Don Pendleton - Council of Kings

"Yeah," said Bolan. "I know a lot about it. I know you run the operation. You use the dead bodies of American soldiers to ship your heroin. I know you lie about the strength of the Vietcong. I know you get a lot of innocent kids killed or maimed for life." Bolan was surprised at his own sureness. He was a young man unused to going too far. Putnam's face had become a mask of hate and panic.

He sat immobilized. Bolan continued to drive words home like a jackhammer.

"You scar people. You use them for your own purposes and then kill them. You killed Naiman and blamed me for it. You use your position of trust as if it were your whore."

Putnam's eyes darted to the photo of his family.

Bolan drove on mercilessly. "You could say I know something about it. I lost a buddy because of you."

Furious, Putnam reached across the desk and grabbed the picture frame as a weapon. Bolan smashed his fist down on Putnam's, breaking the hand and shattering the glass and the frame that it held. Putnam cried out, his face white and twisted with pain, and he put his injured hand between his thighs.

Bolan reached around Putnam's throat and pulled him across the desk with a powerful jerk of his shoulder. Putnam lay wheezing, his head on the desk, the corners of his mouth wet with spittle.

"It's not me you want," the CIA man gasped. "I answer to others. Please..."

"I'll bet you answer to others," Bolan said. He spread his fingers around Putnam's neck and jaw and applied pressure. "What others?"

"The Council," Putnam hissed against the constriction around his throat.

"Who on the Council?"

Putnam looked at his assailant in panic. Bolan pressed down hard.

"Civilians," the guy squealed. "They're not soldiers... nothing to do with the war. Except Heiss. Karl Heiss..."

"And the civilians?"

"Gunrunners. Just gunrunners and money-men. They buy the heroin."

"Names." Bolan introduced more significant pressure.

"Marcello. Andriola. Canzonari. That's it...."

This rat was living up to its name. Bolan pulled the remains of the map from his pocket. Putnam clamped his jaws shut. Bolan loosened them with a punch to the temple, then pulled them apart until Putnam's fillings gleamed in the sun. "This is for Buddy," he said. "Don't you ever forget." Bolan pushed the map into Putnam's mouth and rammed it down his throat until Putnam gagged. Bolan turned to leave. At the door he looked back. Putnam rolled off the desk, his right hand hanging useless and discolored. The CIA man began to began to vomit, retching painfully.

"Chew that over with your Council of Kings," Bolan said. He slammed the door and marched down the corridor, moving purposefully out of there. Bolan knew a little more about himself now, a lot more about brotherhood and loss. And he knew for absolute sure that he would survive to shove injustice down the throats of many more vermin to come. He had heard the names — and had just heard the call. And he was still so damn near over the edge. So he prayed for his family, because he was scared, and he vowed that he would never voluntarily share this dreadful war with his kin, his mother and father, his sister, Cindy, and younger brother Johnny, all back home. And then Bolan prayed that in his personal war to come, the inevitable war seeded in this corruption called Vietnam, the enemy would be his and his alone. No buddies. And now, back to war. Back to Mohawk time in the Mekong...