Exit Code

by Don Pendleton

  “Pull yourself together, Gino,” the guy said, flipping the light switch and dropping into a chair in front of Pescia’s desk. “You’re too dramatic. Why don’t you sit down, so we can chat? After all, it’s your place.” The man gestured to the big, fancy chair behind the desk. Pescia settled into the chair hesitantly, suspicious of the stranger and never taking his eyes off him.

  “Just what the fuck is this all about, eh—?” Pescia started to say.

  The guy flipped him a card. “My name’s Lambretta, Frank Lambretta. Most just call me Loyal.”

  “I’ve heard of you,” Pescia replied.

  Bolan tossed him a doubtful look.

  “Okay,” Pescia recanted, “maybe I haven’t. But, hey, listen, why cut me the break?”

  “Because I know what you’re about to do, and so does Lenzini, and I know which horse to back. That’s how I’ve stayed alive all this time. You see, Gino—can I call you Gino?”

  Pescia nodded emphatically. Why not? The guy was holding a gun, and Pescia didn’t have a piece on him because he should have been safe in his own club. He wasn’t going to argue with Lambretta. The dude had already roughed him up once; he wouldn’t have been able to take this guy on his best day. Pescia had known early on he wasn’t cut out for being an assassin or an enforcer within the ranks, so he’d chosen the business end of the Family instead. He’d tried being tough against Lambretta in their encounter a few weeks earlier. His wounds had pretty much healed, but the scars of shame and embarrassment would always be there. Either way, he’d just been handed his life for a second time; it would have been damn stupid not to listen to what Lambretta had to say.

  “Listen up,” Bolan said. “Don Lenzini sent me here to sit on you until he decides what to do about this mess. Frankly, I think the old man’s full of shit.”

  “I do too,” Pescia said. “I’ve said it before, man, to my guys here. You can ask any of them.”

  “I thought I told you to listen,” Bolan shot back.

  Pescia started to open his mouth, then thought better of it and kept quiet.

  “I don’t like the fact Don Lenzini’s playing footsies with the rags. Moreover, I know you’re getting a crew together to take care of business. Don Lenzini knows it too. I respect the old man, but that don’t mean what he’s doing is right. He’s mixing it up with groups we shouldn’t trust. He should fight this thing, but he’s giving in to them, and I don’t know why.”

  Pescia wanted to respond, but he wasn’t sure if Lambretta was finished. This was one rough dude. He wondered if maybe this weren’t another setup, and he wasn’t being tested by Lenzini. But that wouldn’t have made much sense. If this Lambretta really was a stand-up guy, and everything he was saying was on the level, then that meant there was a general dissension among the crews about doing business with the Arabs. Pescia saw this as his chance to set things right.

  “Now there are only a couple of others who know about this little break I’m cuttin’ you,” Bolan continued. “Alfonse and Serge are in, as well as some of the bulls, like DeLama’s kid and the crew in Texas.”

  “What crew in Texas?”

  “Never mind,” Lambretta said. “Guess you don’t know about that, so just go on pretending you don’t. Important thing here, Gino, is that you take this offer. I’m going to make sure Don Lenzini stays off your back, and you keep on recruiting all the help you can get. Serge wants you to go to every site, and get everything you can. We go alone, the two of us, and we do it alone. None of your bulls can tag along.”

  “This don’t make no sense. Don Lenzini sends you here to off me. Instead, you’re going to go against him?” Pescia scratched his head in nervousness combined with befuddlement. “You were just telling me a couple of weeks ago to warn Lenzini to break off with the Arabs. Now, you expect me to believe you’re on my side?”

  “Think about it a moment, Gino. If I wanted to kill you, I could have done it already. I could have walked in here, shot you, and walked out without nobody getting wise about it until they found your cold, dead carcass.”

  Pescia had to admit that if Lambretta had actually planned to do him in, he would have been fish food by now. The guy had not one but two chances to do him in, and he hadn’t. Why have the elaborate setup just to kill him?

  “All right,” Pescia finally agreed. “When do we leave?”

  Mack Bolan’s smile was as cool as his reply. “Tonight.”

  7

  Mack Bolan counted it pure fortune that Gino Pescia was even more stupid than he’d hoped.

  The Executioner had managed—with ease—to convince the drug runner to rally the troops. Of course, Bolan knew Pescia wasn’t doing it out of the goodness of his heart, or even because he felt some loyalty to the syndicate. The guy was doing it to save his own skin; Bolan didn’t really care what Pescia’s reasons were. It appeared he’d maneuvered Pescia where he wanted him, and when the time was right, he’d destroy the guy.

  In the meantime he had some business to attend to before he’d meet Pescia at the hotel room Bolan had secured under the Lambretta cover. It hadn’t been difficult for him to get Pescia bragging about how he’d already acquired a crew of about twenty-five guns. Pescia let it out that those men were holed up in a deserted motel on the edge of the city. Bolan planned to conclude his business with that crew this night, but first things first. He needed to get in touch with Grano and plant some seeds.

  Bolan dialed Serge Grano’s number and waited three rings before hanging up. Then he called the second number Grano had given him, and the head bull picked up on the first ring. It had been their arranged signal to indicate Bolan had found their little package.

  “You work quick,” Grano said. The words seemed sarcastic, but the tone was good-natured enough. “The boss is going to be pleased.”

  “I followed the stink,” Bolan replied.

  “Where’s he at?”

  “He’s staying above some club he’s got out here called the Twin Rockets.”

  “Yeah, that’s a titty bar he owns with some other bastard. The boss told Gino that if he wanted to keep that place open, he’d have to work with the local bosses there. Obviously, he’s still operating on his own. The boss ain’t going to be happy to hear that.”

  “Well, I know where he is now. What do you want me to do with him?”

  “Just as we discussed,” Grano said. “Don’t do nothing until we can figure out what the guy knows. Have you made contact yet?”

  Bolan thought furiously for a moment, trying to decide if he should lie, but he quickly decided against it. The truth—or as close to it as possible—was always best, because there were eyes and ears everywhere. If he was seen by one of Grano’s informants, and he lied about it, he’d lose their trust. He had to believe that he wasn’t the only one out here working for Lenzini, and there was every chance he was being tested to see if he’d live up to his namesake. Naturally, Bolan would have to wipe out any observers before he connected again with Pescia, but he didn’t think that would be too much of a problem.

  “Yeah, we talked,” Bolan said. “I told him that for now he ought to watch himself and that the boss wanted to talk with him.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He didn’t seem too thrilled. He says he split because he ran into some guy working for the Feds at a place called the Garden of Ali, or something?”

  “It’s not Ali, it’s—” Grano began, but he apparently thought better of it and shut up. Bolan nodded as Grano continued, “Never mind that, it ain’t important. Just keep your eye on him. You’ve done a good job so far. I’ll make sure the boss gets wind of it. Sit tight and wait to hear from me.”

  “Fine.” Bolan didn’t hang up until he heard the click of the receiver.

  This was immediately followed by the click of the lock to his hotel door. Somebody had picked it, and the Executioner had to believe whoever was coming through had an agenda that included assassination. Bolan took a flying leap and rolled across the bed as the door sw
ung quickly inward. He landed in a crouch on the far side, the Beretta in his grasp and tracking on the door. Four guys burst through it—big muscular types in business suits—one pair toting machine pistols while the two leading the charge had semiautomatics drawn and ready.

  Bolan was also ready, and it seemed apparent that his would-be assailants weren’t prepared for such a swift and deadly response. Bolan set the selector to 3-round bursts and squeezed the trigger. The first trio of 9 mm Parabellum rounds caught the biggest of the quartet in the chest. Blood spewed from his mouth as the rounds punctured his lungs. The gunman’s body twisted in an arc and he crashed against the wall.

  The Executioner rolled away from his spot as the pair with SMGs opened up on his position. Bolan immediately recognized the unmistakable chatter of the weapons: Uzis. He planned to avoid becoming a victim of the precision weapon, and he found salvation in the duffel bag that brushed his foot as he rolled away from the assault. The Executioner reached into the sack as he raised the pistol and fired another 3-round burst intended to keep heads down more than to really hit anything. A moment later, the warrior managed to draw a new messenger of death into the fray.

  The Fabrique Nationale FNC had become a favorite of the Executioner’s for its power and versatility. While considered an automatic rifle of carbine origin, the weapon was built upon the success of the 7.26 mm FAL. The FNC had a collapsible stock, which provided the compact frame of an SMG, but it provided a 30-round detachable box magazine and chambered the popular 5.56 .45 mm NATO rounds. He had already prepared and loaded the weapon in anticipation of his assault on Pescia’s crew, so it was ready to do business with these new arrivals.

  Bolan steadied the FNC on the table with his left hand, brought the weapon into battery and triggered a full-auto burn. His ears rang as the FNC chugged angrily, the targets falling under a merciless onslaught of high-velocity rounds. A horizontal line of bullets caught one in the stomach, effectively disemboweling him before tossing his body against a wall. Another hail of slugs caught the other submachine-gunner in the head, splitting his skull and splattering the immediate area with blood and brain matter. The last one fell under shots to pelvis, hips and chest. He stood erect for a moment, then dropped his pistol and teetered on wobbly, shattered limbs before falling to the carpet with a dull thud.

  Bolan rose in the aftermath of the destruction, smoke wafting from the muzzle of the FNC. He holstered his Beretta and dropped the FNC into the bag. He searched the bodies quickly, relieved them of their identification—even if they were probably fake—then collected everything personal from the room except one piece of evidence that would identify him as Frank Lambretta. Word would get back to Serge Grano soon enough. When the guy heard there had been trouble, and there was no word from Bolan, he and Ape would beat feet out here and try to do damage control.

  It was time for a hasty exit. The police would be arriving quickly, and Bolan didn’t want to be around when they got there. He had a lot to do, and he couldn’t afford any sort of delay or entanglement with the local law enforcement. The numbers were running down.

  Bolan found a back exit from the hotel and a short walk later, he was in his car and headed toward the motel where Pescia’s people were supposedly awaiting their chance to deal a crippling blow to the NIF. Bolan knew the key to making his plan work was ensuring Lenzini thought the NIF had made the first move. Conversely, he had to convince the NIF that it was Lenzini who had betrayed them, and he knew Pescia was going to provide the key to that. It was a game of cat-and-mouse, one for which Bolan was uniquely skilled.

  Nothing had changed in his war plan—just in the players.

  It took him about forty-five minutes to get to his destination. Pescia bragged that from the outside the motel looked deserted, but he’d used money from the club to perform secret renovations. It had running water, electricity, and even satellite television to keep the boys entertained. The motel occupied a few acres near a publicly maintained forest preserve off a nondescript exit. The motel wasn’t even visible from the highway, and the signs that had once announced of its presence were long gone. A roving guard kept an eye on things and made sure nobody got too close or too nosy. Not that they had to even worry about such a thing, since to anyone who lived in the area knew the place had been abandoned for years, and parents cautioned children from playing near it for fear of hurting themselves. It was the perfect place to keep a large number of men until you were ready to use them. The Executioner intended to make sure that never happened.

  When Bolan reached the road leading to the motel, he killed the rental’s headlights. The soldier pulled behind some brush and parked the rental beyond the wood line where he wouldn’t be detected. The woods were eerie and black, and as Bolan climbed from the vehicle he heard the call of an owl from a nearby tree. The Executioner brought the weapons bag from the car, and moved to the trunk to obtain the rest of his equipment.

  Bolan quickly changed into his blacksuit and slipped on a load-bearing equipment harness. He attached a series of standard fragmentation as well as specialized grenades to the straps, and four full magazines for the FNC to his belt. He also slid a Colt Combat Commander knife into the quick-release sheath attached to the straps, which held the knife in place with the handle down. He dropped the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle into a holster on his right hip to complete his war ensemble. He decided to leave the Beretta under the front seat of the car.

  Bolan donned night-vision goggles and began his journey through the woods. It didn’t make sense why Pescia would hide his crew like this. The Executioner had considered it entirely possible that the mobster had only told Bolan about the place as a stall tactic until he could send the ambush team, but the soldier didn’t have any proof of this. That seemed like a pretty big risk to take, not to mention that the story seemed a bit too detailed and elaborate for Pescia to have come up with on a whim. The mobster wasn’t that bright. It also assumed that Bolan’s visitors had come from Pescia.

  Lenzini and his people were the only others who knew where he was staying, but that didn’t make sense either. Why would they have sent him here and tried to kill him before they even knew he’d found Pescia? The Executioner’s would-be assassins hadn’t come from the NIF, of this much he was certain, so that left someone inside Lenzini’s crew. Bolan would find out soon enough.

  Bolan reached the wood line that bordered the motel. It was difficult to see much even through the googles, since the sky was overcast and what starlight that was visible was obscured by the woods. Still, it was enough for Bolan to make out the sentries walking around the perimeter of the motel: it looked like Pescia had told him the truth after all.

  The Executioner stripped off the goggles, put them back in his weapons bag, and brought the FNC up and into a ready position. Given the fact this would be a night operation, Bolan had outfitted the weapon with a special infrared scope with a thermal sleeve that prevented the heat from the barrel from interfering with the infrared signature.

  Bolan pressed the rubber cup of the sight to his eye and continued his reconnaissance of the area. After five minutes, he determined there were three sentries in total, two roving and one stationary at the office door. Each one appeared armed with an automatic rifle that, from its shape, Bolan guessed was an M-16. The FNC wasn’t sound suppressed, which meant he had to take all three within the span of no more than five seconds, and he’d probably get another ten to cross the distance from the wood line to the building before those inside could react. It wasn’t much.

  Either way, the Executioner had learned to play the cards he was dealt.

  Bolan waited until both roving sentries were visible, then sighted on the one farthest, since he would have the best chance for finding quick cover when the shooting started. Bolan set the selector switch to single shots…took a breath…let out half…

  Bang!

  The reaction of the first target wasn’t visible as Bolan, his eye never leaving the scope, tracked toward the second target in a gre
en-white blur. Within milliseconds, he had acquisition and…

  Bang!

  Bolan already had the stationary target in view. The guy near the door had jumped up and was obviously panicked, trying to figure out who was shooting at them and from where. Bolan pressed the stock tighter against his shoulder, elevated the sight to compensate for the shift in the last sentry’s height.

  Bang!

  The Executioner was up and moving toward the motel, and had closed the distance by half before the last body hit the ground. He was nearly on top of the motel when the first reactionaries began to appear. Several doors opened at once, and men in various stages of dress—all toting pistols—spilled from the lighted doorways and made themselves perfect and immediate targets.

  Bolan pressed with the assault, triggering the FNC in controlled bursts and taking the closest one in the chest. The man’s pistol flew from his grasp as his body slammed against the open door. He left a red streak on the door as his body slid to the ground. Bolan took cover behind a narrow post in time to avoid a flurry of shots from another man who had managed to bring his pistol into play. Bolan heard several of the rounds as they moved close past his ears with an angry buzz, or slapped into the post and drove splinters in every direction.

  He spun on his heel, going to a crouch, and triggered the FNC from his lower position. The 5.56 .45 mm NATO rounds slammed into the shooter’s intestines and continued upward until exiting his back. Gaping holes exploded from the high-velocity rounds that splattered blood and flesh everywhere, the impact slamming the man’s body against the brick facade of the motel. Bolan returned to cover behind the post as he yanked one of the grenades from his harness—an M83-HC white smoker—and thumbed away the spoon. He counted off two seconds before rolling the grenade along the sidewalk bordering the motel.

  Smoke immediately began to fill the area, and Bolan used the cover to get in a better position for his offensive. The Executioner reached a door to the motel where one of the dead gunmen lay. He prepared a second grenade, this one an M14 incendiary, and tossed it onto the center of the king-size bed in the middle of the room. The thin bedding would be no match for the twenty-six ounces of TH3 mixture. The bed immediately burst into flames.