He would go in alone, with more guns than he could comfortably carry and hoping for the best.
Hoping, at least, to make it through the afternoon alive.
* * *
FRESH AIR AND sunshine greeted Bolan as he slipped out through a rear exit from Magolino’s sprawling home with Mariana on his heels and maintaining contact with a hand at Bolan’s waist. He scanned the sweeping lawn in front of him for enemies, found none immediately visible and started off toward the garage.
The long, low building stood twenty-odd yards from the house, all but one of its doors lowered. The open door revealed a royal blue Jaguar XKR 75, the limited edition, standing ready to eat up the highway if Bolan could get it started. And behind the other doors? So far, a mystery.
When they’d covered half the distance, Bolan glanced back toward the front gate and saw it had been battered down. A small sedan had just pulled through and was proceeding toward the house, the face of its lone occupant concealed behind the tinted windshield. Even so, he saw the rack of lights on top and recognized the Fiat Bravo as a standard-issue GDF vehicle.
One cop, passing by the scene and drawn in by the evidence of violence? Maybe an officer summoned by Magolino, hoping he could help somehow? Or could it be...
Bolan had not tipped off Captain Basile when he left Catanzaro, hoping he could finish up his business and be gone before any police arrived. Now, with one cop on the scene and others likely following, he had no time to waste.
Bolan slipped into the garage, with Mariana following. He checked the car and found a key in its ignition. “Can you drive this?” he inquired.
Even beat-up and terrified, she managed a disdainful look. “Of course.”
“All right. The gate’s clear. Get away from here as fast and far as possible and without involving the police.”
“And you?” she asked, already opening the driver’s door.
“I’m not done here,” he told her. “And I’ve got a ride.”
She hesitated, pecked him on the cheek then slid behind the Jaguar’s steering wheel and fired the engine with a throaty snarl of power. Seconds later, she was smoking toward the twisted wrought-iron gate without a backward glance.
He wished the lady luck, reckoned she’d need it however the current fight went down, then turned back to the task at hand. He could no longer see the lone police car. But Bolan refused to let himself be sidetracked looking for the cop and turned back toward the house with his primary mission fixed in mind.
Find Magolino and his underboss, Adamo. Take them out, together with as many ’Ndrangheta soldiers as he could. Beyond that, getting out alive would be a bonus.
He was halfway back from the garage, retracing the path he’d followed with Mariana, when a group of four ’ndranghetisti came around the mansion’s southwest corner, pissed off and looking for someone to kill.
Bolan shouldered his rifle and went back to war.
* * *
WHEN THE SHOOTING STARTED, Carlo Albanesi knew he had a choice to make. One option—staying in the library, waiting for someone to come by and kill him—was not viable. Leaving, however, meant going out alone, into a battle zone, unrecognized by those engaged on either side.
Except for Aldo and his boss, of course, who might want Albanesi dead.
The ex-lieutenant wished he was thinner, with less of him to hide as he was sneaking from the mansion out onto the grounds. Where would he go from there? His car had probably been moved away from Magolino’s portico, stashed God knew where. If he was forced to flee on foot, his chances of survival would be reduced dramatically—but what else could he do?
Drawing his pistol, Albanesi crossed to the library door, opened it cautiously, listened, then peered outside. The sounds of battle, louder now, made Albanesi fret that he might soil himself. His only past exposure to gunfire was on the practice range, and when a loud explosion rocked the house, his heart leaped to his throat. His feet seemed rooted to the carpet, but he knew he was running out of time.
Go now! a voice inside his head commanded, and he bolted from the library.
Which way? He’d come in through the front door, where the battle sounds were loudest. Accordingly, he turned left as he exited, putting the parlor and the portico behind him, rushing down the hall toward—what?
A lowly pawn in Magolino’s empire, Albanesi had not been invited to the godfather’s estate, had never been inside the house or roamed the wooded grounds. Logic advised him there had to be more exits to a house this large, and he would find one if he kept on searching, dodging enemies along the way and shooting anyone who threatened him.
But could he bring himself to pull the trigger on a living target?
Yes, he thought, if it was all that stood between himself and death. He’d trained for situations such as this, like every other law enforcement officer, although he’d never actually thought one would occur.
Halfway along the corridor, he passed a kitchen and was drawn to the fragrant smells of roasting meat and pasta on the stove. He cursed his stomach as it grumbled a request for sustenance. No time, for God’s sake!
He did not check the other doors along the corridor, assuming they opened onto rooms without a way to the outside. So far, he’d met no challenges, no soldiers. If his luck held, it would stay that way, and once he got outside, he could retreat into the woods he’d noticed on arrival, maybe hide there until more police arrived, then flash his badge and try to pass himself off as a member of the team. Maybe pick up one of their cars and slip away while they were busy sorting out the chaos.
Beyond that, his mind went blank.
With Magolino and Adamo gone—or, at the very least, detained for questioning—he had no one to ask for help. He had a bank account under another name in Reggio Calabria, if he could get to it. From there, maybe a boat to Sicily, some forged I.D. and a search for somewhere in the world to hide.
But he would have to take it one step at a time and do whatever was required to stay alive.
* * *
BOLAN SLAMMED A double-tap into the nearest gunman’s chest, then tracked from left to right across the ragged skirmish line. The second soldier got a shot off as he fell, spilling his blood onto the lawn, his bullet wasted on a clear blue sky. The others broke and ran for cover and quickly discovered there was none.
Bolan shot the farthest runner first, a 5.56 mm round between his shoulder blades that picked him up, then slammed him facedown to the ground, twitching the final seconds of his life away. The last one nearly made it to the house, was scrabbling at a locked window when Bolan dropped him with a head shot from a range of fifty feet. His bright blood stained the glass and blotched the beige stucco as he went down.
Double-timing toward the mansion, Bolan let fly with a 40 mm round, punching it through the bloodstained window where the dead ’ndranghetisti has spent his last seconds scratching at impassive glass. The high-explosive round detonated inside, spewing smoke and dust from the window frame onto the lawn. He dodged the flying shrapnel, got to the exit where he’d left the house with Mariana and ducked back inside.
Chaos and cursing, cries of anguish, gunfire echoing through spacious rooms, smoke in the air. It added up to a familiar scene—Old Home Week for the Executioner.
He sought Gianni Magolino now, ranking his underboss as second prize. Beyond those two, the rest were simply pop-up targets in a shooting gallery. If he encountered Lanza’s men along the way, fighting against the ’Ndrangheta, he would show them no more mercy than he felt for the initial targets of his probe.
It was a fire sale. Everything—and everyone—must go.
Right now, he needed someone who would talk to him, direct him to the men in charge. An aimless search through countless rooms was worse than futile. It would waste his precious time, while giving Magolino and Adamo opportunity to flee.
Unacceptable.
The trick would be to take one of the home team by surprise, subdue him without any lethal damage and convince him that survival hinged on spilling anything Bolan could use within the next few minutes to complete his mission. And if that proved to be a lie, what of it in the midst of all-out war?
What else could any adversary hope for in a battle to the death?
He pushed on through the smoky haze, hunting.
And swiftly running out of time.
Chapter 15
Captain Basile drove into a slaughterhouse. Two moving vans were parked in front of Magolino’s mansion with their engines running, paint and windscreens scarred by bullets, bodies huddled on the nearby pavement. Who were these intruders, shot down in their tracks before they reached the house?
Why should he even care?
To some extent, he viewed the underworld as a self-cleaning oven. Sadly, its flames consumed innocents in the process, and the cleansing was never completed because new scum rose up to replace the old.
Perhaps today, that balance might be shifted.
He took the shotgun with him, flicking off its safety with his thumb as he stepped out of the Fiat Bravo. The cargo vans concealed him briefly from the view of any gunmen covering the mansion’s front windows, but Basile could not linger there. If he were to have any hope of finding Carlo Albanesi, he’d need to do it on the move, risking his life with every step.
But was the porcine traitor worth it?
Too late, now, for him to reconsider. If he’d turned back at Magolino’s gate, perhaps, but now...
Basile moved around the van parked to his left, edging along its side and drawing closer to the house. It seemed to him that gunfire came from somewhere in the house itself, a battle going on inside, even though it looked as if a first attempt to penetrate the dwelling had been foiled.
He had nearly reached the cab when a frantic-looking gunman stumbled out in front of him and stopped dead, eyeing Basile and his shotgun with a shocked expression. The younger man was armed, a semiautomatic pistol in his left hand, but he seemed to have forgotten it at the sight of Basile.
The spell broke when Basile shifted slightly, leveling his shotgun at the other man’s midsection. With a raspy shout, the gunman tried to raise his weapon, but Basile got there first, a blast of buckshot from his twelve-gauge opening the wiry mobster’s stomach, spraying blood and mangled viscera; its odor mixed with gunsmoke to assault Basile’s nostrils.
His fifth killing within a single day did not disturb Basile. Rather, he felt numb, beyond shock or the other symptoms commonly attributed to persons who had taken human life. He drew no pleasure from the killing; it simply felt like...nothing.
Seven rounds were left in the shotgun as Basile edged around the truck’s cab and craned his neck to see the mansion’s entrance. No one shot his head off, and he took that as a bonus. He had an awkward moment, almost stumbling on the corpse he’d made, but kept his balance with an effort and moved on. He reached the broad front steps, took them two at a time, and found himself before the open door, its lock blown free by point-blank gunfire.
Basile hesitated for a heartbeat then went inside. More leaking corpses stained the floor in front of him, fouling the air. The worst of them—shot several dozen times, with half its face missing—still sparked something within the captain’s memory. He’d seen that partial face before, undoubtedly.
Peppino Lanza? It was possible, although Basile could not swear to it.
But if it was Lanza, what was the mafioso doing here, inside Gianni Magolino’s country home?
The simple answer seemed to be having his brains blown out, but what had brought him to that point? Basile realized it made no difference any longer, and he moved on past the bodies, some of them presumably gunned down by Lanza while he lived.
The battle beckoned, and Basile suddenly discovered he couldn’t wait.
* * *
BOLAN FOUND HIS pigeon hiding in a closet, whimpering. The twenty-something mobster seemed to be having a breakdown. Huddled in a corner of the closet with a Heckler & Koch MP5 submachine gun sitting in his lap, he made no attempt to raise it when he saw Bolan’s ARX-160 leveled at his tear-streaked face.
“Please! Don’t shoot me!”
“I need information,” Bolan said.
“What information?” The kid seemed eager to please.
“Your bosses. Magolino and Adamo. Where are they?”
It was a long shot, Bolan realized, expecting help from a deserter, but if this one couldn’t help him, he’d keep looking for a goon who could.
“They’re leaving,” the young man said.
“When? Where are they going?”
“They don’t tell me nothing,” he half sobbed. “I plead to go along with them, but Aldo slaps me. Says, ‘Defend the family.’ I should have shot that bastard.”
He started to raise the SMP until Bolan said, “Watch it!”
“I’m sorry!” One of the quaking hands pushed the weapon off his lap and across the closet floor toward Bolan.
“How are they leaving?” Bolan asked.
“Taking a car, I think. They run away and leave me here to die.”
A car. That meant they’d be heading back to the garage unless they had another motor pool he hadn’t seen.
“From the garage?” he prodded.
“I think so.” The kid was down to guessing now.
“Okay, then,” Bolan said. Without another word he rapped the butt of his weapon against the young man’s skull, knocking him to the floor, unconscious.
Bolan had seen no trace of Magolino or Adamo when he’d taken Mariana out to the garage, and he was reasonably sure they hadn’t fled the property before she took off in the Jaguar. If he’d missed them somehow in his travels back and forth between the mansion and garage, they could be getting in a car that very moment, maybe halfway to the open gate by now.
Cursing, he turned and sprinted back the way he’d come, frustration mixing with adrenaline to boost his throbbing pulse. If Magolino got away...
Not this time.
Passing the open kitchen door, Bolan fired a 40 mm thermobaric round toward the industrial-size stove then continued on his way. The flames would spread in nothing flat and hopefully consume the house before they finally burned out. If his informant had been off the mark and Magolino still remained somewhere inside the mansion, maybe he’d go up in smoke.
But Bolan wanted to be sure. He needed to be sure.
A roiling cloud of smoke trailed Bolan as he exited the big house for the second time. He faced the garage and saw a second of its large doors standing open, displaying a black SUV in the bay. As he moved in that direction, one of the SUV’s doors opened, turning on the interior dome light. Bolan caught a glimpse of Magolino’s craggy face in profile as he slid into the shotgun seat, then slammed his door and killed the light.
Bolan sprinted off to intercept his quarry.
* * *
“THAT GODDAMNED LANZA!” Magolino snarled. “I should have known this was all his fault.”
“All?” Adamo echoed. “Even the American?”
“To hell with the American! He’s just someone Lanza hired to keep us guessing and confused.”
Adamo was not convinced, but he was wise enough to avoid contradicting his padrino, particularly when Don Magolino was in such an agitated state. The wrong word now—even a sideways look—might set him off, and because the boss was carrying an Uzi SMG, making him angry could prove to be Adamo’s last mistake.
They’d made it from the house to the garage all right, delayed in their departure because Magolino had insisted on going to finish the woman himself. Instead, they’d found her cell empty, with the remains of family soldiers spattered around the hallway outside, walls scorched
and pocked with shrapnel from the blast that killed them. Some kind of grenade, Adamo thought, remembering the blast that had rocked the mansion moments before he and Magolino began their trek downstairs.
Finding the woman had escaped a second time, the boss had nearly lost it. When he’d regained enough composure to speak rationally, Magolino had demanded they search the house and grounds for Mariana, track her down and kill her as a matter of honor, but Adamo had dissuaded him, eventually convincing Magolino that discretion was the better part of valor.
They must live to fight another day and settle their accounts when it was safe.
Or, at the very least, safer.
Then they had fled, taking one bodyguard with them, all three armed with automatic weapons. They’d slipped out of the mansion, briefly delayed by a quaking young soldier who’d begged to accompany them, then made for the seven-car garage at top speed, with the guard covering their retreat.
Adamo thought he should feel guilty about running out on their surviving soldiers, but he found it didn’t bother him at all. His job was looking out for Number One—in this case, Magolino—with himself ranked Number Two.
And what if he was forced to choose between his own life and the godfather’s?
In that case, he supposed, il padrino was shit out of luck.
Magolino was shocked to find his Jaguar XKR missing. The discovery touched off another raging fit of profanity and pointless questions. Who had taken the car? Where had they gone? Adamo didn’t know and could not have cared less, as long as he got off the premises alive.
He opened the next garage door in line, revealing the sleek black form of a Lexus RX 450h sport utility vehicle. Magolino kept all of his vehicles polished, fueled and with their keys in the ignition, acting on the theory that no one would dare steal from him. The missing Jaguar disproved that hypothesis, but the Lexus comfortably seated four, and it would get them back to Catanzaro—or some other destination Magolino might demand—in air-conditioned style.
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