Command Strike Read online

  He said, “No promises, but I’ll try.”

  She tossed her head—said, “What’s a promise?”—and went out of there.

  He watched her drive away; then he went down the steps and across the lawn, toward the pier. The silencer came off the Belle and a fresh clip went into her.

  A ferryboat, maybe the one he’d noted earlier as only a smudge on the horizon, was running westward about two hundred yards offshore. And, sure, that could provide some answers to several problems in logistics. She was heavily loaded—vehicles on the lower deck, personnel above.

  As Bolan reached the pier, a dinghy pulled away from the ferry, heading in, straight for Barney Matilda’s pier. He walked to the end and waited for visual confirmation. He got the confirmation at fifty yards—three guys in faded military fatigues, armed, expectant. He gave them another twenty yards, then raised the Beretta and squeezed off three quick pops. The reports rolled across the water as three bodies toppled beneath the waves. The dinghy wallowed momentarily, then arced back to seaward, running under its own head. The Beretta Belle spoke thrice again, holes sprouted, then gaped, along the waterline of the runaway boat, and it immediately began to founder.

  The ferry staggered just a bit, slowing briefly and turning shoreward, but then quickly resumed the earlier course and speed.

  Bolan walked back to land, returned to the war wagon, and reached for his radio.

  The time was ten minutes past the hour of six, the evening of the command strike on New York.

  And the destruction of an empire had reached the final countdown.

  22

  COUNTING

  “Royal Flush, this is Drano. Do you copy?”

  “Go ahead, Drano. You’re five-five to Royal Flush.”

  “Peter sent his battalion. Do you have helicopter support?”

  “Affirmative. What is your situation?”

  “Drano is five minutes east of contact and rolling. The battalion is waterborne—repeat, waterborne. Suggest you send your birds aloft to identify and confirm target. She’s a double-decker ferry, white with red markings on superstructure. I make about twenty vehicles and roughly two hundred personnel. Go ahead.”

  “Roger, gotcha—very good, Drano. Where do you think they’ll land?”

  “She’s not an amphibian. Look for a ferry slip.”

  “Roger. Stand by one. Okay. Good work. There’s a ferry landing ten minutes northeast of contact point.”

  “That must be the one, then. Suggest you merely identify and track at present time. I’d take them as they come ashore, but it’s your game. Just keep them off my back.”

  “You know we will. Stay in touch.”

  “Wilco, I’ll keep you posted.”

  “Just a minute, Drano. Is Peter with the battalion?”

  “That’s the ironic part. The battalion was his dying wish. Peter is no more.”

  “Where is the body buried?”

  “Same place it’s been buried all these years. Flasher has the full story and full confirmation in spades. Her pot fairly runneth over in spades. She is well and is now returning to the revolving door. I hope.”

  “Ten-four. Royal Flush is standing by.”

  “Drano will close in two minutes.”

  “Two minutes and counting, roger.”

  “What’s your situation there, Billy?”

  “God, it’s getting tense out here, sir. Where are you?”

  “I’m on my way. What’s going down?”

  “Manny Girolta and about five carloads, that’s what’s going down. They’re standing at the gate and demanding a parley. I don’t know how much longer I can hold them there.”

  “How many boys you have on the line, Billy?”

  “I hate to tell you, but we’ve had some desertions. I got twenty-two boys left, that’s counting inside and out and counting myself.”

  “Put David on.”

  “David has become an old man right in front of my eyes, sir. I swear his hair is turning white. He won’t talk. I can put the phone on speaker, though, and he can hear you. Maybe you can say something to snap him out of it.”

  “Put it on, then.”

  “Right, sir, it’s on.”

  “Listen to me, David. It’s time to forget what has been and what might have been. It’s time to deal with what is now. You’ll never be the boss of New York. So what? It’s not such a hot job, anyway. What you’re going to be, though, is very dead unless you snap out of it and look at your options. Listen, friend, I don’t want your head. I could have had it, many times, any time. Manny Girolta and all the New York boys would love to have it. They’re at the gate right now, waiting for it. Somebody else wants it, too. Peter has sent a whole damn field battalion to collect it. They’ll be showing up very shortly. Here’s what you’ve got to believe. I can get you out of there. I want to get you out. Say the word and I’ll do it. David? Say the word, guy.”

  “He says nothing, Mr. Omega.”

  “That’s because he’s what they all say he is. He’s a damn patsy, a fruitfly. Where the hell does a guy like this get off, wanting to be the boss of all New York?”

  “Fuck you, Omega! Or whoever!”

  “That’s better. You can’t fuck me if you don’t touch me, David.”

  “What’s your deal?”

  “The deal is I’ll get you out if you want out.”

  “Yes, dammit, yes! I want out!”

  “Okay. Just sit tight. Don’t budge. Sit there and look out your window. You’ll know when to make your move. Billy!”

  “I’m here, sir. What do I do?”

  “You’re a good man, Billy Gino. You remember what we talked about. You make that phone call tomorrow. Right?”

  “Right, sir. But I meant—”

  “I know what you meant. Here’s what you do, Billy. You call all your boys in. You take them out the back and over the wall. Don’t stop and don’t look back.”

  “Mr. Omega, I—”

  “Shut up! David and I have our deal. This is yours. Over the back fence and far away. Now! Move it!”

  “Do it, dammit, Billy! He knows what he’s doing!”

  “Okay, David. Thanks, Mr. Omega. God keep, sir.”

  “You too, Billy. You too.”

  The roof panel unlocked and the launcher lifted into place. FIRE CONTROL GO flashed from the console, and the optics screen glowed redly with superimposed range marks. Bolan refined the focus and punched a button. TARGET ACQUISITION LOCK flashed on. He banged his knee. The bird whooshed away, flashing instantly into the gunsights and rustling along that electronic barrel in the viewscreen, trailing smoke and flame in a sizzling run to ruin.

  … three, two, one—impact! The target disintegrated in a puff of red, as seen by the electronics. As seen by the unaided human eye, a big Cadillac crew wagon exploded in a froth of fire, which instantly became towering flames and raining debris—fleshy particles as well as metallic ones flinging themselves into the spirit of total entropy as nine men and their vehicle suddenly ceased to be.

  And already a new target was being acquired, a fist against a knee sent the firing plunger down, and missile two leapt off in search of certain game.

  Three away … four away … amid screaming panic, rustling whispers hurtling through the evening skies, thunder and lightning and hellfire itself, exploding metal, bodyless heads rolling and limbless torsos skidding, licking flames, destruction, death—another successful event.

  The launcher descended through the roof for reloads and the big, grim man in black reached for his microphone.

  “This is Drano. I guess you see it.”

  “I guess I do, pal. Is that my cue?”

  “He’s ready for you, yeah. Go get ’im.”

  Off to the northeast, a new and only incidentally related series of fireworks brightened the evening sky, and non-heavenly thunder rippled along.

  “This is Royal Flush. I guess you see it.”

  “I guess I do. Let that be Peter’s epitaph.”


  “So be it. We’re on the move. Contact point in thirty seconds.”

  Bolan went aft to the armory and broke out the reloads, rearmed, recycled, then returned to the con.

  He reset the optics, zeroing in on the front door of the old palace, adjusted the resolution, zoomed in.

  Some thirty to forty seconds later, a short caravan of unmarked vehicles rolled into the crosshairs and came to a halt. Hal Brognola stepped down from the lead vehicle. The palace door opened and David Eritrea moved into view. He poised there rather hesitantly for a moment; then Brognola moved forward with hand outstretched.

  Bolan grinned as the two shook hands and moved together toward the vehicle. Another successful event, sure.

  The official caravan moved out of view.

  Bolan watched the departure with the naked eye, waiting until the final vehicle had cleared the flaming wreckage at the gates to the palace; then he bent to his work once again.

  He set up four automatic acquisitions, drummed his fingers upon the firing leg while the program registered; then he banged his knee one last time for old New York.

  The four birds flew in a ten-second separation sequence, each with its own appointed track through space and time, each with its own role in the destruction of the final vestiges of an empire which never should have been.

  The old building puffed, tottered, shredded, then blew into streaming turrets of flame and debris.

  “Goodbye, Augie,” said the Executioner. “You were a hell of a louse.”

  EPILOGUE

  The mortal remains of August Marinello were laid to final rest in the borough of Queens, New York, one stormy morning in early spring. The casket had not been opened for viewing during the service at the chapel, since there was so little left of Augie Marinello to be viewed—as one official put it: “Some blackened bones and cooked meat.”

  Surprisingly few mourners were present. Most of those in attendance seemed to represent either the police or the press.

  “What is this?” one baffled journalist was overheard to remark. “We were led to expect the equivalent of a state funeral. Where are all his pals?”

  Few of those at the chapel bothered to join the procession to the cemetery. It was, after all, a miserable day—and an entirely dismal event.

  Among those few who did journey to Queens and stand in the rain were a big cop from central precinct, William Rafferty, chief of the organized crime detail, and his guest from Washington, Harold Brognola.

  “That’s really some great support I got from you,” Rafferty muttered through the driving rain.

  “We didn’t know ourselves until this morning,” Brognola told him. “They simply slipped away in the night.”

  “A mass exodus,” Rafferty argued quietly, “is not exactly the same thing as slipping away into the night. I should have been told. I got this face problem, see. I mean, intel is my business, isn’t it? Several departments would have been overjoyed to know that suddenly this is a very small and ordinary funeral. We could’ve saved many thousands of manpower dollars, we could’ve—”

  “Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” Brognola huffed, but meant it. “I wasn’t exactly squatting on my ass and watching a teleprinter all night, you know.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Rafferty muttered. He wiped the rain from his face. “Our DOA’s started coming in during the afternoon. You said a grand slam. You were right. We were just watching the wrong slam. Working the keys on the out-of-towners. The guy wasn’t interested in them, was he?”

  “What guy?” Brognola inquired, deadpanning it.

  “You know what guy. The one who gave us Fortuna and Gustini, Pelotti and DiAnglia, and assorted lesser lights. We got a regular Mafia wing going down at the morgue.”

  Brognola sniffed and said, “You run a clean town, Bill.”

  “Cleanest I’ve seen in memory,” the big cop said, smiling in the rain.

  Brognola was smiling, also, despite the grave occasion. “Well, I’m going to be as busy as a cat covering up its doodles for the next few weeks, just trying to sort and file the intelligence coup of the century. I’ll cut you in on your area of that. But God, it will take days just to get it out of there and safed away. And I’ll tell you a truth, Mr. Ethics. I’m going to be dreaming sweet dreams for one hell of a long time.”

  “Don’t rub it in. Can I buy you lunch?”

  “Sorry, I have an afternoon date in Washington,” the fed said, and the smile grew. “Have to introduce a distinguished guest of the government to a certain Senate subcommittee.”

  “You guys get all the fun,” Rafferty growled, but it was obvious to Harold Brognola that he meant not a word of it.

  “We have our compensations,” Brognola assured him, meaning it for damn sure. He started to add to that but checked himself, his attention drawn to the street just beyond the cemetery wall. A familiar shape took form there, wreathed in the rainy mists of the stormy morning—surprising him by its presence there but also somehow belonging there.

  The fed would bet his badge that the familiar mass was a GMC motor home containing more tricks and secrets than old Barney Matilda had ever dreamt of.

  And he was right.

  A pretty young woman in a white slicker descended from the big cruiser and strode purposefully through the gate and toward the funeral party.

  The cruiser flashed its lights twice and pulled slowly away.

  Brognola watched it fade into the gloom, then returned his attention to the approach of a young lady who had every right to feel elated, victorious, superb.

  If she had those feelings, she was hiding them very well.

  Brognola had not seen a gloomier young lady since Hawaii. “You can’t win ’em all, kid,” he gently told her.

  “Nuts,” she said. “He’s just another wild man! Let him go off and get himself killed!”

  “Oh he will, he will,” Brognola murmured.

  “Who’re we talking about?” Rafferty inquired.

  “Nobody you’d want to know,” Brognola sniffed. “Bill—this is Sally Palmer. Congratulate her. Yesterday she buried a stake in a vampire’s heart.”

  “I just held it in place,” the girl said quietly. “Someone else drove it in.”

  “I guess I know who we’re talking about,” Rafferty said. His eyes sought the gloom where a lonely mass had disappeared. “What kind of guy is he?”

  “Right now,” Brognola said, sighing, “I’d say the kind who bleeds like you and me, who once had dreams like you and me—the kind who gets tired, and scared, and sometimes wonders what the hell it’s all about. He’s just a guy, like you and me.”

  “You’re a very egotistical man, Mr. Brognola,” said the lady fed.

  Brognola chuckled, then straightened his face into the proper mien for such a solemn occasion.

  The coffin was being lowered into the ground.

  A moment later, the nation’s top cop stepped to the hole in the ground, picked up a handful of mud, and let it fall into the grave.

  It was the end of an era.

  Long live the king; the king was dead.

  And he left no heirs—apparent, presumptive, or otherwise.

  The Marinello-Matilda empire was dead.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Executioner series

  1

  PAYDIRT

  The bad ship Christina was centered in the range-marks, darkly silhouetted against the nighttime glow of Cleveland, queen city of Lake Erie To the unaided eye, the old freighter was no more than a dark blob in the jumbled shadows of the outer harbor. But Bolan knew her well, thanks to tireless surveillance and the phenomenal capabilities of his own good “ship,” the Warwagon. The glow in the viewscreen revealed a nondescript vessel at dock, boxlike warehouses squatting beside her, a dimly lit pier along which an occasional human movement could be noted. In a finer focus, Bolan could pick out details on the ship herself: a uniformed sailor on the bridge, another at the top of the gangway, several lighted portholes along the boat deck, now and th
en the momentary flare of a cigarette at various points about the main deck.

  Yeah, he knew her well.

  The bad Christina served one Bad Tony Morello, Head Cannibal of the Cleveland mob. And the evidence of Bolan’s senses was telling him that Cleveland had become the new pipeline for Mafia ambitions since the Command Strike against New York.

  Sure, Bad Tony had balls enough. Cleveland could well be the new pipeline, and Christina could certainly be part of it. Morello owned the waterfront, his amicu owned the Liberian fleet which operated Christina, and a lot of hard shit was moving through the Port of Cleveland.

  But there was more here, just at the surface, than a career psychopath such as Tony Morello could ever hope to handle entirely on his own. Big things were rumbling through Cleveland. A summary execution of Bad Tony would solve nothing, change nothing. Bolan had to get to the Senior Savages, those “respectable” businessmen who obviously were playing the Mafia game.

  So it had been a game of wait and watch. Somewhere, sooner or later, an insulation would thin or shred, someone would inevitably trip a wire—and the Executioner meant to be watching when that occurred.

  Persistence, yeah, has its own reward.

  It was being rewarded now, if Bolan’s instincts meant anything. A shiny limousine had edged into the viewscreen, moving cautiously along the pier toward Christina. Bolan sharpened the focus and punched in the laser-supplemented infrared scan to zero on that limousine. It halted a few yards from the Christina’s gangway and two hardmen bounced onto the pier, their pedigree apparent despite the best efforts of barber and clothier.

  One of the torpedoes casually scanned the scene while his partner helped another man debark through a rear door. Bolan zoomed on that face and started the video recorder as the third man stepped into view. What was the emotion being displayed there on that cultured face? Indecision? Apprehension? Raw fear, maybe. He was a man of about sixty, immaculately groomed in semiformal evening wear.

  The frightened man was peering apprehensively up the gangway to the ship and moving slowly toward it, under escort by both torpedoes. The next move was not precisely the “spark” Bolan had been awaiting but it was spark enough to dislodge him from the sidelines as passive observer. The man in the middle suddenly whirled about and made a run for it, catching the two hoods momentarily off guard and flat-footed in their reaction.