Command Strike

by Don Pendleton

  Eritrea stepped into an elevator car and spoke from behind a protective wall of flesh, addressing a Gino crewman on station outside. “Tell Billy to leave someone here with those wheelmen. I want no messages going upstairs.” His eye finally caught Bolan’s. “Well? Come on.”

  “Go ahead,” Bolan called in. “I’ll go up with Billy. You don’t want me opening doors for you, anyway. You open your own doors from now on in this joint. Right?”

  “I’ve been opening them for a long time,” Eritrea bit back. “You and I have something to settle, Omega. Be damn sure you’re around when that time comes.”

  “Does that mean you no longer want my support?” Bolan asked coldly.

  “It means I’ll damn well have it!” the man growled. The door closed.

  Bolan turned icy eyes onto one of the hardmen left behind. “Remember that,” he commanded.

  The hardman’s eyes jumped. “Yes, sir,” he said, and went into a fit of coughing.

  Billy Gino, closing quickly, had overheard. “Remember what?” he inquired of his friend, the Ace.

  “The time has come to stop wondering, Billy,” Bolan told him. “The guy is flipping out. Just because he turned on Augie, he figures everyone will do the same to him.”

  A muscle popped in the Head Cock’s jaw. “Who says he turned on Augie?”

  “The whole damn company is saying so, man. Didn’t you hear me? I said it’s time to stop wondering!”

  Billy did not know what to do. He pounded the cougher on the back and growled to him: “Get Julio and Freddie and get all the wheelers together. I want these cars wheeled around and headed toward daylight.”

  The hardman nodded through his strangles and gasped, “Mr. Eritrea wants us to keep the other wheelers busy, too.”

  “Do that,” Gino said. “Go on.” He glanced at Bolan and stepped past him into the next elevator car. “Let’s talk about this on the way up,” he suggested.

  Bolan moved in beside him and lowered his voice to tell him, “Send the rest of your boys to the penthouse. We don’t want too much showing on the twenty-seventh. This thing could still go either way.”

  Billy Gino was still baffled by the unsettling changes of direction in his curious world, but he accepted that suggestion and passed the word outside to the balance of his hard force. The Head Cock and the Black Ace traveled unaccompanied to the twenty-seventh floor—and, during that ride, they came to an understanding.

  “I don’t like to put you in this position, Billy,” said the Ace. “But I guess I have to snap my fingers now.”

  The meaning was clear to Billy Gino. It was a call to service, a command imperative to which the Head Cock had already pledged himself. In a world where deceit and double-dealing were the catchwords, confused men often gladly cast their loyalties along lines of personality and admiration, rather than trying to unravel murky logic and conflicting chains of command.

  “I heard the snap,” Billy Gino declared in a level voice. “You say it, I’ll do it. But I have to tell you honestly that I still don’t know what the hell is going down here.”

  Nor did Bolan—not in any precise sense. He was strictly playing it by ear and hoping for the best. At the moment, Billy Gino simply happened to represent the handiest and the most likely tune to try. He held the car with the door closed at the twenty-seventh floor and told his latest convert, “I’ll go on to the penthouse. You get off here and give it a feel. The meeting is in the East Room. When you’ve had your feel, gather up those four boys and bring them on upstairs. I want—”

  “Two of those boys are his personally. I don’t think they’ll come.”

  Bolan shrugged. “It was for their sake I said it. Leave or stay makes no matter now. They have the goods on him, Billy. The old man treated him like a son, gave him everything, trusted him, loved him. And what did he get back? He’s getting planted tomorrow, Billy—that’s what he got back. Augie would’ve never been up there in Pittsfield except for that treacherous son of a bitch! I’m sorry if this bothers you. But the cut has been made. I’ve got to come down on the right side of that cut. Them that wants to stay, let them stay.”

  A light was dawning behind those troubled eyes. “Barney was saying something about sheeps and goats. I’ve been wondering. A long time. I don’t know when was the last time I saw Augie in the flesh. I just don’t know. But it must have been—oh, hell—weeks ago. Uh, what’s the difference between a sheep and a goat, Omega? I mean …”

  “One leads and the others follow, Billy. You never heard of a Judas goat? They put him in with the sheep when it’s time for the slaughter. He gets them to moving toward the slaughter pens. At the last minute, they cut the Judas out of the crowd. He leaves. The others stay.”

  “Oh! Yeah. I get you. Hey, I’ll get that feel and I’ll come up as quick as I can.”

  “Do that,” Bolan said solemnly. He opened the door.

  Billy Gino stepped out and Leo Turrin stepped in. The two men stared at each other across the open doorway. Leo grinned soberly and said, “Hi, Billy.”

  Billy Gino said, “Hello, Mr. Turrin.” His gaze flicked to Bolan-Omega.

  Bolan gave him a reassuring nod and wink.

  The elevator door closed and the car moved smoothly upward.

  Leo leaned against the back wall with a deep sigh. “I see it,” he said, “but hell, I don’t believe it.”

  “I got your message,” Bolan told him.

  “I still don’t believe it. This is insane. You can’t run a masquerade in their own damn headshed!”

  Bolan laughed softly. “The numbers are falling pretty good so far.”

  “You can’t play a numbers game either, dammit! The whole damn New York mob is under this roof.”

  Bolan stopped the car just before it reached the penthouse. “That makes it easier,” he told the edge-of-lifer. “I’ll take my chances in a crowd any time. What about you? What’s happening?”

  “I should have felt your fine hand there when Eritrea came storming in,” said the troubled undercover fed. “Listen—we’re just a pinch away from a shooting war in there. The guy ordered everybody out but the bosses. They’re having at each other right now, and the outer office is crammed with nervous guns. Barney dispatched me to the penthouse to get the hardarm alerted.”

  “How is he playing it, Leo?”

  “The same concerned elder statesman routine. You were right about that guy. He’s a hundred percent shark. I don’t understand why nobody ever saw it before.”

  Bolan sighed. “We usually see what the other guy wants us to see, Leo. Okay. Let’s have some numbers. How many guns can the penthouse field?”

  “No more than ten or twelve. But they’re not ordinary guns, pal. They are Aces every one.”

  “Major or minor?”

  “Maybe one or two majors, the rest minors. But even a minor Ace is something to reckon with.”

  “Okay.” Bolan punched the button, allowing the car to proceed. “Get ready.”

  “For what?”

  “We’re taking over.”

  “The penthouse?” Turrin groaned.

  Yeah. Right. That was exactly what they were taking over. And Mack Bolan was praying for all the good numbers to come together at that time and in that place.

  The elevator door slid open and the Executioner stepped into utter chaos.

  He threw his head back and raised a commanding voice above that din. “Awright, awright! Alla you boys! Pull it down and tuck it in! Siddown and shuddup! We’ll have none of this shit!—we’ll have none of it!”

  And Leo’s strained voice, close to his ear, was quietly declaring, “I still don’t believe it.”

  14

  WATCHING

  Leo Turrin was not exactly your standard, ordinary street-corner commando. He never had been. Blood nephew to one of the founding fathers of the American Mafia, Leo was born with rank. He could have had it any way he wanted it. But he’d never really wanted any piece of it. He’d kept putting the old man off, and on
e day he found himself wearing a U.S. Army uniform, headed for Vietnam.

  Leo came of age in Vietnam. Like so many young men before him, he found the true meaning of humanity while suffering the very depths of hell. And he came back from that version of hell with a new commitment, a new sense of the importance of his own humanity. He’d found a friend in Saigon—an intelligence guy with Washington connections. And even before he doffed his uniform, Leo Turrin was in Washington and taking secret training for a job which would confine him to the edges of hell for the rest of his life. When he finally did come home to a hero’s welcome, he immediately succumbed to Uncle Sergio’s pressure and took over one of the old man’s Pittsfield territories. He also took to wife the fair Angelina, childhood sweetheart, and settled down to the double life on the edge of the knife.

  He’d done some dirty things, sure, in that mirror-image world. One did not survive the competition of Mafiadom by playing the good Samaritan. One certainly did not thereby become established as a leader in that brutal world. So he’d lived the role—and, yeah, he’d done some rotten things. One of those rotten things had involved a cute kid called Cindy Bolan. The juicemen had sent her over to make a few bucks on behalf of her old man—one Sam Bolan, a steelworker who’d been unfortunate enough to develop a bad heart and get too deep into payday loans.

  For Christ’s sake, the kid was still a virgin!

  But “pussy” was Leo’s territory—and he had no choice but to play the game. He took a personal interest in the kid, making sure that she was lined into straight dates with reasonably presentable johns. Perhaps no one was more shocked and depressed than Leo when the kid turned up dead at the hand of her own father. Sam found out and flipped out. He killed Cindy. He killed Cindy’s mother. He tried to kill Cindy’s kid brother. And then Sam Bolan killed himself.

  That was how it had all begun with this big, impressive bastard who was already being called the Executioner. Brother Mack came back, took off his uniform, and started walloping the shit out of everything Mafia. He’d come within an inch of walloping Leo as well. It was a tribute to the depth of the man, though, that he held no grudges against Leo, once the truth was known. It was further tribute that the two had become true comrades-in-arms. And when the world became darkest for Leo Turrin, it was Mack Bolan who came blitzing to the rescue to save the day for Leo and to spring Leo’s wife from almost certain death.

  Yeah, things had been very grave there, those last few days in Pittsfield. Nobody had known that Augie was behind it all, rattling through the death throes of his kingdom and pulling every string at his command to stave off the inevitable. But Bolan had stumbled across some roots of the intrigue in—of all places—Atlanta. Other tentacles of the conspiracy surfaced in official Washington—and suddenly Hal Brognola and the entire Justice Department were embroiled in a tug of war with the United States Senate over—of all people—little Leo Turrin, the double-lifer from Pittsfield. Nobody yet knew who the double agent really was, but a storm of indignation had swept the scandal-wracked halls of Congress over the leaked disclosure that a highly placed Mafioso was actually on the Justice Department payroll, with intimations that the U.S. Government was therefore sponsoring a certain degree of criminal activity. It was all nutty as hell, sure, but there it was just the same. An overzealous Senator with a penchant for headlines was threatening to wreck the most important and supersensitive operation ever launched against organized crime—and who was it who saved the day in Pittsfield? Right, the nation’s most wanted criminal—the one and only Mack Bolan.

  But the day had not really been saved; it had merely been postponed. Bolan knew that. Leo knew it. All of the principals knew it. And maybe this was where it all came to nothing, right here in La Commissione’s penthouse.

  Leo would be the last man in the world to blame Mack Bolan for anything he did, the last to doubt him, the last to desert him.

  But every man had his limitations.

  Mack Bolan was, after all, just a man.

  How the hell did the guy hope to pull this off? By what stretch of mind and will, of guts and heart, did the magnificent bastard hope to pull this off?

  “Just watch me,” the big, grim man had told Leo once, on another battleground far away. “I can … because I must.”

  Okay. So okay. Turrin is watching you, big bad Bolan. Do it, guy. Do your magnificent thing!

  The hard force from Long Island was up there—just about all of them, it seemed—and they were getting some static from the penthouse staff. The elevator foyer was entirely deserted, but the big lounge area just beyond was the scene of much pushing and shoving, angry voices, and general confusion.

  Bolan moved straight into the chaos, chastising and berating in a voice of clear authority which carried above the din. He slapped a few heads and manhandled a couple of bodies along the way, leaving awkward silence and embarrassed faces in his wake. The center of disturbance was a large, curving reception desk that was set well into the interior of the huge room. There a besieged group of Red (minor) Aces were engaged in a staring contest with the crew bosses.

  Bolan muscled his way into the center of that and began throwing some icy stares of his own. A crew boss whom Bolan knew only as Julio was the first to wilt. His eyes fell and he backed off half a pace as he told the now-familiar figure, “These guys say we have to wait in the garage, sir.”

  “Both of you are right, so relax,” Bolan said, almost gently. He impaled a Red Ace with an icy gaze as he told him, “It’s okay. They stay. Make them comfortable.”

  The ace’s voice was but a shade warmer than Bolan’s, though the tone was courteous and the manner entirely impersonal. “We are told to keep the penthouse clear.”

  “Right, but we’re changing that,” Bolan informed him. He turned to Leo. “God’s sake, get these guys taken care of. Make them feel like brothers.”

  “Right,” Turrin snapped. He stood on a chair and raised his hands above his head as he announced, “Hey! What the hell! You boys know where the beer is at!”

  The tension evaporated. There were no hoots or catcalls, but a quiet swell of relaxed voices as thirty armed men moved toward the refreshment centers.

  Turrin chidingly told the penthouse spokesman, “Now isn’t that better? Why’d you wanta get into a shouting match with these boys?”

  “Following orders, Mr. Turrin,” the man replied, totally unaffected by the mild rebuke. “Mr. Orion says keep it clear, we keep it clear. You better—”

  “Yeah, well I got some new orders for Orion,” the undercover fed snapped. “They want all you boys downstairs. Go get ’im.”

  The guy’s gaze shifted from Turrin to Bolan-Omega and back to Turrin again.

  Bolan said, very softly, “Peter says.”

  The spokesman’s eyes jerked just a bit at that. He lifted a finger to summon his associates and walked away, the others following as a single body, headed toward the private offices at the rear.

  Turrin bit the end off a cigar and muttered, “What now?”

  “Play it by ear,” Bolan said quietly. He eased a hip onto the desk and lit a cigarette. “Who’s Orion?”

  “Beats me,” Turrin admitted. “Watch boss, probably. Black Ace, for sure. You sure said the magic word. Hope it doesn’t turn out to be black magic.”

  Bolan said, “I’m going back there and take it over. You cover the action out here; try to keep it relaxed like it is right now. Billy Gino will be coming up in a minute. Send him on back.”

  Turrin was clearly uncomfortable with the idea. He said, “Frankly, I didn’t expect you to get this far. You’re in a hell of a spot right now. I suggest you get in that elevator and get the hell out while you can. You could be walking into anything back there. And it could all fall to hell any minute out here. You said Barney had you made. What if he should spot you—or what if David or somebody lets it drop that Omega is in the building? He’d have this joint sealed in nothing flat.”

  “Faint heart never won the game, Leo,” Bolan sa
id quietly. “I’m game if you’re game.”

  “You really think you might do it, huh?”

  “I think I might, yeah.”

  The little fed grinned soberly as he told his compadre, “Okay. I’m watching you, man.”

  Bolan squeezed his friend’s arm, picked up his briefcase, and went back to beard the lions in their den.

  And he hoped that the universe was looking on … with favor.

  15

  MIRROR IMAGE

  Besides the large conference room at the rear of the penthouse, smaller doors led to three offices. The minor aces had disappeared behind the end door. Bolan tried the middle door and found it unlocked. In there was a mahogany desk, backdropped by a large plate-glass window with the RCA Building framed in the distance, connecting doors to the other offices, a closed-circuit television system—deactivated—two large bookcases crammed with leather-bound volumes, several luxurious leather chairs, a small bar, a couch, a very expensive taping system, life-sized nudes decorating paneled walls. Pay dirt. It would not be “Peter’s” office, no—a guy in Barney’s delicate position would never be found pulling rank in the headshed—but definitely it was some exalted station which saw very little use. The place even smelled new—and the leatherized furniture didn’t have a wrinkle anywhere. All the bottles on the bar had their seals intact. It was pay dirt, yeah.

  Bolan grabbed a bottle of bourbon and opened the interconnecting door to the side office. The guys were on their way out via the other door. All stopped in their tracks to stare with surprise at the occupant of that central sanctum. True to Bolan’s guess, the side office—though nice enough—was a ghetto in comparison. He gently waved the bottle as he extended an amiable invitation. “Come on in, boys. We need some words.”

  He turned his back on them and went behind the desk. They came in slowly, quietly, faces frozen—wondering but not showing it. Orion was about 35, medium build, catlike, good-looking, with none of the telltale signs of recent plastic surgery. He had not been a Black Ace for long, being scarcely distinguishable from the Reds.