Battle Cry

The climate-controlled room measured right around three hundred square feet, running twenty feet long east to west, and fifteen wide, north to south. Within that space, Watt had collected an impressive cache of automatic weapons, shotguns, pistols and accessories for every killing need.

There was a .460 Weatherby Magnum for would-be elephant poachers, and a .50-caliber Barrett M-82 semiautomatic antimaterial rifle for hunters who wanted to bag an armored personnel carrier.

Speaking of big guns, Watt also stocked a 40 mm Milkor MGL 6-shot 40 mm grenade launcher, a Czech SAG-30 semiauto launcher for smaller 30 mm grenades, and a South African Vektor Y3 AGL that required a tripod or vehicle mount for its full-auto spray of 280 grenades per minute.

“Much call for that in Glasgow?” Bolan asked his guide.

“If someone asks,” Watt said, “I aim to please.”

The remainder of his inventory was more convention, including various assault rifles, submachine guns and sidearms manufactured in Europe. Price tags were nowhere to be seen.

Bolan’s first choice was a 5.56 mm Steyr AUG, the modern classic manufactured in Austria and carried by soldiers of twenty-odd nations, and by agents of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Its compact bullpup design, factory-standard Swarovski Optik 1.5x telescopic sight, and see-through plastic magazines all made for a convenient, reliable combat rifle.

For backup and variety, Bolan next chose a Spectre M-4 submachine gun, manufactured at the SITES factory in Turin, Italy. Feeding 9 mm Parabellum cartridges from a four-column casket magazine, the Spectre carried fifty rounds to the average SMG’s thirty or thirty-five. Its double-action trigger mechanism allowed safe carriage while cocked, and its muzzle was threaded for a suppressor, which Bolan added to his shopping cart.

Last up, for guns, he chose another Italian: the same selective-fire Beretta 93-R pistol that he favored in the States. It was no longer in production, but the piece Watt had acquired was brand-new in appearance, and a quick look proved it fully functional. In essence, with its muzzle brake, folding foregrip, and 20-round magazines, the 93-R gave Bolan a second SMG to play with. He picked a fast-draw shoulder rig to carry it, with pouches for spare magazines, and started shopping for grenades.

His choice there was the standard British L109 fragmentation grenade, a variant of the original Swiss HG 85 that had replaced the older L2A2 in the early 1990s. Each grenade weighed one pound and had a timed fuse, with a Mat Black Safety Clip similar to those found on American M-67 frag grenades.

Bolan bought an even dozen, just in case, added a KA-BAR fighting knife on impulse and decided he was done.

With ammunition, extra magazines and gun bags to conceal his purchases, the total was a flat eight thousand pounds. Say thirteen grand, in round numbers.

“I have a counteroffer for you,” Bolan said.

“Not quite the way it works, friend,” Watt replied.

“You haven’t heard it, yet.”

“Go on, then. Make me laugh.”

Before Watt reached his pocket pistol, Bolan had the KA-BAR’s blade against his throat.

“A name and address for your life,” he said.

IT DIDN’T QUITE work out that way. Watt thought about it for a minute, then gave up the information Bolan needed, but it went against the grain. He could’ve simply spent the afternoon in handcuffs, in his soundproofed arsenal, but something in the Gorbals sense of “honor” made him try his hand against the Executioner, and Bolan left the KA-BAR stuck between the man’s ribs to dam the blood flow, while he took another to replace it from the dealer’s stash.

He left the shop with two gym bags, locked the door and dropped Watt’s keys into a curbside rubbish can. Someone would come to look for Watt, sooner or later, and eventually they would find him with his basement cache of arms.

Or not.

It made no difference to Bolan, as he loaded the rental car with tools for the continuation of his endless war and left the neighborhood of Garnethill behind him, heading west along New City Road to Bearsden.

A slightly richer neighborhood, that was, and Bolan thought about the name while he was driving. He had no idea if there had ever been a bear in the vicinity, or if its den was anywhere nearby, but he was looking for a predator among the stylish homes that lined attractive streets, all redolent with history.

The target’s name was Frankie Boyle. He’d dominated Glasgow’s rackets for the past decade or so, his interests covering the normal range of gambling, prostitution, drugs, extortion, theft and loan-sharking. Through Ian Watt and several others like him, Boyle also controlled a fair piece of illicit trafficking in arms for Glasgow and environs, which, as Bolan understood it, covered most of Central Scotland east of Edinburgh.

It was the weapons trade that sent Bolan in search of Boyle this afternoon. Or, more specifically, some of the people who were purchasing his wares. A group of homegrown terrorists whose war, though dormant for a time, had flared to life again in recent weeks with grim results.

Bolan would happily have turned the tap to halt on illegal weapons sales worldwide, but that would never happen, realistically. One major reason was that most of the world’s industrial nations—the United States included—constantly sold guns and bombs to other countries who were ill-equipped to make their own. Official sales were perfectly legitimate, but once a load of hardware was delivered, the security surrounding it depended on a cast of human beings who were fallible at best, malicious and corrupt at worst.

Add in the thefts from military arsenals and legal shipments, and you had a world armed to the teeth, with an insatiable craving for more guns, more ammunition, more grenades and rocket launchers.

Arms trafficking was the world’s second-largest source of criminal revenue, after drugs, and Bolan was a realist. He couldn’t disarm a square block in New York or Los Angeles, much less a city the size of Glasgow. Cleaning up a state or country? It wasn’t realistic.

But he could stop one specific trafficker, and thereby slow the flood of killing hardware for a day or two, until the top man was replaced and pipelines were reopened. Bolan could take out selected buyers and make sure that they never pulled another trigger.

If his targets didn’t kill him first.

Boyle’s street was nice, its houses big and old enough to rate respect. Not mansions, in the sense you might expect for Texas oil tycoons or dot-com billionaires in Silicone Valley, but cruising past them in a humble rented car, you knew the wealth was there.

No walled estates or obvious security devices here. Bolan drove slowly, as if looking for an address—which he was, in fact—and saw no lookouts posted on the street near number 82. No curtains flickered as he passed; why would they? he thought. Boyle would take the usual precautions: sweep the place for bugs, use prepaid cell phones for his business calls and speak in code, stash any serious incriminating items well away from his home, and pay off whichever cops would take your money and agree to drop a dime before a raid went down. Or fudge an address on a warrant, so the search was bad and anything collected would be inadmissible in court.

Friends taking care of friends.

Greed was another problem Bolan couldn’t fix, and he had sworn a private vow to keep his gunsights well away from law-enforcement officers. He’d helped to put a few in prison, but if push came down to shove, there was a line he’d rather not cross.

So Glasgow’s Finest, even those who weren’t so very fine, had nothing to fear from Bolan. Racketeers like Frankie Boyle, however, were another story altogether.

If he’d known what was about to happen to him, to his little urban empire, Boyle would likely have been quaking in his boots. Or, maybe he was too far gone for that, a stoned psycho who never gave a second thought to fear.

Suits me, Bolan thought. Crazies died like anybody else.

He scoped the house and then drove on. Still daylight.

And the Executioner had time to kill.

Chapter 2

Glasgow: 3:35 a.m.

Frankie Boyle wasn’t drunk, but he was working on it. He’d been up and out since early afternoon, showing himself and being seen at the familiar haunts, checking accounts at different operations on a random basis, so the boys he’d left in charge would never know whose books might be examined next.

This night, he had surprised Joe Murray at Night Moves, one of the five strip clubs Boyle owned through paper fronts in Glasgow. One of Murray’s girls—Boyle’s girls, in fact—had beefed that Murray helped himself to tips beyond the standard fifty-fifty split Boyle had imposed on dancers in his joints.

That was a minor problem, which could have been resolved with just a quiet word, but Murray had been rolling certain customers, as well. Just two or three so far, but Boyle knew it would be bad for business if the word got out and customers stayed away. Worse yet, if it brought the police sniffing after Boyle.

And adding insult to the injury, Murray hadn’t shared the loot he’d stolen with his boss.

Major mistake in Boyle’s book.

Boyle had strolled into Night Moves at a quarter past eleven, with a couple of his boys, and put the smile on everyone in sight. He bought a round for the house and accepted the grateful applause in return, then took Murray to the soundproof office for a private chat. Murray reckoned everything was fine until he saw the ball-peen hammer, then he started bawling like a baby, blubbering and pleading innocence while Boyle got down to work.

Knuckles and walnuts sounded the same when they were crushed.

Boyle had considered smashing Murray’s feet as well, but changed his mind and took the greedy bastard’s shoes instead, along with keys to his brand-new Mercedes-Benz, and tossed him out the back.

Adding, “Oh, by the way, you’re fecking fired,” before he slammed the door.

The dancer who had tipped him off received a healthy tip and was invited to see Boyle at home after she got off work. When she’d arrived, a little after two o’clock, he’d thanked her properly. And twice more in the time since then, leaving her limp and snoring softly on his king-size bed.

No worries there, Boyle thought. He had no wife to scold him, and no kids to barge in without knocking first. After he’d satisfied his thirst, he might go back and thank the lady one more time. It would be fine if she woke up; if not, so be it.

Boyle was all about the gratitude.

Pouring his third straight double shot of Glenmorangie whisky, he thought about Murray again. In the old days, say ten years ago, he’d have likely killed the man for the money he’d stolen. Things had been tight back then, relatively, but now Boyle could dabble in mercy.

Unless Murray was stupid and tried to make trouble.

Boyle didn’t mind if he stayed in Glasgow. Murray could serve as a living example of what befell those who screwed with the boss. Telling the story to selected listeners was also fine, as long as Murray was straight about it, laying out his sins. But if he started agitating, or considered talking to the filth…

Boyle sipped his whisky, savored it, deciding he could always have the boys drop Murray in the Clyde or take him for a ride onto the moors if there were indications of his acting up. Until then, there was no point second-guessing his original decision.

One more shot before he went back to the dancer?

Boyle considered it, weighing the pleasure against any possible decline in his performance, and decided it was worth the risk. These days, it took a fair amount of booze to get him blootered, and in his opinion, he still bounced back in good time for a man his age.

Forty and counting. Who in hell would’ve believed that Frankie Boyle would last so long? he wondered.

Smiling, he took the shot glass with him. Back to thank his friend once more, before he sent her home.

BOLAN HAD USED the day to get his bearings, gather information and to follow Frankie Boyle at a discreet distance. He’d noted the addresses that, given the length of time Boyle spent at them, he had to have an interest in beyond having a drink or watching strippers work a pole.

Mapping the darker side of Glasgow, one stop at a time.

He had been parked a block away from Night Moves, south of Bath Street, when a weeping man had lurched out of a nearby alley, cradling hands that looked like shattered bird’s nests. Bolan let him go and wished him well if he deserved it.

Either way the man turned on Pitt Street, he would find help waiting for him. Go south for police headquarters, north to reach the nearest hospital ER. Both stood within a quarter mile of where Bolan had parked his rented car to wait for Boyle’s next move.

As it turned out, that was the highlight of his evening, until he followed Boyle home and started getting ready for his unexpected meet with Glasgow’s unofficial boss. The city council and police would angrily dispute that title, naturally, but the fact remained that Boyle controlled a major portion of the city’s underground economy.

This night, that would be coming to an end.

Bolan was dressed in black street clothes with sturdy boots, and he wore a light raincoat to hide the Spectre SMG slung underneath his right arm, muzzle-heavy with its sound suppressor in place. He always came prepared for trouble. Bolan didn’t know how many men Boyle had inside his great pile of a house, or how they would be armed.

Ideally, he would have a private moment with the boss and persuade Boyle to give up his terrorist contacts. But that was looking on the rosy side. Things rarely went that way for Bolan, and he guessed that Boyle would be the usual tough nut to crack.

If he had to ice the boss and squeeze somebody else, he’d do that. Ian Watt had named Boyle’s number two as Erik Heriot, presumably well versed on all of Boyle’s big deals. If one nut wouldn’t crack…

Bolan had picked his time deliberately. Countless studies had revealed that human beings generally hit a slump at 4:00 a.m., no matter how much sleep they’d had. Reflexes lagged, distractions were routine. In hospitals, statistics showed a spike in births and deaths.

It was the Hour of the Wolf.

Or, in this case, the Hour of the Executioner.

The closest place he’d found to park was four blocks northeast of Boyle’s place, but the neighborhood had alleys where the well-to-do could leave their garbage cans for pickup without ruining the trim look of their streets. Taking the back way cut his hike by half and gave Bolan a chance to come at Boyle’s house from behind, instead of strolling under streetlights to the tall front door.

The backyard was surrounded by a seven-foot brick wall, but Boyle hadn’t bothered to spike it or set up motion detectors. Bolan scaled the wall and lay on top of it to whistle softly, calling any dogs that might be lurking in the shadows down below, but none responded to the call. No gunmen, either, indicating that the Boss of Glasgow didn’t know that he was under siege.

There had been nothing on the radio about police discovering Watt’s body in the pawn shop, nothing about weapons found or anything related to them. Bolan knew police could keep things under wraps if they collaborated with the media, but unsolved homicides normally rated coverage, even if details were suppressed to weed out false confessions.

So, he had no reason to suspect that Boyle was on alert. All systems go.

Bolan rolled off the wall and dropped into darkness, landed in a crouch and struck off toward the house.

ERIK HERIOT LIT his fortieth cigarette of the day, spent close to a half-minute coughing, then expelled the smoke from his lungs with a sigh or relief. Ought to quit that, he thought, then smiled at the old game he played with himself every day.

He wasn’t ready for a life change at the moment, whether it was swearing off the coffin nails, taking a pledge on booze, or looking for a so-called honest job to fill his time from nine to five.

He had one life, and this was it. He’d come a long way from the borstal time he’d served as a delinquent kid, serving these days as second in command to Frankie Boyle. Hard men all over Strathclyde knew his name, and Heriot could name a few in London who regretted crossing him.

The ones who were alive.

His life was damn near brilliant, when he thought about it, but if there was one thing he could change, it would’ve been the idle waiting that he had to do while Boyle had himself a frolic with a fancy bit. It was a waste of time for Heriot, in his opinion, when he could just as well be shaking down a debtor, say, or getting into some young lovely’s panties himself.

Still, Heriot knew better than to bitch about it, which would certainly rebound against him. It was better if he just—

Now, what in hell was that? he thought in response to the sound he’d just heard.

It was a scuffling noise of some kind from the kitchen, he realized. The last thing that he needed was a couple of his boys banging the pots and pans around like Gordon Feckin’ Ramsey on the telly. If they had to scuffle, he thought, they could do it in the yard. Or, better still, hold off until their shift was over and go down to Rory’s gym. Decide the matter in the ring, where anyone could get a bet down and enjoy the show, Heriot reasoned.

Fuming and trailing smoke, he made his way to the kitchen, ready to unload on anyone who was dumb enough to start a row inside the boss’s house. He cleared the doorway and stopped dead, surprised at seeing Billy Cutler laid out on the floor.

His eyes were open, staring blankly at the ceiling, and what seemed to be a bucketload of blood was pooled around his head. He saw the gun lying next to Billy’s limp right hand, and knew there should’ve been the louder racket if he’d shot himself.

So, wha—?

Warm steel made contact with his skull behind his left ear. Heriot froze where he stood, wondering how much it would hurt to have his brains blown out. Instead of pain and sudden darkness, though, a voice half-whispered to him.

“Let’s go see your boss,” it said.

THE BACK DOOR had been unlocked for some reason. Maybe one of Boyle’s attendants had planned to take out the trash, or perhaps it was simple negligence. Whatever the scenario, it happened, and the ones most likely to relax their guard were people who had been in charge so long that they’d begun to treat the opposition with contempt.

It was a critical mistake.

Bolan had entered with the 93-R in his hand, leaving his Spectre on its sling for the moment. The pistol left his spare hand free for doorknobs, light switches, whatever came along requiring manual dexterity.

He was inside, closing the door behind him, when he realized that there was someone in the pantry, off the kitchen proper to his left. Bolan was gentle with the door, but it still clicked as it was closing, and the soldier in the pantry had good ears.

“Whozat?” the man asked, and had his pistol drawn before he showed himself. Not bad, Bolan thought, risking embarrassment to hold the fort. But whoever had left the door unlocked also had signed his death warrant.

One shot from twenty feet was all it took, sinking a hole between the shooter’s raised eyebrows, just a hair off center. Dying on his feet, the guy still managed two more lurching steps and fell against the stove, left arm outflung to catch the handle of a skillet, flip it once end-over-end and send it clattering across the floor as he went down.

The house was quiet, otherwise, though lights still showed in several of the windows. Bolan had to think the noise would draw somebody to investigate, and he was right. No more than thirty seconds later, when he’d nearly reached the exit to a formal dining room, he heard footsteps approaching at an urgent pace.

Bolan stepped back into a corner where the door would cover him as it was opened. Any SWAT team officer or soldier trained in urban combat would have entered in a crouch, slamming the door back to the wall and stunning anyone who might be crouched behind it, but a little racket in the kitchen didn’t rate that kind of do-or-die response.

So he was ready when the new arrival entered in a cloud of cigarette smoke, gaping at the body sprawled before him. And before the second man could twitch, much less sound an alarm, Bolan had kissed his neck with the Beretta’s warm suppressor.

“Let’s go see your boss,” he said.

The Scotsman almost nodded, then thought better of it. When he turned, it was a slow dance move, away from Bolan, waiting for the gun and whoever was holding it to go along with him. He caught the door before it closed, with his right hand, and stepped across the threshold with the same care he might exercise if he was walking on light bulbs.

“How far?” Bolan asked, not quite whispering.

“Upstairs. First floor, end of the hall.”

“First floor,” in the UK and most of Europe, meant what would’ve been the second story in the States. On this side of the water, the American first floor was called the “ground” floor, logically enough.

“You lead. Stay cool.”

“As ice,” his prisoner replied. Then added, “I suppose ye know yer in the shitebag now.”

“You’d better hope not,” Bolan told him. “If it hits the fan, you’re first to go.”

“Oh, aye. Ah figgered that.”

They’d reached the stairs, and Bolan’s captive started up them, taking each step with leaden strides.

“Faster,” Bolan instructed.

“Och, I wouldn’t wanna get me arse shot off fer runnin’, now.”

Before Bolan could answer, two men suddenly appeared above him, on the first-floor landing. Both scowled down at him, then reached for pistols tucked into their belts. He reached around his hostage, winged the shooter on his right.

And then all hell broke loose.

FRANKIE BOYLE was half asleep when sounds of gunfire yanked him back to consciousness. He tumbled out of bed, naked, his first instinct being to save himself if shooters were about to crash his bedroom door. Another second told him that the noise was buffered by a few more walls, which he figured meant he had at least a little time.

Job one: retrieve the Browning Hi-Power semiauto pistol from the top drawer of his nightstand and be ready to defend himself.

Job two: while covering the door, hit speed-dial on his cell phone for his houseman, to find out exactly what in bloody hell was happening.

Job three: put on some clothes.

The woman from Night Moves had begun to squeal and wouldn’t shut it when he snapped at her, so Boyle reached up and banjoed her with the 9 mm pistol. He thought he heard her nose crack, but had no time to consider it.

The phone rang three times and was going into number four when houseman Davey Bryce answered, breathless. “Yeah?”

“What’s all the feckin’ racket, then?” Boyle demanded.

“Someone’s got inside. I dunno—”

And the line went dead.

Boyle squeezed and shook the cell phone, all in vain. He thumbed redial, waited forever, just to hear a robo-voice say that his party wasn’t answering.

“No shite!” he snarled, and disconnected. He pressed another button with his thumb and waited through two rings before a gruff voice answered.

“Yeah, so?”

“Is ya feckin’ deaf or what, then? We’re gettin’ shot to tatters while you’re whackin’ off. Get yer ass over here right now!”

Boyle cut the link without waiting for a response and scrambled toward the nearby closet on his hands and knees. His private dancer was still wailing from the bed, likely to bring the home invaders down on top of them unless she shut it, but he couldn’t bring himself to shoot her.

Not in his own bed.

Boyle reached the walk-in closet, crawled inside and only then stood up. For all he knew, a bullet might come punching through one of the walls and find him there, but he felt safer, anyway.