Ted Bell - Warlord

His name was Bashir al Mahmoud Bashi, because he was tight as a tick with the new prez, and still had access to the entire Pakistani nuclear program. The Sword of Allah sleeper agents who had penetrated the nuclear weapon storage facilities were under Bashi's control. And the fat bastard was completely out of his fucking mind. No one knew that better than she.

She looked him in the eye.

"I told you I don't know who the white guy was. He moved so blindingly fast and shot so well that none of us got a good look at him. He didn't even show up until we were over in the city of Miami. I thought we had the big black man dead and done with. Then-well, you know the rest."

Now the fat man made a show of tidying up his fingernails with his small solid gold nail clipper. Tiny little clips here and there. Delicate, like brain surgery. He purposefully didn't look at her. This was the time of the biggest threat. Was he trying to lull her into a false sense of security? That was the way of the old-style Taliban commanders. Before they flayed you alive, they lulled you to sleep.

She knew Bashi had made his reputation long ago in Islamabad and later providing sophisticated nuclear weapons for Iran and North Korea. He would still be in a powerful position today had his mind not stripped a few gears over the ensuing years. And he would surely be dead, long ago, had the Soviets invading Afghanistan not turned his backbone to steel. And had he not come under the powerful protection of the Sword of Allah.

Now he looked up at her. His cold grey eyes were still powerful enough to send a slight shiver down her back.

"Are you ready to handle this other matter?"

She nodded.

"When?" he asked.

"Soon."

"Are you planning to make it a message or do it quietly?"

She looked up and leveled her eyes at him. "It is a fluid situation. Missing two of my best men, I may decide to do it quietly. Do you have a preference?"

"People have been asking far too many other people far too many questions. I don't know exactly how much they know about Pakistani ISI operations, but in the interest of caution he must be eliminated. I don't care how."

"What about the two CIA men who chased us? Should we handle them as well?"

"Did either get a good look at you?"

"The black one saw me in my wig with plenty of cleavage. Usually that's all American men notice. But we did face off over our gun sights. He looked into my eyes."

"Then you might want to spend a little time finding out more about these inquisitive federal agents. You have names?"

"The giant black man only. It shouldn't be too difficult to learn the other."

"Good girl. I will talk to you after this fucking traitor general has been eliminated. Do you know the American agent's full name? This black man who saw you?"

"Yes."

"How did you learn it?"

"He runs a company called Tactics International. Over in the Grove. He questioned me a few months ago about my visa. He had a list and thought my visa was illegal. When he found out it wasn't, he scratched me off the list, apologized, and went away. It was before my facial surgery. He won't remember."

"Who is he?"

"Stokely Jones is his name. Pity you're not handling this one yourself, Bashi. You could hit him. He's a very, very big target."

STOKELY JONES DOWNSHIFTED, GRABBING third, accelerating up and over the humpbacked bridge. It crossed over from downtown Miami to his magical island hideaway, Brickell Key. Is this living, or what? he asked himself, hearing the satisfying blip of the black-raspberry metallic GTO convertible's race-tuned engine, feeling the deep rumble of the tuned twin exhausts in his bones. Sex? Something like that, maybe.

Sometimes he actually had to wonder: Does sex with Fancha, his gorgeous fiancee, even hold a candle to this completely badass Pontiac?

The answer was always, unequivocally, yes. Nothing could ever hold a candle to his love for Fancha. Period. Still, Stoke curled his hand around the ivory shift knob of the Hurst four-speed shift lever as he downshifted again. If they had cars up there in heaven, he had no doubt, all those angels up there in paradise, they cruised GTOs down those streets of gold.

Passing the entrance to the ridiculously expensive and beautiful Mandarin Hotel on his right, top down, salt air breezes blowing, speakers blaring "Let's Stay Together," one of Al Green's greatest hits, Stoke got that old feeling again: complete disbelief at his current tropical luxury lifestyle. Former Harlem homeboy gangsta makes good? Oh, yes indeedy, life was good.

God was good. America was good. And, God, please bless America. We could sure use it right now.

Damn, I must be in a really good mood, he thought, approaching the tall glass and steel Brickell Towers on his right. He slowed for the turn, singing a song:

Yeah, we're movin' on up, movin' on up, to a dee-luxe apartment in the sky…and I feeeeel good, da-da-da-dum…

Keeping time to the lyrics and rhythms in his head, palm beating on the steering wheel, and, man, here he was, home again at last.

He hooked a right and swung into the gently curving palm-lined driveway leading to his own personal paradise, his condo in the sky, the light-filled penthouse overlooking Biscayne Bay that he called home. Paid for with the sole proceeds of his sainted mama's six-story apartment house in Bayside, Queens. He'd only lived in Miami a couple of years. Now he couldn't imagine living anywhere else. New York?

Fuggedaboutit.

He kept an eye peeled for the building's aging security man, Fast Eddie Falco, normally scouring the premises in his custom Rolls-Royce grilled golf cart at this hour. Stoke had stopped by Books & Books in the Grove, picked up a couple of paperback copies of the selection his two-man book club would be reading this week. The John D. MacDonald's Men's Reading Society would soon be digging into The Dreadful Lemon Sky.

Eddie, a former jockey, had spent his entire life as a railbird over at Hialeah before retiring. Never read word one not related to his beloved ponies and the jocks. Then one day Stoke introduced him to Travis McGee and his houseboat, the Busted Flush. Boom! Just like that, Eddie Falco found a whole new reason for living besides horses and football.

Just before turning into the ground-floor garage, he thought he caught a glimpse of Eddie's heavily customized fire-engine-red cart. Seemed to be parked beneath a palm tree. Actually, shit, it looked like he'd rammed the damn tree head-on. Stoke, thinking heart attack, screeched to a stop, leaped out over the closed passenger door, and ran across the thick green grass. Eddie was slumped forward over the wheel. Damn it! Unless a coconut had landed on his head, he'd probably blown an artery.

"Eddie! You okay?" he cried, racing toward his friend.

Eddie was definitely not okay. But it wasn't a coconut head bop or a heart attack. Looked like he had a deep wound in his right leg, just above the kneecap. The blood had soaked one whole leg of his khaki pants and pooled around his shoes. What the hell? He'd let a palm tree run into him, yeah, but not hard enough for even a minor injury.

Stoke leaned under the fringed white canopy, examining the hole in his pal's knee.

"Eddie, what the hell, man? What'd you do to your leg?"

"Ouch!"

"Sorry." Stoke probed the wound with his index finger. Narrow, but deep, down to the bone.

"The grille. How's it look?" Eddie said through clenched teeth.

"The what?"

"The grille!"

"What grille?"

"The goddamn Rolls-Royce grille! Did I dent it? Scratch it? Tell me, Stoke. I can take it."

"Eddie, f'crissakes, forget the grille. What the hell happened to your leg?"

"Aw, shit, Stoke. Somebody stabbed me."