Blood Testament (6 page)

For a fleeting instant Bolan nearly hung up, breaking the connection before a trace could be established. But he fought the urge and stood his ground. Leo Turrin would never knowingly betray him, and it would be virtually impossible for agents in D.C. to mobilize a New York team in any case. Secure in the thicket of red tape, he forged ahead.

"What is it, Sticker?"

Turrin hesitated then cleared his throat, as if asking for help was an ordeal for him. And in retrospect the Executioner would realize that it had been precisely that. Reluctantly, the former mafioso laid it out.

"Hal's in deep. He needs a specialist."

"Explain."

"His family's been taken, and the brass at Justice have him figured for a mole."

"That's bullshit."

"Hey,
I
know that, but they're talking evidence. Like phone logs, videos, the whole nine yards."

It was preposterous. Brognola was completely, scrupulously honest, and he should have been above suspicion. But the soldier knew that
no one
was above suspicion in the last analysis. Because the enemy was everywhere, he might have allies even in the halls of Justice. And the Executioner had dealt with crooked cops before.

But not Brognola.

No.

It was unthinkable.

What happened next would logically depend upon the quality of evidence against the man, but courtroom machinations could not be the Executioner's immediate priority.

Hal's family took the honors there, and while their lives were hanging in the balance, Bolan could not rest. He had a job to do.

"I'm coming in."

"Be careful, Striker. Someone thumped the hornet's nest, but good."

"What else is new?" He grinned into the mouthpiece of the telephone. "You still around the same old place?"

"Things never change."

"I've noticed."

"See you?"

"Bet on it."

Bolan cradled the receiver and returned to the rental car. As he sat behind the wheel, he spent a moment pondering the strange events in Wonderland. More details would be needed before he even tried to put the pieces together to complete the puzzle. At the moment he was sure of two things only: that Hal Brognola's family was in danger, and that Hal himself was being framed, set up to take a mighty fall for something he had never contemplated, let alone achieved.

The notion of Brognola working with the enemy was laughable, ridiculous. In other circumstances, Bolan would have seen the humor in it instantly. But with "evidence" behind the accusations, there was nothing funny about his friend's predicament. Hal needed help — a "specialist," damn right — and Bolan fit the bill precisely.

Wonderland was calling him to come and join the dance of death. For once he would not be the guest of honor, but the Executioner would not have missed it for the world.

Brognola pounced on the telephone before it had the chance to ring a second time. His palm was moist and sticky as he lifted the receiver to his ear.

"Hello?"

"You made it. Good."

"My family can't help you."

"They already have. We're talking, aren't we?"

"If you harm my wife or children..."

"What?" There was a challenge in the tone. "You gonna track us down?" The caller chuckled to himself. "That's bullshit, man. We're on your back like white on rice, and you
will
do exactly what you're told."

Brognola took a breath and held it briefly, finally allowed it to escape between clenched teeth. He had been on the verge of threatening this faceless enemy, a foolish move that could have jeopardized his wife, his children. Already chilling out, he recognized the need to take things easy, without provoking any violence on the other end.

The caller was correct, of course. Hal's bluster had been that and nothing more, an empty challenge, totally devoid of substance. He could never hope to find them on his own, retrieve his family and dole out retribution single-handedly. Even if he knew the bastards' names and their whereabouts, there would be little he could do. As long as Helen and the kids were held as hostages, his hands were tied.

"I'm listening," he said at last.

"That's better." Triumph, gloating in the other's tone. "We're going to need a meet."

"Just tell me where and when."

"Relax, old man. Don't be too eager. You've got chores to do before it gets that far."

"What kind of chores?"

"We need some information from you. You've got sources and it's time to share."

"Be more specific."

"Names and places ought to do for openers, okay? Protected witnesses, your people under cover, shit like that."

The pit was opening beneath his feet. He had to stall. "I don't have access to that kind of information."

Sudden anger. "Bullshit, man! You set the system up yourself. I've done my homework, see?"

"You didn't study long enough. I've been suspended, as of ten o'clock this morning. They only let me in the office to retrieve some personal belongings."

"What the hell..."

A hand was clapped across the mouthpiece, muffling a heated conversation, and the man from Justice knew that he had scored. Whatever the apparent link between his dual calamities, the gunners who had snatched his family appeared to have been kept in ignorance. That could be good or bad, Brognola realized, depending on their boiling point and how he handled things from here on out.

Another moment, and the sullen voice was back, the tension evident in every spoken word. "You'd better not be shitting me, old man."

"I'm not about to play that kind of game with all I have to lose."

"I find out that you're jerking me, you're gonna have a triple funeral to arrange, and then we're coming after you."

"It's straight," Brognola told him. "If you don't believe me, check it out yourself."

"I just might do that."

There was a momentary silence while the gunner pondered fresh alternatives, another way to work his scam. When he resumed, his tone was thoughtful, introspective.

"What the hell, your problem, right? We want that information. It's your price for momma and the kids."
Stall the bastard.

"It's extremely difficult ..."

"That's tough."

"...to get the list you want. If you could pin it down to one or two specific names..."

The names might offer him a starting place, a point of reference toward unveiling his opponents. If the opposition wanted a specific witness, he would have a fair idea of who had let the contract in the first place. Given that, he would possess a pressure point.

The gunner thought about it for a moment, or pretended to, before he spoke again. "No good. It's all or nothing, man."

"I'll need some time."

"You've got six hours, starting now. You'll get a call at... let's say 6:15. Be home, or you can kiss it all goodbye."

"Hold on!" Brognola's heart was hammering in his rib cage. He could scarcely form the words. "How do I know my wife and children are alive?"

"You don't."

"Not good enough."

"Hey, listen, man..."

"You
listen,
man,"
Brognola snapped. "In case you missed the point, I'm not in this thing for my health. The minute that I don't believe my family's safe, we've got no deal at all." He waited for a silent heartbeat, letting that sink in. "Now, do you put them on the line or shall I pull the plug right now?"

"You're bluffing."

"Try me."

Another hesitation, and Brognola half imagined he could see the gunner fuming, weighing odds and options, struggling to a decision that would let him save some face. His voice was taut with anger when he spoke again.

"Hold on, goddammit!"

As he waited, Hal Brognola switched the telephone receiver to his other hand and wiped his sweaty palm against his slacks. The risk had been a calculated one, but he was dealing with an unknown quantity. It had been possible that his demand, his very tone, would spark a homicidal fury in the caller, push him into acting out his anger and frustration on the hostages. If it had come to that, Brognola would have been compelled to live with precious blood upon his hands, devoting every moment of his remaining life to the annihilation of the animals who had been hired to destroy his world.

But it had worked, at least so far. His reckless gamble had paid off — or would, if he could hear the voices of his family. As long as they survived, he had a reason to play along with their abductors. And the moment that he doubted their survival, as he had informed their captor, then he would have nothing left to lose.

There was a muffled rustling as the other telephone was lifted, passed from hand to hand. Something broke inside him at the sound of Helen's voice as she pronounced his name.

"Hal? Are you there?"

"I'm here."

She heard his pain and longed to reach for him, to clasp his big hands tightly in her own and make him smile. For now, though, it would have to be enough to hear his voice and answer when he spoke to her.

"Are you all right? The kids?"

"We're fine." The lie caught in her throat. "We miss you."

"Jesus, Helen..."

"Hal, be careful."

Even as she spoke, the blond was reaching out to twist the telephone receiver from her trembling hands. His face was livid as he snarled into the mouthpiece.

"There, you satisfied?"

From where she sat, Hal's answer was inaudible, but Helen could guess the content from the furious expression on her captor's face.

"Forget it, Jack. You've wasted too much time already with this bullshit."

Another momentary silence as he listened, and his face had grown so dark that Helen thought he might be on the verge of apoplexy.

"Shit!" He held the telephone away and swiveled toward the nearest ape, on station at the bedroom door. "Bring out the others, Gino."

"Huh?"

"I said bring out the frigging others. Are you deaf, or what?"

"I hear you, man."

"Then move your ass."

The thug looked sullen as he moved to do his boss's bidding, reemerging in a moment with Eileen and Jeff. He herded them in the direction of the telephone and waited, watching, as they each communicated with their father in the fleeting time allotted. Jeff went first, projecting grim bravado, glaring at the blond with hatred in his eyes while listening to Hal. Eileen, in turn, could barely speak at all. Fresh tears were glistening on her cheeks, and she avoided looking at her captors, whispering for Hal to please take care and watch himself. She was her father's daughter, after all, and she would not allow herself to break while he was listening.

"That's it," the blond announced as he reclaimed the phone. "You wanna talk to anybody else, call Dial-a-Prayer. And keep the number handy while you're at it, guy. You try an' fuck me over on this deal, your little family's gonna need some prayers."

He banged the telephone receiver down and spent a moment glaring at the silent instrument, as if it might be thinking of another way to challenge his authority. When he was satisfied that he had finally achieved the final word, he turned again to Gino.

"I'm goin' out a while, to see some people, eh? Get Carmine in here an' the two of you keep both eyes open. I don't want no fuck-ups while I'm gone."

The ape looked bored.

"Bring back some burgers, will ya?''

"Yeah, don't worry. Just remember what I said. No fuck-ups."

"Stop worrying, for Chrissake."

"I get paid to worry."

After he had gone, the import of his words hit home to Helen. He had called his two companions by their given names, uncaring that she might have heard him. That presented her with two alternatives: the names were either aliases, which struck her somehow as unlikely, or the blond had no concern that she would later be in a position to identify his comrades. And with sudden, chilling certainty, she realized that there was only one way, to ensure her silence.

He did not intend to let them live.

When he was finished with her husband — sooner, if he could persuade Hal to proceed without the reassurance of a phone call — they would be eliminated. Having served their purpose, they became disposable.

The prospect of a violent death had haunted Helen's dreams for years, but in relation to her husband, sometimes to her children. Hal had placed himself in killing situations countless times, and all his reassurances had failed to put her mind at ease, although she had become adept at hiding what she felt. In later years, as she had watched their children grow, the fears had broadened to encompass Jeff and Eileen. There were so many terrors in the world outside her home, which ranged from lethal accidents and drunken drivers to the random, senseless violence now pervasive in America. A child, especially a girl-child, was constantly at risk.

But Helen had harbored no concerns about herself until this moment, realizing now that she was marked to die. It was the rough equivalent, she thought, of having a physician look you in the eye and solemnly inform you that your tests were positive, the lump was malignant and your hours were numbered. But an illness could be treated, life extended artificially through chemotherapy and, in the last extremity, by hardware. In her present circumstance, there was no treatment to prescribe, no possibility of a remission.

It would take a miracle to save them now, and Helen's faith would not admit the possibility of intervention from an outside source. If there were any miracles, they would be manufactured by her husband... and she wondered for the first time in their married life if Hal was equal to the task.

For Jeff's sake, for Eileen's, she hoped that he could pull it off. There was so much of life in store for each of them, so much ahead, if they were only given half a chance.

If not, there might be something she could do herself, provided that an opportunity arose. And if all else failed, she knew she would be forced to try.

It was a mother's instinct to defend her young at any cost. While life remained they had a chance, and she would not surrender meekly to the fate these bastards had in store. Whatever else they wanted from her family, they would have to take by force.

Brognola didn't waste a moment cleaning out his desk. The photographs of Helen and the kids were stowed inside his briefcase when he left the office, as were certain documents selected from the jumbled ruin of his files, but the rest was standard issue, items he could say goodbye to without regret. If he returned at some point in the future, everything would be there, and if not...

He found that job security, pension, carried little weight where the survival of his loved ones was concerned. If he was finally suspended, fired — if he was ultimately jailed on manufactured evidence — Brognola knew that he could live with it, provided that his wife and children were protected, safe. If they were harmed in any way, if he could find the sons of bitches who had damaged any one of them, the charges filed against him would extend beyond the fine points of corruption and into homicide.

If he could find the sons of bitches.

And he was working on a lead already, something he had picked up on the telephone. When he demanded evidence that Helen and the kids were safe, the caller had relied on someone else to fetch them, and he had called the second man by name. Though muffled, the name had sounded very much like Dino, Gino — something on those lines. It wasn't much — there had to be at least ten million guys with either of those names — but at least it was a start. He could tap into the computer, run a list of names, cross-indexed to the orgcrime files, and see what filtered out.

At least he would be doing something while he waited on the call from Leo, telling him that Striker was in town. There was a possibility that Bolan would not come. If he was caught up in a campaign, if Turrin couldn't reach him, if the enemy had finally tagged him in that endless, lethal game of hide and seek... God knew the soldier had sufficient problems of his own without Brognola heaping another burden on his shoulders.

But Bolan would come, if he was able. Hal was certain of it in his heart and in his gut. The Executioner would come for friendship's sake, for Helen, Eileen, Jeff, because the guy was made that way. He could no more stand back and watch an old friend's family be sacrificed than he could voluntarily desert his private war.

Hal felt a pang of guilt at using Bolan to secure and protect his own. It was Brognola's job to keep them safe from harm, and his enlistment of Mack Bolan's help was the same as confessing that he couldn't do his job. Another man might have approached the situation differently, but Hal was hemmed in by his sense of duty. He could not provide the information that his family's abductors had demanded. Hundreds of protected witnesses and scores of undercover officers would be exposed to certain death if he revealed their names or whereabouts. If he was stripped of viable alternatives, Brognola knew he would be forced to sacrifice his family in lieu of giving up those others, violating their collective trust and ruining so many lives. If it came down to that, he would accept the loss as best he could, and learn to live with grief while he spent every waking moment on the track of bittersweet revenge.