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“I’ve got everything hushed up,” Crown answered. “But without a body—”
Yeung interrupted, holding his frustration in check. “Do what you can. I’ve got a troubleshooter coming in to help out with this.”
“I can pass most of this off on bigots getting drunk and riled, but an organized assassin…” Crown began.
“If you had done your job the way I wanted you to, none of this would have been necessary. Since you couldn’t evict these people, just be glad I need a mouthpiece among local law enforcement. Otherwise, we’d be using your bones as that old man,” Yeung snapped. “Got that?”
Crown clenched his jaw but nodded in quiet agreement.
“Don’t fuck with me. I know where you live,” Yeung snarled. He turned and got back in his SUV. His cell phone warbled and he plucked it from his pocket.
“Bobby, our man picked up his ticket and boarded his flight.” The call was from Frankie Law, his right-hand man. “Our troubles are over.”
“I’d like to think so, Frankie,” Yeung replied. “But the situation’s just gotten a little more complicated. The Abos who were straining at the leash finally slipped out of sight. At least one of them is on the way to civilization.”
“I’ll get our boys on the street. What’s the description?” Law asked.
“Five feet, black, about eighteen. Fairly cute for a little black girl,” Yeung stated.
“Damn, not the chick,” Law said.
“You’ve got a problem with that?” Yeung inquired.
“I just wanted a little taste. She was nicer than you let on,” Law replied.
“Find her and kill her when you’re done,” Yeung ordered. “These fuckers have given me enough headaches. “Just find the little bitch and deliver her head to me. Keep the rest for whatever you want.”
“Kinky.” Law chuckled.
“Dammit, Frankie!” Yeung said. It was too late. His head man in Darwin had hung up.
Yeung put the phone away, looking out the window.
When he’d been asked to set up a major transportation hub and processing center for the triad’s heroin pipeline, Yeung had jumped at the chance. It would be his ticket to the top of the heap in Hong Kong. Now, a year later, he was sick of the outback, sick of the Aborigines and the ugly, inbred whites with their mush-mouthed butchering of the English language, and he was sick of being stuck on the ass of the planet. He was a city boy. He wanted to be back among skyscrapers and neon lights and bodies packed together like sardines, with loud music, cigarette smoke and perfumed whores jammed in around him, pawing over his senses.
The facility was operating at half capacity, but once it was running at full power, he’d be called back to Hong Kong to be given an opportunity to rise up the ladder.
All it would take would be a few more dead Aborigines, and he would have the facility operating with impunity.
He was glad that the triad’s assassin was coming to fix it all.
3
Bolan got off the plane, eyes sharp for the presence of any members of the Black Rose Triad who would be at the airport to greet him. If they knew Wade Augustyn by sight, they would know something was wrong. His carry-on was only loaded with clothes. He’d be unarmed in the face of a mobster offensive. Under other circumstances that wouldn’t be a problem, but in an airport full of civilians, any delay in neutralizing armed opposition would increase the risk of bystanders being gunned down.
Since no Chinese gunmen popped out of the woodwork, Berettas blazing, Bolan felt secure going to the public lockers. He felt under the one he’d been directed to in the attachment to the e-mail containing the electronic ticket he’d ridden in on. The key was taped under a metal lip, and he plucked it free. Inside the locker were two envelopes. One was a large manila, stuffed with what looked like a file. The other was a smaller padded envelope containing a cellular phone. Bolan tucked the file into his carry-on and retrieved the phone. He hit the speed dial.
“Finally made it,” came the voice on the other end.
“I was just getting back from other business,” Bolan said, imitating Augustyn’s voice.
When Bobby Yeung spoke again, he gave no indication of noting any difference. “Say no more. How long will it take for you to get equipped for your safari?”
“Give me till dusk to get what I need,” Bolan said.
“Good. We’ve got a situation. We might need you prowling in Darwin first. I’ve got my people out and about, but…”
Bolan walked over to a table in the concourse food court and took a seat. He pulled out the file and set it before him, opening it. “There’s a picture of them in my file?”
“Naturally,” the Black Rose man said.
“Which one?” Bolan asked.
“The girl. She escaped, and we need to put her down fast.”
“You can’t find her?” Bolan pressed. He looked at the young woman. She was pretty, with big beautiful brown eyes. The name scrawled in the margin of the photo was Arana Wangara. It was right next to a photograph of an older man labeled Grandfather Wangara. In red marker, across Grandfather’s face, was written Troublemaker.
“She disappeared in Alice Springs. We had hoped to catch up with her, but—”
“But they didn’t think that she could blend in with a crowd because she was just an Abo, right?”
The Chinese mobster chuckled. Bolan’s derision of his people’s bigoted arrogance wasn’t lost on him. “It wasn’t my people. We’d had a couple of thick-headed whites doing the legwork. I’ll have some real talent searching the bus stations in Darwin—including you.”
“If you’ve got your act together, what do you need me for?” Bolan asked.
“Because I’m still stuck in the middle of absolute nowhere. And I need someone smart making sure this little chickie is put down,” the triad spokesman said.
“I don’t do bus station detail,” Bolan replied. “Even in Australia, there’s too much of a urine smell.”
“How about you roll up a few thousand yen and stick them up your damn nose to filter out the piss-stink?” the Chinese bartered.
“A few thousand yen’s pocket change,” Bolan countered.
“Dollars?” the gangster offered.
“Pounds sterling,” Bolan said.
“You’re killin’ me!” Yeung exclaimed.
“You should be so important,” Bolan warned. “Come to think of it, why are we killing a young woman?”
“Because she’s a liability,” the mobster explained, sounding as if he were talking to a child.
“Well, if you want me to bust my ass for a week hunting down Grandpa Abo, you’re paying by the day,” Bolan reminded him. “Frankly, I’d rather make my job easier.”
The Chinese man hissed in frustration. “Can you get this kind of information out of the girl?”
“Only if she stays alive,” Bolan admonished. “And stays healthy.”
“Healthy,” the mob boss repeated.
“As in untouched. If she goes catatonic because some of your boys took a piece, my work is going to be a lot harder. And they personally won’t like me when I have to work harder,” Bolan growled. “Got it?”
“You kill my men—”
“What? You called me in because you couldn’t handle this. What makes you think you can handle me?” Bolan asked. “Because if you can handle me, some old man shouldn’t be the top page of your hit list.”
“That’s because they say he’s one of their shaman…whatevers. He walks in the Dreamtime or some such. Keeping up with him is impossible,” Yeung answered.
“You called me in to exterminate fifteen unarmed Aboriginal activists,” Bolan said.
“They’re not Chinese. What do we care?”
“You got me. As long as I get my cash,” Bolan replied.
“I’ll get a message to my boys,” Bobby Yeung replied. “You’ll get your bonus for catching the girl.”
Bolan hung up the phone and examined the files after getting something to drink at one of the counters on the food court.
From the description of the targets, it didn’t take the Executioner long to figure out that the triads were clearing a tract of land for a large facility, and the heads on the list were community activists trying to maintain their tribal lands. Considering the space being opened up by the Chinese mobsters, Bolan wouldn’t have put it past them to build an airport that would be a stopover to “sanitize” overseas shipments, a form of relay that would keep customs from looking too closely at repackaged contraband.
It was a perfect setup for anything from knockoff goods to drugs. Remembering his basic knowledge of the Australian outback, and the fact that he was going to clean house a hundred or so miles from the famous Uluru mound, he’d be operating in a desert environment. The file requested that everything be made to look as if it were the act of a lone psychotic with a powerful hunting rifle.
Bolan finished his drink, bought a sandwich wrap to go and switched to the cell phone he had taken from Eugene Waylon. It was programmed with Augustyn’s Darwin contacts.
He flipped open the phone, and typed in a quick text message to the assassin’s arms dealer in northern Australia. The response was immediate.
“Meet me in a half an hour.” An address was provided with the response. Bolan pocketed the phone and went to a shop for some items he knew he’d need for the upcoming meeting with the gun seller. It’d have to be enough until he got his hands on some real firearms.
ARANA WANGARA GOT OFF the bus and kept her head low. She tried to blend in as a bored teenage tourist, keeping sullenly to herself as she tucked her knapsack tightly under her arm. Wangara scanned the crowd for signs of the Asian musclemen working for the mobsters who’d ordered her home torched.
She’d loaded a couple of rocks in the bottom of her bag as a crude weapon. The weighted sack would at least knock a bad guy off his feet, if not break a jaw or cheekbone. It wasn’t a shotgun, but at least it was something. Seeing her unarmed might actually lull her hunters into a false sense of security that would give her a chance to upgrade to an actual firearm.
Wangara clutched the strap of her bag tightly, eyes darting. Her grandfather had taught her how to use his rifle, a bolt-action Enfield from World War II, original ANZAC issue, and a pump shotgun. She’d even taken lives, dropping a marauding, sheep-killing dingo with the Enfield, as well as wild hogs. She’d learned that she could kill to protect lives, and while there was a difference between Chinese gangsters or bigoted Outback rednecks and a feral dog, the end result was the same.
Violence against violence, to preserve life, she thought. If she fell, then the gangsters and their hired thugs would kill other members of the tribe to keep them silent about the activities on their stolen land. She certainly did not want to die, but she also knew living would be made hollow if she let down her grandfather.
Wangara tucked her chin down against her chest and continued through the bus terminal, weaving in time with the crowd around her. Someone on the periphery of the group jerked his attention toward her, the sudden movement focusing Wangara like a laser on him. It was a young Asian man, wearing black sunglasses and a battered leather jacket too large for his slight frame, but with enough drape to hide a pair of sawed-off shotguns under its folds. She returned to staring at the floor, walking quickly to keep pace with the other tourists.
The young Chinese man tried to push through the throng of departing bus riders, but Wangara was out the door and turning down the street. There was another Asian man outside, this one wearing an overly large jacket, except in denim. He reached under his lapel, watching her through his impenetrable shades. Wangara fought not to run, not to look at the gunman out of the corner of her eye.
Acknowledgment of her hunters would give them the advantage. They were holding back, not quite sure if she was the prey they were seeking. If she bolted, or even if she glared at them too long to study them, they would be certain and act quickly to either restrain her or just pull their guns and fill her with holes.
Wangara kept to the main street. The gangsters would be hesitant to act in the open, with so many witnesses around. The reason she was being hunted was to keep the triad’s scheme from being discovered. The blatant, public assassination of a young woman on the run from her Aboriginal tribal lands would draw attention like a lightning rod.
The man with the denim jacket pulled out a cell phone and spoke into it. He turned it toward her, and Wangara knew she couldn’t suddenly look away, despite the fact that she knew he was using the cell’s camera attachment. She only hoped that the usually blurry distance shots would make her identification difficult, especially since the young mob tough was only able to catch an angled profile.
It wasn’t much, but she was grateful for any advantage she had. The weight of the rocks in the bag on her shoulder gave her more reassurance, but nothing would last forever. Sooner or later, the man in the jean jacket would move in to make a final identification, and Wangara would have to fight or die.
She hoped that her grandfather was right about the lone crusader.
THE EXECUTIONER STOOD in the doorway of Red’s Sporting Supply, his eyes adjusting to the light.
“Plastic surgery again?”
Bolan scanned the small sporting goods store and saw an older man with a rust-colored crew cut and a nose that had been mashed flat in countless fights. Dark, hard eyes glared out from under a beetle brow as he evaluated the newcomer.
Bolan nodded.
“You’re paranoid, Wade,” Red said. “Come in the back.”
“Sure,” Bolan replied, adopting Wade’s speech patterns, but speaking softly.
“What’d you do to your throat?” the arms supplier asked.
“Had the surgeon give it a few scrapes,” Bolan explained. “Change my voice just enough. Figured a new face isn’t any good without an altered voice.”
“Like I said, Wade. Paranoid.”
Bolan smiled. “I’m still alive.”
Red laughed as they entered the back room. There was a door and from the other side, Bolan could hear muffled pops coming through a basement stairwell entrance. Signs on the windows out front had mentioned a public range, firearms rentals, as well as a storage fee for personally owned weapons. “I’ve got a bag ready for you, based on what you texted me.”
Bolan nodded and walked over to the gym bag with the All Blacks logo on the side. He unzipped it, looking at a pair of pistol rugs and a short rifle case.
“The rifle’s been broken down, but if you want to look at it, I’ll let you check it out on the range,” Red said. He tossed Bolan a pair of ear protectors and some shooting glasses.
Bolan donned them and took the bag to the basement range.
“Won’t be able to sight in at a distance,” Red said, following him down, wearing his own ear and eye protection.
“I know how to zero based on close range,” Bolan replied as he opened the case. He assembled the weapon, recognizing it as a VEPR. Considering that the VEPR was a reengineered RPK machine gun, itself a derivative of the AK-47, the Executioner knew it would be a good, tough rifle, immune to any hostile environment he’d drag it through. He looked at the magazine and saw that it was chambered for .300 Winchester Magnum rounds. The rifle’s reinforced receiver could handle the extra-powerful cartridge. Whereas the AK itself had been made from stamped steel, the VEPR was made of stronger metal, with a stronger bolt, designed for firing prolonged bursts from extended light-machine-gun-sized magazines. On single shot, it would handle the .300 Magnum rounds just fine. The wooden AK furniture had been replaced by desert camouflage reinforced fiberglass. He attached a scope and test fired. With the rifle set to a “point-blank” of 200 yards, at a mere 25 yards he knew how high the first shot should hit. The test impact was within millimeters of Bolan’s estimation, and he reset the scope.
The balance was almost perfect, though the shoulder stock was a little short for his long arms. It would do, he thought, and looked to Red.
“If you’re going to pretend to be Wade, you should be a little more finicky,” the store owner said.
Bolan tensed.
“Don’t worry. You’re still a paying customer, but you should realize, Eugene contacted me,” Red stated.
“So why aren’t you worried about me?” Bolan asked, using his normal voice.
Red pointed to the bag. “Because if you were going to try to kill me, there’s enough weaponry in there to take me and my boys out.”
Bolan was aware that the other two shooters on the line had stopped firing and were glancing at him.
“You could have given me dummy ammunition,” Bolan stated. “Or sealed off the rounds in separate containers, like you did with the rifle.”
