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Cako was forced to smile and nod and play along, ever the dutiful subordinate who wouldn’t harbor any disloyal thoughts regardless of the provocation. Total crap, but it was a way to stay alive.
For now.
He trailed Kurti around the house, flanked by the soldiers who had invaded his home. Of course, it wasn’t actually Cako’s home, either on paper or in fact. A phony corporation formed for that specific purpose held the deed, while Kurti and the syndicate they served had paid the tab. Still, Kurti only visited the rural house on rare occasions, so it felt like home to Cako—more than the defiled abode in East Keansburg—and he resented the intrusion he was suffering this day.
And still he smiled, watching his master work.
Arben Kurti could be a suave and charming man when circumstance demanded it. He had a way with ladies, for example, that beguiled them into thinking that he was a gentleman steeped in the kind of chivalry enshrined by romance novels. Once they had surrendered to him, though, it was another story altogether. Some endured him. Others fled.
A few had not survived.
This morning, with the first pale light of dawn just visible over the barrens, Kurti used his charm to placate Cako’s foreign customers. He sympathized, commiserated, nodding as they bitched and moaned to him about their disappointment and the peril they had suffered.
Never mind that none of them could show a scratch for all their trials and tribulations.
Granted, they had been disturbed and caught a whiff of gunsmoke as they left the other house. What of it? Each and every one of them were murderers, notorious for their brutality. Their whining angered Cako nearly as much as the raid on his house at the shore.
But Kurti had a way with men, as well as women. He was bringing them around, no doubt about it. Alternately frowning, nodding and joking with the clients, he’d managed to convince them that they shouldn’t write their trips off as a total waste. Why turn around and leave without the merchandise they’d hoped to purchase in the first place, when it still remained available?
Within arm’s reach, in fact.
By breakfast he had charmed them all. Cako’s personal chef prepared a feast, skipping the ham and bacon on the Muslim plates as ordered, and the waiters offered whiskey for those diners who desired to spike their morning coffee as a special treat.
“To get the juices flowing,” Kurti told them.
He had saved the day—but was it anything Cako himself couldn’t have done? How would they ever know, when he wasn’t allowed to try?
For the first time in their association, spanning seven years, Cako felt hatred for the man who pulled his strings. When Kurti told this story to Rahim Berisha—and he would, no doubt—all of the credit would be his, while Cako took the blame.
That was, if Kurti lived to tell the tale.
With enemies at large and staging vicious raids, who could predict how long he might survive? And if by some chance he was slain, together with his bodyguards, Berisha would be forced to trust Cako’s accounting of events.
Who would be left to contradict him, after all?
“Come, come! Enjoy!” He beamed at his guests, matching his own enthusiasm to Kurti’s. “We have great surprises in store!”
“WE STOP HERE,” Volkova said, “and proceed on foot.”
“Sounds fair,” Bolan replied.
The Porsche Boxster wasn’t an off-road vehicle by any means, but Volkova nosed it cautiously into a copse that offered her a hiding place of sorts. Determined searchers would be sure to find the car, but passing drivers had a decent chance of overlooking it.
So far, they’d met no other traffic on the two-lane forest road, which helped their odds of passing unobserved.
The trip to Bolan’s rental car had thankfully been uneventful. By the time they drove past Cako’s mansion in East Keansburg, nearly all of the police had left. A sleepy uniformed patrolman on the gate ignored them going east, and showed no greater interest when the Porsche returned short minutes later, with a Prius trailing after it.
The rest was easy.
Bolan found a nice, anonymous open parking garage, stashed his car and moved what he needed to the Boxster’s trunk. They were off with time to spare.
Volkova took them southward on the Garden State Parkway, skirting the eastern border of the barrens, then cut over to the west on State Road 72, leaving civilization behind. Using the map in her head, she’d brought them to their present point, standing beside the Porsche and suiting up for war.
“If anything should happen—”
“Don’t start that,” he rudely cut her off. “You’ll jinx yourself.”
“I simply wish to ask that you contact my embassy.”
“No promises.”
She wouldn’t let it go. “And if I called, for you?”
“There won’t be anybody home,” Bolan replied. “Let’s saddle up.”
He was as equipped for this raid as he was the previous night, except for the addition of a Milkor M-32 grenade launcher and a bandolier of 40 mm rounds to feed its 6-shot revolving cylinder. The M-32 resembled a space-age version of the 1920s Tommy gun, complete with foregrip, shoulder stock and drum. Its payload was vastly more dangerous, though, including high-explosive, HEAT, buckshot, incendiary and chemical irritant rounds. Operating on the same principle as a double-action revolver, the Milkor could empty its load in three seconds in rapid-fire, with an Armson Occluded Eye Gunsight providing optimum accuracy out to four hundred yards.
With the M-4 carbine and his sidearms for backup, Bolan felt ready to meet any challenge Cako might throw at him.
And then some. Damn right.
Watching out for copperheads and timber rattlesnakes along the way, he let Volkova lead him toward the larger serpent’s den.
“YOU SEE?” Arben Kurti said. “All is fine.”
“Of course,” Cako replied, swallowing bitter bile.
“These people are putty in my hands. You must know how to deal with people, Lorik.”
“As you say.”
It might be true their customers were fools, but Cako thought that Kurti was the biggest fool of all. How could he look at Cako with that stupid grin and not feel the radiant heat of his subordinate’s anger? Was he blind?
“You need to get the merchandise ready, Lorik. This lot will be done stuffing their faces soon, and we can’t keep them waiting any longer.”
“I’ll see to it,” Cako replied through clenched teeth. Turning away, he spied Qemal Hoxha and beckoned him across the dining room. A moment later Hoxha was beside him, waiting for instructions.
“Is the merchandise prepared?” Cako asked.
“Ready, as you ordered,” Hoxha answered.
“When the clients finish gorging, they’ll be moving on to the display room. Watch for stragglers and—”
At first, he thought the sound was thunder, but a rattling of glassware told Cako that he was mistaken. He glanced back at Kurti and saw the smile wiped from his face.
An explosion!
Against all logic, Lorik Cako felt a welling of sensation that resembled gratitude. Or was it pure relief?
Could it be true? Had his enemies somehow pursued him here, of all places, arriving at the moment when he needed them?
Was this his golden opportunity to punish them for his humiliation, and to rid himself of Arben Kurti at the same time, with a perfect scapegoat for his treachery?
“Lorik—”
“Forget the women,” Cako snapped at Hoxha. “Get our men together. Now!”
Qemal ran off to call the gunners, just in case some might have missed the first shot of the battle. Cako reached inside his jacket, drew the pistol that he carried in a custom-tailored shoulder holster, holding it against his thigh as he turned back toward Kurti.
Not yet.
Not with all these witnesses.
It would be helpful to him if the foreign customers survived, but that was secondary in his thoughts. Beyond the first imperative of personal survival, Cako focused on eliminating Arben Kurti and his unknown enemies.
As for the latter, he would love to capture one of them alive. Find out exactly who they were—or who they worked for—and report the information to Rahim Berisha as an indication of his competency. Moving on from that point, as the syndicate’s new chieftain in America, Cako could mount a campaign of reprisal.
Seek and find the men responsible.
Destroy them, root and branch.
“Lorik! Come here!” The sound of Kurti’s voice was like sandpaper on his nerves.
“I’m coming,” he responded, putting on a solemn traitor’s face.
THE FIRST GRENADE was Bolan’s wake-up call for Cako and his soldiers. After closing to a range of fifty yards, seeing the limousines and SUVs standing in ranks outside of the Albanian’s pineland retreat, he had decided that a stealthy probe wasn’t the way to go.
So, blood and thunder, then.
The first round was HE, aimed toward the middle SUV in a three-car lineup. All black, all branded with the leaning L inside an oval that denoted Lexus products. The last he’d heard, their prices started around seventy-seven grand and went up from there as the options piled on. None of them had an automatic fire extinguisher, however.
Not that it would’ve done any good.
Bolan’s high-explosive round punched through the middle LX10’s rear window and exploded, shattering the glass on vehicles to left and right before the target SUV’s fuel tank erupted into roiling flames. A lake of fire began to spread beneath the other cars while Bolan sprinted toward the southwest corner of the house, Volkova on his heels.
As planned, the blast brought soldiers pouring from the dwelling. Not all of them, of course. If they had any kind of discipline at all, a sizeable contingent would remain inside to guard their principles and see to any preparations for escape.
If there was any way to flee.
If they had anywhere on Earth to go.
Bolan supposed the men he’d come to kill would think about their homes. Some might give passing thoughts to lovers, wives and children. None of that affected Bolan’s plans or his determination to succeed.
He knew one side of those he hunted, and it was enough. He didn’t care if they loved puppies, said grace over dinner or got dewy-eyed watching an opera. The fact that evil men might have a spark of goodness buried somewhere deep inside wasn’t his personal concern.
Bolan was not their final judge.
He was their judgment.
Another car blew up as Bolan cleared the corner of the house and kept going. He could hear Volkova close behind him, footsteps keeping pace with his, no hint that she was running out of breath or stamina after their long hike through the pines.
That Spetznaz training coming through.
Ahead of them, a door swung open and a swarthy gunman stepped into the roseate light of dawn. Bolan zipped his chest with three rounds from the M-4 carbine, slowing just enough to keep a crimson mist from settling on his face as he brushed past the falling corpse.
The door opened into a mudroom, boots lined up on vinyl flooring, jackets hanging on wall hooks, a metal trash can doubling as an umbrella stand. Bolan covered the room beyond, a kitchen, braced for opposition every step along the way.
And found it when he’d cleared the kitchen doorway, dropping as the loud metallic rattling of an AK-47 stung his eardrums. The rifle’s 7.62 mm bullets chewed their way across the kitchen wall and cabinets, shattering glassware inside. He crouched behind an island in the middle of the kitchen, hoping it was stout enough to stop the next few rounds, no clear idea of where Volkova was or whether she’d been caught framed in the kitchen entryway.
He had to take care of business first, let the lady warrior watch out for herself.
Bolan switched guns again, swapping the M-4 for the shorter but heavier M-32. Aiming would be a problem in his present circumstances, so he pressed a button to collapse the launcher’s stock and thereby shaved eight inches off its total length.
Now it was shorter than a Spectre M-4 submachine gun or Beretta’s famous M-12 model, easier to handle in a cramped space when there was no option for a well-aimed shot.
Nothing to do but let it rip and hope the play paid off.
He pushed off with his feet against the island’s base, cursed when he felt the thing moving, then he was committed, squeezing off his first shot as he glimpsed the doorjamb, triggering a second right behind the first, then rolling back toward cover.
The Kalashnikov stuttered again, but its voice was eclipsed by the hard double slam of explosions nearby. Someone screamed, or he may have imagined it.
Lurching upright, Bolan made for the doorway, plunged through it and into a snapshot of hell.
NATALIA VOLKOVA’S ears were ringing, nearly deafening her, as she vaulted from the kitchen floor to follow the big American through the next doorway in line. She knew where he was going—where he meant to go, at least—but wasn’t sure exactly how to get there.
Cako would have stashed the captive women underground if possible. If not, he’d have them under lock and key upstairs, out of the way until their new prospective owners were prepared to watch another flesh parade. In either case, she and the tall American had to dispose of Cako’s men before they could remove the prisoners.
And then, what?
Set them free to roam New Jersey or America at large, without a source of income or, in some cases, a grasp of English? What would happen to them then? Would it be any better than a sale into the living hell of slavery that she was trying to prevent?
Volkova closed her mind to those considerations, concentrating on the methods and mechanics of survival in a combat zone.
They were outnumbered ten to one, perhaps. Or more? Only surprise and sheer ferocity could save them, now that they had stepped into the dragon’s den.
But would that be enough?
She followed her ally and saw a gunman rising on her left, behind a couch, and spun to drop him with her AKSU-74. One round punched through his cheek, another through his upper lip, and he was nearly headless as he toppled over backward, out of frame.
Ahead of her, another high-explosive charge went off. More men were shouting, cursing in Albanian. And there! Was that a woman’s voice? She thought so, turned to track it with her ringing ears and met another scowling shooter with a pistol leveled at her face.
There was no time to crouch or dodge the shot. Volkova gutted him with 5.45 mm rounds, braced to receive the bullet that would kill her, but the impact of her own rounds spun him like a dervish and his shot went wild, striking a wall or ceiling panel somewhere in the smoky room.
The Russian agent looked for Cooper, saw him disappearing through another doorway, bodies scattered in his wake. She had a choice to make—follow the man, or seek the women on her own.
Another scream decided it.
Volkova wished Matt Cooper well and veered off to pursue the sound, sidestepping corpses as she went. She cleared another doorway, stepped into a hall with doors on either side and waited for another cry.
