Behind Blue Eyes

They started off seething and rapidly escalated to apoplectic.

The Reinhardt would never, ever be poor - there simply wasn't any way to lose enough money to alter his lifestyle in any real way. But money was how he kept score, how he proved he was better than everyone around him.

Over time, it became obvious to me that Evelyn had planned her moves for quite a while - even as entangled as their finances were, she was losing money and shares far more slowly than he was.

And more importantly, shares translated to votes.

Evelyn was watching one little company above all. One that would hurt him more than anything else.

After six weeks of subtle but ruthless attacks, I could tell she was getting impatient for her target to 'clear cover' as we put it in my world, to present itself. But it was getting close.

We sat sipping coffee, watching the orange of the rising sun shimmer over the waves.

"Ken, we need to distract him."

"Spooky is pretty good with a camera."

Evie nodded a single time with the grim assurance of a raptor sighting prey.

And so we assembled the weapons. A beach chair. The ocean. A camera.

The picture was obviously taken from a great difference - and apparently from a tree.

Just a picture of a woman laughing. Sitting in a man's lap with her arms around his neck.

Obviously topless.

A disreputable female paparazzi sold the picture and an accompanying rumor to a third rate European scandal sheet with pretentions of journalism, for less than they would have paid for it. And far less than The Reinhardt would have paid to keep it under wraps.

If he had known in time. If the paper had really understood the gravity of the picture.

As it was, the paper wouldn't survive the ensuing storm, but that was certainly no big loss.

The Reinhardt was publicly shamed. The accompanying rumor claimed that his wife was seeking comfort from someone who wasn't "completely impotent."

The Reinhardt's messages through her banker ceased entirely as his pride forced him to seek to control the damage to his reputation.

Pictures of him with young attractive models and heiresses began to crop up in various society columns. But everyone seemed to know what he was doing, and he couldn't seem to control the rumors that kept cropping up, despite the rapid and awful demise of more than one newspaper.

In his fury, he completely forgot that the key to magic is distraction. The audience is always looking at the pretty girl in skimpy suit when they should be watching the magician.

Although in this case, the girl in the skimpy suit was the magician.

We had to fly Air Wendy to Germany. Another enjoyable interlude.

Spooky, Danni, and Monster had already been there for a week.

We arrived at the small, old-fashioned boardroom just as the meeting started. I followed her, masquerading as a standard issue bank drone.

Evelyn Cabot strode into the dark wood panel room as if she owned it. Which to some degree was true.

"Gentlemen. Under Article seven Section three, extenuating circumstances require a vote of confidence. A fifteen percent loss in value over the last six weeks qualifies."

The Director was completely unprepared for her demand.

"That would be highly irregular..."

"Yes it is. But it is legal."

"Not all of the board members are present..."

"Unnecessary. We have a quorum."

In the end, the vote went exactly as Evelyn had intended.

She did, after all, have the proxies for three of the four missing board members.

One of whom was panicking as he packed quickly. Spooky had somehow come by evidence of his involvement in his former wife's demise.

The other two had less homicidal, but no less compelling reasons for giving Evelyn their proxies.

The remaining missing board member had been a very loyal supporter of the Reinhardt. He'd also had a fondness for doing rather distasteful things to very underage girls and boys that he thought his extremely privileged life allowed him to exercise freely. He wasn't panicking or packing. He never would; Danni's maternal instincts had had rather direct consequences in his case.

He had just turned forty-eight when he was pulled out of his penthouse apartment by Danni and her father, but he died a very, very old man later that afternoon.

Monster no doubt thought it was a waste of time and effort to torture a man who had no answers you wanted and who you were going to kill anyway. But he'd always indulged his little girl.

The company was far from the largest in The Reinhardt's portfolio. Far from the most profitable. In fact, it barely made any real profit worth mention on the scales of finance that he was used to.

But it would hurt far worse than any other could.

For the first time since its founding during the Thirty Years War, almost 400 years prior, the leader of Reinhardt Pulverhof was no longer a Reinhardt. The small company, originally a supplier of gunpowder for the mercenary armies that raged across Europe, still made and supplied specialty military and industrial explosives.

But the real importance of the company was that by byzantine regulation intended to keep power in the hands of The Reinhardt, the CEO of Reinhardt Pulverhof was the Director of the far larger, and far more significant transnational super conglomerate known as Reinhardt IG.

Evelyn Cabot was now the CEO of Reinhardt Pulverhof - and the Director of Reinhardt IG.

***

The radio link in my ear snapped awake with no warning.

"Control this is Alpha. Tango. Tango. Tango. Sector three. Over."

"Alpha this is Control. Go ahead. Over."

"Eight tangos sector three. Standard two by two formation moving toward point Blue. Over."

"Roger Alpha. I have them on visual. Break. Break. All Kilo Elements. All Kilo Elements. Stand by for contact. Over."

There was a long pause as I watched the dark forms breaking for the stables. They moved like pros. Not as good as ours though; they were hugging the stone walls of the stable too close. That's a mistake. Bullets tend to skim along stone walls for some physics reason. The intention was probably to form up for final entry there. Which meant they were almost certainly moving support elements up on the other side. Before I called a warning onto the net, another voice came on, raspier, older, authoritative.

"All Kilo Elements. This is Sandman. Four pax moving to point Green. Over."

"Sandman this is Control. Good copy. Do you require support? Over."

"Negative Kilo Control. Fish in a barrel. Over." Grim humor seeped into the voice. He'd emphasized the "Kilo" in Kilo control. Emphasizing he wasn't one of us.

Joint operations are always a little painful.

The actual firefight lasted just under 53 seconds. Our team performed flawlessly. We were prepared for close contact if necessary, but it wasn't required. Katie would be thrilled. No matter how confident she always acted, I knew she worried about me every time. Not that I was going to be directly involved. I was watching the whole thing through the video surveillance system in the basement. My MP5 was sitting comfortably by my side, but realistically, the odds of them getting through were as close to zero as possible.

Sandman handled all four of the Green targets with cold precision. Hollywood cut two of the entry team down before they even realized they were under fire.

The rest of the entry team tried to break contact, but we'd already closed that door.

All elements reported back. No survivors.

They'd agreed to kill a family with three kids for a great deal of cash, so I didn't feel bad for them. As the old gamblers say, "you rolls the dice, you takes your chances."

The only sounds anyone could have heard outside the immediate area were the six shots from the heavy sniper rifles. The local sheriff would have a citation on file for a couple of minors using illegal fireworks.

While the observation posts remained in place, the rest of the team loaded the bodies into a couple delivery vans we had standing by. Needles had a car crusher that would come in handy.

The irony was that while the husband and wife were in the house, waiting heavily armed in the basement library, the children were long gone. An armored van had come for them days before. From what Katie told me, the grandmother, our client, had insisted. The driver had simply introduced himself as Patrick while his partner had only introduced himself as Finn, but I saw the resemblance to their father. They had that same self-assurance, same hyper-awareness. I had no idea where they were taking the children, but anyone who crossed those two would regret it. Probably only for a moment or two.

The Sandman came in.

Michael Sanders. Maria Hawthorne's "partner". Officially, of course, as far as the FBI was concerned he was on vacation somewhere in Florida. Hunting alligator. Or so I'd been told.

They'd tipped us about the hit team. From the tone of things, they had probably overstepped some boundaries somewhere learning about it.

I gave him an edited copy of the video - no audio and no faces. He would be taking it back to Maria Hawthorne along with anything the bodies had on them that would aid in the identification of the hit team. I suspected there wouldn't be much. Probably Russian or Eastern European, a lot of well-trained guys were coming onto the market out of the special operations units in those countries, but it really wasn't my problem.

I keyed the scrambled phone. "Katie? Yes. All done. Twelve total. Love you too, Babe."

***

There were no curtains on the windows of the Alpine lodge. Just window polarization. Pricey, but that's about what I expected from my target.

Despite the polarization, my optics let me see him clearly.

He sat at his 400 year old desk, never deigning to look out the huge window with its incredible view of the snow-capped mountains. He shifted repeatedly, frustrated, unable to really come to terms with what had happened.

Despite the distance and thick window, I could still feel his fury at the loss of his money, his pride and his legacy. I could feel his desperation, his revulsion at what had happened.

I waited as he picked up the red-edged folder that designated critical information. He opened it to look in complete puzzlement at two photos.

They started to darken slowly as soon as the light hit them. Soon they'd be unrecoverable black sheets of paper.

I felt the heavy rifle fire and let the shock of the recoil ripple through my body. The shot had been a complete surprise to me. Good ones always are.

A thousand meters. Not a record by any means, but I had to be close enough to ensure the round would penetrate the glass without too much deflection.

He was still watching Tricia and Gabby's pictures darken when the custom armor piercing round slammed through the supposedly bullet-proof glass and took him through the center of the sniper's triangle, just above the aortic arch.

I watched him sag in the chair while his mouth opened and closed spasmodically for a few seconds, then I shouldered my rifle and began the long trudge down to where I'd left the car.

Somewhere in the back of my head I could hear Gabby's laugh.

Distant, but clear and beautiful.

Somewhere Tricia smiled.

***

Pogo brought a bottle of black rum to the table and sat down in the chair next to mine. Donna looked at the bottle with a slight, knowing, smile. Maria looked less thrilled, but was too polite to turn it down.

"Mike" was looking up at "The Shack" sign over the bar, chuckling and shaking his head.

Maria looked at him. "What's so funny."

Mike smiled. "They just hung it up over the bar."

"Hung what?"

"The name of the unit."

I knew what was coming, although I had no idea how Mike knew.

He continued. "When they worked with you they used the name '16^th Training and Readiness Group', and they've used a dozen others. But originally, they started under MACV-SOG as the '5^th Hunter Killer Detachment' in Vietnam."

Maria looked even more puzzled. And now Donna looked interested.

I sighed. "It's unit tradition. In 1972, the sign over the 5^th Hunter Killer Detachment was destroyed in an NVA mortar attack. The unit clerk, a guy named..." I paused, straining to remember.

Pogo kicked in "Bugs, it was Bugs."

"Yeah, Bugs. He was a serious pot head. Painted a new sign, totally out of regs, using those weird 1970s balloon graffiti letters. So the '5' looked like an 'S', and the whole thing looked like 'SHK'."

Mike laughed. "Heard it from Jorge at the Academy. He lived in your world for a while. You know how CIA agents refer to it as 'the Company', and NSA agents refer to NSA as 'the Building'? These guys always call their headquarters..."

"The Shack." I finished.

Donna eyed the sign. She didn't say anything, but I knew she was aghast at the complete violation of Operations Security.

"Hey, we're retired."

She looked at me. "I hope not completely."

I shrugged. No point in committing to anything.

Maria glanced over at Mike. "Somebody has to slay the monsters. Sometimes we can't reach them legally."

Maybe it was time to get rid of that video of Maria killing the Chinese official.

Pogo shot me a look. I glanced around the bar, at the odd, twisted, little family we'd assembled over the years.

Fuck-ups, whores, sociopaths, obsessive murderers and drunks.

Spooky's words.

Maybe we could help.

***

It was six months before Evie came back.

I was sitting on the beach chair; enjoying the cool breeze off the sea and watching gulls dip and dive over the water when she walked up.

In a silvery sarong.

She slid into my lap with a quiet, contented sigh.

"I'm tired of being lonely, Ken."

"How long are you back for?"

"Three months."

It was better than nothing. I patted her hip.

"Then I was hoping you'd come to the farm with me for three months, then back here for three, and so on. Emma's family may even come out to visit sometimes."

That took me off guard.

"So, what about the company?"

"It's in blind trust for now. I did an audit and 'discovered' some irregularities. I recused myself and made some calls. I have investigators from six countries tearing Reinhardt IG apart right now." She smiled. "It will take years to finish and the conglomerate will never be the same."

"Then what? How does Emma feel?"

She sighed again. "I don't know. But hopefully I've bought time to figure it out. She doesn't seem angry with me anymore."

"It's a start."

She snuggled back into me a little more and we just rested there for a long moment.

"Maybe we can get the camper out of mothballs and take another trip. I've got a guide to Yosemite."

"Another road trip for Ken and Libby?"

"Or two or three."

"I do have some obligations here though. Off and on."

"Maria hinted at that."

We watched reds and oranges flare over the horizon as the sun set. We finally extracted ourselves from the chair as the colors faded to black and started on our way to The Shack.

"Ken, I do have a serious question."

"Yes?"

"I looked into you after Maria warned me. And you've got a comfortable, normal retirement for a Colonel. A decent portfolio and some solid investments. But... the travel, the guns, all of this..."

"You want to know where the money came from?"

She nodded.

"We took down a drug lord and I found a Cayman Bank account number and password in his effects. Nobody else recognized it. It's not your kind of money, but it's significant."

"Ah. That makes sense. I remember you were in finance."

She stopped me at the door.

"One more thing."

"What?"

"When I came in here earlier, I swear, I think Spooky called me 'Mom'."

Some terminology that may not be familiar:

M24A3 is an M24 military sniper rifle chambered for the .338 Lapua round. Some of the longest range sniper kills in history have been accomplished with this rifle. With just standard armor piercing rounds, it can penetrate standard military body armor at 1,000 meters. Still favored over the various .50 cal rifles by some organizations, often due to the lighter weight - just about half that of the M82 .50 cal rifle.

To Laagar is to form vehicles up for the night in a defensive position. It used to mean interlocking tongues and tails of wagons in a circle to create a fortress. Originally it was primarily used by the Boers, but is now a common term in US and UK militaries.

Vityaz-SN is a 9mm Para Russian submachine gun based on the AK-74 action. Surprisingly well made, sturdy, and, with some aftermarket mods, can be accurate and lethal. And becoming widely available on the grey and black markets these days.

The HRT is the FBI Hostage Rescue Team, the counter-terrorism and hostage rescue unit of the FBI. It is occasionally used as a very high level SWAT team by the FBI.

PGP is "Pretty Good Protection" a public key encryption system that is reasonably good, though it is aging rapidly. No government has openly claimed to be able to break the encryption at this point.

NIJ Level IV plus armor is the US term for heavy rifle armor piercing round repeat strike resistant armor, IV plus is an even more enhanced version. B7 or B7 Enhanced would be the European equivalent. Not legal for individual ownership in most countries. But used black market vehicles of that protection level trade for around 500K USD and up. Mostly up.

Tango is a common term for enemy personnel in the US military comms.

Pax originally meant passengers in a vehicle, but is often used generically for "persons" in military and law enforcement comms.

MACV-SOG stands for Military Assistance Command, Vietnam - Studies and Observations Group which ran a wide range of highly classified covert warfare efforts during the US war in Vietnam.

Hippolyte Charles was the Jody of all Jodys, an absolutely charming asshole who was pretty much openly "tapping" Josephine while Napoleon was off at war. He more or less got away with it.