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And while it hardly shocked the Executioner, he was slightly surprised. He had expected to be assigned to some form of smuggling operation—guns, drugs, or other contraband. But the act McFarley gave him was different, and Bolan recognized it for just what it was.

A test. McFarley had opened his home, his office and the girls of his brothel to the Executioner, and the Irishman had smiled and laughed throughout the entire evening as if he and Bolan had been lifelong friends. But as the criminal kingpin spoke the final few words of their multifaceted conversation that evening, Bolan could see in the man’s emerald-green eyes that McFarley still didn’t fully trust him.

And he’d go no farther with him until he did.

“Do you have your own weapons or do I need to furnish them for you?” McFarley asked.

“I’ll be fine on my own,” Bolan said.

“I understand my men took an enormous folding knife from you before.”

“They did,” he said. “And I’d like it back before I leave.” He stood up, then suddenly reached down the front of his slacks and brought out the North American Arms Pug. Setting it silently on McFarley’s desk, he said, “But they completely missed this.”

The Executioner sat back down in the stuffed armchair.

McFarley’s bright green eyes stared furiously at the tiny handgun on his desk. It was a good minute before he finally spoke again. When he did, he said, “I’d say you are to be congratulated on breaching my security, Matt. Very skillfully done. And it took balls.” The laugh he gave out now was forced. “No pun intended.” Reaching out, he lifted the NAA in his hand, looked at it, then tossed it back over his desk.

Bolan caught the little gun in midair.

“Take it,” McFarley said. “If you’d planned on using it on me, you’d have already done it.”

The Executioner nodded and dropped the Pug into the side pocket of his sport coat.

“But while you’re to be congratulated, my men are going to have to be disciplined,” McFarley said.

“I wouldn’t be too hard on them,” Bolan said. “It’s not fair to compare them to me.”

Then McFarley returned to his genuine laughter. “You don’t lack confidence, do you, boyo?”

“If you don’t believe in yourself,” Bolan said, “how can you expect anyone else to believe in you?”

“I can’t argue with that logic,” McFarley said. He stood up behind his desk, indicating that the meeting was over. “My chauffeur will take you back to the gym to get your things. I own an apartment and condominium development a few miles from here, and he’ll help you get settled into one of the units.

“What I told you I wanted done, I want done tomorrow. But I’m not much of a morning person. Shall we meet here for lunch before you go off to complete your work?”

“Lunch sounds fine,” Bolan said, standing up and shaking McFarley’s hand.

“But wait, I almost forgot,” the criminal kingpin said. “I offered you the ladies. Want a few hours down below with Maria or some of the other girls?”

“Sometime, but not tonight. I’ve got a move to make and a plan to develop so I can get your job done tomorrow and stay out of jail after I’ve done it.”

McFarley nodded. “You’re a man of great self-control,” he said. “I like that.”

“I like it, too,” Bolan said.

A moment later he was being led through the hallways by O’Banion and Westbrook, descending in the elevator and being walked to the front door of the brothel. When the shorter of the men opened the door for him, Bolan stopped and held out his hand.

“What is it you want?” the short man asked.

“My knife,” Bolan said.

The shorter man smiled. “I was thinking I’d just keep it myself,” he said. “Got to playing with it when you were having dinner. I like it.”

“I like it, too,” Bolan said as he reached into the side pocket of his sport coat, brought out the NAA .22 Magnum revolver and shoved it under the goon’s nose. “That’s why I want it back.”

“Where’d that come from?” the short man asked, looking cross-eyed down at the barrel.

“I brought it in with me,” Bolan said as he cocked the tiny firearm. “You missed it. Now give me the knife.”

Slowly, the man with the gun in his face reached into his own jacket and pulled out the Cold Steel folding knife.

Bolan clipped the weapon to his belt over his right hip, then pocketed the Pug again.

He waited while the chauffeur opened the limo door for him, then slid into the backseat of the vehicle.

5

Whenever a police officer was murdered, all cops around the world, both the dirty and the clean, took it personally. And they dropped whatever else they were doing to find the killer responsible.

Unless, of course, they were in on the murder themselves.

Bolan knew that while New Orleans had a reputation for police and politicians “on the take,” there were still far more honest cops in the Big Easy than crooked men and women in blue.

But what McFarley wanted him to do was a little more complicated. The big boss of the Big Easy wanted him to kill a cop who had been on the take, then had a sudden change of heart and had become irritatingly honest.

McFarley’s closing words of the night before still hung in the Executioner’s ears: “This SOB—Greg Kunkle’s his name—went to some church revival or something and got reborn. Now he not only won’t take the payoffs I was getting to him, he’s busted one of my smaller brothels and popped two of my crack dealers down in the French Quarter. I want him dead.”

Bolan had placed his suitcases and equipment bags on the bed in the luxury one-bedroom apartment to which McFarley’s chauffeur had driven him after a quick stop at the gym. In the wee small hours of the dark New Orleans night, he unzipped a short nylon case and opened the same locked hard plastic box he’d looked at earlier in the evening when deciding on what weaponry to take to the meeting with McFarley.

He was no longer posing as a boxing gym manager. The fake police records Kurtzman had set up for him had obviously made McFarley trust him enough to talk more openly. But this hit on NOPD Detective Greg Kunkle was a clear test of loyalty, as well as a way for McFarley to get leverage over Cooper.

Knowledge of a professional execution would be a big hammer that McFarley could hold over his head from then on. A few hints to the right ears, done the right way, could point the finger at Bolan as triggerman without involving McFarley himself.

But Bolan had different plans, and as he looked inside his pistol case, he realized there was no longer any reason not to go fully armed from here on.

The soldier removed his sport coat and slid into the black leather and nylon shoulder rig that housed the Beretta 93-R under his left arm. The rig was custom built to accommodate the sound suppressor threaded onto the extended barrel, and while the term “silencer” was one most often used by the combat noninitiated, the device did keep the noise down to a bare minimum and changed the sound to one less like a gunshot.

Bolan attached the retainer strap beneath the holster to his belt, securing it into place. Then his hands moved to his other side. Held in place by a pair of Concealex plastic magazine carriers were two extra 9 mm mags. While the Beretta itself was filled with RBCD total fragmentation rounds, one of the magazines in the front had been loaded with Hornady hollowpoints. They would pierce slightly deeper than the RBCDs, but still mushroom into an impressive mushroom-head-looking missile that rivaled a .45 in size.

The third magazine in the Concealex holder was filled with needle-pointed armor-piercing rounds. They were made for penetration in case the target took refuge behind metal or some other hard object, or was wearing a bullet-resistant vest.

Bolan double-checked to make sure the Cold Steel Espada was clipped to the back of his belt. Satisfied that the gigantic folding knife was in place, he unbuckled his belt and slid the Concealex holster onto the rear slot, stopping it just in front of the second belt loop of his pants. Then, threading it on through the second slot, he slipped it through the last belt loop and buckled it again. A second later, the Desert Eagle had been pushed down inside the plastic holder, making a clicking sound. A clip-on double magazine carrier, which was big enough to accommodate two more of the Israeli-made.44 Magnum box-magazines came next, and Bolan clipped it just behind his left kidney.

The Espada was flanked by the Desert Eagle and its spare rounds.

But there was one extremely important weapon that Bolan wanted with him again, and he reached into the side pocket of his jacket where he’d placed it while still at McFarley’s. The .22 Magnum Pug had passed through McFarley’s security earlier. But this time he wanted it as a backup piece for his .44 Magnum and 9 mm Parabellum rounds. Inserting it into a tiny leather inside-the-waistband holster, he clipped it over his belt, positioning it against his back and using the spare magazine holder that sported his extra Desert Eagle ammo to wedge it into place. When he was searched again—and he suspected he would be—McFarley’s man would take the Desert Eagle but likely leave the magazines in place.

At least the Executioner hoped he would. After all, the magazines would be no good without the pistol to go with them.

There was only one problem with the Pug as he saw it; he had not had time to test fire it. And Bolan never trusted any weapon he hadn’t personally fired.

The soldier sat down on the edge of the bed. An hour ago, had someone asked him if there was any sort of combat or criminal problem he’d never faced before, his answer would have been none that he could think of.

But finally he had thought of one. Or, rather, McFarley had thought one up for him.

Bolan lay back on the bed and rested on his elbow. His policy was to never kill cops—clean or dirty. He had in the past made an occasional exception.

And to make matters more complicated in this case, according to McFarley, Kunkle had repented of his past sins and was doing his best to make amends. He was no longer even dirty. He was a new man, different from the one who’d worked both sides of the law in the past.

So Bolan was going to have to fake the hit, convince McFarley that he’d killed Kunkle without actually doing so.

The Executioner had faked similar hits in the past, with the intended victims’ willing to help—and they were almost always willing because they knew if they didn’t help put their enemy in jail he’d just hire someone else to kill them. Bolan had taken photos of ketchup-covered bodies and used other props to make the death look real.

But this job was to be different. McFarley was familiar with the way cops posing undercover as hit men faked murders, and he wanted more solid proof.

McFarley wanted Greg Kunkle’s hands. With his police connections, McFarley could get the fingerprints run through AFIS—the nation-wide Advanced Fingerprint Identification System—and since all law-enforcement personnel were printed when hired, he could see if the prints on file matched the prints on the severed hands.

Which made the operation a hundred times more complicated.

An idea had been floating around in the back of Bolan’s mind for some time, and suddenly it crystallized. Pulling the cell phone from his shirt pocket, he tapped in Barbara Price’s number at Stony Man Farm.

As he’d known she would, Price answered.

“I need some help,” Bolan said without preamble. “Can you transfer me to the Bear?”

“You’re on your way now. I’ll scramble the call,” Price said.

A moment later, Kurtzman answered with, “Hello, Striker. Always nice to hear your voice and know you’re still alive.”

“You pays your money and you takes your chances.” Bolan quoted an old saying. “But since you brought up the subject of death, let me tell you what I need from you.” He began running down the elements of the McFarley-Kunkle situation to the computer expert.

“This sounds fairly simple,” Kurtzman said. “Hal can ask his contacts to get hands from a donated corpse at George-town’s medical school. Enough people owe the guy favors.” He paused. “I realize the body was donated to science, surely the hands can be sacrificed to a greater good.”

“As soon as you get the hands,” Bolan went on, “make a set of prints and substitute them for Kunkle’s on AFIS. But first, run them for real to make sure they don’t pop up on their own. If the hands’ former owner was ever printed—criminal record, armed forces, or for any other reason—they’ll pop up double when McFarley has whatever dirty cops he uses check them. And we don’t need that complicating this mess.”

“Already thought of that,” Kurtzman said. “If the new prints are already on file, I can delete them. Or get another pair of hands on the job . Sorry. Really bad pun, there, I realize.”

“I’ll let it slide,” Bolan said. “But as soon as you’ve printed the hands, get all of the ink off and then put them on ice and send them this way with Jack Grimaldi. Tell him to fly a pontoon plane of some sort. I’ll meet him in the swamp at coordinates that I’ll come up with later.”

“You want anyone with him?” Kurtzman asked.

Bolan knew what the computer man was thinking; he had thought of it himself. It was great to think that Kunkle had experienced such a dramatic change of heart, but he was still responsible for the laws he’d broken before. And if he was really sincere in his new belief, he’d know he still had to pay.

Bolan planned on sending Kunkle, blindfolded, back to the Farm to be secured during the rest of this mission by blacksuits. So it might not be a bad idea to have a couple of those blacksuits with Grimaldi in case the New Orleans cop did a little “backsliding” on the way back. When Bolan had finished with McFarley, Kunkle would be returned to New Orleans to face charges for bribery and any other crimes he’d committed while in McFarley’s pocket.

Kunkle might well have experienced a genuine religious experience. But he was going to have to confess his sins to the district attorney in addition to God. If the formerly dirty cop helped them out, Bolan suspected Brognola would use his influence within the Justice Department to get Kunkle a light sentence. Maybe even a suspended one.

“Yeah,” the Executioner said as soon as all of these things had run through his mind. “Send a couple of blacksuits—in plain clothes—as guards. Kunkle will be flying back with them. And staying for a while.”

“Like that Motel-6-guy says, ‘We’ll keep a light on for him.’” Kurtzman laughed.

“Sounds good,” Bolan said. “In the mean time, I’ve got a cop to go kidnap.”

And with that, he pushed the button and ended the call.

6

Bolan rose from the bed and pulled the .22 Magnum Pug from between his back and the .44 caliber magazine caddy. He figured it had a 99% chance of working properly—everything he had ever used from North American Arms had done its job the first time “out of the chute.” But he would not put one-hundred percent faith in any gun he hadn’t actually fired himself, so he lifted the tiny-but-powerful revolver in his hand. He could cover the entire weapon just by closing his fist around it. And folks could say what they wanted about .22 Magnum guns being “mouse guns.” Bolan knew that good shot placement was far more important than caliber, and he viewed the little revolver more like two-and-a-half .44 Magnums when it came to killing power.

The Executioner stared down at the snub-nosed Pug for a moment. Then, grabbing a pillow off the bed, he took three steps to the desk on the other side of the room and found a thick New Orleans phone book in the bottom drawer. The Pug was already loaded with hollowpoint rounds, and the hammer rested on one of the safety grooves between each of the chambers. That prevented an accidental discharge should the minute revolver be struck on the hammer, or dropped.

Kneeling, Bolan placed the phone book on the floor and doubled the pillow up on top of it. Then, cocking the hammer and jamming it tightly down into the pillow, he pulled the trigger.

The explosion sent a flurry of feathers floating into the air, and the sound was comparable to a tiny firecracker going off—not silent, but not loud enough to leave the apartment, either. When he dug down into the phone book, Bolan saw that the fragmented pieces of the bullet had gone three-quarters of the way through the pages.

The gun worked and worked well.

Sliding the loading rod out from beneath the barrel, Bolan removed the cylinder and used the same rod to knock the slightly expanded brass casing from the wheel. He replaced it with a live round, then reassembled the weapon and lowered the hammer onto another of the safety notches. Satisfied that the 5-round minirevolver would serve him well—at least within the limitations of its design—Bolan replaced the Pug against his back.

The Beretta 93-R machine pistol. The Desert Eagle .44 Magnum power blaster. The Cold Steel Espada, and the North American Arms .22 Magnum Pug. These were the four weapons on which Bolan would rely because each served a very different purpose. He always worked on the assumption that you were never over-armed until you carried so much steel that it adversely affected your balance and movement. And he wasn’t close to that point yet.

McFarley had given Bolan a picture of Kunkle, along with the fact that the born-again New Orleans detective was working the French Quarter that night. As he reclined back on the bed again, Bolan held the picture up to his eyes and stared at it. Kunkle looked to be in his late fifties, with wrinkle lines covering his forehead. The information McFarley had written on the back of the photo told Bolan that while the NOPD detective had once been known to spend his breaks in the strip clubs and bars famous for live sex shows, he had taken to frequenting the less-decadent Pat O’Brien’s since his conversion to Christianity.

If a true conversion had actually taken place, Bolan thought. In any case, it was O’Brien’s where Bolan intended to find him.

Or, more accurately, kidnap him.

Bolan glanced at his wristwatch. It was nearly midnight. Late for most people.

But Bourbon Street would be in full swing.

Fully armed, the Executioner left the apartment and hailed a cab near the entrance to the apartment complex. A few moments later, he was in the back seat and heading for New Orleans’ world-famous French Quarter.

BOURBON STREET, IN THE MIDDLE of the famous French Quarter, had been called the Amsterdam of America. And for good reason. For a straight seven street blocks, it was difficult to tell the difference between weeknights and weekends. And had it not been for the sun rising and setting, the difference between 7:00 a.m. and midnight would have been negligible as well. The area featured bars, souvenir shops, strip clubs, restaurants and jazz clubs. The party never ended until the patrons, individually, decided it was time to go home. Or passed out on the floor. And there was a constant string of newcomers always ready to take their place.

Like most of New Orleans, the French Quarter had been hit by Hurricane Katrina and, here and there, there was still evidence of the mighty storm’s destruction. But as the prime moneymaker as well as the most famous landmark of the city, it had been among the first areas to be rebuilt after the devastation.

The sounds, sights and smells of Bourbon Street infiltrated Bolan’s senses as he paid the cabdriver and got out. From one side of the street, he could hear the booming music of Guns n’ Roses. From the other came the music of AC/DC, and from farther down the street chords of a Lynyrd Skynrd song threatened to overtake all the other bands. The sidewalks and streets were packed with tourists and local, stumbling drunks. Many carried plastic cups filled with alcoholic beverages not finished when they’d decided to leave the last place on their “pub crawling” route.

Jimmy Buffett’s “It’s Five O’Clock Somewhere” blasted in Bolan’s ears as he stepped onto the sidewalk and began making his way toward Pat O’Brien’s. He passed various restaurants and bars—the Famous Door, Razzoo and the Krazy Corner—and was tempted to cover his ears as more music exploded as loud as any gunfire. Glancing upward over a sign announcing the Cats Meow nightclub, Bolan saw an attractive and abundantly built blonde girl look down at him, grin, then lift the tail of her T-shirt to her neck, exposing a pair of enormous breasts.

Bolan was only human. He smiled back at her as he moved on.

He continued to walk carefully, dodging the inebriated, off-balance pedestrians on the sidewalk with the skill of a running back hitting open field. Finally, he saw the sign he was looking for in the distance: Pat O’Brien’s.

The club was actually divided into three parts with different atmospheres of rowdiness, and was the home of the world-famous Hurricane, a red rum concoction that came served in large souvenir glasses. Men and women poured in and out of the doors, some returning their glasses for a three-dollar refund as they left.

According to McFarley, Kunkle had chosen the least rambunctious area of Pat O’Brien’s as his hangout of choice since his conversion. So it was to the piano-bar section of the building that Bolan now headed. He spotted the man from his picture, alone at a table, almost immediately. Kunkle had medium-long, light brown hair that fell halfway over his ears and draped long over his collar in the back. His full beard—the same light brown as his hair—made him look like he’d stepped off the set of some seventies cop movie. He wore a light summer tweed sport coat, a white shirt and a tie loosened at the neck. The soldier was close enough to hear him order a Diet Coke from the waiter who had just appeared.

“Make that two,” Bolan told the waiter as the man turned away.

The waiter just nodded and hurried off again.

The dual pianos in the bar continued to play as Bolan, not bothering to ask first, took a seat at the table across from Kunkle. The New Orleans police detective looked at Bolan with a blank face.

“I’ve been expecting this,” he said quietly without the slightest trace of surprise in his voice.

Bolan nodded. Kunkle had known that McFarley would send someone to kill him when he’d turned against the criminal kingpin. And he thought that time had come. What he didn’t realize was that while that was exactly why the Executioner had been sent to O’Brien’s, Bolan had no intention of carrying out McFarley’s order.

But Kunkle didn’t need to know that. At least not yet. It looked to Bolan as if the man had accepted his fate, which meant he might be able to get the detective out of the French Quarter more quietly if the man didn’t know the rest of the story.

As he settled into his chair, Bolan reached behind his back. Closing a big fist around the .22 Magnum Pug, he kept it covered until his hand had disappeared beneath the table. Then, silently waiting for a lull in the music coming from the pianos, he cocked the mini revolver.

Kunkle heard the metallic sound and recognized it for what it was.

“Take a look under the table to make sure,” Bolan whispered.

Kunkle slid slightly back in his chair, then dipped an eye below the tabletop. Sitting back up, he said, “It’s a little one.”

“But it’ll do the trick,” Bolan replied.

Kunkle’s face still showed no surprise or concern, and the soldier knew the man believed he was just what he was posing as—an assassin sent by McFarley to exact retribution for Kunkle’s change of heart.

“You going to do it right here?” the detective asked quietly.

“Not unless you make me,” Bolan said just as quietly. “In fact, if you cooperate, I’m not going to do it at all.”

The first show of any emotion crinkled the eyebrows of the formerly corrupt cop. “You’ll have to excuse me if I’m a little confused,” he said.

“All you need to know is that this isn’t quite what you think it is,” Bolan said. “And that if we get along, and things go like I want them to, you’re not going to die. At least right now. Or by my hand.”

The words brought a soft, ironic snort from the man seated across the table. “I accept Christ as my personal savior, quit ignoring Tommy McFarley’s illegal operations, quit taking his payoffs, and a man aims a gun at me under the table and cocks it.” He paused and the snort turned into an ironic chuckle. “And I’m not supposed to think he’s here to kill me? You’ll excuse me if I have a hard time believing that. I know what I’ve done, and I deserve to pay for it.”

Beneath the table, Bolan lowered the .22 Magnum revolver’s hammer and rolled the cylinder to one of the safety notches. Then his fingers closed around the weapon to hide it from curious eyes as he returned it behind his back. “Stand up and come with me,” he ordered. “You’ve got my word that you’re going to come out of all this a lot better than you think right now.”

Kunkle had accepted his fate and he did as told. He stood up. When Bolan motioned for him to lead the way toward the door, he did that, too.

They never did get their Diet Cokes.

A few seconds later, they were back on Bourbon Street, amid the music and yelling voices, looking for another cab.

DAWN HAD BROKEN BY THE TIME Bolan and Kunkle reached the parking lot of the Cajun Creek Tour Company, ten miles south of New Orleans, on the Mississippi Delta peninsula. A lone man with long shaggy gray hair and a matching beard had parked a broken-down Chevy pickup in the otherwise deserted parking lot. As they pulled up in front of him, they saw him fumbling with a huge key ring in front of the door to the seedy-looking office.

Beyond the office, in the muddy water of the swampy shore, a dozen or so airboats of varying sizes were docked and ready for the tourist trade.

Bolan paid the cabbie, and he and Kunkle got out of the backseat. In addition to his other armament, the soldier also carried Kunkle’s SIG-Sauer 9 mm pistol and the man’s backup gun, a small NAA .380. Manufactured by the same firm that produced Bolan’s minirevolver, the .380 was smaller than most .25s or .22s on the market. Bolan had also noticed that it was equipped with a Crimson Trace laser grip. With the push of a button—which came naturally when grasping the little weapon—a bright red spot was projected on the target rendering the use of the sights unnecessary. Kunkle had willingly turned both guns over to Bolan right after they’d entered the cab.

“My mama used to tell me I’d end up as some alligator’s dinner,” the New Orleans detective said as they started toward the small office building. “I’ve always heard they take you under and drown you, then wait a day or so in order to sort of ‘tenderize’ you. Guess I’m about to find out.”

The two men were still out of earshot of the man opening the office door, and Bolan whispered, “That’s not going to happen. Not if you do everything I tell you to.” He studied the man closely out of the corner of his eye.

It was too early to tell, and Kunkle had not been tested in his newfound faith. But so far, he had struck Bolan as sincere in his conversion to Christianity and his decision to turn back into an honest cop. Bolan would keep an eye on the man until he could be sure, but his instincts told him that Kunkle was a good man gone astray. He was the perfect “prodigal son.” He had been lured, little by little, into a world of decadence and payoffs. But it appeared that the revival he had attended had hit him hard, and the Executioner’s gut feelings had rarely failed him in the past. If it turned out that Kunkle was indeed repentant, Bolan knew he could use someone to watch his back during this mission. If he was going to use Kunkle in that role, however, he needed to test the man’s conversion soon.

So, as always seemed to happen at some point in any operation, he decided to take a calculated risk.

Stepping quickly in front of Kunkle as they continued to descend the bank toward the office, Bolan stopped the man in his tracks. Pulling the SIG-Sauer from his waistband, and the minute .380 from a pocket, he handed the guns, grip first, to the detective and whispered, “I’m trusting you to be on my side now. But you turn on me, and you’ll be meeting Jesus a lot sooner than you thought.” He paused as the New Orleans detective took his weapons, his face a mask of surprise. “Keep them out of sight,” Bolan finished.

Kunkle still looked as if someone had just handed him a rattlesnake instead of his own guns. Slowly, with almost robotlike movements, he pulled back the tail of his sport coat and shoved the SIG back down into the holster he still wore on his strong side. The NAA .380 went into the right back pocket of his pants.

Bolan studied the man’s eyes for further reaction. Kunkle had been resigned to becoming alligator chum, and had hardly spoken a word during their drive from the city. The man almost seemed to welcome what he thought was his imminent murder, as if by dying he could at least escape the humiliation of arrest and imprisonment. He had remained calm, and Bolan chalked that up to his newfound faith, and the fact that—even as dirty as he’d been—he believed he was about to go to a far better place than this world.

The two men began walking again, reaching the man at the door just as he found the right key and twisted it in the lock. He turned to look at them, then leaned to the side and spit a long stream of chewing tobacco onto the concrete. The thick brown liquid hit and exploded like a miniature bomb, splashing dangerously close to Kunkle’s shoes. The gray-haired man turned toward them before pushing open the door. “We not never open for another hour,” he said in a thick Cajun accent.