"Sandhogs," Turrin said. "It would take pro's for this."
"Must have some good powder men, too," Brognola observed. "There's plenty of the stuff stored here."
"Good thing it wasn't stored by the door," Turrin said with a chuckle.
Bolan cocked an eyebrow and asked, "How much powder?"
"Oh hell, I'd say ... tons, maybe. How much is in a keg?"
Bolan shrugged. "I've never used it in that form."
"Well there's twenty kegs to those crates." Brognola glanced at his notebook. "I just made a rough estimate on the number of crates. I guessed forty."
Bolan said, "That's interesting."
"How interesting?" Brognola asked.
"There must be a good supply on the island, too."
"Are you thinking what I think you're thinking?"
Bolan smiled. "There has to be a solution, Hal."
"I guess I better call my marshals in," Brognola decided. "I don't know about you two, but I've had enough of this place."
Bolan said, "We still have a lot to discuss, Hal. But you may as well get the guys started. In this weather, it will take them a while to get here."
Brognola nodded and moved forward to the mobile phone. Turrin called after him, "Have 'em bring a meat wagon, too. I counted four bodies out there, in bits and pieces." He turned to Bolan with a sigh. "Hal's pretty well shaken by all this. I guess you've noticed that, too. Theories are one thing. Seeing is something else. How do you really read this, Mack?"
"It's the Thing, all right," Bolan quietly replied. "I'm sure it is, yeah. I didn't mean that. I mean, what the hell do you do about it? It's already beyond Hal. He knows it, and that's what has hold of his guts. He needs a naval task force, not a platoon of marshals."
"Hal stays clear until I'm done," Bolan said frostily. "That understanding is implicit any time we come together. You know that." "Sure. You do have a plan, then." "Yeah."
"Mind if I ask ... ?"
"If I get lucky," Bolan told him, "I'll blow the whole works out of the water. That won't turn the world around, exactly, but at least it'll confuse the hell out of things for a while. In the meantime, maybe Hal and his people can get something going."
Leo Turrin was not convinced. "Hey, you know, we're all in this. I mean, it's my world, too. I got a wife and kids, right? And this thing is just too big. Too big, Mack. I think you should let Hal skull it through from here."
Bolan stubbornly shook his head. "I don't know whose world it is, Leo, but it's my game. Hal will get completely bogged down with the legalities of the thing. Meanwhile the enemy dances lightly away and pops up again another day to try again. No. I've got to show them the cost, Leo. And it has to be heavy." "Yeah," Turrin said, grudgingly agreeing.
"How about those two hundred hardmen? Where are they?"
"Stashed around town somewhere. We've got a meet for eight o'clock this morning. Not the Indians, just the chiefs. But they were all checked in before midnight."
"Do you know any of those troops, Leo? I mean, know."
Turrin shook his head in a slow negative. "Not even the chiefs. I gather they were all recruited directly by Franciscus. He has the Seattle contract for your head, by the way. Combat guy. I guess he's dangerous. The old men love him."
"Get those guys on the island for me, Leo. Get them there before dawn. All of them."
"What? You crazy? If you're — oh! I get. Clean sweep, eh?"
"That's the general idea. So far I'm not sure how. But can you get them there?"
"Oh, well ... that's my element, Tactician." Turrin grinned sourly. "I'll get them there. All I have to do is tell the truth, or shades of it."
"Here's a kicker for you. You can show Franciscus the minipak I implanted on the roof. Parapet, outside railing, south wall. Also the whole joint is strung with micropickups. But dammit, Leo — don't go on too strong. This guy is pretty sharp."
"Yeah, well, let me worry about the hard things. You take care of the easy ones. Go blow up the damn island, will you?"
"She blows at dawn," Bolan promised.
19
Domino set
Leo Turrin bit down savagely on his cigar and spoke around it via the side of his mouth to snarl, "What the hell is this, guy? Don't tell me you're laying around here on your dead ass in fancy pajamas while this Bolan is romping all over your town!"
The Captain could not believe his ears. He shook a sleep-fogged head, zeroing attention onto his executive officer, Harve Mathews. "What is this, Harve? Who is this guy? Get him out of here!"
"This is Mr. Turrin, Captain — our liaison. He insisted — I didn't know — he says it's urgent. Just busted right in."
"I'm gonna bust some asses, too," Turrin raged on. "I never saw such a disgraceful — what kind of a junior commando outfit is this, anyway? Get outta that fuckin' bed, you looneytune! The fuckin' guy is taking your whole thing apart for you!"
Franciscus threw back the covers and leapt to his feet. "What?" he howled.
"You don't lay on your ass while this guy's in town! He'll jerk it right out from under you while you're liftin' your leg to pee! While you lay here sleeping in fancy pajamas, he's got the whole damned joint wired for sound! Don't you ever shake it down? Don't you have any goddam electronic security, for crissakes!"
Franciscus was stunned, dazed by the verbal attack. He directed a wavery gaze toward Mathews and commanded, "Coffee, Harve. Lace it good. Give some to the mouth here, too. Then sound reveille. Roll everybody out."
"Mr. Turrin has people running all over the penthouse," the exec reported as he moved toward a bar in the corner of the bedroom.
"He has what?"
"Damn right!" the liaison shouted. "We're shaking you down, jake! I was told that you limberdicks out here knew what you were doing! Listen, boy scouts in my town know better." He tossed a small, plasticized sphere, roughly the size of a quarter, onto the bed. "I walked right in outta the cold and picked that off one of your chandeliers! You know what that is, dammit? Do you know?"
"Bugged!" the Captain said in a hollow voice.
Turrin cried, "Ahhh shit!" and swaggered to the window, stuck both hands in his pockets, and turned his back to it all.
He had the guy shook, yeah. It could be an unnerving experience, awakening to something like that. It'd happened to Leo Turrin a time or two; he knew.
He lit his cigar and gazed into the night for a while, giving the "elite" time to compose themselves. When he turned back to them, Franciscus was dressed in pants and shirt, had a cigarette going, held a coffee cup in one hand and Bolan's bug in the other. Mathews stood stiffly to the side, eyes on the floor.
In a much milder tone, Turrin called over, "Ay. I'm sorry, eh. I shouldn't come in like that. I get too excited. Sorry if I fucked up the protocol or what d'you call it. But hey, I've had my boys out for hours, running this thing down."
"What do you mean?" Franciscus asked, the voice crisp, now — but not unfriendly.
Turrin waved the cigar in a circle and moved slowly back to the center of the room. "I can't expect a guy with your — I mean, you know, my boys knew all that crap before they got ten years old. Otherwise they'd never reached ten years old. Know what I mean? Street ways. You should get your boys to shaking this joint. Check the window ledges, inside and out. Even the walls outside. This's a top floor — right? Better check the roof. There's a relay rig somewhere around here."