Blood Testament te-100

by Don Pendleton

  The county doctors had advised him to consider plastic surgery, but Frankie's family had been poor. With seven mouths to feed and frequent bouts of unemployment, Frankie's father had ruled out expensive medical procedures. By the time he was old enough and rich enough to make arrangements on his own, it had become a point of honor to retain the scars and challenge any living soul to mention his disfigurement. Within the syndicate and on the streets, his brute ferocity was legendary. Homicide detectives in New York and Washington suspected Frankie Scars of intimate involvement in at least a dozen homicides, but witnesses were an endangered species, and the mutilated thug had never come to trial.

  In recent years his business was narcotics. Murder was a necessary adjunct to the business or, some said, a sweet fringe benefit that Frankie Scars enjoyed. Unauthorized competitors could normally expect a single warning, often painful and humiliating; if they failed to take the hint they were assassinated publicly or else they simply disappeared.

  Lately, Frankie was considering a war against the Colombians. Conveniently amnesiac concerning his own roots, he hated foreigners with an evangelistic zeal more common to the 1920s than the mid-1980s. Frankie loathed the Cubans, the Vietnamese, the Haitians, Arabs, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans. He especially despised Colombians because they held a stranglehold of sorts on premium cocaine, and they refused to quake in fear at his approach. The nervy bastards seemed to thrive on violence, dealing out sadistic punishment to traitors and informers, littering the streets with bodies in a style that Frankie Scars was forced to view with grudging admiration.

  Two weeks earlier he had dispatched a pair of gunners to eliminate the leader of a ring that was importing flake direct to Washington from Bogota. His soldiers had been missing for three days before a jogger was attracted by the odor rising from the trunk of an abandoned Chevrolet in Hyattsville. Authorities had found a human jigsaw puzzle inside the trunk, bits and pieces severed, trimmed and rearranged with what appeared to be a chain saw.

  It was time to teach the Indians a lesson, and the only question left in Frankie's mind concerned the where and when of the instruction. There had never been a question in his mind concerning how to do the job. Such foolish insolence could not be cured, it could only be annihilated, and the problem now was pinning down the clique, securing an address, a location, where his gunners could surprise a group of them. Nicky wouldn't like the bad publicity, but once he had a chance to think it over, he would realize that there had been no other choice. So sure was Frankie in his mind, that he had already decided to proceed without the capo's blessing.

  But in the meantime there was business, product to be moved and money to be made. The world kept turning in spite of the Colombians or anybody else, and Frankie Scars was not about to let life pass him by.

  Phase one of his campaign to purge the Indians was economic. In the short run he could undercut their prices, take a loss on street sales while he waited for phase two, the military phase, to coalesce. He had connections in Bolivia, and while their product couldn't hold a candle to the pure Colombian cocaine, its lower quality allowed for lower prices on the street. When the Peruvian was advertised as pure Colombian, the budget rates were even more astounding, and the customers were lining up from Constitution Avenue on back to Arlington with hands out, nostrils flared. He could supply them at the discount rates for two or three more weeks before the costs became prohibitive, and in the meantime he had spies and gunners scouring the city, searching for a target that would put them on the map.

  He was expecting a delivery tonight, in fact, and had arrived an hour early at the warehouse to ensure security. The flake was coming in by truck, a dozen hefty plastic bags sewn into the upholstery of tacky furniture, three loaded chairs concealed within a shipment of two dozen. On arrival, Frankie's men would strip the chairs, retrieve the bags of crystal, stuff the chairs with pre-cut foam and ship the whole lot off to one of Frankie's discount shops in Delaware. The flake would stay behind, and by this time on Monday it would be fulfilling fantasies for congressmen and bureaucrats across the city.

  Frankie checked his watch and nodded to the lookouts posted on the loading dock. The truck was due, and he would give them fifteen minutes more before he closed the warehouse, rerouting to the backup drop.

  A sudden glare of headlights cut across the loading dock, and Frankie heard the truck now, engine growling, air brakes hissing as the driver put it in reverse and backed it in. The stevedores, all armed in case of unexpected trouble, were proceeding toward the dock, and Frankie followed, one hand wrapped around the roll of cash he carried in the pocket of his trench coat. He was passing through the giant doors, had one foot on the concrete apron, when the world exploded in his face.

  The moving van appeared to swell before his eyes, as if it were inhaling monstrous breaths somehow, and then it detonated, roof and sidewalls peeling back along the welded seams, a fireball rolling outward and sizzling across the dock. The flames consumed his lookouts and a couple of the stevedores before the rest could scatter, left them dancing on the platform like burning puppets wreathed in flames. He was driven backward by the shock wave and the sudden heat. Automatic-weapon fire erupted from the firelighted darkness of the parking lot, precision bursts dispatching fiery dancers.

  It would be the Colombians, he knew, and Frankie Scars was cursing, digging for his side arm, searching for a target in the firelight. From the shadows of the warehouse, several of the stevedores were firing blindly from the cover of a forklift, spraying useless rounds. Frankie Scars was braced to make a run for their position, take his chances with the unseen gunners in the darkness when a larger weapon coughed out there, beyond the margin of the firelight, and the forklift suddenly exploded into flames. He saw two bodies airborne, others wallowing across the pavement in a lake of fire, and something snapped inside of Frankie Scars.

  He bolted, giving up his meager cover, and pounded back into the warehouse toward the distant sanctuary of his office and the weapons hidden there. He would surprise the bastards yet, if only he could get his hands on some of the artillery he kept in case of an emergency.

  Before he made a dozen strides, the mobster's legs were cut from under him. He did an awkward belly flop and felt the pistol skitter from his fingers, lost before he could react. It took a moment — too damned long — for Frankie to regain the feeling in his legs, and when it hit him, there was nothing he could do but scream.

  From out of nowhere one of the attackers loomed above him, reaching out and rolling Frankie over with his foot. From where he lay, the big bastard didn't look like a Colombian, all dressed in black that way, but you could never tell. The mobster's full attention focused on the cannon in his hand, and Frankie recognized it at a glance. It was a frigging M-16, with something like a stovepipe mounted underneath the barrel. He didn't have to ask the bastard what it was — not after sitting through selected clips from Scarface seven times.

  "What the hell..."

  He knew precisely what the gunner wanted, but he was intent on buying time. One of his own hitters might emerge from hiding, pop the bastard where he stood.

  But no one came to rescue Frankie Scars.

  The man in black crouched beside him with the muzzle of his cannon smack in Frankie's face.

  "Somebody has a package that belongs to me," he said. "Somebody should deliver while they can."

  "A package?"

  "Spread the word."

  The guy was rising, leaving. Frankie Scars could not believe that he was going to survive. He didn't understand a fucking word the guy had said, but he would spread the word, yes. They would be hearing him from hell to Sunday once somebody got him out of there, tried to save his legs. He had no wish to spend the rest of his forsaken life as Frankie Stumps.

  It was eternity before he heard the sirens, heralding the swift approach of fire trucks, with an ambulance, and at the sound of their arrival, Frankie Scars wondered where he went wrong in his life.

  11

  Susa
n Landry had tried Brognola's office first and had been advised that he was "on holiday," but she could not let it go that easily. She had his private number, legacy of her encounter with "John Phoenix" and the Stony Man debacle, and she dialed it from a roadside booth, surprised when Hal had answered on the second ring. His voice was tense and strained; he fairly snapped at her before she had a chance to speak. Afraid that he would deny the interview immediately, she had mumbled something incoherent, hastily apologizing for her error, hanging up and racing for her car.

  The address had required more effort than Brognola's private number, but she had a contact with Ma Bell, and she had marked Hal's street for reference on her map before she left the office. He would be surprised to see her, certainly; he might demand to know how she had found him. Long experience had taught her that it was more difficult for men to dodge an interview in person. Even if he slammed the door in Susan's face, there was a decent chance that some remark would point her toward another source of information. Susan Landry recognized her personal effect on men, and she was not ashamed of using any means at her disposal to secure a story. She had never bargained sex for information, but if femininity could open certain doors, so much the better.

  Everything she knew about Brognola told her he was a devoted family man, conservative, traditional, and Susan knew that she would have to be discreet in her approach. If nothing else, his tone of voice had flashed a warning signal to her, urging caution. Something had Brognola on edge, and whether it was a suspension from his job or something else entirely, Susan realized that she could not approach the subject like a scandalmonger who wrote for one of those newspapers found at supermarket checkouts. Some sophistication was required, and Susan felt that she was equal to the task.

  She found Brognola's street and made a single driveby to confirm his car was parked outside before she doubled back and nosed her Honda in against the curb. She double-checked her equipment — the compact recorder in her purse, the notebook, pens — then climbed the concrete steps to Hal Brognola's porch.

  She pressed the doorbell, waited, tried a second time before she heard the cautious sound of footsteps from within. The door swung open and Brognola stood before her, looking older than the woman had remembered him from Texas, a few months earlier. The wrinkles — worry lines? — were deeply etched into his face, around his mouth, his eyes. It was the eyes that struck her hardest, peering out from under bushy brows and looking cornered, trapped.

  He should remember her from Texas, from the Phoenix flameout, but the lady wasn't taking any chances.

  "Susan Landry, with the..."

  "Yes," he interrupted her, "I know."

  "I wonder if you might have time to answer several questions."

  "Questions?"

  Susan noted that his eyes had shifted past her, scanning along the street in both directions. Perhaps he was expecting camera crews to spring out of the shrubbery.

  "If I might just step inside..."

  "What kind of questions?"

  Fair enough. She dropped the smile and forged ahead. "It's been reported by a confidential source that you have been suspended from your post at Justice, pending an investigation into certain charges of administrative impropriety."

  Brognola's smile was crooked, bitter. "I'm on holiday," he told her. "Three-day weekend."

  "Any comment on the charges? The investigation?"

  She was on the edge. It would be simple for him to deny the rumor, close the door and leave her standing there. It would not put her off the track, of course, but it could slow her down, and he must know as much. Another visual sweep up and down the street, and then Brognola stepped aside to clear the doorway.

  "Come with me."

  He closed and double-locked the door behind her, led the way along a corridor that seemed to more or less divide the house, with bedrooms on the right, the parlor, kitchen, dining room to Susan's left. He steered her toward the breakfast nook and found a stool on one side of a counter topped in decorative tile. She sat across the counter, facing him.

  "What do you want to know?"

  Presented thus, devoid of shadowboxing, the inquiry took her by surprise.

  "I'm interested in your side of the story," Susan told him simply, settling back to wait.

  Brognola mulled it over for a moment, glancing at his watch as if the time held great importance for him, and again the lady felt that he was worried by something more than the potential ruination of a proud career in law enforcement. When he spoke, the big Fed's tone was curt, his phrases clipped and economical.

  "There have been certain leaks at Justice," he informed her. "Some of them in my department, some in others. You're aware of recent cases that have made the papers."

  It was not a question, but she answered anyway. "Of course."

  "Investigations are continuing," he told her cautiously, "and someone thinks they've got a handle on a leak inside my office."

  "Your response?"

  "I haven't had a chance to see the so-called evidence."

  She frowned. The man was stalling, playing games. ''Your personal response?''

  His scowl was withering. "I categorically deny releasing any confidential information from my files at any time, except through channels duly authorized. If someone's holding evidence that points the other way, let's see it in a court of law."

  "And have you been suspended?"

  "Like I told you, I'm officially on holiday. Unless somebody serves a warrant, I'll be clocking in on Tuesday morning, as usual."

  She tried a different tack. "How is your family reacting to the charges?"

  She was startled by the sudden change in Hal, his stiffening, the pallor in his cheeks. His answer seemed to take more energy than he possessed.

  "I have their every confidence," he said at last, his voice remote and somehow very sad.

  Susan's instincts told her that she was within a hairbreadth of another story altogether, but she couldn't find the handle, and she had no way inside. Instead, she doubled back to the investigation.

  "Any comment on the evidence compiled so far?"

  He shook his head. "As I've already said, I haven't seen it yet. It will be subject to intensive scrutiny." Brognola checked his watch again. "Now, if you'll please excuse me..."

  She was poised to ask another question, but her train of thought was interrupted by the telephone. Brognola jumped, and Susan would have been amused by his reaction under other circumstances. As it was, she noticed the anxiety that surfaced on his face, the hesitation as he reached for the wall phone close at hand, then stopped himself.

  "Excuse me, I'll take this in the other room." He fairly bolted from the bar stool, disappearing along the corridor in the direction of his den. The door swung shut behind him, and the telephone's third ring was severed halfway through.

  Susan felt an urge, suppressed at once, to listen in on the extension. It would be an insult to Brognola and his hospitality, of course, but she was equally convinced that he would catch her at it, recognize the sound of the receiver being lifted in the breakfast nook no matter how distracted he might be.

  She checked her watch and found it was one minute past six o'clock. Brognola had been waiting for a call; she realized that much from the compulsive study of his watch, his shock-reaction when the telephone had finally rung. Her reporter's instinct told her that the call had less to do with problems at the office than with something more immediate, more intimate. More painful, if it came to that.

  The man was hurting, and from what she knew of Hal Brognola, it was not his typical reaction to a challenge on the job. Brognola would be angry, even outraged, at a challenge to his personal integrity, but he would come out swinging. There had been a trace of the anticipated anger in his grim determination to confront the recent charges in a court of law, but underneath the surface there had also been a trace of... something else.

  The call was more important to Brognola than his job, and that sudden certainty left Susan Landry with a narro
w range of viable alternatives. What might produce the symptoms she had witnessed in a man of proved courage and determination? Office politics was out, as well as any effort to indict him for a crime that he had not committed. The reverse side of the coin — his actual involvement with a leak of confidential information — never seriously entered Susan's mind. And what was left?

  A threat against his life?

  She couldn't buy it. Hal had doubtless been in dangerous situations countless times before, and from the information readily available in public files, he had revealed no trace of cowardice.

  A threat against his wife and family?

  The silence of the house, its emptiness, struck Susan like a fist above her heart. Hal's children would be grown, of course, away at school or off with families of their own by now, but Susan suddenly realized that she had seen no sign of another woman on the premises since she had entered.

  And what was that supposed to prove? Was she expecting an Italian housewife to appear and dog Susan's footsteps through the house, encumbered by a tray of coffee, tea and cakes? So many women worked these days, so many others had a bustling schedule of activities outside the home. Why had she automatically assumed that there was something sinister about the seeming absence of Brognola's wife? It was the kind of argument a raving chauvinist would use, where two plus two made five... and still, she couldn't shake the nagging apprehension fostered by the empty house. If there had been some kind of threat against Brognola's wife, he might have moved her elsewhere, seen her safe before he turned to face the enemy.

  It was the kind of thing Mack Bolan would have done.

  But Bolan wasn't here, she told herself, and he had no connection to the story that was brewing in her mind. If there had been a threat against Brognola's wife, his family, and if the threat could be related to his other problems on the job...

  Before she had a chance to chase it any further, she was interrupted by the sound of footsteps in the hallway. Hal had left the study, covered half the distance to the breakfast nook before she heard him, and the lady was surprised that he could move so quietly, despite the deep-piled carpeting.