Heading downtown, the Executioner considered his enemy: the Mafia, an international organization of the lowest and most cold-bloodedly violent criminals in the world. Many lives before, he had vowed to wipe them out, or at least thin their ranks.
The Executioner knew that a well-placed bullet, indeed, a stray, could finish his own life anytime. He was flesh and blood, and one faltered step would spell the end.
But until then he would never waver in his mission, launched in anger as a vendetta to avenge his family. But Bolan had long ago understood that personal hatred had no place in his quest, and that his fight had become a commitment to duty and justice.
For Mack Bolan, other people's fear of death was a weapon in itself.
Unleashed against the Mafia organization, the fear could tear it apart, create gaps large enough for The Executioner to move in and wipe out the Mob.
The warrior's conflict had taken to many states of the Union, and also to diverse foreign shores. During the terrorist wars he had even struck at the heart of the hydra, Moscow.
Now here he was, in a place where the land was truly bigger than man; where the majestic beauty of the Northwest seemed to humble ordinary mortals.
Bolan's rental neared the hotel, and as he entered the ramp of the underground parking garage, the Executioner put his past behind him and thought no more about it.
The present required all of his attention.
For the sake of any future at all.
Bolan took the elevator to his room. He had no sooner kicked off his shoes when there was a knock on the door. Bolan snared the 93-R and moved against the wall next to the door.
"Who is it?" he asked.
"Johnny."
Bolan relaxed a fraction, slipped the chain off the catch and turned the knob to let his brother in.
Johnny was waving a newspaper.
"Look at this, guy."
"Read it to me," Bolan said, relocking the door and unfastening his weapons gear. Then he moved to the bed.
"The FBI has discovered a big cache of smuggled guns, worth over three million dollars, in a shipment of industrial machinery at a Gresham farm equipment dealership," Johnny read. "The military-type automatic weapons, rockets and launchers have been turned over to the Forty-first Division of the Oregon National Guard, and the rest is being held by the FBI.
Gresham police are unable to account for the small-scale war that took place in the farm-equipment firm warehouse where the guns were found. By the time firemen and police reached the scene the exchange was over. Automatic weapons and hand grenades had been used, and police report men killed and wounded.
Survivors claimed that some of the munitions in the shipment blew up.
However, police pointed out that most of the wounded were hit by bullets, not shrapnel. A large number of shell casings were also found in the warehouse, many of the 9mm parabellum size, as well as .45 and .38 caliber."
Johnny read another story about a Japanese ship captain reporting a hijack attempt on his ship when a group of men overpowered the river pilot and boarded along with him at Astoria. The captain reported he and his crew had killed or pushed overboard all five invaders. Neither the police nor the captain could explain the attack.
Johnny smiled grimly and turned to the Executioner.
Mack Bolan was fast asleep.
Johnny Bolan let the newspaper drop to the floor as he studied his big brother. Sadness assailed him as he reflected on the tribulations of this brave warrior. The younger Bolan wondered what path Mack's life, indeed, the lives of the entire Bolan clan, would have taken had circumstances not been as they were.
* * *
Bolan awoke with a start, muttering April Rose's name. He took in his surroundings, then looked at his watch.
"Damn," he said, strapping on his weapons.
He had unfinished business in Portland.
Downstairs in the rented Thunderbird he checked over his equipment. A plan for dealing with Gino Canzonari, the Portland Godfather, had been forming in his mind.
He drove to a convenient phone booth and called Canzonari's private line, an unlisted number that changed every thirty days.
The Godfather himself answered.
"Joey, is that you?" the father asked, obviously worried.
"No, this isn't Joey, but I know where he is. Interested, Canzonari?" Bolan held the phone away from his ear when a roaring scream blasted through the receiver.
"Bolan, you bastard! Where is my son?"
"How much is he worth to you?"
"Half a million! I'll get you half a million in cash, no traces."
"Joey offered me one million."
"Okay, okay. That's the most I can get on short notice."
"Deal. In an attache case. Come alone. Anyone with you or following you, and Joey is turkey meat."
"Yes, yes. Don't get excited. This is just a business deal. Money for the boy."
"My terms. Go to Killingsworth and Thirty-third. Be there at exactly 2:00 P.M. From there you'll get new instructions."
"Whaddya mean, "new instructions"? Joey better be with you."
"He won't be. I've got to make sure nobody is following you and you don't have the place staked out. Take it or leave it."
"I'll be there. I'll drive myself. Satisfied?"
"At two." Bolan hung up.
* * *
The Executioner recognized the man walking along the sidewalk from pictures he had seen. He was about five-five and 250 pounds, and carried an attache case.
Gino Canzonari was doing as he was told.
Bolan moved his car slowly behind the Mafia chieftain. He could spot no suspicious cars trailing the Don. He might have kept his word — doubtful, but possible.
The Executioner pulled half a car-length ahead of the man and motioned him to get in. The Beretta was trained on the Mob chieftain all the way.
"Canzonari, take off your suit coat," Bolan commanded.
Canzonari hesitated, then stripped it off.
"Now take off your shirt." As soon as the mobster opened it, Bolan saw the wires and the small radio transmitter. He jerked the apparatus off Canzonari, threw it out the window and hit the gas.
Bolan noticed the unmarked police car behind him, and another on Killingsworth. He flattened the Thunderbird's gas pedal and the big car surged on. He slid through a stoplight, wound north to Lombard and Union and was soon on the 99 freeway heading across the Columbia into Washington State, toward Seattle. His gun was trained on Canzonari all the time.
He exited on the Washington side, powered around two interchanges and finally parked below an overpass.
Canzonari scowled. "Cops made me wear the wire. They heard about you and about Joey missing. They made me do it!"
"Sure they did." Bolan frisked him quickly, found a .38 in an ankle holster and threw it out the window. "They made you wear that, too? Where are the rest of your boys? How many cars did you have following us?"
"Two, but you lost them."
"You bring the money?"
Canzonari pointed to the attache case.
"Good. Now you can tell me what happened to Charlotte Albers."
"Who?"
"Charlotte Albers and her twin sister, Charleen Granger. Two pretty black girls about twenty-five."
"Granger... yes, the black girl. I hear she died up in the park."
"Your men killed her, Canzonari, and used her for bait to get me. But they missed. I don't miss."
Bolan edged out from under the concrete overpass and turned south back toward Oregon. He drove with the flow of traffic-heavier now, nearing rush hour — figuring the cops would not be watching close enough.
Eventually he turned off, heading along the Columbia River on the Oregon side. At Troutdale he turned south until he picked up U.S. 26, which became the Mount Hood Loop highway route.
"Where the hell we going?" Canzonari asked.
"I thought you wanted to see Joey."
"You got him stashed up here?"
"Right."
They drove in silence until they passed Brightwood. At the spot where he had run Joey's car off the road, Bolan pulled to the shoulder.
"Out. We're taking a walk." Bolan locked the Thunderbird, moved Canzonari across the road, and they plunged into the timber.
"What the hell?"
Ten minutes later Bolan motioned Canzonari around a pair of tall fir trees and pointed.
Joey lay where Bolan had left him.
Canzonari ran forward. He dropped to his knees and grabbed his son's body, rocking back and forth. Then he jumped up and charged Bolan. The Executioner sidestepped him, tripped him and pushed the fat hoodlum to the ground.
"You bastard! You promised me my son back!"
"I said I'd bring you to him and I did. Just think of Joey as payment for Charleen Granger. You killed her, and now your son is dead."
Canzonari rushed at him again. Bolan slammed the Beretta across the mobster's head, smashing him to the ground.
"There's still payment due from you for Charlotte Albers, Canzonari. We'll think of some way to even the scales. Now pick up your son and carry him back to the road."
Dusk had settled as Canzonari stumbled to the edge of the highway with the dead weight. He collapsed there. A car rolled by, and Bolan ducked out of sight.
Canzonari got to his knees and stared at his dead son.
Then he turned, producing a blade, and lunged at the Executioner's throat. Bolan drew Big Thunder and pulled the trigger.
The boom of the .44 AutoMag shattered the silence of the forest. The heavy lead slug caught Canzonari squarely in the heart with such force that the man's torso exploded. The smoking remains fell to the ground beside the dead youth.
Bolan held the big gun steady, then slowly lowered and holstered it.
Canzonari's demise had not been planned, but the Executioner was not sorry about this unexpected turn. Someone would find them come daylight.
Bolan crouched as a car passed, then ran across the dark highway to the Thunderbird and drove back to Sandy Boulevard.
He could not find an open car-rental agency so he continued to one on the outskirts of Portland, left the car and took his suitcase of weapons and the attache case of money. The Portland police would not be able to trace the Thunderbird back to him.
He changed taxis three times, then walked two blocks with the suitcase to the hotel.
When the Executioner stepped into the hotel lobby, Johnny jumped from a chair and took the suitcase and attache case without a word. Nor did the two speak in the crowded elevator.
As they walked down the hall toward their room, Bolan told his younger brother, "We're finished here. Time to move on." But it was not that easy. Bolan felt burdened by his war, pulled down by the gravity of his fearful commitment. The Executioner's mood was turning dark, and so it was that he began to think of Johnny in the renewed light of protectiveness.
Johnny had said he wanted to show Bolan the updated plans for his strongbase down in Del Mar. Bolan decided to go along with the kid.
17
He'd drive down from Los Angeles in the coming days and take time out to check into this strengthened strongbase with him. Then maybe he could talk to the kid. Dammit, he would talk to the kid.
And, dammit, Johnny was no kid, as was evidenced every time the young man clenched his jaw when he saw street signs in Portland that read "Sandy."
This was a battle-hardened young adult.
Much as Bolan tried to prevent it, after a couple of days his heavy mood finally got to Johnny. The two Bolans were driving down Route 5, Johnny at the wheel, cruising through San Clemente and south past the Marine Corps base at Camp Pendleton on their left, the midday sun burning above the rental car, their elbows stuck out of open windows.
It was hot, the breeze dry and bitter with fumes, but both men preferred it to the air-conditioning.
"What's up with you, Mack? You haven't said a word since L.A." Johnny looked over at his brother.
Bolan grunted.
Johnny persisted. "Want a cigarette? I know you're out because I saw you smoke your last one."
"You don't smoke."
"But I carry a couple of packs in my bags," Johnny said, "for just such occasions as this."
"I don't want your cigarettes." Bolan looked out of the passenger window, through the blustery air of sun-smitten dust and exhaust particles, and what he saw was far, far away.
"I don't understand you," Johnny said. "You just ripped open and rubbed out the entire underbelly of Portland, Oregon, and now you're down in the dumps."
"I did what?"
"Sorry to get poetic," Johnny said. "Let me put it another way. You trashed the loan files of finance companies, you scoured the streets of the east side of Portland, you busted a family-owned gun store under the Ross Island bridge approach, then hit the fancy Washington Heights district..."
"I know," Bolan muttered. "I was there too."
"And you crushed an old man's bad bones into... into the dust and disgrace of his own son!"
"Now you are getting poetic," The Executioner said. "I'll lighten up if you will."
"It's a deal. But I just don't see how you can feel blue after successfully hijacking an already hijacked ship."
"I guess you could say we did just that."
"Sure we did. Not only that, you also busted up an arms shipment landing that would made the Mafia the biggest goddamn gun dealer in the nation."
Bolan raised his left hand gently for some quiet.
Johnny could see that his brother was still troubled. The young man decided not to push it.
They turned off the main highway before they reached the little coastal community of Del Mar and wound down the street next to the water, then doubled back around a canyon that sliced through to the sea. Near the top of the double-back, a lane led off the street. It had been blacktopped recently and blocking the way was an electrically operated lift gate.
Johnny put a card in a slot in the metal box. The gate arm swung up.
He drove down the hundred-foot-long lane, crowded on both sides by eucalyptus trees. There were no other houses on the lane.
From the outside the strongbase looked like any other beach home, slightly smaller than a real weekender, but as big as a cottage could be on the restricted site. The ravine dropped off sharply beside the roadway and on the other side of the house a forty-foot cliff went straight down to the breakers. There was no garage, but a carport had been built over the blacktop against the lane side of the house.
Bolan looked around. From the driveway and the cottage, not another house was visible. Now and then someone might brave the rubble to walk past the rock falls on the tiny beach, but not often.
"I like it here," Bolan said. "Show me the inside."
The door had two locks, two dead bolts with inch-long prongs set into case hardened steel boxes, strapped into the special four-by-four that was built into the doorjamb.
Inside, the younger Bolan gave his famous brother a tour of Strongbase One.
Johnny was proud of what he had done to the place. Two walls upstairs had been torn out and the area turned into storage space. The ground level housed utilities and kitchen, and in the basement was the communications room.
"Everything you see is standardized Radio Shack," Johnny announced, showing off the basement's disorderly array of computer hardware. "These four modems, working on a one-always-on basis, are linked to the electronic bulletin board on the end wall. That board is programmed to display and interact with several key alert situations. I've got about twelve such alerts listed already." As he spoke Johnny touched a switch and twelve horizontal slots on the board lit up with rapidly changing code numbers; two screens flickered to life below the board. "And the computers can parallel and anticipate real-life situations. Something like having a second nervous system."
"What sort of linkup?" Bolan asked.
"We're hooked up with one of the satellites that Kurtzman's being using," Johnny replied. "A r
elatively low power transmission gives me two-way voice radio with you anywhere in the U.s. For incoming telephone calls, we have a triple dead drop that goes from East to West Coast, back to East and then back here again. That way the calls cannot be traced — by the phone company or by anybody else. We have dual recorders on voice actuation, so you can talk for up to sixty minutes without a break if you want to send recorded transmissions."
"I've got to talk to you about this, Johnny."
Ignoring Bolan, Johnny ran upstairs to fetch two attache cases he had brought inside from the car. As he returned with them he said, "There's a million and a half in greenbacks in these two cases, Mack. That's just from the Canzonari operation. I've collected six other cases like these from your other recent hits. The contents have been stashed in four separate banks and invested in money market funds. So there's no shortage of cash."
"That's not my concern," Bolan said. "You've done a magnificent job here, Johnny. I'll be happy to fund whatever..."
"I knew you'd come around," Johnny interrupted eagerly. "This place can be a link with Stony Man back East, Mack. Don't you see? This is a vital point in one huge triangle — Phoenix Force and Able Team at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, me at Strongbase One in Del Mar and you, Mack, out there."
"Wait a minute, Johnny. Oh, we really do have to talk." With that, Bolan put a strong arm around Johnny's shoulder and led him up the stairs.
In the kitchen, without saying a word, he sat his brother down on a chair at a table by the big window. The sunlight streaming outside illuminated the peaceful beauty that surrounded them, but the kitchen was cool and in shade.
Bolan went to the refrigerator and fished out two beers. The place was well stocked for the kind of afternoon Bolan had in mind.
"I'm going to tell you a story," he began, sitting across from his brother and opening his beer. "I've been feeling bad, Johnny. I'm not good with words, but I'm going to tell you something. I'm going to sketch out something that happened to me. You'll have to fill in some of the spaces yourself. You'll have to flesh it out because I don't have the words. But it's something that happened to me before mom and pop and Cindy were killed. Back in Nam. The story has a moral, I guess you could call it, and that's why I'm telling it to you now."
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