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  "Never mind. Look at the excellent food being brought to our table. Enjoy! Enjoy!"

  Chapter Thirteen

  Bolan had let his beard grow for several days. He stood now in front of a mirror and shaved, leaving only a mustache. When he'd finished, he grabbed a briefcase and a small leather carryon and walked out on the street — ostensibly a businessman, wearing a dark blue pin-striped suit, white shirt and striped tie.

  He hailed a cab and had himself driven to the Barclay Hotel, where he checked in.

  Mr. Joe Businessman wasn't Bolan, and he didn't feel comfortable in the role. But he had effectively disappeared. Whoever was looking for him — NYPD, the Mob — was searching for a man in a hard hat and red nylon jacket. In the luxurious precincts of the Barclay, Mack Bolan was a lawyer, a stockbroker, a corporate officer — anything but the Executioner. Even if he didn't much like it, he played the role well.

  What was more, the new guise was a good one in which to go looking for Joe Rossi. In his executive garb, he could ride the escalators up from Grand Central Station to the elevator floor of the Pan Am Building and then go up to any floor he wanted, unchallenged. He'd fit in.

  And he did. He took the elevator to the reception room of Rossi Enterprises, Incorporated. He professed to have gotten off at the wrong floor, and the receptionist courteously told him that Mitsubishi was to be found on the forty-second floor.

  He got a good look, from the outside. Obviously Rossi Enterprises was a big deal. Offices like this rented for a fortune — solid wood paneling, paneled doors, art hanging in the reception room, leather chairs. It was a comfortable lair from which to send out orders to kill people.

  Okay. He'd see it again.

  * * *

  The warrior had given his new address — the Barclay — to no one but Joe Coppolo. But when he let himself into his room, he found a man sitting in a chair by the window, sipping a drink he'd taken from Bolan's bar and reading the newspaper.

  "Pull a gun on me if you want to, Bolan," the man said. "If I'd been afraid of that, there'd be one under this newspaper, and I'd drop you before you could touch it."

  "Only one guy knows this address."

  "Only one guy's in big trouble. Joe was picked up by a couple of NYPD lieutenants this morning and is being held on all kinds of charges."

  "So, who are you?" Bolan asked.

  "The name's Campbell. Alex Campbell."

  "I've heard of you, Lieutenant." Campbell was the man Joe had called to find out where Lentini was last Friday night. "Joe trusts you."

  "He trusts you," Campbell replied. "I figure it'll take the Justice Department about an hour to get him out of custody."

  "Once the Justice Department knows he's in custody."

  "Oh, they know. Brognola knows. I mean, Joe and I aren't amateurs. But the last time I saw Joe, say an hour ago, he was stark naked, hands cuffed behind his back…"

  "It'll take more than that to break Joe Coppolo."

  "If Brognola works within the hour," Campbell said. "After that, it gets sticky."

  Bolan picked up a telephone. In half a minute Hal Brognola was on the line.

  "I'm threatening to put the City of New York under federal martial law," he said. "Which I couldn't do in a million years, even the President couldn't do. I sent the mayor himself to the precinct station to…"

  "This is big, Hal."

  "Bigger than even you know," Brognola replied. "They're pulling out every stop. An assistant secretary of defense called me last night. They want your ass out of New York, Striker. Buildings… Add money laundering, cocaine bucks from the Colombian trade, through the Rossi Family. Money, the oil that lets the gears mesh. Rossi is big, guy. Five Families… Make it one big Family and four little ones. Word has gone to the White House, and I got a call from the Man. We've got his confidence. Don't back away from anything. I'm sorry that Joan got caught in the middle. This is a rough game."

  "I'm going to have the head of the man who killed her," Bolan said quietly.

  "Just don't underestimate what you're up against."

  "Joe…"

  "Seriously, the mayor himself has gone to the precinct station to bail him out. I'm calling him down to Washington for a day or so."

  "I hope the mayor's in time."

  * * *

  Alex Campbell was still with Bolan in his hotel room when Joe Coppolo knocked on the door.

  "Are you damned well sure nobody followed you up here?" Campbell asked, sticking his head out into the hall and looking up and down.

  "Nobody followed me," Coppolo replied sullenly. He was an angry man. "I'd have dropped any stupid bastard who tried it — which they knew."

  "How soon are you leaving for Washington?" Bolan asked.

  "I'm not going."

  "Hal…"

  "I'm not going," Coppolo repeated through clenched teeth.

  Bolan shrugged. "Okay. But you have to do a better job than you've so far done of making yourself invisible."

  "I'm a federal officer. I don't need to be invisible."

  "Listen to me, hero-boy," Campbell said. "I've got to be going, so listen for a minute. You know enough about NYPD to know what kind Ned McGrory is. He's assigned Raoul Esposito the job of tracking down Bolan. There'll be fifty men assigned to it exclusively, you can be sure. They don't know of any connection between you and Bolan, but they suspect it, so they'll be watching you. And don't forget they know you. You've served with some of the guys assigned to you. The best thing you could do is lead them on a merry chase. And the best way you can do that is make your trip to Washington, the way you've been ordered to do, then come back here and start running purposefully around town like you were on an important assignment. You'll draw off at least half of Captain Esposito's detective force. You stay two miles away from Bolan at all times, and half the guys looking for him will be two miles from him."

  Joe Coppolo frowned and looked at Bolan.

  "It's the best thing I can do, huh?"

  "Might be," Bolan agreed.

  "Too many guys know you, Joe," Campbell said. "They remember you. A lot of them respect you, but they'll carry out orders. Most of them will, anyway. Plus… Some guys don't respect you."

  Joe's shoulders slumped. "I'll go home and pack a bag. I'll pick up a tail when I leave for the airport."

  "And they'll be watching for you to come back," Campbell added quietly.

  Coppolo nodded. "I'll run 'em all over the boroughs. For a few days, anyway."

  "Use Hal as a relay for anything you want to tell me," Bolan instructed, "and I'll do the same. I'll call you back as soon as I need you."

  * * *

  It was time for the Executioner to go hunting again. Before Campbell left the hotel, he'd given Bolan a bit of information. Phil Corone's sister, Angela, had been released from the federal reformatory.

  "Supposed to have been flopped for another year," he'd explained, "'cause she was no model prisoner. But she got home yesterday just the same. Phil's out two months, and he gets his sister out. Stepsister, really. You know why the old man didn't get her out? He didn't care. I bet you Angela Corone has something on Phil. He pulled every string he could in Washington. The guy's a new menace. He knows how to use power. So, she's out, and so what, you might ask. They're having a coming-home party for Angela tonight. And guess where? On a yacht. Look for a boat called Napoleon IV. It's moored on the East River, one of the piers south of the Brooklyn Bridge."

  It hadn't been difficult to find the yacht. It was a Hatteras, about fifty-eight feet long. It was big and luxurious enough to be a rich man's toy but not big enough to represent enormous wealth.

  The man in the pin-striped dark blue suit stood on the pier and looked at Napoleon IV as if he were interested in buying a boat like it. No more than a moment was required to see that this was no ordinary rich man's toy. A fifty-eight-foot Hatteras didn't require a large crew — no more than a captain and one hand, plus maybe a cook and a steward if she was a party boat. The yacht carried a sta
ff of at least a dozen grim guys, hanging around the decks. Hardmen.

  Cases of wine and liquor were being carried aboard. Campbell's information was right. Someone was holding a big party aboard Napoleon IV tonight.

  It was likely they'd have an uninvited guest.

  * * *

  By ten o'clock, the party was in full swing. Three of the Five Families were represented by their dons — Barbosa, Segesta and Corone. Phil Corone wasn't yet called Don Corone, but it was only a matter of time. The Lentinis were represented by Carmine Samenza, which was good enough — the best the Lentini Family could do right now.

  The Rossi Family was represented by Natale Plumeri. The word was that Joe Rossi was detained on a hugely important business appointment and would appear as soon as possible. In the meantime he was represented by Mr. Plumeri, the grand old man of La Cosa Nostra.

  It wasn't good enough, Angela Corone noted mentally. Rossi could have been there. He wasn't kidding anybody when he said he would show up later. He wouldn't. She'd been away for a while, but she hadn't forgotten the lessons she had learned so well from her father.

  She'd made her bones, as they said. And maybe she'd get rid of that damned Phil, the son her father had conceived with a hooker late in his life, and take over the Corone Family herself. How about that? One of the Five Families run by a woman! And why not?

  She'd keep quiet and watch and see. The old man had let her rot in stir for his tax evasion, with never an attempt to get her out. And he'd died while she was in. Lucky for him. She'd have killed him ten seconds after her daughterly kiss if he'd survived her release. The old fool had never been smart enough to figure out how much hate she was capable of.

  She looked out across the East River at the yellow lights shining on the black water. Angela Corone was filled with elation. She was back where she belonged, where opportunity waited.

  * * *

  It waited for Mack Bolan, too.

  There were several purchases he had to make: a wet suit for swimming in the East River; watertight plastic pouches for his weapons and ammo; and a duffel bag to hold his other equipment. He made the necessary purchases, and when he rode south on the subway, he wore a pair of black pants, a black T-shirt and a black baseball cap. Besides the Desert Eagle and ammo, he carried a knife, a coil of nylon rope, swim goggles and a jar of Vaseline, which he'd smear across his face to prevent the dirty oil of the river from sticking to his face.

  At the end of Peck Street he vaulted over a fence and walked out on the dimly lighted pier. The guard in the house at the gate did not notice. The warrior slipped his nylon rope through a ringbolt and, without tying it, using it double, he lowered himself toward the water.

  The first horizontal beam of the pier's structure was well above high tide. It was dry. He swung in and mounted it, then crawled completely out of sight under the pier. He pulled his rope down.

  Now, under the pier, he looped the rope tightly between two pilings to make himself a secure place to stand. With his feet on the beam, his body between the two strands of the looped rope, he could stand without having to constantly focus his attention on his balance.

  He changed out of his clothes and into the rubber wet suit. He coated his face heavily with Vaseline, then hung the Desert Eagle, still in its watertight container, in a holster at his middle. The packaged ammo and the knife went into waterproof pouches.

  His street clothes were in the duffel bag. He secured it to the beam with the nylon rope so it would be waiting when he returned. Untying the loop of rope, he dropped the loose end toward the water and let himself down.

  Slipping into the water of the East River was like slipping through the grease at the top of a bowl of cold vegetable soup. The layer of oil clung to him. Then he was up to his neck in urban filth.

  Fighting off nausea, Bolan swam south along the sterns of yachts drawn up to the piers. The Napoleon IV was easy to identify. He came up under the stern of the fifty-eight footer and rested by clinging to one of the bronze propellers.

  The starboard side of the yacht was moored to the pier. Between the port side and the next yacht was a space of some ten or twelve feet of water. Though the other yacht was dark, the odds were decidedly against climbing up here, anywhere, without being seen.

  * * *

  "Why not?" Johnny DePrisco demanded of Angela Corone. "It must have been a long time. No commitment. Neither of us."

  "No commitment," she said. "You wouldn't do it, you asshole, if you didn't expect a commitment."

  He lifted his hands and grinned. "Honest! No commitment. Just a guy who hasn't had anything good since yesterday and a gal who…"

  "Who hasn't since January 21, 1984."

  Johnny shrugged. "So, no commitment. Just for fun. An alliance some time later… Who knows? Why? Why not? If we decide to talk about it, we'll know each other."

  Angela Corone shrugged dramatically. "Why not?" she asked. "But you better be good."

  * * *

  Luca Barbosa nudged Philip Corone as Angela and Johnny went down the steep narrow stairs into the bow of the yacht, where there were two cabins and the only privacy aboard.

  "She wastes no time," Barbosa observed.

  "She's wasted a lot of time," Corone replied. "That's why she's in such a big hurry now."

  "I was happy to use my political contacts to help arrange her release," Barbosa said, "as were Segesta and Lentini. But I'm unsure about why you wanted her out."

  "She knows too much."

  "That didn't trouble your father."

  "What she knows is about me."

  What she knew was that he had strangled Campy Palermo. She was the eyewitness that the NYPD never found. They knew the loop had been dropped over Palermo's head while he was in bed with a woman, and they'd searched for months for her. They concluded that the woman would never come forward because she'd been used as a lure. It never occurred to them, or to anyone else, that Don Arturo Corone's singularly unattractive daughter had enticed Palermo into the bed where he would die.

  All she had really wanted from Phil, who was then just twenty years old, was help. She had wanted him to hit Palermo on the head or stab him, after which she would finish him. But Phil had wanted to make his bones, and he had wanted Campy Palermo to die by garroting, as befitted a traitor. He had wanted to be able to go to his father and tell him he had strangled the betrayer.

  His father had respected him after that — as much as the old man was capable of respecting a son. It made Phil the heir apparent. But Angela was the witness who could destroy him. The cops would be happy to make some kind of deal with her in order to get him. He'd had to get her out of stir, and he'd written some damned big IOUs to do it, too.

  Barbosa smiled and shook his head. "I'll be interested to see how you handle this one, young man."

  * * *

  "There's only one solution," Barbosa grumbled. "This damned bureaucrat…"

  "No, Don Barbosa," Natale Plumeri said in the calm, authoritative voice of an aged man who no longer fears anyone. "We do not kill a city building inspector. Sometime maybe…" He shrugged. "Sometime that might be the solution to another problem. But not this one, and not now."

  "I didn't say do it," Barbosa snapped. "I said it's the only good solution. Your man Asman has overworked his cocaine rationalization. I strongly suggest, Mr. Plumeri, that you close that man's mouth."

  "It has been done. But I have a suggestion for you, Don Barbosa. Your welders' union is the source of many problems. A bit of discipline there is now in order."

  "Of course," Barbosa sneered. "Let the Barbosa Family take the heat. My welders…"

  "What if the goddamned building falls down, Don Barbosa? What if a hundred men, a hundred fifty, die? What heat then?"

  Barbosa flared for an instant, calmed and smiled. He slapped Plumeri on the shoulder. "You and I, my friend, can remember days when no building inspector frightened us," he said in a conciliatory voice.

  Plumeri nodded. "And yearn for them. But they
are gone." He shook his head. "It's a different world."

  "What does Joe Rossi want to do?" Barbosa asked. "His building company, my union…"

  "The Asman company will go bankrupt," Plumeri said. "Giuseppe will lose his investment. But the damage must be contained. You must stop sending into these jobs men who cannot even begin to do the work."

  Barbosa nodded. "I will look into it."

  * * *

  Bolan crouched on a beam in the darkness twenty feet from the hull of Napoleon IV. The ponderous weight of the big yacht rubbed the fenders, and the pilings and beams of the pier groaned as they took the pressure. The water lapped below, mostly dark but here and there catching a reflection from a light on the river.

  The tide was going out, and the yacht was gradually sinking lower. A short gangplank had served to let guests climb to the level of the deck. Now it only covered the foot or less of space between the hull and the pier, which were now at the same level. Shortly the main deck would be below the level of the pier, and guests would go down the plank, between its handrails, to reach the deck.

  Bolan settled himself on the first beam below the deck of the pier. The curve of the yacht's forward hull gave him room to stretch beyond the pilings and see the gangplank. He sat on the beam and hugged it with his legs. Then he removed the Desert Eagle from its plastic pouch. The short.44 Magnum barrel was in place. The Eagle was ready to roar.

  * * *

  Angela Corone had returned to the rear deck and once again stood staring at the yellow lights of the city reflected on the black waters of the river. She held an eight-ounce tumbler in her hand, which was filled with vodka and ice.