"All right. Now we understand each other."
Postum swallowed. Was that a trace of sadness in the soldier's voice?
"Now we do," the strike-force captain mumbled.
"Good luck."
The line went dead before he could reply, and Postum found himself alone again inside the tiny office, suddenly deprived of Bolan's presence that had filled the room a heartbeat earlier. The nagging dial tone grated on his nerves, and Postum slammed down the receiver, rocked back in his swivel chair again to ponder the soldier's final words.
"Good luck."
"You, too," he told the emptiness, surprised- and then embarrassed by the sudden tightness in his throat. "You too."
* * *
Art Giamba was tired of hiding out and jumping at the smallest unexpected sound.
Of running like a frightened rabbit on his own home ground.
Of acting like the hunted, when he should have been the hunter, standing on his own two feet and fighting back.
It made him sick, this sitting in a shuttered room, behind closed drapes, while gunners walked their posts outside and guard dogs prowled the walled perimeter of Bob Pattricia's fortress home. Giamba ached to have an army on the streets, to lead them against the enemy and drive them back beyond the borders of the territory that had been his family's now for over fifty years.
Except that Artie didn't have an army anymore. His meager troops were mostly Bob Pattricia's boys, and while there could not be a question of the underboss's loyalty, it still did not feel right, this leaning on a younger man instead of fighting for himself.
As always, when he thought of Bobby, Art Giamba thought of Jules, and that brought back the shock, the pain of loss he had experienced on learning of his old friend's violent death. Scarpato owed him one for that, and for the raid on his house that morning.
He reached for the chianti bottle, noticed that his hand was trembling again and cursed beneath his breath. No use in trying to dismiss it as a sign of age. He was afraid, and that was weakness of another sort. A weakness of the soul that got inside a man and ate him from the inside out.
Giamba filled his wineglass, drained it, filled it to the brim again. The liquor lit a fire inside him, briefly drove away the doubts that had been plaguing him. About himself. About his family. About his own mortality.
He would be dead right now if it was not for Bolan. The aging mafioso had to laugh aloud at that, amused by the ironic turn of his misfortunes. Everywhere the brotherhood was reeling from this warrior's blows. Its soldiers hunted him, intent on ending his vendetta. But here he was, and he had saved Giamba from disaster a second time. Artie felt that somehow there was something out of kilter. Bolan should have killed him when they met that first time, or again last night... but he had blown away Giamba's enemies instead. Secure now for the moment with the wine at work inside him, Artie wondered if it might have been an omen, pointing on to better days ahead.
Suppose he could recruit this Bolan somehow and use him to eliminate Scarpato. Artie knew that others had tried to take out the soldier before, but no one in the brotherhood had ever come this close. Giamba could not say why Bolan had assisted him, and he didn't even care. There seemed to be an opening for something bigger, and the mafioso did not plan to throw his only chance away.
If he could get in touch with Bolan...
And suppose he couldn't? What if Bolan never called him back? Suppose the goddamned guy left town, or got himself picked off when he went up against Scarpato on his own?
There had been a time when Art Giamba would have bought a ringside seat for Bolan's execution, but times and circumstances changed. He needed Bolan now. He was Giamba's last hope of winning back the territory he had lost throughout the years.
No other family would trespass on his turf once it was known he had the Executioner in tow. Forget about New York, Chicago, all the rest. St. Louis would be riding high with Artie's one-man army standing by to deal with anyone who crossed him.
But he was dreaming now, the mafioso knew. He did not even have the soldier's number, let alone his loyalty, and it would take some damn sweet terms to win Bolan over from his own crusade. Giamba understood vendettas, knew how vengeance motivated men to kill and kill again... and yet, the soldier did not seem to fit that mold.
Whatever motivated Bolan, everybody had a price. If no one had succeeded with the soldier yet, it only meant they had not raised the ante high enough. Giamba had the ingenuity, the will, to do it right. Provided that he had the time.
And time was running short, he realized. Scarpato was not Artie's only enemy these days. He faced another every time he faced a mirror. Around the eyes, the mouth, across his forehead, wrinkles formed a road map to the grave.
Giamba needed time... to put it all together for one last victory. One last triumphant laugh before he passed it all to Bob Pattricia.
But Artie wasn't ready to release his hold upon the empire he had built from nothing. Not just yet.
A gentle rapping on the study door, and Bobby's houseman, Bruno, stuck his head inside.
"You got a phone call, Mr. G.," he said. "You wanna take it here?"
Giamba nodded, waved him in.
"Tha's fine."
The wine was interfering with his speech, but Artie cleared his throat and watched as Bruno entered, carrying a telephone. He bent down toward the baseboard and slipped the little plastic plug into a wall jack, straightening to bring the phone across to where Giamba sat.
"Tha's fine," Giamba said again.
The houseman left and Artie hesitated for a moment with his hand on the receiver, frowning. It was odd to get a phone call here. The other members of his family who knew where he was staying would normally have asked for Bobby. Sure. Except that these were anything but normal times.
He lifted the receiver to his ear, relieved to find that the chianti had removed the trembling from his hands.
"H'lo?"
"Good morning, Artie."
He was sober all at once, his fingers clutching the receiver with such force that he was sure the plastic would shatter. The funereal voice was like a stinging slap across the face.
"Hey, it's you. I wondered when I'd hear from you again."
"You're hearing from me," Bolan answered.
"Sure. Okay. Wha's goin' on?"
"I need more information on Scarpato."
Artie's heart was in his throat. He couldn't answer fast enough. "You name it, an' you goi it, guy."
"I'm looking for a place where he might stash a hostage. Someone that he can't afford to be connected with if things turn sour."
Giamba's stomach rumbled at him, and his bladder felt as if it might explode. He clenched his knees, thinking desperately, coming up empty.
"It's gonna take some time," he stalled. "We ain't exac'ly on the best of terms, ya know? I mean, I got my ways of findin' out... but it'll take some time."
"I haven't got much time," the soldier told him flatly. "You don't, either."
He was breaking off, and Giamba knew he had to keep the bastard on the line.
"Hey, wait a sec!" he blurted desperately. "I'll get you what you need, okay? Jus' let me have some slack. You got a number there where I can get in touch with you?"
"I'll get in touch with you," the Executioner replied. His voice was tinged with Arctic frost.
"Okay, whatever. Say, but listen, while I got you on the line..."
It took a moment for the aging hood to realize that he was talking to himself. The line was dead. He cursed under his breath and slammed the receiver back into its cradle.
Giamba forced himself to sit back in his chair, relax, take stock of what he'd heard. The Executioner was looking for Scarpato, which was easy, and a hostage, which Giamba did not understand at all.
Who could it be?
It wasn't him, and Bob Pattricia was safe inside his house, surrounded by his palace guard. Nobody else was worth the trouble of a snatch. For damn sure, no one else would give Scarpato what he wa
nted from Giamba. Vince could rub out a dozen hostages and Artie would not bat an eye.
But if the Executioner was interested, then Giamba should be interested, as well. If he could help the soldier with the information that he needed to deliver yet another blow against Scarpato...
The aging mobster realized that he would not need Bolan on the payroll to win this thing. He was after Scarpato, anyway. If the goddamned guy was bent on doing Artie's job free, why should the mobster spoil it for him by suggesting payment?
It was ideal. The Executioner would be doing Giamba's dirty work, and at the same time conserving Artie's meager army, his reserves, his treasury. The thought of final victory was sweet; the thought of total victory free made Artie laugh out loud, a manic cackle that filled the study, echoing around the walls until he sank back in his chair, worn out.
He still had work to do, of course. The hostage was important to Bolan, and if it would hurt Scarpato in some way, Giamba meant to give the soldier every bit of aid he could spare. It would require some calls to find out exactly where Scarpato's hot spots were and where his troops were quartered, but Giamba knew exactly how to do it. Provided that the soldier didn't run ahead of him, and do the job alone before Giamba had an opportunity to win his favor.
Reaching for the telephone again, he heard the warrior's words inside his mind. "I haven't got much time. You don't. either."
Giamba did not like the sound of that, but he could not afford to let some cryptic message spook him now. He had a job to do before somebody else could beat him to it.
He had to help Bolan find a nameless, faceless hostage, somewhere in St. Louis.
Simple.
Provided that he had the time.
12
Vince Scarpato watched his soldiers fanning out across the broad expanse of lawn to take their posts around the property. Scarpato shook his head in sheer disgust. The bastards had a sudden urge to do their jobs, but it was too goddamned late.
A gentle breeze was wafting through the paneiess full-length window, stirring drapes on either side of him. Stepping through the empty window frame, he felt the shards of shattered glass beneath his feet. They crunched just like the brittle ice that forms on New York sidewalks in the wintertime, reminding him of home.
New York.
Scarpato wished that he was back there now. Or, better still, that he had been back there six damn months ago, and knowing what he knew today. He could have made some changes and saved himself some grief along the way.
The stench of gasoline and oily smoke was in his nostrils now, a grim reminder of the wreckage out in front. It was an hour since the fire department had come and gone, complete with squad cars bringing up the rear.
There had been time to get the bodies out of sight, to pull the damaged gates out front, and then Scarpato had been set upon by every kind of uniform imaginable. Cops and fire marshals, members of the goddamned arson squad, all grinning at him like he was an idiot and making sure he knew they didn't buy a single word he said.
It was humiliating and Vince Scarpato did not take humiliation lightly. Someone was going to pay for all the trouble he had been caused.
The worst of it was that they reached him here, inside his sanctuary, where he should have been secure. It shook Scarpato to think that anyone could slip inside his walls, past guards and TV cameras. It was supposed to be the other way around... but then again, his plans all had a tendency to backfire in his face these days.
It had been easy to believe in the beginning. Don Ernesto Marinello confided in him, and Scarpato had read a promise in Don Ernesto's words. There had been a hint of future independence for Scarpato, with a family of his own if he assisted Marinello in securing his birthright.
St. Louis was open territory these days, Marinello had told him. Never mind old Art Giamba and his buddy Jules. They were a joke from coast to coast, these paper capos with their dwindling territory.
It should have been a milk run, in and out, with Artie's head for Marinello on a silver platter, but the old man had shown more fight than they anticipated. Playing hit-and-run, he tied Scarpato up for weeks on end, and in the meantime Marinello lost in New York.
Scarpato shook his head again, amazed that so much rotten luck could squeeze itself into a single person's lifetime. And what was that line about lightning never striking twice? Well, a lightning bolt had taken Ernie Marinello out, you bet. It had blown his ass away, along with something like a dozen other dons from all around the countryside.
Scarpato had been furious and shaken when the headlines gave that lightning bolt a name.
Mack Bolan.
A small, involuntary shudder raced along his spine and lost itself amid the stubbie of his close-cropped hair. Still... that was then, and this is now.
There was hope yet of pulling off a coup successfully.
Scarpato scowled, refusing to consider failure as a possibility. If Marinello's eyes had proven bigger than his stomach, that was Ernie's problem, sure, and he had paid for it in spades. But that would not prevent Scarpato from achieving something on his own, provided that he kept his wits about him.
Providing that he didn't get picked off right here, inside his own damned grounds.
Giamba was resisting him tenaciously, and with an energy incredible for someone of his age. Scarpato thought of Bob Pattricia, the hatred Vince had kindled there by ordering the hit on Jules, and wondered if Gambia's youthful underboss was laying strategy these days. It didn't seem to fit, and yet...
Someone had reached him here, inside his home, and if that "Ace" — what did he call himself? Omega, yeah — had moved with more alacrity, Scarpato would be in a body bag by now. It had been slick, perhaps too slick for Bobby or Giamba to conceive and execute alone.
An ugly thought was nagging at him from the shadows of his mind, and Vincent brought it out into the light. Suppose Omega was an Ace. Where did that leave Scarpato in the universal scheme of things?
Ernesto Marinello had informed him early on that he was bringing back the Aces, building them back up to be the awesome fighting force they were in the beginning. The rising capo spent a lot of cash and energy just tracking down survivors of the grim elite, enlisting those who proved receptive, liquidating those who balked or asked for too much thinking time. When he was done, he had controlled a hardcore nucleus of maybe twenty guns, but he had bigger things in mind.
Until Mack Bolan.
And most of Marinello's hard force went down with him on Long Island, except for three who had accompanied Scarpato to St. Louis as the spearhead of his expeditionary.
The Ace called Stone was second in command, but there were times when Vincent thought he might be getting too damned big for everybody's good. He didn't show Scarpato the respect a capo deserved, and there were times when he had countermanded little orders, asserting his authority and making Vincent wonder if there might be something going on he didn't know about.
It made Vincent wonder what his Ace was up to, whom he might be working for behind the scenes. It made him wonder if Omega was a phony Ace at all, or if he had been sent by someone else to test Scarpato's fortress, feel him out for weaknesses and vantage points.
A muffled sound behind him made the mafioso jump. He spun around to find the Black Ace, Stone, regarding him with blank, impassive eyes from just inside the shattered window.
"What have you got?" Scarpato tried to sound commanding, realized before he got the sentence out how lame it sounded.
"Enough to know our ringer wasn't sent by any of the other families."
"Oh, yeah? How can you be so sure?"
"Technology, for one thing," Stone replied. "You ever know a gunner who would booby-trap his own damned car to use as a diversion?"
Scarpato thought about it, finally shook his head. "Nobody I can think of."
"Right," the Ace agreed. "It takes a special kind of thinking to prepare yourself that way. A special kind of mind." He hesitated, watching Vince Scarpato's face. "I'd say it takes a
military mind."
"So what?" Scarpato asked. "You think Giamba's got some kinda supercommando on his payroll?"
The Ace dropped into an easy chair without waiting to be asked. And he was smiling at the would-be capo as he shook his head.
"I told you he didn't come from any of the families. Giamba doesn't have that kind of talent in his ranks."
"Okay. So, what the hell..."
Stone sighed, impatient, like a teacher grappling with a marginally retarded child. "Think about it, Vince. Do you know anybody with a military background who might want to see you dead?"
Scarpato thought about it, fuming at the way Stone put himself upon a first-name basis with his nominal superior. He came up empty, and he wished he could have called on Ernie Marinello for some help in sorting out the pieces of the puzzle. But Ernie was dead, of course. He had been killed by...
"Mack Bolan?"
"Bingo."
Stone was grinning at him like a hungry weasel, nodding slowly. Scarpato felt an icy fist begin to squeeze his heart, restricting blood flow to his brain and touching off a buzzing in his ears. A headache throbbed to life behind his eyes, and he reached the chair before his legs gave way.
"Mack Bolan."
Vincent realized that he was staring like a basket case and caught himself, the frown regaining something of its early confidence as he pinned Stone beneath an icy stare.
"What makes you think so?" he demanded.
"Tactics, mostly, like I said. Besides, I've heard that fake Omega handle once before, when he was in the neighborhood."
Scarpato raised an eyebrow, curious. "I never knew you met the guy before."
"We didn't meet. I said he was around. We missed each other by an hour or so, when he was tearing through Atlanta some time back."
A lucky break for you, Scarpato thought, and smiled at his enforcer, feeling he had finally found a weakness in the cool, commanding Ace. The guy had slipped past Bolan once, and now he must be feeling something of the same cold fear Scarpato held inside himself. That is, if he was leveling with Vincent now, instead of running down some bullshit line for reasons of his own.
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