a battlefield. His armed entry into the trailer was textbook, though Rook could have told him there was no one alive in the trailer.
The big, bearded man smiled through red-orange whiskers. His forearms tightened as he flexed his fingers on the synthetic stock of the Remington. Briefly he had considered putting a .308 slug through the commando’s head, but he’d decided to wait. It was a very informative delay. When the Purists arrived, more or less silently on foot, he assumed they’d walked in from wherever they’d left their vehicles, responding to some desperate call made from within the trailer before Rook had finished dealing with the occupants. He’d written off the newcomer then, only to watch in surprise as the man finished each of the bikers in turn. By the time the cops began to show it was too late to move without alerting them to his presence, so he stayed where he was. He watched as they detained the commando, went through their usual songs and dances, then grudgingly turned loose the man in black. Whoever he was, he had powerful connections to go with the ordnance he was packing.
The commando was rolling out in his SUV. Rook resigned himself to waiting until the police and the Feds cleared out, as well. Then he’d make his way back to his own truck and plan his next strike. He’d steer clear of the man in black if he could. If not, well, that was too bad.
If necessary, Rook would kill him, just like the others.
2
Syracuse, New York
Roger Kohler was a busy man. As CEO and majority shareholder of Diamond Corporation, Kohler shepherded an empire spanning everything from low-income rental properties throughout Syracuse, to paid city parking lots, to a piece of the Salt City’s inner harbor development area. He owned three of New York State’s six largest shopping malls—though not, much to his chagrin, one in the city itself. He was working to change that; he was brokering a deal to build the largest shopping mall yet in the state, on the city’s south side.
The project was not without its detractors. The Supreme Court had done him the favor of ruling that local governments could seize property for private investors if that property could be used to generate more revenue. Ostensibly that was for the “public good.” Whatever the justification, this de facto elimination of private property worked to Kohler’s advantage—or it would, once he got approval to seize a large enough chunk of the city’s southwest quarter. It had been done before. One of Kohler’s competitors, another major property concern, had successfully muscled out two dozen established businesses in the city to erect a high-priced luxury hotel that had yet to turn a profit. With that precedent set, Kohler expected only token resistance to his new mall. If legitimate companies could be shown the door in the name of higher tax revenues, who would care about a handful of drug addicts and gang members living in the city’s biggest slum?
Listen to any radio or television newscast in Syracuse and the words “There was a shooting today” or “There was a stabbing today” would be immediately followed by the phrase “on the south side.” Every American city had such a place, if not more than one—an overwhelmingly poor ghetto wherein most of the local crime and the criminals committing it could be found. What better place to clear away for dynamic economic development, for commerce? Kohler couldn’t imagine why everyone in the city didn’t embrace the idea.
There was squawking from the local activist groups, of course. These included wealthy liberals consumed with guilt about their own success, neighborhood sign-wavers belonging to political action and protest organizations, and a scattered few local politicians who had refused to join Kohler’s unofficial payroll. They wouldn’t stop him. Those who couldn’t be marginalized or ignored could simply be eliminated. Kohler maintained certain “business contacts” for that purpose.
Those were not the only problems. There were those who said the city’s depressed economy—the natural outcome of a state whose taxes consistently ranked it among the highest in the nation—couldn’t support such a large project. They didn’t see the opportunities for tourism that Kohler and Diamond promised. They didn’t see the sales tax revenues his consumer and community development center offered. There were those who claimed the city was still reeling from his competitor’s failure to successfully implement the competitor’s own pie-in-the-sky dreams of consumer paradise.
It didn’t help that the failed project—a tremendous mall expansion included absurd plans for everything from a water park and amusement center to a monorail linking the expanded facility to downtown Syracuse—was irrevocably coupled in the minds of locals to a series of bizarre publicity stunts.
Kohler had himself helped sink the project to make way for his own plans, though he regretted just how well it had worked. His own operatives had signed on for the supposed jobs that were created during the project’s opening stages, doing everything from enforcing mall curfew policies to cleaning up area subsidized homes in a bid to perform community service busywork. He made sure that his operatives were among those kept most discreetly in his employ—those who had criminal records. Then he leaked the records to the local newspaper, whose editorial board gleefully reported both the busywork and the felonies. The resulting public relations nightmare put an end to Kohler’s competitor’s dream of revitalizing the city. That left Kohler in what was supposed to have been the perfect position to take up the slack.
The problem was that Kohler’s own project was losing money every day and didn’t seem likely to break even once ground was broken and construction started. The business plan simply wasn’t viable, and Kohler knew it. He could not and would not accept failure, however. That left him with only one option—supplementing his business plan off the books with income from another source.
Kohler was a realist. He had no family. He had no gods. He had only one goal, and that was to enrich himself. He was perfectly at ease with this fact. If it meant he had to consort with a certain class of people, so be it. They were necessary as long as they were useful. They were also easily removed once they stopped being useful.
It was with this thought in mind that Kohler told his secretary to admit Gerald “Pick” McWilliams. It was extremely unusual for Mr. McWilliams to show his face in the Kohler Towers. It was, in fact, forbidden, as far as Kohler was concerned. Only a matter of extreme urgency could bring McWilliams here. Only the severity of Kohler’s financial situation prompted him to permit such an intrusion.
McWilliams came dressed in a thrift store tweed suit that was at least a size too large for him, complete with a polyester tie as thick as a scarf that had to have dated back to the 1970s. The secretary admitted him without a word, and McWilliams almost managed to restrain a leer. Under other circumstances, Kohler would have had trouble blaming the man, as he’d hired Lori specifically to look good. She was blond, she looked great in a tight white blouse, and she never wore skirts longer than midcalf. She was even a passable typist. Mostly, however, she simply guarded the portal to Kohler’s domain and impressed anyone who came calling.
“Pick,” Kohler said without preamble, “what the hell are you doing here?”
McWilliams was a mouse of a man, thin and gaunt, missing a few teeth and suffering from questionable personal hygiene. He was Kohler’s go-between to the CNY Purists, a crude but effective local gang that had proved to be very useful in the less legal aspects of Diamond’s operations. McWilliams was easily intimidated, which was why Kohler tolerated him.
Roger Kohler was formidable enough in his own right. He stood three inches over six feet tall and had the thick build to show for the hours spent in his private gymnasium. He was also a third-degree black belt in karate, the knuckles of his hands scarred and thick from punching bricks and breaking boards. Though his silver hair was growing sparse, Kohler’s granite-hard features left no doubt that he was a man in his physical prime who had no qualms about crushing anyone who got in his way. Kohler permitted himself the
