Shock Waves(27)

"Well, let's say somethin' happens..."

Bolan stopped ten feet short of the doorway and stood there, the heavy bags dragging at his arms.

"Okay. You take the full responsibility, I leave 'em here."

The banker thought it over briefly, finally shook his head, a nervous negative. "I guess I got enough to do."

"I guess that's right."

A cold-eyed gunner held the door for Bolan and he stepped through, glancing up and down the alley, veering left in the direction of his waiting rental car. He felt the banker watching him a moment, then the metal door clicked shut behind him and he was alone.

He almost chuckled, picturing the chaos back inside the bank as they prepared to face a team of nonexistent federal raiders sweeping down upon them any moment. It would take some time to realize they had been conned, and then the shit would really hit the fan.

But nothing compared to Don Gregorio's reaction when the news got home. It would be worth the ticket price to see the banker's face as he recounted his excuses for delivering a fortune to a total stranger off the street.

The Ace of Spades would raise some eyebrows, right, and set some wheels in motion where it counted. Tom Gregorio, like other ranking mafiosi, had survived through middle age by cultivating paranoia in his daily life, suspecting everyone and everything around him, always. He would be far beyond suspicion now, approaching apoplexy, and his rage would need a target, someone to absorb its grim, destructive force.

The banker would suffice for openers, but he was clearly not the brains behind an operation of this scope. The don would have to shop around among his many enemies to find a scapegoat, and with skill, a dash of luck, the Executioner might just be able to assist him in his search.

The game was getting dirty in New York, and there was worse to come.

Before the day was out, there would be dirt enough to cover all concerned.

And Bolan knew the only way to sponge the city clean, damn right, was through a bloodbath.





12




Bolan inserted the coins and punched a number from memory, keeping his eyes on the parking lot around him, the busy street beyond. A squad car drifted past, neither of its occupants giving him a second glance.

The phone rang half a dozen times before he finally got an answer.

"Yeah?"

The soldier recognized Tattaglia's voice at once.

"I'm calling for LaMancha," Bolan told him.

"Uh, he isn't here right now. You got a number there? I'll have him call you back."

He rattled off the pay phone's number, listened while Nino repeated it back to him. The connection was broken, and Bolan cradled the receiver, waiting.

It was a system of communication he had first worked out with Leo Turrin, when the little Fed was undercover in the brotherhood. So simple it was virtually foolproof, the technique let Bolan keep in touch with Hal Brognola's man inside, without attracting undue notice to the agent or himself. Within the next ten minutes, Nino would excuse himself and find a telephone he trusted, returning Bolan's call. If time ran out, it meant that he was unavailable for any one of half a hundred reasons, and the Executioner would try again later.

Eight minutes on the nose this time, and Bolan lifted the receiver on the first long ring.

"LaMancha."

"Right, It's lucky that you called. I've got a message for you from your uncle."

Bolan stiffened at the coded mention of Brognola. "So?"

"He had some kinda sudden business here in town. He'd like to see you, if you've got the time."

The warrior frowned. "It's tight. He have a place in mind?"

"The Cloisters. Said he'd be there till they close, in case you get hung up."

"I'll see what I can do. When are you going in?"

"About an hour. From what I hear, you're keeping busy."

"Trying all the time. You'll find some changes in the atmosphere around Minelli's."

"Yeah, I figured. There's a chill in the air around my place already."

"It should be heating up before too long."

"I'll dress accordingly. You do the same."

"Bet on it."

Nino broke the link and Bolan hung up, moving swiftly toward the rental car. His mind was racing, trying to extract the meaning of Brognola's presence in New York. He might be there to help, of course; it would not be unheard of. Or he might be there to warn the Executioner away, to head him off before his blitz proceeded any further.

Either way, Mack Bolan knew that he would have to meet with Hal and find out what was on his mind. He owed the guy that much, at least. But if the Fed was selling any more "portfolios," attempting to recruit him or, alternately, divert him from his course, the Executioner was going to walk away.

He never once considered that Brognola might have laid a trap for him at the Cloisters. Another cop, perhaps, but not Brognola. They had traveled down too many long and bloody roads together, butted heads on more than one occasion and remained the closest friends throughout it all. If there was any man alive who came as close to Bolan as his own surviving flesh and blood, that man was Hal Brognola. And there could be no thought of a betrayal by the man from Wonderland.