Savage Fire

by Don Pendleton

  “Yeah, we heard.”

  “Well I’ve got him.”

  A pause, then a surprised and delighted rejoinder: “You’ve got him! Well my God that’s wonderful news!”

  “Wait a minute, Peter.”

  “That’s just what we’ve been needing. This is better than—listen, bring it on down here! Tell him I said that’s exactly the sort of thing we’ve been needing. Well arrange a triumphal entry. We’ll ring the bells and pour the champagne and by God dare anybody to—”

  The guy at the hardsite had been trying to break in through most of that delighted gabble. He finally succeeded with a shouted: “Peter, will you shut up and listen to me! You’ve got it wrong. I’ve got the guy, all right! But all over my bleeding back!”

  That voice on the other end was now in deep chagrin. “Coitus interruptus,” it whispered bleakly. “That’s what that is, Simon. Hell I knew the guy was on your back. You shouldn’t have—”

  “Dammit he just hit me again!”

  “Where!”

  “Right here, dammit! And now I think we’re under some kind of siege.”

  “Right there? How the hell did he—aw, dammit, Simon. That’s the oldest damn—your boys led him right to it!”

  “Maybe and maybe not. My boys aren’t that stupid. Listen to this. The guy called me a couple minutes before this last hit. And—”

  “What do you mean, called you? How did he call you?”

  “On this damn telephone, Peter. He did not stand out in the damn yard and yell at me!”

  “Simmer down. We’re getting too worked up over this.”

  “You simmer down. I’m the one under the heat. Listen to what I have to say, then you tell me again to simmer down. He called my name. I mean my name. And he’s got it tied, somehow. He also mentioned John, Paul, and James. Now you tell me where the hell he gets all that—and then I’ll simmer down.”

  “He must have got it in Atlanta,” Peter replied quietly. “I wonder how much he really got?”

  “He didn’t leave much in Atlanta, Peter.”

  “No, he did not.”

  “Well he’s starting it here, now. And he’s starting with me. I want some support.”

  “Let’s not get, uh, not overreact, Simon. What does he say?”

  “He says to call you. He’s depending on you, Peter.”

  “It’s that bad?”

  “Yes it is. The guy is sitting out here somewhere right now. He has some kind of goddamned mighty impressive fireworks. And he’s right on my damned back. I can’t move. I can’t even show a head at a window. I don’t know where the hell he is and I’m not sending any boys out to look for him. I’ve lost half the force already. I’m not splitting up what’s left in adventures with that guy in this kind of country. That would be playing his game, his way. So, now, we’ve got to have some support.”

  “Okay. I’ll send you a battalion force. I can have them there in, say, four hours. Where do you want them?”

  “I want them all over these damned hills. They should send me a signal when they get in place. Then we’ll try to draw some fire. The rest is up to them. We picked a very bad spot here, Peter. It’s practically indefensible from a guy like this.”

  “Nobody could have foreseen this situation, you know,” replied the voice from the headshed. “Okay, don’t worry, we’ll recover it. You just sit tight and hold it.”

  “That’s about all we can do, Peter. Don’t let us down.”

  The conversation ended there. Bolan ran the tape through twice again, his mind picking at its pieces.

  Who the hell was “he?” Someone on the hardsite, certainly. There had been no other calls recorded. Apparently those two guys who’d tried streaking out in the car had been on a message mission—and that must have been their only way.

  So, yeah, he was on the site. Bolan recalled the impression that another telephone had been lifted into the connection shortly after the talk began—and he recalled also those long pauses occurring during the conversation. They had been conferring offstage.

  So okay.

  Next—why were they so “indefensible?” They still had forty to fifty guns on board. If nothing else, they could simply blast their way clear and take their chances with the odds. Certainly any self-respecting army would not balk at that alternative against a single enemy—no matter how “impressive” the firepower.

  So—it was as Bolan had already begun to suspect.

  There was something at Pittsfield to be defended; not to be taken but to be defended.

  So what the hell was it?

  It was the territory nobody wanted. Wasn’t it?

  Obviously not!

  Bolan had about four hours to find some answers. Which meant that he would have to push some noses a bit more firmly into the Pittsfield turf and hope to force the answers into the open.

  From out of the gray matter, then, a possible answer popped loose and presented itself to the thinking mind.

  Bolan sat back in the command chair and stared at his optic monitor.

  Maybe he’d found “Jesus.” Maybe “he” was “Jesus”!

  And, for some very secret and highly important reason, maybe Pittsfield was to be the site of the throne for the new kingdom come to America.

  Yeah. Oh, hell, yeah.

  The fit was getting better all the time.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Boilover

  The numbers in the game were becoming infinite.

  When an Ace spoke of “batallion force” he meant exactly that. It included helicopters, spotter planes, special weapons and terrain vehicles—it was not a “war party” but an entire army numbering several hundreds of men.

  Whatever the stakes on this turf, they were respectably high. Bolan knew that his time could now be measured in hours. It was no longer a waiting game. He had to get it done and get it out of there before the enemy response could take full form.

  So he changed into special clothing and cycled his fire onto automatic standby. The fire control system was now meshed with the video surveillance. Anything which would activate the video would also enable the rocketry. Any sort of sustained movement in the target zone would then become an immediate target; the fire would launch itself and wait for another opportunity to speak.

  Bolan had never used this particular capability of the fire systems, chiefly because he preferred to call his shots with more care and judgment than this “robot” could handle. The auto system could discern movements only, without distinction as to friend or foe. Any object of sufficient mass and velocity instantly became a target. Bolan did not like this choice of life and death conferred to a robot’s electronic brain.

  It was, however, an extraordinary time. And he had to use what he had.

  He activated the base camp security system and went to town in the Ford. First on tap was a personal meet with Leo Turrin. He got the little guy on the phone and told him, “Okay, it’s boiled over. We need an eyeball, right away. Where?”

  Turrin quickly told him “where,” and they met at a bowling alley, ten minutes later.

  The undercover fed did not come alone. He was waiting in a car parked outside the meeting place—a wheelman and a tagman in the front seat, Leo and another guy in the rear. This was SOP, and entirely necessary. No ranking mafioso would venture into the unknown during such an unsettled time without the usual protections. Leo could do no less and still preserve the cover.

  Bolan caught his eye and went inside. A ladies’ league was in possession of all the lanes, and all were having a whale of a time. The only visible males in the place were a couple of employees working the desk.

  Bolan stopped at the snack bar and bought a coke in a paper cup. He lit a cigarette and took the refreshment to a seat in the spectator’s section, from which he watched the action in the lanes while Leo ran through his necessary routine.

  Why, he wondered vaguely, did the ladies always seem to be having more fun than men doing the same thing? Less to prove, maybe, he decid
ed—or maybe it was just an entirely different orientation to the life process.

  Leo came in and took a seat in the next row below. The two had the entire section to themselves and certainly nobody on the floor was giving them any attention. But “the life” had a way of making ruts in a guy’s mind. Life and death habits were hard to break.

  Leo simply sat there for about thirty seconds, apparently watching the bowling, before he turned in half-profile and casually commented, “There’s some real tigers in here. How would you like to go against some of those babes?”

  Bolan replied, just as casually, “Most of the tigers are outside, Leo. And I guess I’ll be going against them in just a few hours, now, unless we can wrap this town.”

  “Sure. Hey, I had to make sure it was you, guy. Dammit, you’re a regular chameleon. You look just like an Ace of Spades.”

  “That’s the idea,” Bolan muttered. He produced a small ID wallet and tossed it over.

  Turrin took a look and tossed it back with a sigh. “Bingo,” he said. “I’d buy it.” He turned all the way to the rear and sent an eye signal to the little tagman who hovered quietly in the background. The guy gave Bolan a nervous dart of the eyes and retreated to the snack bar.

  “Same guy,” Bolan observed. “Fresni, isn’t it? Don’t you ever worry that he’ll get wise?”

  “Not Jocko,” Turrin assured his friend. “He got his head squashed a little at the end of his last race. Never been much of a thinker, since. But he’s the fastest gun in the East and the kind of loyalty he offers can’t be bought anywhere. What’s going down?”

  Bolan succinctly told his friend what was going down, then added: “You can see the time problem. We have to get it together, buddy. Are you cool with Eritrea?”

  “Cool enough, yeah. Listen—it’s still not too late to scratch this whole thing. I mean, it’s getting—”

  “No way, Leo. We’ve got to get you realigned. I’m reasonably certain that Eritrea is ripe for a talk. I don’t believe he is your enemy—at least, not in this present thing. The guy didn’t come all the way up here with a war party just to get the straight of a message dumped at his doorstep. Who is this guy you’ve been working at the Commissione?”

  “His name is Flavia.”

  “Okay, that’s the one. He came with Eritrea. He’s here.”

  Turrin gave Bolan a shocked reaction. “Why do you think?”

  “I don’t know. But it almost has to bear on some sort of overlapping problem they’ve been having with the headshed boys. Listen, Leo—it’s not inconceivable, is it—this entire thing may be centering around a Commissione revolt.”

  Turrin mulled that one for a moment before replying. “Okay,” he mused aloud, “that’s been one of the secret worries for years, of course. Those guys have too much power. There’s a large area of operations where they are really autonomous. I mean, they answer to no one but themselves. The bosses are not the Commissione—not really. It’s the body of government itself—what we call the bureaucracy, out here in the straight world. And, yeah, there is a lot of anonymous power afoot. That power reached its peak under the Talifero brothers—and I’ll tell you something, buddy. Not everybody in the mob was real upset with you for putting those boys down. I mean, it was getting that bad.”

  “Maybe it’s getting worse, under another Ace,” Bolan said. “Which one would you suspect?”

  “Hell, I don’t even know those guys. A wink and a nod here and there, and that’s about it. Nobody knows them, except the council of bosses themselves. And sometimes I think some of the bosses never really know who their Aces are. The guys change their names like flipping the sheets on a calendar—their faces, too. That’s what makes it so damn creepy. You never really know who you’re talking to in this organization. It gets really crazy, sometimes.”

  “Yeah,” was Bolan’s only comment to that. Yeah, for sure, though. He had been exploiting that particular facet of mob psychology for quite awhile and in many “crazy” places.

  “So where does Flavia figure?” Turrin asked. “He’s no Ace—he’s just an office boy.”

  “I got the feeling while I was in Atlanta, Leo. Someone is really brokering power—and I’ve about decided that there are several factions at work. With Augie’s firm hand off the tiller—hell, I don’t know. It gets sort of crazy, like you said. Sounds okay when you’re just thinking it. Putting it to words, it gets downright psychotic.”

  “I know what you mean,” Turrin agreed. “Kick it around some, anyway. I’ve been psychotic for years.”

  Bolan chuckled. He lit another cigarette and took a quick scan of the background. Jocko Fresni was playing a pinball machine. Another guy stood near the door, making a prolonged study of the league schedules.

  “Who’s the guy at the door?” Bolan asked.

  “My operations man, Joe Petrillo. Joe’s okay.”

  “So let’s talk psychotic. Augie is fading. The other bosses have been leaning against the old man for years. Who are they leaning on now? Which boss is strong enough to sit in Augie’s chair?”

  “None,” Turrin replied immediately. “Augie is the last of the old street hellions. The other guys came into it by various other routes. There’s not an Augie among them.”

  “Long live the king,” Bolan said quietly.

  “That’s about it,” Turrin agreed.

  “So they’ll cling to their king until there’s nothing left to cling to. Where do they go then? To the king’s man?”

  Turrin considered that idea for a moment, then decided: “They could already be there. Eritrea has been sitting in Augie’s council chair ever since Jersey. The old ones, okay—they might go with David. Guys like DiAnglia, Fortuna, Gustini. They hold the controlling interests, too. The other bosses … I don’t know. They come and go too fast to keep really up on.” The little guy grinned. “A lot of attrition at the top. You wouldn’t be knowing about that.”

  Bolan did not grin back. But, yes, he knew about that. The “attrition at the top” had been Bolan’s chief preoccupation throughout the war. But it had begun to seem a futile task. The Mafia was a monster with infinite head-growing capability. Hack off one and another instantly appears to take its place.

  He told Leo: “Maybe it’s starting to pay. The attrition, I mean. Maybe that’s what the current push is all about.” He was remembering a whispery telephone conversation in the warwagon’s recorder. “Maybe some one has decided that the leadership is too mushy, that it’s time to cut the deadwood and consolidate the base of power.”

  “I’ve heard that kind of talk,” Turrin admitted. “Never very loud, though. Okay. Suppose it’s true. Now what about Flavia?”

  “Down in Atlanta, Leo, they were sitting on a tab that was nearly twenty years old.”

  “Whose tab?”

  “That’s the ironic part. There was no tab, really. It was something that had been hastily manufactured after a fizzled hit on Jake Pelotti. He was Saranghetti’s underboss in Brooklyn and was about to be crowned Capo. Someone didn’t like the idea and went after him. Are you with me?”

  “That was before my time,” Turrin replied musingly, “but I’ve heard talk about it. As you said, it fizzled. So now what?”

  “So the police fished some bits and pieces out of the river a few days after that. It was identified as the remains of a guy with a small reputation as a free-lance hitman. It was suggested, at the time, that this was the guy who tried for Pelotti. You’ve heard the name John Paul James.”

  “Sure. You gave it to me awhile ago. The biblical bit.”

  “Right. Except there really was a John Paul James, and the name really belonged to a freelance hitman. Now that’s just too romantic to get past an imaginative Mafia mind, Leo. That name is central to this whole push, it’s where the biblical code names got their start, and that twenty-year-old tab that wasn’t a tab is, I think, the key to this whole bizarre thing.”

  “John Paul James did not make that hit?”

  “Probably not, b
ut that doesn’t really matter. The thing is that they went to Atlanta to collect a twenty-year-old tab.”

  “Uh, you left me somewhere. We were talking about Flavia.”

  “I still am. When you’re brokering power, you look for tabs. Right?”

  “Definitely. You go out and collect debts.”

  “Right. I was just making note of the fact that the collectors are out and that they are reaching very deep. I believe that David Eritrea could be playing the same game. He could figure that he has a tab on Flavia. And on you, Leo.”

  Turrin blinked at that. “Okay. Maybe he has. Flavia has been feeding me for three years. Part of my success with Augie is a direct result of that feed.”

  “So Eritrea may be here to call in the tab,” Bolan said. “He’s brokering you, Leo. So give it to him. Firm up the alignment. Make the cut and come down on it.”

  The little guy had a puzzled look. “It’s where I’ve always been. Right with Augie. What’s with tabs? The guy owns me body and soul already.”

  “You’re speaking of Augie.”

  “Sure.”

  Bolan blew smoke toward the ceiling. “I’m speaking of David Eritrea.”

  Turrin’s face settled into its normal lines. He chuckled. Then he told Bolan, “Maybe you’re right.”

  “Let’s give it a look, then. But cautiously, buddy. You know the game.”

  “Sure, I know the game. Don’t worry. I’ll work the guy to a fare-the-well.”

  “Okay. It’s all I had, for now. One more thing, Leo. The hardsite is a joint out on the old Hancock Pike. It’s called Club Taconic. Know the place?”

  Turrin’s eyes danced. “Sure, that’s Manny Manila’s old joint. He used to run a whore house out there, under Sergio. That was years ago. I phased that place down myself when I took over the girl operation.”

  “What’s it like inside?”

  “Well—it’s been a few years. Big joint, as I recall. Lots of rooms upstairs—mostly small, but a couple of suites. Most of the downstairs was a big, open, party-room type of thing. Had a bar and a dance floor. Lots of plush furniture. A place for the girls to exhibit for the customer’s choice.”