Eternal Triangle

by Don Pendleton

  He floored the accelerator. Steering with his left hand, holding the Colt Commando with his right, he veered across the narrow blacktop, straining toward his target as he closed the gap. Against the stucco backdrop of a sprawling ranch-style house, he saw the soldier rising to his feet, the submachine gun winking in defiance. He was standing up to fight, the bastard, knowing it would only get him killed; you could almost admire a guy like that, determined to take it on his feet.

  The hunter held the Colt Commando's trigger down and emptied the banana clip in one hellish burst that swept the lawn and wall and everything before him. Then he twisted the wheel just a second before he jumped the curb. As it was, he scraped it, his hubcaps ringing off concrete as he veered away. For a microsecond he was eye-to-eye with Bolan, less than twenty feet away.

  It was enough.

  He saw the rounds strike home, his target toppling, spinning, folding as the tumblers ripped his flesh. The bastard was unconscious — maybe even dead — before he hit the grass — no doubt about it. If the bullets hadn't killed him outright, he would bleed to death in moments, well before police and paramedics strayed from Tarantella's slaughter pen downrange.

  And it was done, all finished, just like that. He fought an urge to swing the car around, speed back and let the bastard have another clip… or hop the curb and flatten him beneath the tires. But extravagance accomplished nothing, invited danger to himself. He knew he should be satisfied with what he had.

  But there was a sense of anticlimax to the killing, as if something had been missing from the final confrontation. He wished there had been time for him to face his quarry, let the soldier know why he had to die, and at whose hand. Perhaps a face-to-face would finally have purged the private demons that the hunter lived with day and night.

  But all that would pass in time.

  The hunter had succeeded where the FBI and other law enforcement agencies had failed. He had avenged his family, and all the other families left fatherless by Bolan's one-man war. This night's act would not retrieve the dead, but if there was a shred of justice latent in the universe, he knew they would be waiting for the Executioner in hell.

  In time, the hunter thought, he might join them there.

  But not tonight.

  He had some details to attend to yet, before he could continue his normal life. His car had taken several hits from Bolan's submachine gun, and he would be forced to do the body work himself to avoid questions from mechanics or police. No problem there; he had the tools at home, or could acquire them inexpensively in Pittsfield.

  He would have to ditch the weapons — some of them, at least — there were several he might hang on to for a while. You never knew when this or that illegal piece of armament might come in handy. He would not become another Executioner. But if the need for action should arise, then he should be prepared.

  He found the irony of that intensely humorous, and hearty laughter bore the hunter home through darkness. Morning would be soon enough to go out searching for the light.

  16

  Pausing at a traffic light before he entered South Hill, Weatherbee had time to wonder if he had lost his mind. What did he expect to accomplish with his crazy cross-town dash? He was reacting like a fire horse that has been put out to pasture, but still responds blindly to the old alarms; he was endangering himself and hampering the men who had a job to do.

  He felt ridiculous, yet that did not eliminate the strange compulsion that had brought him here, that drove him on. If Bolan had returned to run his razzle-dazzle on the home front one more time, Al Weatherbee would be there to see it. With any luck, the former chief of homicide might just get close enough to finish it.

  The target would be Ernie Tarantella. The Elmwood address broadcast on the monitor had told him that much. Girrardi's place was farther out, on Whittier, secure for now unless the Executioner was setting records for the quarter mile.

  Weatherbee cranked the window down. He could hear sirens now, still distant but approaching. Take it easy, boys, he chided silently. They had to know that Tarantella was the second biggest hemorrhoid in town — the biggest, if you counted reputation rather than rank within the brotherhood. The bastard had a list of priors stretching back to childhood, and you could forget about the shortage of convictions. If the Spider had been innocent of any given beef, Al Weatherbee was ready to believe in miracles.

  The failure to convict the guy was thanks to methods of persuasion, gangland style. A simple bribe might open the negotiations, each side probing the strengths and weaknesses of the other. A witness who rejected money could be brought around by terrorism — threats against his property, his family, his life. If all else failed, the die-hards disappeared or were assassinated publicly, as a reminder to the populace at large. Weatherbee couldn't help but wonder if society might not be better served by letting Bolan take the Spider out, remove the cancer now before it spread.

  And where the hell did that idea come from?

  If Weatherbee subscribed to Bolan's methods, why in hell had he been losing sleep in pursuit of one more chance to break the soldier's chops?

  The answer was simplicity itself. He didn't buy the soldier's method of dispensing justice by the round, but what battle-weary cop had not fantasized once or twice about a world where the enemy was readily identifiable, a bull's-eye painted on his back? Frustration was part of each policeman's life, beginning when he first pinned on the badge, and lasting till the day he died.

  Except you're not a cop, the inner voice reminded him. He was not at all surprised that the voice reminded him of Alice's.

  He was a civilian now, with all that term implied from the perspective of the man behind the badge. Outsider. Alien. Member of the crowd. At best, a nuisance… and at worst? The enemy.

  He wondered how it was possible to miss a job so much when the pay was mediocre and the hours grueling, the risk of danger never far away. Instead of crying in his beer he should be glad the brass had put him out to pasture.

  But in his heart and in his mind he was still a cop, goddammit! It didn't matter if they took his badge away. They couldn't take away its imprint on his soul. Like the veteran fire horse, he would answer those alarms until they put him in the ground.

  That was what made his mixed emotions toward the Executioner so unsettling. As a cop — all right, ex-cop — he should have seen the soldier for the public menace he was, threatening the very fabric of society. But he had looked behind the warrior's graveyard eyes, had caught a glimpse of something warm and human, a vivid contrast to the primal rage that fueled his first vendetta, there in Pittsfield.

  For a moment, Weatherbee wondered what he might find if he could look inside those eyes tonight. Would there be warmth, a vestige of humanity inside the killing machine? Or had it all been seared away, burned out of Bolan by the pain of waging endless war across the years?

  No matter. The guy was bloody dangerous; motive only mattered if it helped you bring a perpetrator down. As long as the Executioner continued killing, making up his own rules as he went along, he was nothing but criminal to be eliminated, one way or another.

  Fine.

  Then why did Weatherbee feel such misgivings at the thought of taking down the man in black? Why was he so ambivalent about the guy?

  No ready answer came to mind. Disgusted, the former homicide chief refused to think about it anymore. By now his mind was fully occupied, in any case, with beating the black-and-whites to Tarantella's.

  He did not know the reason, but he was possessed by a sudden need to view the shooting scene before the uniforms arrived and SWAT teams hit the beach, destroying evidence in their aggressive zeal to bag the Executioner. If Manny Ingenito had been taken out by an imposter, which Weatherbee believed to be the case, Tarantella might be on that shooter's list, as well. Before he spent more precious time in pursuit of shadows, Weatherbee wanted to know if Bolan was in town or not.

  He knew the patrol patterns in South Hill, knew the cruisers would close in from
the north and east. He pushed the Buick through another light as it changed from amber to red, ticking off the names of cross streets that would bring him in behind the Spider's shooting gallery before the cavalry arrived.

  He had to think like Bolan, sure, if such a feat was possible. If Bolan was at Tarantella's, if he was alive, he would hear the sirens, know the police were cutting off the major avenues of exit. He would try the back door first… and hopefully Al Weatherbee would be there waiting for him. Just like in the movies.

  Driving with his left hand, Weatherbee reached across the seat to caress the Smith & Wesson. It gave him comfort, so close at hand. Aware that he was going up against an army toting automatic weapons, Weatherbee understood the danger that he faced. It was familiar, almost comfortable. But he could not suppress a little shiver of apprehension as he picked his cross street, turning east and homing on the wail of sirens.

  He could die within the next few moments. Years of living with danger had not stripped it of its ability to frighten. Calling up the images of other firefights, Weatherbee was stricken with a sense of déjà vu that made his skin crawl. Still, there was a job to do.

  Not your job, the Alice voice reminded him. But it was. The Bolan case had been his job from the beginning. It would be his job until the curtain fell on one or both of them.

  Perhaps tonight.

  A crackle like the sound of distant fireworks. He slowed the Buick, almost coasting for an instant, reached out to kill the volume on his monitor. Another burst of automatic fire, more distinct this time. Whoever it was who dropped in on Ernie Tarantella, he had come prepared for war.

  And even as Weatherbee's car slowed, almost stopped, the fireworks faded, died away. As if a soundproof window had been closed, the night was silent now, except for sirens and the rhythmic panting of the Buick's engine.

  Think like Bolan, dammit.

  Bolan would have a set of wheels nearby. He would have anticipated the police reaction, would stay clear of major cross streets, keep to secondary streets and alleyways for his retreat. If he was able to retreat. If Tarantella's soldiers had not finished him already.

  Weatherbee dismissed the thought. If this was a Bolan hit, the Spider's housemen didn't stand a chance. They might be the toughest muscle Boston or Manhattan had to offer, but they weren't soldiers. They were gorillas, paid to terrify the innocent and sometimes kill one another on command. Confronted with an enemy of Bolan's skill, they would be little more than cannon fodder.

  Unless one of the bastards got lucky.

  Weatherbee accelerated, his sense of urgency increasing with the absence of gunfire. If Bolan was withdrawing, there were seconds left, at most, before he cleared the scene. To intercept him, Weatherbee would have to get the lead out, get into position before it was too late.

  He gunned the Buick down a curving, tree-lined avenue with darkened houses looming on either side. The neighbors here were obviously unaware of World War III erupting in their own backyard.

  Weatherbee was close and closing in when he heard automatic weapon fire again. This time it was near enough to make him wince and duck involuntarily. No muzzle-flash, but he recognized the sharp reports of two weapons now — a submachine gun and an automatic rifle. They were just around the corner. In another instant…

  As Weatherbee reached for his Smith & Wesson, a sleek Camaro roared around the corner just in front of him with rubber smoking, high beams lancing his eyes. In a flash the driver passed him and was gone. No time to catch the Camaro's plates, but he had glimpsed the driver's profile, blurred with motion. He was not the Executioner. Weatherbee might not recognize the driver if they met face-to-face in daylight, but he would know Mack Bolan anywhere, day or night. The guy was in his blood, and he could no more rid himself of Bolan's image than he could forget the features of his wife, the son whom they had lost to Vietnam.

  He took the corner cautiously, the Magnum in his lap, one finger taut around the trigger. The Camaro's driver wasn't Bolan, but he was certainly a shooter. His target might be Bolan. One of Tarantella's goons, perhaps… or someone else.

  At once, he remembered the hit on Manny Ingenito, wondered if the blurry profile might belong to the hypothetical imposter. Before he could decide to swing his car around to give chase, his headlights settled on a crumpled figure, clad in black. He caught a flash of crimson — Jesus, so much blood — and then he brought the Buick to a sliding halt, scrambled out on legs that felt like rubber.

  He held the Magnum out in front of him, prepared to fire at once if Bolan made a sudden move. But by the time he reached the curb, the former chief of homicide could see the soldier wasn't going anywhere. He was alive but badly wounded; shock, loss of blood, might finish him before the black-and-whites arrived. A cautious man, Al Weatherbee stepped wide around the prostrate form and snared the Uzi Bolan had obviously been firing when he was hit.

  A streetlight on the corner, some yards distant, gave only faint illumination, but Weatherbee would have known the soldier anywhere. This was the face that he had seen in Texas. Altered by cosmetic surgery until Bolan's mother wouldn't have known him, the face retained all the strength and character Weatherbee had noted in their first encounter, years before.

  The soldier's breathing was a labored rattle. The thought occurred to Weatherbee that he should end it here. A single round between the eyes would do it, end the hold that Bolan had on him. And it would be a kindness to the man himself, a mercy kill.

  When the uniforms discovered Bolan, as they were sure to do, they would call out the paramedics to save his life. What then? Would the man survive another prison cell? Another trial? What kind of death was waiting for him in the bowels of the "justice" system? Wouldn't he prefer to die as he had lived, in combat?

  Sighting down the four-inch barrel of his Smith & Wesson, Weatherbee was still debating with himself when Bolan shifted slightly, moaned… and his eyes snapped open. Something sparked between them, officer and fugitive, a pulsing current that was more than recognition, nothing like enmity. Before he even thought about it, Weatherbee lowered the Magnum, tucked it inside his shoulder holster, crouched to inspect the soldier's wounds.

  He might survive, at that. There was less blood than Weatherbee had first imagined. The wounds he could see were clear of vital organs. If he got the soldier to a hospital in time…

  Now where the hell had that come from? It was not his intention to support the Executioner, to assist him in escaping from the law. Besides, the doctors at emergency receiving would report his wounds, as they were legally required to do, and Bolan would be slapped in irons as soon as he was wheeled out of surgery.

  No doctors then.

  Goddammit, knock that off! He was beginning to hallucinate, to imagine that the soldier's health was his responsibility.

  Then, in a sudden flash of insight, Weatherbee grasped the answer to his problem. When he looked at Bolan, part of him was seeing Tommy, flattened by a VC mortar round outside Pleiku. The man who lay before him was a decade older than Weatherbee's son would have been if he had lived, and there was no physical resemblance… but he felt it, all the same. A kinship, deeper than mere understanding of the soldier's motives. Incredibly he felt a sort of bond with Bolan. The former homicide detective realized that the bond had been there all along.

  It explained the mixed emotions, certainly, the way he was torn between his duty and a sudden urge to help the Executioner escape. But how in hell could Bolan flee, anyway, when he was unable to stand?

  The soldier's lips were moving, forming soundless words Weatherbee couldn't understand. He wrote it off to Bolan's pain, the near-delirium of shock after massive injury. The words didn't matter, anyway. The former chief of homicide had already made up his mind.

  "You take it easy," Weatherbee commanded, moving briskly toward the Buick, conscious of the strength returning to his legs with every step. He dropped the Uzi on the floor behind the driver's seat, and doubled back for Bolan, glancing at his watch and guessing at an ETA
for the approaching black-and-whites.

  They would converge on Tarantella's house first, of course, unless a resident in one of the surrounding homes had phoned another call to headquarters about the later shooting, thereby alerting dispatch to the shifting nature of the battle. If he was lucky, he had time to get the soldier on his feet and into the Buick, to make a break before reinforcements closed the door behind him.

  Sure.

  If he could get the soldier on his feet. If Bolan didn't hemorrhage and die from the exertion of the move.

  And when he got him into the car, what then?

  Home. Of course.

  He couldn't take the soldier to a hospital, any more than he could leave him where he was to be discovered by the uniforms and carted off in irons. When Weatherbee considered all his options, he knew he really had no choice. No choice at all.

  He didn't want to think about how Alice would react. Time enough for that when — if — he got Bolan home. There was a chance he would be stopped, the Buick searched, before he cleared the neighborhood. In that event, the game was up, and he could kiss his freedom goodbye forever. They could fit him for a set of prison grays while Bolan trundled off to maximum security with both doctors and detectives at his bedside.

  Weatherbee stood above the fallen soldier for a moment, hesitating on the brink of an action that would change his life forever. Two blocks over, sirens made his mind up for him. He stooped to slide his hands beneath the other's arms, knowing that any sudden movement could be lethal but that they had no time to waste.

  "You've got to help me now," he whispered, not knowing if his words got through the soldier's fog of pain. They must have, because Bolan was responding, weakly but determinedly, rolling over, pushing with his good arm at the blood-slick grass beneath him.

  When Bolan was on his feet, one arm wrapped around the shoulders of his former nemesis, they started for the Buick. Bolan dragged one leg slightly, leaned heavily on Weatherbee, his blood already dampening the former detective's shirt. By the time they reached the car, Al Weatherbee was soaked with Bolan's blood, his clothing clammy, plastered to his skin. It was another bond between them, and he was amazed to find he didn't mind at all.