The Venetian judgment.

by David Stone.

for catherine stone catherine stone

JANUARY 27, 1973:.

Linebacker I and II B-52 Air Operations over North Vietnam leave the NVA war-fighting machine in ruins. Cut off from the North, despised as murderous butchers by the people of South Vietnam, the Viet Cong insurgency collapses. Demoralized, with forty thousand NVA killed that year alone in their failed Easter Offensive, North Vietnamese leaders remove General Giap from command and sign the Paris Peace Accords. The Vietnam War ends in a de facto USA/RSVN victory.

APRIL 20, 1973:.

Nixon and President Thieu of South Vietnam meet at San Clemente. President Nixon reaffirms an earlier promise, backed by the U.S. Congress, that the U.S. would recommence Linebacker Air Operations over Hanoi if the NVA violated any elements of the Paris Peace Accords.

JUNE 19, 1973:.

Intimidated by antidraft student riots, and sensing Watergate blood in the water, a Democratic Congress passes the Case Church Amendment, forbidding any any U.S. involvement with Southeast Asia as of August 15, breaking solemn American covenants made only nine weeks earlier. Freed from the Linebacker threat and given massive material support by the USSR, the NVA immediately and aggressively violates the Paris Accords. Abandoned by the U.S., fighting not only the NVA but a proxy war with the USSR, Saigon falls in April of 1975. That same month, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge army of psychopathic fifteen-year-olds arrives in Phnom Penh and the killing begins. Over the next ten years more than three million Laotians, Cambodians, and South Vietnamese die in "reeducation" camps, at the hands of roving murder squads, or in suicidal attempts to flee. U.S. involvement with Southeast Asia as of August 15, breaking solemn American covenants made only nine weeks earlier. Freed from the Linebacker threat and given massive material support by the USSR, the NVA immediately and aggressively violates the Paris Accords. Abandoned by the U.S., fighting not only the NVA but a proxy war with the USSR, Saigon falls in April of 1975. That same month, Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge army of psychopathic fifteen-year-olds arrives in Phnom Penh and the killing begins. Over the next ten years more than three million Laotians, Cambodians, and South Vietnamese die in "reeducation" camps, at the hands of roving murder squads, or in suicidal attempts to flee.

part one

KROKODIL.

VENICE, LATE DECEMBER, 1:45 A.M. LOCAL TIME.

Dalton shot the bodyguard first, because that's how these things are done, taking him as he came out of the west gate of the Piazza San Marco, right where it opens into the Calle de L'Ascensione. The guard was a bullnecked, buzz-cut Albanian kid, likely some hapless third-rater drummed out of the Kosovo Liberation Army, judging from the way he pixie-pranced right out into the calle, looking this way and that in the dark, with his war face on and his brows all beetled up, as if he actually knew what he was doing. He had a Tokarev in his left hand, a deeply useless piece of scrap iron, and he never even got it into play before Dalton stepped out of the alcove on his left and punched a soft-nosed, subsonic .22 caliber round into his temple. That was pretty much that, as the slug pinballed around inside the kid's skull for a few seconds, making a lumpy gray soup out of his life so far. The boy went down-straight down, like a sack of meat falling off a flatbed.

Mirko Belajic, the kid's boss, had been hanging back under the arch, waiting for the all clear, so when Dalton took out the bodyguard the wily old Serb flinched a half step back and reached into his Briony topcoat. But by then Dalton had the muzzle of his Ruger up against the man's barrel chest.

"Dah, Krokodil!" he grunted, as if his most depressing expectations for the evening had just been grimly confirmed. Dalton stepped out into the faint glow from the lights of the piazza, his face stony and a green spark in his pale blue eyes, his long blond hair pulled back from his hard-planed face. He was wearing a blue Zegna topcoat, black leather gloves, and a navy blue turtleneck, so in the dim light from the piazza he looked like a skull floating in the shadows. The snow was sifting down, a curtain of powdered glass, diamond-lit by a sickle moon. Their frozen breath hung in the still air between them, a pale glowing mist, slowly rising up. he grunted, as if his most depressing expectations for the evening had just been grimly confirmed. Dalton stepped out into the faint glow from the lights of the piazza, his face stony and a green spark in his pale blue eyes, his long blond hair pulled back from his hard-planed face. He was wearing a blue Zegna topcoat, black leather gloves, and a navy blue turtleneck, so in the dim light from the piazza he looked like a skull floating in the shadows. The snow was sifting down, a curtain of powdered glass, diamond-lit by a sickle moon. Their frozen breath hung in the still air between them, a pale glowing mist, slowly rising up.

"Krokodil, you . . . you you . . . you wait wait now, just a bit," the old man said, in a flat, steady voice, no quaver, not begging, just making a suggestion, as if they were arranging to meet for drinks. "Not too late for you. We talk-" now, just a bit," the old man said, in a flat, steady voice, no quaver, not begging, just making a suggestion, as if they were arranging to meet for drinks. "Not too late for you. We talk-"

"No. We don't," said Dalton softly, squeezing the trigger once, popping a round into the old man's chest about an inch below his left nipple. The old man staggered back, his roast-beef face losing color and his mouth gaping open. He plunged his hand into his coat and brought out a small stainless-steel revolver, which Dalton easily plucked from the man's gnarled, arthritic hand. He threw it into the alley behind him. It struck and skittered across the frozen cobbles with a dull metallic clatter.

Belajic stared at Dalton for a time, blinking slowly, then pulled his suit jacket to the side and looked down at his shirt, where a black stain around a tiny frayed hole was starting to spread open like a black poppy. He put a meaty palm over it, winced, looked back at Dalton, his breathing now coming in short, sharp puffs as his lung slowly collapsed. The expression on his face wasn't fear, or even anger.

He looked . . . offended offended.

"I am . . . stabbed? Mirko Belajic is . . . dying dying?"

"Cora Vasari," said Dalton, and had his suspicions confirmed by the flicker of recognition in Belajic's face, a fleeting muscular contraction around the old man's left eye, a blue vein flaring in his neck, gone in an instant.

"I was . . . nothing nothing with . . . that. That was Gospic-" with . . . that. That was Gospic-"

Dalton reached out and plucked a small Razr cell phone out of Belajic's breast pocket, beeped it on, and handed it back to Belajic, who looked confused.

"Make a call."

Belajic blinked at Dalton, his wrinkled face closing up.

"Call? Call who?"

"You've just been shot, shot, Mirko. Call out your people." Mirko. Call out your people."

Belajic blinked at Dalton for a while longer, trying to make sense of the words, then looked down and pressed in a number using both fat thumbs and lifted the phone to his ear. Glaring into Dalton's eyes, he spoke rapidly into the handset, a low growl in gutter Serbian, ending with a harsh, coughing curse that included the name Krokodil Krokodil more than a couple of times. more than a couple of times.

He snapped the phone shut, still locked on Dalton, a killing stare. Twelve years ago, over a disagreement with an obscenely overweight son-in-law regarding the distribution of the proceeds from an opium-paste-for-SAMs deal with the Chechens, Belajic had made a point about greed, gluttony, gratitude by throwing the man, naked and bound hand and foot, into a small feed pen filled with hungry boars. As the story goes, in spite of their best efforts, the animals took several days to rip away everything considered tasty to a boar. In the process, the fat man's shrieks grew so pitiful that Mirko himself got up from a large family dinner with his steak knife in hand and went out back to the barn to slice the man's voice box so his screams wouldn't upset the grandkids, one of whom was the victim's only son, a ten-year-old lad named Zakary.

Belajic doted on the boy, and, as an act of mercy, suspended the ancient law of Serbian vendetta that required that all sons must die with their fathers. Zakary lived a privileged life in the bosom of Mirko's family in their sprawling mansion in Budva. At an engagement party for the popular young man, laid out on a broad terrace overlooking the sparkling sapphire plains of the Adriatic Sea, with Zakary's gazellelike Danish fiancee at his side and all the family present, Belajic's wife, Anna, rose to propose a toast to Zakary on the occasion of his twenty-first birthday, pointing out that, according to Serbian custom, he was now an adult, with all the related privileges.

Mirko raised his glass along with all the company, and then they sang happy birthday to Zakary. At the end of the evening Mirko took the boy aside and walked him out to the garage, where, with some ceremony, he opened the double doors to show his favorite grandson a special birthday present, an emerald green Maserati. Zakary, deeply touched and genuinely surprised, bear-hugged his beloved poppi, poppi, pronounced this "the happiest day of his life," and stepped forward to touch the splendid machine, running a hand gently over it, his face glowing. Belajic shot him in the back of the head. pronounced this "the happiest day of his life," and stepped forward to touch the splendid machine, running a hand gently over it, his face glowing. Belajic shot him in the back of the head.

It is said that Mirko had tears in his eyes as he wiped a spray of bright red blood off the hood of the Maserati. Simple prudence dictated that once Zakary reached full manhood he had to die, but Mirko was greatly comforted by the knowledge that Zakary had died on "the happiest day of his life."

So Mirko Belajic's killing stare was a pretty good one.

Dalton, ignoring the stare, took the cell from his hand, thumbed up LAST CALL, read the number, and gave Belajic a look with some sympathy in it.

He didn't have anything personal against Belajic, whose role in the attempted assassination of a woman who, in a better world, he might have loved was peripheral, but if you're going to start revenge-killing Serbian mafiosi, it's best to be thorough.

"Mirko, you'd have been better off with the Carabinieri."

Belajic showed his ragged teeth, his bloodred gums.

"Ha! For why? Brancati runs them, and he is your cinci biat." cinci biat."

Dalton shut the phone off and tossed it out into the dark. It hit a wall with a crack, clattered onto the cobblestones, and bounced with a wet plonk into an open drain. Then the silence came back.

"So," said Belajic, his chest heaving and his face wet, his expression defiant, "now the Krokodil Krokodil will shoot me again?" will shoot me again?"

"No. I just wanted to stick a banderilla banderilla in you." in you."

Belajic had no idea what Dalton was talking about, but he sensed a reprieve. "So, now . . . ?"

Dalton, smiled, stepped aside, clearing the way into the Calle de L'Ascensione, waving Belajic through the ancient gate with a slight bow.

"Now? Now you . . . go."

Belajic stared at Dalton.

"Go? I . . . go?"

Dalton nodded.

Belajic held Dalton's eyes a second longer and then lunged forward, shoulder-butting Dalton aside and plunging out into the street, his thin Ferragamo slippers slithering on the icy cobbles, his topcoat flaring out like bat wings as he lumbered heavily across the shadows of the narrow lane and into the Calle Moise, heading for the brighter lights at the far end, the Calle Larga 22 Marzo, a wide, open mall of exclusive shops behind the Gritti.

Dalton held back for a full minute, waiting until the old man reached the set of steps where Calle 22 began, watching as the man broke out of the shadow and into the hard halogen downlight of the mall's security lamps. Belajic ran pretty well, thought Dalton, for a syphilitic old rhino with a soft-nosed bullet in his left lung. Dalton slipped the Ruger in the pocket of his coat, sighed, and stepped out into the street. Fifty yards away, Mirko Belajic was pounding on the steel security plates of Cartier, calling hoarsely for help. Dalton, coming on now, playing by the rules of the corrida, corrida, his hands in his pockets, his collar turned up against the bitter burn of the snow drifting down, smiled to himself. his hands in his pockets, his collar turned up against the bitter burn of the snow drifting down, smiled to himself.

Help?

This was Venice in December, and in December, after midnight, the San Marco district was basically a stone-walled cattle chute lined with barricaded villas and shuttered stores. Even if someone had heard the man calling, no sensible Venetian would leave his warm bed to help some frightened old Serb. The Venetians hated the Serbs almost as much as they hated the Bosnians and the Montenegrins and the Croats and the Albanians and all the rest of those murderous Slav pigs from across the Adriatic.

Belajic, his breath chuffing out in a white plume, turned under the glow of the light. His face was in shadow, his bald head slick with sweat, staring back into the Calle de L'Ascensione at Dalton's silhouette. Belajic slammed the steel shutter of the Cartier store once more, making it ring like a temple gong, leaving a bloody smear on the ice-cold metal.

"I am not . . . to die . . . like old . . . bull in . . . abattoir abattoir?"

"They shot her in the head, Belajic."

"Fah," said Mirko, backing away up the calle, still facing Dalton. "They? Who . . . the fuck . . . is they they? It is only business."

"They?" replied Dalton in a tone of sweet reason, as if he were taking Belajic's question seriously. "They were Branco Gospic's people. Radko Borins. Emil Tarc and Vigo Majiic. Stefan Groz. Gavrilo Princip. Milan somebody, never got his last name-" were Branco Gospic's people. Radko Borins. Emil Tarc and Vigo Majiic. Stefan Groz. Gavrilo Princip. Milan somebody, never got his last name-"

Belajic flared up at that.

"Milan Somebody-never-got-his-fucking-name Somebody-never-got-his-fucking-name? His name was Milan Kuchko! He was my . . . cousin cousin!" said Belajic in a wet, wheezing growl, fighting for every breath. "And you you, Krokodil Krokodil! For . . . nothing, nothing, to amuse, you . . . kick him . . . half to death . . . in the cloisters by the Palazzo Ducale . . . while you sing a song. Now he is all day . . . in a shabby room . . . over a sheep-stinking wool shop in Budva . . . where he moans like a calf and . . . stares and . . . fouls himself . . . and . . . his tongue sticks out-" to amuse, you . . . kick him . . . half to death . . . in the cloisters by the Palazzo Ducale . . . while you sing a song. Now he is all day . . . in a shabby room . . . over a sheep-stinking wool shop in Budva . . . where he moans like a calf and . . . stares and . . . fouls himself . . . and . . . his tongue sticks out-"

"Better keep it moving," said Dalton, lifting the weapon and punching a round into the cobblestones at Belajic's feet. Chips of cobble spattered Belajic's coat, and the round sizzled off into the gloom beyond the storefront lights.

Belajic cursed him again and turned to stumble away, his head down and his arms slack at his sides, chest heaving, blood on his thick blue lips, his chubby legs working as the final minutes of his life flowed past him, his breath pluming out over his shoulder as he made his slow way down the Calle Largo, past the darkened hulk of the Santa Maria del Giglio, down the steps over a small canal and on into the narrow Calle Zaguri. There he came out into the cold blue moonlight again as he crossed the open campo near the Bellavite, his light Italian slippers leaving black sickle-shaped ribbons in the powdery snow. Dalton let him gain some distance, let him think he was going to- Dalton froze in midstep, lifted his haggard face to the knife-edged moon, his head cocked to one side, thin lips tight, looking much like a raptor as he did so. There was a muted rumble in the air, a soft, churning mutter: a boat, some kind of launch, in one of the canals, and it was close. close. He looked back across the open square of the Campo Bellavite and saw Belajic stumble into the darkened archway that hid the doors of the chapel of San Maurizio. He looked back across the open square of the Campo Bellavite and saw Belajic stumble into the darkened archway that hid the doors of the chapel of San Maurizio.

And stay there.

Going to ground, thought Dalton.

He was expecting this boat.

Dalton listened intently to the sound of the cruiser's engines, deciding that it was too deep and steady for one of the Venice police boats, and not pockety-pockety pockety-pockety enough for one of those late-night water gypsies. It had to be private. He was trying to guess which canal it was running in-there were three small canals running off the Grand Canal at this point, just across from the domes of Santa Maria della Salute. He lifted his mind up, tried to see Venice as if from the air, picturing the way the narrow waterways threaded through the tightly packed maze of hotels and villas and overhanging archways of the San Marco district. enough for one of those late-night water gypsies. It had to be private. He was trying to guess which canal it was running in-there were three small canals running off the Grand Canal at this point, just across from the domes of Santa Maria della Salute. He lifted his mind up, tried to see Venice as if from the air, picturing the way the narrow waterways threaded through the tightly packed maze of hotels and villas and overhanging archways of the San Marco district.

Belajic had stopped running when he reached the chapel gates. The last bridge he had crossed was a narrow walkway over the Albero canal. They were now in the tangled medieval warrens just behind the Gritti . . . and the sound of the boat's engine was getting louder. Dalton stood still, holding his breath, listening so hard it was making his neck hurt.

After a moment, he got a fix: the engine sound was coming from the direction of Teatro La Fenice. Dalton slipped into a lane on his right and ran softly up the alley behind San Giglio chapel. The dark bulk of the ancient theater loomed up on his right. The sound of the boat's engine was growing louder, coming, he was pretty certain, from the wide canal that ran east to west beside the theater.

Dalton reached the small square by the Calligari, where the Rio Fenice opened up into a kind of broad, shallow pool that, in the high season, would reflect the illuminated facade of the theater. Now, in late December, it was a quadrangle of still black water with a thin dusting of melting snowfall.

The vibrato burble of the boat engine was carrying clear across the lagoon, but there was no light nor movement. Dalton stepped back into a recessed doorway and waited. The snow sifted silently down in the moonlight. He could feel his heart working steadily in his chest, see his breath in a cold blue cloud in the chilly air in front of him. He went inward for a time, as he always did just before a fight.

He may have been afraid, or bitter, or sad, or a combination of all three: he wasn't sure he gave a damn either way. In the main, what he was feeling was a kind of dark anticipation, an early tremor of that corrosive joy that violent action always delivered: the formal strikecounterstrike of hand-to-hand killing, the aesthetic fulfillment in a well-placed skull shot, the my-work-here-is-through feeling of professional satisfaction when you stood over a dead man who, a few seconds ago, had been trying his hardest to kill you.

Dalton had killed many men back in the Fifth Special Forces, and later on for the Company, and most of them had deserved it, some less so, which he had often tried to regret.

On the subject of regrets, with some luck tonight, if these guys were any good at all, from some unexpected angle there'd come a bright muzzle flash, he'd feel a numbing impact, then the sound of a gunshot and that nauseating flood of vertigo, pain too, of course, he'd been shot before-"a pang, soon passing," some optimistic fool of an unshot poet had once said-and then the cobblestones coming up at his face like the pitted surface of an onrushing moon: in brief, a nice, quick death, in the heat of a lively gunfight, and a blessed end to regret and remorse and all the self-inflicted grief of his short and brutal life. Then, if Porter Naumann's ghost was a credible source, a chilled magnum of Bollinger in the eternal twilight of the Piazza Garibaldi in Cortona, watching the light change far below them in the broad checkerboard valley of Lake Trasimeno, surrounded by the shades of all his long-dead friends and a select few sometime lovers.

Somewhere in the farther recesses of his disordered mind a woman's voice-possibly Cora's, more likely Mandy Pownall's-was asking him why he was doing this mad, bad thing, arranging to die in a suicidal vendetta with the ragtag remnants of a Serbian gang he and the Carabinieri had already decimated, crushed, and scattered across the eastern Med from Venice to Kotor to Split. Dalton had no good answer other than that eventually everyone dies and wasn't this a lovely evening for it, and if Venice wasn't a good place to die, it was still echelons above all the competition.

Something low and shadowy developed slowly out of the thicker gloom of the canal across the lagoon, a crocodile shape that slid quietly out into the open water, its sharp destroyer bow slicing through the half-frozen water with a reptilian hiss.

In the moonlight, Dalton could make out the vague shapes of three men huddled in the launch and the pale red glow from the control panel on the face of the driver. A tinny crackle from a walkietalkie, quickly squelched, someone cursing someone else, a guttural snarling sound with plodding Slavic cadences; Mirko Belajic's people, racing to the rescue of the Big Boss, just as Dalton had hoped they would. The sound of a radio handset let Dalton know that there was at least one other man to deal with, probably in the streets already, shadowing the launch, looking for Dalton, knowing that the sound of a boat at this hour would certainly draw him in. The murmur of the boat's engine reverberated around the deserted lagoon, bouncing off the shuttered windows and barred doors of the empty summer houses that faced Teatro La Fenice.

If the driver of that cutter wanted to thread a launch through the local canals, he had a problem: the Adriatic had risen to record flood levels this winter, the Piazza San Marco half flooded once more, and most of the canals of the city had risen too high for a boat to pass under the bridges that crossed them. In order to reach a canal that led to the chapel of San Maurizio, or even to the quay beside the Campo San Stefano, he'd have no choice but to go under the stone arch that spanned the Rio Fenice. And Dalton was already there, waiting.

He saw the long black shape come fully out of the shadow and into the half-light of the moon. It was one of those exquisite hand-built Rivas, twenty-five feet long, slender as a rapier, a thirties-era Art Deco masterpiece, its mahogany deck gleaming in the moonlight like the hide of a horse, the low, curving stern trailing a fan of lacy diamond sparkles in the black water.

Dalton slipped the Ruger out of his pocket, pressed the slide back far enough to see the pale, brassy glitter of a round in the chamber, eased it forward again. There was a sudden flicker of motion at the side of the doorway. He brought his right hand up, still holding the Ruger, saw a flash of bright steel. A large black shape filled the archway and lunged at him. He caught the edge of the blade on the Ruger's slide, heard the slither of steel on steel, and drove the man's blade hand into the stones beside him. Sparks flew as the blade edge grated along the wall-the man twisted, a violent muscular surge, he was incredibly incredibly strong-a hulking figure in the dark. Dalton could smell the man's last drink on his breath, possibly grappa. He drove into Dalton hard, slamming him into the door, all this in total silence, just the grunt and heave and hiss of desperate muscular exertion. strong-a hulking figure in the dark. Dalton could smell the man's last drink on his breath, possibly grappa. He drove into Dalton hard, slamming him into the door, all this in total silence, just the grunt and heave and hiss of desperate muscular exertion.

Dalton sensed the rising knee, twisted to his right, and felt the thudding impact of it striking his left hip. The man struck Dalton's right wrist and the Ruger went flying. Now the knife came punching back again, a wicked streak of silver glinting in the shadow. Dalton felt the blade drive through the folds of his topcoat along his left side, a slicing, burning fire. The man was fully extended, totally committed to the power of the thrust and the necessary follow-through.

Dalton shifted to the right, caught the man's wrist in his left hand and kicked him behind the right knee. The man went down, striking the door. The knife bounced out of his hands, a muted, tinny clang sounding as it hit the cobblestones.

Behind him now, Dalton got his left forearm under the man's chin, jammed his foot down on the back of the man's calf to keep him down, set himself, braced the other hand on the man's left temple, and jerked the man's head to the right viciously viciously hard, meaning to tear his head right off his neck- hard, meaning to tear his head right off his neck-Christ, the guy was a gorilla-it was like trying to rip a fire hydrant out of a sidewalk. the guy was a gorilla-it was like trying to rip a fire hydrant out of a sidewalk.

The man now knew his own death was in immediate play, one hand gouging at Dalton's eyes, the nails of his other hand raking the skin on Dalton's left forearm as he tried frantically to buck Dalton off his back. Dalton used all his weight and power to ride this monster backward and down, to lock him in place. If the man got his legs under him, Dalton was a dead man.

Dalton wrenched the man's cannonball skull as hard as he was able to, his left forearm an iron bar across the man's windpipe, his face a killer's ugly mask. He could feel the powerful sinews and steel-cable tendons in the man's neck straining, stretching.

Dalton put everything he had into it, and something deep inside the man's bull neck slowly began to give way. In the muscles of his forearm, Dalton could feel the bony cartilage of the man's voice box start to crumple. A high, keening wail, full of mortal fear and agony, came like a needle-sharp jet of high-pressure steam from the man's gaping mouth: he was trying to speak. "Aspetta, Krokodil . . . per Dio . "Aspetta, Krokodil . . . per Dio . . . . Aspetta . . ." . Aspetta . . ."

Dalton jerked the man's skull around in one final surge, his powerful shoulders flexing hard, his lean, ropy muscles burning with the strain. A low, grinding creak way down deep-a sudden, meaty snap-and now the head was flopping heavy in his hands, a fat gourd on a broken stalk. The alcove filled with the sudden stink of sewage.

This was the "outside man" they were talking to on the radio, or one of them. A nice tactical move. He would have done the same, if he had anyone to deploy. Were there others? He would have to assume there were.

Dalton let the body drop, plucked the Ruger up off the ground with his left hand, the stiletto with his right, the breath burning in his lungs, his shoulders on fire with the ferocious effort it took to break a strong man's neck.

He moved silently across to the opening of the alcove, looked out at the lagoon. The launch was still slowly crossing the open water. What had seemed like an hour of silent murder had really lasted less than ten seconds. One of the dark shadows on the launch lifted something to his lips. There was a crackle of static close by, then a hoarse whisper in Serbo-Croatian: "Zorin? Jeste li tu? Zorin?"

Dalton bent over, ripped through the dead man's pockets, tugged out the radio, put the mike to his lips, spoke in the same croaking whisper: "Dah. Ja sam ovdje-"

"Krokodil?"

"Dah. Sam ubio ga. On je mrtav."

Yes. I killed him. He's dead.