It had been bad enough when Hoover's files had surfaced some years back; at least the old man had been dead and gone before they started dumping on him. But Hoover's antics at their worst would look like Halloween amusements next to Dallas and Los Angeles. Before the snoops had finished with him, Cartwright would be lucky if they let him bite the bullet and he knew that no such mercy would occur to the inquisitors.
He could almost hear Lee Farnsworth's voice, a dusty whisper in his memory. The moral of the story is: don't miss! When he was ready for the move on Gianelli he would have to make it stick the first time out. There would not be a second chance, and Cartwright could not tolerate the obvious alternatives to victory.
He didn't count on any problem with the syndicate, provided his initial move on Gianelli was successful. Nicky's "brothers" in the outfit were a bunch of cutthroat bastards who would sell their mothers if the price was right, and if his sources were correct, they cherished no enduring love for Gianelli. There would be some confusion at the outset, capo blaming capo for the hit, the old dogs watching one another warily before they fell on Gianelli's rackets like a pack of jackals, but their petty palace politics held no significance for Cartwright. If he needed any cover for his move, it had already been provided, courtesy of Nicky's private little war.
The Executioner would handle Gianelli for him, and if evidence was needed, the technicians in Clandestine Ops could muddle through the details. It was known that Bolan had a certain style, a preference for certain hardware, which amounted to a signature of sorts. It shouldn't be too difficult to sell the media or Nicky's fellow goombahs on the notion that the Executioner had struck again, perhaps in grim retaliation for the murder of DeVries. As for Brognola's family, the wild-assed warrior had abducted them upon exposure of his one-time friend's connection to the syndicate. It was regrettable that they could not be saved, but if their sacrifice illuminated Bolan's state of mind, his swift degeneration into madness, then perhaps their deaths were not in vain.
It was a neat scenario, and it covered all the bases. He could even pass off the Arlington disaster as an attempt to trap the Executioner, a valiant effort that had cost the lives of eight outstanding agents in the field. The media would buy it, grudgingly at first, but with renewed enthusiasm once the Agency produced some solid "evidence." He knew the Mob would buy it, after all the grief that Bolan had bestowed upon them through the years. And with a bit of luck the boys at Justice just might buy it, too.
Except for Hal Brognola.
He would never buy it in a million years, no matter how they recreated history or tried to sugarcoat the bitter pill. With the elimination of his family, the man had nothing left to lose, and he would blow the whistle loud enough to wake the dead at Arlington.
Through no fault of his own Brognola had become a liability to Cameron Cartwright, and the man from the CIA decided instantly that there would have to be another corpse. Another victim of the Executioner, perhaps: a civil servant linked to underworld corruption, and who had paid the price of his divided loyalties in blood.
It was poetic justice, when you thought about it long enough.
But Cartwright did not have the time for poetry tonight. His heart and mind were on the firing line, intent on salvaging a victory from disaster.
One more chance to do it right.
And if he blew it, Cartwright knew, he would be a long time dead.
21
It was a fifteen-minute drive to Alexandria, and Bolan used the time to sort out the pieces of the puzzle that he had already managed to acquire. The gunners who had taken out DeVries were Mafia, most likely part of Gianelli's private stock, while those who bought the farm at Arlington were past or present CIA. He didn't like the implications, the malignant odor that his nostrils had detected early on, but in the last analysis he had no choice. If he was going to retrieve Brognola's family intact, he would be forced to hold his nose and forge ahead.
Brognola's hunch on Milo Grymdyke might be all he needed to complete the picture... or it might turn out to be another damned dead end. There was no way of judging in advance, and so he made the drive from Arlington, aware that if Brognola's hunch was wrong, the wasted quarter hour could mean life or death for the big Fed's family. If Grymdyke had no part in the arrangements, or if some other faceless spook was phoning in an order to scrub the hostages, then it was too damned late already.
He might arrive too late to help the innocent, but he would still have time to hunt down the guilty and let them have a taste of hell on earth before he offered them the sweet release of death. Above all else, a taste of hell for Nicky Gianelli something in the nature of a preview for the afterlife. If there was any lasting justice in the universe, if life was not a string of futile gestures climaxed by oblivion, then Gianelli and his kind had hell and worse in store for them. But first, it was Mack Bolan's turn to stoke the fire.
He found the address that Brognola had recalled from memory, and circled once around the block. The house was modest in comparison with others in the neighborhood, set back behind a broad expanse of manicured lawn, almost secluded by surrounding trees and hedges. From all appearances Milo Grymdyke liked his privacy, a carryover from his years in the clandestine service. That was fine with Bolan; he preferred their little interview to be conducted quietly, without arousing the anxiety of Grymdyke's neighbors. Failing that he would rely on speed, the hour and reaction times delayed by sleep to see him safely off before some busybody raised an alarm.
Discretion meant avoiding the appearance of unorthodox activity, and Bolan knew that he could not afford to park in front of Grymdyke's house. Although it was not late, comparatively, lights had been extinguished in the homes on either side of Grymdyke and across the street. A sweep of headlights, slamming doors, might be enough to rouse the neighbors and suspicions.
On his second driveby, Bolan marked the narrow alley that meandered behind the houses fronting Grymdyke's street. The residents deposited their rubbish here, in preference to planting cans and bags along the sidewalk out in front, a further bid to maintain the beauty of the neighborhood. He killed the headlights going in, aware that he might well be driving over nails or broken glass, preferring darkness to the relative security his high beams would provide. By counting rooftops that were visible above the fences, Bolan knew when he had reached the rear of Milo Grymdyke's property. He parked the rental car, shed the overcoat that covered his blacksuit and was EVA within another moment.
Grymdyke's wall was six feet high, constructed of cinder blocks with broken bottles set into concrete along the top. There were assorted ways around the obstacles, but Bolan didn't have to look that far. A wrought-iron gate was set into the wall, allowing Grymdyke to deposit garbage in the four bright cans that lined his fence outside, and once he had determined that the gate was free of booby traps, the soldier scrambled nimbly over, crouching as he touched down on the lawn.
No dogs. No sign of any sensors, though he wouldn't know for sure until the hidden floodlights pinned him in their glare. The soldier hesitated for a moment, conscious of his vulnerability, relaxing slightly when there was no call to arms, no sudden blaze of artificial daylight in the yard.
There was a light, however, burning in an upstairs window that he took to be a bedroom, or perhaps a study. Grymdyke might be sitting up and waiting for a call from Arlington, assuming that the shooters had been his. Assuming that Brognola's information was not sadly out of date and useless. Grymdyke might be reaching for the telephone right now, to order disposition of the hostages.