Assault on Soho

from the bad. If the Mafiosiwere not responsible for the torture death of old Edwin Charles, then who the hell was? And for what possible motive?

He was wishing that he had never become involved with the Sades. But he had. And things were getting pretty badly entangled. Instinctively he knew that Danno had finally levelled with him. Bolan had taken all of the ham out of him as Stevie Carbon—Danno Giliamo had been talking straight. He was sure of that. So what did it all mean? That Ann Franklin's foster father was a rat? And if it should turn out that way, what would this mean to the girl? And what would it all mean to Bolan and to his ability to get the hell out of the country?

Yeah, it was getting tangled. Very soon now he would have to be doing something toward a firm identification of friend and foe. And then there was Charles. Bolan had liked the old man, even if the acquaintance had been microscopically brief. Living as Bolan did, you learned to take your likes quick, and he had definitely taken to the old soldier.

So somewhere along the tangled threads Bolan meant to identify a sadistic killer, and he meant to see that justice was done.

Right now, though, more pressing business was demanding his attention. He completed his dressing and sent the Lincoln rolling silently back through the park, lights out and prowling on the scent of an ex-POW.

Bolan spotted him on the third pass, huffing along on foot down the west perimeter of the park. The slightly overweight Mafiosiwas making better time than Bolan had expected. He ran the Lincoln into a stand of shrubbery, quietly said goodbye to it, and closed in on the prey on foot, taking up the stalk at a proper distance.

No, Bolan was not all that straight. There was more than one way to extract intelligence from an enemy. Whether he knew it or not, Danno was not yet entirely free and the interrogation was still underway.

And The Executioner was closing on the enemy camp. The Assault on Soho, Stage Two, was in progress.

Chapter Thirteen The meet

The house was one of those inner London rarities, with a lawn, a courtyard, and an iron fence encircling the whole thing. Off to the side was a portico and a huge circular drive that could probably take a f airsized funeral procession. In better days it had probably been the townhouse of some nobleman; now it served as the local business hub and visitor center for the most powerful crime syndicate in history. And it was within easy walking distance of the neon wonderland of Picadilly, but a hell of a long walk from Regents Park. Giliamo had apparently been in no great hurry to get back. Although the subway trains in London cease operation after midnight, there were still buses and taxicabs… and the Mafia underboss had spurned them all, staying with his feet.

This was fine with Bolan; it made his task much easier. Maybe, he thought, the long walk was Giliamo's idea of penance for his imagined sins against the family. Or maybe he was just walking off a sense of anger and frustration and humiliation. Humiliated he had certainly been. Bolan knew the writhings of psyche required for a high ranking Mafiosoto bargain for his life with the likes of a Mack Bolan.

Whatever the reasons, the journey from Regents Park back to Soho was a long and tiring one, consuming most of the early morning hours, and made worse by Giliamo's obvious unfamiliarity with the streets of London. He did a lot of doubling back and circling, dipping down to within sight of Picadilly Circus before orienting himself into the final beeline to the house with the iron fence. During this last leg, Bolan noted that Danno was limping and moving along with more and more difficulty. Blisters, Bolan diagnosed. He had to smile at that. Blisters on the heel were armor for the soul, or so they'd told him in the army.

Now Bolan stood in the darkness across from the big house and wondered what was going on inside there. Every room in the place was ablaze with lights and vehicles were lined up in the circular drive inside the gates. A group of men stood under bright porchlights, another smaller group idled near the vehicles.

As Giliamo ascended the steps to the porch, Bolan heard a loud greeting of, 'Hey Danno, where the hell you been?'

A swirl of conversation hummed across the darkness to Bolan's stakeout position, then the group on the porch went inside with Giliamo. Another man came out a few minutes later and lit a cigarette. He called down some barely audible instruction to the men at the vehicles. That group promptly melted and the men went to separate cars. Then the man on the porch called out something else in a half-chiding tone—it sounded to Bolan like, 'The gates, the gates!'

The man in the lead vehicle leapt out and trotted down to open the large iron gate of the driveway, then hurried back to his car.

The man on the porch called, 'Don't worry, I'll get 'em behind you.'

The motorcade pulled out and Bolan drew back to avoid the headlamps as the line of vehicles swerved into the street and headed toward Picadilly. As the last car cleared, the guy from the porch was walking down the drive toward the gate. Instead of closing it immediately, however, he stepped on through and stood on the sidewalk, gazing up and down the street. He threw the cigarette down and stepped on it, then put another between his lips and casually lit it, allowing the lighter to flame for an overlong time, putting his features in stark relief from the darkness.

Bolan's soul stirred in the recognition of that face over there. It belonged to Leo Turrin, the double-life Mafiosoand undercover cop from Pittsfield. Once Bolan had been sworn to execute the cocky little Italian, whom he had known then only as the vice lord of Bolan's home town, and it had been through that involvement that Bolan had first successfully penetrated the Cosa Nostra and learned so much of their operation. Bolan had worked closely with Turrin during those early days at Pittsfield and had found himself growing more and more reluctant to collect his 'blood debt' from this likeable little guy. As things had turned out at Pittsfield, of course, Bolan had plenty of reason to be thankful that the Turrin execution had never come off. The guy had saved Bolan's skin more than once—and then, of course, he had turned out to be an undercover cop.

Now this glimpse of a face from the past was received with mixed emotions. Leo lived in the same brand of constant peril as Bolan's. The slightest hint that Turrin was enjoying friendly relations with The Executioner could mean his immediate undoing, and the loss of a five year undercover operation. Also, on the other side of the coin, Bolan was not all that certain that, with all chips down, Turrin would not hesitate to sacrifice Bolan to the greater good. Cops were like that, sometimes, even good cops.

Bolan's inner conflict was resolved much quicker than the telling of it, however. He ejected a bullet from the Bererta and tossed it across the street to land at Turrin's feet. The little guy bent over and picked it up, hefted it casually in his palm, glanced up the driveway toward the house, then unhurriedly crossed the street.

Bolan stepped out of the shadows, smiling faintly, and said, 'Why didn't you just light up a neon sign?'

They solemnly shook hands. Turrin gave Bolan his cigarette and told him, 'I figured you'd be somewhere close by—just a hunch. What'd you do to poor Danno? He looks like he's been to hell and back.'

'He has. What brings you to London?'

'You.'

Bolan chuckled. 'It figures. They calling in the reserves now?'

Turrin nodded. 'And more. Don't laugh when I tell you this. I'm supposed to be bringing you a pardon.'

Bolan did laugh. 'A what?'

'You heard me. They want to bury the hatchet.'

'Yeah, right in my head,' Bolan said.

'They're serious about it. I think. I believe Staccio has his doubts, secretly though.'

'JoeStaccio, upper New York?'

'Right. He's heading up the peace delegation. He's a little worried that the other bosses are setting him up for something. You know how that crap goes, none of them really trust each other.'

Bolan said, 'Yeah. Well, so what's your role in all this?'