Bolan accepted that as a portent.
Terrible Tuesday was all but finished.
It had been a long and tiring day—fourteen hours, so far, with hardly a break in the galloping pace. But it was ending, now, and none beneath that emerging blue heaven would find more acceptance of that ending than Mack Bolan.
The second lap of the second mile.
The Warwagon was pulled atop a rocky bluff overlooking the cold Pacific. On another jutting finger of rock one hundred and seventy yards south of their position stood a large mansion-by-the-sea. It had a small beach a hundred feet below and a steel ladder descending the rock face of the bluff. To the rear was a swimming pool and a rather large patio with hanging lanterns and other frivolous adornments. Three men sat at a table in that area, talking animatedly over tall drinks. Another three prowled the beach below and another walked lone patrol along the north periphery of the bluff. Very probably others also wandered hither and yon across that property, insuring privacy and tranquility to the three at the patio.
Bolan had those three in the con with him, though, in fine resolution.
April asked, “Who are they?”
“The old hood on the right is Bunny Cerrito,” Bolan explained. “He retired from the business when I was a little boy. Too bad. He should have taken his retirement seriously. I guess someone made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”
“Which one is Portillo?”
“The one facing Cerrito. He’s been sort of retired, too—or so it has been said. Jimmy helped put together the original California kingdom. I had it figured that he was helping to build another. Now I wonder.”
“What do you wonder, mine general?”
Bolan sighed. “I think maybe he’s been doing just the reverse.”
“Working for McCullough,” she said.
“Yeah.”
“But I thought he was part of the plot to take over McCullough.”
Bolan sighed again. “So did I. The guy had me convinced. I guess that’s why he’s called Jimmy the Grease. He’s slippery as hell, that guy.”
“But how do you know he wasn’t?” she persisted.
Bolan muttered, “Because that third man over there is none other than Cute Bill McCullough.”
“Are you sure?” April gasped. “That’s Mm?”
Him, yeah. “The one and only,” Bolan assured the lady. “The him I’ve been looking for these fourteen hours. Isn’t it a blast?”
“You knew it already!” she cried. “And you’ve been letting me get headaches with your damn puzzles! Rickert told you!”
“I guess Rickert didn’t know, either,” he replied. “He was lowly security muscle. He may have guessed—but he didn’t know for sure the identity of the man at the top. I was guessing, too, April. I had to see it to know it, for sure. Monsters like that one don’t drift by every day.”
April caught her breath and let out a little moan, the full significance of the thing finally descending. “The bodies in the acid!—they—for real? His wife and daughter?”
“You heard Braddock,” Bolan growled. “The daughter for sure. That means the other is for sure, too. And a stand-in for himself. Damnit, April, adopted or not—a daughter is a daughter! I’ve never known a real brother of the blood anywhere to get himself that bloody. That guy is …”
“You already said it,” she whispered. “A monster. But why? I mean, why the women?”
“I guess it was expedient.”
“What expedient!”
“He arranged his own death, April. You’re the one who pulled the package—everything he had was set up in trust. Guess who’s going to be administering that trust. He wanted the Mob off his back and the law off his tail. The women would have been a constant danger to his new identity. I’ll bet he already has a plastic surgeon stashed and waiting somewhere to deliver him a new face.”
“Do you think he knows?”
Bolan was programming the fire, now, bringing the system on line. “Knows what?”
“That he’s already lost his other FACE. Acronym-wise, that is.”
Bolan growled, “Whether he knows it or not, April, he’s lost all the face he can ever get.”
Glowing rangemarks became superimposed over the image of the patio table. Bolan commanded the Raise and Lock sequence and an instant later the console flashed compliance. He commanded Fire Enable. The console enabled the fire and the rock-press foot control slid into view beside his foot.
April’s lower lip was beginning to tremble.
He warned her, “Get aft, if you’d rather. I’m going to erase a terrible human mistake. Three of them.”
“I’m staying,” she told him. “But it really isn’t necessary, is it? Not now.”
“It’s necessary, yeah,” he assured her.
“But …”
“You told me yesterday that you revere life,” he reminded her, turning to face her squarely. “Let’s get this all settled between us, once and for all.”
“Of course I revere life,” she replied, very agitated. “That is why I … why …”
“Then don’t put such a damned cheap value on it,” he said savagely. “Turn your back on guys like those … turn your guts off, too, and call for a cop then look the other way … for God’s sake, April! These people are eating your world. And they’re eating people by the score. Get hard, damnit! Eat back. Don’t let the damned cannibals swagger away and pick their teeth with your bones! If you revere life, by God you’ll demand an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth and you’ll stare the damned savages back into their holes, even if all the hounds of hell are baying at your heels!”
It was quite an emotional speech, for the likes of Mack Bolan. His face had gone white—and she’d never seen it that way, not under any circumstances. And she’d caught a glimpse of his drummer, yes.
“Get up,” she softly commanded.
“What?”
“I’m taking the con. Show me how to work that gadget.”
His anger was gone, replaced now by wary concern. He told her, “I’m not sure you’re ready for that, April.”
“Don’t tell me when I’m ready,” she said, the voice very soft. “I’ll tell you when I’m ready. I’m ready. Put my hand where your mouth is, Striker. Get up.”
Bolan solemnly swung away from there and yielded the con to his partner. He stood behind her, then, and instructed her in the fine art of getting hard.
“Right foot in the pedal. Keep the plane steady. Rock forward on the toe for vertical depression, backward on the hell for upward correction. The pedal is controlling the image, now. It swivels left and right for horizontal control. Center the rangemarks on your target—that’s it. Hold it there, hold it centered, even after you fire. The bird will travel straight down the visual envelope.”
“How do I fire it?”
“Your fire will equal downward pressure on the pedal. The entire plane of the foot must travel together. If the toe dips a bit, so will your trajectory. So keep the foot stiff when you’re ready to fire, ankle directly below the knee. Then just pound the knee.”
“Pound it?”
“Sharply, yeah, with the ball of the fist.” He sighed. “Are you sure this is what you want, April?”
For reply she raised the tiny balled fist high and viciously pounded the knee.
The firebird rustled away from its rooftop nest and flashed overhead on a tail of flame and smoke.
The security people over there had already become curious about the presence of the motor home and were now running in full alarm toward the house.
But the men on the patio had other things on the mind.
World-eating things.
The scope changed colors rapidly as the missile closed on the target, then the optics flared out bright white as one hundred and seventy yards away a mansion-by-the-sea’s patio did suddenly “fly up to the clouds without wings”—carrying all that had been there with it.
April’s face was white and taut, but she was already �
�correcting right” and acquiring a new target: the house itself. Again she drove the knee home and again a firebird rustled away in its “ministry of death.”
“Eat that, damn you,” she said to the scope in a shaky voice. And, to Bolan, “Is that hard enough for you, partner?”
That house over there had just gone to hell.
“Give me another target, damnit!”
He said, “Enough, April.”
“I’ll give them, by God, two board feet to stand on!”
She was sobbing and going to hell fast, herself.
Bolan dragged her out of the con and clasped her close for a brief moment—a very close moment—then set her gently in the other seat. He took the con and took them away from there in a sedate withdrawal.
Tuesday, thank God, was done.
But April Rose, by God, was just getting started.
EPILOGUE
Bolan sent his report to Brognola and arranged for a midnight rendezvous with the transport plane.
Then he called Leo Turrin and assured the undercover fed that all loose ends had been neatly snipped.
Tomorrow would find another hellground—and another lap along that bloody second mile.
Tonight was for tonight.
He pulled the cruiser onto a deserted stretch of beach and parked in the shadow of a sheer rock wall and took his love to bed.
And, yes, that girl was just getting started.
Turn the page to continue reading from the Executioner series
CHAPTER ONE
INTO HELL
The familiar odor met him at the doorway—and it almost stopped him from going in. The one thing Mack Bolan did not need at this moment was another living nightmare. And there was no mistaking that smell, once it had been experienced. But then the nightmare groaned, and there was also no way to turn away from that.
He sent 200 pounds of enraged kick into the flimsy door and stepped quickly inside with the same motion. The thing on the table at room center was far beyond any awareness of that entry. And the ghoul who was bending over it was too engrossed in his art to take note of anything else. But a guy at the far window looked around with a sick grin and immediately elevated both hands in quick surrender to the imposing figure at the door. Some things simply cannot be surrendered. The big silver pistol thundered from the doorway to send 240 grains of howling death splattering through that sick grin.
Another guy ran in from a back room just in time to catch the next round in the jugular. Most of his throat sprayed away with the hit, but the guy just stood there on the back porch of hell for a frozen moment while the brain tried to understand the message. Another quick round plowed in between unbelieving eyes to correct the sloppy hit and verify the unhappy message.
And Bolan now had the full attention of the maniac in the blood-spattered vinyl smock. The guy was about fifty, tall and spare of frame, handsome with a touch of distinguishing gray at the temples, and very nicely dressed beneath the protective Vinyl. “I can explain,” declared the turkeymaster. It was not the voice one would expect from a maniac, but calm, cultured—almost detached from the horror at hand.
Bolan replied, “Good for you,” and blew away the devil’s elbow.
The guy screamed and grabbed for a tourniquet that lay on the table beside his victim. The next round from the AutoMag blew his wrist away and another quickly followed to the knee.
The turkeymaster hit the floor, squawling and writhing for a comfort that was not going to be found. He lay there jerking around in his own blood, for a change, screaming for a mercy he had never accorded others.
A turkeymaster Mack Bolan was not. He’d never hit for pain or punishment—and the shock of those massive hits would not, he knew, produce anything near the mind-cracking agony and helpless horror that this guy had been systematically dealing out to others. Just the same, the guy was hurting like hell and the sounds of that suffering were getting to Bolan’s belly. But maybe the guy needed to take to hell with him some small appreciation of what he’d been handing out so freely to others—and someone else was first in line for Sergeant Mercy.
The thing on the table was only marginally alive and blessedly unconscious. Doc Turkey had apparently been trying to bring that shredded mind back into conscious focus. There was no way to know at a glance whether it had been male or female—or, for that matter, black or white, human or otherwise. It was simply a thing—torched, carved, scraped and hacked into a mutilated and shapeless lump—that had been kept alive and, no doubt, aware throughout most of its ordeal.
There was no way to reverse that nightmare or to even salvage anything from it. Bolan muttered, “Go find peace,” and put a bullet where an ear had been. Then he turned to the squawling monster on the floor and sent him the same mercy.
Bolan found another gruesome turkey when he checked the back room. This one had been dead for some time—hours, perhaps.
Bolan was shaking the joint down for intelligence when Jack Grimaldi moved inside, a short shotgun cradled at the chest.
“Jesus Christ!” the pilot muttered and quickly went back outside.
“Is it cool?” Bolan called to him through the open doorway.
“It’s cool, yeah,” was the strained reply. “What is that in there?”
Bolan went on with his search as he called back, “It’s a turkey shack.”
“Aw, shit,” Grimaldi groaned. “Really? Aw, no. I thought that was just a myth. Hey, I didn’t know I was bringing those poor bastards to—I really didn’t know!”
“It’s no myth,” Bolan growled. “And you couldn’t have changed a thing, Jack. Did you check out the vehicle?”
“Yeah. Clean. Keys in the ignition. It’s from Alamogordo.”
Bolan went to the doorway and leaned tiredly against the jamb. “Okay. Thanks again, buddy. I’m releasing you. I’ll take the car into town.”
“It’s your game,” the pilot quietly replied. “But, you know, you can fly me anywhere. I can think of lots of places better for you right now than Alamogordo. Almost anywhere, in fact.”
They’d been good friends since the Caribbean adventure, and more than that. As a mob pilot, Grimaldi had been a steady source of reliable intelligence and he’d risked a lot—he’d risked everything—as a Bolan convert and ally.
The Executioner smiled at his friend the Mafia pilot as he told him, “Thanks for the thought. Save the worry for yourself.” He inclined his head toward the nightmare behind him. “That’s what they do to their friends, guy.”
Grimaldi shivered and turned his gaze elsewhere. “Sunrise soon,” he said.
Bolan said, “Soon, yeah. You’d best move it out. Now.”
“You’re mad as hell, aren’t you?”
The tall man in the doorway smiled tightly as he replied, “I can handle it.”
“Listen … I’ll fly on over to Alamogordo and tie down there for the day. I’ll leave my hotel address with the base operator. If you should need some quick wings …”
Bolan said, “Thanks. I’ll keep it in mind.”
Grimaldi hesitated for a moment then asked, sotto voce, “Who were the turkeys?”
“You don’t really want to know.”
“I guess not, no. Okay. Well, I’ll be around.” The pilot turned away and strode off across the wastelands.
Sunrise soon, yeah. Already the black of night had deteriorated to a dirty gray. Bolan watched his friend disappear into that grayness, then he went back inside the shack and resumed the search. He loaded a tape recorder and several used tapes into the vehicle parked just outside, then threw in a collection of wallets and other personal items gathered during the shakedown.
Ten minutes after Grimaldi had set off on his solo return trek to the plane, the nightmare shack was in flames and Mack Bolan was beginning his journey into another nightmare in the appropriated Mafia wheels.
Grimaldi flew over the burning shack and dipped his wings in a silent farewell. Bolan responded with a flash of headlights and quickly put that scene
behind him.
The physical scene, that is.
The images would remain with him to the grave. Worse yet, he’d have to listen to those abominable tapes—the record of two souls descending into hell itself. The turkey techniques made brainwashing a genteel social affair by comparison. It was not brainwashing, but soul bursting. Interspersed with all the shrieks and desperate pleas would be the babblings of a life record in quick and selective playback—containing every sin imagined or otherwise, along with everything else a desperate soul could devise to please its tormentor, so as to shut off that which was already recognized as irreversible.
Yeah, Bolan would have to listen to all that.
And yes, Jack, he was already mad as hell. Not so much because of who they were, but simply because they were.
Bolan had no particular sense of compassion for the likes of Charlie Rickert and Jack Lamamafria, the latter also known lately as Jack Lambert.
But nobody deserved to die that way. Not even with the fate of the entire civilized world hanging in the balance. Did that sound melodramatic? Too bad, then. Because that was precisely the point of this latest game in the troubled life of Mack Bolan: the fate of the entire civilized world.
CHAPTER TWO
THE SWIRL
Bolan heard enough from the tapes during the hour’s drive into Alamogordo to confirm his guess that the movements in New Mexico were directly related to the recent developments he had just left behind in California. Rickert and Lamamafria had been charged with the security of that West Coast operation, which had been ripped asunder by Bolan’s Day Two mop-up of the area. There were overtones of punishment for a responsibility poorly met during the interrogations, but the main thrust had obviously been total recall in an outrageously inhuman “debriefing” of the two Mafia lieutenants. Which merely underscored the importance with which the higher bosses regarded the events of yesterday in California—and especially as they were related to the New Mexico thing.
It was not exactly standard form to so punish an honest failure; in fact, Bolan had never heard of such an occurrence in the past. Such treatment was traditionally reserved for traitors or enemies with important secrets. It was beyond doubt, though, that these tapes constituted a debriefing of friendly personnel carried to unusual extremes.
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