Council of Kings (10 page)

Bolan ran faster now, fired his .44 AutoMag twice just to let Joey know he was still around.

In the heavy timber, Bolan heard the sounds ahead. The sounds of exhaustion, gasping and coughing. He came around a bend in the trail. A few steps later, the Executioner stopped.

The chase was over.

Joey Canzonari lay on the ground, exhausted. He struggled to sit up when he saw Bolan before him. The mobster's face was bright pink from the exertion.

Sweat dripped from his nose and chin. His hair was wet and plastered against his head.

"You going to blow me away?"

"Why not? Isn't that the way you made your bones?"

"I'm only a bookkeeper and a computer man."

"Yeah, one of the innocents. And your hobby is killing girls and importing submachine guns for fun and profit."

"Who the hell cares?"

"Right. You have bigger worries. Like trying to convince me that you did not help torture Charleen."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Canzonari clutched his wounded right hand with his left, sliding both of them toward his ankle. Bolan seemed not to notice the movement.

"So what do we do now?" Joey glared at the Executioner.

Bolan lowered the 93-R. "Up to you. Do you want to go back and face smuggling charges on the guns?"

"Look, there's enough money for you to live like a prince for the rest of your life. Five million dollars!"

"You don't have that much, Joey."

"My father does. He can get it for you." Suddenly Joey pulled a snub-nosed .38 from an ankle holster.

The weapon barely cleared leather when Bolan lifted the Beretta and fired at the Mafia gunman.

The round slammed through Joey Canzonari's right cheekbone and was deflected upward into his brain. He dropped the .38 and fell against the bloodsplattered fir. A gray-brown pulpy mess spilled from his shattered head.

Bolan stared a moment, his finger still on the trigger.

Then he walked away from the corpse and slowly slid the 93-R back in leather.

The Executioner deduced his bearings from the snow-capped side of Mount Hood and walked back toward the cars.

Fifteen minutes later he saw Joey's car.

On the front seat was an attache case filled with money, probably some kind of downpayment on the submachine guns. It would make a good deposit in The Executioner's war chest. He threw the case in the crew wagon he had driven out and started toward Portland.

He drove to the Portland International Airport and parked outside the chopper service.

"Coming up in the world," Scooter Roick commented, eyeing the Caddy.

"Belongs to a friend of mine."

The pilot chuckled.

"Hey, looks like your little boat ride turned out fine."

"Fair. You have any problems?"

"Not yet." Bolan tossed him a stack of hundreds from the attache case. "Here's a little bonus for you."

"Must be at least five thousand dollars here! Anytime you need a jockey, call me!"

Bolan waved, got in the rented Thunderbird he had parked there that morning and put the attache case and his weapons on the seat beside him.

Heading downtown, the Executioner considered his enemy: the Mafia, an international organization of the lowest and most cold-bloodedly violent criminals in the world. Many lives before, he had vowed to wipe them out, or at least thin their ranks.

The Executioner knew that a well-placed bullet, indeed, a stray, could finish his own life anytime. He was flesh and blood, and one faltered step would spell the end.

But until then he would never waver in his mission, launched in anger as a vendetta to avenge his family. But Bolan had long ago understood that personal hatred had no place in his quest, and that his fight had become a commitment to duty and justice.

For Mack Bolan, other people's fear of death was a weapon in itself.

Unleashed against the Mafia organization, the fear could tear it apart, create gaps large enough for The Executioner to move in and wipe out the Mob.

The warrior's conflict had taken to many states of the Union, and also to diverse foreign shores. During the terrorist wars he had even struck at the heart of the hydra, Moscow.

Now here he was, in a place where the land was truly bigger than man; where the majestic beauty of the Northwest seemed to humble ordinary mortals.

Bolan's rental neared the hotel, and as he entered the ramp of the underground parking garage, the Executioner put his past behind him and thought no more about it.

The present required all of his attention.

For the sake of any future at all.

Bolan took the elevator to his room. He had no sooner kicked off his shoes when there was a knock on the door. Bolan snared the 93-R and moved against the wall next to the door.

"Who is it?" he asked.

"Johnny."

Bolan relaxed a fraction, slipped the chain off the catch and turned the knob to let his brother in.

Johnny was waving a newspaper.

"Look at this, guy."

"Read it to me," Bolan said, relocking the door and unfastening his weapons gear. Then he moved to the bed.

"The FBI has discovered a big cache of smuggled guns, worth over three million dollars, in a shipment of industrial machinery at a Gresham farm equipment dealership," Johnny read. "The military-type automatic weapons, rockets and launchers have been turned over to the Forty-first Division of the Oregon National Guard, and the rest is being held by the FBI.

Gresham police are unable to account for the small-scale war that took place in the farm-equipment firm warehouse where the guns were found. By the time firemen and police reached the scene the exchange was over. Automatic weapons and hand grenades had been used, and police report men killed and wounded.

Survivors claimed that some of the munitions in the shipment blew up.

However, police pointed out that most of the wounded were hit by bullets, not shrapnel. A large number of shell casings were also found in the warehouse, many of the 9mm parabellum size, as well as .45 and .38 caliber."

Johnny read another story about a Japanese ship captain reporting a hijack attempt on his ship when a group of men overpowered the river pilot and boarded along with him at Astoria. The captain reported he and his crew had killed or pushed overboard all five invaders. Neither the police nor the captain could explain the attack.

Johnny smiled grimly and turned to the Executioner.

Mack Bolan was fast asleep.

Johnny Bolan let the newspaper drop to the floor as he studied his big brother. Sadness assailed him as he reflected on the tribulations of this brave warrior. The younger Bolan wondered what path Mack's life, indeed, the lives of the entire Bolan clan, would have taken had circumstances not been as they were.

Bolan awoke with a start, muttering April Rose's name. He took in his surroundings, then looked at his watch.

"Damn," he said, strapping on his weapons.

He had unfinished business in Portland.

Downstairs in the rented Thunderbird he checked over his equipment. A plan for dealing with Gino Canzonari, the Portland Godfather, had been forming in his mind.

He drove to a convenient phone booth and called Canzonari's private line, an unlisted number that changed every thirty days.

The Godfather himself answered.

"Joey, is that you?" the father asked, obviously worried.

"No, this isn't Joey, but I know where he is. Interested, Canzonari?" Bolan held the phone away from his ear when a roaring scream blasted through the receiver.

"Bolan, you bastard! Where is my son?"

"How much is he worth to you?"

"Half a million! I'll get you half a million in cash, no traces."

"Joey offered me one million."

"Okay, okay. That's the most I can get on short notice."

"Deal. In an attache case. Come alone. Anyone with you or following you, and Joey is turkey meat."

"Yes, yes. Don't get excited. This is just a business deal. Money for the boy."

"My terms. Go to Killingsworth and Thirty-third. Be there at exactly 2:00 P.M. From there you'll get new instructions."

"Whaddya mean, "new instructions"? Joey better be with you."

"He won't be. I've got to make sure nobody is following you and you don't have the place staked out. Take it or leave it."

"I'll be there. I'll drive myself. Satisfied?"

"At two." Bolan hung up.

The Executioner recognized the man walking along the sidewalk from pictures he had seen. He was about five-five and 250 pounds, and carried an attache case.

Gino Canzonari was doing as he was told.

Bolan moved his car slowly behind the Mafia chieftain. He could spot no suspicious cars trailing the Don. He might have kept his word — doubtful, but possible.

The Executioner pulled half a car-length ahead of the man and motioned him to get in. The Beretta was trained on the Mob chieftain all the way.

"Canzonari, take off your suit coat," Bolan commanded.

Canzonari hesitated, then stripped it off.

"Now take off your shirt." As soon as the mobster opened it, Bolan saw the wires and the small radio transmitter. He jerked the apparatus off Canzonari, threw it out the window and hit the gas.

Bolan noticed the unmarked police car behind him, and another on Killingsworth. He flattened the Thunderbird's gas pedal and the big car surged on. He slid through a stoplight, wound north to Lombard and Union and was soon on the 99 freeway heading across the Columbia into Washington State, toward Seattle. His gun was trained on Canzonari all the time.

He exited on the Washington side, powered around two interchanges and finally parked below an overpass.

Canzonari scowled. "Cops made me wear the wire. They heard about you and about Joey missing. They made me do it!"

"Sure they did." Bolan frisked him quickly, found a .38 in an ankle holster and threw it out the window. "They made you wear that, too? Where are the rest of your boys? How many cars did you have following us?"

"Two, but you lost them."

"You bring the money?"

Canzonari pointed to the attache case.

"Good. Now you can tell me what happened to Charlotte Albers."

"Who?"

"Charlotte Albers and her twin sister, Charleen Granger. Two pretty black girls about twenty-five."

"Granger... yes, the black girl. I hear she died up in the park."

"Your men killed her, Canzonari, and used her for bait to get me. But they missed. I don't miss."

Bolan edged out from under the concrete overpass and turned south back toward Oregon. He drove with the flow of traffic-heavier now, nearing rush hour — figuring the cops would not be watching close enough.

Eventually he turned off, heading along the Columbia River on the Oregon side. At Troutdale he turned south until he picked up U.S. 26, which became the Mount Hood Loop highway route.

"Where the hell we going?" Canzonari asked.

"I thought you wanted to see Joey."

"You got him stashed up here?"

"Right."

They drove in silence until they passed Brightwood. At the spot where he had run Joey's car off the road, Bolan pulled to the shoulder.

"Out. We're taking a walk." Bolan locked the Thunderbird, moved Canzonari across the road, and they plunged into the timber.

"What the hell?"

Ten minutes later Bolan motioned Canzonari around a pair of tall fir trees and pointed.

Joey lay where Bolan had left him.

Canzonari ran forward. He dropped to his knees and grabbed his son's body, rocking back and forth. Then he jumped up and charged Bolan. The Executioner sidestepped him, tripped him and pushed the fat hoodlum to the ground.

"You bastard! You promised me my son back!"

"I said I'd bring you to him and I did. Just think of Joey as payment for Charleen Granger. You killed her, and now your son is dead."

Canzonari rushed at him again. Bolan slammed the Beretta across the mobster's head, smashing him to the ground.

"There's still payment due from you for Charlotte Albers, Canzonari. We'll think of some way to even the scales. Now pick up your son and carry him back to the road."

Dusk had settled as Canzonari stumbled to the edge of the highway with the dead weight. He collapsed there. A car rolled by, and Bolan ducked out of sight.

Canzonari got to his knees and stared at his dead son.

Then he turned, producing a blade, and lunged at the Executioner's throat. Bolan drew Big Thunder and pulled the trigger.

The boom of the .44 AutoMag shattered the silence of the forest. The heavy lead slug caught Canzonari squarely in the heart with such force that the man's torso exploded. The smoking remains fell to the ground beside the dead youth.

Bolan held the big gun steady, then slowly lowered and holstered it.

Canzonari's demise had not been planned, but the Executioner was not sorry about this unexpected turn. Someone would find them come daylight.

Bolan crouched as a car passed, then ran across the dark highway to the Thunderbird and drove back to Sandy Boulevard.

He could not find an open car-rental agency so he continued to one on the outskirts of Portland, left the car and took his suitcase of weapons and the attache case of money. The Portland police would not be able to trace the Thunderbird back to him.

He changed taxis three times, then walked two blocks with the suitcase to the hotel.

When the Executioner stepped into the hotel lobby, Johnny jumped from a chair and took the suitcase and attache case without a word. Nor did the two speak in the crowded elevator.

As they walked down the hall toward their room, Bolan told his younger brother, "We're finished here. Time to move on." But it was not that easy. Bolan felt burdened by his war, pulled down by the gravity of his fearful commitment. The Executioner's mood was turning dark, and so it was that he began to think of Johnny in the renewed light of protectiveness.

Johnny had said he wanted to show Bolan the updated plans for his strongbase down in Del Mar. Bolan decided to go along with the kid.