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The night before, Charles had led him from the ground level down the stairs and along a rather narrow cellar passageway to the manhole of the tunnel. Bolan had noted the two heavy doors at each side of that passageway and had assumed, without further interest, that the old man conducted his spying from behind those doors. Now, both stood slightly ajar. This time Bolan went exploring. Behind one door, he found himself in a spacious and elaborately furnished basement apartment. It was a single room affair but apparently held every conceivable convenience, including even a wet bar with tap beer and a handsomely outfitted electronics workshop.
No one, however, was at home.
Behind the door on the opposite side of the basement Bolan found the "security station." It was far more elaborate than he had expected. An impressive electronics console and a battery of closed-circuit television monitors dominated the scene. Various other gadgets, including a film editing table and a projector, were present. Edwin Charles was not.
First to draw Bolan's interest were the TV monitors. All were activated, and the conglomerate seemed to be providing a complete surveillance of the first two levels of the building. One screen showed the entry hall, another a wide-angle shot of the clubroom in which Bolan had found himself imprisoned the previous night, still another the erotically decorated harem room—in several camera angles—and each of the small cells on the upper level had its own monitor.
Those cells had been feebly lighted and deserted during Bolan's earlier visit. Now they were lit well enough to allow televised surveillance, and none of them were deserted. Young men and women appeared to languish there in attitudes of suffering and submission, all naked and cowed and bound into the various types of imprisoning devices.
The monitors showing the harem room were something else. Here men and women lay about in a variety of luxurious accommodations, and in a scene combining the best of Arabian Nightsand the wildest in Roman Orgy. Aparty was most emphatically in progress, and just as emphatically it was geared to the most offbeat varieties of erotic delight. Most of the men, it seemed, were middle-aged or beyond—except for an occasional consortium of aged lechery with pretty lad. The women were without exception young and beautiful, and there were many. Everywhere Roman togas mixed and contrasted with colorful harem pajamas, slave girl costumes, and the inevitable devices of "bondage."
On a small revolving stage at the center of all this, a huge black man was spread-eagled upon a simple upright cross, bound hand and foot. He was nude, and he was obviously in a state of wild sexual agitation. A tall blond girl, also nude, was tantalizing him with a lewdly suggestive dance in which she frequently wriggled against him then swayed back to avoid his wild lunging after her. Following each of these sallies, the big fellow was punished for his impertinence by another girl, an Amazonian figure, with a wicked looking black whip. It was theatre in the round, a la Sade, and it made Bolan's guts creak. He had to wonder how many other acts had preceded this one across that small stage, and he began to understand what Ann Franklin had meant by "a paid staff." These people were performers, actorsand damned convincing ones in their own peculiar specialty. Even the cell-sufferers were undoubtedly acting out a role with all the stage vigor of any thespian anywhere. TV monitors were banked about the revolving stage, allowing the audience to also keep track of the activities in the cells.
The console in the security station apparently was geared more to the entertainment angle than to items of security. Bolan wondered if they had video-taping capability—and he also wondered if the revellers upstairs realized that they themselves were on candid camera. Talk about blackmail mills—this one was a natural goldmine for anyone with such ambitions.
His attention was drawn to the monitor showing the cell with the barrel balancing trick. An Amazonian beauty in weird garb had just stalked into camera range in that cell. She wore thigh-high boots of glossy black leather and a tightly laced corset affair that sucked her into an hourglass from armpits to hips. Cutouts at the chest provided a free and high projection of magnificently sculpted breasts. Thick black hair descended in a free fall to her waist. Grotesque facial cosmetics conveyed a convincing impression of satanic evil. She must have stood six feet tall even without the high-heeled boots, Bolan guessed, and she carried the inevitable black whip.
A well formed young man occupied the balancing platform. His back was to the camera; he was imprisoned by the wrist irons with his face to the wall. The devil girl went directly to the task at hand, lashing out energetically against his nude flanks with the whip. He reacted with a believable display of pain, lunging away from the stinging tips of the lash, losing his footing, clawing desperately at the chains to relieve the harsh pressure at his wrists—just about as Bolan had visualized the thing earlier.
The performance was too realistic for Bolan. He supposed that the whip was made of some sort of trick material, but it was still too much for his stomach. He whirled away from the console, wondering what had become of Charles and what had prompted the old man to desert his station and leave it wide open. This was obviously a party night at the museum, certainly no time for the security watch to be relaxed.
Bolan made another quick inspection of the entire basement area, returning none the wiser some minutes later to the control room. During his absence the black man had left the stage in the party room and another act had replace him. This consisted of two young men lashed nakedly together back to back and two girls bound to each other in a side-by-side arrangement. The nude foursome's problem of the night was an erotically obvious one, and their frantic attempts at resolving it were acrobatically ingenious.
Bolan's attention was suddenly diverted from the Siamese-twin act by a peculiar movement across the screen of one of the cell monitors. A satanic Amazon had uncharacteristically staggered past the camera lens, her face showing genuine shock and revulsion as she hurried out of the little room. Bolan bent closer to the monitor. The scene there, at first look, seemed a typical one. A "victim" was imprisoned in a variation of the stocks—a particularly evil device consisting of a small platform raised a few inches above the floor, in which were set ankle holes for imprisoning the victim's feet; just behind this was another platform slightly higher off the floor, with holes for neck and wrists.
Bolan had noticed the contrivance on his trip through the maze, and there had been no puzzle as to its function. The victim would be required to bend over double, standing in the stocks in a grotesque position with his head practically between his feet. Too much bodily fatigue, vertigo, dizziness, or any other circumstance which would cause the victim to sway too much in any direction would undoubtedly choke him. Total imbalance would result in a broken neck. Bolan had gathered all this in one quick glance, the previous night. Now he realized that he had not grasped the full diabolicalness of this device. In its present usage the victim was doubled over backwards, and an extra feature had been added. A narrow platform, resembling a sawhorse with steel spikes along its back, was thrust under the arched spine. If this had been a staged act, the role would have called for a contortionist.
But this victim was no contortionist. The closer inpection sent chills along Bolan's spine and sucked all the moisture from his mouth. This victim was no performer. He was quite an old man, and there was simply no way to feign the racking distress of that distorted body. The camera angle was in bad relation to the lighting, besides which only the back of the victim's head showed—but Bolan knew immediately what had become of Edwin Charles.
An animal growl rumbled past Bolan's lips and he was out of there and running up the stairs to the ground level before his thinking mind took charge. He erupted into the small room which lay just beyond the clubroom and smashed through into the party chamber. The scowling black clad figure with submachine gun in hand went virtually unnoticed through the crowd. Indeed, he looked no more out of place there than anyone present, and he received his first challenge at the labial doorway.
Two of the leather-clad Amazons guarded that portal, standing stiffly spread-legged with crossed arms and dangling whips. The satanic-pretty faces registered puzzlement at Bolan's aggressive approach. At the last moment, one of the girls expertly curled her lash about Bolan's chest and the other stepped into his path. The whip, he found, was of soft and harmless nylon. The girl herself was something else, as big and strong as she seemed.
Bolan snarled, "The old man's in trouble!" and pushed the girl roughly aside. He went on through and up the stairway, with one of the girls right at his heels and panting along in hot pursuit.
He had only a vague idea as to his destination as he hurried through the cellular maze, but he knew he was getting warm when he spotted a devil girl crumpled to the floor in a doorway.
To the girl following him, Bolan snapped, "Help her!"
He stepped over the unconscious girl and into a reality much more horrible than could be gathered by a TV camera. The unmistakable smell of blood was mixed with the acrid odor of burnt flesh to overpower the atmosphere of the tiny airless cell; death had come there to release human agony and misery, and Bolan knew it the moment he stepped through that door.
Here was one old soldier who had not merely faded away. Edwin Charles had died hard.
The sawhorse affair was built of adjustable wooden legs and an iron crosspiece with conical protrusions along its top. The iron section had recently been intensely hot, and still was radiating considerable warmth. A blow torch lay discarded on the floor in the corner of the cell. Bolan decided that this had been used to heat the iron of the medieval device, which was then positioned beneath the arched back of the old man and probably slowly raised in height until the brittle old spine could no longer accept the demands placed upon it. He had sank back onto the red hot iron, and it had literally eaten its way into him.
It seemed likely also that the spine had snapped, and perhaps other bones as well. The red heat of the iron bar had probably cauterized and sealed ruptured blood vessels as it advanced into the body, but bleeding of an internal nature had found its natural exit through both the bowel and the mouth of the victim. It was a macabre scene. Bolan could understand why even the devil girl had fainted.
He grimly inspected the remains and muttered, "The things men do to one another." Then he stood there for a moment in angry contemplation of a grand old soldier's final moments. What was it the old fellow had said about the museum? Something about a deeper meaning, a sign of the times.
Bolan grunted, "Yeah," and went back out. He found the two devil girls leaning weakly against each other in the next cell.
"Is he dead?" whispered the girl who had chased Bolan up the stairs.
"He sure is," Bolan muttered. "Just how long has this party been going on?"
"Since eleven," the girl replied in a funereal whisper.
Bolan looked at his watch. The time was then shortly past midnight. He shook his head and said, "I don't know how long the old man has been in that room, but he hasn't been dead for more than half an hour."
The implications of that decision hit him immediately. Edwin Charles had died with his agony on full display in the party room below, the reality of the gruesome scene concealed by the bogus suffering going on all about him. Quietly, Bolan told the girls, "He's been dying through half of this nutty party."
The girl who had fainted seemed in danger of doing so again. Her hands clutched at Bolan for support and she told him, "I was in and out of there many times. I didn't know he was…" Her eyes rolled. "Until it started to smellso terrible . •." She looked as though she wanted to be sick. .
"Who puts these people into these nutty devices?" Bolan asked.
The other girl murmured, "Normally they attach themselves, and they can get out any time they wish, without aid. It's all in fun, you know. I mean, who would've thought… ?" Her naked breasts shuddered with the unspoken horror of the idea and she swayed toward Bolan.
He steadied her and muttered, "Yeah, this is some kind of fun place," and then he left them to console one another and he went back through the harem room. Little had changed down there, except that the frantic foursome had discovered a way for sex en masseto overcome the physical limitations of human anatomy.
The cell of Charles' final agony was in prominent display just above this living exhibition. As he walked past, Bolan drew his Beretta and sent a quiet round into the monitor. There would be no more ghoulish jollies from an old man's final torment.
He passed on through, spurned the stairway to the basement, and strode purposefully toward the main exit. As he approached the door, he loaded the Vziand made it ready. Mack Bolan was in killer mode, and his mood was now definitely inclined toward thunder and lightning.
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
No one, however, was at home.
Behind the door on the opposite side of the basement Bolan found the "security station." It was far more elaborate than he had expected. An impressive electronics console and a battery of closed-circuit television monitors dominated the scene. Various other gadgets, including a film editing table and a projector, were present. Edwin Charles was not.
First to draw Bolan's interest were the TV monitors. All were activated, and the conglomerate seemed to be providing a complete surveillance of the first two levels of the building. One screen showed the entry hall, another a wide-angle shot of the clubroom in which Bolan had found himself imprisoned the previous night, still another the erotically decorated harem room—in several camera angles—and each of the small cells on the upper level had its own monitor.
Those cells had been feebly lighted and deserted during Bolan's earlier visit. Now they were lit well enough to allow televised surveillance, and none of them were deserted. Young men and women appeared to languish there in attitudes of suffering and submission, all naked and cowed and bound into the various types of imprisoning devices.
The monitors showing the harem room were something else. Here men and women lay about in a variety of luxurious accommodations, and in a scene combining the best of Arabian Nightsand the wildest in Roman Orgy. Aparty was most emphatically in progress, and just as emphatically it was geared to the most offbeat varieties of erotic delight. Most of the men, it seemed, were middle-aged or beyond—except for an occasional consortium of aged lechery with pretty lad. The women were without exception young and beautiful, and there were many. Everywhere Roman togas mixed and contrasted with colorful harem pajamas, slave girl costumes, and the inevitable devices of "bondage."
On a small revolving stage at the center of all this, a huge black man was spread-eagled upon a simple upright cross, bound hand and foot. He was nude, and he was obviously in a state of wild sexual agitation. A tall blond girl, also nude, was tantalizing him with a lewdly suggestive dance in which she frequently wriggled against him then swayed back to avoid his wild lunging after her. Following each of these sallies, the big fellow was punished for his impertinence by another girl, an Amazonian figure, with a wicked looking black whip. It was theatre in the round, a la Sade, and it made Bolan's guts creak. He had to wonder how many other acts had preceded this one across that small stage, and he began to understand what Ann Franklin had meant by "a paid staff." These people were performers, actorsand damned convincing ones in their own peculiar specialty. Even the cell-sufferers were undoubtedly acting out a role with all the stage vigor of any thespian anywhere. TV monitors were banked about the revolving stage, allowing the audience to also keep track of the activities in the cells.
The console in the security station apparently was geared more to the entertainment angle than to items of security. Bolan wondered if they had video-taping capability—and he also wondered if the revellers upstairs realized that they themselves were on candid camera. Talk about blackmail mills—this one was a natural goldmine for anyone with such ambitions.
His attention was drawn to the monitor showing the cell with the barrel balancing trick. An Amazonian beauty in weird garb had just stalked into camera range in that cell. She wore thigh-high boots of glossy black leather and a tightly laced corset affair that sucked her into an hourglass from armpits to hips. Cutouts at the chest provided a free and high projection of magnificently sculpted breasts. Thick black hair descended in a free fall to her waist. Grotesque facial cosmetics conveyed a convincing impression of satanic evil. She must have stood six feet tall even without the high-heeled boots, Bolan guessed, and she carried the inevitable black whip.
A well formed young man occupied the balancing platform. His back was to the camera; he was imprisoned by the wrist irons with his face to the wall. The devil girl went directly to the task at hand, lashing out energetically against his nude flanks with the whip. He reacted with a believable display of pain, lunging away from the stinging tips of the lash, losing his footing, clawing desperately at the chains to relieve the harsh pressure at his wrists—just about as Bolan had visualized the thing earlier.
The performance was too realistic for Bolan. He supposed that the whip was made of some sort of trick material, but it was still too much for his stomach. He whirled away from the console, wondering what had become of Charles and what had prompted the old man to desert his station and leave it wide open. This was obviously a party night at the museum, certainly no time for the security watch to be relaxed.
Bolan made another quick inspection of the entire basement area, returning none the wiser some minutes later to the control room. During his absence the black man had left the stage in the party room and another act had replace him. This consisted of two young men lashed nakedly together back to back and two girls bound to each other in a side-by-side arrangement. The nude foursome's problem of the night was an erotically obvious one, and their frantic attempts at resolving it were acrobatically ingenious.
Bolan's attention was suddenly diverted from the Siamese-twin act by a peculiar movement across the screen of one of the cell monitors. A satanic Amazon had uncharacteristically staggered past the camera lens, her face showing genuine shock and revulsion as she hurried out of the little room. Bolan bent closer to the monitor. The scene there, at first look, seemed a typical one. A "victim" was imprisoned in a variation of the stocks—a particularly evil device consisting of a small platform raised a few inches above the floor, in which were set ankle holes for imprisoning the victim's feet; just behind this was another platform slightly higher off the floor, with holes for neck and wrists.
Bolan had noticed the contrivance on his trip through the maze, and there had been no puzzle as to its function. The victim would be required to bend over double, standing in the stocks in a grotesque position with his head practically between his feet. Too much bodily fatigue, vertigo, dizziness, or any other circumstance which would cause the victim to sway too much in any direction would undoubtedly choke him. Total imbalance would result in a broken neck. Bolan had gathered all this in one quick glance, the previous night. Now he realized that he had not grasped the full diabolicalness of this device. In its present usage the victim was doubled over backwards, and an extra feature had been added. A narrow platform, resembling a sawhorse with steel spikes along its back, was thrust under the arched spine. If this had been a staged act, the role would have called for a contortionist.
But this victim was no contortionist. The closer inpection sent chills along Bolan's spine and sucked all the moisture from his mouth. This victim was no performer. He was quite an old man, and there was simply no way to feign the racking distress of that distorted body. The camera angle was in bad relation to the lighting, besides which only the back of the victim's head showed—but Bolan knew immediately what had become of Edwin Charles.
An animal growl rumbled past Bolan's lips and he was out of there and running up the stairs to the ground level before his thinking mind took charge. He erupted into the small room which lay just beyond the clubroom and smashed through into the party chamber. The scowling black clad figure with submachine gun in hand went virtually unnoticed through the crowd. Indeed, he looked no more out of place there than anyone present, and he received his first challenge at the labial doorway.
Two of the leather-clad Amazons guarded that portal, standing stiffly spread-legged with crossed arms and dangling whips. The satanic-pretty faces registered puzzlement at Bolan's aggressive approach. At the last moment, one of the girls expertly curled her lash about Bolan's chest and the other stepped into his path. The whip, he found, was of soft and harmless nylon. The girl herself was something else, as big and strong as she seemed.
Bolan snarled, "The old man's in trouble!" and pushed the girl roughly aside. He went on through and up the stairway, with one of the girls right at his heels and panting along in hot pursuit.
He had only a vague idea as to his destination as he hurried through the cellular maze, but he knew he was getting warm when he spotted a devil girl crumpled to the floor in a doorway.
To the girl following him, Bolan snapped, "Help her!"
He stepped over the unconscious girl and into a reality much more horrible than could be gathered by a TV camera. The unmistakable smell of blood was mixed with the acrid odor of burnt flesh to overpower the atmosphere of the tiny airless cell; death had come there to release human agony and misery, and Bolan knew it the moment he stepped through that door.
Here was one old soldier who had not merely faded away. Edwin Charles had died hard.
The sawhorse affair was built of adjustable wooden legs and an iron crosspiece with conical protrusions along its top. The iron section had recently been intensely hot, and still was radiating considerable warmth. A blow torch lay discarded on the floor in the corner of the cell. Bolan decided that this had been used to heat the iron of the medieval device, which was then positioned beneath the arched back of the old man and probably slowly raised in height until the brittle old spine could no longer accept the demands placed upon it. He had sank back onto the red hot iron, and it had literally eaten its way into him.
It seemed likely also that the spine had snapped, and perhaps other bones as well. The red heat of the iron bar had probably cauterized and sealed ruptured blood vessels as it advanced into the body, but bleeding of an internal nature had found its natural exit through both the bowel and the mouth of the victim. It was a macabre scene. Bolan could understand why even the devil girl had fainted.
He grimly inspected the remains and muttered, "The things men do to one another." Then he stood there for a moment in angry contemplation of a grand old soldier's final moments. What was it the old fellow had said about the museum? Something about a deeper meaning, a sign of the times.
Bolan grunted, "Yeah," and went back out. He found the two devil girls leaning weakly against each other in the next cell.
"Is he dead?" whispered the girl who had chased Bolan up the stairs.
"He sure is," Bolan muttered. "Just how long has this party been going on?"
"Since eleven," the girl replied in a funereal whisper.
Bolan looked at his watch. The time was then shortly past midnight. He shook his head and said, "I don't know how long the old man has been in that room, but he hasn't been dead for more than half an hour."
The implications of that decision hit him immediately. Edwin Charles had died with his agony on full display in the party room below, the reality of the gruesome scene concealed by the bogus suffering going on all about him. Quietly, Bolan told the girls, "He's been dying through half of this nutty party."
The girl who had fainted seemed in danger of doing so again. Her hands clutched at Bolan for support and she told him, "I was in and out of there many times. I didn't know he was…" Her eyes rolled. "Until it started to smellso terrible . •." She looked as though she wanted to be sick. .
"Who puts these people into these nutty devices?" Bolan asked.
The other girl murmured, "Normally they attach themselves, and they can get out any time they wish, without aid. It's all in fun, you know. I mean, who would've thought… ?" Her naked breasts shuddered with the unspoken horror of the idea and she swayed toward Bolan.
He steadied her and muttered, "Yeah, this is some kind of fun place," and then he left them to console one another and he went back through the harem room. Little had changed down there, except that the frantic foursome had discovered a way for sex en masseto overcome the physical limitations of human anatomy.
The cell of Charles' final agony was in prominent display just above this living exhibition. As he walked past, Bolan drew his Beretta and sent a quiet round into the monitor. There would be no more ghoulish jollies from an old man's final torment.
He passed on through, spurned the stairway to the basement, and strode purposefully toward the main exit. As he approached the door, he loaded the Vziand made it ready. Mack Bolan was in killer mode, and his mood was now definitely inclined toward thunder and lightning.
Chapter Eleven
The prisoner
Danno Giliamo sat in quiet thought on the rear seat of a large black sedan which was parked just off the square near Museum de Sade. He was alone except for one other man who sat quietly huddled over the steering wheel. The sound of an approaching vehicle intruded into the silence. Moving slowly, it swung close then halted at the curb just opposite Giliamo's car. A man stepped out and the car moved on. A moment later the sedan door across from Giliamo opened and Nick Trigger slid in, hastily closing the door to deactivate the domelight mechanism.
By way of greeting, Giliamo emitted a bored sigh and said, "I guess you was right, Nick. He ain't showed up here. Nothing on your end either, huh?"
"Nothing, hell," Trigger replied quietly. "We had plenty on my end. But you were right about that lucky bastard, he's as slippery as melted jello."
"You mean he got away again?" Giliamo replied in a dulled voice.
"Yeah, he got away."
"Well he ain't turned up here." Giliamo nervously tamped a cigarette against his fist then shoved it between his lips and lit it, his eyes weary and disturbed in the glow of the lighter. "So what happened?" he asked.
Trigger sniffed and settled deeper into the seat. "We had him bottled in a rock joint over by Soho Square." The massive shoulders raised and settled again in a tired shrug. "He busted out, that's all, got away clean.
And cops all over the God damned place, I mean crawling out of every hole."
Giliamo took a nervous pull at the cigarette and asked, "Okay, so what happened to my boys?"
"Six of your freelancers are dead," Trigger reported with a sigh. "Also Looney and Rocky got arrested. Don't worry, I'll have 'em sprung first thing in the morning."
Giliamo mouthed a string of half-audible obscenities, then said, "You see what I been up against, Nick?"
"Yeah." The London enforcer punched his elbows into the backrest with a loud sigh. "I don't see any sense in hanging around this neighborhood, Danno. Leave a couple of boys to keep an eye out, just to make sure, but I guess we might as well tuck it in for the night. Bolan isn't going to run from one setup right to another. Arnie Farmer and his army is due in first thing in the morning. We'll huddle with them and see what we can come up with."
"I was hoping to get it all over with before they showed up," Giliamo muttered. "Do you know this Arnie Farmer?"
"We met a couple of times," Nick Trigger replied heavily. "Do I get it right that you feel about this Capothe way I feel about him?"
"If you mean is he an uncomfortable so and so to be around, then we feel the same way, Nick, yeah you got it right."
"Then you might as well come out and say it. Arnie Farmer is a bastard, and I don't like him coming over here. I wish he'd stayed home."
"That's exactly right," the Jerseyite muttered. "And I wish to God we could've got Bolan before the other bastard showed up." His eyes flicked to the man in the driver's seat. "Nobody better not go repeating that, though. Right, Gio?"
Gio Scaldicci, the wheelman, swivelled about with a grin. "Right, Mr. Giliamo. I got ears that don't hear nothin' that's not spoken to 'em."
The two men in back settled into an uncomfortable silence, then Nick Trigger said, "Well, I'll ride back with you, Danno. Let's get out of here."
"We gotta wait, I got Sal out on the street makin' his rounds. Hell be back in a minute."
The three Mafiosisat through a protracted silence, then a front door opened and a fourth man hastily entered the car. This was Sal Masseri, one of Danno's crew leaders. In a choked voice, he announced, "We got three dead soldiers out there, Danno."
"What do you mean?" the New Jersey caporegimegrowled.
"I mean Willie Ears and Jack the Builder and Big Angelo are dead as hell, that's what I mean. No blood or nothing, they're just laying there dead. I think their necks are broke or something."
Giliamo was speechless. He gaped at his companion in the rear, then made a lunge for the door. Nick Trigger quietly restrained him and asked Masseri, "How long have those boys been dead, Sal?"
"I'd say no more'n ten or fifteen minutes. I went on around and warned the other boys. Nobody's seen nothing, though, Nick, not a damn thing."
"Ten or fifteen minutes," Trigger repeated musingly. "That means he could have hotted it straight over here and…"
Giliamo slid forward to the edge of the seat and craned his head for a tense inspection of the hulking outline of the museum, just around the square from their position. In an angered tone, he declared, "That cuts it! That bastard has found some way to get in and out of there without being seen. I'll bet he's in there right now." He tapped his driver on the shoulder and commanded, "Pull around there slow and quiet, Gio. Park in front of that bus stop."
The car moved quietly around the corner and eased to the designated spot, directly across the street from the museum.
"Are we going back in there?" Massed asked nervously.
"Bet your ass we are," Giliamo barked. "You get out there and pass the word along."
Before Massed could react, two men ran quietly up to the vehicle. Giliamo lowered his window and thrust his head outside. One of the new arrivals breathlessly reported, "We just wanted to tell Sal that we found something. Over there." He pointed to the opposite side of the square. "A book store. The back door has been jimmied open. It could mean something."
"Awright, take some boys and check it out," Giliamo commanded.
The men jogged away. Masseri said, "Maybe I oughta go see what they got, Danno."
Nick Trigger chuckled coldly. "I think Sal is awful anxious to stay out of my little playhouse," he observed.
"As a matter of fact he is," Giliamo answered for his man. "And that goes for me double, but that don't cut any ice. You stick right here, Sal. We'll give Stevie a chance to check out that store, and then we're gonna be moving."
"Well, I don't like it either," Trigger growled, "but I guess not for the same reasons. There'll be too many people in there now. That means too many witnesses.
Besides that, we're messing up the sweetest little operation I ever walked into."
Gio Scaldicci turned toward the rear seat and asked, "How'd you ever get onto a creepy joint like that, Mr. Trigger?"
The London enforcer shrugged his shoulders. "You learn to use what's available, kid, and don't forget that. Don't ever forget that. That creepy joint as you call it has given our thing a clean sweep in this part of the world. I just hate to see it getting messed up, that's all. Especially over a crumb like this Bolan."
The four men sat in a strained silence for another long moment, all eyes glued to the building across the street. Presently a man approached from the other side on a dead run. He pulled up panting beside the vehicle and reported, "Stevie's found a tunnel! He wants to know should he go on through!"
"O' course he should go on through!" Giliamo snarled. "Tell 'im to goddammit be careful and remember who he's going against!"
The messenger sped back into the night.
Giliamo said, "Well, well."
Nick Trigger produced a revolver and swung out the cylinder to check the load. He sighed and clicked it into place and said, "I guess we better go in just the same, Danno."
Sal Masseri swung outside with a Thompson sub under one arm, then leaned back in for a word to his boss. "I'll bring the other boys over, Danno," he said tightly.
"Do that."
"Uh, listen Danno. Big Angelo was a good boy. Anybody can have any part of Bolan they want, but when we get 'im, I get the target practice on his nuts."
"Sure Sal, I know how you feel," Giliamo told him.
Massed walked off into the darkness, the Thompson cradled casually in his arms.
Nick Trigger opened his door and slid his feet to the ground, remaining seated in the open doorway, no longer concerned about the dome light. He said, "I've got a feeling."
"Me too," Giliamo replied. He opened his door and stepped onto the street, then paused to glare across the roof of the car toward the museum. "He's in there, I know it."
At that precise instant a door opened across the way, dull light spilled forth, and a solitary figure in black stalked out. He halted and framed himself momentarily in the lighted doorway, then he sent a burst of fire from an automatic weapon into the air, and immediately disappeared into the surrounding darkness in a diving leap. The Executioner was no longer "in there."
The driver of the Mafia vehicle gasped, "Well, dig that cool bastard!"
But he was talking to himself. Danno Giliamo had gone to ground behind the car and Nick Trigger was scrambling for cover inside. The automatic weapon chattered again, but not harmlessly into the air this time. The window glass of the big vehicle exploded in an inward shower and Gio Scaldicci's head underwent an explosion of its own, pieces of the skull flying into the rear seat amid bloodied bubbles of brain tissue, and what was left of Gio slumped forward onto the steering wheel. The horn began sounding in an endless wail and presided over the louder booms and staccatos of combat weapons as thunder and lightning enveloped the night outside Museum de Sade.
It had not been an act of mindless bravado that sent Mack Bolan through that lighted doorway. He was angry, yes, and disgusted right down to the shivering center of himself, but the combat specialist had known precisely what he was doing.
The idea was blitz, from the German word meaning lightning war, and the intent was to shock the enemy, disorganize them, perhaps demoralize them, and then destroy them. Bolan knew what he was doing, from the first harmless burst into the air to all that followed.
The lighted car directly opposite his position had been a godsend. Even though he had just come from a lighted environment and his night vision had not been given time to develop, he was of course aware of the men grouped in and about that lit vehicle, and it was a natural target. The second burst from the Uziwent in for maximum effect. He saw Gio Scaldicci's head fragment, he saw the big guy in the rear scrambling for the floorboards, and he saw Danno Giliamo rolling frantically across the square in search of darkness. But heavy fire was already coming back at him from various areas of that darkness, and Bolan wanted to see more.
His third burst was to reach the gas tank and to make frictional .sparks ignite the ready fuel into a bonfire. He was rewarded: the big car went up in a towering fireball and with an explosion that rocked the earth beneath his feet.
But since someone out there had a Thompson, Bolan was not standing still for the thundering sweeps of that big chopper. He moved out with the shock of the explosion, circling deep around the fire and trying to get behind the main force, in the hope of backdropping them against the roaring flames. Someone rose up right in his path, grunting with surprise and fear, and Bolan cut him down with the butt of the Vziwithout breaking stride. He was following the traffic circle now, running along the street and coming around in the general area of the bookshop, moving recklessly through the open. Darkness was nowhere in that square now, the yellow glare of flames licking about in a wavering illumination of the entire area. The whole enemy force was apparently converging on the burning auto, shooting at only God knew what, Bolan didn't, and shouting excited instructions back and forth in a pyramiding scence of confusion.
Bolan reached the position he sought and threw himself to the ground at the curb of the traffic circle. The horizon thus presented was a beautiful one, to a combat infantryman, with the enemy highlighted as well-defined shadows against a blazing background. He emptied three clips into those shadows, grouping carefully and conserving the flow of ammo through the chattering weapon, until suddenly there was nothing left to shoot at.
Bolan lay there for a moment, listening and looking and refueling the Uzi. Utter silence had descended, except for the whooshing of the flames of the burning car. Bolan arose, inviting fire but receiving none, then slowly advanced across the island inside the traffic circle. The dead and the dying were sprawled about, and the hated smell of blood was everywhere he walked.
Too easy, Bolan was thinking, much too easy.
He stepped around a groaning man and found the man with the Thompson submachinegun lying on his back directly opposite the flaming vehicle. The guy was alive, but not very, though he was conscious and still gripping the Thompson to his chest. Bolan kicked the heavy gun away and said, "What's your name?"
"Get fucked," the guy whispered, and coughed up a hemorrhage.
"Who did it to the old man inside?" Bolan asked.
"Get… fucked."
Bolan moved on, peering at faces, trying to spot Danno Giliamo. The burning car was still roaring furiously. The firenght had been incredibly brief. Only now was the first reaction coming from the people inside the museum. Bolan was aware of blinds being whisked back and of faces peering out from the ground level windows.
And then he became aware of something far more menacing. Through the open door of the museum had erupted three men, all armed, one of them carrying a shotgun. Bolan's Vziwas instinctively up and ready but he hesitated, unsure of the identity of the three. They were gaping about at the scene of incredible carnage with disbelief projecting all the way out to Bolan.
The frozen confrontation held for a split second that seemed much longer, then the man with the shotgun gasped, "It's Bolan!" and made a fatal move. The Vzichattered at the same instant that the shotgun boomed; the man fell back into the entrance hall, zipped from groin to gullet, and Bolan's burst became a blazing figure-eight that swept the other two off the porch. Nothing heavy reached Bolan, but hot little things had dug at his ribs at the moment of the big boom, and he knew that he had picked up some pellets.
He wheeled about and went quickly back the way he'd come. He had just about pushed his luck too far, and it was time to be moving on. The police would be showing up any minute, and there was a familiar warm stickiness under his arm. He crossed the square, went past the bookshop, and on some subconscious impulse paused at the entrance to the alleyway and was swinging the Vziabout when something moved back there in the darkness and a choked voice urged, "Hey shit, don't, I'm outta bullets."
Bolan had already dodged back to the corner of the building for cover. He growled, "Send the gun out first, then yourself, hands on head."
A pistol hit the cobblestones and slid into view, then a thickset man moved hesitantly out of the shadows and into the flickering light of the square.
Bolan jabbed the muzzle of the TJziinto the man's belly. The guy sucked in his breath and said, "Hey shit, it's hot. The barrel's hot, huh?"
Bolan withdrew the little chattergun and spun the man around, shook him down for weapons, then pushed him forward. "Start walking," he commanded. "Straight ahead."
"Where we going?"
"Depends," Bolan said. "Who are you?"
"I'm Stevie Carbon. I'm in Danno's crew, under Sal Masseri. Or I was."
"Are you all done living, Stevie?" Bolan asked in a conversational tone.
"No sir, I sure hope not," came the strained reply.
They moved swiftly to the corner. Bolan shoved the man down the street toward the Lincoln. "Okay, Stevie, just keep on walking. Nice and quick and don't look back."
"Where we going?" the man wanted to know.
"Maybe to hell." Bolan allowed the neckstrap to support the Uziwhile he probed his ribs with careful fingertips.
"Christ, can you tear things up in a hurry," the man declared, striving for a buddy-buddy tone. "I figure I got no arguments with a guy like you. I mean, nothing personal you know."
Bolan knew a surge of weariness—not of the flesh but of the soul. "That's the screwy part of this whole thing, Stevie," he said coldly. "There's nothing personal in any of it, is there? And then we run into an old man who's been tortured clear out of his body. And suddenly it gets very, very, personal."
The man stumbled, caught himself, and quickly raised his hands again to clutch the back of his head. "Uh, tell me straight out, Bolan. Are you gonna kill me or not?"
"That depends, Stevie."
"On what?"
"On what you can tell me."
"Look I don't know nothing, Bolan. Besides that, uh, I've taken the oath of silence. You know about that, huh."
"You can die with that oath then, Stevie, if that's the way you want it."
"You know I want to livewith it, Bolan. You know that."
They walked on in silence, Bolan two paces behind his prisoner. Police sounds rose up in the distance, and Bolan felt like this was where he'd come in. They reached the Lincoln. Tiredly, Bolan commanded "You drive."
"Where to?"
"Like I said, Stevie, maybe clear to hell."
They got into the car and the man said, "I'll talk to you, Bolan."
"Start the car, then you can start your mouth," Bolan told him.
Though he was cold as ice on the outside, Bolan was experiencing an inner glow which meant that things were definitely beginning to look up. He had himself a prisoner of war, and not just an ordinary POW, either.
Bolan had no idea who Stevie Carbon was, or had been… but he knew who he was not. He was not the man seated next to him.
The Executioner had grabbed off a caporegime.
His POW was none other than Danno Giliamo.
By way of greeting, Giliamo emitted a bored sigh and said, "I guess you was right, Nick. He ain't showed up here. Nothing on your end either, huh?"
"Nothing, hell," Trigger replied quietly. "We had plenty on my end. But you were right about that lucky bastard, he's as slippery as melted jello."
"You mean he got away again?" Giliamo replied in a dulled voice.
"Yeah, he got away."
"Well he ain't turned up here." Giliamo nervously tamped a cigarette against his fist then shoved it between his lips and lit it, his eyes weary and disturbed in the glow of the lighter. "So what happened?" he asked.
Trigger sniffed and settled deeper into the seat. "We had him bottled in a rock joint over by Soho Square." The massive shoulders raised and settled again in a tired shrug. "He busted out, that's all, got away clean.
And cops all over the God damned place, I mean crawling out of every hole."
Giliamo took a nervous pull at the cigarette and asked, "Okay, so what happened to my boys?"
"Six of your freelancers are dead," Trigger reported with a sigh. "Also Looney and Rocky got arrested. Don't worry, I'll have 'em sprung first thing in the morning."
Giliamo mouthed a string of half-audible obscenities, then said, "You see what I been up against, Nick?"
"Yeah." The London enforcer punched his elbows into the backrest with a loud sigh. "I don't see any sense in hanging around this neighborhood, Danno. Leave a couple of boys to keep an eye out, just to make sure, but I guess we might as well tuck it in for the night. Bolan isn't going to run from one setup right to another. Arnie Farmer and his army is due in first thing in the morning. We'll huddle with them and see what we can come up with."
"I was hoping to get it all over with before they showed up," Giliamo muttered. "Do you know this Arnie Farmer?"
"We met a couple of times," Nick Trigger replied heavily. "Do I get it right that you feel about this Capothe way I feel about him?"
"If you mean is he an uncomfortable so and so to be around, then we feel the same way, Nick, yeah you got it right."
"Then you might as well come out and say it. Arnie Farmer is a bastard, and I don't like him coming over here. I wish he'd stayed home."
"That's exactly right," the Jerseyite muttered. "And I wish to God we could've got Bolan before the other bastard showed up." His eyes flicked to the man in the driver's seat. "Nobody better not go repeating that, though. Right, Gio?"
Gio Scaldicci, the wheelman, swivelled about with a grin. "Right, Mr. Giliamo. I got ears that don't hear nothin' that's not spoken to 'em."
The two men in back settled into an uncomfortable silence, then Nick Trigger said, "Well, I'll ride back with you, Danno. Let's get out of here."
"We gotta wait, I got Sal out on the street makin' his rounds. Hell be back in a minute."
The three Mafiosisat through a protracted silence, then a front door opened and a fourth man hastily entered the car. This was Sal Masseri, one of Danno's crew leaders. In a choked voice, he announced, "We got three dead soldiers out there, Danno."
"What do you mean?" the New Jersey caporegimegrowled.
"I mean Willie Ears and Jack the Builder and Big Angelo are dead as hell, that's what I mean. No blood or nothing, they're just laying there dead. I think their necks are broke or something."
Giliamo was speechless. He gaped at his companion in the rear, then made a lunge for the door. Nick Trigger quietly restrained him and asked Masseri, "How long have those boys been dead, Sal?"
"I'd say no more'n ten or fifteen minutes. I went on around and warned the other boys. Nobody's seen nothing, though, Nick, not a damn thing."
"Ten or fifteen minutes," Trigger repeated musingly. "That means he could have hotted it straight over here and…"
Giliamo slid forward to the edge of the seat and craned his head for a tense inspection of the hulking outline of the museum, just around the square from their position. In an angered tone, he declared, "That cuts it! That bastard has found some way to get in and out of there without being seen. I'll bet he's in there right now." He tapped his driver on the shoulder and commanded, "Pull around there slow and quiet, Gio. Park in front of that bus stop."
The car moved quietly around the corner and eased to the designated spot, directly across the street from the museum.
"Are we going back in there?" Massed asked nervously.
"Bet your ass we are," Giliamo barked. "You get out there and pass the word along."
Before Massed could react, two men ran quietly up to the vehicle. Giliamo lowered his window and thrust his head outside. One of the new arrivals breathlessly reported, "We just wanted to tell Sal that we found something. Over there." He pointed to the opposite side of the square. "A book store. The back door has been jimmied open. It could mean something."
"Awright, take some boys and check it out," Giliamo commanded.
The men jogged away. Masseri said, "Maybe I oughta go see what they got, Danno."
Nick Trigger chuckled coldly. "I think Sal is awful anxious to stay out of my little playhouse," he observed.
"As a matter of fact he is," Giliamo answered for his man. "And that goes for me double, but that don't cut any ice. You stick right here, Sal. We'll give Stevie a chance to check out that store, and then we're gonna be moving."
"Well, I don't like it either," Trigger growled, "but I guess not for the same reasons. There'll be too many people in there now. That means too many witnesses.
Besides that, we're messing up the sweetest little operation I ever walked into."
Gio Scaldicci turned toward the rear seat and asked, "How'd you ever get onto a creepy joint like that, Mr. Trigger?"
The London enforcer shrugged his shoulders. "You learn to use what's available, kid, and don't forget that. Don't ever forget that. That creepy joint as you call it has given our thing a clean sweep in this part of the world. I just hate to see it getting messed up, that's all. Especially over a crumb like this Bolan."
The four men sat in a strained silence for another long moment, all eyes glued to the building across the street. Presently a man approached from the other side on a dead run. He pulled up panting beside the vehicle and reported, "Stevie's found a tunnel! He wants to know should he go on through!"
"O' course he should go on through!" Giliamo snarled. "Tell 'im to goddammit be careful and remember who he's going against!"
The messenger sped back into the night.
Giliamo said, "Well, well."
Nick Trigger produced a revolver and swung out the cylinder to check the load. He sighed and clicked it into place and said, "I guess we better go in just the same, Danno."
Sal Masseri swung outside with a Thompson sub under one arm, then leaned back in for a word to his boss. "I'll bring the other boys over, Danno," he said tightly.
"Do that."
"Uh, listen Danno. Big Angelo was a good boy. Anybody can have any part of Bolan they want, but when we get 'im, I get the target practice on his nuts."
"Sure Sal, I know how you feel," Giliamo told him.
Massed walked off into the darkness, the Thompson cradled casually in his arms.
Nick Trigger opened his door and slid his feet to the ground, remaining seated in the open doorway, no longer concerned about the dome light. He said, "I've got a feeling."
"Me too," Giliamo replied. He opened his door and stepped onto the street, then paused to glare across the roof of the car toward the museum. "He's in there, I know it."
At that precise instant a door opened across the way, dull light spilled forth, and a solitary figure in black stalked out. He halted and framed himself momentarily in the lighted doorway, then he sent a burst of fire from an automatic weapon into the air, and immediately disappeared into the surrounding darkness in a diving leap. The Executioner was no longer "in there."
The driver of the Mafia vehicle gasped, "Well, dig that cool bastard!"
But he was talking to himself. Danno Giliamo had gone to ground behind the car and Nick Trigger was scrambling for cover inside. The automatic weapon chattered again, but not harmlessly into the air this time. The window glass of the big vehicle exploded in an inward shower and Gio Scaldicci's head underwent an explosion of its own, pieces of the skull flying into the rear seat amid bloodied bubbles of brain tissue, and what was left of Gio slumped forward onto the steering wheel. The horn began sounding in an endless wail and presided over the louder booms and staccatos of combat weapons as thunder and lightning enveloped the night outside Museum de Sade.
It had not been an act of mindless bravado that sent Mack Bolan through that lighted doorway. He was angry, yes, and disgusted right down to the shivering center of himself, but the combat specialist had known precisely what he was doing.
The idea was blitz, from the German word meaning lightning war, and the intent was to shock the enemy, disorganize them, perhaps demoralize them, and then destroy them. Bolan knew what he was doing, from the first harmless burst into the air to all that followed.
The lighted car directly opposite his position had been a godsend. Even though he had just come from a lighted environment and his night vision had not been given time to develop, he was of course aware of the men grouped in and about that lit vehicle, and it was a natural target. The second burst from the Uziwent in for maximum effect. He saw Gio Scaldicci's head fragment, he saw the big guy in the rear scrambling for the floorboards, and he saw Danno Giliamo rolling frantically across the square in search of darkness. But heavy fire was already coming back at him from various areas of that darkness, and Bolan wanted to see more.
His third burst was to reach the gas tank and to make frictional .sparks ignite the ready fuel into a bonfire. He was rewarded: the big car went up in a towering fireball and with an explosion that rocked the earth beneath his feet.
But since someone out there had a Thompson, Bolan was not standing still for the thundering sweeps of that big chopper. He moved out with the shock of the explosion, circling deep around the fire and trying to get behind the main force, in the hope of backdropping them against the roaring flames. Someone rose up right in his path, grunting with surprise and fear, and Bolan cut him down with the butt of the Vziwithout breaking stride. He was following the traffic circle now, running along the street and coming around in the general area of the bookshop, moving recklessly through the open. Darkness was nowhere in that square now, the yellow glare of flames licking about in a wavering illumination of the entire area. The whole enemy force was apparently converging on the burning auto, shooting at only God knew what, Bolan didn't, and shouting excited instructions back and forth in a pyramiding scence of confusion.
Bolan reached the position he sought and threw himself to the ground at the curb of the traffic circle. The horizon thus presented was a beautiful one, to a combat infantryman, with the enemy highlighted as well-defined shadows against a blazing background. He emptied three clips into those shadows, grouping carefully and conserving the flow of ammo through the chattering weapon, until suddenly there was nothing left to shoot at.
Bolan lay there for a moment, listening and looking and refueling the Uzi. Utter silence had descended, except for the whooshing of the flames of the burning car. Bolan arose, inviting fire but receiving none, then slowly advanced across the island inside the traffic circle. The dead and the dying were sprawled about, and the hated smell of blood was everywhere he walked.
Too easy, Bolan was thinking, much too easy.
He stepped around a groaning man and found the man with the Thompson submachinegun lying on his back directly opposite the flaming vehicle. The guy was alive, but not very, though he was conscious and still gripping the Thompson to his chest. Bolan kicked the heavy gun away and said, "What's your name?"
"Get fucked," the guy whispered, and coughed up a hemorrhage.
"Who did it to the old man inside?" Bolan asked.
"Get… fucked."
Bolan moved on, peering at faces, trying to spot Danno Giliamo. The burning car was still roaring furiously. The firenght had been incredibly brief. Only now was the first reaction coming from the people inside the museum. Bolan was aware of blinds being whisked back and of faces peering out from the ground level windows.
And then he became aware of something far more menacing. Through the open door of the museum had erupted three men, all armed, one of them carrying a shotgun. Bolan's Vziwas instinctively up and ready but he hesitated, unsure of the identity of the three. They were gaping about at the scene of incredible carnage with disbelief projecting all the way out to Bolan.
The frozen confrontation held for a split second that seemed much longer, then the man with the shotgun gasped, "It's Bolan!" and made a fatal move. The Vzichattered at the same instant that the shotgun boomed; the man fell back into the entrance hall, zipped from groin to gullet, and Bolan's burst became a blazing figure-eight that swept the other two off the porch. Nothing heavy reached Bolan, but hot little things had dug at his ribs at the moment of the big boom, and he knew that he had picked up some pellets.
He wheeled about and went quickly back the way he'd come. He had just about pushed his luck too far, and it was time to be moving on. The police would be showing up any minute, and there was a familiar warm stickiness under his arm. He crossed the square, went past the bookshop, and on some subconscious impulse paused at the entrance to the alleyway and was swinging the Vziabout when something moved back there in the darkness and a choked voice urged, "Hey shit, don't, I'm outta bullets."
Bolan had already dodged back to the corner of the building for cover. He growled, "Send the gun out first, then yourself, hands on head."
A pistol hit the cobblestones and slid into view, then a thickset man moved hesitantly out of the shadows and into the flickering light of the square.
Bolan jabbed the muzzle of the TJziinto the man's belly. The guy sucked in his breath and said, "Hey shit, it's hot. The barrel's hot, huh?"
Bolan withdrew the little chattergun and spun the man around, shook him down for weapons, then pushed him forward. "Start walking," he commanded. "Straight ahead."
"Where we going?"
"Depends," Bolan said. "Who are you?"
"I'm Stevie Carbon. I'm in Danno's crew, under Sal Masseri. Or I was."
"Are you all done living, Stevie?" Bolan asked in a conversational tone.
"No sir, I sure hope not," came the strained reply.
They moved swiftly to the corner. Bolan shoved the man down the street toward the Lincoln. "Okay, Stevie, just keep on walking. Nice and quick and don't look back."
"Where we going?" the man wanted to know.
"Maybe to hell." Bolan allowed the neckstrap to support the Uziwhile he probed his ribs with careful fingertips.
"Christ, can you tear things up in a hurry," the man declared, striving for a buddy-buddy tone. "I figure I got no arguments with a guy like you. I mean, nothing personal you know."
Bolan knew a surge of weariness—not of the flesh but of the soul. "That's the screwy part of this whole thing, Stevie," he said coldly. "There's nothing personal in any of it, is there? And then we run into an old man who's been tortured clear out of his body. And suddenly it gets very, very, personal."
The man stumbled, caught himself, and quickly raised his hands again to clutch the back of his head. "Uh, tell me straight out, Bolan. Are you gonna kill me or not?"
"That depends, Stevie."
"On what?"
"On what you can tell me."
"Look I don't know nothing, Bolan. Besides that, uh, I've taken the oath of silence. You know about that, huh."
"You can die with that oath then, Stevie, if that's the way you want it."
"You know I want to livewith it, Bolan. You know that."
They walked on in silence, Bolan two paces behind his prisoner. Police sounds rose up in the distance, and Bolan felt like this was where he'd come in. They reached the Lincoln. Tiredly, Bolan commanded "You drive."
"Where to?"
"Like I said, Stevie, maybe clear to hell."
They got into the car and the man said, "I'll talk to you, Bolan."
"Start the car, then you can start your mouth," Bolan told him.
Though he was cold as ice on the outside, Bolan was experiencing an inner glow which meant that things were definitely beginning to look up. He had himself a prisoner of war, and not just an ordinary POW, either.
Bolan had no idea who Stevie Carbon was, or had been… but he knew who he was not. He was not the man seated next to him.
The Executioner had grabbed off a caporegime.
His POW was none other than Danno Giliamo.
Chapter Twelve
The interrogation
Nick Trigger, in all his years of gunbearing for the brotherhood, had never suffered such personal humiliation. He felt defeated, disgraced, and deeply dismayed at his own cowardly reaction to imminent death. He was alive, though. He kept telling himself that he was still alive, and that surely this counted for something. There was no profit for the family in a dead hero. When a guy saw how things were going, when he saw that nothing he could possibly do would change anything—then surely staying alive was more important than dying. Death was such a final damn thing—it never really seemed possible that a guy could actually cease to exist, not until he came face to face with death. Then he knew, yeah shit, boy, he really knew.
And what could he have done against that Bolan at a time like that? An act of God, that's what, had spared him from cremation in that damn car. He shivered violently in the mere remembrance of it. Another second, just one more second if he'd stayed with that car, and there'd be nothing left of Nick Trigger right now but a little pile of ashes. If he hadn't had sense enough to get the hell out of there when he did…
Nick was rationalizing his actions, and he was conveniently forgetting the fact that sheer revulsion, not combat sense, had driven him out of that car. Gio Scaldicci's blood and brains were all over the back seat and floor, and Nick had found himself lying face down in the mess. He had flung himself on through and out, and he'd been no more than ten feet away when the explosion came. Then he lay there stunned and half unconscious while Bolan chopped up Danno's hunting party. He had lain there also and watched the bastard in black walking quietly among the dead. He had heard him try to question Sal Massed, and still Nick had lain there, his gun no more than a couple of feet away from his outstretched hand, and he'd played dead, and he had even said a couple of prayers.
He hadn't moved a muscle until after Bolan had struck down Stevie Carbon and the two boys he'd taken through the tunnel with him. Then, as Bolan walked back across the square, Nick slithered away in the other direction. He hadn't gotten to his feet until he was completely clear of the square, and then he'd jumped up and started running… running!
He was appalled at himself, despite the rationalizations. Nick was beginning to understand, though, why Mack Bolan had remained so long alive against everything the brotherhood had thrown at him. He understood why Danno had seemed so awed of the guy, so willing to humble himself and ask for help from someone outside his own family. When that Bolan bastard made a hit, he didn't fool around with no light feints. He didn't just hit, he broke hell all around a guy. For Christ's sake, who wouldn't lose his head at a time like that?
Well, something had to be done about him. Some thing that hadn't been tried before maybe, some new wrinkle. They couldn't let that guy get away with that kind of shit. Until a few minutes ago, Bolan had been just a name to Nick, something to hit, just another name on a contract and another job and maybe another rung up the ladder of rank. That was all changed now. He had seen at first hand what Bolan could do.
Nick himself had brought death to more than a a hundred men, yet it had remained for a guy like Mack Bolan to introduce Death to Nick Trigger, to make it a personal experience that Nick Trigger could understand. He understood it now, all right, and he wanted more than anything else to share that understanding with Mack the Bastard Bolan. He would, too, he decided.
The luckiest part of the whole fiasco, for Nick, was that nobody else knew. Apparently only Nick had survived. Nobody would ever have to know that Nick Trigger had played dead and watched the bastard turn his back and walk away, nobody would have to know that Nick had even been there when it happened.
Yeah, that was the luckiest part of all. Or so Nick Trigger thought.
They were rolling slowly up Tottenham toward Regents Park, and the conversation was accomplishing very little in the way of intelligence. Giliamo was glibly avoiding direct answers to sensitive questions, playing his role of dumb street soldier to the very hilt. Bolan had decided to let him play… for awhile. They swung onto Marylebone and up to Park Road.
"Go in the park," Bolan directed.
"Into the park, Bolan?"
"That's what I said, Stevie."
They crossed over the tip of a lake moments later and Giliamo nervously asked, "What're we doing here?"
"That depends," Bolan told him. "There's an open air theatre straight ahead. I want you to stop there, Stevie."
The blood at Bolan's ribs had congealed, the wounds minimal, the pellets from the shotgun blast obviously having grazed the ribs and gone on. Still, there was some discomfort there and Bolan was finding his patience beginning to fray.
They pulled to a halt in the theatre circle. Bolan said, "Give me the keys and get out."
Giliamo did so, watching his captor narrowly as Bolan slid out from the other side.
"Over there," Bolan said, waggling the Uzi.
"Over where?"
"Up on the stage."
Giliamo stared at Bolan for a silent moment, then whirled about and trudged away with Bolan close behind. They climbed the steps to the stage, then Giliamo blurted, "Hey look, what the hell are we doing up here?"
"You like to act, Danno," Bolan quietly replied. "I thought I'd give you a stage."
The big man stiffened, then sagged noticeably. His voice was muffled with anger as he said, "If you knew who I was, why'd you let me keep it up?"
"Get out there at the center of the stage," Bolan commanded.
"You go to hell," Giliamo snarled. "If you're gonna kill me, do it right here."
Bolan rapped him across the face with the butt of the Vzi, not lightly. Giliamo staggered back, holding one hand to the injured jaw, and went where Bolan directed.
"Down on your knees," Bolan said.
The caporegimeglared at him, but did as he was told.
"Where do you want it?" Bolan asked, thrusting the Vziforward.
Giliamo choked on the words. "You know I don't want it anywheres, Bolan."
"You've been bullshitting me for ten full minutes, Danno. You can stop it now anytime you want. You can stop something else too, Danno."
"You know I can't. If I talk, and you don't kill me, then they'll just do it later on anyway. I'd rather just get it over with right here."
"Who's going to know you talked, Danno? Who's going to tell them?"
The Jerseyite was thinking about it. Presently, in an almost inaudible voice, he asked, "Just what is it you want to know?"
"Who did it to the old man?"
"You ast me that a dozen times already! And I still don't know what you're talkin' about!"
"The old man in the museum, Danno. Who tied him up like a turkey and shoved a hot iron under his back?"
"Shit, I don't know what you're talking about, Bolan, that's God's truth."
"Are you saying that you or none of your boys did it?"
"That's what I'm saying, whatever it is."
"You were in that museum, Danno."
"Sure. I was in there for about a minute. Me'n Nick, and Sal, and one other boy I can't think of his name right now. But we didn't do nothing to no old man."
"Who is Nick?"
"Nick Trigger, also known as Nick Endante. Maybe you heard of him. He used to work for DonManzacatti, way back when."
Bolan was becoming more and more satisfied with the tone of the interrogation. Giliamo was loosening up nicely. He said, "Yeah. So what is Nick Trigger doing in England?"
"He's enforcing."
"So what was he enforcing at that museum tonight?"
"Nick was my contact here, see. I come over about a week ago, while you was in France. Look, I didn't ask for the lousy job, Bolan. I never wanted it. I got nothing personal against you. But when the bosses say go, the Danno Giliamo goes. You gotta understand that."
"Yeah, I understand that, Danno. But about this Nick Trigger. How'd he get onto that thing at the museum?"
The prisoner was obviously working towards a decision, a very important one to him. Life and death hung in the balance, and his soul was sweating. He grimaced and said, "You're putting me on one hell of a spot, you know that."
Bolan shrugged his shoulders. "It's just between you and me, Danno. But you better make up your mind. I'm not standing out here all night."
"How do I know you're not going to execute me anyway?"
Bolan shrugged again. "I guess that's just the chance you have to take, Danno. But for what it's worth, I don't kill my friends. Not even temporary ones."
Giliamo took a deep breath and said, "Okay. What was it you ast me?"
"I want to know the connection between Nick Trigger and that museum back there."
"Well, like I said, he's enforcing. He's got some hooks into the guys that run that place. I don't know what exactly. They're a bunch of queers or something I think, and Nick's got it into them over that I guess."
"Okay, so how did he know to look for me there?"
"Honest to God, Bolan, I don't know. Nick isn't— wasn't, I guess he's a toasted weenie right now—he wasn't the most talkative boy around. He called me up the other night and told me to look for you at Dover.
He even gave me the name of the boat and the time and everything. Then after we lost you down there, he told me to look for you at that joint, that museum up there. That's all I know about it."
"But you guess he had a pipeline, eh?"
"Yeah, it sure looks like it."
"Okay, now about tonight. You said you were inside the museum. When was that?"
"That was about ten thirty, maybe a quarter 'til eleven. But we didn't see no old man. There was just this uppity little prick, talked with a fancy English accent. We spent most of our time just getting up there where he was at, hadda tramp through all those queer rooms. They got some sick stuff in that joint, Bolan. Or I guess you know about that."
Bolan said, "Yeah." His jaw had stiffened and his mouth was suddenly quite dry. "What about those little rooms on the second floor? What was in them?"
"Buncha fuckin' torture stuff, you know what."
"No people?"
"No people 'cept us. What're you getting at?"
"This little guy," Bolan said. "About five-six or seven? Stiff as a ramrod?"
"Yeah, that's the guy. Talked to us like we were dirt, and him queer as a three dollar bill I guess. I felt like sluggin 'im."
"What'd you talk to him about?"
"Not me, it was Nick. They went off to themselves and parleyed about something. Just took a minute, then we left. Nick—"
"Who else did you see in there, besides this little guy?"
"There was a lotta people down in that cunt room, you know, kids. Getting ready for a party or something, I guess."
"Okay, go on with what you were saying about Nick."
"What was that?"
"You left. Then Nick did something."
"Oh. Well, Nick sat out in the car with us 'til this guy came out, about ten minutes later. Then they took off together."
"Whotook off together?"
"Nick and this queer little prick. They took off together. Few minutes later the other queers started draggin' in. In fancy limousines, some of 'em. Cars dropped 'em off and went on. I never went back inside after that."
Thoughtfully, Bolan said, "But there were three boys inside during the firefight. They came out and threw down on me."
"Well, that was something else all over again. Those boys found a tunnel or something, just before the fight started. We figured that was your way in and out, and we found your callin' cards—the three boys with the broken necks or whatever. Those boys went in under the ground to smoke you out, Bolan. That's all I know about that."
"I think you're giving it to me straight, Danno," Bolan said quietly.
"I am."
"Okay, just one more thing. Where's the family headquarters in this town?"
"Aw shit, I just can't give you that, Bolan. That's too much, I could never live with myself."
Bolan watched him for a moment, then said, "Okay, I guess you're right. Get going, Danno."
"You're letting me go?"
"A deal's a deal. Goodbye, Danno."
"You're not, uh, going to shoot me in the back, Bolan."
"You know better." Bolan removed the clip from the Uziand jammed it into his pouch. "Just go on."
The caporegimecould hardly believe his good luck. He struggled to his feet and said, "I ain't really told you anything to be ashamed of."
"You bet you haven't," Bolan assured him.
"Uh, look Bolan. You're not all that rotten. I mean, no offense, I didn't mean it that way. I just mean I wish you'd been with us all along, instead of against us."
"War is like that, Danno," Bolan said tiredly. "Now go on. Next time we meet, one of us will probably come out of it dead."
And what could he have done against that Bolan at a time like that? An act of God, that's what, had spared him from cremation in that damn car. He shivered violently in the mere remembrance of it. Another second, just one more second if he'd stayed with that car, and there'd be nothing left of Nick Trigger right now but a little pile of ashes. If he hadn't had sense enough to get the hell out of there when he did…
Nick was rationalizing his actions, and he was conveniently forgetting the fact that sheer revulsion, not combat sense, had driven him out of that car. Gio Scaldicci's blood and brains were all over the back seat and floor, and Nick had found himself lying face down in the mess. He had flung himself on through and out, and he'd been no more than ten feet away when the explosion came. Then he lay there stunned and half unconscious while Bolan chopped up Danno's hunting party. He had lain there also and watched the bastard in black walking quietly among the dead. He had heard him try to question Sal Massed, and still Nick had lain there, his gun no more than a couple of feet away from his outstretched hand, and he'd played dead, and he had even said a couple of prayers.
He hadn't moved a muscle until after Bolan had struck down Stevie Carbon and the two boys he'd taken through the tunnel with him. Then, as Bolan walked back across the square, Nick slithered away in the other direction. He hadn't gotten to his feet until he was completely clear of the square, and then he'd jumped up and started running… running!
He was appalled at himself, despite the rationalizations. Nick was beginning to understand, though, why Mack Bolan had remained so long alive against everything the brotherhood had thrown at him. He understood why Danno had seemed so awed of the guy, so willing to humble himself and ask for help from someone outside his own family. When that Bolan bastard made a hit, he didn't fool around with no light feints. He didn't just hit, he broke hell all around a guy. For Christ's sake, who wouldn't lose his head at a time like that?
Well, something had to be done about him. Some thing that hadn't been tried before maybe, some new wrinkle. They couldn't let that guy get away with that kind of shit. Until a few minutes ago, Bolan had been just a name to Nick, something to hit, just another name on a contract and another job and maybe another rung up the ladder of rank. That was all changed now. He had seen at first hand what Bolan could do.
Nick himself had brought death to more than a a hundred men, yet it had remained for a guy like Mack Bolan to introduce Death to Nick Trigger, to make it a personal experience that Nick Trigger could understand. He understood it now, all right, and he wanted more than anything else to share that understanding with Mack the Bastard Bolan. He would, too, he decided.
The luckiest part of the whole fiasco, for Nick, was that nobody else knew. Apparently only Nick had survived. Nobody would ever have to know that Nick Trigger had played dead and watched the bastard turn his back and walk away, nobody would have to know that Nick had even been there when it happened.
Yeah, that was the luckiest part of all. Or so Nick Trigger thought.
They were rolling slowly up Tottenham toward Regents Park, and the conversation was accomplishing very little in the way of intelligence. Giliamo was glibly avoiding direct answers to sensitive questions, playing his role of dumb street soldier to the very hilt. Bolan had decided to let him play… for awhile. They swung onto Marylebone and up to Park Road.
"Go in the park," Bolan directed.
"Into the park, Bolan?"
"That's what I said, Stevie."
They crossed over the tip of a lake moments later and Giliamo nervously asked, "What're we doing here?"
"That depends," Bolan told him. "There's an open air theatre straight ahead. I want you to stop there, Stevie."
The blood at Bolan's ribs had congealed, the wounds minimal, the pellets from the shotgun blast obviously having grazed the ribs and gone on. Still, there was some discomfort there and Bolan was finding his patience beginning to fray.
They pulled to a halt in the theatre circle. Bolan said, "Give me the keys and get out."
Giliamo did so, watching his captor narrowly as Bolan slid out from the other side.
"Over there," Bolan said, waggling the Uzi.
"Over where?"
"Up on the stage."
Giliamo stared at Bolan for a silent moment, then whirled about and trudged away with Bolan close behind. They climbed the steps to the stage, then Giliamo blurted, "Hey look, what the hell are we doing up here?"
"You like to act, Danno," Bolan quietly replied. "I thought I'd give you a stage."
The big man stiffened, then sagged noticeably. His voice was muffled with anger as he said, "If you knew who I was, why'd you let me keep it up?"
"Get out there at the center of the stage," Bolan commanded.
"You go to hell," Giliamo snarled. "If you're gonna kill me, do it right here."
Bolan rapped him across the face with the butt of the Vzi, not lightly. Giliamo staggered back, holding one hand to the injured jaw, and went where Bolan directed.
"Down on your knees," Bolan said.
The caporegimeglared at him, but did as he was told.
"Where do you want it?" Bolan asked, thrusting the Vziforward.
Giliamo choked on the words. "You know I don't want it anywheres, Bolan."
"You've been bullshitting me for ten full minutes, Danno. You can stop it now anytime you want. You can stop something else too, Danno."
"You know I can't. If I talk, and you don't kill me, then they'll just do it later on anyway. I'd rather just get it over with right here."
"Who's going to know you talked, Danno? Who's going to tell them?"
The Jerseyite was thinking about it. Presently, in an almost inaudible voice, he asked, "Just what is it you want to know?"
"Who did it to the old man?"
"You ast me that a dozen times already! And I still don't know what you're talkin' about!"
"The old man in the museum, Danno. Who tied him up like a turkey and shoved a hot iron under his back?"
"Shit, I don't know what you're talking about, Bolan, that's God's truth."
"Are you saying that you or none of your boys did it?"
"That's what I'm saying, whatever it is."
"You were in that museum, Danno."
"Sure. I was in there for about a minute. Me'n Nick, and Sal, and one other boy I can't think of his name right now. But we didn't do nothing to no old man."
"Who is Nick?"
"Nick Trigger, also known as Nick Endante. Maybe you heard of him. He used to work for DonManzacatti, way back when."
Bolan was becoming more and more satisfied with the tone of the interrogation. Giliamo was loosening up nicely. He said, "Yeah. So what is Nick Trigger doing in England?"
"He's enforcing."
"So what was he enforcing at that museum tonight?"
"Nick was my contact here, see. I come over about a week ago, while you was in France. Look, I didn't ask for the lousy job, Bolan. I never wanted it. I got nothing personal against you. But when the bosses say go, the Danno Giliamo goes. You gotta understand that."
"Yeah, I understand that, Danno. But about this Nick Trigger. How'd he get onto that thing at the museum?"
The prisoner was obviously working towards a decision, a very important one to him. Life and death hung in the balance, and his soul was sweating. He grimaced and said, "You're putting me on one hell of a spot, you know that."
Bolan shrugged his shoulders. "It's just between you and me, Danno. But you better make up your mind. I'm not standing out here all night."
"How do I know you're not going to execute me anyway?"
Bolan shrugged again. "I guess that's just the chance you have to take, Danno. But for what it's worth, I don't kill my friends. Not even temporary ones."
Giliamo took a deep breath and said, "Okay. What was it you ast me?"
"I want to know the connection between Nick Trigger and that museum back there."
"Well, like I said, he's enforcing. He's got some hooks into the guys that run that place. I don't know what exactly. They're a bunch of queers or something I think, and Nick's got it into them over that I guess."
"Okay, so how did he know to look for me there?"
"Honest to God, Bolan, I don't know. Nick isn't— wasn't, I guess he's a toasted weenie right now—he wasn't the most talkative boy around. He called me up the other night and told me to look for you at Dover.
He even gave me the name of the boat and the time and everything. Then after we lost you down there, he told me to look for you at that joint, that museum up there. That's all I know about it."
"But you guess he had a pipeline, eh?"
"Yeah, it sure looks like it."
"Okay, now about tonight. You said you were inside the museum. When was that?"
"That was about ten thirty, maybe a quarter 'til eleven. But we didn't see no old man. There was just this uppity little prick, talked with a fancy English accent. We spent most of our time just getting up there where he was at, hadda tramp through all those queer rooms. They got some sick stuff in that joint, Bolan. Or I guess you know about that."
Bolan said, "Yeah." His jaw had stiffened and his mouth was suddenly quite dry. "What about those little rooms on the second floor? What was in them?"
"Buncha fuckin' torture stuff, you know what."
"No people?"
"No people 'cept us. What're you getting at?"
"This little guy," Bolan said. "About five-six or seven? Stiff as a ramrod?"
"Yeah, that's the guy. Talked to us like we were dirt, and him queer as a three dollar bill I guess. I felt like sluggin 'im."
"What'd you talk to him about?"
"Not me, it was Nick. They went off to themselves and parleyed about something. Just took a minute, then we left. Nick—"
"Who else did you see in there, besides this little guy?"
"There was a lotta people down in that cunt room, you know, kids. Getting ready for a party or something, I guess."
"Okay, go on with what you were saying about Nick."
"What was that?"
"You left. Then Nick did something."
"Oh. Well, Nick sat out in the car with us 'til this guy came out, about ten minutes later. Then they took off together."
"Whotook off together?"
"Nick and this queer little prick. They took off together. Few minutes later the other queers started draggin' in. In fancy limousines, some of 'em. Cars dropped 'em off and went on. I never went back inside after that."
Thoughtfully, Bolan said, "But there were three boys inside during the firefight. They came out and threw down on me."
"Well, that was something else all over again. Those boys found a tunnel or something, just before the fight started. We figured that was your way in and out, and we found your callin' cards—the three boys with the broken necks or whatever. Those boys went in under the ground to smoke you out, Bolan. That's all I know about that."
"I think you're giving it to me straight, Danno," Bolan said quietly.
"I am."
"Okay, just one more thing. Where's the family headquarters in this town?"
"Aw shit, I just can't give you that, Bolan. That's too much, I could never live with myself."
Bolan watched him for a moment, then said, "Okay, I guess you're right. Get going, Danno."
"You're letting me go?"
"A deal's a deal. Goodbye, Danno."
"You're not, uh, going to shoot me in the back, Bolan."
"You know better." Bolan removed the clip from the Uziand jammed it into his pouch. "Just go on."
The caporegimecould hardly believe his good luck. He struggled to his feet and said, "I ain't really told you anything to be ashamed of."
"You bet you haven't," Bolan assured him.
"Uh, look Bolan. You're not all that rotten. I mean, no offense, I didn't mean it that way. I just mean I wish you'd been with us all along, instead of against us."
"War is like that, Danno," Bolan said tiredly. "Now go on. Next time we meet, one of us will probably come out of it dead."