Pendleton, Don - Executioner 17 - Jersey Guns

by Pendleton, Don

  Bolan left few survivors in his wake who could provide any sort of coherent description of the man. Since the face job by Doc Brantzen, early in the wars, there were no official photographs of the blitzing warrior. From an occasional and brief eyeball encounter with the law, here and there, various police artists had rendered composite sketches which bore a resemblance—but only a resemblance—to the man in black.

  Of course, as Bolan had learned long ago—as far back as that other war, in 'Nam—most people "see" with a clarity and precision which is nowhere in the class with photographic film.

  A truly "photographic mind" was a human rarity.

  The human mind, Bolan had discovered, was a paradox of itself—a living dimension of space-time, which also, odd as it may sound, created space-time.

  More than two thousand years before Einstein, a Greek dude of the old world had observed that, "The world is composed of nothing but atoms and voids. All else is illusion."

  And the observation was true, even in this modern age of scientific brilliance. It was, in fact, truer than ever. The deeper the scientists probed into the heart of "matter," the, more stark became the reality that the world is indeed composed of little more than

  "atoms and voids"—with the accent on voids, or nothingness—sheer energy, arrested here and there in sub microscopically frozen bits that the brilliant minds labelled "matter."

  Put a couple hundred billion of those arrested bits together in a loosely packed mass, and maybe you've got an atom. Keep putting billions upon billions of atoms together and maybe you'll come up with something which the human mind can perceive— something to "see" or "touch" or "smell" or "hear."

  Sure. Bolan was no science-theoretician, but he could understand such things.

  The "mind" becomes aware of what the sense perceptions allow inside; and, conversely, the sense perceptions allow inside—to a large extent—only what the "mind" has already been programmed to recognize. Few men living would even claim to understand what the "mind" actually is.

  And who had ever actually "seen" a spring breeze?

  You felt a movement of something across your skin, sure. Maybe you saw a motion within the branches of trees or in the blades of grass at your feet, and maybe you picked up an odour perception of blooming things which was carried along in that "breeze."

  But all you saw were effects. You never saw that rustling movement of molecules in transit.

  And few people ever saw Mack Bolan—not enemy people, anyway. They experienced his effect. They usually saw no more than something dark and deadly, moving swiftly like a breeze through the limbs of trees and shaking things up and moving them around and scattering them in its path.

  And this, of course, was what they "recognized": the effect, the motion—the frightening, mind-numbing, terrifying vision of death in motion.

  During those other moments when Bolan chose to walk among them, he was a careful blending of other familiar perceptions. He was "one of the boys" or "just a delivery guy" or "the telephone guy" or something equally innocuous. Sometimes he was a "boss" image, fearful in its own right, benumbing to some minds, perception-scattering through its imputed power over life and fortunes.

  And the mob's own modus operandi contributed to Bolan's success with such masquerades. An organization which is based on fear, secrecy, deception, and brutality has a price to pay for the use of those lower attributes. Bolan collected that payment whenever the time seemed right.

  And that time seemed right, once again, at this moment in the shrouding Jersey night.

  A crew wagon with only one guy inside pulled casually into the little lane and rolled to a quiet halt a few yards short of the chain suspended across the gateway to the place called Boots and Bugle.

  Three men stood there, one on either side and the other at dead centre. There was a tension in the air there, an alertness mingled with nervousness.

  The middle guy stepped down to stand beside the door on the driver's side of the Cadillac, eyes roving the interior of that vehicle.

  The window slid down under silent electric power, and the man in there asked the gate boss, "Do you have a light? Four cigarette lighters in this bomb, you would think that one of them would work."

  That voice was collegiate New England, calm, relaxed. The guy was wearing sharp threads, a damned scarf, really, lightly tinted sunglasses—at night, yet.

  The gate boss hastily dug into a shirt pocket and handed over a Zippo lighter. Helpfully he said, "Maybe it's a fuse, sir. You want me to check it?" The "big-time torpedo" lit his cigarette and passed the Zippo back. "No, that's all right," he said, blowing smoke toward the guy in the response. "I'll have one of the boys inside look at it. Is Mike here?"

  "He . . . Yes, sir, he came in a little while ago." "Well, I don't believe it. I have been chasing that guy all over central Jersey."

  "You've caught him now, sir," the gate boss assured the Executioner. He chuckled as he passed the sign to the gate crew.

  The chain came down.

  And the Executioner went in.

  So, okay. So far.

  He rolled casually along the drive, just Cadillacking along, senses flaring into the lie of that place. Sentries, yeah.

  Here and there he caught the glow of a cigarette out there in that darkness, a cough, a muttered word borne along on the evening breeze.

  The encampment, yeah. Field headquarters. Division point.

  This was it. This was where the Jersey guns were stacked, awaiting directions to the front.

  He passed a dignified, lighted signboard emplaced on golf-green lawn, depicting a young lady on horseback, wearing boots and riding breeches and a bright red jacket, jumping a rock wall; in the foreground, the head of a fox with a malicious smile.

  So who was the fox?

  The whole thing could be a cute game engineered by Mike Talifero, a draw, an invitation which the Executioner could not refuse. The guy might be sitting up there in that clubhouse right now, waiting, a malicious smile on his psychopath face.

  Bolan sighed and cruised on.

  It was no fox hunt, he reminded himself. It was a turkey chase.

  Even if he wound up, himself, the turkey.

  15 INSIDE BOLAN

  Mack Bolan had not always been a hellfire guy.

  Friends and acquaintances of his earlier years were, without exception, shocked over his identification with murder and violence, the unyielding and unrelenting dedication to war everlasting.

  His seventh-grade teacher remembered the clear-eyed youngster vividly, and with fondness. "He was a quiet boy. Very smart, a natural scholar. Never rowdy. Very athletic, though. 'Curious,' I guess, is the best single word to describe him. He was the most curious child I ever had. Everything interested him."

  A high-school friend, one of the few who was ever very close to young Bolan, remembered, "Mack was a funny guy. You respected him. And you liked him He was always out front, leading . . . you know, just a natural leader, never a pusher. But sometimes . . . well, you just felt like he wasn't really there. I don't mean nutty. I mean . . . his body was there, but his mind was somewhere else. Mack was a loner."

  Another friend, a girl, told a reporter, "Mack was a boy I always felt secure with. I could say things, and he wouldn't make fun of me about it.

  He talked to me sometimes, too, I mean seriously. He told me once that he felt like an observer of life more than a participant."

  The essence of these candid portraits of the man was more or less accurate. Bolan was indeed a "loner," though not the hermit type who retreats from the world behind a protective shell of cynicism and distrust.

  An "observer," yes, certainly. He had never become overly subjective about this thing called life. Even as a very small child, young Mack was more aware of his environment than of himself. He was an observer, very objectively so, and he generally approved of what he saw. He always had the feeling, during the developing years, that he was standing just apart from the rest of creation, never actually immerse
d in it but still enjoying it, appreciating it. And yet he could feel so strongly about the problems that he noted there, could sympathize so deeply with those who suffered.

  He was not, as the psychologists would say, "ego- motivated." He would undertake independent actions, yes, but seldom out of any desire for personal gratification or reward. He was not "materially ambitious." Positive actions usually came about as a result of some outside stimulus—he was "impulse- activated."

  The rest of the personality seemed to close around that potentially destructive fact, providing him with a high sense of personal ethics and an underlying dedication toward positive acts of human excellence.

  He had never been what one would term a "religious" person. His army personnel file listed him, in this respect, as "No Preference." But Bolan did have a deep religious sense. Undefined, and only vaguely understood perhaps, but he did possess a somewhat formulated concept of a "universal ethic."

  The army psychologist who okayed Bolan for the volunteer penetration-team duty in Vietnam had notated the record thus: "Subject subscribes to universalist concepts, appears to be motivated by transcendent ideals (over and above everyday morality). Subject will command himself."

  Bolan had been invited to apply for the army's officer-candidate program. He declined, three times by the record, although he was a career soldier. It appeared that he was one of those persons who shied from official authority; but he was recognized by officers and men alike as a natural leader. Others followed out of genuine respect, not because of the stripes on his sleeve.

  He had, from the age of about fourteen, kept a daily journal, in which he recorded passing thoughts, ,particularly impressing events, rambling ideas. Even the most cursory inspection of those journals would convey to the reader a lasting impression that they had been written by a singularly unique individual.

  An entry at the age of seventeen: "I stand at !the edge of creation and watch the parade go by from my grandstand seat. So powerful, so beautiful, and so important.

  But where am I? Why do I not march in the parade also?"

  When he was twenty, and in the army: "Some people were built to march. Others to watch, and wonder why the others are marching, and to where."

  A few hours after his first "kill," in a legitimate war: "He was looking into the sun, and suddenly I was down there with him, looking into his eyes. I saw the entire universe in there. Then I was back where I belonged, my eye to the scope where it had actually been all the while, and I gave him back to the universe. May his soul forgive mine "

  Sergeant Bolan had returned many men "to the universe" while engaged in acts of war and in the service of his country. And, in the midst of that other war, his very personal "home front war" erupted. His father, his mother, his kid sister lay dead in the home where Mack Bolan was born. He was sent home to bury them and to arrange care for an orphaned minor brother.

  And the world had never again been the same— the grandstand seat gone forever, Mack Bolan marching, marching, marching .. . all the way through hell.

  The hell-fire guy sent the Cadillac beneath the portico and to a gentle halt just up range from a gleaming Mercedes.

  The building was brightly lighted, but quiet. Paired-off sentry teams strolled at the edge of light, in all directions about that knoll.

  The door captain was looking his way and acting like he wanted to call something over as Bolan stepped from the vehicle, but something else was distracting the guy, from the inside.

  He lunged about suddenly and grabbed the glass door, jerked it open, poising on his toes as though about to leap.

  Mike Talifero swept out of the building, waving his arms and muttering to himself, a big guy hurrying along behind him.

  Bolan leaned back into the Cadillac to avoid any direct encounter; they had met eyeball-to-eyeball on a couple of occasions, and he did not wish to push his luck this time—not with so much riding on it.

  He heard the big bodyguard yelling to someone to "Get us an escort!" as the powerful engine of the Mercedes roared to life.

  The Talifero vehicle went past him on screeching tires and ignored the driveway circle to swing out across the grass for a direct route to the gate.

  There was a scramble of bodies at the far side of the building. Car doors slammed, engines cranked. Then two crew wagons sprang away in the wake of the Mercedes.

  Something, evidently, was up.

  Mike Talifero seldom lost his cool—or so the story went.

  Bolan went on to the door and indignantly told the captain, "Well, that was a hell of a thing. The guy just hops in his chariot and drives away without even a wave. After asking me to meet him here!

  The guy on the door was nervous, edgy. He was giving Bolan a respectful once-over as he replied, "I'm sorry, sir, I guess he got some bad news a few minutes ago. And he has this meeting with someone big."

  Bolan gave the guy a "who-the-hell-do-you-think you’re-talking-to?" look and told him, "Well, yes, but he runs out and drives away the second I arrive."

  The captain became flustered and said, "Well, no I don't think . . . I mean, he had to meet some one down at the airstrip. I'm sure he's coming right back. Why don't you just go in, sir? The bar's open, you can help yourself, make yourself comfortable. I guess he won't be gone more'n about ten minutes."

  The guy was holding the door open for him.

  Bolan was still being indignant. "I don't know. I believe I'll just go on back."

  "Only about ten minutes, sir, maybe less. Wait, let me get . . ."

  The guy would not have asked Bolan who he was if he'd been busting to know. It simply wasn't done. Not in this outfit. You either knew, or you acted like you did. He was now halfway through the doorway and trying to catch the eye of another guy inside.

  "Will you c'mere!" he called angrily to the inside, then turned back to Bolan with,

  "Jess will show you the bar, sir. Just make yourself comfortable."

  Bolan was allowing himself to be talked into staying. He was grumbling as he stepped through the doorway, "Well, I don't like to be treated this way. You can tell him that for me. My time is important, too. I have a territory to watch, myself."

  "Yes, sir, yes, sir, I know, these things happen, don't they? I bet he didn't even see you. He had this bad news, and he was late to meet the plane. You know how these things go sometimes."

  A big ugly kid in shirt sleeves with an oversized .38 clipped to his belt was standing there taking it all in. This was Jess. He must have thought he was Jesse James, the way he was wearing that hardware. Maybe it was where he got his name; it worked that way in the mob.

  Bolan growled, "Hi, Jess. How are things on Third Avenue

  ?"

  The kid was torn between a smile and a frown.

  Bolan said, "Haven't I seen you around there?"

  The door captain was awkwardly off-balance, trying to hold the heavy glass door open and keep a foot inside at the same time. Again he implored the visitor, "Just make yourself comfortable, sir." Then he fled to the more comforting environment outside, leaving the hot potato for Jess to handle.

  That one was scratching the back of his neck and thinking about Third Avenue. He told the big- shot visitor, "I operate mostly around the Bronx, sir. But I guess you could have seen me . . ." He was obviously hoping that Bolan had seen him, highly flattered by the notice. "I get around quite a bit."

  They were walking toward the bar.

  Bolan asked him, "What's going on here, Jess? Why did Mike go flying out of here that way?" "Oh, something went sour."

  "I hope not what I'm thinking," Bolan said ominously.

  "Hell, I don't know, sir. Are you here about the . . . ?" His head jerked toward the direction of the locker rooms.

  Bolan snapped, "I sure am."

  "Well . . . I dunno, sir. They weren't in there very long with the guy. I only heard him yell once, and then it didn't sound like . . . well, it sounded like Bible stuff. Something about putting a goat out in the woods, I don't kno
w. Then just a couple minutes ago Mr. Talifero came busting out yelling that they'd hit the guy too hard, too fast. I don't know—"

  Bolan snarled, "You go fix me something cold and strong, Jess, while I see about this. Which door?"

  The guy's eyelids were fluttering. "The men's locker room, sir. Second door down."

  "Stay clear!" the VIP who'd noticed Jess around Third Avenue commanded, and the kid nodded and strode on to the bar.

  The Beretta was in Bolan's right hand and the silencer was threading itself aboard when he hit that door at full stride.

  Everything Mack Bolan had ever been and ever wanted to be was concentrated on that terrible point in Jersey, that awful moment at the end of the turkey chase—at the very doorway to hell.