Satan’s Sabbath Page 6

  Then he checked his Beretta, installed the silencer, placed it on his desk beneath a manila folder, and got ready to receive his guests.

  He expected some, yeah.

  He expected most anybody … and anything.

  CHAPTER 11

  GETTING TOGETHER

  April Rose was busy at the console when Brognola stepped aboard the cruiser. She was a tall girl, strikingly constructed with nice hips and breasts, commanding eyes and shoulder-length dark hair—who would have thought, Brognola wondered, that she’d graduated at the top of her engineering class, picked up graduate honors in solid-state physics—and then, of all things, sought a career in government service. Cloak and dagger damned service, at that.

  She would look a lot more at home as an NFL cheerleader or draped across the center-fold of Playboy.

  The subject of his ruminations flashed a smile at her boss and murmured, “A minute, please.”

  He went to the con, sat down, lit a cigar and watched the girl at her work. Damned good at it, yeah. Brognola felt a bit guilty, though. This had not been the plan. The girl had been a total neophyte in field work. To make her first assignment … Dammit, he’d not meant to involve her to this extent. Her own damned fault, of course. He’d warned her. He’d warned her about Bolan. “You’ll probably fall for the guy,” he’d told her. “Most women do. Not that he’s a lover boy, or anything like that. Quite the opposite. There’s just one thing on that guy’s mind, and it’s not love. So remember that. And keep your distance. Unless you want a lot of pain. He’s a walking dead man.”

  She’d flashed those luminous eyes and replied, “Don’t worry about me, chief. Mr. Bolan does not sound like my cup of tea, anyway.”

  Hah!

  He had given her the full briefing, of course. Told her things about the man and his war such as he’d told no one else, ever. He’d considered it necessary—as much for her benefit as his. And he’d seen the disapproval in her eyes. No, she had not liked the man.

  Until she met him, in the flesh.

  Six days ago. Could that be possible?—six lousy days ago?

  She was hooked, now, that was so obvious.

  Ah well …

  April looked up from the console with a twisted little smile, as though she’d picked up some of the vibes of Brognola’s thoughts. But she said, “It seems to be going great.”

  “What’s happening?”

  She tossed her pretty head to get rid of a troublesome lock of hair and replied, “Not much, yet. Our man just walked in and took the place over. I’ll never be able to understand how he does that.”

  “Sheer guts,” Brognola growled. “Is it wired?”

  “Six channels, yes.”

  “Can I listen in?”

  She shook the question away, explaining: “Not live. Doesn’t work that way. The black box receives and stores each individual channel on a ten-minute program. At the termination of each program, it dumps to the computer, all six tracks at once. Time requirement for the dump is ten seconds. During those ten seconds, inputs via the receiver are assembled on a storage buffer—that is, held in a delay circuit—then printed over to tape when the dump is completed. So the data collection causes no gaps between record programs.”

  “So how do I find out what’s going on up there?”

  “I’ve been setting it up for you,” she replied, smiling. “Look at your terminal.”

  Brognola swivelled his head toward the forward computer. The monitor was illuminated and displaying “Audio Program.”

  “Your controls are the numerals 1 through 6,” April explained. “Those numerals correspond to the individual recording tracks. Striker is on Channel One. Sticker is Channel Four. I do not know the precise locations of the other four pickups.”

  “I just punch the numeral 1 and enter?” he said.

  “Right. That will put you on Striker, beginning with the first dump. Punch ‘one point one’ for the next dump, ‘one point two’ for the second, and so on. The computer has already eliminated null periods so that the conversations will appear continuous even if there are long gaps between data. But you do have the ten-minute frame of reference.”

  Brognola growled, “Right,” and leaned over the terminal.

  “By the way,” April said, “who is Sigmund?”

  “What about Sigmund?”

  “He walked into Striker’s office just prior to the latest dump. All I have so far are their greetings.”

  Brognola sighed, rotated his shoulders, and punched the numeral one on his keyboard.

  The guy rapped lightly on the door and walked on in without an invitation to enter. Medium height, athletic build, strong face, hard eyes, deceptively relaxed manner—age, anyone’s guess—somewhere between thirty and sixty. Bolan had never seen this one, either, but he knew immediately who he was.

  “How’s it swinging, Sigmund?” he inquired casually.

  The Ace of Clubs went straight to the window, gazed outside for a moment, turned back with a thin smile, said: “It’s not swinging at all, I’m afraid. The pendulum has stopped, sir.”

  “The slightest touch will start it again,” Bolan told him.

  The guy turned back to the window. He lit a cigarette, took a deep pull at it, exhaled noisily, put both hands in his pockets, swivelled his head to look at the man behind the desk. “Is that why you’re here?”

  Bolan sent him a hard look as he replied, “I’m here because I’m here.”

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean …” Sigmund took another hard pull at the cigarette. “I was in Europe when, uh …”

  “You were in Zurich.”

  A small light flared in those eyes. “You know me better than I know you, sir.”

  “Shouldn’t I?”

  Sigmund smiled, went to the desk, put out the cigarette, leaned forward to visually scan Bolan’s face and hands. “May I get personal?”

  Bolan smiled. “Why not?”

  “I like your face. Who did it?”

  A small item of shoptalk. But Bolan smiled on and replied, “That’s too personal.”

  And so it was. If the legends had any basis in fact, these guys changed faces almost as casually as they changed suits. A quiet penthouse joke for years was to the effect that the clubs and spades sometimes forgot who they really were. The idea, of course, was to induce others to forget.

  In fact, Bolan’s present face was not the one he’d started the war with. A close look at the proper areas would reveal the telltale marks of “facial restructuring.”

  Sigmund said, “You’re right, it is. Especially now. To put it right up front, sir, I’m a little surprised that you are here.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, I just—you were here when it went to hell, weren’t you?”

  Bolan said, coldly, “I was.”

  “So there’s a lot of hate in this town.”

  “There’s hate everywhere,” Bolan reminded the ace.

  “Especially here, though.”

  Bolan shrugged. “I thrive on it. But they don’t hate me, Sigmund. They hate what their Thing has become. We’re going to change it.”

  “Just the two of us? Because that’s all that’s left, you know. Sometimes I wonder if it isn’t better this way.” The ace sighed and dropped into a chair opposite the desk. “What’s left, you know, isn’t really worth the effort. Unless …”

  “Unless what?” Bolan growled.

  “Unless we can get this guy Bolan. He’s back in town, too.”

  The guy put a bit too much emphasis on the “too.”

  “Have you seen him?” Bolan inquired softly.

  “Who ever sees him? But he’s here. He is. I have spent all my time since the return from Europe studying the guy, doping him, trying to figure him. I think I know, now, how he operates, how he does it.”

  “That’s interesting,” Bolan replied. “I’ve been doing the same thing. In the field, though.”

  “Yes, I uh, I understand that you’ve been quite active, Omega. Are y
ou also Frankie?”

  “I’m a lot of people,” Bolan said coldly. “Don’t try to spot me, Sigmund. It’s been tried by the best. Including Barney, also known as Peter, also known as The Rock, etcetera, etcetera.”

  Sigmund’s manner underwent a total transformation. He seemed to relax, thaw. “Barney was the rock upon which the church was built.” He lit another cigarette. “I thought I was the only one who knew that.”

  “Did you know,” Bolan asked quietly, confidingly, “that the Talifero brothers were Barney’s kids? I mean, for real flesh and blood.”

  The guy’s chin dropped. He flicked the ash from his cigarette and said, “That’s—is that gospel?”

  “It’s gospel,” Bolan quietly assured the guy. “He told me about it just before he died. Just before …” He swept the room with his hand. “Just before he left me this.”

  “I knew,” Sigmund commented in a hushed voice, “that this office was the seat of power. But it was never occupied, never a soul here. I used to come in and just sit at the desk, sometimes. Feels good, doesn’t it. I spotted old Barney coming out of here one night, though—oh, couple of years ago. He knew I’d spotted him, too. Which, I’ve always believed, is why I suddenly found myself with the European assignment.”

  “How is it over there?” Bolan inquired, changing the subject, he hoped.

  “Bad enough. But not so bad as here. They’ve been pulling money from the numbered accounts like there was no bottom to the barrel. So the Taliferos were …”

  “They lost forty or fifty mil yesterday,” Bolan said.

  “Yes, I heard. That makes about five hundred mil, just this past week or so. Between us brothers, Omega, there’s not that much left to save. When Augie died …”

  “There’s more to it than money,” Bolan pointed out, trying to keep the conversation centered on the here and now. “Money is a fluid. It flows this way and that. We can get it flowing right again if we can get the Thing right, again. And I think you’re right—the guy Bolan is the key. What makes you think he’s here?”

  “I know he’s here,” said the Ace of Clubs.

  “How?”

  “He’s hit Marco twice already this morning.”

  “How do you know it was Bolan?”

  “It adds that way. I’ve been doing a lot of commuting to Washington the past couple of weeks. I have some sources there. I think I know what the guy is doing, and how. He’s here, right now. I think he’s here for the knockout punch.”

  “What knockout?” Bolan asked quietly.

  “The whole thing. I believe he means it as his swan song.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I believe he’s going in with the feds.”

  “How would you get something like that?”

  “I told you, I have sources.”

  “But if the feds know what the guy is doing …”

  “Exactly,” Sigmund said with a smug smile.

  “You think they’re sponsoring him?”

  “I think so, yes.”

  “For how long?”

  Sigmund shrugged. “What does it matter? If they are sponsoring him now …”

  Silence reigned over that office for a moment before Bolan said, “You’d better give me what you have.”

  “There have been massive federal movements all this past week,” Sigmund reported, hunching conspiratorially closer. “There’s a guy, Harold Brognola—he’s a special assistant to the Attorney General. That’s for the public view. Among those in the know, though, it is very quiet knowledge that this guy Brognola works directly out of the White House. Well, so, these movements—these federal movements are by some sort of hush-hush task force led by Brognola. Would you like to hear the itinerary?”

  Bolan growled, “I can guess.”

  “Your guess is right,” Sigmund replied, reading his face. “These are airlift operations involving several large government transports. They’re carting around buses loaded with all sorts of sophisticated electronic gear. Plus a damned army of federal marshals. It can’t be a coincidence that they turn up everywhere Bolan does.”

  “Not hardly,” said Bolan himself.

  “They’re here today.”

  “You’re sure of that?”

  “The transports are parked out at Kennedy, right now.”

  “Maybe it’s an all-out effort to catch the guy. He’s one of the most-wanted men. Or, supposedly.”

  “Supposedly is right,” said Sigmund. “It just doesn’t read that way. I think they’re supporting him.”

  “Well that’s a hell of a note,” Bolan growled.

  “That’s what I say. When the damned government starts coming down on the side of a guy like that …”

  “It’s scary,” declared the “guy like that.”

  “Worse, yet,” said Sigmund. “I’m afraid the guy is carrying one of our markers.”

  Bolan tried to look appropriately disturbed by that bit of news. “Where do you get that?” he growled.

  “Nothing for sure … but it does seem to read that way. I think maybe he’s been carrying it for a long time. That could be why there’s so much hate in the country. If you get me.”

  Omega got him, all right. Mack Bolan got him, too. Straight down the pike. This Ace of Clubs was dangerous as hell. He should have been a Spade. Maybe he would have become one except for the insane secrecy cloaking this nutty penthouse. If Barney had not sent the guy away …

  “I guess it’s just you’n me, now, pal,” Bolan told that Club. “Let’s see what we can put together.”

  Hal Brognola lifted a full twelve inches out of his chair and yelled, “Well Jesus Christ!”

  “What is it?” April cried.

  “Don’t ask! Just don’t ask!”

  The chief was up and out of there in a twinkling, leaving April to puzzle the thing through for herself.

  She set up the program in the master terminal, put on the headset, and pushed the proper button.

  Minutes later she slumped wearily against the console, swiped angrily at a tear on the cheek, and whispered, “My God!”

  Brognola’s concern was perfectly understandable, of course, in view of the disconcerting counter-intelligence contained in Audio Program 1.2—the revelation of a dangerous leak in official Washington which could doom not only Bolan’s New York strike but the Phoenix Project, as well.

  But the chief’s hasty departure had occurred moments before the collection of program 1.3—and the revelation there was even more frightening.

  Marco Minotti and his “troops” had just arrived at Mafia headquarters.

  At White Sands, just a few days ago, Bolan and Minotti had stood toe to toe and eyeball to eyeball—and Marco had lived to remember the encounter.

  He was, April knew, perhaps the one Mafioso in New York who could blow Mack Bolan’s cover.

  Forever, yes. Forever.

  CHAPTER 12

  FULL HOUSE

  Leo stuck his head in the door to announce, “Minotti and his troops are on the way up.”

  “How many?” Bolan-Omega inquired.

  “Five carloads.”

  “Make them comfortable in the lounge” the Ace of Spades instructed. “We’ll be with ’em in a minute.”

  Then he turned to Sigmund and asked him, “Did you know he was coming?”

  The guy nodded his head and replied, “I called him.”

  “Why?”

  “Seemed the thing to do.” Sigmund spread his hands in an explanatory gesture. “Face it, Marco’s the boss, now.”

  Bolan growled, “The hell you say.”

  “He says it,” replied Sigmund with a solemn smile.

  “And you say it,” Bolan growled.

  “Okay, sure, I came down on the power side. To tell the truth, I was leaning toward Santelli until yesterday. But Tommy is gone, now. Marco is the only power left.”

  “Marco is a streetcorner hood.”

  “So was Augie, thirty years ago. So were they all. I can work with M
arco. Can you?”

  Bolan-Omega replied, “I’d rather not.”

  “Do you have a viable alternative?”

  “I’d damn sure like to come up with one.”

  “Would you feel better, then,” said Sigmund, “if I withhold the kiss for a while?”

  “I’m telling you to do so,” Bolan said quietly.

  “Then I will, of course. But if I may advise you … our position here, now, is very tenuous. It seems that you and I are the only monitors left in the game. One unwise move and …”

  “Have you been briefing Marco with regard to the Washington angle?”

  “Only very sketchily,” Sigmund replied. “Enough to gain his confidence.” He smiled craftily. “Not enough to make my own services no longer required.”

  Bolan smiled back. “You should be a Spade.”

  “I think so, too, naturally.”

  “We’ll make it official as soon as we get the new Thing stractured.”

  “Thanks,” Sigmund said, candidly adding: “It’s long overdue.”

  “I recommended you two years ago,” Bolan Omega declared quietly, adding his own touch of candor to the conversation.

  “Was that before or after …?”

  “Before,” Bolan replied.

  “Well, so, we both know what happened to that recommendation.” The guy chuckled. “It went to Europe.”

  So the Ace of Clubs had a sense of humor. Even ironic humor. It was nice to know that. Bolan chuckled with him as he confided, “Mine went to South America twice before it finally got home.”

  They were buddies, now—confidants, in this wacky world of Mafia intrigue.

  Sigmund got to his feet, cracked the door open, peered into the lounge, said, “They’re here, I believe. Would you like for me to go out and …?”

  Bolan quickly said, “Yeah, I wish you would. I’m not sure I can look that blowfish in the face.”

  Sigmund almost giggled. He straightened his face, said, “Well, I’ve had a lot of practice at it,” and went on out.

  Bolan sighed, retrieved his Beretta from beneath the manila folder, removed the silencer, restored the piece to the shoulder holster.

  No. He damned sure did not want to face that guy. Not in this time and circumstance.