trailed Kurti around the house, flanked by the soldiers who had invaded his home. Of course, it wasn’t actually Cako’s home, either on paper or in fact. A phony corporation formed for that specific purpose held the deed, while Kurti and the syndicate they served had paid the tab. Still, Kurti only visited the rural house on rare occasions, so it felt like home to Cako—more than the defiled abode in East Keansburg—and he resented the intrusion he was suffering this day.
And still he smiled, watching his master work.
Arben Kurti could be a suave and charming man when circumstance demanded it. He had a way with ladies, for example, that beguiled them into thinking that he was a gentleman steeped in the kind of chivalry enshrined by romance novels. Once they had surrendered to him, though, it was another story altogether. Some endured him. Others fled.
A few had not survived.
This morning, with the first pale light of dawn just visible over the barrens, Kurti used his charm to placate Cako’s foreign customers. He sympathized, commiserated, nodding as they bitched and moaned to him about their disappointment and the peril they had suffered.
Never mind that none of them could show a scratch for all their trials and tribulations.
Granted, they had been disturbed and caught a whiff of gunsmoke as they left the other house. What of it? Each and every one of them were murderers, notorious for their brutality. Their whining angered Cako nearly as much as the raid on his house at the shore.
But Kurti had a way with men, as well as women. He was bringing them around, no doubt about it. Alternately frowning, nodding and joking with the clients, he’d managed to convince them that they shouldn’t write their trips off as a total waste. Why turn around and leave without the merchandise they’d hoped to purchase in the first place, when it still remained available?
Within arm’s reach, in fact.
By breakfast he had charmed them all. Cako’s personal chef prepared a feast, skipping the ham and bacon on the Muslim plates as ordered, and the waiters offered whiskey for those diners who desired to spike their morning coffee as a special treat.
“To get the juices flowing,” Kurti told them.
He had saved the day—but was it anything Cako himself couldn’t have done? How would they ever know, when he wasn’t allowed to try?
For the first time in their association, spanning seven years, Cako felt hatred for the man who pulled his strings. When Kurti told this story to Rahim Berisha—and he would, no doubt—all of the credit would be his, while Cako took the blame.
That was, if Kurti lived to tell the tale.
With enemies at large and staging vicious raids, who could predict how long he might survive? And if by some chance he was slain, together with his bodyguards, Berisha would be forced to trust Cako’s accounting of events.
Who would be left to contradict him, after all?
“Come, come! Enjoy!” He beamed at his guests, matching his own enthusiasm to Kurti’s. “We have great surprises in store!”
“WE STOP HERE,” Volkova said, “and proceed on foot.”
“Sounds fair,” Bolan replied.
The Porsche Boxster wasn’t an off-road vehicle by any means, but Volkova nosed it cautiously into a copse that offered her a hiding place of sorts. Determined searchers would be sure to find the car, but passing drivers had a decent chance of overlooking it.
So far, they’d met no other traffic on the two-lane forest road, which helped their odds of passing unobserved.
The trip to Bolan’s rental car had thankfully been uneventful. By the time they drove past Cako’s mansion in East Keansburg, nearly all of the police had left. A sleepy uniformed patrolman on the gate ignored them going east, and showed no greater interest when the Porsche returned short minutes later, with a Prius trailing after it.
The rest was easy.
Bolan found a nice, anonymous open parking garage, stashed his car and moved what he needed to the Boxster’s trunk. They were off with time to spare.
Volkova took them southward on the Garden State Parkway, skirting the eastern border of the barrens, then cut over to the west on State Road 72, leaving civilization behind. Using the map in her head, she’d brought them to their present point, standing beside the Porsche and suiting up for war.
“If anything should happen—”
“Don’t start that,” he rudely cut her off. “You’ll jinx yourself.”
“I simply wish to ask that you contact my embassy.”
“No promises.”
She wouldn’t let it go. “And if I called, for you?”
“There won’t be anybody home,” Bolan replied. “Let’s saddle up.”
He was as equipped for this raid as he was the previous night, except for the addition of a Milkor M-32 grenade launcher and a bandolier of 40 mm rounds to feed its 6-shot revolving cylinder. The M-32 resembled a space-age version of the 1920s Tommy gun, complete with foregrip, shoulder stock and drum. Its payload was vastly more dangerous, though, including high-explosive, HEAT, buckshot, incendiary and chemical irritant rounds. Operating on the same principle as a double-action revolver, the Milkor could empty its load in three seconds in rapid-fire, with an Armson Occluded Eye Gunsight providing optimum accuracy out to four hundred yards.
With the M-4 carbine and his sidearms for backup, Bolan felt ready to meet any challenge Cako might throw at him.
And then some. Damn right.
Watching out for copperheads and timber rattlesnakes along the way, he let Volkova lead him toward the larger serpent’s den.
“YOU SEE?” Arben Kurti said. “All is fine.”
“Of course,” Cako replied, swallowing bitter bile.
“These people are putty in my hands. You must know how to deal with people, Lorik.”
“As you say.”
It might be true their customers were fools, but Cako thought that Kurti was the biggest fool of all. How could he look at Cako with that stupid grin and not feel the radiant heat of his subordinate’s anger? Was he blind?
“You need to get the merchandise ready, Lorik. This lot will be done stuffing their faces soon, and we can’t keep them waiting any longer.”
“I’ll see to it,” Cako replied through clenched teeth. Turning away, he spied Qemal Hoxha and beckoned him across the dining room. A moment later Hoxha was beside him, waiting for instructions.
“Is the merchandise prepared?” Cako asked.
“Ready, as you ordered,” Hoxha answered.
“When the clients finish gorging, they’ll be moving on to the display room. Watch for stragglers and—”
At first, he thought the sound was thunder,
