"They're definitely not underfinanced, either," Bolan said, thinking of the helicopter attempt earlier.
"No. According to the handful of witnesses who have been available at the scenes, the men doing the killing use automatic weapons and seem to be part of some paramilitary unit because of the way they act in tandem with each other."
"That fits with what went down tonight."
The wall slid back in place over the screen and the lights came on. Bolan narrowed his eyes and watched Kurtzman blink his vision back to normal.
"Leo mentioned you got your guy to safety tonight," Kurtzman said.
Bolan sipped the coffee as the information the big man had gathered churned through his mind. "Yeah, but it definitely seemed touch-and-go there for a while."
"What does it sound like to you, Mack? I can see the wheels spinning around inside your head from here."
"I'm not sure yet, but it feels wrong. The operation seems too big, too expensive to justify. How many of those witnesses hit were still involved in court cases where their testimony was crucial?"
Kurtzman faced a small monitor in front of him and played a solo on the keyboard. "Only two," he answered as he turned back to face Bolan.
"So the other hits were scheduled as revenge?"
"It's the only possibility you have left," Kurtzman said. "Assuming the same team is doing the assassinations."
Bolan ticked off points. "Every news story you dredged up mentioned the use of automatic weapons, the fact that the families were killed to the last person, even if some of those members were elsewhere at the time of the initial attack, and that they were all supposedly under the protection of the Witness Protection Program. I think we're justified in assuming they were murdered by the same people." He slid off the table and started pacing. He pushed sleep away, wishing the caffeine in the coffee would start kicking in. "My only problem lies in how much the tab would be for an operation this size."
"You're dealing with Mafia bucks, Sarge," Kurtzman pointed out. "And you're dealing with guys who deal revenge on the installment plan, as if it's a currency. You know that."
"Yeah, I know that, but I also know that whoever is heading up this strike force is operating outside the Family."
"How do you figure that?"
"Not all of those people had testified, or were testifying against, the same Family, Aaron. If this was a Family operation, the strike force would take care of Family business and it would end there. They wouldn't move across Family lines to hire out for other Families."
Kurtzman returned to the keyboard. After a moment he said, "Okay, you've got cases spread across the continental United States. Eight names popped up in the Witness Protection people's reports, from New York to Florida and all the way out to California. But what makes you sure they wouldn't help each other out?"
"You've got to know an enemy to fight him, Aaron," Bolan said. "I fought the Mafia for years. I know what kind of offspring they breed. This is a high-profile operation, not the kind of thing most Families would go in for. No, somewhere out there we've got a guy who's auctioning off the services of his own private army. But how he can finance the type of weaponry I've seen on what the Families would be willing to pay is beyond me."
Kurtzman didn't respond and sat waiting with his fingers laced across his stomach.
"The explosion in the game room is something else I can't explain," Bolan said. "The guy I had cornered set those charges off only after he decided he couldn't escape. It wasn't as much an attempt to kill me as to avoid capture. Money can't buy that kind of loyalty. There's more to this than a simple revenge-for-hire operation. What did you get on the men I put down at the office building?"
"Nothing," Kurtzman replied flatly. "Somebody mopped up after the hit. I snared a line on the Tach channel the local guys were using only a little while ago. The SWAT teams went in expecting to find wounded in the halls and recovered only corpses."
"They haven't been able to make any of the bodies?"
"No, and they're not going to be able to, either. From the reports I pulled, the officer in charge of the investigation thinks somebody used a flamethrower on the bodies. There's still an outside chance on the fingerprints, though, but the reports weren't too hopeful."
Bolan turned away, his combat senses flaring wildly. There was no question in his mind that something more than what met the eye was going down. But what? The operation he had witnessed had been too thorough, too military, to be just a slipshod arrangement. But was the end result just murder for hire? "I'm going to need some things, Aaron."
"Name it."
"I want a pilot and a plane for starters," Bolan said as he walked across the room and slipped into the shoulder rigging, "with a helicopter waiting at the other end. And I'll need a car. Something sporty and expensive."
"Where to?" Kurtzman was one with the keyboard now. Green characters spread themselves across the monitor with astonishing speed.
"New York," Bolan answered as he pulled on the joggers.
"Any place in particular?"
"Yeah. Get me a current address on Patrizio Madrano."
Kurtzman slid on a telephone headset and got a connection. After a moment he turned away. "Patterson will meet you on the field outside as soon as you can get there. Is there anything else?"
"A card."
"What kind of card?"
"A calling card for Madrano," the Executioner said. "Make it an ace of spades."
* * *
Fritz Kettwig clumped heavily down the halls of the underground complex, favoring his crippled knee more than usual.
Guards assigned to different nerve centers of the complex stood in front of their respective posts like carved images. Of the three men he could see, he was sure not one of them would flinch if he was to strike them with the aluminum cane he leaned on. But let someone try to compromise their security, and they would react like the vicious animals they were trained to be.
Kettwig wanted nothing more than to return to his quarters and soak the knee in Epsom salts. Maybe once he was in the whirlpool and halfway through a good bottle of schnapps, maybe then the blinding pain that plagued him would be brought to rest.
But he couldn't.
Not now.
There was still the issue of Helene's latest escape and Ris's inevitable pursuit to resolve. And the countdown in Washington, D.C., continued unchecked. If the meeting was to go off as expected, many plans that Kettwig had helped formulate over the past four decades could possibly become unraveled, with no chance for any kind of salvation.
He could feel the guards' eyes on him as he passed, but was unable to catch them looking directly at him. Their drill officers had turned out good men, the only kind of men that would fit into the new order of the world Kettwig had helped envision.
Silently he damned the pain that dug at him with dulled incisors, and damned Ris and his father, as well. Both men were charismatic, born to lead, Kettwig reflected as he pushed himself along in quiet agony, but it was men like him who assured their successes. God, it felt like the damn leg was going to fall off for sure this time.
And it didn't help that like father, like son, the insanity that plagued the elder man was surely echoed in Ris. Perhaps if Ris had been raised under his hand alone, perhaps then the problem with Helene would never have arisen. Kettwig could have guided him in different ways, expanded his sense of sexuality until Ris controlled it, had an appetite for it, instead of being devoured by it.
But that was an old argument, Kettwig told himself bitterly, and now wasn't the time to be raising old arguments.
He walked through the glassed-in receiving room where the duty corporal sat monitoring the hallways on four different television screens, briefly acknowledging the snappy salute the lower-ranked man gave him.
The lights weren't on in Ris's office, but that wasn't unusual. The younger man rarely spent any time there. He was definitely his father's child, more content in the training rooms working on hand-to-hand combat
techniques, or on the underground target ranges than helming the business end of their endeavor.
Kettwig unlocked his office door. The stark severity of it made him feel more at peace, more in control of the events that were starting to spill around him like haphazardly stacked dominoes. Gratefully he sank into the plush chair behind the desk and used both hands to prop up his leg. The pain immediately lessened but didn't go away. But then it never did.
Kettwig thumbed the intercom button and buzzed the duty corporal.
"Sir?"
"Has there been any word?"
"No, sir."
"What about our away teams?"
"Nothing since the first transmission, sir."
"I want a report of that first transmission on my desk in fifteen minutes."
"Yes, sir."
Kettwig broke the connection. Damn it. A full third of the first away team had been killed or wounded in the last assault, and no one was sure if their anonymity had been broken or not. Helene was loose and free to tell everything she knew of the complex. And Ris was lost in pursuit of her instead of here. He thumbed the intercom button again.
"Sir?"
"Get Eric Konig into my office immediately."
"Yes, sir."
Reaching into a bottom drawer, Kettwig recovered a bottle of his favorite schnapps and a glass. He had stopped taking the pain pills two days ago when the date of the assassination neared, wanting to keep a clear head. But the liquor was something he could handle, a friend with whom he was accustomed to sharing dark, pain-racked nights. He drank half the glass in one swallow, feeling the liquid burn its way down to his stomach.
Swiveling his head, he focused on the faded black-and-white picture framed under a too-large glass on the wall to his left. It was too far away for him to make out the details — his eyesight had deteriorated over the years — but he knew it on the canvas of his mind. There were three men in the picture — himself, Ris's father and Field Marshal Erwin Rommel. It had been taken the day a British rifle bullet shattered his knee beyond repair. Perhaps he would have died that day if events had progressed otherwise. If it hadn't been for Ris's father, whose plans Kettwig had been included in even then.
Someone knocked lightly on the door.
"Enter," Kettwig ordered.
Konig stepped into the office, closing the door behind him. He stood tall and straight before the desk, his eyes aimed at some point on the wall above Kettwig's head.
Kettwig felt pride swell in him when he surveyed the soldier. The German blood never truly thinned. Oh, you could taint it from time to time, but it ran in the veins of excellent soldiers just as surely as oil kept engines moving smoothly. He had been a soldier just as Konig was now, dressed in the same black colors with only minor uniform alterations. The swastika was no longer worn around the upper arm, having been shifted to a shoulder patch instead. He enjoyed seeing the soldiers in full dress, and they always came that way when they were summoned to his office. It took him back years, before the crippling bullet and before age had taken his teeth, hair and strength.
"You summoned me, sir?"
Kettwig often found himself wishing for a swagger stick at times like these, but had never managed a flair for one. "Yes, Captain. I have a duty I want you to perform. One that I want you to tell no one about."
Konig said nothing.
"Do I make myself clear, Captain?"
"Of course, General."
"You are, I'm sure, aware of Helene's recent escape?"
"Yes, sir."
"Just as you are aware the meeting in America is scheduled for tomorrow?"
"Yes, sir."
"Ris is searching for Helene. The reports I have say she's been seen in the bazaar. You and I are both aware how important Ris's involvement with the plan is, of how important it is that he keeps his mind on our objective. He'll be a driving force for our order once everything has been put into play between Russia and the United States. After all, he has his father's gift for attracting people when he's placed in front of a crowd. Our experts are predicting a large turnover in the United States once our initial mission is successfully completed, considering America's own resources of the Aryan Guard and the Ku Klux Klan who will flock to us once the battle is joined. Ris will expedite these matters. But he must have a clear mind during this time."
"Yes, sir."
Kettwig could hear the excitement in the captain's reply, felt it resonate in his old, tired bones with a new energy he had almost forgotten. He was embarking on dangerous ground here. Many of the military men at the complex had sworn allegiance to Ris because he spent a lot of time with them, improving his skills and theirs, and because the whole operation had been planned around him. His father had known the importance of having one leader, and Ris was it. Captain Konig was a different sort, though. Kettwig had personally groomed the man through his last three promotions. "Helene is a problem Ris shouldn't have to deal with."
The captain looked at him for the first time. "I agree wholeheartedly, sir."
Kettwig felt a smile stretch his lower face. "I want you to find the woman before Ris does, Captain, and put her someplace he can never find her again. The desert has a delightful way of picking up after itself."
The captain's cold eyes glittered darkly.
"That's all, Captain."
"Thank you, sir." Konig saluted and let himself out.
Kettwig settled back in the chair and filled his empty glass. His eyes found the photograph again. There was a small pang of guilt over ordering the girl's death, but he crushed it before it had a chance to develop. Had Ris's father lived, the affair Ris had with Helene would never have flowered. And, if it had, she would have been dead long before now."
Part of the guilt was for Ris, as well. Kettwig knew he had sometimes been the only source of warmth for the boy as he grew into early manhood. But the new order was more important than Ris's momentary wants. There was a whole world out there ripe for the taking, and the first step would take place in the next two days in Washington, D.C.
Lifting his glass, Kettwig toasted the two dead men in the picture, knowing Rommel would have spit in his face.
6
Johnny Tallin scooped up the receiver of the house phone before it had a chance to ring a second time. "Tallin," he said as he cradled it next to his ear. He shifted in the water bed until he reached a sitting position, fumbling for his cigarettes on the end table. He cracked his eyes open and scanned the clock/radio's digital readout — 4:32 a.m. Whoever was calling had better have a good reason for waking him.
"Johnny, are you awake?"
Tallin recognized Patrizio Madrano's voice at once but couldn't figure out why the old man was whispering. "Yes, sir." He flicked the lighter and squinted against the brightness as he lit his cigarette.
"Some bastard just called me on my private line, Johnny, called me and told me he was coming to see me."
Throwing the sheets to one side, Tallin moved off the bed. Keeping the phone clamped to his ear, he one-handed his underwear on and reached for his pants. "This guy say what he wanted?"
Madrano's voice was strained and raspy. "Hell, no. This bastard has my private number. The goddamn IRS don't have my private number. I'm lying here in bed with those goddamn nightmares I been having ever since Adelio got tossed into the slammer, trying to get some shut-eye before it gets dawn, and this asshole calls me. On my private line. That tell you anything?"
"No, sir. It doesn't tell me a thing, but it raises a lot of questions."
"You're a bright boy, Johnny. I always told you that, eh? Your father used to agree with me, God rest his soul. That was why I made sure you got college, you know, 'cause you're such a bright kid."
Tallin pulled on the wrinkled dress shirt that he'd tossed onto the floor hours earlier and draped his shoulder harness over it. He took a Colt Delta Elite 10 mm pistol from under his pillow and checked the clip before bolstering it.
"You hear what I'm telling you, Johnny?"
"Yes, sir." As he zipped his pants, Tallin could smell remnants of Gina's perfume on himself, still taste the musk of the sex they had shared. He tried to remember when she'd left, but couldn't. Gina never stayed around long afterward because she was afraid to.
"There's a wise guy out there, Johnny, someone who has my private number. I'm up here, sitting in the dark in my own goddamn house, afraid to turn on a light 'cause I'm afraid this guy's going to put a bullet through my pump. That ain't right, Johnny."
Tallin disregarded the tie he'd discarded earlier and slipped on his jacket to cover the Colt. Then he stepped into a pair of tennis shoes tucked under the bed and laced them up hurriedly, not bothering with socks. The depth of the problem at hand was suddenly sinking in, bringing a surge of adrenaline with it. The guy had Madrano's private phone number. Tallin didn't have it, and he was the Mafia lord's chief of security. Hell, Gina didn't have it, either, and she was the old man's daughter. "Who does he say he belongs to?"
"Nobody. He just called to say he was going to speak with me tonight and let me know he's sitting down the road from the gate. I look out my window, thinking somebody's just fucking with me or something, and I see a car only a little ways from the gate. Just waiting."
Moving carefully, Tallin stepped to the north window of his second-story room and pulled the curtain to one side as he glanced toward the front of the house. He saw the pair of headlights sitting just left of center of the two-lane blacktop that led to Madrano's estate. He couldn't make out the car or the license plate. The guy was using a car phone, but what the hell made him so sure of himself? Patrizio Madrano wasn't exactly enjoying the retirement the newspapers said he was. Even though he was in his late sixties, the old man still had fangs, still controlled a lot of Mob activity in New York. New guys wanting to establish their own territory still came to him to ask permission. Maybe if Adelio, Madrano's only son, hadn't gotten convicted of murder, maybe Madrano would have retired. But Tallin didn't think so. The old man liked having the power he wielded, was addicted to the respect he commanded. Tallin knew the old man had to be livid at the moment. Yet scared at the same time.
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