Blood Testament te-100

by Don Pendleton

His eyes quit mauling her just long enough to meet her gaze, a flicker of uneasiness behind the washed-out gray, and then they dropped back to her hemline, inching up her thigh.

  "Oh, there's a case, all right." He sounded cocky, certain of himself. "We've got the bas... We've got him cold."

  "And what, precisely, will he be accused of?"

  "Well, they haven't drawn the charges yet. Somebody might decide to let him bargain down. From what I've seen, he's in the bag for multiples on bribery, releasing classified material, consorting, perjury, the works."

  "As far as evidence..."

  "We've got it up the ying-yang, babe. The guy is very photogenic, if you get my drift."

  "I wish there was some way..."

  "For you to see it? Well, I really oughta make some calls, but what the hell? I've got some things you might be interested in right here."

  He jerked a thumb across his shoulder toward what had to be the bedroom, and his smile was crooked, sloppy from the liquor, hungry like his eyes. Too eager. It was not supposed to be this way, and she could feel her hackles rising, the alarm bells going off inside her skull.

  "You wanna come with me?.."

  Her smile was ice.

  "I'll wait."

  "Hey, suit yourself."

  She kept the frozen smile in place while he unfolded from the chair and walked toward the bedroom. As far as he could tell, Susan wryly thought, he had her hooked, and it was time to reel her in. She wondered why the men behind DeVries had not invested time in acting lessons for their star performer. Or was he precisely what he seemed to be: a horny jerk prepared to barter information for an hour's dalliance?

  She put the second option out of mind. It was too pat, a tired cliche that probably could still be found in action anywhere outside official Washington. The penalties for whistle-blowers were increasingly severe, and no one but an idiot would risk his job, his freedom, on the off-chance of an unexpected one-night stand. Perhaps if she had known DeVries for weeks or months, if she had implied availability as her part of a working contract...

  No. The guy was obviously hoping for a shot, but he was far from stupid. Still, a third alternative was nagging at her. Suppose DeVries was acting on his own, assuming that his sponsors would appreciate some free publicity to nudge Brognola, turn the heat up. There was just a chance DeVries might use his own initiative, and hope for something on the side.

  He reappeared a moment later, carrying two slim manila envelopes. Before he sat, she noticed that he nudged his chair some inches closer to her own. Without a word he opened one of the manila envelopes and handed her a stack of glossy eight-by-tens.

  "We never could've tagged him this way two, three years ago," he said. "You wanna know the truth, I think the guy is getting senile."

  Silently she scanned the photographs. Each one depicted Hal Brognola in the company of men she didn't recognize. One face recurred in half a dozen of the shots, and Susan memorized it: wavy hair, thick brows and brooding, deep-set eyes, a classic Roman nose. The other men were nondescript.

  "Okay." She could not let DeVries know that the faces held no meaning for her. She would play it out and take the information as it came.

  "Okay? That's it?" He shook his head and tapped an index finger on the Roman nose. "This guy's a major power with the Family in Baltimore. That ring a bell?"

  DeVries was shuffling through the stack of photographs and ticking off credentials for the men who had been captured with Brognola in the camera's eye. A shooter from Toledo. Numbers bankers from Manhattan. A Chicago politician. Cocaine cowboys from Miami. A Las Vegas businessman whose interests ranged from legal gambling to child pornography.

  The list went on, and Susan Landry felt a numbness spreading from her stomach, threatening to paralyze her limbs. Could she have been so radically, completely wrong about Brognola? Had the man been fooling everyone for years? She stopped herself before the train of thought could gather perilous momentum. There were still too many things that could not be explained away: Brognola's record of arrests, investigations that had rocked the syndicate and packed its leaders off to prison, his relationship with Bolan in another sort of war against the Mob. It seemed impossible, and yet... "When were these taken?"

  "We've been dogging him full-time the past three months. That's ninety days of around-the-clock surveillance. I don't even wanna think about the deals that he was pulling off before we got our tip."

  "What kind of tip?"

  DeVries put on a thoughtful frown. "I really can't go into that, at least until we get indictments. If you call me in a week or two..."

  She didn't take the bait. "What's in the other envelope?"

  "Oh, this?" He passed it over. "There, you've got the phone log on Brognola's private line. The past three months, he's gotten a dozen calls from Mr. Baltimore alone, and there's a couple dozen others from around the country. All from members or confirmed associates of Cosa Nostra Families."

  She was unfastening the envelope, betrayed by fingers that had suddenly begun to tremble, when the doorbell sounded, causing her to jump.

  "Relax," he said, grinning. "I'll lose whoever, and we'll have a drink, okay?"

  He was away before she had a chance to veto the suggestion, and she concentrated on the list of numbers in her hand. The digits held no meaning for her; she would have to copy them and check them on her own, but she was worried, afraid that any further digging might reveal that she had been mistaken in her judgment of Brognola. And if she had so misjudged the man from Justice, then what else, who else, had she been wrong about? Was anyone precisely what he seemed in Washington?

  The gunshots were explosive, thunderous, reverberating through the narrow corridor and bringing Susan to her feet, the photographs and printouts spilling from her hands. DeVries lurched through the doorway, panting, breathless, with an automatic pistol in his fist.

  "Get down!" he shouted at her. "It's a hit!"

  Behind him, out of sight, she heard the door burst open, slamming back against the wall. DeVries was turning, firing back along the hallway, when the sliding windows at her back imploded, raining shattered glass. She caught a fleeting image of the lawn chair as it bounced across the carpet, recognized the hammering of automatic weapons as she dived for cover, flattening herself behind the couch.

  It would protect her for a moment, and Susan had no time for thoughts of Hal Brognola now. Her mind was fully occupied with facing the reality of sudden, violent death: her own.

  * * *

  Mack Bolan parked his rental Ford between a Firebird and a family station wagon. He killed the engine and remained behind the wheel for several moments, listening. The cul-de-sac was quiet, sidewalks empty, and he was relieved that there were no apparent parties underway in any of the nearby condominiums. His mission was a soft one here, but crowd scenes added unknown variables, inconvenient witnesses, unnecessary risks.

  Brognola had supplied the name of the investigator on his case, and in a hurried phone call he had also tipped the soldier to a scheduled midnight meet in Arlington. The Executioner would be there, standing by his friend, but first there were some questions begging to be answered, and the answer man would be Brognola's nemesis, Erskine DeVries. He had the condo's number, knew the guy was single, that he lived alone and that he wasn't in his office. Odds were good that he would be at home, and based on Hal's assessment of the man — "a loser with the ladies" — it was likely that he would be on his own.

  The odds against his making voluntary conversation would be something else entirely, Bolan knew, but he could be persuasive when he tried. DeVries had seen the "evidence" against Brognola, had perhaps collected some of it himself, and with some marginal encouragement along the way he just might share his knowledge with the Executioner. Convinced that Hal was being framed, the soldier was more interested in motives than in manufactured evidence, but any leads might be productive in the end. If he could squeeze some solid answers from DeVries, he would be that much closer to the men behind the fr
ame.

  He locked up the car and struck off through the complex, checking numbers as he went and homing on the address that Brognola had provided. A stereo was warming up somewhere to Bolan's right, discordant strains of heavy metal drifting toward him through the darkness, far enough away that Bolan could afford to put it out of mind. He found the numbered building he was seeking, turned the corner — and immediately froze.

  Four hardmen, wearing trench coats over suits, were there ahead of him. They picked out the condo's number, huddled briefly, then fanned out to take up their positions. Two disappeared around the back, the others killing time until their backup men were in position, smoking, whispering between themselves. A minute passed, then two, and Bolan watched them grind their cigarettes to ashes on the sidewalk, fanning back their coats to free the automatic weapons bolstered in shoulder rigs.

  The hardware banished any fleeting thought that these might be detectives setting up a bust. The pincer movement was a classic, crashing in the front while snipers waited to annihilate the target fleeing through another exit, and if nothing else, the soldier knew that someone else was interested in DeVries. No time to ponder the apparent contradiction of a hit upon the man who was cooperating in a major frame. DeVries might be demanding bigger bucks, or suffering the pangs of conscience. At the bottom line he was expendable, and someone had decided it was time to break the chain, remove a crucial link before it could be followed backward to the source of Hal Brognola's troubles.

  They were on the doorstep now, one reaching up to jab the bell when Bolan moved, the sleek Beretta filling his hand. Split-second timing was required, and if he blew it there would be no hope of any answers from DeVries.

  An endless moment passed while the gunners waited for an answer to the doorbell. The soldier had already covered half the distance, fading in and out of shadows as he ran. With twenty yards between them, Bolan saw the gunners tense, their weapons rising in response to something he could neither see nor hear.

  And instead of opening, the door was sprouting chest-high bullet holes, the shooters desperately recoiling, dodging lead and flying splinters. They recovered swiftly, like professionals, the taller of them stepping up and kicking at the door. The impact shattered its lock, opening the way. His partner loosed a short precision burst to clear the entryway, and they were inside before the soldier could react effectively.

  He broke for cover, sprinting for the stoop, aware of new activity around him. Cautious faces peered through the curtains of surrounding condos, porch lights winked on, dispelling darkness in an instant. Sharp, staccato gunfire echoed through the open doorway, coupled with a crash of broken glass.

  Too late.

  The message hammered in Mack Bolan's brain before he cleared the concrete steps, before he reached the doorway and plunged inside.

  But he would never know for sure until he tried, until he saw it for himself.

  If he survived that long.

  15

  He came upon the hit team from behind, and even so he almost lost the advantage of surprise. With twenty feet between them, someone in the living room began returning fire, big .45 rounds gouging plaster from the pastel walls. The shooters scrambled backward, crouching, and the nearest of them caught a glimpse of Bolan from the corner of his eye.

  He barked a warning, swiveling to bring his Uzi up, the muzzle winking fire at point-blank range. Excellent timing and the shooter's haste were all that saved Mack Bolan's life, a belly slide on blue shag carpeting removing him from the initial line of fire. He heard the parabellums slicing air above his head, impacting on the walls, and he was angling with the Beretta, making target acquisition as the hit man started to correct his aim.

  The first round from the 93-R ripped through the gunner's chest and rocked him backward on his heels. The Uzi's snout drifted upward, bringing down a rain of plaster dust as 750 rounds per minute chewed up the ceiling. Bolan's second round bored in beneath the shooter's chin and snapped his head back, opening a jagged keyhole in his skull.

  The second gunner was already ducking as the body fell across his line of fire, and Bolan took advantage of the momentary distraction, rolling clear before the automatic rounds came ripping in, peeling ragged strips of carpet back and pulverizing the concrete beneath. He triggered three quick rounds from the Beretta, saw his target jerk, colliding with the wall, rebounding in an awkward pirouette that ended in a sprawl. He didn't have to check for vital signs to know the guy was as dead as hell.

  From the direction of the living room he heard male voices hoarse with tension, calling to the dead.

  "Zito! Eddie! What the hell?"

  On his feet and closing, Bolan left them guessing as he stepped across the leaking corpses of their comrades. He holstered the hot Beretta, then stooped to retrieve the Uzi from his first kill, picking up an Ingram MAC-11 as he passed the second lifeless body. Both weapons were primed and a quick check told him he had sufficient ammo to meet the challenge. He cleared the doorway, searching for another target.

  They were waiting for him in the shambles of the parlor, shattered sliding windows open on the night behind them, curtains stirring with the breeze. He was aware of someone stretched out on the carpet to his right, but there was no time now for sizing up the casualties.

  Shooters three and four were stationed twenty feet apart, prepared to close the hallway with a lethal cross fire from their automatic weapons at a moment's notice. It was a professional defensive stance that fairly guaranteed survival for at least one member of the team; if any unexpected enemy appeared, he would be forced to choose one target or the other while the odd man out was free to cut him down.

  The soldier read their purpose at a glance, together with the heartbeat's indecision in their faces as he cleared the doorway in a crouch. They had been waiting for an answer from their silent partners, still not understanding, when the Executioner unloaded on them with his captured weapons, raking left and right together in a blazing double arc of death.

  The Uzi ran its remaining rounds in rapid-fire and swept the starboard gunner off his feet as parabellum slugs ripped his chest to shreds. The impact blew him backward, through the shattered sliding windows, shrouded in the bloody curtains as they ripped free of their moorings and followed him outside.

  On Bolan's left, the MAC-11 cut a lethal figure eight between the final gunner's throat and knees, .380 stingers slamming home with enough force to knock him backward in a sloppy somersault.

  Bolan dropped the Uzi, tossed the Ingram after it and was turning toward the nearest corpse when furtive movement behind the sofa captured his attention. Bolan hit a combat crouch, the Beretta filling his fist and searching for a target. His finger tightened around the trigger, hesitating only when the numbers failed to jibe.

  Four gunners, all of them accounted for. The ventilated body at his feet would be DeVries, already silenced for eternity. He should have been alone among the dead.

  "One chance," he snapped. "Throw out your weapon. Let me see those hands."

  A woman's voice came back at him from somewhere in the suburbs of hysteria.

  "I haven't got a weapon, dammit!"

  "Stand," he ordered her, prepared for anything. "And make it easy."

  Recognition hit Mack Bolan first, but Susan Landry wasn't far behind. Her mouth hung open for a moment, wide eyes rising from the muzzle of his weapon to the face that she had seen most recently in Texas.

  He holstered the Beretta, one swift glance assuring him that she was still intact before he crouched beside DeVries. He didn't need to take the nonexistent pulse, but Bolan did it anyway, and cursed the circumstances that had robbed him of the opportunity to question Hal's accuser.

  Susan was beside him now, recovered well enough from her initial shock to make her mind and mouth coordinate.

  "You came here looking for DeVries?"

  He let the question pass. "I see you found him first."

  "Somebody found him." She surveyed the carnage, paling as her eyes g
lanced off the other riddled bodies. "What the hell is all of this?"

  "It's overkill," he answered, holding Susan with his eyes. "Somebody must've thought DeVries was granting interviews."

  "You're here for Hal," she countered, sudden understanding in her voice. "I should have known."

  "What brings you here?"

  "Could be the same. I haven't had a chance to make up my mind yet." She nodded toward the body of DeVries. "We never got that far."

  Outside, a rising babble had resolved itself into the sound of cautious voices. Bolan didn't have to understand the words to realize that neighbors would be edging closer, gaining confidence as silence swallowed up the echoes of the firefight. Someone was certain to have called police, several calls would be more likely, and the squad cars would be on their way by now. A glance told Bolan that the lady was already putting two and two together, and she beat him to the punch.

  "I move we finish off this conversation in a cooler atmosphere," she said, "before somebody else drops in to interrupt."

  The soldier didn't argue with her. He was stepping through the shattered sliding windows, past the shrouded corpse of one assailant, when he noticed Susan hanging back, intent on gathering some photographs and papers that were scattered near the couch. She caught up with Bolan on the flagstone patio, in lockstep with him as they put the house of death behind them.

  As Bolan led her back circuitously toward the parking lot, avoiding contact with the neighbors who were popping out of condos on every side, his mind was on the papers in her hand. He hadn't noticed them in the excitement of the firefight, the surprise of seeing Susan Landry rise from cover. But if the lady cared enough to bring them with her, shaving precious seconds off their getaway, they might be worth a closer look.

  Whatever they contained, they were his only hope of getting information from DeVries now that the man himself had been irrevocably silenced. Scattered papers, glossy photographs... and Susan Landry. It made some sense.

  Susan had been with DeVries before the raiders struck. There was a chance that he had spilled some measure of the manufactured case against Brognola, speaking carelessly, perhaps, or out of cold deliberation, playing to his audience. Most frames looked better in the media than in court, Bolan knew, and he was betting that DeVries had planned a series of strategic leaks to stain Brognola's reputation. Someone else had vetoed the idea with bullets, and the Executioner could only hope that something might be salvaged from the ruins before it was too late.