Part 8 (1/2)

He had to see it again from outside. He hurried from the room and down the curving stairway and onto the patio, then sat on the wall and gazed up at the second-level window. Yeah, yeah, it was perfect, just perfect. The place looked alive, with a full council going on. Plasky grunted with satisfaction and paced about the flagstoned patio in hot antic.i.p.ation of the little welcome The Family had in store for the sonuvab.i.t.c.h of the century.

Walt Seymour was about to burst with contained excitement. ”How do we know he'll hit South Hills tonight?” he asked nervously, watching Turrin's face in the reflected glow of the instrument panel.

Turrin's teeth gleamed in a smile as he turned down the freeway ramp and began to climb into the exclusive neighborhood. ”It's a thing the cops call modus operandi,” he said. ”Bolan isn't interested in s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up our wh.o.r.ehouse operation, he just wants to stir us up. It worked for him once, he figures it'll work again. He sweeps in, see, and raises h.e.l.l down in the gra.s.s roots to force us all to the council table. Then, he figures, he's got us all together and he can plunk us like rats in a water barrel, see. This is what we been waiting for, Walt.” ”I wonder where the b.a.s.t.a.r.d's been all this time.” Turrin scowled. ”Well--I hope he's just been licking his wounds. I'm positive Angie hit him the other night.” The scowl deepened. ”But from what I been hearing of his antics tonight--well-- I dunno--he must o” not been hit too d.a.m.n hard.” ”He's probably onto us,” Seymour said, his agitation visibly increasing. ”He's probably been laying up there somewhere watching us all this time, probably with binoculars.” He s.h.i.+vered. ”Or through that d.a.m.n sniper scope. How good are those scopes, Leo? You were in the service. They any d.a.m.n good?” ”They're plenty d.a.m.n good,” Turrin replied.

”Good enough to see a fly's p.e.c.k.e.r at fifteen hundred yards.” Seymour exploded into a mirthful fit. ”A fly's p.e.c.k.e.r,” he howled. Turrin grinned along with him, and he chuckled for a while, his tensions seeming to disintegrate in the penetrating good humor. ”If that guy is fool enough to hit us again,” he commented, following a long silence, ”we'll nail his a.s.s for good.” ”Yes, I believe we will,” Turrin agreed.

But he was scowling again, and it was still with him when he turned into the hillside estate of Sergio Frenchi.

Bolan stopped at a public telephone in the darkened approaches to a closed service station, dropped in a dime, and dialed a rehea.r.s.ed number. The receiver at the other end was lifted before the first ring could be completed and a trembly feminine voice said, ”Yes?” ”This is the phantom of the bedroom,” he announced pleasantly.

”Mack! Oh, Mack! Everything's okay?” ”Sure,” he said. ”But the night's still young. I just wanted to check in, let you know I'm still in the picture. I may be tied up the rest of the night.

Uh--you been waiting up for me to call?” Her reply came in a tumble of words. ”Mack, I'll never go to bed again until it's with you. I tried, I really tried to, but that old bed just shrieked at me. No, I-I'm sitting up, I'm on the couch--oh Mack, don't let anything happen to you.” ”It's not in the plan,” he said, chuckling rea.s.suringly. ”I, uh, you know, Val, there's always a possibility of something going haywire, though. I forgot to tell you about the money.

It's in a leather case, in the storage s.p.a.ce above your hall closet. If anything-was ”I don't want the darned old money!” she cried.

”Just listen to me. If anything should go wrong, I want you to keep that money. Now, I mean it.

Consider it as my estate. It's as much mine as anybody else's.” ”Mack, you'd better come back here to me.

You've just got to!” ”h.e.l.l, I'm sorry I mentioned it,” he said uneasily. ”Anyway--I've got this kid brother, see. You know about him. He could use some money, too, and-was ”Mack, I'm going to start screaming!” ”Don't do that,” he said quickly. ”Don't worry, it'll all come out okay. I just thought I should mention the money, just in case.” ”I just want you.” She was sobbing. ”Call it off, Mack. Just come back. Come back right now.” ”You're making it awfully tough on me, honey,” he told her. ”You know what I have to do.” She was regaining control. ”All right,” she said.

”I'll be brave. Is this better?” ”Much better. Be a good girl now and go to bed. I want you nice and fresh when I get home.” ”I'll try.” ”I love you, Val.” ”Oh G.o.d, Mack, I love you nutty!” ”It's great, isn't it.” His voice was glowing.

”Yes, yes darling, it's great.” ”Well--back to work. Stay cool, now.” ”I promise. I'll stay cool. You do, too. And Mack...” ”Yeah?” ”I don't care who you have to kill, or how many.

You come back here to me.” ”I'll be back,” he said, chuckling. He hung up, and his smile faded, and he stared glumly at the black box. It was odd, he reflected, how life came in bunches and gobs, and always at the wrong times. He had so much more to live for now than ever before, and he was facing the most perilous moment of his lifetime. He sighed, muttered, ”I'll get back, Val,” fingered a kiss onto the telephone mouthpiece, and The Executioner went off to join the gathering.

Lieutenant Also Weatherbee of the Metropolitan Police sleepily gathered his thermos jug and sandwiches and headed toward the police garage with his young sergeant, John Pappas. ”Well, Johnny,” he said tiredly, ”If our intelligence is good, tonight will be the night.” ”You say he knocked off three of their joints tonight?” Pappas asked, grinning.

”Yes, and don't look so happy about it.

He's making us look like monkeys too, you know.” They stepped into the elevator and were silent in the descent to the garage. They stood quietly and waited as a half-dozen marked patrol cars gunned up the narrow ramp to the street, then went over to their squad car. Pappas slid behind the wheel and reached over to help Weatherbee with his burden. ”You planning on eating all this in one night?” he asked.

”Oh, between the two of us, I figure we can take care of it all right,” the lieutenant replied. ”And it could be a long, long night.” ”Well, it's three o'clock already, and I just ate at two.” ”It could still be a long time till breakfast.” Weatherbee settled into the seat, nodded to his companion, and the car eased up the ramp.

”How many units they sending out?” Pappas wondered aloud.

”We have a dozen cars in the general area, eight of them a.s.signed directly to us, the other four for backup as required. The sheriff is cooperating on this one, also. He's promised a minimum of ten men in the canyon, on the county side, and possibly some mounted units. I think we'll have him pretty well sewed up. If he shows, and I think he will, I don't see how he can possibly slip away from us this time. Unless...” Weatherbee scratched his cheek thoughtfully and showed his partner a wry smile. ”Unless he really is a ghost, like the newsmen have been calling him.” They hit the expressway with the warning light flas.h.i.+ng, pulled into the far-left lane, and hurtled along in steadily building momentum.

”I don't think there's all this big a hurry, though, Johnny,” Weatherbee said uneasily.

”Never can tell,” Pappas replied, flicking a gleaming glance toward his superior. ”And I sure as h.e.l.l don't intend to miss this one.” The lieutenant sighed, scratched his cheek again, and said softly: ”And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon.” ”What?” Pappas said, chancing another quick glance.

”That's from the Book of Revelation,” Weatherbee said. ”Somehow it seemed appropriate to the moment.” Pappas s.h.i.+vered involuntarily and hunched closer over the wheel. ”Armageddon,” he repeated musingly. ”That's a sort of h.e.l.l, isn't it?” ”No,” Weatherbee said quietly, hanging onto the door handle to brace himself in the hurtling automobile, ”it's supposed to be the place where the final battle will be fought between the forces of evil-- watch it, will you!” Pappas had swerved between two slower-moving vehicles, setting the lieutenant rocking and swearing beneath his breath. ”Between the forces of what?” he asked, ignoring the complaint.

”Between the forces of good and evil. G.o.ddammit, we're going to find our Armageddon right here on this expressway if you don't slow this son of a b.i.t.c.h down. Now d.a.m.nit, that's an order, johnny!” Pappas reluctantly released some of the pressure from the accelerator. ”Just hurrying to the gathering,” he said, grinning. ”I sure as h.e.l.l wouldn't want to miss Armageddon.” ”I'll remind you that you said that,” Weatherbee said quietly.

Execution Hill The Executioner had left his automobile at a carefully preselected spot in dense brush near the crest of a wooded hill directly opposite the South Hills home of Sergio Frenchi, and was making his fifth trip from the car to his ”drop” on the side of the hill. ”Execution Hill,” as he had come to dub the site, was largely uninhabited, with only three or four residential plots on the entire rise of ground, and there were no buildings of any description on Bolan's side of the hill.

Nevertheless he had encountered various sounds of human presence during his trips between car and battlesite, mostly distant rustlings and voices; once he heard a male voice cursing vehemently, and on his third trip a horse and rider crossed his path no more than forty feet ahead of him, the horse slipping and snorting on the steep hillside and the rider speaking to his mount rea.s.suringly.

The Executioner was exercising the utmost caution and stealth, but there was a lot of equipment to be moved, and he was going ahead with his plans despite the obvious patrol activity around his battlesite. He had selected a shallow hollow lying beneath an outcropping of rock which was angled about thirty degrees easterly of, and roughly ten degrees above, the Frenchi estate, and well-screened behind an overhanging droop of evergreens. He had run his trajectory calculations earlier, based on a range of five hundred yards, estimated. Now he had a GI rangefinder with which to refine those calculations, and he was surprised to learn that his estimate had been so close to reality. He applied the corrections for a 530-yard range, then consulted the graph he'd worked up for the Marlin and decided he would need to target fifteen inches above actual target to allow for trajectory drop.

He extended similar calculations for the other weapons he had ”commandeered” from the armory earlier, devoted another fifteen minutes to making his ”setups,” then took time for a leisurely cigarette, carefully s.h.i.+elding the tiny glow from any hostile eyes in the vicinity.

As he smoked, he followed a timeworn tradition and scribbled his thoughts in a black leather-bound book. This concluded, he got to his feet and lightened himself, removing everything from his web belt except the.45 and the knife, even emptying the slit-pockets above his knees of the spare clips for the.45, and moved out quietly in a ”recon” of the area.

Weatherbee had told him that The Family was lying in wait for his next a.s.sault. This could mean nothing but a planned counterattack, and it would have to be a highly personal and concentrated one if it were to be effective. Bolan was not overly worried about their abilities in this regard, not unless the Mafia army had been recruited from combat-trained veterans of recent warfare. He had blackened his face and even the heavens seemed to be in his corner tonight, a nice broken layer of clouds keeping the night a black one most of the time. He paused beside a tree as one of the occasional breaks in the cloud-cover drifted overhead, briefly illuminating, faintly, Execution Hill. As he waited, stony and hardly breathing, a match flared a few yards uphill from his position and he could hear clearly the heavy exhalation of a cigarette smoker. The heavy darkness descended again almost immediately, and Bolan went into motion with it, moving silently in a tight circle up the hillside, homing in on the glowing tip of the cigarette. He came down from above and to the rear, and to within a matter of feet from the smoker. It was a man alone, his back to Bolan, seated on a rock and hunched slightly forward. Bolan unsheathed his knife, felt on The ground and found a rotted stick, and tossed it over the man's head and a few yards downhill. The stick hit a tree and the man's body stiffened. ”Hank?” he called softly.

Then Bolan was upon him, one arm curled tightly into the throat, the knife moving in a swift arc toward the rib cage. The body went limp, a rifle toppled and slid slowly down into the brush, and Bolan lowered the suddenly still form gently to the ground. He absently crushed out the lighted cigarette which had fallen to the ground, then stepped quietly down the hill, continuing the seek-and-destroy mission.

Mounted police, cras.h.i.+ng about on horseback down below, did not particularly trouble his mind, but he could allow no enemy patrols on Execution Hill. His plan for the a.s.sault on the stronghold, once the major thrust was underway, would definitely limit his mobility; therefore the area would have to be positively secured before the attack was launched.

His finely tuned ears detected another sound off to the right, and he moved toward it through the darkness, himself an item of darkness and silent, sudden death.

The following is an excerpt from The Executioner's diary, headed ”Thoughts at Execution Hill.” I suppose that the chief difference between me and ordinary people is that I recognize the challenges of life and find it impossible to turn my back on them. I can't let somebody else do my killing, or bear my blood-smears, or stand in judgment in my behalf. If there is a battle to be fought, I must fight it. If there is blood to be spilled, I must spill it. If somebody is to be judged, I must stand at the bar. I suppose that I am not truly civilized. Maybe I'm a throwback to another time, to another kind, to another ideal. But this much I know: I am alive tonight because of violence loose upon the earth. Each breath I take is paid for by crushed and digested once-living things. Violence is the way of the world because compet.i.tion is the way of life-perpetuation. Without violence there can be no compet.i.tion, and without compet.i.tion there can be no life.

Something dies for every instant that something else lives.

I just had the thought that I am being morbid--and why not? Life itself is a morbid business. Each life lived is built upon a hill of death; each body is a living monument to death and a moving graveyard. It is the way of life, and even --no, especially--in a civilization. But in a civilization there are appointed executioners, some appointed to serve the greater good, some the greater evil.

I am self-appointed, but this fact in no way alters the responsibilities of office.

Valentina, G.o.d love her, would die herself before she would crush the skull of a baby steer--but this tender child thoroughly loves her veal steaks. An executioner of baby steers has been appointed in Valentina's behalf, an executioner to crush the skulls of baby steers and thus provide the juicy steaks for tender Val's table.

Valentina, G.o.d protect her, is thoroughly repulsed and disgusted by the evil brought to this earth by men like the Mafiosi, yet she would allow every indignity upon herself, even to the final indignity of death, before she would pick up a gun and exterminate the vermin. An executioner of vermin has been appointed in Valentina's behalf--for all the Valentinas everywhere. It is a self-appointment, a necessary one in this civilization of ours, and I cannot stand away from the responsibility of this office.

Life is a compet.i.tion, and I am a compet.i.tor. I have the tools and the skills, and I must accept the responsibilities. I will fight the battle, spill the blood, smear myself with it, and stand at the bar of judgment to be crushed and chewed and ingested by those I serve. It is the way of the world. It is the ultimate disposition. Stand ready, Mafiosi, The Executioner is here.

Battle Order Sergio Frenchi was a man who loved a good sc.r.a.p; this much was obvious. The old eyes were sparkling with the excitement of antic.i.p.ation, and he seemed to infect the others with his enthusiasm. The entire area Family was present, and a roll call would have sounded like a polling of the Greater Chamber of Commerce. Practically every strata of the business and professional communities were represented in the a.s.semblage. There were bankers, lawyers, a medical doctor, accountants, insurance executives, two prominent educators; these rubbing elbows with gambling czars, small-time politicos, and racketeers of every stripe.

It was the first full-council, area-wide, which Leo Turrin had been privileged to attend. He was both amazed and impressed by the number and stature of those present. He moved alongside Nat Plasky and said, ”I don't get it. Why bring everybody out at a time like this?” Sergio himself answered the question, as if on cue, raising his arms to quiet the hubbub. ”When The Family is in trouble, The Family belongs together,” he intoned. He smiled and let his eyes dance around the large room. ”Besides--a lot of you have never had to face up to a real threat before. You're soft--look at you, your manicured fingers and your two-dollar cigars--how do you think you got all this security, eh? You got it because men like me, men who never could relax enough to try those manicures and expensive cigars, were out there fighting and grabbing while you were in your mama's bellies, that's how you got it.” ”We're getting an object-lesson,” Seymour said, sotto voce.

Again right on cue, Sergio continued: ”You boys don't know what it feels like to be shot at and-was ”The h.e.l.l I don't,” Plasky growled.

”Maybe it's true what they're saying about the organization, eh?

Maybe we get too soft with all this legit business we got going. Don't forget where it all came from! Don't forget those dirty dollars keeping us UP there at the front of the line! Listen!” He spread one arm in a dramatic sweep towards a group seated at his right. ”I even hear some of The Family is beginning to sneer at boys like these. Leopold, here, and his girl operation. Any of you gentlemen got any idea how many millions Leo's operation grossed so far this year? Eh? Well it makes any one of the rest of you look like peanuts! You hear? Peanuts!” He stabbed a shaking finger at a well-dressed man down the table to the left. ”You, Scali, where do you think the five million came from to back up your insurance reserves, eh? From heaven?” He waggled the finger and fixed the executive with a stern gaze.

”It came from wh.o.r.ehouses, yeah. How do you good gentlemen think we manage to keep our girls operating, eh? Through our contacts with the Chamber of Commerce? Eh? Lemme tell you all something--you are soft! And I-was ”I haven't heard him wind up like this in fifteen years,” Seymour whispered.

”I just wish he'd wind down,” Turrin said uncomfortably, but his eyes were all attention on the powerful and compelling old warrior at the head of the table. ”I'll bet he was a h.e.l.l of a man in his day,” he added softly.

”He survived the wars,” Seymour grunted.

”He'll survive this one, too. Anybody making book on the outcome?” ”Not a chance,” Plasky chimed in softly.

”Now there's guns on the wall down here by the door,” Sergio was saying. ”Most of you may not get a chance to shoot one off, but you better d.a.m.n sure have one in your hand when you walk out the door.