Overkill

by Ted Bell

  Hawke tried the approach, but it was useless. Fruitless, despite his intensive efforts to summon the past.

  “Did she leave anything personal behind, Diana?” he asked her. “Or did she clear out completely?”

  They had moved on into the tiny dining room, turning on more lights.

  “Oh, a few things. Books. Some clothing. Some of her photographs and watercolors are still on the walls of her bedroom. Go upstairs and have a look. I’ll wait down here. Those steep stairs are murder.”

  He climbed the steep and narrow steps, forlorn and hopeless. He’d lost her, the house was whispering from every dark corner. She’s gone.

  Standing in the center of her softly lit room, the place where she’d slept and dreamed and wondered, he felt hot emotions boiling up inside his heart. He’d been trying to hold it all back. Stifling them, steeling himself, feeling sure that his fears about Alexei, coupled with worry about Sigrid, would surely overcome him.

  It was then that he saw a photograph of himself. It was in a beautifully carved sterling frame from Asprey’s. He was standing beside one of his horses in the paddock at Hawkesmoor, and it was drenching rain. But his love of Captain, for that was the big red stallion’s name, came shining through his smile, piercing the very rain itself with luminosity . . .

  He picked up the picture. On the creamy mat below the photograph she’d written something in her small, cramped handwriting.

  Whether the weather be cold, whether the weather be hot, we’ll be together whatever the weather, whether we like it or not.

  He sighed, blinked back the sting, and lit a table lamp. Sinking down into the tired leather armchair, he picked up a book lying akimbo on the little round table. It was a book he’d given her just last Christmas. The Honorary Consul by Graham Greene, one of his favorites. With a sigh, he sat back and flipped through it.

  A small blue envelope fell out and landed at his feet.

  He bent to retrieve it.

  There were three handwritten pages inside the envelope. A letter. The writing stopped halfway down the third page. The letter was unfinished.

  But it was addressed to him.

  “Diana, come up here,” he said. “I’ve found something!”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Seegarten House, Lake Zurich

  “You’ve arrived at the island, Joe?” Putin asked Stalingrad on the phone.

  “Just got off the sub ferry and walked in the door, sir. Can’t thank you enough. It’s a beautiful house and—”

  “Never mind all that crap. You can’t schmooze me, Joe, if that’s the word you people use. Do you have him? Or not? Is the boy safely inside the walls of the compound?”

  “Yes, sir, he is. Everything went according to plan. He’s running around outside in the gardens, happy to be back on solid ground, I think.”

  “Who the hell is watching him?”

  “Two of your sentries. I told them never to let him get farther than twelve feet away. And never outside the wall under any circumstance.”

  “All right. Good, good. How is he? Did that bastard Ivanov harm him? Even slightly?”

  “No. He was remarkably well cared for. And you can thank Captain Ivar Solo for that. He never let Ivanov get anywhere near the boy. The man’s a saint, I’m telling you.”

  “Did Ivanov give you any trouble? Taking over the custody of Alexei, I mean.”

  “Let’s just say he wasn’t thrilled about it. He thought this was his operation. You had asked him to perform a Christmas miracle in St. Moritz and he had succeeded. He wasn’t all that happy about you sending me to pull the rug out from under his feet. Not that he had any feet of course.”

  Putin said, “He’s not very happy now, either. He’s dead.”

  “What?”

  “Somebody got to him aboard Tsar. I don’t know who yet. But I will soon. Ivanov had a lot of enemies in the KGB forces still loyal to me. I’m having Captain Solo picked up for interrogation.”

  “Go easy. God knows what would have happened to the boy were it not for him, I promise you. And Ivar is still fiercely loyal to you. Trust me.”

  “I’ll take that into consideration.”

  “Speaking of being picked up, are you ready to leave?”

  “More than ready. But the Sorcerer is taking his own sweet time about moving out. I told him to take his toothbrush and get it done. With what I’m paying him for that mountain, he can buy anything he wants. I’m giving him a week. I’ll call you when I’m ready.”

  “Wait. One more thing before you go. I’m thinking out loud now, spit-balling the thing, but my feeling is that whoever took out General Ivanov did you a big solid.”

  “Tell me why you say that, Joe.”

  “Just a gut feeling. But I always thought he was not a man to be trusted. Long on himself and short on you. When you ordered him to mount that epic abduction operation, I think he saw his golden opportunity.”

  “To do what?”

  “To fuck with you. Big-time. I can’t recall a single kind word about you coming out of his mouth. He was, as they say in Hollywood, a hater. Now that he’s dead, I can tell you that I heard from sources he was secretly feeding information regarding your whereabouts to the oligarchs and their hit squads.”

  “What? He hated me? That miserable old fuck. He was nothing. Whatever he achieved militarily was at my pleasure. But I thought at the very least, he was loyal to me . . .”

  “The Americans have an expression for it, sir. He was very good at two things only. He knew how to kiss up. And he knew how to kick down. Consummate bullshit artist.”

  “So what was this ‘golden opportunity’ Ivanov thought he saw?”

  “I think that when he actually got hold of Alex Hawke’s son at St. Moritz, he thought he held all the cards. He knew how desperately you needed some kind of protection from Hawke going forward. Something to keep Hawke at bay, keep him from interfering in your plans. I mean, at some point in the future. He knew that only Hawke, and no one else, had the power and resources to ever pose a serious threat to Operation Overkill.”

  “You make a good point, Joe. I see where you’re going with this.”

  “Sure. Think about it. Ivanov is on Tsar, right, up on deck every day, sunning himself and getting blow jobs down below while sipping Krug, and all the while he is thinking, well, you know what, I think I’ll just disappear somewhere for a while. Just me along with the boy. Wait for Putin to call me. Won’t take long. He’ll be desperate. And then I’ll give him a ransom number. Twenty million? Thirty? What will it take for me to hand over the boy to him unharmed?”

  “Christ, I think you’re right. That’s exactly what he planned. Listen, Ivanov’s dead. I’m not. I need you to keep your head on straight for these next few months, Joe. How’s the vodka?”

  “Yummy. Never better. You ever try Zyr? Liquid gold, trust me.”

  “Lose it, Joe. Not a drop more. You taking any kind of drugs? Prescription medications?”

  “Only Advil and testosterone. Do those count?”

  “You know something, Joe? You’re a very funny man. And sometimes I actually find myself appreciating your twisted sense of humor. But now there’s no time for it. Dead serious is what I want and need from you. Focus. We’re about to make history together, Joe. You have a lot at stake here. As do I.”

  “I understand.”

  “The world can be ours, Joe. You understand that, too?”

  “I’m on it, boss. Clean and mean. I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate this opportunity, because I do. Anyone who wants to take you out will have to go through me. I swear it.”

  “Good to hear. Now, one more thing for you. There are two of my loyalists operating in Nice. Seasoned KGB officers, both. Krebbs and Zhukovsky. I will send their contact information by secure email. Speak to them. Tell them this is coming from the highest level. Tell them I want someone taken and interrogated by any means necessary. You have all this, Joe?”

  “I’ve got it, sir.” />
  “All right. Instructions. Tell them they are to drive to the harbor at Juan-les-Pins. Say there is a hotel there. It is called the Belles-Rives Hotel. Right on the harbor. I want them to check in. To surveil the situation there, with an eye toward taking someone somewhere quiet where he can speak openly, yes?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. There will be a man in the bar, always flitting about, giving orders to staff. A man who knows the name of whoever killed Ivanov. If they have to kill that man to get that name, it is of no consequence to me.”

  “Understood.”

  “Call me as soon as you have that name, Joe, the man who killed General Ivanov. Now. The man I want interrogated is that fat-fuck little owner of that hotel. His name is Monsieur Hugo Jadot. Tell your men they’re free to do anything they want with him. Take him up on the roof of his fucking hotel and threaten to throw him off, I don’t care. When they get the name, then they can heave him over the side.”

  Click.

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Provence

  “Where the hell are you, Joe?” Joe heard an irritated Putin say in his headphones.

  “Chopper pilot says we’re ten minutes out. You all packed up and ready to go, sir?”

  “Hours ago.”

  “Listen. I spoke with your friend the Sorcerer late last night. He says by the time we arrive, there won’t be a trace of him left inside that mountain. He’ll be sunning himself at his new villa on the Riviera. He was—what’s the word?—almost giddy. Like, boom, he’s being let out of prison after decades in solitary confinement.”

  “I hope he left those fucking F-18s and their pilots and crews behind.”

  “Where the hell’s he going to store an entire fighter wing at a cozy little villa on the French Riviera, Mr. President?” Joe said. And for maybe the first time ever in his life, he heard Putin laugh out loud.

  “I guess you’re right about that. What did the colonel say about the meeting at Falcon’s Lair tomorrow morning?”

  “Game on. He’s arriving at the Park Hotel Vitznau tonight and I’ve got Horst picking the two of them up in the sub in Vitznau just before dawn tomorrow morning. They’ll be here for breakfast.”

  “The two of them? I didn’t authorize Beau to bring anyone with him.”

  “He’s bringing your new chief of security, sir. The man he said you authorized him to put on the payroll.”

  “Christ, I forgot about that. So who is he? You met this guy?”

  “Yes, sir. I met him all right.”

  “You trust him? Because if you don’t, there’s no way in hell I’ll admit him to attend a meeting of this magnitude.”

  “I do. Tell you the truth, I think you’re going to love this guy. When I say he is something else, I mean he is truly something else. A different kind of breed of cat entirely. Jesus.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Meaning special. Meaning you might just want to hire him yourself. He is one seriously qualified hombre, sir. Former CIA assassin, former U.S. Army Ranger with a chestful of medals, handpicked by Colonel Beauregard for his own protection and the elimination of his enemies.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Shit.”

  “What? Just tell me his name.”

  “Shit. Shit Smith.”

  “Shit Smith? As in, Shit?’”

  “Shit Smith. Yes.”

  “Shit? What kind of name is that? Shit?”

  “You heard right.”

  “Christ. What a name.”

  “I think he’ll live up to it, sir. In a good way, I mean. There’s bad shit and then there’s good shit. That’s our Shit. A real quality addition to the team, my opinion.”

  “You’ve piqued my curiosity, Joe. You must be nearing my position, I think I hear your rotors up there.”

  “We have the LZ in visual contact. And I see smoke from a chimney coming up from the trees.”

  “That’s my cabin. You’re right overhead. Set down in that small field just east of the forest.”

  Click.

  “Keep this thing fired up,” Joe said to the pilot as the skids settled into the grass. “I’ll be right back.”

  He jumped nimbly to the ground and disappeared into the thicket of woods.

  “How the mighty have fallen,” Joe whispered to himself upon seeing the less-than-humble home where the former richest man on earth had spent these many, many weeks. Humble was an understatement, he thought, making his way to where the log cabin stood in a small clearing enveloped by deep wood.

  He stepped up onto the narrow porch and began rapping on the roughhewn wooden door.

  “Come in, come in!” a smiling Putin said, swinging the door wide and grabbing Joe’s lapel and tugging him into the room. “My dear friend Étienne and I are just finishing my farewell lunch! Have a glass of whiskey or wine, Joe! I’m drinking a potato vodka we brew in a still just behind the cabin.”

  “Not for me,” Joe said, eyeing the boss. He’d obviously already had a couple, but he would still remember the promise of abstinence Joe had made.

  A round little guy, even shorter than Joe, less than five feet tall, handed him a stubby glass of vodka and said, “Bienvenue, monsieur. Étienne Dumas, owner.” Joe had to smile. The two of them together looked like a couple of Snow White’s boyfriends, Happy and Grumpy.

  “Joe Stalingrad, good friend of the man here. You two certainly seem to have been having a good time of it. What’s the occasion, Étienne?”

  “A farewell party for my dear friend, of course! We started at breakfast . . .”

  “I take it you two have been having a good time?”

  The Frenchman said, “Oh, you have no idea. The adventures we’ve had and—”

  Putin grabbed Étienne’s arm and said, “Tell Joe about the time we got caught stealing chickens from the little farm across the river! A barking dog gave us away, but we got the chickens anyway and Étienne got a load of buckshot in the ass and I had pluck them out with tweezers! It took two days!”

  Putin threw back his head and roared at the happy memory.

  Étienne said, “Ah, yes. And then there was the time we took in a woman who’d gotten lost hiking up the valley. Beautiful girl, late twenties, maybe. Long dark hair, superb figure. Merveilleux! During the dinner, she keeps staring at Volodya, no? Yes, and saying she thought they’d met before. He looked so familiar! After dinner, we all sat round the fire drinking schnapps and she got very friendly and asked me how many beds I had. Only two, I said, his up the ladder and mine over in the corner.”

  Putin jumped in. “And then she says, ‘Two such handsome men, whatever shall I do?’ She looks at Étienne, back at me, then back at him, and she finally said, ‘I guess there’s nothing to do but flip a coin!’ So I pulled one out of my pocket, flipped it, didn’t like it, flipped it again and again and again until I won! Ha!”

  “Yes! Fair and square! Volodya won the brass ring!” Étienne sputtered, bent over with laughter. “And then, guess what, mon ami?”

  “What?” Joe said.

  “She stayed for a week!” he shrieked.

  Joe had never witnessed such jollity. It was apparent that the president had been very, very happy here. Doing far more than just sketching imperial Soviet uniforms at the kitchen table, apparently.

  “Mr. President, the chopper is waiting. I’ll carry your bags out if you’re ready to go, sir?”

  “Thank you, Joe, I’ll be right behind you. I want to have a private word with Étienne . . .”

  Joe picked up the two bags and Putin’s fur overcoat and said, “Étienne, it’s been a great pleasure. Thank you for taking care of him with such humor and bonhomie. I’ve never seen him so happy.”

  “Volodya, you told me once you were a policeman from East Germany . . . why does Joe call you ‘Mr. President’?”

  “I was a president once, Étienne. I was president of the greatest nation the world has ever produced. Mother Russia.”

  “Le présidente de Russe?
Mais non!”

  “Mais oui, Étienne.”

  “You are Vladimir Putin? My god. All this time and I had no idea that you—”

  “This is for you, Étienne. A satchel of gold. All the gold I have. Careful, it’s very heavy.”

  “Gold?” Étienne said, peering inside the leather pouch. “Oh my god, this is a fortune, Volodya! I cannot accept this . . . C’est impossible!”

  “I will tell you this. Put it to good use. Retire to the South of France, buy a little place by the sea if that is your wish. Still. I tell you, Étienne. It is not nearly enough to compensate you for the great friendship and joy you have brought into my life. These past weeks and weeks I shall always remember. Remember as the time I realized that all the power and palaces in the world are little enough compared to the simple pleasures I’ve enjoyed with you, Étienne. I say farewell with tears in my eyes. You are my one true and loyal friend in all the world.”

  “And you mine, Mr. President of Russia. Volodya. I shall never forget you.”

  “Nor I you. Nor will history. It will be recorded that this humble but historic cabin was where a great man once plotted and planned down to the last detail the greatest return to power since Napoleon’s triumphant return to Paris!”

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Falcon’s Lair

  That historic first meeting, wherein Putin laid out his vast plans for the military coup that would restore him to power in the Kremlin, took place in the large ballroom at Falcon’s Lair.

  The room was quite elegant, a creamy white rectangle with a high-vaulted and windowed ceiling that filled the room with morning light after the shades and external shields were retracted.

  Parquet floors waxed to within an inch of their lives, a long oval mahogany table surrounded with Chippendale chairs, and soaring walls hung with the former owner’s magnificent collection of American Western art. Frederic Remington, Albert Bierstadt, Thomas Moran, and N. C. Wyeth’s magnificent illustrations for Treasure Island.