The good news was that Natale loved no one, except for himself. His wife was dead, they’d had no children and his mistress was already warming someone else’s bed. As for blood relatives, they had disowned Natale when he’d made the choice to save himself and let the syndicate he’d served his entire adult life go to hell. They’d be among the first to kill him, given half a chance.
So much for family values.
The other good news was the safe house his protectors from the U.S. Marshals Service had selected for him. Shelter Island—how he loved the very name! One-third of the island was a virgin wilderness, the Mashomack Preserve. The year-round population was around twenty-five hundred people, many of whom golfed at the island’s two country clubs or cruised around on their sailboats.
If anyone ventured into Smith Cove, on the island’s south shore, they might speculate on who’d rented the rambling shorefront home abutting Mashomack Preserve. If they asked around, all they’d learn was that the place had been transformed into a posh executive’s retreat.
Nonsense, of course, but they’d accept the explanation.
This week, four U.S. Marshals from the Witness Security Program were staying with Natale. They weren’t exactly butlers, but they kept Natale fed and reasonably satisfied—although they’d drawn the line at renting him a woman.
He was planning to discuss that request once again this evening, over his veal parmigiana, wild mushrooms stuffed with ricotta, and red onions roasted under salt. If they refused again, Natale thought he might suggest obtaining several prostitutes, so they could share.
Something to think about.
Natale stepped out of the master bedroom’s spacious shower and immediately felt that something in the house was...different. He listened for the television in the living room and heard the same news channel the marshals always listened to, unless there was a game on ESPN.
The television...but no voices.
Hastily, Natale dressed, sorry he wasn’t allowed to possess any weapons other than the kitchen cutlery. His guards were armed, of course—one pistol each, together with a shotgun and an Uzi submachine gun—but that only helped Natale if they were alive and well when trouble came to call.
Speaking of calling, he could shout to his protectors, find out why they’d gone so deathly still, but some sixth sense advised him not to make a sound.
Should he investigate or flee? Escape meant knocking out a bedroom window screen or creeping through the house until he reached an exit. Either way, if trackers had located him, he’d be at risk.
But staying where he was might mean certain death.
Just nerves, Natale told himself. Not buying it, he reached for the doorknob.
* * *
DEPUTY U.S. MARSHAL Leo Torbett didn’t usually care for babysitting duty, but covering Rinaldo Natale on the run-up to his trial appearance had turned into a fairly cushy gig. Torbett enjoyed first-rate Italian food—retrieved by car from Nonna’s Trattoria in downtown Shelter Island—and he couldn’t gripe about the ocean view. He didn’t like the forest looming on the east side of the house, but there was nothing he could do about it, other than remaining on alert.
Torbett and his three men slept in shifts. At least two men were awake at all times, with their weapons ready. He also had a lookout at the ferry dock, which was supposedly the only way to reach the island.
So, sure, it made him nervous when a delivery truck pulled up out front, late afternoon, when he wasn’t expecting a delivery.
“Look sharp, everybody,” Torbett ordered, releasing the thumb-break catch on his Glock 22’s high ride holster.
Natale was in the shower, sprucing up for dinner, but they didn’t need to warn him yet. The delivery could be legitimate. Somebody from headquarters might have simply failed to call ahead, as protocol required. Another possibility was that the driver had the wrong address. It happened.
Or...
“Ed, kill the TV. Gary, get the door,” Torbett said as he watched the delivery truck through one of two broad windows.
Ed Mulrooney switched the television off, while Gary Schuman crossed the living room in long strides, one hand on his Glock. He stooped a bit to watch the driveway through the peephole. “Getting out now, with a package,” he announced.
Torbett could see the driver coming up the front walk and double-checking the address against the parcel he was carrying. He also had one of those pads that registered electronic signatures.
Why would headquarters pay a courier instead of sending someone from the Manhattan office? Torbett was considering that question when the driver seemed to stumble on the walkway’s paving stones. The man got his balance back and pitched the parcel underhand, directly toward the window where Torbett stood.
He tried to shout “Watch out!” but it was already too late. The parcel detonated with a thunderclap that blew the picture window inward, driving shards of broken glass into his face.
* * *
NATALE HEARD THE blast and doubled back into his bedroom, slamming the door behind him. Damn! No lock! He ran toward the en suite bathroom. Hiding there was futile, but a window was set into the wall above the bathtub that might be large enough for him to squeeze through if he sucked in his gut and was willing to give up some skin.
Hell, yes, when the alternative was death.
Behind him, gunfire crackled, and he heard a man cry out in mortal pain. One of his watchdogs, or a member of the hit team?
In any case, it was clear the feds couldn’t protect him. He was bailing out or meant to give it his best shot, at least. If he could make it to the woods, Natale thought he just might have a chance.
He cranked the bathroom window open wide, then punched its screen out with a quick one-two that left his knuckles raw. The next part would be difficult—crawling up and through the narrow window.
The shooting stopped. Footsteps approached his bedroom door, and someone opened it.
Not a marshal.
Standing in the bathtub, bitterly embarrassed that it had to end this way, Natale watched two men approach with compact submachine guns in their hands. He didn’t recognize them. Why in hell should he?
“This is how a traitor dies,” the taller man told him.
“No shit?” Natale sneered at them and rushed the guns, howling, before they opened up and blew him back into the bathtub. Into darkness everlasting, stained with crimson.
Tuesday—Catanzaro, Italy
Catanzaro is known for its “three Vs”—Saint Vitaliano, its patron saint; velvet and vento, the wind constantly blowing inland from the Ionian Sea. The capital of Calabria, at the toe of the Italian boot, teems with tourists in the summer months.
Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, had not come to shop for velvet or idle on the beach. He was hunting for members of Calabria’s native crime family, the ’Ndrangheta.
A mainland version of Sicily’s Mafia, the ’Ndrangheta was equally venal and vicious, competing for its share of Italy’s underground economy with the Neapolitan Camorra and the Apulian Sacra Corona Unita—the “United Sacred Crown.” Between them, Italy’s thriving syndicates had corrupted government, laundered money and murdered innocents.
None of which was Bolan’s problem at the moment.
He was in Calabria, driving a rented Alfa Romeo Giulietta loaded with illegal weapons, because the ’Ndrangheta had reached across the Atlantic to the United States. Bolan intended to discourage that by any means required