Stolen Arrows

“What the hell,” the cop replied wearily. “I don’t know of anybody left.”

Tyree Building, Staten Island

THROWING BACK his head, Alexander Tyree inhaled sharply and then relaxed. Crawling out from under the conference table, the naked blond woman padded over to the mirrored bar set into the wall and poured herself a short Scotch whiskey. Draining the tumbler, she gargled first, then swallowed the rest of the drink.

“You’re the best, baby,” Tyree said, closing his zipper. “See you tomorrow. Same time, eh?”

“No problem, sir,” she said woodenly, rinsing out the glass before placing it in the sink. Stepping into black high heels, the hooker slipped on a full-length mink coat and walked out of the penthouse office, closing the door tightly behind her.

Rubbing his face for a moment, Tyree reached into a pocket and withdrew a small vial of white powder. Thumbing off the cap, the man poured the cocaine onto the polished mahogany table. Taking out a pocketknife, he was about to neatly cut the pile into lines when he heard a wet smack on the window. What the hell? Damn birds had to have flown into the glass again.

Glancing over a shoulder, Tyree blinked in confusion at the sight of a small gray lump of claylike material stuck to the bulletproof glass. There was a nylon rope attached, as if it had been lowered from the roof. Then he spotted the flashing red light of the remote detonator set into the wad of C-4 plastique.

Throwing himself out of the chair, Tyree hit the carpet a split second before the high-explosive wad cut loose and the window stridently imploded across the office, flipping over the conference table and sending the line of wheeled chairs spinning crazily in every direction.

The concussion brutally shoved Tyree hard against the marble wall. He was fighting to regain his breath when a dark figure lowered into view from above and swung in through the smoking ruin of the window.

LANDING ON HIS crepe-soled shoes, Mack Bolan slapped the release buckle of the safety harness around his waist and anchored the line to the splintered ruin of the thirty-foot-long conference table. Dressed for full urban combat, the Executioner was in a black combat suit. A web belt of ordnance and ammo circled his waist, a Beretta 93-R rode in a shoulder holster and a big-bore .357 Magnum Desert Eagle claimed the opposite hip.

A muffled pounding came from the other side of the door to the office, but Bolan ignored it. This was Tyree’s private retreat, his secret bolthole, and the only place in New York where the international arms dealer could relax completely safe. The entire building was a fortress, and this particular floor his personal bunker, the floor, walls and ceiling each composed of two full yards of steel-reinforced concrete. According to the engineering blueprints, the foot-thick titanium door would stop a 60 mm shell, and the magnetic locks could be turned off only from this side. Bolan estimated that Tyree’s bodyguards wouldn’t be able to get through in under an hour. More than sufficient. It had taken Bolan an entire day to track down the hidden location of the retreat, and less than an hour to crack its five-million-dollar security system.

Hauling the crime boss off the ripped carpeting, Bolan slammed him against the Italian-marble wall and pressed the cold pit of the Beretta’s sound suppressor into the man’s stomach.

“What the hell,” Tyree mumbled, clearly still disorganized from the explosion.

Keeping the Beretta in place, Bolan slapped the man across the face. “Get it together, Tyree. This is judgment day.”

Rubbing his stinging cheek, the man sneered at that. “So this is a raid,” he said. “Well, go ahead, cop, read me my rights. Arrest me. My lawyers will have me on the street in an hour!”

Shifting the aim of the weapon, Bolan fired and blood erupted from the man’s shoulder as the 9 mm slug grazed the skin and ricocheted off the cracked marble.

“Stop! You can’t do that!” Tyree shouted, grabbing the shallow flesh wound. “Cops can’t shoot prisoners!”

“I’m not a cop,” Bolan said bluntly, shifting the Beretta to center on the man’s heaving chest.

The implication was clear and Tyree went pale. “It’s a hit? B-but I got connections! I pay protection!”

“Not against me.”

Starting to understand the gravity of the situation, Tyree nervously licked dry lips. “Look, I’m just a businessman. We can cut a deal here,” Tyree said, keeping a palm pressed to his bleeding shirt. “There’s money in the wall safe behind the mirror in the bar. A hundred grand in cash. It’s yours. Take it and go.”

“Wrong answer,” Bolan stated coldly.

“Look, I know the Dragon missiles were shit, but the buyers were al-Qaeda,” he said, the words gushing out in a torrent, “and this is New York, for Christ’s sake! Whack me if ya want, but screw those Afghan dirtbags and the hairy-ass camels they rode in on.”

For one of the very few times in his turbulent life, Mack Bolan found himself caught absolutely by surprise. Then he looked hard into the man’s sweaty face and saw it was the truth. Incredible.

“You sold fake missiles to terrorists,” Bolan repeated slowly.

Filled with the bravado that comes in the face of inevitable death, Tyree gave a snort. “Yeah, fuck him, and fuck you, too!” he retorted, rubbing his aching shoulder. “Go ahead, shoot me! Get it the fuck over with!”

“Not today,” the Executioner said. “Maybe we can cut a deal.”

Hope flared in his eyes and Tyree glanced at the bar.

“Not for cash,” Bolan countered, keeping the weapon level but shifting it off center. “But I’ll trade information in exchange for your life.”

“Done,” Tyree agreed quickly. “What do ya want to know?”

Smart fellow. No wonder he seized control of the East Coast weapons traffic from the Jewish mob. “Some Brazilian muscle is smuggling weapons into the country,” Bolan said, deliberately being as vague as possible. He’d give more details if necessary, but only what was necessary. “Big stuff, small package. Who would they approach to broker a sale? I want a name.”

Gingerly massaging his upper arm, Tyree listened to the thumping on the armored door for a while, but said nothing, deep in thought.

Was he cooking a lie or digging for a name? Bolan wondered. He sincerely hoped the man was going to play it straight, because there was nobody else to ask. This was the end of the line, which was why he had opted for a stunt like swinging in through the window instead of ambushing the man in the elevator.

“Brazilian,” Tyree said slowly. “So it’s the Commies, the rebels, or the S2? Right?”

Bolan nodded.

“The Communists and the rebels ain’t got shit to sell. They’re buyers, but so broke they can’t afford anything important, so that means it’s the S2,” Tyree said at last. “Okay, there’s a guy, lives out in Belmore, Long Island. Deals a lot with those assholes. Name is Michael Prince. Fat guy, silk suits, uses a cigarette holder.”

Yeah, Bolan knew the name, but not much more. Michael Prince, the self-proclaimed Prince of the City. So he was handling weapons now. The rope suddenly had some extra length.

“Call anybody, and I’ll come back,” Bolan said, tucking the Beretta into its holster. “Only next time, we don’t talk.”

“Hey no problem.” The man smiled weakly. “Time for me to retire anyway.”

Attaching the safety belt as a prelude to rapelling down the side of the building, Mack Bolan paused at the window to glance over a shoulder.

“Dummy missiles?” he said, giving a brief hard smile.

“What the hell.” Tyree sighed, looking past the Executioner at the distant Manhattan skyline with a noticeable gap in the line of towering skyscrapers. “It’s a new world.”

Richmond, Virginia

EVENING WAS starting to fall across the lush Virginia countryside as the dark gray sedan rolled off the highway and into the suburbs of Richmond. The streets were astonishingly clean and lined with old trees, the front lawn of each house wide and immaculately maintained, with dogwood flowers sweetly scenting the air. Every car was in a garage or parked on the driveway; nobody was using the street.

“Jeez, it’s like something out of a Disney movie,” Cliff Maynard complained from behind the wheel. “I keep waiting for the music to swell and credits to roll.”

“Got to be a tough commute to D.C. every day,” Eliza Linderholm replied, checking the power-pack in her Taser. Tucking the electric stun gun away, the CIA agent pulled out a Glock 21 pistol and carefully threaded on a sound suppressor. Mr. Osbourne wanted the woman alive, undamaged if possible, but that wasn’t carved in stone.

“Maybe Dupont likes the peace of the countryside,” Cliff continued, reaching under his jacket and snapping off the strap of his shoulder holster. “It’d drive me crazy.”

“Amen to that, brother.” Linderholm smiled. “I’m a big-city girl and plan to stay that way.”

Back in Langley, the Agency was at its most busy when the place was quiet. Casual conversations and laughter meant that nothing important was happening in the world, an uncommon event. To any CIA agent, peace and quiet always meant trouble.

“This must be it,” Maynard said, checking the map on the dashboard display. He turned off his navigational computer and it folded back out of sight.