Don Pendleton - Day of Mourning

There was hesitation from the men drawing beads on Bolan.

Ace of spades.

The anonymous calling card of the Mafia's autonomous enforcement arm. The Black Aces.

The aces were a traceless crew of killers who altered their looks with plastic surgery so often to match new names that even they themselves might not remember how they began. They were the gestapo of organized crime, responsible only to the ruling commissione in New York. The elite unit kept undesirable hands out of the till and the rightful percentage of commissione's tax funneling through laundered setups like Interstate.

Mack Bolan, a master of role camouflage all the way back to Nam, had penetrated Mob defenses posing as a Black Ace before.

"You better tell me more," snarled the voice to Bolan, cautious but a little respectful.

"There's no time for bullshit, soldier," growled Bolan. He started advancing on the two men nearest him. "Check with Riappi if you've got a two-way."

Bolan paused within four feet of the two nearest men.

He held the Beretta down at his side. They stood with shotgun barrels still pointing at the center of his chest.

"Uh, maybe I'd better see that card," growled a voice from behind one of the shotguns, and Bolan knew they'd bought it.

Bolan slowly brought out his wallet with his left hand. He did not break eye contact with those he knew would be gauging his every move from behind the Remingtons. He extracted the ace of spades and extended it.

The guy to Bolan's right reached out for it. Bolan could have killed the guy then, but the odds were against him. The other soldier standing next to the spokesman had his shotgun trained on Bolan. Still another hardman would be covering this confrontation some yards away.

The man who took the card studied it, made a grunt of assent and handed the card back to Bolan. He lowered his shotgun as he did so.

"Put it down, Chuck," he instructed the man next to him. "Can't be too careful," he said to Bolan. "You know how it is."

Then the guy made a waving motion to the hardman down the line and that gunman returned his attention to the Interstate building and the parking lot.

Bolan pocketed the specially laminated card that he always carried even though the Executioner's war against the Mafia was a thing of the past.

"I know how it is. You the headcock here?"

"Yes, sir. My name's Giancola. The boys call me Pepsi."

"Riappi didn't say anything about backup?" asked the Executioner.

"No, sir, no backup. Just me and Chuck and Horse down there. Uh, sorry, sir, about drawing down on you like that."

"You did right, Pepsi. You call me Frankie."

"Uh, sure, Frankie. Thanks."

"You going to call Riappi?"

"Naw. No one knows about them black cards, sir, uh, Frankie, except the organization. Impersonating one is suicide."

Bolan nodded toward the dark Interstate office building beyond the hedge.

"The Armenians. You going to hit them when they come out?"

The headcock nodded.

"They figure to find Mr. Spinelli and his men in there in the basement cutting up the day's take like always. The guy who set us up for them is on our payroll. When these crumbs don't find nothing, they pull out. That's when we mow their asses down. But, uh, of course, now with a Black Ace sent down to handle this, uh, if you got any other ideas, Frankie?"

"I've got an idea," acknowledged Black Ace Bolan.

He raised his Beretta and blew away a chunk of Pepsi Giancola's skull.

The mob headcock was still pitching backward into the hedge when Chuck brought up his Remington pump shotgun. But he was not fast enough to stop Bolan's Beretta from tracking sideways like lightning and spitting another 9mm challenger that blasted a hole through Chuck's left nostril.

Horse, several yards away, heard the silenced chugs of the Beretta. He called out in a hoarse whisper.

"Hey, what the hell? Pepsi?"

Bolan fell away in a racing half-circle to come up behind the third mobster.

The Executioner materialized out of the shadows behind Horse. His left arm went under the hardguy's throat and yanked him back.

Horse dropped his shotgun.

Bolan smashed the butt of his Beretta down against Horse's skull hard enough to cave in the man's head.

Bolan released the dead body and cautiously advanced toward the building. He came to a side window facing away from the parking lot.

He tapped the corner pane of the window.

The glass fell inward. Bolan reached in and unlatched the window. He raised it and climbed in, lowering it behind him. He crouched in the darkness of a room, waiting to see what the noise of the shattering glass would bring.

As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he realized he was in some kind of an office. He made out the forms of a desk and filing cabinets.

The noise brought a response from outside. Bolan heard approaching footsteps and a whispered exchange.

"Here's a broken window," a voice said close to where Bolan crouched with the Beretta, ready.

"And here's a damn sight more," an older voice said from a bit farther away. "Jesus for breakfast. Three dead guys. I wonder. Phoenix."

"You call it, Bob," the younger voice said.

"We go back out front," said the older man. "Be careful, Davey. Three dead already. Whatever way this breaks, there's going to be more blood."

"You too," said Robbins, and the footsteps padding out of Bolan's earshot.

It played clear enough to Bolan. The Mafia thought they were canceling out two Armenian strongarms most likely seeking revenge in a drug deal turned sour. The Riappi family had conned the terrorists who supported their activities with drug trafficking. The Justice Commandos of Armenian Genocide were out for blood and were supposed to walk to their deaths when they thought they were hitting a family bank.

Bolan moved out of the office, into the main corridor of the unlighted Interstate Loan Association building.

He heard whispered voices, foreign, guttural, from the end of the hallway.

Bolan flattened himself against the wall, bringing up the Beretta and flicking the 93-R to its automatic three-shot mode.

He had found Ismet Kemal and Mustafa Izmir, the terror merchants from Istanbul.

The Armenians sounded angry after finding an empty building where they had hoped to recoup their losses.

The Executioner raised the Beretta to terminate these scum.

A door latch clicked.

Kemal and Izmir ran from the building, not even aware that quiet death was so close behind them. Bolan went after them.

Bob Gridell crouched near some rhododendron bushes that he hoped offered him some cover. He had a clear view of the glass door that led to the parking lot where the Toyota sat. The CIA man held his .38 revolver in standard two-handed grip.

Gridell's rookie partner, Robbins, was in a similar stance behind some shrubbery on the other side of the door.

Gridell hoped the kid would do all right tonight.

The door swung outward without noise.

Agent Gridell saw it and tensed.

Two men rushed out of the building, walking briskly toward the car: Izmir and Kemal.

"Freeze right there," Gridell snapped from cover of darkness. "You two men. Raise your hands."

The Armenians moved away from each other to opposite sides of the Toyota.

The terrorists raised their submachine guns and opened fire. The angry chatter of automatic weapons split the night and illuminated the killzone with wild strobelike flashes.

Gridell felt an excruciating blaze of pain as he slammed into the ground. He knew that he was hit in his right leg.

"Bob!" cried the younger agent's voice with the shock of seeing Gridell go down.

Robbins materialized from the gloom off to the right, advancing cautiously but still anxious to reach his partner. The two terrorists saw him. The Armenians swung their machine guns in Robbins's direction.