And, at that point, he received a bit of assistance from the enemy themselves.
A tri-mount of floodlights was emplaced at the front corner of the clubhouse, angled toward the parking area. These floods were lighted, had been throughout the long wait, and they were the only outside lights in use.
Bolan had pondered the fact on his earlier penetration, deciding finally after much weighing that this was a weak point in the enemy defenses; moreover, one which the enemy also recognized. The vehicles massed there presented a possible point of cover for an invader who might slip through to that point; also, they represented a potential weapon.
If a guy could get in there and spill some gasoline around, he could get one hell of a whomping jazz-bang going with all those exploding gas tanks.
They would not disperse the vehicles—not this outfit. Mack Bolan was not their only enemy. The boys always liked to have good wheels quickly available, should the ever-present threat of the law suddenly materialize.
At the same moment, they could not adequately defend such a motor pool against a determined aggressor—one like Bolan, for instance—so they simply lit it up and dared the bastard to come in.
While admitting that the motor pool jazz-bang would make a nice effect, Bolan had already written it off as too risky without sufficient payoff. He did not accept invitations to combat. He issued his own.
Still, he had seen a way to use the situation.
It was why he had come in at this particular angle to the dumb line. The defense perimeter had been emplaced on the low ground, below the knoll and surrounding it. Looking back toward the clubhouse from this particular point, a guy would be staring straight up into those blinding floods on a direct line of maximum effect.
Bolan himself did not intend to look into those lights.
He did, however, desire to persuade this particular sector of the dumb line to squint up there, if only for a few seconds—long enough to put the pupils of their eyes into sharp contraction and induce a moment or so of night blindness in the defensive line. It was a simple tactic, sure. But it should work. Well enough for a quiet shadow of the night to slip through that line and head for the high ground. From that moment on, the people behind him would never again see him. Each time they looked his way, they would see nothing but blinding floodlights.
And so it was that Bolan was preparing to breach the dumb line when the excitement up there in the vehicle area provided the distraction he was already planning.
Several men had run from the front of the building to the parking lot and were cranking the engines of three crew wagons.
Bolan was crouching in the grass, a frozen illusion of the night, about twenty yards out and dead center between two of the paired-men sets on the dumb line.
The dumb men had been quietly talking within their own sets until those engines up there fired. Then one of the guys just uprange from Bolan called down to the next set, “Hope they’re not bailing out on us, man.”
One of the guys down there chuckled nervously and called back, “You got paid in advance, didn’t you, man?”
“Sure. But they never mentioned no death benefits.”
“Or bail,” another snickered.
This entire sector was now staring toward the hill.
Bolan, mule pack and all, made his penetration while a guy farther up the line was exclaiming, “That’s that boss from New York!”
“Which one is that? They’re all from New York.”
“The old man. The big boss … What’s-his-name.”
“Manischewitz,” someone offered.
“Naw, that’s a wine.”
“Same difference.”
Bolan had missed none of it, and now he was moving swiftly along the base of the grassy knoll, in smooth golf-green now, swiftly seeking the most favorable spot in which to set up his fire base.
He found it about midway up the hill, amidst the foundations of the signboard with the daring young lady and the leering fox, the lights of which were now prudently extinguished; and it was the sheerest of coincidences that this spot also provided excellent command of the driveway where it circled off the hilltop and dropped into the straightway toward the main gate.
Bolan had hardly touched down and shrugged away his packs when the first vehicle in the Marinello procession came whining into the descent.
This was a quick-reaction situation—an instant flicker of the instinctive combat sense—and Bolan the warrior did not even question the route that had brought him here. He simply sent an unformed thanks to the powers behind the winds and made a quick selection of weapons.
“Entrez-vous, Augie,” he sighed as the second vehicle nosed into view.
Step into my maze, the spider should have said to the fly.
Yeah, and Bolan could feel that universal wind at his back for sure now.
Augie Marinello, boss of all the bosses, was a much riper plum than Mike and all his Taliferi combined.
The Executioner would make at least one positive statement on this night to top all nights in Jersey.
23 THE HIT
The limousines surged in beneath the driveway portico, and the Marinello party quickly embarked, the boss himself stepping into the sandwich vehicle with his two tagmen sliding in behind him to occupy the rear-facing jump seats in the center.
Another bodyguard leaped into the front beside the driver, and the procession moved out.
The haste was not entirely motivated by a desire to quit that bastion of Taliferi power, though that element was certainly present in the nervous departure.
The capo di tutti capi usually moved from point to point in this fashion, quick ins and outs, moving swiftly, with fully crewed escort wagons to front and rear.
In the home stand, Augie used a bulletproof vehicle that he often compared with that used by the President.
This trip was in an ordinary crew wagon, though one equipped with all the animal comforts and conveniences.
The possible presence of Mack Bolan in that particular area also undoubtedly influenced the emotions in this instance, but the conversation of the moment clearly pointed toward that other danger.
“Pardon me if I’m out of line, boss,” the chief bodyguard said as he was settling into his seat, “but I don’t like the smell of this place.”
“Don’t worry, me neither,” Marinello muttered glumly. “I’ll fix that when I get back, you better believe it.”
They were facing each other across the rear deck.
Marinello flicked his again-dead cigar with thumb and forefinger. The tagman leaped to light it.
The radio up front crackled with a question. “To the airport, boss?”
The capo grabbed a mike from the armrest to reply, “Naw. Go on straight home, the turnpike. Let’s not dick around here another minute.”
The crew chief in the lead vehicle acknowledged the instructions as the procession picked up speed leaving the turnaround.
“Run close, but not too close,” Marinello instructed his own wheelman as they swung into the descent.
The chief bodyguard was wondering about something else. “How ’bout Marty, boss? He’ll be sitting down there with the plane all night.”
“Call him when we get back. Not until.”
“Right, sir, I getcha.”
The Marinello vehicle was slowing for the final curve at the base of the hill when the electrifying event occurred.
Something crashed through the rear window directly between the boss and his tagmen and fell to the floorboards with an ominous thud.
The chief bodyguard still held the cigar lighter in his hand. He dropped the lighter and lunged toward his boss in an instinctive defensive reaction; then he yelled, “God, it’s a damned …” and began scrabbling along the floor with both hands.
Marinello was screaming, “Stop the car, stop!” when the whole wide world turned red before his eyes and his chief bodyguard was suddenly lifted toward the ceiling with a roll of flame beneath him.
The
limousine did not take that final curve.
It lurched on in a straight line of travel, bounded across the graveled shoulder and along the bottom edge of the slope for about half a car length, then slowly teetered onto its side and on over into a wheels-up slide to the bottom.
Then it exploded again, this time from the rear, and the last thing to occupy the exploding consciousness of the boss of bosses was a question: Who did it? Who did this awful thing? Was it Mike, or was it Mack?
It was Mack, and he did it with a hand grenade, baseballed into the target with major-league precision, and he did not even take the time to assess the results.
Without consciously realizing that he was counting numbers, he had a flare round loaded and ready to fly, awaiting only the cover of the first explosion to launch it.
With that larger roar came the barely discernible phut of the launching which sent that silent streaker into the northern skies beyond the clubhouse.
During that second or two which separated the second explosion within the Marinello vehicle from the opening of that celestial floodlight, a group of hardmen from the front of the clubhouse had dashed over to the edge of the hill to gawk at the spectacle below.
Someone screamed, “That’s Mr. Marinello down there! Get down there! You boys get down there and pull ’im out!”
But as that horrified command was being issued, the sizzling white light of the flare popped into brilliance and began settling across those back acres, and someone else yelled, “Twelve o’clock high! Watch the rear! You boys get back there and cover that rear!”
Another excited command blended with that one to direct the men on the rooftops: “Riflemen! Keep alert! Watch your sectors! It’s a trick!”
So, okay. Quickly on the tail of that, the riflemen had other problems to ponder. From only God knew where, in all that yelling confusion, something very disconcerting came whizzing out of the darkness on a thin tail of fire. It struck the chimney atop the clubhouse and exploded in a shattering rain of shrapnel and flying chips of brick.
Pandemonium erupted up there, while back at ground level some of the men from the dumb line had surged in from the front perimeter to assist the Marinello people who were frantically trying to pull bodies from that flaming wreckage.
Another grenade dropped into their midst, out of nowhere, and the dumb men raced back to the edge of darkness.
Someone down there yelled, “Well, fuck it! I didn’t sign up for this!”
Another shaky voice seconded that conclusion at about the same moment that the glass front of the clubhouse disintegrated in another shattering explosion.
A Taliferi lieutenant ran halfway down the hillside to shout into the night, “You boys get back here! Where the hell you think you’re going?”
Anyone standing close enough and with mind enought left to perceive would have heard the deadly phu-uut of a silenced Beretta, and perhaps would have even discerned a slender pencil of flame emanating from the base structure of the club signboard at about the same instant that this same lieutenant sprouted a mushrooming hole in his face and toppled down the hill.
A voice out there in the darkness, a bit fainter now, yelled back, “We ain’t going where you’re at, man. Not for no five hundred bucks!”
And the battle had hardly begun.
Vehicles were lurching away from the motor pool and taking the scenic cross-country route to the gate, and the surviving Taliferi had given up trying to threaten and cajole the fainthearted troops to remain and give battle.
It was an understandable problem.
There is something particularly jarring to the psyche of even well-trained troops when high explosives begin thundering through the night, when friends and buddies erupt into frothing fountains of blood and die screaming, and especially when even the leadership becomes shaky and disorganized.
Green troops, never exposed to the hellish realities of honest-to-God warfare—nor even to the conditioning courses of the training fields—cannot be expected to stand firm through such an experience.
Bolan knew that. He had been counting on it.
But then something else occurred in the midst of that hell fire which Bolan would wonder about later.
From down around the Marinello wreckage, someone had yelled, “We need an ambulance.”
Another voice replied, “Fuck that. Put ’em in your car and haul ass for Trenton.”
“He’s gonna die! Just lookit his legs! That old man’s gonna die!”
“If you don’t get moving, we’re all gonna die! That fuckin’ guy is right over there somewheres. Right under our noses!”
“Wanta try for the cars again? Think we can make it?”
Hearing, Bolan consigned Augie Marinello’s aged fate to the needs of the universe. He sent a brief burst of chatter fire around their heels, then called down to them, “Is the old man alive?”
A startled voice came back muffled and about one beat off its numbers. “Yeah, just.”
“Okay. I’ll give you a white flag. For five seconds. Beat it!”
It was the first “white flag” Bolan had ever given in the heat of a Mafia war. He was to wonder about it later, and decide that it had been a small concession to the nobler instincts of the human animal.
He watched them scamper to the remaining vehicles, bearing their wounded into a hasty load and exit; then he turned back toward the jungle.
Those fleeing vehicles would only serve to deepen the battlefield trauma of those hired by the week.
Let them go, too.
Let all the weak bastards go.
He wanted the lords—the lords of this rotten jungle.
He checked his belt clips and filled in the blank spots with concussion grenades, heavy ones, swung the chatter pistol to the rear, and draped another belt across his shoulders.
Then he picked up the weapon of the night, the M-16/M-79 over-’n-under configuration, and went quietly up the hill.
24 HELL’S LAST DITCH
Mike Talifero had been pacing about the dining room, a pistol in each hand, since the first sounds of battle rent the night.
Two of his lieutenants and an edgy palace guard had stood by their posts at the windows and kept him informed on the developments that were discernible from their observation points.
“Can’t see the cars, sir, but I guess he got ’em for sure. Flames are shooting up from down below, near the road I guess.”
“Flare back here, sir! High one. ’Bout a hundred yards out.”
And the asides:
“How’s he hitting both sides at once?”
“Guess it’s easy if you know how.”
“Everything that bastard does is easy!”
“He just makes it look that way. Try it yourself once.”
Then a Talifero bawl: “Shut up! You boys shut up! Look alive there!”
“Christ, sir …”
And a heavy ba-looom as something hit the roof, shaking the entire structure.
“What the hell was that? What was that?”
“You boys stay put! I’ll shoot the first man to run!”
“Christ, sir, he’s gonna burn it down!”
A lieutenant yelled, “Isn’t anyone shooting back? What the hell are all those boys doing out there?”
“What d’ya shoot back at, sir? You can’t shoot back at an explosion!”
As though to punctuate that remark, the glass-fronted entranceway disappeared with a roar. Flames huffed inside, carrying with them acrid smoke and a million flying slivers of shredded glass.
The lieutenant who had just complained reeled away from that with his face spurting blood like a shower head, clawing at his eyes and groaning. One of the other men grabbed him and steered him to a chair, while Mike Talifero watched with rounded eyes and an entirely sober face.
From outside he could hear one of his men shouting at deserters, and he knew that the tide had turned before the battle was even enjoined.
“Turn some tables over!” he yelled suddenly. “Stack
them up at least three deep, and take cover! He’ll be coming in! Get ready! Andy! Set up a crossfire to bracket the doorway! Two of you boys get over there and barricade the side door! You, what’s your name, and you! Just barricade it and stand there! Go through it, and I’ll chase you all the way to hell! Understand?”
The free-lancers understood.
Mike Talifero just wished that he did.
Just a few hours ago, twelve fucking hours ago, the guy had been as good as dead—grounded, hurting, just waiting for them to track him down and snuff him out.
And now, look.
Just look at this!
He could hear engines firing up in the parking lot, could sense their fleeing movements into the night.
How did you handle a thing like …?
He withdrew a small manila envelope from his pocket, shook the little metal emblem out of there, and held it in his palm. Then he spat on it and threw it to the floor.
“Come on, baby,” he said half-aloud. “Come on, come on. This is where it’s at. Come on and find it!”
Bolan came up over the hill with an HE round in the breech of the M-79 and a belt load of alternates slung over his shoulder, including double-aught buckshot, flares, tear gas, and several more rounds of the high explosive powerhouse.
The M-16 riding atop that one-man light-artillery section handled thirty-round clips of 5.56mm. tumblers, deliverable at seven hundred rounds per minute.
A guy came running around the corner from the stables area, a Thompson cradled across his chest, and skidded about two feet into that confrontation with striding death.
Bolan swung the over-’n-under that way and gave the guy one second’s worth of the M-16, and that target quit skidding and fell away zipped from groin to throat.
A group of five more who’d been right on his heels promptly tossed Thompsons and shotguns into a pile on the ground and showed the impressive figure in black how high their hands could stretch toward heaven.
He told them in words dropped from an icicle, “Okay, down the hill. Don’t pause, and don’t look back. Move it!”
They moved it, with vigor, and Bolan went on swiftly across the driveway circle. Some clown poked a light machine gun over the edge of the roof and began spraying slugs wildly into the ground across his route of advance.
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