late.
Bolan’s Beretta stuttered three more muffled rounds and dropped the lookout in his tracks. Unlike the other one, he fell facedown, his arms spread as if to hug the earth or mimic crucifixion.
The Executioner hauled the second corpse to join the first, leaving them side by side in shadow, fifty feet out from the house. He yanked the magazines from both AKs, tossed them as far into the night as possible and found no rounds in either rifle’s chamber.
Done.
The dead weren’t concealed to the extent that any passerby would overlook them, but there were no other strollers on the grounds just now.
Only the Executioner.
And it was time for him to move.
As far as he could tell, all windows with a view of his direct approach were curtained, but that didn’t mean he would pass unobserved. Surveillance cameras were so small and unobtrusive these days that they could be hidden in a tube of lipstick, pair of glasses or an artificial flower. Tucking one or more away beneath the eaves of a three-story house would be child’s play.
A risk, then, but he had to take it.
There was no way to complete his mission without entering the serpent’s lair.
Once he’d decided on the move, action immediately followed. Bolan ran across the open stretch of lawn to reach the door his first two kills had used, wearing his carbine slung and clutching the Beretta in his right hand, while he reached for the doorknob with his left.
Clasped it. Felt it turn.
So far, so good.
He opened the door and followed his pistol into a washroom of sorts. A big stainless-steel washer and dryer stood to one side, with open shelving on the other. Various household supplies that could be used to clean the place or whip up crude explosives with the proper know-how.
Smells and voices drew the soldier toward a kitchen, his index finger taut on the Beretta’s trigger as he left the laundry room behind and went in search of prey.
THE FIRST GIRL WAS ONSTAGE downstairs, a nearly naked figure, clothed only in a gossamer see-through wrap, lit by spotlights mounted on the basement’s ceiling while her audience—prospective buyers—lounged in three rows of well-padded theater seats, their part of the auction room darkened. Lorik Cako stood behind them, rocking on his heels with carpet underfoot, ready to answer any questions that arose.
The one he got most often, as the show progressed, was a request for samples of the merchandise. Cako always refused, good-naturedly, reminding his potential customers that they weren’t permitted to consume food in a supermarket without paying for it first.
A second question, asked almost as frequently, involved the younger specimens whom Cako certified as “pure.” How could he prove the claim that justified a higher asking price?
Cako was ready with detailed reports from Dr. Paul Koprulu, a gynecologist. Dr. Koprulu supplied full documentation, diagrams and photographs for each certified virgin, but customers were free to have their own physicians examine the products.
For a nonnegotiable price fixed by Lorik Cako.
Business was good. Cako controlled himself around the merchandise, maintained strict supervision over his employees and was merciless with anyone who soiled the goods. The last example he had made—nineteen-year-old Vasil Ghica, barely off the boat himself—would stick forever in the memories of each man Cako had compelled to view the young transgressor’s execution.
Ghica had spent six hours dying. For the first two, he had wept for mercy. In the last four, he had begged for death. Cako had made his other soldiers mop up afterward, to drive the lesson home.
Cako’s customers weren’t required to call out bids like peasant farmers at a cattle yard. Each seat was fitted with a button in its left armrest, opposite a molded plastic cup-holder attached on the right. A simple finger tap logged silent bids in Cako’s control room next door, where Qemal Hoxha monitored the bidding and reported each new bid to his boss through a tiny earpiece.
As each new specimen appeared on stage, Cako announced a rock-bottom reserve price, ranging from fifty thousand dollars to three times as much, depending on the item’s beauty and her purity, where applicable. He then declared each bid as it was logged anonymously from the audience. These women weren’t earmarked for seedy brothels staffed by groggy drug addicts. Thus far, not one had ever failed to sell above the base rate Cako had established.
Now and then, a nervous customer might bid mistakenly. Cako allowed retraction of the offer, but only if the clumsy customer announced his error to the group. Embarrassment prevented most from rectifying such mistakes, and in any case they were rich enough that five grand more or less meant nothing to them anyway.
It was pure profit for the syndicate that Cako served, since they had literally plucked these women off the streets of cities all around the world. Their transportation costs were minimal, covered by drugs or other outlawed merchandise that traveled with them. A few, ironically, had even paid their own way to the States in hopes of finding a career in Hollywood or on the Broadway stage.
Such fools.
Bids stood at ninety thousand for the redhead in the spotlight, when his earpiece crackled. Cako smiled, preparing to announce another raise, but then heard Hoxha say, “Come quickly, sir! We have trouble!”
Frowning, Cako told his assembled patrons, “Please excuse me, gentlemen. A minor difficulty requires my brief attention. I’ll rejoin you momentarily. The bidding, meanwhile, stands at ninety thousand dollars.”
All of them tracked Cako with their narrowed eyes as he retreated through a side door, joining Hoxha in the small control room with its monitors, computers and microphones.
“What is it?” he snapped at Hoxha.
“Vasil says that the outer guards aren’t answering on their radios, and—”
Even underground, Cako heard the explosive rattle of an automatic weapon firing somewhere overhead. Inside the house. His house.
The buyers had to have heard it, too.
A rack in the control room held a Benelli M-4 Super 90 semiautomatic shotgun and two AKM assault rifles. Cako grabbed the shotgun and told Hoxha, “Get in there with the customers and calm them. If we need to move them out, I’ll let you know.”
“And the women?” Hoxha asked.
“If there’s need and time, we’ll move them, too. Always take care of money first.”
“Okay, Lorik.”
Clutching his weapon, Cako left the small control room through its second door and stormed the nearby flight of stairs.
IT HAD TO HAPPEN sometime. Bolan had been hoping he could clear a portion of the house without attracting any notice. But when he reached the kitchen, there were two armed men negotiating something with a cook dressed all in white. Both shooters gaped at Bolan as he entered, reaching for their weapons simultaneously.
One fell without managing to draw his pistol, faceless from a 3-round burst of Parabellum rounds that
