Hard Targets Read online

  “Every minute we spend talking is a minute off our lives. You get it?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Strauss was on his feet and moving now.

  “Hey, Mick.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Tell me that you didn’t mess around with her.”

  “Okay.”

  “Because he said if you did anything—”

  “Hey, Leo. We agreed. I may’ve felt her up a little, to get her motor revving. Nothing, really.”

  “Jesus wept.”

  “The hell with her. She’s nothing but a—”

  Kelly vaulted to his feet, crossed the room in three long strides, Glock in his hand before he was aware of drawing it. He jammed it underneath his partner’s chin and forced his head back, seeing fear in Strauss’s eyes at last.

  “Listen to me, asshole. If I have to die because you couldn’t keep it in your pants, I’m gonna hang on long enough to blow your rotten brain out of your head. Hear me?”

  “I hope your finger isn’t on that trigger, partner.”

  “Go. And. Get. The. Girl.”

  * * *

  ZOE DIRKS COULD hear her captors arguing, and while she couldn’t make out much of what they actually said, she knew that strife between them would rebound on her in ways she didn’t want to think about. Kelly, the cooler-headed of the two so-called detectives, obviously didn’t care for having her around, but Zoe knew he couldn’t simply let her go, to testify against his partner and himself. He might as well surrender now and book a reservation at the nearest penitentiary.

  Kelly was fully capable of killing her, she thought—as she believed he might have killed her brother, or at least participated in the cover-up that followed.

  Still, it was the other one, Mick Strauss, who frightened her the most. She dreaded being left along with him, still felt his hands crawling across her body like two big, repulsive spiders as he’d “frisked” her, smirking that he had to check for weapons or to see if she was “wired.” It may have been the longest frisk in history, and it had left her feeling soiled, unclean.

  Better a bullet in the head, she thought, than to be mauled and violated by that animal.

  Of course, that wouldn’t be her choice. It might be both.

  She had considered praying, a reflex from childhood Sunday school, but couldn’t think of any time when she’d been helped by invisible friends in the sky. Zoe had reached a point where every breath felt precious to her, and she didn’t want to waste them groveling to someone or something that never deigned to answer.

  When they came after her, she had decided to resist. It would be futile, but at least she wouldn’t die feeling disgusted with herself for doing nothing. She could kick, bite, scratch, perhaps succeed in marking one or both of them to the extent that it aroused suspicion. With the state of modern forensic science, who could say that a flake of her dandruff, a drop of saliva or blood, might not remain to hang them, somewhere down the road.

  No hanging in New York, she thought. In fact, she wasn’t sure if anybody had been executed in the state during her lifetime. Make it life in prison, then—which, to her mind, was even worse. It nearly made her smile to think about two bastard crooked cops caged up with men they’d put away.

  Nearly.

  The argument in the other room was winding down. Zoe sat upright on the twin bed she had been allotted, facing the door. She listened, heard heavy footsteps approaching over cheap linoleum, and braced herself for anything. If this was it, the end of life, at least she wouldn’t go out whimpering.

  The door opened. Her heart skipped and her stomach rolled when she saw that it was Strauss, with no sign of Kelly in the background to restrain him.

  “What?” She hooked her fingers into claws, prepared to spring if he approached her.

  “Come on, babe,” he said. “We’re going for a little ride.”

  Niagara Falls State Park

  THERE WAS NO HAPPY medium in choosing sites for the exchange. The falls were public property—the oldest state park in America, if Bolan could trust his guidebook—featuring the three world-famous waterfalls, Cave of the Winds and a monument to legendary electrical engineer Nikola Tesla, among other attractions. Millions of tourists visited the park each year, and while he hated putting any innocent civilians in the line of fire, Bolan was hoping that their presence, with the normal complement of law enforcement found in any crowded public place these days, would keep the opposition honest.

  To a point, at least.

  He’d worked out details of the trade with Johnny, before pitching it to Gallo on the phone. He’d considered Goat Island, but knew police or mafiosi could seal off the place by commanding three bridges. Instead, they had decided to swap prisoners at the Niagara Adventure Theater, off Robert Moses Parkway. It was an IMAX theater, running hourly presentations of Niagara: Legends of Adventure on a forty-five-foot screen, submerging viewers with Dolby Digital surround sound technology. Members of the audience would be oblivious to anything beyond the theater’s four walls.

  When the time came, in the middle of a screening, Johnny would be walking Borgio to meet the hoods who’d be escorting Zoe Dirks. If all went well, they’d come together in the parking lot, make the exchange, and walk away to their separate vehicles without disturbing any passersby.

  But if anything went wrong...

  The theater stood in the midst of lushly wooded grounds with plenty of places for a sniper to conceal himself. The Barrett’s range and optics meant that Bolan didn’t have to be on top of any action going down outside the IMAX hall. He needed only line of sight, with nothing to obstruct a bullet traveling in excess of three thousand feet per second, striking with some thirteen thousand foot-pounds of destructive energy.

  The Barrett’s detachable box magazine held ten .50-caliber rounds, and he had a dozen spare mags in reserve. He could switch out in seconds, if it was required, and empty a magazine as quickly as he acquired targets. Bottom line, if he could see it, he could kill it—though eliminating moving targets still required a specialist’s skill.

  “You think they’ll even bring her?” Johnny asked, as they were rolling west on Robert Moses. Borgio was riding in the trunk, handcuffed and gagged.

  “They will,” Bolan confirmed. “I made it clear to Gallo that we won’t deliver Joe without a clear view of the girl, alive and well.”

  “I wouldn’t count on well,” Johnny said.

  “We dictated terms. If it turns out that Gallo violated them, he pays the price.”

  “And if he didn’t?”

  “Oh, he still pays. But you have your client back.”

  “And out of here, ASAP.”

  They’d picked Chautauqua County–Jamestown Airport, fifty-seven miles from Buffalo, a small but serviceable facility with a pilot standing by. He would take Zoe to Detroit, and she could make her own way home from there, talk to the FBI or anybody else that caught her fancy if she wanted to break silence, but Bolan doubted that she’d try to make things tough on Johnny.

  That was, if they got her out alive.

  If it went down the other way, a double-cross at the last minute, Bolan thought they were prepared. Johnny would have the Steyr and his Glock, covered by Bolan with the .50-caliber Barrett. He couldn’t use the Milkor MGL beyond four hundred yards, so Johnny would be taking it along as backup, in the Mercury, in case the hand-off went to hell.

  And after, if they got the client out alive, with both of them intact—then what?

  The war went on. What else?

  It had already gone too far for compromise, and Johnny wasn’t clear yet, for the cop-killing.

  Whatever happened in the next few hours, the Executioner had work to do.

  Chapter 9

  Niagara Falls State Park

  “I can’t believe Joe let himself get b
agged like this,” Richie Montana said, as they approached the drop.

  “Don’t worry about what Joe did or he didn’t do,” the crew boss, Danny Galleani, said. “Watch where you’re driving, so we get there in one piece.”

  “We’re there already,” Richie answered back. “You’re looking at the theater, right there.”

  “Weird freaking place to make the trade,” said Mario Venturi, riding in the backseat with Zoe Dirks.

  “You ever seen that movie they show here?” asked John Politi, who flanked their captive like a stocky bookend. “It’s not bad.”

  “Same movie all the time?” Tony Frazetta asked him, from the nearest jump seat.

  “It’s Niagara Falls,” Politi said. “You figure they should run some flick about the Amazon in Africa?”

  Lou Stella, in the other jump seat, barked a laugh at that. “The Amazon’s in Mexico, Einstein,” he told Politi. “You oughta study your geography.”

  “Shut up about the friggin’ Amazon, for Chrissakes!” Galleani snapped. “Did anybody see the others, coming in?”

  No answer from his troops. He guessed their backup team was hidden pretty well, there in the woods around the theater. He hoped so, anyway. If he and his guys were out there on their own and anything went wrong, he didn’t want to think about the repercussions.

  Turkey time, for damn sure, if they lost the underboss.

  The Lincoln MKT Town Car was rolling slowly to a halt, Montana braking on the outer limits of the spacious parking lot. “Gun check,” Galleani said, reaching down between his feet to lift a Mini-Uzi submachine gun from the floorboards. Underneath his left arm, heavy in its holster, hung a Glock 37, the .45-caliber model.

  All his men were double-packed, as well, each with a handgun plus a larger weapon, whether automatic or a scattergun. They didn’t plan on fighting, if their little act played out the way it was supposed to, but the first thing Galleani had learned, when he was still a punk-ass juvie hanging on a street corner in Buffalo, was that whatever could go wrong in any given situation nearly always did.

  His second lesson: if you had a couple guns to smooth things over, you were cool.

  “Remember, now,” he told the others. “We just trade the girl for Joe. The other team moves in to bag these humps, once we take care of business. Got it?”

  Muttered affirmations came from the Lincoln’s rear seat, but nothing from the girl. She couldn’t say much with her mouth duct-taped, which was a bonus. She’d been weepy when they put her in the car, and Galleani hated all that pleading crap. Not that he wished her any harm, per se. She was a total stranger, and a righteous babe, but he had one job at the moment and he couldn’t screw it up.

  “All set?”

  More muttering, but eager now. His crew liked action, which was good—as long as none of them provoked a shitstorm when they were supposed to simply make the trade and split. If somebody screwed up, then Galleani was prepared to cap the stupid prick himself.

  It was late afternoon, with only a few tourists hanging around to catch the next show, which didn’t start for half an hour. Their business should be finished by that time, Galleani figured. What happened to the bystanders was someone else’s problem. If his luck held, he would be on his way back home to Buffalo, Joe Borgio fat and sassy in the backseat, well before the first caps started popping in the park.

  “Let’s go,” he said, and stepped out of the car.

  * * *

  THE BACKUP SOLDIERS had begun arriving twenty minutes after Bolan was in place. They missed him in his tree, well camouflaged, and fanned out through the wooded acreage surrounding the Niagara Adventure Theater, laying their trap as Vincent Gallo had commanded. Some of them might be ex-military, he supposed, but Bolan understood the mind-set well enough to know that there would be no cops among them. Sending out bent detectives to pull a solitary hit was one thing; fielding them for a pitched battle where they might be called on to face off against their fellow officers was something else entirely.

  So as far as Bolan was concerned, the park had just become a free-fire zone.

  He’d counted fifteen infiltrators and supposed that there might be another handful on the far side of the theater he couldn’t see, barring the back door to escape after the prisoner exchange had been completed. Call it twenty, then—two Barrett magazines—besides whoever Gallo sent to make the swap itself. Bolan’s problem wasn’t killing them, but rather doing it with ample speed and accuracy to preserve his brother’s life and that of Zoe Dirks.

  The rest could go to hell.

  The soldier had considered slipping out among the members of the ambush party, cutting throats or letting his Beretta whisper them to sleep forever, but he’d fought the impulse, staying where he was and sticking to the plan he’d hatched with Johnny. Any deviation from that scheme opened the door to unforeseen catastrophe. He owed it to his brother—and the woman he had never met—to play it straight, with a strategy that had the best chance of success.

  Joe Borgio could live or die this day, for all he cared. At best, the underboss was already on borrowed time.

  Bolan tracked the Lincoln through its long, cautious approach, its occupants concealed behind the deeply tinted windows. That was fine. He could have reached them with the Barrett, even if the vehicle had been advertised for sale as “bulletproof,” but he didn’t want a bloodbath in the crew wagon, with Zoe Dirks hemmed in by nervous guns. At least outside the car, she’d have a chance to run.

  “They’re here,” he told the mouthpiece of his Bluetooth headset.

  And his brother’s voice replied, in Bolan’s ear, “Okay.”

  “I’ve got an extra fifteen on the ground, my side,” Bolan reported.

  “Three back here, that I can see,” Johnny replied.

  His brother would likely have to deal with those himself, Bolan thought, if Gallo’s drop team let him start back toward the Mercury. Three wasn’t bad, if Johnny had them spotted. On the other hand, if they moved up, there was a chance Bolan could reap them with the Barrett from his sniper’s aerie in the great elm tree.

  Plenty of targets for the big gun, either way.

  “They’re in the lot,” he said, keeping his voice low-pitched. “Slowing. Okay, they’ve stopped. You have seven civilians hanging out in front.”

  “No problem,” Johnny answered, as if saying it would make it true.

  The Lincoln’s crew had no view of the Mercury from where they sat. It was a lonesome stroll of forty yards or so from their position to the theater, specifically the corner where his brother would emerge in moments, with Joe Borgio in tow. There was a chance, Bolan realized, that someone from the backup team would try for Johnny on that walk, but he guessed their orders were to see Borgio safely exchanged before they started anything.

  Downrange, armed men began to climb out of the Lincoln.

  * * *

  ZOE DIRKS WAS terrified. Who wouldn’t be? When the perverted cop, Mick Strauss, had told her she was going home, the first thing that had flashed across her mind was Soylent Green, the sci-fi flick where “going home” meant dying to escape a hopeless world. She’d thought her kidnappers were taking her on what had once been called a one-way ride...but, no. They drove to a pizzeria, parked in back and then delivered her to gangsters who reminded her of apes dressed up for church.

  Then, Zoe had been sure she was about to die. Presumably, the cops wanted to let somebody else handle the dirty work. Crammed into the Lincoln MKT Town Car with six gorillas, Zoe had found her life flashing before her eyes, extremely disappointing in its brevity and opportunities not taken, since she liked to play it safe.

  How safe was this?

  It took another little while for her to realize that they were actually going somewhere, not just looking for a place to dump her corpse. Nobody spoke to her, of course. In fact, they barely sp
oke at all, except for passing comments about people they called “Mr. Borgio” and “Mr. G.” Something about a “drop” and “backup” that she didn’t follow.

  Now, after driving through some woods, they had arrived outside a building signs identified as the Niagara Adventure Theater. She pictured sitting through a movie with these goons and almost laughed behind her duct-tape gag, bursting the airy bubble of hysteria with will alone.

  “Remember, now,” their leader rumbled. “We just trade the girl for Mr. Borgio. The other team moves in to bag these humps, once we take care of business. Got it?”

  Everybody seemed to understand.

  “All set?” He paused again, then said, “Let’s go.”

  They climbed out of the car on both sides, one of Zoe’s backseat babysitters dragging her along behind him. They had left her hands free, but she didn’t feel like fighting anymore. What was the point, with all those guns around her? And if they were serious about releasing her, why take a chance at blowing it?

  Outside the Lincoln, still surrounded, Zoe noticed several tourists idling near the theater. A couple of them watched the new arrivals, blanching at the sight of guns in open view, and warning those around them in hushed tones. Within another minute, she imagined, someone would be on a cell phone, calling the police.

  And what would happen to her then?

  As if in answer to her silent thought, two men appeared, stepping around a corner of the theater. On cue, the leader of her escorts said, “That’s them. C’mon.”

  Then they were moving, setting off across the parking lot, the two men from the corner headed their way. Zoe didn’t recognize the shorter of the pair approaching them, hands clasped behind his back, but she knew Johnny Gray immediately. Somehow, it appeared, he had arranged for her release. By kidnapping a hostage of his own? The “Mr. Borgio” her hulking entourage was so concerned about?

  And then she understood about the other team, waiting to bag these humps. One of the “humps” was Johnny, obviously. Zoe hadn’t spilled his name to Strauss and Kelly, but she might as well have, since she’d drawn him straight into a trap.