Death Squad

'I wanta tell you somethin',' Fontenelli hissed.

'Make it quick.'

'You know 'bout my old lady and her screwin' around while I was in 'Nam.'

'Yeah, I know.'

'We got two kids back in Jersey.'

'Yeah, I know.'

'If I don't make it, I want my bucks to go to my kids. To the kids, not to Miss Hotpants.'

'You'll make it, Chopper.'

'Yeah, but if I don't...'

'Okay, don't worry—I'll take care of it.'

'Maybe you won't make it either. Tell Bolan, on the radio.'

'Tell him yourself.'

'Can't. I lost it.'

'You lost your radio?'

'Yeah. Somewhere back there in those hedges. Damn harness came loose.'

'Stay close to me then.'

'Yeah. Tell Bolan, eh?'

'Okay. Now shut up.'

Fontenelli moved silently away. Andromede watched him drop to the ground and crawl into the hedges; then he lost sight of him. Chopper's concern had momentarily unnerved the young Puerto Rican. What the hell—they were all fully aware of the chances. That was the name of the game, wasn't it? Live until liberation. Liberate the other guy before he can liberate you. That was the game. Andromede shivered involuntarily. He was not yet quite ready to end the game, despite all his bravado concerning life and death. Liberation was much easier to contemplate when it was happening to the other guy. Andromede cleared his mind of the unessentials, kept his ears open for the signal from Bolan, and cast his contemplations toward the liberation of others.

Then a distant, double cra-aack of twin high-powered rifles firing simultaneously split the calm and froze Andromede's contemplations. Someone at the far side of the house was yelling. The cra- aacks were coming in rapid succession now, and men were running about excitedly in the yard next door, cursing loudly and calling to one another.

Andromede smiled grimly and tensed at the trigger, his ear bent to the small radio. The liberation was on.

* * *

Julian DiGeorge did not like the attitudes of some of his nephews. Some of them seemed more worried about their standing in the community than about the threat to the family. And it seemed that everybody wanted to talk about the forthcoming police roustings more than they wanted to plan for the already established threat to Mack Bolan. Leonardo Cacci, the smooth, college-educated nephew at DiGeorge's right hand, was on the board of three banks, he was coining up big in local politics, and he was very unhappy with the thought of taking up a gun and taking on a fight that was obviously so far beneath his personal image.

Cacci's ivory smile might charm the female voters of his congressional district, but it sometimes made DiGeorge want to throw up. DiGeorge's underworld earnings had provided the money that built the braces that had kept the ivory in that smile. Cacci was a nephew; it was one thing to put on legit airs in public, quite another to try to snow Uncle Deej with 'one's' responsibility to 'one's' community. DiGeorge wondered just how far Leonardo would survive without the constant propping of family money. 'One' would not survive far, that was certain.

Then there was Johnny Trieste. Yes, there was always Johnny Trieste, it seemed. He sat at DiGeorge's left, a great, hulking pig of a man who had never found it possible to become a 'one.' Johnny had been around for as long as DiGeorge could remember, and he'd never changed one hair, not one fat wrinkle. He spoke English with the overtone accent of a nightclub comic, and he had never learned to read it or to write it—but he could count American bucks. Yes, he could certainly count American bucks.

Johnny had never been anything more than a bagman, but he'd been the best bagman in the business. And nobody could complain about a man who'd become the best at anything—if that was all he wanted to do. But Johnny was sort of embarrassing, at times, to be around. He did not blend into the new environment, the new circles—he did not even blend into the family any more. He had been a loyal Maffiano, though, loyal to the very core.

And he'd been around long enough that he had a certain influence in the family councils. Right now, Johnny Trieste was terribly concerned over the possible police harassment. Johnny had been dodging a murder conviction for thirty years. He had made a courtroom escape in New York just moments before the reading of the death sentence and had made his way west and enjoyed the protection of the family all these years. Still, each potential contact with the police sent him into tremors. DiGeorge felt a sympathy for the old Maffiano, but ... business was business, and the family came first.

Johnny Trieste was hunched over the table, staring into a glass of wine, and Leonardo Cacci was regarding him with one of those phony ivory smiles. DiGeorge was saying, 'Look—first things first, Let's talk about...'

And then something had happened to the back of Johnny's head; it seemed to just burst open for no apparent reason. At that exact moment, Leonardo's smile disappeared in a shower of ivory and frothy blood. For a startled instant, DiGeorge thought that Johnny's shattered head had flown over into Leonardo's mouth. Johnny's huge bulk settled onto the table in a way that left no doubt in DiGeorge's mind that the thirty-year-old death sentence had finally been executed. Leonardo's head had jerked back suddenly, the body following and rocking the chair onto its rear legs; then over he went, chair and all. Only then did the twin cra-aacks announce the reason behind it all.

All others sat frozen in the immediate reaction to the inexplicable behavior of Cacci and Trieste; then two more at the table were flung violently about, even as the initial gunfire reports reached the assembled ears.

DiGeorge let out a loud yell and found that long-dormant instincts were still strong enough to propel him into a wild sideways fling toward the floor. The distant soundings of the high-powered rifles continued incessantly, and men and bodies were flying about in all directions.

Turnitover turnitover! Turn the goddamn table over!' DiGeorge screamed, scrabbling desperately at the leg of the heavy oaken piece. The table crashed to the flagstones. DiGeorge scrambled behind it on his belly, one edge of his reeling consciousness aware of the litter of bodies behind him, another edge taking note of other men running in all directions. He saw two of them lurch suddenly as though stricken by some sudden paralysis, then crash to the ground.

'Good, God, good God, it's a slaughter,' he moaned, his breath moving painfully through a constricted rib cage. Thunder and lightning, indeed, had found their way to Julian DiGeorge. And he had only the faintest idea whence it came.

* * *

That's right, baby, run straight,' Deadeye Washington muttered. He squeezed the hair trigger and was already swinging toward a new target before the thundering convulsion of the big gun had spent itself against his shoulder.

'Okay—evaluation!' Bolan snapped, speaking even as his partner's weapon thundered again.

When Washington hoisted himself off the eyepiece, Bolan was sitting upright, legs folded, holding the binoculars to his eyes with one hand and massaging his shoulder with the other.

'Damn thing jars hell out of you,' Bolan muttered.

'Yeah. What're they doing down there now?'

'Flopping about like headless chickens. Some are starting to look our way now. Give 'em a couple more rounds, Deadeye. See if they can spot your flashes.'

Washington grinned and bent once again to his eyepiece. He fired two quick rounds into the heavy glass at the front of the house. Bolan, peering through the binoculars, smiled. 'Believe you dropped about ten with that burst,' he said.

'I just shot out the window,' Washington replied, chuckling.

'And brought on ten heart attacks,' Bolan said, chuckling along with him. He sobered abruptly, then smiled. 'Yeah, they saw us. Here comes a guy with a Thompson, running hell bent for election. They're running for the