But, now, what the hell did he do with her? How to play it? Did Bolan really want her? If so, how badly?
He staggered down the hill with his burden, speaking softly to her and trying to soothe her the way he would his own kid. Maybe he had a kid like this … somewhere … maybe.
Halfway down the hill, he yelled at a popeyed group taking cover behind a stack of cut logs. “I want a shirt! A white shirt! One of you boys take off your goddam shirt!”
He knew how to play it.
Harry the Apeman knew exactly how to play it.
CHAPTER 17
THE PRAYER
He sent one into the far corner of the house, knowing full well that it woud blow fire and destruction into that joint, but taking a calculated risk that the havoc would not immediately spread to the side where April Rose was being tormented. And perhaps the hit would spread enough confusion and panic to provide a bit more breathing room for the lady.
But he had to keep the pressure on. The final bird he sent to the A-frame, going for the greatest effect. And he got it, instantly converting that whole joint into a flaming ruin.
Then he took the Weatherby up to the roof and began laying into them from above the treetops—seeking numbers only, not tactical effect, going for the easy hits in a pointed desire to spread only fear and confusion.
He was buying time.
And the price tag on that buy was pretty high.
They spotted his general position very quickly and he could see movements everywhere as the counteroffensive got underway. The return fire became very hot, very quick—forcing him to break off and quietly move the warwagon into new concealment—but that was not the real concern.
The real concern was that they would succeed in moving some troops across to his side—and then he would be in real trouble.
This was not Bolan’s chosen combat posture. He much preferred to be the active aggressor—the quiet infiltrator—or the wily guerrilla visiting havoc with a quick hit and run. It was simply not smart tactics to attempt a longterm one-man siege against a clearly superior enemy encampment—no matter how great the fire-power on that one man’s side of the picture. With a determined enemy, superior numbers would ultimately prevail. He did not know how determined they may be. He did know their numbers, and there was no comfort in that knowledge.
He did not like this tactic, no.
But it was the one dealt him by the moment. He had no alternative but to work it for everything it could yield.
If only …
He tossed that thought out. There was no time or energy for iffing it. April was there and Bolan had to play it that way.
But then, from somewhere out of the matrix, came an echo of some words he’d offered to the lady—just a short few hours ago. It seemed a lifetime. This kind of life had a way of expanding time as well as shrinking it.
A good soldier will use every tool available.
He could not think of April Rose as a tool, of course. But the word fit, nonetheless. She was the tool of this present situation, around which everything else was draped.
She could be the tool of his total defeat.
But … wasn’t it true that in every defeat there stood also the potential for victory? So often, wasn’t it a mere breath or a heartbeat that meant the final difference between victory and defeat?
A good soldier will use …
Yeah. Okay. He’d told the lady something else, as well. He’d told her that it was not a game of good versus bad, but warfare—and that all the rules of warfare applied. He’d been trying to make her see that good did not always win—that very often it lost the war. Tell it to the Jews of the Holocaust, April, that the world is basically good and that right is might.
Nor did it work the other way. Might is not always right, of course—but, dammit, the greatest might always wins! Tell it to the doe being devoured by the wolf that God is Love. Tell it to the bird in the jaws of the cat—tell it to the cat in the jaws of the dog—tell it to the desperate man of the ghetto whose kids are cold and hungry—tell it …
Oh God! What did it all mean?
Okay. It meant, yeah, that Mack Bolan was a warrior. He’d looked back along that dark and fearful road and he’d seen the dreadful fiend treading softly behind. That fiend was stalking all mankind—and all the desperate prayers of a threatened world had not deterred it. Hell … it thrived on weakness and grew fat on futile prayers.
“God will not look you over for medals, diplomas, or degrees—but for scars!”1
The guy who said that had been there, and he’d known.
If there was a God in heaven then He had not built this turbulent world to love it, nor for it to love Him. He’d built a crucible, not a playground. He’d constructed a challenge, not an easement.
Bolan knew that God was growth …
And this was Mack Bolan’s prayer. It was not a futile one, but directed straight into the heart of the matter.
Dear God, give me hard; and give me soft; and give me the heart to handle both.
Make me a good soldier, when the cause is right.
And when I am a dead soldier—look at my scars and say that I have been well built in that crucible called Earth, that I have been a worthy tool of the cosmic game.
He now added another, in deference to the pretty lady who’d found her hard in the jaws of the fiend.
Make me right, this time.
This time, let my heart be pure!
1 Elbert Hubbard, Amer. Writer and Publisher; d.1915
CHAPTER 18
THE DEAL
The kid had been waving the white shirt for most of a minute and growing more and more nervous about it when finally an electronically amplified voice came off that hill over there and filled the lake with those same quiet, assured tones that had come down at him from the stairway at Stoney Lonesome.
It was a bit unnerving, and the boys behind him on the hillside felt it, too. What kind of damn guy was this?—and what did he have up there? What kind of damned machinery had he brought with him?
“I see your flag, Harry. What’s on your mind?”
“Can you hear me?” Venturi shouted at the top of his lungs.
“Much too well. Just keep looking this way and use a normal voice. I can hear you breathing, guy.”
Well now that was unnerving as hell.
“Can you see this little lady I got here?” Venturi asked in a quiet, conversational voice—testing that.
“I can. What’d you do to her?”
Venturi sent a perplexed look to the troops behind him, then turned back to that strange conversation with the lake.
“She’s okay, Mr. Bolan. I wanted you to see that. She’s okay.”
“I’d like to see her standing on her own, Harry.”
Venturi whispered furiously at the girl, “Think you can do it, honey? You got to do it!”
She was still a bit out of it and her reply was breathless and fuzzy. “Where is he? Tell him I’m all right.”
But the guy heard even that. “I’m very near, April. Don’t hang it up, yet. Put the shirt on her, Harry. And send your boy back up the hill”
Venturi eased the girl to her feet, but continued supporting her as he gestured angrily to the kid with the white flag. They tucked her into the shirt and the kid got the hell off that pier gladly. Venturi overheard him saying to somebody, as he retreated up the hill, “Hell, I dunno. He’s just standin’ there talkin’ like to the fishes and the guy’s coming right back at him every time.”
Venturi fastened the most strategic buttons in place and said to the fishes, “You’re right, I should’ve covered her. I wanted you to see that she’s all here.”
“I spot a couple of your boys on the dam, Harry. Do you send them back or do I?”
There was no need for either. Those boys immediately began sending themselves back. And Harry Venturi didn’t blame them. This was spooky as hell.
He quietly told that disembodied voice out there, “I also want you to know, Mr
. Bolan, that I did not spit on your white flag—over there, you know. They come and got me. It’s important you know that. I didn’t know about this joint, neither. I hope you believe it.”
This was strange, very strange. Both joints burning behind him, dead bodies littering the whole place, forty or fifty more boys pressed to the earth with heads and asses down—and here stood the head cock on a pier in the lake with a nearly naked broad leaning against him, holding a quiet conversation as if with God Himself.
It was weird, yeah—and don’t think those boys behind him weren’t sharing that weirdness.
“I believe it, yeah. What’s on your mind?”
“I know you keep your word, Mr. Bolan. I come down here to strike a deal. You’ve hurt us real bad. Mr. Gulacci is dead. Maybe half our boys are dead. I’m giving it to you level, see. If this keeps on, we’ll prob’ly all end up dead. Even the little lady, here. I say it’s dumb. I say nobody here wants anything that bad. If I got your word, I’ll send you the lady. And we call it even. That’s all I wanted to say. That’s my offer.”
“It’s an attractive offer. But it’s not even. Not nearly even, Harry. You can offer more than that.”
“What? What can I offer more than that? I’m saying take the broad and beat it. We got fifty boys to bury over here.”
“I didn’t come here for the broad. I didn’t come here for fifty boys and a gumball boss. You know what I came for, Harry.”
He couldn’t believe it. That guy was … “You talking about Carmine?”
“And a couple more, yeah.”
The nervy son of a bitch wanted all the bosses! “Hey, I couldn’t—that’s not reasonable!” He peered over his shoulder and up the hill. “Are you saying I should? …”
“I’m the only one can hear you, Harry. Talk like men. I’m not telling you what you have to do. I’m telling you what I have to do. If I have to walk over fifty more boys to do it, then okay. But I have to agree with you, it’s kind of dumb. From their standpoint, anyway.”
Somebody up the slope loudly inquired, “What’s he talking about? What’s he want?”
Venturi threw a snarling “Shut up!” back there. Those boys, of course, were hearing only one side of this conversation. Bolan’s side. Which was okay. Yeah, that was okay.
“I can’t send you the bosses, Mr. Bolan. Look, I already took out Fuzz Martin. He’s the guy was roughing up this little lady. I took him out—and I have Carmine’s blessing on that. Listen—you already killed it for him here. I mean you blew his whole parley. They’ll never listen to him again. If that’s what’s bothering you—I mean …”
“I’ll make you a deal, Harry. Is the lady okay enough to paddle a canoe?”
The girl said raggedly, “Sure, and I could tow a battleship behind me. Just show me that canoe.”
“Did you hear that, Mr. Bolan?”
“I heard it. Send her across.”
“I ain’t heard the deal yet.”
“She’s the first part. Look behind you. Look up, way up. Above the lagoon.”
Harry was looking. So was everybody else around there. Then one of those damn whizzers came streaking across from nowhere and thundered into the hillside up there, way up there. When the smoke and settling earth cleared, that little waterfall had become a rushing torrent.
And the voice from heaven came down again: “That’s the second part. How much water, do you figure, is that dam holding back? How many more rockets, do you figure, will it take to let it all come down? And if it does come down—where do you figure you and your fifty boys will find to stand?”
The answers to all that were too obvious to be denied. And there was a lot of moving around, a lot of uneasy voices making themselves heard in an unhappy chorus. Venturi turned back to the lake to mutter into it, “You’re saying it’s either this or that, eh?”
“That’s what it is, yeah. Start the lady across. Then go and do what you’ve got to do. You send another canoe across in five minutes. Not six minutes. Five. If I like what I see, then—okay. You’ve got your deal.”
“That’s a hell of a deal, Mr. Bolan,” Venturi complained.
“I know it is, Harry. I know it is. But it’s the only deal I can consider. You do your part and you know I’ll do mine. Right?”
Venturi sighed and scooped the little lady into his arms and carried her to the rack of canoes. He floated one, tossed in a paddle, and very tenderly placed the lady inside. “I could have a kid like you,” he told her. “That’s a hell of a guy you got up there. You treat ’im right.”
Then he gave it a shove and watched until she was well underway.
A hell of a deal, yeah.
With one hell of a guy.
CHAPTER 19
MONDAY’S BOSSES
Bolan was at the con when she came inside, footsore and limping from the barefoot trek from the lakefront. She dropped beside him and wearily declared, “Didn’t expect to ever see this place again, podner. Don’t know how you worked that, soldier, but you have my undying—”
“You worked it yourself,” he said softly. He did not look at her but continued scanning those quiet activities on the opposite shore. But he grinned and added, “Welcome home, warrior.”
She said, “Just point me toward the liniment.”
“Save it until we’re clear,” he suggested, “and I’ll give you a navy shower.”
“Could I hold you to that?”
“Sure. And don’t underestimate the restorative powers of soap and water and loving hands.”
She said, “Gosh, I can hardly wait. Uh, we’re not clear yet?”
“Not really, no. I only had half a rearm for the rocket system. That means I have one bird left. And I suspect that dam up there could withstand quite a bit more than that.”
“You were bluffing? What is that deal? What is it you were asking him to do?”
“For a guy like that—too much, maybe. Then again, maybe not. Harry’s a survivor. He can reach down deep when he has to.”
“You say that rather proudly.”
He looked at her, then. “Harry’s not as bad as some. The guy has a spark there, way down.”
She dropped her eyes from that steady gaze and replied. “Yes, I … caught that, too. He was very sweet with me … almost fatherly. Told me to treat you right.”
Bolan smiled. “You know what that means.”
She smiled back. “Not what you’re thinking, I bet. They found out about my … connections. I believe he was telling me to go easy on you.”
Bolan chuckled and said, “Probably. What did you see over there?”
“Not much, I’m afraid. At first, I was too scared. Then I was too busy.” She was fussing with the shirt, tucking the tails beneath her on the seat. “I must look like hell.”
He said, “Not really, no. You look like a fed who just found her hard.”
“Her what?” she asked, smiling quizzically.
“Stay hard, April,” he told her, and turned back to his scans.
“Right now I’m feeling very soft,” she said.
“There’s a time for soft,” he murmured.
“When will that time be?”
“Well … if the thing goes … we should be in Indy by nightfall.”
“Meaning?”
“A time for soft,” he said quietly.
“Not for you, bub,” she replied naughtily.
He chuckled and let that one pass.
A moment later, he had the picture he’d been waiting for. He refined the focus and zoomed in for the close look. Then he sighed and told his lady, “There you go. He pulled it off. I wonder how many boys he had to walk on, to do it.”
“What is it?” she asked, leaning toward the viewer.
It was Harry’s part of the deal, yeah.
A canoe was gliding onto the lake.
It was unmanned.
Which is not to say that it was empty.
It held the heads of Monday’s mob. Literally. Scarbo was there. Reina was there. Tu
scanotte was there.
But not the whole men.
Just the heads.
EPILOGUE
They quietly withdrew the back way, gained the drive below the dam, and exited north onto Clay Lick Road. According to the navigator, they would intersect State Road 135 at Bean Blossom. That was a town, yeah, in this heartland of America.
Indianapolis, the Circle City, lay fifty minutes to the north. A C-135 aircraft awaited them there, to lift them away from the staggering remnants of Monday’s Mob and into Terrible Tuesday.
During that airlift, the heavy cruiser would be refitted to help meet the challenges awaiting them at the end of that flight.
The man and woman would do some refitting, as well. Perhaps they would cement their new, as yet unspoken understanding. For sure they would bind each other’s wounds and strengthen the spiritual bonds already established by their walk through hell together.
For sure, neither would ever forget little Nashville and the breathless battle that had been fought there for human dignity and cosmic values.
The woman had her head on the man’s shoulder—and she lifted it for a final look as they cleared that combat zone.
“Don’t look back,” he warned her. “Never look back.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Just don’t. It could lose your hard. Look straight ahead.”
“I’m looking at you, soldier,” she murmured.
And that, she knew, could lose her heart.
Turn the page to continue reading from the Executioner series
CHAPTER 1
THE START
Both were naked. He was a hairy guy of maybe thirty years, lean and well-muscled. She was hardly more than a kid, with silky brown hair all mussed and tangled, the pretty face frozen now in an expressionless mold while the awakening eyes tried to understand what was happening.
The water bed sloshed and undulated as the guy made an angry lunge for the covers.
Bolan shoved him back with a foot on the bare chest and a cold caution. “Huh uh. Stay.”
Monday’s Mob Page 12