THE DEATH FREAK -- An Eddie Mancuso Thriller (Eddie Mancuso And Vasily Borgneff Book 1)

by Clifford Irving

  "Good morning, gentlemen. The colonel awaits you in the printout room—and move your respective asses, please."

  Kelly, brushing by him, asked, "Can you tell us what it is, Andy? Do you know?"

  "I don't get paid enough to have to know those things. All I know is that you're late. Colonel Parker's birds are flapping."

  Once inside, the two men hurried through the entryway, elab­orately furnished and decorated with period pieces, and into the corridor beyond.

  The interior of the house, indeed of all the houses joined in the row, was in direct contrast to the colonial exterior. The guts had been ripped from the eight frame dwellings, and corridors ran through them lengthwise, opening onto offices, meeting rooms, and a small but well-equipped laboratory. The walls and the floors were the ubiquitous gunmetal gray of government issue, and the air, although silent, seemed to be suffused with the steady, monotonous hum of bureaucratic energy.

  At the far end of the corridor an elevator dropped two levels below the ground, and the two men ran for it, tearing off their powdered wigs and scratching their itching scalps with eager fin­gers. First level down: cafeteria and firing range. Second level down: computer plant and printout room.

  Kelly and Rakow slid white plastic cards into slots, pressed the tips of their fingers to a pulsing glass panel that automatically checked their prints against their identities, and the door to the printout room slid noiselessly open. The room was long and nar­row, pleasantly cool. Banks of printers lined the walls. At the far end of the room, three men stood around an oak table littered with paper files, ashtrays, and coffee cups. They were also dressed in colonial costumes. They straightened and turned as the latecomers entered.

  Colonel Frederick W. Parker, tall and erect, with eyes the color of shallow water, fifteen years out of uniform and a colonel in name only now, stared fiercely at them and tugged at the trim end of his mustache. The commanding officer of the Colonial Squad was the only one of the five men to have held high military rank. It was something he was unable to forget.

  Red Erikson, the number two in O Group, was even taller than the colonel, but slab-sided and trapped in a perpetual slouch. Amiable and easy-going, his friends found it difficult to believe that the former Green Beret had developed the technique of drop­ping Viet Cong prisoners from low-flying helicopters as a form of persuasion to interrogation. His only comment when Rakow and Kelly entered was to roll his eyes silently heavenward.

  Romeo Arteaga flashed fine and even teeth at them gleefully. The Cuban-born agent and Bay of Pigs veteran was the squad's pet and jester, as well as the office expert on cold steel. In his more active days he had been in and out of Castro's Cuba a dozen times on extraction missions, and now he was the only one who spoke.

  "Rakow," he said, "that fox you've got stashed in town is going to dig your grave one of these days."

  No one in the room laughed. Everyone there was an expert in unnatural and violent death. They were the top level of the Col­onial Squad, the bad boys of the Agency, the superkillers, the ex-Animals. And although these five were no longer active in the field, each had, when an agent, killed, and killed, and killed again. Each knew exactly how many times he had killed—it was the kind of thing no man could ever forget, not even these—and each consciously tried to erase that number from his mind. So that no one laughed. Death was not a particularly funny subject to them. They knew too much about it, had lived with it and for it all their adult lives. Only Arteaga could have made the joke and gotten away with it.

  "No shoptalk in the officers' mess," Erikson murmured, and the atmosphere in the room eased.

  Rakow's face stayed grim. He rarely smiled or relaxed. He was the only one of the five who had no previous government service before coming to the Colonial Squad. He had been recruited di­rectly from the Boston world of organized crime—a totally une­motional and unimaginative killer who always followed instruc­tions and never failed, no matter who else got in the way. He had proved it to Parker his first month on the job by blowing up a commercial jet in order to kill an agent's wife who was carrying marked money that could have ended the careers of six top men in the Justice Department. The Colonial Squad had many func­tions. For Rakow there had been no indecision or hesitation; he always did things the easy way.

  Melvin Kelly, by contrast, was the other side of the killing coin. A former FBI agent, he had resigned to join the Colonial Squad for the purest of patriotic motives, feeling that he could best serve his country by putting to work his natural talent for murder and mayhem.

  The colonel handed each of the newcomers a copy of a print­out. "We started without you. You'll have to catch up."

  Rakow peered at the top page of his copy.

  "Eddie Mancuso? Dirty little Eddie. What's he up to now?"

  "Plenty," said Erikson. "Catch up and read on."

  Social: Because of the nature of his work, the subject has long been considered totally amoral. Recently, however, it has become increas­ingly obvious that he has developed a marked distaste for his occupa­tion. Although he realizes that there is no other industry in which he could be so gainfully employed, he is no longer able to reconcile his material benefit with the fundamental nature of his occupation. More­over, since the subject is generally thrifty (except when he travels abroad on holidays for sport or leisure), does not gamble excessively and has no known expensive habits or sexual abnormalities, it is known that his investment portfolio (Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith) bears a current close-of-market value of $76,435. Current balance in his checking account at The Chase Manhattan Bank is $4,136.45. Funds secreted in Switzerland and the Bahamas estimated at between $300,000 and $350,000. Total estimated net worth not less than $380,000. Given the subject's background and mentality, he would con­sider this a sufficient sum for comfortable retirement.

  Mancuso has been involved in the design and personal manufacture of death-dealing devices, both conventional and UKD, for twenty years. Over those years he has been indirectly responsible for the taking of at least fifty and perhaps as many as one hundred lives, a fact of which he is aware. In addition, he felt a friendly affection alternating with hatred for his original recruiter and Control, Agent Richard N. Wilenski, and showed marked signs of distress, however temporary, at the death of Wilenski (along with Agents Robert L. McKay and Graham A. Heuwet- ter) in Chile in 1972. Subject has no such friendly relationship with his current Control, Agent Stanley T. Erikson.

  Mancuso is still a relatively young man. He wishes now that he had continued with his education and chosen some other field of endeavor. This syndrome is not unusual among people who deal with death. Gen­erally, however, it involves only a temporary rejection of the work ethic rarely lasting more than a few months, with a mean projection of 1.7 months. This is not the case with Mancuso. The rejection syndrome has developed over the past five months and shows no sign of abating. The only conclusion possible is that an important social or emotional factor in the subject's life has not been programmed, or has been pro­grammed inadequately, into this Psychoprofile Series J. This factor, for example, might be the death or terminal illness of someone in Man- cuso's immediate family (negative), or an association with a woman on such an emotional level as to deepen his sense of the work-ethic rejec­tion past the point of remediable recovery. There is no evidence of any such current important male-female relationship.

  Probability that Mancuso may be considering defection to any foreign governments or agencies: 0.02%.

  CONCLUSION:

  Notwithstanding the above, the subject, Edward Mancuso, is deter­mined to leave the service of the Colonial Squad, and within ninety days will apply for early retirement.

  Indicated possibility of error in this prognosis: 3.2%.

  "What a bullshit number," said Romeo Arteaga. Although he had begun before the others, he was the last to finish reading.

  Colonel Parker raised his eyebrows, but spoke quietly. "Do you mean the machine's conclusion?"

  "
Come on, Colonel. We know that CYBER doesn't make mis­takes. At least, the old witch hasn't done it yet. I mean Mancuso. What kind of crap does he think he's pulling? His kind of classi­fication doesn't retire. Not in my time, anyway. Not ever. He knew that when he signed on."

  Erikson nodded. "Indeed he did. If CYBER hasn't gone ape— which I think we all agree is not very likely—then our Eddie is being a very foolish little boy. With what he knows, he can't walk away. No one can."

  "Exactly," Kelly said. "So Romeo is right. Mancuso's no great thinker, but he's not that stupid. He knows he can't get away with it. He's got to know."

  "Correct. He's not that stupid." The colonel nodded smugly, blue eyes glittering with knowledge. "But he does think he can get away with it. Read on and be enlightened. There's a second stage to the printout."

  As he spoke, the printers started up again, noiseless, calm, probing like a fine scalpel in the hands of a surgeon into the mind of Edward Mancuso.

  And while all this went on, the subject cavorted under a sky gray and gritty, playing half-court basketball, two on two, in the schoolyard of P.S. 184, five blocks from his apartment, with three black kids who called one another Martin, Luther, and King. All of these dudes under fourteen, and each has at least three inches in height on Eddie Mancuso, but does that bother Eddie? Cer­tainly not, for Eddie isn't far from the generation that venerated backcourt men—Hy Gotkin of St. Johns, Sid Tannenbaum of NYU: the little guys, the movers and the doers, the guys who got things going in the days before the giants like Wilt and Jab- bar stalked the courts. Move, Eddie, move—and Eddie moves, slap, taking the pass from Luther backcourt, dribbling slowly, easily, dancing in his Adidas, giving King half a fake and then taking it back. Luther in the bucket, waiting, nothing fancy, give and ... go, breaking right and charging, jumping and turning on the jump, empty hands clutching, slap, it's there, and up--and in! Two points.

  Good this way, working up the sweat, working out the hate and confusion, because there's a lot of both up there in his head, waves of them rolling around inside, and he's thinking, I've got to get out, got to, got to, slap, and fake, and move, and shit, right out of my hands! How'd that happen? But they'll never let me do it, never, the bastards, never. On my ass for twenty years, Eddie do this, Eddie do that, Eddie we need a grenade the size of a watch--cut, Luther, cut!--way to go, kid! Can do, Eddie? Sure, Eddie can do. Eddie can do it all. Extract a guy from a locked room? Sure, pin-size flechette through the keyhole. Adios, Gen­eral. Bastards don't think I know where they used that one. Blow away some dude while he's driving his car? Certainly, Colonel. Make and model, please. Martin, your feet are too big for your head. Like this, see? Left, and right, and up, and in. Two more.

  Sure, Eddie can do it, but what happens when Eddie wants out? Twenty years, Christ on a crutch, that's enough, isn't it? Twenty years of mangled flesh, and blood, and broken bones-- never saw them, but I know what that stuff does--if anyone knows, man, I know--and it's time to get out. Sure, get out. Just try it. Pass, Luther, pass. Damn! Just try telling that one to the colonel. Think he'll let you walk away with what you know? Be nice, wouldn't it? Just give you a gold watch and say, Thanks for the twenty years, Eddie. The hell they will. They'll blow you away like a puff of smoke, like all the other puffs of smoke you helped to blow. And they'll be sorry, too. No one better than me. Sorry, Eddie, but that's the way it is. There's no retirement for. guys like you. You knew that when you made the contract. Sorry, Eddie. Adios, Eddie. Damn, but that King has quick hands. . . .

  So you're stuck. There's no way out. One, and two, and cut. Stuck for the rest of your life. How many years? That's too long. Except that there is. A way. Out. Oh? You know there is. You've always known it, haven't you? But you're too fucking chicken to think about it, much less do it. Up, Luther, up! You can make the machines, all right, but do you have the balls to use them? How many, five? Who else knows? Not at Langley. They keep their hands clean at Langley. Yeah, five: it would have to be all of them. Only five. Only? All or nothing. Christ, you're actually thinking about it now. Good boy! All right, so it's out in the open. The five of them. The O Group. Hell, it's crazy. A job like that? All five. You? Me? Could it? Break left, and up, and in. Two more. Could it work? I mean . . .? Sure it could. Sure. Maybe.

  POST CONCLUSION ANALYSIS:

  Having concluded that the subject, Edward Mancuso, is determined to retire from the service, his further course of action must now be analyzed.

  Given the subject's reasonable intelligence, and his understanding of Agency procedure over a twenty-year period, he is certain to realize that he will not be allowed to retire. His next logical assumption will be that in order to sever his connection with the service he will have to extract the entire top level of the Colonial Squad; in short, the 0 Group. This assumption stands up under examination. Of Agency officers still alive and on active service, only O Group members have had direct contact with the subject. No one outside of O Group, Colonial Squad, is aware of his function within the Agency. All records of contracts made with the subject, and payments made to the subject, are coded within CYBER and are available only to O Group members. Further, in the event of the elimination of the entire O Group, that part of these coded records dealing with Mancuso would be meaningless to any untrained successor. Therefore, logically, Mancuso must eliminate the entire 0 Group.

  Subject's positive and negative factors relative to this Post-Conclu­sion Analysis:

  Negative: 1) Despite his knowledge of the field, he is not and has never been an active field agent.

  2) He is unaware of this Psychoprofile Series J updated and its con­clusions.

  Positive: 1) His expertise and experience in the production of UKD's, and his pride in his technology, will lead him—after a brief period of indecision—to disregard negative factor #1.

  2) He is in excellent physical health, and is theoretically—repeat, theoretically—able to perform many of the functions of a trained field agent.

  CONCLUDING ANALYSIS:

  Probability that subject will attempt the elimination of the entire O Group: 94.7%

  Probability of success: 26.4%

  All five men finished reading the conclusion at roughly the same time. An awkward, troubled silence followed, as they stacked and shuffled papers, cleared throats, scratched an ear absently, and reached for cigarettes. Erikson broke the spell.

  "Like I said. Dirty little Eddie. My boy! I was like an uncle to him."

  "He never liked you," Colonel Parker said flatly. Erikson just grunted. He knew it was true.

  "Hijo de la gran puta," said Arteaga. "It doesn't seem pos­sible. It's not even funny."

  "CYBER is a lady of great breeding." The colonel spread his hands. "A fourth-generation computer would never lie."

  Rakow whistled softly. "Twenty-six percent. It's insulting. It makes us look like a bunch of punks."

  "It should be zero," Kelly agreed. "The insulting part is that it's Eddie Mancuso. I mean, it's ridiculous. Maybe he killed a mosquito once. Maybe."

  The colonel held up his hand for silence, and got it.

  "Gentlemen, let's forget about the personalities for the mo­ment. Concentrate on the situation. We all know what Eddie is and isn't. He may be untrained, but he's a genius with UKD's, and he's after our scalps--or will be soon. The machine says the odds are three to one that he can't do it. Is anyone here willing to accept those odds?"

  His answer was a negative rumble. Erikson came right to the point. "But CYBER's analysis makes the odds inoperative, doesn't it? Because now we know."

  "Then the next move is mandatory," the colonel continued, nodding at Erikson, pleased. One of his great professional attri­butes was that he never repeated the obvious, even if it came from someone else. "Immediate extraction. Equally mandatory is that the assignment must be kept within this room. I don't want this bungled by some outsider, and there's no need-to-know for Langley."

  Erikson asked softly, "Are you asking for volunteers, Colonel? If y
ou are, then I think you have four of them, willing and eager. That little prick."

  Arteaga quickly reached into his pocket and brought out his lucky silver dollar. "Toss a coin? Cut cards?" "Neither," said the colonel. "I'm assigning this mission." He looked directly at Kelly. "You've been in the field most recently. He's yours. I've cleared you for the lab all afternoon. You know what's available." Kelly nodded, unsurprised. "How much time do I have?" Colonel Parker laughed. It was not a pleasing sound. "Kelly, even though that probability was only twenty-six point four, we'll all sleep better if you can get this over within twenty-four hours. Take the evening plane to New York."

  3

  Five thousand miles east of Williamsburg, in the cold, snowy, but pleasant country village of Zhukovka, another colonel, but wearing the uniform of the Soviet KGB, held another computer printout in his hands. He stared angrily at the final figure as if staring could change it or make it disappear.

  "Twenty-three point seven percent. Incredible."

  "Can there be an error in the probability factor?" asked Major Marchenko.

  The tall, thin colonel frowned severely.

  "Major, if you think our procurement division has gone to the extraordinary trouble, the expense--and, I might add, the indig­nity!--of acquiring a computer manufactured in the United States of America, of which not more than thirty exist today even in the West, and if you think that such a computer can then err ... !"

  The colonel left his sentence unfinished. One of his slender hands rested almost paternally on the steely gray flank of CYBER. Major Marchenko shrugged.

  "The figure is accurate," said the colonel sharply. "And so are the facts. I suggest you read them once again."

  Vasily Borgneff