Point Blank Read online

  Mafia Massacre

  Four deputy U.S. marshals are slaughtered along with the witness they’re guarding, a former Mafia member set to testify in New York. When it’s revealed the kill order came from a powerful Calabria crime family, Mack Bolan decides it’s time to stop the bloodshed at its source.

  After arriving in Italy, Bolan learns trouble has already begun. Killing the witness is not enough; the Mafia is intent on murdering his entire family, including women and children. With local law enforcement on the Mafia’s payroll and spies everywhere, infiltrating the family is nearly impossible...especially as Bolan has been marked for death. Dodging bullets at every turn, he’s got to maximize every strike. The Mafia may have home advantage, but the Executioner won’t stop until he blows their house down.

  “My brother is dead. He brought shame on all of us.”

  “And you’re being punished for it,” Bolan told the woman. He knew the ground rules of a classic vendetta. No survivors could be tolerated.

  “My mother, aunts and uncles, cousins. Everyone. Gianni will not rest while any of us are alive.”

  “Gianni Magolino?”

  She was staring at him now, eyes narrowed. “You know of him?”

  Bolan rolled the dice. “I’m here because of him…because he killed your brother.”

  “I asked you if you are polizia,” she accused him.

  “And I’m not,” Bolan assured her.

  “What, then?”

  “Someone who solves problems when the law breaks down.”

  The Executioner

  #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

  #378 Death Run

  #379 Deep Recon

  #380 Silent Threat

  #381 Killing Ground

  #382 Threat Factor

  #383 Raw Fury

  #384 Cartel Clash

  #385 Recovery Force

  #386 Crucial Intercept

  #387 Powder Burn

  #388 Final Coup

  #389 Deadly Command

  #390 Toxic Terrain

  #391 Enemy Agents

  #392 Shadow Hunt

  #393 Stand Down

  #394 Trial by Fire

  #395 Hazard Zone

  #396 Fatal Combat

  #397 Damage Radius

  #398 Battle Cry

  #399 Nuclear Storm

  #400 Blind Justice

  #401 Jungle Hunt

  #402 Rebel Trade

  #403 Line of Honor

  #404 Final Judgment

  #405 Lethal Diversion

  #406 Survival Mission

  #407 Throw Down

  #408 Border Offensive

  #409 Blood Vendetta

  #410 Hostile Force

  #411 Cold Fusion

  #412 Night’s Reckoning

  #413 Double Cross

  #414 Prison Code

  #415 Ivory Wave

  #416 Extraction

  #417 Rogue Assault

  #418 Viral Siege

  #419 Sleeping Dragons

  #420 Rebel Blast

  #421 Hard Targets

  #422 Nigeria Meltdown

  #423 Breakout

  #424 Amazon Impunity

  #425 Patriot Strike

  #426 Pirate Offensive

  #427 Pacific Creed

  #428 Desert Impact

  #429 Arctic Kill

  #430 Deadly Salvage

  #431 Maximum Chaos

  #432 Slayground

  #433 Point Blank

  Crime leaves a trail like a water beetle;

  Like a snail it leaves its shine;

  Like a horse-mango it leaves its reek.

  —Malayan proverb

  I’m following a trail to those responsible for countless crimes.

  The reek will be the smell of cleansing fire.

  —Mack Bolan

  For Prosecuting Magistrate Antonio Scopelliti

  Assassinated by the mafia on August 9, 1991

  THE

  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

  Saturday—Shelter Island, New York

  Rinaldo Natale felt lucky, and why shouldn’t he? After twenty-odd years of the high life, doing whatever he wanted and thumbing his nose at the law, he’d dodged a guaranteed life sentence by rolling over on his longtime friends and partners. Granted, turning into an informant had its drawbacks, first and foremost being the automatic death penalty it carried. The American agents swore they could protect him, but Natale had his doubts. He’d seen enough informants killed at home, together with their families and friends, to know that no one, anywhere, was absolutely safe.

  The good news was that Natale loved no one, except for himself. His wife was dead, they’d had no children and his mistress was already warming someone else’s bed. As for blood relatives, they had disowned Natale when he’d made the choice to save himself and let the syndicate he’d served his entire adult life go to hell. They’d be among the first to kill him, given half a chance.

  So much for family values.

  The other good news was the safe house his protectors from th
e U.S. Marshals Service had selected for him. Shelter Island—how he loved the very name! One-third of the island was a virgin wilderness, the Mashomack Preserve. The year-round population was around twenty-five hundred people, many of whom golfed at the island’s two country clubs or cruised around on their sailboats.

  If anyone ventured into Smith Cove, on the island’s south shore, they might speculate on who’d rented the rambling shorefront home abutting Mashomack Preserve. If they asked around, all they’d learn was that the place had been transformed into a posh executive’s retreat.

  Nonsense, of course, but they’d accept the explanation.

  This week, four U.S. Marshals from the Witness Security Program were staying with Natale. They weren’t exactly butlers, but they kept Natale fed and reasonably satisfied—although they’d drawn the line at renting him a woman.

  He was planning to discuss that request once again this evening, over his veal parmigiana, wild mushrooms stuffed with ricotta, and red onions roasted under salt. If they refused again, Natale thought he might suggest obtaining several prostitutes, so they could share.

  Something to think about.

  Natale stepped out of the master bedroom’s spacious shower and immediately felt that something in the house was...different. He listened for the television in the living room and heard the same news channel the marshals always listened to, unless there was a game on ESPN.

  The television...but no voices.

  Hastily, Natale dressed, sorry he wasn’t allowed to possess any weapons other than the kitchen cutlery. His guards were armed, of course—one pistol each, together with a shotgun and an Uzi submachine gun—but that only helped Natale if they were alive and well when trouble came to call.

  Speaking of calling, he could shout to his protectors, find out why they’d gone so deathly still, but some sixth sense advised him not to make a sound.

  Should he investigate or flee? Escape meant knocking out a bedroom window screen or creeping through the house until he reached an exit. Either way, if trackers had located him, he’d be at risk.

  But staying where he was might mean certain death.

  Just nerves, Natale told himself. Not buying it, he reached for the doorknob.

  * * *

  DEPUTY U.S. MARSHAL Leo Torbett didn’t usually care for babysitting duty, but covering Rinaldo Natale on the run-up to his trial appearance had turned into a fairly cushy gig. Torbett enjoyed first-rate Italian food—retrieved by car from Nonna’s Trattoria in downtown Shelter Island—and he couldn’t gripe about the ocean view. He didn’t like the forest looming on the east side of the house, but there was nothing he could do about it, other than remaining on alert.

  Torbett and his three men slept in shifts. At least two men were awake at all times, with their weapons ready. He also had a lookout at the ferry dock, which was supposedly the only way to reach the island.

  So, sure, it made him nervous when a delivery truck pulled up out front, late afternoon, when he wasn’t expecting a delivery.

  “Look sharp, everybody,” Torbett ordered, releasing the thumb-break catch on his Glock 22’s high ride holster.

  Natale was in the shower, sprucing up for dinner, but they didn’t need to warn him yet. The delivery could be legitimate. Somebody from headquarters might have simply failed to call ahead, as protocol required. Another possibility was that the driver had the wrong address. It happened.

  Or...

  “Ed, kill the TV. Gary, get the door,” Torbett said as he watched the delivery truck through one of two broad windows.

  Ed Mulrooney switched the television off, while Gary Schuman crossed the living room in long strides, one hand on his Glock. He stooped a bit to watch the driveway through the peephole. “Getting out now, with a package,” he announced.

  Torbett could see the driver coming up the front walk and double-checking the address against the parcel he was carrying. He also had one of those pads that registered electronic signatures.

  Why would headquarters pay a courier instead of sending someone from the Manhattan office? Torbett was considering that question when the driver seemed to stumble on the walkway’s paving stones. The man got his balance back and pitched the parcel underhand, directly toward the window where Torbett stood.

  He tried to shout “Watch out!” but it was already too late. The parcel detonated with a thunderclap that blew the picture window inward, driving shards of broken glass into his face.

  * * *

  NATALE HEARD THE blast and doubled back into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. Damn! No lock! He ran toward the en suite bathroom. Hiding there was futile, but a window was set into the wall above the bathtub that might be large enough for him to squeeze through if he sucked in his gut and was willing to give up some skin.

  Hell, yes, when the alternative was death.

  Behind him, gunfire crackled, and he heard a man cry out in mortal pain. One of his watchdogs, or a member of the hit team?

  In any case, it was clear the feds couldn’t protect him. He was bailing out or meant to give it his best shot, at least. If he could make it to the woods, Natale thought he just might have a chance.

  He cranked the bathroom window open wide, then punched its screen out with a quick one-two that left his knuckles raw. The next part would be difficult—crawling up and through the narrow window.

  The shooting stopped. Footsteps approached his bedroom door, and someone opened it.

  Not a marshal.

  Standing in the bathtub, bitterly embarrassed that it had to end this way, Natale watched two men approach with compact submachine guns in their hands. He didn’t recognize them. Why in hell should he?

  “This is how a traitor dies,” the taller man told him.

  “No shit?” Natale sneered at them and rushed the guns, howling, before they opened up and blew him back into the bathtub. Into darkness everlasting, stained with crimson.

  Chapter 1

  Tuesday—Catanzaro, Italy

  Catanzaro is known for its “three Vs”—Saint Vitaliano, its patron saint; velvet and vento, the wind constantly blowing inland from the Ionian Sea. The capital of Calabria, at the toe of the Italian boot, teems with tourists in the summer months.

  Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, had not come to shop for velvet or idle on the beach. He was hunting for members of Calabria’s native crime family, the ’Ndrangheta.

  A mainland version of Sicily’s Mafia, the ’Ndrangheta was equally venal and vicious, competing for its share of Italy’s underground economy with the Neapolitan Camorra and the Apulian Sacra Corona Unita—the “United Sacred Crown.” Between them, Italy’s thriving syndicates had corrupted government, laundered money and murdered innocents.

  None of which was Bolan’s problem at the moment.

  He was in Calabria, driving a rented Alfa Romeo Giulietta loaded with illegal weapons, because the ’Ndrangheta had reached across the Atlantic to the United States. Bolan intended to discourage that by any means required and drive the lesson home emphatically enough that it required no repetition.

  He was a realist, of course. Bolan harbored no illusions that he could eradicate the ’Ndrangheta, any more than he could wipe out evil from the world at large. What he could do—and would do—was treat the ’Ndrangheta to a dose of cleansing fire and make its members think twice about trying to infest America.

  He had flown into Rome’s Leonardo da Vinci– Fiumicino Airport, then shuttled down to Lamezia Terme International, located west of Catanzaro. From there, it was an easy drive into the capital and his appointment with an old auto mechanic who earned more money retailing weapons to the highest bidder than he ever had from tuning engines or relining brakes.

  Bolan traveled with a bankroll he’d appropriated from the scavengers who made a mockery of civilized society. He could have tap
ped the till at Stony Man before he left the States, but robbing thieves and murderers and using their blood money against others like them held a strong appeal for Bolan.

  Two birds, one stone.

  Furio kept an arsenal on hand in his auto body shop for customers who needed hardware in a hurry without getting tangled in legal red tape. Bolan went for native brands, starting with a Beretta ARX-160 assault rifle chambered in 5.56 mm NATO, equipped with a folding stock, a Qioptiq VIPIR-2 thermal sight and a single-shot GLX160 grenade launcher. He backed that up with a Spectre M4 submachine gun and a Beretta 93R selective-fire pistol—both no longer in production but still deadly. Toss in spare magazines and ammunition, a dozen OD/82-SE fragmentation grenades, a fast-draw shoulder rig for the 93R, suppressors for the pistol and the Spectre, plus an ebony-handled switchblade stiletto sharpened to a razor’s edge, and he was good to go.

  Dressed to kill.

  His next stop, as the sun set, was on Villa Fratelli Pllutino, where he planned to give some ’Ndrangheta members a preview of hell on Earth.

  * * *

  “THERE IS NO point in pleading for your life,” Aldo Adamo declared.

  “Pleading? Piece of shit!” the woman spat at him. “I plead for nothing.”

  “So, defiant to the end. At least you’re not a coward, like your brother. He died whimpering.”

  “You lie!”

  “I planned to make a video of his last moments, for your education, but we had to reconsider. Customs and the like. You understand.”

  “I understand what will become of you, Aldo, when Gianni hears what you have done to me.”

  Adamo laughed at that. “You’re such a fool. Who do you think gave me the order?”

  Blinking back at him, she hesitated, then replied, “I don’t believe you.”

  “Foolish, as I said. Your family is tainted by his treachery. How could Gianni ever trust you—any of you—after the way Rinaldo betrayed him?”

  Tears, the first he’d seen from her, shone on the woman’s cheeks. “I’m not responsible for his mistakes,” she said, her voice subdued now.

  “No?” Adamo shrugged. “Perhaps not. But you know the rules. You’ve grown up in the ’ndrina tradition. No betrayal can be tolerated. No risk of a personal vendetta may be overlooked. In your position, you could do more damage to the family than your pentito brother.”