Shock Waves

by Don Pendleton

  They were listening now, but some of them were still openly skeptical, as if they knew what was coming and were determined not to buy it. Minelli refused to let that deter him. He had come too far out on the limb to back down now.

  "It used to be the brotherhood was run like a machine: well oiled, well kept, no problems that you couldn't fix without a major overhaul. Time was, the dons sat down together just like one, and what they said...well, shit, that was the fucking law. Some judge, some congressman, whatever, tries to screw around with the brothers, and he finds himself out of a job. He keeps coming, and he gets his frigging head handed to him on a platter, am I right?"

  A murmur of assent, and even Cigliano nodded, getting in the spirit of it now and thinking back to good old days that he had never known himself.

  "Time was, we ran this country... and we could again... but not the way we operate right now." He paused and let them glance around at one another, silently condemning this or that of their associates for weakening the standards of the whole. "Today, it's like a Chinese fire drill when we try to get things done. The Feds are up our assholes with a magnifying glass, and all we do is shake our heads like some lame ducks who haven't got the legs to stand and fight."

  Dead silence, and no one among them dared to clear his throat, thereby attracting notice to himself. The time had come to spell it out. He swallowed hard and went ahead.

  "I say we need a leader, like we used to have. Somebody who could guide the brotherhood. We use to have a man like that. You all know who I mean."

  "Damn right." The rumble came from Bonadonna, on his right. "That Augie Marinello was a man."

  The capo nodded, using all the strength of will to keep the smile off his burning face.

  "We need a man like that today. We need what he can give us, right up front, the way it used to be."

  Down at the far end of the table, Patriarcca cleared his throat loudly.

  "You got some way to raise the dead that we ain't heard of, Ernie?"

  L.A. Lester snickered, joined by several of the others. Minelli kept his face impassive, fighting the urge to snap back at the Washington capo.

  "That won't be necessary, Jules. The Marinello line is still alive."

  For a moment the silence was deafening, then it broke, and everyone was babbling. Halfway down the table, old Tom Gregorio was pounding on the woodwork with his fist, shouting the others down, demanding the floor, and it was several moments before the noise died and he could be heard. When he got his chance he lurched erect, leaning toward his host with both fists on the tabletop.

  "You're movin' kinda fast for some of us, Ernesto. Last I heard, Augie didn't leave no sons."

  "His wife was childless, Tom. That doesn't mean he died without an heir."

  So where's this heir?" Gregorio demanded. "Let him show himself."

  "You're looking at him, Thomas."

  "Bullshit!" Patriarcca shouted from his seat, and then the other voices drowned him out, all clamoring at once with questions, exclamations, statements of surprise or disbelief. The capo raised both hands, waiting a full five minutes before he had the chance to speak below a shout.

  "I realize how difficult this is for some of you to handle, but I have the evidence you need, and all of you will be permitted, naturally, to check it out before you leave. I've got letters, written to my mother in the don's own hand, along with other papers and a diary left by Barney Matilda. Some of you know how close he was to Augie; they came up together through the ranks."

  Gregorio was still on his feet, but his hands were no longer clenched into fists. They hung by his sides, and he had a stunned expression on his face.

  "Supposing what you say is true... supposing, now... how come you been hidin' your light under a bushel all these years?"

  "My father kept on hoping for an heir that he could claim until... the day he died. After that, well, with our friend Eritrea in the saddle, and some others I could name, I wanted some security before I stuck my neck out. That make sense to you, Tom?"

  "Yeah." The older don still sounded bewildered. "It makes sense, but..."

  Minelli smiled.

  "Again, I understand your reservations... and I hope the evidence I have will answer them. If not..."

  Patriarcca leaned across the table, jabbing a finger toward Minelli. He was pale, but his resistance was unshaken.

  "Let's cut through all the hearts and flowers here," he snarled. "Suppose you are exactly who you say. So what? What makes you think you're fit to guide this thing of ours?"

  Minelli stiffened.

  "I've got the blood," he answered. "When I bagged Eritrea, I proved I had the brains. If it comes down to that, I've got the troops."

  "Aha!"

  Patriarcca lurched to his feet, but before he could make his point, the muffled sound of an explosion reached their ears from somewhere outside. A minor shock wave rattled the curtained windows in their frames. An instant later, automatic weapons joined the chorus, firing from the direction of the bungalows.

  "What kind of shit is this?"

  "Hey, what the hell..."

  Minelli left his place, moving down the length of the table, motioning for the Aces to follow. As he passed among the other dons, he raised his voice, trying to sound reassuring.

  "Nothing to worry about," he told them, wishing he believed it as he spoke the words. "If it's the bastard who hit us today, we'll have two heads instead of one."

  The second blast was closer — close enough, in fact, to smash the giant picture window, spraying fractured slivers through the drapes and peppering the walls, the guests, with flying glass.

  And Don Ernesto Minelli saw his world begin to teeter on its axis, tilting, slipping through his fingers just as he began to think it was secure. He reached the door, the Aces on his heels, and he was running in the direction of the gunfire, his pulse hammering inside his skull.

  He would not lose it now, when he was this close.

  He could not.

  He would die first, if that was what it took.

  But no way would he die alone.

  21

  Mack Bolan had kept his distance from the lighted swimming-pool area, circling warily around the flagstone patio, homing in on the French doors that would give him access to the manor and the men inside. He had set the Uzi on automatic mode, prepared to lay down cover fire in case he should be spotted prematurely by a roving sentry.

  And the Executioner had covered half the distance to the house before it happened.

  Deviating from his rounds, a gunner suddenly appeared on Bolan's flank, emerging from the shadows into the misty pool light, one hand tugging at his fly, the other making sure his shirttail was tucked in. The guy had obviously had a call of nature, but his face was registering grim surprise and another kind of message as he spotted Bolan focusing upon the little stutter gun he held.

  The guy was good, you had to give him that. Within a heartbeats time he let the zipper go and scrambled for his holstered side arm, finding it and almost clearing leather in the time allowed.

  But almost was not quite good enough to keep the guy alive.

  Mack Bolan crouched and swung out his stubby chopper, tightening into the squeeze as he made target requisition. The Uzi stuttered and half a dozen parabellum manglers hissed across the surface of the pool in search of flesh and bone.

  The gunner did a jerky little dance before he folded, wallowing beside the pool in his own blood slick. His dying spasms brought him to the brink, and as Mack Bolan watched, the carcass toppled over, disappearing into the deep end.

  The gunfire had attracted other sentries, and he heard them in the darkness, converging on him, startled voices calling back and forth behind the bungalows, among the trees, beyond the house. The nearest were at Bolan's back, and he was swiveling to meet them when the first dark form materialized, stepping from shadow near the bungalow once occupied by Sally Palmer and her mark.

  Carrying a shotgun, the guard didn't bother aiming it
once he had the black-clad warrior in view. The pump gun roared, and Bolan dodged a gust of buckshot, toppling a metal picnic table, wincing as an errant pellet burned across his thigh. The sound of the table hitting the ground rang in his ears, and a second blast in rapid-fire destroyed the brightly striped umbrella.

  The warrior wriggled on his stomach, Uzi probing out ahead of him, intent on getting clear before the gunner and his cronies had a better chance to find their range. Perforated by the shotgun blasts, the table was a flimsy shield at best, and it would not stand up to any concentrated smallarms fire.

  He found an opening and pegged a short burst at the sniper, missing him by a few feet, but it was still enough to drive him back and give Bolan time to move. As he jumped up and broke from cover, he tossed a frag grenade, winding up the pitch and letting fly by instinct, all the while on the run.

  He did not have to mark the progress of his high-explosive egg to know that it was flying true. Experience and practice had prepared him for the move. The soldier was a dozen yards away and sliding behind another table — this one built of redwood — when the night was torn apart by smoky thunder.

  Bolan's ears, ringing from the blast, picked up strangled screams and the twanging sound of shrapnel overhead. His eyes searched the darkness for other human targets. Three of them were closing on his left, another two were about to outflank him on the right. He would be surrounded unless he broke the circle and finally made it to the manor house.

  A blazing figure eight of Uzi fire caught two of his assailants on the left, and drove their comrade under cover on the far side of the swimming pool. With a half turn to the right, Bolan brought the others under fire, rewarded by a muffled gasp as one of them had both legs cut from under him and collapsed across the line of fire, dead before he could scream.

  His partner, doing a flying shoulder roll, lost his carbine, coming up behind a chaise longue empty-handed and digging for the pistol on his hip. The Executioner squeezed off another burst, his parabeilum manglers chewing through the plastic and aluminum construction of the deck chair, boring through the gunner's chest, blowing him backward. As blood sputtered from his chest, his boot heels drummed on the deck for a second, then stopped.

  The survivors had worked out Bolan's range by now, and another pair of guns had joined them, sniping from the darkness, bullets chipping at his redwood barricade. Another moment, and the hostiles would have enough gunners to rush him, sacrificing their lives to overwhelm him with their numbers and finish Bolan off.

  He had to move, and there was only one way left to go.

  The house.

  The Uzi spit out a ragged burst that raked the patio with flying death, and Bolan fed a brand-new magazine into the pistol grip. A fresh grenade in his hand, he brought his legs up, gathering his strength for what would be the final run to cover — or instant death.

  The soldier was about to move when shadowy figures stirred behind the French doors and someone pulled back the drapes, opened the latch and swung the portal back. He raked the windows with a burst, waist high, and threw the grenade inside.

  He ran into the blast, bullets snapping at his heels, and launched into a headlong dive that carried him through the shattered doors to the littered carpet within. Concussion rocked him, squeezed the wind from his lungs. Broken glass was everywhere, its sharp fangs ripping at his hands, his face, his clothing. Unmindful of the pain, he wriggled through the rain of shrapnel and plaster clinging grimly to the stutter gun. He glanced around, seeking temporary haven from the gunners who were closing in behind him like a pack of hungry dogs.

  He had perhaps only a moment left to meet them and turn their charge around before it overwhelmed him, carried him away.

  A moment to determine if he would live or die.

  Either way, the dying there was far from over.

  In fact, it was only beginning.

  * * *

  The wheelman brought the car to a halt outside the gates as Tommy Fiorini concentrated on the gateman. There were others hanging back behind him in the darkness, watching, and the crew chief could have sworn he caught the glint of moonlight on their weapons as they jockeyed for position.

  Frowning, he wondered what the hell was going on with so much iron around the gates. Security would be important, sure, with all the dons inside, but after Jules had made his call...

  A graveyard breeze blew down the open neck of Tommy's shirt.

  Suppose the call had been about these guns on the gate? Suppose Minelli had taken it wrong... or Jules had been trying to alert his troops, but couldn't come right out and say that he was under house arrest? Suppose the families were already at war, and Jules was dead? What then?

  The crew chief reined in his grim imagination. His palms were moist and clammy. He did not want to die out there, so far from home.

  "Heads up," he told the boys in back.

  The gateman was approaching, and Fiorini beckoned him to the passenger's side and cranked down the window. He put on a friendly grin, but in the darkness of the car, his fist was wrapped around the Army-issue .45 he wore beneath his armpit, ready if the stranger made an unexpected move.

  "Excuse me, sir. Were you expected?"

  "Well, I couldn't really say," Ducks replied, grinning. "My boss, he's in there with the others, for the sit-down, 'kay? I get this call, an' he says hop the next flight out. Some kinda party goin' on, I guess."

  The gateman shot a glance across his shoulder toward the watchers in the shadows.

  "We weren't expecting anybody else tonight," he said. "Who was it made that call again?"

  Tommy Fiorini let his smile slip a notch, the barest touch of ice edging into his voice.

  "Don Patriarcca, from Seattle. Hey, we been a long time in the air, a long time drivin' out. There can't be any beef if we just find a place to park, some coffee, hey?"

  "I'll have to call the house and get it cleared."

  "You do that."

  Tommy Ducks was staring at the gateman's back, beginning to crank the window up, when an explosion sounded. Muffled by distance, it sounded to the crew chief like a small grenade or the world's biggest cherry bomb.

  "Hey, what the fuck..."

  The wheelman reached inside his coat for the .38 in his belt, and Tommy had his Army-issue ready as the gateman stiffened, freezing in his tracks. The automatic-weapons fire was unmistakably from the mansion, and something sure as hell was coming down around their ears.

  And Jules was in there!

  Holy shit!

  His piece out the window, Tommy Ducks sighted on the gateman's shoulder blades and fired, the autoloader bucking in his fist. The straw man flopped on his face. The others dodged farther behind the tall gates, out of sight.

  "Let's hit it!"

  The driver pressed the pedal to the floor, and the Continental slammed against the gates, breaking through, the other crew wagons close behind. Tommy Ducks had a fleeting impression of other cars behind those sleek shadows, sharklike, closing fast — and one of them was turning on its red light, announcing its occupants for what they were.

  The cops, for cryin' out loud!

  "Keep going, dammit!"

  Tommy Ducks still had a job to do, and if the frigging cops got in his way, he'd have to step on them. Just like at home, and never mind that he was now three thousand miles away from safety, from the cops he knew.

  They didn't make 'em bulletproof in old New York, and Tommy Ducks could still match slugs with any man alive, given half a chance.

  Which was, the crew chief thought, almost exactly what they had.

  * * *

  Crouching in front of the woman with pliers in his hand, Lazarus froze at the first sound of gunfire outside. He hesitated, glancing back and forth from her battered face and shredded, gaping blouse to the man stationed at the door to guarantee his privacy.

  The Black Ace frowned, wondering exactly what the hell was going on. Throughout the day, he had been less than totally impressed with Minelli's security pre
cautions and his responses to the danger they faced, and now he would not be surprised if the sentries on the grounds had opened fire on one another.

  Downstairs, the would-be boss of bosses was engaged in blowing his own horn, while out on the yard...

  The first explosion reached him almost as an echo, and he moved to the window as a second blast shook the house.

  Forget about the yardmen, then. Not even Minelli would be fool or paranoid enough to issue them grenades.

  They were under attack, and that made it Lazarus's job to defend the manor house and its occupants from any outside threat.

  The Ace smiled scornfully as he tossed the pliers toward a nearby table. He reached inside his jacket, withdrew a Browning Hi-Power automatic pistol and worked the slide, chambering a live round, lowering the hammer with his thumb before he stowed the piece.

  The gunfire was inside now, raging in the downstairs corridors, and Lazarus knew he might already be too late. If the enemy had come in force, if one or more of the local families had risen against Minelli...

  The capo's words came back to him with ringing clarity. "If this thing falls apart, we all go down, your precious Aces, everything."

  And Lazarus would need some life insurance, just in case.

  The woman would do well for starters.

  Steel flashed in his palm, and he cut through the bonds that held her arms behind the chair, ignoring her tattered blouse as he reached down to haul her erect, keeping her on her feet when she swayed, close to falling.

  It took a moment for her to recover balance, find the strength to match his pace with clumsy feet. He half carried her toward the door, growling at his backup when the man moved too slowly to suit him. There was no time for sluggishness now, with all their lives at stake.

  He smelled the smoke after they had left the small interrogation room, and Lazarus at once abandoned any thought of marshalling the last defense of Minelli's palace home. The capo could fend for himself, and Lazarus was bailing out while the getting was good.