Fatal Combat. Don Pendleton

No doubt the gunfire itself had generated frantic calls from citizens near this abandoned zone.

      “Stay down,” Bolan said.

      Bolan retrieved a fragmentation grenade from his war bag. He pulled the pin, let the spoon pop free and waited, counting in his head. Davis caught the movement and eyed him curiously from his vantage point, covering the top of his head with his folded arms as he lay on his stomach. Bolan nodded once and then tossed the grenade.

      The bomb exploded just as it hit the lip of the concrete barrier. The men not caught by shrapnel from the grenade absorbed the spray of concrete fragments the explosion kicked up. Guns clattered to the pavement. As the boom echoed from the nearby brick buildings, nothing else moved.

      Davis pushed himself to his feet.

      Bolan moved from cover. He walked over, weapon ready, listening and watching to see if another ambush would be forthcoming. They had been attacked too many times already for him not to expect it at any moment. The sirens continued to close, but they were still some distance off.

      “They’re going to take a few minutes to find us,” Davis said.

      “Do I look that excited?” Bolan asked.

      “You’re a one-man war, Cooper,” Davis said. “And I’m willing to bet this won’t be the first time you catch hell for walking into someone’s jurisdiction and setting the place on fire.”

      “You catch on fast, Detective,” Bolan said. In his pocket, his secure satellite phone began to vibrate. He snapped it open.

      “Cooper,” he said. Using his cover identity would inform the Farm that there were others present.

      “Striker,” Barbara Price said. “I hear police.”

      “Yeah,” Bolan said. “You do. I’ve just engaged targets comprising a hit team. Armed professionals, mixed kit. Civilian clothing on the formal side. You caught me before I could send you pictures. I’d actually like to take those before company gets here.”

      “Do so,” the Farm’s mission controller told him. “We have a database pulled up. I’ll explain when you’re ready.”

      Bolan made a fast circuit of the dead men closest to him and Davis. The ones on the other side of the abandoned building would have to wait. He said as much to Price when he reestablished the connection.

      “You may not need to,” Price said. “We’re working on a theory, and Bear has some preliminary, rough matches pulled up. It looks like we’re right.” Aaron “the Bear” Kurtzman was Stony Man Farm’s resident computer genius.

      “Why?” Bolan said. “What’s the theory?”

      “Your gunmen,” Price told him, “are old school Mafia. Hit men for the Mob.”

      Bolan took that in for a moment. He had, over the course of his war, been on the receiving end of Mob guns before, even had a price on his head. It was among the Mafia that the Executioner had first become known, then famous, then infamous.

      “I thought something seemed familiar about all this,” he said, deadpan.

      He could sense the smile in Price’s voice. “I’ll bet,” she said. She went on more seriously. “We’ve checked the pictures you sent first, and checked them thoroughly. Each one of those men has a rap sheet. Most of them are career criminals. A few are young enough that they haven’t quite reached the majors, but they were headed that way before you got to them. Each and every one has ties, directly or indirectly, to Detroit-area underworld figures.”

      Davis, unable to hear Price’s side of the conversation, shot Bolan a quizzical look.

      “But that doesn’t scan at all,” Bolan said, considering her report. “Unless…”

      “Unless your cover has been breached and the whole of the Michigan Mafia wants your head?” Price said. “We thought of that. Your cover is secure. There’s been no chatter from the usual sources that we would see if word about you got out. There’s no reason to believe anyone’s targeting you for any reason other than the obvious—you’re an interloping federal agent looking into these serial killings.”

      “Something’s not right where that’s concerned, either,” Bolan said. “But I need to see where that takes me before I offer any theories of my own. So why would Detroit’s Mob be involved?”

      “The most obvious reason is that they’re the prime employee pool for a job like this.”

      “Guns for hire,” Bolan supplied. “You need a hit man or a lot of them in Detroit, a city notorious for its corruption, then you go see the Mob. Something like that?”

      “Exactly,” Price said. “Somebody with serious money, a lot of clout, or both is behind this. Somebody with enough resources to throw that many Mafia gunners at one man.”

      “Or two,” Bolan said, looking at Davis, who continued to watch him curiously.

      “There’s one good thing about all this,” Price said.

      “And that is?”

      “You’ve made a serious dent in the local crime syndicates,” Price said. “We’ll continue to work up the other identifications you sent. I’ll let you know if anything pops up.”

      “I’ll stay after it on this end,” Bolan said.

      “Striker?” Price said. “Be careful. And good hunting.”

      “Thanks,” Bolan said. “Cooper out.” The sirens of the approaching police cars had become louder. Cruisers were pulling up around the abandoned buildings and closing on both sides. Bolan frowned. He shut his phone and looked at Davis. “Our boys—” he jerked his head at the dead men “—were all Mafia hit men. Hired to kill me, or to kill both of us.”

      “Cooper,” Davis said, his face lurid in the red and blue lights of the approaching cruisers, “what’s really going on here?”

      “Murder, and covering up murder. It isn’t the what that concerns me most,” Bolan said. “It’s the who.”