Assault on Soho (8 page)

He grimly inspected the remains and muttered, "The things men do to one another." Then he stood there for a moment in angry contemplation of a grand old soldier's final moments. What was it the old fellow had said about the museum? Something about a deeper meaning, a sign of the times.

Bolan grunted, "Yeah," and went back out. He found the two devil girls leaning weakly against each other in the next cell.

"Is he dead?" whispered the girl who had chased Bolan up the stairs.

"He sure is," Bolan muttered. "Just how long has this party been going on?"

"Since eleven," the girl replied in a funereal whisper.

Bolan looked at his watch. The time was then shortly past midnight. He shook his head and said, "I don't know how long the old man has been in that room, but he hasn't been dead for more than half an hour."

The implications of that decision hit him immediately. Edwin Charles had died with his agony on full display in the party room below, the reality of the gruesome scene concealed by the bogus suffering going on all about him. Quietly, Bolan told the girls, "He's been dying through half of this nutty party."

The girl who had fainted seemed in danger of doing so again. Her hands clutched at Bolan for support and she told him, "I was in and out of there many times. I didn't know he was…" Her eyes rolled. "Until it started to
smell
so terrible . •." She looked as though she wanted to be sick. .

"Who puts these people into these nutty devices?" Bolan asked.

The other girl murmured, "Normally they attach themselves, and they can get out any time they wish, without aid. It's all in fun, you know. I mean, who would've thought… ?" Her naked breasts shuddered with the unspoken horror of the idea and she swayed toward Bolan.

He steadied her and muttered, "Yeah, this is some kind of fun place," and then he left them to console one another and he went back through the harem room. Little had changed down there, except that the frantic foursome had discovered a way for
sex en masse
to overcome the physical limitations of human anatomy.

The cell of Charles' final agony was in prominent display just above this living exhibition. As he walked past, Bolan drew his Beretta and sent a quiet round into the monitor. There would be no more ghoulish jollies from an old man's final torment.

He passed on through, spurned the stairway to the basement, and strode purposefully toward the main exit. As he approached the door, he loaded the
Vzi
and made it ready. Mack Bolan was in killer mode, and his mood was now definitely inclined toward thunder and lightning.

Danno Giliamo sat in quiet thought on the rear seat of a large black sedan which was parked just off the square near
Museum de Sade
. He was alone except for one other man who sat quietly huddled over the steering wheel. The sound of an approaching vehicle intruded into the silence. Moving slowly, it swung close then halted at the curb just opposite Giliamo's car. A man stepped out and the car moved on. A moment later the sedan door across from Giliamo opened and Nick Trigger slid in, hastily closing the door to deactivate the domelight mechanism.

By way of greeting, Giliamo emitted a bored sigh and said, "I guess you was right, Nick. He ain't showed up here. Nothing on your end either, huh?"

"Nothing, hell," Trigger replied quietly. "We had plenty on my end. But you were right about that lucky bastard, he's as slippery as melted jello."

"You mean he got away again?" Giliamo replied in a dulled voice.

"Yeah, he got away."

"Well he ain't turned up here." Giliamo nervously tamped a cigarette against his fist then shoved it between his lips and lit it, his eyes weary and disturbed in the glow of the lighter. "So what happened?" he asked.

Trigger sniffed and settled deeper into the seat. "We had him bottled in a rock joint over by Soho Square." The massive shoulders raised and settled again in a tired shrug. "He busted out, that's all, got away clean.

And cops all over the God damned place, I mean crawling out of every hole."

Giliamo took a nervous pull at the cigarette and asked, "Okay, so what happened to my boys?"

"Six of your freelancers are dead," Trigger reported with a sigh. "Also Looney and Rocky got arrested. Don't worry, I'll have 'em sprung first thing in the morning."

Giliamo mouthed a string of half-audible obscenities, then said, "You see what I been up against, Nick?"

"Yeah." The London enforcer punched his elbows into the backrest with a loud sigh. "I don't see any sense in hanging around this neighborhood, Danno. Leave a couple of boys to keep an eye out, just to make sure, but I guess we might as well tuck it in for the night. Bolan isn't going to run from one setup right to another. Arnie Farmer and his army is due in first thing in the morning. We'll huddle with them and see what we can come up with."

"I was hoping to get it all over with before they showed up," Giliamo muttered. "Do you know this Arnie Farmer?"

"We met a couple of times," Nick Trigger replied heavily. "Do I get it right that you feel about this
Capo
the way I feel about him?"

"If you mean is he an uncomfortable so and so to be around, then we feel the same way, Nick, yeah you got it right."

"Then you might as well come out and say it. Arnie Farmer is a bastard, and I don't like him coming over here. I wish he'd stayed home."

"That's exactly right," the Jerseyite muttered. "And I wish to God we could've got Bolan before the other bastard showed up." His eyes flicked to the man in the driver's seat. "Nobody better not go repeating that, though. Right, Gio?"

Gio Scaldicci, the wheelman, swivelled about with a grin. "Right, Mr. Giliamo. I got ears that don't hear nothin' that's not spoken to 'em."

The two men in back settled into an uncomfortable silence, then Nick Trigger said, "Well, I'll ride back with you, Danno. Let's get out of here."

"We gotta wait, I got Sal out on the street makin' his rounds. Hell be back in a minute."

The three
Mafiosi
sat through a protracted silence, then a front door opened and a fourth man hastily entered the car. This was Sal Masseri, one of Danno's crew leaders. In a choked voice, he announced, "We got three dead soldiers out there, Danno."

"What do you mean?" the New Jersey
caporegime
growled.

"I mean Willie Ears and Jack the Builder and Big Angelo are dead as hell, that's what I mean. No blood or nothing, they're just laying there dead. I think their necks are broke or something."

Giliamo was speechless. He gaped at his companion in the rear, then made a lunge for the door. Nick Trigger quietly restrained him and asked Masseri, "How long have those boys been dead, Sal?"

"I'd say no more'n ten or fifteen minutes. I went on around and warned the other boys. Nobody's seen nothing, though, Nick, not a damn thing."

"Ten or fifteen minutes," Trigger repeated musingly. "That means he could have hotted it straight over here and…"

Giliamo slid forward to the edge of the seat and craned his head for a tense inspection of the hulking outline of the museum, just around the square from their position. In an angered tone, he declared, "That cuts it! That bastard has found some way to get in and out of there without being seen. I'll bet he's in there right now." He tapped his driver on the shoulder and commanded, "Pull around there slow and quiet, Gio. Park in front of that bus stop."

The car moved quietly around the corner and eased to the designated spot, directly across the street from the museum.

"Are we going back in there?" Massed asked nervously.

"Bet your ass we are," Giliamo barked. "You get out there and pass the word along."

Before Massed could react, two men ran quietly up to the vehicle. Giliamo lowered his window and thrust his head outside. One of the new arrivals breathlessly reported, "We just wanted to tell Sal that we found something. Over there." He pointed to the opposite side of the square. "A book store. The back door has been jimmied open. It could mean something."

"Awright, take some boys and check it out," Giliamo commanded.

The men jogged away. Masseri said, "Maybe I oughta go see what they got, Danno."

Nick Trigger chuckled coldly. "I think Sal is awful anxious to stay out of my little playhouse," he observed.

"As a matter of fact he is," Giliamo answered for his man. "And that goes for me double, but that don't cut any ice. You stick right here, Sal. We'll give Stevie a chance to check out that store, and then we're gonna be moving."

"Well, I don't like it either," Trigger growled, "but I guess not for the same reasons. There'll be too many people in there now. That means too many witnesses.

Besides that, we're messing up the sweetest little operation I ever walked into."

Gio Scaldicci turned toward the rear seat and asked, "How'd you ever get onto a creepy joint like that, Mr. Trigger?"

The London enforcer shrugged his shoulders. "You learn to use what's available, kid, and don't forget that. Don't ever forget that. That creepy joint as you call it has given our thing a clean sweep in this part of the world. I just hate to see it getting messed up, that's all. Especially over a crumb like this Bolan."

The four men sat in a strained silence for another long moment, all eyes glued to the building across the street. Presently a man approached from the other side on a dead run. He pulled up panting beside the vehicle and reported, "Stevie's found a tunnel! He wants to know should he go on through!"

"O' course he should go on through!" Giliamo snarled. "Tell 'im to goddammit be careful and remember who he's going against!"

The messenger sped back into the night.

Giliamo said, "Well, well."

Nick Trigger produced a revolver and swung out the cylinder to check the load. He sighed and clicked it into place and said, "I guess we better go in just the same, Danno."

Sal Masseri swung outside with a Thompson sub under one arm, then leaned back in for a word to his boss. "I'll bring the other boys over, Danno," he said tightly.

"Do that."

"Uh, listen Danno. Big Angelo was a good boy. Anybody can have any part of Bolan they want, but when we get 'im, I get the target practice on his nuts."

"Sure Sal, I know how you feel," Giliamo told him.

Massed walked off into the darkness, the Thompson cradled casually in his arms.

Nick Trigger opened his door and slid his feet to the ground, remaining seated in the open doorway, no longer concerned about the dome light. He said, "I've got a feeling."

"Me too," Giliamo replied. He opened his door and stepped onto the street, then paused to glare across the roof of the car toward the museum. "He's in there, I know it."

At that precise instant a door opened across the way, dull light spilled forth, and a solitary figure in black stalked out. He halted and framed himself momentarily in the lighted doorway, then he sent a burst of fire from an automatic weapon into the air, and immediately disappeared into the surrounding darkness in a diving leap. The Executioner was no longer "in there."

The driver of the Mafia vehicle gasped, "Well, dig that cool bastard!"

But he was talking to himself. Danno Giliamo had gone to ground behind the car and Nick Trigger was scrambling for cover inside. The automatic weapon chattered again, but not harmlessly into the air this time. The window glass of the big vehicle exploded in an inward shower and Gio Scaldicci's head underwent an explosion of its own, pieces of the skull flying into the rear seat amid bloodied bubbles of brain tissue, and what was left of Gio slumped forward onto the steering wheel. The horn began sounding in an endless wail and presided over the louder booms and staccatos of combat weapons as thunder and lightning enveloped the night outside
Museum de Sade
.

It had not been an act of mindless bravado that sent Mack Bolan through that lighted doorway. He was angry, yes, and disgusted right down to the shivering center of himself, but the combat specialist had known precisely what he was doing.

The idea was
blitz
, from the German word meaning
lightning war
, and the intent was to shock the enemy, disorganize them, perhaps demoralize them, and then destroy them. Bolan knew what he was doing, from the first harmless burst into the air to all that followed.

The lighted car directly opposite his position had been a godsend. Even though he had just come from a lighted environment and his night vision had not been given time to develop, he was of course aware of the men grouped in and about that lit vehicle, and it was a natural target. The second burst from the
Uzi
went in for maximum effect. He saw Gio Scaldicci's head fragment, he saw the big guy in the rear scrambling for the floorboards, and he saw Danno Giliamo rolling frantically across the square in search of darkness. But heavy fire was already coming back at him from various areas of that darkness, and Bolan wanted to see more.

His third burst was to reach the gas tank and to make frictional .sparks ignite the ready fuel into a bonfire. He was rewarded: the big car went up in a towering fireball and with an explosion that rocked the earth beneath his feet.

But since someone out there had a Thompson, Bolan was not standing still for the thundering sweeps of that big chopper. He moved out with the shock of the explosion, circling deep around the fire and trying to get behind the main force, in the hope of backdropping them against the roaring flames. Someone rose up right in his path, grunting with surprise and fear, and Bolan cut him down with the butt of the
Vzi
without breaking stride. He was following the traffic circle now, running along the street and coming around in the general area of the bookshop, moving recklessly through the open. Darkness was nowhere in that square now, the yellow glare of flames licking about in a wavering illumination of the entire area. The whole enemy force was apparently converging on the burning auto, shooting at only God knew what, Bolan didn't, and shouting excited instructions back and forth in a pyramiding scence of confusion.

Bolan reached the position he sought and threw himself to the ground at the curb of the traffic circle. The horizon thus presented was a beautiful one, to a combat infantryman, with the enemy highlighted as well-defined shadows against a blazing background. He emptied three clips into those shadows, grouping carefully and conserving the flow of ammo through the chattering weapon, until suddenly there was nothing left to shoot at.

Bolan lay there for a moment, listening and looking and refueling the
Uzi
. Utter silence had descended, except for the whooshing of the flames of the burning car. Bolan arose, inviting fire but receiving none, then slowly advanced across the island inside the traffic circle. The dead and the dying were sprawled about, and the hated smell of blood was everywhere he walked.

Too easy
, Bolan was thinking,
much too easy
.

He stepped around a groaning man and found the man with the Thompson submachinegun lying on his back directly opposite the flaming vehicle. The guy was alive, but not very, though he was conscious and still gripping the Thompson to his chest. Bolan kicked the heavy gun away and said, "What's your name?"

"Get fucked," the guy whispered, and coughed up a hemorrhage.

"Who did it to the old man inside?" Bolan asked.

"Get… fucked."

Bolan moved on, peering at faces, trying to spot Danno Giliamo. The burning car was still roaring furiously. The firenght had been incredibly brief. Only now was the first reaction coming from the people inside the museum. Bolan was aware of blinds being whisked back and of faces peering out from the ground level windows.

And then he became aware of something far more menacing. Through the open door of the museum had erupted three men, all armed, one of them carrying a shotgun. Bolan's
Vzi
was instinctively up and ready but he hesitated, unsure of the identity of the three. They were gaping about at the scene of incredible carnage with disbelief projecting all the way out to Bolan.

The frozen confrontation held for a split second that seemed much longer, then the man with the shotgun gasped, "It's Bolan!" and made a fatal move. The
Vzi
chattered at the same instant that the shotgun boomed; the man fell back into the entrance hall, zipped from groin to gullet, and Bolan's burst became a blazing figure-eight that swept the other two off the porch. Nothing heavy reached Bolan, but hot little things had dug at his ribs at the moment of the big boom, and he knew that he had picked up some pellets.

He wheeled about and went quickly back the way he'd come. He had just about pushed his luck too far, and it was time to be moving on. The police would be showing up any minute, and there was a familiar warm stickiness under his arm. He crossed the square, went past the bookshop, and on some subconscious impulse paused at the entrance to the alleyway and was swinging the
Vzi
about when something moved back there in the darkness and a choked voice urged, "Hey shit, don't, I'm outta bullets."