“Yeah, I …”
“You sound terrible. What is it?”
“Oh, there are a few hurts. I’m up a pole, Hal. Trying to get this damn belt away from raw flesh. Okay. I need to tell you about Sticker. He’s on the way to Manhattan, right now. If he calls in, give him the straight. He has a right.”
“Okay, sure. But isn’t he headed the wrong way? There’s still this problem with a dissolving cover.”
“I think we have that shored up. At least we do have a play. Here’s that scenario. You’ll need to add a few props here and there. Someone has been angling for a tab on Leo. They dummied up a government house and killed a couple of feds, purely for effect. They have a boy in Washington who has already let it leak that a VIP informant is about to go public. The feds have been keeping this VIP’s family in that same government house. How does it read?”
“Sounds great, yeah.”
“Okay, now someone is going to produce this informant’s wife with the story that they took her from the safe house. Will that play to you?”
“If you’re covering all the bases, sure. We can play to it beautifully.”
“Okay. There’s still an item missing, Hal. You need a patsy. To cover the real leak, I mean.”
“I suppose you have one already in mind.”
“Not yet. But I’ll try to pick one up as I’m passing by. Cold meat, I think, would be best. Don’t you?”
“That would make it much simpler, yes,” Brognola agreed.
“Right. Okay. I’ll try to leave you a package with the local cops. It will be neatly bundled and labeled.”
“Let’s see if I’m reading you, Striker. We do have this very real leak—not the imagined one. It’s the one that got Angelina snatched—for real. Now you say that we’re getting Angelina back and we’re also covering Sticker with a scenario about a tab conspiracy. How’m I doing?”
“Right down the pike.”
“Okay. A problem yet remains, then. We really do have that leak—a highly sensitive leak—and it’s saying that some VIP mafioso is actually an undercover fed. Now. You’re saying that we will provide a patsy to take that fall for Sticker, thus also relieving some heat in Washington town.”
“That’s it, yeah. We have to cover both fronts—yours and Leo’s. I think that will cover it—and it should weaken the enemy while we’re doing it. What it comes down to is this: you will have something to take into that Senate committee and say, okay, look fellows, here’s the guy, he’s dead as hell, I apologize for the irritation to your fine political sensitivities, but it’s all over now, so let’s forget it and be men. Then you schedule a hero’s funeral and call a press conference or whatever you do in such messes—and hopefully the matter is ended. Does it play?”
“It plays, sure. Who’re you going to send me?”
“I’ll try for something not too small, not too large. But I’ll have to take what I can get, if you’re in a hurry-up situation.”
Brognola sighed. “I’ll take what I can get, Striker.”
“Okay. I’ll be trying, buddy.”
“Glad to hear you calling me that. I was starting to wonder.”
“I still love you, Hal. I just can’t live with you.”
The fed chuckled and said, “Go to hell. Okay. I suppose Sticker is up on the scenario.”
“Most of it, yeah. I have to go, time’s ticking.”
“Right. Hey! God’s sake, guy. I can’t say be careful, can I? You wouldn’t know what I meant.”
Bolan chuckled grimly. “Careful doesn’t win it, guy.” He killed the patch, tidied up the pole, and went below to prepare the shootout.
And—no, Hal—there was no careful way for that.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Beside the Fire
Several things were still bothering Bolan as he made preparations for the showdown battle at Pittsfield.
He still did not understand why it was happening here. That troubling question remained: why Pittsfield? Why the territory that nobody wanted? He had thought that perhaps the answer lay in the hardsite itself. But he had seen nothing during the penetration to suggest that.
Why the big move on Leo Turrin? And why the fantastic lengths to track down the guy’s family and snatch his wife from the safe house? After all was said and done, could it be that all this insanity was a direct result of Leo’s undercover activities? Having found the guy out, would anyone go to such ridiculous lengths to take the guy out of the picture? That did not play, no. The action here was merely another stitch in the overall weave of intrigue which had lately been spreading throughout the Mafia world. For some reason, it had all become centered at Pittsfield. Why?
There were other troubling questions, entirely localized. Item: why was Simon’s force huddled in fear in an old pleasure palace—one that had obviously been hastily and carelessly refurbished—directly under the muzzle of Bolan’s “fantastic fireworks”—simply sitting and awaiting the intervention of a rescue force? Why had they not simply come out on their own to face the challenge? No, it did not play.
Even more puzzling, why had they continued to sit and wait even while Bolan was scrambling for his own life after an aborted penetration? Why had they not seized that opportunity to break clear, to find a “more defensible” position? And, yeah, it all kept coming back to the idea of defense, didn’t it? What the hell were they defending?
Granted—Simon was no dummy. But look at his actions. Or, rather, his reactions. With Bolan’s first shot at the site, the guy went into a stonewall defense. He pulled everybody inside and sent for help. Was that rational? If Bolan could blow a car off the driveway with a single blow, then he sure as hell could blow the house out from under them.
Except, remember, Simon was no dummy. He would think like an Ace. Bolan shot a car with two “boys” in it. He did not shoot a house with fifty boys and a commissioner in it. Ergo, Bolan could not shoot the house.
Okay. So the guy went out and tried to make the logic fit. He looked up into those hills and asked, “Where is he?” And he drew a line and made a fix on a gun emplacement which could target on the front gate and drive but not on the house. And since the house had not yet been attacked, the probability was very good that the “gun” could not be properly emplaced for an attack on the house.
And what about that dramatic, wild-ass attempt to physically penetrate the joint? Okay. There would be a logic to explain that one, also. Bolan was not operating alone on this one. He had help. Obviously the guy could not have shot his own car from under himself using a gun emplaced in the hills far away. Maybe that would explain why Simon sat and awaited rescue instead of breaking while Bolan was scrambling. The same guy who had shot Bolan’s car away could shoot theirs away, as well.
So, okay. A logic was there. But Bolan was still not satisfied with it.
He was still bothered, sure, but that did not alter his opinions. There were no options to be altered. He had to go down there and snatch that lady back. Period, end of options.
To accomplish that, he would need everything within reach going for him. Everything within reach was contained in the technological triumph which Bolan called “the warwagon.” Plus, of course, the man himself. So it was going to require a team effort. The machine and the man—that was the team.
Would that be enough?
The whole answer lay in the versatility of the fire system. The “intrusion” type of automatic fire had already proven effective as a siege weapon. A different capability would be required for any sort of realistic infantry support. Such a system, modeled to the man’s unique situation, had been provided. It was called “EVA Control”—“EVA” meaning extra-vehicular activity. Under this mode, the man operated outside the vehicle for a one-mile-range limit and “commanded” the fire via a radio-remote control blackbox which was about the size of a pack of king cigarettes.
It worked in the following way: Prior to commencement of “EVA,” target acquisition was preprogrammed for as many as four specific stati
onary targets. The system was then cycled to “EVA Control,” which immediately placed the fire system on “Fire Enable Standby.” The remote blackbox had four buttons, one for each pre-selected target track. The man merely depressed the button for the target desired … and a bird would fly. A firebird, yeah.
That was the way Bolan set it up for the showdown battle at Pittsfield. That is, for the machine side of the team. For the man himself, there were the standard, less exotic weapons of war. An M-16/M-79 combo—with plenty of ammo for both the lightning-fast, fully automatic machine gun, as well as for the big-punch cannon with her high-explosive, smoke, buck, or gas capability.
Also, for the man, there was the standby .44 AutoMag sidearm in military web to ride the right thigh, plus enough clips of brainbusters to keep the big piece thundering through a sustained firefight.
And then there were the miscellaneous personal munitions which dangled from shoulder and chest straps, within easy reach of a needy hand.
Taken all together, it seemed a formidable enough team. But that was an illusion of technology. Actually, the team was the man, and the man was the team. All of it hinged upon his ability to move through the fire and to take that fire to the other side.
Bolan had no illusions in that respect. It all came down finally, wholly, every time, to the man himself.
So far, the man had always been equal to the task. This time, he was not so positive about that. But he was as ready as he would ever be. And time was short.
So it was time to take the fire to the enemy.
It was time, yeah, to see who was the greatest savage of all.
He left the machine in firing alignment a hundred yards out and closed on foot, straight down the pike along the trail of broken cars.
There was no way they could not have seen him coming. Apparently they were waiting him in, taking his stride and intent—wondering, maybe, what the hell the guy thought he was up to this time, just walking in like that in broad daylight, and in full combat regalia.
And maybe some of them were remembering that daring sprint along this same path such a short while earlier—and waiting for it again.
The man stepped past the clutter at the gate, aware that he was approaching the end of wonderment. As he stepped onto that turf, he summoned the machine. A firebird leapt to the response, whistling in along the right flank with a rush of rustling air to presage the loosing of the thunderclap.
The fiery spirit of romance staggered that old building and sent sections of it lofting skyward upon turrets of fire, taking wonder with it and spreading panic and despair where wonder had been.
The man walked on, following the circle of pavement as electrified savages poured forth upon the shores of the fire, bawling and stampeding in doomsday bedlam. He sent them more, via the bellowing M-79, as he continued the encirclement and closed surely on the paydirt he sought in the last bungalow south.
The machine sent another, this one spreading the illumination of technology across savage pastures, turning the bawling herd from the south lawn and forcing them into the contest of man against men. Shotguns boomed and choppers rattled as some deeper pride goaded the response to challenge. The M-16 sang back its lightning lullaby of the grave, knowing no empty songs or wasted lyrics.
And the man walked on, in search of a female who had on place in this realm of madness but deserved a more joyous place—one where the basic orientation was toward life and not toward death—to the civil, not the savage.
Another frantic volley demanded his attention, diverting his steps momentarily as three gasping romantics dropped from an upper window with clothing aflame. They had seen the fire and lingered too long in wonder. He sent them peace and wishes for a better trip the next time around, then went on to his goal.
He knew that he was bleeding at the neck—though he felt no pain there—and his left arm had suddenly grown intensely heavy. Four wild-eyed candidates for soulhood lunged across his path and promptly regretted the indiscretion as a floral wreath of dancing tumblers descended upon them and broke them open and lay them down, all as one.
And now he had the taste of blood upon his lips and felt a warmth across his chest.
He summoned the fire again and brought it convulsing into that staggering old structure behind him. It was too much on top of too much; the fire spilled over and bounced onto those other roofs, even to the last one south.
Flames were leaping all along that line of travel when he reached the goal and kicked the door away. He dropped the weapon and snatched back a swooning little Italian housewife, and he went out again through the flames.
The naked form was draped across the deadening shoulder and the thundering AutoMag was in the good hand, clearing the withdrawal path as savages caught the smell of blood and rushed to fill the pot with the largest savage of all.
But the largest savage was not yet down nor yet alone. He did not fear the fire.
Three away!
Four away!
The fire swept in and the man walked out with his burden—not a cross, but a gentle person who deserved a gentle world.
He took the woman to the machine, the gentlest world he had, then returned to the fire.
He found none who had passed the test—but one struggled on beside the inferno.
The guy looked as though he had climbed inside the fire to examine it from within. He was blackened and split, yet somehow alive and aware, writhing in his own bitter juices and moaning for help from a God he had spurned too long ago.
Bolan’s eyes twitched at the pitiful sight of that as he raised the AutoMag to end it mercifully. But then the guy spoke to him. The voice was beyond recognition, but those curiously stilted words were unmistakably familiar.
“Give it to me, Bolan! Don’t make me beg for it!”
With that recognition, some stubborn savage anger refused to die in the man. The voice was cold and the fury evident as he replied, “You’ve been begging for it all your life, Simon. You tell me why you begged for it in Pittsfield and I’ll give it to you guy.”
Those tortured eyes traveled up through the flames to where he’d been when the fire came down. A flame-wrapped bed hung out there, half spilled over through the shattered wall of that “one big suite” of the upper story. It was a strangely shaped contraption, burdened with medical gadgets, overlarge and massive, with handcranks at each end. The charred mattress still partially supported an even more charred human body—or, at least, half a body.
And suddenly there were no questions left in Mack Bolan.
He put a bullet between the pleading eyes beside the fire, dropped a marksman’s medal upon that romantic breast, and went away from there.
No more questions, no.
Bolan realized that he had found “Jesus”—if those biblical code names really had significance.
“The man” was the last of a line, the King of Kings, Little Augie Marinello.
And he’d died in the territory nobody wanted.
EPILOGUE
Angelina was still having trouble meeting the Bolan gaze. The problem, he knew, had nothing to do with the bullet she’d put in him long ago, during that first time around the track at Pittsfield. No—it was something closer and much more intimate to a woman. She was a hell of a pretty one, and there was no reason for the continued embarrassment; there was nothing there to hide and certainly not to be ashamed of. It wasn’t her fault they’d stripped her naked and thrown her in a bare cage.
She poured the coffee and bent down to plant a quick kiss on Leo’s nose, then excused herself and returned to the kitchen area.
“You’re a hell of a lucky man, Leo,” Bolan murmured.
“Call it charmed,” the new commissioner replied, grinning. “As for you, soldier, I think you must have a guardian angel.” He reached across the table to tenderly lift the corner of a gauze pad at the side of Bolan’s neck. “That looks mad as hell. Another silly centimeter, buddy, and neither of you would’ve gotten out of there. How’s the shoulder?”
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“It will mend,” Bolan assured him. How about yours? Are you sure it’s firmed up with Eritrea?”
“It’s firmed, yeah. I’m better than ever. I don’t even need that guy, now. Hell of a card player he turned into. He gave me away to the Commissione.”
Bolan smiled sourly. “That’s fine. Because I’ve about decided to give him away.”
“What does that mean?”
“I promised Hal a patsy. Cold meat. I didn’t have anything left to deliver it with, though. I think I’ll give him some warm meat.”
Leo’s eyes widened. “David?”
Bolan nodded soberly. “The one and only. The guy earned it. Look, Leo—Simon was ten times the man this guy is. At least he died with his chief. Stood by the old man’s dying cause to the bitter end.”
“I still don’t know how that got engineered,” Leo said. “Did you say that—did David really mean to …”
“I don’t know it for certain, Leo. Maybe we never will. It’s a crazy bunch. How do you figure a logic with crazy people? The fact remains that David Eritrea had been sitting in Augie Marinello’s chair since Jersey. Augie has been sitting up here on your doorstep for the past two weeks. So David has been desperately buying time and riding his horse clear to the gates of hell. Billy Gino thought the old man was still in Long Island, all this time.”
“Yeah, that’s what he said. And he still doesn’t know how to take this with David.”
“A lot of people won’t.” Bolan sighed heavily. “I’ll tell you what I believe, Leo. I believe Augie was fighting desperately just to remain alive. David had taken over just about the whole damn thing. Augie got wind of it, and somehow he managed to get himself out of there. Probably via Simon and the other Aces he could rally to the cause. But Augie has been dying in pieces for a long time. Absolutely bedridden and probably kept alive by all sorts of heroic means. They must have known it was all hopeless—so why did they do it? Romance, that’s why. They needed to put him some place cool. What better place than Pittsfield? Close enough to Manhattan—yet, really, very isolated from the mob’s traffic patterns. It was the territory nobody wanted. The Aces figured to nudge you out of the picture to completely safe the territory. And they joined together in this last cling to the king routine, started running around the country collecting old debts, brokering for enough power to at least scare hell out of David Eritrea and back the guy down long enough for Augie to die with a bit of dignity. That’s all they could have hoped for. I had the thing reversed. And I guess I played right into David’s hand of cards. I put down the final operation and you sealed it with a kiss. David is now home clean.”
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