Chapter 17: Russians, too?

Mobsters. Cubans. Sons of Ares and Ares Brothers. American alphabet soup agencies. Politicians. Joe Fish dropped a bombshell.

“Carlos Marcello swore a blood oath to kill Bobby Kennedy,” Joe said. “The killers got away. The FBI has their weapons. They were supposed to ambush Bobby when he showed up to supervise a raid on a Key West arms cache, but that raid went off early without Bobby because Hoover fucked Bobby over. The killers were Russian.”

“Russian?” Billie asked. “I thought we were looking at Cubans.”

“There were two teams,” Joe detailed the organization. One team was from Texas, one was from Louisianna. They were to pick up their weapons and test-fire them today. Jack Kennedy would leave no stone unturned avenging his brother. Russian immigrants were the patsies. They were set up to get caught. Key West is isolated—the only ways to leave are by boat or that long bridge over the island chain. Helicopters or float planes might be used for escape, but the team was intended to be trapped to shift blame on Russia.”

“You have business in Dallas?” Major Blake asked.

“I’m taking a consignment of stuff from In Sharpe Focus and a wad of cash to a Dallas night club,” Joe bragged. “I’m open to leaving early and stopping in New Orleans for a couple of days. I can identify the teams. What do you want done with them?”

“Billie and Jackie did well with Roger L. Bruce,” Major Blake said. “Capture them.”

That’s how Billie and I wound up spending Thursday surveilling a garage in New Orleans.

“Is it only February 14?” I asked. “Berlin seems a lifetime away.”

“Does our situation remind you of anything?” Billie chuckled. “We’re reenacting the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre. Except that we are kidnapping Russian mobsters instead of killing Italian gangsters.”

“Any chance that we’ll encounter Skoptsy?” I asked as the last of our targets went into the garage.

“None left,” Billie assured me. “Let’s go.”

We drove into the garage and parked, got out wearing Girl Scout uniforms, leaving the doors of our green Chevy sedan open. We had nothing in our hands.

“What are you doing here?” a hulking man thundered.

I hit him in his solar plexus and chopped him across the neck, spun and leaped at my next target. Billie decked her first target. We both knocked out our second targets before the rest of the men began to react—too late for my third and fourth target. Billie’s third gave her only a little trouble before he flew into the side of a truck with a crunch, cutting off his scream. I used the garage phone to summon the rest of the team. It took only a few minutes for Billie to drug our captives.

Major Blake and Joe were the first in the door, revolvers out.

“You haven’t lost your touch,” Major Blake commented as he replaced his revolver in his holster. “Thirty seconds before you called us.”

“She stopped to check the rest of the place,” Billie bragged.

Joe Fish stared in shock as we helped the team to load inert bodies on stretchers and then into a waiting truck with a tire company logo. I took Joe’s revolver from his hand and tucked it in a pocket, then put him in the back of the green car. We were gone in less than fifteen minutes from initial entry.

“What did you do?” Joe asked as we wound our way through New Orleans.

“We came, we saw, we conquered,” Billie snickered. “They didn’t know that they were under attack until it was too late. I don’t think we broke anybody.”

“Ten hours to Dallas,” I announced.

“How did you do it?” Joe whined. “There were seven full-grown men. You are little girls!”

“That was our secret weapon,” Billy boasted. “They let their guard down. Jackie whistled and we attacked. The first people we cold-cocked were the only men that gave us any resistance. The last three were only trying to get away. They didn’t put up a fight at all.”

I drove until we were in Texas. While Joe fueled the car, we girls used the restroom to change out of Girl Scout uniforms and into matching jeans and checkered flannel shirts. We were in Texas, after all. While Joe made his pit stop, Billie bought sandwiches and coffee. I guarded the car. I must have looked like a meek little lamb because two boys began stalking me. I almost wept for them. One snuck up behind me while the other asked for a match.

“My fist and your face,” I replied—and immediately executed a back-fist to the boy behind me before grabbing the lapels of his denim jacket and throwing him into the boy in front of me. That caused the other boy to stumble backwards and hit his head on the ground—hard. The first boy started getting to his knees.so I kicked him just hard enough to knock him out. I dragged them out of the way of my car just as Billie emerged with two paper sacks.