Hard Targets Read online

  Whatever.

  To Brognola, it was simply the ugliest building in town.

  He’d walked over from Justice—a classical revival structure, if there ever was one—to meet his contact in person and catch some sun while he was at it. The city smelled worse than his air-conditioned office, but at least the smell was real.

  Besides, he didn’t want to talk about his problem on the phone.

  Too many ears.

  Jerrod Hansen was the FBI’s assistant director in charge of the Criminal Investigative Division—the largest operational division, with 4,800 field agents, 300 intelligence analysts and 520 headquarters support personnel. At any given moment, his people were tracking serial killers and child abductors, street gangs, organized crime Families and corrupt public officials across fifty states, Puerto Rico and God knew where else.

  He was a busy guy, but he’d made time for Brognola.

  “So, Vinnie Gallo.”

  “Right,” Brognola said. “Specifically, I’m hoping that you may have something on his ties to Buffalo PD. They had a cop killed there, the other day—”

  “O’Malley, right. Went down with one of Gallo’s shooters. I forget the other name.”

  “It’s looking like O’Malley may have been moonlighting as a triggerman. That intersects a project I’ve been working on.”

  “Which is...?”

  “Still classified.”

  The smile that Hansen showed him wasn’t quite a smirk. Not yet. “No give and take? C’mon. Play nice.”

  “Let’s say there’s an operative in the area, deep cover, and the Gallo Mob was using cops to smoke him out. Maybe sent one of them to execute him...”

  “And your guy got lucky.”

  “Hypothetically.”

  “I’d say he’s in deep. If you don’t get him out of there, they’ll likely bury him.”

  “And suppose I couldn’t pull him out?”

  The almost-smirk became a solid frown. “What kind of undercover operation is this? Any way you slice it, once he’s smoked a cop your boy is compromised from here till Sunday, if he tries to testify. I hate to think what any lawyer worth his Giorgio Armani duds would do with that, in court.”

  “It might not go to court,” Brognola said.

  “Whoa, Nelly. If you’ve got no plan to prosecute, then what...” He stopped, blinked once at Brognola, then said, “How’s this? I’ll see what I can dig up for you on Buffalo’s finest, but I’ll have to sanitize it. I can’t give you anything that might expose our own people to risk or jeopardize ongoing operations.”

  “Understood.”

  “Okay. You’ll have whatever I can spare this afternoon. I’ll send it over with a courier.”

  “Appreciate it.” Brognola was on his feet, prepared to leave.

  “I’m thinking that you owe me now,” Hansen said. Putting on his best Don Corleone, he forged ahead. “Someday, and that day may never come, I’ll call upon you to do a service for me. But until that day—”

  “Yeah, yeah.” Brognola cut him off, already halfway to the door. “Don’t quit your day job, eh?”

  North Park, Buffalo

  “JOE DIRKS MEMORIAL? The prick said that?”

  “I asked him what it meant,” Lee Raimondi answered. “Piece of shit just said you’d understand.”

  “Which one of them was this?” Gallo inquired, speaking through clenched teeth.

  “One who took the cash and clipped me on the melon.” As he answered, Raimondi raised a hand to probe his wounded scalp, almost dislodging his toupee.

  “I’ll pay him back for that, don’t worry,” Gallo said. “Describe the two of them again, will you?”

  Raimondi went through it one more time. Two good-size white guys, dark-haired, neither one of them appearing nervous. It was hard to memorize descriptions, sometimes, staring down the barrel of a gun.

  Two guns. With silencers.

  Professionals.

  “You see a doctor yet, Lee?”

  “Nah, Mr. G., I come straight here. I’m pissed off, more’n hurt.”

  “Makes two of us,” Gallo replied. “I’ll make good on whatever they took off you, at the game.”

  “Not necessary, Mr. G. I likely woulda lost it, anyway.”

  “Forget about it. I insist.”

  “Well, then...”

  “And have somebody check that cut. We wouldn’t want you getting brain rot, some damn thing.”

  “I will. Yes, sir.”

  When he was gone, Joe Borgio said, “Same bastards. Gotta be.”

  “No kidding. Where’s that leave us?”

  “I got people turning over every rock in Erie County,” Borgio replied. “That’s cops, on top of our soldiers. If they’re sleeping anyplace that charges rent, we’ll have them by tomorrow, latest.”

  “And suppose they’re not?” Gallo asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Not renting. What if they’re holed up with somebody who lives here, regular.”

  “Like who?”

  “I don’t know who, goddamn it! Say somebody from another Family. Maybe a cop. Maybe a Fed.”

  “We’d hear if this was something that the PD put together, or the state guys,” Borgio replied. “The Feds play dirty, sure, but when they rob you, it’s at tax time. I can’t see them knocking over card games.”

  “That still leaves one of the other Families,” Gallo said.

  “You ruled out Detroit and Cleveland,” Borgio reminded him.

  “I might of been too quick, there,” Gallo granted. “Or it could be Philly, Pittsburgh, Scranton—Christ, who knows? I wouldn’t put it past Chicago.”

  “That’s a lot of ground to cover.”

  “Tell me something that I don’t know.”

  “Okay, Vin. I’ll put some quiet feelers out. We’ve got at least one friend in every Family that might be trying something. Have to do it careful-like, but if there’s something going on, I’ll sniff it out.”

  “And then we’ll have to do something about it,” Gallo said.

  “I hear you,” Borgia said, sounding weary at the prospect.

  “But first, we’ve got to find the two pricks that are breaking our balls.”

  “Joe Dirks memorial,” Borgio said. “That was cute.”

  “Tells me they know too goddamn much already. If they’re spreading it around...”

  “That’s hard to figure, Vin. The cops or Feds could maybe use it, but another Family? Why the hell would they care about some construction job in Buffalo.”

  “Good question, Joe. How about an answer, while you’re at it?”

  “Yeah. I’ll add that to the list.”

  “Time’s wasting,” Gallo said. “Tell Strauss and Kelly, if they want their envelopes next month, they’d damn well better get results.”

  Buffalo Police Headquarters

  THE WALL OF HONOR for police killed in the line of duty featured forty-six names, dating back to January 1865, when Patrolman George Dill was shot by a prowler on Oak Street. There’d been no return fire, since Buffalo’s cops were unarmed in those days, but they finally caught the killer and he was hanged a year later, almost to the day of the murder.

  Rudy Mahan once had memorized the names of fallen local officers, a private gesture of respect. The last three had gone down while he was on the job, one shot, two hit by cars. Now there would be a new name on the wall, and he was wondering if it would be a travesty.

  Headquarters was busy as ever, a beehive planted at the corner of Church and Franklin Streets, two blocks south of Niagara Square. It hummed with feverish activity today because a cop was dead, the media was asking why a mafioso had been found beside him, and whoever pulled the trigger was still out there, raising hell. A Gallo strip club bur
ned, and now one of his street informants had a story about two guys sticking up the high-stakes games at Willie G’s. All that, on top of normal crime: the car thefts, break-ins, muggings, rapes and murders that were part of daily life in Buffalo or any other city of its size.

  Sometimes, Mahan felt like Hercules, given a list of jobs that no one else could do. He’d caged and slain his share of monsters, but a couple of the other tasks hit home. Cleaning out that stable with a thousand diarrheic cattle, maybe, or fighting the hydra that grew two new heads for each one he lopped off. Try that with one hand tied behind your back, hamstrung by countless writs and regulations.

  Then imagine that your own department might be rotten to the core.

  It would have helped to know if he was looking for a pair of vigilantes or a hit team from some Family that wanted Vinnie Gallo nudged aside. As in the field of medicine, the remedy depended on the ailment. There was always pressure he could bring to bear on mobsters, but with dedicated crazies...hey, forget about it. They would either be picked off by Gallo’s men, or go down in a blaze of psycho-glory when they met the sharp end of the Buffalo PD’s response.

  Either way, Mahan couldn’t imagine them on trial.

  Which, he supposed, would solve a world of problems.

  With the perps dead, scrutiny of Greg O’Malley’s sins could be sidetracked and minimized. A lone bad apple would have been removed. Call it poetic justice and move on. Don’t worry about any other dirty cops.

  Ignore that man behind the curtain, Dorothy.

  But could he live with that?

  Six years remained, before retirement with full benefits, and did he want to risk it all, bucking the whole department? Even honest cops resented those who turned against their fellow officers. Work something out on the qt perhaps, but going public was a kind of blasphemy, where law enforcement was concerned. Same thing with going to the Feds. The cop who did that would become an outcast overnight.

  So...what?

  Dig in and do his job, for starters. See what happened next.

  But if he had to make a choice between his private honor and the Blue Code, screw it.

  Let the chips fall where they may.

  Chapter 5

  Kaisertown, Buffalo

  Before proceeding into Kaisertown, they hit a pharmacy on Clinton Street for surgical masks and cheap rubber goggles advertised as safety glasses. Leaving, Johnny asked, “You figure this is good enough?”

  “Should be,” Bolan replied. “You don’t want to inhale it or get any in your eyes. The rest can brush right off.”

  “Or we could charge people to snort us.” Johnny saw his brother’s sidelong look and added, “Just a thought.”

  Back in the Mercury, Bolan inquired, “You’re sure about this place?”

  “Two sources, plus I kept an eye on it myself,” Johnny replied. “Not long, but long enough.”

  “Okay.”

  The house was south of Clinton, west side of South Pontiac Street. The neighborhood was average, some of the houses well maintained while others went to pot. Or, in the case of Bolan’s target for this portion of the blitz, to coke.

  It was supposed to be a cutting plant. The Gallo Family bought their cocaine from Medellín these days, pharmacy grade, 99 percent pure. Upon delivery, the drug was “cut” or “stepped on” to increase its bulk, and thus inflate the profit margin. Substances employed for cutting commonly included baking soda, different kinds of sugar and local anesthetics such as benzocaine or lidocaine. The cutting process wasn’t difficult—unlike the standard meth lab, there was nothing to explode—but inhalation of cocaine during the operation could produce an accidental overdose.

  So masks and goggles were needed, since the powder was absorbed through mucous membranes that included eyes.

  South Pontiac was quiet as they cased the target, most of the adults at work and children off to school. The marked house was among the better-looking ones, as if the Gallos sought to mask their cutting plant with a cosmetic makeover.

  So far, it had to have worked. And payoffs to the PD also didn’t hurt.

  “Front door?” Bolan asked.

  “Why not?” Johnny replied.

  They donned their masks and goggles, double-checked their guns, and left the car parked at the curb out front. After jogging up the concrete walkway to the porch and climbing three steps, Bolan squeezed off a short burst from his Spectre SMG to blast the doorknob and its dead bolt. He kicked in the door and they crashed inside.

  A so-called lookout had been watching television in the front room, something about doctors from the fleeting glimpse that Bolan got. The shooter vaulted to his feet, then spun to reach the MAC-10 he’d left lying on the swaybacked sofa, but he never made it. Johnny tapped him behind the ear with a nearly silent round, and the guy kept going, taking the old couch with him as he tumbled over, out of sight.

  Shouting and scrambling ensued beyond an open doorway straight in front of them. A diplomatic type stepped out, hands raised, and flicked a quick glance at his late companion on the floor.

  “What’s this?” he demanded in an angry tone. “We’re all paid up!”

  Keeping the talker and the doorway covered, Bolan heard a back door slam. The cutters were bailing out while there was time. He told the mouthpiece, “Things are changing. It’s a whole new day.”

  “Oh, yeah? Says who?”

  A Parabellum round took out the mafioso’s left kneecap. He went down like a sack of laundry, if your dirty clothes could scream. Writhing and clutching at his wound, he wailed, “Goddamn it! What did you do that for?”

  “To get your full attention,” Bolan answered, leaning in. “Next time you talk to Mr. G., tell him that this was from Joe Dirks. Got it?”

  “Joe Dirks. Jesus! I never heard of him!”

  “You have now. Spread the word.”

  “I need a frigging ambulance!”

  “Start crawling,” Johnny counseled. “When you hit the curb, call 911.”

  Sobbing, the wounded mobster set off wriggling toward the front door they had crashed through moments earlier. Bolan and Johnny found the product laid out on a dining table sheathed in oilcloth, heaped with powder, sieves, a scale, boxes of baking soda.

  “Want to try another stove job?” Johnny asked.

  “It works for me,” Bolan replied.

  Buffalo Niagara International Airport

  ZOE DIRKS WAS jumpy, agitated, getting off the plane. She’d talked to friends for years about a visit to New York, but that had meant Manhattan, not some town she’d literally never thought about until her brother moved away for work, then disappeared. She was a stranger in a strange place now, jumping at shadows, painfully aware of danger waiting for her like a trapdoor spider.

  She had taken off on impulse, then had time to think about her half-assed plan while she was in the air, too late to turn around. Calling her plan half-assed was generous, in fact. The only thought she’d had, if you could call it thinking, had been rushing east to help find Joe. The warning she’d received from Johnny Gray went in one ear and out the other.

  But she felt it coming back to haunt her now.

  What could she actually do in Buffalo, to find her brother? God, she didn’t even know where Johnny was, or how to get in touch with him, besides his cell phone. And a call, after he’d warned her off, would only make him furious. He’d order her to turn around and go back home, like flushing precious time and money down a toilet.

  No going home, then. Not until she’d managed to do something. But if Johnny was off-limits, who else could she talk to?

  Obviously, the police.

  They’d put her off when she had called long-distance, but a worried person facing them directly might be different. Make that a worried woman, and she’d feel no shame at using any trick that she
could think of to secure official help. Red eyes and sad demeanor? Check. A touch of righteous indignation? Check. Some decent cleavage? Check.

  And if she got a female cop, she’d play the kinship card. A missing brother tugged at heartstrings. Play the twin card. Make whoever she was talking to believe that Joe would never just break contact, take off on a lark without at least informing her of when she’d hear from him again.

  But first, she needed wheels.

  Johnny had warned her not to use her credit cards, and she had paid cash for her airline ticket back in San Diego, but the rental agency wouldn’t release a car without a plastic imprint for their own protection. If they dealt in cash, any palooka with a hundred dollars in his pocket could walk in, obtain a vehicle and leave, with no intention of returning it. Zoe decided there could be no harm in laying out a credit card this time.

  It wasn’t as if anyone in Buffalo expected her—or even knew that she existed.

  But they would know, soon. And they’d regret it if they didn’t help her.

  After signing on the dotted line, she took the keys to a Toyota Camry, then sought out a pay phone whose directory was more or less intact. She found the address for police headquarters and consulted the map that had come with her rental contract. It couldn’t be that hard to find, she thought. And if she had to stop and ask directions on the way, well, that was fine.

  “Ready or not,” she muttered, as she left the concourse. “Here I come.”

  Lower West Side, Buffalo

  BOLAN’S WAR AGAINST the Mafia had started with a loan shark operation. Now, sitting across the street from G & G Finance, it almost felt like starting over.

  “G and G?”

  Johnny shrugged. “The Lower West Side used to be Italian, but it’s nearly all Latino now. They put a Spanish twist on it. One ‘G’ for Gallo, one for Hector Gomez. He’s the front man and recruits his muscle from a street gang called Los Carniceros. Translates as The Butchers.”

  “Any civilian help inside?” Bolan asked.