his DNA on any item from his arsenal, and wouldn’t take a fall for anything unless the coppers somehow found his basement arsenal.
Which wasn’t very bloody likely, he thought.
At half-past eleven on the stroke, Watt put the Closed sign on his door and sent his pretty helper, Flora, off to lunch. She always took her time about it, likely making out with her boyfriend from the pizzeria down the street, but what of it? He’d hired her as eye candy, primarily, and got his money’s worth when punters were distracted by her cleavage while he talked them down on loans, or jacked them up on retail prices. Best of all, she never questioned being sent out on some pointless errand or released ahead of closing time, as long as she was paid up for the day.
A perfect front, he thought, in all respects.
He smiled, amused as always by his own wry wit.
Watt didn’t know exactly what his new customer had in mind, as far as shooters were concerned, but his inventory was extensive. Something for everyone, down in the basement—and twenty years to think about it at HMP Barlinnie, if he was caught with that kind of hardware on hand.
Unless, of course, he struck a deal to shift the burden somewhere else.
A dicey proposition, that was, if you thought about his customers. All men of honor, in their own eyes, meaning that they punished traitors harshly but might sell out their mothers if there was any profit in it.
Most of Glasgow’s current so-called gangsters couldn’t hold a candle to the old breed. They were tough enough, all right, but you could never tell when one of them might crack under interrogation. Once they got to thinking about prison and the things they’d have to do or do without inside, a lot of them would spill and put their best mates on remand.
Watt was a different sort, and anyone who mattered knew it, going in. It was a point of honor, and he knew what could become of those who snitched, even when they were certain that they’d gotten away with it. Watt, himself, hoped to die at ninety-something in a trollop’s arms, rather than screaming on a rack somewhere.
When he had seen the back of Flora, Watt threw down a double shot of Royal Brackla whisky and felt the heat spread through his vitals, relaxing him from the inside out. First-timers always put his nerves on edge a little, but the whisky mellowed him like nothing else.
All ready to do this, he thought, and watched the big hand creep around toward twelve.
THE SHOP ON Dalhousie Street, in Garnethill, was closed when Bolan parked a half-block south of it, but he had been forewarned of that. A knock on the glass door produced a slim man in his fifties, salt-and-pepper hair combed straight back from a craggy face that had absorbed its share of blows, and then some. His suit was Savile Row, though Bolan didn’t know enough about the London fashion scene to peg a tailor.
The proprietor beamed a smile at Bolan through plate glass, then unlocked and opened the door. “Mr. Cooper, you would be?” he inquired.
Bolan nodded and said, “Mr. Watt?”
“In the flesh, sir. Come in, won’t you please?”
Bolan scanned the merchandise while Watt secured the door behind him, checking out the street. He stocked a bit of everything, it seemed, from jewelry and musical instruments to antique silverware and china. Clearly, there was money to be made from someone else’s disappointment.
“Just in from America, you’d be,” Watt said as he returned, no longer asking questions. “And looking for some tools of quality.”
“Assuming that the price is right,” Bolan replied.
“I take it that you understand our situation here. We haven’t got a constitutional amendment giving us the right to carry guns, and all. The scrutiny is fierce.”
“And yet.”
“And yet. Of course. Just so you realize that heat increases costs for merchants and their customers.”
“The money’s not a problem,” Bolan said.
“In that case,” Watt replied, “please follow me. The merchandise you’re looking for is kept downstairs.”
He trailed Watt through a minioffice to a storage space in back, then down a flight of stairs concealed behind a steel door labeled Private—No Admittance. Watt turned on a bank of overhead fluorescent lights as they started their descent, bleaching the basement arsenal’s beige paint and striking glints from well-oiled pieces of his secret stock.
The climate-controlled room measured right around three hundred square feet, running twenty feet long east to west, and fifteen wide, north to south. Within that space, Watt had collected an impressive cache of automatic weapons, shotguns, pistols and accessories for every killing need.
There was a .460 Weatherby Magnum for would-be elephant poachers, and a .50-caliber Barrett M-82 semiautomatic antimaterial rifle for hunters who wanted to bag an armored personnel carrier.
Speaking of big guns, Watt also stocked a 40 mm Milkor MGL 6-shot 40 mm grenade launcher, a Czech SAG-30 semiauto launcher for smaller 30 mm grenades, and a South African Vektor Y3 AGL that required a tripod or vehicle mount for its full-auto spray of 280 grenades per minute.
“Much call for that in Glasgow?” Bolan asked his guide.
“If someone asks,” Watt said, “I aim to please.”
The remainder of his inventory was more convention, including various assault rifles, submachine guns and sidearms manufactured in Europe. Price tags were nowhere to be seen.
Bolan’s first choice was a 5.56 mm Steyr AUG, the modern classic manufactured in Austria and carried by soldiers of twenty-odd nations, and by agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Its compact bullpup design, factory-standard Swarovski Optik 1.5x telescopic sight, and see-through plastic magazines all made for a convenient, reliable combat rifle.
For backup and variety, Bolan next chose a Spectre M-4 submachine gun, manufactured at the SITES factory in Turin, Italy. Feeding 9 mm Parabellum cartridges from a four-column casket magazine, the Spectre carried fifty rounds to the average SMG’s thirty or thirty-five. Its double-action trigger mechanism allowed safe carriage while cocked, and its muzzle was threaded for a suppressor, which Bolan added to his shopping cart.
Last up, for guns, he chose another Italian: the same selective-fire Beretta 93-R pistol that he favored in the States. It was no longer in production, but the piece Watt had acquired was brand-new in appearance, and a quick look proved it fully functional. In essence, with its muzzle brake, folding foregrip, and 20-round magazines, the 93-R gave Bolan a second SMG to play with. He picked a fast-draw shoulder rig to carry it, with pouches for spare magazines, and started shopping for grenades.
His choice there was the standard British L109 fragmentation grenade, a variant of the original Swiss HG 85 that had replaced the older L2A2 in the early 1990s. Each grenade weighed one pound and had a timed fuse, with a Mat Black Safety Clip similar to those found on American M-67 frag grenades.
Bolan bought an even dozen, just in case, added a KA-BAR fighting knife on impulse and decided he was done.
With ammunition, extra magazines and gun bags to conceal his purchases, the total was a flat eight thousand pounds. Say thirteen grand, in round numbers.
