Enforcers - Sneak-peek

Chapter 1

New Orleans

Coburn said, “Face, or send?”

Flint shrugged. “You’re the boss, old man.”

Coburn shook his head. He was three hundred and eighty-five to Flint’s mere two hundred years, so, relatively-speaking, that was true enough.

He pulled a quarter from his pocket. “Call it.”

“Tails. And let it hit the lawn.”

“You don’t trust me, lad?” He grinned.

“I’ve see you do sleights.”

He thumbed the quarter into the air. It spun, fell, hit the trimmed-short St. Augustine grass, bounced.

“Tails it is.”

“I’ll send. I can lie in the shade. Plus I know the delivery system better.”

The boy did like his new toy, also true. 

Colburn pulled his pocket watch from his shorts, opened the cover, and looked at it. “I’ll get set up at the park bench, he should be out in a few minutes.”

“You know, I bet they make a portable sun-dial you could carry.”

“That’s your problem, being so young. No appreciation for the watchmaker’s art. I got this particular watch in the Soviet Union fifty, sixty, years ago. It’s a Moljinar—Lightning—mechanical, an eighteen-jeweled, swiped-from-the -Swiss movement. A propaganda piece, celebrating WWII, got the hammer and sickle over the red star, see? Cost me about twenty-bucks, don’t recall what that was in rubles. Cheap, well-made, still runs just fine.

“I have a Charles-Hubert pocket watch I picked in Paris a few years back. Seventeen jewels, cost ten times as much. The Russian piece is a better machine.”

“Cell phone keeps better time than either.”

“And McDonald’s hamburgers are cheaper and faster than the Port of Call’s. Which would you rather eat?”

“I like Mickey D’s burgers.”

“Proves my point—you have no taste, and little sense. Your advice is therefore worthless.”

Flint grinned. 

Coburn glanced at the sweltering park. He was not a fan of high heat and humidity, and New Orleans in August offered plenty of both. Had to be approaching body-temperature, and swimming to get there. He wore a straw fedora, a short-sleeved shirt, cargo shorts and running shoes, a costume that meant hiding a full-sized pistol was impossible. He had a compact SIG P238 .380 ACP in his right cargo pocket, which was effective-enough if needed, though that would be unlikely. He and Flint had worked together since 1947, almost eighty years, and the youngster was adept.

The park bench, at least, was in shade.

***

The Àrsaidh player calling himself George Kaplan, born in Boston in 1876, emerged from the municipal building and started across the park’s freshly-mowed lawn, heading toward where he had parked his car. The smell of the cut-grass was thick in the muggy air. It was a sunny day, but clouds were rolling in; distant thunder heralded the imminent arrival of a storm, so the park was, save for the two of them virtually empty. 

Only mad dogs and Englishmen would be out in the noon-day sun, both of which, he supposed, might properly refer to him …

Coburn took a deep breath and stood, moving from the shade of the oak tree probably as old as he was into the direct sunlight. The air temperature would be the same, of course, but he could feel the weight of the sun slap his hat and shoulders instantly.

Kaplan saw him approaching, and angled to his right so as not to intersect.

Coburn adjusted his path so they approached head-on.

Five meters away, Kaplan stopped. 

He was a tall, heavy-set man in an off-white suit, a pale blue shirt and darker blue tie. Nicely-polished caramel-colored leather shoes. No hat.

Must be cooking in that outfit.

“Mister Kaplan.”

“Do I know you?”

“We’ve never met, no.”

“You a player?”

“Not as such, no, but Àrsaidh, yes.”

Give him credit, he got it quickly.

“You’re an Enforcer.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“I can explain.”

“That, sir, is why I am here.”

“It was self-defense.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I had no choice.”

“As I understand it, the woman was a foot shorter, seven stone lighter—a hundred pounds or so—and unarmed. No knife, no gun, nothing. And you felt threatened enough to shoot her three times?”

“She was crazy, psychotic. She came at me with murder in mind!”

“I see. While that might be possible, there is no evidence of such psychosis in her background—we checked—and even had there been? She had not the means to cause you serious harm. She was a barmaid with no training in any kind of fighting system. What did you think she was going to do? Crush your skull with her bare hands?”

“I didn’t know! You weren’t there, you didn’t see her face!”

“Oh, but I did see her face, in the morgue. What was left of it after three .45 ACP rounds hit it. And since the only way she could have possibly been a threat would have been to destroy your brain? 

“Killing civilians is not allowed, Mister Kaplan, save, as you have attempted to claim, in in self-defense, and in no manner was that justified. 

“Oh, and if you move your hand any closer to your waist, you will die where you stand immediately.”

“All right. What are we to do? Are you taking me in?”

“I am. ”

Coburn removed his fedora to smooth his damp hair.

Kaplan’s head exploded in a sleet of blood and bone and brain, as the sound of the .308 shot echoed over Coburn from a hundred and fifty meters distance.

He put his hat back on, turned, and walked away.

You don’t hear the one that kills you. 

***

Back at the oak tree, Flint had already disassembled the sniper rifle, a new purchase, custom-made in Germany last year by master gunsmith, Alcott Beller. It was a  folding, bolt-action, with a Zeiss V4 scope that kept zero after opening and closing, and was seriously accurate to three hunded meters. They used match-grade .308 copper-clad boattail bullets that Flint handloaded. Even with a suppressor it was loud, but they weren’t sticking around. Once folded, it was only eighteen inches long, and easily packed it into its case—which didn’t look like at all a rifle case, because it wasn’t, but instead an artist’s portfolio, done in a nice reddish-brown leather. New Orleans was a city with a lot of artists, and one saw such things frequently. 

Should anyone stop them? They had badges and IDs that were perfect replicas of assorted federal agencies, and contact information to back those up. Should a local police officer call the number on a proferred card? The answer would match the ID.

FBI. How may I direct your call?

“Nice shot.” 

“Thanks. So, we are leaving this one?”

“One must do so now and again, mustn’t one?”

“Yes. The object lesson.”

“It’s about to rain. We should go.”