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  His gaze flicked to Bolan and lingered there for a moment; then he chuckled and resumed the account. “It was Mack and me, two flankmen, two scouts. We walked for three days, and we knew where we was headed. We played the VC game, see. Hit and fade, hit and fade. By the time we’d penetrated to Vanh Duc, the VCs were screaming bloody murder. We’d already executed one of their generals, a half a dozen high-ranking field officers, and about that many of their village politicians. They were fit to be tied. Finally the northmen had to come outta their holes. Losing face, see, to a lousy six-man team. They sprung their trap on us at Vanh Duc—and of course, that’s what we’d been aiming at all the time. We got a full battalion chasing our butts out across the rice paddies, and that’s where they met our air force.”

  “I remember that operation,” Harrington put in. “That was the time the airborne infantry was living in helicopters for three days.”

  “That was Vanh Duc,” Zitka confirmed, nodding his head soberly. “We smoked ’em out, and what the air force didn’t get, the Ninth did.”

  “We’re playing a Vanh Duc game here,” Bolan explained. He glanced at his watch. “Only there will be no air-force or infantry reinforcements to finish the job once we’ve smoked the enemy into the open. We have to do the entire job ourselves. We’re going to hit ’em, and hit ’em, and keep on hitting ’em until they’re trying to hide up each other’s asses. Then, when we know who they are and where they are, all of them—then we squash them. That’s the entire plan. We play the details by ear. Gadgets has bugs all over Giordano’s house, and he put a recorder on the telephone. In just about two hours, Zitter and Bloodbrother will take up their stakeout positions. Flower, you’re on Zitter. Gunsmoke, on Bloodbrother. You know the routine—play it like life and death, ’cause that’s what it’s going to be. Boom, you alternate the electronics watch with some Gadgets. Politician and Deadeye, on me but not too close, give me room to operate. Chopper, you’ve got base camp security. Oh—and Boom, how long would it take you to make about a dozen of those little impact grenades?”

  “You don’t want fragmentation?” the explosives man asked solemnly.

  “No. Just plenty of flash and concussion.”

  “Hell—twenty minutes,” Hoffower replied.

  “Good. Do it now. Put them in a hip pouch for me.” Bolan smiled and got to his feet. “This is going to be a lot better than Pittsfield. I’m glad you people are with me.” He started to walk away, then checked his stride and turned back with an afterthought. “Oh—Politician has the money divvied up into eleven shares. It figured to forty-seven-fifty per man. The eleventh share is for the kitty. Pick up your money and then get some rest. There won’t be much sleeping tonight.” He turned abruptly and strode off the patio, heading for the beach.

  “What’s this bittty about the kitty?” Andromede asked, addressing no one in particular.

  “The war fund,” Blancanales explained. “Told me to put his share in there too.”

  “Somebody loan me three hundred,” Fontenelli said. He was the first at the table and was fingering a packet of bills with reverence. “I wanta know what five grand feels like, all in one hunk.”

  “Where’s he going?” Hoffower asked, gazing after the departing leader.

  Zitka picked up his share of the spoils and said quietly, “He always goes off by himself for a while after a strike. Leave ’im alone.”

  “If he don’t want the money, what does he want?” Hoffower persisted.

  “Aw hell, Boom, they rubbed out his whole family,” Harrington said.

  “It’s a holy war,” Andromede murmured. “The Karmic pattern. The law of retribution. Liberation from hell to heaven—and maybe back to hell again.”

  Hoffower was carefully counting his stack of bills. He thrust a wad at Blancanales. “Here’s the thousand he advanced me,” he said quietly. “Put it in the kitty.”

  “It wasn’t an advance,” Blancanales protested. “It’s a bonus.”

  “Put it in the kitty anyway,” Hoffower insisted.

  Blancanales accepted the money and added it to the stack on the table. Andromede stared at the “war fund” for a strained moment, then quickly counted a thousand dollars from his packet and dropped it onto the table. Fontenelli wavered painfully, then followed suit.

  Washington was staring after the quickly receding figure of Mack Bolan as he trudged up the beach. “There go de judge,” he said with a soft sigh. Then he stepped to the table and deposited a stack of bills.

  Loudelk was smiling faintly. “Soft probe, eh?” He tossed an uncounted stack into the growing kitty. “Here’s my vote for the winning side.”

  The vote of confidence quickly became unanimous, the war fund swelled, and—most important—the ten had become one.

  Flower Child Andromede walked to the edge of the patio, then turned back to his comrades, his face in a saintly expression, and said, “Vanh Duc, Vanh Duc, through blood and muck, if it’s not a gangbang, it’s a piece of bad luck.”

  “What he talking about?” Washington muttered.

  “Liberation, I guess,” Loudelk quietly replied. “We know about that bag, don’t we, black man?”

  Washington grinned without humor. “Yeah, man, we know that bag.” He raised his voice and directed it toward Andromede. “Hey, Chaplain—come on over here and confess my sins.”

  “You handle your sins, brother, and I’ll handle mine,” Andromede replied, grinning. “Right now, I go to build up my contempt of death. Join me. We’ll meditate together beside the still waters.”

  “I’ll join you at Vanh Duc, man,” Washington replied softly.

  “There’s a reality.” Andromede sighed and walked away. Death, he had long ago decided, was the only true reality.

  Chapter Four

  HARDCASE

  Captain Tim Braddock had been with the Los Angeles Police for eighteen years. Married, father of three, still hard and trim at the age of forty-two, he looked more the successful young business executive than a captain of detectives. Braddock was “on his way,” according to the scuttlebutt around the Hall of Justice. Respected, admired, competent, effective—these were the terms most commonly employed in any discussion of the man. For the previous two years, he had been shunted into administrative and liaison details, public-relations work, and other nonpolicing duties that seemed to be pointing him toward higher echelons of police business. And now he had been assigned as coordinator of the hottest job to hit the force since the Kennedy assassination—the Bolan case.

  The project had been appropriately code named Hardcase. It had aroused the active interest of every police agency in the state. Representatives of most of these were now assembling in the briefing room to hear L.A.’s approach to the problem. A man from the Attorney General’s office in Sacramento would be out there, as would liaison men from the state troopers, several federal agencies, and various sheriff’s departments and a heavy contingent from L.A.’s neighboring municipalities.

  Braddock felt as though he were about to enter a lineup; in just a moment he would be asked to step forward, stand straight, state his name and occupation, and say something in his natural voice. He shivered inwardly. A forlorn part of him wished fervently for a return to the earlier, simpler, no-nonsense days of cops and robbers, to a time when being a cop was simply being a bastard, going after the lawbreaker, and shooting him dead or bringing him in to a certain punishment. The practical area of Braddock’s mind knew, however, that those simple old days were gone forever. A cop was now one part politician, one part diplomat, one part big brother, one part father image, one part savant, one part constitutional lawyer—all of which left very little room for that part which was just plain cop.

  The “just plain cop” was a vanishing American. Tim Braddock did not wish to vanish. He had come a long distance in eighteen years; eighteen more might well see him sitting at the big desk in the chief’s office. Ambition could be a stern taskmaster; in this twentieth-century pressure-boiler world of competitio
n, the will to succeed was closely akin to the instinct for survival. It boiled down to that, and no one was more aware of this grim fact than was Tim Braddock.

  He squelched the butterflies flitting about his stomach with a stern inner command and listened as the deputy chief was introduced, then allowed his mind to wander as the number-two at L.A. made his presentation of the broad generalities of the case. Braddock was well acquainted with the generalities. He was certain that every officer in the room was equally aware of The Executioner’s background and recent history. The audience was respectfully attentive, however; after all Braddock reasoned, the man addressing them was merely one step below the top of the largest police agency west of Chicago. Also, they were being asked for neither approval nor cooperation. Braddock, in his talk, would be asking for both. There would be no room, at that podium, for just-plain-cop Tim Braddock. And if he did not pull this thing properly … well, that chief’s desk would begin to look mighty remote.

  The deputy chief was angling into Braddock’s introduction. “… And Captain Braddock will be coordinating this department’s handling of the Bolan affair. His office will be the point of direct contact between all local, state, and federal efforts toward Hardcase. Gentlemen—Captain Tim Braddock, Los Angeles Police Department.”

  Someone in the back of the room applauded briefly as Braddock walked toward the podium. Applause was out of order here. The captain tossed a wink at the back wall, smiled drolly, and spoke into the microphone. “Somebody out there knows me,” he said genially.

  The audience responded with light laughter and Braddock’s guts felt better. The ice was broken. “Just so that everybody will know me, Officer John Ward will distribute some cards.” He angled a nod toward a uniformed officer who stood in the pit just below the speaker’s platform. “You can think of these as calling cards,” Braddock went on, in the lightly genial manner he preferred for starters. “I’d appreciate it, though, if you would regard the information on these cards as confidential. The telephone numbers you’ll find there are reserved exclusively for Hardcase communications. The radio frequencies are for special primary and secondary nets established for mobile units assigned to Hardcase. We presently have ten cars assigned exclusively to this project on a twenty-four-hour basis. Each car is assigned to a specific sector of the city. We are going to ask that each of our neighboring police agencies maintain a listening watch on these special nets, so that they may be fully on top of any developments and be prepared to lend assistance as required.”

  Officer Ward was moving efficiently along the line of chairs, issuing a stack of the cards to be passed along each row. Braddock continued. “Special instructions have been issued to every mobile unit in this department, for a prearranged reaction upon receipt of a Hardcase alert. Bolan is a military tactician, and a darned effective one, I’m told. He should not be regarded as a lunatic. He is not a wild-eyed fanatic or a bloodthirsty gunslinger, and any attempts to deal with him from this viewpoint will generally be ineffective. From all I have been able to learn of his M.O., he studiously avoids any confrontation with police authority. He apparently goes to great lengths to protect innocent bystanders. He is still, of course, a dangerous criminal. He must be apprehended at the earliest possible moment.

  “Now—I want to take just a moment to review with you The Executioner’s activities at Pittsfield last month.”

  Braddock shuffled his papers, delicately cleared his throat, directed a pleasant gaze upon the assemblage, then began his reading. “On August 22nd, firing from an upper floor of a building a hundred yards distant, he shot to death five officers of a Mafia-controlled loan company, in the street outside their office. He used a Marlin .444 with telescopic sights, and he fired only five shots. There was no return fire, althought two of his victims were armed. No injuries were sustained by bystanders.

  “Apparently he then managed to infiltrate the local Mafia activities, went to work for them, and gained a familiarity with their operations in and around Pittsfield. According to police intelligence, the Mafia was tipped to Bolan’s true role shortly thereafter, and a contract was let for his death. On the morning of August 31st, two Murder, Incorporated, contractors were shot to death during a gun battle in Bolan’s apartment.

  “This is when the fireworks began in earnest, and this is where the Bolan M.O. begins to show its sting. He seems to go in for the thunder-and-lightning technique, hitting hard, fast, and repeatedly in a blitzkrieg offensive which keeps his enemies reeling and confused. On the afternoon of August 31st, Bolan knocked over a prize pleasure palace …” Braddock raised his eyes and grinned. “A house of prostitution, gentlemen.” A responsive titter from the assembled lawmen greeted the unnecessary explanation.

  Braddock paused to allow the good humor to run its course; then he continued. “He knocked over a prized palace in a suburban community, burning it to the ground, then lay cooly on a distant hillock and shot the tires off a parked police cruiser and a fire captain’s car, then punched a fusillade into an approaching carload of Mafia henchmen, wounding one of them severely and destroying the expensive automobile.”

  A shuffling and chuckling in the audience again brought Braddock to a pause. He dabbed at his forehead with a handerchief. “It’s no wonder this boy captured the public fancy,” he went on. “A lot of people identified with him, you see, even a lot of police officers. This is an attitude that has worked in Bolan’s favor. Needless to say, it hurts the police efforts. Bolan is a war hero. He has been repeatedly decorated for valor and heroism. Many honest, law-abiding citizens are in strong sympathy with him. The Bolan image runs somewhat along these lines: One of our boys in Vietnam, a decorated boy, is called home from the wars to bury his family, victims of Mafia terrorism. Heroic boy from Vietnam becomes avenger, declares a one-man war on the homefront underworld, and sallies forth into a heroic war against another of our country’s enemies. Bunk!”

  Braddock raised his eyes to gaze levelly upon his audience. “I say again, gentlemen—bunk! This is a terribly and a dangerously misleading image. Mack Bolan is a highly trained death machine. He is extremely dangerous, both in a positive and in a negative sense. He is a remorseless killer, an executioner in the strictest sense, a brilliant tactician who would replace law and justice with the code of the battlefield. He is judge and jury, prosecution and defense, the law, the final word.

  “But let’s get back to Pittsfield. A short while after his assault upon the pleasure palace, he shows up at the palatial estate of one of the Mafia chieftains. He is dressed in a power-company uniform. He coldbloodedly slips a knife into the two security men guarding the property and dumps their bodies into the swimming pool, after first severing power and telephone lines and luring the men out of the house to ‘assist’ him in checking out the trouble. Then he goes inside the house, slashes the mattresses on all the beds, and shoots up a large portrait of the Mafia chieftain. This was purely a harassment tactic—obviously he knew that the owner of the property was not at home.

  “But this is another significant feature of the Bolan M.O. Apparently he had been exposed before he could penetrate into the higher councils of the Mafia. He was trying to jar them, frighten them—to roust them into a panic that would smoke the higher ups into the open. And this boy does move fast. Listen, now. That same afternoon he returned to the scene of his first hit, the loan company, calmly walked in and helped himself to a secret Mafia cache of undeclared wealth, some one-quarter million, it is said, then ordered the employees to stack all their loan records in a pile on the floor and burn them.”

  Braddock looked up with a broad grin. “Now, how many thousands of good, upstanding citizens would you imagine became endeared to The Executioner through that simple act? He burned the loan records.”

  Again he waited for the amused response to settle; then he continued. “I’m trying to give you some insight into this guy—and possibly explain why the news people have contributed so much to his hero image. He is a heroic figure. He’s a natu
ral for the role. People enjoy hearing about a guy who is getting away with it, especially if they can visualize him wearing a clean white hat.

  “It should be noted, also, that Bolan apparently has an appreciation for his image. He picks his battlefields carefully, confining them, generally, to Mafia property. He is kind and considerate to bystanders and goes to great lengths to keep them out of the line of fire. Instead of bursting into a house with his guns blazing, he meticulously weeds out the villains, invites them outside, and neatly dispatches them. A household servant does not even see the color of their blood.

  “That night—that same night, yes; he keeps moving—Bolan broke contact at another chieftain’s house and ran when the guy’s wife starts plinking away at him with a little target pistol. He did not return her fire but elected to break off and run, and it cost him. He was hit, but I guess not too badly. He dropped out of sight for a few days. He could afford to. Earlier that same evening, the night he was wounded, he had followed one of the chieftains to a Mafia family council and broke up the proceedings with a longrange sniper attack—and this one seemed calculated to only serve notice that he had located their headquarters. This is another M.O.-significant tactic. He tied it in later. The family’s nerves must have been fraying tremendously during Bolan’s recuperative period. Even the fates, it seems, are sympathetic with this guy.

  “Follow this action, now, in his second blitzkrieg. First he calls the local police department and warns them that he’s hitting tonight—and to keep clear. Is he naive, brazen, or boastful?” Braddock shook his head. “Apparently his first stop is at a private warehouse where war-surplus munitions and arms are kept. Note the image keeping, now. He breaks into the warehouse and carefully selects a personal arsenal. He leaves behind a detail itemization of the stolen goods—and more than enough money to pay for them.