Bolan had first met Toby Ranger in Las Vegas, at a moment when all his chips were riding the showdown hand. She was leader of a song and dance group called 'The Ranger Girls' — and what a group. They were four of the most beautiful things on the strip, and their act was, in show biz terms, socko. It was a combination of looks and talent that could have worked all the right kinds of magic for four bright kids on their way to stardom. But these kids were working another sort of magic that Bolan did not suspect until that final, climactic moment that saw him leaving them behind, supposedly forever. The last thing Toby had said to Mack Bolan in Vegas was, 'We'll cross again.'
Sure. It was, after all, a small underworld. All the same, Bolan had lived many lives and died far too many deaths since that blitz through Vegas. It was a small underworld, sure, but also an infinite one for the guy who was trying to bring the whole thing down.
Friends had come and gone along that wipe-out trail. Some had simply spun off along the backwash of the man who lived on the heartbeat. One or two guys — like Leo Turrin and Hal Brognola — seemed to be unshakably tied to the Executioner's destiny. Many — too many — had been buried along that trail.
It was the latter group that weighed so heavily on Bolan's continuing forward motion. He had discovered the hard way the truth of Henrik Ibsen's declaration: 'The strongest man in the world is he who stands most alone.'
And he had learned that no man could stand truly alone, no matter how hard he might try. There was something in the human movement that kept tossing together people of like destiny.
So here he was, in the showdown battle of his war, with a lady fed crossing his trail once again.
No. Not even Mack Bolan could stand truly alone.
He did not, in the final analysis, live only to kill. There kept erupting those inevitable moments when something stronger than war and death entered his dimension of being. And this was one of those moments.
The battle plan was off.
All numbers were cancelled.
There might never be another clear shot at Fortress Detroit — maybe the numbers would never again fall into place — and, yes, there was agony in that decision. But it was not, in the true sense, a decision at all. It was simply a recognition of that which was.
The hit was off.
He had known it the moment he recognized the leggy blonde leading that procession to her certain death. She had abandoned her cover in Vegas to help a doomed warrior shoot his way out of an impossible situation. Now it was time to return the favor — and, no, there was no decision involved.
He dropped a marksman's medal into the gore that marked the remains of Pete DiLani, then he took the lady fed away from that hole in hell.
They found the tunnel and used it, emerging into the confusion at the boat basin just as a procession of police vehicles appeared on the circular drive near the house.
A police car with a PA system was instructing all within hearing to drop their weapons.
A boat that Bolan recognized as the cruiser that had pursued his own empty craft was moving slowly away from shore, loaded to the gunwhales with passengers.
A handful of abandoned 'friends' were clustered around the two remaining hardmen in that area, and the talk was far from friendly.
Apparently the shoreline defenses had been recalled to the clubhouse, drawn there by the gunfire within.
It would be a soft withdrawal for the Executioner and his lady, with perhaps no more than one or two sentries remaining to block their path. One or two were hazard enough, of course, and the thing could yet fall apart.
Bolan told the girl, 'Your buddies in blue seem to have the situation under control. Go back if you'd like.'
She shook her head. 'No, that would blow everything. Lead on, Captain Puff.'
He took her hand and led her southward along the lakeshore in the beginning of a journey through more hellfire than the starcrossed man from blood had ever contemplated.
The hit on the Detroit hardsite had been aborted — and the deathwatch over Detroit would find its birth in that abortion.
7
Alerted
The Sons of Columbus Yacht Club looked like a disaster area. Police vehicles with beacons still flashing were semicircled about the clubhouse. A line of ambulances was backed into the flagstone walkway, doors open, receiving.
A fire truck stood just inside the walls, inactive. Several firemen were on the roof, tearing out smoldering shingles and tossing them to the ground.
A growing accumulation of shrouded bodies was neatly placed on the north lawn. These were beyond medical help, and were primarily a matter of statistical interest for the plainclothes cop who was moving along that lineup and peering beneath the shrouds.
He quit that inspection to halt a fast-moving litter that was headed for the ambulances. 'Who shot you, Favorini?' he asked the lucky one.
Charley Fever turned a pained face toward the detective, glared at him silently for a moment, then said, 'How's Sal?'
'They're pumping blood into him,' the cop replied. 'He'll probably make it. Now mine. Who pumped
'The guy didn't leave his name, Holzer,' Charley Fever said, turning away with a grimace of pain.
The cop grunted to the medic and moved on. Who the hell needed names? The guy had left something even better. And a uniformed officer was at that instant hurrying over to deliver another one.
'Found this near a body in the basement, Lieutenant,' the patrolman reported, handing over a military marksman's medal smeared with dried blood. Two more DOAs down there. Tentative identification is Tony Quaso and Pete DiLani, but they're pretty messy. We'll have to rely on fingerprints for positive ID.'
'Head hits,' Lieutenant Holzer grunted. It was a statement of fact, not a question.
'Yes, sir. Dumdums.'
Sure. The guy didn't need to leave his name.
Hell had received some wages this night, that was certain, and John Holzer had no doubts as to the identity of the collector. He dropped the little medal into an envelope, marked it, and added it to the growing collection.
The patrolman want off to find the DOA team, leaving the lieutenant to ponder the remarkable evidence of a Mack Bolan hit.
Obviously the guy was as large as his reputation. It was no secret that this Mafia 'club' was better guarded than the state prison. Its defenses were regarded as second to none anywhere. Yet the guy had romped in and just laid all over them.
Nothing cute about the guy — no attempt to confuse the evidence or conceal the identity of the one responsible. Hell. He wanted them to know. Those little metal crosses were his signature — a signed confession for every crime.
And, no, it was not too difficult to piece it all together and find a coherent sequence of events.
The guy showed up first in a boat. He dropped anchor in plain view of God and everybody, and began whacking away with a high-powered rifle, dropping three of them in their tracks — head hits, in the dark, at a range exceeding several hundred yards.
Then he'd come ashore. God only knew how, with fifty rifles guarding the joint. But he did it, and apparently brought his whole damned arsenal with him. This was certified by the shaky and barely coherent story of Billy Castelano, perhaps the luckiest man of the night, and didn't he know it. Castaleno had sat in the grass, clutching a
