Texas Storm

by Don Pendleton

  He listened for a moment, said, “Just a second,” and lifted his gaze to the expectant eyes of Jolted Joe Quaso. “Mr. Lileo is at the airport,” he announced. “They’re getting cars. Coming here, unless you have another suggestion.”

  The news was a magic wand waved above Quaso’s troubled head. His mood immediately reversed. He rubbed his palms together and chortled, “Tell them to get here as quick as they can.”

  The hardman relayed the “suggestion” and hung up.

  Quaso said, “You boys get yourselves a drink. Settle your nerves. Then back to your stations. Not you, Tugboat. You’ve got the clean-up detail. You’ve got to stash these bodies somewhere.”

  “Even, uh, Mr. Stigni?”

  “Yeah. Even him. Put them on ice somewhere. We’ll see them properly buried when the fur has stopped flying around here.”

  And the fur would stop very soon, Quaso silently promised himself.

  Poor Larry. He even died awful.

  But so would someone else. Today, probably. Maybe even this afternoon, a certain someone else was going to die.

  Very slowly.

  11: THRICE DAMNED

  At one o’clock in the afternoon on the day of the storm across Texas, a demilitarized jet fighter with undistinguished gray paint landed at the El Paso International Airport. It bore no markings of civil registry and had no radio. On the fuselage below the tandem cockpit was affixed a magnetic decal which read:

  AmeriJet Inc.

  Ferry Flight Service

  The pilot was preceded from the cockpit by a tall man in clean white service coveralls which bore also a pocket decal identifying “AmeriJet Inc.”

  While the pilot shop-talked with the airport service attendant, the other man went to the base operator’s terminal and claimed a rental automobile which had been reserved by telephone and was awaiting his arival. The rental applicant identified himself as “B. Macklin” and posted a cash deposit in lieu of credit credentials. He requested and received a map of the city and left the airport in a new Chevrolet Impala. The “time out” as recorded on the rental agency’s record was 1:05 P.M.

  At approximately a quarter after one, a new Chevrolet Impala pulled into the circular drive at the home of Brigadier General Nathan R. Spellman, USA (Retired). A tall man wearing white, unmarked coveralls interrupted the general at his lunch, on the patio, and was received with apparent good humor by the retired army officer after the caller identified himself as being “sent by Quaso.”

  It had been a “working lunch” for Spellman. He was dictating some business correspondence to a male secretary, whom he introduced as “my orderly.”

  The “orderly” was excused but was still within ear-shot when the tall man told his employer, “You’ve earned another medal, General.”

  Curiosity overcame discretion and the secretary looked back to see what the caller had meant by “another medal.” The tone of the man’s words, or something, had created the impression that some sort of presentation was being made.

  According to this eyewitness account, General Spellman was holding something in the palm of his hand and staring at it “as though this man had handed him a rattlesnake.”

  At this point, the tall man in white coveralls said to Spellman, “As one soldier to another, General, I’m sorry about this.”

  He produced a black pistol, fired a single shot, and walked stonily past the dumbfounded secretary, returned to his automobile, and departed.

  The general had been drilled squarely between the eyes. Death was instantaneous.

  The rental car was checked in at the airport at 1:30.

  According to the records at El Paso Tower, an aircraft without radio was cleared by telephone for takeoff at 1:35. The tower’s logs identified the craft only as “AmeriJet Ferry 1.” A later investigation failed to turn up any aircraft company called “AmeriJet Inc.”

  There was little official doubt, however, that “AmeriJet Ferry 1” had been used as a vehicle by Mack Bolan, the man called The Executioner.

  Brigadier General Nathan R. Spellman, USA (Retired), died with a military marksman’s medal clutched in his fist.

  Spellman, who had retired from active duty two years earlier at the age of fifty-four, had been an intelligence officer in the army. He had distinguished himself in the field of electronic counterintelligence.

  The general had lately been employed as special security coordinator for Klingman Petro, an independent Texas oil company. He was also listed as a “special consultant” to several state investigative agencies, including the security office for the State Capitol in Austin. He had been active in undisclosed activities associated with the Texas National Guard.

  Later investigation also revealed a connection between Spellman and Gerald Whitson, a respected “international financier” with headquarters in Houston. Whitson controlled several Texas-based firms including a brokerage house which specialized in oil investments. He was forty-seven years of age, many times a millionaire, one of the postwar whiz kids who made it big during the state’s industrial boom following World War II.

  Whitson kept personal offices in one of Houston’s new downtown building complexes. He was a bachelor. His office suite included sleep-in and eat-in facilities and was adjacent to a men’s athletic club where he habitually put in one full hour each day in a rigid schedule of fitness exercises.

  It was less than two hours after the “execution” in El Paso of General Spellman when a tall, clear-eyed young man presented himself at the Whitson suite in Houston, at the opposite side of the state. He was wearing slacks and jacket in “well-coordinated shades of blue,” navy blue shirt, white tie. The caller presented “verbal identification” to the receptionist who passed the information to Whitson himself.

  The man was admitted immediately and directed to “the lounge”—Whitson’s on-premises apartment.

  The financier was on a massage table, receiving a postexercise rubdown from an ex-boxer known as Wildcat McQueen.

  As reported by McQueen, the “flashy dresser” perched himself atop a stool next to the massage table and the following conversation took place:

  WHITSON: Getting a bit warm in Dallas?

  STRANGER: YOU might say that. Other places too, we think.

  WHITSON: That why they sent you down? To hold my hand?

  STRANGER: Something like that.

  WHITSON: Well forget it. I can take care of myself. Besides, you’re too obvious, man, just too damned obvious.

  STRANGER: Whatever you say. But you ought to know. Spellman is dead. 95

  WHITSON: (alarmed) No! When?

  STRANGER: Couple hours ago.

  WHITSON: Okay, cool it, cool it. You about done, Wildcat? Wrap it up, eh. Wait—there’s a catch under my arm here—the pectoral, I guess. Work that out first. (to the stranger) Uh, heart attack, eh? Spellman?

  STRANGER: Something like that. It could happen to you.

  WHITSON: NO way. I’m as fit as a twenty-year-old. Right, Wildcat?

  STRANGER: Not fit enough, Whitson.

  WHITSON: What?

  STRANGER: You didn’t stay fit to live.

  Whereupon the tall stranger in coordinated blue pressed a small metallic object into the financier’s hand.

  Whitson was lying stomach down on the table, his upper trunk raised and supported by his forearms, transfixed by the object in his hand.

  He groaned, “Oh God! Wait a minute, now—wait! We can talk this out!”

  McQueen instinctively stepped away from the table.

  The other man said, “Too late for talk, Whitson.”

  He drew a black pistol from inside his jacket and shot the financier once, directly between the eyes.

  Then he told Wildcat McQueen, “Don’t waste a medic’s time. Just call the cops.”

  The man walked calmly out.

  The first police unit arrived on the scene within minutes and promptly sealed the building. The only man to be seen leaving the building in the preceding few minutes was w
earing white coveralls. But the “flashy dresser” was never again seen in Houston.

  It was later learned that Gerald Whitson was listed as a director of the Delaware corporation known as International Bankers Holding. He was a member of the Oilmen’s Club, a national advisor on petroleum export-import policies, and a behind-the-scenes power in Texas politics.

  Whitson was also a partner in an Austin firm known as Oilfield Research and Conservation, a registered lobby with influential furrows in both the Texas Legislature and the US Congress.

  And Gerald Whitson died with a marksman’s medal in his hand.

  No more than an hour following the killing in Houston, a man walked into the Austin office of Oilfield Research and Conservation and asked to see the prominent Texas attorney who ran that office.

  The name of Joseph Quaso was passed as a means of identification and admittance.

  Thomas Kilcannon, Esq., came to the door of his office to personally escort the caller inside.

  Less than a minute later the man departed, letting himself out and nodding stonily to the secretary in the outer office.

  “Don’t go in there,” he cautioned her. “Just call the cops. Tell them a man has been killed.”

  The secretary “called the cops” but did not follow the other advice.

  She found Thomas Kilcannon slumped over his desk in a pool of blood, his lifeless fingers resting upon a military marksman’s medal.

  A full police alert was ordered throughout the state of Texas at five o’clock, and “watches” were set up in the neighboring states of Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and New Mexico. A special alert was flashed to the US Border Patrol.

  Mack Bolan, the man at the top of the FBI list, was now positively known to be blitzing across the Lone Star State and evidently running amuck.

  His latest three victims were all highly respected and influential citizens with spotless reputations.

  In the eyes of certain Texas lawmen and in the words of one of that state’s television newsmen, “Mack Bolan has made a tragic blunder. In trying to set himself up as judge, jury, and executioner, he has emerged in Texas as just another wild gunman with a lust to kill.”

  But, in Mack Bolan’s personal journal, an entry of that same date reads: “I am neither judge nor jury. By their own actions they condemned themselves. This is war, and there is no such thing as morality in warfare. Let the world damn me. I did what had to be done.”

  The “world” had thrice damned Mack Bolan in Texas.

  It was Oscar Wilde who wrote: “For he who lives more lives than one, more deaths than one must die.”

  But how many damnations could a human soul endure?

  12: EYE OF TEXAS

  “No flow, Sarge,” Leo Turrin reported, his voice bursting with restrained emotion across the long-distance connection. “Nobody is talking about Texas, I mean not a word, not on either side of the fence. The mob guys change the subject quick at the very mention of Texas. The federal boys shake their heads and pass the buck along. I did make contact with Hal Brognola, though, finally. All he would say is that you are in a quote very sensitive area unquote. He’s asking you to lay off. I get it there’s a very uptight investigation in progress down there, maybe been going on for some time. Anyway, he wants you to cool it.”

  “I can’t cool it,” Bolan replied. “And you can tell Brognola for me that his quote investigation unquote is long dead on the vine. It never got off the ground.”

  “Do you have proof of that?”

  “I do. I can give him names and the precise market value of each one, if he’s interested.”

  “You know he is,” Turrin said wearily. His tone said that it was tough being a middleman between these two.

  “Yeah, well, I’ll get the intel to him—for whatever good it will do him. One of his own superiors is involved. Things are not exactly peachy-creamy in Washington these days, Leo. What the hell happened to official integrity in this country? The buying and selling of people seems to be the chief government activity.”

  “Hey, it’s not all that bad.”

  “Isn’t it? Listen, Leo, the biggest problem I have anymore is trying to separate the sheep from the wolves. They all look alike these days. They all smell alike. And they all act alike. I’m getting sick to my chin.”

  “God! Are you down!”

  “Yeah. It’s the company I keep. It’s not just politicians and bureaucrats. Hell it’s—Leo, I executed General Spellman today.”

  “Who?”

  “Not Spellman. He used to be counterintelligence chief for Europe. Then there was this big-shot financier who called kings and presidents by their first names. And a past officer of the Texas Bar Association who has autographed pictures of supreme court justices adorning his walls. I hung the mark of the beast on all three of them today, and in each case it was an award long overdue.”

  There was a long, heavy silence before Turrin replied, “Then that’s what it’s about.”

  “What?”

  “Brognola is on his way to Texas with a large force of US marshals. Special government planeload.”

  “When were you talking to Hal?” Bolan asked.

  “About an hour ago.”

  “That’s probably it, then. I expected to make a lot of waves. No great surprise, Leo.”

  “Are you sure, uh …?”

  “About the targets? As sure as I’ve ever been.”

  “Yeah. Well. I hope you know what you’re doing.”

  “So do I,” Bolan told his friend in Pittsfield.

  “Brognola knows we’re in touch. He says to tell you he hopes you’re out of the state by the time he gets there. You know what his assignment is, Sarge.”

  Bolan sighed. “Sure, I know.”

  “He says, just in case you are still around, he’d like a chance to parley with you before the deadline hostilities begin.”

  “Is he headed for Dallas?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Okay. If you make contact in the next few hours, tell him to be on the sidewalk in front of the Federal Building at eight o’clock, main entrance, alone. I’ll contact him there.”

  “Okay. Mack. Be careful.”

  “Sure. Everything all right there?”

  Turrin understood the particular phraseology of that query. It had to do with Valentina Querente, Bolan’s lady love, and the kid brother, Johnny Bolan. Turrin was keeping them in protective concealment. Bolan had not referred to the two by name since the near-tragic incident in Boston.

  Turrin told the one-man army, “They’re fine, but worried. She says you’re getting too chancy.”

  Bolan growled, “I’m a dead man the minute I get too cautious. Watch the home fires, Leo.”

  “You know it. Oh. Do you still need the info about the oil fields?”

  “I need everything I can find,” Bolan assured him.

  “Well I couldn’t get much. But a guy in the Interior Department tells me about a new pipeline outfit that started down there a few months back. It’s called Pecos Conduit, Inc. Couldn’t find out what they’re doing or where, but there’s a definite link to your people. The Small and Poors has them listed as a subsidiary of International Bankers Holding.”

  Bolan said, “Bingo. Okay, thanks. It could mean something Ringing off, Leo.”

  “Wait a minute. Lileo’s in Dallas with his whole bunch. You did some kind of job on Joe Quaso. No one is saying much about it, but it’s for sure that Jaunty Joe is in some kind of disgrace at the moment. Lileo has been given full authority in Texas. He’ll be waiting for your head to drop into his basket, Sarge.”

  “Know much about his operation?”

  “No. But he’s young, cagey, quick. I’d say dangerous as hell.”

  “Okay, thanks. I’ll watch it.”

  Bolan hung up and stepped out of the phone booth.

  A very nervous hotwing pilot awaited him. “What now?” Grimaldi asked.

  “Now you return to base,” Bolan replied. “I’ll contact you.”
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  “Where, uh, are you headed now?”

  “Into town. I need a talk with a certain hotshot and I need to rattle some more teeth.”

  “What about the jet?”

  “Leave it sit. Don’t go near it.”

  “You know how much you paid for that thing?” Grimaldi asked, obviously pained.

  Bolan smiled tightly and replied, “You know how much more it will cost if it gets tied to your tail?”

  The pilot sighed. “See what you mean. Well, it’s just money. What’s money, eh?”

  “It’s just the stuff that buys men’s souls,” the Executioner mused. “Lay low, Jack. Stay out of sight.”

  “I know the routine.”

  As though in afterthought, Bolan said, “One quiet job you can do for me.” He handed his one-man auxiliary a matchbook. “Call this motel. Use a pay phone. Ask for room one fifteen. If a man answers, hang up. If a woman, tell her to sit tight and cool it. Things are working.”

  Grimaldi smiled sourly. “I could go over and hold her hand.”

  “Forget it. It could be the last one you ever held.”

  “You, uh, think maybe …?”

  “We never know, do we?” Bolan replied. “Just handle it the way I told you, Jack.”

  “Count on that. Christ, man, watch yourself. I’ve been listening to the radio. The heat is on and pressures are rising.”

  Bolan grinned. “Like I said, Jack, things are working.”

  The two men shook hands and went separate ways—Grimaldi to his rotary wings and a quick return to sanctuary—Bolan to his hot wheels and an immediate return to the hell grounds.

  The storm over Texas was gathering forces and this iceman was moving through the eye of it.

  Very soon, now, that eye would close, thunder and lightning would walk the plains, and the war for the soul of a great state would rage throughout the land.

  The Executioner was moving in for the kill.

  13: ROUSTED

  Lileo stood several inches taller than the Chief Enforcer of Texas. He was broad of shoulder and nipped of waist, wore his hair in the new full look—could have stepped straight from the pages of Playboy or Penthouse. A handsome man—explosive, vigorous—he was quick to laugh and quick to snarl, self-assured, almost cocky.