LITMIR.BIZ

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made a mockery of civilized society. He could have tapped the till at Stony Man before he left the States, but robbing thieves and murderers and using their blood money against others like them held a strong appeal for Bolan.

      Two birds, one stone.

      Furio kept an arsenal on hand in his auto body shop for customers who needed hardware in a hurry without getting tangled in legal red tape. Bolan went for native brands, starting with a Beretta ARX-160 assault rifle chambered in 5.56 mm NATO, equipped with a folding stock, a Qioptiq VIPIR-2 thermal sight and a single-shot GLX160 grenade launcher. He backed that up with a Spectre M4 submachine gun and a Beretta 93R selective-fire pistol—both no longer in production but still deadly. Toss in spare magazines and ammunition, a dozen OD/82-SE fragmentation grenades, a fast-draw shoulder rig for the 93R, suppressors for the pistol and the Spectre, plus an ebony-handled switchblade stiletto sharpened to a razor’s edge, and he was good to go.

      Dressed to kill.

      His next stop, as the sun set, was on Villa Fratelli Pllutino, where he planned to give some ’Ndrangheta members a preview of hell on Earth.

      * * *

      “THERE IS NO point in pleading for your life,” Aldo Adamo declared.

      “Pleading? Piece of shit!” the woman spat at him. “I plead for nothing.”

      “So, defiant to the end. At least you’re not a coward, like your brother. He died whimpering.”

      “You lie!”

      “I planned to make a video of his last moments, for your education, but we had to reconsider. Customs and the like. You understand.”

      “I understand what will become of you, Aldo, when Gianni hears what you have done to me.”

      Adamo laughed at that. “You’re such a fool. Who do you think gave me the order?”

      Blinking back at him, she hesitated, then replied, “I don’t believe you.”

      “Foolish, as I said. Your family is tainted by his treachery. How could Gianni ever trust you—any of you—after the way Rinaldo betrayed him?”

      Tears, the first he’d seen from her, shone on the woman’s cheeks. “I’m not responsible for his mistakes,” she said, her voice subdued now.

      “No?” Adamo shrugged. “Perhaps not. But you know the rules. You’ve grown up in the ’ndrina tradition. No betrayal can be tolerated. No risk of a personal vendetta may be overlooked. In your position, you could do more damage to the family than your pentito brother.”

      “I would never—”

      “No, you won’t,” Adamo said. “It’s my job to make sure of that.”

      It pleased him to watch as the last vestige of hope drained from her eyes. Her face, although still attractive, had a hollow look about it. She realized her time was running out, and there was nothing she could do or say to help herself.

      Too bad, Adamo thought. Perhaps he should have given her some hope and let her try to please him, as she had been pleasing his godfather for the past five years. But no, as the family’s second in command, he had to carry out the orders he received. It was permissible for him to gloat at the whore’s fall from grace, but he would go no further.

      Stirring up Gianni Magolino’s wrath at such a time might have dire results, even for him.

      Adamo thought she was finished speaking, all her words exhausted, when she asked him, in a small voice, “What about my parents? And my brother?”

      “That is for Gianni to decide,” he answered. “Personally, in a case of treason, I prefer to wipe out root and branch.”

      She sobbed. “Celino is only a child, ten years old.”

      “Old enough to remember. I killed my first man at age twelve,” Adamo said and smiled at the sweet memory.

      She glowered at him through a sheen of tears. “Spare them,” she said, “and I will do whatever you desire. I’ve seen the way you watch me when Gianni’s back is turned.”

      Adamo saw the trap and skirted it. “Such vanity,” he said, sneering. “Of course, I cannot blame you, trying to employ your only talent, but it’s wasted here.”

      “Is it?” She almost smiled now. “Was I wrong about you? Do you prefer men after all?”

      She was laughing at him when Adamo slapped her, pitched her from the metal folding chair she occupied and sent her sprawling to the floor. She could not break her fall, hands tied behind her as they were, and when she stared up at him, he was pleased to see blood at the corner of her mouth.

      Reaching down, Adamo clutched one of the woman’s arms and hauled her to her feet, ignoring her sharp gasp of pain as he twisted her elbow and shoulder. Planted firmly on her feet once more, she tried to kick him, but he turned aside and slammed a fist into her face. She dropped again, weeping. This time, Adamo left her on the floor.

      He pressed a button on the intercom atop his desk, and three of his men entered, barely glancing at the fallen woman while they waited for instructions. “Take her to the pier,” Adamo said. “I have the Mare Strega waiting for you. Go out a mile or two and feed her to the fishes, eh?”

      “Yes, sir,” one of them said, the others standing mute on either side of him.

      Two of them picked the woman up as if she weighed nothing, supporting her between them as they left Adamo’s office, with the third man bringing up the rear. Still seething from the insult she had hurled at him, Adamo took some consolation from the fact that he would never see her face or hear her mocking voice again.

      “Sleep with the fishes,” he advised her fading memory and gladly turned his mind to other things.

      * * *

      BOLAN WAS PROCEEDING CAUTIOUSLY. The modest block of offices he was looking for, on Via Nuova, listed Aldo Adamo among its tenants. Ranked as number two in the major companies of the ’Ndrangheta, Adamo would make a decent target for the start of Bolan’s blitz. With one stroke, Bolan would send a message, letting every member of the rotten family know that nobody was safe.

      Psywar. Or, as the Pentagon was pleased to call it lately, shock and awe. It all came down to killing with a purpose.

      Some things never change.

      He looped around curving one-way streets to catch Vialle dei Normanni, circling north again to pick up Via Nuova southbound. Streets in Catanzaro were a winding maze, where the traffic alternately surged and stalled. Some drivers kept the pedal down regardless, blaring their horns at anyone who tried to drive the speed limit, while others poked along, searching for addresses they never seemed to find. Trucks were the wild card, belching diesel smoke and straddling lanes or blocking traffic to unload their cargo as the spirit moved them.

      Bolan took it all in stride. He had no deadline for his drop-in on Adamo, and he wasn’t even sure the mobster would be there when he arrived, but either way, the Executioner would leave a message for the ’Ndrangheta in a language its goons could understand.

      Although the ’Ndrangheta owned the building he was headed for, other tenants could be in the line of fire—most of them innocent—if things got out of hand. Bolan didn’t plan on leveling the place or hosing it with automatic fire, but he thought it would be nice to stop and introduce himself, after a fashion, to the men who thought they owned the city.

      The Executioner’s present life had started with a one-man war against the likes of Catanzaro’s parasites—bloodsuckers who infected everyone and everything they touched. Negotiation was impossible with ticks, lice, gangsters—choose your vermin. Bolan couldn’t purge the plague forever, as researchers claimed they’d done with smallpox, but he could provide a dose of topical relief and give the authorities—the decent, honest ones—a chance to do their jobs.

      And if the scourge returned, if Bolan survived that long, he could return

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