The Killing Urge Page 6

  "You said one minute," Cleavon returned. "I know how long a minute is. Just do it, soldier boy."

  "You'd better be there, asshole," Burnett threatened. "And listen to me... nobody gets out of there alive except us. Okay... a minute from... now. Out."

  He reached out and took the duffel from Juke and unzipped it, pulling out two Remington 12-gauge pump shotguns and two .45 automatics. "You hear what I told Cleavon?" he whispered to Juke as they both stuck the .45s into the waistbands of their pants. "Kill everyone, Juke. We have to kill everyone."

  The big man nodded, still keeping his promise of silence, his eyes wide.

  Burnett pumped a round into the chamber, feeling powerful and manly. He nodded to Juke there in the darkness, then charged across the sand to the stairs, running up them two at a time.

  The diners saw him as soon as he crested the deck. One of the women screamed as his pigeon jumped to his feet, the cigar falling out of his mouth. The man was turning toward the house as the sound of the front picture window imploding heralded the arrival of Red Team.

  Burnett took in details about the four with a sweeping glance. The two women wore designer clothes; the pigeon, as host, was dressed more casually than the other man, who wore a suit and looked wimpy and confused. The man in white put his hands up, just as Coolie and Cleavon came through the sliding-glass door to the patio.

  The man in white tightened his jaw angrily. Burnett was surprised to see he wasn't scared. "You're from Villani, right?" he said. "I can pay you better... I swear I can."

  The man could have offered the moon right then and it wouldn't have mattered to Burnett. He was so keyed up with the urge to kill that he would have exploded if he couldn't have found release. His breath was coming too fast for him to talk, his lips stretched across his teeth in a tight grin.

  He raised the shotgun, grunting, beyond words, and caressed the trigger for only a second before squeezing it. The obscene pop of the weapon triggered more screams from the women as the man's chest exploded all over his white shirt and he fell to his knees. Coolie fired then from behind, taking off the top of the man's head and throwing him forward on the deck, dead on impact.

  Juke and the laughing Cleavon Brown cut loose on the other man as he tried to dive over the edge of the deck. Scattershot knocked him sideways and he took out the rail as his body plummeted to the sand below. Both Coolie and Burnett turned to the woman still sitting, stupefied, at the table and opened up on her at the same time. The glass of the tabletop and wine bottles exploded as her head and torso were ripped apart. Cleavon fired at her, too, knocking her out of the chair to the deck.

  The lone survivor stood, hands to her face, screaming insanely amid the carnage.

  "Mine!" Burnett yelled before the others could do her.

  He threw down the shotgun and drew the .45, walking to her and grabbing her by her long, blond hair, jerking her head back. He looked deeply into her panic-stricken eyes, wanting her to take the image of his superiority with her to the beyond. Her scream caught in her throat, her mouth hanging open.

  He jammed the semiautomatic into her stomach and pulled the trigger, the sound muffled somewhat by her body. She began shaking wildly. He fired again, clamping his mouth on hers for a long, lingering kiss of death.

  She slid to the deck. Burnett looked up with glazed eyes, his face and mouth covered with her blood. "I guess that's it," he said. He drew his fingers across his face, looked at them and smiled at the blood he saw there.

  * * *

  Bolan sat in the Econolodge parking lot, fighting off drowsiness and feeling entirely useless. He should probably welcome the quiet break, but all that rest did for him was take the edge off, the edge that kept him alive in his constant flirtation with death.

  He should never have let Brognola talk him into this, he thought. As he had explained to the Fed, the job was at odds with his principles. When you lay down with pigs you couldn't help but come away dirty, and Sam Giancarlo and his "family" were swine of the highest order. The old man's record of murder, prostitution, dope and loan-sharking went back all the way to the thirties and the criminal empire set up by Lucky Luciano. The price tag for the pain, suffering and degradation that this one man had caused was beyond calculation, and the thought of Giancarlo living out the rest of his life under sympathetic government supervision was almost more than the Executioner could bear.

  He looked at his watch. He'd been sitting there in the motel parking lot for nearly two hours, two hours of wasted time and energy.

  His rearview mirror suddenly glowed with lights as a car pulled up right behind. AH senses went on full alert, one hand moved closer to the combat webbing he wore under his sport jacket.

  He checked the sideview and saw the door of the car behind opening. Joan Meredith stepped out, her face strained, hard. Something was wrong.

  He leaned across the seat and unlocked the door on the passenger side so she could get in. She sat beside him and looked straight ahead through the windshield.

  "What happened?" he asked.

  "Somebody hit Vito Perezzi tonight," she announced.

  "When? Where?"

  "About an hour ago in south L.A., Laguna Beach." She turned and looked at him. "They got him at home."

  "This changes everything." Bolan rubbed his eyes. Both he and Brognola had hoped the Pallonatti hit was a fluke, with no connection to witness protection. But now it was obvious it was no fluke. He knew what came next.

  "Yeah," she replied. "Our investigation has just gone out front and active."

  "Hal sent you out here, didn't he?"

  She stared at him for a moment, frowning. "I'm not going to pressure you, Mack, if that's what you're afraid of. I'd like to have you with me, but I understand your feelings on this."

  "Give me the whole thing," he replied, turning in the seat to watch her.

  She took a long breath. "Hal's had second thoughts," she said. "Perezzi's murder coming so soon after Pallonatti's makes him think they're going for a full-house sweep, and pretty fast..."

  "I agree," Bolan said.

  "Next, there's two options. Either gather up the rest of the witnesses and try to hide them, or send them protection right now for whatever happens."

  "Let me guess," Bolan said. "The first option might not work, because they could be under surveillance already, plus they aren't going to want to move. But if we offer federal protection right on the spot, it might scare off the killers until they can arrange something more substantial."

  "That was Hal's thought, too," Meredith replied.

  "It's the next part I don't want to hear."

  She narrowed her eyes. "Our investigations here will be handled through regular channels now. We're all being shipped out as bodyguards."

  "We?" Bolan's tone was sharp.

  "All of us... you, if you want to."

  "I don't want to."

  "I understand."

  "Do you?"

  "Look," she said. "Hal told me not to push you on this. I'll be in charge out there. Hal does ask that you stay here and supervise the surveillance. He thinks it's still important to locate the leak."

  "I agree with that, too." Bolan hated the thought of sending his squad into action without him. He'd only known most of them for two days, but by God, they were his people. Again he damned his stupidity for getting into this situation. "Tell me exactly what happened."

  "Not much to tell," she answered. "Perezzi and his wife were having dinner with a couple from farther down the beach. Apparently some gunmen interrupted their meal and blew them all away. Another neighbor heard screaming and called the police."

  "Strange," Bolan mused. "It doesn't add up."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I've been studying the Mafia for many years," he said. "This doesn't fit the pattern. First of all, when they put a hit on someone, they try to do it where they can dispose of the body so it won't be found, the way they did with Pallonatti. They're always concerned about too much adverse publicity b
ecause it puts the heat on them. The second thing is sort of a personal scruple. Most Mafia hoods won't hit the victim's wife. That way his own wife won't get hit. It's kind of an unwritten law."

  "What are you saying?" she asked.

  "I think that whoever set up this killing went outside the family to get it taken care of," he said. "That's kind of scary, because it adds a wild card to the proceedings, an unexpected problem. This thing won't be resolved through regular channels only. Does Hal plan on taking any action on his suspects in the leak?"

  "He's already gotten authorization to drag them all in for lie detector tests," she said.

  "Good. Soon, I hope."

  "Tomorrow morning."

  This was going to be a messy one, Bolan thought, far messier than Joan Meredith realized. He forced himself to think about directly protecting Mafia scum, then pictured her lying on the floor somewhere with her head blown off because he wasn't around. He couldn't stand the first thought and couldn't live with the other.

  "I want a video tape of the death scene," he said, "or at least photographs. We're going to need to be on this as early tomorrow as possible. How far apart are the three remaining men scattered?"

  "They're all across the country," she said. "Does this mean you're going to go?"

  He nodded curtly. "If you don't mind my taking your job?"

  She leaned across the seat and hugged him. "I've never been so glad to be second fiddle in my life."

  He returned the hug. It felt good, comfortable. "Let's get back now. We need to pull this together and make some decisions."

  "What about your stakeout here?" she asked.

  Bolan frowned. "Probably a late night card game or a liaison with a Senate page. The way the people in this town live, anything's possible."

  She opened the car door and climbed out, then turned to address him. "Thanks, Mack. You're doing the right thing."

  "I sure hope you know what you're talking about," he replied, starting the engine, "because every instinct in my body is screaming that I'm making a mistake."

  "Don't worry, big guy." She smiled. "I'll protect you."

  He put the car into gear. "See you back at base," he said as she shut the car door. Then he pulled away from the Econolodge, catching New York Avenue back toward the Capitol. Joan Meredith eased her car into the light evening traffic right behind him.

  Had either of them looked into the rearview mirror when they were pulling out, they would have noticed a Justice Department lawyer named Ken Chasen and a woman known as Yvette pause arm in arm inside the glass double doors of the motel for a lingering kiss, before Chasen headed into the parking garage.

  5

  He had a pretrial this morning on, of all things, one of the Giancarlo indictments. Ken Chasen shook his head. It was Mann Act stuff involving the transportation of hookers from New York to Chicago, as if there weren't enough hookers in Chicago already.

  The papers were rattling because of the tremor in his hands, and he had to set them down finally, and sit back to rub his eyes. He should have got more sleep last night; he shouldn't have had the fight with Marie when he got home from being with Yvette. He shouldn't have snorted almost three grams of coke during the course of the night, either, but it had been that kind of a night.

  His eyes were red and swollen and his stomach hurt, and now this goddamn pretrial. He'd put off preparing it for weeks, such a minor indictment in the overall scheme of things, but now it was time and he was about halfway to hell.

  The phone rang.

  Oh, God, what now? He stared at the phone, not wanting to talk to anybody. It rang again. He put his hand on it, but didn't pick it up. After four rings it stopped and he took his hand off.

  A man could take just so much pressure, and besides the job, there was the thing with Yvette. He had to break it off, had to forget the whole stupid business. If only... only...

  "There you are." At the sound of the voice, he looked up. Kaminsky was standing in his doorway.

  "I just called you," he said.

  "You must have misdialed," Chasen told him. "Nothing rang in here."

  "Is something wrong?" Kaminsky looked him over. "You don't look well."

  "I'm... fine," Chasen answered, avoiding the man's eyes. "What's up?"

  "Something ridiculous," Kaminsky said, shaking his head. "We're all going to have to take lie detector tests."

  Chasen wanted to scream. "We're what?"

  Kaminsky frowned. "Crazy, huh? Authorization came down this morning. They say it's just general security clearance checks, but I think it's got something to do with the Perezzi killing... you remember Perezzi?"

  Chasen felt the life draining out of him. God, he thought, his information had killed Perezzi. Somehow he hadn't realized it would happen so soon, so... publicly. "What happened?"

  "A bunch of guys gunned down Perezzi, his wife and another couple last night," Kaminsky said, moving up to sit on the edge of the desk. "Odd, isn't it? That's usually not the Mafia's style. Anyway, I think they suspect there might be a relocation leak coming out of this department, especially coming so soon after the Pallonatti murder."

  Chasen fell back in his chair. "No one ever told me Pallonatti was murdered."

  "We talked about it a couple of nights ago at Phillips," Kaminsky said. "Guess you weren't there." He looked at his watch. "Anyway, we're due down at the torture chamber in about ten minutes."

  "I can't go," Chasen said, looking around his desk as if he'd lost something. "I've got a pretrial at ten. I've got to prepare."

  The older man stood and walked to the door, pausing with his hand on the knob. "This is priority, pal. The pretrial will have to wait. Coming?"

  "No," Chasen said, his insides jangling. "You go ahead. I'll be right along."

  Kaminsky shrugged and closed the door, leaving Chasen sitting like a statue, frozen in panic. It had never occurred to him that he would be faced with the consequences of his illegal action on this, that he would have to live with blood, innocent blood, on his hands. It had all seemed so easy, just hand over a piece of paper and everything would be all right. It was just paper, paper with a few scribbled words on it. Now, everything seemed so final, so irredeemable.

  What was he going to do? He could never pass a lie detector test about a relocation leak. Trading off those names and addresses in violation of law was bad enough, but now the charge was conspiracy to commit murder and accessory before and after the fact. The loss of his career paled in comparison to the years he would spend in jail — and that was if he didn't get the death penalty. It wasn't fair.

  If only he could think straight. It was so quiet, the offices already empty around him, even the receptionist's constantly humming radio turned off. He looked at the phone. Yvette. He'd call Yvette. She'd know what to do.

  He ripped the phone off the switchhook and punched up the Econolodge numbers with a trembling finger. "Five-eighteen, please," he said when they answered.

  "I'm sorry, sir," a woman's voice answered. "There is no one registered in 518."

  "But the young lady..."

  "There was a lady registered there," the hotel operator said, "but she checked out last night."

  "Checked out," Chasen repeated. "Are you absolutely..."

  "Is there something else I can help you with?" she asked.

  For some reason that struck Chasen as funny. He laughed as he hung up the phone, laughter that turned quickly to tears of self-pity. What was he going to do? If only he wasn't so dragged out. If only he could think straight. He needed something to clear his mind, to straighten him out.

  He knew what to do.

  He reached into his suit coat pocket and pulled out the small silver vial. He had promised himself that he'd save this for after work, but he really needed it now. Just a little something to help his thought processes, that was all.

  He locked the door of his office, then hurried back to the desk and, with mounting excitement, cleared a spot on its glass surface.

  A razo
r blade lay amid the pile of white powder inside the vial. He used the edge of the blade to scoop out several little mounds of coke and lay them carefully on the desktop. Then he used the blade to chop up the crystal chunks into a fine powder and spread it out into three long lines.

  He pulled a twenty-dollar bill out of his pocket and rolled it into a small tube. He stared at the drug, amazed at how badly he wanted it. Leaning down, he pushed the end of the paper tube into one nostril and snorted up the first two lines. He sat back, waiting for the familiar rush of numbness to settle him down.

  It came on quickly, calming him somewhat, at least for the moment. His mind cleared. He could think again. He looked at the third line. What the hell! He leaned down and snorted it, too, then with a forefinger picked up the dust left on the desktop to spread on his gums.

  So, what was done was done. He couldn't bring those dead people back. What he needed to do was cover his own ass. Where was Yvette? Why had she left? He looked at his watch. He needed to get downstairs quickly. But how? How could he get through the lie detector test?

  And then he remembered. One of his witness relocation people had once told him of a way to beat the system. Working quickly he pulled off his right shoe and sock. Hurrying now, he pulled open his desk drawer and sorted through it until he came out with a thumbtack and a small dispenser of tape.

  He carefully snugged the tack up against his big toe with the point just sticking him. Then he taped it in that position and very slowly put his sock back on, flinching every time he pulled too hard. The shoe came next with similar results.

  He stood up, so stoned he felt straight, and made his way through the offices to the elevator. He had to walk slowly to keep the tack from digging painfully into him. Lie detectors were not really lie detectors at all. They were machines designed to measure emotional responses to questions, and if the emotions could be thrown off during the questioning, so could the results.

  Kaminsky was just coming out of interrogation when Chasen walked into the waiting room where the rest of his co-workers were already awaiting their turn.