"I'm telling you they blew it, Nicky. Are you reading me? A frigging homicide detective took the call!"
"Relax."
The mobster's voice was oily, self-assured, but his apparent confidence did nothing for Cameron Cartwright. It was over. They were caught up inside the worst scenario he could have possibly imagined. Somehow, local officers had found the safe house. Not just officers, but homicide detectives. That meant death, and any way you sliced it there was trouble on the way.
Brognola's family was alive. Cartwright's crew would never willingly have compromised the safe house with an on-site execution. And if forced to kill a hostage on the premises, they would have cleaned it up without involving the authorities. Police meant phone calls from the neighbors — worse, from one of the surviving captives — and a call to the police meant someone had surprised his team.
The implications of that were too frightening to consider, even for a survivor like Cartwright. It meant surviving witnesses, embarrassment and nagging questions from detectives and investigative journalists.
Even with the precautions he had taken with the safe house, there were ways to trace his men. In death, they posed a threat that none of them had ever constituted while alive. Their faces, fingerprints, surviving records that had somehow missed the shredder when they joined Clandestine Ops... There were a million ways to blow a cover, dammit, and if Grymdyke had already been exposed...
"I'm leaving," he informed his host, abruptly turning from the window to confront the man whose personal vendetta had rebounded to destroy them all. "I'm getting out."
"We're getting out," Gianelli corrected. "I could use some sun, and God knows you've been looking pale these past few weeks. You like the Virgin Islands, Cam?"
He thought about it, shrugged.
"It doesn't matter what I like," he said at last, resigned to exile. "It's as sure as hell I can't stay here. Not now."
"You're getting all worked up for nothing," Gianelli told him, smiling like a hungry shark. "We aren't hung yet, not by a long shot. Just because a couple of your boys got bumped..."
"A dozen, counting Grymdyke. And the four you wasted on DeVries."
"Forget them," Gianelli answered, waving pudgy fingers in a gesture of dismissal. "Buttons are a dime a dozen. So, tonight you lost a dime. Big deal. You catch some sun, let all the badges chase themselves around in circles for a month or so, and by the time they're finished, nobody remembers who they wanted in the first place."
Cartwright didn't buy it for an instant, but he kept his mouth shut, watching Gianelli as he rose and punched the button on a desktop intercom. The houseman's voice came back like talking gravel.
"Yes, sir?"
"Pack up some bags, Vinnie. Sunshine stuff, enough for three, four weeks. And have them bring the car around."
"Yes, sir, Mr. Gianelli."
Straightening, the little mobster killed the squawk box, turned to face his guest.
"You'll get a chance to pick up something when we land. Who knows? You might go native on me once you meet those local broads." His laughter sounded like bones rattling inside a burlap bag.
The man from the CIA was not concerned with luggage or the shopping opportunities wherever he might find himself a day or week from now. He was concerned about survival, preservation of his liberty, the heat that would inevitably follow an investigation of the shootings at the safe house.
Even if the homicide detectives couldn't trace its ownership, the very fact that they were asking questions would alert his own superiors within the Company. It was impossible to keep them in the dark, and once they started asking questions, he was finished. Dead. When they found out that he had launched domestic operations on his own authority, joined forces with the syndicate to target government employees and civilians, they would not be reckoning in terms of prosecution.
Hit-on-sight with no questions asked would be more like it. And never mind the capo's fairy-tale scenario about returning home with all forgotten in a month or two.
The honcho from Clandestine Ops knew he was never going home again. No way in hell. They wouldn't let him. Worse, they would be hunting him, alert to every movement in his old accustomed haunts, and branching out when Cartwright failed to show himself within a reasonable time. He was a man condemned without a country now, and there would be no sanctuary for him in the Virgin Islands. Maybe in Fiji or Nepal if they didn't smell his spoor and put the hunters on his track again.
He could defect, of course. The Soviets would welcome him, with certain reservations. At the very least they would protect him from his former comrades in the Company, and after he had proved himself reliable, there would perhaps be certain luxuries permitted.
While his information lasted, anyway.
He was a walking gold mine to them now, but in six months, a year...
How quickly would the Company replace him in Clandestine Ops? Tomorrow? The next day? Certainly, they would not wait until next week. And from the moment of arrival, his successor would be busy changing codes, recalling agents in the field, and generally scrambling to save CO from any damage or embarrassment. It was astonishing how many operations could be scuttled or diverted in a single day, as Cartwright knew from grim experience.
But he would still be valuable to the Soviets. Or to their ranking competition, the Chinese. So many options left before him yet, he had been premature in giving up, preparing for disaster. He could still save something from the ruin of his life... and he could still repay the man who engineered his personal catastrophe.
Before he struck his bargain with the Soviets, Chinese, whoever, Cartwright meant to settle his account with Gianelli. It was Nicky's fault, the whole damned mess, and Cartwright meant to pay him back before he faded from the scene forever.
Nicky liked the Virgin Islands. Fine. They would be beautiful this time of year, festooned with foliage, creeping vines and flowers. More than adequate, he thought, for one small wreath.
Cigar smoke wreathed his head as Gianelli watched the limo being loaded. An hour more would see them at the airport, trundling aboard his private jet and southbound, homing on the sun, deserted beaches where a man could rest in peace.
He chuckled to himself and quickly glanced around to see if Cartwright might have grown suspicious of his sudden merriment.
The guy was fading fast, no doubt about it. He had never been a ramrod, not like Farnsworth, but at least he had maintained a kind of dignity before this whole Brognola business blew up in his face. If he had handled it correctly, following advice from Gianelli rather than relying on his cloak-and-dagger bullshit, they would both be in the clover now, instead of going on the lam. Brognola would be worm food, with his family and Mack the Bastard right there in the hole beside him. Nicky Gianelli would have been the freaking Boss of Bosses, and Cartwright could have asked for anything... within reason, of course.
But he had blown it, fucked the whole thing up so badly that they were preparing for a predawn flight to nowhere. That was Cartwright's fault, and never mind the fumble with DeVries. If Gianelli had been guilty of miscalculation there, his error should have granted Cartwright all the warning that he needed to prepare a decent trap at Arlington. And failing that, he could at least have scrubbed the hostages instead of letting them escape and sing for every goddamned federal agency in town.
The guy was all washed up, and just in case he didn't know it, Gianelli meant to break the news, up close and personal. It was the least that he could do for someone who had scuttled all plans and left him in the middle of a shit-storm.
But tomorrow would be soon enough. The white deserted beaches of the Virgin Islands were ideal for such a conversation... or perhaps the boss of Washington would rent a car, go driving in the forest with his friend and confidant. Whichever way he played it, only one of them was coming home from the enforced vacation, and it wasn't Cameron Cartwright.
He would have liked to plug the bastard here and now, but there were still amenities to be preserved. Besides, his piece was safely packed away in the luggage.
It could wait. Anticipation only made the execution that much sweeter. In the meantime, he could put a few refinements on the basic plan, some personal embellishments to make the job his own, a memory to cherish in the coming years. He might decide to make the bastard crawl a while before he...
"Ready, Boss."
"Okay."
He turned to find the man from the CIA staring at him intently, dark suspicion in his eyes. He wondered for a moment if the bastard might be psychic, finally decided he was simply shell-shocked from the beating he had taken in the past six hours. If he had an inkling that his flight would be one-way, well, what the hell? So much the better. Let him stew a little, sweat it out while Nicky put the final touches on his plan. It served the bastard right.
"Let's go."
The guy was edgy, and look at how he almost jumped when Gianelli spoke to him. The capo fought an urge to laugh out loud. It wouldn't do to make him bolt before they reached the airport. Better to pretend that everything was hunky-dory until just before he sprang the trap.
Cartwright scrambled in before him, Nicky bringing up the rear and settling back into the Lincoln's rich upholstery. Up front, his driver had the wheel, with Vinnie riding shotgun, armed and always itching for a fight. If anybody tried to stop them on the road, the dirty bastards would regret it... for about a second and a half before they died.
"C'mon, already. Move this thing."
The edginess was catching, dammit, and he forced a laugh to let his loyal subordinates know that he was cool. From where he sat, the boss of Washington could almost smell the fear that radiated off of Cartwright in offensive waves.
The engine growled to life and high beams speared the darkness of the curving driveway. They were leaving fear and danger behind for a little hunting trip, with Cameron Cartwright in the role of pheasant.
"Hey, what the hell..."
The exclamation had erupted from his driver's lips, and Nicky was already craning forward, peering through the windshield as a black-clad figure seemed to rise from nowhere in the middle of the drive, his face all painted like a minstrel and the biggest silver cannon in the world protruding from his fist, the muzzle pointed square at Gianelli's nose.
The mafioso felt his bowels begin to loosen, clenched his knees against the shameful legacy of childhood, biting back the sudden fear that wrapped around his heart.
"Goddammit, Eddie, punch it! Run the bastard down!"
Bolan heard the tank before he saw it coming, dinosaur V-8 announcing its arrival with a roar. A heartbeat later, the headlights burned around a corner of the driveway, pinning him at center stage. He raised the silver AutoMag and braced it in a two-handed shooter's grip, sighting down the slide, aiming square between the dragon's glowing eyes.
Fifty yards, and Bolan waited, knowing that the limo would be armored fore and aft, perhaps impregnable. And yet he had to try. If they missed Gianelli now, if Cartwright was allowed to slip away, it might be months or years before they reestablished contact. Too much could happen in the intervening time, and Bolan would not tolerate a debt so long unpaid.
At forty yards he squeezed the trigger, riding out the Magnum's recoil, squinting in the lights and watching as his bullet etched a harmless smudge across the windshield, inches from the driver's scowling face. He dropped his sights and triggered three more rounds in rapid-fire, aware that there would almost certainly be armor plating on the grille and praying for a chink, a weak spot, anything at all.
The whining ricochets were drowned by growling engine sounds, the throb of Bolan's pulse inside his ears. At twenty yards he knew that it was hopeless. He threw himself aside before the tank could plow him under like some disoriented chipmunk caught out on the center stripe by rolling death.
He landed painfully and rolled, aware of screeching rubber as the wheelman swerved to take him, missing him by inches, almost losing it before he straightened out again and pushed it to the limit. Bolan twisted, gnashing teeth against the sudden, stabbing pain as he unloaded with the AutoMag, one bullet spanging off a hubcap, two more flaking paint from armored fenders as the crew wagon rolled on.
The AutoMag was empty, its slide locked open on the smoking chamber, and he didn't have the time to slam a fresh clip home, assuming it would make the slightest difference. He might as well have peppered Gianelli's wagon with a BB gun, for all the good that he had done.
And the man who tore Brognola's world apart, who tried to set up Bolan for a fall, was escaping.
Brognola struggled free of the clinging hedges, muddy to his knees and reeking of the dusty juniper that had already gouged his face and hands unmercifully. His complete attention was focused on the winking taillights of the Lincoln, on the bulky weapon in his hands.
The tube was made of fiberglass, designed to telescope for storage but extended full-length now and primed to fire. The LAW — light antitank weapon — was, in essence, a disposable bazooka with a one-shot capability and an effective range of some four hundred meters.
More than twice the distance to the armored limousine, if he was quick and sure enough to do it right.
Brognola stumbled, cursing bitterly before he found his footing in the middle of the driveway, feet braced wide, the LAW across his shoulder. One hand was wrapped around the firing lever, mounted topside like a clothespin. He was watching as the man in black bailed out, his Magnum rounds deflected by the Lincoln's armor plating.
Gianelli had them beaten if Brognola missed his one and only shot. There would not be a second chance if he muffed it now.
And he was counting down from five, aware that flankers could be closing on him from behind, a backup car with gunners meant to convoy Gianelli out of town.
He squeezed the firing lever and felt the back-flash scorching empty air behind him, blinded for an instant as his stinger sped away downrange. He held his breath and waited through an instant that extended to eternity, prepared to run them down on foot if necessary.
The rocket bored directly in between those cherry tail-lights, an explosive missile striking home between the dragon's backward-looking eyes. It detonated in the trunk, an oily ball of fire enveloping the tank's hindquarters, rolling forward through the passenger compartment, greedily devouring flesh and fabric, leather upholstery and carpeting.
The Lincoln had become a rolling crematorium, decelerating as it reached the Wrought-iron gates, already standing open, and continued to the street beyond. It stalled there, blocking lanes in both directions, settling on melted tires, and Hal imagined that he heard a single, childlike scream before a secondary detonation ripped the night apart and spilled a rippling lake of fire across the road.
The empty launcher clattered to the ground, and he could see the man in black scrambling to his feet and favoring one shoulder, working at it with his other hand. The firelight on his painted face made Bolan look mysterious and savage, like some hunter from primeval times, transported to the present day in search of mythic dragons.
They had killed two dragons here tonight, and the leaping flames beyond those open gates were rapidly devouring the hurt, the bitter memories. In time, perhaps, he would be able to ignore the scars. In time. But for tonight, the fire itself was victory enough.