Shock Waves(55)

Mack Bolan joined her on the landing, gently pried the smoking weapon from her grasp and helped her to her feet.

"It's over, Sal," he told her, and her eyes focused for the first time on his face, the tears already etching tracks across her cheeks.

And she had been through hell, no doubt about it. Bolan knew the signs — and knew, as well, that she had come through relatively clean, ail things considered. Any longer, though...

A banging door beneath them severed Bolan's morbid train of thought. One long stride brought him to the banister. Below, a clutch of frightened men rushed from the conference room. Their plan seemed to be to cross Bolan's private battlefield and reach the hoped-for security of the cars parked out front.

He recognized some of the men — most of them, at any rate — and put names to them as they trooped below him. Bonadonna and Gregorio. Reina and Aguirre. Vaccarelli and D'Antoni. Patriarcca and Galante. Lazia and Cigliano.

And Tattaglia, sure.

The little mafioso-turned-informant was the first to spot Mack Bolan poised above them, the Beretta held in front of him as if to bless the throng. His reaction made the others notice. Pallid faces swiveled around to recognize their doom, the shock of recognition registered differently on each countenance.

A dozen faces, give or take, and fourteen rounds still nestled in Bolan's silenced Beretta.

He leaned across the railing and exchanged a knowing glance with Tattaglia. The little mafioso nodded almost imperceptibly and closed his eyes.

The parabellum bullet drilled his shoulder, high and clean, its exit clear of bone and vital organs, any major arteries. The impact spun him like a top and dumped him facedown on the carpet, outside the line of fire as the Executioner got down to lethal business with his prey.

The capos scattered, fanning out in all directions, but the warrior took his time and did it right. There was no room for error.

Gregorio was sprinting back into the conference room when swift death overtook him, drilling between his shoulder blades and spouting blood before he toppled on his face, momentum carrying his dead weight on between the open doors.

Aguirre and Reina were running hell-bent for the safety of the kitchen, too damned far away to do them any good, and straining all the same. A silent double punch reached out to tap their shoulders, ramming them together and throwing both men off balance, their arms and legs entangled as they sprawled in a lethal embrace.

Frank Bonadonna began to draw a pistol from his belt, then remembered he didn't have one as a parabellum mangier punched his face inward, transforming it into a collapsing rubber mask that bore no trace of its original humanity.

D'Antoni had a gun, but there was no time for him to use it as a silent round drilled through his throat, disintegrating larynx and esophagus, its passage opening the floodgates of his jugular to leave the mobster gagging, drowning in his own blood.

The Windy City capo, Paulie Vaccarelli, also had a weapon, and he cleared his holster with it, squeezing off a single round skyward, dying on his feet as Bolan drilled him through the forehead, blowing brains and all the rotten rest of him away.

Miami's Jerry Lazia and Cleveland's Vince Galante made their break together, racing for the broad French doors and patio beyond, but Bolan never let them get there, squeezing off two rounds that pitched them both headlong into the awkward, tumbling sprawl of death.

L.A. Lester Cigliano tried to stick with Patriarcca, but the older don brushed past him in his panic, elbowing the younger man and knocking him off balance. He was down on one knee when the parabellum drilled his temple, wiping out his anger, fear and life in one searing pain.

The capo of Seattle was a plodding form, almost grotesque, his back presented to the marksman as a perfect target. Mack Bolan thought of Sally as he flicked the fire-selector switch to automatic mode and raised the 93-R, braced in both hands, the sights immediately lining up between thick shoulder blades and rising to include the ruddy, balding skull. A squeeze... and three rounds rippled out of there, virtually decapitating Patriarcca on impact, depositing his faceless body belly-down across a bloodied, shrapnel-punctured couch.

And it was over, right, except for Don Minelli, who had put it all together in the first place. Feeding the Beretta with another magazine, he turned to Sally Palmer. She stood, head down, leaning against the wall. Her arms were wrapped around her, as if to give her warmth. If she had observed the massacre, she gave no sign.

"I need Minelli and Eritrea," he told her simply, waiting as the eyes came up to meet his own.

"It... it's not Minelli, Mack," she told him haltingly, her soft voice coming to him through a fog of pain. "It's Marinello."

"What?"

He gripped her shoulders, released them when he realized he was causing her pain. The soldier's eyes were riveted with hers.