Eternal Triangle

by Don Pendleton

  For a moment Bolan lay immobile on the grass, his empty lungs straining for air. At last a gasp of breath passed the tight constriction of his throat, and he thought he might live. The roaring in his ears was Niagara amplified ten thousand times; even if his eardrums had escaped concussion damage he would not hear normally for hours. He was vulnerable, nearly helpless, yet the soldier knew he must move if he was to survive.

  Gingerly he unfolded, rolling onto hands and knees. Eyes open, he could see the firelight, even feel its heat. Sudden nausea racked his body, and he vomited, a greasy puddle in the spiky grass. He fought to keep his arms and legs from trembling.

  Bolan staggered to his feet, maintained his balance on the second try and lurched in the direction of his rental car. The dark sedan was chalky now with dust and ash, like some relic from Pompeii. A blackened two-by-four lay square across the hood, and Bolan raked it off before he climbed behind the wheel. The Mini-Uzi lay behind him somewhere in the darkness, but he did not have time to pursue it now.

  As Bolan turned the rental's engine over, the house was crumbling in upon itself, charcoal beams protruding skyward, swathed in flames. From the direction of the street, a babble rose as frightened neighbors stumbled from their homes in bathrobes and pajamas and gingerly walked in little groups toward the scene of the explosion. None of them had known the crackerbox's latest resident, few of them had even seen him, but they had gathered in the firelit darkness now to watch him burn.

  Mack Bolan had no fear that they would catch his license number. It was dark, their attention was focused on the fire, and he did not intend to dawdle. As the first neighbor appeared around the hedge, Bolan dropped the shift into reverse and stood on the accelerator. The wheels dug furrows in the grassy driveway as he powered backward, putting ground between himself and the inferno of the safe house. Faces looked startled, sunburned in the cherry glow of taillights, figures dodged awkwardly when Bolan did not brake. He hit the pavement, smoking rubber in the turn, then kicked the headlights onto high beams, blinding the onlookers before they had a chance to focus on the auto or his face.

  Even in his haste, despite his shaken state, Bolan watched the rearview, straining to detect a tail. When he had covered half a dozen blocks without a glimpse of headlights on his backtrack, he slowed down to the posted limit, cruised north and west until he found an all-night filling station with rest rooms at the back.

  He parked the rental close against the curb and sat behind the wheel for several moments, waiting for the solitary clerk to show himself. As Bolan hoped, the guy remained secure inside his cage, uninterested in challenging the motives of a man who needed privacy at 2:00 a.m. As long as Bolan did not try to rip the fixtures out by hand, he would be undisturbed.

  The trunk gave up a first-aid kit that Bolan always carried. It was adequate for most emergencies, excluding broken bones, and Bolan knew already that the aching and throbbing of his limbs and rib cage were caused by bruising rather than by fractures.

  Still, there might be some internal injury. Once inside the rest room Bolan urinated painfully, alert for any sign of blood. His stream was clear. He spent another moment probing his abdomen, his groin and kidneys with the fingers of a medic educated on the field of battle. Satisfied finally that nothing had been punctured, torn or twisted, he stripped off the dusty, tattered clothes and stood before the grimy mirror naked.

  Wooden splinters, bits of masonry and glass had peppered Bolan's body, urban shrapnel clinging to his clothes and sifting down around him as he stripped. His skin was torn in half a dozen places, and his back was mottled with bruises in a camouflage pattern that would linger for days. His face, too, was bruised, a smudge beneath one eye would not wipe away, and his eyebrows had been singed. From head to foot, he smelled of fire and smoke. Slowly he set about cleaning up and ministering to his wounds.

  First he washed, the powdered soap like grit against his smarting flesh. When he was finished, standing in a puddle on the dirty tile floor, he dried himself with paper towels that could have been used to sand furniture. Hydrogen peroxide next, cool liquid tingling on his skin, foaming energetically on contact with open wounds. He let the antiseptic do its work, then gritted his teeth against the burning as he daubed on merthiolate.

  Finished at last, Bolan stowed the first-aid gear and shook out his dusty clothes. A change would have felt even better, but all his other clothes had gone up with the house, and he would be forced to do some shopping in the morning. Thankful for the caution that made him keep a hoard of cash and weapons in the car, the soldier knew he was not disabled yet, by any means. The immediate problem was mobility, a set of wheels without battle scars to draw attention from police. Then there would be time to replace the gear that had been lost.

  The next problem, Bolan knew, was to discover who had wired the safe house, who had trailed him from the Giulianno strike, who had left behind the business card from TIF. The enemy — or enemies — had charted Bolan's every move, had traced him to his den and wired the place for doomsday in his absence, very nearly finishing his war in one fell swoop. An adversary who could do it once would try again, as soon as he found that the snare back in Newington was empty.

  A swift solution to the mystery took top priority in Bolan's mind. The Giulianno-Petrosina feud was an amusing sideshow by comparison. If his security had failed — and obviously it had — then Bolan's war, his very life, was hanging by a slender thread. He could not risk another move against the local syndicate until he knew who was tracking him, and why.

  Reluctantly, the soldier came to grips with the solution — or part of it, at any rate. He could not name his enemy, not yet, but he knew where he must look to find the answers. The information did not lie in Hartford; he must seek it out on more familiar ground. Bolan knew exactly where he had to go and what he had to do, had known it from the moment he saw the yellowed business card.

  The Executioner was going home.

  6

  The hunter followed Interstate 91 north out of Hartford toward the Massachusetts border, the roseate dawn just breaking to the east. Another hour would see him home, but there was time enough to think about the day that he had planned for himself. The sweet anticipation could be dangerous, he knew, but he would temper it with caution when he took the field. For now, alone and cruising, he was able to indulge himself.

  The hunter was driving his own car now. He had returned the second rental to an airport parking lot attendant, left the keys and settled his bill with stolen plastic, walked the hundred yards to another lot where he had stashed his private wheels upon arrival in Connecticut. The Camaro was waiting for him, safe and sound, the theft alarm still primed to shriek at any unfamiliar touch. He deactivated the screamer, paid another lot attendant a usurious seven bucks a day and put the airport sprawl behind him, rolling north.

  The darkness had been comforting, but he loved the sunrise best. It put his plan in perspective, banished shadows so he could see the fine points clearly. He knew, beyond the slightest doubt, that his plan would run like clockwork. He had thought of everything, and nothing short of death could stop him now.

  The Newington surprise had been a beauty, timed to sheer perfection, executed with a master's eye for detail. He had been watching, nestled motionless on the lower branch of an ancient oak, when the Executioner arrived. He could easily have taken out his quarry on the spot, but he was not inclined to take the easy out when he could wait a few more hours — days, at most — and have it all. With final absolution only inches from his fingertips, the hunter stolidly refused to go for any shortcuts, turn the contest into something base and primitive.

  Leaving nothing to chance, the hunter had secured his rental wheels a block from Bolan's house and locked the car at the curb outside a patently deserted home. He made a show of doubling back in the direction of the house next door, in case some busybody was watching, then went through darkened yards that he had previously learned were free of dogs. A brisk ten minutes saw him at his station,
and he had been waiting only moments when the Executioner made his first cautious pass.

  The set had been ridiculously simple. He had wired the "safe house" on his first inspection, using just enough C-4 to turn the little four-room inside out and upside down. He didn't want a holocaust, just sound and fury adequate to speed Mack Bolan on his way.

  The timing had been critical, of course. Judging that his quarry would enter from the rear, the hunter had secured his explosive in a tiny living room closet. Close enough to foster the illusion of reality, and at the same time far enough away to give his prey a running chance. The detonator had been chosen for its noise potential, an early model that had fallen out of favor for its tendency to warn a target seconds before detonation. Few professionals used the obsolete devices anymore, but they were still around. The hunter had his sources. He knew that Bolan would recognize the detonator's whirring sound, a warning as distinctive as a rattlesnake's for anyone with expertise in demolitions.

  And the soldier had that skill, in spades.

  There was potential danger, even with the hunter watching from his crow's nest, finger on the radio-remote control that he had afterward discarded in a Dumpster, miles away. He could not really see his quarry after Bolan crossed the kitchen threshold. He had had to estimate his progress, calculate his stride, incorporating all the hesitation that a hunted man must feel on realizing he might be walking straight into a trap. If he had muffed the calculations, let the soldier cross that tiny kitchen, enter the living room, then it would have been over, finished. He would have had to kill his quarry then, or else abort the strike and miss his chance of driving Bolan north.

  Anxiety had made him punch the button early, but it had worked out fine. The soldier had reacted like a pro, escaping from the crackerbox with microseconds to spare before it blew up behind him. The hunter stood his ground to verify there was no disabling injury, was satisfied when Bolan gunned his rental four-door through a straggling crowd of sleepy neighbors and away.

  He knew precisely where the Executioner was going, where he had to go. The soldier would be desperate for answers now, aware that someone had him pegged, cleverly anticipated his movements. Robbed of alternatives, deprived of sanctuary, he would have to move, and all the answers lay in Pittsfield. Bolan would pursue them there, and there the hunter would be waiting for him.

  Highway 91 would take him north to Springfield, Massachusetts. From there he would turn westward, on Interstate 90, following the four-lane blacktop into Berkshire county. North again then, through rolling hills, immune to beauty after all the pain he had witnessed, all the blood he had spilled. And into Pittsfield. Home.

  Anticipation made the hunter bear down on the Camaro's accelerator, but he held it to the posted limit. Speed patrols were unlikely this early in the morning, but he could not ignore the risk; it would be disastrous if official records placed him so close to Hartford, in the wake of Bolan's brief, abortive war. The others, back at home in Pittsfield, thought he was in Rhode Island. They were not expecting him until tomorrow morning, and though they would have no reason to connect him with events already starting to unfold, the hunter wanted no loose ends.

  From the beginning, he had counted on perfection, demanded nothing less of his equipment, of himself. The game was worth it, certainly, and worth the risks that were the flip side of the coin. Death was the reward for bungling a crucial play, and in the last analysis every play was crucial. The least mistake, the smallest error could snowball. It was the hunter's task to see that there were no mistakes, no wrinkles in his plan.

  How long had Bolan run against the odds, defying all the numbers with sheer bravado? Long enough. But there was more than nerve involved, the hunter knew, a great deal more than cast-iron balls and nerves of stainless steel. The Executioner was still alive because whenever possible he planned ahead, refusing to be buffeted by circumstance, confounded by coincidence. Undoubtedly, there had been times when he had played a set by ear, but then his battlefield experience had seen him through. The hunter's slim advantage now was Bolan's disorientation at the swift disruption of his plans in Hartford. Any way you sliced it, he was running in the dark, without sufficient clues to name his enemy or plot effective action at the other end. It was inevitable that he visit Pittsfield, but beyond that point, the Executioner was flying blind.

  No matter., He would get the message soon enough, and when he read the bloody writing on the wall, it would be too late. The hunter had a hot reception waiting for his prey in Pittsfield. He hoped that Bolan would appreciate the gesture.

  A few miles south of Springfield, with the morning sun a hazy searchlight lost in drifting clouds, the hunter pulled the car into an all-night diner's empty parking lot. He was not hungry, but the outdoor telephone provided an opportunity to put the wheels in motion.

  He dropped the necessary coins and punched up a number from memory, relaxed with an eye on the highway as he waited through the rings. A sleepy voice responded. He left the message, carefully repeating it and waiting while the person gave it back to him verbatim. Satisfied, he hung up on the sudden rush of questions, smiling to himself.

  Before the second call, he drew a boxlike object from his pocket, fitted it around the mouthpiece of the telephone, and tried the on-off switch. More coins, another Pittsfield number. A switchboard operator took it this time, alert despite the hour.

  "Pittsfield Police Department."

  "Captain Pappas, please." It never hurt to be polite.

  "The captain won't be in till eight o'clock. If I could take a message…"

  "Patch me through to Pappas. Wake him if you have to." No more time for courtesy. "And tell him it's important."

  "Sir, if you could give me some idea…"

  "Mack Bolan," he responded, trusting the box to make his normal tone a snarling guttural. "Is that idea enough? The goddamned Executioner is back in town."

  * * *

  The Ford sedan was nondescript, a midsize with sufficient power under the hood to meet Mack Bolan's needs. His weapons and other gear were safely locked away in the trunk, an Ingram MAC-10 submachine gun tucked beneath the raincoat folded on the seat beside him. Stiff and aching after the explosion that had turned his safe house into kindling, the soldier was taking no chances on the road.

  Preferring privacy to speed, he was avoiding the interstates. Traffic would be thinner on the two-lane state highways, a pursuit car easier to recognize. If Bolan's enemies were short on personnel, they were unlikely to have eyes along the secondary routes, and at the moment, any edge was comforting. The time he spent driving extra miles would be a good investment if it helped recapture the advantage of surprise.

  His route would follow Highway 6 due west to Thomaston, there turning on the northbound Highway 8 for Massachusetts. In the rolling Berkshire Hills, he would forsake the back roads, homing in on U.S. Highway 7 for the final run to Pittsfield and the killing ground. With any luck at all, he might evade the eyes that would be waiting, watching for him.

  But the soldier's luck was running thin already, and he had no reason to believe that it would change. Within an hour he had been bested twice by enemies unknown; only providence or some plan beyond his grasp had saved Mack Bolan's life. His war had never been defensive, he had never waited for the enemy to capture the initiative and seek him out, but now the Executioner felt an urge to burrow in, go underground until he understood his latest adversary.

  Clearly, there was more at stake than Hartford and the petty Giulianno-Petrosina feud. The more he thought about it, Bolan was sure that Hartford had been window dressing, even coincidence. The enemy who stalked him now had no more interest in Connecticut than Bolan had in Chinese checkers. He — or they — had seen an opportunity to reach the Executioner and had seized the time. If not in Hartford, they might as easily have made the touch in Jersey, in New York — or in Los Angeles, for all he knew. Without ID he could not judge his adversary's strength, mobility or reach, but Bolan's nemesis was two-for-two so far.
>
  Except that Bolan lived.

  He had already hashed the problem over in his mind, determined that his survival of the Elmwood confrontation had been calculated in advance. The faceless gunner could have taken him at any time, but opted to withdraw instead, postponing the conclusion of their death game. As for Newington and the destruction of the safe house, evidence was inconclusive. The house had been invaded, wired by a professional with goop enough to do the job, and then some… but it was possible that he had been intended to survive. He did not relish playing cat-and-mouse, but as it seemed to be the only game in town, he felt compelled to see it through.

  From the beginning it had been obvious that someone wanted him in Pittsfield. The question now was, why? What made the setting special, other than his own familial connection to the town, its role as the initial battleground in his private war against the Mafia?

  The answer: nothing.

  Bolan had returned to Pittsfield once before, when dapper Dave Eritrea was reaching for the moon and Augie Marinello's vacant throne had been his launching pad. The mafioso had abducted Leo Turrin's wife, sweet Angelina, from their Pittsfield home, and Bolan had retrieved her from captivity. His strike had been the grim beginning of the end for the Manhattan mob as it was constituted then, but as in Bolan's first campaign, the guns had spoken first in Pittsfield.

  Still, there seemed to be no connection. Augie Marinello and his bastard son, Ernesto, were safely in their graves. Likewise Barney Matilda and his lethal offspring, the Talifero twins. As for Eritrea, he had become a songbird for the federal protected witness program, buried under layers of bogus documents supplied by Washington, observed around the clock by federal marshals sworn to keep him healthy, keep him talking while he still had stories to tell.