Hard Targets Read online

  “Call him back,” Mick Strauss replied.

  Fuming with anger, Kelly tried. “Son of a bitch turned off his phone!”

  Strauss frowned. “Maybe you dialed it wrong.”

  “Goddamn it, he’s on speed-dial. It’s one button. You can’t dial it wrong!”

  “Huh. Well...”

  “He has to know we’ve got her,” Kelly said. “I couldn’t call him, otherwise.”

  “Maybe he doesn’t care.”

  “What the hell do you mean?”

  “Suppose it’s just a business thing. Suppose she wasn’t lying when she said he’s just some dick she hired to find her brother. So it’s not like he’s Prince Charming, come in riding to the rescue.”

  “What, you figure he’d just cut her loose?”

  Strauss shrugged. “I would.”

  “No, wait a sec. Why’s he been tearing up the landscape, then? And who’s this other prick she’s claiming not to know?”

  “First thing.” Strauss raised a hand and started counting on his fingers. “Guy’s pissed off because O’Malley tried to take him out. He goes for payback.”

  “A private dick fights back like this?”

  “They’re all ex-military these days, in security,” Strauss said. “Titan, Blackwater, DynCorp, KBR, whoever. Paramilitaries. Private armies.”

  “How’s this chick afford something like that?” Kelly asked. “Now you’re talking outfits that do business with the Pentagon.”

  “So, something smaller. Or she made it worth this one guy’s time, up to a point, and when O’Malley tried to cap him, he decided, why not stick around awhile? Get even? Call a bud to help him out.”

  “But if he doesn’t care what happens to the girl...”

  “He’ll just keep kicking Gallo’s ass around the block, until somebody puts him down.”

  “Could work to our advantage,” Strauss suggested.

  “If we brought them in.”

  “Dead or alive.”

  “I vote for dead.”

  “No fuss, no muss. No telling tales, that way. Nothing blows back on us.”

  “The brass is grateful, and we do a solid for the Family.”

  “Win-win,” Strauss said, smiling.

  “That just leaves the girl,” Kelly said.

  “What girl?”

  “Right. But she was there, at headquarters. Seen talking to us.”

  “So? She came to ask about her brother, and we told her there was nothing she could do to help us find him. How’re we suppose to know what happened to her, after that? As far as we know, she went home.”

  “And when it turns out that she never made her flight...?”

  Strauss shrugged. “We open up another missing person file. Two Dirkses for the price of one.”

  “Maybe she found her bro and took him with her,” Kelly said.

  “Could happen. Anyway, both cases will be cold before you know it.”

  “Still, we shouldn’t be too hasty, getting rid of her. Joe Borgio wants her kept safe.”

  That made his partner smile. “Sure. Hang on to her a few days. Break her in just a little.”

  “I was thinking keep her handy, if the dick changes his mind and calls back asking for a proof of life.”

  “Or that,” Strauss said.

  “Still haven’t worked out how we bag them, though,” Kelly said, “if they won’t deal for the girl.”

  “If worse comes to worst,” Strauss said, “we don’t.”

  “We don’t?”

  “Go through the motions. Cover all the bases. Put the effort out there, Leo. How can Vinnie blame us when he’s got an army on the street, and they get nowhere? Hell, there’s just the two of us.”

  “He may not see it that way.”

  “So, we reason with him. Bring him around.”

  “You understand I’m talking about Vinnie Gallo, right?”

  Strauss nodded. “He’s just a man, Leo. It’s not like he’s bulletproof.”

  Market Street, Polonia, East Buffalo

  IT WAS A GAMBLE, going back to Eddie Reems. Illicit arms dealers inevitably had connections to the underworld. There was a chance that Reems had done his basic math, put two and two together, coming up with a potential jackpot if he tipped the Gallo Family to Bolan’s recent visit. Granted, Reems possessed no solid intel, couldn’t tell the Mob where Bolan was, or offer anything beyond a physical description, and they’d have that anyway, from the amici he’d left breathing as his messengers.

  There was a chance the Mob would have surveillance on the pawnshop, hoping that their target would run low on ammunition or require new hardware—as, in fact, he did. If that turned out to be the case, if they were drawn into a trap...well, then, they’d have to fight their way back out again.

  Or go down trying, right.

  From what he’d seen in Reems’s arsenal, last time around, Bolan had made a shopping list. The mission had expanded from a hasty hit-and-git to something else entirely, and he needed the proper tools to carry out the job.

  Reems looked surprised to see him, studied Johnny’s face for future reference while he was shaking their hands and readily agreed that he could fill their needs if they had cash to spend. Thanks to the loans operations across the border, two of them with empty safes now, that was not a problem.

  After Reems had put up his Closed sign and walked them to the backroom arsenal, it was a simple task to make the various selections Bolan had in mind. They’d be most vulnerable when they walked their acquisitions to the Mercury, prepared to leave the neighborhood, but since no trap had closed around them yet—and Bolan wouldn’t let Reems touch a telephone until they hit the street—he thought they had a fairly decent chance of getting clear.

  This time around, he bagged a Milkor MGL 6-shot grenade launcher in 40 mm, with a mix of high-explosive, pyrotechnic and antipersonnel rounds. For long-distance work, he added a Barrett XM500 chambered for .50 Browning Machine Gun rounds, with a striking range of some 2,500 yards. Scoring at that range came down to optics, in this case the rifle’s AN/PVS-10 day/night scope. To back up Johnny’s Glock, they took a Steyr AUG assault rifle, then doubled down on extra magazines and ammunition for their weapons, all around.

  Reems named a price and flashed his dentures ear-to-ear as Bolan handed over banded blocks of cash. “Looks like you broke the bank,” he commented.

  “A couple of them,” Bolan said, seeing no reason to be coy.

  “And you’re not finished yet, I take it, if you’ll pardon my impertinence.”

  “Look on the bright side,” Bolan told him. “Could be great for business.”

  “I prefer to be impartial in such matters,” Reems explained. “Conflicts of interest are...unfortunate.”

  “And dangerous,” Johnny added.

  “As I’m very well aware,” the dealer said. “Which is the very reason I avoid prying into the lives and business concerns of valued customers.”

  “But if you were asked,” Bolan said, “you might let something slip.”

  Now Reems looked glum. “It’s always possible,” he granted.

  “You could always say Joe Dirks stopped by,” Bolan said. “And he’s hoping to be reunited with his sister soon.”

  “His sister?”

  “If she’s still alive and well, that is.”

  “Of course.”

  “But failing that, it could be bad news for the family.”

  “The worst,” Johnny added.

  “I’ll be sure to pass that on,” Reems said. “If anybody asks.”

  Justice Building, Washington, D.C.

  THE TELEVISION IN Hal Brognola’s office was tuned to Headline News on CNN, as usual. Okay, sometimes he switched to Fox, but only for a laugh or to amaze him
self at what some talking heads would say, straight-faced, if they were paid enough. This day was straight news, though. The big Fed glanced up from paperwork each time New York was mentioned, hoping there would be some bulletins from Buffalo.

  So far, no luck.

  He understood priorities, of course. When people lived in a world on fire, with wars and random acts of terrorism, demonstrations in the streets, whole national economies dangling by the seemingly thinnest of threads, there wasn’t lots of on-air time available for relatively bush-league mafiosi dying on the U.S.–Canadian border.

  Not yet.

  But Brognola had been around enough Bolan campaigns to know that things were heating up, and rapidly. Before much longer, possibly by quitting time that afternoon, the story would be going national. Or was that “viral”? If some passerby produced a cell-phone video, uploaded it to YouTube or whatever, they could all be in the soup.

  Deniability was paramount—and hell, this mission hadn’t even been assigned from Stony Man—but in the current age, when everyone saw everything and knew it all, even when most of “it” was wrong, even an outright lie, security could take a major hit.

  Brognola had been ruminating over steps that he might take to help the situation. Calling Bolan off wasn’t an option; it never had been, in the time he’d known the big guy. Pitching in to help with extra hands—someone from Able Team, perhaps—would likely make things worse instead of better. He’d already spoken to the FBI, but Jerrod Hansen wasn’t breaking any land-speed records, getting back to the big Fed with information from the Bureau’s files on dirty cops in Buffalo.

  So...what?

  The good news was that very few people alive knew Bolan had survived the death scene Brognola had helped him stage in New York City’s Central Park. Fewer still could pick the reborn warrior’s face out of a lineup. Brognola and Stony Man were answerable only to the White House, but the fellow in the Oval Office didn’t know that many of his covert orders were relayed to Mack Samuel Bolan.

  Hal’s phone rang, private line. The big Fed picked it up. “Brognola.”

  “Hansen. I’ve got something for you.”

  “Shoot.”

  “Two names. Detectives in the Buffalo PD, under continuing investigation for alleged association with the Gallo Family.”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Leonard James Kelly. Michael Gunther Strauss.”

  “Gunther?”

  “Likely a hand-me-down. There was a third stooge, Gregory Francis O’Malley, but he bought the farm a couple days ago. You might’ve heard about it, since the PD’s caught your interest.”

  “It rings a bell,” Brognola granted.

  “Well, that’s my bit,” Hansen said. “You want to tell me anything?”

  “It would be premature. Counterproductive, as we say.”

  “Yeah, yeah. You know my shop’s not big on give and take, much less just giving.”

  “Great for karma, though,” Brognola said.

  “If I was Buddhist, sure.”

  “You could convert.”

  The G-man let that pass and said, “I notice some of Gallo’s men are checking out these days.”

  “Does that bother you?” Brognola inquired.

  “Not really. But...”

  “If I need to ask you something else—”

  “Don’t even think about it,” Hansen said, “unless you’re ready to come clean.”

  “Nothing to tell,” Brognola said.

  “Your call.” The line went dead.

  A bridge burned, or a momentary tiff? Brognola shrugged it off, deciding he would worry about Hansen later.

  After Buffalo.

  Black Rock, Buffalo, New York

  POLE CATS, ANOTHER strip club operated by the Gallo Family, occupied a half block of East Street, south of Buffalo’s Religious Art Center. That site—the museum, not the bar—was formerly St. Francis Xavier Church, now a substantial tourist draw that also, unlike Pole Cats, offered wedding ceremonies for the well-to-do. Of course, a guy who drank enough at Pole Cats might start to believe that he was on his honeymoon, and there were ladies in the joint who would support that sensual illusion for a price.

  The bar was open, music pulsing through its cinder block walls, as Bolan and Johnny approached on foot. “Five dollar cover charge,” Johnny observed.

  “We’ll talk them out of it,” Bolan said.

  “Hate to cheat the girls, though.”

  “They’ll get over it.”

  The place was dark as soon as they walked in, with DayGlo paint daubed over black walls in a crazy-quilt design suggesting that the artist had been eight miles high or physically impaired. Behind a counter, mounted on a bar stool, sat a beefy fellow in a leather jacket, white T-shirt beneath it, with a thick gold chain around his neck.

  “Five bucks apiece,” he said.

  “It’s on the house,” Bolan replied.

  “Says who?”

  The bouncer’s eyes crossed as he focused on the Milkor’s 40 mm muzzle, inches from his face.

  “You lead the way,” Bolan suggested.

  “Sure, man. Don’t get nervous with that thing.”

  The doorman led them through a curtain, music blaring now, two dancers intertwined and doing something kinky on a small stage at the far end of the room. More power to them, Bolan thought, and fired a round into the ceiling, angling to his right so the debris would fall behind the bar. The music kept playing, but he saw the dancers bolt offstage, and a couple dozen customers lunge for lit exits on unsteady legs. Most of them were half in the bag, or encumbered by erections that were wilting in the face of firepower.

  Bolan lobbed his next round at a giant amplifier near the stage, unleashing a shower of sparks. The music didn’t die, exactly, but the volume dropped by half, maybe two-thirds, the speakers that remained producing tinny sound with scratchy reverb grating on the ears. The doorman, on his knees now, hands raised overhead, was pleading, “Yo, man! Take it easy, will ya?”

  “I’m looking for the manager,” Bolan said.

  “Right here, slick!” a voice called from the general direction of the stage, and then a wiry-looking guy was rapid-firing a small, shiny revolver, jerking it, forgetting that he ought to aim.

  Johnny gave him a short burst from the Steyr AUG and dropped him in a twitching heap. The nickel-plated wheel gun spun away, grating across the floor to stop a few yards short of Bolan’s feet. There went their access to the strip club’s safe, but the soldier didn’t mind. Torching the joint would do as well as robbing it.

  “So, you’re the messenger,” he told the kneeling doorman.

  “Huh?”

  “Go back to Vinnie Gallo. Tell him this was courtesy of Zoe Dirks. You got it?”

  “Who the fu—”

  “Repeat it!”

  “Courtesy of Zoe Dirks! Okay?”

  “If his people damage her in any way, it just gets worse.”

  “Gets worse. I got it, man!”

  “Then split.”

  “Funny,” Johnny said, watching Bolan feed a pyrotechnic round into the Milkor’s chamber.

  “What is?” Bolan asked.

  “The music they were playing when we came in.”

  “Sorry. Didn’t notice.”

  “Talking Heads,” Johnny said. “‘Burning Down the House.’”

  Buffalo Police Headquarters

  SERGEANT MAHAN SHOVED a second stick of Nicorette into his mouth and muttered to himself, “This is getting out of hand.”

  The latest call was more bad news, another one of Vinnie Gallo’s T&A bars up in smoke, and while that didn’t bother Mahan much, it was a poor reflection on the force. More to the point, he was afraid they hadn’t seen the end of it, that things were only on their way t
o getting worse.

  So far, aside from Greg O’Malley, only hoodlums had been killed or injured. Some—including Rudy Mahan—might’ve said O’Malley brought it on himself, but that was just between themselves, behind the Blue Wall, not for public consumption. Officially, whatever came out on the tube or in the newspapers, there was a cop-killer at large, and every officer in Buffalo was totally committed to the manhunt.

  If they weren’t distracted by the escalating “gang war,” right.

  But Mahan didn’t think it was a gang war. That required two gangs, and nothing he’d picked up so far suggested any other outfit moving on the Gallo Family.

  What, then?

  A rapping on his open door distracted Mahan. Turning from the paperwork in front of him, he saw Detective Eugene Franks.

  “Got a second, Sarge?” Franks asked him.

  “Just about.”

  “I’m trying to find Strauss or Kelly. Any idea where they are?”

  “I couldn’t say, offhand. What’s up?”

  “Well...”

  “Spit it out.”

  “Joe Dirks,” Franks said.

  “Am I supposed to know him?”

  “Nope. One of my missing persons.”

  “So?”

  “So, I’ve been talking to his sister, out in California. Me and Greg O’Malley, switching off, whoever was around. And now, the Charleston House downtown is calling me to say she’s missing.”

  “Downtown? In Buffalo?”

  “A few blocks over, yeah.”

  “When you say missing...”

  “She didn’t check out. All her stuff’s still in the room, her purse included.”

  “Huh.”

  “I didn’t know that she was flying out,” Franks said. “Seemed like she would of tried to get in touch with me, so...”

  “What?”

  “I asked down at the desk, and she was here. Came asking for O’Malley. Flannery passed her to Strauss, since I was in the field.”

  “You going over there? The Charleston?”

  “Thought I might as well.”

  “You’ll keep me posted, eh?”

  “Sure thing, Sarge.”

  “If I hear from Strauss or Kelly in the meantime,” Mahan said, “I’ll have them call you.”