Eternal Triangle

by Don Pendleton

  Annotation

  CLASH OF THE GLADIATORS.

  On a hot August night in a small U.S. town, a high-powered rifle cracks out five times. Five men are executed, without trial or jury.

  The shots will have a profound effect on the lives of two people: the gunman, Mack Bolan, and the son of one of the dead men.

  For Bolan it means a life on the run. For the youth it means avenging his father's death. Now, years later and with skills worthy of a warrior, the son finally confronts his father's killer — the Executioner.

  * * *

  Don Pendleton's

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  Epilogue

  * * *

  Don Pendleton's

  The Executioner

  Eternal Triangle

  You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him the art of war.

  Napoleon

  There is one means by which I can be sure never to see my country's ruin: I will die in the last ditch.

  William III

  The last ditch may be here, in Pittsfield, and by now the enemy may know my style too well, but there are times when duty leaves no choice. Like here. Like now.

  Mack Bolan

  To the victims of organized crime

  Special thanks and acknowledgment to Mike Newton for his contribution to this work.

  OCR Mysuli: denlib@tut.by

  Prologue

  The basement bore a musty scent of long disuse. It was several days since he had ventured down into his secret place, and now the hunter flared his nostrils, picking out the separate, familiar smells of dust and mildew, age and slow decay. He knew what lay below. The darkness held no secrets from him; it inspired no apprehension in the hunter's heart or mind. The darkness was an old and trusted friend.

  Before attempting to negotiate the narrow stairs, he flicked the light switch to illuminate the basement's single naked bulb. The single naked bulb that hung from the ceiling was adequate for his requirements, and the shadows it engendered were comforting, like the cobweb haze surrounding ancient memories. The shadows blunted pain and helped the hunter focus on his prey.

  A workbench stood along one basement wall, its surface stained by oils and acids, scarred by tools that hung on nails and brackets. The hunter would not work tonight. His preparations were complete, and it was time for recreation now. Before the kill, so long delayed, he needed to unwind.

  He had undressed before descending to the basement, and his muscles rippled under the light. He stood erect, confident of his physique without a trace of pride, secure in himself without a hint of narcissism. He habitually came naked to the basement, shedding years and garments in the rooms upstairs, discarding all the artificial trappings of his daily life before descending the stairs to find the past that was his destiny.

  The wooden chest was old. It had been a fixture in his family for years. In its time it had contained the dreams of maidens and the memories of generations gone to dust. The hunter had removed all traces of posterity save one, consigned them to the fire. In place of heirlooms, he had packed the stuff of memories to be.

  He knelt before the chest, concrete unyielding, rough beneath his knees. He was unmindful of discomfort as he spun the combination dial, unlocked the chest and raised its weathered lid. At once, the smell of gun oil reached his nostrils, cutting through the scent of dust and age.

  A loose-leaf scrapbook, bound in leather and secured with rawhide thongs, lay on top. The pages were irregular, rough-cut, mismatched in size and color. Some were crisp with age, their pasted clippings yellow, seamed like parchment. Others were more recent, bearing clips secured within the past few weeks or days. The hunter did not read them now. He knew each piece by heart, could have recited them from memory without referring to the faded text. His hands were steady as he laid the scrapbook carefully aside.

  Neatly folded beneath was a well-worn set of camouflage fatigues. The hunter stood and slipped on the old familiar garments, his eyes already straying to the far end of the basement as he buttoned his shirt and buckled on the pistol belt of military webbing. There were boots, as well, but he ignored them, standing barefoot on the cool concrete, intent on completion of the ritual.

  Beneath the clothing lay the weapons, wrapped in canvas, slick with oil and solvent. Some had been dismantled, broken down to fit the chest, while others had been small enough to pack intact. A visual inspection showed him everything secure: the guns and ammunition, extra magazines, the special items he had obtained at no small risk. Accumulating the necessary tools had taken months, years, but he was ready now. The waiting was behind him.

  It was time.

  He crouched before the open chest again, his fingers playing over oily steel as if enraptured by the outline of the weapons. Even in their silence they were lethal, manufactured for the single purpose of eradicating human life. No sporting weapons here, designed to ventilate a paper silhouette or drop a helpless quadruped in flight. The pieces in his private cache were manufactured for mortal combat, tested on a hundred different urban battlefields and proved in blood. The Uzi submachine gun and the smaller MAC-10 Ingram, both 9 mm weapons meant for close-up work. The Franchi SPAS 12 autoloading shotgun and the little stakeout 12-gauge pump from Ithaca, with shoulder stock removed and barrel shortened for concealment under clothing. The well-oiled Colt Commando, compact cousin of the M-16, which had surrendered size while clinging fast to the destructive capabilities of the original. The Weatherby Mark V .460 Magnum hunting rifle, fitted out with telescopic sight. The range of heavy caliber handguns, autoloaders and revolvers. The blocks of soft plastique, done up in string and oilcloth like a poor man's Christmas package.

  The hunter had been circumspect in the selection of his tools, anticipating each eventuality and the reactions of his prey. The enemy would come with weapons of his own, possessed of martial skills that made him uniquely dangerous, but he was not invincible. The hunter had surprise and preparation on his side, together with the contents of his secret chest, and it would be enough.

  The trailing fingers settled on a leather sheath containing half a dozen throwing knives. The hunter straightened, fastened the sheath onto his pistol belt before he took a knife in hand. The flattened steel was balanced, razor sharp, designed for accuracy, range and penetration. He had practiced with the knives dutifully, until he knew that he could kill or maim at fifty feet in daylight or in darkness.

  From the corner of his eye he saw the enemy, immobile on the periphery of vision, poised to strike. A heartbeat, less, before a hostile weapon cut him down. No time for conscious thought before he made his move.

  The hunter pivoted to face his enemy in profile, drew back his arm and let go before the other could react. The knife flashed once beneath the naked bulb, and then its razor tip was buried deep between Mack Bolan's eyes.

  The police identisketch bore countless wounds, most clustered in the face and chest, unhealed by time. If Bolan suffered from the deep, untended scars, he gave no sign.

  But soon.

  His time was coming, soon, and flesh would scream where photographic prints and fiberboard had borne their wounds in stoic silence.

  Soon.

  The hunter smiled and reached for another knife.

  1

  On his second pass, Mac
k Bolan saw the sentries walking their beat outside the target warehouse. Normally there would have been a single man, but these were troubled times; Bolan knew he would have to deal with both before he made his way inside. If there were others whom he had not spotted… well, he would deal with that eventuality if and when it arose.

  He drove the rented four-door another block and parked it in the looming shadow of a warehouse that had clearly not been used in months. He would be forced to double back on foot, but it would give him time to think and some of the combat stretch he needed to succeed in his midnight strike.

  The soldier had already taped over the car's dome light, and he went EVA now without the fear of prying eyes. He shed his trench coat to reveal the jet-black skinsuit underneath. It fitted him like a second skin, with handy hidden pockets for stilettos and garrotes, a pencil flash and lock picks, other gear. The sleek Beretta 93-R, with its special silencer, was snug inside its shoulder rigging, easily accessible.

  Inside the rental's trunk, he found the duffel bag that held his other gear. With practiced hands, he buckled on the military harness, fastened the web belt snugly and adjusted it until the AutoMag was comfortable on his hip. He closed his eyes and found the extra magazines, the hand grenades and slim incendiary sticks by touch, aware that in the heat of combat-if it came to that-he would not have the time to grope and guess.

  He would be forced to kill the sentries, certainly, but Bolan hoped that he could end it there, without engaging any larger force. He left the Uzi and CAR-15 inside the trunk, relying on mobility and his advance reconnaissance to see him through. The play was hit-and-git; if there were any rude surprises in the warehouse, he would deal with them in turn. If it went smoothly, as he hoped, he would be that much closer to the resolution of a shooting war that had disturbed the peace and quality of life in Hartford long enough.

  Connecticut's capital had a population of 140,000, give or take a few. With five distinguished colleges within a four-mile radius of the capitol dome, Hartford casually combined a sense of youth and feel for history. Mark Twain had been a native, as had Noah Webster. The town had carved itself a slice of revolution in the days when Americans were colonists, indentured to a foreign king. In those days Connecticut was the "Arsenal of the Nation," the most industrialized of the new United States. Hartford had led the way.

  In Bolan's time, there was no gambling to speak of, nothing in the way of major prostitution, labor racketeering or extortion. Drugs had been the ticket for the mob in Hartford, with the student population of the seventies and eighties as a ready market for the poison organized importers could supply. The action had been run from Boston and New York till very recently, but there were signs of restlessness among the local troops, an urge to cut themselves a larger slice of pie.

  The restlessness had turned to violence lately, with a string of bombings, beatings, driveby shootings and selective disappearances, as local shock troops turned upon their distant capos, then upon each other, grappling for territories, customers… the works. The Executioner hoped he could bring their present feuding to an end, so the peaceful college town could return to something like normality… for a while.

  But there would be a price.

  No chef could make an omelet without breaking eggs, and Bolan knew he could not eradicate the recent violence of insurgent thugs without resorting to some violence of his own. It was a law of nature, simple and immutable: the only way to stop a savage was to kill him in his tracks, or else frighten him so badly that he spent the next few weeks or months in hiding. Of the two alternatives — one permanent, one temporary — Bolan's normal choice would be elimination of the enemy, but there were other aspects to consider on the eve of war.

  Connecticut was relatively free of mob contagion at the moment. Certain ranking capos made their homes around the Nutmeg State, escaping from the smog and other dangers of Manhattan, but they generally refrained from doing business there, adhering to the maxim that you don't shit where you eat. Narcotics traffic into Hartford and environs was a notable exception. If left unchecked, the rising turks among the younger mafiosi would eventually expand their local power base, extending tentacles to other towns, incorporating other rackets.

  It was rare for Bolan to have an opportunity to nip a fledgling syndicate expansion in the bud; he could not afford to let the moment slip away. If he could halt the present shooting war, discourage or eliminate the chief belligerents, Hartford would survive the storm, endure and grow.

  And if he played his cards right, Bolan would survive, as well.

  He spent a moment staring northward, following the banks of the winding Connecticut River in the darkness. From Bolan's vantage point, he could see the runway lights of Hartford's major airport, their flashing beacons offering safe haven to travelers from near and far. There was no safety here, no haven for the Executioner, however. He had come in search of danger, courting death, and he would not be finished with his work until he spread the cleansing fire among his enemies.

  He locked the car and left it, merging with the shadows as he backtracked toward his target. He would have to take the sentries first, no way around it. He could not afford to let them live, continue on their rounds and possibly discover him inside. He needed time, uninterrupted time, in which to send their boss a message from the heart.

  The guards were young, their shadowed faces reminiscent of a thousand others Bolan had encountered in his war against the Mafia. Young faces with the stamp of cruel and unforgiving streets, brutality and avarice reflected in their eyes. Dead faces, for the most part, stripped of soul long before the Executioner arrived to cast his final vote.

  It might seem simple to eliminate these two, but overconfidence was an insidious disease that sapped a soldier's normal caution, made him reckless, got him killed. If there were other sentries, perhaps inside the warehouse, he would have to deal with them as well, and that required a maximum of stealth, a minimum of warning to the enemy.

  The final twenty yards were open ground. Bolan made it in a rush, alert to any sign that he had been observed. He found a shadowed hiding place beneath the loading dock and tugged the sleek Beretta from its armpit sheath, released the safety as he waited for his targets to complete their circuit of the warehouse. Any moment now…

  He heard their voices first, and then their footsteps, slapping on the concrete of the loading dock. The sentries took no serious precautions, trusting in their guns and the invincibility of youth to see them through the boring hours of their watch. Their conversation hinged on sex and money, concepts that their minds had inextricably confused.

  "You oughta see this broad, I'm tellin' ya."

  "How much?"

  "What is this shit, how much? I never paid her anything. A coupla presents, maybe."

  "Yeah, an' that ain't payin?"

  "Kiss my ass, Balducci."

  "Sure, but it'll cost ya."

  "Hey, tha's cute. So fuckin' funny I forgot to laugh."

  They passed by Bolan without a glance into the shadows where he crouched and waited. He gave them five before he rose from cover, the Beretta braced and leveled in a double-handed grip, eyes narrowed as he sighted down the slide. At fifteen feet, the range was virtually point-blank.

  He took the tallest gunner first, a single parabellum round impacting at the juncture of skull and vertebrae, obliterating life and conscious thought before the gunner realized he was dying. Bolan pivoted to take the second sentry before he could react, squeezing off a double punch that bored between his shoulder blades and pitched the young man forward on his face.

  They lay together, dark blood mingling on the loading dock, as Bolan scrambled up to stand beside them. Silence, except for soft, nocturnal river sounds, and in another moment Bolan knew he was alone. The way was clear.

  He dragged each hollow man in turn across the loading dock, into the deeper shadows against the wall. Their blood made crazy patterns on the pavement, and he stepped around it, avoiding any footprints in the gore. It
was enough for Bolan's purpose that passing headlight beams not illuminate the bodies. Thirty minutes after he was gone, it would not matter who discovered them.

  He found an access door and knelt before it, probing with a slender pick until the tumblers fell consecutively into place. He gambled that there would be a delay on the alarm, allowing anyone who opened in the morning to deactivate the system manually. His fingers found the cut-off switch above the doorjamb, muzzling the alarm before it could betray him.

  Once inside, he used the pencil flash to find his way around. The shipping office was a glassed-in box on Bolan's left, the warehouse proper opening before him, crates of merchandise arranged in pyramidal rows that towered almost to the vaulted ceiling. All or most of it was contraband from a string of hijacks on the coastal highway, trucked to Hartford and allowed to cool before redistribution to shady retail outlets all across New England. There were televisions, crates of cigarettes and liquor, clothing, appliances of every shape and size — all free of taxes for crooked merchants anxious for a bargain, no questions asked.

  The warehouse was a gold mine for its owner, would-be capo Larry Giulianno. Rumor billed him as the stronger of the local warlords; his well-established trade in hijacked merchandise kept Giulianno's war chest brimming over while his competitor was reduced to begging loans from other families to keep himself in men and guns. Destruction of the warehouse might not cripple Giulianno's team, but it would slow it down, and for the moment that was victory enough.

  Alert to any sign that he might have overlooked another sentry in the warehouse, Bolan moved along the narrow aisles, scattering time-delay incendiaries as he went. Beginning at the far end of the building, working toward the door and loading dock, he laid a trail of fire, waiting to explode and spread among the crates of merchandise. The first incendiaries were already popping as he backed toward the door. Bolan spent a moment on the threshold, watching as the flames took hold. The sticks were built around a thermite core, designed to start a fire and keep it going in the worst of weather. Giulianno's sprinkler system would be unable to quell the blaze, and by the time a fire alarm went out, the place would be a total loss. How many stolen dollars up in smoke? Enough, for now.