Bolan brought the crosshairs of the scope to rest on Fratierri's collar, just below the hairline, at a point where vertebrae connected with the skull. He eased the Marlin's safety off, inhaled to fill his lungs, released half of the breath and held the rest. Another second now, just one more step...

He squeezed and rode out the rifle's massive recoil to verify the hit. The telescopic sight put Fratierri almost in his lap, and Bolan saw the capo's skull explode on impact, spewing blood and bone and brains as if the dreams inside had grown too grandiose to be contained. It took a heartbeat for his headless body to receive the message, fold in upon itself and slump to the sidewalk, but the soldier was already tracking in search of secondary targets.

Gaping at the mess, Fratierri's bodyguard was having trouble with reality. It wasn't every day that you saw your boss decapitated on the street, and by the time he recognized the heavy-metal thunder of a big-game rifle, it was far too late to save himself. The gunner swiveled toward the Lincoln and thought of the armor plating, knowing he could never draw his piece and find a target in time to make a difference. Bolan shot him in the face, round two impacting on his upper lip and crumpling his face like something sculpted out of Styrofoam. The gunner vaulted backward, sliding on the pavement in a slick of blood and bile before he came to rest against a decorative hedge.

The driver had already disappeared beneath the dashboard — what had been good enough for Paulie Castigliano's wheelman should be good enough for George Fratierri's — and the soldier left him there, intent on disengaging before some startled neighbor got around to calling the police. The urban noninvolvement syndrome worked in the expensive neighborhoods as well, but here the paranoia was sufficient to produce a phone call — possibly anonymous — when gunfire broke the stillness of a sleepy Saturday.