Don Pendleton: Council of Kings

"Okay, business. Who do we have with leadership qualities who isn't already assigned?" the elder Canzonari asked.

""Leadership"? We aren't exactly overwhelmed with top candidates." Joey picked up a printout and flipped through the pages. "Best man for the job is Frank Genaro. He's been with the family for seven years. Has served well in half a dozen shoot-outs. Wounded once. Called to testify in a court case and said all the right things for the family."

Gino looked at his lawyer, who nodded. "I didn't think of Frank, but he could do well. How much education?"

"He graduated from high school," Joey said, reading from the printout.

"Morello, you talk to him. Tell him he's got to get the whole thing together again quick. We're losing too much in interest payments. And warn him that the Executioner probably knows about every one of our outlets."

The consigliere nodded and left.

Gino Canzonari turned to his son. "Now what about Jupiter? Is everything on schedule?"

Joey examined another printout and smiled. "Looks like it. My latest data show that the ship should be here the morning of the thirteenth, less than three days from now. The night before, we're having a little gathering of about thirty family people from up and down the coast and as far inland as the plains states. They all want to see what we have for sale."

"I don't want that hardware around any longer than necessary."

"Don't worry, dad. I figure none of the illegal stuff will be in our warehouse for more than twenty-four hours. We'll have twenty delivery trucks standing by for loading and immediate dispatch."

"And the Japanese crewmen and officers are all getting double pay for this run?"

"All taken care of. Envelopes with their cash will be in my briefcase, along with a million in cash for the man from Rome who put the shipment together. The balance we pay through our bank by computer, sending the cash to their account in Rome."

"Not a check?"

"No. Electronic banking will make the flow of money impossible to trace."

Joey left his father's office and went to the second floor, where he opened a double-locked door. He entered his computer room and settled behind his favorite machine. Then he punched up a category he had not used since creating it a year earlier.

"Mack Bolan," he requested. The screen filled with references to items in the computer's memory. He inspected the material. It all had come from a central computer in New York on a series of eight-inch disks.

Joey kept reading, astonished at what this man now threatening the Canzonaris had done in the past.

Mack Bolan pulled the Thunderbird to the curb.

He wanted to return to the gun store and look inside, but that was nighttime work.

He made a U-turn and drove back toward the store, circled the block and looked for an alley. There was none, but he found a vacant lot that gave him a distant but good view of the back of the store.

From his vantage point he could see the loading dock and the wide roll-up door. Then he slid down in the seat, stretched out his legs and played a waiting game. A pickup pulled up to the dock, loaded with two crates. Bolan figured they could be legitimate goods bound for a gun club or a shooting range. The driver did not enter the building.

There was a small hut attached to the warehouse, where a man filled out papers and serviced clients.

One more truck used the dock in the next hour.

Bolan drove to a nearby phone booth and tried Johnny's room at the hotel. There was no answer. He did not leave a message, but returned to the vacant lot.

Big signs at the retail gun store listed its hours as eight to five, and Bolan hoped that covered the warehouse section. At 5:15 P.M., he locked the Thunderbird and walked through the deserted lot, across a dirt track and toward the rear of Northwest Guns, Inc.

Fifty feet from the back door he paused behind some brush. A blacktop circled the building and became a parking lot, probably for employees and delivery trucks. No rigs were in the lot.

Clouds had been darkening overhead all day, and as he moved forward again, rain came down in a steady drizzle. Bolan ran for the small shed by the loading dock and checked the hut. Empty.

He tried the small door beside the roll-up: locked. There were no windows.

He dug out his lock picks and worked over the tumblers for a minute. Then he tried it and the latch slipped free. The Executioner eased the door open slowly. It was dark inside. He slid in, turning the knob on the night latch so the lock engaged as he closed the door.

He took out his pencil flash and flicked it on.

He was in a warehouse with twelve-foot shelves only partly filled.

He checked the first series of shelves and found a box with four Uzi submachine guns. They were fully automatic, with overhung bolts and 32-round magazines.

The next rack showed a pair of familiar M-16 rifles. They were fully automatic, not the semiautos civilians can legally own.

So the store was a front; the big money was in the back shop, where the Mafia stored illegal arms it could sell to whoever had cash to buy them.

Bolan heard a door creak open, and he dodged behind a stack of crates just as a pair of overhead floodlights came on. It was not the full set of lights, for which Bolan was thankful. Crouching low, he saw a night watchman with a key box in his belt. Bolan relaxed. The guard was making his rounds.

The watchman strolled to both sides of the dimly lit warehouse and evidently used keys there, then returned to the door through which he had entered. He extinguished the fights and continued into another section of the building.

The Executioner had seen what he wanted to.

He picked up one of the Uzis, put four loaded 32-round magazines inside his shirt and headed for the back door. He might as well restock his own arsenal while he was there. The nightstalker slid out the rear door, heard the lock snap into place and walked in the rain to his Thunderbird. There was no one around to observe the drenched figure in the twilight.

It was time to chat with Lieutenant Dunbar about the arms shipment. As one of the Law Enforcement Agencies that received briefings, the PPD might have some late information to share. Bolan stopped at a phone booth in a filling station and called Dunbar.

The detective answered.

Bolan did not identify himself, just asked a question.

"What do you know about a large shipment of illegal weapons headed for the West Coast right now?"

Dunbar knew the voice. "Nothing. Are the arms coming in here?"

"What I heard. Don't your people read their LEA notices?"

"I never see them."

Mack hung up, suddenly tired. He drove to his hotel on the west side, flopped on the bed and did not hear the phone when it rang four times about midnight.

At six A.M. Mack Bolan was sitting in his rented Thunderbird across from Northwest Guns, Inc., watching the parking spot labeled Reserved-Manager.

It had stopped raining. Gray clouds still moved overhead on their way to eastern Oregon and Idaho.

Bolan left his car and jogged to the Cadillac that was pulling into the reserved spot. He leaned both hands against the door and stared at the small man behind the wheel. He was about forty, and a touch of fear flamed in his eyes as he looked up.

"You the manager?"

"Yes. Nate Enright. May I get out?"

"Yeah, sure." Bolan backed up, playing the country bumpkin.

"What can I do for you?"

"Fire-insurance investigator. Need to look around. See if you sell black powder, how you handle it, the usual."

"We just sent our policy payment in."

"Right, but our new corporate owner has made some changes. I'm sure you know how that is."