Command Strike

by Don Pendleton

  Command Strike

  The Executioner, Book Twenty-nine

  Don Pendleton

  For John McPherson and Larry Smith—

  booksellers, by God—

  and for all the good ACIDA people we

  met at Myrtle Beach. Cheers!

  dp

  “The only inequalities that matter begin in the mind.”

  —Jacquetta Hawkes

  “They can because they think they can.”

  —Virgil

  “Don’t tell me I can’t.

  I will because I must.”

  —Mack Bolan, the Executioner

  PROLOGUE

  Mack Bolan’s magnificent war began in the western Massachusetts city of Pittsfield. It should have ended there. It did not, despite the obvious fact that no lone man, without friends or allies, could successfully challenge that awesome combination of underworld power known variously as the Mafia, the mob, the organization, La Cosa Nostra. Unparalleled dedication and surpassing gallantry made the difference at Pittsfield, though, bringing a victory of sorts to the one-man army and sending the shock patterns of his very personal war cascading along the worldwide networks of organized crime.

  Early observers of the war regarded that initial victory at Pittsfield as a fluke, an accident of the beginner’s-luck variety, a lucky punch by a “wild-assed warrior” who would very quickly pay for his impertinence. Even the enemy saw it that way. Pittsfield, after all, had been a “soft territory”—a mere colonial operation of small-time racketeering with weak ties to the national organization. Headquarters’ response to the losses there was casual almost to the point of indifference. Bolan’s name was added to the “enemies list” and a routine contract was issued to cover the matter.

  Of course, even a routine contract for someone to die at Mafia hands is usually sufficient. Add to that the threat from the law-enforcement community, which was now committed to the apprehension of this “highly dangerous fugitive,” and Mack Bolan’s days clearly appeared to be numbered. No one in the know—media people included—expected this “tragedy of the Vietnam era” to be seen or heard of again, except perhaps on a cold slab in some morgue.

  One nationally syndicated columnist even ventured to offer advice in print to the “last American hero”—whom he compared with the windmill-fighting Don Quixote: “Go away, young man. Go to Africa, go to India—better yet, go to Tibet. Bury yourself in memories of what might have been; forget the windmills, forget honor and justice and human dignity: cease to exist, Sergeant Bolan, except as a fond memory of a dying society. Find yourself a deep cave in the mountains of Tibet and there spend the rest of your blighted days in contemplation of your magnificent gesture, your stupendous impertinence, your splendid manhood. But give us no more heroic grist for the gods.”

  If Bolan read that advice, he did not follow it. He went instead to the focal points of underworld power, one by one and campaign by dazzling campaign, to hit the enemy with thunderation and hellfire. The shattering, blitzkrieg assaults upon everything Mafia dismantled underworld power structures wherever it encountered them and sent the enemy reeling in shock and dismay from coast to coast and border to border.

  “This magnificent warrior is playing to win!” exulted one mindblown journalist in the wake of an Executioner strike. “It is almost impossible to believe the effect of this guy!”

  Other interested observers also began to rethink the “impossibility” of this “hopeless war” against the Mafia. The enemy itself retrenched behind new defenses while exerting political influence to enflame official government response to the Bolan war and, at the same time, setting up a fantastic response of its own. The contract purse escalated to a cool million dollars, payable to anyone who could earn it. Special hit teams and head parties were formed and geared specifically to Bolan’s destruction while street-corner militia and ambitious freelance gunmen prowled the tracks of the now dreaded man in black.

  Meanwhile, the police reaction to Mack Bolan had become mixed. Officially, Bolan was a dangerous fugitive, occupying a prime position on the most-wanted list. Law-enforcement officials throughout the land were advised to “shoot on sight—shoot to kill.” Yet, a secret chair in the federal government had made direct overtures to Bolan—offering him amnesty for past “crimes” and official but secret status in the government’s own war against organized crime. Bolan declined that government alignment, preferring to wage his war his way, without compromising himself on the one hand, without embarrassing his nation’s official conscience on the other. And at all levels of the police establishment the personal sympathies of individual lawmen were almost wholly on the side of the indomitable man in black. The cops knew a brother when they saw one. Bolan himself thought of lawmen as soldiers of the same side. He never once fired upon nor intentionally endangered a police officer. This was another of the impossibilities, matching in effect only that other miracle which continually intrigued the sideline observers: with all the hell and thunderation unleashed by this savage warrior, his uncanny sense of direction and moment focused the attacks only on those who had earned them. No innocent bystanders fell in Bolan’s charges. But it was no miracle—it was simply the way Mack Bolan worked. If he could not live without killing cops, then he simply would not live. If his war against human filth could not be waged without himself becoming filth, then why make war?

  Early observers saw the Executioner war as an exercise in simple vengeance—or, at best, as a swashbuckling style of vigilante justice characterized by bloody excess and psychotic energy. The long view, however, clearly revealed that this war was indeed a true and a magnificent war, that Mack Bolan was a superbly gifted and strongly balanced human being, that he was motivated not so much by hatred for the enemy as by compassion for the victims of that enemy.

  Mack Bolan was a good man.

  He was not a psychopath, but a deeply concerned human being who could not stand idly by while the savages devoured the world. He was also a military realist who possessed the strength of spirit to do his duty as he saw it. In an early entry in his war journal Bolan declared, “I have seen the enemy and I know them now. I know how to fight them, how to defeat them. And I cannot turn away.”

  There lay, perhaps, the entire motivation behind the Executioner’s war.

  He could not turn away.

  1

  THE BREW

  Marinello’s old Long Island joint was an armed camp. The rock walls of the old fortress stood about five feet high, topped by high-voltage wires and further protected by an electronic alarm system. All that mattered lay within those walls. The gate was indented about fifty feet, equipped with heavy electric locks, bracketed by two small brick guard shacks—the “chute” effect, featuring sentries to either side behind bullet proof glass. Behind each of the gatehouses was a “dog run”—fenced enclosures about ten feet wide and maybe fifty feet in length, each sporting a matched pair of alert Dobermans trained to kill on command.

  Bolan could only guess at other defensive sets within those walls. Marinello had been the king crazy in the demented world which he ruled from this old palace. Savages in a savage land lead savagely paranoid lives—their kings and chiefs in particular. But even that did not save them from their own kind. It had not saved Marinello, the King of Kings.

  It was some kind of commentary on the American justice system that fortresses such as this were designed not to protect the lawless from the law but to protect them from one another. Any cop with a badge and a warrant would be passed through those gates without question. He would be received graciously and treated hospitably, while the clout machine waltzed the guy gently twice around the palace and back outside the walls with all the formal ceremony indigenous to palace visits. No—it was not the cops w
ho scared people like Augie Marinello. It was people like Augie who scared people like Augie.

  And now the king was dead.

  In his place stood a shaky heir presumptive, one David Eritrea—never yet a boss but now hoping to take over as the Boss of all Bosses. He had been Augie’s consiglieri and a good right arm through the old man’s declining years—and, through all those years, David Eritrea had nursed a forlorn dream. Now, it seemed, the dream was becoming a reality—thanks chiefly to none other than Mack Bolan, the only natural enemy these people had beside themselves.

  Ironic, yeah. Bolan had given the guy his legs. Now he had to take them back. That would be no easy task. The king was dead, sure, but the empire was secure—as secure, probably, as the palace itself. More so, maybe, than under Marinello. The old man’s lingering illness had produced a quietive effect on the organized underworld, a “wait and see” attitude of caution and uncertainty. Now …

  Well, now, yeah—many things would be changing.

  Mack Bolan’s chief desire, at the moment, was to sponsor a few changes of his own. The king was dead. Bolan meant to see the entire damned empire dead. To do so, he knew that he must frustrate any thought of a smooth transition of power.

  The Executioner smiled, then frowned at the same thought.

  He would shake their house down. Yeah. From within.

  The sun was rising and Digger Pinella knew that it had been the longest night of his life. He stretched tired muscles and smiled sourly through the laminated layers of protective glass, across the twenty feet of no-man’s-land to Tommy Zip, who was smiling tiredly back at him from the other guard shack. “Another night, another fright,” Tommy growled through the intercom.

  Digger extinguished the night lights of the chute as he growled back. “Don’t knock it, guy. Where would you be without all this?”

  “In a soft bed with a warm broad,” the other grumped, then stiffened attentively as a vehicle entered the chute. “Whatta we got here?”

  What they had there was a flashy sports car with a foreign pedigree, fire-engine red and shrieking of luxury. The car fit the guy behind the wheel. Big guy, cool, macho—wearing a white suit that did not come from Sears or Robert Hall—flashing white teeth and wraparound shades. A class guy.

  “Good morning, sir,” Digger said politely.

  “You bet it is,” the guy replied in a strong voice that rattled the intercom. He held up a laminated card for Digger’s inspection. “Roust Billy Gino and get him out here on the double.”

  There was no mistaking the quiet authority there.

  Digger smiled and flicked a reassuring glance toward the other guard shack as he picked up the phone and passed the word inside.

  “You want to go on in, sir?” he asked the distinguished visitor.

  “You passing me through?” the guy asked, almost smiling.

  It was a hell of a question. Would the Pope pass Jesus through to heaven? Digger laughed nervously as he punched the button that unlocked the gate. “Mr. Gino is on his way, sir,” he reported. “He’ll meet you on the drive.”

  The guy saluted casually, tossed a wink toward Tommy Zip, and eased the hot car on through the chute.

  Digger closed the gate and said, “Shit,” into the intercom.

  “Who the hell is that?” Tommy wanted to know.

  “Don’t ask,” Digger growled, inspecting his own reflection in the heavy glass. He hoped he looked okay, at the end of a long and nervous night.

  “Really?” Tommy Zip asked tautly, guessing.

  “That Ace of Spades he flashed on me didn’t come from no poker deck,” Digger assured his partner.

  “What does he want with the Head Cock? What’s he doing coming out here at this time of morning? What do we—?”

  “Go back to your soft bed and warm broad,” Digger growled. But he was worried, too. Something was brewing. Something unhappy. A Lord High Enforcer from La Commissione did not pay social calls at the crack of dawn—or at any other time, for that matter.

  For damn sure. Something unhappy was brewing.

  Billy Gino paused at the front door to pass hurried instructions to the house boss. “Get it clean. We got some brass coming. Make sure Mr. Eritrea is wide awake. Tell him I think it’s Omega.”

  The house boss jerked his head in nervous understanding of that news and hurried away to prepare for the event. Gino went outside and yelled, “Look sharp, there!” then went on down the steps in lively descent. The two boys on the porch shifted uncomfortably to more alert postures and one of them inquired, “What’s up, sir?”

  “Time, maybe,” Gino growled cryptically.

  The watch chief, guard dog at the wrist, met him on the walkway. “Someone just passed through the gate, Billy,” he reported, frowning. “Who’re we expecting?”

  “We’re expecting anything,” the Head Cock told his yard boss. “Get these boys on the balls of their feet, huh?”

  “Who is it, Billy?”

  “It’s a wild card. Omega, probably.”

  “That’s the guy that …”

  Billy Gino solemnly nodded his head. “That’s the guy. Let’s see he goes away with a good impression, huh? We weren’t looking too hot last time he saw us.”

  The guy was reaching for his walkie-talkie when Gino spun away and hurried along the drive to greet the important visitor. It was a simple matter of protocol. With the joint “on hard,” it would not be proper to allow a high ranker the indignities of being challenged at each checkpoint along the way. Besides all that, appearances could mean a lot at a time like this. There was going to be a lot of shit flying for a long time—Billy Gino was certain of that. Augie had been sick for a long time, sure—but he’d still been the boss, for as long as he remained alive. With Augie completely out of the picture now, things would be going to hell in a basket until someone moved into’ the power vacuum at the top. This was no elected head of state who had passed away—with all machineries of government geared to a smooth succession to power. Nobody voted Augie Boss of all Bosses. He was the boss simply because nobody else could claim the job while he lived. He’d been the boss because he was the meanest and the smartest of them all. Now, sure, there would be a lot of shit on the fan until the next guy proved himself worthy of the job.

  Billy Gino shivered with the thought and hurried on to meet the man who certainly would have some pronounced effect upon that selection process.

  Omega was Billy Gino’s kind of guy. Damned right. But the mere presence of the guy was enough to induce shivers, even in Billy Gino.

  His kind of guy, yeah.

  Maybe even the meanest and the smartest of them all.

  2

  LIAISON

  Bolan had no illusions regarding the hazards of his position. It was a bad place at a tense time; he would rather be almost anywhere else, in almost any other situation. But the game was here—and the situation was practically unavoidable. Bolan was here simply because it was the best place to be, in the mission sense.

  He had to be here.

  But he did not have to enjoy it.

  The security boss was no clown. Bolan knew the guy—had talked to him briefly just a day earlier, in Pittsfield, while employing the same masquerade. It could work again. Then again, maybe it wouldn’t. So many intangibles went into a successful penetration.

  The guy was approaching the vehicle with a cautious stride and uncommitted face. Bolan got out and leaned against the fender of the hot little car, gauging the guy’s acceptance of the role camouflage while he lit a cigarette and peered at Billy Gino over the flame from the lighter.

  The Head Cock did not extend a greeting hand, but rather hoisted a foot onto the front bumper and extended himself across the engine hood, supporting himself on his elbows, to stare intently at his visitor. It was a good sign.

  “Ay,” Billy Gino unemotionally greeted the Executioner.

  Bolan showed him a tight grin. “Seems peaceful enough,” he said quietly.

  “Almost too peac
eful,” the guy said, just as quietly—adding, almost too quietly, “after all the shit at Pittsfield.”

  Bolan took a long pull at the cigarette and said, “Don’t hold your breath, Billy.”

  “That’s all I been doing since we got back,” Gino admitted. “Guess you know about Augie, eh.”

  “I know,” Bolan assured him. “It’s why I’m here.”

  “I figured that.” The guy’s gaze dropped to his hands. “What happened up there, sir?”

  Bolan flicked the cigarette away and watched it arc to the ground before he sighed and replied, “Hell happened up there, Billy.”

  “It was Bolan for sure, huh?”

  The guy lifted his eyes to a direct confrontation with the cold gaze of his visitor. The gazes clashed for a moment; then Bolan told him, “For sure, yeah. And something else.”

  It was Billy Gino’s turn to go for a cigarette. He lit up, exhaled noisily, stared at his hand, and said, “Uh huh. Some of us have been wondering.”

  Bolan took the plunge. “How tight are you with David Eritrea?”

  The guy waggled his hand, still staring at his hand as though struggling to identify it.

  Bolan allowed him a beat of contemplative silence before telling him, “Keep on wondering, Billy.”

  “Thanks,” the guy muttered. He sighed in afterthought, smiled tautly, and added, “Thanks, too, for the Pittsfield nudge. All of us know what you did for us there.”

  “Saved your ass, maybe,” Bolan said with a matching grin.

  “That you did, for sure. What else did you do up there, sir?”

  Bolan’s grin faded. The guy was out of line. “I told you to keep on wondering, Billy. Wondering and asking is not the same.”

  The Head Cock’s face flushed with embarrassment. “Yessir,” he growled. “Sorry. It’s a confusing time.”

  It will get worse before it gets better,” Bolan said, his tone softening. “Just remember that it will get better. Can I count on you for that, amici?”