Someone, here and there, had to stand hard … forever. And, yes, a single individual could sometimes turn the tide of savagery … if there was, at least, moral support from the land of golden dreams.
Look east, soft ones, and look west. Look north and south, up and down, and tell Mack Bolan where paradise lies. Find a place where competition is gone, where weapons of war are obsolete, where gloating savages do not lurk in darkened doorways, where undisciplined greed does not suppress compassion and generosity.
But if you know of no such place … do not then begrudge the hard man who knows the truth and puts his blood where his conscience lies.
Bolan snapped himself from the meditations of a mind weary of blood and death—the inevitable meditations, perhaps, of a principled man who thought as well as he fought.
There were no “warm sties” here, for Mack Bolan.
He had to kill again—and he had to do it in a particularly brutal way. Not with any sense of pleasure, no. A civilized warrior would take no falsely moral view of the necessary suppression of the crazies of this tired world.
He simply did what he had to do.
And Bolan had to kill a crazy—in a way which would give some positive meaning to the kill.
CHAPTER 19
THE HARD MEN
It was, yes, a Victorian parlor—faithfully reproduced with genuine antiques and all the trimmings of that gracious age—beautiful even though now waterlogged and soggy underfoot.
A strange place, indeed, for Crazy Marco. But why all hidden away like this? Why not…?
Bolan decided to ask the horse’s mouth.
“Beautiful place, Marco,” he said softly. “So why do you hide it from the world?”
The ex-boss whirled around like a frightened child caught with his hand inside the cookie jar.
But this “frightened child” was, at that very moment, trying to mate a drum-magazine to the belly of an old Thompson submachine gun.
“Omega!” he gasped. “Christ’s sake, you scared the hell out of me!”
Bolan’s weapon was in its shoulder holster. He stepped forward, took the Thompson from that dazed grasp, opened the breech and inserted the magazine, handed it back. “Be careful with that thing,” he warned. “It’s primed to go. You ever fired it?”
“Course I’ve fired it!” Marco replied huffily, but his eyes avoiding contact with Bolan’s. “It’s a fine piece, isn’t it, really fine. My brother Frank gave it to me for my birthday when I turned seventeen. Manhood, he said, I was ready for it. He took it off a dead G-man. And, listen, that was in the days when a G-man was a Gee-man. They were tough, in those days.”
“They’re still tough, Marco,” Bolan told him. “When they’re allowed to be.”
“Bull.”
“Well,” said Bolan/Omega, rubbing his hands together, “it’s been a hell of a day, hasn’t it.”
“The devil took it,” said Crazy Marco.
“So it’s been a hell of a day, that’s what I said.”
“Not yet it hasn’t,” Marco said slyly.
“No?”
“No.”
“What do you have in mind for the Thompson?”
“I’m going hunting.”
“Yeah? Where?”
“Right outside.”
“In the park? No way, Marco. You can’t go hunting in Central Park.”
“I didn’t say the park. I said outside. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do—you know? I want to just open this baby up and blast something, just once, just open ’er up and let ’er rip, don’t let off on the trigger ’til the drum is empty. Frank did that once, he said. Did you know Frank?”
“Yes, I knew him,” said Frank’s executioner.
“Hell of a guy, wasn’t he! Best big brother a kid could ask for! Took me out and got me laid in the fanciest whorehouse in town when I was only thirteen years old. We’d sit up all night playing blackjack or acey-ducey, getting drunker’n a skunk—night after night when he was layin’ low, sometimes—and sometimes we’d bring some broads in and party all night. Hell, I was thirteen. Well, listen—I was tellin’ you—he opened this baby up, that time, tore the hell out of about a dozen cars and two beer trucks, killed I guess fifty or sixty men and—”
“That’s pure bullshit, Marco,” Bolan said, hoping to shock the guy back to reality.
“Like hell it is!”
“Sure it is. Think about it. How many rounds does that drum carry?”
“Well, maybe he used a couple.”
Bolan shook his head. “Not even then, no way.”
The guy was, perhaps, too far beyond the edge, this time. “You calling Frank a liar?”
“If he told you that, sure,” Bolan replied easily. “You were just a kid, Marco. He was trying to impress you.”
“Frank never lied to me,” Minotti insisted. He carefully placed the Thompson on a graceful Victorian sofa, went to a chair, dropped into it, picked up an ancient copy of National Geographic from a side table, flashed the magazine at Bolan, said, “They got naked broads in these magazines. Know that? The first Playboy.”
But he was beginning to sound almost sane, less juvenile.
Bolan told him, “I killed Frank, Marco.”
“What?”
“I’m the one that killed Frank.”
“Why?”
Bolan shrugged. “Seemed the thing to do.”
“Uh huh. You’re not really Omega, are you. You’re Bolan, huh. I remember you, now. You had white sideburns, though, and nutty eyebrows.” The madman chuckled. “Have to hand it to you, too. You sure scared the hell out of old ironpants. Killed ’im, too, didn’t you.”
Bolan replied, “Yes, I did.”
“You kill ’em all.”
“All I can, sure.”
“That was you at Baltimore, yesterday.”
Bolan nodded confirmation of that suspicion. “And Florida. All the others, this past week.”
“Why?”
“Why what?” Bolan asked.
“Why this big hard-on for our Thing. We did nothing to you, asked nothing of you. So why the hard-on?”
Bolan shrugged his shoulders. “You boys just affect me that way, Marco.”
“You’re hot for our bodies, eh?”
“You could say that. I can’t sleep at night thinking about you boys out ravaging the land. You do bad things, Marco.”
“If we didn’t, someone else would. We do it better, though. Anyway, who’re you to talk? How many men you killed today, wiseguy?”
“Not nearly enough,” replied the Executioner.
“You want me, now, eh?”
“That’s right.”
“So take me. I’m easy. What’re you waiting for?”
“I want you to tell me something.”
“Like what?”
“Like where’d you find the kid? Who does she belong to?”
Minotti chuckled again. “That’s old history. But it was neat, wasn’t it.”
“I won’t know if you don’t tell me.”
“I’ll tell you. Why shouldn’t I tell you?”
“So tell.”
Crazy Marco was actually enjoying this. He flashed a big smile, fished out a cigar, searched for his lighter, asked, “Got a light?”
Bolan tossed him a book of matches.
He lit the cigar, sent a smoke ring toward the ornate Victorian ceiling, said, “Ever hear the name Martin Thomas?”
Bolan had, but the name would not fix in his mind immediately. He said, “Tell me about ’im.”
“Hey, you don’t keep up with politics, do you. He’s one of the top aides to the President of these United States.”
Uh-huh, okay. Bolan looked appropriately impressed, without even working at it, and replied, “You’re right, that’s very neat. You really had Sigmund snockered, didn’t you.”
“Damned right. He wasn’t going to pull that shit on Marco Minotti. You guys—them guys, them Aces think their crap comes out in rainbow colors. I got
news, it comes out just like everybody else’s. And smells just as bad.”
“You could have dumped Sigmund any time, once you got the kid.”
“That’s right, I could.”
“So what were you waiting for?”
Minotti gestured with his cigar as he replied, “No need for hurry. I wasn’t worried. Let them worry for a while. Right?”
Bolan said, pointedly, “Meanwhile, the kid …”
“She was feeling no pain. Born with a damned silver spoon up her ass, anyway. I got no stomach for these society broads.”
“She’s just a kid, Marco,” Bolan reminded him.
“But growing fast. Did you see those tits? Coming along okay, wouldn’t you say? Hell, I was only thirteen when I got my first real piece. That kid is a good fifteen or sixteen.”
“One of the gentle folk,” Bolan said quietly, despairingly.
“Bullshit!” Minotti snorted. “There ain’t no so-called gentle ladies or gentle men, if that’s what you mean! They’re all made out of the same stuff as you’n me. This Thomas guy? Know what he wanted? He wanted little boys! Yeah! Now isn’t that a disgusting goddam!—listen—if Sigmund hadn’t pegged onto the guy he would’ve disgraced the whole country! Imagine, a presidential aide!”
Bolan growled, “That’s what Sigmund had on ’im, eh?”
“Sure it was. The guy’s been hauled up a couple of times on molestation charges. Always managed to buy it off, quieten it down. Even his wife left him, a few years ago. She knew. Hell, she knew.”
“How did Sigmund know?”
“You guys got your own ways. How the hell would I know. But you got to admit, it was mighty sweet. It was a natural.”
“I guess it was,” Bolan replied, sadly.
“So you see what kind of people we got in Washington!”
“Not nearly all,” Bolan said quietly.
“Yeah, all,” Marco insisted. “They’re all out for number one. Not just Washington. Everywhere. Don’t tell me different ’cause I’ll never believe it. I know better. How the hell d’you think I make all my money? They call me Crazy Marco, sometimes, when they think I can’t hear. I always hear. Hey. Who’s crazy? Guys like me?—or guys like you?”
“Sometimes I wonder, Marco,” Bolan admitted. “But this is not one of those times.” He slipped the Beretta from the shoulder holster. “Would you like to do your Thompson? In here? Just once, for old times sake?”
Minotti puffed thoughtfully on the cigar, studying that impassive face and trying to read some fine nuance there, his eyes now entirely sane and under control.
“You’d let me do that?” he asked, finally.
“You lived a hard life,” Bolan told him. “I’ll say this, you were never soft, not even when you should have been. It’s okay with me if you want to go out the same way.”
“I can shoot the joint up?”
“If you wish.”
“Okay, I wish. How do you know I won’t shoot you up with it?”
“Because I’ll be standing right behind you, Marco, this Beretta at your neck. Behave yourself and I’ll give you the whole drum before I pull my trigger. Otherwise … you’ll get a damned short drum.”
Minotti carefully placed his cigar in an ashtray, got to his feet, and said, “I want to empty it.”
Bolan went to the sofa and snared the Thompson, clicked the safety off as he returned to the frozen mobster, went behind him and put the old chopper in the man’s hands.
“You had the safety on,” Minotti observed, chuckling.
“Sure,” Bolan replied. “I’m not the one that’s crazy.”
“I lied to you,” Minotti admitted, still amused. “I never fired this thing before. I was always afraid it might blow up on me.”
Bolan told him, “Now’s your chance to find out. And it really doesn’t matter, does it?”
“I guess it don’t,” said Crazy Marco—not so crazy, after all.
He braced himself and squeezed into the trigger-pull. The .45-calibre weapon bucked and snorted, shaking Minotti’s entire frame until he instinctively tightened into the grip and tucked the butt into his shoulder. Victoria went to hell in a hurry under the withering impact of that furious assault. Minotti was just getting into the spirit of the thing when Bolan reversed the Beretta and clunked it against the skull just behind the ear.
The firing ceased abruptly, the Thompson fell away, and Not-So-Crazy Marco slumped to the floor—unconscious but also not-so-dead.
As good as dead, of course, sure.
But Bolan had positive plans for this guy’s final breath.
He holstered the Beretta, lifted the unconscious figure across the shoulders, and started out of there.
But then that Victorian door banged open and a Red Ace marked Donald Rutiglio danced inside with a long-barrel pistol in dangerous extension and a smug smile upon his face.
“You die, Omega,” he declared softly, “… or Bolan, or whomever.”
But Bolan Omega Whomever did not die, not there, not then.
The brief chatter of a light submachine gun, an Uzi if Bolan’s perceptions were reliable, told the difference a split-second before the lights dimmed out within those Diamond eyes and a minor ace sagged into the discard pile.
Leo Turrin moved swiftly inside, turned the body onto its back with his foot, and quietly declared, “You were right, Sarge. You okay?”
“I’m fine, Leo,” Bolan told that good friend. “You’re the best flanker I’ve ever had.”
Leo smiled—and then the hard men, the determined men, went outside to see what Central Park was like on a sunny Saturday afternoon.
CHAPTER 20
SATAN’S AFTERNOON
It was Saturday afternoon, yes, but not sunny, after all. A menacing line of thunderheads were approaching from the southwest, already blocking out the sun and sending their heavenly rumbles toward the city.
“I hope that’s not an omen,” Leo said, glancing at the sky.
“I hope it is,” Bolan told him, smiling as he stepped aboard the Warwagon with his unconscious burden.
April greeted him with: “You always come in with something on your back. What is this?—bunkie day?”
He grinned at her, said, “You know what day it is,” and deposited Crazy Marco in the sleeping section.
Leo went aft to the armory and checked in his weaponry.
April moved to the con, tossed a questioning look at her man, then dropped onto the copilot’s side. “The chief is waiting for us in the park,” she said. “You know where.”
Bolan knew where, yes.
The thing still was not sitting quite right in his belly—but the feds had set it up this way, so this was the way it would have to be.
He went to the con, slid in behind the wheel, and went to the rendezvous in the park.
These guys had a big thing going with do it-yourself sawhorses—the type where pre-cut two-by-fours could be inserted into metal clamps for instant assembly, then taken apart again for easy storage. Even so, they must have been carting a truckload around with them. It appeared that an entire section of Central Park was now blocked off and closed to the public. The cover story was, of course, that a dangerous fugitive was loose and cornered in there—and there were plenty of city cops strolling around, too.
The marshals at the forward barricade recognized the Warwagon as it approached and hurried to open the way. Bolan breezed on through with a curt nod of the head to those solid men out there—most of whom, probably, were not entirely sure of just what the hell was going down.
A jagged bolt of lightning streaked across the sky and, a moment later, the rain began again.
Bolan started the wipers and glanced at April. She was staring somberly ahead—thinking too, perhaps, of that which lay ahead and trying to get her head straight.
So was he.
Maybe Bolan would never see Central Park in the sun. For that matter, maybe he would never see it in the rain again, either. He was feeling philosophic, but not o
verly so—dreamlike, maybe, was the better word.
It had finally come down to this moment … this Saturday afternoon moment in Central Park—but it did not seem real, no. Maybe too much had gone before, or too much undone—maybe, okay, too much overdone. Whatever, there was no sensation here, now that the thing was done, the war behind him—but, for the first time since he’d stopped thinking about such things, there actually seemed to be a future in store for Mack Bolan.
Well, not really. For the flesh … but not for the name. Mack Bolan was going to die. He was scheduled to die on Saturday afternoon in Central Park.
It was sort of like going to one’s own funeral.
He pulled the big cruiser to a halt at the designated spot. The rain was really coming down now, pelting the windowglass in a steady drumfire like hail. If there was anybody around, who would know?
The omen, sure. They were not always bad.
Then someone banged on the door. Bolan immediately hit the relay, the door opened itself, Hal Brognola leapt inside cursing.
He was not wearing a raincoat, or any protective gear. His suit was dripping water in puddles at his feet.
“Did you order this goddam weather, Striker?” he inquired with mock hostility.
“It’s made to order, isn’t it?”
The chief went to the bunk to peer closely at Minotti, then he came forward and opened a heavy briefcase at the plot table. “I’ve got the goods,” he announced. “Do you have a towel? So I don’t drip all over the damned …”
April brought a large bath towel and patted him down. She said, teasingly, “Don’t say I never dried your back, Chief.”
So that was good. She was back to the here and now, apparently in relatively good humor. Bolan squeezed her and brushed her forehead with a quick kiss. “Lose yourself,” he suggested, making eyes toward Brognola’s briefcase.
She threw him a go-to-hell look but obeyed immediately, moving back to the con with a flash of saucy eyes and swishing hips.
It was getting real now.
Brognola hauled out a pressboard binder containing a thick sheaf of documents held in place by Acco fasteners. “This is just a copy,” he told Bolan, “so you can hang onto it and study it later. It’s your official history, Colonel.”
Bolan smiled soberly. “So I’m a colonel.”
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