“Your confidence is overwhelming,” he said, joining her smoothly and thoroughly.
Her eyes were wide pools of essential truth. “So’s yours,” she sighed happily.
3 — Forecast: Warmer Tonight and Tomorrow
It had been dark for several hours. The Executioner was in battle dress and ready for combat. His woman was clinging to him in a farewell kiss. One of her hands dropped onto the holstered .45 at his waist and bounced hastily away. “Be careful,” she whispered. “Come back to me.”
“I’ll be back,” he assured her. “Maybe not tonight. Maybe not even tomorrow. But I’ll be back.”
“It’s been a glorious honeymoon,” she sighed.
“But too short,” he said, grinning.
She nodded, smiling bravely. “Entirely too short.” She ran a finger lightly along his left temple. “Think your hair will grow back there?”
“I’m just glad I didn’t lose an ear,” he told her.
Her hand fell to his left shoulder. “Sure your shoulder is all right?”
“I’m just glad it wasn’t the right one,” he replied.
“You’re just glad about everything, aren’t you?” she said, wrinkling her nose.
“If you’d ever had the butt of a heavy rifle bucking into your shoulder you’d be glad, too,” he told her, his face soberly reflective.
“Mack Bolan, I believe you are bloodthirsty. You’re just itching to get back into the fray, aren’t you.”
“To tell the truth, no,” he replied, grinning again. “It’s always just a little harder after a wounding.”
She pounced quickly. “Then why don’t you just—”
He’d draped a hand across her lips. “Don’t start that again,” he commanded gently. “Look—if something goes wrong and I get pinned down somewhere, I’ll at least try to get a call to you. But don’t get shook if you don’t hear from me. Silence, in warfare, is often no more than the better part of valor. Understand? Stay cool.”
“I’ll stay cool,” she assured him.
He turned out the lights, went to the door and opened it, looked back at her briefly, then he was gone. She ran to the door to gaze after him, but already he was swallowed into the night. She closed the door, shoulders slumping wearily, and cried quietly for several minutes. Such a dramatic change her life had undergone. She snapped the lights back on and gazed about the small apartment, looking for evidence of the change. There was no evidence, she decided. All the evidence had walked out the door moments earlier. She squared her shoulders, went to the television set and turned it on, and settled into the long vigil. He would be back. He would. He would.
Bolan stopped at the first secluded public telephone on his route and made a call to Lieutenant Al Weatherbee. “It’s funny,” he told him, “every time I call I find you there, no matter when. What are you—married to that job?”
“Bolan?” Weatherbee asked, his voice rising on the last syllable.
“Yeah. I just got back from my holiday on the Riviera, wondered if you’d missed me.”
“Aw shit,” Weatherbee fumed, “—just when I was beginning to hope I’d gotten you outta my hair for good. Bolan, why aren’t you in Mexico?”
“No action down there,” Bolan replied. “I’ve been watching the TV, by the way, so I’ve heard all the rumors. I haven’t been in Mexico, or in South America, I’ve been right here all along. What have our little friends been up to?”
“This’s no private detective agency, Bolan,” Weatherbee groused. “You’ve got a hell of a nerve calling here, anyway. You’re wanted on eleven counts of murder, among other things.”
“Yeah, I feel terrible about all that,” Bolan replied, chuckling. “But don’t worry about it, Lieutenant, I believe the count will be upped somewhat before the next dawn.”
“Bolan, for God’s sake, let it rest where it is. Listen, there’s a lot of unofficial and public sympathy for you now. If you’ve been watching the TV you must realize that. Come on in now. Or tell me where you are and I’ll pick you up personally. Two of the best lawyers in the country have already expressed an interest in your case, and I can almost—”
“Save it, Lieutenant,” Bolan clipped in. “Nothing is resting, and especially the Mafia—right?”
“You damn better know right,” the policeman clipped back. “You can bet they’ve been making full use of this breather you’ve given them. They’re ready and waiting for you now.”
“Yeah, I figured that. That’s why I called. Wondering if you had any useful information to pass along.”
The policeman’s heavy breathing filled the wire for several seconds, then he said: “Why should I tell you a damn thing!”
“Because you know I’m on your side, that’s why.”
“The hell you are!”
“Sure I am, and I don’t have all your restrictions. I’ve shaken these people like they’ve never been shook before, and you know it. Now just who’s side are you on, Weatherbee?”
“It isn’t a matter of sides!” the cop roared. “It’s a—a …”
“Yeah, a technicality. Okay, play the technicalities if you want to. But I’d sure like to know what they’ve been up to.”
“They think you’re working for us,” Weatherbee said, nearly choking.
“There, you see? They don’t deal in technicalities, do they.”
“They’ve got commando teams of their own now. The first time you open up on them again, you’re going to get hit with everything short of the atom bomb.”
“Is that right?”
“That’s right. It’s hopeless, Bolan. You had them reeling once, but they’ve consolidated now. The first offensive action that gives away your position will be your last one. You’re just lousing things up, like all amateurs are bound to do. You’ve come very close to destroying a five-year undercover operation we’ve had going against this bunch.”
There was a momentary silence, then: “You’ve got an undercover operation going?”
“Of course we have. Where do you think we’ve been getting all this information I’m passing to you?”
“Five years, eh? How many more years had you planned on staying undercover?”
“Forever if necessary. We’re interested in nailing these people good, Bolan. We’ve just been waiting for the proper moment.”
“For five years? You have any idea how much hell these people have brought to earth during those five years?”
The policeman’s voice was growing heavy with exasperation. “We know what we’re doing.”
“I know what I’m doing, too,” Bolan told him. “And I’m not taking any five damn years to do it, either. Keep your cops away from me, Weatherbee. I’m hitting them again tonight.”
“We’ll stop you if we can!”
“You can’t. All you can do is provide aid and comfort to the mutual enemy. Keep your cops away. I’m hitting tonight.”
Bolan broke the connection, returned to his car, and sat quietly pondering the conversation with Weatherbee. The cop had been right, of course. The campaign had moved into a dimension which seemed impossibly weighted against him.
Mack Bolan was a military realist. In the traditional strategems of warfare, a superior force spelled victory over an inferior one; superiority, however, had never been an item of mere numbers. An elite platoon could easily take on a green company; one lone tank could devastate a field of foot soldiers. In Vietnam, firepower and mobility had become the catchwords of military superiority. Bolan had learned well the lessons of military survival. He was not an idle dreamer, and he had never had much respect for banzai warfare. He needed an equalizer. His strategy had thus far paid off; it had accomplished his aims. He had forced the enemy to reveal its position. He had smoked them out of their bunkers of social respectability and made it necessary that they regroup and reform and expose themselves even further. But—as Bolan well knew—he had accomplished this initial objective at the cost of a vital military necessity: he had lost the edge of superiority
which had carried his campaign this far.
Weatherbee’s assessment of the situation had been an accurate one. The Mafiosi would be alert and ready this time, and undoubtedly with some tricky defensive tactics of their own. Bolan’s next offensive action would undoubtedly be little more than a hopeless banzai attack—unless … A lone rifleman could not hope to successfully take on an entire enemy company—unless … Bolan grinned suddenly, started the engine, and moved out into no-man’s land. Superiority, he reminded himself, was not an item of mere numbers.
He drove directly to the industrial district on the south edge of the city, then turned into a warehouse complex, vague memories stirring and fighting to the surface of mind. Several years earlier, Bolan had spent several weeks on special assignment at one of these warehouses. If he could just find the right one …
He located it easily, a low-slung, corrugated steel structure with a peculiarly flat roof, the now-weathered sign—SURPLUS EXPORTS, INC.—and the smaller decal: MDI—which, Bolan recalled, were the initials for Munitions Distributors International.
As a skilled armorer, Bolan had been assigned temporarily to assist in the cataloguing and storing of a large shipment of surplused weapons and ammunition which had been sold to the firm by the Government. Many of the items Bolan had handled during that assignment had never been used, though there had also been genuine surpluses dating back to the Second World War. The stuff could not be sold to private citizens in the U.S., but the export business in these materials had been quite active at the time of Bolan’s involvement. He was hoping that the Vietnam escalations had not shut off the source of supply. In the back of his mind had long lurked the suspicion that many of the so-called war surpluses were not, in fact, surpluses at all, but Government goofs of overproduction and oversupply. Still—the shipment which Bolan had been assigned to catalogue had been bona fide surpluses of obsolete weaponry. He would be quite content to get his hands on three or four of these “obsolete” weapons.
Bolan left the car in the shadows of the freight dock and circled the building on foot in a cautious reconnoiter, simultaneously searching his memory for the security details. Then he returned to the car, buckled on a tool kit, and fished a packet of U.S. currency from the spare-tire well. He had decided upon his mode of entry.
Ten minutes later he was scooting along the interior of a ventilation shaft; soon thereafter he had located the “special weapons” area and was shopping grimly and methodically for the advantages of military superiority, jotting down the nomenclature and estimated dollar value of each item on a sheet of paper.
He double-checked the completed list, totalled the dollar value, added a ten percent “error factor,” and left the list and the money in a conspicuous place. A thief, Bolan reminded himself, he was not. Besides, he ruminated darkly, it was especially fitting that the enemy’s money was paying for this purchase.
He disabled the alarm system, boldly rolled open the door to the freight dock, loaded the hardware into his car, then went back inside and resecured the building, exiting the same way he had gained entry. As he was driving away, Bolan spotted the patrol car of the private security guard assigned to the protection of the complex, cruising slowly in the opposite direction. Bolan grinned and gunned up onto the highway. Step One, equalization, had gone off without a hitch. “A “smoke-out” mission was next on tap.
4 — Prelude
Bolan left the car at the rear entrance to the apartment building and went up the service elevator to the fifth floor, padded softly down the hall to a door marked “511” and leaned on the doorbell. Forty seconds or so later he heard sounds within the apartment and a male voice called, “Okay, okay, just a minute.”
He let up on the button and braced his good shoulder against the door. As soon as it cracked he shoved on in, nearly upsetting the man on the other side. “Wha—what …?” the man stuttered.
“You know me,” Bolan snapped. “Get dressed. We’re going out.”
The man turned and ran toward the rear of the apartment, but Bolan was right with him. He grabbed an arm and swung the fleeing man around, driving a balled fist into his midsection. The man’s breath left him in a loud grunt and he sank limply onto a small table. Bolan steadied him there until he was breathing normally again, then shoved him roughly toward the bedroom.
Several minutes later they left the apartment together, went down the back way, and got into Bolan’s car. Not a word had passed between them since the original confrontation at the door to the apartment. Now the man gawked at the canvas-covered bulk in the back seat of the car and said: “What’s that back there?”
“It could be dead bodies,” Bolan replied quietly. “You could end up back there if you get stupid.”
The man jerked around and faced stonily forward. A short drive later they were at the offices of Escorts Unlimited. The man opened the door with no outward sign of reluctance, and Bolan followed him inside.
“What are we doing here?” the man asked.
“Not we—you,” Bolan replied. “You’re going to give me a print-out on the entire prostitution operation. I want it all—call girls, house girls, streetwalkers, the whole thing. And I want it damn quick.”
“Yes, sir,” the programmer quickly agreed.
“Punch the wrong button and it’ll be your death program. Make sure you understand that. If I get what I want, that’s all I want. But if you screw me up, I’ll screw you up. Understand?”
“Yes, sir, I understand.”
Twenty minutes later they were going back out the door. Bolan was carrying a large manila envelope. “This is to be just between you and me,” Bolan told him. “If I find out you’ve been talking about it, I’ll figure you decided to try to screw me up. Understand?”
“Yes, sir, I understand,” the programmer replied meekly.
Bolan left him on the sidewalk, got into his car, and drove off. He really did not give a damn if the programmer talked or not. But after he was finished with the lists, he’d mail them to Lieutenant Weatherbee. Perhaps they could be of some police value if the secret was maintained until that time. He glanced at his watch. It was just past one o’clock. The night had hardly begun. His face twisted into a wry smile. It was going to be a hellish night.
Bolan walked down a darkened hallway, paused in front of a door and held his ear to it for a moment, then leaned back against the opposite wall and opened the door abruptly with a swift kick. The scene that greeted him through the open doorway could have been a pornographic snapshot. An attractive young woman was holding a nude hands-and-knees stance atop a disarrayed bed, positioned crosswise with her feet and the calves of her legs protruding out over the side. A nude man stood between the protruding calves, thrusting vigorously from the waist, his hands tightly gripping the girl’s hips. Both man and woman were staring at Bolan with dumbfounded amazement, though the man’s physical activities seemed hardly disturbed by the intrusion. There was a strangely unreal quality to the scene, grotesquely silent and dreamlike. Bolan stepped into the room and delivered a smashing backhand blow to the man’s face; he released the girl’s hips and stumbled back across the room. Bolan felt bad about that, but he reminded himself that there was no morality in a holy war. The same hand that had disconnected the man swung back in a vicious open-hand slap to the girl’s poised buttocks. She yowled and fell forward across the bed, then flipped to her side and lay there screaming obscenities. Her erstwhile companion scooped up a ball of clothes and scampered out of the room. A door was flung open down the hall and a youth of about 25 ran into the room shortly thereafter, a wicked-looking knife in one hand. Bolan took the knife away from him and tossed him across the room and into the wall. The girl stopped screaming and stared stupidly at the crumpled figure of the youth. Bolan turned to her and showed her his teeth. “Any more girls at work here?” he snarled.
She shook her head emphatically. “D-downstairs, in the bar,” she gasped.
“We’ll see,” Bolan said. He strode from the room and
began opening other doors along the hallway. There were six in all, and he scored again on the last one. Two naked women were on the bed, rolled together in a tight knot of arms and legs. Bolan could not see the head of either. “Didn’t anybody hear the ruckus?” he asked loudly, then thrust a hand into the tangle and pulled them onto the floor. The ecstatic expression on the face of a woman of about 45 had quickly converted to one of baffled torment. “What is—get out of here!” she cried.
“Which of you is the working girl?” Bolan asked, grinning.
A well-proportioned younger woman slowly rose to her feet, giving Bolan a frightened once-over. “Where’s your whip?” she asked sullenly.
“Right here,” Bolan replied calmly. He thwacked her across the bottom with an open hand and shoved her back onto the bed, snared the older woman’s clothing from a nearby chair and pushed her out the door, draping the clothing about her neck. “You’d better leave damn quick,” he said, curling his lips menacingly. “I’m about to shoot up the joint.”
The woman had started crying. She hurried down the hall and shot out the door, still naked. Bolan grinned and stepped back inside the invaded room. The girl was cringing on the bed, twisted bedcovers hastily pulled across her middle. “Tell Leo I don’t like his Main Street joints,” Bolan said. He tossed a marksman’s medal onto the bed. “Tell ’im!”
He left then and went silently down the back stairs to the alley, got into his car, and departed. Ten minutes later he pulled up at the back of a townhouse complex, consulted one of the lists from the manila envelope, smiled, and went to the back door. He returned to the car a moment later, took a crowbar from the back floor, and went back to the rear door of the building. A well-placed lever-action and a dull snap later the door was open, and The Executioner was inside. He was in a small service hall; he could see the kitchen through a glass porthole in a door to his right, another door was set into the far wall. Things were swinging on the other side of that door; a hi-fi going full blast and other sounds of merriment told the story quite vividly. He went in through the kitchen door, unholstered the .45, and immediately bumped into a nude girl who was leaning drunkenly across a tiled drainboard, vainly attempting to free ice cubes from a frosted tray.
War Against the Mafia Page 13
