11
Baited
The police conference at Detroit Central had been brief and to the point. An inspector out of the DPD chief's office was designated as "skipper" — or, chief administrative officer — of the joint police effort. This was Jason Garvey, a shrewd and capable man who had once held an associate professor's chair in police administration.
An organized crime specialist from the attorney general's office in Lansing was named as executive officer. Representatives from every police district and jurisdiction in the area fleshed out the "strategy board" — a sort of planning commission for the unified strike force.
A "contingencies unit" was formed under Lieutenant John Holzer of Grosse Pointe. Federal and Canadian representatives were present in advisory-liaison capacities. Two "observers" from the state house also attended the conference.
Special communications nets were established and "regional reaction" plans set into motion.
The deputy superintendent for DPD dropped in for a quick off-the-cuff pep talk — reminding those present of the "tense law enforcement situation" in the tricounty area and sounding a sober warning of the possible consequences of a Mack Bolan invasion into that situation.
A special federal liaison officer briefed the conference on the "life and war" of Mack Bolan, with particular emphasis on general modus operandi and "profile goals."
The fed said, "Contrary to much rumor and speculation, the federal government has given no secret sanction to this illegal crusade. The U.S. Department of Justice regards Mack Bolan in the same light as any other fugitive from justice. Law enforcement officers must not stake their lives on the romantic notion that this highly dangerous fugitive has never shot it out with the law and therefore never will. In fact, a recent profile by a convention of noted medical psychologists indicates that this subject has already progressed well beyond the breaking point of sound physical endurance — that he is probably in an advanced state of psychosis and should be regarded as totally out of control. In other words, he is capable of committing any act. A man of such awesome destructive capabilities must not and cannot be allowed the freedom of your streets."
The speech by the fed was recognized by many lawmen present as a plea for rank-and-file professionalism in the campaign to get Bolan. It was no great secret that many police officers sympathized with the man's crusade and would, in fact, turn their backs if they encountered Mack Bolan on the street.
John Holzer had his own private opinion of the federal "briefing."
"Bullshit," he said disgustedly to a man at his table. "Bolan is the sanest man in town right now. Deadly, yeah — insane, hell no. I wish I had a dozen cops with half that much sanity. Maybe I'd catch the dude."
The general plan that unfolded through the police conference involved close surveillance of all known crime luminaries in the area — and there were plenty of those — with the jaws of a massive police trap set and ready to spring the moment another Bolan "hit" materialized.
"It is our chief advantage," said Skipper Garvey, "that we know most if not all of the probable targets. By concentrating surveillance on these known elements, we narrow the field of police detection and increase the probability of direct contact with the subject. This is our chief advantage."
Holzer muttered, "It's also our chief shame. If we know them, why the hell are they running around loose?"
"Knowing is not touching, John," replied the cynic at his elbow. "I gave up trying years ago, about the time they pinned the ass's tail on Pimlico." The reference was to a former Detroit police crusader.
"Nobody pinned no tail on George Pimlico," Holzer argued.
"Then why's he tucked safely away in Lansing instead of busting their asses on the streets of Detroit?" the guy sneered.
"That was a kick upstairs and you know it," Holzer said.
"How many convictions has he gotten from Lansing?"
"More than he ever got around here, bet your ass."
"You still can't touch those people, John. You just can't touch them."
"Tell that," Holzer snarled, "to Mack Bolan!"
The meeting was over, and had deteriorated into clutch groups rehashing the Alert Plan. Holzer pushed angrily out of the group at his table and beat it to the relatively clean air of the corridor.
Tim Rossiter, a young sergeant from his home detail, awaited him there. Rossiter came over with an owlish look to report, "Favorini checked himself out of the hospital at ten o'clock."
"Who's on him?"
"Powell and Chardan. He went straight back to his place in the Woods."
"Any movements yet?"
"Naw," Rossiter replied. "Just a lot of phone calls. He's calling in all his guns."
"Figures," Holzer said. "Okay. Let's keep a full crew on that guy. If anybody decides to go after Bolan, it will be Charley Fever. I, uh, will have to handle this by remote, Tim. I got the damned contingency unit on this Alert Plan."
"Contingency for what?"
"Full riot conditions. We're in full mobilization."
"What the hell!"
"You tell me," Holzer replied, grimacing. "Aw. Be fair, they have a right to be jumpy. A guy like Bolan can catalyze a lot of simmering pots. They just don't want anything getting out of hand."
"Hell, it's your case, Lieutenant," Rossiter complained. "What the hell do they mean putting you on — "
"Hey, it's everybody's case," Holzer said gruffly. "Anyway, it gives me more freedom this way. I can nose around everywhere." He jotted a series of radio frequencies on a note pad, tore off the sheet, and handed it to Rossiter. "These are the specials. Beat it back to the Pointe and get these capabilities plugged into your communications. I'll be spending the next twenty-four hours either right here or in my vehicle. Keep me advised."
"Will do." The sergeant grinned soberly and hurried away.
Holzer lit a cigarete and paced the corridor until he'd smoked it to his fingers, then he went back inside.
His "mad" was over. Why shouldn't a veteran cop get cynical? It was true. You really could not touch those cruds, except on wrist-slapping offenses.
But somebody could.
The guy had come.
And he was slapping more than wrists.
And, now, these same cynical cops were being asked to shoot that dude on sight, to treat him like a mad-dog psychopath — the sanest guy in town.
Yeah. It was a crazy world, Holzer's was. And he simply did not know what to do about it. But he'd a damn sight rather get mad than cynical. Cynicism was just another way of getting bought — and there was enough of those around, as it was.
Crazy, yeah. A hell of a crazy world.
Those who could not be touched were being used as bait to trap the one who could not be seen — so that the trapee could also not touch the baitee who could never become the touchee by an other apparent manner.
Crazy, sure. But it was the only world John Holzer had. And it just beat the pink frosted shit out of becoming the boughtee.
He returned to the bull room and found the place in chaos.
Holzer grabbed a harried uniformed officer and asked him, "What the hell is going on?"
"It's that damned guy!" the cop replied, marveling. "He just hit an assembly plant over near Willow Run!"
Holzer swore under his breath and hurried on to the operations center. The detail leaders were grouped about a command console, watching an automated display taking shape on an electronic deployment screen. Holzer nudged one of the men and quietly inquired, "What's the score?"
"Indians ten, cowboys zip," the guy growled.
"What happened?"
"Nobody really knows for sure, yet. A shop steward, guy named Kazini, was the apparent target. No one knows how Bolan got in or out. Suddenly he was there, and Kazini was suspended from a hook above a dip tank — screaming bloody murder. Security people arrived in force but the blue-collars mobbed them — neutralized them. Apparently Bolan was in there for about ten minutes after that, talking to some of the worke
rs. Then he disappeared."
"What about Kazini?" Holzer wondered.
"They hauled him down, safe and sound. Plant security contacted us and requested Federal Narcotics out there quick. And they shut down the final delivery line, quarantined all the finished vehicles on hand."
"What?"
"Yeah," the cop growled. "Sounds like a distribution point, huh. Pretty sweet, at that. How many million bucks worth of horse do you figure could be built into a new car?"
"The Canadian connection," Holzer muttered.
"Yeh. What a setup. What a damn sweet setup,"
"Until Bolan," Holzer commented, frowning. "So what about him?"
"It looks too late. We're setting up checkpoints … but what the hell. The guy was long gone before we even got the report. I don't know about this guy, John. He's not buying our traps."
Holzer turned away, suppressing a grin.
Maybe it was not such a crazy world, at that. At least one guy didn't seem to be buying the idea. Nor the bait.
12
Pinned
As number two man in a Massachusetts crime family, Leo Turrin was the highest-placed undercover fed in the race. As if those two hats were not difficult enough to wear together, he was also the best living friend of Mack Bolan, a long-declared enemy of both of Leo Turrin's worlds. His voice, as it traveled across the long-distance telephone connection, was crackling with interest.
"They've got the deathwatch on you, Sarge. You caught me just as I was going out the door. I got orders straight from the commission to get my tail to Detroit with all possible haste. They even chartered me a jet. I'm bringing twenty guns with me. Hell, I don't know how many other fire teams are being sent in from other points. I do know that my plane is stopping at Buffalo to pick up a contingent from there."
"It figures," Bolan replied quietly.
"And that's just the dark side of the street,"
Turrin went on. "The entire tricounty area around Detroit is on alert. Those Detroit cops are very sensitive about crime in their streets. They've had their full share of troubles around there, you know, and they're not taking kindly to the craps game you've got started there, I called Brognola early this morning, soon as I heard about — "
"Where is he? Still in Texas?"
"Naw, but his storm troopers are. Picking up the pieces. Hal's back in Washington. He says about you, Sarge: for Christ's sake, cool it. He's going to have to start loading up with real slugs if you don't take a rest and lay low for a while. Argentina, he says, still looks nice."
"It always did," Bolan muttered. "The war is here, Leo."
"Yeah. Well. Don't blame Hal. He's up to his eyeballs in intrigue of his own. Washington is in disarray, you know that. Lack of public confidence and all that. Someone very high is lighting the fires under your cross, wants you caught or shot without further fucking around. Maybe it's just a diversion, but Hal is really on the hot seat. This goes a lot higher than the justice department, Sarge. I mean, you know, like the whole damned government is toppling — a certain branch of it, anyway. You know what Charlie Wilson had to say about General Motors."
"What's good is good, yeah."
"Translate that to Detroit, buddv, because it's all the same ball game anyway. What's good for Detroit is good for the country and vice versa. It seems we have a five star bellringer of an emergency shaping up for this country, and nobody in Washington wants to see a Bolan blitz ripping through the tenderloin of our economy."
"I'm not after the economy," Bolan said tiredly.
"Same difference, man. Who the hell do you think is controlling the economy in that area?"
"You don't really believe that, Leo."
"No, I don't, but there are those who do. There are those who say our system can't survive without illegal manipulation."
"Like who?"
"Well, like the people who worry about recession and inflation, the rise and fall of the dollar and the stock markets, the balance of power between labor and management, all that. Especially that last. The goddamn mob has a firmer grip on the workers in that town than the goddamn unions have. As rotten as that is, at least it's a grip. The planners are projecting unemployment figures like right out of your blowing mind, and they're saying that the fall of Detroit is going to be the shot heard 'round the world. It's going to be an implosion, with the whole technological world falling in on Detroit. They're saying — "
"Leo, wait. I don't have time for a social study."
Turrin chuckled.
"And I'm not buying that argument. If you're saying that corrupted shop stewards who push narcotics and operate numbers and vigorish concessions have a grip on the worker — then, yeah, I'll buy that, okay. A grip right around his balls, buddy."
"I told Hal I'd try," Turrin said. "So I tried."
"Okay. Try something for me. Who's the head whoremaster around this town?"
"That's a hard one to pin," Turrin replied. "Tony Quaso wore the name, but ... well, you know ..."
Bolan said, "Yeah. Give me an educated guess, Leo. Who was he wearing it for?"
"It's tough for old leopards to change their spots."
"Meaning what?"
"Meaning none of the old heads really change. They try to clean up their image with semilegit interests and all that, but ... well, you know, Sarge. A pimp is a pimp, all the way to his grave."
"I guess I'm not really looking for a pimp," Bolan said thoughtfully. "Who's running the hottest semilegit action out of the area?"
"That would be industrials," Turrin replied promptly.
"Okay. Lecture me, Professor."
"You probably know most of the background," Turrin said. "Laundry facilities, let's say."
"Okay. Who's washing the most money, and how?"
"That would be Butch Cassidy."
"Bobby Cassiopea," Bolan translated.
"Right. He's franchised by the Combination. Converts their black money into negotiable securities, trades the securities for gilt-edge stocks, municipal bonds, and so forth, pyramids the whole thing into real estate holdings, hospitals, nursing homes — you name it, Butch Cassidy will buy it. A lot of cannibalization goes on. Quick profits, you know, at the expense of company stability. That money finds its way into Swiss accounts and back through into more acquisitions, mergers, another round of cannibalization, then even higher levels of international business swindles."
"He was the guy behind International Bankers Holding," Bolan mused.
"That's the guy. Got his tail burned a bit on that one." Turrin laughed softly. "Thanks to a certain blitz artist I happen to call friend."
"Would you," Bolan mused on, "connect Cassiopea with an international jet set of party girls?"
"Sure," Turrin shot right back. "The guy operates in grand style. Entertains lavishly. Nothing's too good for a prospective pigeon about to be fleeced of his company or his factory or his brokerage house. And that goes double in spades for impressionable government officials or greedy heads of state. As for the girls, it's amazing how pitifully stupid a hardboiled businessman or politico can become over the prospect of some delectably forbidden free ass. Uh, Sarge. My wheelman's getting nervous, and I've run out of time."
"You gave me what I needed, Leo. Thanks."
"Wait a sec. You can leave messages for me at the Sheraton-Cadillac."
"Okay. That your headquarters here?"
"No, my drop. We'll probably be mobbed up somewhere. But I'll check the message desk at the hotel every four hours. Starting about mid-afternoon."
Bolan said, "Great. Watch your swinger, Leo." He hung up and returned to the vehicle, where Toby Ranger waited impatiently.
"Who were you talking to — God?" she groused.
"Closest thing to it I've found on earth," he replied, smiling.
She stared the engine and asked, "Where to now?"
"Central precinct," he said.
"What?" She put a foot on the brake and turned to him with a hard, searching gaze.
"You hear
d me," he said quietly.
"You're not dropping me and — !"
"Not you. Me."
"What?"
"Toby. Take me to Central. I have business there."
"You're insane!"
"Maybe so, but take me anyway."
"Captain Crazy," she muttered, dazed and still not sure how she should respond to the insane command.
"Take your foot off the brake, Toby. Give the wheel a small spin left, gradually depress the accelerator and — "
"Oh, shut up!"
He was grinning at her, adding fuel to the flames.
She moved on into the flow of traffic and edged left for the swing onto Woodward. Her eyes were popping sparks in all directions, and the atmosphere inside the car fairly quivered with suppressed tensions by the time they arrived at the destination and she pulled into the area reserved for police vehicles.
"Whatever you have to do here, let me do it," she said, in a voice just barely under control.
"Go back to the apartment," he commanded firmly. "Wait for my call. I'm going to need you, Toby. Both of us will."
"Both of who?" she asked, the control slipping and her voice breaking.
"The Canuck and I," he said, and kissed her quickly, and got out of there.
He walked straight into the official entrance, and she watched him disappear into that ominous interior.
Then she wheeled the car around and sped away from there, half-blinded by a sudden gush of tears.
"Damn you," she whispered. "Just damn you all the way back to me in one piece."
It was a prayer, couched in reverse English — and, it seemed at that moment, a terribly forlorn one.
13
Struck
A tall guy with an open watch book in hand was moving gracefully about the strike room, talking in earnest with members of the task force, studying the postings and making notes as the hard, detail work of police methodology continued along its grinding course.
The guy walked past John Holzer, locked eyes momentarily, smiled, and went on for a closer look at the contingency postings.
Detroit Deathwatch te-19 Page 7