"Manny Girolta and about five carloads, that's what's going down. They're standing at the gate and demanding a parley. I don't know how much longer I can hold them there."
"How many boys you have on the line, Billy?"
"I hate to tell you, but we've had some desertions. I got twenty-two boys left, that's counting inside and out and counting myself."
"Put David on."
"David has become an old man right in front of my eyes, sir. I swear his hair is turning white. He won't talk. I can put the phone on speaker, though, and he can hear you. Maybe you can say something to snap him out of it."
"Put it on, then."
"Right, sir, it's on."
"Listen to me, David. It's time to forget what has been and what might have been. It's time to deal with what is now. You'll never be the boss of New York. So what? It's not such a hot job, anyway. What you're going to be, though, is very dead unless you snap out of it and look at your options. Listen, friend, I don't want your head. I could have had it, many times, any time. Manny Girolta and all the New York boys would love to have it. They're at the gate right now, waiting for it. Somebody else wants it, too. Peter has sent a whole damn field battalion to collect it. They'll be showing up very shortly. Here's what you've got to believe. I can get you out of there. I want to get you out. Say the word and I'll do it. David? Say the word, guy."
"He says nothing, Mr. Omega."
"That's because he's what they all say he is. He's a damn patsy, a fruitfly. Where the hell does a guy like this get off, wanting to be the boss of all New York?"
"Fuck you, Omega! Or whoever!"
"That's better. You can't fuck me if you don't touch me, David."
"What's your deal?"
"The deal is I'll get you out if you want out."
"Yes, dammit, yes! I want out!"
"Okay. Just sit tight. Don't budge. Sit there and look out your window. You'll know when to make your move. Billy!"
"I'm here, sir. What do I do?"
"You're a good man, Billy Gino. You remember what we talked about. You make that phone call tomorrow. Right?"
"Right, sir. But I meant—"
"I know what you meant. Here's what you do, Billy. You call all your boys in. You take them out the back and over the wall. Don't stop and don't look back."
"Mr. Omega, I—"
"Shut up! David and I have our deal. This is yours. Over the back fence and far away. Now! Move it!"
"Do it, dammit, Billy! He knows what he's doing!"
"Okay, David. Thanks, Mr. Omega. God keep, sir."
"You too, Billy. You too."
The roof panel unlocked and the launcher lifted into place. FIRE CONTROL GO flashed from the console, and the optics screen glowed redly with superimposed range marks. Bolan refined the focus and punched a button. TARGET ACQUISITION LOCK flashed on. He banged his knee. The bird whooshed away, flashing instantly into the gun sights and rustling along that electronic barrel in the view screen, trailing smoke and flame in a sizzling run to ruin.
.., three, two, one—impact! The target disintegrated in a puff of red, as seen by the electronics. As seen by the unaided human eye, a big Cadillac crew wagon exploded in a froth of fire, which instantly became towering flames and raining debris—fleshy particles as well as metallic ones flinging themselves into the spirit of total entropy as nine men and their vehicle suddenly ceased to be.
And already a new target was being acquired, a fist against a knee sent the firing plunger down, and missile two leapt off in search of certain game.
Three away ... four away . . . amid screaming panic, rustling whispers hurtling through the evening skies, thunder and lightning and hellfire itself, exploding metal, bodyless heads rolling and limbless torsos skidding, licking flames, destruction, death—another successful event.
The launcher descended through the roof for reloads and the big, grim man in black reached for his microphone.
"This is Drano. I guess you see it."
"I guess I do, pal. Is that my cue?"
"He's ready for you, yeah. Go get 'im."
Off to the northeast, a new and only incidentally related series of fireworks brightened the evening sky, and non-heavenly thunder rippled along.
"This is Royal Flush. I guess you see it." "I guess I do. Let that be Peter's epitaph."
"So be it. We're on the move. Contact point in thirty seconds."
Bolan went aft to the armoury and broke out the reloads, rearmed, recycled, then returned to the con.
He reset the optics, zeroing in on the front door of the old palace, adjusted the resolution, zoomed in.
Some thirty to forty seconds later, a short caravan of unmarked vehicles rolled into the crosshairs and came to a halt. Hal Brognola stepped down from the lead vehicle. The palace door opened and David Eritrea moved into view. He poised there rather hesitantly for a moment; then Brognola moved forward with hand outstretched.
Bolan grinned as the two shook hands and moved together toward the vehicle. Another successful event, sure.
The official caravan moved out of view.
Bolan watched the departure with the naked eye, waiting until the final vehicle had cleared the flaming wreckage at the gates to the palace; then he bent to his work once again.
He set up four automatic acquisitions, drummed his fingers upon the firing leg while the program registered; then he banged his knee one last time for old New York.
The four birds flew in a ten-second separation sequence, each with its own appointed track through space and time, each with its own role in the destruction of the final vestiges of an empire which never should have been.
The old building puffed, tottered, shredded, then blew into streaming turrets of flame and debris.
"Goodbye, Augie," said the Executioner. "You were a hell of a louse."
EPILOGUE
The mortal remains of August Marinello were laid to final rest in the borough of Queens, New York, one stormy morning in early spring. The casket had not been opened for viewing during the service at the chapel, since there was so little left of Augie Marinello to be viewed—as one official put it: "Some blackened bones and cooked meat."
Surprisingly few mourners were present. Most of those in attendance seemed to represent either the police or the press.
"What is this?" one baffled journalist was overheard to remark. "We were led to expect the equivalent of a state funeral. Where are all his pals?"
Few of those at the chapel bothered to join the procession to the cemetery. It was, after all, a miserable day—and an entirely dismal event.
Among those few who did journey to Queens and stand in the rain were a big cop from central precinct, William Rafferty, chief of the organized crime detail, and his guest from Washington, Harold Brognola.
"That's really some great support I got from you," Rafferty muttered through the driving rain.
"We didn't know ourselves until this morning," Brognola told him. "They simply slipped away in the night."
"A mass exodus," Rafferty argued quietly, "is not exactly the same thing as slipping away into the night. I should have been told. I got this face problem, see. I mean, intel is my business, isn't it? Several departments would have been overjoyed to know that suddenly this is a very small and ordinary funeral. We could've saved many thousands of manpower dollars, we could've—"
"Okay, okay, I'm sorry," Brognola huffed, but meant it. "I wasn't exactly squatting on my ass and watching a teleprinter all night, you know."
"Yeah, I know," Rafferty muttered. He wiped the rain from his face. "Our DOA's started coming in during the afternoon. You said a grand slam. You were right. We were just watching the wrong slam. Working the keys on the out-of-towners. The guy wasn't interested in them, was he?"
"What guy?" Brognola inquired, deadpanning it.
"You know what guy. The one who gave us Fortuna and Gustini, Pelotti and DiAnglia, and assorted lesser lights. We got a regular Mafia wing going down at the morgue."
Brognola snif
fed and said, "You run a clean town, Bill."
"Cleanest I've seen in memory," the big cop said, smiling in the rain.
Brognola was smiling, also, despite the grave occasion. "Well, I'm going to be as busy as a cat covering up its doodles for the next few weeks, just trying to sort and file the intelligence coup of the century. I'll cut you in on your area of that. But God, it will take days just to get it out of there and safed away. And I'll tell you a truth, Mr. Ethics. I'm going to be dreaming sweet dreams for one hell of a long time."
"Don't rub it in. Can I buy you lunch?"
"Sorry, I have an afternoon date in Washington," the fed said, and the smile grew. "Have to introduce a distinguished guest of the government to a certain Senate subcommittee."
"You guys get all the fun," Rafferty growled, but it was obvious to Harold Brognola that he meant not a word of it.
"We have our compensations," Brognola assured him, meaning it for damn sure. He started to add to that but checked himself, his attention drawn to the street just beyond the cemetery wall. A familiar shape took form there, wreathed in the rainy mists of the stormy morning—surprising him by its presence there but also somehow belonging there.
The fed would bet his badge that the familiar mass was a GMC motor home containing more tricks and secrets than old Barney Matilda had ever dreamt of.
And he was right.
A pretty young woman in a white slicker descended from the big cruiser and strode purposefully through the gate and toward the funeral party.
The cruiser flashed its lights twice and pulled slowly away.
Brognola watched it fade into the gloom, then returned his attention to the approach of a young lady who had every right to feel elated, victorious, superb.
If she had those feelings, she was hiding them very well.
Brognola had not seen a gloomier young lady since Hawaii. "You can't win 'em all, kid," he gently told her.
"Nuts," she said. "He's just another wild man! Let him go off and get himself killed!"
"Oh he will, he will," Brognola murmured.
"Who're we talking about?" Rafferty inquired.
"Nobody you'd want to know," Brognola sniffed. "Bill—this is Sally Palmer. Congratulate her. Yesterday she buried a stake in a vampire's heart."
"I just held it in place," the girl said quietly. "Someone else drove it in."
"I guess I know who we're talking about," Rafferty said. His eyes sought the gloom where a lonely mass had disappeared. "What kind of guy is he?"
"Right now," Brognola said, sighing, "I'd say the kind who bleeds like you and me, who once had dreams like you and me—the kind who gets tired, and scared, and sometimes wonders what the hell it's all about. He's just a guy, like you and me."
"You're a very egotistical man, Mr. Brognola," said the lady fed.
Brognola chuckled, then straightened his face into the proper mien for such a solemn occasion.
The coffin was being lowered into the ground.
A moment later, the nation's top cop stepped to the hole in the ground, picked up a handful of mud, and let it fall into the grave.
It was the end of an era.
Long live the king; the king was dead.
And he left no heirs—apparent, presumptive, or otherwise.
The Marinello-Matilda empire was dead.
Executioner 029 - Command Strike Page 12
