quickly she moved to the bathroom, nudging the door open with her shoe. Then she removed her blonde wig and stuffed it into the wastebasket by the door. The matchbook she’d been playing with all evening appeared. Now she yanked a match out, lit it, and tossed it on the base of the wig, which was held together by a magnesium-thread net. The wig went up in a split-second flash of white-hot flame. She struck a second match and tapped it to another match head, letting the pack flare as she dropped it in with the ashes of the wig.
Catherine whipped a towel off of the bathroom bar and held it around the wastebasket as she poured the ashes of everything into the toilet. She depressed the handle with her foot and dropped the garbage can on the floor. Catherine replaced the towel on the bar and unzipped the back of her dress, quickly slipping out of it. She then turned it inside out and put it back on.
Taking a quick glance in the mirror, she wondered if she missed anything. She was a brunette again, now wearing a black dress. Her amber eyes shone back at her, and her hair was reasonably in place.
Catherine glanced at her pinkie. There was just a slight trace of blood. She yanked a tissue from the box on the toilet tank and tapped it against the faucet, slightly dampening it. Catherine gently wiped it against her finger and the nail, especially gentle against the nail. Her special weapon was so simple; she had been surprised no one else thought of it for use in the real world. She had bought some artificial fingernails made out of real, high end carbon fiber, and filed them to a razor-sharp edge.
Some slow day I must share this with Weapons Division.
Once she was done, she flushed the tissue down the toilet as well, and took another one on her way out of the bathroom, picking up her purse. She glanced at the body, and thought of the two bodyguards who waited outside. Catherine rolled Marcovich over with her toe. She nudged the left breast of his suit jacket aside, revealing his trademark gun: a .50-caliber semiautomatic with a customized internal sound suppressor.
Wrapping the tissue around the grip, she pulled the gun from his shoulder holster. The safety clicked off. Background reports had said that he always had a round in the chamber. She pressed herself flat against the wall on the handle side of the door and aimed the gun at the window, pressing the trigger. The gun kicked as the window burst outward, turning into glitter.
I guess reports were right.
The door burst inward, a few splinters flying as the combined five hundred pounds of bodyguards smashed in. Their guns were at the ready, pointed outward. When they both tripped over the body of their employer, their momentum carried them to the floor. They were dead before they hit the carpet.
Catherine tossed the gun on top of the rabble, holding onto the tissue. She glanced outside at the empty hall and stepped outside, closing the door behind her. She walked three doors down the hall until she stopped and inserted her card key into the lock of her suite at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem.
Her secure satellite phone rang as she walked in the door, and Strongbow answered...
* * * *
Wayne’s first class window seat was comfortable, but nothing could comfort him as the plane taxied to a complete stop.
Passengers walked off while he just sat there, waiting, watching them leave. He took his suitcase—essentially a large briefcase—from the overhead bin two minutes after the last passenger left. He knew that would be enough time for all the passengers to go down the ramp between the plane and the terminal. The Special Agents sent to meet him would soon be coming up the ramp to take him off the plane.
The head stewardess sighed, relieved. She was half afraid she’d need the Captain to personally escort him from his seat. She glanced from the aisle to the ramp. Two men in black suits marched down the ramp in tandem. The final passenger smiled as he passed by her. The suits intercepted him at the juncture between the ramp and the plane door, where the space in between the two was just wide enough to feel the outside climate.
Both looked as though they were about to casually pat the arm of the last passenger when Wayne knocked the hand of the right Suit aside, following through with his suitcase against the side of the Suit’s head. He tossed his shoulder into the Suit on his left, shoving him into the space between plane and ramp. Wayne again hammered both with the suitcase, and ran.
Williams dashed through the airport terminal, knowing he had little time to waste. He didn’t want to kill two FBI agents who might not even know his name. He had breezed by the two people at the terminal desk, the guard hardly able to note his passing, made a left at the chairs for those waiting to board the plane, and ran straight up the center aisle of the airport, swiftly dodging baggage handlers, baby carriages, and a family of ten going away for a reunion party in California.
“Stop that man!” someone bellowed behind him.
Now the fun would start. Wayne had boarded the plane under the watchful eye of his boss, so he couldn’t pull anything in Mississippi, but here was a different story. Going to FBI Headquarters was a part of his plan—no doubt about it—but he had no intention of going there in a Federal car.
The first security guard to get in his way was only six feet tall. Williams spun to his left and jabbed the edge of his briefcase into the back of the guard’s knee as he passed, bringing him down. A shot rang out. He hoped the shot was a warning; otherwise there would be a trail of civilians in his wake.
Or the shot could have been to block his way, because half the airport went into a blind panic. The running, screaming pedestrians were everywhere, getting into Wayne’s path at almost every opportunity.
At least the Feds aren’t doing much better. Another round went off, driving more people away from the FBI agent and toward Wayne. He felt himself being swept away with the swarm toward the exit, and toward airport security. He needed control of the situation soon. He glanced over to his right, noticing a restroom, and knew he needed a riot going in the other direction.
Williams yanked off his tie as fast as he could with one hand, and reached for his Zippo lighter. Holding the tie in his teeth, its end hanging by his waist, he set one end on fire.
He closed the Zippo, stuffed it into his pocket, and, taking the tie out of his mouth, cried “Fire!” at the top of his lungs. He dragged the fiery end of the tie along the plush carpet for another minute before he yelled again, this time having smoke to back him up.
Instead of going in one direction, the crowd now scattered every which way away from Williams. Stepping on the burning end of the tie, he quickly ran for the bathroom. He opened the door, only to have to go around a tiled wall protruding between the door and main restroom. He didn’t have time to stop and rest. The crowd had bought him a moment, a minute at most.
His eyes passed over the restroom, stopping
at a wall-mounted, diaper-changing station. It was a rectangular piece of plastic hanging on the wall like a wall mounted ironing board. Wayne dropped his suitcase, pulled the board down and snapped it off the wall in one continuous motion. Wayne took it and jammed it between the tiled wall and the door.
“And that takes care of you for the time being,” he murmured.
“Just what the hell are you doing?” came a voice from behind him.
Wayne whipped around, the back of his fist incidentally connecting with the nose of the unfortunate security guard. The guard dropped to the floor with a thud.
“Sorry, pal,” Wayne said. He dropped to a crouch next to the guard and unbuttoned his shirt.
Once Wayne stuffed his shirt and suit jacket into the suitcase, he heard the sounds of the attempted breakdown starting. He took the case and, with his toe, pushed it under the plastic board flat against the wall. Wayne took a look at the guard’s bloody nose. He touched two fingers against the blood. Finding it still fresh, he tapped some of it against his own nose. Finally satisfied he looked sufficiently beaten up, he lifted the guard into one of the stalls, and, sitting him upright on the toilet, closed the door.
Williams heard the crack of plastic as he smashed the window with the butt of his gun. The rusted wire security frame gave way with two more blows. Since a fugitive wouldn’t leave a gun behind, he tossed the pistol out the window. He dropped into the corner in time for the board to give way. Wayne grabbed his nose before the first security guards came in, and he gestured toward the window as soon as he was sure they spotted him.
“Fugitive has jumped outside,” a security woman said into her radio.
Two guards grabbed him by the shoulders and helped him to his feet. He nodded and they moved aside. He “staggered” toward the opening between the intruding wall and the stalls. When the FBI agent appeared in the opening, Wayne “tripped” and fell head first into the man’s solar plexus at full force. The impact drove all the air from his body, making breathing nearly impossible. With all the security people attending to the FBI agent, it was simple to casually pick up the suitcase hidden by the door and walk out.