Shock Waves

by Don Pendleton

  Eritrea was coming with him, he decided; far enough to get him through the cordon that the police were throwing around the house. From the living room the sirens had been audible above the gunfire, and he had seen the flashing lights of cruisers circling the driveway, hemming in the tanks that had spearheaded the attack.

  No point in wondering which family had betrayed him in his hour of triumph. There would be time enough for that when he was free and clear. To plot his comeback, right, and never mind the saying that you can't go home again.

  He had achieved it once, or nearly so, and he would pull it off yet. His father's legacy was waiting for him, and he had already come too far, expended too much time and energy — too damn much money — to let it slip away without a fight.

  Eritrea could help him there. The Feds and strike-force cops were jealous of their witnesses, and they would offer him safe conduct if he played it right. Then, once he cleared the cordon and was running safely...

  Despite the smoke, Marinello smiled. He studied the back of Dave Eritrea's head, calculating where the bullet would go. He owed the bastard something, for the way he had moved in on Augie's territory when the old man bought it in New Jersey. Don Ernesto might have put it all together then, if only this one had not stepped in first and brought the whole damned Bolan mess right down around their ears. There had been chaos and disorder, territorial wars and prosecutions in Bolan's wake.

  Marinello shrugged. His time was coming, and even the most bitter disappointment could not hold him off forever. It was coming, over Dave Eritrea's dead body.

  Ahead of them, his pointman opened the person-sized door to the garage, giving them a breath of cleaner air as he stepped inside. He slapped the light switch with his palm, and brilliance filled the cavernous interior. Behind him, Marinello shoved Eritrea, propelling him inside.

  "I'm taking the Mercedes," Marinello told his bodycock. "You get the door."

  The gunner glanced inside the two-seater and frowned. There was a certain sluggishness as he did his capo's bidding, reaching for the switch that would open the electric door and roll it back against the rafters.

  "What about me. sir?" he finally asked.

  "You won't be coming this time, Charley," Marinello answered. There was secret malice in his smile. "Somebody's got to keep an eye on things."

  "You'll need a driver, Mr. Marinello.'

  "No, he won't."

  The voice came to them from the darkness, just outside the open door, its tone invading Marinello's bones with ice. His bodycock was swiveling in the direction of the sound, and Marinello stepped across to stand behind Eritrea, one arm around the captive's throat, nestling the muzzle of his Colt against the pigeon's spine.

  A black-clad figure stepped into the light, one arm outstretched, his fist wrapped tightly around the biggest goddamned silver hog leg Marinello ever saw. The muzzle, aimed directly at his face, looked big enough to fire a gold ball. A sheen of perspiration formed on the capo's face and hands.

  The guy was like no goddamned cop that he had ever seen before, and Marinello knew instinctively that he would have a tough time buying out of this one, with Eritrea or otherwise.

  This guy was death, and he was there on business.

  "Take him!" Marinello barked, and Charley made his move.

  It wasn't even close.

  The silver cannon swung across, the muzzle turning from Marinello to belch a tongue of fire directly in the hardman's face. Before the capo's eyes, his head evaporated into crimson mist, the shards of bone and greasy droplets of his essence spraying over Marinello and Eritrea, small pieces of him clinging wetly to the mafioso's face, his suit. Then Bolan's weapon swung back to Marinello.

  Held rigidly by Marinello, Eritrea eyed the man in black as if he was some kind of ghost. Marinello jammed his Colt against the pigeon's skull, forcing his head over sideways at an awkward angle, grinding steel against bone. He swallowed hard and tried to put steel in his voice.

  "All right," he snarled, "so what's it gonna be?"

  * * *

  "Your head," Mack Bolan told him simply.

  "Yeah?"

  There was a tremor in the mafioso's voice, but he stood firm, pressing his pistol tightly against Eritrea's skull.

  "Suppose I give you this one and we call it even, eh?"

  "No sale."

  "Who's picking up the tab on this?"

  "I've done a lot of business with your family," the soldier said. "Let's call it interest due."

  The capo frowned, and he was looking for an answer in the middle of the maze when Dave Eritrea came out with it.

  "Holy savior. Bolan."

  Marinello shook his hostage violently.

  "Cut out that shit," he growled. "You nuts, or what?"

  But he turned to the warrior, and his cold eyes narrowed, searching Bolan's face. It was a face that neither he nor Dave Eritrea had ever seen before, and yet...

  There might be something there, around the graveyard eyes...

  The recognition hit him like a fist above the heart. Marinello lurched backward, dragging his human shield along for the ride.

  "You're dead," he told the man in black.

  "That's two of us, I guess."

  The sweat on Marinello's brow glistened in the light.

  "You took the old man out."

  Bolan nodded. "Sorry you weren't there to see it."

  "So am I. We could have saved some time."

  "No time like the present, Ernie."

  Marinello swallowed hard, searching for his voice and finally dredging it up from somewhere in his bowels.

  "You want this piece of shit?" he asked, nodding toward Eritrea. "I'll give him to you for safe passage."

  "I don't need safe passage," Bolan told him.

  "Goddamn it, you know what I mean!"

  "And I told you already, no sale."

  Marinello's face was a study in stunned disbelief. "You'd kill him, just like that?"

  The soldier shook his head. "You'll kill him. And then I'll kill you. Just like that."

  Bolan ignored the whimpering sound coming from Dave Eritrea, concentrating on the Colt in Marinello's fist. He had the hammer down, but it was double action, and his mind was on the trigger pull, the time and energy that it would take to send a bullet burrowing into the captive's brain.

  If he was swift and smooth enough...

  The mafioso's face was going mottled, as if he was about to choke on something lodged in his throat.

  "You don't leave me much choice," he whispered.

  "None at ail."

  The move, when it came, had been sharpened to perfection in his mind before it was executed. A lifetime on the firing range and in the killgrounds was there behind it. The marksman was grimly determined as he crouched, extended the AutoMag in front of him and pointed at Marinello.

  The first slug gored through his shoulder with all the impact of a rifle shot and would have come close to Dave Eritrea had he not collapsed to the floor. The would-be boss of bosses hurtled backward, glancing off the fender of a Mercedes and recoiling, falling to his knees, the six-inch Colt wobbling, spinning from his gun hand.

  Bolan stood above the son of Augie Marinello, clearly panic-stricken, looking for some vestige of the father in his face — the old defiance, the bottled hatred, the desperation, the fiery vengefulness.

  The old man wasn't there.

  He never would be.

  Bolan raised the AutoMag, sighted down the barrel and squeezed off three rounds in rapid fire. Marinello's face and eyes were vaporized on impact, and the headless straw man toppled slowly backward, folding in upon himself.

  The Executioner stepped back, put the AutoMag down. Then he helped Dave Eritrea to his feet. At first the informer kept away from him, then saw the empty hand, accepted it, surprising Bolan with his strength, the firmness of his grasp.

  "I never thought I'd see those eyes again," he said.

  "You haven't," Bolan told him simply, making sure Eritrea under
stood.

  "Right. Okay."

  "Let's go," he said at last. "Your wife's waiting for you."

  "Sure. And thanks."

  Just that, no more. Nothing more was necessary, right.

  Sarah Eritrea would be waiting for her husband, of course. Maybe there would be someone waiting for Mack Bolan, too.

  The soldier thought of Sally Palmer. With any luck at all, they might now have time for that debriefing. God knows that it was overdue, for both of them.

  And maybe this time they would get it right.