China White by Don Pendleton

Author:Don Pendleton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Worldwide Library
Published: 2014-01-25T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Avenue Victor-Hugo, Paris

Not every enterprise conducted by a crime cartel was criminal. It paid to have legitimate investments as a front, a source of reportable income and as a repository for cash from sources best left unmentioned. One such operation owned by Arif Durrani was Automobiles Royales, a luxury car dealership located within sight of the Arc de Triomphe. The shop specialized in high-end exotic rides, the more expensive the better, crowding its showroom with the latest models from Aston Martin, Lamborghini, Koenigsegg, Bugatti and Pagani, among others.

Closed now, the dealership still blazed with lights, its sleek products on permanent display. The window glass, Bolan surmised, was both ballistic in defense against vandals or thieves, and tinted to prevent sunlight from fading custom paint, assuming that the vehicles on show remained in stock that long.

“You have no mask to leave this time,” Bizhani noted as they circled once around the Arc de Triomphe on Place Charles de Gaulle.

“Won’t matter,” Bolan answered. “This is strictly hit and run.”

“No more Chinese graffiti?”

“Just a poke to get Durrani moving.”

“And to cost him many euros.”

“Hit them where they live,” Bolan replied.

The cheapest car displayed in the Automobiles Royales showroom cost about a quarter of a million dollars, and the rest went up from there. Figure a dozen on display, together with the building whose designer had spared no expense, and any major damage meant a price tag in the millions. Money was a normal mobster’s prime directive, and a hit that size would resonate from Paris back to Kabul, where Khalil Nazari kept an eye on every penny spent on his behalf.

Bizhani had the wheel as they came off the circle, slowing as they passed the auto dealership, Bolan manning the Milkor MGL. The grenade launcher weighed twelve pounds and measured just twenty-two inches with its stock folded, resembling nothing so much as an old-fashioned Tommy gun on steroids. Its double-action trigger would let Bolan fire three rounds per second, launching the 40 mm projectiles four hundred meters downrange, but he didn’t need rapid fire or the MGL’s M2A1 reflex sight for the slow-motion drive-by that he had in mind.

Point and squeeze from thirty feet. Keep it simple.

His first high-explosive round breached the bulletproof windows, no problem. The second round turned an electric-blue Bugatti Veyron Super Sport into a pile of flaming scrap with a $1.5 million price tag, smoke rising up to cloud the showroom’s vaulted ceiling.

Round three stood a Lamborghini Aventador 700-4 Roadster on its tail, riding a ball of fire that cost Arif Durrani $441,000 at base sticker price. Its lake of burning gasoline spread underneath a Koenigsegg Agera R, lighting another bonfire worth a minimum $1.6 million.

Round four punched through the windshield of an Aston Martin One-77, $1.85 million manufacturer’s suggested retail price, and peeled the roof back like the lid of a sardine can, shrapnel flying on to mutilate a Maybach Landaulet valued at $1.38 million.

Round five took out a Ferrari Enzo, a virtual steal at $677,000, now worth a couple of grand to the neighborhood scrap metal dealer.

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