Ted Bell - Warlord

He looked around the rooftop for inspiration.

Paint cans. There were a shitload of Rust-Oleum paint cans everywhere, some used, some full, all scattered about a big spattered canvas tarp the painters had laid down around the perimeter of the HVAC shit. Brushes in old cans full of paint thinner. So, the cans, Stoke. Something with the cans, okay? What?

He picked up a long piece of rope, one end tied to some unused scaffolding, the other end coiled up, about fifty feet of it. Good strong half-inch nylon. Rope. And a full gallon of paint tied to one end. That could work.

He smiled at the whole damn thing. Funny how your mind worked sometimes. Came up with some crazy shit you'd never even dream of. Over the years, he'd learned to just go with it, go with the flow, see where it would lead. Instinct. Why he was alive today. Snap decisions on the fly, right or wrong. Bet on yourself, like his mama always told him.

You jes bet on your own self, Stokely Jones. You hear me? Your own self. That's all you got.

Secret of life.

He tied one end of the rope to a standpipe near the southeast side of the roof, a double bowline. Tied the other end to the big can of Rust-Oleum. Heavy as shit, as paint goes, most probably full of lead.

He swung it in a gradually increasing arc a few times, just to get the heft of the can. Felt good out there, the Rust-Oleum, at the end of his rope, so to speak. Like it might actually work.

So.

How does this go down?

Girl down there in his apartment, patient, even sipping chilled vino maybe, waiting for him in that comfy black leather Eames chair, fingering the trigger of the MAC-10 in her lap, eye on the door, thinking, Come to mama, Mr. Jones.

Meanwhile, the potential victim is standing up here on the damn roof right over her head, sixty stories up in the sky, half-blind and scared shitless by the acrobatic feat he was about to attempt, contemplating a surprise appearance without falling sixty stories to the ground or getting his crazy ass shot all to pieces.

He swung the heavy can in a tight circle, really hard a few times in ever increasing arcs, finally flinging the can way out into the sky and bringing it back toward the terrace to complete the arc, can coming back hard, right up under the eave of the roof, right into the glass of his doors, hearing it smash through, making a huge noise, and then grabbing the rim of the roof and just doing a Tarzan flip over the edge, hoping to Jesus he'd land on his feet inside the railing of his terrace, not outside.

He heard the phut-phut-phut of an automatic weapon equipped with a noise suppressor just after his feet hit the terrace. Rounds taking out what was left of the glass. He ducked, grabbed the SIG, and dove through the nearest jagged glass door, rolling behind the heavily upholstered leather sofa to his right. Silent rounds thudded repeatedly into the sofa as he crouched behind it, struggling to come to grips with what he'd seen in those few seconds before he went for the floor.

It wasn't the blonde sitting in the chair.

No, it was some bald-headed fat guy, stark naked from the waist down, shooting at him. And the blond chick? She was on the floor, topless, kneeling between the guy's legs. As Stoke dove, he'd seen her crabbing bare ass toward his front door, reaching up for the knob. It didn't take much imagination to figure out this cozy little scenario. Chick gives guy head while they're waiting for the shooting to start.

What the hell is it with these people?

He heard the door slam and knew she was gone.

He crawled around the edge of the sofa and quick-peeked. Chair was empty. The guy was backing toward the door, difficult because his pants were still down around his ankles, swinging the gun side to side at waist level. This wasn't turning out right, his look said. He saw Stoke's face appear for a split second and put another burst into the sofa, shredding Stoke's beautiful leather furniture to pieces.

You can mess with me, Stoke thought, but not with my furniture. That really pisses me off. He shouted at the guy from behind the sofa.

"Pull your damn pants up, asshole, and tell me why you were getting a blow job in my favorite chair without even being invited in."

Another burst, high and into the ceiling. Stoke peeked around the side. Saw the sweaty three-hundred-pound guy frantically reaching around behind him for the doorknob still at least five feet behind his fat ass, waddling backward like a goddamn duck with his pants down. Wasn't pretty.

Stoke called out, "Here I come, chubby, ready or not."

He popped up at the opposite end of the couch and put two rounds in the guy, one in each knee. Fat Boy screamed and collapsed to the floor. Hearing the MAC-10 clattering on his beautiful parquet floor, Stoke, seriously angry now, yanked his ruined sofa backward toward him and leaped right over the thing. He was squatting on top of the fat man with his gun in his face in less than two seconds.

At that moment two cops in black Kevlar outfits took the door down, putting their guns on Stoke, saying, "Police! Freeze, asshole! Drop the gun! Now!"

Stoke accidentally dropped his SIG on the fat guy's face and backed away. The cops looked at the half-naked limp-dick white man on the floor, then up at the huge black guy in the New York Jets sweatshirt.

"This ain't exactly what it looks like, Officers," Stoke said, putting his hands up.

"This is Miami, asshole," the older cop said. "It's always exactly what it looks like."

ALEX HAWKE AND AMBROSE CONGREVE HAD flown Hawke's plane across the Irish Sea, arriving in Northern Ireland at the tiny airport at Sligo. Very tiny. Only two flights a day, one to Dublin, one from Dublin. They had driven by hired car almost due north to the tiny fishing village of Mullaghmore, stopping briefly at a small inn for a Plowman's lunch and a chance for Ambrose to get on the telephone and arrange for tonight's meeting.

They now walked through the heavy rain past The Pennywhistle pub to the end of the Mullaghmore town's wooden dock.

There they paused, looking down at the choppy black water. It was a dark, blustery night, and the scattered lights of the little fishing village shone like halos through the mist on the surrounding hillside. At the top of the hill behind them, Lord Mountbatten's Classiebawn Castle was a looming, dark presence.

"This is it, then," Congreve said, shining his flashlight into the dark water. "Shadow V was moored right here, the night before the murder. Usually she was moored to one of those buoys over there near the shore, but Mountbatten had ordered her moved right here to the dock that afternoon."

"So they could get an early start pulling pots next morning," Hawke mused.

"Precisely."

Hawke looked over his shoulder, down the glistening length of the dock to the noisy Pennywhistle. "So the bomber carried a fifty-pound bomb the length of this dock? Past the pub? Even on a dark night that would carry considerable risk of discovery."

"True. That is why we surmised he arrived at the crime scene via hired boat. From Sligo most likely, as it's the nearest harbor. Much less conspicuous, a boat, especially at night. Simply come alongside the Shadow V, his confederates drop him off, he climbs right aboard Mountbatten's vessel with his package. The hired boat, an anonymous fishing vessel, steams away, never to be seen again. The killer plants the bomb in the bait well with the lobster pots and disappears down the dock and up into the woods."

"Makes sense."

"There's an old Norman watchtower up there. Splendid view of the entire bay. I'll show it to you in the morning. We found reason to believe he slept there. Bits of day-old food, cigarette stubs, a book of matches. Sleeps on the ground, wakes up at dawn, and climbs to the top. Follows Mountbatten's movements with binoculars all next morning from atop the tower. That's where the killer, whoever he was, detonated the bomb, in my opinion."