Point Blank Read online

  Assuming the prisoner proved useful.

  So far, he had stonewalled like a good soldier, but Lanza had a talent when it came to reading men, especially when they’d reached their breaking point. The young ’ndranghetisto had resisted bravely, but his strength was failing now, draining his will to sacrifice himself for a padrino who would let him die without a second thought.

  “No answer?” Lanza prodded. “Very well. The left eye first, as promised.”

  Picking up the scalpel, he leaned closer to his victim. Lanza wore a plastic jumpsuit to prevent his clothes from being stained. His blood-flecked rubber gloves were blue, making his hands look like an alien’s. His goggles and his paper mask—a nod to AIDS, MERS and so many other viruses in these unhealthy times—itched where they pressed into his forehead and stubbled cheeks.

  Peppino pried the youngster’s eyelids open with his left hand, scalpel poised above the rolling eyeball. When punctured, Lanza knew, it would release a mini-torrent of transparent, gelatinous fluid known as the aqueous humor—though he suspected his patient would not be laughing.

  Still, it never hurt to try a little levity.

  “You’ve been a fine pupil,” he told the prisoner. “I hope you’ll keep an eye out for me on the other side.”

  His scalpel touched the shiny orb, unleashing spasms in the young man’s body, which thrashed so hard Lanza briefly feared he might rip through the duct tape. At the same time, he began to babble in a high-pitched, girlish tone.

  “Please, please, sir! Stop! I’ll tell you what you wish to know! I swear!”

  And there it was: the breaking point.

  Lanza withdrew the scalpel from his prisoner’s undamaged eye. “So, tell me,” he commanded. “Where may I locate Gianni Magolino, the man who left you to your lonely fate?”

  “Tropea!” gasped the weeping captive. “He goes there on holiday sometimes or when he needs to get away from Catanzaro for a while.”

  “Where in Tropea?”

  “Not in town. A short kilometer or two outside, southwest, atop a hill.”

  “How many men are with him?” Lanza asked.

  “He took a dozen in two vehicles. Some others stay there all the time to watch the place.”

  “That’s all?”

  The young man shook his head, sweat flying. “No, sir. He has called in every man available.”

  “But left you and the other two at his whorehouse?”

  “As guards. He still has business in the city to protect from the American.”

  “Ah. What do you know of this American?”

  “Only his name. I mean, the name he uses. No one thinks it is legitimate.”

  “And that name would be...?”

  “Scott Parker. Please, sir. That’s all I know.”

  Lanza stared into those panic-crazed eyes and felt himself relax. “I believe you, my son,” he replied.

  The scalpel drew a crimson line across the young ’ndranghetisto’s pulsing throat, severing both carotid arteries, both jugular veins and his windpipe in one sweeping stroke. Aerated blood shot toward the ceiling, spraying Lanza’s goggles, mask and plastic suit. He stepped back from the table, wondering if he would need a shower now in spite of the protective gear. A brief inspection revealed that he would only have to wipe some errant droplets from his face.

  Time saved, in which he could stalk Gianni Magolino and pay his enemy back for the insult of bombing Lanza’s home.

  With luck, the godfather’s fate would be neither as swift nor as relatively peaceful as the death of his young soldier. Lanza hoped to keep his enemy alive and screaming for at least two days.

  A week would please him more, but he’d always been a relatively modest man.

  Chapter 11

  Via Alcide de Gasperi, Catanzaro

  Bolan parked at gas station to call Peppino Lanza. He got through on his first attempt and heard the mafioso say, “Ah, my friend! I did not have a chance to thank you for the warning earlier.”

  “I had a feeling you were busy,” Bolan said.

  “And you were right! But now I thank you, even if the warning came too late.”

  “You’re still alive and kicking, though.”

  “Yes, as are you. Kicking an enemy we have in common, I believe.”

  “You worked that out yourself?”

  “It was not difficult. Who else would be tormenting Magolino, other than the two of us?”

  “That’s why I’m calling,” Bolan said. “If you still want to thank me for the heads up...”

  “Within reason, certainly,” Lanza replied.

  “I just left Magolino’s penthouse,” Bolan told him. “You can scratch it off your list. Nobody’s home.”

  “Indeed. I have discovered that from a cooperative member of his cosche only recently. And now you hope to learn where he has gone, eh?”

  “Thought it might be worth a try,” Bolan replied.

  Lanza was silent for a moment, then said, “And why not? The enemy of my enemy, eh?”

  “Sounds good to me,” Bolan said.

  “He’s in Tropea. Do you know it?”

  “I can find it.”

  “Magolino has a house there, on a hill outside the town, I’m told.”

  “And he’s supposed to be there now?”

  “Or on his way. I hope to see him soon, but if you find him first, may the best man win.”

  I plan to, Bolan thought. “Maybe I’ll see you there.”

  “Ah. A little something extra to anticipate. How will I know you?” Lanza asked.

  “Shouldn’t be a problem,” Bolan answered. “If you make it, I’ll find you.”

  “And shall we still be great friends?”

  “Nothing lasts forever,” Bolan said.

  “How true. How sad, eh? Till we meet then. Possibly in hell.”

  The line went dead, and Bolan set his sat phone on the empty seat beside him. Now, before he made another move, he had to ask himself if Lanza could be trusted for directions to Magolino’s hideout. There was no doubt in his mind that Lanza wanted Magolino dead, and Lanza would rather do the job himself. It appeared he was accepting Bolan’s first call as an honest warning, rather than an act of misdirection, but he might just as easily try cleaning house, ridding himself of Bolan at the same time as he dealt with Magolino.

  Why not?

  No mafioso ever made it to the top by trusting others, even in a close-knit family. Survival of the fittest was the basic law for predators, whether they occupied a city or a rain forest. Even if Lanza looked on Bolan as a momentary friend, eliminating him still made good sense in the long term. Who wanted foreigners lurking around and meddling in their business anyway?

  So, should he make the side trip to Tropea or ignore Lanza’s advice?

  Captain Basile might be able to enlighten Bolan, but if tipped off to Magolino’s possible location, he could lead a rescue mission of his own. The last thing Bolan needed, if the lead to Magolino proved legit, was lawmen getting underfoot and in his life of fire.

  But there was always Stony Man.

  A long shot, granted, but it could be worth a try.

  He didn’t bother calculating time zones as he picked up the sat phone once more and dialed. Someone would be awake and on the job.

  They always were.

  Tropea

  RAF DONDINI DID not like guard duty ordinarily, but after prowling Catanzaro all night long, then driving to Tropea, it was good to stretch his legs. The property surrounding Magolino’s country home sprawled over fifty acres from the hilltop at its center, and the workout Dondini got, trudging over its slopes and gullies, had his heart thumping against his ribs.

  Daylight was breaking now, and soldiers were arriving in response to Magolino’s ca
ll for reinforcements. Dondini could not guess how many of the family’s four hundred soldiers—or, at least, the ones still living—would appear to stand with their padrino, but he guessed as many as a quarter of them might be close enough to make the trip on short notice. A hundred guns could make a crucial difference against their enemy, who seemed to strike from nowhere, like some kind of deadly poltergeist.

  Dondini was not superstitious. He didn’t believe in hexes, curses or the like, but something had been setting his nerves on edge. First, Rinaldo Natale had betrayed the family, violating his oath of silence, and now Natale’s sister was immersed in some foul treachery. She would be punished for it soon, a show Dondini hoped he would be privileged to witness, but they still had to find the damned American known as Scott Parker—find him and prevent him from inflicting any further damage on the family.

  As to the other raids in Catanzaro—starting in the hours prior to their departure and involving men who sounded very much like members of the Mafia—Dondini had no clue how that feud would resolve itself. No one consulted him on matters that pertained to policy. They only issued orders: go here, go there, kill him, kidnap her.

  Do as you’re told.

  A soldier’s life.

  The walkie-talkie on his belt crackled with the hourly check-in. Aldo, at the big house, was not taking any chances. Dondini palmed the radio and simply said, “Number six.”

  “Confirmed,” Aldo answered, then clicked off.

  The rifle Dondini carried on a shoulder sling seemed to be getting heavier. That was impossible, he realized, a trick spawned by fatigue. Still, he would make it through his three-hour shift then pass the weapon and the duty to someone fresh while he went in to have a meal and catch his first sleep since the trouble had begun—how long ago? Less than a day, in fact, although it felt much longer.

  How many of his brothers had been slain within that time? Dondini started counting then gave up. He’d been too busy to keep track of all the incidents, much less who was killed or wounded in each one.

  Soldiers could always be replaced, as Dondini knew very well. The more important thing was getting rid of the ’ndrina’s enemies in a way that helped enhance the family’s reputation.

  Dondini hoped he might be the one to deal with Scott Parker personally. Though it seemed unlikely, he would relish taking out a major foe while advancing himself in the process.

  And the first step in that process was to stay on full alert.

  Dondini slipped his automatic rifle off its shoulder sling and held it ready as he walked his beat. There was no realistic prospect of a confrontation yet, but he would not be taken by surprise.

  A single shot could put him on the road to fame and fortune.

  Conversely, it could put him in the ground.

  San Pietro Lametino, Calabria

  BOLAN MADE GOOD time southbound on the A3 Motorway, holding the Fiat Panda to the highway’s posted maximum speed. He enjoyed the open road, its traffic sparse by comparison to Catanzaro’s downtown snarl of cars, trucks, motorcycles and pedestrians, who often seemed intent on suicide.

  He rolled the windows down and let the rush of cool air clear his head as he focused on the problem waiting for him in Tropea. Magolino would be busy circling the wagons, rallying his troops from near and far, trying to make sense of the double hits he’d been taking around Catanzaro. If he had anything resembling common sense, he must have figured out that “Scott Parker” wasn’t his only active enemy. Peppino Lanza’s mafiosi had been snapping at his heels, and now—as Bolan knew, but Magolino might not—Lanza knew where he was hiding.

  It was a race to the finish line, with Mariana Natale’s life in the balance.

  And the odds, as usual, were heavily against the Executioner.

  He stopped for fuel on the outskirts of town. Back on the road, he ran through the directions he’d received from Stony Man and confirmed the details on his laptop. Bolan had seen a satellite photo of the mobster’s home away from home, and he’d begun making plans for his attack.

  Preliminary only, mind you. If he reached Magolino’s hilltop retreat and found it crawling with ’Ndrangheta soldiers armed to the teeth, his plan would need some tweaking, maybe radical revision. Any way you sliced it, the bottom line was penetration, followed by a search for Mariana if the circumstances made that feasible. That was a big “if,” Bolan realized, and it was followed by another: finding out if she was still alive and fit to travel, or if she would need a medevac to get her off the property. The latter option meant involving the authorities, killing as many ’ndranghetisti as he could before help arrived, then leaving Mariana in official hands while he escaped.

  If that was even feasible.

  Long odds? Try verging on impossible.

  But he was bound to try.

  Chinese tradition, as he understood it, said that if you saved another person’s life, you were obliged to care for them from that day forward. Bolan didn’t buy that, but he did believe he was responsible for Mariana in the here and now. If he wrote her off, it was the same as if he’d never helped her in the first place, and his private code of honor wouldn’t let him live with that.

  Choices.

  Each battle threw a thousand of them at a fighting man, and Bolan was no stranger to split-second decisions made under fire. Today, he would be going up against the ’Ndrangheta for two reasons: first, to save one life a second time; and second, to impart a lesson that survivors of the outlaw “family” would take to heart.

  And he’d be doing it in broad daylight, rather than wasting twelve more hours—letting Mariana suffer, maybe die—while he waited for the sun to set.

  A high-noon blitz. Full speed ahead.

  Tropea

  THE TORTURE HAD not started yet, but it was coming. Mariana Natale knew that as surely as she knew she would never leave this place alive.

  Her mood shifted erratically from one moment to the next, veering between outraged defiance and abject terror, accompanied by tremors she could not seem to control. Raised in the ’Ndrangheta tradition, she knew well enough the kinds of punishment reserved for traitors, death being the least of them. A part of her hoped she could stay strong in the face of unimaginable agony and degradation, cursing her tormentors to the bloody end, but Mariana had her doubts.

  She had considered suicide, hellfire be damned, but her hands and feet were securely bound. Beyond that, she had scanned her tiny room as best she could—from her position on its narrow single bed—and saw nothing that could have served her as a weapon, even if her hands were free to wield one. Suffocation would not work; the human brain refused to let its host stop breathing voluntarily and would resume that function on its own, even if she persisted long enough to cause unconsciousness.

  Likewise, her bonds prevented Mariana from inflicting any lethal harm upon herself without an instrument of some kind. At the worst, she could roll out of bed and try to pound her head against the floor, but it was thickly carpeted, so unlikely to do more than add a headache to her present physical and mental suffering.

  Hopeless.

  She was at Magolino’s mercy, and he did not understand the meaning of the word.

  That left two options: the defiance she’d considered previously or a groveling plea for her life that she knew would be useless. Why humiliate herself for Gianni’s amusement?

  Defiance it was, then, as long as she could make it last. At some point, Mariana knew, she would become a screaming mass of violated flesh, devoid of reason, praying—if she still remembered how to pray—for death’s release. No human being could withstand torture indefinitely, even if it seemed to happen frequently in Hollywood films.

  She’d break, all right. And it would make no difference.

  Gianni did not plan to simply punish her. He wanted to destroy her by the slowest and most agonizing means he could devise.
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  A wave of nausea passed over Mariana and left her weak and trembling as she played the blame game. Who was responsible for her predicament? Rinaldo, for betraying Magolino when he turned informer in New York? Their parents, who had raised them to regard the ’Ndrangheta as a law unto itself, guided by “honor,” which she knew to be a hollow sham?

  Or was the fault entirely hers?

  Only her brother was expected to pursue their father’s criminal profession. Girls were not pressured to find gainful employment, educate themselves beyond the basics or do anything past finding a husband and raising a family. It had been Mariana’s choice to chase the high life among Rinaldo’s cronies, and it had led her to Gianni Magolino.

  It had led her here.

  With that knowledge, her despair returned in full force. Knowing she could expect no help, she closed her eyes and wept.

  Pizzo, Calabria

  PEPPINO LANZA GLANCED through the tinted window of his limo toward the sea, but he failed to register its beauty. He was not a great sightseer, never had been, and today of all days was no time for him to start appreciating scenery.

  The sea was there; it always had been and would always be there. So, what of it?

  Lanza’s problem, now, was getting through the next few hours with his skin and fighting force intact. He had strict orders from the leaders of the Bevilacqua family in Palermo—redeem himself or die in the attempt. No third alternative was either contemplated or permissible.

  No problem, Lanza told himself. His task was simple when you thought about it: storm a fortified redoubt with twenty-odd soldiers, against what he presumed must be a vastly larger force of better-armed defenders, kill them all and thereby save his reputation from complete annihilation.

  Simple.

  Every weapon he possessed was packed into the four-car caravan proceeding toward Tropea. If they happened to be stopped by the police, he’d given orders to try bribery first, then let the chips fall where they would. Lanza would not permit the cops to divert him from his mission or his destiny, whatever that might prove to be.