The townhouse was defensible, he saw at once, its proximity to the adjoining structures limiting the opposition's angle of attack. Determined shock troops, striking with the full advantage of surprise, could storm the place, but they would pay a price in blood before they cleared the windows. Aside from that, the first barrage would send the neighbors into shock and have them reaching for their telephones to call the police.
The uniformed response to any shooting call in Georgetown would be swift, decisive. Washington had heard enough of senators attacked while walking to and from the parking lots around the Capitol. Determined to survive with dignity, despite the proximity of reeking ghettos and a violent crime rate equal to some cities twice her size, the seat of government was going hard. The soldier wondered if it might be too late. He knocked and waited for a moment, hearing footsteps from within and standing tall before the unobtrusive spy hole mounted in the center of the door. Leo fumbled with the double lock then stood before him, grinning weakly. "Hey, long time."
They shook hands warmly, then the soldier followed him inside.
"Looks cozy."
"It'll do." He hesitated, finally beckoning the Executioner to follow him. "I'm glad you could make it."
"I'll pretend I didn't hear that, guy." The sunken living room was on their left as Bolan followed Leo down a narrow hallway. Hal Brognola rose to greet them, setting down his whiskey glass. Bolan shook his hand then sat down beside him on a sofa facing picture windows, which were curtained now against the threat of prying eyes.
"You made good time," Brognola said. "I caught a charter."
Bolan cleared his throat, aware that there was no time to be wasted on preliminary small talk. "So, let's have it."
And Brognola gave it to him, everything that had happened in the hours since he signed off work on Friday evening. Bolan took it in, refraining from the vacuous commiseration that does nothing to relieve the suffering of the bereaved. He understood Hal's pain, had been there — and beyond — on more than one occasion, and he knew that what Brognola needed at the moment was decisive action to retrieve his loved ones. Platitudes and sympathy were useless in the present situation. If he couldn't get the big Fed's family back, his most sincere condolences wouldn't be worth a damn.
"No progress on the name?"
It was a long shot, almost laughable, and when Brognola shook his head, the Executioner felt no surprise.
"It's hopeless. I've got seven different guys who might be 'Gino' in the local Family alone. That's seven guys we know about, and never mind the other Families from coast to coast."
"You have some reason to believe it's national?"
"I haven't got the faintest fucking notion what it is," Brognola said, disgusted with himself. He downed his whiskey and started for a refill, then thought better of it and pushed back the empty glass.
The Executioner relaxed a bit. Despite his pain Brognola was maintaining self-control. A lesser man, with booze at hand, might have been verging on unconsciousness by now.
"Let's call it local for the moment," Bolan said. "What's going on that might provoke this kind of action?"
Leo glanced at Hal and answered for his boss.
"I'm running down a drug connection that involves some congressmen. It's youngbloods, mostly, but we've locked in on a heavy name or two along the way."
"How strong is the connection?"
"That's the problem. We can prove possession based on what we have right now. I've got a junior senator set up to fall for dealing. As for the supplier..."
"Is there any doubt?"
He shook his head.
"No doubt at all, except we haven't got a thing to hang indictments on. This time next month we might be ready for arrests."
It was a tantalizing lead, but years of jungle warfare had conditioned Bolan to search for hidden traps before he forged ahead.
"I understand that Gianelli's still in charge."
"You called it."
"And he has some difficulties at the moment?"
Turrin smiled.
"What Nicky has right now are multiple indictments charging tax evasion, a subpoena for the President's commission and the makings of a shooting war with Cuba's finest."
"Plus your own investigation."
Leo nodded.
"Right."
"So there's a motivation. With your witness list, he has the chance to plug some leaks and maybe win some points with other Families."
"I know a dozen capos who would kiss his ass on Pennsylvania Avenue to get those names," Brognola growled.
"And with the names of undercover officers..."
"He cripples out continuing investigations," Leo finished for him.
"So."
"It fits."
"All right, it fits," Brognola snapped. "But what about this other bullshit at the office?"
Bolan spread his hands. "Somebody wants that information," he reiterated. "Call it Gianelli for the moment. But he also wants you out, discredited before you have a chance to blow the whistle. As it is, you'll be suspected of delivering the information for a price. Two birds with one stone, Hal. Case closed."
"Okay, so what's the answer?"
Bolan's smile was thin, devoid of warmth. "The shortest route is still a straight line," he replied. "Remember Boston?"
Something dark and fearful flickered in Brognola's eyes. "It's not the kind of thing you're likely to forget."
"I'm turning on the heat, beginning now. Let Gianelli simmer for a while and see what comes up to the top."
"I may not have a while," Brognola told him earnestly. "They're calling me at six, remember?"
Bolan checked his watch. "Go home and wait. Hang tough. No matter what they say, you need more time. If the snatch and frame-up are connected, then they have to know you're working with a handicap."
"My family..."
"Is safe until you make delivery."
And even as he spoke, the soldier wondered if his words were true. There was no guarantee that someone on the firing line would not get hinky, blow it in an angry moment. Hal Brognola knew it too, but in the absence of alternatives he would be forced to follow Bolan's lead.
"All right."
"With any luck, I should have time to make a tag or two before you take that call."
Brognola cleared his throat, his weathered face a study in anxiety. "You've got another stop to make," he told the soldier haltingly. "Somebody wants to see you."
Bolan stiffened. "Come again?"
"The Man is anxious for a face-to-face. He's waiting for my call."
The soldier shook his head. "No good. We've played that scene before."
It was as if Brognola's frown were etched in stone. "He's given me two days. The sit-down was his price."
"You made the deal. You call it off."
"I can't do that. Considering the so-called evidence, this meeting is the only thing that's kept me on the street. You need me on the outside if we're going to make this work."
And Bolan couldn't get around his logic. The abductors would not deal with intermediaries if Brognola was arrested. Bolan needed time in which to rattle cages, turn the heat up under Nicky Gianelli and his outfit, but the time could only be obtained through Hal's negotiations with the enemy. If he should disappear, break contact suddenly, his family was as good as dead.
The news of an impending sit-down with the President had taken Leo Turrin by surprise, as well. Before the Executioner could grudgingly consent, the former mafioso blurted out a cautionary warning.
"I don't like it," he declared. "It's got the makings of a setup."
Bolan smiled. "I don't think so," he said at last. "Okay, confirm the meet and give me the coordinates. I want it somewhere public, where I won't get claustrophobia."
"No problem." Hal was on his feet, already moving toward the kitchen and the telephone. He hesitated in the doorway, cleared his throat again. "Uh, Striker..."
Bolan heard it coming, moved to squelch the words of gratitude. "
It's premature," he said. "Let's see what happens."
With a thoughtful nod, Brognola disappeared. A moment later they heard his muffled voice in conversation on the telephone.
"I didn't know about this meeting," Turrin told him.
"Forget it. If the Man was working on a scam, he'd have the troops outside right now. I'm just concerned about the wasted time."
And time was one commodity that they were short of at the moment, Bolan realized. Within the hour, Hal would be receiving his instructions for delivery of the information, stalling if he could, and listening to threats against his family. The Executioner had never seriously entertained the thought that Hal would fold, deliver names of undercover officers and witnesses in hiding, but he was afraid of the alternatives. The guy might crack, agree to the delivery with an eye toward laying hands on someone he could squeeze for information. In his emotional state, Brognola might react with violence that would doom himself and seal his family's fate — unless he had the nerve to sit and wait, ride out the threats and anything that followed, placing all his faith in Bolan and the Executioner's ability to turn the heat on his enemies.
There was an outside chance that Gianelli's family had no hand in the abduction, but it didn't matter in the long run. Nothing on this scale could happen in a capo's jurisdiction if he had not granted his approval. Gianelli was the key, regardless of his personal involvement in the plot. If he was innocent, so much the better; it would make him that much more inclined to cut his losses and reveal the guilty parties once he felt the heat of Bolan's wrath.
Whoever was behind the scam, they had been making use of Gianelli's Washington connections, and from all appearances the tentacles at Justice had been long enough to touch Brognola where he lived. It would be part of Bolan's mission to identify those tentacles, to search them out and sever them before their probing grip became a stranglehold.
If he was not too late.
The recent revelations of corruption in the FBI and NSA had shaken confidence in national security, but random spies imparting information to the Soviets were few and far between. The greater risk by far was the domestic threat of infiltration and subversion by the native cannibals who had so much to gain by undermining honest government: the lobbyists who lavished cash and gifts on pliant legislators; corporation presidents who kicked through with illegal contributions in the nick of time; the manicured mobsters standing ready with their payoffs and assorted favors in return for service rendered — venal politicians, outlaw businessmen, and gangsters fattening on both.
But it was not the soldier's mission to reform a nation, overhaul a system that had sheltered corruption from the start. His war was limited in scope, his moves restricted to the possible, and for the moment it would be enough if he could save three lives. Achieving that goal in itself might be the death of Bolan, but he meant to give it all he had.
He owed Brognola that. For all the times when Hal had risked his pension, his life, to offer aid and comfort in a lonely soldier's war against the odds. For offering an opportunity to make his war official, and for maintaining contact when the roof fell in. Beyond all that, the warrior felt a gut responsibility to strike against the cannibals wherever and whenever possible. It was his life, his reason for existence and the driving force behind his endless war.
He did not share Leo Turrin's fears about a meeting with the President. The Man would not have given Hal two days without some sense of what was happening behind the scenes. Brognola would have been in jail by now, his home and office under guard, if he had not convinced the Oval Office — at least to some small degree — that he was being framed. The President's support would soon evaporate if Hal could not produce substantial evidence.
In the meantime it was simply that the meeting struck Mack Bolan as a waste of time. He owed the President a certain debt of gratitude for setting him up in the Phoenix program, giving him the freedom to conduct his war worldwide. But any debt had long been paid in blood. He forced his mind away from April and the others, wondering precisely what the White House wanted from him. In the end, he finally decided that it would be best to wait and see.
No matter what was said or offered, Bolan's obligation of the moment was to Hal Brognola and his family. If he could not retrieve those gentle souls, his mission would be ultimately counted as a failure, and the measure of his vengeance would be nothing in comparison with Hal's traumatic loss.
If he could not secure the safety of Brognola's wife and children, scourge the animals who had abducted them, his presence in D.C. was nothing but a hollow mockery.
And he was wasting precious time.
But before he moved against the enemy, he had a date to keep.
Mack Bolan braced himself to meet The Man.
8
Susan Landry pushed her chair back from the computer keyboard, stretching as she double-checked the paragraph that she had just completed on the monitor. She caught a typo and deleted it, reentered the proper spelling of the word and thanked her lucky stars again that she had purchased the machine. With its many functions, the word processor had taken half the effort out of getting stories ready for the wire. The other half, of course, was still the digging — good old-fashioned legwork, phonework, or whatever — and she doubted whether any new technology would ever help reporters cover that end of their beat.
In fact, she loved the work involved in digging out a story. Though she would complain about it with the best — comparing blisters, insults, the occasional menacing letter — she thrived on the research, the intrigue involved in rooting out corruption, searching for the dirty laundry. It was something she excelled at, and the knowledge of her own ability provided confidence required for tackling the tough — and sometimes dangerous — assignments.
There might be nothing dangerous per se about her latest story, but it was important to her all the same. It had begun with scrawled, anonymous complaints, alleging criminal mistreatment of the residents at certain D.C. nursing homes. A string of interviews with residents, beneath the watchful eye of smiling nurses, had done nothing to substantiate the stories. But an off-the-record conversation — and a strictly off-the-record payment — with a member of the cleaning staff at one facility had cast a different light upon the scene. Provided with a suitable inducement, her informant had agreed to take a camera inside the rest home where he was employed. His photographic style would never rate a one-man show, but his subject matter spoke to Susan Landry's heart. Police were studying the photos now, together with a tape that her informant had secured while wired for sound, but she was not inclined to wait for the indictments. UPI was waiting for her lead and talking a potential series. The police would have to watch her dust.
The piece was small compared to other stories she had handled. Susan's coverage of the Cleveland underworld had flirted with a Pulitzer, and she had won acclaim for coverage of the Bolan trial in Texas. Still, the subject matter counted, meant more to her than the national exposure she was likely to receive. It mattered when her writing made a difference in the lives of people on the street, in boardrooms where the fear of media exposure made the fat cats think twice before proceeding on their merry way and trampling the little man. But Susan Landry didn't write for glory or for the recognition of a byline. Several of her hottest stories had been quietly suppressed, against her own best interests, and the Bolan trial had been a fluke.
Bolan...
She thought about the solitary warrior often, wishing there was some way she could tell his story to the world. A part of it had surfaced after Cleveland, rising from the ashes of her own irrevocably altered life, but she had so much more to say about the man. So much that she could never say in public.
He had saved her life on two occasions: once in Cleveland, and again in Washington, before the roof fell in on Bolan's supersecret operation with the government. Each time the guy had risked his own life to pull her out of jeopardy created by her innate curiosity. She would be dead now if it was not for the man in black, but the
re was nothing she could say or do to repay that debt.
In Cleveland he had saved her from the syndicate; in Washington, from strung-out members of a street gang on the payroll of some renegades at the CIA. The shock waves from his D.C. operation had produced some changes in the Company, but they had also left Mack Bolan once more on the outside, looking in. She wasn't privy to the fine points of his previous arrangement with the government, the price that he had doubtless paid through loss of freedom in return for coming in from the cold. But Susan knew that there had been a hefty price tag on his leaving. She had gleaned from fragments of unguarded conversation that a part of Bolan's heart, a portion of his soul, had been severed, left behind when he was banished from Stony Man.
No, scratch that. The soldier had not been expelled. From all accounts — and there were precious few available — the choice to leave had been his own. If Bolan was in exile now, the penalty was self-imposed, and Susan knew that he would live with it the way that he had lived with being hunted like an animal throughout his early war against the Mafia. From what she gathered off the wires, that war was still in progress, and the Mob was having no more luck at pinning Bolan down today than in the bad old days.
They had come close in Texas with their scheme to put the guy on trial for murder, pin him up in jail where he would be an easy mark for assassination or where he would doubtless find himself condemned to execution for his "crimes." It had been close, but even in a cage, the Man from Blood would never be an easy mark. The trial had been an education in itself, but sudden violence had disrupted the proceedings prior to the delivery of a verdict. Susan wondered what the decision might have been, but the presiding judge steadfastly fended off requests for interviews. If he had come to a decision in the Bolan case, he seemed determined that it would not surface in the headlines.
She thought about the last chaotic moments of the trial in Texas. Bolan had been marked for murder in the courtroom, with assassins salted through the spectators and others waiting on the street outside. But in the final moments he had not been alone. With cameras excluded from the courtroom, there had been no photographs of Bolan's comrade, and the sketchy "artists' renderings" reminded Susan Landry of a Saturday cartoon. She had observed the action from a ringside seat, had passed within ten feet of Bolan's young compatriot as he sat taking notes, a Press badge pinned to his lapel. She had not seen him since, might never cross his path again, but if she did...
Blood Testament te-100 Page 7