“I let him get off an alert, as you asked,” Sergei said.
“Pirates?”
“I told him you were the most piratical Somalis to ever prowl these waters,” Sergei said, holstering his weapon. He glanced toward the cove and then cocked an ear to the alarms. “Speaking of which, that hole in the hull is going to be a red flag to the bastards when they figure out we’re dead in the water. Those alarms will carry for miles, and even the most pig-ignorant fisherman knows what that sound means by now.”
“And that’s why you’re here, Sergei.” Garrand smiled and clapped him on the shoulder. “Make sure no one else tries to steal this boat before I do.”
“I’m going to need more men,” Sergei said doubtfully.
“I know,” Garrand said. His smile turned wolfish. “Don’t worry, Sergei—it’s all part of the plan.”
The Biggest Little City in the World
The Catania Hotel in Reno, Nevada, had seen better decades. The upper floors had been stripped to the plaster for everything and anything that could be sold, and the bottom floors weren’t much better. It had been five years since a guest had stayed at the hotel. These days, the only resident was a certain representative of the Claricuzio family and his bodyguards.
Mack Bolan, aka the Executioner, gave a quiet grunt of effort as he inserted the crowbar between the doors of the elevator. The elevator hadn’t gone higher than the sixth floor since the upper floors had been stripped, and the car was permanently stationed on the third for the exclusive use of Domingo Claricuzio and his bodyguards. Bracing his foot against the wall, Bolan forced the doors open and peered down into the shaft.
Bolan, clad in khaki fatigues and body armor, tossed the crowbar aside and swiftly slid a safety harness over the rest of his gear. A Heckler & Koch UMP-45 was strapped across his chest and his KA-BAR combat knife sat snugly in its sheath on his leg. After he’d gotten the harness on, he clipped several M-18 smoke grenades to lanyards for easy access.
It had been simple enough to get onto the Catania’s roof from the casino next door; Domingo had neglected to post guards on the upper floors. Perhaps the elderly don thought he didn’t need to bother with such measures.
Bolan hefted an ascender—the same device used by repair technicians—and attached it to the elevator cable and his harness. Then he clipped his harness to the cable and took a slow breath. His heart rate was steady. Instinctively, he checked his harness and his gear once more, and then, with a sound like tearing silk, he began to descend the length of the shaft.
Despite being semiretired and in hiding from his enemies, Claricuzio had his fingers in more than one greasy pie. He ran any number of businesses at a remove, including some profitable prostitution rings in Eastern Europe and the Mediterranean. But not for much longer.
At that thought, Bolan’s sun-bronzed face split in a grim smile. In the earliest days of his long and bloody war, he’d gunned down men like Domingo by the dozen and had taken his own licks in turn. Bullets, blackjacks and blades had exacted a cruel toll from his flesh over the years, and he sometimes wondered if he were held together by nothing more than scar tissue and bone sutures. But it was all worth it, every moment of blood and pain. When beasts like Claricuzio were put down, lives were saved—the lives they would have ruined or tainted or ended.
The Executioner had needed only a few days to set everything up. He’d kept tabs on his target, and he knew the hotel’s layout down to the unconnected light switch on the first floor. Five guards were posted at any one time: one in Claricuzio’s suite, two on the hall doors and two more patrolling the floors above and below, respectively. If any of Claricuzio’s brood were visiting, there might be more, but the don’s family members weren’t the visiting types. Even so, there was a chance Bolan would be facing more resistance than just five inattentive and relatively lazy punks in bad suits, which meant he would have to be quick and careful. Even a punk could get lucky.
On that grim note, the soles of his boots touched the top of the elevator. Swiftly he disengaged his harness and dropped to his haunches. With the tip of his combat knife, he pried up the hatch and dropped through. Bolan disabled the control panel and pulled a small wedge of thick rubber from his harness. Holding it between his teeth, he carefully pried open the elevator doors and slid the wedge into the gap to hold the doors open. Next, Bolan removed a small dental mirror from a pocket, unfolded it and slid it through the gap at the bottom of the doors.
Angling it one way and then the other, he pinpointed the two guards in the hall. Bolan retracted the mirror, placed it in his pocket and pulled a smoke grenade from his harness. He hauled the doors open with one hand and popped the pin on the grenade. Then he rolled the canister down the corridor, where it hissed and spewed smoke.
Shouts of alarm cut the air. Bolan sent another grenade rolling down the hall in the opposite direction. When the corridor was filled with smoke, he stepped out. The soldier knew there were a number of possible responses to the tactic he’d just employed. Men with training, or an iota of common sense, might sit tight and call for backup. But the men Domingo Claricuzio had paid to keep him safe were neither trained nor sensible. They would either blunder into the smoke or—
Italian loafers scuffed the carpet. A man coughed and cursed. Bolan caught a blindly reaching hand and drove a fist into the exposed elbow. Bone snapped and the guard screamed. Bolan lifted a boot and slammed it down onto a vulnerable patella. The kneecap slid and cracked beneath the blow, and Bolan grabbed the screaming man by his lapels and whirled him around.
The guard jerked as a pistol snarled. Shooting blind was the other possibility. Bolan held the dying man upright and reached across his chest to grab the pistol holstered beneath the guard’s cheap jacket. Without pulling the gun from its holster, he twisted it up and got a grip on the butt. Then he charged forward, holding up the sagging weight of the dead man like a shield. The smoke billowed and swirled, parted by the abrupt motion. He saw the second guard, eyes wide, mouth agape, the black-barrelled automatic in his hand bobbing up to fire again. Bolan fired first. The rounds punched through its previous owner’s coat and perforated the skull of the guard who’d killed him. He fell back against the door to the stairs, a red halo marking the wall behind his head.
Bolan let his human shield drop and he spun, raising the UMP. He fired off a burst, chewing the frame of the door that led to Claricuzio’s rooms. The door, which had been in the process of opening, slammed shut. Bolan didn’t hesitate. He padded forward quickly, aware that the other two guards could show up at any time. He fired two quick bursts with the UMP, once where the lock would be and then where the hinges would be screwed into the frame. Then he hit the door with his shoulder and rode it down. His teeth rattled in his head as he landed but it was better than having them shot out of his head by the guard he knew was inside the room.
The latter let off a panicked shot that sliced the air above Bolan’s head, then fell screaming as the soldier cut his legs out from under him with a burst from the UMP. Bolan pushed himself to his feet and stepped fully into the room, pausing only to deliver the coup de grace to the wounded man.
Domingo Claricuzio sat in his chair, his eyes on the television in front of him. He looked like an elderly hawk, and any excess flesh he might have once possessed had sloughed off with the passage of years. Claricuzio was a dangerous man, quick with a blade or a garrotte even into his sixties. “I like this show,” Claricuzio said, apropos of nothing. He pulled his feet back as the blood from his guard soaked into the carpet. His gaze flicked to the dead man. He clucked his tongue. “His mother will be disappointed.”
His eyes tilted, taking in Bolan and the smoking weapon he cradled. “I expected you sooner.” It was said calmly. There was no fear or anger or hate in the