Blackwell Ops 2: Charles Claymore Task: Blackwell Ops, #2

By Harvey Stanbrough

Sometimes being who you are makes it easier to do what you have to do.

Charles Claymore "Charlie" Task is a self-described professional psychopath. Having freelanced all his life, now he's joined the team at Blackwell Ops.

Blackwell Ops is an organization owned and managed by Thomas Jefferson Blackwell. Through the operatives in his company — and for a fee — TJ works discreetly on behalf of governments, entities, and individuals to bring about desired results. Usually those results require surgical strikes on person and organizations around the world.

Now Charlie Task is one of those operatives. This is part of his story, as told to the author.

As always, only the more sensitive parts of Mr. Task's story are fictionalized. Everything else is true.

• Language: English
• Publisher: StoneThread Publishing
• Release date: Mar 15, 2019
• ISBN: 9781386137238

Harvey Stanbrough

Harvey Stanbrough is an award winning writer and poet who was born in New Mexico, seasoned in Texas, and baked in Arizona. Twenty-one years after graduating from high school in the metropolis of Tatum New Mexico, he matriculated again, this time from a Civilian-Life Appreciation Course (CLAC) in the US Marine Corps. He follows Heinlein’s Rules avidly and most often may be found Writing Off Into the Dark. Harvey has written and published 36 novels, 7 novellas. almost 200 short stories and the attendant collections. He's also written and published 16 nonfiction how-to books on writing. More than almost anything else, he hopes you will enjoy his stories.

Book preview

Chapter 1: My Introduction to Blackwell Ops

This isn’t my fault. I just want to be clear on that. It was precipitated as an unwavering requirement of employment at Blackwell Ops.

Also, Mr. Thomas Jefferson TJ Blackwell specifically requested we add to our accounts that the accounts are fictional. But I’m not going to do that, because frankly, readers will believe or not believe what they find here depending on whether or not they’re part of the fraction of 1 percent I’ll talk about a bit later in the book.

Why a man who runs a covert operation management business would want his operatives to give anyone even the slightest hint about what they’re doing is far beyond my pay grade. Or maybe it’s just beyond my ability to comprehend. Or my ability to set aside my own amazed sense of the absurd. Because it really is absurd.

But then, that’s the difference—one of many—between the boss man, Mr. Blackwell, and me.

In the first place, as I learned during the final part of my three-part interview, he reserves the right to rename all his operatives. Well, except me. As it turned out, that was not an unwavering requirement, and it’s the one rule I refused outright. Mine is an assumed name anyway, and once in a lifetime is enough for that silliness. Beside, given just a modicum of thought, it’s an appropriate enough description of who I am and what I do, so what could be better?

Apparently he believed my assertion that if he insisted, I would walk out and he could get along without me.

He was smart to do so.

Possibly the determining factor in his acceptance of my terms was my height, though I really doubt it. I stand 6’2 and weigh in the neighborhood of 190 pounds. That’s compared to his, what, 5’5 or maybe 5’6" and 130 pounds in a heavy downpour? But many of his operatives are larger and more stout than I, though I seriously doubt any have such a determined mind.

So maybe it was that, or maybe it was my staunch posture, my arms folded across my chest and my feet spread shoulder width apart as I stood before him in jeans and my authentic cashmere Burberry overcoat toward the end of our first meeting.

Or maybe it was the steady, determined look in my gaze, which emanated from behind my rose-tinted glasses. Or maybe it was the set of my firmly clenched jaw. It might have even been any of those things.

Then again, it might have been the .22 caliber semiautomatic pistol that dropped into my right hand from the sleeve of my overcoat, which I leveled at his smug, gnarled little face just before I said, Do we have a deal?

I wouldn’t have shot him, of course. I was only showing off my abilities. Or capabilities.

But he believed I would shoot him, and that’s well over half the battle. I know he believed because he involuntarily rolled his desk chair back a few inches—it thumped against the wall behind him—and sputtered before he was able to form the words: How did you get that in here?

I didn’t smile. I didn’t grimace. I didn’t sneer. None of that is appropriate in a professional business meeting. I said, "Polymer 2. But it doesn’t really matter, does it? The point is, I’m here, you’re here, and this— I tapped the pistol with the tip of my left index finger. Is here. Wouldn’t you agree?"

And he smiled. Maybe because he realized, or hoped, it was only a demonstration.

He said, Yes. Yes, that is the point, isn’t it? And yes, we have a deal, Mr. Task.

So I retracted the pistol into my sleeve and nodded. Very well. Then I will work for you.

Oh, yes, he said, and a sneer crept across his decrepit little mouth. Yes, you’ll work for me. For as long as I want you to.

"Don’t send anyone after me, Mr. Blackwell. If you want to make use of my abilities, hire me. If you don’t, don’t. In that case we’ll call it a draw. I’ll walk out and you’ll never see me again. But don’t hire me and then send someone after me. I would hate to deplete your assets. And I would deplete them."

You really believe you’re that good?

Mr. Blackwell, I never lie. I never bluff, and I never joke about serious matters. From the moment the tests began downstairs right up to this moment, you’ve seen only the barest tip of my abilities. I’m asking you, please don’t test me further. I might take it personally.

Very well, he said, but I didn’t really believe him. He gestured toward a lone chair in front of his desk. Would you have a seat, please?

I sat.

Over the next hour or so our conversation was amicable, if one-sided. In great detail, he explained how I would be contacted, how much and when and how I would be paid—

I stopped him there. The when and how were fine, but the amount was lacking. Add half again to the figure, I said, and we have a deal.

He rocked back in his chair. What makes you think I would do that?

I don’t necessarily, Mr. Blackwell, but I know my own worth.

He eyed me for a long moment, then said, Perhaps you do. We’ll see. In the meantime, I agree to your terms. Then he went on to discuss all the other mundane trappings that come along with acquiring gainful employment with any company. The only difference was that there were no forms to sign. Mr. Blackwell doesn’t believe in leaving paper trails, as I do not.

When he was finished, he said, Do you have any other questions or concerns?

I had no questions and I never have concerns.

The interview was over, and I showed myself out.

*

I probably should explain a bit about the tests I mentioned above.

Mr. Blackwell presumably creates tests unique to each applicant’s ability and stated skills. Of course, that’s fine. He has an obligation to his own peace of mind to know an asset is as good as advertised.

That being said, I was a bit disappointed in the tests he set up for me.

After the initial interview—during which I basically reiterated and embellished the skills and abilities I told him I had when I first talked with him on the telephone—I accompanied him to the elevator.

There, he pressed a button labeled U-7. It was the last button on the keypad.

When the doors opened, a hallway stretched away before us. On either side were three open doorways. Dim light emanated from each doorway into the hall. No doorway was directly opposite another.

He looked up at me. Proceed along the center of the hallway. Peer into each room. If a room is not empty, what lies within is a target. Your orders are to terminate with prejudice.

Well, that was simple enough. If I was to terminate something, that something had to be alive in the first place.

The nearest room, on the left, held nothing obvious other than a small night light plugged into the center of the back wall near the floor. Still, I walked in, scanned the floor, the ceiling, the walls and all eight corners.

The room held nothing.

I crossed to the first room on the right.

In the center of the room was a man in a metal chair with an angle-iron frame, facing away. He was silhouetted against the same dim light. He appeared to be Caucasian. From his skin tone, I thought he was in his late teenage years or early twenties. The chair was metal with an angle-iron frame.

I toed my loafers off silently and moved into the room.

His hair was dark and scraggly. His hands were tied behind his back and his ankles were bound to the legs of the chair, which was bolted to the floor. His head, shoulders, torso and feet were bare. He was wearing only a pair of jeans. In the far right corner of the room was a rumpled sweatshirt, a pair of tennis shoes and a pair of socks.

As I approached him from the back, he twisted his shoulders and turned his head to the right in an attempt to look behind him. In a fearful voice, he said, Who’s there? There was a faint echo of his voice in the otherwise silent room.

His right eye was swollen shut, and the right side of his forehead was cut open. A dark line of blood had coagulated from the cut down to his shoulder.

I grasped his chin with my right hand, the back of his head with my left and jerked. Hard. Twice. Then I released him, slowly.

He sagged slightly forward in the chair, and his head lolled forward almost to his chest.

I moved out of the room, slipped into my loafers and continued to the next room on the left.

In that room was a small child—a girl—mostly naked on a mattress in a shadow in the far corner. A thin blanket covered her from mid-torso down over her feet.

Again I slipped off my loafers and crept into the room.

I crouched at about the center of the room and made my way toward her.

I reached for the side of her face with my left hand and her throat with my right. The plan was to cover her mouth and nose with one hand as I crushed her larynx with the other.

But she was cool and firm to the touch in a way that human skin usually is not. At first, I thought she was already dead. Then I realized she was a manikin.

Nothing to terminate.

Good. I didn’t relish the idea of terminating a child. I never had before.

For some reason, I experienced a brief urge to pull the blanket up to cover her right shoulder, but that was silly. She was only a manikin. I rose, returned to the hallway, and slipped on my shoes again.

A quick inspection proved the next room on the right was empty, as was the third room on the left.

In the last room on the right the night light revealed a large woman, black as coal and wide-eyed. She wore a loose dress that hung on her despite her size, was barefoot, and had pressed herself into the far corner.

When I stepped into the room in my sock feet, she reached out with her hands, feeling for my presence. Her voice, too, was filled with fear. I kin smell you. Who’s there?

I took a couple more steps.

Who is it?

In as kind and quiet a voice as I could muster, I said, I am Gabriel. Are you blind, mother?

Yes. I cain’t see nothin’. You come to take me away?

I came to take you away, I said quietly. Here. Come to me.

She smiled and leaned into a step, her hands still reaching. I knowed one’a these days, I was gonna meet Je—

I grabbed her head, my thumbs gouging deep into her eyes, and slammed her head back against the wall as hard as I could.

It made only a muffled thump, and she sagged, sound asleep.

I caught her, turned her, grabbed her head and twisted. At the soft, meaty snap, I lowered her to the floor. Then I left the room, slipped on my shoes and returned along the center of the hall to the elevator, my thumbs tucked into my hip pockets.

Mr. Blackwell was still there, waiting inside. From what I could tell, he hadn’t moved.

He glanced down at his watch. Impressive, he said quietly. Not quite a minute and a half.

I shrugged. There were only two. And I stepped past him.

He pushed a button on the panel. As the doors closed, he looked up at me. Why didn’t you go directly down the center of the hall?

It didn’t make sense. The rooms were staggered. I adjusted.

Is it up to you to determine what makes sense and what doesn’t?

As I’m the person on the scene and at risk, yes, it is.

He nodded and fell silent.

As U-4 lit up on the panel, he said, And your shoes. I wasn’t surprised that you took them off, but why did you keep putting them back on?

Sometimes they’re an asset. Sometimes they aren’t.

He nodded. As the car passed the lobby, without looking up again, he said, Do you have any questions?

I stared straight ahead. I wanted to ask whether we might get something to eat. I hadn’t eaten breakfast that morning. But I only said, No.

Finally, as the car slowed, he said, You didn’t ask whether the victims or their families had been compensated.

I glanced down at him. That isn’t my concern, is it?

He looked up at me, but I was looking at the wall again. What does concern you?

I shrugged. Completing the job. Otherwise, nothing.

Then the elevator doors opened and we went back into his office.

*

After the second half of the interview, when the elevator doors opened onto the lobby, James—the massive gentleman who had initially let me in and sent me up to meet Mr. Blackwell—was standing squarely in front of the door, flexing his muscles.

Above his left eye was a blotchy, puffy pink scar that looked like a small manhole cover. It wasn’t quite an inch across. His broad shoulders and barrel chest filled the width and depth of his unbuttoned blue sports jacket, which hung open over a blue t-shirt. Below that were jeans supported by a smooth brown belt, and brown short-heeled round-toed western boots.

His lips pressed together in a grim smile as he cracked his knuckles. Did you really think you’d just walk out of here after pulling a gun on TJ?

He had close-cropped white hair and overly bushy eyebrows. His harsh blue eyes were attentive and wary. He probably thought he had seen hell first-hand sometime in the past. He might have even thought it was his personal domain.

But it wasn’t. It was mine.

This wasn’t a business meeting. I smirked. Then I moved my hands away from my waist, turning them palms up, and shrugged.

He charged.

I sidestepped him, hit him in the solar plexus, and slammed his flat-top into the back of the elevator.

He dropped face-down to the thin green carpet on the