San Diego Siege Part 10

"I'll do my job, Cap'n," Lyons a.s.sured him. "But I won't lie to you. My heart won't be in it. I told the same thing to Captain Braddock. So if you want me to turn around and go home then I-"

"Do you smell Bolan around here?" Tatum asked brusquely, shutting out firmly that other line of conversation.

"Faintly, but yessir, I do. I'd like to see some more of the evidence and-"

Another detective had come bustling up and the L.A. advisor gave ground to the obviously urgent nature of the intrusion. The newcomer gave Lyons a curious glance then reported to Captain Tatum, "That house is bugged from top to bottom. Real cute stuff. Radio relays, G.o.d's sake, planted outside the windows."

Tatum whistled softly under his breath.

Lyons' facial expression did not alter, but his voice had a crackle of interest as he inquired, "Has your department had this place under electronic surveillance?"

Tatum shook his head. "Never could get it cleared. The local feds have been complaining about the same problem. So unless they just went ahead anyway...."

The L.A. cop said, "Could you check that out? I mean, unofficial but d.a.m.n quick?"

Tatum gave an eye signal to the other detective. The man nodded and hurried back toward the house, then Tatum asked Lyons, "Are you saying that Bolan ... ?"

Lyons answered the uncompleted question with, "You better believe it."

"I didn't know the guy was that sophisticated," the homicide chief growled.

"He can be as sophisticated as he wants to get. You asked me about Bolan's smell. I can tell you now, it's getting stronger by the minute. I couldn't...."

"You couldn't what," Tatum asked, glancing at Gonzales with a worried frown.

"Well I just couldn't read this. .h.i.t into Bolan's M.O. First off, he's worked alone ever since the L.A. hit. Secondly, I couldn't see the guy setting up a hit like this. Too risky, too many possible innocent bystanders on the sidelines. But an intelligence intelligence probe, now ... yeah, it reads Bolan all the way. He sends someone in close to work the eavesdropping gear-and I'll bet I know the guy he sent, incidentally-while covering him with precision fire capability from way the h.e.l.l up there in a non-residential area. It would be-" probe, now ... yeah, it reads Bolan all the way. He sends someone in close to work the eavesdropping gear-and I'll bet I know the guy he sent, incidentally-while covering him with precision fire capability from way the h.e.l.l up there in a non-residential area. It would be-"

Tatum interrupted irritably with: "You're saying the guy didn't come out here looking for blood?"

"That's what I'm saying," Lyons replied, coolly meeting the hot gaze being directed at him. "He's just probing now, looking for targets. Once he gets set and locked onto the people he really wants, then your war will suddenly get very hot."

"What the h.e.l.l do you call this?" this?" Tatum flared, spreading his arms in a dramatic compa.s.s of the battle zone. Tatum flared, spreading his arms in a dramatic compa.s.s of the battle zone.

"It's a probe, Cap'n," Lyons replied evenly. "Just a light probe."

"Jesus Christ!" the Captain yelled, and stomped off toward the house. the Captain yelled, and stomped off toward the house.

Gonzales turned a grin to the young cop from L.A. "I think you said the wrong thing," he told him. "I don't know what it is in your town but, in San Diego, seven dead and six wounded is Friday Night Gangbusters. The Captain gets uptight over just one one homicide." homicide."

"He'd better get loose," Lyons muttered. "He hasn't seen anything yet."

12:

TRACKS AROUND THE TAR PIT.

Bolan had learned early in his wars that there was no such thing as a casual connection between the mob and the so-called "straight" community. Whether that connection be social, business, political, or simply a chance pairing of golf or tennis partners-Bolan knew enough of Mafia methods to look penetratingly at any contact between the two levels of American society.

There were no off-duty hours for the mob. Its members were always in there pitching, in business and in pleasure, and they lost no opportunity to extend their area of influence in whatever direction opened to them.

The Mafia was a cancer. It grew and acquired dominance in the same manner as any cancerous growth-by extension-by moving into weakened adjacent matter and absorbing the resources there into its own spreading designs.

A wise man did not provide hospitable accommodations for a cancerous growth within his own body.

But many supposedly wise businessmen had played around with accommodations for the Mafia cancer. Almost without exception, these men were eaten quickly and easily and were either pa.s.sed on through as excrement or absorbed into the growing body of the cannibal.

The same thing happened to bored socialites who seemed to think that a hoodlum in the drawing room or even in the bedroom, was "chic"-or at least an interesting conversation-piece.

There were also those straight citizens who unwittingly found themselves in a social or business contact with one of "the boys" and then found it too painful or too dangerous to withdraw from that a.s.sociation. Violent intimidation and blackmail were favorite tools of the cannibals; they never hesitated to apply them unsparingly. The end result for these victims was about the same as for all the others-they were used and abused until every resource had been plundered, then absorbed or eliminated.

Much has been said and written to romanticize the American mobster. Bolan had heard the stories concerning their high moral values, their gallantry to women, their concern for the underdog, their patriotism and love of country, their support of charities, their exalted sense of brotherhood and personal ethics within their own organizations, their high ideals regarding family and community.

And it was all sheer hogwash.

Bolan knew them for what they were. They were rapists, thieves, s.a.d.i.s.ts, terrorists, murderers. The American mobster was a bloated and self-seeking cannibal who answered to no morality which did not serve to feed his savage l.u.s.ts and voracious appet.i.tes.

None of this had anything to do with being Italian. Often it was their Italian relatives and neighbors who suffered the most at the hands of these unconscionable despots.

Bolan was no psychologist or sociologist. He was not even interested in determining the environmental factors which produced priests, artists and mobsters from the same neighborhood or even from the same family.

He would leave those complicated considerations to those who were trained to study such phenomena.

Mack Bolan's mission was to identify the gangsters, to isolate them and to eliminate them. He was not hampered by intellectual moralizing or agonizing over the questions of force and violence, right and wrong, the const.i.tutional rights of wrongdoers or the legal trickery of the American justice system-all of which had been manipulated by the mob into a protective bubble which insulated them from any effective counterattack by the law-enforcement community.

They owned policemen, in high positions and low. They had their own judges, prosecutors, councilmen, a.s.semblymen, congressmen, bureaucrats-the mob had their own "second invisible government" which saw to their protection at every level of American life. Except for one.

They had no immunity from the Executioner.

Mack Bolan was no zealot-nor was he a romantic idealist. He was a military realist. He had pledged to defend his country against all enemies, external and internal.

The mob was an internal enemy.

He could draw no realistic line of distinction between this enemy and that one.

The Mafia stood as the most visible and dangerous enemy in his area of perception. He would, until he drowned in his own blood or theirs, fight that enemy with every resource at his command.

The threat at San Diego was shaping into one of those confrontations which Bolan had hoped to avoid.

The problem was similar to the routine dilemma of the war in Vietnam: in order to get at the enemy, you often had to destroy an entire friendly town.

Bolan had managed to keep the major thrust of his homefront wars directed into the hardcore operations of the enemy-into their clout routes, the overtly criminal activities, into pitched battles with their armed forces and execution missions against their leaders.

At San Diego, it was beginning to look like the civilian community might be unavoidably involved in the resolution of the problem.

The intelligence probes had paid off handsomely, but the yield was also very troubling to this dedicated warrior.

Tendrils of the Mafia cancer were woven throughout the fabric of this great little city's business and social communities. The in-growth was still tenuous, however, and the encroachment had not yet reached the cannibalistic stage. But Mack Bolan knew his enemy. And he had learned quite a bit, in a relatively short time, about the city of San Diego.

And, yeah, this was one city he could not avoid. Some of the area's most solid citizens had been trekking to the tar pits of licensed greed-in many cases, perhaps, unaware that a band of cannibals were lurking there in the shadows, patiently awaiting the opportunity to ensnare them there and devour them-that some were already being eaten.

A sober and troubled electronics expert stored his surveillance tapes in a fireproof box and turned a thoughtful frown to his friend, the Executioner.

"So now what?" he asked, sighing. "So now the siege is ended," Bolan replied quietly.

"You mean we pack up and walk away," Blanca.n.a.les said.

"No. We storm the city."

"Oh, well...." The Politician scratched his nose, glanced at Schwarz, and said, "What's the first target?"

"The tar pits," Bolan told them.

"The tar pits?"

"Yeah." Bolan was buckling into his AutoMag.

"You mean like the LaBrea tar pits, up in L.A.?"

"Something like that," Bolan said. "Only these are invisible.''

Schwarz and Blanca.n.a.les exchanged puzzled glances. They were accustomed to Bolan's sometimes cryptic utterances, but this one left them blank.

"They've dug bones of woolly mammoths and I think dinosaurs out of LaBrea," Schwarz commented.

"We're after bigger game than that," the Executioner a.s.sured his crew.

"It's still a rescue mission?" Blanca.n.a.les wanted to know.

"That," Bolan replied, "is exactly what it is."

13:

THE LINK.

She was young, beautiful, married to one of San Diego's most ill.u.s.trious citizens, and-according to her own immodest claim in a telephone conversation with Lisa Winters-she had "balled every hood in this town ... and a few over in Mexico."

Her hair was shades of red and hung in a full drop to a point just below her shoulders. The eyes were emerald-hued, but lacked sparkle. The body was long and shapely with soft curves that flowed one into the other beneath velvet-textured skin. A true redhead, the sun apparently was not kind to her; she was glistening and greasy with protective oils and lotions. She wore a micro-bikini which did not quite conceal the fringes of the silky growth of hair at the base of her soft little tummy.

She was topless-one of those who could get away with it admirably.

With all that, if Bolan had ever seen a truly turned-off young woman, then this was the one.

She was sprawled upon her back on a large beach towel, head and shoulders supported by a plastic pillow, staring at him with something less than curiosity. A large Doberman, identical to the dogs at the Winters place, sat faithfully at her feet and regarded Bolan with that same detachment.

Needlessly, it seemed, she commanded the dog, "Thunder, stay." Then she told the intruder, "This is a private beach."

Bolan replied, "I know."

Except for the hat, he was dressed in the seagoing togs he'd acquired for the hit on Danger's Folly. Folly. The AutoMag was snugged into a shoulder holster beneath his left arm. The big piece made a The AutoMag was snugged into a shoulder holster beneath his left arm. The big piece made a noticeable bulge in his jacket, but this was the desired effect. noticeable bulge in his jacket, but this was the desired effect.

She was looking him over with a shade of interest now.

"You can be prosecuted for trespa.s.sing," Maxwell Thornton's wife informed the Executioner.

He said, "I'll risk it."

She sat up, sending the undraped chest a'jiggling, and leaned forward to grab a handful of the dog's coat. "Thunder is my bodyguard," she declared in that same listless tone. "A word from me and he'll be at your throat."

Beneath that turned-off exterior, the girl was frightened. Bolan knew this by the way the dog was beginning to tense and strain. A good dog could sense its owner's concealed emotions.

He told her, "Thunder must be a real comfort. Too bad."

The dog was off his f.a.n.n.y now, legs beneath him in a low crouch, lips curling upward to show this intruder how impressive his fangs were.

After a brief silence, the girl asked, "What's too bad?"

"Too bad that Howlie couldn't get the same sense of security from Thunder's brothers."

That one penetrated, immediately.

She let go of the Doberman and cried, "Thunder, hit!" hit!"

The big fellow's trained reaction was instantaneous and dramatic. The soft sand gave him a little trouble, but just a little, and he left the ground with all four feet airborne, snarling into the conditioned-response attack, the great mouth fully open and grinding into that contact with human flesh.

It is impossible to depict a true guard-dog attack in one of those staged presentations for movies or television. The Hollywood dogs are trained to simulate an attack and there is no way to fake the actual fury and viciousness of a true guard-dog response to a kill kill command. command.

These impressive fellows do not pa.s.sively wrestle about with their jaws clamped lightly around a guy's forearm. They explode explode into a writhing juggernaut of fury unleashed, slas.h.i.+ng and ripping with fang and claw, and it is a rare man who can bare-handedly stand up to such an a.s.sault. into a writhing juggernaut of fury unleashed, slas.h.i.+ng and ripping with fang and claw, and it is a rare man who can bare-handedly stand up to such an a.s.sault.

Mack Bolan was a rare man. He had read the attack, and he'd been waiting for it. His jump-off was synchronized with that of the dog as he pivoted inside and under the scrambling leap. He popped him in the throat with everything he could put behind a balled fist and rammed a knee into the belly as the Doberman fell back onto his hind legs.

It was a matter of an irresistible force meeting an immovable object, with the immovable object getting the best shots in.

The Doberman's legs buckled. The big head drooped toward the sand as he alternately coughed and retched, struggling to draw air with his temporarily paralyzed respiratory system.

He was all out of fight, for the moment.

Bolan sprung the AutoMag and aimed it at the Doberman's head. "Call him off," he warned the woman.