Damage Radius

by Don Pendleton

  “Something more I can help you with, Jake?” Bolan said as he set down the cell phone.

  “Yeah,” the man across the desk said. His lips were curved down in an angry frown, and his eyes shot daggers through Bolan. “I don’t like getting whipped by a trainer,” he growled.

  Bolan glanced at the man’s midsection. He was a heavyweight, but there was a thin layer of fat covering his abdominal muscles. “I don’t blame you,” the soldier said. “So if I was you I’d train harder, drink less beer and get into fighting shape.”

  The words only angered the man further. “I grew up here,” he said in a heavy Cajun accent. “In the back streets of the French Quarter.” He paused and eyed Bolan even harder. “And I can’t help but think there’d be a much different outcome if you and I were to fight without gloves and rules.” By this point Jackson had inched his way around the side of Bolan’s desk.

  The soldier swiveled slowly in his chair to face him. “There’s only one way to find out, Jake,” he said with a pleasant smile on his face.

  The heavyweight lunged suddenly with both hands aimed at Bolan’s throat. Still seated, the Executioner flicked his foot up and out, catching the other man squarely in the groin with the top of his flat-soled boxing shoes. The cup Jackson wore cushioned a lot of the blow, but not enough to keep him from grunting in surprise and pain.

  As he rose from his chair, Bolan drove a forearm into the man’s face. Blood spurted from the heavyweight’s nose, shooting the cotton from his nostril like a tiny rocket and driving his head back upward. In his peripheral vision, Bolan saw that most of the other fighters had gathered around the glass front of the office to watch.

  Jackson had obviously announced his intentions to “teach Matt Cooper a lesson” before he’d come into the office.

  Bolan reached forward and clasped his hands together behind Jackson’s neck. As he bent the man forward again, he drove a knee upward into his belly in a classic Muay Thai movement. Dropping his foot to the ground, he lifted his other knee and struck the groin area again.

  By now, Jackson’s plastic cup had cracked in two. And with the third knee strike, the fighter’s groan became a scream.

  Bolan stepped back and drove the same right cross into the man’s chin that had knocked him out in the ring.

  The effect was the same, and Jackson fell to the floor next to the desk.

  Bolan didn’t hesitate. Grabbing a handful of the man’s sweaty hair with his left hand, he dragged him back around the desk and opened the door with his other hand. Then, pushing the unconscious man through the doorway, he let him fall on his face against the concrete.

  The Executioner looked up. “I’m getting sick of this,” he told the stunned fighters who had watched the encounter. “How many times do I have to knock this guy out? Let’s get it all over with right now. I beat him in the ring, with rules. And I just beat him in a streetfight, without rules. Does anybody want to wrestle? Karate? Judo? Maybe do a little head-on tackling practice like in football?” He paused to let his words sink in. “Like I said, I’m through proving myself. If any of the rest of you want to fight, in any way you want, step up now.” He paused again because he knew his next words would fall on the ears of his audience as the most important. “But I’m warning you,” he finally said. “The next time, I’m going to kill my challenger.”

  The gym grew even more silent than it had been earlier.

  Finally, a man who looked to be around welterweight size stepped forward. He had the coffee-colored skin of the true Creole, and was wearing sweatpants and bag gloves. He smiled at Bolan, then turned to face the other men. “I think it’s high time we welcomed Mr. Cooper as our new manager,” he said.

  The rest of the heads nodded. Some enthusiastically, others grudgingly. But one way or another, they all affirmed Bolan’s leadership.

  The soldier nodded back to them also, then turned back into his office. A door at the rear of the room led to the small sleeping quarters that had served as Lennon’s home, and would temporarily house the Executioner—at least during the beginning of this mission.

  Just before he stepped into the small bedroom, Bolan glanced back over his shoulder.

  The men around the gym were working out even harder than before. And the painter in the striped overalls was just beginning the second T in the name “Matt Cooper.”

  3

  The call on the black rotary phone came just after the Executioner had ushered the last fighter out of the gym and locked the door behind him. Hearing it through the glass, he hustled around the ring in the center of the room, past a series of heavy bags and striking balls, and through the glass door into the office. “Cooper,” he said as he pressed the old-fashioned receiver to his ear.

  “How am I supposed to book fighters if you keep beating them up?” a laughing voice on the other end of the line asked in a thick Irish brogue.

  Bolan knew it had to be McFarley. The man had immigrated to America from Northern Ireland, and still had his accent. But since it had been one of his underlings who had actually hired “Matt Cooper” to manage the gym, the Executioner pretended not to recognize the voice. “Who is this?” he asked.

  “Your boss,” McFarley said. “Your employer. Tommy McFarley, boyo.”

  “Well,” Bolan said, “it’s nice to finally talk to you.”

  “Did you have a specific conversational topic in mind, laddie?” McFarley said.

  “Yeah,” Bolan said. “How about a raise?”

  McFarley laughed again. “I think I’m going to like you, Matt Cooper,” he said. “You’ve got balls. But I hear you nearly left one of my heavyweights without his this afternoon.”

  “He was asking for it,” Bolan replied.

  “I know that particular fighter, and I have no doubt that was the case,” McFarley said. “But that’s not what I called about. A little bird told me there’s more to you than just being a cauliflower-eared pug. You seem to have quite a résumé which you didn’t mention to my man who hired you.”

  “It didn’t seem relevant,” Bolan said. “Besides, I’m trying to fly under the radar for the time being.”

  “When you’re with me there’s no radar problem,” McFarley said. “I’ve got more radar detectors than Radio Shack.”

  “Great,” Bolan said. “So…did you just want to remind me of how wonderful I am? Or is there some other reason behind this call?’

  Yet again, McFarley burst into laughter. “You’re a bold one, you are,” he said. “I like that in a man.” Then he stopped speaking, and when he started again his voice was far less jovial. “Up to a point.”

  Bolan remained silent.

  “I’d like you to come join me for a late dinner,” McFarley said.

  “When?” the Executioner asked.

  “Tonight,” McFarley said. “I’m about to send a limo to pick you up right now. Can you be ready in thirty minutes?”

  “Give me forty-five,” Bolan said. “I’ve got to take a shower and change clothes.

  “Forty-five it is then, laddie,” the New Orleans crime kingpin said. “I look forward to meeting you.”

  Bolan heard the line click dead in his ear.

  The Executioner looked at his watch as he walked back into his room. There was a small private bathroom attached, and he stepped into it, unlaced his high-topped boxing shoes, then stripped off the plain gray sweatshirt and gym shorts he’d been wearing with them. A moment later he had the shower running and warming up.

  Bolan brushed his teeth, gargled, then glanced at his face. He had a five-o’clock shadow, but he decided to let it go. Tommy McFarley might be rich, but classy, he wasn’t. And besides, the unshaved look seemed to be in fashion among the fighters at the gym and other young men he’d seen around lately.

  Bolan showered quickly, then went to the short clothes-bar that ran the length of one side of the small room. He had moved in just that morning, and from the hangers he’d hung below the bar he pulled a navy-blue polo shirt, a pair of light ta
n slacks and a light brown sport coat, placing them on the bed as he pulled on plain white underwear and dark blue socks. The shirt and slacks went on next, then he stepped into a well-worn pair of brown loafers.

  Reaching under the bed, the Executioner slid out a black, hard plastic case. A combination lock secured the case, and he dialed in the combination before opening the lid. Lifting the Beretta 93-R with the attached sound suppressor and the.44 Magnum Desert Eagle, he stared at the two weapons.

  They had killed more men than he could remember. But all who had fallen to their rounds had deserved death, and more. A shoulder holster for the Beretta with two extra magazines on the other end of the straps, and a Concealex plastic hip holster that fit the Desert Eagle rested just under the guns. Bolan placed both weapons and their carriers to the side.

  There would be a time for them, and the even heavier armament he had brought with him on this mission, later.

  Lifting the bumpy foam rubber padding on which the guns had rested, Bolan dug through a variety of smaller pistols and knives on the layer below. His eyebrows lowered as he made his decisions, finally pulling out the stubby North American Arms Pug and a Cold Steel Espada folding knife. The minute single-action Pug revolver brought a faint smile to the Executioner’s lips. The name seemed ironically appropriate for a man managing a boxing club. It held five rounds of .22 Magnum ammunition and was the best last-ditch backup he had ever found. It was smaller, and packed a better punch than the larger .22 LR or .25-caliber automatic guns on the market. Especially loaded as it was with hollowpoint bullets.

  The Espada folding knife was a true blend of ancient Spanish tradition and modern technology. Patterned after the huge folding navajas that had been used in Spain for centuries—the newer Cold Steel version featured a “hook” opener at the base of the blade that allowed it to be drawn and opened on a pocket or waistband. It could be put into use faster than any switchblade, and when a natural front grip was taken, the nearly eight-inch blade had the reach of an eleven-inch bowie knife.

  It was, quite simply, the finest folding fighting knife available.

  Bolan clipped the Espada inside his waistband, against his kidney, then stared at the little .22 Magnum revolver in the palm of his left hand. He suspected that he’d be frisked before being allowed into this first meeting with McFarley, and he had no intention of disappointing whoever drew the job. He expected the Espada to be found, and was willing to sacrifice it as a diversion from the small firearm. But he also wanted to impress McFarley with his ability to move clandestinely through the search, and so he shoved the Pug down the front of his pants and placed it just under his groin between his underwear and slacks.

  It would be painfully slow to retrieve from that position, but Bolan didn’t expect any gunplay during this initial meeting with his target.

  On this night, the NAA Pug .22 Magnum revolver would be more for show than fighting.

  The Executioner shrugged into his sport coat, grabbed his key ring from the top of the shabby wooden dresser in the tiny sleeping room, then moved back through the gym toward the front door.

  The long black limousine pulled up to the curb as he locked the gym from the outside. The chauffer hurried out and opened the back door for him.

  Without a word, Bolan slid inside.

  MCFARLEY HAD GROWN UP ON a small farm near Bushmill, Northern Ireland, which was the home of the world’s oldest whiskey distillery—Old Bushmills. As a boy, he had worked the farm, sowing and reaping many of the grains that went into the whiskey being fermented only a few miles away. If he had learned one thing during that time, it was that the Bible was correct when it said, “That which you sow, so shall ye reap.”

  And as far as McFarley was concerned, that meant you reaped very little for the amount of backbreaking sowing that went into farming.

  The Irishman sat back against his desk chair and glanced around the walls of his office. The wooden paneling was of the finest smooth cedar, and sent a soothing fragrance into the air of the room. The photographs and other documents that spotted the walls were framed in solid gold and silver. His desk was of the purest mahogany and teak. The fact was, everything in the room was the best money could buy.

  But that money sure hadn’t come from farming.

  McFarley chuckled to himself as he dropped his desk phone back into its cradle. It would be a good hour still before Matt Cooper arrived for dinner, and he had only one other duty on his agenda that needed to be taken care of before the man arrived. The men with whom he needed to meet were already waiting for him in the outer office with his secretary, but the Irishman decided to let them wait a bit longer. They all needed to sweat a little, wondering exactly why they’d been called in to see him. So, while he let their anxiety rise, McFarley decided to take a few minutes to reminisce.

  The Irishman let his mind drift back to his teenage days in Northern Ireland, when his only interests were boxing and women—not necessarily in that order. He had won Ireland’s golden gloves heavyweight division four years running, then opened his own gym. But it had been around that time when he’d also gotten involved with the then very active PIRA— Provisional Irish Republican Army—the last faction of the IRA to quit bombing and shooting the British invaders. His interest in the organization, however, had not been political. He had found that more money could be made in one evening of smuggling guns, dynamite and C-4 or Semtax plastic explosives than he made in a year at his gym. Drug smuggling had come as a natural extension to his business, which meant even more money. And more money meant more women, so soon he had established a successful “call girl” service to supplement both his own seemingly insatiable urge for sex and his overall income.

  It was about that time that Tommy McFarley realized just how small Northern Ireland really was. And that realization spawned his interest in immigrating to the U.S.

  A frown crossed McFarley’s face as he remembered his first attempts to gain his green card. It had not been as easy as he would have expected, since Great Britain was not considered to be a repressive nation—even to the Northern Irish. But a few clandestinely taken photos of a U.S. congressman visiting London—engaging in some rather unusual sex acts with two of McFarley’s women—had convinced the man to push the Irishman’s immigration papers through personally. And he had passed his citizenship test five years later with flying colors.

  “Hurray for the red, white and blue.” McFarley laughed out loud as the memory crossed his mind.

  McFarley leaned back farther and clasped his hands behind his head, staring at the various boxing trophies and other awards around the room. He had found, just like the Mafia and South American drug cartels before him, that energetic civic work was not only a good cover for his real pursuits, it endeared him to the people. And public opinion had a huge influence on politicians, be they senators, congressmen or district attorneys. The Irishman caught himself grinning again at a “Citizen of the Year” award on his wall from the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce.

  There was not another city in the U.S. known for as much corruption and graft as the Big Easy. And Hurricane Katrina had disrupted things to an extent where bribes and leverage worked on the politicians and police even better than before the storm.

  McFarley leaned back against his desk chair and chuckled aloud. What more could you ask for than television news footage that showed uniformed police officers pushing shopping carts through stores and looting them just like the rest of the citizenry? The Big Easy had become a Disneyland for criminals, so New Orleans had been the natural site for McFarley to base his operations.

  Over the past few years those operations had been both legal and illegal. His string of weight-lifting gyms now rivaled both Gold’s and World’s, and each rep the “muscle heads” performed on the bench press or preacher curl stand put more money in his pocket. He also had boxing operations in most major cities across the country, and every punch that struck a bag or chin made him money as well. But these were fronts for his true revenue ope
rations. His real money still came the “old-fashioned” way—he stole it. Although he, himself, was thoroughly insulated by several layers of employees, his illegal activities included gunrunning to the Shining Path in Peru and the FARCs in Colombia, call girl services and massage parlors in most major cities, and some blatantly outright brothels. Like the one he was presently sitting atop.

  The penthouse of the old antebellum mansion, which faced Lake Pontchartrain, had been turned into McFarley’s offices. There was little secrecy about what happened on the four floors below. Police and other cleanup workers—still trying after all these years to get the Big Easy up and running once more—had more pressing business than pursuing misdemeanor prostitution arrests.

  The Irishman chuckled again. Besides, he thought, the top brass of the New Orleans PD and the district attorney’s office were some of his best customers.

  McFarley leaned forward, crossed his arms on the desktop and thought briefly about the one last thing he had to do before Matt Cooper arrived for dinner. Even thinking about performing such a task would have sent many men running to the restroom to throw up, but to McFarley, it seemed to come naturally. He had done similar things many times in the past, and he felt no emotion about them one way or another. It was all business, he thought, as his mind returned to his overall empire of crime once again.

  In addition to the weaponry he sent south, he brought cocaine and heroin north into the U.S. for the Mexican and South American cartels. Of course, his favorite activity was still fixing boxing matches in the smoky clubs where his fighters fought. Although the gambling money he made from these fights was small compared to his profits in the other areas, he hung on to it as a nostalgic link to his past.

  McFarley’s smile turned suddenly downward. Once in a while, a fighter or his manager didn’t go along with his wishes to take a dive. That had happened less than a week ago.