“You were,” the chief replied, digging for other documents. “Now … John Phoenix is the name and chasing terrorists is the game. Don’t worry, you’re fully covered, fully documented. Everything you have there is also on file—the originals, of course—on file at the Pentagon. Fingerprints, dental records, medical reports, the whole smear has been transferred to the new file. Now …” He produced another “file” and showed it to Bolan. “Last chance to look it over, Sergeant. This was your life.”
“Thanks,” Bolan replied, a bit tightly. “I’ll pass.”
“Sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Okay.” Brognola returned the file to the briefcase, sighed, cast a long look toward the sleep area. “We have all his vitals superimposed onto the old Bolan file. All identifying criteria. I guess we’re ready.”
Leo observed, “The guy is about a foot too short, Hal.”
“Makes no difference,” Brognola replied. “All the vitals for comparison are in the official record. Whatever they can lift from Marco can be verified by the Bolan file.”
The subject of that talk, one of them, shifted uncomfortably, reached for a cigarette, changed his mind. “Do I smoke?” he asked with grim humor.
The chief said, “I hope you’re not getting second thoughts.”
“I’ve never lost them,” Bolan told him. “But let’s—”
“This was an excellent day, Striker!” Brognola testily reminded him. “I mean, every goal was realized. Except—well, I mean …”
“The kid,” Bolan said quietly.
The official mien wavered, then broke apart. Brognola sat down, lit a cigar, offered one to Bolan, then growled, “No, hell, you don’t smoke cigars,” gave it to Turrin instead.
“Don’t worry the kid,” Bolan told the chief. “I believe I have the information.”
“What do you have?”
“A presidential aide, Martin Thomas.”
Brognola sighed. “That’s the one, yeah. We got the make, too, just before I came over here. Uh, the man, himself, recognized the photos we faxed down. I mean, instant make. Now—I have good news and I have bad news. The good news, if you’ll pardon a calloused heart, is that Marty Thomas is dead.”
Bolan shot a strained look at Turrin and asked, “How’d he die?”
Brognola sighed. “He was confronted with the photos of his daughter. Excused himself, went into his bedroom, blew his brains out.”
April had moved back to within good ear shot, having recognized the nature of the discussion.
While Bolan and Turrin stared silently at each other, she said to Brognola, “If that’s the good news, Chief, you know what you can do with your bad.”
“Wish I could,” he said, head bowed over the cigar.
“What is it?” Bolan asked.
“The kid died,” Brognola muttered. “The pictures we sent were pictures of the dead.”
Bolan got up and went to the con. He lit a cigarette, stared vacantly at the smoke arising from it, then went back to the quiet group at the plot.
Somehow there was no such thing as “insulation” in such matters—no matter how professional, no matter how often it occurs. And there was no such thing, either, as a “casual” relationship with a fifteen year old kid, however anonymous it may be. You touch them once, just once, in a hardrock situation and you immediately care how that situation works out.
They all had cared about that sick kid.
Bolan could understand Brognola’s irritable, officious manner when first he came aboard. He touched the chief on the shoulder and said, “So who can say—maybe it’s all for the best. Sounds like her world had already gone to hell around her, anyway.”
Brognola said, “Yeah.”
April told them all, “She had irreversible brain damage, that much I can tell you without a medical report. It’s just almost inevitable in these cases.”
The mood in there had gone from jittery to downright depressing. Leo noted it, saying, “Well, it’s been that kind of day, hasn’t it.”
Bolan muttered, “Crazy Marco says the devil took it.”
There was movement, back there, when he said that. Bolan caught Brognola’s eye and sent the signal. The chief sighed heavily, looked knowingly at his three co-conspirators, and said, “Okay. I guess we all know what we have to do. Can we get it moving, now?”
Bolan went aft, checked his prisoner with a rough poke to the ribs, got no response whatever. “Marco will keep,” he announced to the world at large. He went to the armory, picked up a pre-packed leather bag, carried it with him as he rejoined the others. “All I want is in here,” he said. “April?”
“We took my stuff out this morning,” she replied.
Leo was looking wistfully around at the impressive equipment in that good warship.
Brognola said to Bolan, “By the way, just a minute, that guy you wanted me to find—Gino—he’s in the van. Locked up. You said special case. What’s special?”
Minotti moved again.
Bolan dismissed it from his mind. He reached into his bag and withdrew a heavy brown envelope. “I’m going to ask a personal favor, Hal,” he said quietly. This was no “set-up,” but for real.
Hal knew it. He replied, “It’s about time. Ask it.”
Bolan handed over the brown envelope. “Give this to Billy Gino. And cut him loose.”
Brognola accepted the envelope, thoughtfully looked it over, asked, “What is it?”
“The last of Augie’s money, bottom of my warchest. Not enough there to serve as a fitting pension for loyal service across the years but maybe enough for a new start somewhere. Billy is one of the last of the romantics, Hal. I’m sure he never did a rotten thing outside the families. He was the grounds cock for Augie the whole time he was in the outfit. If he ever killed, it was some savage trying for too big a bite from Augie’s table. Cut him loose and send him south, far south. He was a gunner’s mate, once, in the navy. Still likes boats. He should find one and make an honest living. Tell him I said it. I believe he will.”
Brognola was making a sober smile. “How do you manage to know so much about these guys?”
Bolan tapped his forehead and replied, “This was my life, Hal. It’s all there, indelibly. Take my word, Billy Gino is an okay guy. And I owe him one.” He winked at Leo. “Hell, I owe him a couple.”
Leo said, “He’s right, Hal.”
Brognola smiled, pocketed the envelope, stepped toward the door. “Hard man,” he said sarcastically.
Bolan shrugged. “Hard doesn’t mean brittle.”
Brognola paused with his hand at the door. “You can begin the countdown whenever you’re ready.”
“You’re sure it’s clear?”
“There’s not even a field mouse.”
“Okay,” Bolan replied. “It begins right now.”
“See you tomorrow. In Wonderland?”
Bolan grinned, enclosed April and Leo in a tight circle of arms, and said, “We’ll be there.”
“Two o’clock sharp.”
“Two it is. I, uh, notice you fixed it so I’ll be introduced to the man, the first time, as Phoenix.”
Brognola sent a wide grin from that doorway, said, “Well, that’s politics,” and went on out.
“I’ll have a time getting used to that,” said April.
“You like the sound of Bolan?”
“Not especially.” She tossed her head and said, “I got used to the sound of Striker.”
It was upon that light note that the three good friends descended from the only home Mack Bolan had known throughout much of his war. Bolan left the door agape and sent a final look inside.
Minotti was quiet.
Like a fox, yeah.
The rain was falling in buckets but Bolan did not even notice. He herded April and Leo to the limousine that awaited them, a hundred feet to the rear. A grinning marshal pushed the door open for them. April and Leo leaped inside immediately. Bolan leaned down to speak through the open doorwa
y. “I’ll wait out here,” he told them.
“You’ll catch your death!” April protested.
That was a good one.
It was precisely what he wanted to catch.
His wait in the rain was of short duration. The cruiser’s big rear-mounted engine coughed softly to life and immediately it began to creep forward. Then the lights flared on and it leaped away.
Bolan reached into his pocket and withdrew a small black box, no larger than his palm.
He watched the lights of home until he could see them no longer, then he pushed a sliding switch forward and depressed a pushbutton.
The rainsodden park roared immediately with the fury of the auto-destruct system and the rain itself gave temporary right of way to trumpeting flames.
The secondaries began then, almost immediately, as the hot stuff in the armory joined the act.
It was a hell of a show. Too bad it was not Independence Day. But maybe it was … for someone.
He could see tomorrow’s headlines in the eye of his mind, knowing what they would say and wondering what they would mean to the average man or woman on the street. Just another murderer, maybe, who got what he asked for.
It was true, of course. Only the names would be changed … to protect the nation, a soft nation going covertly hard.
As he watched, unashamed tears sprang from his ice-blue eyes and mixed with the raindrops to flow along that granite face—tears not for the likes, certainly, of a Crazy Marco with savage dreams but tears of gratitude to all those who had supported a weary soldier along the way, of pride and respect for some who had perished in the attempt—and sadness, yes—tears of an almost overpowering sadness for all the memories and sacred moments which were now boiling into the heavens as that gallant ship consumed itself.
Tomorrow would take care of tomorrow.
The devil himself had taken care of today … and today, thank God, had already ceased to exist.
Mack Bolan was dead forever.
EPILOGUE
The first page from John Phoenix’s journal:
Ashes to ashes and dust to dust. But how many men have known the privilege of rising from their own ashes, in the same time and place? Will this be a new beginning?—or will it be merely a continuation along the same pathways through hell? I guess the best that I can hope is that it will be another side of hell—a new neighborhood—with essentially the same focus as before. But I can bear it. A focus in hell is better than no focus at all—which, when you think about it, must be the worst of all possible hells. I will bear it, yes—until the last struggling ash settles finally into Mother Earth.
About the Author
Don Pendleton (1927–1995) was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. He served in the US Navy during World War II and the Korean War. His first short story was published in 1957, but it was not until 1967, at the age of forty, that he left his career as an aerospace engineer and turned to writing full time. After producing a number of science fiction and mystery novels, in 1969 Pendleton launched his first book in the Executioner saga: War Against the Mafia. The series, starring Vietnam veteran Mack Bolan, was so successful that it inspired a new American literary genre, and Pendleton became known as the father of action-adventure.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1980 by Don Pendleton
Cover design by Mauricio Diaz
ISBN: 978-1-4976-8590-1
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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New York, NY 10014
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Satan’s Sabbath Page 11