"If I keep wasting time, you'll have a chance to help me out with an obituary."
"Dammit, I know people in this town! If you need information, I can get it for you."
Susan stopped herself, aware that she was offering to join him, in effect become a part of the mystery and bloodshed that surrounded him. But she had already become a part of it... how long ago? Had she been anything but part of it since Cleveland? Since McLary County?
There was something in his silence that unnerved her. "So?" she asked.
"What do you know about Lee Farnsworth?"
"I know you killed him."
"What about associates?"
"Inside the Company?"
"That's right."
"Well... I could make some calls. I know some people out at Langley. But it's give and take. You've got to let me in."
Hesitation while he thought it over, then, "It isn't my decision."
Susan tasted victory, a flavor so elusive that she swallowed it at once.
"So, make your calls."
"My friends may not be interested," he said.
"I'll take the chance. They turn me down, I'm out. Case closed."
"And out means out?"
"What can I tell you? You've got all my evidence for what it's worth, and there's a little matter of some unsolved homicides."
"They wouldn't hold you overnight."
"They wouldn't give me bupkus for my story, either. Dammit, I need you as much as you need me."
And even as she spoke the words she wondered whether Bolan needed her at all. That line about Lee Farnsworth was intriguing, but...
"I'll make some calls."
She felt like cheering, but she kept it to herself as Bolan put the car in motion, pulling out of the deserted filling station into spotty evening traffic. There was still a chance that she might be rejected by his "friends" — Brognola and whoever else was presently involved — but her acceptance by the soldier was a triumph in itself.
As for Lee Farnsworth, his connections in the Company, there would be ways to tap that well of information — to a point. The CIA was so damned secretive that some directors never knew precisely what was going on within the ranks, but Farnsworth was — had been — a renegade. His lethal games had been a rank embarrassment to veterans in the Agency, inspiring oversight committees that had poked around inside the nooks and crannies. There would be secrets left intact, of course; you couldn't make the Company go public any more than you could make the syndicate go straight. But agents on the right side of the line would be concerned about a repetition of the Farnsworth episode. They might cooperate in weeding out another renegade, if he could be identified.
And where had that thought come from? There was nothing in the circumstances of Brognola's case to indicate an Agency involvement, nothing in the murder of DeVries that smacked of anything but Mafia. If Bolan hadn't mentioned Farnsworth...
But he had, and Susan knew the soldier well enough to realize that he would have his reasons. He had not survived this long by chasing phantoms of his own creation. If he had a lead on some of Farnsworth's cronies, other rotten apples at Langley, and if any of it was connected with the moves against Brognola...
Jesus, it could be the story of the year!
The lady kept her fingers crossed and prayed that Bolan's friends would not reject her offer of assistance, bar her from the game. It was a death game now, and there would be more killing before the final score was toted up and verified. It crossed her mind that she might be among the dead, but she put the prospect out of mind. The risk was part of her profession, and a part of it that Susan Landry secretly enjoyed.
She would enjoy the chance to work with Bolan, and that was no one's secret. Even as she offered up her prayer for personal success, another was already forming in her mind. She prayed for Bolan's safety through this night, at least, and hoped with all her heart that she would not be called upon to watch him die.
Because she needed him a damn sight more than Bolan needed her.
And that was one dark secret she might carry to her grave.
16
The photographs had worried Bolan most of all. Their mere existence proved that Hal was being closely shadowed, and together with the phone logs they presented Bolan with the picture of a tight surveillance that had obviously been conducted over several months. At first he was surprised that Hal had failed to recognize the tail, but with the new equipment readily available to governments and individuals, surveillance had become a whole new ball game in the eighties. Telephoto lenses were the least of it, he realized, and half a dozen agencies might listen in on private calls without a hint of any warning to the person being scrutinized.
The how of it was rendered insignificant by Bolan's curiosity about the who and why. If Hal was truly under government surveillance, then the Feds had not received their money's worth. The evidence against him would not stand in court, nor even bring indictments once Brognola told his side. It was the other possibility — the probability — that worried Bolan now. If the surveillance of Brognola was in fact conducted at the urging of the syndicate, then Gianelli or some other ranking mafioso would have access to the logs and photographs. And that spelled danger.
Because the photographs had captured Hal in covert conversations with a half dozen of his ranking undercover agents working on the org-crime beat. Selected mobsters, grafting politicians or affiliated businessmen who had "rolled over" on the syndicate, providing vital information on the operations of the Mafia in major cities coast-to-coast. The soldier knew a few of them by reputation, others from the supersecret Phoenix files at Stony Man, and any member of the Mafia's La Commissione would instantly appreciate the full significance of secret conversations with Brognola. Any capo worth his salt would know that Hal had never taken payoffs, never signed his name on anybody's pad and Family members or associates who huddled with him would be marked for execution as traitors.
But there was more.
Aside from Hal himself, the faces captured by surveillance cameras had been secondhand acquaintances to Bolan, for the most part. He had seen their mug shots, read their Justice files, but he had never met them face-to-face. Except for one.
Besides Brognola's, his had been the only face repeated in a string of photographs, proof positive that his connection with the man from Washington had been no mere coincidence. The pictures damned him irrefutably as Brognola's eyes inside the Mob, and it would only take a glance from Gianelli — hell, from any ranking boss — to seal his fate. The soldier felt an arctic chill engulf him as he contemplated the reward that lay in store for recognized informers, once they were identified by fellow mafiosi. He would not have wished that living hell on anyone.
And least of all on Nino Tattaglia.
The guy had been an underboss with Carlos Nazarione's family, out of Baltimore, when he was tagged by federal agents for a double homicide. His choices had been limited, and Nino had rolled over quickly, clutching at the opportunity to save himself from prison. Granted, it had been a matter of expediency, but the mobster had been going through some private changes since recruitment by Brognola's strike force. Over time, Tattaglia had been transformed from grudging mole to something else entirely, his perspectives gradually evolving from the savage state to something that approached the altruistic. He had already taken Leo Turrin's place as Hal's primary source of inside information on the Mob, and Bolan — ever cautious in his dealings with "converted" mobsters — came to realize that Nino was the rarest of all jungle predators: a leopard who could truly change his spots.