Monday’s Mob

by Don Pendleton

  Monday’s Mob

  The Executioner, Book Thirty-three

  Don Pendleton

  For all the nice folk of

  the heartland—or spell

  that hearthland—with

  due apologies for whatever

  liberties have been taken herein

  with your blessed countenance.

  dp

  “And whosoever shall compel thee

  to go a mile,

  Go with him twain.”

  —Sermon on the Mount

  “Like one that on a lonesome road

  Doth walk in fear and dread,

  And having once turned round walks on,

  And turns no more his head;

  Because he knows a frightened fiend

  Doth close behind him tread.”

  —Coleridge (The Ancient Mariner)

  “Brognola says I’ve done my mile

  in Hell. So okay, let’s start

  the second mile.

  But let’s not look back.”

  —Mack Bolan, from his Journal

  PROLOGUE

  Mack Bolan’s personal war against the Mafia had erupted as a spontaneous reaction to a terrible injustice. The young sergeant from Vietnam had not even known the true pedigree of this new enemy at home when he opened the ceremonies on a Pittsfield street with five blasts from a sniper’s rifle; he knew only that they were legal untouchables, that they were responsible for the destruction of his family, that there could be no point to his own life without some answer to the atrocity.

  Bolan had an answer. He had already become a quiet legend in the hellgrounds of Southeast Asia where his expertise as a death-master had earned him the label, “The Executioner.” He had been officially credited with nearly a hundred kills of enemy VIPs when the tragedy at home recalled him from the second combat tour. And, yes, the Executioner had an answer for the tragedy on the home front. He brought that answer from the steamy jungles of Vietnam and deposited it on the quiet streets of his home town.

  And then the awful truth came down. Mafia! And Mack Bolan knew, then, that he had another unwinnable war by the tail. A sympathetic homicide cop unofficially urged the young soldier to return quickly to that other war zone, where his chances for survival would be infinitely better. There was no point, now, to his remaining in Pittsfield. He had secured his “pound of flesh” and forced a balance on the scales of justice; nothing but his own certain death could possibly await him here.

  But Mack Bolan had other ideas. And he had come into a new truth. He knew now that the greatest enemy the American nation could contemplate was that enemy within—that cancerous, scabrous, vile growth on the nation’s innards—that power that knowing federal officials had characterized as “the second invisible government of the nations”—the Mafia, La Cosa Nostra, the Mob, the Outfit, the Organization; by whatever name, it was the new enemy and Mack Bolan could not turn his back upon it.

  Instead, he brought war to it.

  Quite to his own surprise, he survived the ensuing battle for Pittsfield—and it was a resounding victory for the one-man army. He knew, however, that he had won a minor skirmish, not a war. And he knew that this new enemy was virtually infinite in terms of power and resources. But they were not gods. They had weaknesses that could be exploited by a savvy soldier. Still, as he faded from the scene of that initial engagement, Bolan felt that his own days were definitely numbered—measurable perhaps as a given number of heartbeats. In his own understanding, he had embarked upon his “bloody last mile,” determined only to “eat their bowels as they ingest me.”

  As it turned out, that last mile was rather elastic. It stretched across more than thirty pitched battles and onto several continents as this remarkable warrior grew into his destiny and transcended the most hallowed concepts of duty and valor. He became far more than just a soldier—as he preferred to think of himself. Mack Bolan became a force in the world—a thundering angel, as it were—a heartening and inspiring model for individual commitment and high achievement, a spur and a goad to law enforcement agencies everywhere, a chilling wind and justification for pervading paranoia within the organized underworld. The marksman’s medal was his dreaded calling card; a wispy shadow in combat black his shivery presence; flames of war and pyramiding attrition his jolting effect on the “omnipotent” enemy. More devastating than all, perhaps, was his ability to walk among them as one of the flock, to sit down with them at their councils, to drink their wine and break their bread—even to command them, and divide them, and pit faction against faction so that they may eat themselves.

  It was quite a mile, yes.

  He had been hounded and pursued by the law and the lawless alike—the most wanted criminal of all, in the law’s blind stare; the most threatening and demoralizing enemy of all, in the Mob’s fevered gaze. Yet wherever he halted and planted his feet for the stand or for the counterattack, the vaunted enemy fell writhing while the law—those soldiers of the same side—watched in awe and admiration.

  Mack Bolan’s war was not with the law but with those who confounded the law. And he did not make war on the badge, not even a tarnished one. The hand of friendship or the salute of respect was always there for any badge that would accept it, however grudgingly; consequently, Mack Bolan’s last mile had attracted warm friendships and clandestine allies from various levels of the police community.

  Early in the war, a high official within the U.S. Justice Department had approached the warrior with an offer of amnesty and honors if only he would join the official war against crime. Bolan declined the offer, feeling that he would be severely limited and perhaps totally neutralized by a government sponsorship. That high official was one Harold Brognola, later to become the No. 1 cop in the country, advisor to presidents, NSC expert on domestic subversion. Except for one aberration, Brognola had been Mack Bolan’s staunchest champion and most powerful ally within the police community—unofficially, of course. There were others—many others. The closest friend and perhaps most valuable ally was a man whom Bolan had been sworn to execute during the initial struggle at Pittsfield: Leo Turrin, Mafia underboss with the “girls franchise” in western Massachusetts, blood nephew to Sergio Frenchi, the boss of the Berkshires. But Bolan had learned just in time that “Leo the Pussy” was an undercover federal agent—thus, a soldier of the same side who quickly became a total convert to the Bolan cause and an invaluable insider whose counsel and assistance did much to stretch that last impossible mile into an infinite circle.

  Other friends had checked in from both sides of the spectrum, as well as from the netural zone of uninvolved bystanders—a tribute to the basic humanity of man and a testament to Bolan’s own warn humanity. This lonely warrior was not all death machine. He was a man, as well—one who could inspire fierce loyalties, undying love, towering respect. Through it all, however, he was essentially and necessarily alone. He involved others in his cause with the greatest reluctance and at a stringently minimum level; yet he leapt quickly and decisively to the aid of those in need, without thought for his own jeopardy.

  Quite a mile, yes.

  But now it appeared to have found its natural end.

  Unable to withstand the repeated onslaughts of Bolan’s raging brand of warfare and falling apart under its own attrition at the top, the once invincible Organization was now scattered into fearful bands of huddled paranoiacs, distrustful of one another yet loath to walk alone the twisted roads of their own hell-grounds.

  Bolan had been carefully reading all the signs and he knew what was happening in Mafiadom. Others, also, were keeping abreast of the situation. Harold Brognola had journeyed to Nashville where he held a secret parley with Bolan following an operation there, and where he not only confirmed “the imminent dissoluti
on of organized crime in America” but also brought to Bolan an offer that most men would find impossible to refuse.

  The President had created a sensitive new security section, to deal with terrorists and other paramilitary threats to the national security. The man who headed that section would be virtually autonomous, reporting directly to the President himself. The only man for that job was Mack Bolan—that was a consensus decision from Washington.

  “It’s the same war,” Brognola had told his friend the blitz artist, “the same kind of enemy. You haven’t been fighting people, you know. You’ve been fighting a condition.”

  Yes, Bolan had known that. And he had been strongly aware of the ugly mood of terrorism sweeping across the western world, already beginning to spill onto the American continent. The need for an effective counterforce was real—and urgent.

  Bolan felt that he understood the terrorist mentality, that he could be effective in dealing with it. He had directly experienced the savage effect of terrorist activity on civilian populaces in Southeast Asia—and he agreed with Brognola that western society was in grave peril unless decisive action was immediately taken to discourage the spread of barbarism.

  But he was not entirely convinced that the Mafia menace had been sufficiently weakened—that his vow to “shake their house down” had been fulfilled.

  The offer from Washington was like a hand from heaven, sure. It included total amnesty and forgiveness, a whole new identity, honors and official status, the full resources of the mightiest nation on earth in close support—a reprieve and a restart, a new life, a new challenge, a new hope.

  Above all else, though—an end to that damnable last mile.

  The President of the United States had, yeah, made Mack Bolan an offer which could not be refused.

  But it was also one which he could not possibly accept; not yet.

  At a second meeting with Brognola—in Louisville, twenty-four hours later—Bolan set forth the conditions of his acceptance. And though Brognola huffed and puffed throughout the discussion, he knew from the beginning that no argument was possible. The guy had that look in his eyes, a suggestion of ice just below the surface, and the head fed knew that the big guy simply had to travel that extra mile.

  “He’s in, sir,” Brognola would report to the President, several hours following the meeting in Louisville. “But not for another week. It’s a question of ethics, I guess. The second mile syndrome.”

  “The what?”

  “A final walk through hell. I guess he’s taking a roll call. Wants to make sure nobody’s missing. Then he’ll be in. I have his word on that. He will be in.”

  “Or dead,” the President replied with a quiet sigh. A moment later he pinned his top internal security advisor with a steely gaze while softly commanding, “He’s to have full support on this final walk, whatever that means. I don’t want to know the details. I just want you to produce the man in this office, alive and well, one week from right now.”

  Brognola dropped his eyes with embarrassment as he responded to that. “There are, uh, extra-legal overtones to, uh—”

  “I said I don’t want to know the details, Hal.”

  It was just as well. There was very little Brognola could offer, anyway, in the nature of full support. Bolan would not tolerate any direct intervention. His only request had been for a C-130 transport—air logistics support.

  As for those details—nobody would have believed them, anyway. Even Brognola, knowing the guy as he did, had found the whole thing just a bit mind-boggling.

  The Executioner was going out with a bang, not a sigh. That second mile would be as elastic as the first—though greatly compressed in time.

  Six days.

  The guy had asked for six lousy days. “I’ll need another week, Hal.”

  “For what?”

  “The job isn’t finished. The wise guys are just lying low, waiting for the heat to subside. I know who they are and where they are. They’ll be popping up again, stronger than ever. I can’t give them that.”

  “You can give them your last chance for a real life, though, can’t you?” Brognola replied bitterly. “What can you do with one lousy week?”

  “I can give it a proper mop-up.”

  “Where?”

  “Everywhere. A quick blitz in each major region of the country. I count six of those. Give me some air support and I’ll do it in six days.”

  Six days, sure. Mind-boggling. The final days of the Executioner. If the guy could survive them, Mack Bolan would thereafter abruptly cease to exist, in any legal sense, and the Phoenix Project would arise from the ashes of that lost identity.

  Six days, the final days—a second long mile through Hell … and already the sun had arisen on Monday, bloody Monday.

  CHAPTER 1

  THE MARK

  The crosshairs of the sniperscope were centered on the hood ornament of a gleaming Cadillac El Dorado. A dozen or so other luxury cars surrounded the El Dorado, including several more Cadillacs in varied styles, a Mercedes, a couple of Continentals.

  Pulled up in front and probably awaiting a load was an empty semitrailer transporter.

  A large metal building in the near background was the recycling center for the largest stolen car operation west of New York. This one happened to be nestled in the gentle hills of northwest Kentucky, just outside Louisville.

  The tall man in black with the cool eye at the scope had watched as six “refurbished” vehicles rolled from the building to the loading yard during the past hour alone. It did not require a math whiz to compute the value of that one-hour production at somewhere around a hundred thousand dollars. Judging from the size of the building in which the refurbishing was taking place, the twenty-four-hour operation could easily produce six cars per hour right around the clock.

  There had not been time to fully scout the operation but the pre-intelligence suggested a typical major recycle. Freelancers would bring in the stolen product—probably most of it from the surrounding states of Indiana, Missouri, Tennessee, Ohio, West Virginia—for something like ten cents on the dollar, market value, maybe a bit more for highly favored models. Night deliveries, probably. The standard plant time for each vehicle would average no more than a few hours for cleaning, touchup paint, a general cosmetic renewal, new serial numbers and counterfeit paperwork.

  Bolan had been hearing rumors about this particular “plant” for months and had stumbled onto some fresh input while in Tennessee. Wholesalers Car Refinishers, Inc. was fronted by one Benjamin Davis, a “legitimate” businessman of Louisville. Real owner: Carmine Tuscanotte’s Underwriters’ Salvage Services, Inc.—an Illinois firm that came under the larger umbrella of North American Investment Services Corporation, which was owned jointly by Tuscanotte and Chicago hood James “Jimmy the Jump” Altorise. Included under that umbrella were a score or more of closely related enterprises such as used car dealerships in more than a dozen states, finance companies, collection agencies, auto wholesalers and transporters, a couple of auction yards.

  It was a sweet setup, yeah, and the illicit profits astronomical. The up-front losers were, of course, the nation’s insurance companies. Perhaps many people would shed no tears over that. But insurance companies never lose. The ultimate loser was the American motoring public—for whom the insurance premiums kept soaring higher and higher.

  Bolan knew that organized auto theft was milking billions each year from the U.S. economy—and that was concern enough, right there, of course—but his interest of the moment was not with auto theft but with the personalities bankrolling this particular operation. Both Tuscanotte and Altorise had “gone cool” recently, abandoning their usual haunts and submerging from both public and underworld view. The Chicago outfit had been in turmoil for a long time, hardly recovering from Bolan’s strike there before being torn by internal strife as inevitably the younger turks began jockeying for the reins of power.

  So the enemy had engaged itself in Illinois. Bolan had kept interested t
abs on the developments in that area. His recent paralyzing strike on the national headquarters in New York had produced strong secondary effects in the Midwest—perhaps inspiring the rash of gangland hits in and around Chicago as uneasy Mafiosi moved to protect their flanks.

  There was no doubt whatever that Chicago remained the nerve center for organized crime in the nation’s midsection. But the scene there was too chaotic. Bolan’s personal feeling was that the real powers remaining behind the Chicago Mob had dispersed themselves to the hinterlands—lying low and cooling it while the street bosses fought it out for control of the petty territories.

  This was precisely why Mack Bolan was seated on a hillside in Kentucky, contemplating the probably effect of a quick blow to a multimillion dollar car-theft ring.

  He sighed with real regret as he chambered a hefty round into the impressive Weatherby .460 and took a final scan through the scope. The sun was about ten minutes into the sky, behind him. Several hundred feet below and about a quarter-mile away, the overhead door of the building was opening to disgorge another gleamingly “refinished” Cadillac. He found the hood ornament with the crosshairs, then made a calculated adjustment to an imaginary mark beneath that hood as he squeezed into the pull.

  The big round tore through polished metal and found vital involvement somewhere thereunder. The car lurched, wheezed, and died directly beneath the overhead door, black smoke immediately puffing out through the grillwork. He gave her a couple more in unhurried search as the driver broke clear and ran for cover deeper inside the building. The third round from the big Weatherby evidently found the desired mark as a small explosion sprung the engine hood and sent flames licking over it.

  People were scampering about down there, now, in confusion and panic. One guy had grabbed a fire extinguisher and was trying to get some CO2 under the hood of the stricken car. Bolan shook his head and sent that silly guy 500 splattering grains from the Weather-by. The big slug tore through the CO2 cylinder and ripped it from the guy’s grasp, inspiring saner thoughts and a quick retreat to the interior.