"Vietnam?" the other man echoed.
"I got emergency leave to bury the old man. I'll be going back in a couple of days. By the way..." Bolan sat back down.
"Yeah?" The ruddy face was further flushed with suppressed anger.
"I saw those guys get it."
"What? What guys?"
"The guys down at Triangle. I saw them die."
"So?" Plasky's hands were clenched together on the desk.
"I think I saw the guy that did it."
An electric silence settled into the atmosphere of the sumptuous office. Plasky's knuckles cracked, emphasizing the silence. "Did you go to the police?" he asked presently.
"And get involved in a mess like that?" Bolan's tone clearly implied that such an action was unthinkable.
"My- uh-associates would be interested in your-uh -observations."
"Like I said, I'm going to Vietnam in a couple of days," Bolan replied.
"I- uh-could set up a quick meeting."
"I want some fun and frolic before I go back to the jungle rot," the tall man mused. "I don't want to get tied up."
"I guarantee you all the fun and frolic you can handle," Plasky replied quickly, reaching for the telephone.
Bolan's hand stopped him. "Then there's this other thing," he said.
"What other thing?"
"This strained customer relation thing. I say the Bolan debt is settled."
"Of course! Of course it's settled!"
"I want the note."
Plasky dug into the folder, produced an imposingly legal-appearing paper, and slid it into Bolan's hand. The tall man glanced at it, then settled back in his chair with a grunt, folding the paper and placing it in a pocket. Plasky's stubby forefinger stabbed into the telephone dial.
"Do you believe in fate, Bolan?" Plasky asked, obviously highly pleased with the turn of the morning's events.
"Yeah. You'd never believe how much I believe in fate, Mr. Plasky," the tall man replied.
And The Executioner smiled.
2 - The Plan
Mack Bolan had no illusions regarding his self-appointed task. He was no starry-eyed crusader. Neither was he a vengeance-ridden zealot. "No monkeys on my back," was his realistic motto. He did not necessarily believe in dying for just causes; he simply felt that a man would do his duty as he saw it. Perhaps this was a family trait, and perhaps it was just as subject to erroneous application as the recent actions of his sister, his brother, and his father. But Mack Bolan's duty seemed rather clear-cut to him at the present.
He saw a cancerous leech at the throat of America, and he saw the inability or the indisposition of American institutions to deal with it. He saw, also, that he was both equipped and positioned to strike a telling blow to at least one small tentacle of the monster growth. To a man like Mack Bolan this was a clear call to duty. But there were no illusions. He was aware of the hazards, of the odds against his success. He was in violation of the law himself, of course. Already, in the eyes of his society, he was a five-time murderer.
If apprehended he could expect little sympathy from the courts of law. Already the police might be sniffing hotly along his trail. He had proved to himself, through the visit to Plasky's office, that "the organization" also was strongly interested in the Triangle Industrial killings. He was satisfied in his own mind that they had their contacts, both in and out of society, and a strong intelligence capability that would soon lead them inevitably to Mack Bolan.
But his visit to Plasky Enterprises was not an act of
foolish bravado nor of amateurish bumbling. He knew
precisely what he was doing, or what he was attempting. He was moving against the enemy in a coolly careful battle plan. Seek and destroy. This was the plan. Find, identify, then execute-before they can regroup and counterattack. At the moment he had the advantage. He had to press that advantage. He had found the link beyond Triangle Industrial. The battle plan now called for an infiltration through that link.
Infiltration!
Target Identification!
Confirmation!
DESTRUCTION!
This was the plan. Somewhere in that tangle he would find a man called Leo. And Bolan had to admit that he was looking forward to that meeting with something more than a cool sense of duty. Leo, too, was part of the plan.
3 - Point of Law
Lieutenant of Detectives Al Weatherbee glared unseeingly at the stack of departmental reports that occupied the exact center of his desk, chewed thoughtfully on his lower lip for a moment, then surged up out of the chair and directed his 200-odd pounds in the general direction of the closed door. He paused in midstride, returned to the desk, pawed through the reports, and extracted a single sheet, reread it, grunted, returned it to the stack, then continued the interrupted journey to the door. He opened it, caught the eye of a dark-skinned man who sat just outside, and said, "Bring in that soldier now, Jack." He left the door ajar and went back to his chair, behind the desk. He had lit a cigarette and was staring again at the imposing stack of papers at desk-center when a uniformed officer entered with another uniformed man beside him. Weatherbee glanced at the tall figure and grimaced, a twisting of the lips and cheeks that could be construed as a smile.
"You want me to stay, Lieutenant?" the policeman asked.
Weatherbee shook his head in a terse negative and rose with hand outstretched toward the tall man in the U.S. Army uniform. "I'm Lieutenant Weatherbee," he said. "Sit down, Sergeant Bolan."
The tall man shook hands, then dropped into a plain wooden chair that was placed against the side of the desk, and leaned forward tensely with hands clasped atop his legs, peering intently into the detective's eyes. Weatherbee waited for the door to close, then he smiled engagingly and said, "That's an interesting collection of fruit salad." He leaned forward to study the military decoration on the soldier's breast. "I recognize the Purple Heart and the marksman's medal-and, yeah, the Bronze Star-the rest of 'em are out of my era, I guess. How many weapons have you qualified as expert on?"
Bolan met the suddenly penetrating gaze. "Just about all the personal weapons," he replied.
"Are you expert enough to get off five shots in less than five seconds, with a perfect score at better than a hundred yards?"
"Depends on the weapon," Bolan said easily. "I've done it."
"With a lever-action piece?"
"We don't use lever-actions in the Army," Bolan replied soberly.
"Uh- huh." Weatherbee took a drag from his cigarette and exhaled noisily. "I've had a couple of Telex conversations with a friend of mine in Saigon. You know a Major Harrington?"
Bolan shook his head negative.
"Military Police in Saigon. Knew each other back when. Told me something interesting about you, Sergeant." The detective's face hardened somewhat. He dropped the cigarette into an ashtray and raised probing eyes to the soldier's face. "Said they have a nickname for you back there, in your old outfit Said they call you The Executioner.' Why would they call you something like that, Sergeant?"
Bolan shifted his weight in the chair and let his eyes wander about the police officer's face for a brief moment. Then, "If you're playing games with me, sir, shouldn't I at least be told the name of the game?"
"The name of the game is homicide," Weatherbee snapped.
"Every man I killed in Vietnam was in the line of duty," Bolan replied lightly.
"This isn't Vietnam!" Weatherbee said. "And a sniper cannot walk the streets of this city deciding who should live and who should not!"
Bolan shrugged. If you're trying to connect me with that shooting the other night-just because I'm an expert marksman..."