Blood Testament te-100

by Don Pendleton

  Except, he told himself, it might already be too late.

  Conditioned toward ignoring hopeless odds, he pushed the defeatist train of thought away. It wouldn't matter what the scattered papers said or who might be depicted in the photographs, if the two of them were swept up by police responding to the shooting call. Before he could protect his friends, the soldier knew it would be necessary to protect himself, to put some ground between himself and five fresh corpses that would have to be explained.

  He had no explanation for the carnage yet, but it was coming. He could feel it in his gut. If only he could recognize the answer, seize the truth before it throttled him.

  * * *

  She watched him as he finished with the printouts of Brognola's phone calls, passed them back and started riffling through the photographs a second time. Was that a frown of recognition? Of concern? The silence stretched between them like a taut piano wire, and Susan Landry clenched both hands together in her lap to keep from gnawing at her nails.

  He looked the same... or did he? Finely chiseled features, so unlike the face that she had known in Cleveland, but she recognized him well enough from their encounter on the eve of his defection from the Phoenix Program, from another meeting in a Texas cell block.

  She wondered if those eyes had seen so much of blood and fire that they could never smile again. She stopped herself before the maudlin train of thought could take her any farther. She was on a story, dammit, and the man beside her was a part of it. If there had been no solid handle on the thing before, she had it now. One federal officer accused of bribery and worse, a second murdered in his home by contract killers — and the Executioner in Washington. Again.

  Despite herself, she felt a certain awe in Bolan's presence and she realized that it could rob her of her objectivity if she permitted it to go too far. The man had saved her life on two occasions — no, three; she couldn't just forget about tonight — and in return she studied him as if he were some kind of laboratory specimen, examining his actions, scrutinizing motive and effect. It was her job, and yet she owed him so much more.

  The man's arrival was coincidence, his brisk elimination of the four assassins done before he even knew that she was in the room. It scarcely counted if you put things in perspective properly.

  But yes, the man had saved her life. Again.

  He finished with the photographs but did not pass them back to her at once. When several heartbeats passed in silence, Susan took it on herself to break the ice.

  "Familiar faces?"

  "What?" It seemed as if her voice had brought him back from somewhere. He shrugged. "A few."

  "I guess they're syndicate."

  "Does that come from DeVries?"

  She nodded, wondering how much she could afford to give away.

  "I don't know how much else he had, but he was banking on indictment and conviction."

  "Any names?"

  "He didn't have the time. I planned to trace the numbers through Ma Bell."

  Had she said planned! Why was she talking in the past tense? Nothing she had seen so far tonight had changed her mind.

  "I'd like to show these to a friend," he said, so softly that she almost had to strain to catch the words.

  "Brognola?"

  She had hoped to take him by surprise, but Bolan only frowned, the graveyard eyes unflinching, locked with her own. "I can't go into that."

  She felt the sudden anger flaring, made no real attempt to rein it in. "For heaven's sake," she blurted, "I've already spoken to him once. And just in case you missed it, I was almost murdered earlier tonight."

  "While working on a story."

  "No!" She hesitated, startled by her own response. She had been working on a story, hadn't she? When she spoke again it was as if in answer to herself. "Not just a story."

  "Oh?"

  "I thought I could help... somehow."

  "You didn't help DeVries."

  "I didn't kill him, either. But I'll bet my life that someone in those pictures did."

  "Don't bet with anything you can't afford to lose."

  "You think I'm wrong?"

  "I think I'd like to run these past a friend and hear him out before I make up my mind, either way."

  "Okay, let's go."

  There was a trace of humor in his smile. "I'll drop you at a pay phone. You can take a cab back to your car, but you'd be smart to wait a while and let the bluesuits finish up."

  "I'll stick with you."

  "It's not an option."

  She turned away from him and faced the darkness, concentrating on her own reflection in the windowpane and trying to collect her thoughts.

  "You owe me one," she said. "You wouldn't have those pictures if I hadn't gone to interview DeVries."

  "I'd say we're even."

  "There are ways that I can help you... and your friend."

  "If I keep wasting time, you'll have a chance to help me out with an obituary."

  "Dammit, I know people in this town! If you need information, I can get it for you."

  Susan stopped herself, aware that she was offering to join him, in effect become a part of the mystery and bloodshed that surrounded him. But she had already become a part of it... how long ago? Had she been anything but part of it since Cleveland? Since McLary County?

  There was something in his silence that unnerved her. "So?" she asked.

  "What do you know about Lee Farnsworth?"

  "I know you killed him."

  "What about associates?"

  "Inside the Company?"

  "That's right."

  "Well... I could make some calls. I know some people out at Langley. But it's give and take. You've got to let me in."

  Hesitation while he thought it over, then, "It isn't my decision."

  Susan tasted victory, a flavor so elusive that she swallowed it at once.

  "So, make your calls."

  "My friends may not be interested," he said.

  "I'll take the chance. They turn me down, I'm out. Case closed."

  "And out means out?"

  "What can I tell you? You've got all my evidence for what it's worth, and there's a little matter of some unsolved homicides."

  "They wouldn't hold you overnight."

  "They wouldn't give me bupkus for my story, either. Dammit, I need you as much as you need me."

  And even as she spoke the words she wondered whether Bolan needed her at all. That line about Lee Farnsworth was intriguing, but...

  "I'll make some calls."

  She felt like cheering, but she kept it to herself as Bolan put the car in motion, pulling out of the deserted filling station into spotty evening traffic. There was still a chance that she might be rejected by his "friends" — Brognola and whoever else was presently involved — but her acceptance by the soldier was a triumph in itself.

  As for Lee Farnsworth, his connections in the Company, there would be ways to tap that well of information — to a point. The CIA was so damned secretive that some directors never knew precisely what was going on within the ranks, but Farnsworth was — had been — a renegade. His lethal games had been a rank embarrassment to veterans in the Agency, inspiring oversight committees that had poked around inside the nooks and crannies. There would be secrets left intact, of course; you couldn't make the Company go public any more than you could make the syndicate go straight. But agents on the right side of the line would be concerned about a repetition of the Farnsworth episode. They might cooperate in weeding out another renegade, if he could be identified.

  And where had that thought come from? There was nothing in the circumstances of Brognola's case to indicate an Agency involvement, nothing in the murder of DeVries that smacked of anything but Mafia. If Bolan hadn't mentioned Farnsworth...

  But he had, and Susan knew the soldier well enough to realize that he would have his reasons. He had not survived this long by chasing phantoms of his own creation. If he had a lead on some of Farnsworth's cronies, other rotten apples at Langle
y, and if any of it was connected with the moves against Brognola...

  Jesus, it could be the story of the year!

  The lady kept her fingers crossed and prayed that Bolan's friends would not reject her offer of assistance, bar her from the game. It was a death game now, and there would be more killing before the final score was toted up and verified. It crossed her mind that she might be among the dead, but she put the prospect out of mind. The risk was part of her profession, and a part of it that Susan Landry secretly enjoyed.

  She would enjoy the chance to work with Bolan, and that was no one's secret. Even as she offered up her prayer for personal success, another was already forming in her mind. She prayed for Bolan's safety through this night, at least, and hoped with all her heart that she would not be called upon to watch him die.

  Because she needed him a damn sight more than Bolan needed her.

  And that was one dark secret she might carry to her grave.

  16

  The photographs had worried Bolan most of all. Their mere existence proved that Hal was being closely shadowed, and together with the phone logs they presented Bolan with the picture of a tight surveillance that had obviously been conducted over several months. At first he was surprised that Hal had failed to recognize the tail, but with the new equipment readily available to governments and individuals, surveillance had become a whole new ball game in the eighties. Telephoto lenses were the least of it, he realized, and half a dozen agencies might listen in on private calls without a hint of any warning to the person being scrutinized.

  The how of it was rendered insignificant by Bolan's curiosity about the who and why. If Hal was truly under government surveillance, then the Feds had not received their money's worth. The evidence against him would not stand in court, nor even bring indictments once Brognola told his side. It was the other possibility — the probability — that worried Bolan now. If the surveillance of Brognola was in fact conducted at the urging of the syndicate, then Gianelli or some other ranking mafioso would have access to the logs and photographs. And that spelled danger.

  Because the photographs had captured Hal in covert conversations with a half dozen of his ranking undercover agents working on the org-crime beat. Selected mobsters, grafting politicians or affiliated businessmen who had "rolled over" on the syndicate, providing vital information on the operations of the Mafia in major cities coast-to-coast. The soldier knew a few of them by reputation, others from the supersecret Phoenix files at Stony Man, and any member of the Mafia's La Commissione would instantly appreciate the full significance of secret conversations with Brognola. Any capo worth his salt would know that Hal had never taken payoffs, never signed his name on anybody's pad and Family members or associates who huddled with him would be marked for execution as traitors.

  But there was more.

  Aside from Hal himself, the faces captured by surveillance cameras had been secondhand acquaintances to Bolan, for the most part. He had seen their mug shots, read their Justice files, but he had never met them face-to-face. Except for one.

  Besides Brognola's, his had been the only face repeated in a string of photographs, proof positive that his connection with the man from Washington had been no mere coincidence. The pictures damned him irrefutably as Brognola's eyes inside the Mob, and it would only take a glance from Gianelli — hell, from any ranking boss — to seal his fate. The soldier felt an arctic chill engulf him as he contemplated the reward that lay in store for recognized informers, once they were identified by fellow mafiosi. He would not have wished that living hell on anyone.

  And least of all on Nino Tattaglia.

  The guy had been an underboss with Carlos Nazarione's family, out of Baltimore, when he was tagged by federal agents for a double homicide. His choices had been limited, and Nino had rolled over quickly, clutching at the opportunity to save himself from prison. Granted, it had been a matter of expediency, but the mobster had been going through some private changes since recruitment by Brognola's strike force. Over time, Tattaglia had been transformed from grudging mole to something else entirely, his perspectives gradually evolving from the savage state to something that approached the altruistic. He had already taken Leo Turrin's place as Hal's primary source of inside information on the Mob, and Bolan — ever cautious in his dealings with "converted" mobsters — came to realize that Nino was the rarest of all jungle predators: a leopard who could truly change his spots.

  Worse yet, if they could capture Nino, if they had the capability of trailing Hal that far without his noticing, then it was possible that they — whoever in the hell they were — might breach the Phoenix Program soon. The soldier would not let himself believe that it had been exposed already; it was possible, of course, but contemplation of another Stony Man fiasco was too much for him to deal with at the moment. Able Team and the others would have to watch their own back door, while Bolan did the job that he had come to do in Wonderland.

  He watched Brognola shuffle through the photographs once more, and waited till the big Fed dropped them on the coffee table.

  "So?"

  Brognola's gaze went from Bolan to Leo Turrin, back again. His tone was cautious, and it didn't take a genius to realize that he was having second thoughts about the presence of the woman in their midst. It had surprised the Executioner when Hal and Leo grudgingly agreed to her suggestion — her demand — that she be dealt into the game. From the expression on Brognola's face he was already having second thoughts, and Bolan understood where he was coming from. He had the most to lose if things went sour, and the lady was a wild card noncombatant, tested in the press room but completely inexperienced in combat.

  Bolan put the problem out of mind and concentrated on the photographs, the evidence that Hal's most sensitive connections in the Mob had been exposed.

  "If this is what it seems to be," he said, "you'll need to bring some people in."

  Brognola nodded wearily. "I'm way ahead of you on that," he answered. "Jesus, what a mess."

  Across from Hal, hunched forward on the sofa, Susan Landry glanced from one man to the other, sudden understanding in her eyes.

  "Did you say bring some people in? These men... they're all your contacts? They're informants?"

  Silent moments spun between them while Brognola turned the answer over in his mind.

  "It's not for publication," he informed her stonily.

  "I know that, dammit."

  Bolan nipped the grin before it had a chance to spread, but Turrin wasn't quick enough, and he could see the longtime undercover man begin to relax a little.

  "We've been working on this thing forever," Hal confided, holding Susan with his eyes. He gestured toward the photos with a listless hand. "These people are informants, and between them they've been steering us toward heavy busts for years. The very fact that they're on film could be the end of everything. Their lives, their families..."

  At mention of families, Brognola lapsed into silence, brooding. Bolan had already briefed the lady on Hal's situation, with the Fed's permission, touching on the highlights from the disappearance of his family to the raid against DeVries. The four of them were in agreement that the move against Brognola's wife and children must be linked directly to the frame at work, the confiscation of his private files. Without those documents, it might be difficult to prove that Nino and the rest were business contacts, that they worked for him and he was not in their employ. Without those files to back him up, Brognola would be forced to pit his unsupported word against the damning evidence of photographs that showed him huddled with some of the most powerful thugs in the country.

  And, while he fought his private battle in the courts, the men depicted in those photographs would start to disappear. They might already have begun to vanish, and their lives could certainly be counted down in hours now if Nicky Gianelli or his counterparts of La Commissione had copies of the snapshots. There would be no need for lengthy trials with evidence like that against the Family's enemies.

  "I
've got some calls to make," Brognola said, and Bolan knew their minds were operating in a single channel. There might still be time to save some lives — save all their lives, with any luck.

  He watched Brognola lumber from the room and turned to Leo, feeling Susan Landry's eyes upon him, watching, waiting.

  "Okay, Sticker, what's the bottom line?"

  Leo Turrin had been startled by the Executioner's suggestion that they bring the lady in, but Leo was accustomed to surprises, and he had recovered swiftly, going with the soldier's judgment that she might be useful somewhere down the line. She wasn't hard to look at, he could say that much for her already, and he hesitated for a heartbeat while he put his thoughts in order.

  "You were right about DeVries," he told Bolan. "It was Family, for sure, but you can kiss off any solid trace to Gianelli."

  "Never mind," the soldier answered. "Gianelli runs this town. If outside talent's coming in, they're coming in through him."

  "I'd say that's true. We still don't have a goddamned thing — excuse me, ma'am..."

  The lady graced him with a smile. "I've heard the word before," she said. "In fact, I've used the word on more than one occasion."

  Already feeling foolish, Leo forged ahead. "We still don't have a thing connecting Erskine with the Families, but then again, we shouldn't hope for anything on paper. If they had him on the pad, we'd have to check his bank accounts, his safe-deposit boxes, all of that."

  "We can assume he was a player," Bolan said, shrugging off the need for proof that Gianelli owned DeVries. "The Family wouldn't tag a Fed unless they had a way to cut their losses in the end."