Point Blank. Don Pendleton

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СКАЧАТЬ hell you mean, a tail?”

      “Just what I said. I’ve had an eye on this one Alfa, trailing us since we left Aldo’s.”

      They were rolling southbound, toward the coast, along Viale degli Angioini, and although the flow of cars was still substantial, Cortale knew they’d lost a fair number of the vehicles that had surrounded them as they were leaving Catanzaro.

      “We do something, you’d better be damn sure,” he cautioned Terranova. “It comes down to you.”

      “I’m sure,” Terranova replied.

      “All right, then. Lead him off on Via Solferino when you get there, and we’ll find a place to take him.”

      Cortale felt his rutting mood go sour, changing into something else—a killing frame of mind. And that wasn’t so strange. Weren’t sex and death closely related, after all?

      * * *

      BOLAN HAD NO idea where the mobsters were taking their prisoner, whether their destination lay somewhere in the open countryside south of Catanzaro, or if they were on their way to the coast. Either option offered places to dispose of a body—a shallow grave in some lonely field or a burial at sea. He was gambling that they wouldn’t kill her in the car and risk soiling their clothes or the upholstery, but even that could not be guaranteed.

      She could be dead already, maybe finished off with a garrote, as many Old World killers still preferred to do when it was feasible. No noise, no mess to speak of if you did it properly. There was a chance he couldn’t save the lady—that he might only be able to avenge her—but he kept betting that she’d be easier to handle while alive, up to the moment when they’d reached her final destination.

      Traffic was thinning as they pulled away from Catanzaro, with commuters peeling off toward their suburban homes, replaced by others on their way down to the seashore. Bolan hung back in the wake of the sedan, knowing they might have spotted him but hoping otherwise. If he was burned, they’d done nothing so far to indicate as much, but he could only wait and see.

      When the ’Ndrangheta driver started signaling a left turn just beyond a road sign for the village of Le Croci, Bolan kept his signal off and slowed down to let a van slide in between his Alfa and the car he was pursuing—just a little twist to calm suspicion if the hit team thought they had a tail. He’d follow them, but he didn’t want to tip them off.

      Bolan made his turn at the last minute, ignored a bleating horn behind him, and began to track his target on the winding two-lane road. No other vehicles were between them now. He let the mob car lead him by four hundred yards but still knew he was clearly visible behind them if they bothered looking back.

      The trick was to keep from spooking them but still be quick enough to intervene when they reached their destination and prepared to dispose of their prisoner. Hanging back a quarter of a mile delayed Bolan’s reaction time, but he’d alert his adversaries in a heartbeat if he roared up on their bumper when they’d stopped to drag the lady from their car. Moving too soon could get her killed. Likewise, moving too late could have the same result.

      The land around them now was mostly open, with large homes on multiple acres on the southern side. Beyond the houses, he glimpsed orchards, whereas the fields across the road stood fallow and awaiting cultivation. Not the best place for a firefight, but he was grateful for the open space and scarcity of innocents. If his intended targets led him to a better killing ground, he’d thank them for it.

      When the smoke cleared.

      And the lady? Bolan hadn’t thought that far ahead. He’d seen her and decided he would help her if he could. Beyond that, once he’d freed her from captivity, she could decide what happened next—up to a point. He wasn’t anybody’s nursemaid, and he had no time to care for the woman. If he could find someone reliable to take her off his hands, he’d go with that.

      If not...well, he could put her on a plane to anywhere outside Calabria, give her a head start at the very least. It was a better chance than anything awaiting her right now.

      Speeding up a little, Bolan reached inside his jacket, checking the Beretta in its quick-draw holster. It was ready, as was he.

      The game was on in earnest now. And there was going to be blood.

Chapter 2

      Monday—National Museum of Crime & Punishment, Washington, D.C.

      This has to be a joke, Bolan thought. But Hal Brognola, who worked at the U.S. Department of Justice, had proposed the meeting place, so Bolan handed some bills to a clerk behind the sales counter. He cleared the turnstile and passed through a mock medieval dungeon filled with torture devices into a room where a 1930s-era car sat behind velvet ropes, its windows and its paint job shot to hell.

      Bolan ignored the serial killers gallery, slack-jawed faces watching him from eight-by-ten mug shots as he walked by. Hal had suggested meeting at the mob exhibit, and he saw it up ahead. More mug shots and blow-ups of newspaper clippings, an Uzi submachine gun next to a fedora and a photo of the neon sign from the original Flamingo hotel and casino, erected by Bugsy Siegel in Las Vegas. Bolan found the display more in tune with Hollywood’s portrayal of the underworld than anything he’d faced in real life.

      Hal Brognola suddenly appeared at his elbow. “Let’s take a walk.”

      They left gangland behind and ambled toward the museum’s CSI lab, where a mannequin lay on an operating table. Behind it stood displays on toxicology, dental I.D. procedures and the like.

      “This must be like a busman’s holiday for you,” Brognola said.

      “It cost me twenty-one ninety-five.”

      “I get a discount with my badge.”

      “Congratulations.”

      “So, what do you know about the ’Ndrangheta?” Hal asked, cutting to the chase.

      “One of the top syndicates in Italy,” Bolan replied. “Sometimes they collaborate with the Camorra and the Mafia. When that breaks down, they fight. They’re less well known than the Mafia but just as dangerous.”

      “And not confined to Italy these days,” Brognola said. “They’re everywhere in Europe, east and west. They’ve also started cropping up in Canada, the States, down into Mexico, Colombia and Argentina. Hell, they’re even in Australia. Worldwide, we estimate they’re banking close to fifty billion annually. Much of that derives from trafficking in drugs. The rest, you name it: weapons, vice, loan-sharking and extortion, public contracts and so-called legitimate business.”

      Nothing Hal had said so far was a surprise. Bolan walked beside him, letting him get to the point in his own good time.

      “Two days ago, there was a shootout on Shelter Island. Well, a massacre’s more like it. Did you catch the news?”

      “Some marshals and a witness,” Bolan said.

      “Affirmative. Four deputy U.S. Marshals blown away while watching over one Rinaldo Natale, scheduled to testify next week in New York at the racketeering trial of three high-ranking ’ndranghetisti. Without him, let’s just say the prosecution’s sweating.”

      “The СКАЧАТЬ