to tell the guy was satisfied. “And you can skip the formalities, Loyal. Call me Serge.”
“I’d like to, boss,” Bolan replied easily, “but it just doesn’t seem natural yet.”
“All right,” Grano said, slapping Bolan’s shoulder. “I guess I can understand that. Let’s just give it some time.” Then he added, “You’re gonna fit right in with us, eh? What do you think, Ape?”
“I think he’s pretty square so far,” Ape mumbled.
Bolan glanced at Ape’s profile a moment, and noticed the guy’s eyes hadn’t shifted from the road and his fingers were tightening on the steering wheel. Obviously, he thought of Bolan as a threat to his own place in the hierarchy. Bolan had met Ape’s kind before. They never went very high in the organization because they were big on brawn, but had little going on upstairs.
These days, mobsters were much more educated than in days gone by; in fact, many of them were college graduates holding a master’s degree and even a doctorate. It was a different kind of organized crime, called by the same name but doing its dirty deeds in a very different fashion. New mobsters came from the halls of places like William and Mary, Yale, Harvard and Stanford. They made their mark in the business world, and after they had amassed enough wealth, or reached positions on corporate boards, they struck like the venomous snakes they really were.
Yeah, the days of public hits in the downtown sandwich shops or dumping bodies into rivers were long gone. Now the Mafia controlled much of their business through legal means such as contracts, hostile takeovers, and mergers and acquisitions. Instead of moving their money through backroom laundering operations, they fronted high-dollar investments through pyramid schemes and paper companies. They were like catfish: bottom feeders. They made their move while the political focus shifted to corporate CEOs running once-legitimate companies before letting greed get the better of them. As political action groups and attorneys battled with Senate hearing committees over the ethics of big business, the syndicate continued its activities right under everyone’s noses.
As Bolan rode with the mobsters, he planned to insure the Lenzini clan didn’t continue operating. They had allied themselves with one of America’s greatest enemies, and the Executioner was going to sever the alliance. First he would amputate the hand of organized crime that had soiled itself by an offer of friendship with the New Islamic Front.
Bolan smiled briefly at the irony of it. In some of the Arab countries, when someone stole something, the punishment was to amputate one of the thief’s hands, thus teaching him a lesson while simultaneously marking him for life. And that’s exactly what Mack Bolan planned to do; the Mafia had stolen from the American people. Once the Executioner had finished marking the Lenzini crime syndicate as thieves, he would turn to their terrorist allies.
Except it wasn’t their hands he’d cut off, but their heads.
Washington, D.C.
COLONEL UMAR ABDALRAHMAN arrived in America without fanfare or celebration.
The former Afghanistani guerrilla whose military rank had been an honorarium bestowed upon him by the former Iraqi regime watched his troops take up a perimeter to protect him as he stepped from the yacht.
The transfer from the submarine to the sixty-five-foot yacht had gone off without a hitch. The crew had had a tense but brief run-in with the U.S. Coast Guard, but they quickly lost interest in inspecting the yacht when a call came through from a plane’s distress beacon. Abdalrahman was pleased with the decoy his men had created, and the fact he’d made it to American shores with relative ease didn’t really surprise him much. Despite the alleged additional precautions taken by the American government to protect themselves from the jihad, it wasn’t enough, and it would never be enough. It was a holy war now, and the New Islamic Front would continue to operate within the United States. They were on the brink of making history, and proclaiming victory against America for all of the blood it had shed. In one sense Abdalrahman felt there was justice in the thought that this country and people, whom he hated with every fiber of his being, had given birth to some of Islam’s greatest martyrs.
As Abdalrahman moved down the gangplank and stepped onto the dock, careful not to lose his balance on the slippery wood, he caught his first sight of Dr. Malcolm Shurish. He wasn’t sure if he was happy to see the man, or if he wished to strangle him. In some ways, he held Shurish personally responsible for the capture of his nephew. In fact, it was Shurish who managed to send word to Abdalrahman and let him know of Sadiq’s imprisonment. Abdalrahman had come to America immediately, bringing a crew of his best and most talented soldiers.
Abdalrahman stopped a few feet shy of Shurish, and when he saw the man bow low to him and then step forward and kiss his shoulder in traditional fashion, he let his anger melt away. There was no way Shurish could have stopped the American, Cooper, from going to Afghanistan and destroying everything Abdalrahman had worked so hard to achieve. Then again, he wondered, since Sadiq had been brought to the United States, how much Shurish had done to try to rescue his nephew from the American infidels. Only time would tell.
“It is a pleasure to see you again, Colonel,” Shurish said. “I prayed Allah would bring you safely to us, and he has heard me.”
“It is good to see you, as well,” Abdalrahman lied. “Thank you for sending word so quickly.”
“When I heard of Sadiq’s whereabouts, I knew you would want to know he was alive.”
“Absolutely, and in this you have done right.” Abdalrahman began to walk toward the car he noticed was waiting for him. “What of our plans with Carnivore? How soon can we be ready?”
“I am not certain. Sadiq’s capture has caused serious delays,” Shurish replied, falling into step next to Abdalrahman’s quick strides. “I’m trying to decipher copies of his work, but I’m having trouble.”
“How much do the Americans know?”
“I can’t be sure.”
Abdalrahman stopped suddenly, turned and stared into Shurish’s equally dark eyes. “For a man with a formal education, who has served on this front as long as you have, you don’t seem sure about many things,” he said, barely containing his anger.
“I beg your forgiveness, Colonel,” Shurish said. “Although I don’t believe I have anything to apologize for. As I understand it, even your men fell under the tenacity of this man called Cooper.”
“Your remarks strike me as seditious and insolent,” Abdalrahman said with a warning expression before turning and continuing toward the car.
The silence was heavy until they were seated and riding toward Shurish’s suburban home in Arlington, which would serve as a base of operations for Abdalrahman’s men until he could decide what their course of action would be.
“I don’t mean to be disrespectful,” Shurish said quietly, “but I’m sure you can understand my position.”
“I’m sure I cannot, so why not explain it to me.”
“I’ve found Cooper,” Shurish stated.
Abdalrahman felt an immediate twinge of hope—hope for vengeance. “You have my interest. Go on.”
“I had him followed. Somebody in government tried to insert him inside DARPA as a spy. Fortunately, I figured it out and faked an assassination attempt. As it turned out, I believe Dr. Matthew Cooper, who obviously isn’t a real
