thought things were okay so far, but kept it to himself.
Two minutes later they were rolling south along 12th Avenue, which would become the Lincoln Highway once they crossed West 42nd Street. From there it was a straight run to the juncture where Canal Street paralleled the Holland Tunnel, and a left turn through Lower Manhattan on their way to Chinatown.
An easy trip, unless you were at war and being hunted.
Lin drove well, obeying all the laws, watching the traffic up ahead and flicking frequent glances at his rearview mirror, watching for a tail.
Eternal vigilance was the price of running an illegal business in New York.
* * *
BOLAN TRAILED THE Ford south at a cautious distance. Taking out the couriers was not part of his plan. He wanted them to lead him home, show him the drop and let him scout the neighborhood for angles of attack.
It wouldn’t be the simplest job he’d ever done. White faces were anomalies in Chinatown. Locals could spot the tourists, often coming by the Gray Line busload, trooping in and out of cheesy shops to drop their money. But a round-eye snooping on his own meant cop or worse, and he’d get nothing in the way of information from the members of that closed community. Start poking into corners on his own, and he could meet resistance well beyond a simple wall of silence.
Picking up the Jersey shipment was a coup of sorts. He’d had to squeeze a dealer for the intel, then make sure his source was in no shape to rat him out to the higher-ups. Call that the first kill on his latest visit to New York, but not the last. Before they found the dealer’s body, Bolan reckoned he’d be finished in Manhattan, likely on his way to some more distant battleground.
But he was taking care of first things first.
There was a war brewing in New York City, ready to explode between the Wah Ching Triad and a gang of interlopers from Afghanistan. Two syndicates financed primarily by the sale of heroin produced in their respective bailiwicks had come to blows, and the prognosis was for worse to come. In other circumstances Bolan would have been content to stand aside and let them kill each other, but the action had already claimed civilian lives and that was where he drew the line.
Police were on it, sure, along with Feds from several agencies. For all he knew, the Afghan angle might be setting off alarms at Homeland Security back in D.C. That made it doubly dicey, jumping into the middle of a war and dodging cops of all persuasions in the process. It was nothing that he hadn’t done before, but still a challenge.
One more chance to do or die.
The Ford was making good time, rolling south with Lincoln Highway turning into West Street once they got past Barrow. Bolan knew they’d likely take Canal Street, veering off southeastward from the river on its way to Chinatown, just south of Little Italy. He’d spent his share of time in that vicinity, as well, when he was hunting killers of a different complexion, but the local Mafia—whatever might be left of it—was safe from him today.
Next week...who knew?
Part of the deal this day was to watch out for other tails. A shipment on the road, ten keys at least, made an inviting target for the other side. The last thing Bolan wanted was to get caught in a cross fire or, worse yet, to see the delivery go up in smoke before he marked its final destination. Later, sure, he’d torch the smack himself, and everyone associated with it.
So he was watching when the midsize SUV with three male passengers became a fixture in his rearview. Bolan made it as a Chevy Trailblazer, as black as the Ford that he was following, hanging behind him in no rush to pass. It could be coincidence, since Bolan hadn’t seen the vehicle at the ferry terminal, but he already had that itchy feeling he’d learned to trust in situations where his life was riding on the line.
A tail, maybe. He bumped it up to definitely when the shotgun rider shifted in his seat and let the muzzle of a weapon rise above the dash for just an instant. It was there and gone but Bolan caught it, and he didn’t think it was a pogo stick, a fishing pole or the antenna on a satellite phone. Those were hunters in the SUV. The only question now: were they on Bolan’s tail or following the heroin?
He got his answer as they closed in on Canal Street where it split, divided by Canal Park’s wedge of greenery between the west-and eastbound lanes. The Chevy made its move then, swinging out to pass Bolan’s Toyota, speeding up to overtake the Ford. Some kind of hit was going down in front of him, and Bolan had to make a split-second decision.
Should he intervene or wait to see how good the Wah Ching gunners were at self-defense? How many innocent civilians on their way home from a job or shopping errand would be placed in danger if he sat it out—or if he jumped into the middle of the game?
Scowling, he pulled his MP5K from its canvas tote and stepped on the Camry’s accelerator, playing catch-up on a one-way ride to Hell.
* * *
“YOU WANT TO take them here?” Babur Kazimi asked.
“Not yet,” Ahmad Taraki answered. “Wait until we’re past the park and all the little kiddies, eh?”
“Closer to Chinatown,” Kazimi told him in a cautionary tone.
“Not that far,” Taraki replied. “Just be ready when I tell you.”
Turning to Daoud Rashad in the backseat, he said, “And you, too.”
“I was ready when we started,” Rashad answered.
Taraki had taken some heat on the last hit about the civilians who’d been in his way when they’d taken down the target, but that was a risk of street fighting. The goal had been achieved regardless, and a message had been sent. The Wah Ching Triad was on notice that their days of peddling heroin outside Chinatown were coming to an end. There was a new force to be reckoned with, and the gang would have to step aside or face extinction.
Taking down this shipment from New Jersey, after it had traveled halfway around the world from somewhere in the Golden Triangle of Southeast Asia, would drive home the lesson while putting a cool three million dollars, give or take, into the coffers of Taraki’s crime Family. If he went back without the drugs, there would be no forgiveness from Wasef Kamran. In fact, it would be better if he did not return at all.
Kazimi made the left-hand turn onto Canal Street, rolling past the park. Taraki saw the children playing there, some adults walking dogs, oblivious to what was happening around them. They existed in a world as different and distant from his own as life on Jupiter, believing that their trivial concerns were all that mattered. Braces on the kiddies’ teeth, a raise at work, a plastic bag for dog crap in a purse or pocket when they took a stroll. The daily grind for wage slaves in the city.
But somewhere within the next half dozen blocks, before the Wah Ching couriers had crossed the borderline of Chinatown, Taraki meant to give the drones around him a surprise. A little glimpse of life in his world, where the struggle for survival meant exactly that. If someone got between Taraki and his target...well, they’d simply have to die.
Stopping the Ford was no great problem. Shoot the driver, shoot the engine, shoot the tires. The operative word was shoot. But at the same time, even knowing that the Ford was bound to crash, its occupants riddled with bullets, getting to the heroin remained Taraki’s top priority. He couldn’t let it burn, and he would get no thanks if he returned the suitcase shot to hell, blood soaking through the plastic bags inside it. He’d been ordered
