Kohler, sir.” McWilliams practically bowed and scraped as he spoke. “There’s a…a problem with the shipment.”
“A problem.”
“Yes, sir.”
“With the shipment.”
“Yes, sir,” McWilliams confirmed again.
“Would you mind telling me, Pick, just what the fuck I pay you people for? ”
Kohler came around from behind the desk, grabbing McWilliams by his wide lapels. “You and your friends have exactly one job to do, and that is to see that the product reaches Ithaca by Sunday! You have exactly five days to meet that deadline. If you do not, we have a serious problem. I will most certainly kill you, but I will have to get in line behind the Chinese and I’ll have to do it before they kill me! ”
“It’s not my fault!” McWilliams whined, making no attempt to protect himself as Kohler shook him like a dog worrying a chew toy. “They hit the cook house we were using. All the product’s gone and the place was blown to shit! We lost a lot of guys, man. You don’t know!”
Kohler paused and released McWilliams, straightening his own suit as he took a deep breath. “That,” he told McWilliams, “is precisely why I pay you and your fellow miscreants. These things happen. Straighten it out. Have a turf war, or something. Do whatever it is you people do. I don’t care who you have to kill. Just do it. Make the problem go away and make damned sure the shipment is all there, on time, by Sunday. Otherwise I swear I’ll break every bone in your body before Chang and his people get to me. ”
McWilliams nodded so hard that Kohler thought the unctuous little man’s head might snap off. The middleman scuttled away without another word, leaving Kohler to consider his empty office, his empty bank accounts and his very full schedule. He decided, then and there, that outside help was in order. He paused to bring up a few relevant files on his computer, including everything he had on McWilliams and his key associates. Then he accessed several of his confidential files. If the Purists couldn’t get the job done, he would bring in someone who could.
While he was at it, he’d see to it that McWilliams was erased simply for annoying him one time too many. McWilliams’s medical records contained an interesting fact. He’d pass that along in the spirit of cooperation. With luck, his new consultant could speed up the process and Kohler could get his business ventures back on track all the sooner.
Despite what he’d told McWilliams, he knew it was unlikely they’d make Chang’s shipment deadline. Given that, he’d have to make alternate arrangements, and given Chang’s difficult temperament, he’d have to make them himself.
Kohler sighed.
It was so hard to get good help these days.
Armory Square, Syracuse
T HE INTERIOR OF THE Tyrannosaur Barbecue was dark, crowded and loud, just the way Trogg Sharpe liked it. The massive leader of the CNY Purists held court there almost every day, seated at a plank table in the far corner of his domain with a plate of suicide wings or hotsauced spareribs in front of him. There was always a row of gleaming chromed motorcycles parked in front of the Tyrannosaur, which had been a Syracuse landmark for more than thirty years. At any given time, at least half of those bikes belonged to the CNY Purists, central New York’s largest and most brutal motorcycle club.
Sharpe’s bulk was as much fat as muscle. His tremendous belly distended the black Live to Ride T-shirt he wore under a leather vest sporting plenty of chain and the Purist’s colors. Still, he was no one to test lightly. Sharpe had put his fair share of men in hospitals with nothing more than his ham-size hands. At five foot eight and well over three hundred pounds, he lumbered slowly and inexorably through life, confident in the power of the Purists and in the damage he could do through sheer viciousness. The biker demanded relatively little of life—good booze, the occasional smoke. He liked a willing woman from time to time, the younger the better. Apart from that, he was content—as long as nobody got in his way. Those who did he beat down. Any man or woman who messed with him learned never to test him again. Or they died.
Sharpe smiled as he worked his way through a plate of ribs, reaching out and trying to grab the leather-skirted waitress as she clicked by on stiletto heels. She told him to screw himself and kept walking. Sharpe laughed. The Tyrannosaur was known for its great barbecue and its lousy, rude service. It was a tradition. He wiped hot sauce from his bushy beard with the back of his hand and reached for his beer amid the empties already collecting on the table.
The other Purists in attendance were circulating through the room, some eating at tables of their own, others engaged in a game of poker in the back room. Sharpe planned to join the poker game when he was finished eating. First things first.
Snapper, Sharpe’s third in command, was examining the jukebox across the room. He stared at the scarred glass box as if his life depended on the song he picked. Jesus, but it took Snapper forever to make a decision. Sharpe had just about run out of patience and was getting ready to demand something by CCR.
His world exploded.
One moment he was watching as the front door of the place opened—he saw the silhouette of a big man in dark clothing against the almost blinding light of day outside the darkened barbecue shack. The next moment, he was falling backward in his chair, a deafening roar in his ears as lightning bolts danced in front of his dimming vision. He hit the floor, but did not feel it. For Sharpe, everything that ever was disappeared into pain and brightness and then nothing.
B OLAN, IN HIS RENTED Blazer, pulled away from the drop point. A heavy war bag sat in the passenger seat, its zippers pulled open to reveal the cache of equipment and weapons within. The Farm’s gunsmith, John “Cowboy” Kissinger, had done his usual excellent work, from the look of things. The men and women at the Farm had filled his gear requests and had even thrown in a few extras.
One of the items Bolan had specifically asked for was a portable police scanner, programmed with the appropriate local frequencies. Another was a handheld GPS unit. If he was to track a murderer in unfamiliar territory—territory his quarry knew, presumably—Bolan would need a technological edge. He’d learned well in battlefields across the globe that terrain, and knowledge of it, could make all the difference in an armed conflict.
Bolan switched on the scanner and set it to rotate through its presets automatically. Almost immediately, it came to life with an excited voice: “…I say again, shots fired, shots fired, Tyrannosaur Barbecue, North Willow. It sounds like a damned war! Shots fired, shots fired…”
Bolan thumbed the GPS unit to life and checked it. He was only blocks away.
The Blazer’s tires squealed as he put the accelerator to the floor.
G ARY R OOK HAD PLANTED ONE combat boot against the crash bar on the front door of the Tyrannosaur. He’d kicked it in, took a single step, raised his Smith & Wesson 625 and fired. The .45ACP hollowpoint round thundered straight for Trogg Sharpe, bowling over the fat man and dumping him in a corpulent heap on the sawdust-strewed floor.
There was a moment of absolute silence as bikers, other patrons and serving staff all turned to Rook, eyes wide in shock.
Rook cut loose.
He methodically moved the four-inch barrel of the big stainless-steel revolver, firing the weapon double-action each time he found a target. A biker standing by the jukebox
