Blood Testament te-100

by Don Pendleton

  And maybe Bolan wasn't out there on his own, alone against the overwhelming odds. Perhaps he had a friend — or two, or three — to stand beside him when the flames were licking at his ankles. But she was wrong again, and recognized the fact before the thought was fully formed. The soldier never lost sight of his goals. And if his goals were ultimately unattainable... well, he would persevere in any case. It was the very definition of a hero and, in Susan Landry's eyes, Mack Bolan fit the bill.

  It wouldn't do for Susan to express herself in print — the wires and major magazines were known to frown on editorials romanticizing "common criminals" — but in her heart she knew that there was nothing common in Mack Bolan's private war. Someday, somehow, she might be able to describe the man as she had known him, make the reading public understand the driving force, the dream, behind his long crusade. Despite their relatively short acquaintance, Susan felt that she could see inside the warrior — one facet of the man, at any rate — and understand what made him tick. The truth was painful in its brutal simplicity.

  He was decent, nothing more nor less. Too decent for the modern world, perhaps, and certainly too decent to permit the savages, the cannibals to go about their business unmolested. He attacked the enemy because he had to, and because he had the skills required to make it stick. When courts of law broke down and justice failed, when predatory animals were circling their prey, the Executioner stood ready to exterminate the vermin, to restore a measure of security, of sanity to daily life inside the urban jungle. Having seen him work, and having shifted from the opposition's viewpoint to the status of an unabashed admirer, Susan Landry knew that Bolan's contribution was important, even vital to the maintenance of civilized society.

  Someday, somehow, the world would see Mack Bolan through her eyes. She only hoped that he would be around to share her vision, and to realize precisely what he meant to one reporter in D.C.

  The telephone disturbed her private reverie, and Susan got it on the second ring. She recognized the voice at once, a junior officer at Justice who had given her some leads from time to time. The guy had trouble understanding why her gratitude had never been expressed in bed.

  "How are you?" Friendly, but with distance that would let him know his place.

  "We're jammed up to the rafters, but I thought you'd want to know about your friend."

  Alarm bells chimed softly in the back of Susan's mind. "Which friend is that?"

  "Brognola."

  "What about him?"

  "Hey, I guess you really haven't heard."

  "What's going on?"

  "Perhaps we could discuss it over dinner?"

  "Sorry, I'm on deadline. Now, if you've got something for me..."

  "Always."

  Angry now. "I don't have time for this. If you have nothing more to say..."

  "Okay, okay." A note of petulance, the little boy rejected once again. "Brognola's busted."

  "What?"

  He sounded satisfied with her reaction. "Well, they haven't reeled him in, but it's inevitable. We've got evidence that puts him in the middle of a major orgcrime leak."

  "What kind of evidence?"

  "That's need-to-know right now, but take my word for it, he's history. They've got him on administrative leave right now."

  Her mind was racing, trying to make sense of the ridiculous. Brognola leaking classified material about the syndicate? Perhaps receiving payoffs? It was ludicrous, yet if Justice was anticipating an indictment...

  "Listen, I appreciate the tip. I owe you one."

  "Say, that's more like it. We could..."

  Susan cradled the receiver, cutting off his pitch and letting him romance the dial tone while she tried to grasp the full significance of what he had revealed. It was bizarre enough for Hal to be suspected of disloyalty, but for the brass to formally relieve him, something more than scuttlebutt must be involved. It would be Susan's job to trace that something else, to run it down and find out what was happening before her competition caught the scent and started nipping at Brognola's heels. With any luck she might find some way to assist him in exposing what was clearly a mistake, or worse.

  Except there might be no mistake, she realized. The allegations might be true, and God knew stranger things had happened in the past twelve months, with G-men, military officers, their families, all dealing secrets to the Soviets. She knew that anything was possible, and yet...

  Not Hal.

  The lady knew it with a certainty that was rooted in her soul. The only problem now was proving what she knew, unearthing evidence that would support her instincts, her beliefs.

  And Susan would begin her search, as always, at the source.

  * * *

  "I don't like this."

  It was as close as he would come to arguing with Bolan once the big guy's mind was set, but Leo Turrin had to air his apprehension as he pushed the station wagon north along Wisconsin Avenue in the direction of Bethesda, Chevy Chase and points north.

  "Don't worry."

  Bolan's voice betrayed distraction, and Turrin couldn't blame him. He was cruising toward a sit-down with the man who had once pardoned him, and then invoked the hit-on-sight directive that prevailed since Bolan's exit from the Phoenix Program. Anything could happen, and despite his faith in Bolan's judgment, Leo did not share his confidence in secondhand "official" guarantees. They might be walking into one hell of a setup, and in spite of his misgivings — no, because of them — he had insisted on providing Bolan with some backup for the meet. He wasn't sure what would happen if they should be met by someone other than the President — by marshals armed with riot guns and M-16s, for instance — but the veteran lawman would not let his friend go down without a fight.

  In some ways, it reminded Turrin of the old days, walking into danger situations with the man in black beside him, risking everything on some fantastic run against the odds. They had survived, incredibly, to fight again. But it was different now. If there was trouble this time, Leo's enemy would be the very government that he had served since he enlisted with the First Marine Battalion and shipped out to Vietnam. And if it came to killing, Leo knew that Bolan would not fire a shot at any lawman who acted under orders. He would be a sitting target for the firing squad.

  And if that happened, Turrin didn't know how he would react. The marshals wouldn't recognize him, wouldn't know that he was on the payroll, and his own reaction might become superfluous if they were shooting first and asking questions later. Leo knew he might be driving toward his death, but he could no more turn his back on Bolan now than he could voluntarily stop breathing. They were in this thing together, both of them for Hal.

  A nagging apprehension had already taken root in the back of Leo's mind, subverting his determination with the message that their mission was a bust, that Brognola's family had no chance whatsoever of surviving their encounter with the Mob. They might be dead already, and most certainly they would not be released to Hal, potential witnesses at large who might exonerate Brognola, turn the spotlight back upon the syndicate. It would be lunacy to let them go, and while the leaders of the syndicate were always savage, sometimes less than brilliant, they were far from being idiots. The man who released Brognola's family, with everything to lose and nothing positive to gain, would have to be a fool.

  If Bolan bought it in the coming hour, at his meeting with the President, Hal's family was doomed. It would require a special touch to bring them out of this alive, and Bolan had that touch, in spades. The little Fed had seen him shake the very walls of Castle Mafia, not once but time and time again. His reputation was enough to rattle certain ranking mafiosi, and the ones who weren't afraid of him had never seen the guy in action.

  It would be Turrin's job to see that Bolan was not betrayed before he left the starting gate. And if his sit-down with the Man turned out to be a gun-down with a troop of marshals in attendance, well, then Sticker would be forced to offer some diversion while the Executioner withdrew, intact. It was that simple. Sure.
<
br />   Like juggling bottles full of nitroglycerin, or playing hopscotch on the high wire, minus safety net.

  If he was driving Bolan into peril, it was Leo's task to see him safely out the other side, no matter what it cost him privately. It was the least he could do for someone who had saved his life, more times than he could count. He owed the warrior that.

  And if the sit-down fell apart, it would be time to pay his debts in full.

  The former capo prayed that Hal was right in his assurance of a safe, protected meet. If he was wrong, how would Brognola live with the knowledge that his plight had sent the soldier to his death? How would he live at all if Bolan bought it at the sit-down, if he never had the chance to attempt to rescue Helen and the kids?

  Too late to think about it now. In a few more minutes they would be coasting into range of the rendezvous. Another block, and there would be no turning back. He fought an urge to park the station wagon, or to turn around and power out of there before the trap could close around them. Too late.

  Committed, Leo held the station wagon steady, eyes alert for any sign of tail cars in the rearview mirror. He was in for the duration, and with any luck at all, he would be sitting down with Angelina later in the evening, thankful that his world was safe and sound, his family secure.

  But he could not escape the nagging apprehension that his luck was running out.

  9

  Leo Turrin parked the station wagon on a narrow side street off the western fringe of Rock Creek Park. Directly opposite and half a mile away on the far side of the park, stood the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Somewhere in between, inside the park itself, Mack Bolan had a scheduled meeting with the Man.

  In preparation for the sit-down, he removed the sleek Beretta from its shoulder rigging and handed the weapon to Turrin.

  "You might want to think about that," Leo grumbled.

  Bolan shook his head. "I'm here to talk."

  The little Fed did not appear to be convinced. "Well, listen, if you're wrong..."

  "Do nothing," Bolan told him flatly. "If it sounds like I've run into trouble, start the car and drive away."

  "Goddammit, Sarge..."

  "Whichever way it goes, you're out of here in thirty minutes. Understood?"

  "I should be going in there with you."

  "Thirty minutes."

  "Yeah, all right, I get the message."

  Bolan rested one big hand on Leo's shoulder. "Watch yourself."

  "Let's try, 'I'll see you later.'"

  "Sure."

  He closed the station wagon door, waited for a taxi and a family sedan to pass before he crossed the street. The park was green, inviting, but the Executioner could not suppress a certain apprehension. It could be a jungle as easily as it could be a playground, and he knew that Leo could be right. The marshals might be waiting for him, riflemen positioned for effective cross-fire. It would be so easy, if the President had set him up.

  No altruist, the soldier still believed in certain basic values. Duty. Justice. Honor. And responsibility. Those ancient concepts had determined Bolan's course of action when he had returned from Vietnam to find his family in ruins. Those same ideals had brought him back to Washington, the scene of other conflicts in his neverending war, and they would keep him here until his job was finished — or until somebody dropped him with a well-placed bullet.

  It could go either way, right now or in the coming hours. Bolan knew the odds, and he had been prepared for death since his arrival in the Southeast Asian hellgrounds. Nothing that had happened since had shaken his resolve to see his duty through.

  But there were other duties, too. Responsibilities to friends, and to the country that had nurtured him. His parents had deserted other homelands for the shining promise of America, had borne their children here, and they had seen their dreams turn into dust, the promise nullified by savages who lived outside the law. Mack Bolan had a duty to that dream, to generations yet unborn, and he would serve their cause with every fiber of his being.

  His meeting with the President was an unwelcome interruption of the soldier's newest life-and-death campaign. Each moment counted now, for Hal Brognola's family. But Hal had called the play and seemed intent on going through with his end of the bargain. Bolan would accommodate his friend to a point, but the Executioner did not believe that anything would come of his discussion with the chief of state. They understood each other well enough, and neither of them would be able to back down, reject his own responsibilities in favor of a compromise.

  The President was not Mack Bolan's enemy, per se. He had responded to the Stony Man debacle with restraint, compassion and a willingness to see the Phoenix Program forge ahead once the battle smoke had cleared. It had not been the President's idea for Bolan to sever all — or almost all — official ties. The Executioner had simply realized that he could not wage war effectively beneath the government umbrella, bound to systems and superiors that made his lightning war a clumsy juggernaut.

  Early in his war against the Mafia, the media had spoken of Mack Bolan as a "one-man army." There were implications that he thrived on loneliness, existed for the thrill of battle and sustained himself, like Dracula, on the blood of fallen enemies. The truth was rather different, but in one respect, the media reports were accurate. He fought a one-man war — when and where he could — and there had been no room for armies of supporting personnel in Bolan's scheme of things. The vision of an army at his back had been intoxicating, coming off his long last mile against the Mafia and reeling from a week of constant contact with the enemy, and he could not deny the victories that had been captured by the Phoenix Project. Neither could he venture to deny the costs. From the initiation of his private war, the soldier's greatest fear had been the sacrifice of allies who enlisted in his fight. The bloody roster haunted Bolan's dreams. So many lives cut short in pursuit of one man's own quixotic quest. How many times had Bolan sworn off the enlistment of another ally in his war? How many times had brutal circumstances forced him to recant that pledge? The list of dead and wounded, from his first campaign in California to the Stony Man disaster, was as long as Bolan's strong right arm. There had been others since his exit from the program, might be more before the day was out, but now the soldier had some measure of control regarding those who joined his war.

  The men of Phoenix Force and Able Team, secure and satisfied beneath the wing of Phoenix, had elected to remain and fight their battles from within the system. Bolan could respect their stand, remembering that it had been his own not long ago, but there were always choices to be made. And for Mack Bolan, the decision had been simple, inescapable, inevitable. He was meant to wage his war on private terms, according to the rules established by his enemies.

  The Secret Service agents met him fifty yards inside the park. There were three of them, all Robert Redford lookalikes in charcoal suits and mirrored aviator glasses, wearing tiny microphones like hearing aids. The flankers both held mini-Uzi submachine guns underneath their coats and took no pains to hide the weapons from Bolan. Their companion and apparent leader stood before him empty-handed, but his jacket was unbuttoned, granting easy access to the Magnum handgun nestled beneath one arm.

  The soldier waited while they frisked him, examined the contents of his pockets and exchanged cautious glances when they found the empty shoulder rigging.

  "You alone?"

  Bolan smiled. "It looks that way."

  If they were watching the perimeters they would have spotted Leo, marked him for an easy drop if he attempted to approach the meeting point or otherwise encroach upon the park. If they were unaware of him, it was not Bolan's job to point him out.

  The leader stepped back and spoke into a small transmitter clipped to his lapel. A moment passed before he got his answer, and then he nodded to the gunners flanking Bolan.

  "It's all right," he told them, turning toward the Executioner. "Let's go."

  The gunners stayed behind, securing their backtrack, while the odd man out proceeded
eastward, leading Bolan through some hedges, down a grassy slope, to intersect a narrow, curving drive. A limousine was waiting for them there, with three more 'Robert Redfords' standing watch around it. Bolan recognized the model at a glance, but there was something missing, and it took a moment for him to decide precisely what was lacking from the picture.

  Presidential seals.

  The limo's occupant was incognito, and while any resident of Washington would recognize the Secret Service escort at a glance, there were too many limousines in town for this one to attract undue attention on the highway. With the tinted windows, standard plates and lack of fender-mounted flags, the vehicle might have belonged to any diplomat or wealthy politician in the District.

  Bolan let himself relax a fraction. If the Man had meant to have him taken out on sight, there would have been more gunners in the trees, and he would never have survived this far. He felt the agents watching him, their fingers itching for the draw, but he ignored them, willed his knotted stomach to unwind. It was a simple sit-down.

  Except that he would be unarmed, conversing with the President of the United States, surrounded by the palace guard.

  The nearest agent cut in front of Bolan, reaching out to catch the door and open it, retreating as the soldier slipped inside the limousine. A sidelong glance through soundproof glass revealed another agent in the driver's seat, eyes forward, both hands planted firmly on the wheel. Beside him, also facing forward, was a slender, nondescript accountant-type, a heavy briefcase resting on his lap.

  "My bag man, so to speak." The President was smiling, but the smile was strained. "I can't leave home without him."