had a cut-down Ruger Mini-14 sporting a pair of magazines taped end-to-end.
Bolan shot the Ruger wielder in the face. His weapon made him the greater threat. As the standing corpse started to turn, its finger convulsed on the trigger. A single 5.56 mm round belched from the weapon’s chopped barrel, punched a hole through a stack of bagged cocaine and pierced the second gunman’s stomach at the navel. The button man folded, screaming.
The third shooter had managed to draw down on Bolan with reasonable calm, firing off a pair of shots as he squinted against the glare of a nearby hanging light. The mobster’s aim was close enough that it drove Bolan to the floor on his back. The angle was wrong, but there was no time to worry about that. Instead, Bolan took aim at the bare light bulb and neatly popped a round through it. The bulb exploded in the gunman’s face.
The shooter dropped his gun and clawed at his face. Bolan stood once more, aimed carefully, and put a round through his adversary’s forehead. Then he moved to stand over the gut-shot mobster, kicking away the man’s pistol as he did so. A quick search told him he had eliminated all resistance. There were no secondary exits from the basement, unless there was a hidden hatch.
A creak on the stairs behind him made him whirl. He leveled both Berettas at the sound, but it was only Pierce, holding his shotgun by the receiver and raising both arms in surrender. The blood on his scalp was drying in a runnel past his nose. He looked annoyed.
“Only me,” he said.
Bolan lowered his guns. “You settle your business out back?”
“Yeah. But not well. I was hoping to get somebody alive. They figured out what we were doing when you hit the front. Here I am, covering the back, when one of them throws open the door and hits me with a gumball machine.”
“A what?”
“A gumball machine, for crying out loud!” Pierce groused. “You know, the stupid thing that sits in the back of every coin laundry you’ve ever walked into, filled with gum that hasn’t been changed since Kennedy was shot. Nailed me right in the head with it. I hit him in the head with the shotgun and made sure he was out, but by then the rest of the guards were already dancing with you. When I went back to get him so he could answer some questions, he was already awake enough to dig for a backup piece. So I had to plug him.”
“It happens,” Bolan said. Was Pierce telling him the truth? Or was this some clever ruse? And to what end? He wasn’t sure what the Mob enforcer had to gain by lying, but he filed the suspicion away nonetheless. In this game, you simply couldn’t take anyone’s agenda for granted.
Pierce surveyed the dead men and whistled softly. “These guys, the guys upstairs... You’re a one man death squad, Harmon.”
Bolan shrugged off the memories the comment brought back. He had put a few notches in his pistol grips over the years, to be sure. “I do what’s necessary,” was all he said.
Pierce looked more closely at the dead men. “Wait a sec. I know this guy.”
“Who is he?”
“His name really was Mike,” said Pierce. “Mike Morelli. He’s a cousin to Paul Toretto, the Don of the family.”
“Let’s question him.”
Pierce looked at Bolan as if the Executioner was insane. “He’s been shot in the head, Harmon. You’re not going to get anything out of him except juiced brain.”
“His pockets,” Bolan said.
Pierce nodded. He searched the corpse, coming up with a money clip, a folding knife, a lighter, a few other inconsequential items and an electronic car key.
“Maybe Mike’s car has some clues,” Pierce suggested. “You grab it and follow me. We’ll get gone before the cops show, find a parking lot, then search it from top to bottom.”
“Solid plan. Hand me his lighter.”
“You’re not going to do what I think you’re going to, are you?”
“No time for anything else,” Bolan said. The first sirens were barely audible in the distance. Given that they were at basement level, that put the cops too close for comfort. The Executioner flicked the lighter and started one of the stacks of cash ablaze. The cops would call the fire department, which would stop the blaze from getting out of hand, but hopefully the fire would gut the basement before it was put out. Bolan’s policy was never to leave anything behind that could benefit an enemy, if he could help it. If the coke and the cash ended up in a police evidence locker, it might magically find its way out again. Better to destroy it in situ.
“Man,” Pierce said as the stack of Mob money started to burn behind them. “That hurts to watch.”
“It’s going to hurt more for the Torettos before we’re done.”
Bolan climbed back into the Lincoln with a plastic bag in one hand. Pierce pulled away from the curb, checking his mirrors and side-eyeing Bolan. When the big gold boat was moving down the road once more, Pierce finally jerked a thumb at the bag.
“So?” he asked. “What was so important we had to drive to three different electronics stores?”
“This,” Bolan said. He produced a small electronic device from the bag. He also had a battery pack and adapter.
“What is it?”
“Cell phone jammer.”
“Those aren’t legal,” Pierce said. “How’d you buy one over the counter?”
“I didn’t. I dropped enough comments about hating obnoxious cell phone users until I caught somebody’s attention. A guy at the third store sold me this out of the back room.”
“Amazing how common crime is these days,” Pierce said, as if he meant it. Bolan shot him a look and the enforcer grinned.
They drove in silence for a while, circling in wide loops around the neighborhood. They were waiting for Bolan’s phone to vibrate.
The search of Morelli’s car had revealed a GPS unit. Bolan had told Pierce he had certain contacts who might be able to help. Leaving the mobster in the car, he’d gone off to make an encrypted call from his secure phone.
The smartphone was the only device he carried that had not been Vincent Harmon’s and it was carefully password-protected to prevent unauthorized access. Externally, it was indistinguishable from a popular commercial model. It was a vital piece of mission equipment, giving Bolan a direct link to the support team at Stony Man Farm. There were ways for him to contact the Farm through an unsecured channel, such as from a pay phone or even a prepaid burner phone, but they required security protocols and took longer to establish.
Transmitting photos of the GPS unit’s serial number to the Farm was all that had been necessary for Bolan to get what he’d need...eventually. A member of the cyber team at Stony Man, led by Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman, would trace his or her way through the unit’s
