Don Pendleton: Blood Dues

No one killed the golden goose if there was any choice, and Tommy Drake was full of options. He dealt with anyone, impartially, so long as his security and profit was reasonably guaranteed.

Narcotics had been good to Tommy Drake. He prospered in the trade and became a millionaire while managing to insulate himself from the endemic mayhem that had turned Miami into the American murder capital.

The Mafia umbrella sheltered him to some extent, as did his legendary willingness to ice the competition first. For the most part he left the smaller independent operators alone, but the cocaine cowboys who encroached too readily upon his turf were fast becoming famous as endangered species.

Drugs had purchased Drake a Spanish-style estate in suburban Hollandale, an easy drive from Gulfstream Park. The likes of Frank Costello and Myer Lansky used to watch their horses run at Gulfstream, and while Tommy Drake enjoyed a fondness for the ponies, he did not aspire to ostentatious power. He remained secure within the shadows, letting others make the headlines, draw the fire.

Except shadows would not shelter Tommy Drake this night. His sanctuary was eroding, and the master dealer did not even know it yet.

Tonight the shadows served as cover for an enemy. Implacable. Determined.

And tonight, a golden goose was on the menu.

Bolan circled once around the block and found an unobtrusive parking place. His Firebird fit the neighborhood, but he did not plan to linger long enough to arouse curiosity.

A swift probe, right, with all the muscle necessary to extract some answers from his target.

The Executioner was rigged for battle as he left the Firebird. He was clad in midnight black, his face and hands already darkened with combat cosmetics. Underneath his left arm, the Beretta 98-R nestled in shoulder leather. The silver AutoMag, Big Thunder, rode the soldier's hip on military webbing, extra magazines for both handguns hung from his belt. Slit pockets in the midnight skinsuit held stilettos, strangling gear — the instruments of silent death.

A decorative wall encircled the estate. It had not been constructed with defense in mind, and Bolan scaled it easily, touching down on manicured grass inside. Across the darkened lawn, some fifty yards away, a rambling hacienda structure was ablaze with lights. As Bolan watched, a sentry moved across his field of vision, disappearing around the corner into darkness.

The warrior circled to his right and kept his back against the low retaining wall until he reached a willow grove that screened him from the house. He tugged the sleek Beretta from its sheath and eased the safety off before he moved into the trees.

His circuit brought him behind the house, and Bolan looked out on a patio complete with pool, cabanas, deep-pit barbecue. A twelve-foot-high diving tower stood at one end of the pool, and it was occupied. A lookout sat astride the diving board, a cut-down Remington 870 across his lap. From that position man and scatter-gun could cover rear approaches to the house, raise hell enough to bring the other sentries running at a sign of trouble.

The lookout had to go.

He was an obstacle, and Bolan did not have the time to work around him. He could not afford a living gunner at his back when he made entry to the hacienda proper.

Bolan thumbed his hammer back on his Beretta autoloader. It was capable of double-action firing, but single-action gave him better first-shot accuracy. He slipped a thumb inside the 93-R's oversized trigger guard, wrapping his hand around the folding foregrip to ensure a steady shot.

He made the range at thirty yards, adjusting for the target's elevation, squeezing off a single parabellum round. The sleek Beretta's specially designed suppressor coughed, inaudible a dozen paces out, and silent death ate up the gap, boring in beneath the sentry's nose and shattering the face before it had a chance to register surprise.

The faceless man sprawled sideways off the diving board and slithered into splashdown, followed by his shotgun. His impact raised a plume of spray that pattered on the deck and diving board like summer rain, and he was gone.

But not forgotten.

Sentry number two had materialized across from Bolan, on the far side of the patio. He might have been responding to the splash or simply making rounds, but there was no way he could miss that body bobbing in the deep end. He responded automatically, hauling hardware out from underneath his jacket as he raced to poolside.

Bolan led the moving target, tracking, tightening into the squeeze. The automatic whispered twice. Down-range, his mark stumbled through an awkward pirouette, rebounding off a chaise longue in the awkward attitude of death. He came to rest against a brick retaining wall around the deep-pit barbecue.

Bolan waited in the stillness for another gunman to reveal himself. When no one surfaced after sixty seconds, he moved across the patio, aware that he was exposed beneath the outdoor floodlights.

It was a calculated risk. If there was a sniper in the darkness, the Executioner was open.

Bolan reached the back door unopposed and hesitated, reconsidering his angle of approach. With hurried strides he circled around the house, a gliding shadow homing on an ivy trellis set against the south wall.

He tested the trellis, decided it would bear his weight and scrambled nimbly upward toward the wrought-iron balcony and lighted window a dozen feet above his head. An easy step across the railing, and he stood outside the sliding windows in a pool of artificial light.

The windows were open on the balmy night, a breeze disturbing floor-length drapes. From where he stood, the Executioner could hear murmured voices beyond the curtain.

Whispering.

Cajoling.

Pleading.

The black Beretta was a cold extension of himself, and Bolan used its muzzle to divide the drapes, wide enough for him to peer through as he scrutinized the room within.

It was the master bedroom, as he had surmised from below, and it was decorated like the set of a surrealistic porno film. Erotic "art" was plastered on the walls, and pieces of suggestive statuary were positioned here and there around the room like blind, contorted sentries.

The huge heart-shaped bed at center stage was occupied. The man and woman grappling there were unaware of Bolan's scrutiny. They never noticed as he slipped in through the drapes and moved with silent strides to stand within arm's reach of the bed.

The man was kneeling in between the woman's open thighs, his back to Bolan and the window. Overlooking one hunched shoulder, Bolan had a fragmentary picture of the woman: one firm breast, a flash of thigh, the head thrown back and angel face averted, panting.

Bolan reached out, tangling fingers of his free hand in the stud's hair, dragging his head back sharply. Kneeling on the bed, his quarry gave a startled cry, eyes swimming into focus on the autoloader leveled at his face.

"John Hannon says hello,'' the warrior told him softly.

And Tommy Drake was straining for an answer, getting nowhere fast. The girl came up onto an elbow, gaping at the man in black. She made no immediate attempt to hide her nudity.

"There must be some mistake,'' the mafioso said.

"You made it."

"Take it easy, pal. You'll never pull this off." A spark of hope had flared to life behind Drake's eyes. "I've got a dozen men downstairs.''

"I counted two,'' the soldier said. "They're out of it."

The Executioner saw the man's Adam's apple bobbing as he tried to swallow.

"It's twenty questions, Tommy. Play it right, you live. If not..."

The dealer stiffened in his grasp.

"I ain't no stool."

"Okay."

Bolan drew back the hammer on the Beretta, letting Tommy hear it, balancing the silenced muzzle of his weapon on the mobster's nose. The Executioner heard a frightened little gasp from Tommy's woman and ignored it.