Blood Dues

under the bed, into the adjoining marble bath, moving out onto the veranda that overlooked a swimming pool in back.

Nothing.

The Cuban commando was frowning as he reentered the bedroom, but his expression changed at once when he beheld the folding closet doors. Moving swiftly across to stand in front of the closet, he raised the .45 autoloader, braced it in both hands and pumped three rounds waist high across the double doors.

It was a gamble, but his aim was true. A strangled little cry from inside the depths of the closet rewarded him, and Toro closed the gap, flinging the door wide, no longer afraid that Ornelas would pose any physical threat to his men.

The traitor was crouched in a corner of the closet, hidden in among perhaps fifty expensive-looking suits. And Toro did not have to ask himself where the money for these clothes, this house, had come from. Ornelas had sold his people and his honor, sold himself to the highest bidder like a puta on the street... and it was time for him to begin paying his dues.

Toro leaned inside the closet, grabbed a handful of his quarry's hair and dragged him out into the middle of the room. Ornelas was sniveling, crying now, a man afraid of death when it came calling at his door. He looked from one face to the other, always coming back to Toro, still afraid to speak although he plainly longed to beg for mercy.

Toro did the talking for him.

'Stand up, Raoul,' he snapped. 'It's time to meet your people.'

22

Don Phillip Sacco shifted restlessly in the back seat of the silver Rolls. Sacco wanted a cigar, but he was afraid his hands would shake if he tried to light one. He would do anything to stifle the urge rather than let his soldiers see his nervousness on the eve of battle. So he settled down to wait for the word that would propel him into combat like some kind of junior hit man.

There were six guns with him in the Rolls: one on either side of him in the back, a pair on the jump seats, and a couple more in the front. All of them were armed to the teeth, their hands held close to holstered hardware, itching for a chance to use it. They were primed to kill, damn right, and wanting it so bad that they could taste it.

They were good boys, these amici. Some of them were younger than he might have liked, but all the seasoned guns were gone or out to pasture these days. Soldiering was actually a young man's business, anyhow, he thought, although an old horse like himself could still teach them a thing or two when it came to kicking ass.

The coal-black Lincoln Continentals parked on either side of Sacco's Rolls contained identical contingents of his hardmen — eighteen guns in all. It was the core of his strike force, and they had been waiting in the parking lot outside an all-night supermarket now for the better part of ninety minutes, looking for word from one of the point cars as soon as that first crucial contact with the enemy was made.

Sacco was the general this time out, and he would not be hiding somewhere behind the lines, no way. He was intent on leading his troops into battle, closing the bottleneck with his enemies trapped inside.

It was an easy stand, there being only three main routes approaching Rickenbacker Causeway. And no matter which direction the Cuban gunners came from, they would have to choose one of the routes that Sacco had already picketed with lookouts at strategic locations.

Any way they came he had them, and his own central location made it feasible for him to instantly respond to any contact point within moments of the initial sighting.

The plan was simple, and that was why he liked it.

Sacco did not fully understand what Tommy Drake had been doing with his Cuban contacts, and at the moment he did not really give a damn. The time had come to square accounts, for damn sure.

Time to save some face and put his house in order, right, and regain some of his slipping prestige with the commission.

When he had finished whipping ass today there would be time enough to look around and see how far the treason had spread within his family. Time enough, perhaps, to show a certain smart-assed Ace of Spades how the old pros handled revolutions in the ranks.

A walkie-talkie crackled into life between the front-seat gunners. Sacco snapped his fingers, reaching for the radio and taking it from the driver's hand.

'This is Digger, calling home base. You there, Chief?'

Sacco recognized it as his scout on Brickell Avenue.

'I'm listening,' he snapped. 'What is it?'

'Four vans headed your way, Cubans driving.'

'Slow 'em down the best you can. We're coming in.'

'You got it, boss.'

Sacco held the transmission button down, calling in the other point cars, knowing that he would need every gun he had.

'All cars, form up on number three's position. North on Brickell. Move it!'

He did not wait for their responses. His driver was already peeling out of the parking lot. The gunners all around him were unlimbering their weapons, checking loads.

The capo reached under his jacket and slipped the stainless .45 AMT Hardballer out of side leather. He drew back the slide to chamber a live one, easing the hammer down with the ball of his thumb.

It had been years since he had fired a shot in anger, but he had not lost the touch, hell no. He'd teach these kids a thing or two, starting now.

There was virtually no traffic on Brickell Avenue as the three-car caravan pushed north, the Rolls leading, and it only took them moments to reach their destination. Sacco had no trouble picking out the target zone from three long blocks away.

The Digger's Caddy crew wagon was parked diagonally across two lanes, the gunners crouched behind it, already firing over hood and trunk in the direction of some stationary vans. One of the troops was stretched out dead on the asphalt, a blood slick expanding gradually around him.

Beyond the Caddy three trucks were stalled in the middle of the street, with Cubans spilling out, deploying under fire. A fourth truck was parked at an angle that indicated it had tried to swing around the Caddy, but the shattered windshield and leaking radiator bore mute testimony to the fury of the fusillade that stopped it dead.

Phil Sacco's caravan screeched to a halt behind the Cadillac, the reinforcements piling out, already under fire from the enemy as they moved into position. Sacco's aging bones protested as he ran, trying to keep his head down and out of the line of fire.

He reached the sanctuary of the Cadillac and found a place beside the crew chief, Digger Fontenelli. Sacco risked a glance over the roof of the limo, almost losing his nose as a bullet caromed off the bodywork inches from his face. After that, he was more circumspect in seeking an angle on the fray.

The Caddy was taking repeated hits, rocking to the tempo of the incoming automatic fire. There seemed to be a hundred guns against them, and Sacco was already having second thoughts about the wisdom of his plan, engaging the hostiles this way in broad daylight, where the cops or Feds or anybody might drop in at any moment.

To hell with it. They were in the middle of it now, and there was only one way out: directly through the enemy, right on.

The Digger straightened up, angling for a shot with his stubby riot shotgun, and a sniper picked him off, putting a parabellum round right through his left eye socket, taking out the whole back of his skull in a soggy crimson spray. His body tumbled backward, hitting the asphalt with a sound of grim finality.

Sacco reacted quickly, the age-old reflexes taking over as he rose to his full height, the stainless .45 seeking a target. He spied the rifleman who dropped the Digger, and Sacco squeezed off a single booming round