And the soldier hated, sure.
He carried cold, abiding hate inside him for all the pain and suffering that savages inflicted on their victims in a world of "civilized" and "cultured" men.
He hated all the waste — of lives, of dreams, of sheer humanity — which was the grim debris of war everlasting.
And worst of all, he hated the idea of dying while his enemies remained behind, to work their will, unhindered by a set of antiquated laws and handcuffed law-enforcement agencies.
He hated the idea of losing and yet recognized there could be no lasting victory.
He let the sentries pass, and others in their turn, until he stood in the shadow of the trees, no more than fifty yards away from Minelli's house, which was ablaze with lights. The cottages were to his right, the vacated pool between them and the mansion. It would be an easy stroll.
Unless they spotted him.
Unless he got killed covering those fifty yards.
And Bolan knew he had no choice. There was a single option open to him now, and only one direction he could travel in.
Forward.
* * *
Bill Rafferty coasted the last hundred yards with his lights off, braking gently and killing the unmarked cruiser's engine when the Minelli gatehouse came into view. In his rearview mirror, he saw other blacked-out cars lining up, parking on the shoulder.
The young strike-force lieutenant shifted restlessly beside him, stubbing out his cigarette.
"Well, are we going in or what?"
"Or what. We wait until I give the word."
The young lieutenant lapsed into disgruntled silence, firing up another smoke. Bill Rafferty could sympathize, but how could he explain what was really going on?
No sweat, kid, we're just waiting for the Executioner to take some capos out, and then we'll bag whatever's left. We're batting cleanup, son.
Really.
So far, he was still on solid ground. The tip from Bolan had been logged and taped anonymously, and he was responding in due course. Without a warrant, he was technically required to sit and wait until reports of an incipient assassination on the grounds were proven true... or false. Once shots were fired, with other lawmen as his witnesses, he wouldn't need the warrant anyway.
And then it would get sticky.
For Rafferty, the task would be to hold his men in check and let the firefight run its course — just long enough for Bolan to achieve his goals. Five minutes, give or take, and it could be a lifetime, with thirty strike-force raiders chafing at the bit and ready for a little hellfire of their own.
There would be questions, certainly, unless he managed to finesse the play somehow and make the delay look natural. If someone started asking...
Rafferty shrugged off the threat, its consequences. He had made his choice, but he knew the NYPD dealt severely with its own when they malfunctioned in the field.
He marveled at the swift turn of events that placed him there, outside the Minelli gates, prepared to sacrifice career and reputation in the cause of Bolan's private war.
The war was getting personal again for Captain Rafferty, and with the sudden revelation came the thought that it had been impersonal for too damned long.
The Bolan concept was an ancient one... so damned old-fashioned it was downright revolutionary in its impact on a weak society, besieged by enemies within and terrorists without.
If someone terrorized your family, attempted to destroy your world, you'd kill the bastard and get on with the job of living. If other savages returned to take his place, and others after them, you'd organize a warrior class to scourge them from the earth and keep them living scared, out there among the jackals of the wasteland.
Minelli was small enough beginning, but his sheer existence was a rank affront to civilized society. If there was anything Bill Rafferty could do to wipe that stain away, he was prepared to spend his life in the attempt.
20
Bolan chose his moment, waiting until the patrolling sentries had passed from sight. He knew the risks, but the doomsday numbers were already running in his head and he was out of time.
He sprinted across the fifty yards of open ground and slid into the shadow of the nearest bungalow, the Uzi braced against his hip. Bolan circled toward the only cottage with a light still showing through its windows. He figured it had to be Dave Eritrea's prison cell.
The other bungalows were dark, their occupants inside the great house now. If someone had remained behind, outside, it would not be by choice, and Bolan navigated by the gut as he proceeded through the darkness toward his chosen target.
Past the bungalow that Sally-Palmer shared with Patriarcca.
Past two others, silent, empty.
If Eritrea was inside the lighted cottage, then a portion of Bolan's job was done. He could release the informer, see him safely to the outer wall, then resume his long night's work with one load lifted from his mind. He might be under guard, of course, and Bolan let the Uzi hang against his chest as he approached his destination, opting for the silenced 93-R in case he had to deal with rear-guard watchmen prematurely.
It was far too early yet for Bolan to announce his presence. Any killing done on Dave Eritrea's behalf would have to be the silent kind, at least until Bolan had his major targets ail together, in position for the slaughter.
Bolan finally emerged from midnight shadow, glancing each way before he moved into the light. The window shades were down, preventing his looking inside the bungalow, and something in the soldier's gut was gnawing at him, telling him that something was wrong somehow.
And still, he had no choice.
A flying kick above the flimsy lock propelled the thin door backward until it tore off its hinges. The warrior quickly entered, sleek Beretta leading, ready to accommodate all challengers.
The empty cottage mocked him with its silence.
Bolan swiftly closed the door behind him, checked the tiny bathroom and holstered the 93-R. It took a heartbeat for his eyes to find the handcuffs, empty now, still dangling from the cot positioned in a corner.
Eritrea was gone.
And Bolan knew he was too late.
Don Minelli was proceeding with his meeting on schedule, and he had the entertainment ready for his guests inside the mansion. It would require some time to check the other bungalows, but Bolan's instinct was telling him that he would find his other quarry — Flasher — in the manor house, as well.
The cannibals had gathered for their feast, and there would be no dearth of human appetizers on the menu. Unless another chef could unexpectedly interfere just long enough to make some alterations.
And the Executioner intended to supply a few hot dishes of his own.
He had already spent the day preparing appetites and setting party moods in Jersey, all around New York, and he did not intend to be excluded from final preparations for the bash. He might be short an invitation, but it was the thought that counted, after all... and Bolan's thoughts were bent on hell fire.
If Dave Eritrea and Sally Palmer were inside the mansion, he would have to get them clear before he brought the house down. Bill Rafferty might have an angle there... providing that he kept their date.
Bolan had the lawman pegged as a soldier of the same side. And the warrior needed help, the kind that Rafferty could provide. But any decision made by the captain was his own.
There could be no draftees in Bolan's holy war. The price of entry was commitment, sure.
Bill Rafferty would know that going in, and he would enter with his eyes wide open, or he would not come in at all.
It was the only way to fight a holy war.
The only way for holy warriors to survive.
Tonight, perhaps, it might be the only way to die.
Turning the lights off. Mack Bolan left the bungalow and moved toward the house.
* * *"So, Ducks, let's have the story, eh? What's eatin' Jules?"
The crew chief, Tommy Fiorini, shifted on the Lincoln's front seat to find a
comfortable position for his ample backside. Never fond of traveling, he was uncomfortable here, in hostile territory, riding in a strange car through unfriendly darkness.
"Nothin' special," Fiorini told his wheelman, hoping that he might convince himself, as well. 'They had some kinda beef when he showed up, an' anyway, he wants a little show of force, tha's all."
But was it all?
Fiorini hadn't liked the tone of Patriarcca's voice when they had spoken on the telephone, and there had been the sense of something left unsaid, as if his capo feared there might be others listening on the line.
So what the hell else was new?
Somebody had been listening to the brotherhood now for as long as Fiorini could remember. Feds, the local cops, some blasted prosecutor or a senator's committee. Any time you needed headlines, or some new appropriations for the yearly budget, all you had to do was holler Mafia and leak some tapes to get exactly what you wanted from the purse-string boys.
In Fiorini's younger days, it had been different, though. There had been definite security in signing on with one of the established families, making your bones and taking the oath by candlelight, with your friends and family looking on.
It had begun to change back in the sixties when Kennedy was in the White House. Things had gone from bad to worse since then, despite some real good times along the way. Fiorini had picked up the nickname Ducks back in 1963, when he was busted and convicted on a contrived federal charge of exceeding his limit on killing migratory water fowl.
A frigging duck conviction, for cryin' out loud, and it had followed him these twenty years, until it didn't make him see red anymore when someone called him Ducks. He laughed it off now, and hardly gave a thought to ripping out the driver's lungs.
But there was no surefire security, not any more. The Feds were everywhere, and even granting that the brotherhood's worst enemy, that bastard Bolan, had gone up in smoke a few years back, the syndicate had never quite recovered from the damage it sustained when he was still alive and kicking ass.
Minelli's meeting was designed to fix all that and put the territories back together, better than they were before. And Fiorini knew that Jules was skeptical — of Don Minelli's leadership, at any rate — but still, you had to give the guy his due for putting all of it together.
Patriarcca was an old-style capo, and he shied away from new ideas unless they made him plenty money with a minimum of risk. He had begun to see Minelli's rise as some kind of a threat to his own West Coast empire, and while Fiorini didn't really grasp the logic of it all, he had been smart enough to keep from thinking for himself, to keep on playing smart and taking orders.
From his entry to the brotherhood, Fiorini realized that he had not been marked by destiny to ride the throne. His role as Patriarcca's regional commander fit him fine, and he was glad to do the old man's bidding, but damn, he hated traveling.
The crew chief swiveled ponderously in his seat and craned to look across his shoulder, past the gunners in the back seat, through the broad rear window of the Continental. Running close behind them, four more tanks were bearing gunners to the meeting, bringing in the cavalry to make Don Patriarcca feel secure.
It would make Don Minelli as mad as hell, but the crew chief thought his boys could hold their own if it came down to any kind of heavy action. He had picked them with the same discerning eye he had for women, passing over those who showed a trace of weakness or reluctance when it came to dirty work.
But Ducks was hoping that it would not come to killing there, on foreign soil, where his connections stood for nothing and he had no place to run in case it all went wrong. Back home, around Seattle, he could count on grease with cops and politicians, on his capo's help, but here...
The crew chief shook his momentary doubts away and sat up straighter in his seat. The old man would have told him if a war was in the wings. This little bit of flexing would establish Patriarcca as a man of substance, nothing more, and if Minelli didn't like it, well, the upstart don could just go screw himself. He was a kid, when you came down to it, still wet behind the ears, no matter if his family was twice as large as Patriarcca's, man for man. He didn't have the strong connections Jules had, up and down the coast back home.
"So, how much farther is it?"
"Couple of miles," the wheelman told him. "Ought to see it soon."
The crew chief checked his watch and sighed.
Another couple of miles. Six long hours on his butt had made him stiff.
Tommy Fiorini settled back, puffing busily on his cigar, and concentrated on the darkened road ahead. A few more minutes, and he could relax... or really start to sweat.
* * *
Ernesto Minelli tapped a fork against his wineglass, waited for the murmuring of voices to die down. When it was silent, he stood up, surveying faces ranged along each side of the extended conference table.
On his left and right, close by, the other New York dons were watching with a mixture of distrust and curiosity. He gave up looking for a message in the faces, realizing all of them had suffered losses through the day, aware that some suspected him of being at the bottom of it all.
D'Antoni, from New Jersey, glowered through a screen of thick cigar smoke, big hands clenched together on the table, fingers working nervously. The hands were bandaged, making Minelli wonder just exactly what form Bobby's "accident" that afternoon had taken... but he pushed it out of mind, glancing around the table, reading faces, moods.
No thaw from Patriarcca or his shadow, Cigliano — but the New York capo had expected none. They would resist him, almost certainly, no matter how he broached the subject on his mind, and he would have to deal with their hostility later. Soon, now, he thought. Quite soon.
The others watched him noncommittally, adopting outward attitudes of wait and see. Chicago's Paulo Vaccarelli sat near Santos Bataglia, out of Boston, both men smoking and staring at him, faces impassive. Across the table, Miami's Jerry Lazia was stationed next to Vince Galante, speaking for the Kansas City-Cleveland axis. Finally, and closest, Aguirre of the New York end, were representatives of old Don Narozine's Baltimore contingent, waiting for the show to start.
The audience was in, and it was up to Don Ernesto to win them over... or, at least, to stall the hostiles long enough to give himself some breathing room.
His smile included all of them — friend and enemy, the vast majority who were still uncommitted. When he spoke, his voice was firm and strong.
"I'm happy all of you could make it here tonight, despite the recent troubles." A general grumbling around the table let him know that he had touched on the subject of their chief concern. "We had some trouble here, ourselves, as Jules and Lester there could tell you, eh?"
No gesture of acknowledgment from either of the West Coast dons. He forged ahead, ignoring the snub.
"The reason I asked you all to join me here was so that we could settle some unfinished business. What I've got to say pertains to everybody in this room... and I believe you're gonna think the trip was worth it when you've heard me out."
A pause then, for effect, to let the appetizer settle in and whet their curiosity. No need to drop it on them all at once. There would be time enough for raking in the honors when he had them on his side.
"We've had a lotta trouble lately — hell, the past few years — with yellow rats who've sold out to the government and carried tales about our families, this thing of ours."
A murmur, this time of agreement, ran around the table.
"Fact is," he told them when the rumbling had died away, "nobody's had more trouble with informers than we have right here... and you know who I mean."
A growl this time, and not just from the New York dons. The shock waves from the testimony of the rat he had in mind had reached from coast to coast, and Minelli knew he had their full attention now.
"This bastard grew up not five miles from here, wormed his way up through the family, and then he turned, like some...some kinda fucking snake or something
, biting at the hand that fed him all those years. I know; he bit my family more than once, and I got scars to show for it."
No need to mention that Dave Eritrea's testimony also cleared the throne that Minelli hoped to occupy this night.
"There's been a lot of talk about what should be done with rats like these... and this rat in particular... but no one's got a handle on exactly where the Feds were hiding them away. So far."
An air of expectation filled the conference room, and Minelli took his time, maintaining eye contact with the two Aces standing watch on a side door, waiting for his command. At a nod, one of them disappeared through the exit, hastening to fetch his prize.
"Well... I got lucky, or, maybe I just touched some bases nobody had touched before. Whatever, it's my pleasure now to introduce a special guest who couldn't join us earlier. You could say he was all tied up for dinner."
At a snap of his fingers, the side door was opened, and the Black Ace propelled Eritrea into the room. The hostage staggered, found his balance and was blinking at the faces ranged around the table when a howl went up and everyone was jabbering together in excited tones.
On Minelli's left, Vito Aguirre was out of his seat in an instant, landing two quick punches on Eritrea's jaw before his consigliere and one of the Aces could restrain him, leading him gently back to his chair. The other capos kept their seats, but they were glowering darkly at the new arrival — and most of them were viewing Minelli with a new respect.
The mafioso raised a hand to still the uproar, waiting while it ran its course.
"You'll get your chance," he promised them. "Fact is, I figured some of you could use a little after-dinner entertainment, eh? Work off a little of that pasta while you got the chance."
He shared their laughter, glancing at Eritrea from the corner of one eye and nodding for the Ace to lead him out.
"He'll be around, don't worry... but there's other business that we need to talk about before we break it up." He hesitated, took a breath and plunged ahead. "Like how this thing of ours has fallen all apart the past few years, for instance. And like what it's gonna take to make it like it was before."
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