Outside, the night was crisp and clear, but it would soon be smoky like the warehouse, river breezes carrying the stench of burning rubber, wood and plastic with the current, southward through the suburbs toward the sea. The stink of the fire would take a message home to Larry Giulianno. There was a slim chance that he might pull his horns in, go to ground, forget the urge to dominate a brand-new territory. But he was more likely to retaliate against his rival, Tommy Petrosina, on the theory that the fire had been an act of war.
When he moved, the Executioner would be there waiting for him.
Bolan backtracked through the shadows, still watchful for any sign of danger, any indication that he might have been observed. The risk was minimal, he knew, but carelessness could get a soldier killed; Bolan had survived this long against the odds by calculating every risk, however inconsequential it seemed.
He reached his car, popped the trunk and stripped off his harness and military hardware. At his back, through skylights of the Giulianno warehouse, the ruddy glow of flames lit up the sky with artificial dawn. A few more minutes before a watchman in some nearby warehouse saw the glow or smelled the rancid smoke and telephoned the fire department. Time for Bolan to go about his business, turning up the heat beneath his enemies until they screamed.
Larry Giulianno would be screaming this time, but before the dawn broke over Hartford, Tommy Petrosina would have felt the heat, as well. There was enough to go around, and some to spare for savages who thought they could stand and slug it out by gangland rules against the Executioner.
Bolan was not overconfident. He knew his enemies, the way they looked at life and death, their methods of responding to a challenge from outside the family. For all their ruthless power, all their street-smart ingenuity, the average mafioso ran as true to form when coping with a threat as any soldier going by the book. As for Mack Bolan, he had long since thrown the book away, inventing strategy to suit his needs, depending on the cannibals to be their own worst enemies. So far, they had not let him down.
When his gear was safely stowed, Bolan slid behind the wheel and turned the engine over, running dark until the waterfront was several blocks behind him. When he was clear, he turned the headlights on, already thinking through his next encounter with the enemy. With Tommy Petrosina.
So occupied, Bolan almost missed the tail.
When the headlights blazed to life in his rearview mirror, he thought at first the trailing motorist a hundred yards behind had pulled out of a side street, following his course by mere coincidence. A second glance showed there had been no intersection, no alleyway or parking lot from which the second car could have emerged.
The tail car had been running dark, like Bolan, and the man behind the wheel had waited precious seconds longer before turning on his headlights. Gambling, perhaps, that Bolan would not notice? Careless of the risk involved… or taking on that risk deliberately, to thumb his nose at Bolan?
Either way, Bolan had to know. He jumped the next red light, accelerating through a left turn and smoking rubber, one eye on the rearview, waiting. In his wake, the tail accelerated smoothly. It plowed through the red, narrowly avoiding impact with a station wagon, and closed fast on Bolan's car. There was power under the chase car's hood. Bolan would have difficulty shaking off the tail — if he chose to try.
All things considered, it would make more sense to take him out. Erratic streetlights showed Bolan that the tail was not a squad car, and detectives in pursuit of a suspected arsonist would have turned on their red lights by now. There was an outside chance that he had run afoul of some civilian bent upon a citizen's arrest, but it was far more likely the tail had come from Giulianno. Roving gunners touring the aspiring capo's properties, perhaps, or some relief crew that had been arriving as he left.
No time to sort the possibilities or search for pieces of the puzzle now. The tail was hanging tight on Bolan's backside, eating up the highway, blinding him with high beams when he tried to count the occupants. They had his license number now, whatever else went down. If they were in radio communication with Giulianno's hardsite, with another team, then he was burned before his war got off the ground. He would be forced to ditch the rental, find himself another set of wheels.
Provided that he shook the tail and walked away from it intact.
Behind him, muzzle-flashes from the driver's side eliminated any thoughts of civilian would-be heroes. The first round rang against a fender as he swerved to take evasive action. The chase car hung behind him, two more rounds impacting squarely on the trunk before he caught another intersection, gunning through the curve, his rear tires losing traction, finally digging in.
The chase car followed, closing, making up lost yardage on the straightaway. Bolan knew that he would have to lose them now, or else destroy them totally, before the driver's aim improved.
His intervention in the Giulianno-Petrosina feud was secondary, rapidly receding in the soldier's consciousness as survival instinct surfaced. To continue with his business in Connecticut, he had to be alive. That meant shaking off his grim pursuers while he had the chance.
Assuming that any chance remained.
2
Bolan caught the on-ramp for Interstate 91, rolling north toward Hartford and the airport with the river on his right. Behind him, he could feel the chase car pressing, jockeying for range, position, but the open highway gave him room to run, to let the rental's power plant unwind. The scattering of midnight traffic on the four-lane blacktop apparently inhibited the tail from potting Bolan on the open road. Bolan took advantage of the moment, standing on the gas and running serpentine between the slower vehicles, attempting to secure a lead.
The tail hung close, anticipating Bolan's moves as directional signs for downtown Hartford started sprouting overhead. Whatever else the guy might be, he was a first-class wheel, with the ability to keep his cool in hot pursuit. The Executioner could almost have admired his skill, if he had not been so intent on finding ways to kill the man.
And it was just one man — he knew that now. He had observed the tail car, backlit by the headlight beams of slower vehicles, and had marked the solitary silhouette behind the wheel. Unless the driver had a crew of midgets with him, or a backup gunner crouching on the floorboards, the chase had narrowed down to one on one. The odds were better, but a single gun could be as deadly as a firing squad. Bolan needed time to think, some combat stretch, to survive the running confrontation.
A firm ID was not required for Bolan to eradicate his enemy. The tail was no civilian; Bolan had learned that much by dodging well-placed Magnum rounds. Police were likewise out. The absence of a light or siren marked his adversary as a private gun, and that spelled syndicate in Bolan's mind.
Which brought him back to how.
How had the gunner spotted him initially?
How had he known that Bolan — anyone — was targeting the Giulianno warehouse?
If the gunner had been standing watch, a sentry somehow unobserved by Bolan, why had he permitted two of his associates to die, the warehouse to be torched? Had he been dozing at his post, awakening to find the place in flames?
It didn't play.
There wasn't anything remarkable about a sentry sleeping at his post. It happened all the time. But with the recent hostilities between the Giulianno and Petrosina forces, any button man whose negligence resulted in a million-dollar loss for his employer would be fish food. There was no room for a second chance, no margin of forgiveness when the stakes had climbed so high. If Bolan's tail was one of Giulianno's lookouts, the guy was dead already, and he knew it. Would a dead man waste his time pursuing shadows when he might have gained some precious time by heading for the hills?
Again, it didn't play, but there was no time left for mind games, a quarter mile from downtown Hartford. The soldier saved his lane change for the final instant, letting his pursuer think he would stick with Highway 91, or maybe catch the toll bridge eastward onto Highway 86. The tail hung close, prepared to play it
either way.
When he was ready Bolan eased off the accelerator, saw the chase car growing in his rearview mirror while a long-haul semi closed up on his right. Split-second timing was required, or he would miss the off ramp, wind up sandwiched between his adversary and the diesel juggernaut. If he muffed it, Bolan knew, he might be ground to pulp between the semi's eighteen wheels… but he had no alternative.
He chose the moment carefully, relying on his combat instinct, feeling for the instant. When it came, he tromped on the accelerator, cranked the steering wheel hard right and cut across the semi's path, avoiding catastrophic impact by a whisper. Big pneumatic brakes were screeching on his flank as Bolan hit the off ramp, never braking, though reflective signs assured him he was well above the cutoff's legal safety limit. He would make the curve or he would not, but it could be his only shot. Bolan would not sacrifice slim advantage now.
Behind him, where the semi wallowed to a smoking halt across two lanes, the trailers jackknifed, Bolan's tail would be trying to recover, to continue the pursuit. Another moment to see if he had ditched the tail. Another moment now…
The headlights loomed behind him, entering the off ramp's sloping curve and following him down, accelerating. The Executioner had sacrificed some mobility by veering off the interstate, had gained no more than seconds in return. The whole maneuver had been wasted.
He could not afford to take the game downtown. Even at the midnight hour there would be too much traffic, too much risk to innocent pedestrians. He swung the rental eastward onto Brown Street, crossing Maple Avenue against the light and jogging over onto White, accelerating toward suburban Elmwood. Gradually, department stores and shopping malls gave way to convenience stores and private homes, the runway narrowing as lawns encroached on either side. And still the tail hung with him, headlights glaring at Bolan from the rearview mirror like a pair of soulless, unforgiving eyes.
They could not run indefinitely without meeting the police. Patrols might be irregular in residential areas, but they did occur. If police became involved in the pursuit…
He had to end it. The soldier started watching for a side street, any quiet lane or cul-de-sac that might serve as a killing ground. Without slowing or abandoning the search, he slid one hand beneath the driver's seat and found the Mini-Uzi nestled in its secret holster, out of sight from prying eyes. With Bolan's heavy weapons locked up in the trunk, the little stutter gun would have to do… provided he found a place to make his stand.
A smaller, lighter version of the sleek Israeli submachine gun, Bolan's choice for backup hardware surrendered nothing of the original's firepower. With a cyclic rate of 750 rounds per minute in its automatic mode, the lethal midget could unload a 32-round magazine in less than three seconds, shredding any target in its path. To raise the ante, Bolan had selected "Quad Custom" riot loads, designed to spread in flight, for better target coverage. Each cartridge seated four 52-grain projectiles, nested one atop the other like a stack of deadly Dixie cups. The stats translated into 128 separate projectiles leaving the Uzi's muzzle every 2.5 seconds, for an adjusted cyclic rate of more than 3,000 rounds per minute.
It was enough to stop a chase car and its driver. Provided Bolan could use his stutter gun at all. Provided he didn't lose it on a curve, or run afoul of uniformed patrolmen looking for a doughnut shop at half-past midnight in the suburbs. If he let the hunter get too close, a Magnum round behind the ear could bring Mack Bolan's private war to an ignominious conclusion.
As if in answer to his thoughts, the rearview mirror blossomed with reflected muzzle fire. Bolan braced himself, relaxing only slightly as the live one scored a bull's-eye on his trunk. The echo of the shot was lost behind him, swept away by speed and engine sounds, but it would not be lost upon the sleeping neighborhood that had become a battleground. One shot might be dismissed as fireworks or a backfire, but a fusillade would have the neighbors dialing 911 in droves. A SWAT team could be rolling by the time Bolan dusted off his pursuer.
Whatever Bolan planned to do, he had to do it now.
The cul-de-sac approaching on the left would have to do. Bolan gunned his mount, lengthening his lead by feet, then yards. Behind him, his pursuer matched the pace. He was closing fast when Bolan veered hard left into the cul-de-sac on smoking rubber, braking desperately as he whipped the steering wheel around, putting the rental through a tight bootlegger's turn.
He killed the lights and was EVA in time to see the chase car miss its turn, go screeching past on tires that had already given up the best part of their tread. He braced the Mini-Uzi on the driver's windowsill, secure in a double-handed grip, the safety off. If only his pursuer doubled back to finish it before the groggy neighbors groped their way to their windows, or grabbed their bedside telephones.
The numbers dragged, the soldier's pulse reverberating in his ears like cannon fire. The hunter could not possibly have missed seeing his quarry's turnoff. Bolan had seen him brake, smelled the scorching tires. He would return because he had to. He had already risked too much to let it go.
Another moment gone. Bolan visualized the worst scenario: the hunter parked in darkness just outside the cul-de-sac, waiting for him to escape. If the soldier tried to run the ambush, he would be a sitting duck. If he remained in place, police would have him soon. Too soon.
He had already wasted thirty seconds, more. Bolan was prepared to give it up, take his chances in the open, when the chase car finally crept into view. The guy was running dark, fairly begging Bolan to open fire.
Fine.
He was already shifting, bracing for the Uzi's recoil, when the hunter kicked his headlights onto high beams, surged forward on a dead collision course with a squeal of tortured rubber.
Bolan's first rounds pierced the hunter's grill and raised a cloud of steam, dark water spattering the pavement. His second burst punched through the windshield, spraying safety glass and 52-grain slugs in a lethal figure eight. Already moving, Bolan did not give his adversary time to track and fire. He emptied his Uzi on the run, ripped the sleek Beretta from its armpit sheath, held it leveled, ready, by the time he reached the driver's side.
And found the chase car empty.
Bolan double-checked in an instant, keen eyes darting from the front seat to the back, sweeping toward the entrance of the cul-de-sac. His adversary must be killing close, he knew; the headlights had not cut to high beams by themselves. He was braced to take the rounds that must be coming, when a feeling in his gut, defying logic, told him there would be no sniping fire, after all. The fleeting seconds bore him out. The opportunity for his assailant to take him had come and gone.
But Bolan knew instinctively that this one did not miss a golden opportunity by chance. If the hunter was backing off, he had his reasons. If he was waiting, it was only for the chance to strike again some other time. On some other killing ground.
Around the cul-de-sac, a few porch lights had gone on as sleepy residents responded to the reports of gunfire. Off to Bolan's left, a watchdog had begun to snap and hurl himself against a chain link fence. A few doors down, frightened voices shouted urgent questions.
He was running out of time, but he could not depart without a closer look at the hunter's abandoned car. The driver's door was not completely closed. Bolan cursed his adversary's split-second timing, picturing his scramble in the heartbeat after high beams dazzled Bolan's eyes. He would be close enough now to overtake on foot… but Bolan didn't have the time to spare.
Instead, he wrenched the door wide open, leaned inside. No blood on the upholstery, front or back, and he was certain now that his assailant had escaped intact. But not before he'd left his calling card.
Bolan almost missed it, under the pebbled safety glass shattered on the driver's seat. It took a second, closer glance to recognize a yellowed business card, worn around the edges as if from frequent handling. He picked it up and brought it to his eyes, feeling suddenly short of breath as his eyes confirmed the message flashed to his subconscious.
/> There was no mistake.
The card read:
TRIANGLE INDUSTRIAL FINANCE
1430 Commerce St.
Pittsfield, Mass.
3
It had been the turning point of Bolan's life, the grim beginning of a lonely soldier's everlasting war. He could recall the offices of TIF as clearly as the floor plan of his childhood home, the woodland paths that he had followed in his youth, a .22 repeater in his hands. He had not consciously recalled the men of TIF in years, but they were with him always, tucked away in a shadowed corner of his memory, available at need.
Triangle Industrial Finance was a savings and loan company, well-known among Pittsfield's blue-collar thousands. No one ever saved a dime with TIF, but it was big on loans, and bigger still on "vigorish" — the weekly interest that inevitably dwarfed the principal. Commitment to a loan from TIF was tantamount to slavery, and the customer who fell behind in weekly payments could expect a visit from the company's "collection officers." Such visits usually included threats of violence, and where threats were ineffective, violence followed. Beatings were routine, fractures and dislocations commonplace; if the collection process left a patron incapacitated, well, perhaps some other member of the family could be persuaded to assume his debt.
The men of Triangle were loan sharks, plain and simple, operating in conjunction with the larger syndicate that dominated vice in western Massachusetts. Sergio Frenchi was the don of that larger Family, which dabbled in narcotics, prostitution and pornography, extortion, gambling, theft and fraud. A product of the Prohibition bootleg wars, Don Sergio had risen to the upper crust of underworld society. Thanks to carefully chosen philanthropic gestures he was revered by myopic city fathers, his beginnings and his Family activities ignored or tolerated by the local law. He was a power in the Mafia — La Cosa Nostra — but command of countless rackets kept him from examining each crime in detail. Like a general at war, he could not observe each soldier on the firing line.
Eternal Triangle Page 2