2
East Village, Manhattan
The hub of Ukrainian culture in New York City—known for decades as “Little Ukraine”—was located in the neighborhood of East Village. An estimated sixty thousand immigrants inhabited the area immediately after World War II, and while that population dispersed throughout Manhattan’s five boroughs over time, two-thirds of the city’s eighty thousand ethnic Ukrainians still remained in the old neighborhood, with its familiar markets, restaurants and shops, dwelling in the shadows cast by All Saints Ukrainian Orthodox Church and St. George’s Ukrainian Catholic Church.
Like any other group of new arrivals, from the first European colonists to the latest Hispanic and Afro-Caribbean waves, the vast majority of Ukrainian immigrants were hardworking, law-abiding individuals with nothing on their minds except adapting to the land of opportunity. And just as certainly, a small minority were criminals at home, maintaining that tradition in the country they had adopted.
Mack Bolan had his sights fixed on that clique, as he launched his campaign in Little Ukraine on a crisp autumn evening, around the dinner hour.
His target, chosen from the list Hal Brognola had provided, was a restaurant on East Sixth Street, halfway down toward Avenue B. The place was called The Hungry Wolf, known as a favored hangout for the thugs who served Stepan Melnyk. Bolan’s drive-by recon had revealed that the restaurant was closed to walk-in diners for a private party. Two men on the door guaranteed that no tourists wandered in by accident.
Was it a celebration of the carnage in DC? Some kind of session called to lay out future strategy? Or did the outfit gather periodically to let off steam after a hard week of extortion in the neighborhood?
No matter. They were in for a surprise, regardless of the reason for their banquet.
Bolan perched atop a seven-story office building opposite The Hungry Wolf, with a clear view inside the restaurant through two large plate-glass windows. Peering through the Leupold sight mounted on his Remington bolt-action rifle, he felt almost like a guest invited to the party, moving in among the four-and six-man tables, touching-close but unseen by the men whose night he meant to spoil.
For some, it would be their last night on Earth.
The Model 700 was not designed with war in mind, though Remington did sell a special “Entry Package” model for urban police departments, and the US Army had adopted an altered version, dubbed the M24 Sniper Weapon System in military speak, for long-range use in combat. Bolan’s civilian version held four .300 Winchester Magnum rounds, one in the chamber and three in a round-hinged floorplate magazine. Its barrel measured twenty-four inches and could send a 220-grain bullet downrange at a velocity of 2,850 feet per second, striking with 3,908 foot-pounds of cataclysmic energy.
All good news for a sniper on the go.
Bolan had been in place awhile, spotting the restaurant’s arrivals as they entered, scanning faces already seated at tables when he took his post. Stepan Melnyk was nowhere to be seen, but Dmytro Levytsky was making the rounds, slapping shoulders and laughing at jokes from his soldiers, here and there bending to whisper in ears. A maître d’ in a tuxedo loitered on the sidelines, muttering to waiters as they passed, dispersing drinks and appetizers. No one on the staff looked happy to be there, but they were working quietly, efficiently, focused entirely on the task at hand, avoiding eye contact with any of their customers.
Bolan did not plan a sustained attack, his first time out, but he had four spare cartridges lined up beside him on the rooftop for a quick reload if time allowed. The shooting would be loud, and there’d be no mistaking it for anything mundane, such as a vehicle’s backfire in the street. Once he began, there’d be no stopping until Bolan disengaged and fled the scene, hopefully well ahead of any armed pursuit.
He scoped the two hardmen on the entrance first, decided not to kill them yet, and let the Leupold scope take him inside The Hungry Wolf. He felt like one himself, at times, when it was time to thin the herd of savages who preyed on so-called civilized society. He wasn’t bloodthirsty and hadn’t killed out of anger since the first strike that avenged his family, many years ago, but there was no denying that eliminating vicious predators lifted a weight from Bolan’s soul, if only temporarily.
So many goons, so little time.
He chose a laughing face at random, framed it with the Leupold’s reticle, inhaled and let half of the breath escape as he began the trigger squeeze.
* * *
AT FIRST, DIMO LEVYTSKY thought some stupid tweaker high on meth had lost his mind and tossed a rock or something through the broad front window of The Hungry Wolf. It took another second for his brain to wrap around the fact that Trofim Kulik’s bald head had exploded, spraying blood and brains in all directions as he toppled forward, headless, into his eggplant mezhivo.
Even as the others at his table were recoiling, reaching for their sidearms, Levytsky saw a second bullet crack the window, this one bringing down a goodly portion of the clean plate glass. Round two drilled Marko Shestov’s pudgy neck and almost took his head off, severing the arteries and loosing crimson jets that might have made Levytsky laugh in other circumstances, thinking of a whacked-out Rain Bird sprinkler.
But Levytsky wasn’t laughing as he hit the carpet, reaching up to push over his table, which gave him at least some flimsy cover, while his free hand fumbled for the Colt .380 Mustang XSP pistol he carried tucked beneath his belt, around in back. It wasn’t easy, going for a quick draw with his right arm underneath him, as he was scared to rise and make a target of himself.
The rifle’s third shot—it could only be a sniper, the Ukrainian had concluded—made a wet sound slapping into flesh, as more voices raised in snarls and curses from the restaurant around him. He could hear somebody puking, hoped it was a waiter or the maître d’ and not one of his soldiers publicly embarrassing himself.
Levytsky had no idea where the sniper was firing from, but since his lookouts on the street weren’t firing back, he took for granted that it had to be someplace high up and out of pistol range. Or maybe his two spotters, skinny Sasha and fat Illia, had already split, fleeing to save themselves. It was a damned pain in the ass finding decent help these days.
Levytsky gave up on the Colt, useless for any kind of long-range work, and fished out his cell phone instead. Job one was to inform his boss of what was happening, in case the rifleman was part of something bigger, threatening the brotherhood. He hit speed dial and waited while a fourth shot took out half the second street-side window, drilling someone who began to howl in agony, as if a real-life hungry wolf was gnawing on his leg.
It rang once at the other end, then twice, three times, and someone picked up midway through the fourth ring, growling, “Yeah?” Levytsky knew he should have recognized the voice but couldn’t place it with the world collapsing all around him.
“Put the boss on!” he commanded.
“Who is this?”
“Dimo, you dumb shit! Go get him! Now!”
“Okay.”
Levytsky thought the shooting might have stopped—maybe the sniper figured out he ought to cut and run—but then a fifth shot came, just as a deep, familiar voice came on the line, asking him, “Dimo? What the hell?”
“They’re killing us down here!” he said. “You hear this?”
Levytsky
