One thing was clear enough for the moment. He had come into St. Paul operating on faulty perceptions, without all the necessary information. Clearly, the game was not to be a simple, deadly one-on-one between the headcase and the Executioner. It had already evolved into something more, something larger, more sinister.
Someone had called out the guns in St. Paul; whether in support of Bolan's intended prey or on behalf of some unknown, unrelated cause, he couldn't yet be certain. He knew only that the gunmen existed, and that he undoubtedly would have to deal with more of them before he was finished in the city.
The strong indications of organized crime activity and possible police complicity, whatever its scope indicated that there was more at stake in St. Paul than a relatively simple string of rapes and murders committed by some faceless madman.
The Twin Cities had never ranked high in the American Mafia hierarchy, even before Mack the Bastard Bolan had appeared out of nowhere, rattling cages and finally blowing their whole damned house down. The syndicate had representatives and outposts there, nevertheless, and it carried out the same time-honored game of rape and ruin. However, the local action had never rated an Executioner visitation, either during the main war, or during Bolan's savage week-long "second mile" through hell.
Never, that is, until now.
Now it looked as if it might be time to correct an earlier oversight.
Across the nation, the crime syndicate lay in smoking ruins. But just as the V.C. had managed to avoid massive sweeps in Vietnam, just as the Japanese diehards had held out on isolated Pacific islands for decades after Hiroshima, there were still outposts and pockets of resistance that had weathered or entirely escaped the Executioner's cleansing fire.
And St. Paul, apparently, was one of those holdouts.
Syndicate chieftains had been reduced by the long Bolan blitz to the status of feudal warlords during the Dark Ages. Stripped of the seemingly omnipotent Mafia umbrella that had sheltered them for decades in America, they were now more cautious, more isolated from one another, more interested in perpetuating their local scams than in grand delusions of national power and prestige.
But that did not indicate any lessening of virulence at the local level. Hell, no.
Even a dying snake was dangerous if you came within reach of its fangs. And the Mafia viper, though hacked to pieces and scattered to the four winds, was still showing grim, reflexive signs of life.
At bottom, the stakes were and always would be basically the same for Mack Bolan. Civilized Man vs. Animal Man. The builders vs. the predators of the world.
From youth, Bolan had cast his lot with the civilized, the builders. Not that he had ever had any real choice in the matter. Given his upbringing, his sense of morality and duty, there was, quite simply, no option.
There had been no choice when he went to Vietnam to face Animal Man in the jungles of the delta, or when he reenlisted for a second tour of duty.
And there had been, yeah, no choice at all when the deaths of his parents and sister were laid at the doorstep of the malignant Mafia outpost in Pittsfield, so many lifetimes ago.
No choice, finally, when on the eve of victory in his Mafia wars, Bolan had been called to another front in the same war everlasting, to fight against worldwide terrorism as the reborn Colonel John Phoenix.
When Pol Blancanales called, seeking Bolan's help, there had been, again, no options for the Executioner. He had come to St. Paul because he had to, and if the enemy's number and name had been changed behind the scenes, that didn't alter his duty or devotion one iota. On the contrary.
Bolan would see his task through to the end, whatever that end might be, and he would strike against Animal Man with his last breath of life, if necessary.
There could be hell, would be no turning back short of victory or death.
And yeah, it looked like war everlasting all right. Mack Bolan vs. the cannibals in whatever twisted shape they might assume.
The Executioner knew he couldn't have it any other way.
11
A swift conversation with Pol Blancanales netted Bolan the information that the hardmen he'd encountered earlier that morning were driving vehicles registered in the name of Twin Cities Development, Inc. And the Politician's encyclopedic mind had filled in the fact that TCD was, in reality, a dummy corporation manufactured to front for the numbers and shylock operations of one Benny Copa, mobster.
Copa had been born Benjamin Coppacetti in the Hell's Kitchen district of New York City, and had migrated westward at the tender age of sixteen, one jump ahead of some heavy-duty robbery and assault indictments in the Big Apple. He had never been a real power in the Mafia, no one to be reckoned with outside St. Paul, even in the days before Mack Bolan's syndicate wars, but he was a localized underworld honcho of sorts.
He needed to know from Copa why the guns had been called out, and he needed that information before the day got any older.
Benny Copa operated from second-floor offices set above a billiard parlour two blocks over off Arcade Street. The place was called Freddy's, but there was no Freddy in residence, and no one in the neighborhood was quite sure anymore if he had ever existed.
Bolan found the place easily and parked his rental sedan a block past the darkened entrance, near an intersection. He had passed an alley as he circled the block, and he found it now on foot, moving cautiously along behind the businesses that faced the street. In a moment, he had reached the rear entrance of Freddy's.
And the place was locked. Naturally.
No pool hall would be open at that hour of the morning.
The cheap lock yielded quickly to the Executioner's pick, and he found himself inside a darkened doorway. The service stairs were immediately to his left.
Bolan's combat senses made a quick remote probe of the ground floor, picking up no sounds of human occupation. When he was satisfied that he wasn't leaving unknown dangers behind, he moved to the staircase, Beretta Belle in hand and ready to meet any challenge.
There was a hardman stationed at the top of the stairs, leaning back against the wall in a metal folding chair and dozing after a long night on duty. Bolan was almost on top of the guy when he woke, trying to right his leaning chair and reach holstered gunmetal in one awkward, unbalanced motion.
The Beretta coughed its single deadly word, and the guy went down with a thud, the chair rattling out from under him as he fell. His passing left a viscous crimson smear on the grimy wall.
Bolan had to assume that the racket of the hardman's dying had alerted everyone inside the adjacent office. He hit the door with a flying kick and burst in, the Belle up and seeking targets.
There were three of them, all clustered around a big desk littered with loose cash and crumpled bits of paper.
Three pairs of eyes locked onto Mack Bolan at his explosive entrance, noting his hard eyes and deadly side arm. Two of the men, conditioned by a lifetime in the mob's gutter wars, broke for their weapons, peeling off in opposite directions in an effort to divide Bolan's attention.
It almost worked.
But almost isn't good enough.
Bolan nailed the one on the left, plugging a 9mm mangler through the bridge of his nose before he could reach gun leather. Then he spun to take the guy on the right. Round one pinned the guy's gun hand to his chest as he was coming out of his death spin. Round two entered his gaping mouth and exited from the rear in a shower of blood and bone fragments.
And the sole survivor was taking it all in with astonished eyes, standing behind the desk with both hands flat on the broad top and making no move to leave it. His round eyes never left the smoking muzzle of Bolan's lethal Beretta.
Mack Bolan had known from the moment of entry that this man would be Benny Copa, and that he would not be packing. The self-styled honchos of the mob considered themselves exempt from the dirty chores of the gun-bearers, and Bolan had learned from experience that that arrogance made them vulnerable in a pinch.