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  The Executioner considered sparing the dying Corino a mercy round, but fought the impulse. Mack Bolan might give the man a clean death, but Vincent Harmon would not.

  The lead gunman poked his head up once again. This time Bolan was ready. He squeezed the trigger of his right-hand Beretta, putting a 9 mm hollow-point bullet through the shooter’s left eyeball. There was a shout of alarm from another attacker, probably because the dead gunner’s partners were now coated in his blood and brains.

  Bolan wasted no time. He dropped the Beretta in his left hand, popped to one knee and snatched a pepper shaker from the nearest table. He tossed it overhand at the south stairs.

  “Grenade!” Bolan yelled.

  It was a dime-store trick in his estimation, but it worked. The remaining shooters scattered, trying to climb out of the stairwell to avoid the clattering object. They were shooting as they went, but Bolan was already prone again, well below the level of their wild spray-and-pray barrage. He punched one then two bullets through the heart of the first man. His second target was shot in the neck and jaw. The results were messy and final.

  Bolan waited patiently as the Corino hardmen expended several more shots in the direction of the south entrance. Eventually, though, they figured out that the worst was over. Silence, broken only by the moans of the dying Corino button man, descended on the room.

  The Executioner stood. He looked left then right, making eye contact with the other Corino gunners in the room. One of the older ones, probably the leader of the contingent been sent to meet him, nodded. Bolan nodded back and, gun in hand, scouted the south stairs. Among the bodies he found a fourth man still alive. Bolan kicked away the man’s weapon. It was the MAC-10 he had spotted right away.

  “Who sent you?” Bolan asked, standing over the dying man. Blood coated the shooter’s face. He stared upward, blinking and trying to talk.

  “Don’t bother,” said a voice next to Bolan. The soldier turned and sized up the newcomer. The man was shorter than the Executioner by almost a foot. He had a solid build and a bullet-shaped head that had been shaved smooth. He wore a thin goatee and a suit more expensive than anything Bolan had owned in civilian life. In his hand he held a short-barreled, Commander-length .45 automatic pistol.

  “Why’s that?” Bolan said.

  “He’s with the Torettos,” the newcomer replied. “Unfortunately he was also born with a terminal disease.”

  “What’s that?” Bolan asked.

  “It’s called being a Toretto.” The shorter man raised his .45 and put a bullet between the Toretto gunman’s eyes. Then he turned and stuck out his hand. Bolan, surprised, took it, finding the smaller man’s grip firm and confident.

  “Vincent Harmon,” Bolan said.

  “David Pierce. Son of a friend of the family,” he added.

  “If you say so.” Bolan was watching his back as the remaining Corinos began policing up the dining area and securing the other exits. The dying button man had stopped moaning. Pierce followed Bolan’s gaze.

  “That was Sammy,” he said. “He was a good kid.”

  “I’m sure he was.”

  “Neat trick you pulled with the saltshaker.”

  “Pepper,” Bolan corrected.

  “Whatever.” Pierce shrugged. “Come on. Mr. and Mrs. Corino are going to be plenty happy to hear that you saved our butts.”

  Bolan raised an eyebrow and looked around at the carnage in the dining area. “You don’t think they’ll be saddened by the loss of... Sammy...over there?”

  “I said he was a good kid,” Pierce stated. “Not irreplaceable. Besides, they’re looking to hire the best. So far, you’re not showing me anything otherwise, Harmon.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.” As Bolan holstered Vincent Harmon’s gaudy Beretta—he would have to retrieve the other gun from the floor—he reminded himself of who he was and why he was there.

  He had to play the role of Vincent Harmon, but he didn’t have to like it.

  What he would like, however, would be to take out every last one of these Corino thugs.

  “You okay?” Pierce asked. “You all of a sudden look like somebody slapped your old lady.”

  “Just thinking.”

  “About?”

  “About all the work there is to do,” said the Executioner.

  2

  Pierce, behind the wheel of a gold Lincoln Town Car whose vintage had to be late nineties, hauled the wheel over and brought the Detroit battleship yawing around a turn. He drove quickly and aggressively, but his efforts were hindered by the marshmallow air suspension of the luxury sedan.

  Bolan watched through the passenger window as the neighborhood around them grew increasingly affluent. They were headed into one of the nicer areas of the city, to the private home of Aldo and Rosa Corino. At least, that’s what Pierce had claimed he’d been tasked to do. He was supposed to take Vincent Harmon to the promised audience with the Corinos so that the hit man could be vetted for the extensive job awaiting him.

  Pierce listened to public radio news as he drove. He was not stingy with his commentary.

  “We ought to line up all the politicians,” he said, “and put a bullet in each of ’em. Start over. We could do with a little house cleaning.”

  “I know a man in Washington who might agree with you.”

  “Yeah,” Pierce said. “That’s the thing. Everybody knows the system’s rigged, but nobody does anything about it. But that’s the way the world works, I guess. What can one guy do?”

  “One man can stand against evil,” Bolan replied. “One man can face the worst that life has to offer and through his example inspire others. It’s not easy, but it’s not complicated.”

  Pierce shot Bolan a sidelong glance. “You’re a weird guy, Harmon.”

  “I don’t chat politics often.”

  “Right. That figures.” Pierce shifted in his seat.

  The five-inch, grooved wooden dowel attached to his keychain rattled against his knee when he moved. Bolan had noticed the Japanese yawara right away; it was an effective self-defense tool. While it didn’t look like much, it could be used to break bones and deliver devastating blows by concentrating the force of the strike in the end of the dowel. Not a lot of Mob guys carried such accessories, though he’d known plenty who liked a good pair of brass knuckles or the comforting heft of a leather sap. It was an anomaly. A piece of data that painted David Pierce on Bolan’s radar as more than the typical Mafia goon. He would need to watch himself with the smaller man.

  They drove in silence for a while as the area through which they moved continued to become more affluent. The homes they passed were easily worth millions of dollars. Eventually they reached the gated entrance to the Corino estate, which was walled off from the rest of the community.

  Bolan took note of the security systems he could spot. The concrete barrier that surrounded the Corinos’ headquarters was ten feet tall and, he could see, about a foot thick. It had been landscaped with small trees and what might have been fake ivy, all in an attempt to make the stone security wall look more upscale. Cameras on pedestals above and behind the wall were spaced here and there. The fields of view would overlap at those distances. Each camera was equipped with the protruding bulb of an LED spotlight. The cameras appeared to be moving independently of one another, not sweeping in predefined arcs. As setups went, it was a solid one.

  The front gate of the estate boasted a guard shack with a man in a nondescript uniform. To outside eyes, no doubt, the guard looked like any private security babysitter tasked with working the gate and logging visitors. One glance, though, and Bolan could see he was another of the Corinos’ thugs. He wore a light jacket over his uniform shirt. A telltale bulge was large enough to be a concealed shotgun or a submachine gun on a sling. He didn’t look like the typical bored rent-a-cop, either. H
e looked annoyed and ready to spring.

  Pierce exchanged a few words with the guard at the shack before the iron gates opened on smoothly oiled tracks. The Town Car carried them effortlessly up the winding drive to the house. Bolan took careful note of the layout, as well as the various statues, shrubbery and other items that could be used for cover and concealment. The winding drive didn’t have to be winding at all. It had been designed that way to make it harder for an enemy to drive a truck full of explosives straight through the gate and into the house. The statues were likely bollards with deep concrete posts securing them in the ground. Grates in the paved drive also bore holes large enough for hydraulic barriers or tire-damaging spike belts.

  “Quite the spread, isn’t it?” Pierce said. He pulled into a covered car park opposite the stairs leading to the columned front door. Throwing the Lincoln in Park, he pocketed his keys and gestured for Bolan to follow him. Two hulking guards in expensive suits stood at either side of the door. They wore Beretta 12 submachine guns on straps over their shoulders. The display was probably meant for Bolan’s benefit, but then, given that the front door wasn’t visible from outside the estate, it was possible they just stood around that way all the time. One of them held up a hand as Pierce and Bolan approached.

  “Who’s this guy?” the guard asked.

  “Move it, Tommy,” Pierce replied. “Vincent Harmon. He’s on the list. Got an appointment with you know who.”

  Tommy started to move aside, although he looked like he wanted to argue. He waved them through, saying, “Mrs. Corino is pretty mad about Vincenzo’s.”

  Bolan knew that was the name of the restaurant the Torettos had shot up.

  Pierce made a face. “It’d be a frigging miracle if she wasn’t,” he said. “Now get outta the way.”

  Bolan didn’t yet have enough information to put his finger on Pierce’s position within the Corino organization, but the smaller man walked around as if he were untouchable. That, too, was an interesting detail. The fact that none of the Mob guys they’d encountered offered more than a perfunctory challenge to Pierce’s approach told Bolan that the man was highly placed. He would need to contact the Farm to see why the Corino dossier he had been supplied had not contained a single mention of Pierce.

  As he followed the mobster through the sprawling, opulently appointed home, Bolan felt like he was walking through a movie set rather than a place people lived. The whole house was decorated in Mob Modern: faux-tasteful antique furniture, paintings as forgettable as they were expensive and packaged decorator color schemes that might have come straight from the set of some overwrought Mafia film. The floors were polished hardwoods covered in expensive Persian rugs. Pierce, who wore hard-soled, Italian-leather shoes, seemed to delight in grinding his feet into the rugs, as if he thought them as tasteless an affectation as Bolan judged them to be.

  One more note for the mental file, Bolan thought.

  In an anteroom at the end of a long hallway, another pair of hardmen stopped them. Pierce looked more annoyed than usual as he and Bolan approached. “Stay steady and don’t kill nobody if I have to get a little rough,” he whispered to Bolan. “Things usually get a little rocky between me and Dumb-Dumb over here. He’s a nephew of the Corino family, and he figures he should have my job, not guard duty outside the sanctum sanctorum over here.”

  Bolan shot Pierce a glance.

  “Well, well,” one of the two guards said when Bolan and Pierce were in earshot. “If it isn’t Davey. Hey, Davey. I been meaning to ask you a favor.”

  “Yeah, Seb?” Pierce queried. “What’s that?” His tone did not match his words. He sounded angry, as if he knew what was coming and didn’t like it.

  “Yeah. I was wondering if you could take this magic ring back to the evil mountain where it was forged.”

  Bolan’s brow furrowed. Pierce, meanwhile, didn’t say a word for a moment. Finally he said, “We’re expected. Open the door.”

  “You know,” Seb said, as if he hadn’t heard, “because you’re short. Short like those guys in that thing.”

  “That narrows it down,” Bolan said.

  Now it was Pierce’s turn to look at Bolan. Seb took a step closer and put a finger on the Executioner’s chest. “Look, dim bulb, maybe you don’t hear so good—”

  That was the last word he got out before Bolan reached up, grabbed his finger and hand, and twisted, applying a joint lock that made the big thug howl in agony. Before Seb’s partner could step in, Pierce put himself in front of Bolan and Seb, blocking the way.

  “Nope,” Pierce said. “Keep it in your pants, Joey.”

  “Seb?” Joey asked. “What you want me to do?”

  But Seb wasn’t in a position to answer any questions. Bolan continued to apply pressure to Seb’s finger joints and wrist, turning and twisting. “Here’s a free piece of advice, pal,” Bolan said quietly. “Never reach for another man. Never put your finger anywhere near him unless that finger is backed up with the rest of your arm. You can spear a guy in the throat. You can poke a thumb into his eye. Hell, you can grab a man’s eye socket like it’s a bowling ball, if you want. But never just put your finger on a man’s chest. You’re just looking to get hurt real bad.”

  “What he said,” Pierce muttered, still eyeing Joey.

  “You get me?” Bolan asked. “Or do I add a little pressure and make your nickname ‘Lefty’ for the rest of your life?”

  “Nah,” Seb ground out through his teeth.

  “I can’t hear you,” Bolan said, twisting.

  “I said no! No!” Seb yelled. “I get you! I get you!”

  Bolan released him. The mobster collapsed to the floor, grabbing his injured hand with his opposite palm and curling into a fetal ball. Pierce looked down, smiling, and shot Joey a disgusted look before he gestured to the doorway.

  “After you, Mr. Harmon,” he said with a flourish. “And thank you.”

  “De nada.”

  They found Aldo and Rose Corino in a study decorated in the same manner as what Bolan had so far seen in the house. The appointments were opulent and over the top, as if it was all for show. Bolan ran the implications through his mind. The Corinos cared about being perceived as powerful and wealthy. Their images mattered to them. When an enemy’s ego put style over substance, that pointed to weakness. Which could be exploited and would ultimately be the fissures through which Bolan would crack and tear apart the Corinos’ armor.

  “What was all that grab-ass in the hall?” the elderly Don asked.

  “Nothing, Mr. Corino,” said Pierce. “Nothing at all. Uh, sorry for the interruption. And it’s very nice to see you again, Mrs. Corino.” He bowed slightly to the matriarch of the Corino family, perhaps even unaware that he was doing it.

  One look at the dour, wrinkled, battle-ax face on Rosa Corino and Bolan could understand why. She had the permanently pinched, furrowed look of someone who wielded a lot of power...and who wasn’t particularly happy about it. She wore a neatly tailored suit jacket and skirt and surprisingly tasteful jewelry. A pair of half-lens glasses was perched on her nose, attached to a chain around her neck.

  If Rosa Corino had a kind of Lady Macbeth aura about her, Aldo Corino was complementary to the role. He was a hunched, gaunt old man, wearing a cashmere sweater over a Ralph Lauren shirt. His slacks were expensive. His shoes, Italian loafers. He looked like he hadn’t gotten up out of his chair in days. He had a turkey neck and the face of a buzzard, with a prominent nose and sunken eyes. The Corino patriarch waved one hand, which bore a large, golden signet ring. The ring might, Bolan mused, be the only genuine antique in this ersatz mausoleum.

  “Vincent Harmon,” Rosa Corino said. “We’re told that you were instrumental in driving back the attack by the Torettos today.”

  “I was,” Bolan replied.

  “You should have seen him, Mrs. Corino,�
�� Pierce stated. “You’re getting your money’s worth with this character.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” Aldo told him. From the pocket of his sweater he removed a brass pocket watch. He made a big show of opening and staring at the timepiece before slowly closing it and returning it to his pocket. “He has to prove himself.” The Mob boss put his fist to his gaunt face and coughed several times. He looked to his wife.

  “The Torettos,” Rosa said. “They are your first test.”

  “I don’t follow,” said Bolan, who followed just fine. He wanted there to be no doubt. He wanted to hear the Corinos explain precisely what they expected.

  “All of the Chicago families have been deep in meetings for the better part of a year and a half,” Rosa went on. She kept her gnarled hands folded on her lap as she spoke, never gesturing with them. The absence of motion was what drew Bolan’s eyes. It was very likely, from the appearance of her fingers and knuckles, that Rosa suffered from severe arthritis.

  “In that time,” Aldo added, having recovered from his coughing fit, “we’ve all agreed on a list. There are names. There are dates. There are specific places. The plan has been worked out and agreed to so that it benefits all of the families and doesn’t step on any toes. The times and places are nonnegotiable. The dates are nonnegotiable. The list is a list of people we need you to take out.”

  “Yeah,” Bolan said. “I got that much. But you’re tying my hands if you expect me to hit these people only in the times and places you specify. It’s bad tactics.”

  “That’s why you’re here,” Rosa said coldly. “You’re supposed to be the best. The best can work within those constraints, can’t he? Because if he can, he can get very, very rich.”

  “And if he can’t,” Aldo said, “he can get very...dead.” The old man had to stop to draw a breath in the middle of his sentence; clearly he suffered from some kind of pulmonary issue.

  “How rich?” Bolan asked.

  “Six figures for each hit. The families have pooled their money into a war chest for the right man. That man is you, Harmon. At least, that’s what we thought. You going to...make a liar out of me?” Aldo asked.