Boston Blitz

by Don Pendleton

  Cracking the security of the joint had been far easier than he had been led to expect—and again, the timing had been the all-important factor. He’d slipped in ahead of their hard forces, and the accommodating steward had given him more than enough unsupervised time to plant the demolition charges and to set up the spook show.

  He could have blown the joint at any time, then. The radio detonators were effective over a long line-of-sight range; he could have returned hours or months later and detonated the explosives while cruising the neighborhood in his car.

  He had elected, though, to ride his hunch all the way, so he’d placed another demolition device beneath the access bridge, run his mortar range fixes before darkness came.

  The rest of the party had been up to the Middlesex Combination and they had not disappointed him.

  He’d watched them arrive and deploy the security forces. He had marked and categorized each of these hardmen in his mental mugfile and then he’d moved quietly against them. Even before the bosses inside had all sat down with their urgent business, the Executioner had stealthily swept that blackened landscape beyond the walls, and one-by-one he’d deprived the Shot’n Feathers of its outer security line.

  By the time the council of bosses were grimly filing along the stairway to “come and see” the Executioner’s calling card in the basement, Bolan was in full command of the terrain outside the walls—and he had also appropriated a small walky-talky from the dead corporal of that outside guard.

  Bolan could, of course, have simply blown up the hardsite while all were inside, with as good results and with far less personal hazard. It simply was not the Executioner’s way, though, for he preferred to take them in open combat.

  So he had watched and waited. When Tramitelli radioed the word that they were coming out, it was Bolan himself who acknowledged receipt of the information, and who assured the security chief, “It’s quiet out here, don’t worry.”

  He watched the convoy forming at the gate and deduced the departing strategy as he final-checked the range settings for the field mortar.

  The nice feature of a mortar was that there was no ballistics trajectory, as in standard artillery pieces. The little shells were lobbed, not zipped in, and he could lay them inside those walls wherever he wished. Also there was no tell-tale flame or report with the firing, there were no empty shell cases or breeches to fool with—you simply dropped in the round and the whole thing flew.

  A guy who knew his way with a field mortar could lay down a hell of an impressive barrage, and there was enough explosive charge in a single round to scatter an entire squad of infantry.

  Bolan had figured them to come out in a convoy line-up, which meant no more than a car length of separation between each vehicle, and he’d figured to blow the bridge with the point vehicle aboard. The mortar was zeroed-in on the gate and the first round should catch one of the vehicles near enough to that opening to plug it thoroughly.

  The Executioner should then have them all precisely where he wanted them—separated, confused, and as soft as a hard convoy could get.

  Next he would take away their damned hardsite, then he would take away everything they could hide behind or beneath, and then by God he would put in a personal appearance and let them see what they’d bought when they snatched Johnny and Val.

  The strike had gone off without a hitch. They had performed precisely as Bolan had hoped, and his little pocket detonator had done its bit with the bridge.

  He watched that point vehicle wallow into the ditch and enfold itself in the Executioner’s baptismal flames, then he dropped in the first mortar round and sent an exclamation point hurtling into the vehicle at the gate.

  For the next 30 seconds, Bolan was too busy with the mortar to take much note of what was happening down there; he had to reset the range and reload the belching tube with each round, and he had to get off a round every three or four seconds if the assault was to fully jell.

  It was not until the final mortar round had been fired that he paused for an evaluation, and what he saw would have made an artillery unit proud.

  Then he switched the pocket detonator into the primary charge, pushed the button, and that was the end of Shot’n Feathers.

  It was sheer panic down there when the blitzing black shadow snatched up his chattergun and loped down the road to close on the enemy.

  It was mop-up time at Mafiaville, and the Executioner did not wish to deprive them of his presence for a single unnecessary moment.

  He crossed the dry ditch without a pause and made his first call at the second vehicle in the line.

  A mortar round had obviously dropped right through the windshield and the interior had taken the full shock of the blast. All the window glass was blown out, front and back, and the two guys up front had come apart in grisly ways.

  The car was burning, a tumble of bodies in the rear was flaming with the unmistakable aroma of cooking flesh.

  A rear door was sprung open, and a guy was lying half in and half out. His legs were on fire and he was still alive and struggling. The eyes were open and the guy was holding a pocket watch in his hand.

  Bolan stepped forward, placed the muzzle of the stuttergun against the dying man’s forehead and he immediately recognized Manny the Clock. The boss of Waltham probably did not know himself, though, at that point. Massive shock had insulated him from pain and from rational thought.

  Or so it seemed. “What … what time is it?” Greco asked the Executioner.

  “Time to die, Manny,” Bolan quietly replied as he pulled the trigger, mercifully stopping Manny’s clock forever.

  Then Bolan went on along the line, moving swiftly through the flaming pandemonium, pausing occasionally to tickle the trigger of the automatic weapon and tidy up a loose end here and there.

  The strike was less than a minute old when he reached the wall. The gateway was impassable, totally blocked by the flaming vehicle:

  Bolan hesitated but a moment, then he pivoted and ran along the rock wall, seeking the best spot to go up and over.

  This one had to be clean.

  For Johnny and Val, it had to be a total rub-out.

  5: Hell Ground

  The scene inside those walls was straight out of War and Peace—with all the peace removed. And it was all too familiar to the man who had brought it here. Leaping flames—strewn rubble—demolished vehicles—dying groans of the mortally wounded—stunned survivors stumbling about through drifting smoke—unmoving lumps of flesh, and the smell of blood and powder everywhere—now and then a solitary figure moving furtively into the protective darkness of the rear.

  Yeah, all too familiar. Bolan threw off a tremor of revulsion—for himself, for the world he had adopted—then he steeled himself and dropped into the reality of War Everlasting.

  He was instantly spotted and a distant voice screamed, “Hey, it’s him.”

  A volley of fire immediately swept toward him from the darkness off to his right.

  Bolan dropped to one knee, came around with the chattergun in hard argument and sweeping for effect. Someone out there screamed, then another, and the enemy fire dropped away except for sporadic and scattered reports. The gunners were out of effective range for most handguns and no one seemed inclined to shorten the distance.

  Then another voice rang out from the darkness, a harshly commanding and authoritative sound. “Hank! Georgie! What the hell are you waiting for?”

  Bolan was feeding a fresh clip to his weapon when Hank and Georgie apparently joined the war. Two wide spaced muzzle flashes began laying in a methodical fire on his position, and these were not going so wild. The guys had rifles, and under more settling conditions they would probably have been pretty fair marksmen. Many a fair-weather target marksman, though, finds his aim falling apart under combat conditions, and these two were destined to discover that truth the hard way.

  Bolan did not give them time to settle into their mark; he came out of his drop in a running charge, the chattergun spewing
from the hip and probing the darkness surrounding those rifle flashes. One of them went to hell almost instantly, the passage signaled by a gurgling scream—and the other must have lost all heart for the fight.

  Silence descended, to be broken by that voice of command out there. “Come back here! Where the hell you guys think you’re going? Get back—!”

  Bolan threw a probing burst toward the sound, and quiet again prevailed.

  After a moment another strained voice called out, “Did he get you, Hoops? Hoops? You okay?”

  Bolan was moving on, moving more slowly now in a careful crouch. Again the stuttergun spoke, in a searching death pattern for those voices out there. A muffled yelp rewarded the effort, and now he could hear feet pounding the turf.

  The harsh voice of command he’d heard earlier called out, from considerably farther away, “Okay, Bolan, it’s your round this time. But we’ll meet again.”

  Bolan growled, “Bet on it,” under his breath, as he spun about to quit that sector and to move on to ruins in the area where the lodge had been.

  There was not much left of Shot’n Feathers. Two walls remained standing—the rest was rubble with flames licking up here and there. It had been a good, clean demolition job, with the charges placed for maximum effect—a job which Boom-Boom Hoffower of the now-extinct death squad would have been proud to see.

  Bolan proceeded carefully along the macadam drive, feeling his way through drifting palls of smoke, and again he came under fire. Fingers of flame were reaching for him from the earth directly ahead, accompanied by the barking of a small-caliber revolver. Angry sizzlers sang by in close passage.

  The fire was coming from a guy who was lying on his back, not ten paces ahead, and he could hardly hold the gun up, even using both hands. Bolan moved unhesitatingly forward until he was standing over the guy. He kicked the gun away and said, “Nice try, slick.”

  The guy moaned, “I ain’t got your brother. Leave me alone.”

  The Mafioso also did not have much time left for this world. Both legs were smashed and skewed out at crazy angles from the body, and blood was soaking into the clothing at his waist.

  Bolan did not leave Andy Nova alone.

  He left him with a mercy round in the forehead then he went on across the hellfield.

  Here and there among the rubble he found a living one, dispatched him and moved on until there was nothing left for him there.

  A body count would have been time consuming and meaningless, so Bolan had no way of knowing how many had escaped to the rear—and he did not particularly care. He had brought his message, left it there for all to see and now it was time to withdraw. The sounds of warfare would not go forever without investigation; soon the cops would be pouring in, so it was time for the Executioner to be bowing out.

  The wreckage in the gateway had about burned itself out. He went out past it and walked quickly up the line of gutted vehicles. Behind him, Shot’n Feathers was finding new fuel for her flames, and secondary fires were beginning to belch skyward, lighting up that forward terrain with dancing shadows.

  Halfway to his own vehicle Bolan spotted a different kind of shadow on the roadway ahead, moving away from him, and this one was behaving like a drunken man—stumbling, reeling, falling only to get up and try it again.

  Somebody was in a hell of a sweat to quit the hell-fields. For a brief moment Bolan debated the fate of that frenzied escapee—then he sighed and stopped the guy with a line of zinging slugs across his path. The man wheeled around and turned crazed eyes upon his pursuer, then he moaned and sank to the ground.

  He was a smoothie, about 50 or 55, with distinguishing silver hair at the temples and wearing an expensively tailored suit which was now a dead loss. Blood was seeping from a scratch above one eye and the face was smeared with it—but even through all the dishevelment, the Executioner’s mental mugfile provided the make on Books Figarone, the law professor turned Mafia bigshot.

  Bolan quietly informed him, “You’re running in the wrong direction, Professor. Cambridge is the other way.”

  The guy was fighting for breath—and apparently the legal-trained mind was fighting for a way to go on living. “Mack Bolan!” he gasped. “So you’re the one who saved me!”

  Bolan almost felt like laughing, but not quite. He said, “I saved you, eh?”

  “Of course you saved me. That’s a Mafia joint back there. They were holding me prisoner. They were going to kill me.”

  Bolan said, “Do tell”—and shoved the muzzle of the stuttergun into the guy’s heaving gut.

  “Wait, Bolan, wait!” Figarone cried. “God, I can help you, man! I can help you!”

  Bolan told him, quietly, “That’s what I’m here for, Books.”

  “Then you’ve come to the right man!” the lawyer burbled.

  “You know what I’m looking for.”

  “Yes! Yes, I do know!”

  “You know where I can find them?”

  “Maybe! I’d like to try, Bolan. Let me try!”

  “Then maybe you’ve got some life left in you,” Bolan coldly advised him. “On your feet, move, let’s go.”

  Figarone surged to his feet, he moved, and they went.

  Not another word was spoken until Bolan’s vehicle was reached, and by this time the Cambridge lawyer was getting his head together again.

  He asked Bolan, “Where are we going?”

  “To hell,” the Executioner assured him. “Unless you really can help me.”

  The anxious man shivered and sent a final look along the backtrail. He had just come from hell, the look seemed to say. He sighed and told his captor, “You can depend on me, Bolan. I hope I can depend on you.”

  Bolan did not reply, but the Mafia boss did not need a verbal response. He knew damned well that he could depend on this icy-eyed warrior to live in hell until his mission was accomplished. He carried hell around with him—and now, it seemed, he was carrying Books Figarone around with him.

  The distant wail of sirens edged into the atmosphere.

  Bolan sent his vehicle in the opposite direction.

  Figarone crowded the door, maintaining as much distance as possible from that apparition of doom behind the wheel.

  Yes. The guy carried hell around with him. Figarone knew. He had been there. Pretty soon, without the intervention of some miracle, all of Boston would be there.

  The boss from Cambridge shivered and closed his eyes.

  Yes. The guy was everything they’d said he was. And the ex-professor of law was wondering what sort of fool had decided to wave a red flag at this formidable warrior. Of all the stupid …

  He would help him. By God, yes. At that moment, Figarone figured that he was as anxious to catch the fool as was Bolan himself.

  But that was a miscalculation of the legal mind.

  No one, but no one, wanted “the fool” as fiercely and as determinedly as did the Executioner.

  Shot’n Feathers was but a prelude, a muted statement of that determination.

  The hellfire trail had only just begun.

  6: Post Mortem

  A number of county cars and several emergency rescue units were on the scene when Inspector Trantham’s vehicle pulled to a halt on the road outside the Mafia country club.

  The Boston cop was coordinating the Greater Boston police effort during the current law-enforcement emergency and he had elected to personally respond when the first alert came down. He had heard a lot and read a lot about this angry young man they called the Executioner, and he wanted a first-hand familiarity with Bolan’s handiwork.

  Kenneth Trantham was 47 years old. He’d been a cop since the age of 22, which gave him 25 years on the job. He’d seen a lot of hard ones come and go, and he’d seen some sensational crimes during a quarter-century with the Boston police. But he had never met a criminal—small or large—who’d shown any real stature as a human being. They were all punks, in the inspector’s judgment—scared punks who had turned to crime because they hadn’t the gu
ts to make it any other way.

  And Ken Trantham knew a thing or two about scared punks. He’d grown up on the city’s south side, or “Southie,” where neighborhood street gangs had served as finishing schools for the restless young products of those southside streets. Back in those days a kid had to join a gang just to survive—not financially but physically.

  Yeah, and Trantham knew a thing or two about street punks. He’d been one himself—but he’d had the common sense and human stature to grow beyond that sort of thing, and he’d left it 25 years to the rear. For those who had not—well, the inspector knew about those also. The more scared they got, the more vicious they became—show Ken Trantham a vicious man and he’d show you a guy who lived with curling guts.

  But some cold animal thing was chewing at the inspector’s own guts as he walked into that hellish scene in Middlesex County. A phantom—or an echo or something—of the old terrors was lurking there in that atmosphere of doom which was enveloping those bloodied grounds. And that phantom was trying its best to insinuate itself back inside Kenneth Trantham’s guts.

  He shook off the feeling of hopelessness and edged past the demolished vehicle in the gateway, then he quickly collared a uniformed Middlesex deputy, to whom he identified himself, issuing crisp instructions. “Clear that gateway,” he commanded. “And get some floodlamp units in here. Get some pictures of that vehicle before you move it, though.”

  The deputy touched the bill of his cap and hurried away.

  The two men who had accompanied Trantham to the scene straggled up behind him and stood in quiet surveillance of the devastated battle site. Both had arrived in Boston a short while earlier—one from Florida, the other from California. They were Captain Tim Braddock of the Los Angeles police and Bob Wilson, a homicide lieutenant from Miami. Both men were veterans of the Bolan wars and had journeyed to Boston in response to the UCN alert in that area.

  Trantham threw his “advisers” a troubled glance and asked, “You ever see anything like this?”