Ivory Wave Read online

  SHOCK WAVE

  It’s as legal to buy as bath salts, but Ivory Wave isn’t for human consumption. So when a rash of deaths spreads across the Midwest, Mack Bolan has to find out who’s making the lethal concoction—who’s killing American teens—and shut them down permanently. But he quickly discovers that it’s a powerful crime family behind the narcotic, and the mob considers it a legitimate source of income. Taking the deadly drug supply off the market will be no easy task.

  With the White House telling him to back off and Stony Man Farm’s hands tied, the Executioner has only one way into the organization—put himself directly in the cross fire of the two hot-blooded Mafia brothers battling for control of the family business.

  Sometimes the only way to beat them is to join the war.

  The AT4 had obliterated the door

  Bolan flattened against the wall for an instant, then spun into the opening, weapon at the ready. A large expensive lobby, detailed in wood and brass, had a crater in the marble floor, and was littered with body parts. Scorch marks spread out around the blast area, and trails of blood looked like the lines on a road map, linking human tissue, debris and dropped weaponry.

  Bolan stepped inside.

  The ceiling soared overhead, two stories high, with a chandelier suspended from it. Bolan saw trace amounts of blood on the lower rows of crystals, twenty feet above the floor.

  Not a living soul in sight.

  That wouldn’t last. By now Nuncio knew the building’s perimeter had been breached. Whoever was alive on the upper floors would be beefing up their defenses. So far the soldier’s team was unscathed, but that was about to change.

  From this point forward, the Executioner knew, blood would be spilled on both sides.

  Mack Bolan

  The Executioner

  #340 Splinter Cell

  #341 Rebel Force

  #342 Double Play

  #343 Border War

  #344 Primal Law

  #345 Orange Alert

  #346 Vigilante Run

  #347 Dragon’s Den

  #348 Carnage Code

  #349 Firestorm

  #350 Volatile Agent

  #351 Hell Night

  #352 Killing Trade

  #353 Black Death Reprise

  #354 Ambush Force

  #355 Outback Assault

  #356 Defense Breach

  #357 Extreme Justice

  #358 Blood Toll

  #359 Desperate Passage

  #360 Mission to Burma

  #361 Final Resort

  #362 Patriot Acts

  #363 Face of Terror

  #364 Hostile Odds

  #365 Collision Course

  #366 Pele’s Fire

  #367 Loose Cannon

  #368 Crisis Nation

  #369 Dangerous Tides

  #370 Dark Alliance

  #371 Fire Zone

  #372 Lethal Compound

  #373 Code of Honor

  #374 System Corruption

  #375 Salvador Strike

  #376 Frontier Fury

  #377 Desperate Cargo

  Don Pendleton’s

  The Executioner

  Ivory Wave

  Special thanks and acknowledgment to

  Dylan Garrett for his contribution to this work.

  There’s no tragedy in life like the death of a child.

  —Dwight D. Eisenhower

  When a child dies, there is pain and heartache, but there’s also the tragedy of a life unlived, of potential not being realized. There are far too many predators out there who just don’t give a damn, who focus on the almighty dollar. My job is to thin the herd, to make sure justice is served.

  —Mack Bolan

  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

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  In prison, Dominic Chiarello had slept like a baby. He was protected behind the impersonal walls of concrete. His life was regimented—he knew his schedule, his routine. People he trusted surrounded him at mealtimes and in the yard. The first two men who moved against him had died quick but messy deaths. Word spread, and he was left alone.

  Chiarello had enjoyed several perks: a plush job in the prison’s law library, conjugal visits from his wife on a regular basis, his own TV, access to telephones and computers for emails, chats, and video conferences, and plenty of smokes and extra food. He had almost come to like it. Almost. But the constant reminder had remained that any fleeting sense of freedom he might feel was only an illusion. Deep down, he’d known that in spite of the perks, he was not free.

  Because every night he’d gone to bed in a cage. He was safe, but so were the animals in a zoo, once the visitors were sent away and the gates locked.

  Still, there was something to be said for certainty. Now he was out, and it had been twenty-five years and change, and the outside world, at least so far as he understood it, was anything but certain these days.

  His nephew Massimo was waiting in a big black Escalade when Chiarello walked through the gates of the Ohio State Penitentiary in Youngstown one last time. Massimo had been a toddler when Chiarello went away; he had missed the boy’s childhood, his high school graduation and everything else an uncle should be present for. Chiarello had sent gifts, and Massimo had visited him from time to time after he’d turned twelve. They knew each other. Not well—he had never once hugged the boy. But he knew his nephew, knew his accomplishments on behalf of the Family and he trusted the young man he had grown into. So when he saw him behind the wheel of the big SUV, he broke into a grin.

  By the time he reached the vehicle, Massimo and another young man had emerged, and they opened both the front and rear passenger doors. Massimo came forward and enveloped his uncle in a burly hug. He had grown into a huge young man, well muscled, with dark curly hair and a broad face and lips that could entice women but then just as easily, Chiarello expected, turn cruel and dismissive. He smelled like cologne. Chiarello had once had a good nose for such things, but tastes had changed, new scents came along. Chiarello thought Massimo’s was a little flowery, but maybe the women liked it.

  “Welcome back, Uncle Dom,” Massimo said as he held his uncle in a bear hug. “Glad to see you on the outside.”

  “Glad to be here,” Chiarello replied. In most ways, he meant it. He tilted his head toward the other young man. “Him, I don’t know.”

  “That’s Brendan,” Massimo said. “He’s a good guy. You’ll like him.”

  “Brendan?” Chiarello echoed. “He’s not Sicilian.”

  “No. Irish, I think.”

  “Since when do we work with them?”

  “Things are different since you went away, Uncle Dom.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “It’s just how things are. It’s about business relationships, about creating win-win scenarios. Not just about Family. Not anymore.”

  “S
o I’ve heard. I think it’s bullshit.”

  “Times have changed, that’s all. We still take care of each other. Trust me, Brendan has always had my back.”

  “If you say so.”

  “I do.”

  Massimo gave Brendan a nod, and the man joined them. He was skinnier than Chiarello’s nephew, with a shock of reddish-brown hair that came to several peaks on top, like meringue on a pie. As he approached, Chiarello saw that he had a sprinkling of honest-to-God freckles across his upturned nose. Freckles! Chiarello glanced over his shoulder at the prison, wondering if they would take him back.

  But only briefly. Outside the cage was still better than inside. Supposedly. Brendan came over and stuck out a hand, and Chiarello took it and squeezed. Brendan squeezed back. He was skinny, but strong. Chiarello gave a chuckle and released.

  “It’s good to meet you, sir,” Brendan said. “You’re like a, like a...”

  “Yeah?”

  “A legend, I was gonna say. Growin’ up, we always heard stories about you.”

  “You make it sound like I’m already dead.”

  “Oh, no, Mr. Chiarello, that surely isn’t what I meant at all. No sir. Not at all.”

  Spoken like a southern Ohio idiot. A hillbilly. Chiarello caught his nephew’s eye, but the young man just offered a wan smile.

  “We’ve got a long drive ahead of us,” Massimo said. “We should hit the road. Uncle Dom, you want the front or the back? You pick.”

  “I’ll take the back,” Chiarello said. At least he could ride like a gentleman.

  “I got shotgun,” Brendan said. As if there was any other choice left to him, Chiarello thought.

  Idiot.

  * * *

  ON THE RIDE, he dozed. He hadn’t meant to, hadn’t wanted to show any signs of weakness, of age or infirmity. On the inside, he had worked out sometimes. Not hard-core bodybuilding, like some of the younger cons, but enough to keep toned. For sixty-seven, he was in damn good shape. But when he woke up, as they were passing Cuyahoga Heights and crossing into Cleveland, he found a thin trail of spittle down his chin. The boys had been arguing about sports and women and cars, the way kids did, and he didn’t know if either one of them had spared him so much as a sidelong glance since they’d left Youngstown.

  The sun was almost down. He could see enough to tell that the skyline, while still recognizable, had changed enough in those years to be disorienting. “What the hell is that?” he asked.

  “What?” Massimo asked him.

  Chiarello pointed. “That monstrosity, there. That giant building.”

  “It’s the Key Tower,” Brendan said. “Tallest building in Ohio.”

  “It’s bigger than the damn Terminal Tower. I love the Terminal Tower.”

  “That one in between them, that’s the BP Building,” Massimo said. “I guess they’re new since you went away.”

  “I guess there’s a lot of stuff new,” Chiarello said. “I don’t like it.”

  “The world changes, Uncle Dom.”

  “How’s your father? He changed?”

  Massimo chuckled. “He’s the same old bastard.”

  “Well, that’s one thing.” Chiarello settled back into the leather seat. He was awake now, and he wasn’t going to drift off again. Anyway, they were almost there.

  When Massimo turned onto the Inner Belt Freeway instead of getting off the highway and taking Superior west, Dominic was confused, but he didn’t say anything. He didn’t want to admit that he didn’t know where the kid was taking him. Not to Vesuvius, the restaurant his brother Nuncio had owned for decades, where they used to gather in the front for Family occasions, and in the private room in back for business meetings. Instead, the SUV pulled into a garage beneath a modern, six-story office building on Rockwell. The structure was bland, with gray walls and very few windows. It looked more like a prison than the Ohio State Pen had. A gate rolled away as the vehicle approached, and as soon as they were inside it wheeled shut with a clang.

  “Where the hell are we?” Chiarello finally asked.

  “Headquarters,” Massimo said.

  “Here?”

  “That’s right. What’d you think, that Dad’s pizza joint was still the nerve center?”

  “Vesuvius is a fine restaurant. Upscale.”

  “Maybe once upon a time.”

  Chiarello was suddenly anxious in a way that he hadn’t been since his first six months in prison. “You got anything for me?” he asked.

  “Like what?”

  “A piece! Something I can carry.”

  “You don’t need anything in here,” Massimo said. “We have state-of-the-art security. We’re swept for bugs twice a day. Nobody gets through our defenses who doesn’t belong.”

  “Still, I’d feel better.”

  “You can take mine,” Brendan said. He drew a pistol from under his arm. Beretta, Chiarello noted. Probably Beretta U.S.A., but at least something around here was still of Italian descent besides him and his nephew. Chiarello felt its heft—a little light, but not too bad. He ejected the magazine, checked it and rammed it home again with a satisfying click. “It’s .380 auto,” Brendan said. “First round is double-action, and the rest are single-action. Eight-round magazine.”

  “Thanks,” Chiarello said. “I’ll give it back when I get my own.”

  “I got others,” Brendan said. “So whenever is cool.”

  Chiarello was wearing a new suit, something Nuncio had bought for him and sent over. It was charcoal-gray with faint white-and-red pinstripes. He put the Beretta in his right jacket pocket, and its weight there comforted him.

  The SUV stopped in a well-lit parking garage. Other high-end vehicles were scattered in the spaces. Massimo got out and opened Chiarello’s door. “This way, Uncle Dom,” he said. He led Chiarello to an elevator. Chiarello felt as if he was on his way to a dental appointment, or a meeting with a lawyer.

  The elevator was clean, its brass polished, its lights bright. Massimo pressed the L button and the car rocketed skyward, smooth and silent. A moment later the doors whooshed open and Chiarello stepped out into a space that looked like a bank lobby with its teller cages ripped out. Across an expanse of marble floor was a curving reception counter with a brass sign on it that read NDC Consolidated Industries.

  NDC. So Nuncio had put his own name first, even though Dominic was the older brother.

  Chiarello patted his pocket, glad for the soothing weight at his side.

  Things were going to change around here, he thought. He’d been away, but he was back, and by God things were going to change.

  1

  Mack Bolan waited for a clean kill shot.

  As an experienced sniper, he was used to waiting. But he felt as if he had been doing nothing but waiting. Once he had identified and located his prey, he had waited to move against them—even though it meant leaving the young women to languish in captivity—because he wanted to learn how they planned to get their prisoners out of the country. Now he had found out. The men had loaded them into an RV and driven out into the Southern California desert, not far from the Arizona border. Bolan had parked a couple of miles away and hiked cross-country to the spot, then had had to wait in a cold spring drizzle at the edge of a remote airstrip. Finally an old Antonov An-72 cargo plane had landed on the strip, and as it taxied to a halt, the men had made most of their captives exit the RV first, then mingled with the last batch. Bolan couldn’t take a shot without risking hitting one or more of the women.

  They were girls, really, in their mid-teens to early twenties, and physically they ranged from pretty to sexy to stunning. They would command high prices on the human trafficking market. All of them were in the U.S. illegally, on expired visas, under false identification, or having crossed the border without documentation. One of them
had done far, far worse than that. Their crimes, however, did not give others the right to victimize them. The men were Russians, and Bolan expected their captives would be sold there, or in eastern Europe. If they were allowed to board that plane, which they wouldn’t be.

  He’d make sure of that.

  The soldier was crouched behind a creosote bush, on a slight uphill slope, watching for his chance. He could see the men well enough to pick them out. Bobby McCrae, the dirty Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent who had identified the victims for the traffickers, had told Bolan—under considerable duress—what their names were and where they could be found. The taller one was Vasily, the blond one Andrei. Spotting the one female who didn’t belong was harder. Bolan had seen her only once, in bad light, at a distance. She could have cut her hair, or colored it, since then. She blended in with the others, in terms of age and general appearance.

  The only way she didn’t blend was that they were victims of abduction, while she was a terrorist who had planted bombs at four sites around Los Angeles in the past two weeks. One had killed seven Americans, including four cops and two firefighters. The number would have been much worse, but by that time Bolan had been on to her, and he had been able to evacuate the embassy she had targeted. While the first bomb was being located and disabled, a second, smaller charge had gone off. As designed, it had taken out first responders who had come to the scene after Bolan had reported the original bomb.

  Their deaths were on his conscience. He meant to make sure the women were taken into custody and deported, if need be, to their own countries, and to make sure the person known as Al-Borak—The Lightning—would never leave the country.

  Bolan holstered his Desert Eagle long enough to take a couple of quick pictures of the airplane with his smartphone, in case he needed to identify it later. He was pocketing the phone and drawing the weapon again when one of the girls bolted. Another one cried out, pointing at the runaway as she ran for open desert.

  The wait was over.

  Vasily raised a 9 mm pistol toward the fleeing girl. Bolan didn’t have a clean shot, but he had to chance shooting between two of the prisoners. His .50-caliber round didn’t kill the Russian outright, but it tore off most of his lower jaw. By the time he slumped to the ground, blood was already spattering around him and mixing with the light rain.