by Ted Bell
“President Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, ladies and gentlemen!” Joe shouted above the cacophony. “Take a bow, Mr. President, they love you!”
The roar, and it truly was a roar, had the audience cupping their hands over their ears for fear of losing their hearing.
When Putin was finally returned to his seat in the first row and the crowd had quieted, Joe leaned into the microphone, pushed a button on the podium calling up the first slide, the new Falcon’s Lair logo, and said, “As your president has just told you, we are gathered here today to embark on a historic mission. An epic mission that will require all that’s the best of the best of us. A bold, daring mission that will, ladies and gentlemen, restore Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin to his rightful position as the leader of our beloved motherland . . . the presidency of Russia!”
Back on their feet, and shouting oaths of loyalty, the loyalists again showed their fervor for the mission.
Joe’s gamble had paid off. He’d been right: Play to vanity and you play to win.
He cued the Valkyries music again, the volume set at eleven, and hit the button that called up the second slide on the oversize screen:
Operation Overkill
Chapter Sixty-Four
“Operation Overkill!” Joe shouted, hardly needing the PA system now, both hands raised above his head in the old Tricky Dick, Nixonian “V for Victory” salute. “And Overkill is just the beginning of the long road back to Moscow. Because, ladies and gentlemen . . . wait for it . . . cue the video, please . . .”
Suddenly the giant screen was filled with a sweeping panoramic video of the Swiss Alps. It was an aerial view, shot on a crystal blue day, the mountains at their snowy, wintry best. Joe’d picked the footage deliberately, choosing a breathtaking view of the Great St. Bernard Pass, the highest in the country, in the canton of Valais.
“Here at Falcon’s Lair, we call our sacred mission Operation Overkill because . . .” he said, bringing up a bright red title over the picture of the Alps . . .
The Road to Moscow
Runs Through Switzerland!
“The road to Moscow runs through Switzerland!” he shouted.
“And with that, I’d like to introduce you to the man who has been chosen by our beloved president to lead us down that road, the first leg of our epic march on Moscow.
“A gallant soldier of fortune, an American warrior of the first rank, a man legendary for his leadership skills, his granite-like determination to win, and his prowess on the world’s battlefields. One European newspaper, citing his brilliant victories over jihadis in Afghanistan, called him the American Alexander the Great! I call him our own General George S. Patton for the twenty-first century! And I’m wearing this uniform today as a way of showing my enormous respect.
“So without further ado, may I present to you a man the president and I have come to respect and revere . . . ladies and gentlemen, I give you . . . Colonel Brett Beauregard! Come on out here, Colonel, give the delegates a good look at you!”
The maroon velvet curtains slowly parted as the music swelled to a cresting crescendo of martial splendor. Out strode the colonel. He was a hard-boned Marlboro Man, well over six feet, dressed in full battle camouflage and regalia, combat boots, and a battered Aussie battle hat, pinned up on one side. In a holster, a Colt Army .45 with ivory grips, no less.
His powerfully jutting chin, his barrel-like physique, and his wide, white-toothed smile had the audience in the palm of his hand before he even opened his mouth.
Guy’s a rock star, Joe was thinking. Putin had called it right on this one. Beau, Joe knew at that very early moment, was going to pull off Putin’s outrageous plans, about to be unveiled to the loyalists. Certainly he was the one man eminently capable of executing such a feat with any reasonable chance of success.
Beau grabbed the mike by the throat and let it rip: “Good morning! Good morning, Mr. President, Chairman Stalingrad! I want to say it is my very great honor and pleasure to be here on this historic occasion. I say historic, because we are about to embark on an epic voyage that will carry all of us and your beloved president home again. Home to his rightful place in the motherland, home to his rightful place on the world’s stage.
“And that voyage, as the chairman has just informed you, begins today. When I told the president that he had my full support, he agreed to create a military force consisting of light infantry; an air wing; a paratroop division; and a lightweight, highly mobile artillery brigade. Folks, this is what I do for a living. And, I can guarantee you that as sure as I’m standing here, I will deliver on my promise to President Putin. You heard me. I’m going to build the greatest private army the world has ever seen! And we will—let me say that again—we will put our hero back in the Kremlin! And we will destroy anyone who tries to get in our way!”
The standing ovation for Colonel Beauregard lasted at least seven minutes by Joe’s count. When it was winding down, Joe took to the microphone to call the house to order.
“Thank you, thank you, Colonel,” Joe said. “Isn’t he something else? I’m telling you . . . right, Colonel, take a bow. You deserve it . . . sensational, just a sensational guy, ladies and gentlemen . . .”
When all of them had returned to their seats, Joe brought up a new slide. It was a picture of a mountain of gold bars stored under bright lights in some kind of underground cavern.
“Gold, ladies and gentlemen, is the foundation upon which Operation Overkill will be built. Yes, gold, you heard right. Stolen gold, as you will learn in a few moments. Stolen from the president himself! In order for Colonel Beauregard to fulfill his mission, he needs money. A hell of a lot of money.
“Now, it’s no secret that President Putin is still a very wealthy man. What many of you don’t know is that a lot of his personal wealth mysteriously vanished during his last year in office. It was stolen. Let me be perfectly clear. The president’s gold was stolen from his private Russian vaults right here in Switzerland by the president’s enemies! Stolen and transferred to their own treasure vaults by the vile Russian oligarchy, men who, having ousted our president, are feverishly working now to seize the reins of power from Medvedev and thus the Kremlin.
“They are rushing to permanently secure the Kremlin before President Putin has a chance to gather his forces and return to defeat them! That’s why this mission, Operation Overkill, is so urgent, ladies and gentlemen! That’s why we need to act now! Let’s talk for a moment about the oligarchy . . .”
Chapter Sixty-Five
“Yes,” Joe continued, “the oligarchy, a tiny, insular section of the vast population of Russia, enormously wealthy, enormously powerful, and which now, having successfully removed the president from power, has expressed its determination to rule the country from behind a curtain, through the machinations of their traitorous cronies inside the Kremlin.
“This is why they forced the president to abdicate from his office.
“These oligarchs, these are the men, ladies and gentlemen, formerly loyal to the president when he was making them vastly rich, who are now responsible for the numerous plots, attempted coups, poisonings of men loyal to the president, and failed assassination attempts on the president’s life.
“Now, when our enemies had the president back on his heels, what did they do? They robbed him blind! That’s what they did! They stole all of his goddamn gold!
“These corrupt, treacherous, and vile human beings are our immutable enemies, ladies and gentlemen, and believe me when I tell you that they will rue the day they took up arms against Vladimir Putin. Of that I can assure you!”
After the applause died down, Stalingrad continued his presentation.
“I said that gold was key,” he told them. “And then I ask you, ‘Well, then, where the hell is all this gold?’ Well, it’s right here under your feet. Some of it, anyway. President Putin, will you please join me on the stage?”
Putin smiled and nodded his head. Clearly happy with the way the morning was going, especially the
reaction of his loyalists to the team he’d assembled. That had been critical, and both the chairman and the colonel had done extremely well despite their somewhat bizarre apparel.
He got to his feet and took the microphone.
The greeting for the president was immediate and wildly enthusiastic. When they finally quieted, he spoke. “Good morning, everyone, and welcome to my home away from home. I call it Falcon’s Lair. I hope you’re finding your accommodations comfortable and the food to your liking. I never imagined I would find myself an innkeeper. And I can only say to you, ‘How the mighty have fallen!’
“I was forced into exile. I hid for a time in a tiny woodsman’s cabin in France. But I never, not for one moment, forgot my mission—to one day regain power in the Kremlin. And so I spent those long and lonely days and nights putting together the plan to accomplish that mission. That’s why I invited you here. To share that plan with you, hear any and all input this august body can bring to the table, and adjust the plan accordingly. You’re all the experts in your respective fields. Your advice will be priceless.
“Here at Falcon’s Lair, I have turned an outdated communications level into a place for you all to live and work in comfort. First-rate dormitories for men and women, each with its own kitchen and dining hall. As you’ll be working here for a lengthy time, I’ve done all I can to make you as comfortable as possible.”
He grinned and they loved him and he basked in the glow of it.
“The road ahead is long and treacherous and fraught with danger. And yet a finger of history beckons. And as you have heard this morning, that long, long road leads through Switzerland. Now why is that important?”
“Seventy percent of the world’s physical gold lies within these Swiss borders. Within these very Alps! Beneath your feet! And that amount includes gold stolen from your president, worth many billions and subsequently smuggled out of Russia and hidden in various locations around Switzerland.
“So where is it? Deep inside hollowed-out mountain storage facilities whose locations are top secret, locations guarded ferociously by the Swiss army, the Swiss government, and the nation’s seven-hundred-year-old banking establishment.
“But now it’s time for me to share a little secret with my newly appointed Falcon’s Lair loyalists. I know where it is! I already know where all this gold is hidden! Including vast stocks of gold that rightly belong to the president.
“You are wondering how I came by this knowledge. I will tell you how. There is a man of my acquaintance, an elderly man now, but once the most powerful man in all of Europe. They all called him the Sorcerer, because that’s what he was. He was a wizard of wisdom and a great repository of secrets. There was nothing that went on in the world of high finance and global banking that he was not privy to . . .
“And he lived for many, many years—indeed, until very recently—right here inside this very mountain. This was his beloved home. And now it is mine. My refuge, my fortress, my castle. I will not tell you how much I paid for the privilege of living here. The number would stagger you . . .
“The acquisition negotiations were handled for me by your own chairman Joseph Stalingrad. When the deal closed, Joe handed the Sorcerer a sealed envelope. Even Joe did not know the contents. But inside that envelope was a document that stated that the sale of Falcon’s Lair was contingent upon, not only the previously agreed upon terms, but upon the signed agreement to my terms as put forth in the enclosed contract.
“I said I wanted detailed information about all of the various mountain vaults where the oligarchs had stashed my gold. I wanted real-time pictures of the actual sites where my gold was hidden. I wanted GPS coordinates of the vaults, I wanted access codes, I wanted detailed blueprints of every single security system. And I wanted to know the disposition of the guards, their schedules, and their weaponry. Were there SAM emplacements at some of the higher elevations? Radar? Sonar . . .
“I demanded everything. And I got it. Colonel Beauregard and his team have put together a short video, showing aerial footage of the three sites, their weapons installations, their disposition of military forces, their security systems, changes of the guards, and what lies behind all those thick titanium doors.
“This video lays out visually all of the targets to be looted in Operation Overkill. Complete details about each site’s security, access codes, et cetera, are in the blue binders you found on your seats. So, Joe, I’ll turn it back to you. And I want to thank each and every one of you very much for your loyalty, your commitment, and your time. I look forward to seeing all of you at the cocktail party this evening. Seven o’clock in the ballroom at the residence.”
Joe took the mike. “And now I’d like to invite Colonel Beauregard back up here to the podium. The colonel here is on his way to Siberia in a few days. Build us a fighting force we can all be proud of. Come on up, Colonel . . .”
Beauregard, picturing himself as MacArthur returning to Corregidor, strode up to the podium, adjusting the mike to suit him. “Thank you, Mr. President. And now I’m going take you all through a visual timeline of Operation Overkill. We’ll dwell for a few minutes on each target, discussing how best to breach it. Because, as you saw earlier, the road to Moscow flows through Switzerland!
“Roll the film,” he said, and began his twenty-minute narration, revealing their targets and military objectives, outlining in detail the impending invasion of Switzerland . . .
The lights came up as the video faded from the supersize screen. Joe knew it was his time to rally the troops around his particular flag. He puffed out his chest and said, “We will get inside Swiss borders. We will fight. We will fight in the air and we will fight on the land; we will fight under the ground. And we will never quit. Not until we have located and recovered the president’s stolen gold, his precious gold. We will then take all the money, however much it takes, take what we need in order to build our mighty new invasion force. And then we will get the hell out and begin the ultimate march, the march on Moscow!”
Cheers and shouts filled the stadium to the rafters, and an empowered Colonel Beauregard shouted, “Will Europe be shocked, shocked that someone invaded their precious Switzerland? Stole some gold? Certainly. Will the world be outraged? Of course. But I tell you this, ladies and gentlemen . . . It’s my gold! And by the time they get their forces mobilized, our forces will all be gone . . . and en route to Moscow!
“And think of this. What the hell can they do about it?”
Chapter Sixty-Six
Hawkesmoor, England
Days passed, but all of Hawke’s efforts to find his son, aided by the CIA, by Congreve, by INTERPOL, and a small team of Scotland Yard detectives, all on the trail of Uncle Joe and his young captive, had turned up nothing. One wild-goose chase had taken two detectives to Hollywood; another led to St. Petersburg in Russia, birthplace of Vladimir Putin; and still another to Moscow itself.
All for naught.
Midnight came and went.
Hawke lay on his back, hands behind his head, staring at the ceiling, where the dying embers in the fireplace cast their flickering orangish glow. The ticking of the clock on the mantel was incessant. He considered going over to the drinks table and pouring himself a slug of sleep potion, then pushed that idea aside.
He was trying to watch his alcohol consumption during this time of trial. He needed all of his faculties firing on all cylinders all the time. Sooner or later, he was bound to catch a break. Uncle Joe would trip over himself somehow, Hawke believed, reaching for his cigarettes and lighting one up, inhaling deeply, feeling the burn . . .
Ah, his only remaining vice.
He turned over, stubbed out the cigarette, and pulled open the drawer in his bedside table, fumbling in the dark until his fingers found the scented pale blue envelope. He withdrew it and clasped it to his chest for a few moments, letting his nicotine heart slow down a bit, hoping the unfinished and unsent letter inside would again bring him a trace of solace.
He flicked on the s
conce on the wall above his head and began to read.
The Gardener’s Cottage
My dearest darling,
I know you are still angry with me. If I could rewrite history, erase that horrid night in St. Moritz when I confessed all to you, I would do it. My fervent hope is that somehow, with the passage of time, your heart will soften toward me. But how shall I ever prove what is in my heart to you? How will you ever again see it as I feel it? I only know that no man was ever before to any woman what you are to me . . . and still—
Your angry words pierce my very soul. I am half agony, half hope. Tell me, darling, please tell me that I am not too late! That such precious feelings as we two shared are not gone forever. I am rent asunder by the loss of you . . . I have come unmoored.
Shall I offer myself to you again, with a tattered heart even less my own now than when you almost shattered it, all those weeks ago?
Dare not say that woman forgets love sooner than man, that her love has an earlier death . . .
I have loved none but you,
Sigrid
PS:
It’s morning now. I’ve collected myself. Don’t worry about me, darling. I shall soon disappear. Go off the grid, as you would say, Commander Hawke. I know a little place by the sea where I can hide for a while. Somewhere peaceful where I continue on the mission I have recently undertaken. A sacred mission whose success might yet bring me back into the folds of your loving heart . . .
Hawke, a solitary tear streaming down his stubbled cheek, folded the letter, fit it into the envelope, and replaced it in the drawer, his mind racing his heart for control of his emotions.