Don Pendleton - Blood Testament

He blamed Lee Farnsworth for the problem. It had been Farnsworth who recruited Gianelli's predecessors for the war against Fidel, who had continued the assassination efforts — in defiance of repeated White House orders — after the Bay of Pigs disaster. When spokesmen for the Mafia's Commissione had bitched about the federal drive against their brothers of the blood, it had been Farnsworth who conceived the series of scenarios that culminated on an autumn afternoon in Dallas. And before the smoke had cleared, it had been Farnsworth — with some help from Cartwright, granted — who had agitated for a special panel to investigate the murder of the President; a panel that would close the door on ugly rumors permanently, and prevent the furious attorney general from initiating an investigation of his own.

It would be thirty years before you knew it, but the Mob had never tired of dropping little reminders into Farnsworth's ear. When an aircraft was required to haul the fruit of countless poppies stateside, the CIA had volunteered to fly the covert "rescue missions," braving hostile fire and customs agents to supply a growing army of addicted zombies in the streets of Everytown. When Momo Giancana thought his mistress had been looking for a little action on the side, the Agency provided wire men to investigate the "boyfriend," finally absolving him and thereby, doubtless, lengthening the poor schmuck's life. When the IRS expressed a passing interest in foreign bank accounts, the cry of "national security" was sounded to repel investigators.

It had worked to everyone's advantage through the years. The Company, for its part, had been granted access to the eyes and ears of underworld associates from Brooklyn to Marseilles, Los Angeles to Bangkok and Taiwan. The eyes saw many things, those ears heard many whispers that might otherwise have been ignored. The godless enemy was only human, after all, and when he paid for pleasure in some foreign port of call, he spent his rubles with a good friend of the Agency.

When there were problems, when attrition claimed the principals — Roselli, Giancana, Lansky — there were always others standing by to take their place. As for directors of Clandestine Ops, a few had voiced their outrage at the Agency's peculiar bargain with the devil, but they changed their tune the moment something interesting surfaced in the cesspool. None had finally possessed the nerve — the guts — to terminate Lee Farnsworth's monster. None so far.

Cartwright thought he might decide to do that little job himself.

But it would be no little job, and Cartwright recognized the problems he would face if he attempted to disrupt the status quo. For openers, he was already ass-deep in the most horrendous foul-up since the Watergate fiasco. Worse, since this particular disaster had been foisted on him by outsiders, in defiance of his own expressed concerns. It had been Gianelli's baby from day one, and now that it was starting to unravel, Cartwright knew that he would be expected to be brilliant and save the day.

Except, he knew, it might already be too late.

The move against Brognola's family was a calculated risk, but he had finally agreed with Gianelli that a threat to innocents would be the quickest draw for Bolan. It had worked, and now that Bolan was in town, the question of disposal still remained unanswered while the precious moments ticked away.

The contract on DeVries had been another calculated risk, and it had backfired in their faces. Gianelli's face, to be precise, since it had been his show. The shooters had been his — all four of them, stretched out in cold drawers at the morgue beside DeVries — and there would doubtless be some questions for the capo when detectives got around to tracing those IDs. The gunners had been sanitized to some extent, but they were traceable — hell, anyone was traceable — assuming Justice chose to go the whole nine yards. And with a ranking staff investigator dead, the whole nine yards would only be for openers.

As if the fumble with DeVries had not been bad enough, there were another eight men dead at Arlington, and they were his men this time, dammit. Trained professionals, selected for their expertise in handling the damper side of covert operations. Every one of them had been a skilled assassin with kills on foreign — and domestic — soil to prove his worth. They should have taken Hal Brognola easily, exterminated Bolan almost as an afterthought... but something had gone horribly, irrevocably wrong.

The body count was bad enough, but the placement had been even worse. When morning papers hit the stands, their headlines would be shrieking crap like MASSACRE AT ARLINGTON and SLAUGHTER AT THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER'S TOMB. They should have staged the meeting in a junkyard, on the river, any fucking place but Arlington. He had been showing off, and it hadn't worked for shit.

From all appearances the guests of honor had escaped unharmed. If either one had suffered injuries no evidence remained behind. A homicide detective serving double duty as another pair of Cartwright's eyes reported evidence of blood around a gravestone where no body had been found, and they were checking on the local ER logs, but Cartwright would have bet his life that they were pissing in the wind. With eight men shot to hell they could be typing blood for months and leave a tubful unaccounted for. From personal experience he knew that wounded men could travel awesome distances before they finally died.

The worst of it was Hunter Smith. He would be traceable directly back to Grymdyke's office, and from there...

Goddamn it!

More loose ends that would need looking after tonight, before the mess got any worse. Grymdyke was tough enough, a veteran of the Nixon purges, but if he should smell indictments in the wind, he might decide to cut a deal and save himself from prosecution. Copping out was almost SOP in Washington, and Cartwright was continually disgusted by the way bureaucrats betrayed each other.

That didn't matter now. He had to keep his wits about him. They were already running desperately short of time, and Gianelli stood no closer to the prize — Mack Bolan's head — than he had been six months ago. They might have missed their only chance already, Cartwright knew. The way the bastard had been tearing up the town, the way he handled eight of Grymdyke's best, the man from CIA had little hope of trapping him in Washington. They had already played their strongest hand, and he had walked away.

Not quite.

He hadn't walked away with any hostages, and while he was intent on rescuing Brognola's family, the bastard had an Achilles' heel. It just might be possible to stake the wife and kiddies out, trick Bolan into coming for the bait... and his death. He would be skittish after Arlington — he might be making tracks already — but he had the reputation of a gung-ho soldier unaccustomed to retreat. Brognola's family had drawn him here, and they would hold him here until he set them free... or died in the attempt.

It would be tricky, but...

Suppose he muffed it, fumbled one more time? Reluctant to accept the notion of defeat, he had presided over or participated in enough snafus to realize that true survivors always made contingency arrangements in advance. Before you ever fired a shot in battle, you examined ways of cutting losses, covering your ass in case of failure. If Cartwright planned to walk away from this one free and clear, without a target painted on his back and handcuffs on his wrists, he would be wise to leave his options open, cover all the bases going in.

Brognola's wife and kids would have to die, that much was obvious from the beginning. Whether they survived the night would logically depend upon their usefulness, as balanced out by any risks that their survival might entail. Alive they were the kind of witnesses that juries loved, and they could send his pickup crew away for life. Once that had been accomplished, Cartwright lost his hold upon subordinates who would be looking for an easy ride. Alive, Brognola's family was a lethal time bomb waiting to explode, and it was only logical that they should be defused as soon as possible.