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?"

Turrin grinned. "They haven't forgotten that you used to be one of my boys. They figured I could make the contact. By the way, have you heard? I'm running Pittsfield now."

Bolan chuckled and said, "Congratulations, that's some territory. No more girls, eh?"

Turrin laughed softly and stiffened his hand into a flat plane and tipped it from side to side. "I still keep my hand in," he said. "They'll never let me forget it anyway. I've got a new name, you know."

"No, I didn't know."

"They call me Leo Pussy."

"It's a name that should stick," Bolan commented, grinning.

"Yeah," Turrin said drily. "Well, so what are you up to? I mean, other than terrorizing the continent and bringing the blitz back to Britain?"

"I've just been trying to get home," Bolan soberly told him. "But I'm starting to smell something very rotten here in jolly old England. I think I might look around some."

"By look, you mean blast."

"Maybe that, too."

"Look, you better cool it a bit. These London cops are something else. You remember Hal Brognola?"

"The Justice Department guy, yeah."

"Right. Listen, Brognola packs a lot of weight. He takes no shit off of anybody, not even the boys up in Senate Judiciary. He's been trying to make some intercessions on your behalf with the local fuzz. No dice, buddy. They told him in plain text to jolly well butt the hell out."

"So what's Brognola's interest?"

"You know how he feels about you. He figures you're performing a national service, and I hear there's considerable unofficial sympathy with his view. But that's Fed level, understand. There's not much he can do at the local levels, especially with you blitzing around. More to the point, though, Brognola's been trying to engineer a line on this London arm for months now. Zero, buddy, not a damn thing. And I couldn't help. I mean, I've got no right to know what's going on over here, right? So this trip was a blessing, in Hal's view. This is the first time we've gotten inside underground London."

"Have you caught the smell yet?"

"What smell?"

"The rotten smell I was taking about. If this thing does bust, I've been told that this whole country might shake from the explosion."

"Local corruption?"

"No, worse than that, from a public point of view. It could be the Profumo thing all over again, times ten and in spades."

Turrin said, "Shit."

"Yeah. That could be why Scotland Yard is so hard-nosed. Maybe they know that smell already, and they're afraid it's going to bust wide open."

"I doubt that," Turrin replied worriedly. "The CID has a hell of a lot of pride. They're just not going to let you run wild over here, that's all."

Bolan said, "Well, we'd better cut this short. What can I do to help your operation?"

Turrin produced a small notebook, jotted a phone number, and tore out the sheet and handed it to Bolan. "Contact me here, sometime today if you can. We'll work out a meet."

"Okay. Where were all the cars headed?"

"Airport. Arnie Farmer Castiglione is bringing in a big head party, due to land at six. Staccio insisted that we come on ahead and try to get a jump on them. But nobody's been home here all night and hell, we've just been sitting around waiting for someone to show."

"What do you mean, get a jump?"

Turrin grinned. "It's the big squeeze, buddy. Peace in one hand and war in the other. If we make contact first, meaning the peace delegation, the Farmer is supposed to lay off and give us a chance to work something out."

"But you think he won't."

"Right, that's the feeling. But we're supposed to give it the old college try. For what it's worth, Staccio brought with him the full authority of the Commissioneto make a deal with you."

"Castiglione's on that Commissione."

"Right. But you know how these things go. The old warrior hates your guts, Sarge."

Bolan shrugged. "So, old warriors die too, you know."

Turrin said, "Yeah, you could look at it that way, I guess. Listen, I don't really know all the details… Staccio's playing this thing pretty close to the chest. Fin just supposed to make the contact and set up the meet. Maybe you should listen to what he has to say. It might be your out."

"Who says I want an out?"

Turrin smiled faintly. "You can't keep this going forever, Sarge."

Bolan grinned and said, "I can try."

"Well… okay. It's your decision. Hell don't look to me for advice, of all people. Uh, you need anything from me that doesn't come under that heading?"

"I could use some intelligence."

"I'll do what I can. What do you need?"

"I need a make on an old man named Edwin Charles, age about seventy or seventy-five. I think he was a biggie in OSS liaison during World War Two. Maybe someone can get a line from that angle. He died tonight."

Turrin said, "Friend or foe?"

"That's what I'm hoping you can tell me."

"Okay. I have a line to Brognola. I'll put him on it."

"While you're at it, look into a Major Mervyn Stone. The major part is a carryover, he's not active military anymore. The name's all I have, but there a connection with Charles."

"Pretty important stuff, Sarge?"

"Yeah, pretty important. My head might be attached to it."

"Okay, well shake the tree. You watch it, huh?"

Turrin moved casually back across the street, pulled the gate shut, and walked up the drive whistling a pop tune. Bolan watched him out of sight, then faded away into the night.

That was a good cop back there, a damn good cop. Bolan wished him long life. But he feared a short one for him. Perhaps as short as Bolan's own.

Chapter Fourteen

The pact

Another night had all but ended when Bolan returned to Russell Square. Lights were on here and there inside Queen's House and a faint illumination marked the rectangle of Ann Franklin's window. After a cautious recon, Bolan went in through the rear entrance and let himself into the flat with the key the girl had given him.

Ann was waiting for him. She was in a chair directly facing the door, she was entirely awake, and she was holding the big Weatherby in a tense grip and pointing it right at his belly button.

He closed the door and asked her, "Forgotten me already?"

"I haven't forgotten you," she replied coldly. "What are you doing with my rifle?"

"Protecting myself."

"Against me?"

She tipped her head in a deliberate nod. "Against you."

Bolan tried a grin that didn't quite come off. "Is it all right with you, Lady Gunner, if I have a cigarette?"

"If that means may you reach inside your jacket, no, you may not."

Bolan did not like a bit of this. He said, "Look, I'm not feeling up to games. Don't believe it about an infantryman's feet. They get as tender as anybody's, and I've been on mine all night. Now what's going on?"

She murmured, "Thank goodness your tender feet are no concern of mine."

He said, "Forget the feet, it's tough shoulders that count. Particularly the gun shoulder. When those big pieces go off they buck into you like an enraged bull. I've known guys to come off the firing line with fractured collarbones."

"I've handled firearms before," she assured him.

Bolan did not like the icy stare she was giving him. He wondered, but would not ask, where Major Stone was at the moment. He said, "Where have you handled firearms? On the clay pigeon line?" He shook his head. "That's no pop gun you're holding there, Lady Gunner. It was made to deliver a killing punch at better than a thousand yards. That's three thousand feet, better than half a mile, or roughly one kilometer, to put it in your terms. That kind of killing power requires a muzzle energy of more than four thousand pounds— that's where the enraged bull comes from—and it takes a bullet of at least 300 grains. No military style steel jackets on those jobbies, either. That Weatherby is a big game rifle, meaning the bullets are blunt-nose expanders, designed for high shocking power. They mushroom on impact, and they tear through like a small bomb. You pop me with that charge from where you're sitting and you'll be cleaning pieces of me off of every wall in the room, and maybe even some out in the hall. If you want to try for something really gory, then lay it in right between my eyes. You might get some scrambled brains clear into your frying pan. Or if—"

"That will be quite enough of that," she interrupted. Her face had gone white and a nervous tic was beginning to work at the corner of her mouth.

Bolan said, "I think so, too. So if you really mean to shoot me, then why don't you put the clip in?"

"The what?"

"The ammo clip. Why didn't you load the gun?"

A distressed look crossed her face. She said, "Oh," and glanced down at the rifle.

Bolan stepped forward and took it away from her.

"How stupid of me," she murmured.

"Not at all," Bolan said solemnly. "As a matter of fact, it is loaded. This piece doesn't use a clip." He pulled the bolt and ejected a long wicked looking bullet. It whizzed past the girl's face and struck the floor with a heavy clatter. "That's a magnum," he explained, "and it has a hell of a lot more than 300 grains."

She winced and stared at the shell as though spellbound by it.

He told her, "You know, I'm getting just a bit fed up with your whole nutty bunch."

"Obviously," she replied in a small voice.

"Now just what does that mean?"

Her lip quivered and she said, "I told you that Charles was harmless. There was really no need at all to kill him. It was wanton and violent and… and inexcusable."

Bolan's face showed his disgust with her. He said, "Lady, if you think I killed that poor old man then you're clear off your pole."

He carried the rifle into the bedroom and began snatching his things out of the closet. He was stuffing the Weatherby into its case when the girl appeared in the doorway.

She said, "Mack…" in a soft voice.

He turned a harsh glare on her. Her eyes faltered and she slowly entered the room to stand uneasily at the foot of the bed. Bolan was thinking that she had performed that exact same maneuver the night before, and he had to wonder if it was sheer coincidence.

Gruffly, he told her, "Okay, so maybe you had a right to think it. You're right, I am a killer. In fact, I killed about a dozen men tonight, maybe two. Hell, I don't even bodycount anymore. But I don't murder doddering old men by bending them over a hot iron. That's not exactly cricket in my circles, lady. Yours, maybe, but not mine."

She flinched and softly replied, "All right, I deserved that. Now will you forgive me?"

"I already did." He was carelessly throwing his things into the suitcase. "But it's time I was moving on. Too long in one spot makes me nervous. Thanks, and all that." He snapped the bag shut and dropped it to the floor, then finished securing-in the Weatherby.

"Where will you go?"

"I'll find something."

"There's really no need for all this, you know. You're perfectly welcome to remain here."

"It's better that I don't," he assured her.

"Then you're just ditching us, leaving us all alone to solve an impossible problem, and after all we've done to help you."

Quietly, Bolan said, "That's right, you've helped a lot, haven't you. You brought me to an ambush in Dover, then you brought me to an ambush in Soho, not once but twice. You people keep helping me, Ann, and you're going to help me right into a grave."

She took a deep breath, let it all out, and said, "If you didn't kill Charles, then who did?"

Bolan's eyes clashed with hers. He sat down on the edge of the bed and lit a cigarette, then muttered, "I wish I knew."

She said, "He died hideously. I was there, I saw it. The CID was there also. And I'm under technical arrest."

"What does that mean?"

"It means that I'm not to leave London until the investigation is completed. It's a technicality. CID is convinced that you are the murder. They seem to think that the museum is part of a Mafia racket. They think that you tortured Charles to get information out of him, then when the gangsters came, you killed them all in a Shootout."

Bolan grunted and said, "It figures. I guess I'd be thinking along those same lines if I were a cop." He took a long pull at the cigarette and slowly exhaled. "Actually," he said thoughtfully, "I was hung up on the same kind of error, at first. I automatically concluded that the Mafiosikilled the old man. That tied everything into a neat bundle, see."

She shook her head. "No, I don't see. What do you mean?"

"Well, you stop thinking of motives and that sort of thing the minute you settle for a gang killing. But I'm convinced now that the mob didn't do it. And I didn't do it. So that takes us back to whoand why—and especially the why. You tell me, Ann. Whywas Charles killed?"

The girl sat down beside Bolan, clasped her hands between her knees, and stared broodingly at the floor. "I haven't the foggiest," she said, sighing.

He asked her, "Isthat museum part of a Mafia racket?"

Her eyelids fluttered as she replied, "Only in the way that I've already explained. We are being blackmailed."

"So how did Charles figure into that angle?"

Her lips quivered. She leaned against Bolan and told him, "He was simply a sweet old love who enjoyed puttering about with electronics. Actually he was more of a maintenance electrician than anything else. Charles had absolutely no connection with any of the club's business."

"He didn't operate that peepshow console in the basement?"

"It's largely self-operative. Charles merely saw to it."

"Did Charles install the cameras and the other gadgets?"

"Install them?" She shook her head. "Oh no, not the original equipment. That was all done quite some time before Charles came to us."

"And when did he come to you?"

She wrinkled her brow and replied, "Some months back. Three, perhaps four."

"Was that before or after the blackmail started?"

"Oh it was after. I'm positive of that. It was because of that trouble that the Major decided to have a full time watchman about the place. Charles lived in, you see. Had his own flat in the cellar."

"And how did the Major happen to pick Charles for the job?"

Her eyes blanked and she said, "I haven't the foggiest notion."

Bolan sighed and stretched toward the night stand to crush the cigarette into an ashtray. When he straightened, Ann was lying back on the bed, her legs dangling over the edge. He stared at her for a thoughtful moment, then told her, "I've no intention of ditching you, Ann."

"Thanks," she replied in a half whisper. "But I'm releasing you. You have no obligations to me."

"It isn't a matter of obligation," he said.

Her face took on a warm glow. Her eyes half closed and she whispered, "It isn't?"

He shook his head. "Uh-uh. It's a matter of safety. Yours. Whoever did it to Charles might decide to do it to you, too."

"Why me?" she gasped.

He shrugged. "Why Charles?"

She said, "But that's ridiculous!" Her face, though, showed that the idea was not entirely ridiculous.

"Just what is your job at de Sade?" Bolan asked her.

She closed her eyes and flung an arm across the top of her head. One foot came up on the bed and she wriggled about in discomfort.

Bolan said, "Dammit, it's important. Now what do you do over there?"

"I plan the parties," she replied, her voice barely audible. "I stage the shows and see to the decorations and make arrangements for the food and beverages. I am in complete charge of all party arrangements."

Bolan said, "What's involved in staging a show?"

"Many things," she replied listlessly. "Foremost is a thorough understanding of the members' various idiosyncracies. First I must determine precisely which members will be attending. Then I simply build the show around the sort of things that give mem enjoyment."

"Where do you get the actors?"

"They're a repertory company, under contract to the club. They are well paid and quite content with the working conditions. Also some of them, I suspect, have idiosyncracies of their own."

"How about you?"

"What?"

"Idiosyncracies."

Her face flamed. "I have a huge one."

"Tell me."

She sighed. Her eyes remained closed and she said, "Utter revulsion. I find the entire thing abominable and revolting."

"Then why do you stick on with it?"

Following a long silence, she replied, "I once thought that I stayed because of the Major. We're not exactly a father and daughter item, you know, nothing like that. I believe that the Major is constitutionally unsuited for the father role. But he did take over my upbringing when my aunt died. He's a very cold man, as you may have noticed, but he does have a sense of duty. I suppose that he instilled that in me, also. He saw to my problems for a number of years. I suppose that, when I came of age, I felt a need to see to his problems. But the Major released me last year… even askedme to go… so I haven't that excuse to fall back on any more, have I?"

"So what are you saying?" Bolan probed on.

She came up to one elbow, tossed her head to one side, and opened her eyes to fix them on Bolan. "I'm saying that I don't know why I stay on. Perhaps I have become fixated on abomination and revulsion." She looked away from him then and asked, "Do you find me revolting?"

"Not at all," he murmured.

"I'm a damn virgin, did you know that?"

It was time for Bolan to look the other way. He was curiously embarrassed by the admission. "No, I hadn't noticed," he muttered.

"And I'm twenty-six years in this world. Now isn't thatsome sort of an anachronism in this flaming age." She said it quite bitterly.

Bolan wanted to leave the subject. He said, "Did you stage the show for last night's party?"

"Yes."

"Did it include a torture scene in the cell where Charles died?"

Her eyes flared as she replied, "Yes, but not thatone."

"What was scheduled for that room?"

"Jimmy Thomas."

"And what is Jimmy Thomas?"

Her faced again flamed. She said, "Jimmy Thomas is a sodomist… a—a passive, a vessel."

"I don't get you."

She had to close her eyes to explain. "He—he… well, you saw the device, I'm sure. He bends himself into the locks and… receives."

Bolan's mouth was dry. He said, "Yeah. So why wasn't Jimmy Thomas in there receiving, instead of the old man?"

She explained, "The Major said that he'd received a request from one of the members to… to…"

"To do what?"

"One of the members desired Jimmy's personal company during the party."

"And when was this?"

"At the last moment, I suppose. I had to leave early. Remember, I was meeting you at Soho Psyche."

"Supposedly the Major was, too," Bolan pointed out.

"He was there," she said. "He told me that he knocked into you just outside the dining room."

Bolan said, "Yeah, about twenty minutes late."

"But he said that he'd explained that to you. The gangsters were following him. He was trying to shake them loose."

Bolan decided that he did not wish to tell her differently, not at the moment. He sighed and asked her, "Just how emotionally attached are you to Major Stone, Ann?"

She replied, "Not at all. I've explained all that, I'd thought."

He said, "Suppose it turns out that Major Stone is the one who killed the old man."

Her eyeslashes fluttered rapidly. "That's preposterous."

"Is it?"

"Utterly."

"Well just for the sake of argument, suppose he did. How would you feel about that?"

Her voice dropped into low key again as she said, "Then I would fear that he had gone quite mad. I would feel the deepest pity for him."

"If he did do it, Ann, I'll probably have to zap him."

"You'll have to what?"

"There's something smelly about this whole setup, and I'm not talking about sexual perversion. Something very rotten and very evil is underlying this entire mishmash, and I'm betting that Edwin Charles did not die at some madman's spur of the moment whim. He died for some damn good reason. I believe that this reason somehow is related to my presence in London, and I'm betting that the killer and I will have a showdown before it's all over. When that happens, Ann, I will probably kill him."

She murmured, "And you believe that this shadowy 'someone' could possibly be Major Stone."

"It's more than a possibility," he told her.

The girl pulled herself erect. She crossed her legs, Indian fashion as she sat on the bed. She gazed steadily at Bolan for a thoughtful moment, then said, "But suppose that Charles was actually in on the blackmail plot?"

"That could change things," Bolan admitted. "Do you think he was?"

She shrugged her shoulders. "I hardly know what to think at this point." She got off the bed and went to the window, pulled back the blinds, and stared somberly outside. "It's daylight," she announced quietly. "What a difference twenty-four hours can bring."

Bolan wanted to get things firmly understood. He told her, "The point of it all, Ann… I may turn out to be your very worst enemy."

"You could never be that," she murmured, still gazing out the window.

"A few minutes ago you were ready to blow my head off," he reminded her.

"Not really." She sighed and her head drooped toward the windowpane. "I was simply shocked and frightened and confused. I could never have pulled that trigger. I'm in love with you, Mack."

Bolan said, "All right, maybe I feel something of the same for you. But it won't change a thing at the nitty-gritty level, Ann. I'm going to keep hacking at this thing, and the chips are going to lie where they fall."

Silent tears were oozing down the smooth cheeks as she turned to him and said, "Then let's make a pact."

"What sort of pact?" he asked gruffly.