“I have to get to my vehicle,” he told the lady. He hurried over to rouse the sleeping youth, felt his head, and called back to the woman: “Tell him we’re buying that snow cave. I’m tucking you both away for the night, then I’m jumping off.”
Jumping off, yeah—maybe straight into the pits of hell. And time out of frame could, for damn sure, screw a guy up. It had all been there, from the beginning, looking at him from the disconnected pieces of the jigsaw puzzle scattered across the infinite floors of time.
A suck plan, sure, in which Bolan was both the sucker and the suckee. A regional strike force, yeah, with every law enforcement agency in the area tied up and roped in for the hunt on Bolan’s head—a military diversion plan, dammit, pure and simple, nothing else. Even the treasury boys, according to Brognola, had been siphoned off to the preoccupations of the Bolan chase, while a formidable military machine geared itself for the primary strike.
So how many personal bodyguards customarily accompanied the president on his jaunts around the country? How many could trot along the ski slopes with him? What sort of actual protection could the presidential detail offer against combat troops and military armor?
Bolan had not been able to figure the mob’s interest in all this. Why, for God’s sake, hit the president? For what possible profit? But, then, the other question had kept edging in, also: why a military force? why all this commitment of arms, money, and men? why a military combat team if the only goal is to assassinate an individual? A sharpshooter could do the job, especially out here on these “big sky” slopes, with much more precision and certainty. Why make a military operation out of it?
What was it Harrelson had “offered” during that one-way conversation in the blind zone? A general’s stars? In what army? Had the guy really been straighting it?
The answers banging around inside Bolan’s skull were all too wild, too grotesque, entirely too far out to even merit consideration—but they were there, dammit, and they had arisen from the puzzle itself. He had to consider them, and he had to find a few more pieces to the puzzle.
The diversion had undoubtedly worked. Bolan had seen at first hand the total mobilization of police forces, down on the flats, and Brognola had confirmed that someone had engineered a minor bureaucratic miracle to get all those diverse offices marching together.
A diversion of another sort, also, had almost immobilized Bolan himself. And, no, Frank Harrelson was no idiot. He must have assumed that Bolan had taken the two civilians under wing. He’d obviously known Bolan better than Bolan knew himself. The sucker in the white hat would find himself torn between the dictates of conscience—and, yeah, the black hats always exploited that weakness of civilized men.
Except that it was not really a weakness.
Bolan might have gone floundering off into the blizzard, defying hostile and unfamiliar mountains, and thus taken himself completely out of play—except for that commitment to a couple of helpless civilians.
But, sure, Harrelson had read it as a weakness. So, give the smartass his conscience on isolated turf, let him play big brother and nursemaid to the weak and needy while the killer force moved into final position for the payoff strike.
But the “cornpone colonel” from Arkansas had been guilty of a basic miscalculation of human nature, especially of Mack Bolan’s human nature.
There was more than one way to cock a white hat.
And Bolan knew all the positions.
17: FOR THE DEAD
The wind had calmed and the snowfall slackened to a moderate drop. The stuff was light and powdery and seemed to hang suspended in the calm air. The temperature had dropped dramatically, as well, and Bolan found the face mask entirely comfortable. He did not look too unlike the sentries who glided silently about the plateau in hooded parkas with snow clinging to them everywhere, but he did not wish to push too far in that direction. These troops were playing the game the way it was written; undoubtedly they had recognition signals and other means of ready identification.
Visibility was fair now. Objects could be seen from a distance of about a hundred feet, clearly defined at fifty feet. Lights were showing here and there, voices drifted across the flats, men were in motion in and around the house.
Bolan had not suspected that any of this would be quick or easy. His game was necessarily a soft one, depending entirely upon patience and perserverance. Each minute spent, though, was a minute for the other side. He could not afford to probe and reconnoiter the entire night away. Yet he had known also that the quiet game was the only one available to him—and the longer he played it, the more certain became that understanding.
Two full hours had elapsed since he’d tucked Undy and her brother into a safe womb and bade them farewell. During that time, he had scouted the forward perimeter and ascertained that it was, indeed, seemingly impenetrable. Ski patrols with walky-talkies were manning the slopes above the plateau. And there was very little slope up there, a football field’s length, perhaps. Wheeled vehicles patroled the top. The narrow roadway, leading up to U.S. 40 a quarter-mile away, was blocked by a half-track. Elsewhere the plateau ended at vertical cliffs which would defy the most determined Alpine climber.
No quick and easy solutions, no, for sure.
He had considered and rejected several. One: to seize a scout car and blast his way out, crumpled under the argument that he could not both drive and blast at the same moment. The scouts carried 37 millimeter cannons, which was firepower enough, and they held their feet good in the snow—but they were not one-man vehicles. The other cars were fully crewed, and their feet would be just as good on the snow as Bolan’s. He would not get far.
Another rejected plan was to rush the house, blast it with grenades, put a pistol to Harrelson’s head and allow him to clear the way out. There was no assurance, though, that Harrelson himself would survive the grenade attack. And there was no assurance that the plot against the president would die with Harrelson.
For the moment, the quiet game was all Bolan had.
He could but wait and watch, bide his time, and seize whatever opportunity might arise.
At ten o’clock he watched the search parties begin their move against the lift house and outfit shop, and again he found reason to respect their military craft. No sloppiness there, no amateurish adventuring, but methodical execution of a soldier’s job. Afterward, he listened to their reports regarding the warm stove in the outfit shop, the pan of tea, the evidences of habitation. They also found the false trail downslope which Bolan had carefully manufactured, and he took heart in their reaction to that.
“Looks like they went down the mountain, Lieutenant.”
“How long ago?”
“Had to be after the front passed. From the degree of fill, I’d say maybe two hours ago.”
“How long have you been skiing, Arnold?”
“Seven years, sir.”
“Would you tackle that mountain tonight?”
“By choice? No, sir.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not sending you. I was just trying to measure the degree of desperation that sent them that way.”
“I’d say pretty desperate, Lieutenant. I’d call it one chance in a hundred just for survival. And if they survived the slope, then there’s still …”
A third man joined the conversation. “They’re nowhere, Lieutenant. One of them is hurt, too. We found blood on a makeshift bunk in the tack-room. I’d say a leg wound and I’d call it Bolan. Looks like the other two were doctoring him. They built a fire right under our noses and rode out the storm. Then they split as soon as the visibility improved. That kid is a whiz on skis, I hear. Picked up an Olympic medal when he was only fifteen. But I’m with Arnold. I wouldn’t challenge that mountain tonight if I had a chest full of medals. And sure as hell I wouldn’t try to crutch along a wounded man.”
“Very well. Resume your patrol, Sergeant. Rotate your men at fifteen-minute intervals. We’ll set up a two-section watch at midnight. I want all hands fresh for th
e push off.”
“Aye, sir.”
Bolan read a glimmer of opportunity unfolding, from that exchange. He continued the quiet watch, with “Sergeant Arnold” as the focus of that watch.
The moon broke through the deteriorating overcast an hour later. By that time, Bolan had a pretty good ear to the military posture of that base camp. The guys were beginning to relax, toning down, coming off the high moment, settling and looking ahead to the adventures of the morrow. He followed the “rotation” of the ski patrolmen with an ear to their recognition signals—and, at thirty minutes before midnight, he took a “warm break” with them, joining two other cold-numbed skiers for hot coffee and cigarettes at the snack wagon.
By midnight, the enemy had increased its numbers by one—and the new recruit was one of those volunteering for “first watch—Alpha Section.”
The new sergeant of the guard was a guy called Scovic. He and the new recruit hit it off immediately when the latter quietly suggested a “layered command” for the onerous duty of checking the guard.
“We can alternate the rounds. I’ll take the first one.”
“Sounds okay, yeah. What’d you say your name is?”
“Pulaski. I’m on Arnold’s team.”
“Oh yeah. Okay, Pulaski, move ’em out and keep ’em on their toes. Mine are about froze off and I guess theirs are, too.” The sergeant happily removed himself to the command van and “Pulaski” began the posting of the guard.
There really was a Pulaski, a very tired and cold young man with a constantly running nose who unwittingly had shared coffee and conversation with Mack Bolan before trudging off to a warm bunk and a couple hours of deserved rest.
And now the substitute Pulaski was posting the enemy’s guard, setting their posture for the next two hours and—hopefully, the universe willing—for the rest of their lives on earth.
The Executioner had made his opportunity. The rest would be in the hands of whatever force shaped human destiny.
It was two o’clock on a blustery Washington morning when an official government limousine pulled beneath the canopy at National Airport. A heavily bundled figure with hat tugged low and coat collar turned up hurried from a darkened alcove and jumped into the rear seat. The limousine continued on around the exit ramp as Leo Turrin nervously lit a cigar and told his primary contact: “This one is a gut buster, Hal. I had to come.”
“I know,” Brognola replied.
“Who’s your driver?”
“He’s okay. What’s too hot for the hot line, Leo?”
“They’ve got bugs on your telephones.”
“Hell, I know that.”
“All your telephones, Hal. I had the rare privilege a few hours ago of listening to a playback from your scrambler line.”
“How are they getting it?”
“You tell me, buddy. All I know is, they’re getting it. You’ve got a leak at NSC.”
The electric tension in the atmosphere of that vehicle had stepped up considerably but Brognola was showing none of it in his voice as he replied, “Diminishing returns.”
“What?”
“It’s the point we’ve reached in government. You’ve heard of the rise and fall of civilizations? That’s how it happens. It gets too big, too unmanageable, too ungovernable. And you reach the point of diminishing returns. That’s where we’re at, Leo. Systemized paranoia. Nobody trusts anybody. We all suspect everybody. When everybody’s doing it, how the hell do you know which ones have the right and which don’t? You don’t know, that’s the answer. The automatic checks and balances are gone, they don’t exist. Big Brother is everybody.”
“Okay. But the Big Brother I’m talking about is Augie Marinello. And he has access to the most sacred conversations in this town. You’d better find the hole.”
“Maybe I already have,” Brognola muttered. “What do you hear from Bolan?”
Turrin bit savagely into his cigar and muttered an unintelligible reply.
“What was that?”
The little guy removed the cigar, sighed, and said, “I’m afraid we’ve lost him, Hal.”
Brognola put a hand to his forehead and leaned forward in the seat. “How do you make that?”
“He missed all the scheduled contacts over the past twelve hours.”
“There’s a blizzard in Colorado, Leo.”
“Not for the past five or six hours. The pilot on that plane I just came in on says there are stars over Colorado at this moment. It’s clear and calm. Most noticeable of all, Hal, there are no fireworks over Colorado—and there haven’t been since mid-morning. It is now midnight in the mountains. Two hours ago, the old men in New York were dancing a jig on a proxy grave. They dumped ice cubes on the floor, Hal, and gave the traditional toast to a fallen enemy.”
Brognola muttered, “Goddammit. That’s what you really came to tell me, isn’t it.”
Turrin sighed. “I guess so. We knew it had to come. We knew the guy couldn’t do it forever, Hal. But Goddammit—Goddammit—!”
The driver caught Brognola’s misery in the rearview. He cleared his throat and started to say something, then changed his mind.
“Get it off your chest, Parker,” Brognola growled.
“I’m not buying it, sir. They’ve danced over his grave a couple of times before. I’m not forgetting Vegas, sir.”
“It’s different this time,” Brognola muttered. He opened his briefcase and handed a file to Turrin. The capo mafioso switched on the reading beam and studied the report in silence.
His eyes were grim when he handed it back.
Brognola quietly said, “He was facing an entire army of Mack Bolans out there, Leo.”
Turrin unashamedly dabbed at his eyes with the corner of a handkerchief. “Too bad that isn’t true,” he said. “The world could use a few hundred Mack Bolans. Now there are none. So what do we do about the imposters? How do you approach a force like that, Hal?”
“Very carefully,” the fed replied through wooden lips. “There are, uh, delicate considerations of government. I believe it deserves cabinet-level response, if my suspicions are solid. The president is out of town.”
Turrin made a disgusted sound deep in his throat and asked, “Where is he now?”
“Mixing business with pleasure in California. Goes on to Colorado tomorrow on a family holiday.”
“Isn’t that ironic.”
“Yeah. The treasury boys have been eyeing that situation out there.” Brognola cast an oblique glance of the eyes at his companion. “Maybe they have a hotline to the battle zone that I don’t have. Early this afternoon they were considering a recommendation that the president bypass the Colorado date for the present. A few hours ago they scrapped that recommendation.”
“Maybe it was just a weather watch,” Turrin suggested.
“That, too, but you know how nervous they get over potential fireworks. No—I think somehow they got the word on our friend.”
The little capo from Pittsfield sighed heavily. “Hal, I haven’t tied one on in seven years. I think I’m due. Can I borrow a bedroom from you? And a couple of bottles?”
“First, let’s talk about my bugged telephones.”
“You’re a cold-blooded shit, aren’t you.”
“I try to be. I’ll cry tomorrow, Leo. For now, I need—”
Turrin again sighed and withdrew a folded paper from his inside coat pocket. “This will cover it. And if you insist on a working wake, I have another little item of possible interest. Gold.”
“What?”
“I said, gold, the yellow stuff, the rare metal that turns the world on. Where do you suppose the old men are planning on finding a billion bucks worth of the stuff?”
Brognola fluttered his eyes and said, “Come again?”
“A billion—one thousand millions.”
“What are you saying?”
Turrin slouched deeper in the seat and gnawed at the tip of his cigar. “I don’t know what I’m saying. Except that the flap of the hour,
at the New York headshed, is how best to handle, store, and convert one billion bucks worth of shiny yellow metal.”
“Where the hell would they get that much gold?”
Turrin shrugged. “That’s not the worry. I take it they already got it. The problem now is what to do with it.”
“That’s a lot of shit, Leo.”
“It’s a king’s ransom, Hal. Now, if you want to work through the wake, I suggest you start looking for the king and wondering where the ransom is coming from.”
“Are you talking about a snatch?”
“Naw, hell naw, I’m talking about one billion in gold. It was a figure of speech. Who could come up with a billion-dollar ransom? That’s the whole point. This is for real, Hal. They’ve got a gold problem—a billion-dollar problem.”
Brognola was giving him an odd stare. Turrin stared right back and asked him, “Do we keep gold reserves at the Denver mint?”
Brognola maintained the eye contact as he replied, “No. Is this billion bucks in gold tied somehow to the Colorado thing?”
“I believe somehow it’s tied to Bolan’s wake,” Turrin said.
“How the hell could that be?”
Turrin’s gaze wavered and fell. “I don’t know. The bounty was up to a cool million bucks, but that was coming from all over and it’s already in the hat. They don’t need to bust gold to raise it, it’s already raised. But the gold flap started, Hal, with the death dance.”
“I wonder,” Brognola said darkly, “if it’s too late.”
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