"Is that unusual?" Bolan asked.
"Damn right. These rigs were empties, mind you, nothing worth a hijack, and they're too conspicuous to keep around for long. I mean, nobody goes for midnight joyrides in a semitractor."
"Someone's moving contraband?"
"It reads that way, but all the major fences use commercial lines. It cuts the risk to zero."
"So you're looking at a special cargo.''
"That's affirmative." He shot a piercing glance at Bolan. "Something like a load of stolen arms."
"Speculation?"
Hannon shook his head.
"I wish it were. When I was checking out the vans, I sorted through all kinds of other theft reports — including ordnance from Camp Blanding, south of Jacksonville, and from the naval training station at Orlando. Both within the past eight weeks."
Mack Bolan felt a tightness spreading in his gut.
"What kind of ordnance?"
"Name it. Small arms, ammunition, hand grenades and rocket launchers. Someone's sitting on enough hardware to start a private army."
"You figure some connection with the trucks?"
Hannon frowned.
"The street talk here backs it up," he said. "There's a bottomless market for arms in south Florida — terrorists, drug runners, exiles from all over Central America. They're buying anything that shoots."
"Okay. You're still a country mile from Tommy Drake."
"Not necessarily. I was supposed to meet with an informant who could put it all together, but...." He checked his watch. "Looks like I'm going to miss him."
"Just as well," the soldier told him. "If he didn't set you up himself, he may be in the bag already. If he's clear..."
"He'll get in touch," John Hannon finished for him. "Yeah, I thought of that.''
They passed a small suburban shopping mall, and Bolan cut across the nearly empty parking lot, his sportster homing on a bank of pay phones next to the corner drugstore.
"This will have to do."
"It's fine. I'll have somebody here inside of five." He hesitated, halfway out the door, a frown carved deep into his honest face. And there was something going on behind his eyes.
"Your hardware... isn't that the new Beretta?"
Bolan felt the short hairs lifting on his neck. He nodded.
Hannon's frown was softening, becoming speculative.
"Fellow I used to know swore by the Luger."
Bolan forced a smile.
"It's got the power, but the toggle's too exposed," he said. "It snags."
"I guess my dope was secondhand. This fellow... well, we never really met.''
There was another pregnant pause, and Bolan waited for the other shoe to drop. When Hannon spoke again, his voice was softer, cautious.
"Guess I'd better make that call," he said. He got out of the car, eyeing the phones, then he turned around to face the Executioner.
Bolan felt himself relaxing as the older man continued, smiling now.
"If I had some idea what you were looking for..."
"I'm not exactly sure myself," the soldier answered truthfully.
"Well, if there's anything...."
"I've got your number," Bolan told him.
"Mmm." No real surprise. "Well, thanks again."
He slammed the door and Bolan took the Firebird out of there, John Hannon swiftly dwindling in the rearview mirror. The P.I. had a telephone receiver in his hand, already speaking into it.
And Hannon held the fate of Bolan's mission in his hand as well. If he revealed what he suspected — what he knew— to the police, Miami could become a write-off. If they were expecting him...
The flash of recognition had been unavoidable, perhaps, but Hannon was a savvy war-horse, all the same. Nothing passed him by unnoticed, unexamined by the keen detective's eye. There was potential danger there, if Hannon's sense of duty forced him to report their close encounter.
But Bolan trusted the detective. Naturally. Instinctively.
A great deal more than recognition had been shared between them as they spoke. There had been understanding, yes, and something else on the detective's part.
Approval?
Grudging admiration?
Bolan frowned. If Hannon chose to play the role of ally, he might be a winning asset — or a cumbersome liability. At present, though, the Executioner had other problems on his mind.
His Miami probe was a response to rumblings in the underground, a hint of trouble dangerously near the flash point. He had bits and pieces of the puzzle, and there had been a hope that Hannon, in the private sector now, might help him put them all together. Now, instead, he had provided further riddles.
And a pointer, yes. At least that much.
He had pointed Bolan straight to Tommy Drake.
3
Tommy Drake — born Thomas Dracco — was the sole surviving son of a Chicago loan shark. Papa Dracco was "connected," but his Mob affiliations did not guarantee intelligence — nor could they save him when he sided with the loser in a local Mafia insurrection. The incumbent boss had Papa taken for a ride, and when his elder sons went looking for revenge, they disappeared without a trace.
All three of them.
And young Thomas, wiser than his siblings, suddenly acquired a taste for travel.
He had gravitated to Miami, seeking distance from Chicago. He acquired a muscle job — as Tommy Drake — with local mafioso Vinnie Balderone. Miami was an "open" city, filled with opportunities for someone who could follow orders. Someone who was not afraid of cracking heads and breaking legs along the way.
When Balderone went down before the Bolan guns, Drake numbly switched allegiance to the growing faction led by Nicky Fusco. Loss of relatives had taught him flexibility, and Tommy sought "adoption" in the Fusco family, taking up the duties of a first lieutenant, learning the narcotics business from a master. Later, after Nicky lost it all in yet another Bolan blitz, his protege went shopping for a sponsor.
And discovered Don Filippo Sacco.
Tommy's penchant for adopting bosses did not signal any lack of personal ambition. On the contrary, experience had taught him to let others take the heat that came with leadership. He was content to stand in someone else's shadow, glad to profit from the fearsome reputation of his nominal superiors. They protected him while he earned them money.
No one killed the golden goose if there was any choice, and Tommy Drake was full of options. He dealt with anyone, impartially, so long as his security and profit was reasonably guaranteed.
Narcotics had been good to Tommy Drake. He prospered in the trade and became a millionaire while managing to insulate himself from the endemic mayhem that had turned Miami into the American murder capital.
The Mafia umbrella sheltered him to some extent, as did his legendary willingness to ice the competition first. For the most part he left the smaller independent operators alone, but the cocaine cowboys who encroached too readily upon his turf were fast becoming famous as endangered species.
Drugs had purchased Drake a Spanish-style estate in suburban Hollandale, an easy drive from Gulfstream Park. The likes of Frank Costello and Myer Lansky used to watch their horses run at Gulfstream, and while Tommy Drake enjoyed a fondness for the ponies, he did not aspire to ostentatious power. He remained secure within the shadows, letting others make the headlines, draw the fire.
Except shadows would not shelter Tommy Drake this night. His sanctuary was eroding, and the master dealer did not even know it yet.
Tonight the shadows served as cover for an enemy. Implacable. Determined.
And tonight, a golden goose was on the menu.
Bolan circled once around the block and found an unobtrusive parking place. His Firebird fit the neighborhood, but he did not plan to linger long enough to arouse curiosity.
A swift probe, right, with all the muscle necessary to extract some answers from his target.
The Executioner was rigged for battle as he left the Firebird. He was clad in midnight b
lack, his face and hands already darkened with combat cosmetics. Underneath his left arm, the Beretta 98-R nestled in shoulder leather. The silver AutoMag, Big Thunder, rode the soldier's hip on military webbing, extra magazines for both handguns hung from his belt. Slit pockets in the midnight skinsuit held stilettos, strangling gear — the instruments of silent death.
A decorative wall encircled the estate. It had not been constructed with defense in mind, and Bolan scaled it easily, touching down on manicured grass inside. Across the darkened lawn, some fifty yards away, a rambling hacienda structure was ablaze with lights. As Bolan watched, a sentry moved across his field of vision, disappearing around the corner into darkness.
The warrior circled to his right and kept his back against the low retaining wall until he reached a willow grove that screened him from the house. He tugged the sleek Beretta from its sheath and eased the safety off before he moved into the trees.
His circuit brought him behind the house, and Bolan looked out on a patio complete with pool, cabanas, deep-pit barbecue. A twelve-foot-high diving tower stood at one end of the pool, and it was occupied. A lookout sat astride the diving board, a cut-down Remington 870 across his lap. From that position man and scatter-gun could cover rear approaches to the house, raise hell enough to bring the other sentries running at a sign of trouble.
The lookout had to go.
He was an obstacle, and Bolan did not have the time to work around him. He could not afford a living gunner at his back when he made entry to the hacienda proper.
Bolan thumbed his hammer back on his Beretta autoloader. It was capable of double-action firing, but single-action gave him better first-shot accuracy. He slipped a thumb inside the 93-R's oversized trigger guard, wrapping his hand around the folding foregrip to ensure a steady shot.
He made the range at thirty yards, adjusting for the target's elevation, squeezing off a single parabellum round. The sleek Beretta's specially designed suppressor coughed, inaudible a dozen paces out, and silent death ate up the gap, boring in beneath the sentry's nose and shattering the face before it had a chance to register surprise.
The faceless man sprawled sideways off the diving board and slithered into splashdown, followed by his shotgun. His impact raised a plume of spray that pattered on the deck and diving board like summer rain, and he was gone.
But not forgotten.
Sentry number two had materialized across from Bolan, on the far side of the patio. He might have been responding to the splash or simply making rounds, but there was no way he could miss that body bobbing in the deep end. He responded automatically, hauling hardware out from underneath his jacket as he raced to poolside.
Bolan led the moving target, tracking, tightening into the squeeze. The automatic whispered twice. Down-range, his mark stumbled through an awkward pirouette, rebounding off a chaise longue in the awkward attitude of death. He came to rest against a brick retaining wall around the deep-pit barbecue.
Bolan waited in the stillness for another gunman to reveal himself. When no one surfaced after sixty seconds, he moved across the patio, aware that he was exposed beneath the outdoor floodlights.
It was a calculated risk. If there was a sniper in the darkness, the Executioner was open.
Bolan reached the back door unopposed and hesitated, reconsidering his angle of approach. With hurried strides he circled around the house, a gliding shadow homing on an ivy trellis set against the south wall.
He tested the trellis, decided it would bear his weight and scrambled nimbly upward toward the wrought-iron balcony and lighted window a dozen feet above his head. An easy step across the railing, and he stood outside the sliding windows in a pool of artificial light.
The windows were open on the balmy night, a breeze disturbing floor-length drapes. From where he stood, the Executioner could hear murmured voices beyond the curtain.
Whispering.
Cajoling.
Pleading.
The black Beretta was a cold extension of himself, and Bolan used its muzzle to divide the drapes, wide enough for him to peer through as he scrutinized the room within.
It was the master bedroom, as he had surmised from below, and it was decorated like the set of a surrealistic porno film. Erotic "art" was plastered on the walls, and pieces of suggestive statuary were positioned here and there around the room like blind, contorted sentries.
The huge heart-shaped bed at center stage was occupied. The man and woman grappling there were unaware of Bolan's scrutiny. They never noticed as he slipped in through the drapes and moved with silent strides to stand within arm's reach of the bed.
The man was kneeling in between the woman's open thighs, his back to Bolan and the window. Overlooking one hunched shoulder, Bolan had a fragmentary picture of the woman: one firm breast, a flash of thigh, the head thrown back and angel face averted, panting.
Bolan reached out, tangling fingers of his free hand in the stud's hair, dragging his head back sharply. Kneeling on the bed, his quarry gave a startled cry, eyes swimming into focus on the autoloader leveled at his face.
"John Hannon says hello,'' the warrior told him softly.
And Tommy Drake was straining for an answer, getting nowhere fast. The girl came up onto an elbow, gaping at the man in black. She made no immediate attempt to hide her nudity.
"There must be some mistake,'' the mafioso said.
"You made it."
"Take it easy, pal. You'll never pull this off." A spark of hope had flared to life behind Drake's eyes. "I've got a dozen men downstairs.''
"I counted two,'' the soldier said. "They're out of it."
The Executioner saw the man's Adam's apple bobbing as he tried to swallow.
"It's twenty questions, Tommy. Play it right, you live. If not..."
The dealer stiffened in his grasp.
"I ain't no stool."
"Okay."
Bolan drew back the hammer on the Beretta, letting Tommy hear it, balancing the silenced muzzle of his weapon on the mobster's nose. The Executioner heard a frightened little gasp from Tommy's woman and ignored it.
And his finger was already tightening on the trigger when his quarry buckled, caving in.
"Hey, now, wait a sec!" The dealer tossed a glance in the direction of his bedmate. "Can she take a walk?"
"I like her where she is."
"Okay, you call the shots."
And Tommy winced, as if his choice of words might give ideas to the man in black.
"You sent the Stomper and his bat boy after Hannon. Why?"
A heartbeat hesitation, ended by a prod from the Beretta.
"It's a private deal," the mobster said. "An outside contract."
"Who's the buyer?"
"I don't know."
The soldier frowned, released a weary sigh.
"Goodbye, Tommy."
"No, wait!"
Bolan let the automatic's muzzle dip a fraction of an inch.
"Why should I?"
"All I've got's a code name. Something for the phone, ya'know?"
"You taking bids from strangers, Tommy?" Bolan did not try to hide his skepticism.
"Well, we've done some other business... this and that."
No need to press the mobster for specifics. This and that would be narcotics, Tommy's stock in trade.
"The code name," Bolan prodded.
"Huh? Oh, yeah... he goes by Jose 99." A weak attempt at laughter. "Swear to you, that's all the name I know. Those Hispanics..."
"How do you get in touch with him?''
"He gets in touch with me. Like this time... says some private dick is stepping on his action. Wants to know if I can fix it."
The Executioner said nothing. His icy gaze, the vacant stare of the Beretta, loosened the mobster's tongue.
"I told him I'd take care of it, okay? We help each other out ... one hand washes the other.''
Right. But no amount of scrubbing could erase the stain of blood.
"The contract's canceled," Bolan
told his naked captive. "Stomper won't be coming home."
"Okay, man. Anything you say.''
Too quick. Too easy.
Tommy Drake had caught a glimpse of daylight. He was running for it. Bolan kept a firm hand on the reins.
"You've got a white flag, Tommy. A reprieve. If I find out you've lied to me..."
"Hey, man, I wouldn't shine you on."
The man in black released his captive and backed away, the sleek Beretta autoloader leveled from the waist.
"Be smart," he cautioned. "You've got everything to lose."
And he was halfway to the balcony when Tommy lost it all.
The mafioso found his nerve, his legs, and bolted from the bed. He leaped across the prostrate woman, bounding off the mattress, breaking for a nearby nightstand. Bolan let him get there, watched him wrestle with the ornate drawer and fish around inside; he saw the flash of chrome as Tommy found his weapon.
Far enough.
The 93-R tracked across the bedroom, locking into target acquisition. The trigger yielded to a steady, gentle pressure from the forefinger, and a 9mm parabellum closed the space between them.
Tommy stumbled, sat down hard, and he was spilling scarlet from a hole beside his Adam's apple. He was struggling fruitlessly to speak, the effort forming crimson bubbles on his lips and pumping bloody streamers down across his chest. The soldier put another round between the glassy eyes and blew his carcass backward, out of frame.
The girl was on her knees and gaping at the carnage. She finally tore her eyes away from what was left of Tommy Drake and focused on Mack Bolan. There was something in her eyes, behind the shock and fear, but Bolan did not have the time to study it.
"Get dressed and shag it out of here," he said. "The party's over."
And he left her to it, exiting the way he came. The Executioner was out of numbers. It was every man now — every person— for himself.
His business at the Drake estancia was finished, right, but he had not been wholly candid with the woman. Tommy Drake was gone, but the party in Miami was not over yet. Not by a damn sight.
In his gut the soldier knew that it was only just the beginning.
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