"Everyone believed my father childless... and he was, from all appearances. His wife was barren, but he craved an heir. A man of his virility..."
Minelli hesitated, wrestling with private feelings for a moment, finally continuing.
"My mother bore two children for him. One, a girl, was stillborn. I survived. The church forbids divorce, and there were still appearances to be maintained. I never met my father formally. Barney Matilda made all the arrangements for our home, the schools."
It made a crazy kind of sense to Dave Eritrea now. Matilda, unacknowledged father of the deadly Taliferro twins, had long experience hiding secrets of his own. And Augie...
"He was bringing me along, inside the family, and teaching me the ropes. In time, I would have been the old man's consigliere, or an underboss, in line to claim his chair on la commissione. When Bolan took him out..."
The words trailed off and Dave Eritrea could see it now. The young man waiting to fill his father's shoes someday. Except the shoes and legs and all were blown away in Jersey, after Marinello Senior lost round one to Mack the bastard, way back when. Round two-came down in Pittsfield, and there hadn't been enough of Augie left to bury in a sandwich bag.
The sudden topside vacancy had caused a scramble for succession, with Minelli still too far removed from power to have a decent shot. Eritrea himself had won the toss, and others had succeeded him in turn, as Bolan, Mother Nature and the federal strike force whittled down the ranks.
But it was time for new blood. Minelli had the Marinello family in his pocket as it was, and with a little push the throne was well within his reach.
"You'll still need proof," Eritrea said, aware that it had sounded lame, that someone with Minelli's acumen would have it covered half a dozen different ways.
"I have my father's letters, some from Barney to my mother. And the old man's wife... she kept a diary. Seems she knew about us all along, and just kept quiet."
Dave Eritrea could think of nothing more to say. Minelli had it covered, and short of insurrection in the ranks, he probably could pull it off.
Capo di tutti capi. The boss of bosses.
"You need your rest," Minelli said. "I have enjoyed our little chat. I'll send somebody for you in a little while."
Minelli's hand was on the doorknob when Eritrea's voice arrested him.
"My wife."
The capo turned, a shadow flickering across his face and momentarily edging out the quiet triumph there.
"Forget about her, David. You've got grief enough right here."
And he was gone, but there was something — in his eyes, his tone — that set Eritrea thinking.
Something had gone wrong, perhaps. If Sarah had escaped, somehow, she might...
The hostage closed that door inside his mind and locked "it, threw away the key. There would be no escaping from the gun crew Don Minelli set to watch her. Sarah would be dead by now, or worse, and there was nothing in the world that he could do to help her.
Don Minelli.
Make that Don Marinello.
And the sound of the name was enough to take Eritrea back a dozen years and more. It was like stepping through a time warp. A crushing sense of deja vu had settled in around his shoulders like a grim, oppressive weight.
It was ironic, after all the waiting, scheming and killing he had done to seize the former Marinello throne and claim it for his own, that Dave Eritrea would be involuntarily instrumental in bringing yet another Marinello back to power in New York and nationwide.
Ironic.
And bitter to the core.
The former mafioso thought of Sarah once again. And wept.
* * *
"It would be so much easier if you'd just tell us everything."
The lady Fed regarded her interrogator with disdain.
"I've done that. Twice." She tried a different tack. "I don't think Jules is going to like this game, do you?"
"Which game is that?" the tall man asked.
"This twenty-questions nonsense. He'll be waiting for me. And he doesn't like to be kept waiting."
"Ah. Well, I believe that in the circumstances, Mr. Patriarcca would be sympathetic to our curiosity. He's quite a cautious man himself."
"This is ridiculous."
He sat down opposite Sally, chair and body blocking access to the study door.
"Let's try it one more time," he said, his face deadpan. "From the beginning. Why didn't you use the phone inside your cottage?"
Sally heaved a tired, exaggerated sigh.
"I didn't want to wake Jules up. He was... resting."
She put enough of the suggestive innuendo in her voice to let the soldier know precisely what had tired Jules out. Enough to let him know that he could have the same, if it would get her off the hook.
He passed.
"I see. And so, you made your call — long distance — from the washroom."
She spread her open hands. "You don't want people using it, why don't you take the damned thing out?"
"You called your... uncle... was it?"
"That's right. Why don't you check it with your second set of ears?"
"The name is Lazarus," he told her, frost behind the words. "And it's been checked."
"Well, then..."
"And you identified yourself as Flasher, I believe. A family nickname, wasn't it?"
Another weary sigh, to mask the rising apprehension.
"My uncle made a joke one time, about some of my baby pictures. I was naked."
No suggestive undertone this time. The man called Lazarus was obviously immune.
"Your uncle's name and address, please."
"Get screwed. You think I'm dragging family into your dream world, you're worse off than I thought."
He stiffened, coloring, but held himself in check.
"What was the purpose of your call?"
"I told you twice. His wife — my aunt — has got a birthday coming up. I wanted some suggestions on a gift."
The hardman fished inside his outer jacket pocket, produced a compact tape recorder that he placed between them on the coffee table. One long index finger found the button, brought the little deck to life, his eyes never leaving Sally's face.
"There isn't any message. If I can't get through at this end, I'll take care of it myself."
And click. The tape went dead.
"What is it you were planning to take care of, then? A birthday gift?"
"That's right. You never heard of birthday presents?"
"Oh, I've heard of many things. Spies, for instance. Always sticking snotty noses into other people's business, till they get chopped off."
"What's that got to do with me?"
It was the hardman's turn to sigh. The tape deck disappeared inside his pocket and he rose to stand above her.
"I was hoping you'd cooperate," he told her earnestly. "I see that won't be possible. It will be necessary to persuade you."
Sally felt a chili run down her spine.
"Now wait a second, buster..."
"No more time for waiting. You will tell me what I need to know. Tonight, perhaps tomorrow."
The lady Fed was on her feet but going nowhere.
"Jules..."
"Will understand completely, I assure you. And if not..."
He left the statement hanging there, unfinished, telling Sally everything she had to know about his status in the scheme of things. If he was big enough to call the tune for Patriarcca...
Sally didn't want to think about that. Her mind was on the problem of survival, and she could not see beyond the next few moments. There was pain in store, she knew that much, and wondered how long she could keep the secrets locked inside before she broke, spilled everything.
An hour? Two?
There had been briefings, lectures, on the possibility of capture and interrogation, but reality was something else again. Her flesh was crawling as she waited, mind alert and seeking an escape hatch, finding none.
She was trapped, and there
was no way out, no way to reach the other side of it, without proceeding head-on through the middle. Through the pain.
And Sally passed beyond the question of remaining silent, no longer wondering how long she could last.
She wondered now if she would live.
If she could cling to life, at least.
If she would wish to.
17
The phone rang twice before Brognola's gruff, familiar voice came on the line.
"Hello?"
"LaMancha. Can you talk?"
"It's clear."
Outside the service-station phone booth, traffic flowed along Franklin D. Roosevelt Drive. Bolan had a view of the Williamsburg Bridge, the flat sheen of the East River in the middle distance.
"I'm running out of numbers," he informed the Fed. "If Don Minelli has Eritrea, he's in the compound now."
"So's Flasher," Hal reminded him unnecessarily.
"I know."
Brognola's voice was hesitant and edged with apprehension when he spoke. "It could be that we've got a problem there."
An arctic tremor ran down Bolan's spine. "Explain."
"My office got a call from Flasher, two, three hours back. She got my number here, but there's been nothing since. No message, nada."
Bolan read the worry in his old friend's tone.
"You figure she's been made?"
"It's possible. The phone was risky. Then again..."
He did not have to sketch the various alternatives for Bolan. Sally might have lost her access to the telephone for any one of several reasons. There was no good reason to believe her cover had been blown, and yet...
The soldier's primal instincts spoke to him, alerting him to danger. If she had been overheard, somehow...
If Patriarcca or Minelli were aware of Sally's double role...
If they were working on her, even now...
Goddamn if!
He refused to follow the morbid train of thought where it led. The Executioner had been that way before and required no grim reminders of the scenery.
"I'm going in tonight," he told Brognola. "Any sooner would be self-defeating."
"Yeah. You know, I've just been thinking maybe I should drop in on Minelli. Sort of crash the party, see what's up."
"Without a stack of warrants? You'd have lawyers coming out your ears, guy. It could mean your job."
"Job, hell, they'd have my ass for breakfast," Hal retorted. "Funny thing is, none of that seems too important at the moment."
Bolan heard his old friend's pain and shared it. The hurting fear that comes with knowing someone dear has laid it on the line and may have lost it all. The empty pain that rides ahead of knowing, one way or the other.
"Don't blow it," Bolan cautioned him. "What's done is done... and, anyway, for all we know, she's fine."
"I guess."
Brognola didn't sound convinced.
"And if she's... damaged... well, there's only so much you can do to make it right."
A long silence on Brognola's end, eventually broken by a weary sigh.
"I heard from Sticker, indirectly," Hal said,-glad to change the subject. "Everybody's in, as far as we can tell."
"Vibrations?"
"Cautious. Edgy. Maybe hostile. Everybody's stewing."
Bolan felt glad that his blitz was having the desired effect upon his enemies.
"I'll let it simmer until dark," he said. "I should be in before they're ready for the main event."
"I could arrange to have some people in the neighborhood," Brognola offered.
"Up to you. Make sure you've got a net before you start j to saw the limb off, eh?"
The man from Justice snorted.
"You're the one to talk. Say, listen...on this other thing..."
"I'll bring them with me if I can," the soldier told him.
"Hell, I know that. Don't you think I know that?" Hal's distress was coming through as irritation now. "But if you can't... I mean, it doesn't have a thing to do with you."
The warrior's frown was carved in stone.
"It has to do with all of us," he answered grimly.
Silence.
Then Brognola said, "I guess it does."
The Executioner prepared to disengage.
"I've got some other calls to make before I move," he told his friend. "Do what you have to do."
"I'll see you, huh?"
"I wouldn't be surprised."
The dial tone filled his ear, and Bolan eased the telephone receiver back into its cradle, fishing in his pocket for another coin. He concentrated on his mission, the preparations for his coming strike, but there was no way to evade the nagging dread that came with Hal Brognola's message.
Bolan knew the odds too well to cherish hope. If Sally had not been discovered, she was still in mortal danger, more so as the time slipped past, the numbers counting down to zero hour.
For the moment, he was certain only that she was in there, somewhere, and in peril. Trapped inside the dragon's lair, with Dave Eritrea, with Sticker — all of them within his field of fire, precise locations unknown until he was inside.
Until it was too late.
But he had other calls to make before the doomsday clock ran down, and he was out of numbers. The Executioner could not afford a tardy entrance to Minelli's coronation, any more than he could be late to his own damn funeral.
And Bolan knew the two events might well turn out to be one and the same.
* * *
Brognola held the cartridges in one hand, rattling them absentmindedly, his thoughts a world away. His .38 revolver, open, empty, filled his other fist. The bedside telephone rebuked him with its stony silence.
"Dammit."
And he knew he should be doing something, but the specifics of the thing eluded him.
It should have been a simple job for Flasher, in and out, disguised as Patriarcca's window dressing, with a full report through channels when she had the time. From all appearances, she had discovered something that refused to wait, its urgency compelling her to risk her cover — and her life — to get a message out.
And he had missed her, for the sake of being in New York and closer to the action.
"Dammit!"
It had been a simple in and out, except that somehow everything had suddenly become balled up along the way. Eritrea had disappeared from what had passed for a safehouse and the Executioner arrived to track him down and bring him back, alive or otherwise. Tattaglia was in the middle of it and heading up the Maryland contingent at the sit-down, likely to be caught in the Minelli-Bolan crossfire when it broke. And when it broke, there would be no safe havens in the hellgrounds, not for friend or foe.
But it was Flasher who preyed on Hal Brognola's mind the most. He felt responsible — all right, he was responsible, goddamn it — for the danger she was in. He called the shots, he chose the jobs, and in the end if things went sour, he would have to bear the heat.
Except that he would be sitting in his hotel room, safe and sound, while agents in the field were dying.
"If she's damaged, there's only so much you can do to make it right.'
Bolan's words came back to him and he was right, of : course. Brognola's temperament and years of going at least loosely by the book prevented him from pulling out the stops and wreaking vengeance on the animals he tracked from day to day. He could investigate them to his heart's content and bust them if he found them dirty. He could kill them, on occasion, if they tried to kill him first, although he never really got the feel for it. And where was Justice, really, once the lawyers with their Latin phrases and the judges in their funeral robes were done?
"There's only so much you can do..."
But there were no such limitations on the Executioner. His j options were wide open, and he was free to make the penalty approximate the crime.
"To make it right."
Some things could never be made right, of course. Some crimes could only be avenged, and with a fury that eclipsed the savage act itse
lf. Some human animals could only understand apocalyptic retribution for their crimes against humanity.
More than once, Brognola had observed the Executioner in frenzy mode, imposing his revenge on the cannibals, and the images were branded on his soul. Miami. Boston. Jersey and Detroit. The blood-and-thunder aftermath of his betrayal in Virginia, April Rose's death.
The soldier, with an infinite capcity for caring, seemed to have an infinite capacity for killing, too. And if Minelli had discovered Flasher, if his men had harmed Sally in any way...
Brognola grimaced.
He would not have traded places with the mafioso at any price.
While Bolan lived, Minelli would not find a hiding place on earth. No mountaintop, no cave, no desert island would be wild enough, remote enough, to shelter him from the avenging spirit. No matter where he ran, he would be hunted down precisely like the vermin that he was, and run to earth. Wiped out.
But the big Fed knew from watching Bolan at work that vengeance never filled the void of martyred friends and lost loved ones. Retribution was a form of hellfire therapy, of repaying a debt in blood and purging grief, but ultimately it added nothing to the man or to society beyond elimination of a hostile predator. When it was done, the ritual complete, a legacy of grief remained, and there was nothing more to do but live with it.
Mack Bolan had eradicated countless savages — one unofficial tabulation placed it in the thousands — and he bore the scars of losses that had cut him to the soul and left it bleeding, raw. Remembered pain was never far away, Brognola knew, and each new skirmish seemed to add another scar.
He wondered, sometimes, how the Executioner held on. How long could he keep going, butting heads against the odds, against his own mortality?
One more time, he thought, not realizing that it sounded like a prayer. This time, at least.
For Flasher.
For Tattaglia.
And for the man himself.
They could not well afford to lose him now, could not afford to let him lose himself. It was incredible that Bolan had maintained his balance as it was, an exile, every hand against him.
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