LITMIR.BIZ

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were Albanians?” Bolan inquired.

      “Affirmative. Against all odds, the Coast Guard saved some papers from the wheelhouse. Traced a bill for fuel back to a dock on Bergen Neck, New Jersey. Sift through the standard bs paperwork, and you’ll discover that the dock belongs to this guy.”

      Bolan watched new photos march across the screen above Brognola’s shoulder. Each image depicted a man of middle age and average height, with an olive complexion and black hair going salt-and-pepper at the temples. His meaty face reminded Bolan of a clenched fist with a thick mustache glued on.

      “Arben Kurti,” Brognola said. “He runs the Mob on this side of the water, moving drugs, guns, people—anything that he can milk for cash.”

      “So, human trafficking,” Bolan said.

      “Split two ways. He offers immigrants a new start in the States, complete with bogus green cards, if they pay enough up front. Sometimes they get here and discover that they still owe more. You’ve heard the stories.”

      “Sure.”

      “The other side of it is purely what we used to call white slavery, before the world went all politically correct. Today its labeled compulsory prostitution. If the Mob can’t dupe women into using their underground travel agency, thugs snatch them off the streets of European cities, maybe some in Asia and Latin America, too. Age only matters if it helps to boost the asking price.”

      Across the table, Barbara Price mouthed a curse that Bolan hadn’t heard her use before. Her ashen face was angled toward the screen as Kurtzman kept the pictures coming.

      Girls and women being led from seedy rooms by uniformed police. Stretchers employed to carry out the ones who couldn’t walk, either because they had been drugged or used so cruelly that their bodies had rebelled, shut down in mute protest. A couple had the pallid look of death about them.

      Bolan wondered whether it had come as a relief.

      “Kurti answers to this man, back home,” Brognola said. Another string of slides revealed a somewhat older man, larger in girth if not in height, dressed stylish by southern European standards without working the Armani trend. He was fat-faced, with bad teeth and tombstone eyes.

      Bolan wished he could study that face through a sniper scope.

      “Rahim Berisha,” Brognola announced, by way of introduction. “Think of him as Albania’s Teflon Don. He’s got the best and worst friends that money can buy, on both sides of the law. Some say he knows the president of Albania, but we can’t prove it. There’s no doubt that he has connections to the Albanian army, moving weapons out the back door for a profit. Double that in spades for the Albanian State Police and RENEA—their Unit for the Neutralization of Armed Elements. Word is that Berisha uses SWAT teams to back up his hardmen when there’s any kind of major trouble.”

      “Makes it rough to bust him,” Bolan said.

      “So far, it’s been impossible,” Brognola said. “He’s been indicted seven times, but something always goes off-track at the Ministry of Justice in Tirana. Paperwork misfiled, warrants thrown out on technicalities, and so on. As you might suspect, witnesses called to testify against him qualify as an endangered species.”

      Once again, no great surprise.

      “So, the job would be…?”

      “Shut them down,” Brognola stated. “Hell, take them off the map. This pipeline needs to close, for good.”

      For good, indeed. And Bolan thought, at least for now.

      He harbored no illusions about cleaning up the world at large, saving society or any such high-flown ideal. The best that any soldier on the firing line could do was fight, carry the day in one location at a time and hope he wouldn’t have to win the same ground back again before he had a chance to rest, regroup and savor something of his hard-won victory.

      And every victory was transient. There was no such thing as killing Evil in the real world, only in the text of so-called holy books forecasting distant futures that the Executioner would never live to see.

      But he was doing what he could, with what he had.

      “I’ll need a rundown on the syndicate and major players,” Bolan said unnecessarily.

      “All right here,” Brognola said, sliding a CD-ROM across to Bolan in a paper envelope. “You want to check it out before you go, in case you think of any questions?”

      “Will do,” Bolan said.

      “I’ve got a meeting back in Wonderland, with the AG,” Brognola said. “Barb or Aaron should be able to fill in the gaps, if I’ve missed anything.”

      “You won’t have,” Bolan said with full assurance.

      “Well.”

      “Don’t keep them waiting,” Bolan said, already on his feet.

      “They have an auction coming up in Jersey,” Brognola observed. “We don’t have any details, but it’s soon. You’ll find a couple guys on there who might know when and where, in case you want to drop around and place a bid. Or something.”

      “That’s a thought.”

      They shook hands once again and Bolan trailed the others from the War Room, back in the direction of the elevator. Brognola was talking while he led the way.

      “Remember, it’s a different world there, in Albania. Picture the worst bits of Colombia, without the jungle. Their constitution guarantees all kinds of rights, and everybody from the cops to the cartels ignores it. Human rights? Forget about it. The legitimate economy is in the toilet, circling the drain. But hey, you’ve dealt with worse.”

      And that was true.

      But every time he faced long odds, the laws of probability kicked in. Some day…

      Bolan derailed that train of thought before it reached its terminus. Only a would-be martyr went to war anticipating failure. Just as only fools ignored the risks involved.

      “Safe trip,” he told the big Fed on the farmhouse porch.

      And wished himself the same.

       CHAPTER THREE

      East Keansburg, New Jersey, the present

      A shotgun blast shredded the wall two feet above Mack Bolan’s head, frosting his hair and shoulders with a cloud of plaster dust while streamers of wallpaper flapped like dying tentacles. He answered with a short burst from his carbine, saw his adversary lurch and stagger out of sight beyond a corner, but he couldn’t guarantee the kill.

      The odds were in his favor this time, since few human beings managed to survive a torso wound from 5.56 mm NATO rounds. The relatively small projectiles started to tumble when they penetrated a medium more dense than air, thereby creating catastrophic wound channels through flesh and bone. While entrance wounds were smaller than a quarter-inch across, inside the target might be virtually disemboweled.

      Which didn’t necessarily equate to instant death.

      The gunner with the 12-gauge had been moving on his own two feet when Bolan saw him last. Whether he dropped dead after passing out of sight or was prepared to fire again, lying in wait, remained to be discovered.

      He hugged the nearest wall, aware that it could offer little in the way of physical protection from a bullet, but concealment had to count for something. Moving in an awkward crouch, Bolan held his carbine in the low-ready position with its butt against his shoulder and its muzzle canted toward the floor at a forty-five-degree angle. The hold facilitated forward motion and allowed “big picture” scanning of the target zone, without sacrificing any significant first-shot speed.

      Six feet from the corner, he paused, listening. It didn’t help much, with the shouts and sounds of running feet that echoed through the house from every side, but Bolan didn’t plan to blindly rush around the corner

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