Code 13 by Don Brown

ashtray.
    â€œVinnie! Get in here!”
    â€œOn my way, boss.”
    Phil slammed down the Times on the wooden desk, and the air from the sweeping newspaper caught the cigar ashes on the porcelain plate he’d used as a makeshift ashtray. This produced a dusting of gray ashes across the desk and onto the floor, just as his thirty-nine-year-old, right-hand man rushed into Phil’s office from the office next door.
    â€œWhat’s going on, boss?” Vinnie Torrenzano stood in front of Phil’s desk.
    Phil looked up at the disgusting excuse of a creature, standing there in a white dress shirt, sleeves rolled up, suspenders holding up his pants, who had ascended to “right-hand man” status only because he had married Phil’s oldest daughter. Otherwise Vinnie should have been cut to pieces and thrown to the rats in the sewers of the Bronx. Actually, the Bronx sewers would have been too good for Vinnie. Harlem would have been a better fit.
    It had been nineteen years now since Phil had walked into his house, back early from a business trip to Miami, to catch the rat with his daughter, Maria—in Phil’s own bed!
    Phil remembered Maria’s bloodcurdling screams as he proceeded to beat the little piece of garbage into a living pulp. When he’d finished the first round, Vinnie was lying on the floor with blood oozing from his mouth, and Phil ignored Maria as she tugged on his arm, sobbing and pleading, “Stop, Papa! That’s enough!” He called in “the boys” to pick up the wretched scumbag by the collar, haul him out to an alleyway in Harlem, and give him another working over.
    Later that night, the boys brought him back to the scene of his premarital sin, where, with his face looking like a purple cantaloupe, Phil proceeded to inform the scumbag, “Look, punk. If you’re going to defile my daughter, you’re going to marry her.”
    There was no negotiation on that point.
    The next day the family called in Father Joe, the family priest.
    Nineteen years later, Vinnie Torrenzano remained dutifully in the role of right-hand man, alive and well only because Phil loved Maria more than he hated Vinnie for what he had done to her.
    â€œHave you seen this garbage, Vinnie?”
    â€œSeen what?”
    â€œThere!” He pointed at the Times sitting on his desk. “It’s in the paper! Look at that front-page article in the lower right.”
    The son-in-law scumbag picked up the paper. His eyes widened as he started to read. “ ‘U.S. Navy Drone Contract Pending for Coastal Areas of U.S.’ ” He looked at Phil. “This the one you mean?”
    â€œYes. That’s the one I mean. What do you think I meant?”
    â€œHang on, boss.” Vinnie’s lips started moving, at first silently, as he began reading the article. A second later his vocal cords morphed into synchronization with his lips.
    â€œ ‘The U.S. Navy is awaiting approval of a massive military contract that will make it the largest operator of domestic drones in the world and, if approved, would award AirFlite Corp the largest defense contract in history.
    â€œ ‘The plan, the Times has learned, would call for the construction of 100,000 Light Maneuverable Unmanned Aircraft Drones, referred to as LMUA drones, over the course of the next five years. Finalization of the contract awaits legal review by the Navy JAG.
    â€œ ‘AirFlite, a South African company that has its international headquarters in Savannah, Georgia, has been awarded the contract, pending legal approval, based upon its ability to manufacture the relatively low-cost but highly maneuverable, mission-ready LMUAs at a revolutionary low cost of $10,000 per aircraft.
    â€œ ‘The LMUAs are smaller and less expensive than the military’s original Predator Drones, which ran upward of $4 million per unit.
    â€œ ‘AirFlite CEO Richardson DeKlerk told the Times that advanced