Death List

by Don Pendleton

  “Don’t try,” Bolan warned. “You’re not going to make it.”

  The tensing of Harmon the Assassin’s shoulders gave him away.

  Harmon broke and ran.

  He bounded up the steps that led out of the pool, snatching up one of his Beretta M-9 pistols on the way.

  Bolan followed, the Desert Eagle drawn again.

  The two raced through the streets of suburban Detroit. Still there were no people. They passed empty houses with For Sale and even Foreclosed signs. They passed boarded-up shops and sprawling tenements that, though they had once been crowded, now offered shelter to pigeons and gulls.

  Harmon had lost all reason by now and possessed only the urge to flee. If he put too much distance between him and Bolan, the soldier might lose him again. That wouldn’t do.

  The Executioner stopped running, dropped to one knee and took careful aim. Breathe in, he thought. Breathe out. Hold what was left. Squeeze.

  The bullet exploded from the barrel and found its mark.

  Harmon spun. Tagged in the shoulder, the bullet toppled him as he ran. He rolled to a stop in a pile of brick and mortar debris. An old, faded piece of police-line tape was tangled in his legs.

  The assassin raised his M-9 and fired at Bolan. “I’m not going back!” he warned, shouting. “I’m not going to prison.”

  “No,” Bolan stated. “Not quite prison. Something much worse. You’re an enemy of the nation, Harmon. A mad dog. There’s only one thing to do with mad dogs, and that’s put them down so they can’t infect anyone else.”

  “But you can’t kill me.” Harmon struggled to rise, managing to get his feet under him. His pistol was empty. He slowly searched his pockets for reloads, found one and seated the fresh magazine. “You want to arrest me, don’t you, Cooper?”

  Bolan continued to trot in his direction, not quite running but not walking, either, while Harmon couldn’t quite manage to raise his pistol.

  “A black-site prison is unlike anything you’ve experienced before,” Bolan said. “It’s the place where the worst people go. And they go there forever. There’s no cushy judicial system, no revolving door. There are no appeals. There is no cable television. There is no weight room. There’s just you, locked in a tiny box, forever. They’ll want to interrogate you, Harmon. They’ll want to find out about your previous employers and what you’ve done. And you’ll be begging to confess to every horrible little thing you’ve ever done by the time they’ve finished with you.”

  Harmon fired out his magazine. When he couldn’t find another, he dropped his weapon and ran for all he was worth, seemingly reenergized. There was an old bowling alley on the other side of the street. He broke the glass of one of the front doors, which had miraculously remained intact until that moment, and ran inside. Bolan was hot on his heels.

  The Executioner stopped just inside the entrance. It was much darker here. His eyes needed time to adjust to the change in light. He paused, waiting, once again listening. He heard Harmon’s labored breathing and had a pretty good fix on the assassin’s location.

  The bowling alley looked as if it had only just shut down for the night, except for a thick layer of dust. The lanes were almost clean and pins were lined up. The counter had been cleared out and the shoe rental area was empty, but the place still smelled like a bowling alley.

  Harmon waited for him.

  He was bleeding badly. Blood soaked his arm and dripped over the ball return on which he sat. He looked at Bolan and smiled. “You aren’t living up to your full potential,” he said. “You are a puppet. A puppet of forces bigger than you. Me, I answer to nobody. I’m nobody’s slave and nobody owns me.”

  “The Corinos own you.”

  “They’re clients.” Harmon was bristling now. “They’re not in my league.”

  “Yeah? Deadly as you are, you think the entire syndicate is something you can just laugh off? If they get it into their heads that they want Vincent Harmon dead, you’re going to have to disappear all over again. Sooner or later, one of their guys is going to find his mark, and you’re going to wake up with your throat cut.”

  “The old dead horse in the bed, eh?” Harmon said. “You give them too much credit. They’re mobsters. Common thugs. There’s nothing about them worth admiring. They’re less than nothing.”

  “But there are a lot of them. And now they’re going to blame you. You let them down, Harmon. You didn’t carry out their carefully crafted plan. To be honest, the Corinos might have bigger worries than you for a while. They’re going to have to fight off a series of challenges to their power from the other families in the syndicate. I don’t envy them that.”

  “They can try to take me on,” Harmon said. “I’ll kill every last one of them.”

  “It’s been tried. The Mob grows faster than weeds. They’re roaches. Even when you think they’re broken, even when you think you’ve burned them out, even when you think you’ve poisoned them all, they find a way to come back. They’re a disease with no cure. You can only treat the symptoms with fire and lead.”

  Harmon considered that for a moment. “You’ve fought the Mob before.”

  “And I’ll do it again. But that’s none of your concern now. We both know that you’ll be out of the Corinos’ reach.”

  Harmon tried to rise, but he lacked the energy. He settled back down in his seat. “You’re going to regret taking me on,” he said, almost muttering to himself. “I’m going to find the people closest to you. I’m going to learn who you love. I’m going to find out all about you, Cooper. You’re a government employee. You’re not as safe or as untouchable as you think. And once I’ve learned what I need to know, I’m going to start cutting. I’m going to start removing from your life everything you’ve ever cared about. And when you’re finally broken, sobbing, feeling what it’s like to live the rest of your life completely alone, I’m going to put you out of your misery once and for all.”

  “Keep talking so you can make yourself feel better. You won’t get a chance to do any of that,” Bolan said. “But say you managed to get out of that special prison I mentioned. Just so you know, I lost almost everyone I ever cared about a long time ago, Harmon. The few that are left, well...let’s just say that if you went after them, they’d show you pretty damned quickly how much you don’t know about violence. The worst possible thing you could do would be to try to come after me. It would be the last mistake you ever made...a mistake so laughable, my friends just might take pity on you and only maim you before hauling you back to the dark hole you’d come from.”

  “Is that what you’re doing?” Harmon demanded. “Taking pity on me?”

  “No, I’m making a point. To you, and to myself. And to a man from Justice who believes that the system, despite its flaws, can be made to work. I’m bringing you in, Harmon, because that’s what Justice wants. And what Justice wants, it gets. You were a legend in your own mind, Harmon.”

  “You want to know something, Cooper? I always thought I was the best. I really did. I have never met anyone who was as good at killing as me. That’s why I decided to make it my profession. I figured if you are the best at something, it’s only natural you make it your vocation.”

  “You’re not the best.”

  “So now I know. But the joke’s on you. I’m not going to let you take me in. I’m not going to spend the rest of my life buried alive. I’m going to die right here. I’m going to bleed out, and by the time you get help in this godforsaken place, there will be nothing you can do.”

  “You figure so?” Bolan asked.

  “Come any closer,” Harmon said, “and I’ll fight you again. That will just make the blood loss worse. And who knows? I might finally know a trick you don’t. I might have been holding back something.”

  “You weren’t. Lace your fingers behind your head, Harmon. It’s time.”

 
“I couldn’t even if I wanted to.” Harmon jerked his chin at his wounded shoulder. “And I’m warning you, Cooper. Come close enough for me to put my hands on you, and I’m going to fight you to my last breath.”

  “Why fight, Harmon? What made you the way you are? You’re obviously an intelligent man. You could have done anything. What’s your deal?”

  “I’ve thought I—”

  The way Harmon sat on the ball return put his torso at the perfect height. Bolan stepped in and fired off a front kick that drove the sole of his boot like a piston into Harmon’s rib cage. The assassin flew off the ball return with a scream of pain and landed with bone-cracking force on the floor of the bowling alley. As quick as a rattler, Bolan was on top of him, holding him down.

  The Executioner ripped open his portable medical kit and doused Harmon’s large shoulder wound with a powdered clotting agent. Then he slapped an adhesive pressure bandage on both sides of the wound. Finally, he fastened two pairs of zip-tie cuffs on the man’s wrists. One set of cuffs was almost impossible to break out of. Two was impossible.

  Harmon struggled groggily as Bolan lifted him, then passed out.

  19

  Chicago, IL

  Bolan keyed in the security code that would give him access to the Corino estate. He was driving a military vehicle, an up-armored Humvee borrowed from a motor pool in Virginia.

  He pulled into the garage at the far end of the estate, parking the vehicle as close to the main house as he could. It was practically blocking the door by the time he was done. Leaving the engine running to keep the power system charging, he flipped several switches on a control box wired to the dash.

  He punched in the security code on the box at the door. It opened without difficulty.

  Bolan was coming loaded for bear. Besides his usual complement of weapons, he had an M-16/M-203 over-and-under rifle/grenade launcher combo, as well as a bandolier of 40 mm grenades. He wore the bandolier and the canvas war bag across his body. He had shed his leather jacket; his combat blacksuit was his uniform of the day. This was not a visit from the Justice Department. This was a personal visit from the Executioner, who was going to make sure the Corinos never wrote another death list.

  The estate was arranged in a series of rooms separated by gilded hallways. He had noted the arrangement when he was last there. Obviously the Corinos would not be expecting him, but they would raise the alarm as soon as it became known that an intruder was in the house. The very first gunshot he was forced to fire would draw their attention.

  Living in Harmon’s skin, even temporarily, reminded him that creatures like Harmon preyed on the world—creatures who needed removing from the face of the Earth. For as long as he could remember Bolan had been fighting to do just that. And now, with the removal of the Corinos, he was going to take a big step toward sanitizing the Chicago syndicate landscape.

  He entered a gallery that he had passed through once before on his way to the garage with Pierce. The thought of Pierce, and the smaller man’s warnings, brought a ghost of a smile to his face. He owed David Pierce a great deal. And he thought perhaps he knew how to repay that debt.

  First things first, however.

  Bolan eased up to the double doors that separated the gallery from the next chamber of the estate. There were gaps beneath both doors that let light through. Shadows cast from the other side told him there were two men inside, one on either side. Mob guards.

  Bolan stepped to one side, giving the doors enough clearance to open. He rapped on the door nearest him.

  The door opened slowly. One of the two men poked his head through. “Dom?”

  Without a word, Bolan smashed the mobster in the face with the butt of his assault rifle. The hardman collapsed to the floor. The Executioner stepped over him and found himself face-to-face with the other mobster. The man clawed for a revolver in his belt, but Bolan took him out with a blow to the face, as well.

  Sprinting to the next door, Bolan threw it open, which was a mistake. The disturbance had roused the attention of some of the other house guards, and this time they were coming at him with weapons drawn. Bolan had time to hit the deck as bullets sprayed the area where he had been. Splinters flew from the door above and behind him.

  Bolan cut loose at his adversaries from the deck, firing a series of 3-round bursts from the assault rifle. The slugs chopped the legs from under the Mob trigger men, sending them crumpling to the blood-soaked floor. The Executioner stood, applying head shots here and there, ending the struggles of the dying as he stopped the others from continuing their assault. He couldn’t chance leaving a living gunner behind him. When everyone in the room was dead, he moved on.

  Next stop was the dining room. He knew that passages to either side led to the kitchen and to an anteroom, and a serving counter led from the kitchen into the dining room. It was here that he encountered the first wave of resistance. Gunfire erupted and Bolan dropped to the floor. Several bullets ripped up the carpet near his face. There were men hiding underneath the table!

  The Corinos were on to him and now all their forces were marshaled against his attack. That was fine. He’d expected that the moment he’d taken the direct, blitz approach instead of making a stealthy insertion. Bolan stood, leaped on top of the long dining room table, then slid across it. Bullets from underneath the table followed him as he went. Splinters filled the air.

  Once he reached the end of the table, he dropped to the floor and triggered the 40 mm grenade launcher.

  Using a high-explosive round indoors, at this range, would have been suicide. But Bolan’s launcher was loaded with a surprise: an M-576 buckshot round. Designed to give soldiers a fighting chance when clearing bunkers and trenches, the weapon contained twenty 24-grain metal pellets. Typical dispersion put the majority of those pellets in a circle about a meter and a half at 40 meters. The projectiles had a muzzle velocity of nearly 900 feet per second.

  The effect, under the table, was almost deadly. The buckshot round shredded the men crouched there.

  Bolan ejected the spent hull from the launcher, loaded another buckshot round and repeated the attack, intending to take out anyone he’d missed the first time.

  The Executioner reached into his war bag and produced a pair of white phosphorous grenades. Each bomb produced a shower of white phosphorous particles that, once released, burned for sixty seconds at temperatures up to 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The intense smoke and heat turned any enclosed space into a charnel house, a tiny incarnation of Dante’s inferno here on Earth.

  Bolan threw both grenades after pulling their pins.

  He was up and moving through the dining room before the weapons burst in the kitchen. The gunfire emanating from within was replaced with shrieks of alarm and blood-curdling cries of pain. It was the sound of men burning to death. Each and every one of those mobsters had been responsible for countless innocent deaths. The Mafia destroyed lives, including the lives of Bolan’s own family. He would show them the same mercy he showed anyone...but any Corino gunner who stood in the way of his mission here today was going to die if there was no other way to remove that obstacle.

  The next room was down the hall from the Corinos’ study, where Bolan expected to encounter the two family leaders. He figured resistance would be heavy...and he was not wrong. The moment he opened the door, a fusillade of enemy fire peppered the wall around it. He dived back inside, hugging the floor. His enemies were well equipped and going for broke.

  He recognized the hollow metallic clatter of full-auto AK-47 rifles. There were some submachine guns sprinkled into the mix, too, including a couple of Uzis and at least one MAC-10.

  The mobsters had taken the time, as Bolan had worked his way to this part of the house, to erect a crude barricade. They had piled several couches and other pieces of furniture into makeshift cover across the length of the connecting corridor. They had be
en smart enough to stagger the barriers, too.

  Just how many bullets a sofa or an upholstered chair could absorb before it became useless was not something the mobsters had bothered to consider. Bolan risked a glance around the frame of his doorway. Answering automatic fire showered him with plaster dust and sprayed his face with debris.

  He had taken note of the enemies’ positions. Now he waited. They were firing blindly, concentrating only on putting their considerable firepower on his position. There was no strategy. They weren’t employing tactics. This was raw muscle, and these Mob thugs were stupid enough to think they could simply overpower an adversary with brute force. Although, in their defense, they had no way of knowing the man they faced had been the bane of the Mafia in the United States, and around the world, for years before the global war on terror had prompted him to shift focus.

  As the gunfire hit a lull—which Bolan had been expecting—the mobsters started to change magazines. Bolan ducked around the door frame again, firing 3-round bursts with ruthless precision. His rounds cut through the sofas the hardmen were using for cover. The 5.56 mm rounds simply passed through as if the furniture wasn’t there. A wooden frame, some foam, some metal springs...there was really nothing about a sofa, or a chair, that anyone could reasonably expect to stop a live round.

  Seeing several of their comrades shot caused the remaining mobsters to renew their efforts. Bolan simply repeated his tactics. When the men started to reload, he shot them again, having memorized their positions from the muzzle-blasts. Soon the Executioner had taken out most of the opposing force.

  “Stop! Stop!” one of the few men remaining yelled.

  “Throw out your weapon and let me see you,” Bolan ordered. “Hands where I can see them.”

  The gunner tossed out an Uzi with the magazine missing. He stood...and immediately raised a 1911 pistol to take a shot at Bolan. But the Executioner was waiting for the move. He snapped off a shot with the M-16 at his hip, drilling the man through the neck. He stumbled, clutching at the hole in his throat, staring down in wonder at the blood that gushed all over his hand. Then he faltered and collapsed. Bolan put a mercy round through his brain.