The Executioner rolled out of the shadows, Beretta up and chugging

Bolan made quick work of putting them in their resting place. He closed the lid on the coffin and leathered the Beretta. Retreating, he checked the parking lot. Before coming in, the soldier had considered fixing the fleet of fancy wheels with plastic explosives, but just as quickly dismissed the idea. This was a commercial and residential neighborhood and no one on the block needed to pay indirectly for the crimes of these savages by finding their homes and businesses pummeled and damaged by raining debris.

Melting into the deeper shadows of the alley, Bolan determined that for all enemies concerned, reality was only just beginning to heat up.

MACK BOLAN®

The Executioner

#241 Evil Reborn

#242 Doomsday Conspiracy

#243 Assault Reflex

#244 Judas Kill

#245 Virtual Destruction

#246 Blood of the Earth

#247 Black Dawn Rising

#248 Rolling Death

#249 Shadow Target

#250 Warning Shot

#251 Kill Radius

#252 Death Line

#253 Risk Factor

#254 Chill Effect

#255 War Bird

#256 Point of Impact

#257 Precision Play

#258 Target Lock

#259 Nightfire

#260 Dayhunt

#261 Dawnkill

#262 Trigger Point

#263 Skysniper

#264 Iron Fist

#265 Freedom Force

#266 Ultimate Price

#267 Invisible Invader

#268 Shattered Trust

#269 Shifting Shadows

#270 Judgment Day

#271 Cyberhunt

#272 Stealth Striker

#273 UForce

#274 Rogue Target

#275 Crossed Borders

#276 Leviathan

#277 Dirty Mission

#278 Triple Reverse

#279 Fire Wind

#280 Fear Rally

#281 Blood Stone

#282 Jungle Conflict

#283 Ring of Retaliation

#284 Devil’s Army

#285 Final Strike

#286 Armageddon Exit

#287 Rogue Warrior

#288 Arctic Blast

#289 Vendetta Force

#290 Pursued

#291 Blood Trade

#292 Savage Game

#293 Death Merchants

#294 Scorpion Rising

#295 Hostile Alliance

#296 Nuclear Game

#297 Deadly Pursuit

#298 Final Play

#299 Dangerous Encounter

#300 Warrior’s Requiem

#301 Blast Radius

#302 Shadow Search

#303 Sea of Terror

#304 Soviet Specter

#305 Point Position

#306 Mercy Mission

#307 Hard Pursuit

#308 Into the Fire

#309 Flames of Fury

#310 Killing Heat

#311 Night of the Knives

#312 Death Gamble

#313 Lockdown

#314 Lethal Payload

#315 Agent of Peril

#316 Poison Justice

The Executioner®

Poison Justice

Don Pendleton

Even in theory the gas mask is a dreadful thing. It stands for one’s first flash of insight into man’s measureless malignity against man.

—Reginald Farrer 1880–1920

The Void of War

I have seen the terrible result of greed and betrayal. I have seen the innocent poisoned by evil. It is my duty to provide those victims with justice.

—Mack Bolan

THE MACK BOLAN® LEGEND

Nothing less than a war could have fashioned the destiny of the man called Mack Bolan. Bolan earned the Executioner title in the jungle hell of Vietnam.

But this soldier also wore another name—Sergeant Mercy. He was so tagged because of the compassion he showed to wounded comrades-in-arms and Vietnamese civilians.

Mack Bolan’s second tour of duty ended prematurely when he was given emergency leave to return home and bury his family, victims of the Mob. Then he declared a one-man war against the Mafia.

He confronted the Families head-on from coast to coast, and soon a hope of victory began to appear. But Bolan had broken society’s every rule. That same society started gunning for this elusive warrior—to no avail.

So Bolan was offered amnesty to work within the system against terrorism. This time, as an employee of Uncle Sam, Bolan became Colonel John Phoenix. With a command center at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, he and his new allies—Able Team and Phoenix Force—waged relentless war on a new adversary: the KGB.

But when his one true love, April Rose, died at the hands of the Soviet terror machine, Bolan severed all ties with Establishment authority.

Now, after a lengthy lone-wolf struggle and much soul-searching, the Executioner has agreed to enter an “arm’s-length” alliance with his government once more, reserving the right to pursue personal missions in his Everlasting War.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Epilogue

Prologue

The future belonged to the sociopath.

Spoken by his predecessor—before the black magic baton for head of Special Action Division was passed on to him—Richard Grogen recalled the statement for reasons that pertained to more than his own world. Cradling his HK MP-5 subgun with laser sight and sound suppressor, he believed there was no hidden meaning in the cryptic statement, no warning prophecy. Aware his hold on power was tenuous, at best, he knew both professional and personal fate hedged on the whims and paranoid myopia of faceless powerful shadow men, any of whom called the shots from about three thousand miles east. And, like him, they had more to lose than just careers, if the truth about their black project leaked out for public devouring or congressional cannibalizing. No crystal ball gazing was needed for Grogen to know phantoms would arise in the middle of some future midnight. They would come, shipped out of nowhere to make sure he, too, took all his secrets with him to an unmarked desert grave.

Given what he knew about Project Light Year, aware of the nature of the beast he was chained to, Grogen supposed they believed his fate was inevitable. But, where there was a will to fight, nothing was ever carved in stone. If he was going to retire, it would be on his terms.

Starting now.

He peered ahead into the darkness, absorbing the jounce and pitch of the Hummer from the shotgun seat as it rolled along at a scorpion’s pace, wheels catching ruts and furrows, here and there, in the dirt track. The future was somewhere ahead in the utter blackness, but he’d be damned if he could find any sign of life, beyond the combined fanning glow of headlights from the trailing vehicles. The travel brochures claimed Nevada trooped in some thirty million visitors a year, ranking it ahead of Orlando, Florida, as the country’s number-one tourist mecca. Naturally, Vegas, Reno and Tahoe gobbled up the lion’s share of human life. But out here, Grogen thought, pushing for the Arizona border, where giant prehistoric reptiles, mastodons and woolly mammoths once trod, he might as well be on another planet.

This turf was rumored to have seen more visitors of extraterrestrial origin than human. A younger Grogen, he thought, the Green Beret with a wife and kids to consider—all of whom had abandoned his ship in recent years—would have scoffed it off as so much fantastic rubbish fabricated by local desert rats and freelancing journalists broke, hungry and eager for a sensational story.

He’d heard the wild tales from Area 51—recently emptied of men and material. But, relocated to his new classified base of operations, these days he could be sure they were building—and hiding—more than just the prototype fighter jet for the next generation. And after bearing recent eyewitness to an event he could not comprehend in earthly terms, he began to believe the truth was, indeed, stranger than any fiction.

Grogen felt his driver, Conklin, tensing up, then saw the ex-Delta commando throw him a look. The hero’s lips were parting to fire off questions. He could almost read the man’s thoughts, the mind rife with curiosity about why they were veering from the quarry.

“Stay the course, son. Hold her nice and easy.” It was a shame, Grogen decided, the veteran fighter didn’t deserve what was coming, but he wasn’t part of the team. Or the future.

Wondering briefly how it had all come to this, the SAD commander looked into the sideglass. One black GMC and one custom-built canvas-covered transport truck with government plates picked up the rear. It might be a strange and crazy world, one that was ruled by those sociopaths, but the cargo they carried—and that would stamp a gold seal on his own future—was something he could barely fathom.

Who could?

When first assigned to Area Zero he’d been briefed on what to believe. His Defense contract underscored the penalty for loose lips. They told him he would be burying nuclear waste and other toxins in the desert. They told him they were brewing a cutting edge rocket fuel in the underground labyrinth of the compound. Whatever spent toxins resulted would be his task to secure and dispose of. They said they were creating nuclear propulsion from a toxin of unknown origin, rumored to be capable of delivering man into deep space at light speed. The source of the first batch of the mystery toxin was so jealously guarded by Washington that he was authorized to use deadly force if there was even a whisper of a rumor that an employee at the compound even speculated about its origins.

The trouble was, no human tongue could ever really keep a secret. Worse, when the hidden truth was sought for personal gain, the future had a way of taking on a life of its own, an angry leviathan boiling up from the deep, ready to eat or be slain.

Another bounce through a deeper rut and Grogen checked on the transport, his heart skipping a beat. Eight fifty-five-gallon drums were encased in lead shields, wrapped together with wire. The cargo was on steel pallets strapped to the walls. But he’d seen human flesh melt inside HAZMAT suits from a spoonful’s splash of the mystery toxin. No way in hell did he want to be anywhere near those drums when they were transferred. If it could eat its way through material designed to see a man safely through a few thousand degrees of nuclear fallout.

Grogen was shuddering at the image of the human puddle when he spotted the behemoth parked on the rise. Conklin looked at him when he said, “Flash your lights, twice.”

“Sir, I don’t understand.”

“You don’t need to understand, soldier! Just do it.”

Grogen felt the heat rise from his driver, but Conklin followed the order. The headlights on the eighteen-wheeler blinked in response. Grogen sighted two shadows on the port side.

“Park it, lights on. Fall out,” Grogen ordered, slipping on his com link.

The driver was questioning the moment, reaching to open the door, when Grogen jammed the subgun’s muzzled snout in his ribs. Hitting the trigger, Grogen blew him out of the vehicle and into the night.

Grogen saw armed shadows flapping their arms. They were shouting at one another in their guttural Brooklyn tongue, flinging around a variety of curses. He was out the door, subgun up, the transport rumbling up on his right flank when he spotted the red eyes dancing over his chest.

“Get those off me now, or the deal dies here!” he shouted. Another red dragon’s eye stabbed the blackness from a jagged perch beyond the transport’s cab. He marched on through the light, drawing a bead on the capo. “Do it!”

Advancing, Grogen felt his finger taking up slack on the trigger. His soldiers fell out, black-clad shadows taking cover behind the GMC and the transport. A quick count of hostiles, spotting two with AR-15 assault rifles hunkered behind the doors of an SUV, and he figured seven goons to his seasoned foursome.

“Everybody, cool it! Lose the light show!”

When the laser beams died, Grogen keyed his com link. “Road Warrior to Dragonship, come in.”

“Dragonship here, sir.”

“You have them painted?”

“That’s affirmative, Road Warrior.”

“Bring it on, but hold.”

“Aye-aye, sir.”

“You nuts, Grogen? What are ya doin’?” said the capo, approaching.

“Covering my assets, that’s what.” Grogen halted, lowered his weapon and studied the engineer of the future.

Mikey “The Pumpkin” Gagliano had broken out in a sweat. He swore as he noticed the corpse dumped by the Hummer and fired off more questions, lacing them all with the “f” word as if he’d invented it.

“Don’t worry about it,” Grogen told him as he made out the first faint buzz of rotor blades to the southeast. “You have my money?”

He waited for Gagliano to make the move, wondering how the capo got his nickname. Figure the fat head with cauliflower ears, a squat walrus frame with a buffet of pasta for a midsection had helped earn him the tag. The capo wasn’t exactly dressed for warfare of any kind, standing there in his silk threads, Italian loafers and five pounds of gold. Typical hood. It was hard for Grogen to believe this was the future of the New York Mob, but the ilk of the Mafia lineage was little more than a long succession of thugs with a lust for money, power and pleasure. Brute animals, more hyena than lion, but still dangerous criminal scum.

“Joey! Bring the case!” the capo ordered.

Gagliano was on the verge of composing himself, squaring his shoulders, face hardening to street tough, when the rotor wash blew a squall over the rise. The hoods were shouting and cursing once again and Grogen was smiling as The Pumpkin jacked up the decibels of outrage at the sight of the winged behemoth.

“You wanna explain what’s goin’ on with that kind of firepower? I thought we had a deal, Grogen, but I’m startin’ to feel you’re ready to break it off in my ass.”

“You just worry about me and my money,” Grogen shouted back.

The capo was unable to take his eyes off the black warbird. It was a fearsome sight, and Grogen completely understood his anxiety. Hovering to the rear of Gagliano’s SUV, Dragonship was a hybrid cross between the Apache and the Black Hawk. Winged pylons housed ten Hellfire rockets. Grogen knew a 30 mm chain gun in the nose turret was ready to cut loose on his word and grind them into puddles of human pasta and marinara.

Grogen grabbed the briefcase from Gagliano’s errand boy and hefted it. “Something tells me you couldn’t exactly pack two million in this,” he shouted.

“You get the balance when I deliver the merchandise.”

“That wasn’t the deal.”

“Neither was your messenger boy tellin’ me to bring space suits if we wanted to check what we’re buyin’.”

“What you’re buying, pal, isn’t any tub of irradiated water.”

“So you better be right.”

“Heads up,” Grogen called to his men. He tossed the briefcase toward the GMC. “Oh, I’m right, Mikey. I’m so right, if the people you’re unloading it to get popped and start singing to the Feds like your boy back home we’ll all be on death row faster than you can suck down a plate of linguini.”

Grogen watched the fear flicker in Gagliano’s cunning eyes. Thugs. Animals. Sociopaths. To do business with such loathsome creatures stung his professional pride.

What had started as his predecessor going for his own pot of gold now dumped Grogen into deep waters already chummed. And there were far bigger man-eaters in this game than a bunch of leg-breaking hoods.

As Gagliano barked the order to roll the forklift down the ramp of the big rig’s cargo hold, Grogen came to understand a little more about the future—what would separate the winners from losers. It all boiled down to survival of the fittest in his mind, but those without conscience or scruples held an edge. With what was on the table for the players in this future they would have to turn two blind eyes and harden the heart still more if they were to use the toxin the way he believed they would when it reached its principal buyer.

Grogen backed up, and his men moved away from the transport. He saw Gagliano making faces, holding out his arms.

“What the…You booby-trapped my merchandise?” The Pumpkin was startled.

Backpedaling farther from the truck, Grogen chuckled as he nodded at the forklift driver. “I’m merely establishing my comfort area, in case your driver tips it off the pallet.”

Gagliano scowled and waddled away from the forklift. “You drop it, it’s your ass!” he screamed at the driver.

“By the way, Mikey. There’s been another change of plans,” Grogen said, grinning.

“How come I know I ain’t gonna like this already?”

“Your problem back home?”

“It’s under control.”

“Wrong. It’s now under my control. See, you and me, Mikey, we’re taking this ride to the end of the line.”

“You don’t trust us to fix the problem? You maybe worried about us stiffin’ you on the rest of the money?”

Grogen smiled into the darkness. “No truer words have you ever spoken.”

1

When United States Department of Justice Special Agent in Charge Thomas Peary considered the stats he reached the same conclusion he had during his first five years on the job.

The future of America belonged to the criminal.

Why bother fighting at all? he wondered. Once upon a time he’d been a devout Catholic, a family guy even, but reality had a strange and uneasy way of making a man a staunch believer only in number one. If there was a God, he thought, he was surely looking away from a world gone mad. Let the wild beasts eat one another.

Peary had problems of his own to solve, and the first of several solutions was sitting right under his roof. Soon, he would be packing up, moving on to a paradise of his own making and choosing. It might as well already be written in stone.

Peary was at the kitchen table, thinking about the culture of crime, when the future downfall of the New York Mafia fell into the late-night routine. Peary nearly bit his cigarette in two when the first chords of the same song he heard every night on VH1 videos blasted from the living room. By now he knew the lineup of hits by heart and had heard the songs repeated so many times the past week that he thought he might go ballistic any moment.

And, of course, every time a favorite was aired Jimmy “The Butcher” Marelli had to crank up the volume until it shook the floor and the walls of the Catskill hunting lodge.

Peary looked at the slab of human veal perched on the edge of the couch. His superiors claimed Marelli was last of the old school Mafia, honor among thieves and all that nonsense. He was a dinosaur among the new coke-sniffing crowd of backshooters and Mob clowns who killed while driving past sidewalk crowds, indiscriminately blasting any and everybody as long as they got their target. A button man who did his work one on one, face-to-face for the Cabriano Family. The Butcher was famous for whacking malcontents, traitors and songbirds, loyal only to the late Don Michael Cabriano. Only what Jimbo purportedly so loathed way back when he had now become.

The Mob was notoriously creative when it came to weaving legends about their own and making myth stick as truth for wise guy, public and G-man consumption. In this instance, the Justice Department had flown Marelli up the flagpole as a marquee hitter with a body count of biblical proportions to his credit. Whether or not that was true, Peary figured the hit man was costing the Justice Department a small fortune in wine and Scotch, cigars and cannoli alone. Not to mention all the veal linguini in white clams and twenty other pasta dishes he concocted and ate around the clock.

How many bodies, Peary wondered, really came attached to this baby-sitting detail on the government’s tab? There were fifty-two kills the FBI and Justice knew about. The Butcher confirmed that during an eighteen-hour Q and A session. All the I’s were dotted, T’s crossed on the Who’s Who of Mafiadom during his three decades of slaughter. There were at least two to twenty other corpses they were guessing had his brand on them, maybe more. Only Marelli enjoyed playing the big shot, stringing them along, feeding them just enough to have the FBI drag a river or dig up some earth in the New Jersey woods. Beyond cold-blooded murder he’d been granted full immunity for extortion, truck hijacking, assault, assault with intent, pimping, pandering and drug trafficking. There was also witness intimidation, tampering and execution. The deal was enough to make Peary wonder if the Justice Department had watched its balls go out the door with the change in administration, but he’d made his own plans well in advance to castrate the whole bull. The time to act, and get the hell out, had just about arrived.

Shaking his head, Peary watched the hit man, decked out in a flaming Hawaiian shirt and white silk slacks, staring dumbly at the blaring television. He wondered what the world was coming to. He was getting sick of being forced to breathe the same air as the pampered killer.

Suddenly Peary felt his hand inch toward his shoulder-holstered USP Expert .45. Ten hollowpoints in the clip, and a nasty little resolution to the noise problem flamed to mind.

“Sir? It’s your move.”

Peary laid an angry eye on Hobbs. The pink-faced kid was maybe two years out of Quantico, attached to the task force at the last moment when some desk-lifer at the FBI had, for reasons unknown, been able to catch and burn up the ear of the Attorney General. FBI, Justice, U.S. Marshals, everybody wanted in on this gig. It was a chance, he figured, a trophy for someone’s mantel on the climb up the pecking order. Problem was, all the headshed wanted to do was make sure The Butcher was coddled and comfortable, practically warning them all to be careful not to upset or press him too much for information on the Cabriano Family. What next? Bring on the strippers? Everybody chip in for the guy’s lap dance? All the big consideration and fawning the murdering asshole got, what happened to paying for your crimes?

Peary watched the FBI rookie shrink into himself under his steely gaze, then checked the board. Back-gammon was the game, and they were playing for a four-hour watch, thirty minutes per win. But the way Hobbs had been rolling double fives and sixes on a whim and bumping him all over the board the past two hours, Peary figured he owed the kid two weeks’ worth of shift duty.

“With all due respect, you need to relax, sir. Don’t let him get to you.”

“What’s that?”

The kid showed a weak smile. “It could be worse. It could be rap.”

Peary hit the kid in the face with a fat cloud that could have choked half a city block.

Hobbs flapped a hand at the smoke, making a face like he would puke. He coughed for another moment, then said, “I mean, he’s a thug, sir, and a pain in the ass, but he can cook.”

“So, he can cook for the troops, Hobbs, that make him a goodfella to you?”

“Well, what I meant—”

“Let me tell you something, son. I operate on the general principle I don’t know a damn thing about another human being until they show me some cards. Just because you’re in love with his spaghetti and meatballs doesn’t mean he’s shown a damn thing to anybody. Let me tell you something else, junior. I’m not in this world to be popular or liked. Fact is, the more unpopular, the more disliked I am the better I stand in my eyes.”

Hobbs cleared his throat, staring at the game. “With all due respect, sir, I think there’s a lot of anger in you.”

Peary bared his teeth at the kid, wondering if he was serious or being a smart-ass. He looked at the board while running a hand over the white bristles of a scalp furrowed in spots by some punk’s bullets long ago. Double sixes might get him back in the game.

He was shaking the dice when Marelli shouted an order for somebody to grab him a bottle of red wine from the cellar and some more cannolis while they were at it. Peary looked at Grevey and Markinson, wondering who would make a move as butler or if they had enough pride not to kiss ass. To their credit, he found both marshals with their faces buried in newspapers. They glanced at each other from their stools at the kitchen counter, passing the telepathy for the other to go fetch. Peary heard the thunder of his heart in his ears, then The Butcher cranked the volume high enough to bring down an eagle soaring over Windham High Peak.

It was more than he could take. The kid had to have seen it coming, but Peary didn’t give a damn if a missile plowed through the roof. He was up and marching, the .45 out, the kid bleating something in his slipstream. The marshals were dropping their papers now, jowls hanging, but Peary was already sweeping past them.

Marelli was squawking for someone to shake a leg, when Peary drew a bead on the giant screen TV. The peal of .45 wrath drowned out the shouting and cursing around him. Marelli leaped to his feet, dousing his flamingos and island girls with blood-red wine. Peary became even more enraged when he saw the picture still flickering behind the smoke and leaping sparks. One more hollowpoint did the trick.

For what seemed like an hour suspended in time, Peary savored the shock and bedlam. He found less than ten feet separated himself from The Butcher and considered ending it right there. Marelli was bellowing, but it was clear to Peary he didn’t know whether to shit or go blind. The kid, the marshals and the other agents on sentry duty around the lodge were now swarming into the living room, hurling themselves into a buffer zone between him and the wise guy.

Peary wrenched himself free of someone’s grasp. They were all shouting at him, arms flapping, hands grabbing whatever they could. Marelli was already launched into a stream of profanity, threats and outrage, interspersed with taking the Lord’s name in vain, among other blasphemous obscenities. He might have turned his back on Church and God, but he itched to shoot the hood for blasphemy alone.

Peary heard them asking if he was nuts, what was wrong with him and so on. Turning away and heading for the door to grab some fresh air, he heard Marelli railing how he wanted a new and bigger television, and he wanted that lunatic bastard off his detail or he wasn’t talking to nobody. Peary encountered a marshal with an AR-15 who shuffled out of his path, but stared at him like something that had just stepped off a UFO.

“What?” Peary shouted, holstering his weapon. “You never see a TV get shot before?”

Peary rolled outside, breathing in the clean, cool mountain air. Alone, he laughed at the chaos he heard still bringing down the roof. What a few of them in there didn’t know was a lot, he thought.

Losing a television was soon to become the least of Marelli’s woes.

PETER CABRIANO TOOK a look at the bloody mass of naked flesh hung up by bound hands on the car lift, and believed he could read the future.

The empire was either his to save, or his to watch go down in flames. That was the problem, he knew, with narcotics trafficking. It built kingdoms, but it also tore them down. For some time now, he’d been scrambling to avoid this day, branching out into other avenues for fast cash. But narcotics had been the Family’s bread and butter since the early eighties, and without the Colombians there would be no promise now of steering the Family into other business ventures, which he knew were the wave of the future.

There was no time to dwell on rewards not yet earned; he needed quick solutions. One answer was already in the works, but where there was one loose tongue he feared a whole goddamn chorus of squealers was out there ready to bring the walls crashing down.

Even though his Italian loafers were covered in rubber galoshes, he veered away from the oil splotches, found a dry spot in the bay, stood and considered the dilemma while his two soldiers watched him, awaiting orders. He was forty-six years old, but with a lot of life to live, two young sons to think of bringing into the business and worlds still to conquer. The keys to the kingdom were recently handed to him after his father died behind bars in Sing Sing from testicular cancer and complications of syphilis. The death three years earlier of his younger brother had left him sole heir, and no man who considered himself a man ever let a sister anywhere near the handling of Family business. He wondered how the old man would take charge of the present crisis. Two things he knew for sure. One, the old man would never snitch. Two, he would take the fight to his enemies. Part of the problem was figuring out who his enemies were.

The fiasco, he realized, all began when Marelli got popped by the FBI. Or maybe it started before that. How in the world he let himself get talked into the purchase and sale of what came from a classified spook base in Nevada, and in whose hands it would end up….

So what, he decided, he loved money. The focus now needed to be put on what Marelli had on him.

Cabriano ran his hands over his cashmere coat, gauging the number Brutaglia and Marino had done on Marelli’s lifelong friend. A mashed nose, both eyes swollen shut, blood streaming off his chin where his lips were split open like tomatoes.

“Bruno. Wake him up.”

Cabriano took a step back as Marino hefted a large metal bucket and hurled the contents. The effect was instant and jolting. Cabriano listened to Berosa’s startled cry echo through the empty garage, the man shuddering against the sudden ice water shower, eyes straining to open.

“The beating’s as good as it’s gonna get, Tony. Talk to me about Jimmy. You don’t, I think you know what’s coming.” Cabriano listened as Berosa cursed, called him a punk. He chuckled and gave Brutaglia the nod. “You know, Tony,” he said, as he saw Brutaglia lift the small propane torch from a work bench, then twist the knob, a tongue of blue flame leaping from the shadows, “Jimmy, he figures he can just walk out on me, retire to a beach somewhere, the Feds throwing their arms around him. Maybe he thinks he’s gonna land some big book-movie deal, be a big star, a bunch of Hollywood starlets giving him blow jobs around the clock, telling him how great he is. He thinks he’s gonna rat me out, bring me down, I end up doing life like my father while he’s living the good life.”

“You’re nothing like your father.”

“Whatever you say, Tony. Maybe you’re right, but if you are it’s because my old man didn’t have to worry about snakes like you. He surrounded himself with loyal soldiers, stand-up guys who would go the distance, piss on a Fed’s shoe if they even glared their way. What the hell happened to you and Jimmy, huh? Even the young guys, they thought of you two as legends. I don’t get it. How do guys your age end up with a coke habit, anyhow? All your experience and you two get careless, don’t even know when the Feds have every inch of everything you own bugged.”

“It wasn’t the Feds who came to us. Way he told it, Jimmy went to them.”

“Then why is Jimmy stabbing me in the fucking back?”

“Think about it. Your father, he would never have approved of who you’re dealin’ with, what you’re prepared to help them do.”

“It’s business, Tony, business. My old man didn’t care for dope either, but he didn’t mind using coke money to build himself a hotel-casino, did he?”

“Different business.”

“How?”

“You punk, you don’t get it, you don’t have any honor.”

“You’re telling me Jimmy got all bent out of shape because of my new business partners?”

“What you’re planning…your father would have shot you himself.”

Cabriano was growing weary of the insults. No matter what, he knew tough when he saw it. He could burn the nads off Berosa, but the man wasn’t going to break. Besides, the old soldier knew he was dead already.

He saw Marino moving toward Berosa, waved him off. “I don’t suppose you’re gonna tell me where the disk is?”

Berosa laughed. “Why don’t you ask Jimmy?”

“That’s a good idea, Tony. See, what you don’t know is before the sun comes up Jimmy’s taking whatever his big dreams to hell with him. I’ve got people on the inside, Tony,” he said, and saw the stare come back, cold but believing. “Yeah, there’s still a few Feds walking around willing to take my money. I know exactly where Jimmy is. Seeing as how he wants to live out his golden years so bad, I’m thinking if I get my hands on him, put a little fire to his balls he’ll take me by the hand and walk me straight to the disk. What you did, Tony, you just told me you two are the only ones in my house I had to worry about.”

“You’re a disgrace to your father’s memory.”

Cabriano snapped his fingers at Marino to give him his .45. The old soldier was still cursing him when he took the big stainless-steel piece. Then Cabriano silenced the loose tongue with the first of three rounds through the face.

2

All the years the man in black had been in the killing business and the evil of the savage opposition never failed to amaze, sicken and anger.

Where it was all headed, whatever the fate of humankind, he couldn’t say, nor he thought, was it his place to venture a guess. He was a soldier, from beginning to whatever his own end of the line. As such, he believed common sense, basic decency and having eyes to see and ears to hear, could read into the telltale signs, sift through all the deceit and schemes of the age, and figure out where and how bad it could all get. No matter what the spin or political correctness of the time, no matter how much money was tossed around to turn eyes blind, two and two still equaled four in his game. Yes, there were subtle forms of evil spawning across the land, luring the impressionable or the weak and naive who floundered on the fence toward the abyss. But it was the leviathans of terrorism, international crime, mass murder and other forms of sabotage against the national security of the United States and the free world that was part and parcel of his War Everlasting.

Being only flesh and blood, there were days, however, he woke up and wondered how it had all come to this, where those in charge of running societies, those with power and money and the chance to make a real difference would have the world at large believe right was wrong, wrong was right, up was down and so forth. But they said the Devil was a liar, and his greatest lie was making man believe he didn’t exist.

In the realm he walked it was clear a powerful force of darkness never slept. To him the laws of good and evil were as immutable and ironclad as Mother Nature. Up the stakes from murder of innocents by automatic weapons to weapons of mass destruction, morph a drug dealer or local hood into a dictator savaging his country in genocide, starvation and torture, and only the face of evil and the numbers of victims and depth of atrocity changed. Again, it wasn’t his duty or destiny to be a preacher, politician, or Sunday-morning talking head. But there was clear and convincing evidence enough, from Baghdad to Bogotá to Beijing, that certain and many inhuman factors were hard at work on the planet to push the fate of humankind toward a point of no return.

For the man named Mack Bolan, also known as the Executioner, only a few good men and women rising up to tackle the extremes in action of the Seven Deadly Sins could somehow, someway, save the future, steer it all back on course before it was too late. Without question he counted himself among their ranks.

Big Tony’s Used Foreign Imports was Bolan’s launch pad for the new campaign. It was planted in a decent section of Brooklyn, a sprawling lot carved out between 6th and 7th Avenue, Prospect Park a short walk southeast. But the Cabriano Family hadn’t seized their fortune on turning overpriced European wheels. For a moment, as the Executioner crouched behind the garbage bin at the end of the alley, the sound-suppressed Beretta 93-R out and waiting targets inside the garage, he felt a sense of déjà vu. A hundred lifetimes ago and too many ghosts of the good, bad and innocent to count, the soldier had taken on the Mafia. Back then, he’d been a one-man army, waging war against an invisible empire, at first striking down la Cosa Nostra out of a blood debt owed to his family.

Gradually, as the enemy body count grew, he came to see the true scourge of evil that was the Mob. These men who spoke of honor and respect and loyalty, even attended church—baptisms and marriages before the priest—corrupted everyone they touched, consumed every life that stood in their way to grabbing more profit, more power on the blood and terror of others. Back then it was gambling, prostitution, drugs, murder for hire, bribery, the usual list of sins. Over the years, between his own war and the savaging of the Mob by the Justice Department, the Mafia had nearly been decapitated.

Nearly.

Like when throwing the light on cockroaches, they skittered underground in recent years, erecting legitimate businesses to clean dirty and blood money, sons of Dons and capos earning law and business degrees. Armed with education, and with an eye toward the future, the inheritors reached out to incorporate other homegrown gangs of thugs into their ranks, being equal opportunity employers in the new politically correct age. They dealt in wholesale shipments of narcotics from Latin America drug cartels, joined hands with other criminal organizations as far away as Moscow, reaping a big fat buck the common denominator, one for all. At present, with the insatiable hunger for weapons by terrorists that could wipe out tens of thousands, the game had grown even more deadly serious.

That, Bolan knew, was pretty much the gist of Peter Cabriano’s rise to power and present status on the bad-guy list. With his father having wasted away behind bars, a younger brother who was a criminal defense attorney, but died—irony or justice?—from a cocaine overdose, Cabriano was king of New York. And he was reaching out to some of America’s worst enemies.

Bolan had reconned the lot and surrounding block, but searched the premises again. Three gunshots, muffled slightly by the brick wall, had rung out moments ago. Assuming Big Tony Berosa had gone to judgment, Bolan watched the side door open, disgorging the Don of the day. He could have taken both Cabriano and his wheelman right then, but the Executioner had plans for the Don’s future.

Six to eight stops were mentally penciled in on the soldier’s hit list. Depending on how each situation shaped up, who gave him answers to questions that had drawn him into this mission, and provided he was blessed by good fortune—meaning he lived through the first couple of rounds—Bolan intended to net and skin some of the biggest man-eaters in a terror triangle that was, in his mind, both long in coming, and rife with apocalyptic overtones.

Feeling the weight of the mammoth .44 Magnum Desert Eagle riding on his hip, the weapon shielded from the naked eye by his long, loose-fitting black nylon windbreaker, Bolan watched the wheelman hold the door for his boss. Seconds later, the engine gunned, and the Towncar was rolling off into the night.

No problem. Bolan had Cabriano covered. Likewise, the Don’s home, pier, every business clear to his Grand Palace hotel-casino in Atlantic City was under the watchful eyes of official shadows, all of whom answered to the soldier.

Satisfied he was alone with two wise guys about to be burdened with disposal chores, Bolan checked his six. Clear down the alley, but he was mindful of roving blue-and-whites given the coming play. Inside his jacket pocket a thin wallet with credentials declared him as Special Agent Matthew Cooper of the United States Department of Justice. It would pass the smell test, but cops still didn’t like any G-man rolling into their town, shooting up bad guys and blowing up their places of business.

Worst-case, a phone call would be placed to Washington. There, Bolan’s long-time friend, Hal Brognola, could untangle any unforeseen red tape octopus. The big Fed was a high-ranking Justice official, but he also ran the nation’s ultracovert black ops agency known as Stony Man Farm. He was also liaison to the President of the United States, who green-lighted all Stony Man action. And woe be unto the lawman, lawyer or politician who needed to take a call from the White House if Bolan was not given free rein and full cooperation, with no questions asked.

Bolan didn’t have to wait long. The 1958 white Cadillac convertible with shark fins and whitewalls was bucked up against the back door to the garage. A squat bulldog he knew from Justice intel as Bruno Marino waddled through the door. The wise guy threw a look toward the lot, down the alley in both directions, then keyed open the trunk. Frank Brutaglia materialized next, cursing Marino as he lugged the tarp-covered cargo through the door in a fireman’s carry. Brutaglia was dumping the load in the trunk, both of them now grumbling and griping about who would dig the hole, when Bolan made his move. No tough guy farewell line, the Executioner rolled out of the shadows, Beretta up and chugging. The first 9 mm subsonic round cored through the back of Marino’s skull, Brutaglia yelping as he was hit in the face by blood and muck. Dead-weight was crashing into Brutaglia when Bolan slammed the next bullet between his eyes. He made quick work of putting them in their resting place, dumping them on top of Big Tony. It was a tight fit, but there was still a lot to be said about trunk space in the old classics.

The Executioner closed the lid on their coffin and leathered the Beretta. Retreating, he checked the parking lot. Before coming in, the soldier had considered fixing the fleet of fancy wheels with plastic explosives, but just as quickly dismissed the idea. This was a commercial-residential neighborhood, and no one on the block needed to pay indirectly for the crimes of these savages by finding their homes and businesses pummeled and damaged by raining debris.

Melting into the deeper shadows of the alley, Bolan determined for all enemies concerned reality was only just beginning to heat up.

JIMMY MARELLI WAS seething. The image of what the G-man had done, the blatant disrespect shown him, still burned in his mind. A change of clothes, a double Dewar’s or three, and the junior G-man kissing his ass all over the place and swearing he’d get a better TV did not calm the storm inside.

Marelli went to work on his fourth double and fired up a fresh Havana, since he’d chewed the end off the other one during a fifteen-minute tirade. As he blew his way on a thick cloud into the kitchen, he was thinking there was a time not too long ago, Fed or not, he would have beaten the G-man so bad he would have begged for death—take his mother, wife, sister, please, just stop the pain. They didn’t call him The Butcher, he thought, because he worked in a meat-packing plant.

Where had the good old days gone? he wondered, hurling open the fridge, chucking rolls of salami, prosciutto and three kinds of cheese on the counter. He hated living in the past, but couldn’t help wishing he could step back in time. Where a man’s word, his honor, was his own blood. Where a man did what he said he was going to do. Where busting heads or smoking another wise guy—execution-style or shootout—was business. Not like these punk kids today, who enjoyed inflicting pain, but only when it was safe to do so, no threat of payback. Cops, judges, politicians could still be bought, sure, but these days there was no heart in the younger generation, no pride, no honor in even the handling of the easy end. Speaking of easy, they all wanted easy street, but didn’t want to risk getting their hands dirty. They wanted the glory, make their bones and all, but the idea of being a bullet-eater—a survivor who could wear the wounds proud—had about as much appeal to them as rap music to a hillbilly.

Where, oh, where had the days of honor gone?

He knew. They died with the real Don. A bunch of punks who were more show than go had been weaseled into the crew by the kid. No dummy, Marelli saw the future. He was a frightening dinosaur to this new breed, still feared and respected maybe, but things had changed. And when the Old Man died he knew it was time to get out, before one of the youngbloods got popped by the Feds and he found himself filling the Don’s cell. Or some psycho punk with no honor and looking to make a name for himself, walked up behind him and shot him in the head.

Go west then, he’d decided. And he wanted to believe it had been a chance meeting in Vegas. However, the spook knew the kid was looking to go international with guys that would make the World Trade Center suicide bombers look tame and sane by comparison. He and Berosa had decided it was time to think about retirement. A talk ensued, a deal was struck and the kid took the bait. Problem was, the Feds seemed to know about the spook deal even before it happened. Come to find out the kid had been looking to engineer just such a deal with the Colombians and their new Mideast pals. That’s when, Marelli thought, he’d seen the end coming, sure a blade was poised to plunge between his shoulder blades, the whole deal falling into place too easy, and he never trusted easy. Pretty slick, then, putting every shred of detail about the Cabriano Family’s business, A to Z, including the spook angle on disk, and shipping it off where, if needed, it could prove his own life raft if the whole goddamned immunity deal sank like the Titanic.

Muttering a stream of profanity, he began conjuring up ways to get back at the G-man for the insult. Food, like Scotch, cocaine or getting a backroom hummer from one of the girls at the club, normally helped ease the tension, crystalize his thoughts. A fat sub wasn’t going to cut it. First he went to work on the half-empty pot of marinara. Setting another pot on the stove, turning the flame on low, he emptied the marinara into the new pan. To think he’d been cooking for these assholes galled him. Fuck ’em. If they insisted and pleaded for his linguini and white clams, however, he’d reconsider, only next time he’d flavor the sauce with some less appetizing ingredients.

He tossed the empty pot into the sink and grinned at the clattering sound that echoed through the lodge. He was taking a slab of Italian sausage out of the fridge when he found he had company. It was one of the marshals, Gravy or Groovy or something, perching himself on a stool, smack in the doorway, laying the assault rifle across his lap. Like he was making a statement: Jimmy would have to politely excuse himself in order to get past. Was this just another disrespectful asshole move, or was it something else? Marelli wondered. Did the guy want conversation? Was he boxing him in the kitchen for a reason?

Marelli washed a thick cloud of cigar smoke over the guy. Taking a butcher knife, he began chopping up sausage on the cutting board. “What?” he growled. “You wanna shoot my sauce off the stove?”

“He shouldn’t of done what he did, Jimmy. That’s just between us, okay?”

Marelli stared at the guy, didn’t trust something he read in the eyes. He’d been around the block too many times to buy into whatever the guy was selling. No matter how much he gave them, he knew he was still just a murdering scumbag to these guys, smart enough to know all about lines in the sand. He turned and dumped sausage into the pot, turning the flame a little higher. Why were the hairs on the back of his neck rising? Something felt all wrong.

“We’ll get you a new TV.”

“How about a VCR with that shake?”

Groovy nodded. “That can be arranged.”

Marelli grunted, took the knife and sliced open a sub roll.

“Hey, that smells pretty good, Jimmy, whatever you’re cooking.”

Marelli snorted. “Tellin’ me you want some?”

“If you think you can spare a plate.”

“I’ll see what I got.”

THE CABRIANO GENTLEMAN’S club was called the Fireball. For Bolan’s intent and purpose it couldn’t have been more aptly named. Unlike Big Tony’s, the beauty of it was that the building sat alone. Bolan briefly wondered how many city officials were greased to give the immediate area an urban facelift, meaning plenty of elbow room from the Fireball to other establishments.

According to Justice intel, a fair amount of dirty money passed through the back room for the daily count of proceeds from drugs, extortion and local bookies paying their tribute. Agent who had the strip joint under surveillance, inside and out, figured four to six playboy hoods had enticed the girls for some after-hours celebration. The big spenders were enjoying a few hours away from the wife and kids.

The Executioner was moving, north by northwest, ready to veer due west after this stop to the Don’s pier on the East River. That’s where the big money was counted, but Bolan figured to help himself to a nice war chest at the Fireball before raiding the bank by the water. Take the Mob’s money, and more often than not that slammed them with far more impact than blowing away a few street soldiers. After getting a sitrep from his agents, Bolan knew Cabriano was making a pit stop of his own in Cobble Hill, mixing pleasure with the mistress before proceeding to the warehouse on the pier.

Time enough for Bolan to light another fire.

An HK MP-5 with attached sound suppressor hung from one shoulder and a nylon sack dangled from the other side as Bolan rolled out of the alley, Beretta at the ready. He would have picked the lock on the back-door exit to breach the way, but found a wise guy had practically opened the gate for him.

The beefy slab was jangling around about five pounds of gold chains, giving instructions to the girl as he put his hand on the top of her head. It would have been better for him if he’d taken her to some bushes or used a back seat. Animal instinct for more than pleasure sounded the alarm in his head next, as he looked up, his lips moving at the sight of an armed voyeur marching his way.

Bolan saw the man was ready to bark his indignation about the infringement, then his eyes widened, Bolan not much caring what he saw or thought in his final act of desperation. The mobster shoved the girl away and was clawing for his .45 when Bolan tapped the trigger on his Beretta. The man went down, a dark third eye in the forehead. Bolan aimed the sound-suppressed snout at the girl. Shaking from blond mane to high-heeled pumps, she started to plead for her life.

“Do not speak to anybody about what you saw here,” Bolan said. “You never saw me.”

She bobbed her head.

“If you do, I know where you live. Go.”

She went, and the Executioner slid through the door, dragging the body in behind him. He homed in on the laughter and the rock music at the end of the corridor. Bolan stowed the Beretta and filled his hands with the MP-5. Intel had advised Bolan that the office was on the other side of the bar, which was in the middle of the room.

Bolan rolled out into the open and took in the sights on the march. Four big spenders and four party girls in all, they had the place to themselves. To his left, two men were at the far end of the bar, one playing grab ass with a brunette in a string bikini, the other with his face buried in a pile of coke. The blonde on his arm was nudging him to move over and laying on some sass. Off to Bolan’s immediate right, there was a twinkle toes, back turned, hopping from foot to foot in a drunken jig. He was waving bills at a playmate on stage, who, at Bolan’s first glance, appeared to have enough money shoved in both garter belts to balance California’s budget. Number four was the music fan, off with another brunette, fanning the pages on the jukebox, punching in favorites he’d never hear. The young hoods of the new Cabriano generation had probably never heard of Frank Sinatra, but Bolan noted they, like many who had gone before them, still preferred big .45s.

Mr. Hands was the first one to notice the party crasher, losing the girl with a shove and a shout and reaching for his weapon. Bolan responded with a 3-round burst to the chest that blew the gangster off his stool.

Mr. Selfish pulled his face out of the powder long enough to take the next brief 9 mm stream, a rising burst up the spine that pinned him to the barfront before he crumpled in a boneless heap at the feet of the blonde. The after-hours girls were screaming now, but holding their ground. Bolan figured they knew the score, having romped with their playboys long enough to know their day would come, but that they weren’t the targets.

It worked for Bolan.

Tracking on, the warrior hit Twinkle Toes in the sternum as he was digging out his gun. Twinkle Toes was airborne across the stage, gun and cash taking to the air, hammering into and bringing down the mirror when the Executioner finished Jukebox Hero. Another triple load of subsonic 9 mm rounds, this time through the ribs. The wise guy bounced off the jukebox to a spray of glass, and Bolan looked to the partition that separated the office from the games. On the march, he issued the same directive to the party girls as the one he’d encountered on the way in. They were moving out, when Bolan heard a voice he assumed belonged to Bennie Guardino, the club’s manager, cry out from hiding, “I ain’t armed! Goddammit, who are you? Whaddaya want?”

“You alone?”

“Yeah!”

“Step out, hands up.”

A skinny figure in a white silk jacket with slicked back black hair stepped into view.

“In the office. Move,” Bolan commanded.

The guy kept blubbering questions as Bolan spun him and marched him down the short hall. Inside the office the soldier found Bennie had the day’s take piled on his desk. The open safe revealed more rubber-banded stacks of bills. Bolan figured his war chest would settle in at three, maybe four hundred large. Not bad for a few minutes of work. He was sure the Justice Department’s Task Force on Organized Crime would appreciate the effort.

Bolan shoved Guardino toward his desk. “This is your lucky day, Bennie,” he said. He took the sack and tossed it on top of the bills. “Fill it up. You get to live.”

Guardino sounded a nervous laugh. “You know whose money this is, pal?”

“I do. And it’s about more than just the money.”

“Yeah, sure, whatever you say. Whatever bullshit gets you through the night, ’cause this is your last one.”

Guardino began stuffing the money into the sack, pissing and moaning about the plunder the whole time. They really didn’t get it, Bolan thought, but he didn’t expect any other reaction.

The soldier had reached his own conclusion about the love of money long ago. Unless a man or woman was raising children, giving to charity or feeding or educating a village, how much money was ever enough? For the savages, the answer was obvious. For honest, hard-working folks, live right, and one’s needs were always met. It was the wants that always got in the way, human nature being the one constant in life, and it always ended up with the same result.

Ashes in the mouth.

Bolan took and hung the sack over his shoulder, then palmed the cell phone from the desk and handed it to the hood. “You’re about to have a fire, Bennie.”

“What are you talkin’ about, fire? I don’t smell smoke.”

Bolan waved with the subgun for Bennie to move out. “Check your watch. Fifteen minutes, not a second before, call your boss. Tell Cabriano his problems have only just begun. Got that?”

“Yeah, I got it. I also know you’re a walking dead man.”

Bolan nudged Guardino in the spine with his weapon, heading him out the door. “I’ve heard that before. But here I am.”

The Executioner took the first thermite canister from the pocket of his windbreaker, armed and lobbed it into the office. He ordered Guardino to hustle out of there, unless he wanted to get barbecued. He pulled the pin on firebomb number two and tossed it behind the bar.

The club manager was squawking at the sight of the strewed corpses when the first explosion rocked the club. Guardino cut loose with a stream of profanity and threatening noise. A swift kick in the backside shut his mouth and got him moving for the exit. Number two blast, spewing its ravages of white phosphorous, hit Bolan’s back as he trailed Guardino into the alley.

“Fifteen minutes, not a second before, Bennie,” Bolan warned, checking his surroundings, finding he was all clear. “I might be watching you.” The hood was ready to try to get the last word in, when the Executioner added, “That should be enough time for you to put together a story.”

“What story? I’ll just tell him the truth.”

“That’ll be the problem.”

“I don’t know what your game is…”

“Cabriano. The man’s going to want to know why five of his soldiers are dead, his club’s in a pile of ashes, his money’s gone, and you’re the only one left to tell the tale.”

The look on Guardino’s face told Bolan that he finally got it.

The Executioner left him standing there to ponder his future.

3

Peter Cabriano was in no mood for the bookkeeper’s number-crunching routine much less wanting to hear the bottom line on what he owed the government. This was no time to give away the first crumb of the fruits of his labor—inherited or not—to those who could never walk in his shoes. Anybody not in his camp could go straight to hell.

The Don was in the upstairs office, watching his crew below on the warehouse floor as they loaded the plastic-wrapped bundles of currency on pallets. Working on a Scotch and Marlboro, he was in hope, albeit dim, the alcohol, smoke and sight of the month’s offshore haul—slated for steel containers to be settled in the belly of the Colombian freighter, El Diablo—would smooth out the edges of his raw nerves. Fat chance any indulgence would work. The night was not shaping up to be a stellar success. On all fronts he was feeling burdened by impending disaster. An indefinable ghost of death and destruction was out there. Some bad players were circling like sharks, smelling blood.

His blood.

He knew it paid to be paranoid when a man was sitting on top of the world. The problem with being a winner was obvious, he thought. Between jealous rivals, the Feds—even his own shrill, nagging wife—there was always someone ready to chop him off at the ankles. All being king of the mountain meant was that it was a long, hard tumble to the bottom. And if he fell there would be no one there to help him stand.

Take Pauline, for starters, he thought. No matter how much money, how much jewelry, how many condos, how many vacations to the world’s paradise hot spots he took her, it was never enough. All the high hard ones he drove her didn’t count for much anymore either, not when she was braying all the time these days for something more permanent and long-term, as in life. Pretty much par for the course, as far as mistresses went, but lately she was getting more demanding, more contentious—more threatening. There was, however, an answer for that particular hemorrhoid, but the solution could see him splashed all over the gossip rags, the brunt of talking-head speculation for years to come, everyone waiting for the gavel to fall, the bars slamming behind him.

Of course, at the top of the list, no question, there was the Marelli problem. And the answer to that crisis, already in the works, could see more heat, more badges, more wiretaps, more armed shadows up his ass than he already had. Next, there was his new venture with the Colombians, a road map to the future of the Family he’d drawn up just before the old man kicked off. If he had trusted them during their narcotics transactions about as much as he would sleep with a cobra, the feeling that far worse treachery now stalked him from their end was tripled, since their joint business endeavor had expanded to a whole new horizon. Toss in the government’s ongoing investigation into the Saudi partnership at the Grand Palace in Atlantic City, bring onboard intelligence operatives who gave a whole new and frightening meaning to the word spook, and he began to question both his sanity and wisdom in upping the ante to grow his kingdom into an international empire.

Cabriano gritted his teeth when he heard the final tally of how much of the casino’s skim could actually be cleaned, as opposed to how much cash he would have to declare to Uncle Sam. Considering the present audit, or so the accountant more or less told him, it looked like he would have to pony up in the neighborhood of ten million and change to take some heat off the Grand Palace.

“Did you hear me? Do you understand?” the accountant was asking.

“Yeah, yeah, I heard you. The percentage you take from me, you ever have any good news, other than telling me I may end up like Al Capone?”

“Just stating the facts, Mr. Cabriano. Now the way I see it—”

The phone interrupted more bad news. Cabriano saw the accountant staring at the phone as if it were a land mine. Whoever was calling at that hour, he could fairly guess, wasn’t calling just to check on his emotional well-being.

“Answer it,” Cabriano snapped, then turned his back to watch his crew wrap the first pallet with thick plastic sheeting. Figure twenty million was ready to be shipped out, and he was wondering if the Colombians would accept the fact he had the government’s cut to consider, but already knew they didn’t want to hear about his tax woes. With those guys, if one dollar was not accounted for against the last shipment, they might reconsider how trustworthy he would prove in the coming deal with their Mideast connection.

“Who’s this?”

Cabriano whirled at the note of panic, saw the accountant’s already pale face turn another shade of white. The phone was trembling in his hand, and his eyes bugged behind the glasses.

“Who is it?” Cabriano barked, the guy sitting there, shaking his head, lips moving, but no sound coming out. “Gimme that!” he snarled, and snatched the phone from the accountant’s hand. “Yeah!”

“I left Big Tony with some company. You’ll find the three of them in the trunk of the Caddie, at the lot.”

Cabriano didn’t know the voice, but why should he? What he did recognize was the warning bells in his head that this was no social call. The voice on the other end was cold, lifeless, floating in his ear like a call from the bowels of hell.

“Who the fuck are you?”

“There’s been a fire at your club, too.”

“What are you…what kinda game are you playin’, asshole?”

“No game. Bennie will fill you in on the details. At first count, I’d say he handed over almost four hundred thousand before I walked out. Not too shabby for some walking around money.”

Cabriano heard his heart thunder in his ears. “What? He did what? You ripped me off? You listen to me, mother—”

“No, you listen, Petey. The night’s still young. The old things are passing away.”

Cabriano exploded, ranting and swearing at the phone for several moments before he realized he was screaming at a dead line. He slammed the phone back on the cradle. He was glaring at the accountant, reaching for his cell phone when it trilled. He looked at the caller ID on the miniscreen and answered.

“You got something to tell me?” he growled, listening as Guardino began bleating out the incredible story. One big, dark guy, armed to the teeth like something out of Delta Force had, according to Bennie, strolled into the Fireball and blown away five of their best soldiers. He heard about the money next, close to four hundred large. Guardino was swearing on his mother’s soul the mystery badass left him no choice, pumping out the apologies in between catching his breath.

“My club, Bennie, you better damn well tell me it’s still standing.”

There was sputtering, Guardino making a gagging noise, then he blurted out the awful truth.

And Cabriano went cold inside. Say Guardino was telling the truth, and he would find out for himself later, then his world was being threatened like no gang war he’d ever heard of. Whoever the nameless hitter he was a professional, though Cabriano could not really define just what a professional was. The bastard was either lucky, nuts, stupid or a combination of all three. Clearly, though, he had more to fear now than just the Feds. He hadn’t given the Colombians reason—yet—to want to send him a message, though he knew they were in town, keeping close tabs on his movements and business.

“Boss? You—you there?” Guardino asked.

“Where are you?”

“I am at Bleeney’s. Shit, I needed a few stiff ones after—”

“Go home.”

“What’s that?”

“You got shit in your ears? Go home. Wait there. I will deal with you shortly.”

Guardino was bleating how sorry he was again, but Cabriano cut him off. Let him sweat, and if his account didn’t wash with what would be a full police investigation, complete with visits from detectives digging even deeper into his business…

He called Frankie “The Tube.” Ten rings later, The Tube was growling into his ear about did he know what time it was. Cabriano told him to get his ass out of bed, go over to the lot and look inside the trunk of the Caddie. He punched off before his lieutenant could start asking a bunch of questions and ignored the worried look from his accountant as he blew through the door. At the edge of the catwalk, he hollered down, “Look alive!”

He was about to relate the possibility they might be hit when he glimpsed something blur on a flaming jagged line across the warehouse. Before he could determine its direction, Cabriano nearly jumped out of his cashmere coat when one of the pallets blossomed into a fireball.

PEARY KNEW THE FUTURE was now. There had been pressure enough on two fronts for some time, the Mob boss wanting it done one way, the spooks with other ideas. Since both sides simply wanted the disk first, Marelli dead second, he decided to split the difference, opting against waiting until the spook crew arrived, to go ahead and take matters into his own hands.

Meaning he’d do it his way. Either way he’d pick up his money from both ends.

He slipped on the black leather gloves and keyed open the trunk to his Crown Victoria. With a few deep intakes of the cold mountain air, and feeling the eyes of Markinson and Jenkins boring into the side of his head, he unzipped the nylon bag. The first backup piece he hauled out was a Ruger Mini-14. He handed the rifle and 20-shot box of .223 rounds to Markinson. The old U.S.M-1 carbine semiauto with 30-round box went to Jenkins. Peary took the Mossberg 500 shotgun for himself and racked home the first 12-gauge round. He glanced at those who had been selected along with him for the job. Their faces were nearly invisible in the darkness, but he could sense the raw anger and disdain over what they were about to do.

In life a man made choices along the way. Sometimes they were the wrong ones, but no human being, he reasoned, got out of this world unscarred, claiming a strain-free soul. Whatever his choices, a man accepted the consequences of his actions. For the three of them it was pretty much the usual transgressions that had landed them in the Mob-spook abyss. Filmed while cheating on the wife. Accepting bribes. Mounting gambling debts. And Markinson and Jenkins even had two murders-for-hire under their belts. The confusing part for Peary was how the spooks knew so much more about them than Cabriano, but he figured Big Brother worked in ways more mysterious than a pack of hoodlums with all of maybe a couple of high school educations between them. It was as if the spooks knew long ago this day was coming, had properly planned to prevent what was for Marelli a piss poor performance.

And Peary had his own ace in the hole.

He looked at the lodge at the end of the dirt drive, aware that everyone inside but Grevey was moments away from being cashiered out. Riot gun in hand, leading his fellow assassins toward the lodge, Peary plucked the TAC radio off his belt.

BOLAN KNEW THE Justice Department had its sights set on the Cabriano–Cali Cartel connection for some time. The government was sure New York’s premier Mob Family was soon to be so much bad folklore and sensational headlines when they netted the big croc. The trouble was, the castle did not crumble with the arrest of the Old Man, though a deal was offered to him by the government. Instead of burying their heads in the sand, hoping the Fed storm would miraculously blow past them, the crime Family grew stronger, bolder, more prosperous. Fate stepped in to save the younger generation, as Don Michael took all his secrets to the grave. No squealing, not rat deals for him, he went out the old-school way, tough and unrepentant to the bitter end, but Bolan would never give that type of adversary points for honor among thieves.

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