Panic in Philly Read online

  Panic in Philly

  The Executioner, Book Fifteen

  Don Pendleton

  For Jim Schmidt of Michigan,

  Frank Marrone of California,

  Alberta Simmons of New Jersey,

  Eugene and Rosemarie Harney of Indiana—

  and for the countless others who know

  that their names belong here—

  MB sends his thanks.

  dp

  Man’s capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little has been tried.

  —Thoreau

  So maybe I can’t win this lousy war. But I’m going to give it one hell of a try.

  —Mack Bolan, THE EXECUTIONER

  OFFICIAL POLICE BUSINESS

  **RESTRICTED COMMUNIQUE**

  SCRAMBLE CIRCUIT AUTHY #SD105

  FROM SAN DIEGO PD 120915L

  TO H BROGNOLA/USDOJ/WASHDC

  **IMMEDIATE ATTN**

  BT

  M BOLAN CONTACT REPORT AND

  MOVEMENT ADVISORY.

  SUBJECT BELIEVED TO HAVE

  COMMENCED OPERATIONS THIS CITY

  EARLY 9TH. ENGAGED LOCAL ARM

  OF OLD DIGEORGE FAMILY WITH

  STANDARD RESULT, SAME DEAD OR

  DISBANDED AND IN FLIGHT. FULL

  DETAILS FOLLOW VIA OFFICIAL MAIL.

  SUBJECT APPARENTLY DEPARTED

  SO/CAL AREA THIS DATE, BELIEVED

  HEADED EASTERN US.

  BT

  TATUM SDPD SENDS

  EOM

  UNIFORM CRIME NETWORK—

  US/DOJ—ADVISORY SPECIAL

  CON/US ALERT***ALL LEA EASTERN

  SEABOARD STATES***ALERT

  121252L

  BT

  SUBJECT MACK BOLAN AKA THE

  EXECUTIONER LAST SURFACED AT

  SAN DIEGO NOW BELIEVED HEADED

  US EASTERN SEABD.

  MODUS OPERANDI NOTED AT SAN

  DIEGO APPEARS SIGNIFICANTLY

  ALTERED FROM PREVIOUS CAMPAIGNS

  BUT PERHAPS ATTRIBUTABLE

  TO PERSONAL REASONS FOR SDIEGO

  VISIT. EASTERN LEA URGED

  INCREASED VIGILANCE, ESPECIALLY DC

  NY PHILA AREAS WHERE CONSIDERABLE

  UNDERWORLD UNREST COULD ACT

  AS MAGNET FOR RENEWED

  EXECUTIONER WAR OF SURPASSING

  FEROCITY.

  **SPECIAL NOTE**

  SINCE WASHINGTON HIT INFORMANTS

  REPORT HEIGHTENED AGITATION

  UPPER ECHELONS ORGCRIMEWORLD

  WITH FIRM RESOLVE TO END BOLAN

  MENACE ONCE AND FOR ALL. SHOULD

  SUBJECT SURFACE ANYWHERE IN

  NORTHEAST US IT IS FELT THAT

  SPECIALLY ACTIVATED ENFORCER

  GROUPS WILL BE AWAITING HIM. LEA

  THESE AREAS URGED EXTRAORDINARY

  VIGILANCE FOR QUICK REACTION

  FIRST SIGN OF EXECUTIONER PRESENCE

  AS NEW WAR COULD EXCEED

  ANYTHING PREVIOUSLY EXPERIENCED

  THIS SUBJECT.

  **SPECIAL ADVICE**

  PAST EXPERIENCE THIS SUBJECT

  INDICATES MOST EFFECTIVE LEA

  RESPONSE TO BOLAN OPERATIONS

  LIES IN ISOLATION OF LOCAL

  ORGCRIMEWORLD FIGURES. SUGGEST

  ROUNDUP AND ARREST FIRST SIGN

  OF BOLAN ACTIVITIES IN AREA.

  **SPECIAL REQUEST**

  PLEASE NOTIFY SENDER IMMEDIATELY

  ANY CONTACT OR SUSPECTED

  ACTIVITY THIS SUBJECT. USE

  RESTRICTED COMMUNIQUE, SCRAMBLE

  CIRCUIT AUTHORITY NO 105.

  BT

  BROGNOLA USDOJ SENDS

  SPECIAL REPEAT BACKGROUND

  ADVISORY FOLLOWS

  EOM

  REPEATING FOR INFO UNIFORM

  CRIME NETWORK—US/DOJ—ADVISORY

  SPECIAL

  SUBJECT

  MACK BOLAN, ALSO KNOWN AS “THE

  EXECUTIONER.” OPERATES ALSO

  UNDER VARIOUS COVER NAMES,

  USUALLY OF ITALIAN OR SICILIAN

  ORIGIN. AMERICAN CAUCASIAN, AGE

  30/35 HEIGHT 75 INCHES WEIGHT ABOUT

  200. COLOR OF HAIR VARIES,

  NORMALLY DARK. EYES BLUE, USUALLY

  DESCRIBED AS ICY, PENETRATING,

  OBVIOUSLY HIGHLY DEVELOPED NIGHT

  VISION. SOMETIMES AFFECTS

  COSTUME OF BLACK COMBAT GARB,

  COMMANDO STYLE, BUT ALSO KNOWN

  TO WEAR VARIOUS INNOCUOUS

  OUTFITS IN SUBTLE APPLICATIONS

  OF “ROLE CAMOUFLAGE.”

  CHARACTERISTICS

  HAS AVOWED UNENDING WARFARE

  AGAINST ALL ELEMENTS OF

  ORGCRIMEWORLD AND FELLOW

  TRAVELERS EVERYWHERE. BY

  CONSERVATIVE ESTIMATES, HAS SLAIN

  MORE THAN 1,000 UNDERWORLD

  FIGURES. COMBAT VETERAN OF

  VIETNAM, HIGHLY SKILLED SPECIALIST

  IN “DESTRUCT MISSIONS” AGAINST

  ENEMY STRONGHOLDS. RECEIVED

  NICKNAME “THE EXECUTIONER” IN

  VIETNAM, THIS REGARD. CONSIDERED

  BY MILITARY COMMANDERS AS

  HIGHLY ADEPT AT PENETRATION/

  INTELLIGENCE TECHNIQUES. MILITARY

  TACTICIAN AND STRATEGIST OF

  HIGHEST ORDER, GUERRILA WARFARE

  EXPERT, WEAPONS EXPERT,

  PHENOMENAL MARKSMAN. HAS BEEN

  KNOWN TO ALSO USE HEAVY COMBAT

  WEAPONS SUCH AS MORTAR,

  BAZOOKA, DEMOLITION DEVICES.

  CUSTOMARILY WEARS 9MM BERETTA

  BRIGADIER EQUIPPED WITH SILENCER

  ALSO 44 CALIBRE AUTOLOADING

  MAGNUM, IMPRESSIVE FIREPOWER BOTH

  WEAPONS.

  **CAUTION** SUBJECT IS EXTREMELY

  QUICK IN MILITARY STYLE STRIKE

  TECHNIQUES WITH EXPLOSIVE-

  REACTION COMBAT INSTINCTS.

  NON-UNIFORMED OFFICERS ADVISED

  NOT REPEAT NOT ATTEMPT GUNPOINT

  ARREST BUT SHOOT ON SIGHT, TO KILL.

  **SPECIAL INFO**

  SUBJECT IS IN CONTINUAL “STATE

  OF WAR” AND SHOULD BE CONSIDERED

  HIGHLY DANGEROUS. ALL LEA URGED

  EXERCISE EXTREME CAUTION. DO

  NOT ATTEMPT MAN-TO-MAN ARREST.

  SUBJECT APPEARS TO AVOID POLICE

  CONFRONTATION AND IS NOT KNOWN

  TO HAVE FIRED UPON LEA. SUBJECT

  IS DESPERATELY DEFENSIVE, HOWEVER

  IN CONSTANT JEOPARDY VIA

  VARIOUS DETERMINED UNDERWORLD

  ELEMENTS. RUMORED “OPEN

  CONTRACT” IN AMOUNTS EXCEEDING

  100-THOUSDOLS ATTRACTS CONSTANT

  ATTENTION EVER-INCREASING

  FREELANCE GUNMEN. SUBJECT IS

  THEREFORE UNDER CONTINUAL

  DURESS AND IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS

  TO APPROACH. VARIOUS REGIONAL

  LEA HAVE UNOFFICIALLY AUTHORIZED

  “EXTREME PRECAUTION APPREHENSION

  —SHOOT ON SIGHT, TO KILL!”

  **BACKGROUND INFO**

  HOMETOWN FRIENDS, TEACHERS, GI

  COMPANIONS, ETC DESCRIBE SUBJECT

  AS MILD-MANNERED, COURTEOUS,

  LIKABLE, WELL-ADJUSTED. WELSH-

  POLISH EXTRACTION, ELDEST OF THREE

  CHILDREN. MOTHER FATHER SISTER

  VICTIMS OF VIOLENT DEATH WHILE

  SUBJECT SERVING VIETNAM THEATRE.

  SUBJECT GRANTED EMERGENCY

  FURLOUGH BURY FAMILY AND ARRANGE

  CARE OF ORPHANED YOUNGER

  BROTHER. “HOMEFRONT WAR” BEGAN

  DURING THIS PERIOD, OBVIOUSLY
IN

  REACTION TO FAMILY TRAGEDY.

  FOLLOWING VICTORY OVER

  HOMETOWN ORGCRIME ELEMENTS

  SUBJECT PURSUED SUCCESSIVE

  CAMPAIGNS IN LOSANGS, PALM SPGS,

  PHOENIX, MIAMI, FRANCE, ENGLAND,

  NYC, CHI, LASVEG, PUERTO RICO,

  SANFRAN, BOSTON, DC. UNOFFICIAL

  POLICE SYMPATHY SUSPECTED VARIOUS

  QUARTERS LEA, RECOMMEND

  INDOCTRINATION PROGRAMS

  EMPHASIZING PUBLIC MENACE ASPECTS

  OF SUBJECTS ILLEGAL CRUSADE.

  RUMORS ABSOLUTELY UNFOUNDED

  REPEAT UNFOUNDED AND UNTRUE

  THAT VARIOUS FEDERAL AGENCIES ARE

  SUPPORTING SUBJECTS PRIVATE WAR.

  **FORWARD LOOK**

  EXCEPT FOR UNUSUAL FEINT AT ENEMY

  IN SAN DIEGO, BOLAN HAS EXHIBITED

  EXTREMELY LOW PROFILE SINCE

  WASHDC CAMPAIGN, BELIEVED

  PLANNING MASSIVE STRIKE NEAST

  US REGION. UNUSUAL MOVEMENTS

  ALSO NOTED ORGCRIMEWORLD

  THIS REGION SUGGESTING MASSIVE

  COUNTERBLOW RECEPTION FOR

  EXPECTED BOLAN HIT. ALL LEA

  CAUTIONS AND VIG STRONGLY URGED.

  BT

  BROGNOLA-US/DOJ SENDS

  EOM

  Chapter 1/ The Announcement

  Panic came to Philadelphia on a cool Spring morning and its name was Death—purposeful, clad in black as a symbol of utter finality, moving swiftly in its inevitability.

  It stepped silently into the rear office of Cappy’s Liberty Garage and gave the five men in there a stricken moment to see what had come for them.

  Al the Mouth DiLucci was the first to unglue himself from that frozen confrontation. He yelled, “Jesus, it’s—” and spun away from the stacks of money which were being counted at the battered wooden desk.

  The furious chatter of a light automatic pistol cut short the final declaration of Al the Mouth, the hot little missiles from its blazing muzzle forming a shattered-flesh wreath upon his neck and shoulders as he spun into eternity.

  The other four targets were lunging about in scattered patterns of flight, two of them making electrified stabs toward their own weapons.

  The chatter-gun tracked onto Iron Mike Cappolini and shredded the elbow of his gun arm just as his revolver was clearing leather. The .38 kept moving, flying from the grasp of suddenly nerveless fingers to shatter the painted glass wall of the office. Meanwhile the firetrack of death swept on, seeking and finding vital matter. Iron Mike’s throat exploded in twin crimson geysers; the big guy twisted to his knees and flopped face down into his own blood.

  Jack the Bartender Avanti managed to jerk off two panicky shots toward that furiously blazing muzzle of death as he sprinted for the rear door. Then Death overtook him and pummeled him into a twisting, sliding heap at the back wall.

  Collectors John Brunelli and Ham Magliocci, noted and feared throughout South Philly for their uninhibited pursuit of payday loan “vigorish,” received their final collections as they scampered for cover behind the wooden desk stacked with the fruits of their toil. Brunelli’s outflung arm raked the desk clean as he oozed across it; the collectors and the collected shared a common heap within the pool of blood that quickly marked the end of vigorish.

  Death had “come fearful quick” to Cappy’s Liberty Garage—so quickly, in fact, that a mechanic and a customer standing just beyond that shattered glass wall were still frozen into shocked statues when the chattering knell ceased and quiet descended.

  Gawking at the carnage through the broken wall, both men reacted with swiftly raising hands as the tall figure in executioner black turned calm attention upon them.

  These two would later aver that the sight of Death Alive and Looking was even more unnerving than the sudden presence of Death Eternal Still. It was clad in black tight-fitting combat garb—belts crisscrossing the chest, another encircling the waist, “guns and stuff hanging from them,” the machine pistol suspended from a cord about the shoulders, eyes of bluest ice regarding them from an expressionless face of chiseled steel.

  The muzzle of the chatter-gun dropped. The tall man’s hand moved in an almost imperceptible flick of motion. A small metallic object flew through the shattered wall and clattered to the cement floor at the men’s feet.

  “That’s for Don Stefano,” a cool voice informed them. “Tell him. It’s over. Tell him.”

  And then the tall apparition in black was gone, fading quickly into the shadows at the rear wall.

  Perhaps ten seconds had elapsed since the first rattling burst of automatic weapons fire.

  The two spectators to the awesome event did not move until they heard the door open and close; then the customer took a staggering step backwards and exclaimed in an awed whisper, “Christ—did you see that guy!”

  The mechanic knelt to extend a shaking hand toward the metallic object on the floor. He picked it up, examined it, and released a hissing sigh.

  “Yeah. That’s what it is,” he declared with a quiet rush of breath.

  “What? What is it?”

  “A marksman’s medal. The Brotherly Love Outfit is in for it now.”

  “You saying that was Mack Bolan, the guy they call the Executioner?” the other man said, awed. He bent forward for a closer look at the medal. “You saying this place is a Mafia front?”

  “It was,” the mechanic replied quietly, peering toward Death in the next room. “But … like the guy said … it’s over now.”

  Not quite.

  Mack Bolan knew better.

  The Panic in Philly had only just begun.

  POLICE BUSINESS

  **RESTRICTED COMMUNIQUE**

  SCRAMBLE CIRCUIT AUTHY #PH105

  FROM PHILA PD 141025L

  TO H BROGNOLA/USDOJ/WASHDC

  **URGENT**

  BT

  BOLAN STRUCK THIS CITY APPROX 0900

  THIS DATE. MACHINE-GUNNED LOAN

  RACKETEER MICHAEL J CAPPOLINI

  AND FOUR UNDERLINGS. LOCAL

  INFORMANTS REPORT MASSIVE

  MOVEMENTS ORGCRIME TRIGGERMEN.

  REQUEST ALL FEDERAL ASSISTANCE

  POSSIBLE.

  BT

  DOUGHERTY PHILA SENDS

  EOM

  Chapter 2/ Gradigghia

  In a western Massachusetts city several hundred miles removed from the developments at Philadelphia, the number two man in that city’s local Mafia arm paced restlessly about his modest headquarters in a downtown office building.

  He was a handsome man in his early thirties, medium height and build, with darkly glinting eyes which could switch in a flash from affable warmth to frosty speculation.

  His name was Turrin; sometimes he was referred to but never directly addressed as Leo the Pussy.

  Leo Turrin was a blood nephew of the late Sergio Frenchi, the boss of Western Massachusetts until his organization committed the blunder of the century—it was the Frenchi “family” which had figured in the birth of Mack Bolan’s home-front war against the mob.

  Uncle Sergio had died during that initial skirmish and his family had fallen into almost total disarray. Leo the Pussy had proved a strong rallying point for the reconstitution of that vital Mafia arm and he had risen considerably in stature in the new organization.

  Like Bolan, Turrin was a Vietnam veteran. Prior to his army service, he had resisted the tantalizing pull of Uncle Sergio and his assurances of easy money and practically unlimited power. Though he had grown up in its shadow, Leo had forever despised the Mafia and all that it stood for. With Vietnam behind him, however—and a resultant new maturity—Turrin “came in” with the Frenchi family, but he brought the entire federal government in with him.

  That “penetration” had developed into the most successful undercover police operation ever attempted against the mob. With his favored position as blood relative to the aging Capo, Turrin’s rise to importance in the Pittsfield arm was almost au
tomatic. He had balanced upon the edge of that knife for more than five years, had become a Caporegime under Frenchi, and was beginning to attain national stature when Bolan the Bold came along.

  The blitz artist had hit Uncle Sergio’s little kingdom with thunder and lightning, damn near dislodging Turrin himself in the process. Only the last-minute revelation of Turrin’s true role had saved him from Bolan’s vengeance. From the rubble, though, the undercover cop had built for himself an even stronger position and considerable prestige in the national reaches of the syndicate.

  He had also salvaged from those ruins the beginning of a great, if terribly hazardous, friendship with Mack Bolan.

  Turrin personally considered himself as neither fish nor fowl. His active friendship with Bolan presented no conflict of duties in his own mind. He was a cop … but not really. He was a Mafioso … but not really. The only real thing he had found during five years of carefully manufactured deceit was the continuing relationship with the man whom both the law and the mob considered public enemy number one. To Turrin’s mind, Mack Bolan was the greatest human being alive. He wasn’t perfect, no—not even infallible—but still the by God greatest human being Turrin had ever encountered.

  A man like Bolan did not happen to the world every day, nor even in every age or epoch. The Bolans of the world came few and far between. You could count them on humanity’s ten fingers, all the ones who had ever been.

  And Leo Turrin worried a lot about Mack Bolan.

  Perhaps no one, not Bolan himself, understood better than Leo Turrin the staggering array of forces pitted against the guy’s survival. Turrin was in a position to view both sides of the guy’s personal gauntlet, the cops as well as the mob … and yeah, he had good reason for worry. He’d done a lot of pacing the past few days, waiting, wondering when the claws of the pincers would close around the world’s best answer to La Cosa Nostra.

  And so it was on that brooding Spring afternoon when the call finally came.

  Turrin’s personal shadow, a goon called Hot Stuff Ribiello, scooped up the phone and muttered into it. “Yeah. I dunno, just a minute.” He caught Turrin’s expressionless eye and announced, “Long distance, collect. For you, boss. Guy named LaMancha. You wanta accept?”

  The underboss of Pittsfield coolly replied, “I don’t know no LaMancha.”

  “He don’t know no LaMancha,” Ribiello relayed to the operator. “Tell the guy to get lost.”

  “Tell him to spend his own damn nickle,” Turrin instructed boredly.

  “He should spend his own nickles,” the goon dutifully relayed. He laughed and hung up. “Some of these boys really got their nerve. I never made a collect call in my whole life even.”