“Bring Her to Me!” The Mafia Boss Shouted—Then the Door Opened and He Saw What They Had Done

The sound that followed was not the crack of a pistol.

It was the shriek of twenty-one feet of armor-plated steel hitting a corrugated iron wall at forty miles per hour.

The 1968 Lincoln Continental did not use the door. Marcus Kane, operating the auxiliary remote control system installed in the trunk three decades ago for waterfront ambushes, drove the three-ton vehicle straight through the rotting brick and sheet metal of the building’s north wall.

Bricks exploded inward like shrapnel. A cloud of red mortar dust and pulverized plaster blasted through the turbine hall, blinding the two men near the office.

The Lincoln didn't stop. It slewed sideways across the wet concrete, its heavy steel bumper crushing the rusted oil drum and slamming into the first gunman with the sickening, hollow thud of a bowling ball hitting a wooden pin. The man was thrown twelve feet through the air, hitting an iron turbine casing and dropping limp into the bilge water.

Flaherty swung the revolver toward the dust cloud, terrified, his ears ringing from the concussive roar of the collapse.

In that half-second of distraction, Adrian moved.

He didn't draw the Sig Sauer. He crossed the ten feet between them in two strides, his left hand clamping down over the cylinder of Flaherty’s revolver with enough force to prevent the hammer from cocking.

With his right hand, Adrian struck.

He drove the heel of his palm upward into Flaherty’s broken nose. The cartilage gave way with a wet, crunching snap that Nora heard even over the ringing in her ears.

Flaherty shrieked, stumbling backward, his boots sliding in the mud, but Adrian didn't let go of the gun. He twisted Flaherty’s wrist downward, tearing the tendons until the old man’s fingers splayed open, the nickel-plated revolver dropping into Adrian’s waiting palm.

Adrian didn't shoot him.

He brought the heavy steel butt of the revolver down against Flaherty’s collarbone. The bone snapped with the distinct sound of a dry branch breaking under a boot.

Flaherty collapsed onto the wet concrete, screaming, clutching his shoulder with his good hand, his heels drumming frantically against the floor as he tried to back away from the man standing over him.

Through the hole in the wall, the second gunman was already on his feet, coughing through the mortar dust, raising his Glock with two shaking hands.

*Crack.*

The sound was sharp, high-velocity.

The second gunman’s head snapped sideways, his weapon flying from his grip as he slumped against the shattered brickwork.

Fifty yards away, through the jagged breach in the wall, Daniel Cross stood on the bed of an abandoned flatcar in the scrap yard, a suppressed Daniel Defense MK18 rifle pressed to his cheek, a thin wisp of grey smoke curling from the muzzle.

The turbine hall went dead silent.

The only sound was the hiss of steam leaking from the Lincoln’s punctured radiator, the rhythmic drumming of the rain through the hole in the roof, and Mickey Flaherty’s ragged, bubbling whimpers.

Adrian stood in the center of the wreckage.

He dropped the nickel-plated revolver. It hit the concrete with a dull clatter.

He did not look at Flaherty. He did not look at the Lincoln.