A tense and jittery house boss danced halfway down the stairs to greet the runners, shouting to them: “What the hell are you doing! Get it on in here!”
A frozen-faced headhunter tossed him a cool glance and gave a hand signal to call the vehicles on.
Two of the runners circled to the rear of the house. The other two proceeded on along the drive toward the far end.
Mellini the Mick had never seen anything like this before. What did those guys think they had there?—a Presidential cavalcade, for Chrissakes!
The caravan picked up speed and then formed a wedge as the cars squealed to a halt beneath the portico. All doors opened at once, and the debarkation onto this strange turf was accomplished en masse. That mass split immediately, though, with two men jogging up the steps past Mellini without so much as a nod and other small groups moving off across those grounds like a slow-motion explosion of holiday fireworks.
A tight knot of them remained at the bottom of the stairs, quietly looking the situation over.
The house boss found his voice again to announce to that latter group, “I saw you guys cruise past. Didn’t you hear me yelling? Where the hell have you been all this time? Christ! Frankie said—”
“Who are you?”
The inquiry came from a cool-eyed dude who’d moved from the center of the group.
“I’m Mellini.”
The house boss had possibly been entertaining an exaggerated sense of his own fame—since that last visitor. The fall came cruelly.
“What’s a Mellini?”
“Uh … I’m the head cock. Where the hell have you people been? Frankie said you were coming right along. We’re thin as spring ice around here. And that damn guy has been running wild all over town.”
The cool dude was moving up the steps.
“Who is Frankie?”
“What d’you mean, who is Frankie! Aren’t you guys—”
Mellini the Head Cock found himself staring at another black playing card.
“Domino,” the guy announced coldly. “Who is Frankie?”
This was all very confusing, much too confusing for a guy who had been at the ragged edge of hysteria for going on ten hours now.
Mellini growled, “Aw, shit.”
“Tell your boss I’m here.”
Sciaparelli stepped onto the porch to say, “His boss already knows you’re here. And he’s glad you’re here. Come on in.”
Domino introduced his carbons. “This is Paul. This is James. And this is John.”
Mellini muttered, but no one heard, “And I suppose you’re Jesus.”
“Sciaparelli. Call me Ship; all my friends do. Come in, come in. First time in Atlanta? Too bad it has to be this way.”
The party was flowing across the porch and into the house. The two men who had first ascended the steps remained outside, pulling the door closed behind the party.
Mellini was growing more and more uncomfortable about the whole thing. He took his boss by the arm and savagely whispered, “Something’s haywire! Let’s check it out!”
Sciaparelli turned to Domino with a bland smile. “Just to keep it square, let’s see your marks, eh.”
Domino handed over an I.D. wallet.
They all went into the study.
Sciaparelli took his chair at the desk and picked up the telephone.
The others silently took places around the table as the boss of Atlanta made his verification call to the New York headshed.
The conversation was very brief. Sciaparelli read something from the backside of the playing card then scratched his cheek as the receiver rattled at his ear.
“So who is Frankie?” he asked solemnly.
The receiver rattled again.
He said, “Never mind, we’ll handle it,” and hung up.
He returned the wallet to the Black Ace and asked him, “Who is Frankie?”
The guy shrugged and put the wallet away. “There are many Frankies, Ship.”
“He was flashing a card just like yours. He came in here and took the place over. And he waltzed out of here with a very sensitive project.”
“When was all this?”
The Ship’s eyes flicked to the clock. “Maybe five hours ago. He supposedly brought a crew with him … like yours. They never showed. We were beginning to wonder.”
“You didn’t check him out?”
Sciaparelli asked, “How often do you get checked out, Domino?”
The guy spread his hands and smiled. “Tell me how he looked.”
“Big guy. Football shoulders, ballet hips. Cool and commanding. Dressed in a … what?—sports suit? Tan—beige, I guess. Hunting-style coat. Yellow shades on the eyes.”
Domino’s gaze shot to the lieutenant at his left hand. The other guy cocked his head about a millimeter and returned the gaze.
Mellini’s voice cracked as he cried, “Aw, hell no! It couldn’t be!”
“Yes it could,” Domino said, still locked in that gaze with his lieutenant. “The guy is solid class. He’d try it. We’ve been wondering about some of his past—that’s it, James. We make a note to table this when we get back. John? Paul? Make the note. Bolan has been masquerading as a Black Ace. We have to plug that when we get back if it falls to hell here.”
No one responded, except with the eyes.
Mellini sputtered, “I still don’t believe it.”
“Start believing,” Domino purred. “There’s another crack somewhere, too, very high in the woodwork. We were met.”
Sciaparelli said, “What?”
“He was waiting at the airport. Same guy.”
“When was that?”
“We landed at six.”
“That was four hours ago!”
Mellini howled, “What d’you mean, he met you!”
No one dignified that outburst with a direct reply. Domino was staring at Sciaparelli as he explained, “The hotshot tossed a legion of cops at us. We’ve been all this time getting clear.”
“How’d he do that?” Sciaparelli asked, awed.
“How did he take you over, Ship?”
“It’s scary,” the house boss muttered. “Spooky.”
“Maybe you didn’t hear,” Sciaparelli told Domino. “The guy tore through my downtown territory about an hour ago. He took five of my caporegimes with him. They all had bodyguards. They all died. I’m glad you’re here. Frankly, it’s out of my league, and I’m not ashamed to say it. I don’t care if you have to burn Atlanta again; I want that guy out of my hair. These aren’t just my interests, you know. All the men who sent you have investments here. I’m glad you’re here. My home is yours. My town is yours. Stop the guy.”
Sciaparelli got to his feet and strode from the room.
Mellini rose to follow him.
Domino purred, “Stay, head cock.”
Mellini stayed.
“Frankie, eh?”
“That’s what he said I could call him.”
One of the carbons quietly snickered.
“Okay, I should’ve known better, sure, but I didn’t. He even fooled Ship. I mean, he actually backed Ship down on a point dear to Ship’s heart. But I guess I should’ve …”
“Don’t feel bad,” Domino said smoothly. “He fooled me, too. I pegged him as an undercover Fed playing cute games. Okay. That’s all in the past. We’re working toward the future now. Tell me everything you know about our friend Frankie, head cock.”
Mellini was sweating, despite the forgiving words and soothing tone. These guys might bend him over a fire. They might pour salt down his throat and cement up his ass. And who would say nay to them? Ship had just handed them his town.
These supercocks from New York were not like the amici. Hell no. These supercocks were killer robots, programmed for one all-consuming mission. That mission was to protect and preserve the federation against its enemies—and against itself, even, should that need arise.
They were not Mellini the Mick’s friends, hell no, and not even the boss of Atlanta’s f
riends.
Not these guys.
They were the devil’s disciples, that’s what they were—James and John notwithstanding.
They lived for one thing now—Mack Bolan’s head. They intended to deliver it to the old men in New York—not to Ship, hell no.
And it wouldn’t matter to them how many other heads they wasted along the way.
Mellini cleared his throat and tried to steady his voice as he told the devil’s domino: “Hey, I want this guy as much as you do. I can close my eyes and see him right now—every little detail. I can describe the car he was driving when he left here, and I can even give you the license number. I have pictures of the broad he took with him, and I can tell you things about that doll to jiggle your eyeballs.
“You want patterns, shadings, marks—right? Okay. So get comfortable. I’m going to give you …”
Yeah. Damned right. Mellini the Mick was going to give those guys everything they ever wanted.
They weren’t amici, no. But they were, hell, his brothers—weren’t they?
Confidentially, though, Mellini the Mick liked Frankie quite a bit better.
11: Soundings
Bolan was in his “warwagon,” the specially equipped GMC motor home that served combination duty as battle cruiser, scout ship, and base camp. It was also the closest thing to a home the guy could claim. The big rig represented a six-figure investment—though it was paid for with enemy dollars from the war chest—and utilized the ultimate in space-age technology. (See: New Orleans Knockout.)
Optic and audio systems were activated as he rolled through the exclusive neighborhood in a pass on the Sciaparelli estate, recording the sights and sounds of the place as greatly magnified and enhanced by the sophisticated hardware.
He did not risk a second pass but continued on his course for the most direct connection to the interstate north, although his naked perceptions of the area had revealed nothing whatever of intelligence value. He had learned to trust the warwagon’s surveillance capabilities, and he was confident that a reduction of the electronic data would disclose details that lay beyond ordinary human sensitivity.
He programmed the scans as he drove on northward, so that the intelligence was ready for his personal evaluation by the time he arrived in the vicinity of his base camp on the southern shore of Allatoona Lake.
The warwagon’s “slot” was directly across a small inlet from the rented fishing cabin. As a routine precaution, he focused the barrel pickups of the audio surveillance system on the cabin and set the system for manual monitoring while he analyzed the intelligence from the Sciaparelli scans.
The ghostly mutterings coming through the audio monitors were buried in a background cacophony of magnified sounds contributed by everything from insects to sighing winds to distant engine noises. Bolan refined the focus, resolving the mutterings to the deep-well echoes of human voices.
There was no intent to eavesdrop on his new friends.
The intent was pure military caution, born of harsh experience in such matters. The situation appeared normal over there, however. The Georgia Cowboy and Miss Superskate seemed to be hitting if off okay, too, after that initially tense confrontation when Bolan first brought them eye to eye.
The cowboy’s voice came through the barrels as a deep rumble. “Guess I’m getting my third wind, or maybe it’s the fourth. Not even sleepy, anymore. But my stomach … God!”
The superskate came across like a talking doll: “I could make some sandwiches. Or I see he has some canned soup, too.”
“Oh naw, naw—thanks. Let’s go through it again. You say Shorty came out to the house last Tuesday. Take it again from there.”
“I’m sick of this, just sick of it!”
Bolan grinned and diffused the scan, consigning that conversation once again to the realm of ghostly mutterings. He went to work immediately on the intelligence readings. The video resolutions were quite good, but the audio yielded very little. He found a man on the roof and another in the bushes near the road, several more on foot patrols around the grounds. One face showed up remarkably clear at an upstairs window. It looked, at first, like Jennifer Rossiter but he knew that could not be so—deciding that it was Jennifer’s sister, Suzy Sciaparelli. There was a haunting quality to that face. Bolan sighed regretfully and continued his evaluation of the data. The full job required about ten minutes. Then he secured the systems, activated the electronic safeguards, and went to join his friends at the “cover” base.
The mission problems, as Bolan saw them, were both varied and confusing. There had been an escalation, of sorts, to this Georgia war. His primary goal, when first he descended upon this Southern stronghold, had been to harass and disrupt their trade lanes. He’d come in with heroin from Mexico and quickly found himself confronted with a billion-dollar annual traffic in other unlawful commodities, as well. Sciaparelli himself was a large question mark. The guy had no pedigree whatever that Bolan could discern. He neither was among the old men nor was he ranked with the young turks. Who and what was he, then, and from where had he sprung?
The usual sources of information had yielded very little on the guy. He had been the subject of a couple of quiet Federal investigations: nothing handed down, no indictments, not even a grand-jury subpoena. He was thought to have had links with Vannaducci of New Orleans but there was no hard link between the two. A reporter for The Atlanta Constitution had written a series of articles recently, regarding the “Dixie Mafia” in which Sciaparelli’s name was bandied about with frequent use of the cautious adjectives “alleged” and “purported.” The guy had no criminal record whatever, not even a traffic citation, and there was absolutely nothing in his past to tie him directly to a mob sponsorship.
And yet there was no doubt whatever that Charles Sciaparelli was the Mafia boss of Atlanta and surrounding regions.
The only clue to the pedigree was buried in the “business” background of the guy. He had a degree from Columbia, credentials with the New York Stock Exchange, and had once managed a large portfolio of investments for a syndicate cover group. But where did the pedigree begin? Couldn’t it have pre-dated the Columbia years, even? The mob had educated a number of fair-haired boys to finesse their complicated stratagems in the straight world—converting dirty money to clean and back to dirty again.
The New York mobs had been undergoing quite an evolution in recent years, with much unrest and shuffling about within and across family lines. Bolan himself had contributed rather dramatically to that unrest. Somewhere in there, in that confused and sometimes chaotic evolution of criminal empire, the boss of Atlanta had been born. Whole cloth, as it were.
Bolan suspected that the guy was nothing but a cover for one of the old men in New York—Marinello, perhaps, or one of the other more powerful capos—an open con on the other bosses, the extension of personal domain beyond normal boundaries. It was not an unlikely situation; it had been done before, many times. The intriguing aspect of all that, of course, was that the other bosses always knew they were being conned; by unspoken agreement, they were party to their own victimization at the hands of one of their peers. It was a funny world, this world of Mafia. The guys played games with themselves, curious games of deceit and intrigue, all the while proclaiming the sanctity of honor and brotherhood. Occasionally, one of them went too far, and he was either gently tapped back into line or blasted completely out of that curious world. It had happened time and again. The Sciaparelli “question” therefore loomed large in Bolan’s combat sensitivities.
Ecclefield had been absolutely correct in his assessment of the Bolan “motivational package.” It was no simple contest between casual head whackers. Mack Bolan’s very soul was committed to the contest; for this warrior, it was a question of who would operate the world: men or savages. It was not a political question nor even a moral one, and his war was certainly not a hate fest—not from Bolan’s point of view, anyway. In his understanding, it was the most important war ever fought by anyone, anywhere—a
nd it was therefore to be waged in the pure realms of extinction and survival. He could not afford to overlook any weapon, any stratagem, or any device that may turn the world toward an extinction of savages and the survival of men.
Not simple, no.
And Mack Bolan was not a simple man.
The lady was giving him a rather awed inspection as he removed his coat and came out of the gun-leather.
“Grover has been telling tales out of school,” she reported breathlessly.
Bolan grinned as he replied, “All to the point, I hope.”
The cowboy chuckled. “I’m an amateur general, you know. Been following your campaigns for a long time.” He shrugged. “She asked. I told her, between rounds.”
“What have you developed concerning our late little buddy?”
The girl and the cowboy locked eyes for a moment, then the guy laughed a bit self-consciously and said, “Well let’s cover the sensitive points first. Number one, they were not lovers. Number two, she did everything in her power to influence him away from Sciaparelli, not toward him. Number three, anyone who says she ever drove around totally naked in the superskate is a damned liar. She is not that stupid, that depraved, or that desperate for attention. Number four, I now fully accept the truth of points one, two, and three.”
Bolan’s comment to that was couched in the tones of a man who had been there himself. “Well, sometimes reputations are conceived in optimism, born of hope, and fed by unusual expectation. Are you sure about point three, though?”
Reynolds chuckled and replied, “I guess so, dammit.”
The lady complained, “Quit talking about me as though I’m not here.” The eyes crackled at the cowboy. “And I can take care of my own defense.”
“Just squaring the record,” Reynolds said lightly. He asked Bolan, “What’s going down?”
“Plenty,” Bolan growled. He grabbed the girl and hugged her roughly. Then he set her down and went to the bathroom to wash up.
Jennifer dropped dizzily into a chair, a hand at her forehead, and Reynolds leaned in the open doorway to talk as Bolan scrubbed.
“I’m beginning to feel like a cop again—even thinking like one. Listen—I’ve had to revise my image of Shorty, not that I don’t still think of him warmly. He’s still like a lost brother. But that little shit was into some heavy stuff, I think.”
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