“About what?” Tony Danger growled, working hard to control his emotions.
“He said he was supposed to make the buy at the Pepe. He said there was trouble, and he was going instead of you. He said—”
“Fuck what he said!” Tony Danger yelled. “What did he do?”
Tarantini took a retreating half-step in the face of that rage and choked out: “Hell I thought you knew. I thought it was cleared through you. The Frenchman tried to pass some bad stuff. Mr. Lambretta drilled him and dumped the junk.”
“He did what?” Tony Danger screamed.
Turtle Tarantini looked about ready to run. Instead he thrust forward a heavy manila envelope, pushing it towards his boss. “I guess it’s all in here,” he said weakly. “He said give this to you.”
Tony Danger accepted the “report” but his eyes remained hot and unbelieving on his skipper. “Where is this guy right now?” he wanted to know.
“He had us drop him on the other side. Said his car was over there.”
“When?”
“Five, maybe ten minutes ago.”
Tony Danger did not wish to open that envelope.
He knew, he thought, what was in there.
He muttered, “He dumped the stuff?”
“Yessir. It was trash. He paid the Pepe for their run, but he put a bullet right between the Frenchman’s eyes. Mr. Danger, that guy knew what he was doing. Believe me.”
“Fifty kilos,” Tony Danger muttered. “A million bucks on the streets. He dumped it?”
“I told you, it was trash. I thought you knew all about that. I thought.…”
“You think too much, Turtle,” Tony Danger told his uncomfortable skipper. He was opening the envelope—slowly, delicately. “You’re gonna fool around and think yourself into an early grave. You think about that.”
Turtle Tarantini’s eyes clearly did not understand his boss’s reaction to the superb job Frankie Lambretta had done for him.
“Too many people give orders around here,” he muttered defensively.
Tony Danger did not hear the remark.
He was staring into the brown manila envelope.
He dug a finger into a small sample of white powder in there and touched it to his tongue.
“Trash, eh?” he commented miserably.
Then he withdrew the little iron cross with a bull’s-eye in its center and showed it to his skipper.
“That’s your Frankie Lambretta,” he said in a flat voice.
“I don’t believe it,” Tarantini whispered.
“You’d better,” Tony Danger quietly told him. “You’d damn sure better believe it.”
He turned away to conceal the quivering of his lips and quickly descended the ladder to the main deck.
Damn right.
Everybody had better start believing it.
Hell had finally come to San Diego.
Bolan established radio contact with Gadgets Schwarz to set up a rendezvous where he could screen the intelligence from the telephone tap on the Winters residence, but Blancanales broke into the conversation with an urgent report of his own.
“Been hoping you’d check in pretty quick,” the Politician told his C.O. “All hell is breaking around here. My subject has had people coming and going ever since I reached station. It smells of a build-up and I want you to look at some pictures I took with the Polaroid.”
Bolan had a vast respect for the judgement of the combat-intelligence expert. His decision was quick and positive. “Change the game plan,” he replied. “Remain on station and cover Gadgets for his intel run. Gadgets, start your drain operation in exactly ten minutes. Pol, follow him out. I’ll be covering from Station Charlie. Regroup with all caution at Point Alpha.”
It was beginning to size up as a rather short siege.
The enemy, it seemed, was already gearing for the break-out.
The emergency conference had been shaping up for better than an hour. The key men from Mexico had arrived and the boys from the California desert interior were expected at any moment. Additionally, a four-point telephone conference was being set up on scrambler circuits with New York, Phoenix, and Los Angeles.
Ben Lucasi was not letting any Bolan dust settle on him. Maybe the other bosses around the country were reluctant to yell for help when the bastard came crashing in on them—not Big Ben Lucasi. He had been accorded the “Big” tag not by virtue of his physical dimensions but by the size of his ambitions and ideas.
And Big Ben Lucasi did not take this brand of crap from anybody.
When the telephone sounded off, he’d thought it to be the scrambler conference coming through … but it was only Tony Danger.
“What th’ hell, hang up,” Lucasi ordered. “I’m expecting the national wire.”
“Here’s something maybe you weren’t expecting,” his lieutenant advised him. “That goddam Bolan came out here and conned my boat crew into taking him out to sea. He hit our French connection, bumped the guy, scattered the shipment on the high seas. Whattaya think of that, Ben? A million fuckin’ bucks giving the fishes a thrill.”
“Th’ rotten bastard!” Lucasi muttered angrily. “What the hell d’you think he’s pulling this crap for?”
“Well, he’s not just tweaking our noses,” Tony Danger assured the boss. “Bet your ass, he’s got something very serious on his mind.”
“Awright, you get it on over here!” Lucasi demanded. “We’re about ready to go to council. Listen, Tony, we’re going to put an end to this bullshit here and now. You say he killed Beloit?”
“Yeah. And there went four hard months of sweat and tears. I tell you, Ben, this stuff is getting hard to come by. We just can’t afford to lose good brokers this way.”
“I know, I know,” Lucasi replied, commiserating with his favorite lieutenant. “Well look, get it on back here. We’ll take care of Mr. Smart-ass for good and all.”
“Be there in ten minutes,” Tony Danger promised, and hung up.
The delegates to the convention were all in the game room, quietly consoling their ruffled nerves with the best booze from the Lucasi liquor closet. He hold his house captain, the Diver, “I’ll be in there with the boys. That call comes through, you send it right in on the squawk box.”
“I just come in to tell you,” Diver said, “that something funny is going on outside.”
“What d’you mean, funny?”
“If you got just a second, I’d like to show you.”
Lucasi followed his chief bodyguard to the patio, his guts shivering just a little under this new “funny” business.
The big guy was pointing up the street. “See that bread truck up there … up inna next block?”
Lucasi growled, “Yeah. So what?”
“So it’s been in this neighborhood for the past two hours.”
“Is the guy making deliveries?”
“Seems to be. But, hell, how long can a guy spend in one neighborhood?”
“Depends,” Lucasi replied, with a stab at humor, “on how many stud-hungry housewives he’s servicing, I guess. Is that what you brought me out here for?”
“That’s not all.” The Diver swiveled about to sight along his outstretched arm in the opposite direction. “See that up there?”
“I see a little green truck,” the boss replied, with some irritation. “So what?”
“So I seen the same damn truck over on the next street earlier this morning. Right after we got hit.”
Lucasi was attempting to appear unruffled. He drawled, “All right, I never accused you of bad instincts, Diver. What d’you think is so funny about this?”
“I think maybe we’re being watched.”
“Oh?” Lucasi thrust a cigar between his teeth and chewed on it for a few seconds, then said, “There was sure something funny about that hit here this morning. You thinking that, too?”
The Diver soberly nodded his head. “It just isn’t like Bolan.”
“He hit the Pepe awhile ago,” Lucasi confided, sotto vo
ce. “Bumped Beloit and dumped our shipment in the ocean.”
“Sounds like he’s getting smarts somewheres,” Diver muttered. His eyes were roaming the exterior of the house. “He could’ve bumped you, Mr. Lucasi, as easy as anything. I keep wondering why he didn’t.”
“I guess maybe he just wasn’t ready to,” Lucasi replied in a strained voice. The tension was wearing through again. He loudly cleared his throat and added, “I guess he had something else on his mind.” Lucasi was following the scan of his house captain’s gaze. The hairs rose along the back of his neck. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he growled.
“Well, we know he’s not working alone this time,” Diver quietly replied. His arm rose and he pointed toward a second-floor window. “Do you see something up there? On that ledge there, by the window?”
Lucasi’s blood almost stopped flowing. “Shake this fuckin’ place down,” he commanded, almost choking with the effort at speech. “I mean good and fast!”
The house captain took off on a run, loudly calling his boys together as he went.
Lucasi hurried after him, tremblingly intent upon clearing that open area with all speed.
“Suckered!” he muttered to himself. “Sonuvabitch!”
For damn sure. The bastard had suckered him with the oldest trick in the books.
But maybe it wasn’t too late to pull the fat out of the fire. Maybe, by God, Mr. Smart-ass would find his own fat searing in the flames this time.
“Those trucks!” he screamed. “Get out there and grab them trucks!”
10: POINT BLANK
Bolan was watching from a high point of ground which was several blocks removed from the Lucasi home, following the play there with powerful binoculars.
He had been on station and waiting when Schwarz began his intelligence run in the warwagon, had watched him pull up to within fifty yards of the target and dismount, open the hood over the engine, step inside the van.
He saw Blancanales, also, another hundred yards or so downrange, inching along in the bread truck.
Bolan spoke into his shoulder-phone to advise, “Pol, the ears are out.”
“Roger, I have him in sight,” came the instant reply. “How’s it look from station Charlie?”
“Peaceful,” Bolan said, then: “Whup! Couple just came out the side door. It’s … Lucasi. And the big houseman. Something has their interest.”
The focal field of the binoculars covered only the two men and several feet of turf to either side of them.
“I believe they’re looking at you, Pol. And … Gadgets! Are you in?”
“I’m here,” came a strained reply.
“They’ve spotted both of you, and I’d say are jumping to conclusions. I can feel their little minds a’whirring. Yep. Yep.”
Lucasi’s weasel face was sharply etched in the focal field, wondering, worrying, discovering …
Bolan commanded, “Break off! They’re wise. Break now!”
Schwarz protested, “I only drained two banks.”
“Got the phone tap?”
“Getting it now.”
“Stay with it,” Blancanales urged. “I’m covering.”
Bolan concurred, though with misgivings. Numbers were all-important in this sort of game. He snapped, “Thirty seconds more, then you haul it! Pol, start your move!”
“Rolling,” came the response from Blancanales.
Bolan released the binoculars and reached for his power sniper, the Weatherby Mark V. Using .460 Magnum soft-nose mini-bombs, the big piece gave him better than a thousand yards of kill—much more than he would need for this mission. He fitted his eye to the scope and began reading ranges.
Yeah … this mission would be just about point-blank.
The Diver sent three of his boys out to intercept the bread truck and another two to check-out the green van, then he sent the remaining palace guard scurrying through the house searching for bugs.
Ben Lucasi ran into the game room to caution everyone there to “keep quiet, stop talking, not a fucking word!”—then he snatched up a double-barrel shotgun and dashed toward the upstairs window where he’d spotted the suspicious-looking package.
He arrived there just in time to see the bread truck picking up speed for a run past the house.
Three of Diver’s boys were chasing along beside it, waving pistols and shouting at one another.
A burst of fire from an automatic weapon lanced away from the cab of the truck and the three boys went down sliding in their own blood.
The truck had slowed again, almost coming to a complete halt near the front of the property, and the automatic-weapon fire was sweeping into the house itself as that damned guy down there methodically raked the whole joint. Window glass was breaking and crashing all over; Lucasi could hear yelling and stampeding feet as his visitors sought cover. Above it all, the loud commands of big Diver could be heard as the veteran house captain tried to get his forces deployed against the unexpected assault.
Without even realizing what a foolish thing he was doing, Lucasi shattered his window with the shotgun, leaned out, and let go with both barrels into that bread truck.
The double ba-loom of his own retort was echoed instantly far away by the powerful reports from a big-game piece. Something tore the shotgun out of Lucasi’s grasp and sent it spinning to the ground; something else smacked into the window frame a fraction of an inch from his eyes and tore a foot of it away.
Lucasi fell back quickly into the safety of the room, his hands still tingling from the hit on his shotgun, and he knew that he’d come as close to sudden death as he ever wanted to get.
He scrambled down the stairway yelling, “Diver! Diver!”
But the Diver was already outside, leading his pack of triggermen in a hard run across the yard, taking the battle exactly where Mack Bolan probably wanted it.
“Don’t go out there!” Lucasi wailed.
Too late.
Another rattling sound from up the street signalled the entrance of a second automatic weapon into the battle, and the rolling cra-acks of that big-game piece were now coming end-to-end, almost sounding as one.
Yeah, Lucasi knew it. It was too damn late now.
Bolan had been watching for a response to Blancanales’ stutter-pistol attack, and he saw the shotgun the moment it presented itself outside that upstairs window.
He immediately acquired that target in his cross-hairs and sighed into the squeeze-off, realizing as he did so that he was at least a heartbeat behind the other guy’s trigger. His own piece bucked into his shoulder at the same instant that the report from the shotgun reached him; he rode the recoil and hung into the eyepiece for another quick round into the same general target area.
The intense magnification of the big scope provided a field of vision measuring in inches but he saw the shotgun take the hit and spin away, and he had a milli-second glimpse of Ben Lucasi’s frightened visage jerking away from a splintering windowframe.
He paused then for an area-evaluation with the binoculars.
Blancanales had abandoned the bread truck. Apparently the shotgun blast had disabled the vehicle.
Two men were in the street, about midway between the house and Schwarz’s position with the warwagon. At the moment they seemed to be torn between their original assignment and the obvious need for their presence back at the house.
Bolan barked into the shoulder-phone, “Pol, Gadgets, report!”
Blancanales came in immediately, a bit winded, “I’m grounded, two o’clock from the front of the house, behind the little rock wall.”
“I’m done,” Gadgets announced calmly. “Get ready, Pol, I’ll pick you up.”
“Negative!” Bolan commanded. “You do a one-eighty and haul out of there. I’ll spring the Politician.”
“Too late,” Schwarz replied. “Here come the reserves.”
Bolan snarled, “It still goes. You break and haul—backwards!”
“Aye aye.”
“I’m ok
ay,” Blancanales assured everybody.
With his naked eye Bolan could see that the Politician would not be “okay” for long.
A swarm of hardmen were pouring out of the house and making a cautious advance toward the street.
As he was leaning into his eyepiece, he heard the stutter of Schwarz’s weapon and got a peripheral glimpse of the two men in the street as they dived for cover. One of them did not dive quite soon enough; Bolan saw him flop and roll, then he sighed into his own targets. Gadgets, he knew, could take care of himself.
As for those guys down there in that yard … at this range, with this piece, it was almost a shame. Even scrambling, they were sitting ducks.
He was in a tight spot, and the Politician damn well knew it.
The little NATO machine pistol had jammed on him and there was no time to work on it. He had a damn revolver and six lousy rounds between him and about fifteen guys who were moving across that lawn over there.
His closest help was damn near one hundred yards away, and he had been ordered out of the area.
The Sarge, of course, was laying-in with the big precision piece—and that fact would not prove at all comforting to anyone moving into those crosshairs.
Blancanales had confidence in Bolan. If the guy said he’d spring him, then he’d spring him. Still … this was not the most enviable of all possible circumstances for a life-loving dude like Rosario Blancanales. And he had not seen the Sarge at work for quite awhile. A guy, even a Mack Bolan, could sometimes lose his numbers.
He watched a group of hardmen splinter off from the main force and start a movement toward Schwarz in the warwagon just as Gadgets opened fire on the two guys already up there. Then the big booms from Bolan’s Weatherby began rocking the air again.
The guy could sure tickle a trigger.
Hell, he was firing from about three blocks away but those people over there were going down like clockwork. Blancanales watched them depart the field of combat forever—one, two, three, four—like a cadence count—and those who were left were already beginning to get a whole new slant on the art of warfare.
Some guy was standing in a doorway over there and screaming at them to get back inside.
San Diego Siege Page 7