Honorable Assassin (12 page)

Terry was like a half disciplined child in a
candy store. He wanted everything and felt awkward touching
anything. Finally he settled on the Thompson. He picked it from its
handmade oak cradle and took one of the three drum cartridges as
well. “I can’t believe it. This gun is older than you. They were
never supposed to be sold to anyone outside of the bobbies. Gawd,
it’s beautiful.”

“I don’t know how well that still works,”
Ginger replied. “I haven’t fired that monster since… well, for
years now.”

“Let’s take it out.”

“Clean it first.”

“It’s clean.”

“How do you know a cockroach didn’t crawl
into the breech and die? I taught you better than that. Disassemble
it and clean it. Emotions and firearms have no place in the same
room. I told you about going off half-cocked. You can’t use a tool
until you know how to use it, and by God this one is no
different.”

“It’s lighter than I would have expected.
How did you get it?”

“It’s four kilos with a 27mm barrel. The
drums weigh about a kilo apiece. We got it from a man who knocked
off an armored car, in America, then moved down under. He mailed it
to himself in pieces. He’s not alive any more.”

“Did you…”

“No. I didn’t do that many jobs with your
dad. No, this man was old and had no more need to kill a room full
of people.”

“Well, that was nice of him.”

“I should say. This is one of the finest
short range weapons ever made. This one was made in the mid
twenties so it has the Cutts Compensator on the barrel. It uses the
.45 caliber automatic round. The jacket on those shells is slightly
longer than the pistol round and uses a 230-grain load. The shells
are reloadable so pick them up after you’re done. That gun is too
old to use in a modern action. It’s too unique and identifiable.
I’ll let you use it around here but take my advice and leave it
here. Remember never call attention to yourself.”

“All right. I understand. I would like to
try it out though.”

“Go hook up the trailer to the tractor and
we’ll go back and have some fun at the tree line.”

Ginger’s insistence that each gun be
disassembled, cleaned and oiled before use shortened the time and
number of weapons they took to the tree line with them. The .50
caliber sniper rifle was indeed a marvel of destruction. The armor
piercing rounds blew through tree trunks like butter. The
incendiary rounds lit them up. Nobody was close enough to hear the
automatic fire so there was no curiosity from the neighbors.

The dynamite instruction was almost as
interesting as the old guns. Of course there were no bridges or
buildings to demolish, but Terry picked up the idea of directed
energy easily. He never knew how much there was to be learned or
how many types of explosives could be made. Though he never reached
a level of real proficiency, he did learn enough to hold his own in
a conversation.

Terry stayed at the farm for a week instead
of the one day he had planned. He disassembled every weapon in the
bunker, oiled and reassembled them. He shot every weapon in the
arsenal, broke them down and cleaned them afterward. It was quite
an education for someone who thought he knew guns. He learned the
inherent flaws and strengths of some of the different, older
designs. He also found a cache of cold hard cash.

The crate was on the bottom of a stack of
crates full of ammunition. Terry was looking for shotgun shells
when he found it. They were small bills but there were enough of
them to fill a rocket crate. It caused Terry to think.

After a week, Terry could hit a beer can at
half a mile in a crosswind, with the Barrett. He was no Commando,
only because he had not gotten the training. His physical condition
was extraordinary, his eyes were clear and strong and his hands
were rock steady. He could run for an hour without breathing hard.
He may not have been able to beat an Army Ranger in hand-to-hand
combat, but his upbringing had taught him so much more than
military training would have. He could rebuild an automobile from
the ground up. He could weld with an arc welder, a MIG welder and
an oxy-acetylene torch. He had little experience with a TIG welder,
but he could hold his own with it. He could throw any good knife
accurately at 30 feet, a hatchet at 40 feet and a cut down
woodsman’s axe at 60 feet. He was a prime specimen of manhood and
had no issues with his self awareness. He could do whatever needed
to be done whenever it was required. He felt like a superman.

Ginger Kingston was about 50 at this point.
While he was not an old man, he was no longer what he had once been
either. A life of working hard and playing hard had left their
marks. He had a bit of bursitis, a bit of arthritis and his knees
were showing signs of wear. Years of cigars and alcohol had no good
effect on him either. He could no longer run the way the younger
Kingston could, so Terry was surprised when his uncle said it was
time for some training. Ginger had not meant that Terry would be
training, he was training himself. Terry had left for Orange and
Ginger trained every three days, taking one day off after three,
and then starting over again. He would never be in the shape he had
been when he was young, but the excess flesh melted from his bones
and he began packing on muscle again. It made him feel so good he
had no desire to pick up a drink. After three months, he did not
look like the man he had been. It was as though he was reversing
his age.

Terry spent his days in research and
training as well. Some of the bodybuilders at the gym had tried to
get him to enroll in the competitions but he simply told them he
was not interested. He said he couldn’t stand the thought of
shaving his whole body. In truth he simply wanted nothing to do
with the spotlight. He couldn’t attract attention to himself.

Every other week he would visit the farm and
practice with the firearms, mostly the armor piercing sniper rifle.
He joined his uncle in training while he was there and was amazed
at the transformation. It was not long before they began to train
in hand-to-hand combat and Terry had a rude awakening coming. He no
longer felt like such a superman as the man who was twice his age
trounced him regularly.

Ginger still had no telephone or television,
but there was no longer any question why. The only question was how
George and Ginger had communicated. It seems that George had simply
sent a letter on Kingston Agency letterhead in a company envelope.
They used a simple code to indicate what was required and Ginger
would show up in a couple of days with the required munitions. He
returned to the farm with cash and stashed it away. They had been
using a steel plate covered with straw in the barn, but when George
had been killed, Ginger filled the spot over the concrete barrier
with soil. George’s body had never been found so Ginger had left
the currency in the bunker with the munitions against his possible
return.

It was a lesson for Terry in honor and
integrity. They had never had any excess of money in the past few
years and Ginger Kingston could easily have plundered the secret
stash but had not. Ginger chewed on his cigar for a while and told
Terry, when he asked, that the money was part of his inheritance
and that he could have it if he wanted it. Terry thought about it
for a while and filled his wallet but left the majority of it in
where it was. He told him it was good to have a little stashed away
for a rainy day.

~~~

Chapter Six: What Price Revenge?

“Shit, bo… mate, anyone can kill anyone. If
you don’t get it right what’s the use. Can you take a moving target
at a mile?” Ginger was talking while he and Terry were
sparring.

“If I’m planted and the wind’s not too
bad.”

“But, you take out one, ubgh,” Ginger
grunted as Terry got a quick shot in. “Take one out and the other
will know you’re coming.”

“That’s why I gotta…” Terry did not finish
the sentence he waded in with a flurry of shots, the sixth or
seventh too wide. He left himself open for a second and Ginger
bloodied his nose. They didn’t have gloves or helmets on, they were
just bare knuckle punching. It didn’t take long to get tired of
that. They didn’t often practice using the Marquis of Queensbury
rules but it made a nice change since Terry could actually win
these fights. There were no hard feelings when they were done.

“I’ll tell you what…” Ginger sidestepped a
roundhouse, grabbed Terry’s elbow and wrist and jacked his arm
around behind his back. Terry spun the other way and dropped to one
knee. The fight was over and he had Ginger’s balls in his hand.
Ginger was impressed, slapped Terry on the back and they headed
back to the kitchen. “I’ll tell you what. If you want we can give
them the old one-two. It’ll take some planning and the coordination
needs to be perfect.”

“What’s the old one-two,” Terry wanted to
know.

“That’s when one is the set up and two is
the kill. Or, we can be subtle about it, find out who the main
players are and work on them instead. A quick kill is one thing,
like the mercy you showed the old dogs. I prefer a more circuitous
route to the target.”

“I’m listening.”

Only a few people had access to the Troy
brothers. In their role as corporate industrialists they
entertained wealthy businessmen and politicians. In their role as
criminal executives they spoke only with the world’s most powerful
men, though usually through their representatives. They were
becoming more and more legitimate as the years went by and giving
the direct control of the unsavory operations to their underlings.
There were five men directly under them who issued the orders and
directions seldom came from the true powers any more. As long as
the money kept flowing there was no problem, but when there was a
hiccup in the torrent of illegal liquid assets, there was real
trouble. Incompetence was met with direct and often irrevocable
response.

Jimmy Cognac was in charge of the Melbourne
area including Tasmania.

Tony Samfier was much more politically
motivated and had control from Canberra to the Victoria border.

Randy Arganmajc was in charge of the most
profitable region, Sydney proper.

Roy Tap covered the coast from Newcastle to
Brisbane. Most of the cocaine that came in from South America was
entrusted to his charge.

Rudy Christian had the dubious honor of
controlling the northern Queensland coast. He also negotiated with
the heroin suppliers north of Australia. Many of the ships stopped
in New Guinea on their way down from South-East Asia. Rudy had a
private estate on Badu Island where much of the Asian heroin was
stored temporarily. It was sealed in transport containers, and
protected by a group of paramilitary killers. Rudy ensured a slow
and steady supply of the powerful drug to the cities of the south,
keeping the price high and occasionally withholding supply to
increase the cost.

The problems began as small incidents that
would ordinarily be handled at the street level. Small-time dealers
being robbed at gunpoint by masked men driving cars stolen from
other small-time dealers was barely enough to open eyes. It was
certainly nothing to bother the mid-level executives with. The
events began happening in Sydney in 1999.

Organized crime among the street-level drug
addicts and small-time dealers is anything but organized. There is
no loyalty, no consistent and regular supply, no honor among
thieves. The street gangs try to keep things regulated but the
business is so inconsistent that one man can supply a group for a
while and then he gets frozen out and another source appears.
Suppliers cut their powders into oblivion as they become more and
more dependant on the drug itself and then a new source is
necessary. One pipeline gets busted, or gets out of the business
before it happens, and another source must be found. Marijuana
suppliers harvest at different times and there are times when there
is none available. And people talk.

When one is looking for a score, an addict
won’t refer him to his connection, but connections can be made
easily in pubs and clubs. Some people are more open with their
products so dropping names happens as well.

Developing a list of victims was easy for
Terry Kingston. He would drink lightly and share in whatever the
drug was but always with the objective in mind. His primary thought
was not to become a junkie like those he was carousing with. He had
been warned and watched carefully, himself. It was an insidious
slide down a slippery slope, especially for a brash young man eager
to prove he could hold his own in the party scene. Before such a
man knew it had happened, the drugs were all that mattered.

Heroin and opium were much more available
than cocaine in New South Wales. The trade routes from Asia were
old and well established. While it was less available, cocaine was
more desirable because it allowed a person to still function, drink
and dance, while high. It also took longer to destroy a person’s
life.

Amphetamines were not a huge problem in
Sydney at that time, though they were growing in popularity. One
snort of crystal methadrine and one could party all night and all
the next day. The long-term consequences of the drug were, as of
yet, unknown.

Threats of incarceration almost always
turned addicts into snitches, sometimes turned dealers into
snitches, but the chances of the police finding an informer
decreased dramatically as they went up the ladder. A classic
failure of the witness protection program reminded the middle and
upper echelon of the criminal enterprises what happened to men who
were willing to talk to the establishment.

Wally Brochade had been mid-level management
when he was caught with a shipment of heroin. He was looking at
life in prison and decided that it would be best if he rolled over
on his employers and took the chance. The case never made it to
trial. Wally was kidnapped from a transport van by four armed men
and was found a day later tied to a tree, upside down, his tongue
was cut out and had been replaced with his manly parts. He had died
suffocating on his own balls. His family had been similarly
tortured and murdered. His wife’s head was found in the toilet of
the family home, her body was never found. Even his children were
tortured and mutilated, dismembered and spread about the blood
soaked house. The family dog was cut in half with a machete.