Don Pendleton: California Hit

Obviously, if they were to have any sort of meaningful discussions, they would have to take place in the limousine — and that would be crowded enough — or they would have to take place in the open air.

The guy was shy. Obviously he did not wish to leave his vehicle.

He had rolled down his window and was half-lying across the seat in an effort to talk across to the limousine.

Bolan waited and watched.

Presently the doors of the limousine opened and the occupants slowly struggled to the outside.

Vericci was the first out. He had been driving. Then followed Ciprio and old man DeMarco and, finally, from the back seat, two gentlemen dudes of obvious Oriental backgrounds.

Bolan immediately recognized Wo Fan... but the other guy ...

He whistled softly to himself and wondered. The commie? All the commissioners of California crime... in one group?

Important, yeah. Maybe more important than Bolan could fully grasp.

The group straggled hesitantly toward the little import. Bolan automatically checked the safety switch on the burper and waited.

Come out, man, come out. Let me get a look at you before I rub you.

The guy didn't come out, but his head did, craning outward and upward beneath the overhanging lamp for a smiling welcome to his visiting dignitaries of despair.

Bolan stared at that face with a stunning recognition — and, for a moment, he tried to tell himself that he was not seeing what he thought he was seeing.

But then a lot of little things suddenly jogged together in that combat-hardened mind, and Bolan knew in a flash that indeed he was seeing "Mr. King" in the flesh... and what a damned irony.

The name wasn't really King, of course. Almost as big but not quite... almost as respectable, but not quite.

Bolan felt his belly roll over and quiver, and he left those concealing shadows and moved silently across the paved surface for a close kill.

He did not want to miss this one. He did not want to miss this rotten son of a bitch... this guy who was selling out not just his own people but maybe an entire nation in the bargain... this guy who killed and robbed and raped and starved and oppressed not just an occasional handful but thousands every day without ever experiencing the sight or smell or taste of blood in his delicate senses... no, Bolan did not want to miss this guy.

DeMarco spotted the spectre of death first, and the old man made a move which could have passed as a clutching at a suddenly fibrillating heart, but it went on inside the coat and jerked rapidly back out again, and it was hauling hardware.

The others whirled at about that instant, and there was panic... scraping feet and frightened grunts and diving hands... even the guy inside the little car was fumbling with something on his dashboard... and Bolan put everything he had ever been and ever hoped to be into that squeeze of the trigger.

He did not let off until the clip was dead, and all the hollow men had lost their stuffing, and were leaning together in a horizontal heap of carnal garbage.

He went over to the imported car, looked in, reached in, then withdrew and muttered, "Long live the king. The king is dead."

A voice behind him suggested, "Long live Able Team. Able Team is dead."

Bolan turned slowly, carefully, and stared into the tortured gaze of his old friend and flanker, Bill Phillips.

"That was you behind me," Bolan quietly decided.

"That was me, all the way."

"How'd you know?"

"You should know, Sarge. You taught me. I heard the cute stuff Gibson was letting leak. I put it together."

Bolan said, "Congratulations. You still intend to Wang Dang me?"

"It's my responsibility," the cop explained, regretfully.

Bolan nodded. He could understand that.

"Before you exercise that responsibility, Bill... remember, earlier today... hell, was that just today?"

"Remember what?" Phillips prompted. He seemed to be begging, "Give me a reason not to, Sarge, just give me a reason I can live with."

But he didn't say it, and Bolan told him, "We were talking about the importance of certain missions. You know who these guys are, Bill?"

Phillips nodded his head. "Most of them."

"Look at the guy in the car."

"Nothing cute, Sarge. Just cool it."

"I'll cool it. Look in the car."

The tough Frisco Brushfire cop stepped carefully to the window, risked a quick look, then tossed an unbelieving glance at his captive and went in for a closer inspection.

He came out with his face all twisted in the anguish that only a black man can feel at certain times, and his gunhand dropped to his side, and he mumbled, "Okay. Goodbye Mack. Good luck."

Bolan replied, "Okay," and he turned and walked away from there.

Too bad, Bolan thought as he eased into the war-wagon.

Yeah, too damned bad. Bolan knew. Or he thought he did. He thought he knew how tough it must get sometimes to simply be a black man.

Bill Phillips knew, for damned sure.

"Mr. King" would never know it again.

Long live the king. The king, God save his rotten soul, was dead.

Some wars, somehow, just didn't always seem worth winning.

Bolan finished his packing, and he told the China doll, "It's not that I'm in a rush to get away from you, Mary. It's just that I have this feeling. I've got to travel east, and damn quick."

"Personal business," she quietly suggested.

"Very personal business. Something very important — important like you, only different. Different, Mary."

"I guess we'll never meet again," she decided, sighing.

"Don't count on it." He gave her a solemn wink. "You, uh, square with Barney Gibson?"

She said, "I am. You made his day, soldier. More than that, I guess you made his life."

He slung the satchel over his back, went to the door, then turned about for a last long penetrating look at something very special that had briefly touched his life.

"Okay," he said.

Her face twisted as she replied, "Aren't you going out the window?"

He chuckled and told her, "I come in windows, lady, I don't go out them."

"Listen, tough guy," she said, her voice dropping to a harshly commanding tone, "you can climb in my window any old day... or night. You come see me. You hear?"

He said, "I hear," and he gave her finally, fully, a total smile, and then he went out of there.

Something very important, more important than all the San Franciscos everywhere, was awaiting his attention in a distant eastern city.

No man could truly stand alone... not forever. Only a fool would want to do so.

And if anything had happened to Johnny or Val...

His stomach curled, and he commanded the thought to go away, even knowing that it would not.

If anything had happened to those two... well, it would be a hellfire trail for sure, this time.

It would be a descent and a journey through the hell of all hells, and a lot of other dudes would share that fire with Mack Bolan.

Pittsfield, he quietly sent the word ahead, I'm on my way.