Ferrari: more Saga .... for you and yours!

CHAPTER 3


Blofelt normally wouldn't be bothering with folk like these two low-rent
scufflers, who he gathered were going to try and thwart his grand
ambitions. He considered them nothing more than marks, a couple of
silly ass clowns good for a few trips to the cleaners, then out with the
trash. He was an international warlord, a one-man crime syndicate with
"controlling interests in worldwide operations ranging from casinos and
racetracks to prostitution, slavery and caviar poaching" (from his sales
brochure). He was a powerful man, used to getting his way, and just the
thought of these two bumblers interfering in his plans for Jerry
Springer's extermination made his blood boil. Sure, he knew the idiots
well. In his earlier days as a mere gambler, they had introduced him to
a strange form of poker at an underground casino in Monaco. Underground
because it was a nude casino, one of the few in the world, and Blofelt
spent a lot of time there. Though he mostly preferred a modest, quietly
sophisticated public manifestation, he was proud of his physique and
liked to take any opportunity to show it off. A few years back he had
secured a very rare McLaren F1 GTR for Arnold Schwarzenegger, and in
return the grateful muscle man had designed and personally overseen a
grueling "pump you up makeover" for Blofelt that in three months changed
him from a slovenly, conniving, and sleazy little 50 year-old weakling
to a slovenly, conniving, sleazy but massive Dolph Lundgren clone
("Rocky IV" model). Blofelt couldn't have been happier, feeling for
sure that he got the better of the deal.

(Thankfully the Austrian Oak never quibbled over the rather incomplete
paperwork packet, the funky-looking VIN strip, or the candy apple red
paint job that was still tacky when the car came out of its container -
and Gordon Murray's frantic investigation over the disappearance of a
priceless pearlescent orange GTR race car from his own garage in Woking
never reached California, much less Santa Monica.)

Normally, Blofelt would treat an encounter with two slobs like Funkraum
and Duiffin as he would an errant nose hair or a gnat buzzing around his
face. But Blofelt swung both ways, as the mood struck him, and that
particular night he had been mesmerized by Duiffin as he bobbed around
the club wearing only a Ferrari print tie loosely around his neck. That
rail-thin body, the craggy oh-so-British choppers, those remarkable
sideburns, and a perfectly-shaped, shiny white ass had transfixed
Blofelt, so much so that he invited Duiffin and his much-uglier friend
Funkraum to a private room for some poker, hoping to seduce Duiffin with
some Reserve Cristal and maybe a roofie or two. On most nights that
recipe usually led to a long night of hijinks, handcuffs, and "tap that
ass" in the Blofelt Suite. He had wanted the same with Duiffin.

He remembered that they brought him a nice bottle of Hungarian Tokaji
Aszu, his very favorite libation. It was 7 Puttonyos, too, the highest
quality Tokaji one could get. Even he himself never ordered more than
the 5 Puttonyos. He never did get a chance to ask the two fools how
they knew he liked Tokaji, though.

Once seated at the table, the two wretches attempted to teach him some
outlandish game called "Texas Hold-em". Blofelt thought it was really
called "Texas Hold-up", because he never won a hand. He was so certain
that he was being cheated that he had them roughed up a bit, thrown out
of the casino without their clothes, roughed up a bit more and then
driven to an area near the Palais du Prince and dumped at an
intersection, still naked. Blofelt regretted the missed seduction
opportunity, and indulged in one last long and loving stare at Duiffin's
lily-white buttocks as he was being dragged out of the poker room, but
if there was one thing Blofelt could not stand it was being cheated at
cards. He might be an international criminal and a heartless killer,
but he always tried to be an honest card player.

In his mind, Blofelt's only physical flaw was his missing eye. Once,
while skin diving in Mauritius, he'd been attacked by a huge hammerhead
shark. As he frantically tried to kick away, the beast jammed one side
of its head into his right eye. He wore a black eye patch now, and due
to the Bond-ian similarities of the accident, one of his underlings
started calling him "Blofelt".

That underling was worm food now, but the nickname stuck, and Blofelt
ended up liking it, as it did refer to another crime kingpin, albeit a
fictional and far less successful one than he.

And now again, like he had with those two car-crazy schlemeils, he was
wasting his time on the whole Springer situation. This was an
especially odoius and wretched affair, since it involved a member of his
family. Two years ago, Blofelt had never heard of Jerry Springer. His
criminal empire was keeping him happily busy and he was netting almost
US$17 million a month. His life was flawless, perfect – a realization
of all his dreams and fantasies. He even had a model family, a wife and
daughter, for those photo opps with world leaders that came along
infrequently. They had been safely ensconced, or so he thought, in an
opulent mansion on the beach near Perth, Australia. They were out of
the way and came into the picture only as needed – another facet of
Blofelt's perfect life. His wife, a former porn star named Liza Harder,
who had been a star with the Private outfit in Germany when Blofelt
first met her, asked for and expected nothing other than a very
reasonable $600,000 and two pounds of cocaine per month. The daughter
(he'd forgotten her name) had wanted only her own jet and airstrip (he
already had an extra Citation so it cost him almost nothing other than
cutting the airstrip near the house), $300,000 and a half-pound of blow
monthly. Peanuts to a man who couldn't count all his money in a
thousand lifetimes.

Then, one fine day while Blofelt was at his chateau at Lake Louise,
enjoying a wonderful glass of Chassagne-Montrachet and tending to his
fine collection of African crocodiles, one of his assistants sheepishly
approached him and handed him a remote control with a shaky hand.

"You better check Channel 126, sir. There's a situation."

Blofelt grabbed the remote and aimed it at the plasma screen hanging on
the wall of the changing room next to his dock. "Don't go anywhere."
The crocs were hungry and if this was bad, the assistant would be their
lunch. A trickle stain started down the assistant's leg and puddled up
near his shoe.

The screen lit up, and Blofelt thumbed the remote to Channel 126.
There, on the screen, was his daughter, sitting on a stage next to a
hulking, bald-headed man clad completely in black leather. He had a ...
my God, a Swastika tattooed on his head! A short, fat weird little
American with a lot of hair, glasses and a microphone bounded around
them. And across the bottom of the screen a banner shouted "The
Necrophiliac and the Nazi"! Horrors!

Blofelt turned up the sound, and then whirled around to face the
assistant, now standing in a lake of his own pee. "Get in the pen.
Now!" The assistant crossed himself, and put one leg in the pen while
grabbing for the posts to steady himself. But a crocodile came up,
crunched that leg off at the knee, and the screaming assistant toppled
into the pen amidst a riotous swirling of reptile flesh, teeth, and blood.

On the screen the action was heating up. Blofelt's daughter was
apparently defending a moral position of some sort to the host. "There
is NOTHING wrong with having sex with dead men! What the hell, they're
stiffer than half of you living chumps!" The crowd roared, and the host
glared at them with a look of mock horror, waving his arms to quiet them
down.

"This is appalling! The lowest of the low! Stay tuned for more - we'll
be right back with more on your Jerry Springer Show!"

And so had begun one of the most agonizing periods in Blofelt's life.
He learned everything there was to learn about the despicable Mr.
Springer, including his fetish for engaging potential segment subjects
sexually, before he decided to put them on his show. Putting several of
his agents on the case, he learned that the subjects of one show
captivated Springer more than any others: Bob and Sherrie, from Show No.
47, "Bob's Wife Sherrie is a Man", or some other such rubbish. Blofelt
knew that, though there had been more heinous subjects telecast on The
Jerry Springer Show, No. 47, if somehow put in wide release, would be
more than enough to sink Springer for good. A long, drawn-out ruin ...
so much more delightful than the quick sting of the assassin's blade.

The one good thing about the whole mess was the three hundred grand per
month Blofelt saved by terminating his pathetic daughter and that ...
thing she was seeing. He'd sent one of his android hit teams to take
care of them, almost immediately after they left the Springer studios.
There wasn't enough left of their bodies to put in a teacup after the
hitters were done with them. And, Blofelt hadn't had to pull out any
stops to take care of them, such as a Brosnan Iteration. He liked to
save the special toys for the big bad boys, such as what those two AAF
lunkheads were beginning to resemble in their clueless attempt to muck
up his plans for Springer.

The Brosnan Iteration was one of Blofelt's more fiendish toys. The
archcriminal, bored with hiring mere assassins to dispatch his many
rivals, had worked with Russian scientists to build android hit men.
The design evolved after three versions into a very acceptable male homo
sapiens exterminator, dressed to kill and fully vested with the powers
of elegant speech, discerning taste, and pistol marksmanship beyond
comparison. A female version also existed, but it was less intelligent,
much harder to maintain, couldn't operate an automobile with any skill,
and broke down once a month without fail, regardless of how long
Engineering labored over the design. The male 'droid hitters could
handle three jobs a week before needing a recharge, including travel.
It was a dream situation for an Austrian-Jewish criminal warlord in his
prime: top of the line bag men who didn't talk back, and real money
savers to boot!

But Blofelt wanted more. He wanted the ultimate. And so he designed
The Brosnan Iteration. It was the king of HITMN (High InTelligence
Mortality Nanoinducer) technology. And it was all Blofelt's – the
technology of each of the models on his kill team was light years ahead
of anything any government's covert operations group was into. As his
army of robot assistants grew, his reliance on humans, always the
weakest link, steadily dwindled. Anybody who was absolutely essential
was sworn to a level of secrecy that involved blood ceremonies and
threats of entire family line elimination.

The Brosnan theme sprang out of some research he'd done once for a
proposed celebrity kidnapping scheme that was now scuttled. It had
revealed that Pierce Brosnan, with or sans facial hair, in either Bond,
Other Drama, Lame Comedy or The Tailor Of Panama mode, was considered by
the public at large to be the most absolutely desirable celebrity of
all, the one famous person they might try cannibalism or bestiality to
get a chance to meet. Either sex responded to him the same way - so not
only could it be flexible in design, but it would still be
cost-effective! Working for months without rest, his Russians came up
with a small team of the most perfect Pierce Brosnan killing machines
the world would ever see. These were not duplicates or replicas. The
BI was a doppelganger, a complete and identical twin to the screen star
himself. It was fabulous. It could get close to any mark, any time,
and then charm and terminate that mark in a variety of deft yet
stunningly lethal ways. Blofelt had downloaded into each TBI all the
Brosnan Bond movies, and "The Tailor Of Panama" - he excluded "Mrs.
Doubtfire" as an aberration. All the experiences of those personas
resided in TBI's brain-mode ROM and were instantly accessible any time.

It was truly an excellent combination - a gourmand/bon vivant/sex
machine/killer. TBI could stroll through any time zone, any country
..... charm the local populace, take out the target, and be off to the
next job. It scored with the ladies or the men as well (the "scoring"
experiences were all downloaded and saved to Sensory DVD-R for Blofelt's
personal analysis at a later time).

TBI was a fearsome opponent, to be sure. Funkraum remembered the time
he watched one of them approaching a mark in a remote Afghan hamlet near
a favorite opium market. TBIs were armed with gold, .50 caliber Colt
Desert Eagles that were loaded with special Russian "spreader"
ammunition. These bullets exited the size of a shovel – and they always
exited. When it had the mark lined up, about 25 yards away, The Brosnan
Iteration shot a huge hole in his chest, then coolly walked up to the
stunned man, in shock and dying, scooped up a still-beating chunk of his
heart from the ground and handed it to him. It fled the scene in a
Mercedes 600 limousine and was at the airport and into the wild blue
yonder in one hour. TBI didn't stay around very long once it's job was
done. Nobody ever saw anything.


£ £ £ £ £ £ £ £ £

CHAPTER 4


Duiffin looked mildly concerned, than thoughtful, as he tried to figure
out their archrival's plan. He looked up at the Funkraum. "I'm not
surprised, not at all. He doesn't want the fight to last long. The
longer a BI lasts the more advantage we gain." The one flaw the duo
knew about TBI was it's weakness for cannabis, which sometimes caused a
short or other malfunction. "But even you can't shoot as fast as one of
those things." He threw down another splash of the Bactine on his
fuzzies. "I'll try to remember the TBI schematics I stole from those
Russian guys we worked over in Belgrade. They're on my computer at the
house, but ... shite! I forgot my Palm."

Funkraum shook his head. "I think those specs were for version 2.0.
He's way above that. But, I'm sure we can access your home computer
with my Blackberry once we get to the club, and look them over.

"Anyway, chum, the news gets worse, I'm afraid. Though we're not even
sure if Blofelt's in possession of the tape, he has apparently decided
to rub us out anyway, after we get to the Cal-Neva. According to
Smithers, he's purchased two of those old Scud B-based Hwasong 5
missiles from North Korea, by way of a Paki arms dealer in Queens, NY.
He has them in clandestine but fireable bunkers in the desert outside of
Las Vegas. He intends to launch them over something called Area 51,
some Yank spy boondoggle out in what I think is the general location of
Hell. He figures the sight of two odd projectiles flying from there
won't arouse the least bit of suspicion. One of the missiles will be
headed to the Cal-Neva. Total surface destruction, if it isn't a dud.

"The second missile is intended to 'wake up' an inactive fault line that
runs deep beneath the place. Blofelt even hired a geologist from UC
Davis who designed the trajectory and guarantees a 6.0 or so shaker
fifteen minutes after the missile hits. The plan is to finish us off
that way if we somehow survive the initial attack. Smithers thinks he
was able to grab the launch codes off a secure server at Blofelt's nerve
center in Estonia and determine the correct arrival times for both
missiles. I Blackberried 'em - we may be able to make use them of them
later.

"And, he's topped it off with TBI – certainly on its way also, to catch
us if we somehow get away from the Cal-Neva. TBI is also programmed to
capture and deliver Springer himself to Blofelt, who wants to extort the
rest of the jerk's worldly assets before broadcasting the tape, exposing
the sordid Springer life and hanging him out to dry via public ridicule
like has never before been seen on any 'reality show'. Fact is,
Smithers indicated that Blofelt is even negotiating with the royal
family of Tavarua to produce a Web-casted public execution on their
island. He really never did like that damn Jerry Springer show,
especially after that episode. If he did get the 47 tape he's
definitely going to use it to hang that slimeball."

Duiffin looked like he'd swallowed one of the fire ants. "He has to be
salivating over this, given an opportunity to take all of Jerry
Springer's cheddar and possibly wipe us off the map completely. With us
dead, he will have unrestricted access to the Clubs and will definitely
try to take over AAF – driving that dreadful green Rolls Phantom or his
hideous purple Diablo VT. Funk, he’s cutting everybody else out of the
deal! He intends to blow Tape 47 worldwide by himself, just for spite
since Springer will probably already be dead, public execution or not.

"You know, I hear he hit two pedestrians with that Phantom in Brighton a
couple months ago - and didn't even know it until Blarens was hosing the
car off later that afternoon. I suppose it is better than a Maybach –
but that would suit him too. I always think of Hitler and his entourage
prancing around a Maybach 62, Sieg Heil-ing and thrusting out their
chests. Blofelt could certainly pull that off."

Duiffin struggled to finish a Heineken and throw down a shot of brandy
at the same time. "Bloody hell, Funky! Is there no end to this
ridiculousness? All over a stupid videotape with sexual depravity on
it! Hell, I can go to Rotten.com and order up something worse than that
any time!"

Funkraum looked at Duiffin as if to smell something. "Cheddar? Did you
buy some cheese, Duiffin? I thought you concentrated only on alcohol.
Ahhh, for a nice wedge of Black Wax on a Jacobs cream cracker. It makes
me think of Mum ..."

"You idiot! 'Cheddar' is a slang term for money – it's used by all the
famous rappers, you know. I hear 50 Cent demands mad cheddar from all
his hoes." Duiffin had already popped a new Heineken and again wrested
the brandy from Funkraum's clutches for a couple pops. He studied the
label. The brandy was distilled in Cincinatti, Ohio. Before adopting
gross debauchery as his new plank, Jerry Springer had been mayor of
Cincinatti. This could be a sign. Duiffin decided to hold it under his
hat, like an ace up his sleeve. If all else failed, they could make a
journey into the heartland to see if JS was safe and holed up somewhere
close to Mommy.


MC

--
"Garcon!! More lithium!"