LITMIR.BIZ

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he’d have to make alternate arrangements, and given Chang’s difficult temperament, he’d have to make them himself.

      Kohler sighed.

      It was so hard to get good help these days.

       Armory Square, Syracuse

      T HE INTERIOR OF THE Tyrannosaur Barbecue was dark, crowded and loud, just the way Trogg Sharpe liked it. The massive leader of the CNY Purists held court there almost every day, seated at a plank table in the far corner of his domain with a plate of suicide wings or hotsauced spareribs in front of him. There was always a row of gleaming chromed motorcycles parked in front of the Tyrannosaur, which had been a Syracuse landmark for more than thirty years. At any given time, at least half of those bikes belonged to the CNY Purists, central New York’s largest and most brutal motorcycle club.

      Sharpe’s bulk was as much fat as muscle. His tremendous belly distended the black Live to Ride T-shirt he wore under a leather vest sporting plenty of chain and the Purist’s colors. Still, he was no one to test lightly. Sharpe had put his fair share of men in hospitals with nothing more than his ham-size hands. At five foot eight and well over three hundred pounds, he lumbered slowly and inexorably through life, confident in the power of the Purists and in the damage he could do through sheer viciousness. The biker demanded relatively little of life—good booze, the occasional smoke. He liked a willing woman from time to time, the younger the better. Apart from that, he was content—as long as nobody got in his way. Those who did he beat down. Any man or woman who messed with him learned never to test him again. Or they died.

      Sharpe smiled as he worked his way through a plate of ribs, reaching out and trying to grab the leather-skirted waitress as she clicked by on stiletto heels. She told him to screw himself and kept walking. Sharpe laughed. The Tyrannosaur was known for its great barbecue and its lousy, rude service. It was a tradition. He wiped hot sauce from his bushy beard with the back of his hand and reached for his beer amid the empties already collecting on the table.

      The other Purists in attendance were circulating through the room, some eating at tables of their own, others engaged in a game of poker in the back room. Sharpe planned to join the poker game when he was finished eating. First things first.

      Snapper, Sharpe’s third in command, was examining the jukebox across the room. He stared at the scarred glass box as if his life depended on the song he picked. Jesus, but it took Snapper forever to make a decision. Sharpe had just about run out of patience and was getting ready to demand something by CCR.

      His world exploded.

      One moment he was watching as the front door of the place opened—he saw the silhouette of a big man in dark clothing against the almost blinding light of day outside the darkened barbecue shack. The next moment, he was falling backward in his chair, a deafening roar in his ears as lightning bolts danced in front of his dimming vision. He hit the floor, but did not feel it. For Sharpe, everything that ever was disappeared into pain and brightness and then nothing.

      B OLAN, IN HIS RENTED Blazer, pulled away from the drop point. A heavy war bag sat in the passenger seat, its zippers pulled open to reveal the cache of equipment and weapons within. The Farm’s gunsmith, John “Cowboy” Kissinger, had done his usual excellent work, from the look of things. The men and women at the Farm had filled his gear requests and had even thrown in a few extras.

      One of the items Bolan had specifically asked for was a portable police scanner, programmed with the appropriate local frequencies. Another was a handheld GPS unit. If he was to track a murderer in unfamiliar territory—territory his quarry knew, presumably—Bolan would need a technological edge. He’d learned well in battlefields across the globe that terrain, and knowledge of it, could make all the difference in an armed conflict.

      Bolan switched on the scanner and set it to rotate through its presets automatically. Almost immediately, it came to life with an excited voice: “…I say again, shots fired, shots fired, Tyrannosaur Barbecue, North Willow. It sounds like a damned war! Shots fired, shots fired…”

      Bolan thumbed the GPS unit to life and checked it. He was only blocks away.

      The Blazer’s tires squealed as he put the accelerator to the floor.

      G ARY R OOK HAD PLANTED ONE combat boot against the crash bar on the front door of the Tyrannosaur. He’d kicked it in, took a single step, raised his Smith & Wesson 625 and fired. The .45ACP hollowpoint round thundered straight for Trogg Sharpe, bowling over the fat man and dumping him in a corpulent heap on the sawdust-strewed floor.

      There was a moment of absolute silence as bikers, other patrons and serving staff all turned to Rook, eyes wide in shock.

      Rook cut loose.

      He methodically moved the four-inch barrel of the big stainless-steel revolver, firing the weapon double-action each time he found a target. A biker standing by the jukebox was hammered into the now-shattered glass, blood and bone flecking the shattered CDs inside the unit. Another was whipped backward as a slug tore a channel through his head, spraying brain tissue out an exit wound the size of a quarter. Rook did not hear the screaming as he dropped men and women alike, his ears ringing despite the foam earplugs he wore. As the revolver clicked empty on the seventh pull, he used his left hand to draw an identical weapon from the second of two cross-draw leather holsters at his waist. His prey began to return fire as he started cycling through another half-dozen 230-grain rounds.

      The bikers were brutal enough, but they had no technique and no initiative. As long as Rook could keep them on the defensive, he knew he would win every time. He almost laughed as a stocky Purist in leather pants and a denim vest popped up from behind an overturned table—just in time for Rook to pump a round through his chest. The biker caved in on himself and Rook dropped to the floor.

      Holstering his revolvers, Rook drew two full-size Rock Island Armory 1911-style .45 automatic pistols from leather shoulder holsters under both arms. Then he was up again, sparing two rounds for a crawling Purist he’d wounded through the gut with the first salvo. He stepped over a dead waitress, her hair snaking through a growing puddle of blood, and made his way to the back. There, he knew, there was almost always a card game going on.

      Automatic gunfire ripped through the doorway as Rook hugged one side of the opening. There were Purists back there, all right, and they were waiting for him to stick his head in and get it shot off. Rook smiled again. From the shoulder bag hanging across his chest, he withdrew a Molotov—a simple beer bottle filled with gasoline, a gas-soaked rag plugging the neck of the bottle. He waited for a lull in the gunfire and then tossed the bottle.

      “Look out!” someone shouted from the back room.

      Rook whipped one hand around the doorjamb and fired the .45 dry. At least one of the rounds managed to ignite the gasoline. The whoosh of flame was followed by an agonized cry as one of the room’s occupants began to burn. Rook risked a direct look through the doorway and fired his other .45 empty, tagging at least one cowering Purist who had not been caught by the fire. Then he backed out into the main room of the Tyrannosaur, reloading each of his .45s awkwardly as he juggled both weapons.

      The crackle of fire and the sudden squealing of smoke alarms did not distract him as he stalked through the room. Something moved in the shadow of one of the booths on the far wall. Rook blasted it three times and kept going. He shouldered through the doors to the Tyrannosaur’s kitchen.

      “You bastard!” someone screamed. Rook jumped back and narrowly missed being slashed by the big kitchen knife, wielded by a heavy man in a dirty white T-shirt and apron. The balding, middle-aged man could only be a cook, from the look of him.

      “Wait,” Rook protested.

      The man grunted and slashed again, driving Rook back the way he’d come. Rook shrugged mentally and shot the man center mass, watching dispassionately as he dropped his knife and fell to the floor.

      That was life in the big city, wasn’t it?

      The police would arrive at any moment. Rook took another Molotov from his bag, lit it with a disposable lighter from his pocket and tossed it in to the center

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