Eternal Triangle

by Don Pendleton

  So much about the soldier spoke to Weatherbee of bygone days — the war in Vietnam, the violence that had shaken Pittsfield during Bolan's blitz, the sudden shift in Weatherbee's career — that he was suddenly oppressed by déjà vu. It was incredible, the way those intervening years seemed to be stripped away.

  He paused before a decorative mirror in the hallway, stared at his face, his hair, and knew at once the past could never be recaptured. History was carved in stone. He could no more resurrect his son or his career than Bolan could regain the murdered members of his family. Whatever might be waiting for them in the future, neither of them could do a goddamned thing about yesterday.

  He made a wry face at his reflection in the mirror and continued toward the kitchen, following the smell of eggs and bacon to its source. As always, Alice heard him coming, turned to offer him the quizzical expression that had recently replaced her smile.

  "Is he awake?"

  "He's working out. I don't know how the hell he does it."

  Alice frowned and shook her head. "He should be careful. He could hurt himself again."

  Weatherbee could not resist a smile; he knew her attitude toward Bolan had been changing. His presence in the house still concerned Alice deeply, but Weatherbee could sense her slowly warming to the patient, seeing Bolan in a different, if not entirely sympathetic, light. She would be glad to see him safely gone, and yet…

  "I don't suppose there's any chance they'll just forget about him?"

  "No."

  He didn't have to ask who "they" might be. The soldier had enough attention focused on him at the moment to satisfy the most conceited of celebrities. After ten days with no new developments the local press was speculating that Bolan might have slipped away, but the detectives under Pappas remained on full alert. The members of Girrardi's family were ready, too, to move in force the moment Bolan showed himself. There was not the remotest chance that either side would let the soldier slip their minds.

  Even so, it wasn't cops or mafiosi that concerned the former homicide detective. Although his houseguest had been silent on the subject, Weatherbee was convinced that someone else was stalking Bolan, someone independent of both the law and the mob. Uncertain how to raise the subject with Bolan, Weatherbee was waiting for something to suggest itself. And time was slipping through his fingers.

  "What will you do?"

  The question had been there, unvoiced, for the past ten days, and still it took him by surprise. He stared at Alice for a moment, frowning, knowing he should have an answer, a solution to the problem thrust into their lives through no fault of hers. The burden rested squarely on his shoulders, and he had had ample time to think it over, but…

  "I don't know yet," he told her honestly.

  She did not scold him for his indecision, but her voice was sad as she removed their breakfast from the stove.

  "He'll need to leave us soon."

  It took a moment, but he finally realized she was speaking for the soldier's sake rather than her own. She understood the urgency of his mission, his need to carry on.

  "I know."

  It was the only answer he could think of, and it wasn't good enough. There should be something else he could say.

  "There should be some way… something we could do to help him."

  Alice's unexpected words struck Weatherbee silent. Despite the thaw in her reserve, he had not understood how deeply Bolan's plight had moved her. The sudden knowledge left him speechless for a minute.

  "I could ask around," he said at last, afraid of overstepping hidden bounds and shattering her mood. "I might pick up some information he could use."

  She faced him squarely, and her voice quavered as she responded. "Just as long as you protect yourself."

  "Of course."

  "It must be very dangerous."

  "I guess so." Weatherbee was shamed by the attempt to casually dismiss her fears. "It is."

  "Be careful."

  "Yes."

  She put her arms around him and held him tightly for a moment, then turned away to serve the eggs and bacon.

  "Will you call him for breakfast?"

  "Yes."

  He detoured through the master bedroom, reaching up to lift a lumpy O.D. bundle down from overhead. The duffel bag was heavy; its contents clanked as he held it in his arms. It held the Uzi submachine gun, sidearms, webbing and other military gear Bolan had been wearing when the former chief of homicide half carried him across the threshold of his home. Bolan would be asking after his weapons soon enough. It would not hurt to let him have them now.

  The heavy duffel dragged one shoulder down as Weatherbee walked on to Tommy's room. To Bolan's room. He knocked and waited for an answer before entering. The soldier faced him, sitting upright on the bed, his back against the wall.

  Weatherbee crossed the room and set the duffel bag at Bolan's feet.

  "I thought you might be needing these," he said.

  Ten days, and Lawrence knew that if the bastard didn't surface soon, the chances of a satisfactory conclusion to his hunt were slim. Or nil. Already, sarcastic newspaper editorials were announcing that Bolan had escaped again, that once more the authorities had failed to do their job. No matter that the bastard couldn't possibly have cleared the city limits; no one but Lawrence knew that he was wounded, and Lawrence could not reveal his knowledge without coming under suspicion himself.

  He knew Bolan must have gone to ground somewhere in Pittsfield, but the questions still remained: if Bolan was alive, where was he? If he was dead, why had his body not been found?

  Too many questions. If Lawrence didn't find some answers soon, he would be up shit creek, for real.

  The local mafiosi didn't have the Executioner, that was certain. They were still on full alert, their operations buttoned down while soldiers stood a wary watch around Girrardi's properties and Tarantella's street concessions. For the moment, mob expansion had been brought to a standstill, and the authorities owed the bastard for that, at least.

  But it was not the mob that worried the sergeant. He could deal with members of the brotherhood, as he had dealt with them in Hartford, as he had dealt with Manny Ingenito and his hardman. Once the Executioner had been disposed of, Lawrence looked forward to performing his duty as a lawman with no distractions, driving savages and scumbags off the streets of Pittsfield.

  But until he had an answer to the Bolan riddle, he could think of nothing else. The bastard's disappearance had him worried. He had no handle on the problem, no damned way around the mental block that had been plaguing him for days.

  There was an outside chance that Bolan might have crawled away to die. One family on Fisher Drive was in Europe, their house, one block from the location of the shoot-out, was locked up tight. While Frank Lawrence didn't think the soldier could have traveled half that distance unassisted, it was possible. With no evidence to back the theory up, a warrant could not be obtained; a search would have to wait until the travelers returned.

  But Lawrence knew in his gut that Bolan wasn't rotting in the vacationers' living room. The bastard was still out there, somewhere, alive. Lawrence was certain that Bolan was still in Pittsfield, healing, waiting till he was fit to face his adversary one-on-one again.

  If Lawrence was right, then he had a chance to nail the Executioner yet. But where? How? If Bolan had not been arrested, had not been caught and killed by the mob, had not escaped on foot, then where the hell was he?

  Lawrence thought often about the car he had passed as he sped from the scene of the shooting, certain that Bolan lay dead or dying behind him. A Buick four-door, he remembered, but could not visualize the style, or pinpoint the year, or the color. He had been anxious to keep his face turned, to prevent the other motorist from making even a tentative ID, and so he had not glimpsed the other driver's face.

  Had Bolan been picked up by the driver of the Buick? Would anyone in Pittsfield knowingly help him escape? Would anyone pick up a bloody stranger from the roadside?

&nb
sp; Certainly.

  The sergeant knew enough of Bolan's story to know the bastard had been sheltered by civilians more than once. Right there in Pittsfield, in the early days of his campaign, a lonely woman had adopted Bolan, offered him her home and who could say what else for the duration of his war. Whatever happened once could happen twice, and there was every chance that Bolan had met another good Samaritan.

  But who?

  His wounds had been serious, Lawrence knew. His savior would be equipped to deal with major bullet wounds and blood loss, only if the nosy fucker was a nurse or doctor. That was something to pursue. But however Bolan had got clear of the battlefield, Lawrence's major concern now was driving him out from under cover.

  Perhaps if Lawrence turned the heat up, made the press and public think Bolan was renewing his offensive, he could force the soldier's hand. If nothing else, it would prevent Girrardi's mob from growing so confident that they reopened their operations prematurely. And if Bolan took the bait, well, that would be one hell of a bonus. If he didn't, Lawrence would have to devise another plan.

  But he had time. He had been waiting half a lifetime, and he could wait another, if it came to that, for one more shot at Bolan. One more opportunity to bag the man who'd killed Lawrence's father, destroyed his mother, ruined his life.

  The sergeant could afford to wait till hell froze over.

  And if hell froze over, he could wait some more.

  For Bolan. For the opportunity to watch him die.

  21

  "That done enough to suit you?"

  Bolan did not have to check the slab of beef. Its rich aroma had been taunting him throughout the afternoon, since Alice Weatherbee had slipped it in the oven.

  "Perfect."

  "I prefer it rare, myself, but Alice raises hell about cholesterol and such. You'd think she wanted me to live forever."

  Bolan smiled. "It might be worth a try."

  "Like hell."

  He was alone with Weatherbee. The captain's wife had gone to a committee meeting, occupied with what her husband called "some kind of civic folderol." It was the Executioner's first chance for a totally private conversation with the man who had witnessed his war's beginning.

  It was not that Weatherbee had been avoiding Bolan. Rather, he had been busy with errands on behalf of Alice, the police department and his houseguest. Detectives on the Bolan watch had called for Weatherbee three times in the past four days, inviting him to study crime scenes, look at bodies, ponder evidence. Each time, the former chief of homicide came home distracted, uncommunicative.

  The time had come for talk. When they had finished eating, when the plates were cleared away and they were settled over coffee spiked with Irish whiskey, Bolan knew that he could wait no longer for some answers.

  "I still don't understand why you took me in."

  The gray-haired ex-captain of detectives settled back and sipped his coffee, groping for words to explain.

  "I don't know if I've got an answer for you," Weatherbee replied finally. "It wasn't planned, I'll tell you that. Somebody got a squeal that you were coming back, and when they called me for advice it sounded easy. Looks like I was wrong."

  Bolan heard alarm bells going off inside his head. "You knew I was coming?"

  "Someone knew."

  It did no good to worry that one for the moment. Obviously calling in the police was part of the elusive adversary's plan.

  "You could have left me where I was, or turned me in. You could have ended it."

  "I thought about it, sure. Both ways. It would have been the easy thing, the safe thing. Hell, I could have been a hero for a couple of days, but who needs heroes anymore?"

  The former chief of homicide was covering, but the soldier let it go. He didn't need to analyze the motives of his host and savior. There were other problems on his mind.

  "Somebody's turning up the heat," he said.

  "Somebody, yeah. The PD and the papers think it's you."

  "How do the hits stack up?"

  "Professional. Precise. Our shooter does his homework and he doesn't miss." The captain glanced across his coffee cup to grin at Bolan. "Usually."

  "Could it be a family beef?"

  "What family? Girrardi's on his own, with sanctions from New York and Boston. He's been having problems with the boys from Bogota, but this is definitely not their style. Too subtle. If the Indians were opening hostilities, I'd look for bigger body counts, plenty of civilian casualties."

  "It wouldn't be the first time someone tried to scam his way around the local capo," Bolan said.

  "Agreed, but Tarantella is the only candidate, and he's been covered since you hit his place in South Hill. He's not even bitching over the surveillance."

  "Wildcards?"

  "Nothing on the grapevine. If the Spider's got an ace, he's being cool about it, and they've been in touch since you were hit."

  Bolan had anticipated Weatherbee's response, expected him to answer as he had, dispelling the alternatives, but it did not relieve the soldier's mind.

  "That makes it personal."

  "I'd say so."

  "No matter how I try to turn this thing around, it still comes back to TIF.''

  "The business card?"

  "It's all I've got, so far. Our shooter could have staged a dozen different incidents to hook me, once he knew I was in Hartford. When he played his hole card, he was feeling for a special nerve."

  "I'd say he found it."

  "Maybe." Bolan didn't want to think about his family now, this close to home, with so much riding on the line. "I need to get a handle on the Triangle survivors."

  "It should all be in the files," his host replied. "I'll run it down this afternoon and get a readout we can work from."

  "You're exposed already," he reminded Weatherbee unnecessarily. "It's my war now."

  "Okay." The ex-captain spread his hands. "I don't suppose they'll notice you at headquarters. Hell, they probably won't even glance at the Wanted posters hanging on their walls."

  Weatherbee had a point, of course. The jailhouse photographs of Bolan in Texas had been destroyed, thanks to Hal Brognola's sleight of hand, but there were sketches now, Ident-i-Kits, and some of them were too damned close for comfort. There had been no opportunity for facial alternations since then. Surgeons who performed such miracles illicitly were bankrolled by the syndicate, and Bolan dared not place his life, his war, in any doctor's hands. If he survived the anesthesia, he would wake in jail… or worse.

  "What did you have in mind?"

  The captain shrugged. "They want advice from me, so I'll need to double-check some background information. I can nose around the files, make up a list of brothers, cousins, this and that."

  "It isn't much to go on."

  "Maybe not, but it's the only theory yet that seems to have a snowball's chance of proving out."

  The silence stretched between them for a moment. Bolan knew exactly what he had to ask, but knowing didn't make it any easier. At last, unable to devise a smooth approach, he plunged ahead.

  "How long ago did you retire?"

  "Two years come October. Why?"

  "Just curious."

  "My ass. You're wondering if you had anything to do with it. You think somebody finally got around to dumping me because I let you get away."

  "It crossed my mind."

  "Well, in a way you're right… but not the way you think. We all caught hell when you blew up Don Sergio and walked away without a scratch, but there was no suggestion of a purge, no prejudicial transfers like the old days."

  "So what happened?"

  "Me. I happened. Hell, I couldn't let it go. I studied up on every move you made, in case I got a second crack. I guess you'd say I was obsessive. Other jurisdictions started calling me the 'Bolan expert,' and I ate it up. They called me in to look at bodies, listened to my words of wisdom, and I loved it. Somewhere along the way I lost direction, though… or maybe I just lost my faith. Who knows? Whatever, I began to wonder i
f it would do any good to stop you, if I even had the right to try."

  "You had a job to do."

  "It's not enough," the former homicide detective told him flatly. "Even so, it wasn't doubts that finally did me in. I could have covered that, if I'd been smart enough to keep my mouth shut. Toward the end, when they came asking for opinions, I began to tell them what I really thought… or hint around it, anyway. It wasn't long before the brass began suggesting that I might be happier as a civilian."

  Bolan sensed the bitterness, disguised by jocularity, and knew that Weatherbee had done enough — perhaps too much — for him already. The detective's midstream change of heart did not especially surprise him. All those years ago, he had recognized an undertone of sympathy in Weatherbee's demeanor, hidden well beneath the homicide investigator's rough exterior. He had explained it to himself as the cop's sadness at the massacre of Bolan's family. He had not seen the captain as a future convert to his cause then, and now he was not entirely comfortable with the thought. Allies of the Executioner had a way of dying off before their time, and Bolan had no wish to see the Weatherbees struck down.

  "You've done enough," he said. "I couldn't ask…"

  "You haven't asked," his host responded, almost angrily. "I'm offering, and if you tell me no, I'll go ahead and do it, anyway. More Irish?"

  "Just a touch."

  Bolan still didn't know what to make of Weatherbee, but his reservations had evaporated. If the ex-captain had intended to betray him, for some reasons of his own, he had missed his chance. With the return of Bolan's weaponry, his gradual recuperation, it would be more difficult for enemies to take him by surprise.

  No, it was not Weatherbee's sincerity that worried Bolan now, it was his survival. The "Bolan expert" might be able to recite from memory the dates and body counts of every Executioner campaign, but he had never really seen the inside Mack Bolan's war. As a detective, he had always been once removed from Bolan's struggle, picking up the pieces, dealing with survivors, the residue of violent death. The years of grim experience with pimps and child molesters, stickup men and contract killers might have left him unprepared for Bolan's brand of unrestricted, no-holds-barred guerrilla warfare.