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  The balance of the journey was conducted in total silence. It was nearing seven o’clock when Ripper Dan pulled onto the access road leading to Riappi’s Virginia joint.

  It was a ten-acre estate, walled—totally isolated from its surroundings—further buffered by a golf course to the north and empty fields in all other directions. A narrow macadam drive ran about a hundred yards from the access road to the gate, a massive hunk of iron bars which could be opened only by electronic controls from inside the walls.

  The place had always given Ripper Dan the shivers. It seemed too much like a prison, especially for a guy who had spent much of his early youth behind walls like those.

  “Stop here,” commanded the icy voice from the rear.

  They stopped there, just inside the drive, still nearly a hundred yards from the gate.

  In a barely audible voice, Spinella told his captor, “Hey, pay no mind to Ripper Dan. I can get you in there if that’s what you want.”

  “Get out,” Bolan ordered, ignoring the offer. “Both of you.”

  Carlo Spinella was the first to touch the turf, Aliotto following quickly and exiting on the same side of the vehicle as his boss.

  Bolan was standing beside the car on the opposite side. “On your bellies,” he commanded. “Arms and legs spread.”

  Shit! Were they going to get it right here, laying on their faces, a bullet in the head? Another front door delivery?

  Spinella was gasping out a weak protest but complying with the order.

  Bolan transferred the Beretta to his left hand and hauled out a big silver autoloader with a ventilated barrel.

  Ripper Dan found himself marvelling at the huge weapon, unwillingly fascinated by the probable instrument of his own death. Why the switch in guns? Some sort of ceremonial bullshit? Dead was dead, wasn’t it?

  He had heard reports on this big handgun of Bolan’s. They called it an AutoMag—meaning, Aliotto supposed, an autoloading magnum—a .44 caliber and the most impressively powerful thing going in handguns. It was supposed to be equal in every respect to a big-game rifle—and yeah, Ripper Dan had heard the amazing stories of what Bolan could do with that cannon.

  He was surprised by the coolness of his own voice as he told the self-appointed executioner, “I’ll take mine standing up.”

  The guy told him back, “You can take it in both kneecaps if that’s what you want.”

  Aliotto winced, glanced at his boss who was now spread-eagled on the ground, and replied, “Okay, if that’s your style. But I want to see it coming.”

  The guy was looking past Ripper Dan, not at him, the cold gaze traveling the hundred yards or so to the gate.

  Two of Riappi’s hardmen had come out of the guardhouse and were standing down there inside the iron bars, interestedly watching the goings-on at the front approaches.

  What the hell? Couldn’t the goddam jerks see the goddam big gun in the goddam guy’s paw?

  Spinella was gurgling, “This’s dumb, Bolan. What’re you going to accomplish by this? Those boys will be put of there and chasing your ass all over Virginia.”

  The big guy calmly replied, “Not those boys, Carlo.”

  The stainless steel cannon came up. and out, extended at shoulder level in a firing-range stance, and a pair of thunderbolts shook the air in tandem explosions and annihilated the distance between the car and the gate, and the two hardmen down there were instantly jerked erect, doubled over, and flung back clear out of sight—all of it coming so quickly that Ripper Dan did not immediately understand that it was them and not him who had been shot.

  Both of Aliotto’s knees buckled. He had to steady himself against the fender of the car to keep from falling over, himself.

  Spinella had rolled to one side and was stabbing a hand into the air as though trying to ward off an attack … and suddenly he. understood, also.

  The thunderous reports of the big gun were still churning the air around them and Spinella was muttering “Jesus, Jesus” when the man in black spat out his final instructions.

  “Go tell Riappi, Carlo. I don’t want his nickel and dime operation, not this time. I want Lupo. Tell him that, Carlo.”

  “God okay, yes, I’ll tell him!” Spinella cried.

  Those eyes clashed with Ripper Dan’s, and they told Ripper Dan to get the hell back inside the car.

  The wheelman did so without a word. Bolan moved into the front beside him.

  Aliotto spun the vehicle about in a digging U-turn, then sent it accelerating smoothly toward the main road. He told the big guy at his elbow, “You’re something else.”

  He received no reply. The guy was swiveled toward the rear, watching the abandoned Carlo Spinella’s frenzied dash for the sanctum of Gus Riappi’s hardsite.

  Carlo had a handkerchief in his hand. He was wildly waving both arms above his head, probably fearful of drawing defensive fire from inside.

  But Ripper Dan knew—it had all come too fast. Nobody down there would be reacting before Carlo could get close enough to be easily recognized.

  Ripper Dan Aliotto was not wasting any worry on Carlo Spinella. Carlo was the lucky one.

  Or was he?

  Aliotto told Bolan, “Maybe I can help you some, guy.”

  The icy voice replied, “Maybe you’d better, guy.”

  “You want Lupo, huh? That’s the one you want?”

  “That’s the one,” was the cold response.

  Yeah. Maybe Ripper Dan Aliotto was the lucky one.

  By eight o’clock on that Spring morning in the nation’s capital, the entire community was buzzing with the news of the latest brand of excitement in this city of perpetual excitement. Election year politics and other local preoccupations took the back seat as columnists and commentators, congressmen and diplomats, bureaucrats, lobbyists and all who composed the governmental community turned undiluted attention to the dramatic visitation of the man in black, Mack Bolan.

  A radio commentator on a national morning news show allowed, “There are ripe grounds here for the Executioner to plow”, adding, however, “… it seems unlikely that Mack Bolan, if indeed he is in Washington, will live out the day in this bastion of police power. It bears pointing out that Washington is the most policed city in the free world. Besides the more than five thousand municipal policemen, an amorphous mass of federal lawmen consisting of Secret Service, Capitol Police, Parks Police, Military Police, and FBI constitute the most formidable odds yet encountered by the man from blood, Mack Bolan. And if these are not enough to contain him, there are practically unlimited reserves to draw from surrounding state and county law enforcement agencies.”

  Another commentator quoted “sources” inside the FBI who worried about a sudden influx of “hit men” who might be swarming into the city on the Executioner’s trail. “Wherever Bolan surfaces,” one source pointed out, “the head hunters and bounty killers are usually not very far behind. My chief worry is that the streets of Washington may be turned into shooting galleries.”

  Developments at National Airport later that morning seemed to verify that prediction. Three separate parties of “underworld triggermen” were intercepted there during the first thirty-minute surveillance of incoming passengers by FBI agents. All were briefly detained and released after being “questioned and warned” concerning the nature of their visit to the national capital.

  A government spokesman later admitted, “There is very little we can do to avert a showdown here between Bolan and the underworld. We are, of course, maintaining vigilant surveillance of all known criminal elements in the area. Other than that, we can only wait for another round of fireworks and hope that we are in position to move quickly and positively against the principals.”

  During a television news special of events of the late morning, a spokesman for the mayor’s office pointed out that police apprehension of Mack Bolan was the key to the entire problem. He added, however, that normal police procedures had so far proven ineffective and would probably continue to be so.
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br />   “This man is not your run of the mill fugitive,” the spokesman explained hinting that extraordinary police procedures were being activated. “We will make full use of the provisions of the 1970 D.C. Anti-crime Bill, and all elements of the law enforcement community, federal and otherwise, will be directed from a central command. As far as the Metropolitan Police are concerned, the apprehension of Mack Bolan is the number one police priority in this city. All leaves have been cancelled and the special reserve forces have been activated.”

  Questioned as to actual numbers of police involved in the man-hunt, the spokesman replied, “I can only say that the full resources of the law enforcement community are being utilized. This, of course, includes federal civilian, as well as military, police.”

  Asked about the legality of using military police in a civil action, the spokesman pointed out that Mack Bolan was a military deserter and “fully liable” to the “full reach of military justice.”

  Meanwhile, the nitty-gritty of police work was underway throughout the district and in surrounding areas. The city’s traffic networks were partially paralyzed by “roaming and intermittent” police roadblocks. Rail, bus and air terminals were under heavy surveillance. It was estimated that half of the taxicabs in the district were being temporarily piloted by plainclothes policemen and the reception desks at car rental agencies within a twenty-five mile radius of Washington hastily were manned by attractive young policewomen.

  By mid-morning, rumors had begun to filter up through the network of police informants to the effect that Bolan’s initial lightning strikes into the Washington underworld had netted considerably more than the seven dead victims thus far discovered. Stories were being passed around which indicated widescale panic and wholesale defections within the local crime organization. It was said that a local Mafia chieftain, one Carlo Spinella, had abruptly disappeared with all his cadre—and it was being whispered that the “big boss” of the district, Gus Riappi, was barricaded within a nearby Virginia estate with “a small army” to protect him.

  Several precinct captains also reported that the routine activities of various underworld cells had “ground to a halt.”

  “All the bookie joints are shut down tight and we haven’t seen a numbers runner on the streets all day,” one captain declared. “This guy has put the fear of God in them, I guess. What he did to their counterparts in Boston last week is still too fresh in the mind. But it’s making our job tougher. The word is out all over town that this guy is stalking, and they’re all simply dropping from sight. We were hoping to use them as bait to do some stalking of our own.”

  Another police spokesman, who preferred to remain nameless, voiced the hope that Mack Bolan would “realize what he’s up against in this town and simply drift on out. We have enough problems here already without this guy.”

  Mack Bolan was not, however, drifting on out.

  He was engaged in a manhunt of his own, pursuing the job in his own inimitable style.

  He was looking for “Lupo.”

  He was prepared to track the guy into hell itself.

  9: THE DAY OF DAYS

  That section of Massachusetts Avenue which briefly parallels the Rock Creek and Potomac Parkway in Northwest Washington is usually alluded to as “Embassy Row.” It is from here that the greatest concentration of foreign powers assembled anywhere in the world conduct their diplomatic liaisons with the U.S. Government.

  It must have seemed entirely fitting to “J.A. Carrico,” then, that the IMAGE headquarters also occupied space in this distinguished company.

  Known in some quarters simply as “Lupo,” Carrico was a registered lobbyist and director of IMAGE (Institute for Minority Action Group Encounters). A thirty-two-year-old lawyer of Italian descent, Carrico had appeared on the national scene “from nowhere” a short time earlier, taking over as national head of the lobbying group. He had remained a background figure, however, with most of the direct lobbying activities being carried out under the guidance of a veteran Washington “counselor,” the influential and widely respected Milton Campbell.

  Lupo enjoyed referring to the three-story converted mansion on Embassy Row as “the embassy” and he actively promoted the idea that IMAGE was “the first class voice of America’s ethnic-class citizens” in their representations for “a fair deal in this supposedly democratic country.”

  In reality, IMAGE was nothing more than a convenient front organization for the political designs of the crime combine and, in that capacity, served as the closest thing to a diplomatic mission which could be realized by an underground operation. The diplomacy being conducted from the old mansion on Embassy Row was, however, of a decidedly different cut than the usual brand of international pussy-footing. Even the most casual visitor sensed that a very determined war was being waged from those musty, shuttered rooms—a war of no ordinary dimensions.

  The address on Massachusetts Avenue had been the national home of IMAGE since its inception some two years earlier, but only in recent months had the activities there reached the present feverish pitch of concerted excitement.

  The entire top floor of the building was partitioned into small office cubicles, each equipped with a desk and a private telephone, from which most of the routine contact work was conducted. Each cubicle was manned by an energetic young man with flawless academic credentials and very persuasive manners.

  Lupo referred to these as “the bull rooms.”

  The second floor was divided into two huge, open areas with desks arranged back-to-back along one side, long tables and bulging file cabinets spotted for maximum space utilization on the other.

  Lupo laughingly called this area “the legislature.”

  Twelve lawyers and dozens of male “clerks” worked grimly and silently here over stacks of GPO publications, congressional records and copies of legislation currently pending action or introduction in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives.

  The ground floor of the institute housed a gracious atmosphere for reception, entertaining, and “above-board” conferences with legitimate elements of the Washington community.

  Much of the basement area was given over to “the archives”—a super-security area where secret documents and records of “successful lobbying” were stored in heavy vaults. Armed guards commanded the entrances and no one entered this area without proper credentials.

  The “sweat rooms” were down there, also—soundproofed cubicles which could serve as detention cells, interrogation rooms or whatever might come up in the nature of “hard business.” These rooms were seldom used except in the dead of night, and most visitors to the area arrived either unconscious or blindfolded.

  The basement was also the site of “Studio City”—another heavily guarded and elaborate setup for still photography, sound recording, and video-taping—complete with darkrooms and sophisticated electronic labs. A specially-prized and highly sophisticated item of equipment in this section was a miniaturized version of a big-city telephone exchange—from which, reputedly, a large number of Washington’s official telephones were being electronically monitored and conversations recorded—all automatically.

  Lupo enjoyed telling visiting bosses that the operation at Studio City had “sunk more political ships than all the public scandals combined, as far back as you want to go.”

  Then he would wink and drolly add, “We don’t uncover scandals here. We manufacture them.”

  In more private moments, the Mafia hatchet man might quietly expand upon his favorite theme: “The American political system is rotten clear through. Ideally it should be the best in the world. Actually it’s the lousiest. It’s a system of deception, dishonesty, downright thievery. What it boils down to is simply this: in a country this size, government by the people is a physical impossibility. A government official or an elected representative knows he can’t please all of the people all of the time, and usually he doesn’t even try to please any of the people any of the time. He gets cynical. He sees that eve
ry human being is out for just one thing—his own self interest. The electorate, yes, that’s who I’m referring to. We vote for the guy who we think will look out for our own best interests. Right? Well, a guy gets cynical. He figures, what the hell, the labor people are looking for nothing but favorable labor legislation. Businessmen care for nothing but legislation and policies favorable to more and better profits. Vote black and you make friends for life with one-tenth of the electorate. Look good in social security and you’ve wrapped up the Geritol set. Be kind to Honkies and Wops and you’ve got a nice power base there.

  “It’s all one big game of special interest. This is a nation run by the interplay and conflict of special interests. The politician knows this, and he learns damned quick how to start looking out for his own special interest. So he concentrates on pleasing those who can do him the most good or at least he puts up an appearance of doing so. Actually, he’s just looking out for Number One, and he’s going to grab off everything he can along the way.

  “I figure these people are fair game. If they’re for sale, and they are, then I figure we have a right to a seat on the political exchange.”

  At this point Lupo may laugh then continue with, “What the hell, it’s our franchise, isn’t it? If these guys want to play dirty pool then they’ve got to play by our rules. Sure. Those guys are fair game. I’ll take them any way I can.”

  One such take-over was being engineered in Studio City on that fateful morning of Mack Bolan’s incursion into the national clout routes.

  A video-taping production was underway.

  A nervous man of about thirty was seated behind a prop desk, visibly sweating under the glare of studio lighting as he gazed soberly into the lens of a video camera.

  An off-camera “examiner” was asking leading questions. The “witness” was giving his replies with every show of sincerity and credulity: