LITMIR.BIZ

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years, erecting legitimate businesses to clean dirty and blood money, sons of Dons and capos earning law and business degrees. Armed with education, and with an eye toward the future, the inheritors reached out to incorporate other homegrown gangs of thugs into their ranks, being equal opportunity employers in the new politically correct age. They dealt in wholesale shipments of narcotics from Latin America drug cartels, joined hands with other criminal organizations as far away as Moscow, reaping a big fat buck the common denominator, one for all. At present, with the insatiable hunger for weapons by terrorists that could wipe out tens of thousands, the game had grown even more deadly serious.

      That, Bolan knew, was pretty much the gist of Peter Cabriano’s rise to power and present status on the bad-guy list. With his father having wasted away behind bars, a younger brother who was a criminal defense attorney, but died—irony or justice?—from a cocaine overdose, Cabriano was king of New York. And he was reaching out to some of America’s worst enemies.

      Bolan had reconned the lot and surrounding block, but searched the premises again. Three gunshots, muffled slightly by the brick wall, had rung out moments ago. Assuming Big Tony Berosa had gone to judgment, Bolan watched the side door open, disgorging the Don of the day. He could have taken both Cabriano and his wheelman right then, but the Executioner had plans for the Don’s future.

      Six to eight stops were mentally penciled in on the soldier’s hit list. Depending on how each situation shaped up, who gave him answers to questions that had drawn him into this mission, and provided he was blessed by good fortune—meaning he lived through the first couple of rounds—Bolan intended to net and skin some of the biggest man-eaters in a terror triangle that was, in his mind, both long in coming, and rife with apocalyptic overtones.

      Feeling the weight of the mammoth .44 Magnum Desert Eagle riding on his hip, the weapon shielded from the naked eye by his long, loose-fitting black nylon windbreaker, Bolan watched the wheelman hold the door for his boss. Seconds later, the engine gunned, and the Towncar was rolling off into the night.

      No problem. Bolan had Cabriano covered. Likewise, the Don’s home, pier, every business clear to his Grand Palace hotel-casino in Atlantic City was under the watchful eyes of official shadows, all of whom answered to the soldier.

      Satisfied he was alone with two wise guys about to be burdened with disposal chores, Bolan checked his six. Clear down the alley, but he was mindful of roving blue-and-whites given the coming play. Inside his jacket pocket a thin wallet with credentials declared him as Special Agent Matthew Cooper of the United States Department of Justice. It would pass the smell test, but cops still didn’t like any G-man rolling into their town, shooting up bad guys and blowing up their places of business.

      Worst-case, a phone call would be placed to Washington. There, Bolan’s long-time friend, Hal Brognola, could untangle any unforeseen red tape octopus. The big Fed was a high-ranking Justice official, but he also ran the nation’s ultracovert black ops agency known as Stony Man Farm. He was also liaison to the President of the United States, who green-lighted all Stony Man action. And woe be unto the lawman, lawyer or politician who needed to take a call from the White House if Bolan was not given free rein and full cooperation, with no questions asked.

      Bolan didn’t have to wait long. The 1958 white Cadillac convertible with shark fins and whitewalls was bucked up against the back door to the garage. A squat bulldog he knew from Justice intel as Bruno Marino waddled through the door. The wise guy threw a look toward the lot, down the alley in both directions, then keyed open the trunk. Frank Brutaglia materialized next, cursing Marino as he lugged the tarp-covered cargo through the door in a fireman’s carry. Brutaglia was dumping the load in the trunk, both of them now grumbling and griping about who would dig the hole, when Bolan made his move. No tough guy farewell line, the Executioner rolled out of the shadows, Beretta up and chugging. The first 9 mm subsonic round cored through the back of Marino’s skull, Brutaglia yelping as he was hit in the face by blood and muck. Dead-weight was crashing into Brutaglia when Bolan slammed the next bullet between his eyes. He made quick work of putting them in their resting place, dumping them on top of Big Tony. It was a tight fit, but there was still a lot to be said about trunk space in the old classics.

      The Executioner closed the lid on their coffin and leathered the Beretta. Retreating, he checked the parking lot. Before coming in, the soldier had considered fixing the fleet of fancy wheels with plastic explosives, but just as quickly dismissed the idea. This was a commercial-residential neighborhood, and no one on the block needed to pay indirectly for the crimes of these savages by finding their homes and businesses pummeled and damaged by raining debris.

      Melting into the deeper shadows of the alley, Bolan determined for all enemies concerned reality was only just beginning to heat up.

      JIMMY MARELLI WAS seething. The image of what the G-man had done, the blatant disrespect shown him, still burned in his mind. A change of clothes, a double Dewar’s or three, and the junior G-man kissing his ass all over the place and swearing he’d get a better TV did not calm the storm inside.

      Marelli went to work on his fourth double and fired up a fresh Havana, since he’d chewed the end off the other one during a fifteen-minute tirade. As he blew his way on a thick cloud into the kitchen, he was thinking there was a time not too long ago, Fed or not, he would have beaten the G-man so bad he would have begged for death—take his mother, wife, sister, please, just stop the pain. They didn’t call him The Butcher, he thought, because he worked in a meat-packing plant.

      Where had the good old days gone? he wondered, hurling open the fridge, chucking rolls of salami, prosciutto and three kinds of cheese on the counter. He hated living in the past, but couldn’t help wishing he could step back in time. Where a man’s word, his honor, was his own blood. Where a man did what he said he was going to do. Where busting heads or smoking another wise guy—execution-style or shootout—was business. Not like these punk kids today, who enjoyed inflicting pain, but only when it was safe to do so, no threat of payback. Cops, judges, politicians could still be bought, sure, but these days there was no heart in the younger generation, no pride, no honor in even the handling of the easy end. Speaking of easy, they all wanted easy street, but didn’t want to risk getting their hands dirty. They wanted the glory, make their bones and all, but the idea of being a bullet-eater—a survivor who could wear the wounds proud—had about as much appeal to them as rap music to a hillbilly.

      Where, oh, where had the days of honor gone?

      He knew. They died with the real Don. A bunch of punks who were more show than go had been weaseled into the crew by the kid. No dummy, Marelli saw the future. He was a frightening dinosaur to this new breed, still feared and respected maybe, but things had changed. And when the Old Man died he knew it was time to get out, before one of the youngbloods got popped by the Feds and he found himself filling the Don’s cell. Or some psycho punk with no honor and looking to make a name for himself, walked up behind him and shot him in the head.

      Go west then, he’d decided. And he wanted to believe it had been a chance meeting in Vegas. However, the spook knew the kid was looking to go international with guys that would make the World Trade Center suicide bombers look tame and sane by comparison. He and Berosa had decided it was time to think about retirement. A talk ensued, a deal was struck and the kid took the bait. Problem was, the Feds seemed to know about the spook deal even before it happened. Come to find out the kid had been looking to engineer just such a deal with the Colombians and their new Mideast pals. That’s when, Marelli thought, he’d seen the end coming, sure a blade was poised to plunge between his shoulder blades, the whole deal falling into place too easy, and he never trusted easy. Pretty slick, then, putting every shred of detail about the Cabriano Family’s business, A to Z, including the spook angle on disk, and shipping it off where, if needed, it could prove his own life raft if the whole goddamned immunity deal sank like the Titanic.

      Muttering a stream of profanity, he began conjuring up ways to get back at the G-man for the insult. Food, like Scotch, cocaine or getting a backroom hummer from one of the girls at the club, normally helped ease the tension, crystalize his thoughts. A fat sub wasn’t going to cut it. First he went to work on the half-empty pot of marinara. Setting another pot on the stove, turning the flame on low, he emptied the marinara into the new pan. To think he’d

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