Don Pendleton - Blood Testament

Lucchese had his .45 in hand, but Bolan wanted him alive. Round three ripped through the child molester's shoulder, separating his right arm from its socket in a sloppy bit of surgery. Staggered by the impact, Lucchese would have fallen, but Bolan couldn't let the bastard go. Another screaming .44 impacted on his kneecap, detonating bone and muscle, ripping tendons from their moorings. The guy sat down, the bloody ruin of his leg tucked underneath him.

They were alone, the tiny lobby empty now. The Executioner approached Lucchese, crouched beside him. Fear and agony were mingled in the mobster's eyes, and unaccustomed tears were etching tracks across his cheeks.

"I call the cops in fifteen minutes, Gerry. You could crawl a block by then, or maybe two, if you've got the guts."

And through the pain, a latent trace of curiosity survived.

"Who are you?"

"I'm the guy who could've blown your head off, Gerry. Maybe next time, eh? Right now, I've got a job for you to do."

"A job?"

"Tell Nicky that I want the package back. Tonight. If it's been damaged, he can kiss his life goodbye."

"The package?"

"Tell him, Gerry. Next time I might aim a little higher."

Bolan jammed the muzzle of his AutoMag against Lucchese's groin and twisted, satisfied with the impression that it made. He left the bastard there, to drag himself away as best he could, secure that Gianelli would receive his message. If Lucchese died, it wouldn't matter in the long run. Bolan's destruction of the lockbox would be instantly connected with the other strikes, and Nicky G. would get the message, loud and clear.

The soldier had another call to make before he touched base with Brognola, this time on the other side. Before he rattled any more cages, Bolan wanted to assess the "evidence" against Brognola, slip the pieces into place and look for any gaps he might exploit. And he already had a source in mind.

Let Gianelli stew for now, devouring his own insides with questions that he could not hope to answer on his own. The Executioner had other business in the seat of government, and he was moving on.

To Justice.

He meant to see if any still survived.

Cameron Cartwright killed the Porsche's engine, listening to it tick for several moments as it cooled in the night. It was not cold outside, but he could feel the gooseflesh rising on his arms, betraying agitation as it did each time he was compelled to meet with Gianelli. So much at risk, so much to lose, and still he had no choice. When Gianelli called a meeting, Cartwright would be there with hat in hand.

It galled him, catering to common criminals this way, but, then again, there had been nothing common in the threat from Gianelli. At a single stroke, the mafioso could erase a quarter century of faithful service to the government, leave Cartwright's long career at the CIA in smoking ruins. Gianelli could destroy him if he chose to, and until he found a way to break the mobster's stranglehold, Cartwright was at his beck and call.

The Watergate Hotel provided anonymity, though Cartwright scarcely would have chosen it with tight security in mind. He still remembered Hunt and Liddy, the deliberate shambles of a burglary, the months of hearings that had toppled Nixon. It had been a foolish stunt from the beginning, amateurish, pointless, and the analysts at the CIA had recognized a shaky hand behind the half-baked plot. It wasn't burglary that put them off, but rather wasted effort, risking personnel to gather information that was readily available from countless other outlets. Farnsworth had been quick to sense the shifting winds and, with Cartwright's help, had moved to blow the silly scheme wide open. They had weathered out the shitstorm side by side, emerging with the scent of roses while so many others fell around them.

Even Gianelli didn't know of Cartwright's secret meetings with Bob Woodward, from the Post, although the mobster might have guessed that Cameron's sense of humor, coupled with his fondness for pornography, had prompted him to choose the contact code name of Deep Throat.

So long ago, but he could not approach the Watergate, could not drive by it in the Company's armored limousine without the images and memories returning, just as if it all had happened yesterday. You're getting old, he thought, and knew it wasn't true. Still vigorous at fifty-one, the CIA agent could hold his own against the best — he'd proved that much when he outlived Lee Farnsworth — but the carelessness of others placed him under Nicky Gianelli's thumb, and Cartwright ruminated constantly on methods of escape. If it had not required such careful planning, so damned much finesse...

As always, he had parked the Porsche himself, avoiding the valets who might remember faces, license plates, if anyone should ask about him later. Cartwright's passion for selective anonymity had marked him as a bit of an eccentric with the Agency, so many years beyond his final field assignment, but the up-and-coming staffers had no inkling of his background, everything he stood to lose through indiscretion and exposure.

In the wake of Farnsworth's death, the bloody business in Virginia, he had spent a frenzied weekend purging records, reaching back across the years to Southeast Asia, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Chile, shredding anything and everything that might incriminate him. It was simpler now than in the old days, with computers to assist him in the search, and Cartwright hadn't missed a thing — except for Gianelli's copies, secretly collected since the sixties, stored against the day when Nicky needed extra weight to throw around in Washington. The bastard had it all, in triplicate, complete with names and dates, securely tucked away where Cartwright couldn't reach it.

Yet.

A quarter-century in the clandestine services had taught him that no secret was eternally secure. It had only taken one professor to reveal the Pentagon's most treasured secrets in the early seventies, and whistle-blowers were a dime a dozen in official Washington. The kind of information Cartwright needed from inside the syndicate would be more difficult to come by, but where there was a will...

The doorman nodded courteously to the suit, ignoring Cartwright's face. The man had seen him here before as he saw thousands every night five days a week, but Cartwright worked at leaving no impression on the minds of strangers and remote subordinates. He fit "the type" that would be calling on the Watergate for business meetings of an evening: three-piece suit; salt-and-pepper hair, now mostly gray around the temples; wing-tip shoes. He was unarmed and had not carried guns with any regularity in a dozen years. But there were times like now when he still missed the reassuring weight beneath his arm. Its absence caused a pang, like sending a favorite child off to college in the fall or breaking with a mistress who had been particularly skilled.

The danger lay within connections, and he hoped to break the link with Gianelli soon, perhaps when they were finished with the current project. In the meantime he was on for the duration, and there was no viable alternative to absolute success.

He waited for the elevator with an older couple, tuning out their conversation, concentrating on the purpose of his visit. Gianelli had been agitated on the phone and with good reason. There were indications that his plan might be unraveling around the edges, but they had no other options now. They were committed, and the mafioso would be waiting for suggestions, ways of nailing down the battle plan before it rolled up in their faces and was blown away.

Cartwright had no answers for him yet, but it was in his own best interest to secure the game before it slipped away. He had as much at stake — and more, perhaps — than Gianelli. Everybody knew that Gianelli was a thug; they simply couldn't prove it in a court of law. In Cameron Cartwright's case, however, there were reputations to protect, an image to preserve, and he could not — would not — allow the present freakish circumstances to destroy what he had worked to build since he had come of age in Washington.