Less than an hour later a rasping buzzer woke a superbly fit husky man in a lavish home at the foot of the Rocky Mountains outside Denver, Colorado. He came awake fast but unmoving, like a vastly experienced combat infantryman — totally awake, alert, and wary, knowing where his weapons were and which way to go. He reached over and lifted the receiver of the special telephone. "Yes."
"We have an urgent most secret coming in, Mr. Molto."
"Algiers?"
"Yes, Mr. Molto."
"I'll be right down."
Mr. Molto got out of bed. He stood naked in a shaft of moonlight and looked at himself in the full-length mirror on the back of the bedroom door. He stood just over six feet tall and weighed two hundred twelve pounds, every ounce of it bone, gristle, muscle, and jungle instinct. It was the body of a pro football running back in his prime, yet the man's hair was completely gray, close-cropped, and he was past forty years of age. Looking at himself dispassionately, Molto hoped for a moment that he personally had the chance to face Bolan. Man-to-man, he could take Bolan. He could take anyone he'd ever seen. Then Molto dismissed the thought. That wasn't the plan. That was the kind of crap thinking that had allowed Bolan to survive as long as he had.
Molto slipped into socks, loafers, slacks and a golf shirt, brushed his teeth quickly and brushed his hair, then went to the elevator, down, into the new CIC … Combat Intelligence Center.
The two men on duty rose to their feet, almost assuming the position of attention. Molto shot a look at them, heads to feet and back again. "You need a haircut, Contabile."
"Yes, sir."
"All in?"
"Yes, sir," the young man needing a haircut said, and he handed a slip of paper to Mr. Molto. Molto nodded and went to a wall safe, shielded the combination lock with his body and when the door clicked open he took out a duplicate of the steel-bound book used by the man in Algiers. Molto also took out a machine that looked somewhat like a combination typewriter-calculator-keypunch machine. He put the machine down on a desk, unlocked the codebook, found the key for the day, jerked his chin, and the young man plugged the machine into an electric outlet.
The message in Ms hand was in a series of capital letters, all in blocks of four:
ANDE KNBC RORP WMEC USSU AWYC LKER WJSO
GUYM OZWW NMMB DZPB DALW LECM JTDW JOLD
ENDS YMIA
With a dexterous speed that made the two youngsters look at one another and grin sickly, Mr. Molto's fingers flew over the keyboard, feeding input. The machine whirred and clacked, and a few seconds later a strip of paper began emerging from the left bottom side of the decoder. When Mr. Molto finished the serials, he pulled the tape out a few extra inches and tore it off. The young man who needed a haircut unplugged the machine, coiled the cord and put the machine back into the safe, and at a nod he closed the automatically locking codebook and returned it to the safe, then shut the safe and spun the dial.
Molto looked at the message and grunted after reading it through. Without looking up, he said, "Activate the B Team, Red Alert."
"Yes, sir, Mr. Molto," said Contabile.
Mr. Molto, still studying the message, said, "Give me the Hot File."
"Yes, sir, Mr. Molto," the other youngster said and jumped to a filing cabinet, unlocked it, took out a red folder and put it on the desk. Mr. Molto put the tape strip down and let it curl as he picked up the file and opened it. Each page in the file was devoted to a city or an area, and graphically illustrated, daily updated, was a comparison of Family activity in the city/area and the counteractivity of law enforcement agencies. Without looking up, Molto said, "The map."
The far end of the room darkened and then on the wall in full color appeared a map of the United States. Superimposed on the map, at Pittsfield, Boston, New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Chicago, San Francisco, and every other place that bastard Bolan had hit, there was a blood-red B.
"Bastard!" Mr. Molto growled through clenched teeth.
From his console, Contabile said, "Alert acknowledged, Mr. Molto, they want the time."
"Tell them to stand by a few moments," Molto snapped, alternately studying the map and the Hot File. It was an act. He already knew. He just did not want the old men, the nationals to think it too easy. He knew the duty man on the other end of the line with Contabile was already in the act of notifying La Commissione that Molto had called a Red Alert and activated the B Team.
Mr. Molto closed the file and said, "Map off." The room brightened again and the picture faded. Molto looked at his wristwatch. "Pass the word, B Team personnel proceed independently as instructed. They must arrive here no later than fifteen hundred hours day after tomorrow."
As Contabile relayed the message, Mr. Molto turned to the other young man. "Put the following cities on Special B Team Alert, and I want confirmation within three hours that they are ready to accommodate us: food, lodging, transport, weapons and munitions, troops."
Molto paused, then said, "Dallas-Fort Worth, Detroit, Seattle, Toronto-Montreal."
"Yes, sir," the young man said and read the list back verbatim. Molto nodded and left the CIC by the elevator. Back in his bedroom, he stripped off and got into the shower.
As he lathered, Mr. Molto thought, Seattle. All the other was a shuck. I can't let them know it's that easy. It took me long enough to sell the old bastards on the idea, so I'll make it look tough, and make them spend money, wasted money. That's how you make people believe in you. They place the value on you that you place upon yourself. The more this operation costs, the better they believe it is, now that I finally sold them. Bolan's a goddam soldier, a real professional fighting man. He thinks like a professional fighting man, and he operates the same way. You don't take a guy like that down with 1930 gangster movie methods.
With contempt, Mr. Molto thought of the Taliferi, the Lord High Chief Enforcers of La Cosa Nostra. Every time those bigshots went after Bolan he humilated them, killed the two brothers, sent their "secret weapon's" head back to them in a sack. Wild Card. My ass!
Well, buddy-boy bastard Bolan, measure your life expectancy in hours. You've got another soldier fighting you now, and I'm not only a better man personally, I'm smarter, more experienced, a lifetime of soldiering compared to your ten lousy years, and I've got unlimited financial and manpower resources. Check it in buddy-boy, because I've read your mind. I'll meet you in Seattle, sweetheart, and blow your ass up before you get one good breath of Puget Sound air!
Almost halfway around the world, Mack Bolan stirred and woke for a moment, trying to remember the disquieting dream that seemed to have taken his breath. He could remember nothing, and decided that the pain had waked him. He thought about the information Donate passed on. He would have to verify it, call on Leo Turrin again, but if half what Donato said was true, Seattle needed a Bolan blitz, a visit with The Executioner!