Nightmare in New York

Another pair were standing together near the rear corner of the main lodge, enjoying their alcoholic coffee. Bolan told them, 'Don't be too long. And, hey, don't be so obvious. Why don't you step around to the back until you finish that stuff.'

What the hell, if the mob didn't have sense enough to have a Corporal of the Guard, Bolan was only too happy to play the role.

The sentries said nothing but slowly drifted around the corner out of sight. The Executioner stepped immediately onto the veranda and went softly to the line of windows at the big conference room. The drapes were drawn and the faintest light was filtering through. He could hear the murmuring rise and fall of voices and occasionally a word or two would come through clearly, but this was not his chief interest. He stood there in the darkness and laid in enough plastic to blow off the side of the building.

The clear tones of someone, a rather polished voice coming obviously from just the other side of that glass, said something about, '… must be handled with all sensitivity. You gentlemen understand that.'

Bolan nodded his head. All Mafia business was handled with 'all sensitivity.' And so was Bolan's. He set in the detonators and quietly withdrew, then casually joined the three hardmen at the rear of thehouse.

Two minutes to go. Two minutes. He had to fight to keep his eyes away from his watch, and he told the group, 'You boys better kinda hurry that up.'

'Still some in th' thermos,' the skinny one said, grinning.

'I'm just startin' to feel my toes again,' another commented. 'This sure was nice of you to think of this, uh, uh…'

Bolan swore to himself and said, 'Frankie.'

'Oh yeah. Well listen, Frankie, if Freddie treats all of his boys this way, I think I wouldn't mind making a transfer.'

'He don't,' the skinny one said. He was giving Bolan the odd look, trying to pierce the anonymity of the night. 'And I don't think I know Frankie.'

Too long, Bolan was thinking. He should have fused it closer. A guy could get away with this sort of masquerade for just so long, and then blooey buddy, the game is over.

The other hardman was saying, 'Well if I was you I'd say make friends damn quick.' He swiped at his nose and added, 'This Frankie is a gentleman.'

Bolan chuckled and said, 'You might not say that if you was in my crew.'

'I think I — '

The skinny soldier cut in with, 'What crew is that, Frankie? What territory?'

There it was, the unforgivable breach of etiquette. 'If you have to ask,' Bolan replied a bit stiffly, 'then you better not.'

The guy shrugged his shoulders, a real dumb-ass soldier, and said, 'I just thought I knew all th' lieutenants.'

Bolan growled, 'Who th' hell said I was a lieutenant?'

The skinny one smiled nervously and replied, 'Oh well, I mean…'

They stood there in a strained silence.

Bolan glanced at his watch. Okay, it was okay. He growled, 'Finish the coffee and get back on your posts.'

The third man, who had said very little, took a deep breath and declared, 'Well that sure hit the spot. Thanks, FranMe. You know we all appreciate it.'

And then it came… a small explosion, not much more than a shotgun blast, rippling through the night. Something flashed near the rear of the main lodge. Immediate darkness descended as all lighting, inside and out, was abruptly extinguished.

The men around Bolan sucked in their breaths. A cup fell to the ground. Bolan growled, 'Heyyy.'

'What the hell?' the piping voice of the skinny one declared.

'Power box must've shorted out,' Bolan said calmly.

Just then a real nimbler came from the front porch of the lodge, lighting up the yard momentarily with a blinding flash, the harsh thunder ripping across to them behind the flash — and before that one was fully felt the real shocker came, the entire side of the lodge seemed to tear away in a shattering explosion that sent shock waves along the ground beneath Bolan's feet and battered the air about his ears.

'It's a hit!' he cried. 'Get on down there!'

'We're supposed to be watching the — '

'Fuckthat! Get on down there and cover the bosses! I'll watch this end. Go on, move move't'

The three moved, silhouetted against the rumbling flames of the lodge, their Thompsons at the ready and all three running full gallop for the scene of the explosion. Others could be heard racing about in the darkness and yelling, inside the lodge and out, and men were spilling out of the bunkhouse, off to Bolan's left.

He was yelling, 'AH you soldiers down to the joint! Get a shield up down there, goddammit, and get th' bosses outta there! Goddammit, move, movel'

Hardmen were moving everywhere, fleeting shadows in the flame-leapt darkness, cursing and yelling, and someone started screaming, 'Waterl Get some water over here!'

And Bolan was fading back into the blackness around thehouse, and kicking the door in, and he could seethe anxious faces peering at him in the faintly flickering glow of the fires. He grabbed one with each hand and pulled them outside. They fought him momentarily, both of them, pounding at his face and chest with the free hand, until he spoke.

'Hey, hey, this is no time for body therapy. We have to blow this joint.'

Paula heaved a shuddering sigh and moaned, 'Thank God, oh thank God.'

And Rachel, sobbing happily and very much of this world, told him, 'I knew you'd come. I just knew it.'

Chapter Eighteen Niente

Bolan steered the girls quickly and quietly toward the wall, then halted about twenty-five yards out and pulled them to the frigid ground. Pandemonium was reaching new heights behind them as men ran shrieking about in thunderous confusion in all directions around the furiously burning building. Bolan checked his watch and murmured, 'Just a few seconds now, just — '

And then two more explosions rent the night and compounded the pyramiding confusion. The section of wall just ahead lifted and crumbled, leaving an opening large enough to drive a track through, while back in the other direction the Stoney Lodge arsenal went up in a towering fireball, and secondary explosions from its stores were providing an impressive monologue of their own as Bolan and his charges ran out of the rapidly lightening scene, through the break in the wall and on into the blessed darkness ahead.

He escorted them as far as the van, then told them, 'Stay on the road and keep going double-time, and don't look back. A couple of friends are waiting for you at the crossroads.'

'You're not coming?' Paula cried.

'Not just yet. I'm rear-guarding. Go on, get!'

They got, Rachel throwing him a last moist look with humble eyes, Paula smiling bravely and tossing her head into the take-off. Bolan watched them disappear, then he climbed into the vehicle and made a lights-out approach to the break in the wall, where he parked and set up shop.

He opened the side doors, flung off the overcoat and draped a heavy .45 calibre chopper around his neck, then began hastily lugging stuff to the debris piled about the broken wall.

Things down in the compound were getting more frantic, if anything, but he could make out a small group running toward his position. Then two more appeared out of the darkness to his right, charging down along the