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  Each had been carefullly selected on the basis of “maturity, efficiency, and experience”—which, translated, meant that they were nerveless assassins who could be counted on to keep their cool, to take orders, to keep their personal lives “clean,” and to keep their mouths shut.

  All were ex-GI’s.

  Ramon “Bandalero” Vasquez had once been a gunner’s mate in the navy. He was a skilled gunsmith and a car-racing enthusiast. The twenty-eight-year-old Vasquez functioned primarily as the crew’s wheelman and weapons specialist.

  Billy “Wild Bill” Stewart had seen combat duty in Vietnam with an army rifle company. He was, like Bolan, a sharpshooter with a deadly eye and an ability to function alone. Unlike Bolan, he seemed to have lost whatever abilities he may once have had for “target discrimination”—Wild Bill would shoot anything he was told to shoot, and without a quiver.

  Bob Buckholzer and Dan Semple were air force vets. They had met while undergoing training as air police, and they’d been a team ever since. Once they had toured with recruiters, demonstrating the tools of an AP’s trade—proficiency with personal weapons, judo, dog handling, etc. The “Apes” were big men, physically excellent, with minds as hard as their bodies. Their crew specialty was muscle, and they enjoyed using it.

  The crew functioned with the military precision of a drill team. Each knew his own role to perfection, and he knew how it interacted with the roles of the others. During a “movement” there was seldom any necessity for verbal instructions. They moved quickly, smoothly, quietly—with a minimum of lost motion.

  The Wolf Crew, by any normal method of measurement, should have been more than a match for any two men—even two Mack Bolans.

  The “movement” on Claudia Vitale’s apartment building did not begin, however, as anything more than a routine assignment; the initial approach was a typical one. Bandalero Vasquez pulled the big crew wagon noiselessly into the parking lot, then maneuvered it into an unobstructed exit path.

  All four doors opened simultaneously and the Wolf Crew disembarked—Matti and Vasquez from the front, the other three moving fluidly through the rear exits.

  Vasquez was carrying his “massive hit” weapon, a sawed-off double-barreled shotgun which he had built himself. He faded into the darkness and took up a concealed defensive position, from which he could assure himself complete coverage of their vehicle.

  Matti and Wild Bill Stewart carried Thompsons; they split and took opposite directions in an encirclement of the building while the Apes invaded the building itself from both ends.

  It was a routine movement.

  Two minutes later Buckholzer reappeared at the front door and summoned his chief with a hand signal.

  Matti materialized from the shadows of the building and joined him on the steps for a quiet consultation.

  “They were here, all right,” the Ape reported in soft tones. “Not now, the joint’s empty. But something got butchered in the broad’s bathroom.”

  Matti smoothed his hair with a nervous gesture and replied, “Well, shit. Why’d he wait so late to send us? Where’s Danny?”

  “Checking topside, just for hell. Waste of time. They split long ago.”

  “Well, go ahead and run it clear through,” Matti instructed. “We’ll cover you down here. Hear shooting, come a’running.”

  Buck the Ape nodded his head and went back upstairs.

  The crew chief returned to his position outside, covering the front of the building with his automatic weapon. He had hardly re-settled into the stake-out when a moving object blurred through the upper periphery of his vision and thudded to earth a few feet behind him.

  Quiveringly alert, Matti held his cover for a tense moment while eyes and ears scanned the immediate area for another sign of movement. Getting none, he ventured out of the shadows for an inspection of the fallen object, and found himself staring down into the bug-eyed gaze of Danny Semple.

  Danny the Ape wasn’t looking back, though. Danny would never look at anyone or anything again. And it wasn’t the fall from the roof that had killed him. It was the nylon noose, buried deep into the soft flesh of his throat and twisting the face into contortions which even death and a five-story fall could not erase.

  Yeah. The Ape had died hard—quick, maybe, but hard and struggling like hell until the final shiver.

  How many goddam guys, Matti was wondering, had it taken to manhandle Danny the Ape that way?

  For the first time in a long time, the chief of the “elite” Wolf Crew was shaken and worried over the outcome of an assignment. He moved quickly to the corner of the building and passed a sign to Vasquez, who hurriedly joined him there.

  Matti informed the wheelman, “Someone noosed Danny and threw him off the roof. The other Ape’s still in there—alive or dead I don’t know. Tell Bill we go up and bring him out. Get the car ready, we’re scrubbing this goddam thing.”

  Vasquez jerked his head in understanding and ran softly to the rear to pass the word to Wild Bill Stewart, then he retired to his position with the vehicle.

  Matti and Stewart were barely into the building when a woman came through the rear exit. She wore a pants-suit and carried a suitcase. A scarf or something covered her head, looping down into a loose knot beneath the chin.

  The wheelman could not get a good look at her—and he was not particularly interested. Wild Bill must have seen her, and he would not have let her by if she hadn’t been okay.

  The woman stepped into a car at the rear and eased it toward the far back corner of the building.

  Something dropped to the ground back there, in the shadows beside the car. A door quickly opened and closed, and the vehicle went on around without so much as a pause in its forward motion.

  Vasquez fidgeted for a moment of agonized indecision, then he jumped into the crew wagon and leaned on the horn.

  Both Matti and Stewart erupted from the rear exit seconds later and the wheelman picked them up there.

  “What is it?” Matti panted.

  “A broad came out,” Vasquez reported, the words tumbling together. “Bill must’ve bumped her going in, so I didn’t pay much attention first. Carrying a bag, got into this Porsche was parked back here. Down there at the corner this guy dropped in from somewhere. Hell I almost didn’t even see him. They split, fast.”

  Stewart said, “I didn’t see no broad.”

  Buck the Ape came pounding around from the front of the building and leapt into the rear seat with Wild Bill Stewart, gasping his breathless report as he did so. “A guy went down the outside from the roof! Jumped into this sports car! Headed downtown!”

  Vasquez had the vehicle rolling. Tensely, he asked, “What about Danny?”

  “Stop up front,” Matti growled.

  They delayed long enough in the upper drive to pick up the remains of their fallen comrade, which they unceremoniously stuffed into the trunk compartment, then the Wolf Crew minus one was off and running in a hot pursuit.

  “Just one guy?” Matti asked Buckholzer, as though nothing had transpired since that gasping report.

  “That’s all I saw, and I didn’t really see him. Just a shadow moving down the building. The son of a bitch shinned right down that brick wall, drain pipe or something, five fucking floors.”

  “Must’ve been more,” Matti argued. “No one guy could’ve done that to Danny, not that quick’n easy.”

  “I don’t know,” the wheelman said in a thoughtful tone. “Like Buck, all I saw was this shadow-like something. Bet your ass, though, it wasn’t more than one guy. If it was a guy.”

  “What’re you thinking?” the crew-chief prompted him. All of the Wolf Crew respected the opinion and “feels” of the Bandalero.

  Vasquez remained silent until he had the vehicle smoothly tracking in pursuit of the distant taillights, then he replied, “I think it was a guy, sure. And I think he was wearing black clothes, I mean total black … like he meant to be hard to spot in the dark. We saw what he done to Danny the Ape. I thi
nk.…”

  Matti said, “Yeah…?” in the tone of a man who had already answered his own query.

  “Bolan!” Buckholzer exclaimed in a church whisper.

  “That’s what I think,” Vasquez agreed.

  “Aw shit,” Wild Bill Stewart protested, “that bastard’s up in Bean City.”

  “Was,” the crewchief growled. “He hasn’t been seen or heard from for nearly a week.”

  “I think he’s been heard from now,” Vasquez muttered.

  “Don’t lose sight of that car!” Matti commanded.

  “Don’t worry, I got ’im. I told you, a Porsche. They got lights like nothing else on the road.”

  “I want the guy,” Buckholzer announced coldly. “I got the right, I want him.”

  Matti said, “Knock it off, Buck. Danny was special to all of us, but you know the rule on vendettas. We run this outfit on head, not heart.”

  “Just the same, he belongs to me,” the ex-AP insisted.

  “That broad,” Vasquez mused, probably trying to head off a showdown of authority. “Isn’t she from up around Bean City somewhere?”

  “Yeah,” Matti growled. “Her old man was with the Boston mob when he got hit.”

  “Was that Smilin’ Jack Vitale?” Stewart asked.

  “That was him,” the crewchief confirmed.

  “So there’s your tie,” Vasquez said. He grunted as the car lights ahead swept into a diagonal crossroad. “Okay, they took Virginia Avenue. Now watch me head ’em off at the pass.” He swung the car into a hard ninety-degree turn at the next intersection and powered along on a tangential pursuit of the other vehicle’s track.

  Matti warned, “Don’t get so cute you lose ’em.”

  The wheelman brushed aside the caution, picking up again on his earlier line of thought. “That’s the tie. The broad’s from Boston, Bolan was last seen in Boston. He got onto her up there. That’s him, all right. I can taste the bastard. That’s him.”

  Half-humorously, Wild Bill Stewart declared, “I don’t know if I want to laugh or cry about that.”

  “We might,” Matti commented grimly, “want to be doing a little bit of both before this night is over.”

  “You take care of the crying, then,” Buckholzer said. “I’ll take care of the laughing.”

  “You watch your smart ass,” the crewchief said ominously. “This is no time to be dicking around with a lot of emotional horseshit.”

  “I want the bastard, Frank,” Buckholzer replied. His tone was somewhat subdued but still adamant. “Just don’t get in my way. I want his fucking head.”

  Vasquez again moved smoothly in to avert a showdown. “What about the assignment?” he said, as though just remembering the original mission. “What d’we do about that Spinella hit?”

  Matti growled, “Buck told me something had been slaughtered in the broad’s bathroom. I guess Bolan beat us to it.”

  Bill Stewart chuckled and commented, “I guess we owe the bastard a favor.”

  “I guess the broad feels the same way,” Matti said.

  “Cut out the shit,” Buckholzer said solemnly. “Let’s decide this while we got time. I want his head.”

  Matti and Vasquez exchanged quick glances. Matti sighed and braced himself as the pursuit car swerved into another hair-raising turn. “Okay, Buck,” he said, resigning from the contest of will. “His fucking head is all yours.”

  “You just watch what I do with it,” Buckholzer replied.

  A moment of silence later the wheelman tensely announced, “Okay, I’m on them. Get ready.”

  “Run ’em into the damn Capitol!” Matti commanded.

  “Say the word,” Vasquez replied, “and I’ll run them right up the fucking thing.”

  The snout of Matti’s submachine gun slid into the window opening. “Just get me ten feet closer,” he commanded.

  “Remember he’s mine,” the surviving Ape warned, breathing hard in anticipation of the kill. “Just slow ’im down for me.”

  “Okay, okay!” Matti growled. “But you better be as good as you think you are, buddy.”

  “Watch me,” Buckholzer suggested, unsheathing his .45 Colt. “And watch what I do with Bolan’s head.”

  Frank Matti really was not worried in the least about Buck the Ape’s combat capabilities. But … Mack Bolan was something else again. Yeah. That bastard was going to be no easy hit.

  Less than a car-length now separated the two speeding vehicles. “Goddammit,” Matti barked to the wheelman. “Get me alongside.”

  3: CAPITOL HIT

  Claudia Vitale was aware of the pursuit from the moment the chase vehicle careened out of the parking lot, far to the rear. The grimfaced man beside her had also been watching for it, and he told her, “Cute, but not cute enough. They’re on us.”

  The traffic was appallingly light. Only three sets of headlamps were running between the two vehicles.

  “This is a honey of a car,” Claudia murmured tensely. “I think we can outrun them.”

  “No way,” the big guy said. “Let’s not add cops to the chase. Did you recognize any of those people?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve heard talk about an elite goon squad, though, reporting directly to Lupo. And there’s supposed to be five of them.”

  “There’s only four now,” he muttered.

  “Did you…?”

  The icy-quiet voice replied, “One of them found me.”

  Claudia shivered with the simplicity of that cold pronouncement. This was a man she had never known before; she had known many.

  “What do we do?” she asked him.

  “Keep running,” he replied softly. “Until we want them to catch up.”

  She shivered again. “You’re actually going to confront them?”

  “No other way,” he told her. “Once these people get on your tail, there’s only one way to get them off.”

  She was keeping a check on the progress of the chase via the rearview mirror. “They’re getting pretty close,” she commented.

  “Turn southeast onto Virginia,” he instructed. “Then east on Constitution. Get me some place with some combat stretch.”

  “Some place with what?”

  “A park, an open area with no people, anything like that.”

  At that time of night, in that town, it was an easy request. She made the turn onto Virginia Avenue and watched with a fluttering heart as the headlamps following swerved in behind them, then whipped across into another angular street and off the track.

  Immediately the big grim man beside her snapped, “Okay, they’re reading us! Pull over!”

  She applied the brakes and pulled to the curb without comment, following Bolan’s instructions when he commanded, “Hit the floor! Make yourself as small as possible and don’t even breathe hard!”

  Something beyond her comprehension was coming up, she realized that. It was a game for experts, as incomprehensible as football and all the talk about “reading the defense” and “reading the offense.” She knew something very angry was about to happen, and she was entirely willing and grateful to have an expert calling the signals for her side.

  Bolan slid over, took the wheel and sent the vehicle into whining traction along the same track, then he pulled another weapon from beneath the seat and lay it on his lap. It was a big, impressive, silver pistol—fully a foot long—of the type which feeds bullets from a clip in the handle.

  “Listen to me,” he was telling her. “When I say go, that means you. You bail out, hit the ground crawling like hell and don’t look back. You get clear and you stay clear until you hear me calling you back. Understand?”

  Claudia understood. She also knew instinctively that this cool warrior was making this particular fight on her behalf, serving up his own life in the defense of hers. She felt unworthy, tarnished, certainly undeserving of such a champion.

  One did not, however, question the hand of providence. Claudia Vitale had unquestioningly accepted the protection of Mack Bolan, until v
ery recently her gravest enemy.

  “Good luck,” she whispered from the floor of the speeding vehicle. And she meant it, with all her heart.

  The Porsche was speeding into the vehicular loop of Capitol Hill, handling much better in those sweeping curves than the big crew-wagon, and wheelman Vasquez was having a tough time jockeying in for the kill. To make matters worse, the Porsche was hugging the inside curb, leaving the centrifugal handicap to the chase car.

  Even for the Capitol grounds it was that time of night when they had the place all to themselves; not another vehicle was in sight and the track was almost as good as the Indy 500.

  As the two cars roared toward the straightaway fronting the big domed building, Matti yelled, “Goddammit, get me alongside!”

  “Hang on,” the wheelman warned, giving the big car a reckless surge forward.

  At that precise moment, the Porsche drifted out across their path in a plunge toward the outside.

  Matti screamed, “Look-out!”

  Vasquez was already reacting, instinctively following the drift with his own wheel.

  The bastard in the Porsche, he realized, was a hell of a wheelman himself. It had been a planned maneuver and the sports car held all the advantage in this sort of road game. The Porsche whipped back toward the center but Vasquez was too far gone to recover.

  They hit the outside curbing with the left-front wheel and bounded over in a wild plunge. The wheelman thought he had lost it for sure, and he was bracing for a roll. But the heavy vehicle held its wheels and plowed on into the trees lining the drive.

  To his dying day Vasquez would never be able to explain how he managed to avoid a head-on into one of those trees. They sideswiped several as he fought the vehicle to a metal-grinding halt—Matti cussing a blue streak all the while and trying to shove his feet through the floorboards, the gunners in the rear grunting and damning the wild bronco ride and flopping about like a couple of buoys in troubled water.

  And when the wild plunge was ended, matters immediately became much worse.

  The Porsche had arced about into a U-turn and was already parked.