Part 2 (2/2)

”I thought maybe you'd like to take it over, Nick.”

”This Bolan hit?”

”Yeah. I don't know anybody else off hand could handle this job except Nick Trigger.”

”I hear he put down the Talifero brothers in Miami,” the other murmured.

”Hard, he put them down d.a.m.n d.a.m.n hard, that's right. I was there. I saw it. Not just the brothers got put down. The whole place was a disaster area.” hard, that's right. I was there. I saw it. Not just the brothers got put down. The whole place was a disaster area.”

”The Talifero's are about the two meanest boys around anywhere,” Nick Trigger observed, sighing. ”What the h.e.l.l, maybe this boy Bolan is as big as his reputation.”

”He is, Nick,” Giliamo quickly affirmed. ”Bigger maybe. He scares the living s.h.i.+t outta my boys, I gotta be honest about that. They're so jittery and keyed-up they start shooting holes in each other if anything moves. I gotta be honest about this. I don't know anybody could take this boy except maybe you.”

The veteran triggerman smiled grimly. ”Don't try b.u.t.tering me up, Danno. I don't take jobs on b.u.t.ter.”

”I'm just being honest,” Giliamo a.s.sured him. ”You know I'm just being honest, Nick.”

”Yeah.” Trigger was thinking about it. ”I been walking a thin line here in England, you know. I mean, a lot's at stake and we don't have things nailed down too good. I have a h.e.l.l of a big job without all this other trouble.”

”I know, Nick, I know. I was just thinking that...”

”We got a lot of legit money invested around. h.e.l.l we got movie companies and theatres, clubs, casinos- h.e.l.l, we got a lot of money strung out around here, Danno. We even have musical groups and records and that kind of stuff. And it's tight-the competish is tight. n.o.body's on the make in this town, neither. I mean the cops, the government people-they don't have any handle to grab hold of. I never saw such an honest d.a.m.n country as this one.”

”I understood you wasn't involved in the business end of things,” Giliamo said. ”I mean, you're enforcing, right?”

”Yeah you're right, Danno, but what I'm staying is all this makes my job tougher. If you can't buy security then you got to take take it-right? I mean, h.e.l.l, if the local biggies won't cooperate then you have to carve out a territory the best way you can. And that means I'm busier'n h.e.l.l, Danno.” it-right? I mean, h.e.l.l, if the local biggies won't cooperate then you have to carve out a territory the best way you can. And that means I'm busier'n h.e.l.l, Danno.”

”Well, I figure you could handle this job just one two three, Nick. And it would be a real feather in your cap. I mean, you know, it'd show everybody once and for all that you're two heads bigger than the Talifero boys. Right?”

Nick Trigger let out a tired sigh. He plucked at his tie and pushed a coffee cup in little circles about the table. ”I'd have to clear it with the people back home,” he said.

”That wouldn't be any trouble,” Giliamo a.s.sured him. ”They want Bolan more'n they want Manhattan. I'd appreciate it, though, if you'd put it in a way that wouldn't make me look like an a.s.s. You know. Just tell 'em I don't know the town or something, and you'd like to take over and get this Bolan out of your hair real quick. You know. Don't make it look like I'm flat on my a.s.s.”

”Yeah, well, what you say is true, Danno.” Trigger told him. ”Many more open gunfights around here and the whole town will pull up tight. I don't need the CLD swarming around my operation. Those boys are bad news all the way.”

”What's that CLD?” asked the man from Jersey.

”That's what Scotland Yard calls their d.i.c.k force, Criminal Investigation Division. They're worse news than the feds back home.”

”So that's what you tell 'em,” Giliamo quickly replied. ”Tell 'em you want to take over, and that I'll stick around to help out.”

”Okay. Let me think about it,” the British enforcer said quietly. But he had already thought about it. Bolan would be a real plum, and at just about the right time. Nick Trigger had the British territory in much better shape than he'd let on to Danno Giliamo. Pretty soon he'd be needing to move onward and upward. And it wouldn't hurt a thing to come home looking two heads bigger than the Talifero brothers. h.e.l.l no, it wouldn't hurt a thing.

In an imposing building beside the Thames a group of grim faced men were sitting down to a new day with a rather large sized new problem confronting them. They were solemn, some sleepy and obviously newly awake. There was a minimum of conversation. The time was barely four o'clock.

Their leader stood stiffly in front of a wall chart of the city of London, his arms folded against his chest, and waited until all had been seated and the subdued greetings quietly exchanged. Then he dropped his arms to his side, advanced a couple of steps to a small rostrum, fiddled with a paper lying there, and said, ”Well, it's a brisk hour to be starting the day, isn't it? I can see that we're all fired up and anxious to be cracking along, so I'll make this as brief as possible.”

He paused, as though expecting some reaction to his dry humor. Receiving none, he plunged right in. ”It's this chap Bolan, the American answer to overpopulation. We have good reason to believe that he entered this country at Dover late last night.”

He received his reaction then. Sleepy eyes suddenly became wide-awake, a fellow at the rear closed his mouth in mid-yawn, others exchanged significant glances which meant that a rumor had just been confirmed.

”So you can understand the early hour call. There's much to be done and not nearly enough time, we fear, to get it all in. Please listen alertly, take notes, question anything that isn't crystal clear to you. Very quickly now, here are the facts as known at this...”

The meeting took forty minutes and revealed the full scope of Scotland Yard's reaction to the Bolan presence in England. All routine police business had been temporarily suspended, all furloughs indefinitely cancelled, s.h.i.+ft rotations halted, and the full force of the most impressive police establishment in existence brought to bear directly upon the problem of Mack Bolan.

It was an extraordinary reaction, but a carefully considered one. Bolan's presence in France, and the resulting uproar there, had been closely noted by the men this side of the channel. The chance that Bolan would come to England had been weighed as a fifty-fifty question, and a rather thin security screen had been set up at all likely points of entry. Bolan had slipped in and in the s.p.a.ce of a few hours two explosive and widely separated gun battles had erupted.

Contingency plans had been drawn up at Scotland Yard some days earlier, ready to be put into operation at a moment's notice. Already the machinery was in motion, the inexorable gears of British crime control mes.h.i.+ng into the problem. Special squads were activated, undercover contacts alerted, and hot lines opened to underworld informers all about the city. All public transportation terminals were placed under close surveillance, car rental and taxicab companies were alerted, and a watch was established on all persons known or suspected to have connections with organized crime.

The battle for Britain was on, and the Executioner's jungle was again closing in on him.

Chapter Five.

THE RUNNING TIDE.

Bolan had definitely not desired a hot war in London. He knew neither the land nor the people, and his intelligence concerning local Mafia activities was practically nil. There were several names in his target book, and that was all: he had no addresses, no rundown of activities, no feel whatever about the enemy. The only logical course of action that presented itself to him was to get the h.e.l.l away from there, and with as little lost motion as possible. His intention upon his departure from France, had been to skim through England and quickly out again, U.S. bound. This initiative had been taken away from him, though, with the appearance of Ann Franklin into his life. For the moment, he had felt it best to run with the tide-and he had done so.

The brief skirmish outside the Museum de Sade Museum de Sade was now more than an hour behind him. He had been running loose since that time with no particular objective in mind except to keep moving. He had driven aimlessly, winding and circling through the maze-like metropolis while considering alternate plans of action. was now more than an hour behind him. He had been running loose since that time with no particular objective in mind except to keep moving. He had driven aimlessly, winding and circling through the maze-like metropolis while considering alternate plans of action.

Ann Franklin and old Charles kept crowding into his mind, along with the c.o.c.ky little rooster who'd stood unarmed in his path in that upstairs clubroom and the anonymous men who had helped him out of Dover and through the police lines into London. Why Why? Why all of it? Why any any of it? The lengths they had gone to, all the planning and intrigue and personal danger... what manner of peril had prompted them into such a hazardous undertaking? of it? The lengths they had gone to, all the planning and intrigue and personal danger... what manner of peril had prompted them into such a hazardous undertaking?

Bolan was feeling guilty about his treatment of the people of the de Sade de Sade. He recognized this, and attempted to combat the feeling with logic. Regardless of their motives, he argued, few things could be more perilous than an alignment with Mack Bolan. Recent history substantiated this conclusion. Everyone who had held out a hand of friends.h.i.+p to the Executioner had gotten that hand promptly chopped off, in one way or another. The Mafia did not take kindly to active sympathy for their enemies. Bolan's list of beloved dead stretched all the way back to the California battles, and hovered on his conscience like an open wound. And in France he had d.a.m.n near...

He wrenched off the thought and flung it away. The Executioner could not afford the luxury of mourning. Following that heart-rending action in France, Bolan had sworn to never again allow himself any involvements with friendly units. And now he was reaffirming that position; he would not involve the Sades Sades.

Case closed.

Next problem, get out of London. This could be no easy ch.o.r.e in a ”hot” vehicle, especially a big foreign job that stood out like a neon sign.

As an additional complication, Bolan was lost. The appropriated car had come complete with a street map of the city, but only princ.i.p.al thoroughfares and notable landmarks were shown. Since his discovery of the map, Bolan had found nothing to offer him an orientation to the lay of the city and his relative position in the sprawling confusion.

After several minutes of traveling the maze, however, he came out on a broad avenue and shortly thereafter pa.s.sed a planetarium and Madame Tussaud's wax-works. Now Bolan had his fix. He was on Marylebone Road, just south of Regent's Park and Zoological Gardens.

He swung into the park and stopped the car to study the map and develop some logic of the London layout. He was far north and a bit west of center. London Airport lay south and even further west. He quickly traced a street route between the two points; then, on impulse, he got out of the car and went back to inspect the trunk compartment.

As soon as he looked in Bolan knew that he had gained far more than a set of wheels; he'd inherited an a.r.s.enal. The trunk was crammed with weapons- among them a sawed-off shotgun, an efficient little Israeli Uzi Uzi submachinegun, and an impressive high-powered bolt action piece, a Weatherby Mark V with a sniperscope and about fifty rounds of .460 Magnum heartstoppers. This last find evoked a low whistle from the arms expert. It came in a leather case which may have cost as much as the rifle itself; the gun was loaded and ready to roar, and it had been sighted-in with calibrations up to 1,000 yards. In a pocket of the guncase Bolan found a trajectory graph and a ballistics chart. This drew another appreciative response. According to the graph, trajectory drop was less than five inches at maximum calibrated range, and the point-blank range (no correction required) was a little better than 400 yards. submachinegun, and an impressive high-powered bolt action piece, a Weatherby Mark V with a sniperscope and about fifty rounds of .460 Magnum heartstoppers. This last find evoked a low whistle from the arms expert. It came in a leather case which may have cost as much as the rifle itself; the gun was loaded and ready to roar, and it had been sighted-in with calibrations up to 1,000 yards. In a pocket of the guncase Bolan found a trajectory graph and a ballistics chart. This drew another appreciative response. According to the graph, trajectory drop was less than five inches at maximum calibrated range, and the point-blank range (no correction required) was a little better than 400 yards.

The Weatherby was a precision piece, and it had been further refined by a real craftsman. Bolan was not only happy to have the gun-he was d.a.m.ned glad that an enemy no longer had it. Anyone who could work-in a rifle like that would certainly know how to make the proper use of it. This item of knowledge also sharpened the Executioner's respect for the enemy. All were not clowns; some were masters of death, and the Weatherby served to remind him of this grim fact.

Now he had cause for wonder about the big Lincoln and its proposed role in the British squeeze on Bolan. These gunners had obviously come loaded for bear, and it seemed unlikely that a couple of brief firefights would deter them from their hunt.

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