Franciscus threw back the covers and leapt to his feet. "What?" he howled.
"You don't lay on your ass while this guy's in town! He'll jerk it right out from under you while you're liftin' your leg to pee! While you lay here sleeping in fancy pajamas, he's got the whole damned joint wired for sound! Don't you ever shake it down? Don't you have any goddam electronic security, for crissakes!"
Franciscus was stunned, dazed by the verbal attack. He directed a wavery gaze toward Mathews and commanded, "Coffee, Harve. Lace it good. Give some to the mouth here, too. Then sound reveille. Roll everybody out."
"Mr. Turrin has people running all over the penthouse," the exec reported as he moved toward a bar in the corner of the bedroom.
"He has what?"
"Damn right!" the liaison shouted. "We're shaking you down, jake! I was told that you limberdicks out here knew what you were doing! Listen, boy scouts in my town know better." He tossed a small, plasticized sphere, roughly the size of a quarter, onto the bed. "I walked right in outta the cold and picked that off one of your chandeliers! You know what that is, dammit? Do you know?"
"Bugged!" the Captain said in a hollow voice.
Turrin cried, "Ahhh shit!" and swaggered to the window, stuck both hands in his pockets, and turned his back to it all.
He had the guy shook, yeah. It could be an unnerving experience, awakening to something like that. It'd happened to Leo Turrin a time or two; he knew.
He lit his cigar and gazed into the night for a while, giving the "elite" time to compose themselves. When he turned back to them, Franciscus was dressed in pants and shirt, had a cigarette going, held a coffee cup in one hand and Bolan's bug in the other. Mathews stood stiffly to the side, eyes on the floor.
In a much milder tone, Turrin called over, "Ay. I'm sorry, eh. I shouldn't come in like that. I get too excited. Sorry if I fucked up the protocol or what d'you call it. But hey, I've had my boys out for hours, running this thing down."
"What do you mean?" Franciscus asked, the voice crisp, now — but not unfriendly.
Turrin waved the cigar in a circle and moved slowly back to the center of the room. "I can't expect a guy with your — I mean, you know, my boys knew all that crap before they got ten years old. Otherwise they'd never reached ten years old. Know what I mean? Street ways. You should get your boys to shaking this joint. Check the window ledges, inside and out. Even the walls outside. This's a top floor — right? Better check the roof. There's a relay rig somewhere around here."
"How do you know that for sure?" Franciscus barked.
"Common sense would be enough," Turrin replied loftily. "But I got more than that to go on. It's all-over the damn streets."
"What is?"
Turrin's tagman poked head and shoulders through the doorway and called in, "Hey boss."
"Come on in, Jocko."
The little guy had his hands cupped together, bearing a near overflow of quarter-size gadgets. He stepped up and deposited them on the bed, then went to stand behind his boss before reporting, "Chick sends it. He says he thinks it's clean now."
The Franciscus gaze jerked away from the embarrassing evidence. "What is all over the streets?" he asked, the voice dimming again.
"You have a guy named Helmann up here last night?"
A sick look briefly transited that military countenance.
Mathews jerked noticeably.
Turrin said, "Sure you did. The local cops know it. The feds know it. The whole damn town by now knows it. Bolan blitzed in here sometime last night and wired you. He recorded you and the Helmann guy in dark conference. The feds have that conversation, Johnny."
"Find that transmitter, Harve," the Captain quietly commanded.
Mathews moved quickly out of the room.
Franciscus showed his visitor a strained smile and said. "Well. I've heard of you, Leo. Mostly good. I'm very impressed. Just sorry to meet you for the first time with egg all over my face."
"It beats shit," Turrin replied, smiling sourly. "After a brush with this guy Bolan, most boys come off looking more that way — shitfaced, I mean. Look, it's your show. The men told me to stand by and assist. But you better do something quick. What's this I'm hearing about an island?"
The military gaze retracted then lashed across that room and seized Leo Turrin's lips. "What did you say?"
"God, you have a hearin' problem? You know what I said, dammit. My sources say that Bolan knows. He knows, guy. Have you studied this boy?"
"Not in depth, no. Nobody expected him to pop up here so soon. I'm getting a profile run on — "
"You better forget the damn profiles and concentrate on the guy. He has popped, see. And you better start scrambling. You better grab your balls. Translation: take care of the things you prize the most. The guy will be laying all over you before daylight. Take it from one who's been laid enough already to know."
Franciscus snapped an anguished gaze to his wristwatch. He whirled and went to the window. "He couldn't know," he muttered. "Nobody knows."
"The street knows, Johnny."
"Did the old men tell you about the island?"
"I never heard of it until an hour ago."
"What did you hear?"
"Just that. An island somewhere. Bolan hiring himself a fast boat. He's propping an assault of some kind. Buying weapons. Big ones. You better get set, bub. Or else tell me and let me. The men sent me out here for one damn reason. Protect the investment. We know what this boy can do. They sent me because I know how. Now I can't go back there and tell them I stood here and watched you piss it all away."
"You'll tell them nothing!" Franciscus snarled.
Turrin rocked on the balls of his feet and turned a deliberate gaze onto his tagman. "Tell the boys we go," he ordered.
The little guy nodded uncertainly and hurried out.
Turrin told the quivering Captain, "I don't work for you, bub. It's the other way around. You keep your ass in your hand and remember who pays your goddam bills. Either you got a firm grip or you ain't. If you have, then you guide that ass out of here and you by Jesus get something to moving. I mean now!"
It was obvious that Captain Franciscus was not accustomed to this kind of talking-to.
The muscles of his jaw were twitching and the eyes were blazing mad.
Harve Mathews loped into the room, defusing that confrontation with a breathless report.
"Got it! Had a hunch, Cap — that helicopter. Found it right there!" He was holding out a small box that could have been a cigarette case with a tiny antenna projecting from the top.
Either it was the final straw, or it served as an excellent face-saver for the Captain.
"Sound the alert, condition red!" he snapped. "Call the bosun, get the boats fired up! Reveille those new men, send some cars! I want a full formation at the pier within thirty minutes! Alert the armorer, get a truck to the pier, full combat weapons and rounds for two hundred men! Call the island! Talk to Presley personally. Tell him to double the patrols on the beaches! Get a weather report! Okay, move it!"
"That sounds more like it," Turrin said, sighing, as the executive officer double-timed it out of there.
"We know how to handle a situation," the Captain sneered. "Tell that to your old men."
Turrin swept out of the penthouse with his crew in tow, entirely pleased with himself. He would, of course, tell the old men nothing. The "hard work" was over. The rest would be up to Bolan ... and his direct solution to a very complex problem.
At that very moment, Harold Brognola was working a complex problem of his own, in the duty officer's office at the Bremerton Naval Barracks.
"You tell your C.O. that I'll have complete verification via the Pentagon — or the Joint Chiefs, if that's what he wants — before a single boat moves. Meanwhile, though, I want the cogs turning. If I don't have at least ten amphibians on the line and ready to roar in thirty minutes, somebody's tit will end up in a very tight ringer. You tell him that."
"Yes sir. The C.O. under
stands the urgency, sir. He'll be here personally in ten minutes, sir."
Brognola glowered at the young ensign for a moment, then clasped his hands together and moved away from there.
The weather was beginning to break. Forecast calling for an early general lifting, entire coastal regions.
Some break!
Tit in the ringer? It would be cock n' balls n' all, Brognola's — not somebody's — if Bolan didn't pull the thing just right.
God! Tactician, hell! The guy was carrying the whole burden, all of it. And all the nation's third cop could do was pace and sweat.
20
Hard touch
"Wish I could talk you out of this," Grimaldi groused. "You're even losing your weather cover. Ceiling's up to about a hundred feet now, in spots. NAS says rapid clearing."
"Worry about getting yourself in and out, Jack. If you think you can't, say so. We'll consider an alternative. But I am getting in there."
"Hell I can get in and out. I've taken these babes down in the middle of enemy encirclements many times. That's not the point. The point is — "
"I have to get in, Jack. That's the point."
"Okay, okay."
The little chopper was specially prepped for the mission. The personnel door on Bolan's side had been removed and left behind. His seat was gone, as well as a section of floor and outer skin beneath his feet.
Bolan was now crouched at the edge of the hole, gazing down through the skids at the choppy waters of Puget Sound. He was rigged for heavy combat, armed to the teeth, burdened with a load nearly equal to his own weight.
A backpack alone hauled fifty pounds of "goop" — plastic explosives. Double utility belts crossed the chest, supporting dangling grenades and other munitions of blazing warfare.
The .44 AutoMag rode position of honor at his right hip. Numerous reload clips for the weapon were grouped to either side of the holster within easy reach.
Head weapon for the mission was Bolan's favorite heavy piece — the M-16/M-79 over n' under combo. The '16 spat a hot trail of 5.56 mm tumblers in auto or could be fired as a semiauto. The 79 was a hard-punch piece, breechloaded and versatile, handling rounds of high explosive, fragmentation, smoke, gas, flare, or double-aught buck. With any load, she was hell in hand. For the moment, the double weapon was strapped across the back of his shoulders, secured.
Grimaldi fiddled with his headset and announced, "Ceiling now is one fifty and sloping high. We'll have to drop through at least two hundred feet of clear to set you down. It's going to be tense."
Bolan replied, "I leave it to you, Jack. Scrub it if you must."
"No, hell no. I'll get you in. Rather do it this way than drop you from four thousand feet." He chuckled nervously. "I was always a sucker for grunts, especially you teeth-baring gung-ho types. I'm climbing up top, now. We're getting close."
Bolan smiled at the guy in complete understanding, then began mentally reorienting himself to the lie down there.
A moment later the phones crackled with a report on the air/ground channel. "Low Boy to High Boy. Anybody there?"
It was Leo Turrin, in the warwagon.
Grimaldi punched the channel selector and gave Bolan a visual go-ahead.
"Go ahead, Low Boy," Bolan replied.
"Okay, they're sprung and scrambling. Give it about one hour from this moment for them to organize and get there."
Bolan punched the mark on his wrist chronometer. "Roger, understand one hour from now. Thanks, Low Boy. We're going."
"That's good. I'm about went. Now moving the vehicle to backdrop position."
"Roger."
"Tally ho, man."
"Thanks, stay hard."
Grimaldi returned the setup to intercom and asked, "Who's our friend?"
"Best left nameless, Jack," Bolan replied.
''Gotcha. Okay, get set. We should be about a thousand yards uprange. 'Bout time to hit that flare. Your wind is ... yeah, okay, right on our tail. Let it go at my mark."
Bolan extended a flarepistol through the open doorway.
"Mark!"
The pyrotechnic whizzed off in a straight-horizontal trajectory, headed upwind. It had a long fuse. In a moment, the parachute would open and the flare would descend far to their rear, breaking the cloud cover over water and coming down on the forward shore. Hopefully. It was purely a diversionary move. Bolan intended to set down in the quiet area to the rear. He simply wanted a brief moment with most eyes on that island directed the other way.
Grimaldi was now executing a wide circle and losing altitude rapidly.
Bolan poised himself at the opening in the floor and reported, "Headset coming off, Jack. I'll be on visual."
"Right. Watch yourself. I'll give you all the running room I can. But drop at your own discretion. Your view will probably be better than mine. Good luck, man. Like the guy said, tally-ho."
Bolan snatched off the headset and raised a fist to his flying friend. Then he bent headfirst through the floor opening, steadying himself outside by a skid strut.
The mists dissolved in a flash. Land appeared, darkly. Buildings rose up in fuzzy outline.
Far ahead, brilliance was breaking the cloud cover and descending in a gentle float through open skies.
The little craft lurched, rose slightly, dropped greatly, lurched again — then spinning and side-slipping in a steady drop. Earth was whizzing by. Fencing flashed past, barely off the skids. Bolan launched himself, seizing the skid in both hands as though it were a parallel bar at the neighborhood gym, swinging, now hanging vertically. Toes dragged slightly — legs pistoned up with knees bent, and he let go.
He hit the earth running, then stumbled under the momentum with too much weight — fell — slid to rest.
Already the chopper was out of sight, its sounds a distant thumping upon the night.
Bolan pulled himself to a crouch and tested his working parts.
All systems were go. No hurt more serious than a skinned knee. All weaponry intact. Those plastics, thank the fates, still inert.
Things were happening up front, though. People in fast movement, shouts, the coughing of an outboard motor. The diversion was working.
He jogged toward the sounds, thudding at every step with the extra weight, then broke toward the cover of the buildings.
Other feet thudded ahead. Bolan stepped into the lee of the building and froze.
A voice, pretty close, called out, "Okay, but I swear I heard a chopper!"
Said another, obviously a leader with rank, "You'll be hearing a bullet in the belly if you don't follow orders! Get out there and back up those beach defenses!"
The feet thudded away.
A radio, directly ahead, squawked briefly with some unintelligible message.
That leadership voice responded. "Wilco, I already did. Compound's about stripped clean though, Jerry. I'd hate to have to handle any serious threat in here."
Another squawk, then the reply: "Roger. Be glad when they get here."
So would Bolan. The mighty 200. Not, however, until he had properly prepared their reception.
He'd be preparing nothing whatever if he remained pinned here. He moved on. That guy up there was no more than an indistinct shadow in a deeper shadow when he suddenly stiffened and turned in half-visible profile, with Bolan still several paces back.
"Got a light?" Bolan asked casually.
"Who the hell is that?" the guy demanded, irritably startled.
Bolan hit him from two paces out with a judo kick to the groin and a simultaneous straight arm to the throat. The soldier went down with a faint squawk as the only sound. Bolan finished the silent job with a nylon garrote, pinning the victim with his knees as he took key ring and radio then moved quickly on.
No — there would be no soft touches on this visit.
This one was for keeps.
Another lone human barrier stood quietly at the front of the center building, head cocked slightly to one side as though listening intently to distant sounds
, his back to Bolan.
The Executioner called over, "Hey!" and the guy spun around just in time to catch the stiletto in his throat. He dropped his auto and stood there bug-eyed, hands to his throat, then toppled over.
Bolan stepped over to the door, found the proper key, and pushed inside. A battery lantern at the head of the stairs was throwing a soft light. He moved the two dead soldiers in there and left them in a dark corner, then took the lantern and descended toward the mission goal.
Ten minutes later, Bolan was completely satisfied that he knew all the secrets of the installation — all that were readable, at any rate. The work was nowhere near half-completed. Three large chambers had been hollowed out, one beneath each building. Only the central chamber was at any degree of finished work. Tunnels ran off at a dozen angles from the central core but led nowhere — perhaps one day they would have.
He found a supply shaft above the room that lay beneath the east building — and up there, in that building, he located the main powder storage.
And yeah, Hal old worry wart, there was a bundle on hand.
Then began the arduous and time-consuming task of moving the TNT into position for the big event.
At forty minutes past touch down he was shaping plastic detonators and implanting time fuses. He ran out of numbers during this period, knew it, but kept on until the task was complete.
It would be daylight up there now, or at least the early stages of the transition from night to day.
If the weather-guessers were right this time, there would be no more heavy atmosphere except for a thin layer relatively high.
Grimmest of all — the Terrible 200 should now be on board. And there sat Bolan in an underground vault, with many tons of TNT for company, set to go in a matter of minutes.
He regrouped himself in the central control room, chose his weapons with care, balancing delicately the trade-off of weight versus effect, and made himself ready.
At precisely sixty-five minutes into the mission, he erupted onto the grounds of that joint with the bellowing 79 poised and ready.
If the Fates watched over angels and fools, Bolan did not have to wonder about his particular category of care.
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