Death List. Don Pendleton

93-R and search its owner for more 20-round magazines—he found several—Bolan tucked the weapon into the waistband at his back. Then he grabbed a cardboard box that was by the front door. It was of heavy stock and large enough for his purposes. He took it to the basement stairs and flattened it at the top. Then he drew both of Harmon’s Berettas, thumbed the hammers back and the safeties off, and perched himself on the collapsed box.

      “Federal agent!” he shouted, and pushed off.

      The gunfire that greeted him told him the men in the basement had no qualms about murdering a government agent—or an unwelcome visitor—and that marked them as hostile combatants. The bullets didn’t find their mark: Bolan was sliding down the steps at a breakneck clip, riding the piece of folded cardboard like a toboggan. Bullets cracked and splintered the steps behind him. The shooters were too slow. The Executioner’s sudden slide had given him just enough of an element of surprise.

      He hit the bottom of the steps with a jolt, rolled through a somersault and stood with Harmon’s Berettas in both hands. The basement was a warren, lighted by bare bulbs hanging from extension cords mounted to the ceiling. Folding tables were arranged in rows. Some were covered with stacks of cash. At least one bore plastic bags of white powder, which was either heroin or cocaine. The smell lingering in the room told Bolan it was the latter. Whatever the Torettos were laundering, it was tied to illegal drug operations.

      It was cool in the basement, but the gunmen working here were shirtless and wearing only swim trunks. There were three of them. Two wielded automatic pistols. The third had a cut-down Ruger Mini-14 sporting a pair of magazines taped end-to-end.

      Bolan shot the Ruger wielder in the face. His weapon made him the greater threat. As the standing corpse started to turn, its finger convulsed on the trigger. A single 5.56 mm round belched from the weapon’s chopped barrel, punched a hole through a stack of bagged cocaine and pierced the second gunman’s stomach at the navel. The button man folded, screaming.

      The third shooter had managed to draw down on Bolan with reasonable calm, firing off a pair of shots as he squinted against the glare of a nearby hanging light. The mobster’s aim was close enough that it drove Bolan to the floor on his back. The angle was wrong, but there was no time to worry about that. Instead, Bolan took aim at the bare light bulb and neatly popped a round through it. The bulb exploded in the gunman’s face.

      The shooter dropped his gun and clawed at his face. Bolan stood once more, aimed carefully, and put a round through his adversary’s forehead. Then he moved to stand over the gut-shot mobster, kicking away the man’s pistol as he did so. A quick search told him he had eliminated all resistance. There were no secondary exits from the basement, unless there was a hidden hatch.

      A creak on the stairs behind him made him whirl. He leveled both Berettas at the sound, but it was only Pierce, holding his shotgun by the receiver and raising both arms in surrender. The blood on his scalp was drying in a runnel past his nose. He looked annoyed.

      “Only me,” he said.

      Bolan lowered his guns. “You settle your business out back?”

      “Yeah. But not well. I was hoping to get somebody alive. They figured out what we were doing when you hit the front. Here I am, covering the back, when one of them throws open the door and hits me with a gumball machine.”

      “A what?”

      “A gumball machine, for crying out loud!” Pierce groused. “You know, the stupid thing that sits in the back of every coin laundry you’ve ever walked into, filled with gum that hasn’t been changed since Kennedy was shot. Nailed me right in the head with it. I hit him in the head with the shotgun and made sure he was out, but by then the rest of the guards were already dancing with you. When I went back to get him so he could answer some questions, he was already awake enough to dig for a backup piece. So I had to plug him.”

      “It happens,” Bolan said. Was Pierce telling him the truth? Or was this some clever ruse? And to what end? He wasn’t sure what the Mob enforcer had to gain by lying, but he filed the suspicion away nonetheless. In this game, you simply couldn’t take anyone’s agenda for granted.

      Pierce surveyed the dead men and whistled softly. “These guys, the guys upstairs... You’re a one man death squad, Harmon.”

      Bolan shrugged off the memories the comment brought back. He had put a few notches in his pistol grips over the years, to be sure. “I do what’s necessary,” was all he said.

      Pierce looked more closely at the dead men. “Wait a sec. I know this guy.”

      “Who is he?”

      “His name really was Mike,” said Pierce. “Mike Morelli. He’s a cousin to Paul Toretto, the Don of the family.”

      “Let’s question him.”

      Pierce looked at Bolan as if the Executioner was insane. “He’s been shot in the head, Harmon. You’re not going to get anything out of him except juiced brain.”

      “His pockets,” Bolan said.

      Pierce nodded. He searched the corpse, coming up with a money clip, a folding knife, a lighter, a few other inconsequential items and an electronic car key.

      “Maybe Mike’s car has some clues,” Pierce suggested. “You grab it and follow me. We’ll get gone before the cops show, find a parking lot, then search it from top to bottom.”

      “Solid plan. Hand me his lighter.”

      “You’re not going to do what I think you’re going to, are you?”

      “No time for anything else,” Bolan said. The first sirens were barely audible in the distance. Given that they were at basement level, that put the cops too close for comfort. The Executioner flicked the lighter and started one of the stacks of cash ablaze. The cops would call the fire department, which would stop the blaze from getting out of hand, but hopefully the fire would gut the basement before it was put out. Bolan’s policy was never to leave anything behind that could benefit an enemy, if he could help it. If the coke and the cash ended up in a police evidence locker, it might magically find its way out again. Better to destroy it in situ.

      “Man,” Pierce said as the stack of Mob money started to burn behind them. “That hurts to watch.”

      “It’s going to hurt more for the Torettos before we’re done.”