The Kaufman snatch should have gone off without a hitch. Hinshaw’s spotters had staked the old man out for an honest-to-God solid month, charting his every move day and night, and he’d never once left the house before nine in the morning.
Until today. The day.
Hinshaw had abandoned his belief in miracles at age six, when his father stepped out for a quick beer and never came home, so Kaufman’s absence had to be ascribed to either freakish coincidence or advance warning. Ever the realist, he opted for advance warning.
And that meant a traitor.
Not within Hinshaw’s troops, he was reasonably sure of that. His men were loyal. Loyal to the project out of greed and, at another level, loyal to him out of mingled fear and respect.
Hinshaw admired loyalty in his equals and demanded it from his subordinates. It was one of the qualities that marked the line between amateurs and pros, between a mob and a skilled team of operatives. It was essential to the maintenance of order.
Order demanded that Hinshaw salvage the situation in Phoenix. Loyalty and skilled professionalism would make that salvation possible.
Hinshaw began checking off the pluses and minuses of the current situation. Minuses first: Kaufman had slipped through their fingers, the broad—Kaufman’s daughter—had managed to get away, too, and three of his men were stretched out in a refrigerated drawer downtown. That was 10 percent of his force out of action in the first skirmish, a skirmish that should not have occurred in the first place.
On the plus side, their cop downtown seemed convinced that one man alone had pulled the morning hit. Hinshaw was inclined to think his team had overlooked one of Kaufman’s housemen, allowing the guy to take them by surprise on the way out. Carelessness kills. Awaiting Hinshaw’s next order were the other pluses: Angel Morales and Floyd Worthy, Hinshaw’s oldest friends from ’Nam, his personal “secret weapons.” And backing them up, twenty-five of the meanest, ass-kick-ingest boys who ever pulled a rod in Tucson, his boys now, courtesy of Nick Bonelli.
Hinshaw owed a lot to Bonelli, for all the trust and power and money—yeah, that counted, too—that the Tucson capo had supplied over the months. Nick Bonelli’s goals and hopes were his goals now, his hopes, and by God, he couldn’t bring himself to tell the old man that somebody had screwed up on phase one. He could still pull it out, and he damn well would. He owed that to Mr. Bonelli. And to himself.
Hinshaw punched buttons on the desk intercom and growled a summons. The office door opened to admit two men. They nodded greetings and moved toward empty chairs. They lacked ramrod spines and the overall military carriage that marked Hinshaw, yet they moved with an identical grace and power, emitting lethal vibrations into the room.
Pros, yeah. Men.
Angel Morales. Small and lean, straight black hair framing finely chiseled Latin features, sensual lips curving slightly in a little smile which widened to a grin in the heat of combat. And Floyd Worthy. Tall, grim, black as the ace of spades, his restless hands ever moving, at peace only when holding one of the weapons that he loved.
Hinshaw felt better already, stronger, more confident. They were a team all right, and together, Hinshaw knew, they could move mountains.
Worthy opened the dialogue with his deep, drawling voice. “What’s the word, my man?”
“The word is that our boys were iced by one man. I take that to mean that Kaufman has no troops in the field—yet. If we move quick enough, we should be able to cut our losses and salvage the play.”
“Target Baker?” The question came from Morales.
“Affirmative. We still need a hostage for our hole card. Floyd, I want you to take personal charge of this action, and be sure the boys understand that we need the pigeon alive. Cold meat won’t get us the time of day.”
Worthy gave him an unemotional “Roger,” the big ebony hands opening and clenching in slow rhythm.
“Take a half-dozen men with you,” Hinshaw continued. “The last team came up short.” There was no trace of regret in his voice as he dismissed the deaths, merely a recognition of tactical error.
“I can handle it,” Worthy assured him, risking a narrow smile for the first time.
“I have every confidence,” Hinshaw told his friend, returning the grim smile. “Angel, you’re on backup and communications. Commit minimal reinforcements as a last resort. Emphasize that last.”
“Gotcha,” Morales replied. “Floyd don’t need any help on a run like this, do ya Floyd?”
“Made in the shade,” Worthy rumbled in response.
“Right. That’s all.” Hinshaw dropped his eyes to a folder of papers on the desk, and the other men recognized the dismissal for what it was, letting themselves out.
Jim Hinshaw was no longer upset. He felt good now, powerful, worthy of Nick Bonelli’s confidence. It would be the old squeeze play, just like in ’Nam, bring the enemy to his knees and keep him there. The old Special Forces motto came back to him: When you’ve got ’em by the balls, their hearts and minds will follow. Yeah, and their fortunes, too, any damn thing you demand. But first the squeeze, the all-important stranglehold.
Yeah, balls was the name of the game.
The GMC motor home which served as Bolan’s warwagon was parked on a wooded lane in Echo Canyon Park. Bolan and Sharon Kaufman sat on opposite ends of the same fold-down bunk, he still in blacksuit and she looking almost childlike in the voluminous folds of his robe. Almost childlike, but not quite. Even in that outsize garment, she was a hell of a lot of woman, and no clothing could disguise the fact.
Bolan reluctantly pulled his eyes away from there and caught hers over the lip of an upraised coffee mug. He found lingering fear in that gaze, but she offered him a tentative smile as she lowered the mug and haltingly told him, “I—I don’t know what to say … except … thanks … I—I guess.”
His eyes remained warm, but the voice was ice-tinged as he replied, “You could say a lot more than that.”
Her gaze fell to the coffee cup. She said nothing.
“Your father is Moe Kaufman.”
“Of course.”
“He’s in trouble.”
“Yes I … I gathered as much. What did those men want?”
“They wanted his head. Someone still does. That’s why they tried to snatch you. Your head was a means to his. It’s the big game, Miss Kaufman. Why did you think they took you?”
“I—it didn’t—I didn’t have time to think about it. Everything happened so fast. Who are you?”
“I’m the guy who snatched you back. But you are in your own hands now. Walk away, if that’s what you want. Return home. But I advise that you don’t.”
Fear was becoming a living presence between them. Her eyes receded, shrinking from his gaze as her mind obviously tumbled with a thousand questions and perhaps ten times as many logical answers. “What should I do then?” she asked.
He spread his hands as he suggested, “Talk to me.”
She hesitated. “About what?”
“You could start with your father’s business associates.”
“What? I don’t—”
“Nick Bonelli.” It was neither a statement nor a question, it was simply there, hanging between them in the sudden silence.
“Well … yes, Mr. Bonelli and my father are friends. I believe they’re partners in some sort of business venture in Tucson.”
“The partnership is dissolving,” Bolan told her grimly.
“What?” More tension in the young voice now, edging out the confusion.
“The men who grabbed you were Bonelli’s.”
“What? How do you … who are you?”
“The name’s Bolan.”
There was no immediate comprehension on that young face, merely deepening puzzlement. “Should I … haven’t I heard your name somewhere?”
“Could be. Your father and his ex-partner are quite familiar with it.”
“How do you know my father?”
“By reputation mostly. Until this morning
I was his worst enemy.”
“Bolan? Bolan!” She was still chewing that one over when she suddenly made the connection, and her pretty face lost another shade of color. “Oh my God! Are you that Bolan?”
“Last of the line,” he told her without humor.
“But … you’re supposed to … I mean … you fight the Mafia.”
Bolan said nothing, letting the impact of her own realization sink in.
“Oh no, you can’t think that my father is involved with the Mafia?”
“Bonelli—your father’s business partner—is the capo of Tucson,” he told her.
She seemed stunned. “C—capo?”
“Capo mafioso. The local godfather. The mould on top of the cheese. Your father has been in bed with the guy for years.”
“I’ve heard some of those stories,” she responded, some of the flush returning to her cheeks in a wave of defensive reaction to Bolan’s words. “I don’t believe them. But suppose Mr. Bonelli is … what you say. My father is a businessman. He needs … contacts.”
“You met some of those contacts this morning.”
“But why would Mr. Bonelli want to harm my father?”
“That’s the big question. I’m in Phoenix for the answer. One thing I do know. Those guys were pros, and they didn’t come to town alone. Their back-up crews will be looking for your father now, if they haven’t already found him.”
“They won’t have. If my father doesn’t want to be found … well, he just isn’t, that’s all.” Her head and shoulders slumped ever so slightly as she spoke, and Bolan knew with certainty that Sharon Kaufman had indeed heard “some of those stories” about her father. And wondered, no doubt, about certain odd circumstances and behavior at various times, about the swarthy visitors and the gravel-voiced nocturnal phone calls.
Yeah, Sharon Kaufman knew or guessed—or, more likely, feared to know—the truth about her “businessman” father.
She broke the silence after a long and thoughtful pause. “Did you mean what you said? About my being free to leave?”
“Any time you choose. I don’t draft civilians.”
“But you would like my help, wouldn’t you?”
“I don’t have anything to trade, Sharon.”
“My father’s life?” she suggested hopefully.
“I won’t make promises I can’t keep,” he told her coldly. Then he added, with more compassion, “For what it’s worth, I didn’t come to Phoenix to hit your father. I could probably achieve that simply by leaving town and giving his ‘friends’ a free hand. My goal, so far as possible, is to avert a street war and prevent any mob faction from seizing total control. I’ll pursue those goals by any means necessary. Fair warning.”
Sharon Kaufman thought about that for several long moments before raising her eyes again to meet Bolan’s gaze. “All right,” she said simply. “I’ll help you, to a point. But I won’t endanger my father!”
“Fine. We understand each other,” he told her.
But he knew very well that they did not.
CHAPTER 5
UNDERSTANDINGS
Sharon Kaufman gathered her breath, mentally gauging what she could afford to tell the big man in black. She was more than a little frightened by his words and grim demeanor, and still shaken by the morning’s grisly events, but she sensed traces of warmth in his voice, more than a touch of heart behind those graveyard eyes. At length she began to speak slowly, haltingly, weighing her words carefully to present them in the desired context.
“About an hour before those men arrived, my father got a phone call from Ike Ruby.”
“I know Ruby,” Bolan told her. “Go on.”
Sharon was startled, suddenly off balance, no longer certain how much the big man already knew. She fought to collect her thoughts again before continuing.
“The call seemed important. My father acted … well, not angry, exactly … upset.”
Bolan broke into her musing train of thought. “So he went over to see Ruby.”
“I—I don’t know. Honestly. He may have, but … he only told me that he had to go out for a while.” She hesitated, then added, “My father and Ike are in business together. They might have met at Daddy’s office … if at all. I just don’t know where he went.”
The ice returned to the big man’s voice as he responded to that. “Okay. Where can I drop you?”
It startled her. She was not prepared for such quick dismissal. “I—but—what …?”
“I believe you. We’re square. Let’s end it on that note.”
“It isn’t ended, though, is it?” she ventured meekly, adding, “For my father.”
“I’m afraid not,” he replied gently.
She read that loud and clear. Lifelong protests rose automatically through the tightening throat. “You have it all wrong. My father is a decent man. He has business enemies … political enemies … but this other is … well, it’s just not true!”
“Where do I drop you?” he asked again, ignoring the impassioned protest.
“Ike Ruby has been a second father to me! I’ve called him ‘Uncle Ike’ as long as I can remember.” She thought she saw a flicker of human light in those steely eyes and leapt quickly to summon it again. “Please. I sense a—a fairness in you. Why save me only to—to cast me back into the flames!”
He sighed wearily as he told her, “I’m casting you nowhere. All I want from Kaufman and Ruby is the truth. I can’t very well get that if I can’t find them, can I?”
She made a quick decision, quivering lungs fairly bursting with it. “Then I’ll just go along and help you find it.”
He showed her a genuine if tiny smile as he replied, “No way.”
“Why not? I have a stake in this, too. I have a right.”
The smile departed as he grimly responded to that. “The right to die?” Those incredible eyes flashed with some inner misery. “We all have that right. But I don’t have to help you exercise it.”
There was a recognizable finality in that response. Her gaze dropped to her lap and she fidgeted. Then, in a barely audible whisper, she said, “I can’t go back home.”
“No,” he quietly agreed.
“I—I’ll need to make a telephone call.”
He sighed and pointed out the instrument, instructed her on its use, and watched unemotionally as she made arrangements to “crash” with a college friend. From that point, conversation with the big, quiet man was confined entirely to small talk and directions to the drop point.
It was a brief ride, the destination being a “singles” apartment complex off North Central avenue, almost in the shadow of St. Joseph’s Hospital. She used that time to visually probe the interior of the fantastic vehicle and to wonder pointedly about the grim secrets it carried. A vehicle of war, certainly, as grim and threatening as the silent man who piloted it so casually through the Phoenix streets. He pulled out beyond the complex to methodically circle the neighborhood, thoroughly “casing” and probing that quiet neighborhood before pulling to the curb on a deserted side street behind the complex.
She rose from the seat and prepared to leave him, turning in the doorway for one more attempt at reaching him. “Mr. Bolan … I.…”
“No promises, Sharon,” he reminded her in a gentle voice.
She began to say more, thought better of it, and left him, saying simply, “Thank you again.” She hurried across the damp lawn toward the apartments, pausing briefly at the entranceway to watch the motor home as it rounded a corner and disappeared.
Sharon Kaufman turned and hastened to her own destination, her young face set in lines of grim determination. She would make her own promises.
Bolan knew Ike Ruby, all right. The girl had called Ruby a businessman, but the Executioner knew him as the chief enforcer and general staff officer of Moe Kaufman’s desert empire. A native of the Bronx, Ruby had been an early protege of Lepke Buchalter in the labor wars before migrating westward toward his ultimate destiny as Kaufman’s strong right a
rm. His rap sheet included seven arrests for first-degree murder, with one indictment and no convictions. And that was only the tip of the iceberg, for despite the periodic disappearance of opposition partisans and persistent rumors of a graveyard in the desert, Ruby had been unhampered by investigation or arrest for the past quarter-century.
A “businessman,” yeah. Read that “cannibal.”
Mack Bolan knew Ike Ruby, all right, and somebody else knew him, too. The little mobster’s estate was another of those “marks” on the captured map of Phoenix. Like his master, Ike Ruby was a target, and Bolan realized that he might already be too late for his “talk” with the guy. Not that he was bleeding over the fate of a decadent savage, far from it. Other circumstances might find Ike Ruby on the Executioner’s own hit parade. But right now Bolan needed a score card for the Phoenix game, and Kaufman’s right arm might be the one to supply it.
Bolan urged the Toronado power plant to greater speed as he homed on the Ruby estate, his near-photographic memory displaying the map of Phoenix streets for navigation. His target lay to the north and west of Camelback Park, within an easy rifle shot of the Interstate highway. He found it easily and circled the walled grounds in a brief recon, senses alert for any traces of hostile presence.
He found those traces immediately. The front gates to the place were open wide, and mental alarm bells jangled at the flagrant breach of security. He could see nothing else beyond the protective walls except scattered treetops and a tiled roof about seventy-five yards back.
He parked the warwagon and quickly outfitted himself for action. Big Thunder, the .44 Automag, went at his right hip to supplement the silent Beretta. A light machine pistol went around his neck, and clips for the weapons filled his belt. He briefly contemplated a rack of small grenades, then decided against them and put the battlewagon behind him.
Bolan ignored the beckoning front gate, opting for an entrance over the north wall. The grounds rolled away before him, dotted with trees at irregular intervals. His attention immediately centered on the house, a long low structure in the Spanish style, its red tile roof supported by thick adobe walls. A long crew wagon was idling at the front door, with a dark man-shape at the wheel, another lounging too casually against the passenger’s side. A tall guy, well dressed, black, stiffening suddenly as staccato reports of gunfire erupted within the house.
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