California Hit (8 page)

Wang Dang Doo, and Hanoi too.

It had been one of those private jokes of a handful of scared-out-of-their-skull warriors known as Penetration Team Able. Bolan was the ranking non-com, the team leader. The entire team actually existed as a tactical support unit for the special skills of their leader — Executioner Bolan.

Maybe there really was a Wang Dang Doo somewhere, Bolan never knew. Some of the places they hit over there didn't have a name. Some didn't even have a permanent geographical existence. The enemy in Vietnam had been a highly mobile force. Sometimes Able Team had been required to track a Charlie command post halfway across the deltas before they could set up a strike.

Under Bolan, Able Team had ranged up and down the Ho Chi Minh trail. They'd made a few quiet excursions through the DMZ and into the strongholds of the Northmen. Several times they'd found themselves tracking deep into Laos or Cambodia.

There had been no sanctuaries from Able Team. And none, incidentally, for them when they were on a mission.

There had been dozens of Wang Dang Doos. The term, reduced to its utter simplicity, simply meant a rub-out. A wipe-out. A slaughter.

That had been Bolan's specialty.

Sniper, yes. Stiletto man, yes. Garroter, bone-crusher, spine-cracker — yes, all of these were in Bolan's bag of tricks. And he had not been the only specialist in Vietnam. But for the specialty of specialties, Able Team was always the pick of the list. They always got the gory ones. And they got the tough ones because they did the job better.

Able Team had the Executioner.

This was not an item of pride for Mack Bolan. He accepted the medals, the decorations, the special scrolls from grateful villages — but he put them quietly away in a box and forgot them.

Killing people had never meant anything more to Bolan than a distasteful chore which had to be done. He recognized the fact that he had developed a high proficiency in the art of killing, and he recognized also that this proficiency obligated him to a special responsibility. A war needed winning — or, at least, it needed to be contained and controlled. Bolan had the tools, the abilities, and the toughness of soul required for the proper discharge of particularly grisly responsibilities.

He recognized this, but he had taken no special pride in that recognition.

Wang Dang Doo, and Hanoi too.

Yeah, there had been a lot of Bills and Bobs and Toms and Dicks. Kids, most of them, scared out of their skulls — forever wondering why they'd volunteered for this hellfire team. At least Bolan had Korea behind him. He hadn't come into the war with storybook ideas of what it was all about.

Bill Phillips was not the first of the PenTeam graduates Bolan had run into during this new war. He'd even thought once that he could pull together an American civilian version of the old death squads, and he'd actually pulled one together... briefly. The results were tragic; enough so to convince Bolan that it could never work over here.

Herman "Gadgets" Schwartz and Rosario "Politician" Blancanales were the sole survivors of that experiment. They'd squared their account with the law, but they'd have the mob on their asses forever — that much was certain. They were marked men... marked for death.

No more. Not ever again. Bolan would never involve another human being in his private war, not as an ally.

This was a specialty war. A Wang Dang Doo in the real sense, and a job for a loner, without support, a guy who knew every way and every wile, a guy who could stride through rivers of blood to kill again and again... and be willing to take his lumps in that final judgement of the universe.

Yeah. And there it was, of course. Mack Bolan was not a religious man. Not in the ordinary sense of praying and going to church and that sort of thing. But he knew that the universe did not run itself. It wasn't a damn machine which just suddenly sprang into being and then began running down. There was a purpose to the whole thing... somewhere beyond the fragmented understanding of ordinary mortals there was a good reason for the existence of the universe.

If feeling one's self a contributing particle of that universe could be regarded as a religion, then Bolan was a religious man.

In this world of order and purpose, a self-aware particle called Mack Bolan had received some manner of special endowments. He had developed skills, and he had grown into a uniqueness of personal destiny which somehow seemed to have some importance.

Yes, this was a hell of an important mission.

Bolan's war with the Mafia was of some definite importance to the universal order of things.

He was obligated to an exercise of a special responsibility.

He was a Wang Dang Doo type of guy, face it, and he could turn away from his responsibilities no more than he could turn away from life itself.

And, in this hot old town of San Francisco, the star performer of Able Team had again drawn the tough one, the gory one.

This time it would be Wang Dang Doo, and Mr. King too.

And there would be no sanctuaries — neither of geography, nor of social rank, nor of family background-there would be no sanctuaries from this Wang Dang Doo.

The Executioner was tracking the hit.

The decals were off and the warwagon was slowly cruising the periphery of the DeMarco neighborhood.

Bolan knew something about containment networks; he himself had set up one or two in years gone by — and there were certain telltale signs a savvy prey could look for... to give him that extra few seconds of pre-reaction before he found himself bouncing off the net.

The idea was to avoid touching the net. It was like a spring trap... one touch and you're caught.

Bolan had re-assumed his role camouflage, this time with a blue denim jacket instead of the white wind-breaker and lightly tinted purple lenses over the eyes in lieu of the bushy mustache. The effect was about the same — a subtle shift of image that wasn't overly noticeable, not clown-like, simply innocuous. A busy wad of chewing gum kept his jaws in wobbling motion, adding a further distortion to the basic image.

He was about three blocks from the DeMarco mansion when he spotted the first trap car. It was parked at the curb on the corner of Hyde and Pacific, an ordinary street cruiser with engine idling, two uniformed men in front and two plainclothesmen in the rear. The barrel of a sawed-off shotgun was visible above the back seat and a teargas gun lay on the rear deck.

One block beyond that was a neatly concealed roadblock. They were making it look like a minor traffic mishap, with two cars pulled together in a T-formation just outside the intersection, a wrecker visible in the background, one narrow lane of traffic open and being slowly moved along by a uniformed officer.

Most vehicles would be passed on through without too much delay. Certain ones would be maneuvered through the block and into a special "inspection pool" immediately beyond the set-up... probably over behind the wrecker. It was cute, very cute, and once a guy committed himself to that scene there would be no way out.

Bolan was not about to commit himself.

He pulled alongside the plug cruiser and stopped, then slid across the seat and rolled down the window. He said, "Hey man," and popped his gum at the guy.

The uniformed cop at the wheel of the cruiser gave him a scowl and nothing else.

Bolan scowled back and asked him, "What happened to Lombard? It was right here yesterday."

The cop growled, "Beat it."

"Don't freak out, man. I just want to know where Lombard Street is."

"Get that crate out of here, you're blocking our view."

"Well you could at least..."

"Go ask a service station! Move on, right now!"

Bolan said, "Amen man." He blew a bubble with the gum, casually raised the window, slid back behind the wheel, and sent the van creaking around the comer and away from the blockade.

His recently abandoned "drop" — the old apartment building — was two short blocks dead ahead. Under the circumstances, the apartment now seemed to represent the lesser of two possible evils. Obviously he had not "beat the grid" — and, just as obviously, he would not do so in any sort of running play. That hill was crawling with cops equipped with cute games and full riot gear.

One of the more important strategies of warfare was in knowing when to use your weapons, when to use your feet, and when to use your tail. Bight now seemed an appropriate occasion to use the tail.

Bolan parked the warwagon a half-block from his building, locked it securely, and went the rest of the way on foot. He used the front entrance and the regular stairway, and he arrived at his own door on the third floor without incident.

The smell of fresh coffee struck him as he pushed into the apartment. The Beretta met his hand halfway and led him around the corner into the kitchen.

The China doll, wearing the same clothing and an entirely unsurprised smile, glanced at the Beretta Belle and cheerily announced, "Coffee's ready."

'It was ready hours ago," he reminded her.

"I threw that out. This is new."

Bolan went on past her and shook the place down. It was clean. He returned to the entrance hall and closed the door, then he went into the living room to gaze glumly out the window. The police had finally closed on the DeMarco place, and blue uniforms were moving vigorously all around those distant grounds.

The girl came up behind him and carefully halted several paces to the rear. She asked him, "Were those your fireworks I heard awhile ago?"

He returned the Beretta to the sideleather, dropped tiredly into an overstuffed chair, and told the China doll, "Yeah. Special celebration, no charge to spectators."

In a small voice she informed him, "I came in through the window."

Bolan said, "Great. You can go out the same way."

Instead she went into the kitchen and returned a moment later with two steaming mugs of coffee. "How do you take it?" she asked.

"Strong, black, and not drugged."

She laughed and pushed a mug at him. "You've seen too many movies."

He accepted the coffee. "I haven't seen a movie in four years."

She wrinkled her nose and sat down opposite him, daintily holding the oversized mug with both hands. "You haven't missed much. Skin is in, drama is out, comedy is sick, and sick is relevant."

Bolan chuckled. He put down the coffee to light a cigarette, savored the invigorating smoke briefly, and expelled it in a tired whoosh. Then he asked the girl, "Why'd you come back?"

"Wrong question," she replied solemnly.

"What's the right one?"

"Why did I leave."

"Okay, why did you?"

She tossed her head and said, "Give me one of those damn cigarettes."

He tossed her the pack, then leaned forward to light her. When they had both settled down again, the China doll said, "I'll bet you never would have asked, would you."

He shrugged. "You had a right. It's your neck."

"I didn't leave because of my neck," she told him.

"No?"

"No." She sipped the coffee and worked at the cigarette for another long moment, then: "Your neck."

"Tell me about it."

"Mr. Wo Fan, I fear, is a dirty rat".

"Why didn't you fear that when you introduced us?"

"Because I..."

"What?"

She was busying her speech equipment with a delicate and thoughtful sipping at the coffee cup. Bolan stood up and removed the denim jacket. He put the purple lenses in a pocket of the jacket and came out of his gunleather.

The Auto Mag was locked up in the warwagon. The Beretta Belle he deposited on a table at his right hand, then he slipped off the Levi bluejeans and dropped them to the floor with the jacket. The black-suit smelled faintly of gunpowder and blood.

Bolan rubbed at a large stain on his sleeve and returned to the chair with a sigh.

Mary Ching was giving him the unblinking appraisal. In a quiet voice she told him, "I like you better that way. You look like just what you are."

"And what is that?"

"A death machine."

He curtly nodded his head and told her, "Okay, I accept that."

"And the very image of male virility."

He said, "I'll accept that too."

She smiled, almost timidly. "Right now?"

He replied, "Hell no, not right now."

She giggled.

Gruffly he said, "Watch it. I've already killed a couple million people this morning."

"You can joke about it?" she asked soberly.

Bolan sighed and told her, "It beats crying about it."

"It does bother you, then?"

"Sure it bothers me. Wouldn't it bother you?"

She blinked her eyes. "I don't know. I guess it would depend on who I was killing."

"It doesn't matter who, dead is dead," he said.

"You're a weird hombre, Mr. Executioner," the girl informed him. "I guess that's why I left, and it's why I came back."

"Because I'm weird."

"Right"

"Okay."

"You don't ask many questions, do you."

He said, "Only when they seem important."

She stared at the tip of her cigarette and seemed to be talking to it instead of Bolan. "I left because I don't deserve your protection. And I came back because you do deserve mine."

He threw it back at her. "Thanks, but I guess I don't want it."

She appeared to be a bit confused. "You'd let me just walk out of here, I mean right now?"

"Sure, if you want to."

"Then you trust me?"

"No I do not."

The China doll chewed on her lower lip and crushed out the cigarette in an ashtray in a slow and deliberate mauling of the tobacco. "You're a very frustrating conversationalist," she told him.

Why not? That perplexing little chunk of Oriental beauty had crawled right back into his guts again, and it wasn't a nice feeling.

In a voice very tired but firm he told her, "Hell, Mary, I haven't slept for about thirty hours. I haven't eaten for sixteen. I've made two very hard hits on this town and I've killed a hell of a lot of people. Now I wasn't worrying about any of this until you walked out of here a couple of hours ago. Don't ask me why, it just bugged me suddenly and I had to puke the whole mess up. And I was okay again until I walked in here and smelled your damned coffee. So what do you want of me? What the hell do you want?"

She licked her lip and said, "Wow, you can talk."

He muttered, "Go to hell."

"What are you planning on doing now?"

"Nothing."

"I mean..."

"I'm sewed in. Cops all over the place. So I'm going to get some sleep."

"Oh. Well that's perfectly clear, I guess. The cops are all around, so you're just going to crawl peacefully into bed and catch a few winks."

"That's exactly right."

"You're weird, Mack Bolan. You're really weird. Why don't you pace the floor, like the caged rats do in the movies. Why don't you get drunk or beat me up or something. Why don't you go over and smash out the window, stick your gun outside and scream out your defiance to a world that's laying all over you."

Bolan laughed, and it felt good. He did not feel like puking anything up now. He told the girl, "You're something else."

"I haven't had much sleep either," she solemnly reminded him.

"Be my guest," he said, as solemnly.

"Okay. Have you ever had a Chinese bath?"

He thought it over briefly, then replied, "I guess not."

"I'll give you one."

He said, "Okay."

"Don't you start one-wording me again."

"You've got enough for both of us," he told her.

She said, "Weird. This is really weird. I don't believe it. This is the weirdest seduction scene I've ever been in."

He chuckled and asked her, "Who's seducing whom?"

She said, "If you don't know, we're both in trouble."

The two of them left the room clinging to each other and laughing, and Bolan was feeling better than he had for some time.

It wasn't so bad to have to stand alone. That wasn't the worst part. What really got to a guy after awhile was lying alone. Genuine human companionship could be a rare thing in a war zone, especially for a one man army.

For awhile, for a very brief period of detente, the Executioner would find some exquisite human companionship. Perhaps it would have to be enough to last him a lifetime. An hour, a day, perhaps even a week. Yeah, a lifetime.