Tennessee Smash

by Don Pendleton

  “Carl and me will get along just fine.”

  The Black Ace was sure of that.

  Yes. He was very sure of that. For as long as Nick Copa’s future might last.

  Which, after all, was saying not a hell of a lot.

  Epilogue

  Bolan checked in the rented car and stepped outside to the darkness of the service apron to await his pilot. He walked straight into Toby Ranger.

  She said, “Leaving without saying goodbye, Captain Chicken?”

  “Did you come all the way out here just to say it?”

  She wrapped an arm inside his as she replied, “No. I thought I’d give you one last chance.”

  “At what?”

  “At me. You don’t really have anywhere to go tonight, do you?”

  His regret was genuine. “I’m afraid so. Maybe there will be another time, Toby.”

  “Probably not,” she replied spiritedly. “Well okay. Don’t say I never offered. Uh, the others send their love. Carl got his call. He’ll be meeting with Copa at midnight.”

  “Good. That’s good.”

  “You’re quite a guy. Know that?”

  “Thanks. You’re quite a gal.”

  “All’s forgiven, then?”

  “What’s to forgive? We did the job, didn’t we?”

  She said, “I mean—well, you know. My mouth doesn’t always have it together. And I go a little crazy sometimes. It’s the damn work, I guess.”

  Yes. Bolan guessed that was true.

  “And to tell the pure truth, Mack—I guess I couldn’t get Georgette off my mind. That crazy night in Detroit. You know.”

  Sure. Bolan knew.

  “I was afraid you were going to find Carl or Smiley like—like you found Georgette. I knew you’d go crazy if you did.”

  Maybe so, yeah.

  “And that’s why I was so uptight. You know I love you. And you know that I worry about you.”

  No, he had not known that.

  He said, “Toby—”

  “No, don’t say anything. Nothing obligatory. I just wanted to … apologize.”

  Bolan grinned. “Must have been damned hard.”

  She smiled back. “Damned right.”

  He took her in his arms and kissed her; slowly, thoroughly; it was a very warm embrace. Certainly he knew where all of her was at. And he told her, “There’ll be other times, Toby.”

  “I know there will,” she whispered. “Take care of all that beauty, huh?”

  He said, “You too.”

  She faded quickly, then, like so many of Mack Bolan’s dreams.

  He was still looking at the spot where she’d stood when a heavy voice from the wall of the building declared, “She nearly nailed you that time, Striker. It was getting downright embarrassing.”

  The man who stepped from the shadows looked more like a Wall Street executive than what he really was: the ranking cop in the country, the one and only Harold Brognola, chief of the U.S. government’s official war against crime.

  Bolan shook a warm hand as he said, “Fancy finding you here. You’re a bit late. It’s all over.”

  Brognola grinned with the reply: “I’ve been here longer than you. Which says something for your methods, I guess.”

  “I got lucky.”

  “Baloney. Luck is something we make for ourselves. You make it all, guy. We thank you.”

  Bolan said, “You didn’t go to all this trouble just to tell me that.”

  “Course not. I thought I’d offer you an overview.”

  “Of what?”

  “You know how it is when you’re wandering through a forest? How all the trees look alike. I thought I’d give you a late picture of the forest.”

  “Okay.”

  “We don’t think you’ve seen it lately.”

  “Seen what?”

  “The forest. It’s looking cleaner now than at any time in recent history. Thanks to you, mostly. The whole thing is coming unglued, Striker. Ever since New York. That really hurt them. They’ve lost faith in themselves. And there goes the quote organization unquote. They’re scared, disoriented, afraid to trust anybody. And not a soul in Wonderland is reluctant to give you full credit for all that.”

  Bolan said, “Okay. Thanks for the vote. And thanks for the overview. But let’s get to the bottom line. What are you really telling me?”

  “We think maybe you broke their backs completely here in Tennessee. Or, that is, you’ve provided us with the tools to break them finally, forever.”

  “I can’t buy that, Hal. These guys are a long way from finished.”

  “Sure. That’s true. But it’s coming apart under them. This is the overview we’re trying to give you. Let me put it in your own language: we’ve just landed at Omaha Beach. The rest is preordained.”

  Bolan chuckled as he told the fed, “You wouldn’t be forgetting the Battle of the Bulge or any of that good stuff.”

  “Like I said, though, it’s preordained. The rest is pure mop-up.”

  “I hope you’re right,” Bolan said. “So where is that bottom line?”

  “We have a consensus that—you shouldn’t be wasting—you’re too effective a soldier to be wasting your talents on a mop-up. Other people can do that, just as well. Maybe better. There’s larger work waiting for you.”

  “Where?”

  “Just look around. The Mob isn’t the only devil loose in the land.”

  “Bottom line, Hal.”

  The chief fed sighed. “Hear it out. Don’t jump at me. I’ve, uh, again been authorized to make you an offer. It includes full, official forgiveness and total remission of sins. And a free hand.”

  “How free?”

  “As free as it can get under our form of government. You’ll report directly to the National Security Council. You will—”

  “That’s no good, Hal. Sorry.”

  “I asked you to hear me out, damnit. I report to the NSC, you know. What that means, bottom line, is that I report to the President. Okay. Unruffle a bit. What it boils down to is a new chair at NSC. That new chair is your chair if you want it.”

  “I’d make a lousy bureaucrat.”

  “So do I. So what? I don’t play their damn games, do I?”

  Bolan chuckled. “What’s the name of that chair?”

  Brognola hesitated a moment for a bit of dramatic play, then replied sotto voce, “Sensitive Operations.”

  It was Bolan’s turn to hesitate, but not from any dramatic considerations. He said, “SOG Chief, eh?”

  “You’ve got it. But it’s a brand new chair with its own authority. Equal to mine. What d’you say?”

  “I say it sounds interesting. If everything you’ve said is true.”

  “I wouldn’t shit you, guy.”

  No, Bolan did not believe that he would. He said, “Let me think it some.”

  “You would undergo an entire alteration of identity. But that should be a snap for you. And we’ve got the most bewildering damned problems facing us. We need—you’re the man—I don’t know anyone else could fill the job. And think of the positives. It would get what’s left of the Mob off your ass. Not to mention a million or so cops.”

  “What kind of problems?”

  “Huh?”

  “You said bewildering problems.”

  “Oh, hell. Pick them from the hat. International terrorism, for one. Political intrigues in emerging nations—there’s one that can spread to infinity. Sensitive military operations. Special diplomatic missions. You’d get the full territory.”

  “I couldn’t sit at a desk, Hal.”

  “You won’t have a desk, buddy.”

  “I’d have to pick my own key people.”

  “Naturally.”

  “You think the Mob is about finished, eh?”

  Brognola squeezed his neck as he replied, “More or less, yeah. We’d expect you to, uh, keep on top of any resurrections in that area, of course. And, look, you’re going to find echoes of the Mob in everything you touch. It’s th
e same war, guy, the same kind of enemy. You haven’t been fighting people, you know. You’ve been fighting a condition.”

  Yeah, Bolan knew that. He said, “Let me think it, Hal.”

  The fed shoved a thin briefcase at him. “The particulars are in here. After you’ve read it, burn it. Then sift the ashes and burn it again. Let me have your decision within twenty-four hours.”

  Bolan accepted the briefcase, gave the guy a solemn smile, then turned away and walked toward the waiting plane.

  SOG Chief, eh?

  A new identity. A new life. Maybe even a new hope. Like a reprieve and a restart.

  And end to the bloody last mile?

  It was, yeah, a hell of an interesting offer. And he would think it some. Very carefully.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Executioner series

  CHAPTER 1

  THE MARK

  The crosshairs of the sniperscope were centered on the hood ornament of a gleaming Cadillac El Dorado. A dozen or so other luxury cars surrounded the El Dorado, including several more Cadillacs in varied styles, a Mercedes, a couple of Continentals.

  Pulled up in front and probably awaiting a load was an empty semitrailer transporter.

  A large metal building in the near background was the recycling center for the largest stolen car operation west of New York. This one happened to be nestled in the gentle hills of northwest Kentucky, just outside Louisville.

  The tall man in black with the cool eye at the scope had watched as six “refurbished” vehicles rolled from the building to the loading yard during the past hour alone. It did not require a math whiz to compute the value of that one-hour production at somewhere around a hundred thousand dollars. Judging from the size of the building in which the refurbishing was taking place, the twenty-four-hour operation could easily produce six cars per hour right around the clock.

  There had not been time to fully scout the operation but the pre-intelligence suggested a typical major recycle. Freelancers would bring in the stolen product—probably most of it from the surrounding states of Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Ohio, West Virginia—for something like ten cents on the dollar, market value, maybe a bit more for highly favored models. Night deliveries, probably. The standard plant time for each vehicle would average no more than a few hours for cleaning, touchup paint, a general cosmetic renewal, new serial numbers and counterfeit paperwork.

  Bolan had been hearing rumors about this particular “plant” for months and had stumbled onto some fresh input while in Tennessee. Wholesalers Car Refinishers, Inc. was fronted by one Benjamin Davis, a “legitimate” businessman of Louisville. Real owner: Carmine Tuscanotte’s Underwriters’ Salvage Services, Inc.—an Illinois firm that came under the larger umbrella of North American Investment Services Corporation, which was owned jointly by Tuscanotte and Chicago hood James “Jimmy the Jump” Altorise. Included under that umbrella were a score or more of closely related enterprises such as used car dealerships in more than a dozen states, finance companies, collection agencies, auto wholesalers and transporters, a couple of auction yards.

  It was a sweet setup, yeah, and the illicit profits astronomical. The up-front losers were, of course, the nation’s insurance companies. Perhaps many people would shed no tears over that. But insurance companies never lose. The ultimate loser was the American motoring public—for whom the insurance premiums kept soaring higher and higher.

  Bolan knew that organized auto theft was milking billions each year from the U.S. economy—and that was concern enough, right there, of course—but his interest of the moment was not with auto theft but with the personalities bankrolling this particular operation. Both Tuscanotte and Altorise had “gone cool” recently, abandoning their usual haunts and submerging from both public and underworld view. The Chicago outfit had been in turmoil for a long time, hardly recovering from Bolan’s strike there before being torn by internal strife as inevitably the younger turks began jockeying for the reins of power.

  So the enemy had engaged itself in Illinois. Bolan had kept interested tabs on the developments in that area. His recent paralyzing strike on the national headquarters in New York had produced strong secondary effects in the Midwest—perhaps inspiring the rash of gangland hits in and around Chicago as uneasy Mafiosi moved to protect their flanks.

  There was no doubt whatever that Chicago remained the nerve center for organized crime in the nation’s midsection. But the scene there was too chaotic. Bolan’s personal feeling was that the real powers remaining behind the Chicago Mob had dispersed themselves to the hinterlands—lying low and cooling it while the street bosses fought it out for control of the petty territories.

  This was precisely why Mack Bolan was seated on a hillside in Kentucky, contemplating the probably effect of a quick blow to a multimillion dollar car-theft ring.

  He sighed with real regret as he chambered a hefty round into the impressive Weatherby .460 and took a final scan through the scope. The sun was about ten minutes into the sky, behind him. Several hundred feet below and about a quarter-mile away, the overhead door of the building was opening to disgorge another gleamingly “refinished” Cadillac. He found the hood ornament with the crosshairs, then made a calculated adjustment to an imaginary mark beneath that hood as he squeezed into the pull.

  The big round tore through polished metal and found vital involvement somewhere thereunder. The car lurched, wheezed, and died directly beneath the overhead door, black smoke immediately puffing out through the grillwork. He gave her a couple more in unhurried search as the driver broke clear and ran for cover deeper inside the building. The third round from the big Weatherby evidently found the desired mark as a small explosion sprung the engine hood and sent flames licking over it.

  People were scampering about down there, now, in confusion and panic. One guy had grabbed a fire extinguisher and was trying to get some CO2 under the hood of the stricken car. Bolan shook his head and sent that silly guy 500 splattering grains from the Weather-by. The big slug tore through the CO2 cylinder and ripped it from the guy’s grasp, inspiring saner thoughts and a quick retreat to the interior.

  Flames were beginning to lick the underside of the abandoned car when someone inside the building decided to lower the overhead door. Unfortunately the burning vehicle was in the way; the door had hardly settled onto the roof of the car when her gas tank exploded. The door tumbled from its tracks as the exploding vehicle leapt several yards deeper into the interior of the building, blowing much of her fire into the gasoline-paint-solvent-whatever-laden enclosure.

  An immediate chain reaction of explosions marked the effect there as Bolan grinned solemnly and went on with the destruction of the massed vehicles outside.

  Round after searing round came down off that hillside in a cooly methodical pattern that soon had every third car in flames, with ensuing firestorms reaching out to envelop the whole yard of expensive automobiles.

  The barrel of the Weatherby was too hot to touch when Bolan put her down for an assessment of the strike.

  It was enough.

  Much more than had been hoped for, actually.

  There would be no illicit product yield from this recycling plant today. Indeed, there was no more recycling plant. The whole joint was a roaring inferno, flames leaping spectacularly high through jagged holes in the metal roof, walls bowed and gaping from the intolerable pressures inside. Stunned men in work clothing were crouching in frozen groups at safe distances to watch helplessly as the doomed building devoured itself.

  Bolan also watched for a moment, then he retrieved his weapon, turned his back on all that, and strolled to the top of the hill.

  A Ford station wagon was parked in the grass there, beside a utility pole. A young woman was perched atop the roof of the wagon, her shapely legs crossed Indian fashion at the ankles, eyes glistening.

  “What’re you doing up there?” inquired the tall man.

  “The view is better,” she explained. “Like a ringside seat to the
burning of Rome. How’d you do that?”

  Bolan ignored the unnecessary question as he stowed the Weatherby. “Did he take it?” he asked the lady.

  “Yes, sir, he took it.” She detached a small tape recorder from the utility pole and handed the device to Bolan. “He called a number in the 812 area.”

  “Did the number record?”

  “Sure did.”

  Bolan grunted with satisfaction, rewound the tape, and punched the playback. The guy took it, yeah.

  “Put him on! Quick!”

  “Who’s this?”

  “It’s Ben Davis, dammit! Put him on!”

  “He ain’t here, Mr. Davis. You sound—maybe you better let me have it. This’s Harry.”

  Frantically, then, “Harry, we’re getting hit!”

  Pause; then, “Whattaya mean you—who—what?”

  “I don’t know! Somebody’s shooting us up! The whole place is going up!”

  “Is it feds or locals? Because if—”

  “It’s not a raid, Harry! It’s not a damn raid! It’s a hit!”

  Very quickly, then, “Awright, listen, cool it. Just cool it. Call that deputy and get his ass out there on the double! Save all the stuff you can but get rid of all the paper. Understand me? Burn everything that—”

  “I told you, it’s already burning! All of it, everything!”

  A sudden, inspired thought, then, from 812,

  “How much dirty product you got sitting around there, Ben?”

  “What? I got—what?”

  “You get in there before the firemen come, dammit! Throw acid on everything that’s still dirty! You know what I mean!”

  Very tiredly, “I know what you mean, Harry. Okay, I’ll try. But listen, dammit, we’re under fire. Those bastards are gunning us down! Must be a hundred of ’em up in the hills over our head! I want some damn—”

  That was the end of the conversation from the Kentucky side. The connection popped and sizzled briefly, then died away completely. The guy at 812 shouted a couple of times into the open line, then hung up muttering.

  The girl atop the station wagon beamed brightly at the tall man as she declared, “So that’s how you did it. A hundred of you, huh?”