Shadow Strike. Don Pendleton

to negotiate safe passage for cargo ships carrying Detroit-made cars to Europe. As always, the Fifteen Families were happy to talk business with rich Americans—if the price was right. Bolan should get what he wanted in only a few hours, and then slip quietly away. However, he knew from experience that it was wise to plan for what the enemy could do, not just for what they might do. Hence the XM-25 in the trunk.

       The city limits of Tirana were marked by a sharp improvement in the road surface. It was a beautiful municipality, with its tan brick buildings and red tile roofs, and carried a sense of age. Everything in the country felt old, even if it was brand-new. He had encountered such a feeling before many times, mostly in third world nations where poverty was rampart, but also in Detroit, the so-called Rust Belt of the Midwest.

       Circling the crumbling remains of an old Roman fortress, Bolan easily spotted his destination in the distance, the glass-and-steel structure rising from the older stone buildings as if a starship had landed in a junkyard. The King Zog Hotel had been built into the side of a small mountain. The slanted glass facade sparkled brightly, and even from a distance he could see a heliport on the rooftop.

       The hotel was named after a legendary president of Albania, a gentle and wise man so deeply beloved by the people that they had given him the nickname King Zog. He had tried to stop the invasion by the Soviets, and failed, but his heroic battle still gave heart to the people.

       Parking a short distance from the hotel, Bolan walked around the block a few times, casually dropping small packages into trash bins and down storm gratings. After checking the signal on the remote control, he returned to the Range Rover and drove to the front of the futuristic hotel.

       For the meeting he was wearing business chic: a Hugo Boss three-piece suit, with a raw silk tie and gold Citation wristwatch. He had a miniphone clipped to his ear, and a fake prison tattoo of a spiderweb stenciled on his neck to indicate a rough-and-tumble past. His shoes were Italian, his sunglasses French and his briefcase burnished steel. His usual weapons were riding their accustomed positions, but he also was carrying a brace of knives in case some silent kills were necessary.

       Underneath everything else, Bolan was wearing a ballistic T-shirt. It would stop only small-caliber rounds from penetrating, and his bones would still break, but under the circumstances he couldn’t wear any type of proper body armor. That would be an insult. And he needed to gain the trust of these killers.

       Stepping out of the vehicle, he left the door open and flipped the keys over a shoulder. From a nearby kiosk, a teenage valet rushed forward to snag them in the air, muttering apologies for not being more prompt.

       “Don’t worry about it, kid.” Bolan chuckled, pulling out a wad of cash. Peeling off a hundred euro note, he let it drop. “Just park it close.”

       “Absolutely, sir!” the valet gushed, beaming over the colossal tip. “I wash, too! Good job!” One hundred euros was a month’s wages.

       “Yeah, sure, whatever,” he said, dismissing the matter with a wave. “Just don’t scratch the paint or I’ll break your legs.”

       “Yes, sir! No, sir! Thank you, sir!”

       Heading for the front door, Bolan noticed the armored limousine from the traffic circle parked in a handicap zone. Standing around the vehicle were four large men openly carrying Uzi submachine guns, with spare clips jutting from their belts like samurai swords. One of them had a dead white eye, and a military-style hand mike dangled over the shoulder of his white linen suit. Bolan instantly marked him as the crew chief.

       The men watched him closely, shifting to a more aggressive stance, but Bolan ignored the street soldiers as if such a sight was an everyday occurrence. He would wager five-to-ten that the limo belonged to Rezart Kastrioti, the man he was supposed to meet in a few minutes for lunch.

       Stepping through a revolving door, Bolan felt as if he was entering another world. The structure was hollow and rose impossibly high, the rooms arranged along the outer rim. By craning his neck, the big American could see straight to the vaulted roof some fifty stories above.

       The air was cool and clean, smelling faintly of jasmine. Lush plants grew in orderly abundance, and carpeted steps led to a spacious lobby that stretched nearly the length of a football field. Glass elevators rose and descended at several locations, liveried staff rushed about carrying trays, and soft instrumental music played from hidden speakers. Bolan identified it as something by Debussy. Signs pointed the way to the indoor golf course, water park, brothel, restaurant, casino and skeet shooting range.

       A score of elegant people moved through the lobby, the men in tailored business suits, the women in skimpy dresses that showed a wealth of cleavage and displayed long legs. Everybody was deeply tanned, and accompanied by secretaries, assistants, armed bodyguards, aides, butlers and maids, while nannies herded small children or pushed babies in strollers.

       Bolan pretended to check his watch, barely able to believe the ebb and flow of people. It was more like opening night at the Metropolitan Opera than a simple Tuesday morning. Was this some national holiday he didn’t know about? That could be a major problem.

       That was when he noticed the carefully disguised video cameras. They were everywhere, overlapping one another’s ranges. There was absolutely no way anybody could go anywhere unnoticed. This was prison level security. Bolan realized that this wasn’t merely some random hotel; it had to be owned and operated by the Fifteen Families. The King Zog was most likely the nerve center of Albania, a safe haven of luxury and comfort for the criminal elite, far from the misery and strife they caused.

       Instantly, he changed his plans for an emergency escape. There were far too many innocent bystanders in the line of fire to do a blitz of any kind. Which left him only one option if things went wrong. But hopefully, he wouldn’t have to do anything that extreme.

       Radiating confidence, he coolly headed for the restaurant. Appearing as if from nowhere, smiling waiters bowed and removed a velvet rope to usher him through to a private section. A young waitress gave a curtsy in passing. Bolan stayed in character and merely grunted in return.

       Just past an array of private booths, Bolan found another part of the restaurant had been sectioned off by a wooden trellis covered with a thick blanket of live roses, a secret world hidden within the mob terrarium. Inside the decorative arbor were a dozen tables, all empty except for the largest. That could accommodate twenty, but there were only two settings, on opposite sides. Sitting at the head of the table was a short fat man in a reclining office chair, his dirty shoes on the linen tablecloth. Rezart “The Hacksaw” Kastrioti was puffing on a black cigar, a SIG-Sauer pistol peeking out from a shoulder holster under his tailored suit. The man was clean-shaved, including his head. A diamond twinkled from his right earlobe, and his left shoe had a extra-thick bottom, indicating that that leg was slightly shorter than the other.

       Possibly from having rickets as a child, Bolan guessed. Which meant he had been poor once, but wasn’t anymore. He had to have worked his way up the organization, by being either smart or ruthless, probably both. That told Bolan a lot about the man.

       “Get your damn feet off the table!” Bolan snapped.

       With a start, Kastrioti instinctively obeyed, not used to being ordered about by anybody but his direct superiors in the organization. Then he scowled and started to go for the pistol under his jacket, until Bolan burst into laughter, sat down in a chair and put his own feet on the table.

       “Stop hogging all the room.” He chuckled. “Is that how you treat a guest?”

       Breathing deeply, Kastrioti did nothing for a long moment, and Bolan started to think he had read the man wrong. Then Kastrioti snorted a nasal guffaw and slapped the tabletop with an open palm.

       “I like your style, Yank!” He laughed, pointing a finger across the table. “You take no shit! Me, too! I am Rezart Kastrioti! Welcome to my country!”

       Never had Bolan heard that phrase used so accurately. It was his country, every rock, tree and bush. “A pleasure.” He smiled and gave a salute. “Now, do you want to talk business first or—”