Don Pendleton: The Violent Streets

The Bill of Rights was designed by men who were justly concerned about the role of government in the personal affairs of its citizens. Individual rights were thereafter closely delineated in the U.S. Constitution and enshrined as "the American way": a blueprint for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in a fair society.

Mack Bolan knew, however, that some Americans regarded this blueprint cynically and selfishly, as a "free ride," an avenue toward their own evil goals unhampered by official restraints — as a "picnic" where every lust is easily sated, every desire freely fulfilled. For many people — even, sadly, for some Americans — "freedom" means only that liberty found in jungle law.

From Bolan's journal: "These violent streets are not part of the America envisioned by Jefferson and his colleagues. Those men saw government as the largest potential threat to freedom. But how hollow is a freedom that cannot guarantee our wives and mothers and daughters freedom from sexual assault, that will not enforce the sanctity of the home and the protection of hard-earned property? What comfort, then, is freedom — on savagely violent streets? It's jungle comfort, John, and that's a hell of a bitter epitaph for the home of the brave."

The last line in that quote was directed at himself — in his new identity as John Phoenix, head of the government's covert-operations group. One may only guess at the line of thought that prompted that cryptic communique to the self. It was a line of thought born of the almost unbearable stresses of his personal campaign against the Mafia, a campaign itself born of his terrible years of war, and of his absence then from his homeland while the country endured stresses of its own — the stresses of great change and of renewed exposure to the predators of our jungle cities.

Mack Bolan, aka John Phoenix, has been at war now for years, but freedom has not been secured. It would be foolish, insane, to imagine that it could be otherwise. But certain freedoms, certain inviolable rights of safety, should be possible and given at whatever the level of society, and when it is those very basic rights that are violated — and violated upon the person of Bolan's closest kin, or the kin of his closest friends and allies — then the war takes on new heat new force, new dimensions of strength, resilience... and attack.

Mack Bolan returned from Turkey seriously exhausted by the demands of defending and maintaining personal freedom. But nothing, no possible restriction of body and mind, could halt him in his response to a plea from his friend Rosario Blancanales. It is in this response that the jungle predators meet their match and comfort is at last taken from the criminal and given back to its rightful recipient, the free citizen. Even Mack Bolan knows, as well as his enemies, that in these times there is absolutely no avoiding the Executioner.

The sleek Lear jet touched down lightly on the east-west runway of Holman Field in St. Paul. Wind-blown rain streaked the plexiglas window beside the single passenger, turning the world outside the aircraft into a dark blur speckled with runway lights. Interior lighting reflected his frown in the oval pane.

They had approached from the east, descending through one of those Minnesota thunderstorms that always seem to reserve themselves for summer and then invariably strike around midnight. It was after midnight now, and the big man was anxious to be about his business in St. Paul.

The Lear's pilot taxied his craft to a slow halt near a western terminal. Holman Field sits tucked into a hairpin curve of the Mississippi River, where it bites a half-moon slice out of south-central St. Paul and Ramsey County. The compact jet's position placed it on the far side of the airfield, well away from the busier avenues occupied by commercial airliners and most private traffic.

Mack Bolan snared a heavy flight bag from the reclining seat beside him and moved out down the center aisle. His plainclothes Air Force pilot met him at the exit port, throwing the door back on its runners to admit a blast of wind and stinging rain.

Somewhere across the looping river, lightning blotched the sky, and was followed instantly by the intestinal growl of distant thunder. Bolan nodded to the pilot, hunched his shoulders against the storm, and descended folding steps into the rainy darkness.

Beyond the concrete retaining wall, near a vacant-looking terminal building, a long, dark sedan sat with engine idling. Bolan took it in at a glance and angled in that direction, slowing his pace slightly in spite of the pouring rain.

As if on cue, the sedan's interior dome light was turned on, revealing the driver's solemn, familiar face, and was quickly extinguished. Bolan picked up his pace, jogging now until he reached the waiting car, and slid in on the passenger's side, flight bag between his feet.

"How is she, Pol?" he asked the man behind the wheel.

Rosario Blancanales shrugged listlessly. "She's in bad shape, Mack. And emotionally... who knows?" After brief hesitation, he added, "Thanks for coming, Sarge."

"I'll pretend I didn't hear that, guy," Bolan told him.

Blancanales put the sedan in motion, away from the airport and onto Lafayette Freeway, heading north to cross the wide Mississippi into St. Paul proper. They spoke little as they drove, each man occupied with private thoughts on that stormy Minnesota night.

Mack Bolan was trying to remember when he had last seen his old friend look so harried, so drained. Not in Asia, certainly, where Rosario's vitality and savvy with the natives had quickly earned him the nickname "Politician." Nor later, when Pol joined the Executioner's domestic war against a common enemy. Not even at the bottom, the very worst of it, after the massacre at Balboa in the bad old days.

Bolan decided that his friend had never looked worse, or had better cause.

Perhaps — just maybe — there was something he could do to change all that.

Blancanales, meanwhile, for all the strain evident on his face and in his posture, seemed to draw some sort of solace from the mere presence of his best and oldest friend. Already he seemed to be regaining a touch of the old fire, as if Bolan's welcome arrival from his last mission in Turkey had sparked some internal mechanism and set the wheels turning again.

Bolan noted the subtle changes and was thankful for it.

Holman Field was twenty minutes behind them when Pol broke the silence with a clipped, curt warning.

"We've got a tail," he snapped.

Bolan glanced back over his shoulder through rain-streaked darkness.

"No question?"

Blancanales shook his head. "Negative. The last three turns were for his benefit. He's sticking tight."

A block behind them, headlights hung on their track at an even, measured pace. When Pol accelerated, the twin lights edged nearer; when he stroked the brake lightly, they fell back.

A tail, yeah. No question about that.

Bolan turned back to his friend in the driver's seat. "Okay, we'd better lose him."

"Roger that, buddy."

Pol instantly swung the sedan into a groaning turn, barely making the light and the corner as he swung across two lanes of traffic onto an intersecting street. The tail car never missed a beat, edging out two other vehicles as it slashed a course behind them in pursuit.