Texas Storm

by Don Pendleton

  He was strapped into the rig in such a way that man and weapon were one with the gentle motions of the boat, and he was “feeling in” the rhythmical target-displacement produced by that motion, learning to compensate and keep his target centered, using this same exercise as an opportunity to evaluate the situation in the target zone.

  It was a big joint, two stories, a lot of glass fronting the lakeshore—large porch, wide cement steps to the lawn, well-lighted grounds. A circular drive wound in from the far side, only partially visible beyond the corners of the house, but those areas showing evidence of many parked vehicles.

  Hardmen were spotted about the grounds—most of whom were now gazing lakeward, grim-faced, wondering—no doubt intrigued by the possibilities presented by the presence of the intruder out there. Two were trotting along the pier, hurrying toward an outboard motorboat—a boarding party, no doubt.

  And now the lights were going off in the house. Two hard-looking guys in nautical togs and yachting caps stepped outside to take up stations at the top of the steps.

  Sure. Very cautious. Taking no chances.

  And with good reason. Things had been getting tense in Detroit. There were rumors of armed clashes between the Combination and some of its franchised gangs, most notably the blacks. Coupled with this, the feds had been doing a lot of harassing lately, with around-the-clock surveillance, phone taps, occasional minor busts.

  And now there was this boat, anchored just offshore …

  Sure, they were being careful. And they did not know, yet, that the Executioner was stalking, them as well.

  But they were going to know. And damn soon.

  With a small sigh, Bolan lifted off of the eyepiece, double-checked his range calibrations, took a last look at the wind indicator, then leaned back into the scope and pitched his combat-consciousness into the final evaluation.

  The crosshairs tracked the lakefront from north to south, then began a methodical sectioning and cross-sectioning toward the house.

  He heard the cough and sputter of an outboard motor being coaxed to life; ignored it; hung stubbornly to the eyepiece of the Startron as the gridding operation developed and formed into a coherent plan of attack; then froze and hung in a sort of suspended animation as target one swung into the hairs—a little medallion with crossed anchors affixed to a jauntily worn yachting cap.

  He squeezed into the target, riding expertly with the recoil and grimacing to maintain optic continuity, grunting with professional satisfaction as the two-inch target disintegrated into a background of exploding red and white.

  Trajectory evaluation: Perfect, point-blank. No correction required.

  The targets themselves were correcting, however. The big 300-grain chunk of sizzling steel beat the sound wave by a couple of seconds. The headless hardman had pitched backwards and hit the cement porch at the precise instant that the powerful cra-ack of the big piece explained why—sending people in motion everywhere over there.

  Bolan’s crosshairs picked up the second yachting cap about halfway down the steps; another screaming .460 punched it into the air, and the man beneath flopped grotesquely and rolled to the bottom of the steps.

  The next two rounds went deliberately high to shatter plate glass and wreak havoc on the interior. The remaining lights in there were quickly extinguished. The swivel moved on to the next preselected grid. A target there ran through the hairs and picked up track. Conditioned reflexes sighed into the squeeze. Round 5 sizzled along its flat ballistics course to overtake and overcome mere flesh, and another errant soul was returned to the universe.

  Bolan lifted off, jaw tense, eyes iced.

  Situation evaluation: Great. The delayed reaction was coming now, in the form of return-fire from several quarters. Two dudes on the roof, with rifles. Several near the water, in a trench or something. Others closing to center from both ends of the lakeshore. Some advancing along the lawn in front of the house.

  The riflemen were having trouble ranging him, though, and he had counted on that. A silhouette on water, with a bright moon in the background, could be very deceptive. The first scattered fusillades were coming in low, falling short. They’d be finding their range very quickly, of course—and Bolan was now moving on tight numbers.

  The motorboat had closed about half the distance. Those aboard apparently had nothing better than handguns and were waiting for a closer shot.

  Bolan tuned his hairs to that problem and quickly solved it with two heavy rounds smashing in at the waterline and a third punching into the motor. The boat immediately lost headway, and its two occupants went into a hasty abandon-ship drill.

  Bolan smiled grimly and retreated below, taking the Weatherby with him. He carefully stowed the impressive piece in a watertight float bag, then he went forward and quickly hauled in the sea anchor.

  His craft was taking repeated hits now, in a manner that could not suggest blind luck on the other end.

  So, okay, he was ready.

  He started the engine and kicked in full throttle, pulling away in a roaring circle toward open water, then brought her around to the desired course and secured the steerage on that heading.

  An instant later he slipped over the side and began quietly working his way landward, while the cruiser plunged on toward Ontario.

  The rifle fire from the shore was dying out, replaced now by the full-throated roar of a powerful cruiser that was leaping into hot pursuit of Bolan’s abandoned boat.

  He was within earshot when the big speedster paused to pick up the survivors from the outboard. He listened with interest to the angry mouthings and profane promises of the chase. And he was grinning to himself as they sped off into the night.

  There were easily a dozen men aboard that craft, which meant that most of the hard force were now chasing an empty boat out across the wide reaches of Lake St. Clair.

  Which was, of course, precisely what the Executioner had hoped for.

  He hooked an arm into the flotation bag, oriented himself to the big joint on the shore, and continued on.

  The real target of the night lay at the end of a five-minute swim.

  The assault on Fortress Detroit was underway.

  2: BLOODIED

  The place on Grosse Pointe Shores had once been the lakeside estate of a pioneer auto magnate. It had been purchased by the Combination some years back, remodeled a bit, and christened “The Sons of Columbus Yacht Club.” There was not, of course, a genuine yachtsman on the roster. The original idea had been to provide a genteel and exclusive resort for the families of the lower echelon mafiosi of the area, a sort of club for employees. The new charter also provided an excellent conduit for the washing of black money, and served as a nice cover for secret meetings and various illicit activities such as gambling, prostitution, smuggling, and so on—so much so that most of the members stopped bringing their families around, in deference to the other, more meaningful, activities. Eventually the SCYC was placed off-limits to the sons and daughters and wives, and was operated strictly as a mob headquarters.

  Now the Combination entertained their friends and future friends here, consummated business deals, and held “family” councils and other secret rites, such as initiations and executions.

  The location could not have been more convenient, nor, certainly, more exclusive from a social standpoint. Most everybody who was anybody in metropolitan Detroit lived within a ten-minute drive to the “club”—and, indeed, the entire ruling council of the Detroit Combination lived within walking distance. Even a special visitor from Windsor could hot it across the Ambassador Bridge and zoom out the Edsel Ford Freeway in less than a thirty-minute trip. For those who felt a bit shy about presenting themselves through U.S. Customs, there was always the Detroit River and Lake St. Clair—with an innocent and entirely legitimate yacht club ready to receive these special visitors at all hours.

  On this particular evening, the SCYC was the chosen site for an “area conference.” Important men from both sides of the border had
been invited to attend. A few had flown in from as far away as Toronto and Buffalo.

  It was to be an important meeting. First of all, of course, was the issue that was on everyone’s mind these days: the “energy crunch” and how it could be turned to the best interests of the Detroit Combination. Of almost equal interest were the unsettling developments down Texas way. Many millions of Detroit-area dollars had been invested in the Flag Seven gamble, and the dust was just beginning to settle around Texas in the wake of that Bolan bastard. The question on everyone’s mind, of course, was how much had been lost and how much could they reasonably expect to recoup.

  With regard to this latter problem, nothing had been said beyond the usual condolences directed to Anthony Quaso, who had lost his kid brother in Bolan’s latest blitz.

  Quaso was high in the administration of Salvatore (Crazy Sal) Vincenti, one of the top bosses in Detroit. They had just buried young Joe Quaso a few days earlier, and this meeting was the first opportunity for many of those present to personally express their sympathy.

  The talk had then inevitably turned to the “Bolan problem.” A nervous industrialist from Toronto had voiced the fear that the “direct Quaso link to Texas” would magnetically attract Mack Bolan to the Detroit operations.

  Sal Vincenti had scoffed at that suggestion, assuring one and all that “the guy wouldn’t dare show his tail around here.”

  And then the house chief of security had come in to quietly advise Mr. Vincenti of the presence of a strange boat anchored just offshore.

  “Send someone over to check it out,” Vincenti instructed the house boss. Then he’d tried to get the conference back into the mainstream discussion, but somehow nothing really jelled after that. And this made Charley Fever nervous.

  Charley Fever (born Favorini) was Sal Vincenti’s chief torpedo—the one Vincenti himself often referred to as “my good third arm.” That good arm had been seated directly behind his boss throughout the meeting, more like a brooding ghost who was there but not really, present for the proceedings but really not part of them. Vincenti was the only boss in the Combination who could get away with bringing his personal triggerman into the conference rooms—primarily because Crazy Sal was the uncrowned but actual boss of the works, partly also because the other bosses genuinely respected and trusted Charley Fever—more so than they trusted Crazy Sal.

  Vincenti was given to ungovernable rages, sometimes over trifling or imagined offenses. Charley Fever was a godsend at such times. He had a special knack for calming his boss and defusing the emotional tizzies—or heading them off.

  At this paricular point in the evening’s proceedings, Charley had moved to the edge of his chair and was watching the old man like a hawk. All it took to get a collection of “friends” nervous and jumpy was to mention the name Bolan. And when the friends got jumpy, someone might say the wrong thing to Sal Vincenti, and then look out. Charley Fever was already looking out.

  Then the shooting started. Everyone stood up and stared solemnly at the shuttered windows. Without a word, Charley glided over and took Vincenti by the arm, and they walked together to the “strong room”—a specially fortified chamber that was designed for just such emergencies. The others followed in single file, quietly, no pushing or shoving, as meek as schoolchildren going through the rote of a fire drill.

  Charley Fever left them there and quickly went downstairs, extinguishing lights en route and calling out instructions to the house guard.

  A breathless messenger met him at the first landing and reported the happenings outside. Charley sent the guy on up to carry the news to the top, then he descended to the glass-littered mess below.

  Some nut in a boat … getting his jollies with a high-powered rifle. That was how it sounded. It wouldn’t be Black Johnson’s niggers … not this way. But it was no time for snap judgments, and the security of a joint such as this one was not based on that kind of thinking.

  Actually, Charley Fever had no direct interest in the security at SCYC. The joint ran itself, with its own force and its own honchos; but Charley Fever was responsible for the skin of old man Vincenti, and there was no way to restrict the authority of that position. He found the housekeeper and gave him instructions for the staff, then he went through the clubroom and across the darkened threshold to the porch.

  The shooting had stopped. The house boss, a skinny veteran named Billy Castelano, was standing stiffly near the steps, peering down at something in the darkness below.

  Charley Fever stepped into something slippery and nearly lost his footing—then the odor hit him, and he knew that he was standing in human blood. Only then did he notice the crumpled form lying off to the side, less than a pace away.

  “What the hell …!” he exclaimed.

  “It’s Tommy Noble and Harry the Gook,” Castelano explained through stiffened lips. “Don’t look, Mr. Fever. Most of their head is gone.”

  “They got it in the head?” Charley Fever muttered. “Both of them?”

  “Yessir. Whoever it was sure knows how to shoot. And he must know it. To go for the head, from way out there …”

  “How far out there, Billy?”

  “Far enough that these boys never knew what hit them. They was dead before the sound got here.”

  “I didn’t know anybody had got hit,” the chief torpedo said, his voice subdued. “I thought it was just …” The voice got lost in the machinery of thought, then returned with “… in the head, uh?”

  At that moment the yard boss materialized from the shadows of the lawn to call up, “Maybe you better go back inside! We don’t know what the hell is going on here, yet!”

  Castelano jerked about and retreated across the porch, but Fever held his position to call back, “What’s it look like, Mickey?”

  “Hell, I dunno,” the yard chief replied. “All the incoming was from a boat.” He moved a couple of paces closer to add, “They turned tail and ran before we even got set. Joe and his boys are chasing them out on the lake. Don’t worry, nothing can outrun the Chris Columbus. He’ll catch the bastards.”

  “How many bastards you figure?”

  “God, I don’t know that, Mr. Fever. They only fired about seven or eight rounds. Some of those were at the gig. Sunk it. Tony Dollar and Pete Dominic were on their way out when the shooting started. They’re okay, I guess. I saw Joe stop and pick them up.”

  “How many dead men we got around here, then?” Charley Fever wondered aloud.

  “Three, sir. I guess you saw Tom and Harry. Also this new guy from the old country, this Roccobello kid.”

  “He get it in the head?” Charley Fever asked quietly.

  “Yessir. They all did.”

  “Yeah, they all did,” the boss torpedo echoed, his voice soft and curiously flattened. He joined Castelano at the door and pulled him inside. “Go upstairs and tell Sal I said he should stay in the strong room until he hears from me. Also, he should call his legal eagles, get them out here quick. Cops’ll be swarming in here soon, you can bet on that, and maybe even those fancy feds will take the excuse to horn in.”

  “Hell, we’re a legit security outfit, sir,” Castelano protested. “We got a right to defend the joint.”

  “Sure you have,” Charley Fever replied smoothly. “But the cops also have a legit right to investigate any shootings, so you scoot and tell Sal. We don’t want the bosses and their friends subjected to that crap, do we?”

  “Right. I’ll get the cars over on the quiet exit, too. Some of these amici won’t want to be around here when the bulls arrive. Check, sir, I’ll take care of the details.”

  “Do that,” Charley Fever said with a thin smile. He watched the house boss hustle away, then he turned to his own thoughts.

  Charley Fever had heard every one of those incoming shots. They all came from the same gun, and a hell of a big one. But one gun. That meant one gunner. And three good boys shot squarely through the head—dead before the bodies dropped—dead before they even heard the shot that kille
d them.

  That took some damned good shooting.

  At nighttime, yet.

  Sure, it sounded just like …

  He lit a cigar, then stared thoughtfully at the dying match as lights began coming back on throughout the house. Joe Venuchi was going to be coming back with his goddamn hot cruiser crew pretty soon, empty-handed and sheepish. Charley Fever knew that, and he didn’t need to look into any crystal balls for an answer like that.

  “Well, shit,” he said softly.

  Then Sal Vincenti’s good third arm retraced his steps across the messy porch and went down to the lawn to wipe the blood from his shoes.

  This was first blood, he was thinking.

  But a hell of a long ways, bet on that, from the last.

  For damn sure, deadeye Bolan had been here tonight. Yeah. And the hell was just starting.

  3: PENETRATED

  Mack Bolan’s war philosophy could be summed up in three rhyming words:

  Locate …

  Penetrate …

  Eliminate!

  Minutes into his first battle for Detroit, he was well along with that second stage of endeavor. He had been scouting this site for several days, studying it by day and by night—from land, water, and air. He had obtained building plans, landscape sketches, coastal surveys—everything that could add to his understanding of the problem. He had also studied old newspaper files, mug shots, police bulletins, and various items of quiet intelligence. He knew this enemy, and he knew their turf. He knew, also, the immensity of his task. This was no wild, amateurish adventuring into certain death. It was a carefully planned and flawlessly executed penetration of an enemy stronghold by a professional combatman. And, yes, the Executioner knew precisely where he was and what had to be done.

  Except for the lakeshore side, all boundaries of the property were protected by a ten-foot rock and mortar wall. It was constantly patrolled by armed “security police” in uniform. The only landward entrance to the estate was via an interlocking system that Bolan called “the chute”—two heavily manned electronic gates positioned in a tandem arrangement fifty feet apart, with high walls and catwalks above joining the two gatehouses. A third gate was designed for exit only. It was cleverly concealed in the north wall and could be opened only by a special system of interlocks from within.