How many other men had cracked beneath the strain of lesser weights? How many had withdrawn into themselves or detonated into wild, chaotic violence aimed at members of their families, at total strangers, when the fuse burned down too far?
Mack Bolan was a living mystery. A goddamned wonder of the world. No other like him had arisen during living memory; there might not be another like him in a lifetime.
And they needed him. Alive. In working order and in fighting trim.
Brognola's job, on paper, was to make sure that Bolan did not run amok, initiate another of his one-man wars. He had accepted the assignment knowing that it was impossible, that no one would contain the hellfire warrior's energy until he was nailed inside a stout pine box.
The misconception had been in the assumption that Bolan would be "starting something" once his last official ties were severed. Nothing, Hal Brognola knew, could have been farther from the truth.
The Executioner had never started anything, and he was not about to try. His war had been there waiting for him when he came home from the Asian hellgrounds all those lives ago, and he had been fighting it ever since. There was no new war for Mack Bolan. It would always be the same old war, despite the shifting battlefields, the changing names and faces of his enemies.
The opposition was — had always been, would always be — the savages who prey upon society.
The warrior's sole objective was — had always been, would always be — to drive them back into their caves and keep them there, to make them fear the cleansing light of day.
And Bolan was — had always been, would always be — the Executioner.
Damn straight.
It was Mack Bolan's war, but there was room for allies, so long as they did not obstruct the field of fire. If there was nothing Hal could do to rein the hellfire warrior in — or, God forbid, to call him off — there might be something he could do to help.
Brognola finished loading his revolver, holstered it and reached for the telephone.
18
Bill Rafferty was beside the phone when it rang. With some sixth sense that develops in a lawman over time, he had been expecting the call. As he lifted the receiver, he already knew who was on the other end.
"Rafferty."
"How's your houseguest?"
Bolan's casual tone surprised the veteran detective, and the short hairs on his neck stood at attention.
"She's in safe hands," the strike-force chief replied. "Your friend in Washington sent out a pickup team."
"I see."
He heard the concern in Bolan's voice.
"I checked their paperwork, of course. They were legit, for what it's worth."
"It's worth a lot. And thanks."
"Don't mention it."
"Have you made a decision, Captain?"
Cool and casual. He might have been requesting tomorrow's weather forecast rather than inviting Rafferty to join in mortal combat.
"'Yeah, I have." The gruff detective glanced around him, hesitating for another moment, finally releasing held-in breath. "I guess I'll go along."
Just that. And Rafferty was perfectly aware that he had sealed his fate with five small words. If anything went wrong from here on in, it was his ass, his job, his pension on the line.
"Okay." There was a mixture of relief and sadness in the soldier's tone. "You know Minelli's place?"
"Out on the island? Yeah."
"His visitors are in for a surprise tonight, at... let's say... 1900."
"Couldn't happen to a nicer crowd."
And he could almost hear Bolan grin across the wires.
"Our mutual acquaintance has a friend inside, with the Seattle delegation. The rumble is, she may be made."
"Bad luck."
"There's more. Minelli has your missing package under wraps."
If figured, sure.
"Sounds like a tricky play," said Rafferty.
"They may be still intact. But either way, the party goes."
It came out cold, but Rafferty could sense a certain pain behind the words. And he was learning more about Bolan by the moment.
"So what's my end?"
"You're batting cleanup. There should be a lot of strays, and some of them may be inclined to talk, if you're persuasive."
"I'm a charmer when I need to be."
"Okay. I'll rig it so you get a tip in time to roll and make it look legitimate. If everything comes off, you should be covered five by five. Stay hard, Captain."
"Yeah. You, too."
He thought of something else and snatched the telephone receiver back, but he was talking to the dial tone now. The Executioner was gone.
And what else do you tell a man whose life is on the line around the clock, by choice? What do you say before the solitary soldier goes to war?
Be careful?
Keep your head down?
Hit the bastards once for me?
It was simple, really. There was nothing to be said.
The soldier's actions would be speaking for him soon.
And whichever way it went, Bill Rafferty would be on Bolan's flank tonight, ready to receive the stragglers as they fled the firestorm.
Rafferty was well aware that he'd be violating every code of conduct in the book, that he could lose his job, his freedom, if the truth came out in open court. But somehow the veteran detective's own priorities were shifting, changing, to accommodate a different set of values, different than but not entirely foreign to his own.
Bill Rafferty had seen too many criminals sheltered while their victims were crucified. He was familiar with the lawyers on both sides — the prosecution and defense — who jumped at sweetheart deals to clear the calendar, without regard for morality. He had seen hundreds of convicted felons walk away with reprimands, and fines that scarcely j dented their illicit bankrolls.
He had seen enough to know the hallowed system wasn't working anymore. Perhaps it never had, but there was nothing he could do to change the past.
There might be something, though, that he could do about the present... and the future. Anyway, the strike-force j captain felt compelled to try. And if he lost it all in the attempt...
Well, it was better than surrendering without a fight. And when Bill Rafferty went out, he meant to go out fighting, taking down as many hostiles as he could along the way.
It was the only decent way, he thought, for any fighting man to go.
* * *
Mack Bolan had an hour to prepare himself for Don Minelli's sit-down, and the time weighed heavily on him as he pushed the rental wheels eastbound along Highway 25A, crossing out of Nassau County and into Long Island proper.
He knew how long an hour was and what could happen in that time.
He knew what could become of Sally Palmer and Dave Eritrea if Minelli tried to start his party prematurely, using one or both of them to enliven the festivities.
Eritrea was certain to be marked for death, presumably when all the capos were assembled, so that they could marvel at Minelli's cunning, his ability to reach inside the federal witness program and extract so ripe a plum. As for Sally, there was a chance that she had not yet been made.
The soldier's memory coughed up unbidden images of other comrades, other loved ones, mangled in the grim machinery of Bolan's everlasting war. Some had been agents, others innocent civilians caught up at the wrong place, the wrong time, paying with their lives for an association with the Executioner.
He tried to close the door on painful memories, but they were flooding back, full force now. Helpless "turkeys," butchered by the Mafia for information or perhaps to serve as grisly object lessons for the brotherhood.
Bolan shook the thoughts away. He had no time for ghosts. The friendly spirits would be with him when he needed them. As for the hostiles, well, there were fresh ones at his target destination, waiting to be made.
But he could not ignore the danger Sally Palmer faced there, inside the serpent's den.
The Executioner was not responsible for Sally's pr
esence in the hostile camp, but he would bear the weight of full responsibility for what went down inside those walls tonight.
Never for an instant did the soldier contemplate a deviation from his plan. The course was set and he would see it through, to victory or death, but still, he could not hide the concern he felt for some of those inside.
The lady Fed would live or she would die. The risks had been no secret going in.
And if she lost it at Minelli's, Bolan would do everything within his power to even up the score. If Sally had been... damaged... it would be scorched earth for Don Ernesto and his company. A firestorm that would make New York sit up and pay attention — for perhaps a day or so.
The city was unfeeling, cold, and there was a monotony about its crime reports — on the rapes, muggings, murders, maimings — that suggested its denizens learned nothing from their mistakes. As each new wave of outrage passed, succeeded by a swell of apathy, the same old attitudes returned, defying predators at large to offer yet more shocking entertainment on the late-night news.
The city bred indifference, a bland disdain for humankind that Bolan found contemptuous in itself. A city boy, he had been raised to know his neighbors, care about their problems, sympathize — and help, if possible. Apathy was abhorrent to him just as disease, starvation and oppression were abhorrent. Indifference was stagnation to the Executioner, indifference was a synonym for living death.
And Bolan was involved up to his eyebrows in the fight to help his fellow man. The soldier long ago had recognized and reconciled himself to the demanding role of his brother's keeper. He could not be everywhere, help everyone, but where he was, he left a mark.
And at the moment, he was in New York.
He had already left his mark upon the Mafia families who had raped the city for so long. They knew him well, and they would know him better before this night was done.
One man could make a difference, with determination, courage, will.
One man could help another, even over protest, if he went that extra mile and risked it all.
One man like Bolan.
And Sally Palmer had learned that lesson well. She was striking blows against the common enemy before she met the Executioner, and there was still a chance...
The Executioner concentrated on the last few miles of highway, pushing it to give himself some extra on-site preparation time. He would need every moment of it before he crashed Minelli's coronation party. And he had a few unscheduled party favors for the honored guests from out of town. The life of the party was coming.
The death of the party was here.
With any luck at all, he would bring the house down. Square on Don Ernesto's head.
19
The woman's eyes were red from crying, and the left one was already swelling shut. Mascara tracked down her bruised cheeks. Her lower lip was split and bleeding freely, crimson droplets soaking through the blouse above one breast.
Ernesto Minelli shook his head and frowned, a parody of sympathy. His eyes were as cold as slate when he turned back to face the man called Lazarus.
"And nothing?"
"Give it time. She's obviously field conditioned, but she'll break. They always break."
The Ace's smile reminded Minelli of a hungry reptile.
"We haven't got the time. If Patriarcca thinks that he can fuck around with me..."
"She doesn't work for Jules."
The bland pronouncement startled Minelli into momentary silence, and he took another long look at the battered lady, bound securely to the wooden chair in front of them. The implication of Lazarus's words took time to register.
"Well, who then? What the hell.?.."
"Who do you know in Washington?"
"In Washington?" The capo's mind went momentarily blank, and he was locked in on a mental image of Seattle. "But you just said..."
"In Washington, D.C."
Minelli didn't like the patronizing tone that Lazarus adopted, but he let it pass, already grasping what the Ace was getting at.
"The Feds?"
"I'd bet my life on it."
"You do that," Minelli growled, recovering, enjoying the suggestion of a flush on the other man's face. "You do exactly that. And if you're wrong, if this one doesn't talk..."
"She'll talk. No sweat."
"No sweat, my ass. If this thing falls apart, we all go down, your precious Aces, everything."
"I'm well aware..."
"I hope so," Minelli snapped, not giving Lazarus the time to finish it. "I hope you're well aware that your head's on the block, right there alongside mine."
"That's understood."
"So do your job and get it over with. Before the meeting breaks downstairs, I wanna know the who and why and all of it. I wanna know what this one had for breakfast on her fourteenth birthday. You got it?"
Lazarus regarded him from under hooded eyelids for a moment, nodding slowly.
"Done."
Then the capo left, relaxing slightly when the study door had closed behind him, cutting off the reptile stare. He made a conscious effort to unwind as he paced down the corridor of the meeting hall.
They would be gathering to hear him soon, to listen with their varying degrees of loyalty or suspicion, thinly veiled hostility or cool respect. It was a loaded audience, he knew, but Minelli felt a power growing within him now, the strength that was his birthright flowing electrically in his blood.
He could do anything tonight, and screw the Feds if they had any thoughts of pulling the net around him now, when he was so damned close to having everything. They were too late, and knowing that increased the bounce in his stride.
So what if Patriarcca's bitch was working for the government? She had attempted one phone call since her arrival, and had failed to make connections then. She left no message for her boss — whoever he might be — and any information she had passed along before arriving in New York would deal with Jules and no one else.
If anyone was on the hook, therefore, it would be Patriarcca, and that suited Minelli fine.
A federal prosecution might remove him from the scene and make room for a more deserving candidate.
Like Lazarus, perhaps.
The Ace was getting too damned big for Minelli's liking, and his attitude was verging on insubordination. When everything was settled at the conference, there would have to be some changes in the capo's own security machine, and there should be no problem in finding someone capable of taking up the slack once Lazarus was gone.
The Aces, after all, were known as much for their adaptability as for their grim ferocity in punishing La Cosa Nostra's enemies.
That settled, Minelli allowed himself a smile, the first sincere one of the day. His morning had begun with grim foreboding, but the night was proving to be another game entirely. Everything was coming off as planned, and just a few more hours would confirm his grip upon the reins of power in the brotherhood.
The boss of bosses. Capo di tutti capi.
The hungry smiles became a booming laugh, which carried Minelli on toward the meeting hall and destiny.
* * *
The Executioner was rigged for doomsday in the dark. The hidden pockets of his blacksuit were filled with the grim machinery of silent death. His hands and face were camouflaged with jungle war paint, making sure that nothing brighter than his eyes would catch a moonbeam and betray his presence on the grounds before he meant to make it known.
Big Thunder, the .44 AutoMag, rode his hip on military webbing, and the sleek Beretta nestled underneath his arm. Extra magazines for both the side arms circled Bolan's waist, the pouches interspersed with smoke and frag grenades arranged for quick retrieval. Other bandoliers of ammunition and explosives looped across his chest and further weighed the warrior down.
Bolan's main weapon for the strike was an Uzi submachine gun, selected for its convenience and firepower. Just under eighteen inches overall, with folding stock collapsed, the little stutter gun's effective killing range of one hundred
yards would easily exceed the soldier's needs this time around.
When the killing started, Bolan would be thrown to center stage of what was shaping up as the most concentrated gathering of mafiosi since Miami, early in his private war. He wanted there to be no doubt of where he was and what was happening. It was another bloody generation's turn to live — and die — with terror, as countless of their victims had been doing since the Executioner's own "second mile" against the Mob.
They had grown soft, complacent, cocky in his absence, and the warrior was ready to begin his purge. But there were treasures hidden among the trash. Three lives, two of them more important to Mack Bolan than the third, but all inviolate while he survived, his honor pledged to bring them out intact... or die in the attempt.
Sally Palmer.
Nino Tattaglia.
Dave Eritrea.
He might have let Eritrea die, chalking it up as payment in arrears for ancient crimes, but after meeting Sarah, knowing of Brognola's promise that exclusive testimony would be bought with sanctuary, Bolan had no righteous choice.
The outer wall of Minelli's hard site posed no problem for the Executioner. He vaulted it and landed in a combat crouch inside, instinctively staying in the shadows there, his senses probing for any hostile challenge, finding none. When he was satisfied at last, the soldier cautiously advanced across the gently rolling, sparsely wooded grounds, his Uzi up and ready. Navigating by his instincts and the information gathered from his survey of the grounds that afternoon, he put a hundred yards behind him prior to meeting any opposition.
The capo had his sentries out, predictably, and they were circling the grounds in teams of two and three, one man in each team carrying a shotgun or an automatic weapon. Bolan heard the first pair coming and he melted into a shadow, letting them pass within arm's length; they suspected nothing. He had other games in mind just now.
The kind you carry home alive.
His mission was a dual one, incorporating life and death. Before he got around to dealing death, he had to find Eritrea and Sally Palmer, see them safely from the line of fire. And failing that...
The Executioner had long abandoned private hatred of the enemy as motivation for his war, but he had never shed the righteous wrath that came from finding a malignant cancer feeding on society, devouring the innocent and spitting out their mangled dreams as so much offal.
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