rearview mirror. The P.I. had a telephone receiver in his hand, already speaking into it.
And Hannon held the fate of Bolan's mission in his hand as well. If he revealed what he suspected — what he
The flash of recognition had been unavoidable, perhaps, but Hannon was a savvy war-horse, all the same. Nothing passed him by unnoticed, unexamined by the keen detective's eye. There was potential danger there, if Hannon's sense of duty forced him to report their close encounter.
But Bolan trusted the detective. Naturally. Instinctively.
A great deal more than recognition had been shared between them as they spoke. There had been understanding, yes, and something else on the detective's part.
Approval?
Grudging admiration?
Bolan frowned. If Hannon chose to play the role of ally, he might be a winning asset — or a cumbersome liability. At present, though, the Executioner had other problems on his mind.
His Miami probe was a response to rumblings in the underground, a hint of trouble dangerously near the flash point. He had bits and pieces of the puzzle, and there had been a hope that Hannon, in the private sector now, might help him put them all together. Now, instead, he had provided further riddles.
And a pointer, yes. At least that much.
He had pointed Bolan straight to Tommy Drake.
3
Tommy Drake — born Thomas Dracco — was the sole surviving son of a Chicago loan shark. Papa Dracco was 'connected,' but his Mob affiliations did not guarantee intelligence — nor could they save him when he sided with the loser in a local Mafia insurrection. The incumbent boss had Papa taken for a ride, and when his elder sons went looking for revenge, they disappeared without a trace.
All three of them.
And young Thomas, wiser than his siblings, suddenly acquired a taste for travel.
He had gravitated to Miami, seeking distance from Chicago. He acquired a muscle job — as Tommy Drake — with local
When Balderone went down before the Bolan guns, Drake numbly switched allegiance to the growing faction led by Nicky Fusco. Loss of relatives had taught him flexibility, and Tommy sought 'adoption' in the Fusco family, taking up the duties of a first lieutenant, learning the narcotics business from a master. Later, after Nicky lost it all in yet another Bolan blitz, his protege went shopping for a sponsor.
And discovered Don Filippo Sacco.
Tommy's penchant for adopting bosses did not signal any lack of personal ambition. On the contrary, experience had taught him to let others take the heat that came with leadership. He was content to stand in someone else's shadow, glad to profit from the fearsome reputation of his nominal superiors. They protected him while he earned them money.
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.
