Blood Testament

21

It was a fifteen-minute drive to Alexandria, and Bolan used the time to sort out the pieces of the puzzle that he had already managed to acquire. The gunners who had taken out DeVries were Mafia, most likely part of Gianelli's private stock, while those who bought the farm at Arlington were past or present CIA. He didn't like the implications, the malignant odor that his nostrils had detected early on, but in the last analysis he had no choice. If he was going to retrieve Brognola's family intact, he would be forced to hold his nose and forge ahead.

Brognola's hunch on Milo Grymdyke might be all he needed to complete the picture... or it might turn out to be another damned dead end. There was no way of judging in advance, and so he made the drive from Arlington, aware that if Brognola's hunch was wrong, the wasted quarter hour could mean life or death for the big Fed's family. If Grymdyke had no part in the arrangements, or if some other faceless spook was phoning in an order to scrub the hostages, then it was too damned late already.

He might arrive too late to help the innocent, but he would still have time to hunt down the guilty and let them have a taste of hell on earth before he offered them the sweet release of death. Above all else, a taste of hell for Nicky Gianelli — something in the nature of a preview for the afterlife. If there was any lasting justice in the universe, if life was not a string of futile gestures climaxed by oblivion, then Gianelli and his kind had hell and worse in store for them. But first, it was Mack Bolan's turn to stoke the fire.

He found the address that Brognola had recalled from memory, and circled once around the block. The house was modest in comparison with others in the neighborhood, set back behind a broad expanse of manicured lawn, almost secluded by surrounding trees and hedges. From all appearances Milo Grymdyke liked his privacy, a carryover from his years in the clandestine service. That was fine with Bolan; he preferred their little interview to be conducted quietly, without arousing the anxiety of Grymdyke's neighbors. Failing that he would rely on speed, the hour and reaction times delayed by sleep to see him safely off before some busybody raised an alarm.

Discretion meant avoiding the appearance of unorthodox activity, and Bolan knew that he could not afford to park in front of Grymdyke's house. Although it was not late, comparatively, lights had been extinguished in the homes on either side of Grymdyke and across the street. A sweep of headlights, slamming doors, might be enough to rouse the neighbors and suspicions.

On his second driveby, Bolan marked the narrow alley that meandered behind the houses fronting Grymdyke's street. The residents deposited their rubbish here, in preference to planting cans and bags along the sidewalk out in front, a further bid to maintain the beauty of the neighborhood. He killed the headlights going in, aware that he might well be driving over nails or broken glass, preferring darkness to the relative security his high beams would provide. By counting rooftops that were visible above the fences, Bolan knew when he had reached the rear of Milo Grymdyke's property. He parked the rental car, shed the overcoat that covered his blacksuit and was EVA within another moment.

Grymdyke's wall was six feet high, constructed of cinder blocks with broken bottles set into concrete along the top. There were assorted ways around the obstacles, but Bolan didn't have to look that far. A wrought-iron gate was set into the wall, allowing Grymdyke to deposit garbage in the four bright cans that lined his fence outside, and once he had determined that the gate was free of booby traps, the soldier scrambled nimbly over, crouching as he touched down on the lawn.

No dogs. No sign of any sensors, though he wouldn't know for sure until the hidden floodlights pinned him in their glare. The soldier hesitated for a moment, conscious of his vulnerability, relaxing slightly when there was no call to arms, no sudden blaze of artificial daylight in the yard.

There was a light, however, burning in an upstairs window that he took to be a bedroom, or perhaps a study. Grymdyke might be sitting up and waiting for a call from Arlington, assuming that the shooters had been his. Assuming that Brognola's information was not sadly out of date and useless. Grymdyke might be reaching for the telephone right now, to order disposition of the hostages.

An ivy trellis climbed the wall in back of Grymdyke's house, ascending to the balcony outside that lighted window. Bolan thought it over for a moment, weighing odds and angles, banking on the spook's inherent paranoia to insist upon some sort of burglar alarm inside the house. The Executioner might be able to gain entry through the door that seemed to open on a modern kitchen, might have seconds left to bypass any circuitry connected to the door.

It had to be the trellis. For the sake of time, surprise, he could not try the door or downstairs windows. Standing silently in darkness, Bolan tried the trellis with his weight. When he was satisfied that it would hold, the soldier scrambled upward with a smooth agility. He reached the balcony in seconds, pausing there and listening before he eased one leg across the railing, followed slowly by the other.

From beyond the sliding windowpane that stood open, the night breeze ruffling drapes inside, he heard voices. He recognized a woman's although the words were breathless, indistinct. A man responded urgently in monosyllables.

He edged the curtains back with his Beretta, sighting down the slide into a woman's face, her head thrown back, red hair cascading over naked shoulders. The rest of her was naked, too, and Bolan had an unobstructed view of luscious breasts in motion, hips rotating as she rode a man stretched out beneath her. He saw the man in profile — hawk nose and receding hairline, bushy eyebrows, cheeks and forehead slick with perspiration.

"So good," she crooned. "Oh, Milo..."

"Do it, baby. Work it out."

He almost hated to disturb them. Almost. But his mission took priority above their pleasures. He swept the curtains back with one arm, kept his pistol leveled aimlessly between them as he stepped into the room. The woman's eyes snapped open at the unexpected sound, the color draining from her face, and she scrambled backward, leaving Grymdyke high and dry.

"Hey, what the hell..."

The spook was on his elbows, rising, when the muzzle of the 93-R's silencer made contact with his temple.

"Easy, Milo. Don't go off half-cocked."

"I hear you. Just take it easy with that thing, okay?"

Ignoring Grymdyke for the moment, Bolan pinned the woman with his eyes and nodded toward a closet that was standing open on the far side of the master bedroom.

"Get in there and close the door."

He didn't have to tell her twice, and she was poetry in motion as she raced across the room, all fluid lines and luscious curves. He thought about securing the closet door when she was inside, then put it out of mind. The woman wasn't going anywhere, and every second counted now. He turned to Grymdyke, backing off a pace and letting Milo stare into the Beretta's unblinking eye.

"So, what's the story, man?" There was bravado in the voice, a tremor underneath it that the naked man could not successfully suppress. "I haven't got much cash on hand, but what I've got is yours."

The soldier let him see a frosty smile.

"I met a couple of your friends at Arlington tonight," he said by way of introduction.

There was a flicker of surprise behind the narrow eyes... and something else. His manhood had already started to wilt, and it folded up like last week's roses.

"That right?"

"They didn't have a lot of time to talk, but they referred me on to you. I'm looking for some information."

"Try the Yellow Pages."

"Fine."

He leveled the Beretta, finger tightening around the trigger, totally committed in that instant to the image of his target's brains upon the satin pillow case, his grim determination telegraphed to Grymdyke through the weapon's muzzle.

"Hey! Hold on a second."

"Why?"

"You wanted information, right?"

"So, talk."

"You haven't told me what you're after, man."

"Wrong answer."

"Wait!"

The voice was edged with panic, and Bolan knew that he believed. The spook had seen his death in Bolan's eyes and didn't like the view.

"You don't give anything away," he muttered, when his voice had reached a semblance of normality. "I'd guess you're looking for a matched set, am I right?"

"Go on."

"Three pieces, very fragile. While they last."

"You'd better hope they last."

"Don't worry. I'm waiting for a call."

"Stop waiting."

"Yeah, okay. I read you. If you wouldn't mind my asking..."

"No survivors," Bolan told him flatly. "Yet."

It took a moment for the spook to swallow something that was threatening to choke him, but when his voice returned it was strong and firm, with just the bare suggestion of a tremor underneath the velvet-coated steel.

"You've got some balls."

The sleek Beretta's muzzle dipped six inches off target.

"So do you."

The color faded from Grymdyke's cheeks, but he was not surrendering. Not yet.

"I'm not just waiting for a call, you know. I've got to make one, if you get my drift."

The soldier read him loud and clear. And if the agent wasn't lying to save his skin, it meant that there was still a chance that Bolan had arrived in time.

"How long?"

"One-thirty."

Bolan didn't have to check his watch. If Grymdyke spoke the truth, Brognola's family had a short half hour left to live. Beyond the deadline, if he didn't call, the cleanup crew on site would automatically dispose of any hostages.

"How far?"

The agent thought about it long enough to know his life depended on the answer, its sincerity.

"We've got a safe house just outside of Sleepy Hollow. Maybe twenty minutes north, with traffic." Grymdyke rattled off an address, which the soldier memorized.

It was more like twenty-five without, but Bolan didn't quibble.

"One more question."

"Let me guess. You're looking for the sponsor, right?"

The soldier's eyes responded with a mute affirmative.

"It's Family business, guy. You're biting off a mouthful here."

"I'm interested in Gianelli's hot line to the Company."

He saw the agent flinch, was satisfied with the reaction.

"Hey, you know that much, you know I can't go into it."

"All right."

He was a microsecond from the final squeeze when Grymdyke raised both hands, palms outward, as if flesh could turn the parabellum round aside.

"Goddammit, wait!" His chest was heaving like a man experiencing cardiac arrest. "The bastard's not worth dying for."

"I'm listening."

"The sponsor's Cameron Cartwright, get it? He's the honcho at Clandestine Ops."

"What's his connection with the Family?"

"Who knows? Directions to the crapper in that place are need-to-know. I didn't ask, he didn't offer, get it?"

"Yeah."

It added up in Bolan's mind. If Cartwright had been managing the move against Brognola, he would not enlighten his subordinates beyond the bare essentials necessary for completion of their individual assignments. They would not be privy to his motives, his associations, the potential payoffs of his scheme. In retrospect, it was unusual for Grymdyke to be conscious of the Mafia connection, but his background with Clandestine Operations, his propensity for wet work had undoubtedly familiarized the man with CIA connections to the syndicate.

But time was running out, and Bolan had to disengage. He might be able to prevent the worst, but only if he moved without delay. The problem lay in leaving Grymdyke, knowing that the man could not be trusted under any circumstances. He would call ahead, alert the gunners, ruin everything. If Bolan ripped the phones out, wasting precious time, he only had to run next door or cross the street. If he was able.

All of this flashed through Mack Bolan's mind, and in that instant he observed the sidelong glance that Grymdyke cast in the direction of a nightstand on his left. The single glance told Bolan everything he had to know, and he could not afford to let the opportunity escape.

He drifted toward the open window, lowering the Beretta carelessly, aware that Grymdyke would be waiting for an opening. The guy would read his move as overconfidence, the kind of error that could get a soldier killed at times like this. He saw the muscles bunch in Grymdyke's shoulders, in his thighs, as he prepared to make his move.

And when it came, the spook was quicker, more adept than Bolan had expected. He had been rehearsing, planning for a moment such as this when he would have an opportunity to test himself. He reached the drawer and ripped it open in a single fluid motion, dipped inside and drew the long-slide .45, already tracking into target acquisition in perhaps a second and a half.

It very nearly saved his life.

The 93-R whispered once, and Bolan knew immediately that it was not a mortal wound. The parabellum round ripped into Grymdyke's ribcage, spun him sideways and the .45 exploded in his fist. Somewhere behind him Bolan heard the slug hit plaster, and a little yelping scream escaped the confines of the closet.

Bolan fired again, impacting on a pallid cheek and boring through to find the brain. His target folded, lifeless fingers loosening around the .45, lifeblood already forming pools among the folds of shiny satin underneath.

A backward glance informed him that the woman was safe and sound. The single round from Grymdyke's .45 had missed her closet sanctuary by at least a yard, and she was snuffling now, awaiting further gunplay in the sheltered darkness of her cubicle.

He left her to it, picking up the beside telephone and dialing information for the number of the hospital where Hal had taken Leo. When he raised the nurse on duty in emergency he had Brognola paged and waited, cursing to himself, while several moments passed in wasted silence. Finally he recognized the big Fed's voice and let him have the Sleepy Hollow address, waiting while Brognola gave it back verbatim.

"Twenty minutes," Bolan told him, glancing at his watch. "We're on a deadline."

"Dammit, that's not long enough."

"You're wasting time."

He cradled the receiver, going out the same way he had come, descending swiftly, pushing off the trellis halfway down and sprinting back in the direction of the gate and his rental car. He had precisely eighteen minutes left when he slid in behind the wheel.

And Hal was right: it wasn't long enough. He didn't have a hope in hell of reaching Sleepy Hollow, tracking down the address and attempting any sort of rescue by a half-past one. It was a washout, doomed to failure from the outset — but if Bolan had no hope, he also had no viable alternative. But he had to try, and only when he saw the mortal evidence of failure lying at his feet would he be free to seek revenge.

Against the Gianelli family for openers. Against the honcho at Clandestine Ops who put the ball in play and caused so much unbridled havoc in the lives of decent folk. The bastard would be sorry he had started with Brognola, sorry he was ever born, before the Executioner was finished with him. He would plead for death, accept it as a blessing when it came.

Mack Bolan was surprised by the intensity of hate that welled up inside him. How long since he had braced himself to kill from righteous anger? Had it been Detroit? Miami? Pittsfield? Had it been so long since he allowed himself to feel? The question nagged at him taunting, and for an instant he wondered whether he had grown inured to suffering, immune to pain.

And in that instant, he immediately knew the answer. He had not forgotten how to feel. Pain had been a part of Bolan's war from the beginning, from the moment when he stood before a row of graves in Massachusetts, saying his farewells to home and family. He had survived the pain and learned to cope when lesser men might easily have sought escape through drunkenness or death. He had survived to turn that pain around and forge from it a weapon to destroy his enemies. With each new wound he suffered, each new loss, the soldier braced himself to wreak vengeance on the savages arrayed against him. In a world of dog-eat-dog, it was the swiftest, most ferocious hound who led the pack. It might already be too late to salvage anything from Sleepy Hollow. Bolan would not write Brognola's wife and children off, but neither would he count on miracles. If they were dead before he reached them, if the nightmare become reality, there still might be a chance for him to overtake the cleanup crew. From there, he had a date with Nicky Gianelli, and another with the honcho from Clandestine Ops.

There would be nothing he could say to Hal. The man from Justice had not asked for any promises, aware that they were impossible to keep. His sorrow would be boundless, and eradication of the animals responsible would not assuage his grief.

But it would help the Executioner.

His private pain was forged from equal parts of loss and anger now, with anger grappling for the upper hand. And it would help him to watch a bullet rip through Nicky Gianelli's face. To lock his fingers tight around the throat of Cameron Cartwright, squeezing out the breath of life until the man's tongue protruded and his eyes rolled blindly back into his head. It would be good to kill again.

Relax, Bolan told himself. The anger, he knew, could get him killed if he allowed it to control his actions. If he reached the safe house before the occupants departed, he would be outmanned, outgunned, and he would need his wits about him if he hoped to see another sunrise.

Relax, he told himself again.

Forget about the intervening miles and concentrate on distance covered, time remaining. Bolan knew the folly of defeatist thinking, realized the fatal error of giving up before the battle had been joined. If anger ruled his mind, he would be little better than a bullet fired at random, free to ricochet around the battlefield until it spent its force and fell to earth in vain. He needed something more along the order of a guided missile now, a death machine complete with built-in homing instinct that would let him find the necessary targets, root them out and burn them down with surgical precision. Forget about an old friend's family on the line, he counseled himself, and concentrate on picking off the savages. Make it count. And if the final sacrifice was necessary, take as many of the bastards with you as you could.

It was the only way to wage a war, and Bolan knew enough of living on the edge to realize that death was never far away. If this was all the time remaining to him here tonight, then he would use that time to best advantage, running up a score against the enemy before they took him down.

And he would teach them all a thing or two about the costs of everlasting war while he was at it. Offer them a lesson in the grim reality of suffering.

He stood on the accelerator, felt the car grudgingly respond, its engine laboring. Another fifteen minutes, and he wondered if Brognola had the slightest chance of showing up before the roof fell in. For once, he almost hoped that Hal would be late.

The man should not be forced to watch his family die.

There would be ample opportunity for him to witness death before the sun rose over Washington again. This one time, though, if there was any mercy in the universe, the soldier hoped Brognola might be spared.

But it was not a night for mercy.

It was a night for blood.