"Yeah, okay, I hear, Chief," Eddie said, puzzled. "So he's a real badass. What does it mean to us?"

"It means, you dumb shit, I've been telling you all this for a reason! You think I talk for my health, hah? For exercise? He's coming here. Now you understand, hah? Clear now? You got it? You goddam dumbhead!" In fury, the old don slammed his fist down on the table so hard the cup jumped from its saucer, fell sideways, rolled off and shattered on the tile floor. "here!"

"Shit, he ain't got a chance," Eddie said. And to his astonishment, Don Cafu began laughing. But it was a bitter, anguished, coarsely grinding laugh, totally devoid of humor.

"Eddie, you a good boy. I like, I always liked you. But you keep thinking like that, and I don't like you no more so much, hah? No use liking a dead man."

Stupefied, Eddie The Champ stared at his don.

Don Cafu rose to his feet and lumbered heavily on arthritic feet to a vast sideboard, found a glass, blew dust from it, returned to his chair and poured a generous slug of grappa. He took a swallow, sighed and licked his lips.

"Yeah, Eddie, keep thinking this Bolan bastard ain't got a chance coming here!" The don slammed his fist down again. "And I need a new house captain."

Eddie raised his hands, "But, Christ, boss. How? I mean, this guy's wanted everywhere. How the hell's he going to cross the goddam ocean, get through immigration and customs?"

"Goddam, you Eddie," the don raged, "get it through your head. This guy's got balls like a water buffalo, and he's smart. What you think, hah? He walks into La Guardia wearing a ton of heat and tries to catch TWA to Rome?"

The don's voice suddenly quieted, became lethal in its toneless flat hissing. "This guy you say ain't got a chance has already blown up more than a thousand soldiers. He went through Boston like a tank over a baby carriage, exposed a guy it took twelve years to plant in society and top-echelon government. He took over the Angeletti house in Philly. He slept there. After he escaped from the doctor, he destroyed two more soldiers who had the car staked out, then he dropped off the face of the earth for nine days, vanished. Then turns up at Teterboro Airport and charters a private jet. Another of our friends gets word to us, but not in time, hah? So we can send guns after him, just one of our girls planted at the airport, a hustler but also a spotter for unguarded freight. She's at the bottom of the goddam ocean, sharkbait. The jet lands at the Azores, gets a plate riveted over the open window, refuels, and for all I know the son of a bitch is circling overhead this minute ready to make a napalm run on my house!"

Don Cafu smashed his fist down on the table. "You still think so, hah? He ain't got a chance, this Bolan bastard? Answer me, you idiot!"

"Okay, boss, okay," Eddie The Champ said, bottom falling from his guts.

"Okay, okay, what, hah?" The don grabbed his glass and drained the last big gulp of grappa. "Get your dumb ass outside and get to work!"

9

Neapolitan nightmare

Mack Bolan knew that Mafia, both the word and the original organization bearing the name, originated in Sicily. The so-called Castellammarese War ripped open the Italian underworld in the early 1930s, littering the streets of various cities in the U.S. with more than sixty deads, and an unknown number of others simply vanished.

The outcome of this mutually destructive warfare resulted in settling once and for all the question of Sicilian versus mainland Italian — particularly Neapolitan — dominance of the Italian-American underworld.

The emergence of two men as Number One and Number Two, Charley Lucky Luciano, a Sicilian, and Vito Genovese from Naples, allied and working together and ruling with steel-fisted discipline, ordered the traditional factions to stop feuding and fighting for dominance, and all come together into "this thing of ours": the Cosa Nostra.

For Mack Bolan, as for most people not members of a Family, the terms were, and are, interchangeable. Mafia ... Cosa Nostra.

And The Executioner did not deal in semantics, in vague shadings of word definitions. He had set out on another mission against the Mafia, this time to turn the Mafia's soldier training school into hell ground, and he was well on his way.

After Bolan shot the window out and the girl went, Captain Teaf shoved the nose down and put the chartered jet on the deck, calling a mayday. He wanted to turn back, but Bolan/Borzi refused.

"Christ, man," Teaf shouted, "we won't have ten minutes reserve fuel over the Azores. We miss one approach or have to hold, and we ditch, right into the drink!"

"Then you'd better not foul things up, huh? What do you think the bonus was for? You've got the uniform and the shoulder boards and big gold-plated wings, so let's see if you're a pilot!"

Teaf remembered that TWA had not thought so, and had dismissed him before his probationary period ended; that's how he ended up scrambling for nickles and dimes around dead-end country airports, until he'd smuggled in some "items" and got a good payday which allowed him to finance himself and get his airline transport rating. Armed with the Big Ticket, he found better jobs easier to get, and now he held the best he'd ever have. If he lived.

Like most executive and airline pilots, Teaf privately admitted he was overpaid, most of the time. But things had a way of catching up, so about twice a year on the average a professional pilot found himself in a position where he would have been willing to trade places with almost any other man in the world. Even a convict serving tune could reasonably look forward to eventual freedom, and life.

Teaf looked at the big ice-eyed bastard sitting in the right seat and knew this one of those times when he would earn it all, the bonus and more.

Once satisfied the pilot was continuing on course, Bolan went back into the cabin. Even though down on the deck, perhaps 200 feet above the wave-tops and the warm air, a chill had invaded the cabin. For even though Teaf had pulled back the power to conserve fuel at the low altitude, the jet's speed still exceeded 300 knots, and wind whistled through the destroyed window with hurricane force.

Bolan examined the cabin for a few moments. Then he slipped the catches on the sliding metal door on the built-in bar. He carried the two-by-three piece of polished duraluminum back to the open window, righted the seats the girl had made into a bed, then wedged the bardoor between the tops of two seats, covering the hole.

The wind still howled and buffeted through the remaining cracks, but the chill and noise diminished greatly. Mack found a cabinet holding more linen, pillows, cushions, and crammed them into the cracks, further cutting the wind and sound. Then he found the access door to the cargo hold and went down inside.

His crate had been opened, yeah. And more. Until now Bolan had felt bad, real bad, felt like hell about the girl, killing women wasn't in his line.

But he discovered now she had been playing for keeps. The crate was booby trapped. It took him more than half an hour of sweating effort to disarm the simple devices. That was what one-tune professional soldier Mack Bolan had never ceased marveling at, and putting to use.

The simple plans worked. The simple devices. Start jacking around with complicated procedures, super secret agent stuff, and first thing you knew, one of your own men got blown up. He forgot, or became nervous, sweaty, hurried, the timing failed to work out or the wire went slack in an unseasonal waft of warm air. The only guys you screwed when you made it fancy were yourselves.

Finished, Mack Bolan went back to the cockpit. "How we doing?"