Far away and nearly buried in the silence of the night, a siren was wailing, gradually becoming louder, approaching from the south — evidently along Lake Shore Drive.
Bolan's numbers were rapidly falling together.
He made his move in a silent scramble for vegetative cover, coming to rest once again in a little hedgerow several yards beyond the waterline, where he opened the flotation bag and began rigging for close combat.
The "head weapon" — an autoloading .44 magnum — went about his waist on military web. The "quiet piece" — a Beretta Brigadier loading 9mm Parabellum hi-shockers — went beneath the left arm in a shoulder-chest rig. He called this weapon "the Belle" and had long ago equipped her with a specially engineered sound suppressor, of Bolan's own design, which muted its normally explosive report to a rustling sigh.
Utility belts bearing a miscellany of explosives and other items of survival came clipped to the rear of the automag's waistbelt. He fed these across shoulders and chest in a diagonal crossing arrangement and anchored them just above each hip, then patted each of the various items in a mental inventory that also amounted to a touch-orientation drill. In a moment of combat crisis, a soldier who intended to survive did not fumble about for his weapons — his hands found them by conditioned reflex and used them in the same frame of consciousness.
Finally he touched up the black cosmetic on hands and face and slipped on a pair of dry black sneakers. The flotation bag, empty now except for the Weatherby, went into the bushes, and the Executioner moved silently onto the hellgrounds — a flitting shadow of the night.
He made it halfway to the house before the first obstacle presented itself. A sentry with a light machine pistol suspended across his waist from a neckstrap was standing stiffly with one shoulder against a tree. He was gazing toward the lake, both hands thrust into his pockets — a melancholy figure contemplating the uncertainties of the night.
Bolan could not risk a bypass.
He moved quietly in behind the sentry and buried a nylon garrote in the soft flesh of the guy's throat, pinning the body to the tree with his own and holding it there until the frantic but totally hopeless struggle spent itself and the body sagged into dead weight. Not a sound had marred the eerie silence of that encounter. He wedged a lifeless arm into a convenient fork of the tree and left the body there, semierect and passably lifelike, except under close inspection.
A murmuring of voices cautioned him as he approached the southeast corner of the building. He went in through the flower beds and knelt there beside a budding bush in a sense-flaring recon.
There was much bustling activity at the rear. Car doors were slamming, engines idling and revving, here and there voices raised in hurried farewells.
No lights were showing now from the upper level of the house, but the lower level was ablaze with light.
A large man in well-tailored threads stood in a shaft of light on a flagstoned walkway at the side, his back to Bolan. Pivoted slightly to one side in three-quarter profile was the skinny presence of Billy Castelano. The house boss was wearing white slacks and a polo shirt, no coat. A snub-nosed pistol rode in fast-break leather, shoulder-suspended over the left hip. He held a small two-way radio and was apparently relaying instructions from the big man to some remote post on the defense perimeter.
The big guy turned suddenly to gaze straight back toward Bolan. It was Charley Fever, and Bolan felt his own hackles rise. He froze and stopped breathing. The big torpedo turned away and went on with whatever he'd been telling Castelano.
Bolan abandoned that spot to move in closer to the two men.
The radio conversation had to do with the departure of a caravan of vehicles that was forming along the "quiet exit" road. As Bolan got it, they were making a big deal of what should have been a routine operation. But apparently Charley Fever had a scent of something ominous overhanging that night, and he was taking no chances with his VIP charges. He was sending them out under convoy, running fast and without lights until they were well clear of the estate. A special force was being sent beyond the north wall to protect that withdrawal and to assure the security in that sector during the time that the gate was open.
Bolan had to give the guys credit. They ran a tight operation. Somehow he had to loosen it up.
He was not after their VIP friends, not this time.
He could take them later if need be, one at a time, at his own pace.
Bolan wanted their damned hardsite. He meant to level the joint, reduce it to rubble, show them what real warfare could be, get them running scared until they were falling all over each other and bringing their own individual houses down in the panic. He wanted to see Shockwaves traveling the entire length of this Detroit-based empire, which stretched around the world in every direction and into every country on the globe — an empire that controlled industries, international banks, and business cartels, multinational corporations, and even the politics of small nations. This Detroit mob was a festering sore in every vital organ of mankind. They were motivated by nothing but untempered greed and a psychotic lusting for power over other men's lives.
No, Bolan did not want their damn VIP "friends." But ... as long as they were here, he might as well use them to whatever advantage he could.
The police sirens had become a steady wail in the night and were now very close.
It was now or never.
Bolan chose now.
He freed a hi-explosive grenade from the utility belt, armed it, and sent it lofting in a loose arc toward the roof of the joint, then immediately grabbed another and baseballed it into the vehicle area.
The transistor radio in Castelano's custody was just announcing the news from the main gate that "the cops are here. What do we ...?"
Fire and thunder from the roof eclipsed that report. Bloodcurdling screams came down immediately, and another voice from that sector yelled, "Attack! Attack!"
Castelano and Charley Fever were a pair of statues cast in frozen surprise. Another explosion, this one at ground level, unstuck their reflexes and sent them scrambling toward the front of the house.
Charley Fever gave the house boss a shove in the opposite direction and yelled at him to "Get that caravan moving!"
That ungentle shove sent the skinny house boss teetering practically into Mack Bolan's arms, as the other man disappeared into the shadows beside the house.
The bulbous muzzle of a black Beretta, applied directly between the brows, straightened the little man upright, and a steely arm pulled him into the darkness of the rose garden.
A quiet voice of cold precision advised the house boss, "You've got ten seconds to convince me you love life."
Castelano gasped, "God! — what! — who... ?"
"Close that escape gate. Five seconds to live, Billy."
Perhaps Castelano had seen too much friendly blood for one night. Certainly the memory of it was etched into his awareness of the situation, and the screams from the roof could have been having their effect, also. Or perhaps he was simply a man who had become accustomed to taking orders and there was no logical alternative to the demands of the situation. Whatever his thought processes, the voice was controlled and convincing as he thumbed-on the transmitter and passed the word: "Alert countermand! Seal the walls! Nobody leaves!"
He received an excited "Ten four" from both gates, then turned a wavering smile to the big, cold guy in black. "Okay," he said calmly. "So what does that buy me?"
"A headache," Bolan replied and conked him with the butt of the Beretta. The little guy crumpled with a grunting sigh. The Executioner dropped a marksman's medal onto his chest, scooped up the radio, then moved swiftly into the tumultuous confusion of the moment.
He'd penetrated.
The rest was in the hands of the universe.
4
Softened
The radio was squawking with pleas from the main gatehouse for instructions and enlightenment. The law was throwing a fit and threatening to shoot their way in — and what
the hell was going on in there with all the explosions and shooting?
Alarmed sentries were apparently running in from various points on the defense perimeter. An exchange of gunfire rattled across the northwest sector. A confused enemy engaging itself?
Somewhere out there in the night a guy with a portable amplifier was ordering the hard force to get back to their stations and damn it stay there.
There was a fire on the roof. People were dashing about up there, cussing and yelling and trying to put it out with bare hands and not much else.
From the area of the north wall was issuing riotous evidence of the success of Bolan's ploy with the "quiet exit." Angered voices were raised in emotional demands and auto horns began rending the night, as the noncombatant, fleeting VIPs panicked and began reacting as they would to any frustrating traffic jam at a tense time.
A new assortment of sirens was closing in on the area from both directions along Lake Shore Drive.
The radio bleated again, this time with instructions from the yard boss: "Get those people outta those cars! Take them to the boats — to the boats!"
It was instant panic, the sudden softening of a very hard site, produced by a phenomenon that veteran Bolan-watchers described in cookbook terms as "a dash of Bolan."
It must have been a highly invigorating seasoning for that pot.
Barely thirty seconds had elapsed since the invader tossed that first grenade. And he was now "playing it by ear" — seizing the moment and running with the play as it developed — relying on finely tuned instincts and combat reflexes to build a victory upon the groundwork of careful planning and exhaustive intelligence that had brought the warrior to this time and place.
In Bolan's own colorful understanding, this was a matter of placing his war "in the hands of the universe." This did not mean that he was depending upon mere luck to see him through. He did not badmouth mere luck, however, and Bolan could hardly believe his good fortune when someone killed all the lights in the joint, obviously from a master panel. Everything went off at once.
The darkness was his chief ally.
At this particular moment he did not need to see.
They needed to see.
Apparently the enemy did not know that they had been invaded. They were still under the impression that the aggressor was out there somewhere.
Bolan gladly played to that misunderstanding. He whipped out a disposable-tube rocket flare, aimed the little dazzler for ignition high above the lakeshore, and let it fly. In a matter of seconds, a brilliant glow would appear in the heavens and descend slowly by parachute across the hellgrounds. It would add to the confusion, if nothing else. Meanwhile, the Executioner had business inside that joint.
He seized a heavy metal lawn chair and heaved it through a darkened ground-floor window, diving in immediately in its wake, just as the flare shell popped into brilliance high upwind.
Bolan hit the carpeted floor inside on both hands and did a handstand flip to the far wall. He lost Castelano's radio in the acrobatics but gained a precious edge in his numbers game for survival.
Two men were in that small room with him. They had apparently been seated on camp stools, close to the window, when the heavy chair came crashing through. Either they had been knocked sprawling by the chair, or their own scrambling reactions had conspired to defeat them. They were grunting and wrestling about in a tangle of limbs, camp stools, and sawed-off shotguns, trying desperately to regain equilibrium, as numbed senses thawed that frozen moment of understanding.
Bolan's equilibrium had not departed.
He came to momentary crouching rest at the opposite side of the room with silent Beretta in hand and already reflexing into the kill.
Both defenders were outlined clearly in the twilight effect from the descending flare. Each was on his knees and fighting to swing a shotgun into the firing lineup.
The Beretta chugged first and then again, two streaking pencils of flame blowing into that charged atmosphere in swift succession, a pair of 9mm shockers splattering into the twin targets with instant effect.
The guys died on their knees and toppled over into the wreckage beneath the window.
The light outside was growing by the second. The yard guy with the electronic bullhorn was beefing up the lakeshore defense line, calling hardmen by name and dispatching them to that sector.
Bolan permitted himself a brief smile of satisfaction with that, then he ventured on.
God only knew how he would get out of the joint. He would face that problem when it came up. There were more pressing problems of the moment.
He had to orient himself as to present position and mission goals. He had to make a straight-line movement across the shortest expenditure of time, energy, and space. He had to find the trembling heart of this joint and rip it out.
And, of course, he had to remain alive.
5
Exposed
The strong room was a super security vault. Once the locks were set from the inside, there was no way in except to convince the occupants, via an intercom, that they should let you in. It had a self-contained power and air-conditioning system, canned foods, water, other minimal comforts. A guy could sweat it out in there for a long, long time.
The last holdouts to remain in the strong room, however, were Vincenti, Tony Quaso, and the Northside boss, Pete DiLani.
"What's going on out there?" Vincenti rasped as soon as Charley Fever stepped inside.
The chief torpedo was a bit winded, and his eyes were betraying an inner excitement as he secured the door. "I think it's that Bolan guy, Sal," he reported.
"Aw, bullshit!" the capo yelled. "Him and what company of U.S. Marines?"
DiLani muttered, "The whole place is falling apart. I think we ought to get out of here."
"I think so, too, Pete," Charley Fever somberly agreed.
"Waitaminnit, waitaminnit there!" Crazy Sal was off again. He kicked the wall and threw a cigar the length of the room. "It's a raid, that's all — a damn police raid! It's spite, that's all! I'm going to get the guy that okayed this shit! I'll tack his balls to city hall and run his jock up the flagpole! These goddamn Grosse Pointe — !"
Charley Fever had moved in immediately to take his boss by the arm. "Sal, it's Mack Bolan," he said calmly, bravely interrupting the tirade. "The guy is out there with missiles or something. He's shooting flares into the yard. He's trying to level this place. He's done it to others — he might get lucky again. We need to get out of here."
"That's right," Quaso put in. "It's the way the guy operates. He don't care what he throws at you. You ought to see what I saw when I went down to Texas last week. I'm telling you — "
"Shut up, Tony!" Vincenti snapped.
"Sure, Sal. I just ..."
"We need to move," Charley Fever urged. "Where'd the others go?"
Vincenti was glaring at a new cigar, his cheeks puffed with captured air, lips pursed angrily.
DiLani said, "They took the subway."
Charley Fever nodded his head. "That might be the best." Hawk eyes measured the emotional temperature of his boss. "Sal, that's the best."
Vincenti growled, "Awright, awright." He smiled suddenly and said, in a softer tone, "Don't you get me killed, Charley."
The big torpedo grinned and playfully slapped his boss's shoulder. "Everybody stay close," he instructed. "We're on lights-out." He cautiously opened the door and led them out, a small pencil-flash in one hand, a Colt .45 autoloader in readiness in the other.
The noise of the night was much louder out here. Sirens were screaming all over the place. A few car horns were still blaring stupidly. Gunfire crackled here and there about the grounds — and Charley Fever had to wonder who was shooting at what. The big spotlight on the roof was on now and sweeping the area in erratic jumps from one sector to the other.
Tony Quaso mumbled, "I smell smoke."
Charley Fever explained, "Something hit the roof a minute ago."
"I thought so," Vincenti whis
pered in a confidential admission to his good third arm. "You really think it's Bolan?"
"I think so, Sal," Charley Fever whispered back. "Okay... let's go. Stay close behind me."
He led the little party across the conference room, quietly opened the door to Vincenti's private office, and quickly stepped inside. The immediate goal was a concealed door in the wall behind Sal's desk. An enclosed circular stairway went straight down to the basement, bypassing the ground floor. It was a carefully planned emergency exit, linking up in the basement with a tunnel to the lake.
The route had seldom been used for escape but had proven very handy for "quiet visits" by "friends" who, for their own reasons, did not wish to be seen by anybody save the head boss himself.
But Charley Fever's heart leapt into his mouth as he stepped into that darkened private office on this tense occasion. He was certain that he'd glimpsed the flare-out of a muffled flashlight, behind the desk.
He kicked the door shut in Sal Vincenti's face as he extinguished his own light, throwing himself sideways in the same movement, blasting away with the .45 and sending three quick rounds crashing into the wall just above desk level.
A woman's voice cried out from over there: "No! Stop that! What're you doing?"
The door banged open and Crazy Sal charged in, a revolver in each paw.
Charley Fever yelled, "Hold it, Sal! It's just a broad!"
"What broad?" Vincenti growled.
The good third arm had his flashlight on and was striding angrily toward Sal's desk. He lunged across and down and came up with a fistful of blonde hair, dragging a protesting young woman across the desk and spinning her to the floor at his feet. She hit with a bounce and lay there with eyes blinking groggily into the beam of light.
Tony Quaso ran in from the doorway and groaned, "Oh, good Christ! Linda!"
"You know this broad?" Vincenti raged.
"Yeah, that's my — that's Linda.You know."
"Who the hell wants to know?" Crazy Sal screamed. "What the hell is she doing here?"
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