3attaglia's explanation, that he planned to make a profit on his unresponsive hostage rather than to dispose of her quickly, fitted with everything Bolan knew about the guy. His greed had gotten in the way, and it had killed him in the end.
"You were lucky," Bolan told her, thinking aloud.
"Yes," she said. "I was. Battaglia's into everything from running drugs and weapons to illegal aliens, but women are his bread and butter."
"Mainly foreign exports?"
She nodded.
"Ninety-five percent. It's risky with the evidence too close to home."
It all fitted. The border-hopping pilot was headed for South America with new, unwilling conscripts for the brothels there. And from what he had seen inside Battaglia's auction room, half a dozen victims would have been a small transaction. A drop in the cesspool. The slaver's largest customers would be in Asia, Africa, the Middle East, where money earned from oil and heroin was in abundance, aching to be spent.
Battaglia could not have put that all together on his own, the Executioner was certain. He had been a middle-ranker, lacking the resources or prestige to float a major project single-handedly. There had to be a link, a go-between, with larger brains and bankrolls on the other end.
'' I need a name,'' he told the female Fed.
She thought about it for a moment, chewing on her bottom lip in concentration.
"There was one," she said. "I overheard some conversations with a man Battaglia called the Weasel. Never to his face, of course. When they were on the phone, it was just plain Tommy.''
Recognition signals started flashing in Bolan's brain. He made the name, and dredged a face out of his mental mug file. The Weasel tag was not uncommon in the underworld, but this one's first name and his link to Ben Battaglia reminded the Executioner of one specific rodent.
He would have to check it out, in any case, and that would mean a trip to Jersey.
"You up to traveling?'' he asked.
She watched him for a moment, read the meaning in his tone and smiled. "As ready as I'll ever be."
She had earned the right to come along on this one. She was a pro, and she had made the case her own with blood and sweat and tears. The soldier trusted her implicitly, as much as any other ally, male or female, and he knew she would give her life before she let him down.
The soldier checked his watch and started calculating mileage to St. Louis. Brognola would have their transportation waiting if he called ahead requesting an emergency airlift. It was short notice, but there was no time to lose.
Bolan and Smiley had a date to keep in Jersey.
With a weasel.
4
It was the oldest racket known to man, and from the beginning it had attracted parasites and vultures, preying on the weak and helpless. Women offered or were forced to give their bodies as commodities for many reasons — but the scavengers did not care about the reasons, they were single-minded in pursuit of easy profit. If a pimp could not maintain his "stable" by the force of personality alone, he would resort to other methods — savage beatings, mutilation, even murder if the ultimate example was considered necessary. If willing prostitutes were unavailable, abduction was a viable alternative.
Another generation of reformers coined a name for it: white slavery. The early slavers, circa 1900, representing rival tongs — the Chinese Mafia — engaged in bitter warfare as they shuttled hapless hostages along a secret network spread from San Francisco to Manhattan. A decade later, Congress had responded with the Mann Act. Meant to curb the trade in human flesh, the Act had been used primarily to harass private couples; its impact on the syndicate was negligible.
In the thirties, Charlie "Lucky" Luciano and a score of underlings were tried, convicted and imprisoned for compulsory prostitution, part of Thomas Dewey's war against the New York Mafia. But the racket endured and was passed on to other hands.
Ben Battaglia was an heir to Luciano's legacy — not in power, but in his tendency to prey upon defenseless women. He was a lot like Charlie that way, and a lot like a certain Weasel whom Bolan knew.
Tom DeLuccia began his Mafia career as a leg-breaker for Castiglione, sadistic capo of the lower eastern seaboard. Arnie Farmer recognized a boy with talent, and DeLuccia was able to impress his boss with his dependability and flair for solving knotty problems. He was being groomed for a lieutenancy in Castiglione's bordello chain when trouble had materialized. Trouble's name was Bolan, and the rest was history.
The war had spanned an ocean, laying waste to family operations from Virginia to the British Isles. Arnie Farmer had personally tracked the blitzing bastard into London town, and he bought a different kind of farm entirely when Bolan made his stand. Back in the United States, DeLuccia was absorbed by Augie Marinello's creeping empire, spreading out of New York City and devouring adjacent territories. Bolan had returned in time to cripple Marinello in New York and finish him in Jersey, wiping out the Talifero boys along with their padrone, and Tommy was alone again, abandoned in the smoking rubble.
But DeLuccia was a natural survivor, and a good deal brighter than his mediocre ranking in the syndicate would indicate. Building from the ashes, he filled a power vacuum on the coast, expanding from his fiefdom in New Jersey, seizing opportunities that surfaced in the wake of Bolan's blitz. His specialties had always been narcotics, prostitution, smuggling; even in the old days, he was known as a man with overseas connections. He had been using those connections lately to entrench himself at the domestic end of a complex pipeline moving contraband — and slaves — around the globe.
The slavery angle had surprised Brognola, but when Bolan fed it to the Stony Man computers, circumstantial confirmation was available. DeLuccia's name had surfaced in connection with Battaglia's Heartland Produce, and his private number showed a history of regular communication with the Kansas capo. They were definitely connected, and the indicators pointed to DeLuccia as Benny's middleman, the East Coast connection. He would be the one to put it all together for Battaglia, cementing links with money men across the water. The Weasel's tracks were everywhere.
The working address for DeLuccia was a Newark warehouse on the dingy waterfront. Ostensibly, the owner was a Belco Shipping Company, but Tommy Weasel held the deed and pulled the strings. He moved a lot of merchandise from Newark — shipments out and goods received for distribution through the South and Midwest. Bolan had it on the best authority that one of Tommy's main import commodities was Turkish heroin refined and processed in the south of France.
As for the exports —
Bolan would be checking into those himself.
* * *
Darkness covered Newark, and a thread of mist unraveled along the serpentine Passaic River. In the endless blackness, a foghorn sounded, quickly answered by a second and a third. The river was alive with giant gliding shapes, their voices haunting in the night.
Bolan wore the darkness like a cloak as he approached the Belco warehouse. Neighboring establishments were all deserted, but the soldier's target clung to signs of life. A light shone through frosted windowpanes; a Continental crew wagon was parked against the loading dock. DeLuccia was working late.
Bolan found a door beside the loading bay. He tried the lock and released it with a moment's effort. Easing his silenced pistol out of sideleather, double-checking the load, he slipped inside the warehouse proper. Deeper darkness enveloped him. Accustomed to conducting war in zero-visibility conditions, he progressed by feel along a narrow corridor, the muzzle of his 93-R probing ahead of him, ready to respond to any challenge. By the time he reached an elbow turn and started climbing wooden stairs, a light was faintly visible above him, shining underneath a door.
Bolan took the stairs with caution, testing each before he put his full weight down, alert to any sound that would betray his presence. Tommy Weasel had not posted any sentries, but the shadow warrior took no chances. He was halfway up the stairs when he heard a noise.
On the landing up above, the door abruptly opened
on the darkness, framing a hulking figure in the sudden glare. Shuffling toward the stairs, the guy took a second to recognize the danger. When he spotted Bolan, frozen in the shaft of light, the gunner reacted and made the move that sealed his fate.
Despite his bulk, the hood had reacted smoothly and professionally. In other circumstances, against another adversary, his response would probably have been enough.
Bolan never let the gunman reach the holstered hardware he was groping for. His automatic stuttered, sending a trio of deadly parabellum manglers sizzling in on target, just above the gunner's nose. A scarlet halo wreathed the dead man's skull, and parts of him were outward bound before his mind could register death. Another second, and the nearly headless body vaulted backward through the doorway.
Bolan was following him all the way, bounding up the final flight of steps to salvage something from his small surprise advantage. He was standing in the open door as the mutilated corpse touched down. Bolan's eyes and weapon swept right around a cluttered office, taking hasty inventory.
There were three men grouped around a massive desk, regarding his arrival and their friend's departure with expressions of amazement. Bolan picked out his quarry at once — the close-set eyes and narrow, almost pointed face removed any doubts about the source of Tommy Weasel's nickname. Both the flankers carried side arms. They made a move to reach them as they broke the momentary spell of shock at his explosive entry.
Peeling off in opposite directions, clawing at the weapons underneath their jackets, the flankers were almost fast enough to get to Bolan.
Almost.
The qualifier was a fatal one, and it made all the difference in the world.
The gunner on his left was closer, marginally faster, so Bolan took him first. He left the pistol set for automatic fire and swiveled into target acquisition in a single fluid motion, stroking off a burst. At a range of twenty feet, it was impossible to miss his mark.
The Weasel's soldier seemed to stumble, reeling like a drunkard as the stunning triple punch came ripping in at chest level. The stumble turned into a sprawl, and Bolan watched him plow face first into hard, unyielding cabinets, rebounding awkwardly and landing in a crumpled, lifeless heap.
The second gunner was now claiming his attention, a rolling, diving figure on his right. The bastard's hand was on the pistol, just about to rip it free of leather, when the Bolan autoloader swept around to find him. Holes were stitched across his forehead. His skull exploded from the eyebrows up. Momentum carried him across the field of fire, but all the life and fight had left him now. The hood was a piece of meat in aimless, mindless motion, skimming on a slick of blood.
The Weasel stood alone before Mack Bolan, rooted in his place behind the desk. His rodent eyes were twitching back and forth between the bodies of his henchmen and their killer's face, the black Beretta leveled at his chest. The mouth was working, but it took him several tries to get it out.
"There's gotta be a way around this thing," he said, sounding hopeful rather than convinced.
"You're looking at it, Tommy."
Bolan let the muzzle of the automatic waggle, taking in the bodies at his feet.
DeLuccia was looking at it, and the little hoodlum was not liking what he saw. Behind the eyes, his agile mind was busy scanning options. "I'd like to make a deal," he offered, with a semblance of control.
"That's what I had in mind."
A flicker of encouragement showed in Tommy Weasel's twisted smile. "Yeah? All right. Just tell me what you want."
"The works," his captor told him. "All of it. The overseas connection you arranged for Ben Battaglia."
The cautious optimism faded, reappeared as something else. A deep, abiding fear, approaching panic. "Jesus, man... you ask a lot."
"You've got a lot to lose," the Executioner reminded him.
"Okay, but let me think a second, willya?"
Bolan lifted the Beretta, held her steady when the sights were leveled on DeLuccia's face. "Make it five," he told the Weasel. "One..."
DeLuccia paled and began to tremble visibly, but there was still fight in him. "Some people got long arms, ya know?"
"With them, you've got a fighting chance. With me, it's over. Two..."
The Weasel stiffened, thrust out his chin defiantly. "You hafta unnerstand, I never ratted on a partner in my life." Extremity could not disguise a hint of pride.
"The ship's going down, Tommy. You can save yourself, or take the ride. Three..."
"You're handing me a death warrant," Tommy Weasel snapped, his voice becoming brittle.
"Four..."
"All right." His hands were coming up, as if his open palms could fend off death. "Just take it easy.'' It took another moment for the guy to find his voice again. "I'm not in this as deep as you may think," he said. "A middleman, that's all."
The Executioner released a weary sigh and brought the automatic back on target. "Five."
A strangled scream escaped from Tommy Weasel's lips. The mobster looked as if he was about to faint. "A name," he shouted. "Jesus Christ, I swear it's all I know."
"I'm listening," the warrior told him softly.
DeLuccia took a ragged breath, held it briefly, then finally let it go. "The African connection, in Algiers," he said. "Guy calls himself Rani al-Haj."
Algiers. A tremor of the soul, and blackout curtains fell in place behind the graveyard eyes.
"He's the buyer?"
Tommy Weasel shrugged. "Buyer, seller... what the hell. It goes both ways."
"He takes the women off your hands." It was not a question. The soldier's voice was icing over, going cold and sharp as a scalpel blade.
"That's part of it. Battaglia bags the broads, and Rani comes across with this and that. Okay? I swear that's all I've got."
The Executioner had heard enough. He swallowed the revulsion, gave the little thug a look of withering contempt. "You stink of death," he said.
The Weasel blinked, his shiny little eyes constricting into pinpoints. "We had a deal," he croaked.
Bolan's answer was silence.
DeLuccia gave out a shriek of mingled fear and rage. He doubled over, grappling with a drawer and sobbing as it stubbornly resisted him. The gun was inside. Finally the drawer came free in his fevered grasp, and he grabbed for the piece.
Bolan held the trigger down and let his pistol empty out in autofire. Half a dozen parabellums picked the Weasel up and slammed him back against the plaster wall, descending slowly, by the inch. His passage left a vicious crimson smear on the fading paint.
"A deal's a deal, and you blew it," muttered Bolan as he fed another clip into his automatic.
He stowed the weapon back inside its armpit sheath and took himself away from there. The stench of blood and death was clinging to him when he reached the stairs; it made him anxious for the cool night air outside.
Bolan knew that he had barely scratched the surface, hardly made a dent in what was shaping up to be a major operation. In the next battle he would be revisiting Algiers.
The warrior closed his mind to memories and concentrated on the problem of the moment. Smiley — he would have to let her know that they had only just begun to fight.
The soldier found an exit and let himself out of the Belco warehouse. Gratefully, he let the silent darkness swallow him and carry him away.
5
Algiers.
The very name could be intimidating and enticing, full of secret terrors and the promise of forbidden pleasure. There is beauty in the land of Algeria, a solemn strength about its people — but beneath it all, a dark, compelling undercurrent of malignant evil, ancient as the soil.
Bolan knew the city, and the nation that had taken on its name. Together, they evoked a rush of bloody memories for him, akin to waking nightmares. From the early days of his crusade against the Mafia, Algiers had lured Bolan, haunted him, forever nagging at him from the cluttered corners of his mind. It was an open wound, a problem unresolved.
Early in his
private war, crusader Bolan had encountered rumbles from Algeria. The battlefield had been France, and Bolan — l'Américain formidable — was engaged in mortal combat with the Mafia ambassador, Thomas "Monzoor" Rudolfi. Because the ladies of a syndicate maison de joie had assisted Bolan by giving him shelter, they were slated for a ghastly punishment, designed to serve Rudolfi as a warning and an example to their sisters of the street. Ten of them had been scheduled to be sold at an auction — human chattel in the secret, teeming markets of Algiers.
Desperate action was imperative, and Bolan had reacted with a grim audacity to thwart Rudolfi's plan. The Executioner's scheme had been simple — a ranking member of the syndicate would die for every hour that the ladies were in jeopardy. And die they did. Eventually, Rudolfi had capitulated under fire... and he lost it all when the flames devoured his Parisian fiefdom.
It was another time, another war, when Bolan — as Colonel John Phoenix — had paid his initial visit to Algiers. The enemy was terrorism, and his mission was vital: the daughter of a U.S. high-tech engineer was missing, ransomed for the secret of a low-yield nuclear device her father had developed. Bolan found a trail, pursued it doggedly and ended up alone against a mercenary army in the Tanezrouft — a grim Saharan no-man's-land 800 miles south of Algiers. In what had started as a mercy mission, he encountered evidence of terrorism orchestrated on a global scale.
And it was not a new idea, by any means. The Mafia had coined a term for it — cosa di tutticosi: literally the "Big Thing" — and tried many times to give it life before the blitzing bastard out of Pittsfield, Mass., brought their house down.
Luke Harker, aging U.S. radical with messianic tendencies, had been in the driver's seat when Bolan hit Algiers. Harker's master plan-creation of a super camp for training terrorists of every stripe — was nearing ultimate fruition when the Phoenix fighter intervened. Harker called his troop the Third World People's Liberation Front, but there were other hands upon the helm. The Soviets were interested, and their man in Harker's camp was the notorious Riccardo Roybal, better known to Interpol as Rikki the Hyena. Bolan took them on en masse and blazed a trail of death across the desert sands before he brought the enemy to heel. Scorched earth in the Sahara, a cleansing flame to sear away the evidence of Harker's evil.
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