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  The gravel voice from across the way yelled, “What the hell is going on over there?”

  So okay. Not just the way he would prefer it, but okay.

  This was as far as silent lightning would take him on this mission.

  Bolan returned the Beretta to sideleather.

  It was time for thunder.

  Not counting a few extra inches provided by the Western boots which he had adopted immediately upon his arrival in Texas, Jim “Woofer” Tolucci stood an even five and one-half feet tall. He weighed two hundred and forty very solid pounds—and the face atop that burly frame, even in repose, bespoke a man of seething energies and thinly veiled ferocity.

  Tolucci was “head cock” at Klingman’s Wells. The garrison force of Mexican nationals had addressed him as Capitain since his arrival at the hardsite. It was a tag which obviously pleased this graduate of big city street wars. The hardmen of his personal Mafia cadre sometimes used the term in an ingratiating sense, though not always to good effect. In private moments, the Mafiosi referred to their boss as “the animal.” In kinder moments he was “Woofer”—but always, in direct address, “Mr. Tolucci.”

  The Woofer had already committed every crime in the book, including several murders, when he was “made” by the mob at the age of twenty. He was not considered overly bright, not even by the lieutenant who sponsored his initiation, but there was no denying the animal cunning and instinctive ferocity that assured Jim Tolucci a valued place in the organization.

  He inherited his nickname at the age of twenty-five as a result of an injury suffered during a beer hall free-for-all. Someone had worked over his throat with the jagged edges of a broken bottle, causing irreparable damage to his vocal chords. The effect on his speech was a gravelly basso which could be neither modulated nor softened; his every word was a bark. During exertion or unusual emotional stress, each movement of his respiratory system produced a clearly audible and deep-throated growling.

  At this moment El Capitain’s growling was continuous, and his barking commands could be heard throughout the compound.

  “Never mind the light now! It’s almost daylight!”

  And, an instant later: “Mickey! Take some vaqueros down there and check out that plane! What’sa matter with that guy? Something’s damn funny here! Hasn’t that guy called in yet? Get on that fuckin’ radio and—!”

  This last instruction was interrupted by a gurgling scream emanating from somewhere out in the darkness, across the runway toward the west fence.

  Tolucci took a lunging step in that direction then froze to throw back his head and bawl, “What the hell is going on over there!”

  Receiving no immediate response, he dispatched three of his boys to that quarter with the wave of an arm and the rasping command: “Check it out!”

  But then something very weird happened.

  The aircraft hangar and office, just a few paces to Tolucci’s rear, went up in a flaming explosion.

  The concussion of the blast sent the head cock sprawling to hands and knees. Before numbed reflexes could even begin to assess the situation, a secondary explosion—caused probably by the touching-off of the hangar’s aviation fuel storage—rattled the air and sent fiery droplets raining everywhere.

  But Tolucci had no time to ponder that event, either. A piece of the disintegrating building descended upon the kneeling figure, flattening it in the dust of Texas—and just as all the lights were going out, El Capitain could have sworn that he caught a glimpse of a tall figure in black, illuminated by the flames of the blazing building, striding coolly into the holocaust with a chopper under his arm and spitting hellfire at everything.

  But shit!

  That couldn’t be possible.

  It just wasn’t possible.

  Bolan himself at that moment was not wondering just how possible it all was. The hastily flung grenade had evidently found a vital spot; the secondary gasoline explosion had come in right on the numbers—and the mission, at this point, was an unqualified go.

  He went—with the chattergun blazing the trail through her flame-wreathed muzzle with coolly timed bursts that were seeking and finding maximum effect.

  People were staggering and reeling around over there, totally disorganized and seized by the trauma of blitzkrieg assault.

  Yeah.

  It was entirely possible.

  She awoke with a start and lay very still for a few seconds while attempting to recapture the whatever that had awakened her; then quickly she switched on the small bedside lamp.

  It came again, then, a whoofing explosion that brightened the skies outside and sent shadows dancing across the walls of her room.

  Gunfire, now, and the unmistakable staccato of a machine gun. Men yelling and screaming.

  It sounded like—down at the hangar.

  Footsteps running past her door. Voices raised in hysterical Spanish. Shadowy figures floating past the window, pounding feet, frenzied commands well sprinkled with obscenities.

  More gunfire, closer now—the sudden big booming of some unimaginable weapon.

  Thank God. Oh, thank God.

  She slid to her feet, draped the thin blanket across her shoulders to cover her nakedness, and willed her legs to be steady as she staggered to the door.

  Her mind seemed clear enough; it was just the body that would not act properly.

  The door was still locked. Damn it, it was still locked.

  She pounded on it ineffectually for a moment, then returned to the bed, carefully moved the lamp to the floor, and hurled the small table at the window with all the strength she could gather.

  The window shattered. The table rebounded from the steel mesh outside and knocked her sprawling.

  Another huge boom sounded from just outside the broken window. Someone screamed and footfalls again passed her door, this time moving quickly toward the rear.

  The girl pulled herself to her feet and was trying to get herself properly wrapped inside the blanket when she became aware of someone standing just outside the shattered window, peering in at her.

  A black face, with blazing eyes.

  She shuddered and tried to say something to the face, but her voice would not work.

  Then abruptly there was nothing at that window, nothing at all, and she wondered if there ever had been.

  Another loud explosion rocked the building. An acrid stench drifted in through the window.

  More yelling, pounding feet, a fast volley of gunfire—sudden silence.

  She stood in the center of the room, swaying in the blanket, eyes focused on that door, and prayed for a miracle.

  And then the door opened with a crash and a tall commando stood there—a big silver pistol filling one of his hands—other guns and stuff hanging all over him—the face blackened—and, yes, she had actually seen the thing at the window.

  Imagine that. She’d prayed for a miracle and received a commando. Was she dreaming some old British war movie?

  The apparition was speaking to her, but it didn’t sound very British. “Are you Miss Klingman?”

  The blanket was slipping off the shoulders and gaping in embarrassing places.

  She said, “Yes,” but the voice didn’t sound much like Judith Klingman’s. She was struggling with the blanket and trying very hard to behave intelligently. “I’m not—not—they took my clothes and gave me drugs. Wh-who’re you?”

  “My name is Bolan,” he told her. “I guess I’ve come for you.”

  Imagine that. A black knight had come for her.

  No armor, just shining eyes.

  She said, “Thank you,” lost the battle for the blanket, and fainted dead away.

  2: THE TALLY

  The withdrawal from Klingman’s Wells was a real hair-raiser. Grimaldi had pulled the plane to within a hundred feet of the flaming debris that littered the runway and wheeled about in preparation for the quick, short takeoff roll.

  Bolan had obviously overplayed his numbers and the opposition was beginning to reorg
anize itself. He had to shoot a couple of dungareed dudes off the boarding ladder before he could hoist the unconscious girl into the pilot’s waiting arms—then Grimaldi sent the hot little craft careening down the strip to the accompaniment of crackling following fire while Bolan knelt with the girl between the seats.

  They became airborne just in time to clear the fence—by inches. The next hazard was a drilling tower, directly in the line of flight—again, a miss by the seat of Grimaldi’s pants—but then they were up and clear and circling eastward.

  The pilot passed trembling fingers across his eyes and muttered, “Damn! You do call ’em close.” His gaze drifted magnetically to the nude beauty who Bolan at that moment was rebundling into the blanket. “But interesting, yeah,” he added, with a strained chuckle.

  Bolan strapped the unconscious bundle into a rear seat, then dropped his own frame into the copilot position and let out a long, tired sigh as he unburdened himself of armaments.

  Grimaldi waited as long as he could, biting his lip and busying himself with the radionavigational equipment. He lined into the course to the Webb AFB vortac then lit a cigarette and blew the smoke sideways toward his friend. “Well, damn it, are you going to tell me about it?”

  “Scrubbed out at Target Central,” the man in black replied, the voice utterly devoid of emotion. “Civilians on board. Women, old men. Even heard a kid crying.”

  “Sorry ’bout that,” Grimaldi said, using the same flat tone of voice. “Weren’t there my last time in.”

  “Garrison people,” Bolan told him. “I should have guessed. The Mexicans. They like their womenfolk close by.”

  The pilot took a long pull on the cigarette and darted a glance toward the rear of the plane. “So how do you rate the hit?” he asked nervously.

  Bolan slowly shook his head, obviously pondering the same question. “Too soon to say, I guess.” He lit a cigarette for himself and took several quick drags before adding, “Aren’t you going to ask about the booty?”

  “I figured you’d get to that,” the pilot replied soberly.

  “I think she’s Judith Klingman.”

  “The hell!”

  “Yeah. Locked in a bedroom at the hacienda.”

  Grimaldi made a sound through pursed lips and tossed another quick glance over his shoulder. “In that condition?”

  Bolan’s head jerked in a quick nod. “Just about. She was on her feet when I busted in, but just. Said something about drugs. She was a prisoner, no mistake.”

  Grimaldi’s eyes were studying the instrument panel, but obviously his mind was focused elsewhere. Presently, he asked, “Did you get the animal?”

  “I don’t know,” Bolan truthfully answered. “I heard him, during the quiet drill. Then things got hot and suddenly I wasn’t hearing him anymore. I don’t know, Jack.”

  “I’d feel better with that one verified,” the Mafia pilot declared. “He’d never qualify as the smartest gun in the West, but that guy has a sixth sense about some things.”

  Bolan said, “Yeah.”

  “Judith Klingman, eh?”

  “I think so. And I think she verified it.”

  “Well …” Grimaldi was thinking about that, eyes crackling as the mind massaged the situation. He said, “I guess that could explain a few things.”

  “Yeah,” Bolan agreed.

  “I read it as a hell of a good break.”

  “So do I,” Bolan said. “Also a hell of a problem.”

  “Uh … yeah. I see what you mean. Okay. So what’s next?”

  Bolan stared at the glowing tip of his cigarette for a moment, then replied, “First off, Jack, I want you to safe it. I left a lot of survivors back there. Sorry, but that’s the way the ball bounced. Somebody could have a good make on this plane. You’ll have to cover that.”

  “Okay,” Grimaldi quickly agreed. “I’ll bury it. I know a guy up in New Mexico. He’ll log it in for me, any date I say. I’ll have him tear down the engines and log ’er in for maintenance, as of yesterday.”

  “Great.”

  “Sure, it’ll work. Then I’ll pick up some more wings and hot it on over to Dallas. Wait for your call there. Okay?”

  Bolan was thinking about it. He crushed out the cigarette and allowed a bit of emotion into the voice as he regretfully replied, “Maybe you better just bail on out of this one.”

  “No need for that,” Grimaldi came right back. “I can cover it. Look, I’m available. Use me.”

  “I can’t cover you, Jack. And if the boys get even a sniff—well, you know.”

  The pilot grimaced at the thought. “Yeah, I know.”

  Sure, Grimaldi knew.

  The “boys” would enjoy nothing better than a free whack at Mack Bolan’s head. Bolan knew and Grimaldi knew—the mob would skin alive one of their own brothers and feed him his own fingers if they even suspected that he had information which would lead them to their most hated enemy.

  Grimaldi was not even a “made” man. He was simply an employee, a hired chauffeur with wings. Yeah. They’d roast him on an open spit and thoroughly enjoy every screaming moment of it … and there would be many long screaming moments.

  Grimaldi shuddered. “Maybe you’d better scrub out the whole trip,” he muttered. “I’m getting a bad feeling about this state. It’s too open, too damned big—and I get the feeling there’s too much at stake here, for the boys. Every boss in the country has been down here within the past few months. They must be smelling money, and I mean big money.”

  “All the more reason for me,” Bolan said. “You know I can’t walk away.”

  “Well I can’t bail out on you, man!”

  Bolan grinned wryly. “Sure you can.”

  “So what if I do? What about you? Playing it by ear from here?”

  “It’s about all I’ve got,” Bolan told him.

  “What about the girl?”

  “She’s the starter, I guess. First, though, I want to get her to a medic. Know one?”

  “You mean a quiet one. Not within a thousand miles, no.”

  “Then I’ll have to scratch one up.”

  “Think she may be overdosed?”

  “There’s that possibility. I can’t overlook it. First I check her out. Then I’ll check her into the problem.”

  “Maybe she knows nothing. I mean nothing.”

  “I’m betting she does,” Bolan said.

  “You may be betting your life.”

  “So what’s new?”

  Grimaldi laughed sourly. He squinted at the instrument panel and announced, “Big Spring coming up. You’d better get ready.”

  The next few minutes were silent ones. Bolan was stowing weapons and pulling street clothes on over the skin suit.

  The girl moaned once and said something in gibberish.

  Grimaldi was studying the terrain below, looking for visual orientation toward their destination, a small private airfield just north of Big Spring.

  A military jet passed to starboard and waggled wings at them. Grimaldi waggled back and told his passenger, “Okay. Military control zone just ahead. I’m starting around. Make it three minutes to touchdown.”

  “Make it four minutes and fly by once, Jack,” Bolan said quietly. “I want a look, at five hundred feet.”

  Grimaldi grinned, his good humor returning in a rush. What the hell, this was Mack Bolan sitting here. This guy didn’t bet anything. He invested, very carefully.

  The fiery glow of the Texas sun was making its debut on the terrestrial horizon, unmindful of the storm clouds gathering across that landscape. Tallyho, hell yes. A hunted landscape.

  A scrub-out at Klingman’s Wells?

  The tough little Italian who’d been everywhere and seen it all shivered and set his mental perspectives in order.

  Somebody should ask the survivors back there about that so-called scrub-out.

  Grimaldi smiled into the sun and said, “Looks like a nice day, Sarge.”

  “Every day is,” Bolan replied.

&
nbsp; Yeah. Grimaldi understood that, too. For a guy who lived from one heartbeat to the next, every day just had to be something special. Today is the rest of your life, eh? Okay. So okay.

  “I’ll be in Dallas,” he told the large-lifer beside him; then he began the descent for the 500-foot recon into that next heartbeat.

  3: COUNTER MOVE

  Joseph Quaso had been Chief Enforcer of the Texas Territory for only about six months, but already he had built quite a reputation for himself in the organization. He was young, tough, energetic, and—most importantly—he knew how to use his head.

  Quaso was a new-breed Mafioso, one of the young swinging Turks who were fast moving into positions of importance in most of the old Mafia families. His ties were with the Detroit coalition, and they were blood ties. He was kid-brother to Anthony Quaso, an “administrator” under Crazy Sal Vincenti, who was one of the lesser lights in the Detroit ruling council.

  The Texas job was a Commissione appointment. Texas was regarded as an “open territory”—which simply meant that all of the families had the right to stake claims there. The Detroit council had strongly sponsored their fair-haired up-and-comer for the appointment and the other bosses of the national commission had accepted him without reservation.

  And it was a big job. In every practical respect, young Joseph Quaso (age twenty-eight) was the boss of Texas. He was “man on the scene” for La Commissione. As such, it was his primary responsibility to orchestrate the Texas interests of the various families—to do so in a fair and impartial manner—to keep the peace and promote harmony between competitive interests—and to protect the overall combination from unfavorable outside influences.

  It was a Gestapo job.

  And “Jaunty Joe” Quaso loved every nuance of it.

  He commanded a standing army which had recently swelled to an estimated force of more than one hundred guns; he had unlimited financial resources for his “national security budget”; and—best of all—he had the undivided respect and support of the old men throughout the country.

  This Texas phenomenon ruled his empire from an $1,100 per month penthouse in a Dallas suburb, a sprawling eight-room palace. Special feature of the sumptuous apartment was the monstrous bedroom of the master suite. It boasted a revolving playboy bed with built-in bar and quadrophonic sound system, television, and a special toy consisting of a closed-circuit TV camera and monitor with videotaping capabilities. Also available, at the flick of a switch on the master control panel, was a cartridge-style movie projector with an infinite variety of porno films—many of them “produced” by Quaso himself during an earlier period of “self-discovery.”