"You got it."
"And you think he was sent by the sponsors?"
"That's what I think, yeah. Why? Does that make you nervous?"
Mazzarelli sent out a smoke signal from his lungs as he replied, "A little, yeah. I don't like this kind of stuff behind my back. Neither should you."
"You want to call the sponsors and put in a complaint, Gordy?"
"I'm not saying that. I'm just saying I don't like it."
"Why not? If we're clean, what's to worry? Clemenza took a fall. Okay. That's not my fault. It isn't even my worry. I didn't set this thing up. And I'm not going to fall with it. But now of course if the sponsors think there's a way to pull it out, then sure, that's okay with me. I got money in this thing, too. If Omega can pull it out, who the hell cares who sent him?"
"Is that what he's here for?"
"What did I say?"
"You said to pull it out. How the hell can he pull it out?"
"I already said more than I meant to say," Copa growled. "Forget I said anything. You reading me, Gordy? Forget it."
"Okay, okay," Mazzarelli replied, backing off somewhat. "But I still think…"
"Who do you think, Gordy?"
"I think someone should keep an eye on that hot ass. We all know what those guys tried to pull off under old man Marinello. I wouldn't trust them any farther than I can shoot, Nick. I mean that. Listen, something's funny in town already. Something's out of whack. While you were out jawing with that guy, I spent my time checking the action in town. Something's screwy. Certain people are suddenly nowhere. People are-"
"Certain people like who?"
"Certain people like Dolly Clark and Ray Oxley and Jess Higgins. Phones don't answer, or phones are busy or you get dumb answers. I don't like it. I think this guy is already taking a big walk through our territory, Nick. And I don't like it-no, I don't like it."
"You think you ought to be in town?"
"I sure do. I at least want to know what the guy is doing."
Copa turned away to be sure he didn't tip his hand with an irrepressible smile. He said, "Okay, Gordy. You go on in and safe your town. But you stay out of Omega's way."
The guy didn't even bother to thank him, or to acknowledge the okay-or even to say so long. He just got the hell out of there, moving fast, consumed by the need to protect his own little empire. And the boss of Nashville had to wonder as to the extent of the empire Crazy Gordy had already carved out for himself.
Yeah. The lord of any realm would necessarily wonder about such things. And he would move very quickly, too, to protect his own.
Copa gave Mazzarelli a couple of minutes to get clear before he punched the desk intercom to start his own move.
"Get the cars ready," he instructed. "We're going to town."
Damn right they were going to town.
Omega had been a hundred percent right.
And that fucking Mazzarelli was soon going to be 100 percent dead.
"The quail is on the wing, Skyman."
"How many away?"
"We count two, coming out fast. Five to the flock."
Which meant, Bolan thought, two vehicles each bearing five men. Mazzarelli with two full crews of headhunters, if the thing was working.
"You've wired them?"
"They're wired."
"Look for more. And give me a quick hit when they show."
"Ten-four."
Bolan explained to Grimaldi: "They'll all be flying before long. I hope. Hang loose, Jack. I may decide to call an audible."
The pilot replied, "Right. What'd you find in there?"
"I'm not sure. That's why the possible audible."
"Whatever that means," Grimaldi sighed. "You still want a hard hand?"
"Whatever you need, Sarge. You know that." Bolan gave him a sober wink. "Okay. Just remember you said it."
"Let it be my epitaph," Grimaldi replied. "No, I take that back. Let's not talk about epitaphs."
They were flying a holding pattern above the hills a few miles east of the Copa estate, well out of visual range of the little drama unfolding down below. A couple of minutes after the first contact report, another came: "Ho ho and away we go! It's a convoy!"
"How many do you make, Rover?"
"They're still coming. I make… five… six… that's it, six and heavy."
Lord Copa was coming out with a full house of his own.
Bolan replied to Anders, "Okay, they're all yours. Play it close. I'll be working another angle."
"Is this a change in the game?"
"That is affirmative. You've got the quail. I'm taking the nest."
Toby Ranger's voice swelled in with, "Negative, negative, dammit! Let's play the call!"
Bolan told her, "You still have the percentage play, babe. Don't screw it up. I'm gone, bye bye."
He turned off the radio and said to Grimaldi, "Okay, you're a hardman. Take us back."
"Back where?"
"Back there. Back to pay dirt."
"You're out of your flipping mind," the pilot said-but already he was altering the pitch of the rotors, biting the atmosphere and lurching into an alignment toward the Copa hideaway.
Toward pay dirt, yeah. Which was simply another way of saying hellgrounds.
Grimaldi's strained tones came through the intercom, "You sure this is what you want to do?".
What he wanted to do? Hell no, it was not what he wanted to do.
Bolan chuckled into the headset as he told his friend, the Mafia pilot, "I thought we were not going to talk about epitaphs, Jack."
"Who's talking about epitaphs? I'm talking about headstones," was the biting reply. "What's it all about?"
"We're going back, that's what it's all about. But I don't want anyone to know it. I want you to drop me into that joint clean, quick, and silent."
"That's impossible."
"So," Bolan replied with a sour smile, "that means you try a little harder. Right?"
"Wrong," said Grimaldi. "It means you die a lot quicker. But if that's what you want…"
It was not what Bolan wanted, no.
But it was what he had to do.
CHAPTER 13
A soldier who goes into combat with an overriding desire to remain alive is not a good soldier. Bolan knew that. The good soldier is the committed soldier-one in whom the overriding desire is to achieve the objective, whatever the cost to himself.
And this was a war.
Toby Ranger knew it and Tom Anders knew it. Carl Lyons and Smiley Dublin had known it when they committed their own lives to the battle. They were all good soldiers.
So the SOG game in Nashville was not a rescue operation. The goal now was the same as in the beginning; nothing had changed except the circumstances. Bolan knew that Anders and Ranger were as concerned about the well-being of Carl Lyons as was Bolan himself. He also knew that this concern did not strongly affect the game plan. They were still playing to win. Which is why they had called on Bolan instead of simply calling the game off and laying all over the opposition in a search and rescue mission.
They were good soldiers, yeah. And Bolan could respect them for that. He could also understand why Toby Ranger was so unhappy with him for calling an audible at the latest line of scrimmage. She had been concerned from the beginning that Bolan would play his own game instead of theirs-worried that he would blitz in and destroy an entire connective layer, destroying with it the SOG game of track and trap from street to penthouse.
Though they had been friends and even lovers, and, though he knew that she respected his own private war, Bolan knew also that Toby had less faith in his approach than in her own. She regarded him as a local phenomenon, here today and gone tomorrow, a tragically temporary tool in the war on organized crime.
She had told him, once, during one of those rare Edenish moments, "I wish I could bottle you, Captain Courageous. That would be your greatest contribution. Maybe then we could inject a tiny squirt of you into every cop in the country. Not much-just one squirt per cop. Then we'd really see things happen in this clouted land."