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  “Sure, sure,” he said. His words were slightly slurred, but then he’d almost polished off the entire bottle of wine himself.

  “Tomorrow morning, then,” Rio said. “Don’t be late.”

  “I won’t,” he said.

  Rio left the restaurant without another word. The parking lot was dark, and his car was parked on the far edge of the lot. He moved with easy grace to the vehicle, sweating already in the humid night air. He unlocked the door, opened it and wedged himself into the seat. Then he put the key into the ignition, started the engine and reached for the air-conditioning. It was too damn humid to not run it on full blast, and he twisted the dial as far to the right as it would go.

  As the vents blasted air into his face, two things happened at once. He recognized the acrid tang of pepper spray, and four large men appeared around his car—one at each door. Almost instantly blinded, he tried the door, but the goon standing there held it shut.

  “Damn it!” he said, sneezing, coughing and hacking. He forced himself against the door with all his strength and it popped open. He fell out onto the concrete, reaching for his gun even as he landed. Blind, he didn’t have much of a chance, but he wouldn’t go down without a fight.

  “Don’t bother, cowboy,” a voice said in his ear. He felt the cold metal barrel of a gun pushed against his flesh.

  Still coughing, his lungs and eyes burned from the pepper spray, Rio moved his hands away from his coat. The man pulled out the .45 and handed it to one of his pals. The marshal couldn’t make out faces clearly through the tears running from his eyes.

  “What the hell?” Rio started to say, when the Italian leather boot slammed into his head.

  “Welcome to New Orleans, cowboy,” the man said. “The boss wants to have a word with you, and I suggest you cooperate. The gators are hungry this time of year.”

  Knowing that if he fought now, they’d just kill him outright, Rio relaxed. He’d have to wait for a better opportunity.

  “Told you I’d bring him,” he heard Smythe’s voice say. “Didn’t I?”

  “Yeah, Trenton, you did real good,” the man said.

  His eyes were clearing, and Rio saw a man dressed in an expensive suit, Smythe standing behind him. Rio spit blood from his split lip. “I won’t be forgetting this, Smythe,” he said. “Not for a long, long time.”

  “You’ve got more to worry about than I do, Marshal. A lot more.”

  Rio was about to reply when the boot hit him again, this time connecting with his temple, and the world went hot, then dark.

  1

  There weren’t that many people who could call Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, out of the blue and get an instant response, but Hal Brognola was one of them. Apparently one of the big Fed’s colleagues, Jacob Rio—a man Brognola had a great deal of respect for—had become quite concerned lately for the welfare of his brother, U.S. Marshal Jack Rio.

  According to Jacob, Jack was almost a week overdue for a visit they’d scheduled. Jacob had told Brognola that his brother had been slated for a couple of weeks off, and they’d planned to use one of them to go fishing in the Gulf. Brognola had asked him what his brother was doing for the other one, but Jacob hadn’t known for sure.

  “He just said he wanted to check something out,” he’d said. “For him, that usually means a really cold case or something way off the beaten path or both.”

  “You’ve tried all his numbers?” Brognola had asked. “Gone to his house? Contacted his office?”

  “All of the above,” Jacob said. “No one knows anything, and it’s not like Jack to just disappear.”

  Trusting Jacob Rio’s instincts, Brognola contacted Bolan and relayed the details as he knew them. Bolan caught the next flight to Houston out of Denver, where he’d been taking some downtime mountain climbing. From Houston, the drive down to Galveston where the marshal lived wasn’t very long, and Bolan cruised the street looking for the white, two-story house that Brognola had told him Rio called home. He ran through his conversation with Brognola again as he drove. It would seem by all accounts that Rio was the real thing—a tough fighter, a more than competent lawman, and the kind of person you’d want watching your back when all hell broke loose. He wasn’t the kind of man to take off on a whim without telling anyone.

  Rio’s neighborhood was that in name only. It might be an area that would make your average suburban family nervous, as the houses were interrupted by equipment and buildings for the oil companies. It wasn’t an area where people would let their kids play on the street.

  As the driveway came into view, Bolan saw that a black Lincoln Town Car occupied it, so he pulled up short and parked. There was no record of Rio owning a Town Car in the information that Brognola had sent him. The license plate was Louisiana, not Texas, and wasn’t a law-enforcement plate. The Executioner climbed out of the car and eased the door closed, then made his way along a low hedge that fronted the house. He could see that the door was open, but wasn’t close enough yet to hear anything from the inside. It didn’t help that the ocean was less than two blocks away and the incoming tide was making enough noise that hearing anything that wasn’t up close and personal would be difficult.

  Deciding that a direct approach might work just as well as stealth, Bolan straightened and turned up the walk that led to the front door. When he neared it, he could hear the sound of muttered cursing and the crash of drawers being slammed shut. He knocked loudly on the door, and called out, “Hey, Rio, you in there?”

  The sounds from the back of the house stopped. A long moment of silence, and Bolan called out once more. “Rio, you in there?”

  Hurried footsteps moved through the house, and Bolan saw a man enter the small living room. He was dressed in a nice suit, obviously tailored, but looked disheveled. The coat and shirt were both wrinkled, and his hair was mussed and sweaty. “Sorry, sorry,” the man said. He had a distinct accent that marked him as a native of New Orleans. “I was in the back cleaning up.” He gestured with a thumb toward the back of the house.

  “Yeah, I heard,” Bolan said. “I’m looking for Jack Rio. He around?”

  “No, uh, he’s not here right now,” the man said. “Who are you?”

  “Oh, just an old friend,” he said, stepping into the foyer. “We do a little fishing from time to time, and I thought I’d drop by and see if he was up for something this weekend.”

  “Fishing, huh?” the man said. He was large enough to fill the entryway into the living room, and he stepped forward to meet Bolan. “You don’t look like much of a fisherman.”

  “These aren’t my fishing clothes,” Bolan replied, easing the front door shut behind him.

  “Yeah, right, whatever,” the man said. “Look, Rio’s not here, so why don’t you beat it?”

  Bolan closed the final distance between them, stopping just a couple of steps away from the man. “Sorry,” he said, “but I can’t do that.”

  “Why the hell not?” the man demanded. “Come back later.”

  “Because,” Bolan said, jabbing a fist into the man’s solar plexus, “I’ve decided I don’t like you.”

  The man doubled over, but was smart enough to back away at the same time, so Bolan’s follow-up missed. He straightened, coming up with a mean-looking .45 from beneath his coat. “Don’t take another step,” he said, trying to catch his breath.

  Bolan didn’t hesitate. He stepped in close, even as the goon started to speak, and caught his right arm in a reverse lock with his left. He jerked up hard and felt the elbow snap. The man screamed, and the gun hit the wooden floor with a dull thud. Pushing forward with all his weight, Bolan brought his right hand around and drove a hammer blow to the man’s jaw.

  He staggered and started to go down. Knowing that his adversary was likely to recover quickly, Bolan chopped a blow into the back of the man’s neck. He dropped like a sack of cement.

  Bolan moved quickly, yanking a lamp cord out of the wall along with the lamp, using it as a makeshift rope to tie the thug’s
hands behind his back. It took most of the soldier’s not inconsiderable strength to get the thug propped upright against the couch. The man groaned, already stirring.

  Leaving him for the moment, Bolan gathered up the dropped .45, noting even as he put it in a pocket that its serial numbers had been filed clean. He jogged toward the back of the house and saw that Rio’s office was completely trashed. Drawers were pulled open and tossed on the floor, and the contents of two filing cabinets were spread out everywhere. The computer was on, but only showed a log-in screen.

  “What have you gotten yourself into, U.S. Marshal Rio?” Bolan muttered before turning back to the living room.

  He pulled a chair from the kitchen table into the living room, turned it around, then retrieved a glass of cold water for himself, and one for the unidentified, groggy man. He returned to the living room, took a drink from his own glass, then poured about half of the other over the man’s face. The thug spluttered and came around.

  “Welcome back,” Bolan said. “I have some questions.”

  “Yeah, well, you know what you can do with your questions,” he said. “I ain’t saying anything to you.”

  “I was hoping you’d feel that way,” Bolan said. He leaned back in the chair, tilting it up, then brought it down full force into the top of the man’s exposed feet. The bones cracked and popped, and the man screamed for several long seconds.

  “Who are you, you fuck? You’re not just a buddy!” He was breathing heavily.

  “I’m the one asking the questions. Who are you? Who do you work for? And where is Jack Rio?”

  “I’m the Tooth Fairy,” he said. “I work for Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny. And Jack Rio’s in hell.”

  “Wrong answer,” Bolan said calmly. He leaned back in the chair, driving the tips of the legs into the man’s feet again. Thankfully, Rio’s house was quite some distance from any others, though if the man got much louder, a gag would be necessary.

  When he finally quieted, Bolan took a long drink of water. “You need to understand,” he said. “I’m only going to ask one more time, then I’m going to lose patience and start hurting you. Up to this point, I’ve been gentle. So, who are you? Who do you work for? Where’s Jack Rio?”

  The man looked like he was thinking about another smart-ass remark, but then thought better of it. “I’m Tony Salerno,” he said, his voice weak from his screams. “I work for the Family in New Orleans, which is where I last saw your buddy Jack.” He shrugged. “I’m guessing he’s dead by now.”

  Family, Bolan thought, the magic word that meant Mafia. But last he’d heard, the Matrangas were out of business in New Orleans. “What Family?” he asked.

  “Mine, you mook,” he snarled.

  “Well, at least I know who to look up when I get there,” Bolan said. “For their sake, the marshal had better be alive.”

  “I don’t know who you are, but if you go down there looking for Family trouble, you’re as good as dead already.”

  “You’d be surprised how often I’ve heard that,” Bolan replied, taking the man’s .45 out of his pocket. “Anything else you’d like to tell me? A good address would help.” He knew what the answer would be.

  “I’ll die first,” the man spit. “I’m a stand-up guy.”

  “Yeah, right,” Bolan said as he pocketed the thug’s gun. “How about we just let the cops deal with you when they get here. I’m sure there are a few outstanding warrants on you.”

  In the distance, Bolan heard approaching sirens. Apparently the closest neighbors had heard the screams. Bolan wiped down the chair and glasses, leaving them in the sink.

  “Hey, buddy, I hope you got your funeral planned, if you’re thinking of going near the Family,” the thug said.

  Bolan ignored the man—his mind was already moving forward. If he got lucky, he could catch a late flight to New Orleans and look up the newest Mafia Family to call the city home. The Executioner went back outside and made his way to his car—carefully plotting his next move.

  NIKOLAI AGRON PAUSED and checked his appearance in the mirror one last time. The look was only one small part of his disguise here, but people tended to believe what they saw, and in him, they saw a perfectly groomed Italian man. He pulled out all of the stops for his look, perfectly tailored Italian suit, shoes from Milan and he even had monogrammed silk handkerchiefs for formal occasions. But on this day he had a more casual look—loose fitting shirt, Dockers and loafers. He’d been down in New Orleans since just after Hurricane Katrina hit, introducing himself around the city as Nick Costello. His bona fides checked out because he’d been building them for several years.

  Nikolai was about as Italian as George Washington. He’d been born in Moscow, worked his way up in organized crime there, and when things began to go to hell, he changed tactics. He taught himself how to become someone else, and he spent years developing several different identities in organized crime families around the world. When Katrina hit, Nikolai—Nick, he reminded himself—saw a golden opportunity. New Orleans had been all but free of seriously organized crime since Carlos Marcello, the last of the Matranga Family, had died. For a clever man, this vacuum could be exploited.

  So Nikolai Agron disappeared and Nick Costello was born. He established himself quickly and invested in real estate as fast as he could. He made backroom deals, robbed Peter to pay the proverbial Paul, and landed every Federal Emergency Management Agency—FEMA—contract he could get his hands on, and the ones he didn’t get he made sure went south in a hurry for the other bidder. All that reconstruction work, which was still going on, provided a great cover for money laundering and smuggling, and the town was quickly learning that no projects moved forward without Mr. Costello’s permission. He was already a very wealthy man, and before he was done, he’d have enough money to pay back his enemies in Russia, with interest, and buy a nice, private island to retire on.

  There was a discreet tap on his door. “He’s ready, boss,” a voice called from the other side.

  Nick crossed the room and opened the door to see the stern face of Victor Salerno. Salerno was the real thing, born in Italy into a prominent Mafia Family. But he’d long since put profit above honor. As Nick’s capo, Salerno knew almost everything about the operation he was running, but he did his best work as an enforcer.

  “He’s in the game room?” Nick asked, as they descended the steps to the first floor.

  “Yeah,” Salerno said. “All ready to go.”

  “Good,” Nick said. “He’ll talk soon.”

  “It doesn’t matter. Tony will find something that will give us what we need.”

  “Have you heard from him yet?” Nick asked.

  Salerno shook his head. “No, but he’ll get in touch soon. He’s a good kid.”

  “Absolutely,” Nick agreed. They crossed the main floor of the house to the kitchen, then opened a small door in the back, which revealed a short set of concrete steps leading into the so-called game room—the place where Salerno questioned those who had information he wanted.

  The game room wasn’t large—perhaps twenty feet on a side—and constantly smelled of wet, mildew and blood. And a carefully trained nose could pick out the scents of urine, feces and, most of all, fear. Jack Rio was chained to a stainless-steel table in the middle of the back wall. Salerno saw that he was awake and staring at him with hatred in his eyes.

  “Are you ready to begin again, Mr. Rio?” Nick asked. “I’m enjoying our sessions together.”

  “You’re accent sounds funny to me,” Rio said. “What part of Italy are you from?”

  Nick made a sad tsking sound between his teeth. “As I’ve already explained to you, Mr. Rio, I ask the questions here in the game room, not you.” He removed a rubber apron from a hook on the wall, hung his suit coat in its place and put on the apron. Then he lifted a metal tray from the shelf and selected a long, thin-bladed device.

  “I think we’ll start with this,” he said, his voice growing quiet. “Unless you’d like to tell
me what I want to know.”

  “You’d best get to cutting,” Rio said between his gritted teeth. “Because I’m not telling you shit.”

  “As you request,” Nick said, bringing the blade down and cutting into the delicate skin of Rio’s inner thigh. “I’m always happy to play in the game room.”

  2

  Bolan had traveled the world, and that included New Orleans. He’d been there before, and there were two things he knew without a doubt. First, that if the heat and the mosquitoes didn’t kill you, the alligators would. Second, behind the Cajun-flavored drawl, there wasn’t a single cop in the city who liked having anyone else horn in on their territory.

  After arriving on a late flight and tracking down a hotel of very questionable quality, Bolan decided early the next morning to visit the district attorney’s office. It was possible that Rio had checked in there, or perhaps word had come through that there was a U.S. marshal in town. Bolan drove his small rental car through the early-morning humidity and parked it across the street from the DA’s office. There was a small bistro serving Turkish coffee and scones, and with time to kill until the office opened, Bolan ordered both and sat at a table to wait. The coffee was excellent, and the scones helped to satisfy his hunger, even as his eyes took in the arriving staff and lawyers, who already looked uncomfortable in their business attire that clung to them with the heavy humidity.

  The office was located only a couple of blocks from the Louisiana Superdome, where the New Orleans Saints played football. It was a somber-looking building, with a dark gray fabricated granite facing. But the courthouse and other older buildings on the block offered a different atmosphere than the DA’s office. Statues and columns, along with honeysuckle vines in the park, lent itself to the old-world feel that New Orleans was famous for. When his watch read eight o’clock, Bolan finished the last of his coffee and walked across the street. By the time he arrived, he was already sweating through his clothing, and even the blast of air-conditioning didn’t seem to do much more than make him feel damper. He took the elevator up several floors to where the DA’s office was located.