Overkill

by Ted Bell

  When Uncle Joe entered the room, ten minutes late, Putin was alone, his back to him, inspecting his new collection of artworks from the American frontier—one of many such art collections he had purchased along with Falcon’s Lair. Dressed formally in a navy suit and tie, he had his hands clasped behind his back as he moved from picture to picture.

  He considered himself to be the world’s foremost art collector, having borrowed (stolen) many of the most priceless pieces in the State Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg. Privately, Putin called the entire museum the Midnight Art Supply Company.

  He considered himself a curator, an educated man with vast knowledge of the arts, from the Old Masters to the Impressionists, all the way to Art Moderne. But he had been unprepared for the glorious American landscapes and portraits he was now exploring for the first time. They were of such beauty as to almost defy the eyes as to what he was seeing.

  “Splendid!” Putin shouted to himself, gazing up at a painting of cowboys around the campfire in the moonlight, one of Frederic Remington’s epic pictures. It had been reproduced in a picture book he’d owned as a boy, reading voraciously about the American West, and he’d cherished the image. And now he owned it, by god, the fucking original.

  A sterling silver coffee service had been laid out on the table, and Joe was pouring a cup when he heard the president’s exclamation. “What is it, Mr. President?” he said.

  Putin, startled, whirled about. “Joe! I didn’t hear you come in. Come over here and look at my new painting.”

  Joe approached, sipping from his cup. “Wow,” he said, looking at the thing.

  “Wow? Is that all you can say? Do you have any idea at all what you are looking at?”

  “Horses? Cowboys?”

  “Joe, listen to me. I’m determined to educate you, despite the abundant evidence it’s an impossible task. This, Joe, is a Frederic Remington. About 1900 he began a series of paintings that took as their subject the color of night. Before his premature death in 1909 at age forty-eight, Remington explored the technical and aesthetic difficulties of painting darkness. This one he called A Quiet Moment Around the Campfire.”

  “Just look at this thing! My god. It’s filled with color and light—moonlight, firelight, and candlelight. It’s also elegiac, reflecting Remington’s lament that the West he had studied as a young man had by the turn of the century largely disappeared.”

  “It’s beautiful. I mean it. The more I look at it, the more I dig it.”

  “Where are my two new colleagues? Did I not say ten o’clock sharp?”

  “Let’s sit down. Be here in five or ten minutes. Their sub is arriving at the air lock as we speak.”

  “Tell me more about this new employee of mine. Mr. Smith.”

  Joe sat down opposite the president’s chair and said, “I don’t want you to be shocked by Mr. Smith’s appearance. He’s a little frayed around the edges. He looks like the Marlboro Man, but his jeans are torn and faded. He wears a big black cowboy hat and he never, ever takes it off. Maybe in the shower, I don’t know, but it’s a thing with him. The colonel says it’s a thing with all real cowboys like him. Only place a cowboy takes his hat off, Shit says, is the barbershop.”

  “Sounds colorful.”

  “Oh, he’s colorful all right. That is, if stone-cold killers are your cup of tea. He’s a full-blown psychopath. But functional. Beau says the CIA considered him a national treasure during the decade he spent as a field agent.”

  “Political assassinations?”

  “His specialty. Never the gun, always the knife. Bowie knife.”

  “All right. If you and the colonel think we need him, I’ll give him a chance to prove himself. If he’s successful, I’ll make him a permanent addition to the inner circle.”

  “Do you have targets?”

  “What do you think I’ve been doing all this time in hiding? Of course, I have targets. On every continent. Dozens.”

  “Where does he start?”

  “Hugo Jadot is dead, Joe. An accidental fall from the rooftop of his hotel by the harbor. But before he died, he gave up the name of the man who shot and killed General Ivanov aboard my yacht, Tsar.”

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “Your friend, Joe, your friend who helped you escape my wrath and my vengeance. The man who set you up in Hollywood. Lord Alexander Fucking Hawke.”

  “You must have known when you ordered the boy’s kidnapping that Hawke would come after his son.”

  “I did. Why the hell do you think I ordered Ivanov to effect the abduction?”

  “To use the kid as a knife at his throat to keep him at bay?”

  “No. To lure in Alex Hawke with the thought of killing him. Of course. And now that he’s getting close,” Putin said, “I’ve been looking for the right asset to go after him. And luckily for you, you might have just come up with a worthy candidate.”

  “Shit Smith?”

  “Shit Smith. But we don’t kill Alex Hawke first. We save him for last.”

  “So who’s first?” Joe said.

  “His two closest allies. Stokely Jones Jr. And that Scotland Yard man of his. What’s his name, you know, Ambrose Congreve.”

  “You know, if you do that, kill those two, nothing will stop him from revenge. Nothing. He will come after you, Mr. President, and his rage will know no bounds. I don’t think anyone alive could stop him.”

  “Until a few minutes ago, I would have agreed with you. But you may have given me a great gift. A powerful weapon for both offense and defense.”

  “Shit Smith.”

  “Correct. Two of my loyal field assets, Cubans who happen to be brothers, are in Key West and already shadowing our Mr. Jones. The Cubans have never let me down. We’ll send them to kill Jones and keep Mr. Smith under wraps until I decide the time has come for him to make his debut. Understood?”

  “Shit works for Beau, Mr. President. Only Beau can send him.”

  “Shit Smith used to work for the colonel, Joe. But, for now at least, he works for me.”

  “Ah, look who’s here, Mr. President. Colonel Beauregard and his colleague, Mr. Smith!”

  The two men were at the door and Putin got to his feet. He said:

  “Welcome, welcome, gentlemen! We’ve just been talking about you. Singing your praises, to tell the truth.”

  Colonel Beauregard, with Smith in tow, strode across the floor toward Putin. Not willing to settle for a handshake, Beau embraced the president.

  “Good to see you, Mr. President,” Beau said, heartily. “Long time, yes sirree. Like you to meet a young fella who works for me, sir. He is my shield and my sword. Couldn’t live without him. Wouldn’t be alive without him. This here’s a man out of Texas, name of Shit Smith.”

  Shit reached forward and shook Putin’s hand. He said, “It’s an honor and a pleasure. I been hearing all about you from the colonel here. President of Russia? Man! That’s some résumé you got there. I wanna thank you for letting me join up with your outfit. You got something needs doing, you just put old Shit on it, sir. I’ll git ’er done for ya.”

  Putin gave the cowboy his dead-eyed stare, taking the full measure of the man. He was tall and finely muscled like a star athlete. He was remarkably handsome, with a face like one of the romantic cowboy leads in Hollywood. What was that man’s name? Oh, yes, Randolph Scott, in Ride the High Country, that was it.

  And the man had the coldest black eyes Putin had ever seen. And that was something, coming from the man forever using his own cold-as-ice eyes to intimidate and threaten all and sundry.

  “Interesting you should say that, Shit. As it happens, I do have some things that need doing. Let’s sit down and talk things over. If we’re going to turn the whole fucking world upside down, we’d better get started. You’ve both met Joe. He reports directly to me. And you both report to him. Understood?”

  Both men nodded in the affirmative.

  Putin pointed up at the painting he’d just been explaining to Joe and said, “Shi
t, a question for you. Do you recognize this painting?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Know the artist?”

  “That’d be Frederic Remington. Picture’s called A Quiet Moment Around the Campfire.”

  “Welcome to my world,” Putin said with a smile.

  “Joe, I need to speak with the colonel privately for a few minutes. Why don’t you take Shit down to the kitchen and introduce him to the staff. Tell them to send up more coffee. And whatever Shit would like to have for breakfast.”

  “Just grits,” Shit said, “Only thing I like, pan-fried hominy grits. Okay, okay, I get the picture, I’m going.”

  “Movie star, huh?” Shit said to Joe in the elevator down to the kitchen.

  “Oh, I stuck my toe in the water when I first got to Hollywood. Couple of small-budget pictures. But I’m a classically trained New York actor, so—”

  “Whoa. I remember now. You played that sick freak firebug, right? A pyromaniac serial killer who liked to off hookers and strippers and shit. Right?”

  “Yeah, that was me. I was Joey Gafuzzo, worked backstage at a strip club and a whorehouse in the French Quarter, New Orleans, offing hookers in my spare time. One night the club catches fire accidentally on purpose and I kill half the hookers and strippers in the French Quarter.”

  “Yeah. That was great. Heavy role, man. What was the name of that movie again?”

  “Flaming Pussies,” Joe said. “My title, I wrote the script. It killed.”

  “You trust this man, Colonel?” Putin said, taking a seat across the table from the colonel. “This Shit Smith?”

  “With my life.”

  “The fact that he’s undoubtedly unstable and probably insane doesn’t trouble you in the least?”

  “I first hired him at Vulcan when he left the CIA. That was ten years ago. I just recently hired him again and I demanded his abject loyalty. I’ve never had the slightest reason to doubt it since. He would die for me and I for him.”

  “Why’d he leave the agency?”

  “Terminated. He killed his wife. Court ruled it was a crime of passion. I asked him about that. He said there was no passion about the thing at all. He said he’d been wanting to kill a woman all his life. She just happened to get in his way. Ruthless does not begin to describe Shit Smith, sir. ‘A highly functioning psychopath’ is the way I’ve heard him described by mental health professionals who worked for me.”

  “I’m beginning to appreciate his talents. Here’s what I want you to do first.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “I want Mr. Smith to remain here at Falcon’s Lair for the time being. Part of the short-term planning process involves Hawke. Keeping him off-balance, keeping him away from me until I’m ready for him to enter the field of fire. I want to send the English spy a message or two and I want it done now. There’s a man in Florida needs killing. He’s in Miami. I can give you his address later. His name is Jones. Stokely Jones Jr.”

  “Stokely? I know the guy. He was with Hawke in Siberia. His best friend, far as I could tell. One serious dude. You sure you want to go there? You might just enrage Hawke even further than you already have.”

  “Don’t argue with me, Colonel. Write this name and address down. Cisco Valdes. Lives with his twin brother Rodrigo in a rented condo on Key Biscayne. A dumpy building called The Claridges. Two Cuban assassins, run by KGB but still loyal to me. They call the pair of them Los Medianoches, for some reason.”

  “The Cuban Sandwiches?” Beau said. “That’s weird.”

  “Actually, it means the Midnighters. Get in touch with them. Tell them you work for me. Tell them that Putin wants this Stokely Jones eliminated. Now.”

  And that, my friends, Beau thought to himself, is right about the time when the real serious shit got on a collision course with the fan.

  Part Two

  Bellum

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Islamorada, Florida Keys

  Memories of Florida had gone sun-bright in Stoke’s mind. Now, after the insufferably long and bone-cold days and nights in frosty Switzerland, he was back where he belonged. He’d been down in the Keys at Islamorada for a solid week. Nothing but sunshine and bonefishing aboard Shark’s fish boat Maria. Heaven meant tracking the wily Mr. Bone around the Keys with Captain Sharkey Gonzales-Gonzales at the helm. Oh, yeah, manna from Havana, so nice they’d named him twice.

  In his prior life, before joining Stoke in Miami at Tactics International, Sharkey had been a charter member of Los Marielitos, class of 1980 before becoming a charter fishing captain out of Cheeca Lodge, one of the best guides in the business and famous throughout the Florida Keys.

  It was hot.

  The tropical sun was beating down on Stoke’s bare shoulders, drying up the powerful sweat he’d worked up on Shark’s foredeck. He was religious about doing his daily U.S. Navy SEAL exercise regimen. He’d never felt stronger, or better, either one.

  After all the crap they’d been through, Stoke was feeling about as relaxed as he’d felt in years, feeling the sun-warmed teak decks beneath the soles of his bare feet, and, on the radio, sweet memories of a golden oldie running through his mind . . .

  My woman’s left me for some other man

  Oh, but I don’t care, I’ll just dream and stay tan

  There was plenty of Kalik beer (the “Beer of the Bahamas”) on board, but plenty of Stoke’s good old Diet Coke in the cooler, too. Stoke grabbed a fresh one. “Need another frosty?” he called up to his fishing buddy, driving the boat from atop the flying bridge.

  “No, man, I’m good. I’ve had hundreds.”

  He heard Sharkey laughing. He was at the helm, pounding Kaliks to stave off the heat and humidity. And skeets. Lots of damn skeets in the mangroves. Heat ’n’ Skeet is what Stoke’s old SEAL squad used to call this part of the world, back during those golden days spent in Navy SEAL training at the Truman Annex in Key West.

  He and the Sharkman had been living aboard Sharkey’s sport-fishing boat, an old Huckins 50 SF. A classic beauty, she was a fish boat from back in the 1940s. Shark had named her Maria just before his wife left him over the three-hundred-pound Seminole princess deal.

  He’d bought the black-hulled fifty-footer with the unexpected windfall of all the work he and Stoke had been doing for Harry Brock at the CIA. A new administration had swept into Washington, and in certain sectors of the military and espionage communities, business was booming.

  Tactics International, the counterterrorist company Stoke had founded with seed money from Alex Hawke, had been very busy lately. The new American president’s focus on rebuilding the military and increasing border security hadn’t hurt. Just two days ago, the two amigos had helped the Coasties in Miami locate and round up a bunch of Bahamian drug runners who’d been hiding out on No Name Key.

  Shark backed the throttle down and let the big sport-fishing boat settle and then drift with the currents at idle speed. Stoke put the map down, stood up, and looked over the stern, out across the perfectly clear turquoise water of a small bay, studded with bright green mangroves. Fifty feet below his feet lay the wreck of the Havana Star. She was a cruise ship out of Miami and bound for Cuba when she went down with all hands in the great Labor Day Hurricane of 1935. The wreck was well known to Sharkey, as it provided some of the best reef fishing in the Florida Keys.

  Sharkey slid down to the deck fireman style, using only his one hand gripping the stainless-steel ladder rail.

  “The Land Shark has landed,” he said enigmatically. “Man, I love this old boat, Stoke.”

  “You and me both, partner. This is the life, little brother.”

  “You love it?”

  “Who wouldn’t, Shark?”

  “You know what? I’m serious now, Stoke. Anything ever happen to me? Maria is yours.”

  “What? Oh, come on. Ain’t nothing gonna happen to you, Sharkey.”

  “I know, I know. But, if it does, who can I leave her to? No more wife, no kids. Seriously. Nobody enjoys this ol
d barge more than you do!”

  “Yeah, well, ain’t happening, bruh . . . ain’t never happening. Time to scuba up, little brother. You ever been spearfishing before, Sharkman?” Stoke said, donning his own scuba gear.

  “Can’t say I have. Never in my life,” the former charter boat skipper said, wiping beer foam from his mouth.

  “Well, it’s easy. Just do what I do.”

  “You got two arms,” said the wiry little Cuban, who’d lost his right arm in a horrific shark attack off Key West. “I only got one. Why I never took up spearfishing.”

  “Correct. But you’re better with that one arm than most men with two. So just watch me. Listen and you shall learn.”

  “What are we after today, bossman?”

  “Yellowtail snapper,” he said, donning his flippers.

  “Love that fish. How do I load this damn thing?”

  “First of all, you make sure it’s pointed in any safe direction that does not include me.”

  “Sorry, man,” he said, swinging it away.

  “Second, spearguns should be loaded and unloaded in the water only. This is the safety button. It should be in the safe position. When we get in the water, I’ll show you how to load. Basically you put the butt of the gun against your chest, then pull the rear band back, notch it, then the front band. Cool?”

  “I’m cool, yeah. But I’m hot, too. Let’s get in the damn water, Stoke.”

  “Last one in.” Stoke smiled and executed a backflip from the gunwale with the assurance of a former Navy SEAL with three combat tours to his credit.

  He kicked hard, diving down to the wreck and the water wonderland that awaited him. It was his last day in this paradise and he wanted to make the very best of it.

  He’d had a nagging feeling for the last couple of days. He couldn’t shake it, no matter how irrational it seemed. There was no cause for it, nothing he’d seen or heard, but it was there, haunting him.

  He had the dull feeling he’d never return from this trip. Never see his wonderful wife, Fancha, again. His beautiful home on glittering Biscayne Bay. Never again experience that joy his life’s work brought to him, that filled him up with satisfaction whenever he won, whenever the good guys won and the bad guys lost, whenever the strength went to the weak, whenever to the victor went the spoils . . . the feeling that he’d made a real difference in this world . . .