Death List

by Don Pendleton

  He was leaving to keep the next rendezvous, Bolan thought. That meant he needed to do the same as soon as possible.

  Bolan waited for Harmon to leave. If he tried to engage now, he’d end up getting into the kind of protracted battle he couldn’t afford. Harmon had a grudge to settle, and that made him especially dangerous.

  One of the gunmen Harmon had left to cover his escape started peering farther and farther out, trying to catch a glimpse of what he faced.

  “Cooper!” Helman called. He was trying to be quiet, but it came out as a stage whisper. “Cooper, what do we do!”

  “We don’t do anything. You stay on the floor under that desk before the bad guys explode.”

  “What?” Helman asked.

  “What?” repeated the gunman who was trying to catch a glimpse of both of them.

  Bolan hurled the string of grenades he had been crafting. The bombs were from his war bag and the paracord he had threaded through all the pins was looped around the wrist of his throwing arm. The pins pulled free as the grenades flew through the air, landing with rapid-fire thuds on the floor in the corridor beyond the offices.

  “Don’t worry,” Bolan said to Helman. “I’ll make sure the government pays E. J. Thomas for the damages.”

  “The what?” Helman asked.

  Just then, the entire world seemed to explode.

  15

  Chicago, Illinois

  “You’re being ridiculous,” Rosa said to her husband. “Take that absurd thing off.”

  “No,” Aldo protested. “This is all falling apart. All of it!”

  David Pierce, standing at the rear of the room and trying to look invisible, almost shook his head. Strange that the old man’s incipient emphysema seemed to come and go depending on how excited he was. Almost like he was making it seem much worse than it was. Sympathy? Trying to get his enemies to underestimate him? It was hard to say. It was Pierce’s theory that the old man was just miserable and that he liked spreading his misery to other people.

  Right now, Aldo Corino was strapping on a Semtex suicide vest that Pierce had made for him several years ago. At the time, the idea that the old man might actually use it had seem far-fetched. Originally, the elder Corino had claimed to come by the idea after watching news about suicide bombers in terrorist actions. Pierce knew the truth, though. He had seen the idea on a television show.

  The idea was simple. Corino had no intention of living out his years in Club Fed. No matter what sort of prison facility they put him in, he didn’t expect to live to see the inside. Should the Corinos’ operation come crashing down, Aldo Corino was going to have that vest strapped and dare them to take him in. Then he was going to blow himself to smithereens.

  Over the years Pierce had seen him put the vest on only one other time. There had been a very tense moment when one of the other families had a mole problem. A federal agent had burrowed his way in far enough to get incriminating evidence on the entire syndicate. Fortunately the leak was found—and plugged with lead—before the mole could take his information to his masters in law enforcement. Aldo Corino had spent the entire evening in front of the television wearing his suicide vest, just waiting for black vans full of federal RICO enforcers to come rolling up the drive of the estate. Rosa had refused to go near him while he was wearing it, but in the years since she’d apparently come around to the advantages of going out with a bang instead of being hauled off in irons.

  The source of the Corinos’ upset was pretty obvious. They’d been getting calls from the other families for hours. Word was spreading through the grapevine, as it always did, that the assassin, Harmon, had apparently stopped reporting in. The news told the Corinos, and the other families, everything they needed to know about the hits so far. Helman had been saved and somehow managed to make himself look like a hero in the process. Whoever had saved him had flown off the top of the brewery in some kind of twin-bladed helicopter thing that looked like a spaceship to Pierce. The coverage of the affair was all over the news channels. Some of them were even speculating that Helman himself had orchestrated the entire stunt for good publicity. There was no telling the nonsense people would come up with when they had empty hours of airtime to fill.

  The federal judge, Markham, was also alive. He was already giving interviews about it from an “undisclosed location,” complaining that the government had him under house arrest for his own safety but that he would “not be silenced by thuggery.”

  The families were apoplectic. Their carefully constructed plans were crashing down around them.

  The only one they’d managed to knock off so far was the banker. Well. One less money-man in the world wasn’t going to do much for the ledger either way. If you asked Pierce, even killing the man was a lot like closing the barn door after the horse has gone. Sure, killing the banker meant he couldn’t testify about what he’d done, but Pierce was pretty sure bank records were bank records. They were hard evidence. All you had to do was find a guy who could testify that the records were genuine. Literally any of the big suits from a bank could do that. Pierce figured it that way, at least. He was no expert on legal stuff, though he’d seen his share working for the frigging Corinos.

  That software putz—the encryption guy. He’d been saved without so much as a battle. That had happened before anyone realized the Corinos had been royally rooked by the guy who was passing himself off as Harmon.

  Pierce still smiled when he pictured the looks on the Corinos’ faces when the real Harmon had called them and started explaining why they should still pay him the money for the job that another guy had earned by offing the Torettos.

  Oh, they were livid. Pierce figured he should probably be mad, too. After all, the fake Harmon—this government agent named Cooper, according to the real assassin—had sat next to him. Pierce had driven him around, showed him the sights. They had fought together. They had backed each other up. They had worked as a team.

  So why wasn’t Pierce angry?

  “I’m going to wear it until this is over,” Aldo said to his wife. “When they come for me, I’m going to take as many of them with me as I can. I’m not going to prison, Rosie.”

  “And what about me, you selfish old bastard?” she shot back. “You think I want to take the rap? You think things will go any better for an old woman like me in the joint?”

  “Just put your arms around me when they come. The vest has a dead man’s switch. We’ll go up together. Once you see me grab the switch, stay close to me.”

  “You morbid lunatic! We can get control of this! Harmon—the real Harmon—is on the case. He’ll kill the ambassador and that congressman. We need a steady supply of illegals. We need the cheap labor, Aldo. The other families will see that. They’ll see that even though we didn’t get the other targets, we got some very important ones. The death of Congressman Sugarman will send a clear message that the syndicate is still a powerful force. We can get the others. Maybe even make Harmon take the job to get the others, the ones Cooper saved.”

  “Harmon is a maniac!” Aldo shouted. He started coughing then was quickly consumed by a racking fit that turned his face red and doubled him over. Rosa rushed to his side and offered him his inhaler, something he never used when anyone outside the family could see. “He...he got caught,” Aldo went on. “He got caught and they...infiltrated us. They made us look like fools. And they...they made him look like the biggest fool of all!” He pointed one wrinkled finger at Pierce.

  “He’s right!” Rosa said as if suddenly remembering. She stood and walked halfway across the room, fixing Pierce with an imperious glare. Her gnarled hand formed an accusing claw. “You gave him details of our operation. You showed him around like he was your best friend. You vouched for him and his abilities!”

  “He’s obviously better at this than the real Harmon,” Pierce said without inflection. “Honestly, I don’
t see how we could have known. The feds have infiltrated us before. The syndicate has always been vulnerable. You show me a federal agent who’s willing to kill people on the scale this Cooper did. Show me any other time a law-enforcement officer ever behaved that way. He’s not a government agent. He’s a one-man killing machine. And, frankly, I think I could trust him a lot more than I could trust the real Vincent Harmon, from what I hear of him.”

  “You short, bald little moron!” Rosa raged. “Why did I ever allow you to have a position of authority in my family? Why, if it weren’t for your father—You are pathetic! I should take all of this out of your pay! I should have you beaten for not taking this seriously! It’s been a long time since I had a man tortured. When I was a younger woman, when Aldo was healthy, we used to carve up insolent whelps like you. Used to strap ’em to a table and go to town with a scalpel and a blowtorch.”

  “You talk like I haven’t seen it. Like I don’t know the kinds of monstrous things you’re capable of.” He walked over to the bar while the Corinos stared at him. Then he calmly began to pour himself a bourbon.

  “Put that down!” Rosa shouted. “You can’t talk to me like that! I’ve had enough of your incompetence, Pierce. I’ve had enough of you skulking around here like everybody owes you something just because we were close to your father. From now on, you little mongrel, you can—”

  “Why don’t you,” Pierce interrupted, taking a long swallow from the bourbon, “shut the hell up, you shriveled old crone.”

  Rosa stared at him in openmouthed shock. Aldo was still coughing and wheezing, unable to look up at anyone.

  “You get out of my house,” Rosa demanded. Her voice was a shocked whisper. “You get out of my house and don’t ever come back, or so help me, I will have you killed.”

  “Old woman,” Pierce said, “I’m going to leave, all right. But you’re not going to have anybody killed. Honestly, if you live to see next week, I’ll be kind of surprised. Something tells me fate is going to find you long before you get it into your head to go making trouble for anybody else.”

  “Now you listen here—” she started to say.

  “No, you listen. I’m going to say this once. I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, Rosa, about why I’m not angry. Cooper played me just like he played you. He played me harder, in fact. I actually liked him. Makes you wonder, you know? How I could like a guy who’s supposedly on the other side? But then I realized something.”

  “Get out!” Rosa practically spit the order. “Get out of here. Get out!”

  Pierce continued as if he hadn’t heard. “I realized that in all the years of working for you scumbags, protecting some of you, shooting others of you, that I was always standing apart. I always felt like I was better. Like I was meant for something better.

  “My old man...he was a good man, even if he worked for the likes of you his whole life. And he always warned me. I figured at the time it was some kind of...some kind of enforcer’s code, you know? ‘Don’t get involved in the dirty side of the business,’ he told me. ‘Don’t let them make you hurt anybody innocent. Protect the family from the family’s enemies. Kill other soldiers if you have to, other criminal scumbags. But don’t get so bloody that you can’t get out with a clean conscience.’ I always wondered why he would tell me things like that. I think I know now.”

  “Seb!” Rosa screamed. “Joey! Get in here!”

  “See,” Pierce said, finishing his bourbon and putting the glass carefully on the bar, “I think my father wanted out. I think he always pictured himself getting out of the business one day, and he wanted to be able to do it without wondering if he was going to Hell for the things he did on the job. I think when he told me all those things, he was hoping his son might get the courage to do what he never did. That he’d leave you people behind and go do something else, anything else.

  “And you know what, Rosa? That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Goodbye, you miserable old hag. I hope the both of you explode because that idiot wants to go out in a blaze of glory.” He jerked his chin at Aldo. Turning on his heel, he left the study, closing the door gently behind him even as Rosa continued to scream for her guards.

  Pierce went to his room at the estate. He found his duffel bag and threw a few possessions into it, as well as a few items of clothing he wanted to keep. The rest he didn’t care about. He had a full suitcase and travel kit in the trunk of his Lincoln. It was time to leave this place behind.

  He felt a curious sense of lightness, as if a tremendous weight had been lifted from his shoulders. Whistling, with his duffel bag over his shoulder, he sauntered down the hall to the garage.

  Joey and Seb were waiting for him.

  “Oh, you’ve stepped in it now,” Seb said. “I’ve been waiting a long time for this day, Pierce. I’ve been waiting for years to see you screw up. And you’ve finally gone and done it. The Corinos aren’t going to protect you anymore. In fact, it was Rosa herself who told me to go and show her that I was worthy of your job. So guess what I’m going to do? I’m going to deliver your head to her on a platter.”

  “Get out of my way,” Pierce said.

  “You’re done giving orders around here,” Joey told him. He whipped a knife from his waistband, an Indonesian kerambit. Used for extreme close-quarters work, it was a modern, folding version of an ancient design. The knife had a ring at the end and, when held in the reverse grip, could be spun around on the ring. Joey started spinning the knife, the razor-sharp blade sliding uncomfortably close to his wrist. It made Pierce want to wince just looking at it.

  “So you’re gonna knife-fight me right here, is that it?” Pierce asked.

  “Yeah,” Joey said. “I’m going to carve you up.”

  Pierce rolled his eyes. “If I thought there was any chance you were going to kill me, Joey, I’d be truly offended that you couldn’t come up with a better line.”

  “Get him, Joe!” Seb shouted.

  Joey made his move. He stepped in, ready to slash with his knife, his arm low, his intent to shove that curved blade up under Pierce’s ribs and disembowel him in a vicious, underhand strike. Pierce let him get close enough to think the move was going to work.

  Then he slapped Joey’s knife hand sideways.

  There was no sound, but Joey suddenly went pale. Blood began to gush from his wrist. “You bastard!” he shrieked. “You cut open my damned wrist! You cut open my—”

  Pierce stomped him in the knee. The joint snapped.

  Joey fell to the floor in a screaming, bleeding, broken mess. The enforcer stomped him in the head, bouncing the man’s skull off the floor. His eyes rolled into the back of his head and he stopped moving.

  “What do you figure?” Pierce said to Seb. “You think he’ll bleed out first from the slash to his wrist or die from some kind of concussion thing? You never can tell when you hit a guy hard enough in the head. That looked pretty bad.”

  Seb’s jaw was hanging open. He closed it and his expression hardened. “I didn’t think you had it in you, you little twerp,” he said, reaching into his jacket.

  “I wouldn’t,” Pierce cautioned. His own Commander-length .45 was now in his hand. He snapped off the safety. The hammer was already all the way back. “Two fingers. Take it out and put it on the floor.”

  Seb sighed. He moved, slowly, and removed his pistol from its holster. Then he placed it gently on the hallway floor. Standing once more, he opened his mouth to say something.

  Pierce hit him in the mouth with the gun. Seb fell back, his legs turning rubbery beneath him. Pierce swept the bigger man’s legs out from under him with a well-placed maneuver.

  “That’s the thing about us little guys,” Pierce said. “We’re a lot lower to the ground, which means when we start taking chunks out of you big guys from ground level, you don’t know how to handle it.” He dropped and put all his weight into the m
ove. His knee landed on Seb’s sternum. The sound the mobster made as air was forced from his lungs was... Remarkable, Pierce thought might be the word. Yeah, that was it. Remarkable.

  “See, the thing is, Seb,” Pierce said, placing the barrel of his .45 under the man’s chin, “I’m a guy who holds grudges. Do you remember that little job in the Chinese restaurant? It was about eight years ago. I watched you gun down a teenage boy. He wasn’t hurting anybody. He wasn’t one of us. He wasn’t from an enemy family. He was just some kid the Torettos were paying to run numbers from one place to the next. Just a messenger. And you murdered that kid for no reason, Seb.”

  Seb muttered an inaudible response.

  “Yeah, tell me about it. The thing is, Seb, I never forgot that. I never forgave you for it. You think I’ve always acted like I hate your guts because you hated mine, right? Well, you’d be wrong. For a lot of years, I just let it roll off my back. I didn’t care what you thought. I didn’t need your approval. But ever since I saw you murder that kid, Seb, the feeling’s been very much mutual. I’m about to do something I’ve been thinking about doing for a very long time.”

  “Please,” Seb managed to whisper.

  “Nope,” Pierce said and blew Seb’s brains all over the floor.

  Standing, Pierce took stock of himself. He was splattered with blood. Sighing, he decided he would have to change clothes. He was going to take his Lincoln, and he was going to get the hell out of there.

  Cooper was right. He was better than this. And he was going to prove it to himself.

  16

  Detroit, MI

  “I’ve got to hand it to you, Sarge. When that blast went off and blew a hole in the side of the brewery, I figured you for a goner.”