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  Shi—i—i—t.

  Leo had been a lieutenant, or caporegime, in his Uncle Sergio’s western Massachusetts crime family—in Bolan’s home town of Pittsfield. He had actually played a part, though a small one, in the tragedy which struck the Bolan family and brought Sergeant Mack slamming home from Vietnam.

  That was when Leo Turrin’s “life” had really become complicated.

  For a tense period, during that opening battle, Turrin had been one of Bolan’s prime targets. He’d escaped with his life only after risking it all to reveal his true role to the rampaging jungle fighter.

  As a matter of historical record, Leo Turrin was the sole survivor of the Frenchi hierarchy, in the ashes left by Mack Bolan. For that matter, he was one of the few ranking men to ever survive an eye-to-eye confrontation with that guy. Moreover, it was another matter of historical record that the two men had worked together briefly in an open relationship during those incubatory days, before Bolan brought his war raging to the surface, and was meanwhile posing as a Mafia recruit in Turrin’s cadre.

  Talk about complications …

  Not only did the mob want Mack Bolan’s head in a sack, but the entire police establishment, including Turrin’s own feds, wanted his butt behind bars. And both sides had immediately begun looking to Leo Turrin as “the Bolan expert.”

  Infinite lives, yeah.

  There had never been a moment, though, when Leo Turrin was confused about the direction of his loyalties. He very deftly fielded all the demands from both sides of his street while walking blithely down the middle, hand in glove with Mack Bolan. And it had proved to be a highly rewarding relationship, entirely symbiotic to both partners. Each owed much to the other. Neither would have come so far alone, and both knew and respected this truth.

  It had only been very recently that the official hand of Washington had reached down in forgiveness and recognition to surreptitiously stroke Mack Bolan’s ruffled fur. The guy had, after all, broken just about every law in the book … many times over. What the government belatedly began to realize, though, Leo had known in the gut almost from the start. This guy Bolan was something different, entirely different. The world had probably not seen his like since the age of chivalry. The motivations of this superb fighter had nothing to do with any vendetta or revenge mentality. Bolan’s commitment was much too wide, and far too deep, to be powered by such shallow preoccupations. The family tragedy had served only as a sparking, as an awakening to truth. Bolan was, to put it as simply as possible, a guy who could not turn away from that truth. He’d broken the law, sure—but not out of any disrespect for that law.

  Indeed, Bolan had broken the law because he had seen no other way to preserve it for those who deserved its protections. Hell, the Mob was running high, wide and handsome—taking what they wanted when they wanted it. And he saw that “the law” would not or could not contain them.

  Well … Bolan had an answer for the Mob.

  He perceived them as a nation within the nation, as an enemy nation bent on the destruction of all the noble American ideals. They were using our own noble rules against us—and winning—but here was a guy who would not sit still and let them win. In his own way, he reacted. It was not Leo’s way. It was not a cop’s way. Mack Bolan was a soldier, and a damned good one. He merely did what good soldiers do when their country is in jeopardy—he went to war. And whatever anyone else might call it, Leo Turrin knew that it was a glorious war, a worthy war, a damned deadly necessary war.

  And he was winning it, yes.

  Unless …

  April Rose was fiddling with the console controls. She flashed a sympathetic glance at her passenger and murmured, “Don’t blame yourself. These things happen, Sticker.”

  “Not usually twice,” the Sticker growled.

  She was refining the focus of the optics system and “augmenting” the infrared with laser pulses. Fantastic damned systems, yeah. A hellishly red image was beginning to flicker from the screen now, the picture somewhat like that of a film negative weirdly lit from behind by red lights. The outlines of an automobile glowed feebly within that image, behind which the brighter negatives of two men were framed in a tight two-shot from the shoulders up, both heads turned to the right as though peering through the window on the passenger side.

  This ghastly image had hardly resolved when bright red pencil-flashes erupted just beyond the window, two quick pulses which streaked across the viewscreen to terminate at each human skull, jerking both of them into a sudden displacement down and away.

  April’s own head jerked slightly in empathetic reaction, and she let out a soft little sigh.

  Turrin squeezed the girl’s shoulder, muttered, “Hang tough, kid,” and went out of there.

  He met his pal the warrior at about the halfway mark along the dark street and told him, quite humbly, “I’m sorry, Sarge.”

  “Not as sorry as them,” Bolan replied in a matter-of-fact tone. He was removing a strange-looking silencer from his Beretta pistol—one of his own developments, no doubt.

  “Them who?”

  “Ike and Mike Baldaserra. What’s their connection, these days?”

  Turrin whistled softly and said, “I dunno. Last I heard of those two, they were doing time in Atlanta.”

  Bolan agreed with that. “That’s my make, too. Maybe you could find out, very discreetly, who’s sponsoring them and why they tailed you from New York.”

  “Did they do that?” Turrin inquired with a sigh.

  “The airline stubs in Mike’s pocket make it look that way. And the car is an airport Avis. That doesn’t read like a direct local conection. Do you think?”

  Turrin shook his head and said, “Guess not. Damn. Well, maybe that’s a blessing. Or maybe it’s not.”

  “Depends on what you like the best,” Bolan agreed.

  “You’re thinking maybe I’ve blown the cover?”

  Bolan shrugged. “Possibly. Maybe you should safe it, anyway. Check out, Leo.”

  “No way,” Turrin muttered.

  “Stubborn,” Bolan said quietly. “The guy is just plain stubborn as a damned old mule.”

  “Look who’s talking stubborn,” Turrin growled. “Second mile, for Christ’s sake. Imagine that. A second goddam mile.”

  Bolan grinned and said, “Watch the swinger, pal.”

  “Same to you.”

  “Need help with the garbage?”

  “I’ll manage. Sarge … dammit … be careful. And sit tight till I hit your floater. Wait for me. Say you’ll wait.”

  “Let’s say I’ll try,” Bolan replied soberly. His eyes flashed toward the death car. “Sometimes you just can’t, you know.”

  Turrin said, “Yeah. I know.”

  Those eyes flashed something very intense from very deep inside, then the big guy spun on his toes and trotted softly up the street toward his cruiser.

  Some kind of damned guy, yeah.

  Turrin threw a kiss at the night, and went on to take care of his garbage detail. He would do what had to be done, then leave that vehicle within walking distance of his own rented wheels.

  “I know,” he told the darkness. “Sometimes, yeah, you just can’t wait.”

  CHAPTER 2

  READINGS

  “Good work,” Bolan said to April Rose as he joined her at the con.

  The girl accepted the quiet praise without comment. She turned the cruiser about and headed it toward the highway. The other vehicle had already departed the scene. When they reached Highway 2, Bolan growled, “Head north.”

  By the time she executed the corner, Leo Turrin’s confiscated wheels were far ahead. “Track or break?” she inquired softly.

  “Break,” Bolan replied, sighing.

  The girl sighed also as she moved to break the electronic lock on the disappearing “target” vehicle. The big grim man beside her was, at his most talkative, not your standard conversational item. At times like this, he was a veritable Sphinx. April had always tried to respect his mental pri
vacy, but it could be aggravating as hell, sometimes.

  After about six blocks of total silence, she quietly invaded that grim atmosphere. “Read it, soldier,” she said, trying to mimic his command voice.

  Bolan’s troubled gaze met hers in the mirror as he replied, “I’m trying.”

  “Let’s try together. Who got killed?”

  He lit a cigarette and responded in a musing tone. “Couple of old pros from Brooklyn. The Baldaserra brothers. Torture freaks, hit men. For pay.”

  April made a face and said, “Ugh.”

  “Yeah. They were originally made by the old Mavnarola family. That’s also the family that brought us such stellar citizens as Augie Marinello and Freddie Gambella. The Baldaserras went free lance a few years ago … I guess trying to revive a little Murder Incorporated shop for the New York territories. That was before I came onto the scene. By the time I first got to New York, the feds already had those boys on jury-tampering charges. We never met. Until just now.”

  April was clearly impressed by Bolan’s phenomenal memory. She asked, “How do you keep all this stuff in your head? You’re saying you saw them for the first time, in the dark, just a quick glimpse … and that was enough? You made them, then blew them away?” She snapped her fingers. “Just like that? What—from some dingy old mug shots in your hinky-dink machine?”

  She was referring to his microfilm library in the intelligence console, a thorough study of the denizens and habitats of the species Mafiosi carnivoris.

  “I keep it updated,” he replied quietly. “I can tell you what those guys like for breakfast. And I’d recognize any of them in hell.”

  The girl shivered slightly and wondered, in a lighter tone, “Are we away clean?”

  “I think so,” Bolan replied soberly. “Rented car. No radio. It’s unlikely that they could have flashed any reports without losing the track. No, I think it’s clean. For us, anyway. Sticker, now, I don’t …”

  “He thinks he led them here.”

  “He did. Which means that someone is beginning to wonder about Sticker.”

  “Sticker is really Leopold Turrin, isn’t he?” she quietly ventured.

  “Bite your lip,” he said, just as quietly. “How’d you know?”

  She tossed her head and said, “I look at pictures, too, you know. And I had a special interest. He used to have the pussy franchise in Pittsfield.”

  Bolan grinned, a bit self-consciously—his usual reaction to her use of vulgarisms. She knew that it both amused and slightly embarrassed him. Which was primarily why April did it.

  He told her, now, “Leo had a lot more than that in Pittsfield. He had the keys to the kingdom.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “I guess I broke his lock.”

  “I see.” After a moment of silence, she prodded on. “I’m surprised you didn’t break his head. Instead, you convinced him that he should come over with the good guys. I find it very strange.” Another brief silence, then, “I’ve been doing some studying myself, the past couple of days. I’ve, uh, learned who Cindy is.” She glanced at him. “The girl who sent you the annotated copy of Don Quixote when you were in Vietnam. With love forever. I was jealous of her. Well, just a bit. Then Mr. Brognola told me that Cindy was your kid sister, that she was dead now, and … and all about that. That’s why I find it so strange about Leopold Turrin. I mean, all that mess is what started you off. And Leopold Turrin was the man directly responsible for it. Why … what … how did you get so damned big-hearted as to let him off when … when … well, it’s kind of weird and I guess I don’t understand it. Everyone in Brognola’s shop knows that you and Sticker are thicker than molasses. I just never would have dreamed that Sticker and Turrin are one and the same. I mean, of all people …”

  Very quietly, Bolan told her, “You don’t have all the facts, April. In the first place, I did not convert Leo to anything. He was ‘Sticker’ long before I came on the scene. And he was not responsible for what happened in Pittsfield. Actually he crutched the situation all he could. Took some great risks doing it, too. I didn’t know about that, at first. Something else I did not know, then, was that Leo was covertly helping me all he could, too. All the while I was trying to whack the guy. Damned near did. If it hadn’t been for …” He took a deep breath. “We’re thick, yeah. Leo is the best friend and the largest man I’ve ever known.” He threw the girl an oblique glance. “Try to understand this: I’d die for that guy, with no regrets.”

  She murmured, “I’ll try to understand that.”

  “And I’m very concerned about his present situation.”

  “Exactly what is the situation?”

  “That’s what I’m trying to read.”

  “We were reading together. Remember?”

  Bolan gave her the information that Leo had brought from New York, concluding with, “So that’s the way it lies at the moment, and I haven’t the gleam of an idea as to what Leo is heading into. Hell of it is, neither does he.”

  “Well, he’s a good game player,” she said, trying to sound reassuring.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What do you think he’s heading into?”

  Bolan raised his hands to shoulder level and dropped them into his lap. “Who knows?” he muttered. “We’re not dealing with—standard logic doesn’t work, with these people.”

  “What kind of logic does work?” she asked.

  “Crazy,” he said quietly.

  “Crazy logic?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You’re saying they’re all insane.”

  “Of course, they’re insane.”

  “Wow. You’d make a good witness for the defense.”

  It came out with strong sarcasm, though she’d not really intended it that way.

  But he let it ride. “Who’s taking them to court?” he responded softly.

  “Right, right. I keep forgetting that you are the judge and the jury.” She was trying to lighten it up, but—she knew—only making it worse. “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded. I’m sorry.”

  Bolan was not rising to the unintended bait, anyway. He said, “I’ve never considered myself the judge or the jury.”

  “What are you, then?”

  “I’m the judgment,” he said softly.

  Right. Right. A small distinction with a great difference. He did not judge them. They judged themselves, by their actions. Mack Bolan was nothing but the Executioner. “Some day I’ll want you to explain that to me,” she said quietly.

  “You’re the scientist,” he replied. “You could explain it to me better.”

  “Action, reaction,” she said, almost smiling.

  “If you say so.”

  “So what about the crazy logic?”

  Bolan frowned. “It isn’t crazy to them. A twisted view makes for a twisted world. In a twisted world, smart is dumb and good is bad.”

  “So how are you reading their view of Baltimore?”

  He said, “The men in New York could be thinking of cutting all their losses, with Leo as the pigeon. That’s the way they would do it. Every move in a twisted world is a twisted move. And, yes, that’s how they’d do it. Send an ambassador down to lull the guy into a false sense of security. Then pull the string on him. Of course, the ambassador doesn’t know that the twist is on. Couldn’t have that. Because when the string is pulled, the ambassador goes down the chute with everything else.”

  “Would that explain the Baldaserras?”

  “Sure would. If that is the show New York has in mind, the Baldaserra boys would be the wires on Leo—their only job to keep him in sight and report his movements. With great stealth. Not because Leo is suspect, but because he has been dispatched on a delicate mission … and because the timing is very important to this particular type of treachery.”

  “Is that the only scenario?”

  Bolan shook his head. “No. It’s also entirely possible that the New York bosses have decided on a strong stand at Baltimore, just the way Leo
laid it out.”

  “Where would Ike and Mike fit into that sort of scenario?”

  “One of two ways,” Bolan explained. “Either someone in New York has reason to suspect that Santelli will not go along—or else someone is feeling a bit uncomfortable about Leo. In the first case, they’ve wired Leo to get a quick feedback on Santelli’s application of crazy logic. In the second, they’re watchdogging Leo in case he’s harboring some crazy logic of his own.”

  April commented, “It gets drearier and drearier, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah. Either way, I don’t like the reading for Leo.”

  “What happens now when New York discovers that their wires have been cut? Won’t they suspect Leo of…?”

  “Leo knows how to handle that kind of problem,” Bolan assured her. “Those boys won’t turn up dead for awhile, yet—maybe never. Someone may wonder where they are … but wondering is not knowing. In a world of crazies, who’s to know whatever became of the Baldaserra brothers?”

  “So what is your final reading?”

  “My final reading,” Bolan replied, in a matter-of-fact tone, “is that it’s going to be a damned long day in Baltimore.”

  “Or a damned short one,” she said, very soberly.

  “You can put that in your teacup and drink it,” he assured her.

  Yes. To be sure. April had already done that. And the taste had grown quite bitter. For everyone concerned.

  CHAPTER 3

  AT THE JUGULAR

  The sentry was about an arm’s length away, breathing very shallow, half-asleep on his feet and lost in some quiet reverie of the pre-dawn, hands in pockets, shotgun propped within easy reach against the stone wall of the bayside estate. Dim yellow light spilling from a corner of the house at the second level caught him now and then, as soft breezes from the bay shook the branches of a skinny tree nearby. Young, very young—just a kid. What did little boys such as this from the big city streets know of the loneliness of the night watch, or the hazards of innocent reverie at the edge of the jungle?