The farmer was saying, "Now these two boys here know that I'm giving it to you straight. This Bolan has made a couple of monkeys out of both of 'em. He's got them so rattled they can't even both tell the same story about what's been going on around here. You all know what this Bolan can do, you know what he's been doing to us right along. A couple of the old men back home think they can tame this wild man and make 'im one of us. But you go talk to Frank Buck about that. He'll tell you that no wild animal ever gets really tamed, it's liable to turn on you at any time."

"Yeah, I tried to raise a baby alligator once," put in a hood from Chicago. He stuck out a hand, revealing the loss of several fingers. "Look what that son of a b.i.t.c.h done to me."

"Shortfingers knows what I'm talking about," Castiglione commented, glowering around the table. "You don't make deals with wild men, and you don't invite them into your house and turn over the bedroom keys, and you especially don't give 'im a gun and tell 'im to run your palace guard for you."

"Christ no!" agreed another man.

"Bet your a.s.s it's Christ no, but that's exactly what these tired old men back home want to do-not all of 'em now, I'm not talking against no special families.

I'm just saying a few put the pressure on, and what the h.e.l.l could the rest of us say? Huh? We had to go along. But listen, only one or two are all for this thing, this peace bulls.h.i.t. You notice, all of you boys notice that you've come from every part of the country, and you were sent to join my head party, and you all realize that. But now listen, how many of you boys would like to see this wildman Bolan carrying a Commissione Commissione badge, and steppin' into the shoes of the Talifero brothers?" badge, and steppin' into the shoes of the Talifero brothers?"

At that suggestion every ounce of blood drained from Nick Trigger's face, nor was Danno Giliamo looking overjoyed at the prospect. Their reactions were lost, however, in the general ruckus spreading throughout the room. Everybody was talking to everybody else, and the meeting fell into brief disarray, then a telephone in the corner sounded and the chatter quickly subsided as all eyes turned to the instrument.

Giliamo pushed back his chair and walked quietly to the telephone, though it had stopped ringing, and delicately lifted the receiver. He turned about to stare at Castiglione as he listened in on the Turrin-Bolan conversation, then he hung up and returned to the conference table.

"Okay, what was that all about?" Arnie Farmer growled.

"That," Danno thoughtfully announced, "was Leo the p.u.s.s.y making his contact."

"Awright, don't save yourself any secrets," the farmer demanded.

"Well, he's meeting this boy at some tower of London at ten thirty. But listen. That boy sure sounded like Bolan's voice. I mean, not exactly, but Christ, it give me the creeps, I think that was Bolan right there on the phone."

Castiglione glared at him while his mind ran through the implications presented. Nick Trigger, though, scowled at Danno and said, "When've you ever heard Bolan's voice before?"

"I've heard a lot of things you've never dreamed about," Danno snapped back. "I think I'm right, I think it was Bolan himself." think I'm right, I think it was Bolan himself."

"You two shut up!" Amie Farmer commanded. "What time is it now?"

Someone replied, "It's almost eight thirty, I guess I run my watch ahead right."

"Yeah, it's eight thirty," Nick Trigger growled.

"All right Nick, you get out there and get some boys on their toes. Danno, you go with 'im and make sure he don't get rattled or mixed up or something, both of you watch each other." He dismissed them with a disgusted glance. "Rest of you boys get your heads in and listen closely to what I'm going to tell you. Now don't get f.u.c.ked up on this, I mean you listen close 'cause I'm only gonna run through this once. Now listen..."

Nick Trigger and Danno Giliamo found themselves alone in the hall and glaring at each other. Nick muttered, "That rotten old b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Where does he get off talking to me like that?"

Danno lit a cigarette with angrily shaking hands and said, "You remember what we agreed to in the car last night, that Arnie the Farmer is a rotten b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

"Yeah that's one one thing I remember." thing I remember."

"Well, what're you going to do about that, Nick? I mean, this Bolan deal. You heard what the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d said. They're thinking of turning over your job to Bolan, I mean the job that's yours by rights. And even if Arnie gets to Bolan first, you know he's not going to see you up there on the hard arm, you know that. It only takes one guy like that to squeeze you out forever, Nick. And that job is yours, by rights."

"By right, yeah," Nick Trigger muttered.

"Well, I guess we know where we stand."

"I guess we do. Listen, Danno, I guess we are in the same boat. Now I don't know what happened last night and I don't give a d.a.m.n. We're in the same boat and I guess we better start doing some bailing."

"I'd like to show Arnie Farmer what a monkey feels like," Danno said. "You just can't let him get to Bolan first, Nick."

"Don't you worry, he won't. And neither will Leo the p.u.s.s.y."

"You got something in mind, Nick?"

"You could say that, Danno. Yeah, you could say that." Nick Trigger, as a matter of fact, had quite a lot in his mind.

Bolan and Ann reached the Tower Hill district a full hour in advance of the appointment with Leo Turrin, and Bolan prowled the streets of the area relentlessly for most of thirty minutes, getting the feel of the land. Then he parked at a tour bus station and told the girl, "They'll let me get in there, all right. The problem will be in getting out with my head still on."

"But you can't go walking about in there," she protested. "Someone will recognize you, and then we shall see a CID convention at London Tower."

He smiled and told her, "Most people aren't all that observant. How often have you walked past a friend on the street without noticing him? Those people in there will be looking at crown jewels and British history, and they'll all be wishing they had four eyes to take it all in. They won't be looking at me."

"The staff will," she a.s.sured him.

"To them I'll just be another b.l.o.o.d.y tourist," he replied, grinning. "Look, stop worrying. This is my kind of warfare."

She was scruffling around in the glove compartment. "At the very least you can wear these," she urged, handing over tinted lenses in weird wire frames. "They're adjustable, so no excuses."

He chuckled and slid the earpieces out and bent them onto his temples, then stared at her owlishly through the tinted lenses. "How's this?"

She cried, "Oh Mack!" and threw herself into his arms.

They lingered in a kiss, then he gently disentangled himself and told her, "Stay loose now. Get this car moving and keep circling. Try to make it past here at least once every five minutes. But at the first sound of gunfire, you skedaddle and d.a.m.n quick. Don't worry about me, in find a way through. If we get split up, meet me at the museum. I doubt that anyone will be expecting me to show up there again."

She nodded and slid her arms back around his neck. "Don't you dare get yourself killed," she whispered. "I doubt that I could survive it."

He chuckled, kissed her again, and left her sitting there with saucer eyes. He glanced back, saw that she was crying, and threw her a rea.s.suring wave, then mingled in with a tour party which was just then debusing.

It cost him four shillings admission to the grounds, and he paid another two shillings for access to the interior areas. He had almost a half hour to kill, and he used this time for a casual look around at the fabulous complex, once the castle of William the Conqueror. He saw the room where the Little Princes were smothered and visited the Armories in the White Tower for a glimpse of King Henry VIII's armor. Then he went back onto the grounds where he engaged in a friendly conversation with a colorfully costumed Beefeater Beefeater-the name given the Tower guards. The guy showed him the clipped-wing ravens, and told him that they were the symbol of the tower.

Bolan thought, yeah, those ravens were a symbol of the time, too-like old Charles' Sadian symbol. Civilized men had that same frustration constantly with them, that same clipped-wing freedom of the ravens. Throw away everything that makes you a man, man, and then be a man be a man.

Nuts, Bolan thought. He hadn't been able to settle for the clipped-wing type of existence urged upon him by the Pittsfield cops; he'd decided to be an eagle... and now here he was practically a dead duck, despite his brave rea.s.surances to Ann Franklin.

The time was ten twenty. He wandered back and found the scaffolding where crowned heads had rolled, the final stop for kings and queens who'd found the power of reigning a bit too heady. Men never learned anything, Bolan was thinking. The scramble for power and the l.u.s.ting for wealth would never end, it would go on and on as long as ravens had clipped wings.

He was in a h.e.l.l of a mood and he knew it. The Tower had done it to him, it had done something that all the macabre atmosphere of Museum de Sade Museum de Sade had failed to do, and Bolan was beginning to get a glimmer of what old Edwin Charles had meant. The whole G.o.d d.a.m.ned world was bathed in blood, it had soaked into the earth behind every footprint of mankind, and the screams and groans of the tortured and the revolted and the s.h.i.t-upon still lived on in every movement of the wind. had failed to do, and Bolan was beginning to get a glimmer of what old Edwin Charles had meant. The whole G.o.d d.a.m.ned world was bathed in blood, it had soaked into the earth behind every footprint of mankind, and the screams and groans of the tortured and the revolted and the s.h.i.t-upon still lived on in every movement of the wind.

Yeah, dammit, that was what Charles had meant.

The agony of mankind was only mirrored in the offbeat flesh routes that some men pursued. The reality of that agony would not be found in some pathetic devil's pantings over sado-m.a.s.o.c.h.i.s.tic p.o.r.nography. The reality was buried in the core of that worldwide panting for power over other men's lives and the ruthless acquisition of wealth for the few at the expense of the many.

Thank you, Edwin Charles, Bolan said to a memory. You've reminded me what I'm all about.

And then it was 10:25 and Leo Turrin was making a quick approach with a very worried face.

Bolan muttered to himself, "And here we go again. Another jug of blood for the ravens."

Chapter Eighteen.

SHOWDOWN AT DE SADE.

Bolan shoved the gla.s.ses up onto his forehead and told Leo Turrin, "I hope this turns out to be worth the risk."

"I don't know about that," the little Mafioso Mafioso replied glumly. "This has turned into an Olympic Game called replied glumly. "This has turned into an Olympic Game called get Bolan get Bolan, and it's anybody's game at the moment."

Bolan said, "That means you brought a convoy."

"Did I. It would be funny if it wasn't so d.a.m.ned serious. You may have a hard time believing this, Sarge, but right now you've got four big mean Mafia crews protecting your hide." I. It would be funny if it wasn't so d.a.m.ned serious. You may have a hard time believing this, Sarge, but right now you've got four big mean Mafia crews protecting your hide."

"You brought them with you?" Bolan asked, his eyebrows rising into unhappy peaks.

"No other way. Arnie's head party is swarming all over. I smell a shootout, brother against brother, and all because of your hide, buddy."

Bolan chuckled. His tensions were leaving him. He said, "Okay, let's make it quick, then. I wouldn't want to miss the party."

Turrin took him by the arm and walked him along the scaffolding of Execution Row. "Okay, first the p.o.o.p on Edwin Charles. Brognola hit a blank there right away. Charles' army folder has a cla.s.sified seal on it, and the British won't even talk about him. Via our own army intelligence, though, Hal learned that this guy was retired with honors 15 years ago, with the rank of Brigadier."

Bolan's eyes sparkled and he said, "Bingo."

"Well, maybe it means something to you. Not to me. Here's the interesting part. Charles went back on the active list briefly in 1960, at the age of sixty-three. How about that? He served for eight months, then retired again. Our intelligence on him ends as of four months ago when this same old man was re-activated again, a.s.signment undisclosed-buried somewhere beneath that security seal."

Bolan whistled softly under his breath. "What was he doing during that eight months of 1960?"

"Brognola doesn't know, but it may not be any coincidence that the British cracked an espionage ring at about that time."

"That's getting a bit far out," Bolan commented. "I mean, espionage..."

"No connection necessary," Turrin a.s.sured him. "But you tell me something. What was this Edwin Charles doing just before he died?"

"Doing? He was supposedly working as an electronics mechanic and security watchman in a house of kinks."

"Well, there's your tie. Electronics. It's Charles' specialty. He was in on the ground floor in the art of electronic spying for the British."

"Okay, I have to think about that. What else did you get?"

"This Major Stone. No secrets there. Cashiered out of the British regulars in 1956 for cruelty to his troops, repeated incidents. Also some grisly charges from various civilians in the Mideast. He's not retired, just fired, so he's carrying that t.i.tle around in his hip pocket. Brognola has a thick file on him, gathered from here and there. The guy has gone from an obscure army major, noted only for his discharge in disgrace, to a very wealthy man with little visible means of support."

Bolan's face was screwed into a thoughtful grimace. "Okay, anything else?"

"That's all of any value on Charles and Stone. But here comes the bonus, if you can figure a way to use it... I can't. This intel came in at the last minute and I haven't even had time to think about it myself. Nick Trigger came to England under the alias of Nicholas Woods. He's always been a rodman, never a speculator. Consequently, he never acc.u.mulated much money- spent it as fast as he got it. Now keep that picture. Okay, now enter Nicholas Woods upon the British scene. All of a sudden the guy has two secret bank accounts in Geneva and there's enough between those accounts to keep him like a sultan for the rest of a long lifetime."

Bolan asked, "What does 'all of a sudden' mean?"

"It means within the past few months."

"Okay, I agree it's interesting. But not exactly earth-shattering."

Turrin shrugged. "Except that jolly old Nick is knocking down on the family. He's obviously got some hot action of his own going over here, and that's a very definite no-no. And there's more to it than that. He's also got money going openly back and forth in a partnership with a legitimate business enterprise here in London, and there's some sort of a connection between this and the Swiss bank accounts."

"What's this legit thing he has?"

"A night club called Soho Psyche."

Bolan's feet hit the floor and stayed there. Turrin halted and turned back to give him a puzzled stare. "What's wrong?"

Bolan muttered, "You just popped me square in the guts."

"This night club means something to you? I haven't been in town long enough to-"

"I'm afraid it means a h.e.l.l of a lot, Leo. Did Brognola tell you who Nick's partner is?"

Turrin shook his head. "I don't believe he'd had time to dig that far. Anyway, what I wanted to tell you... Hal is thrilled to death over this peace offering. He says quote tell him for G.o.d's sake to take it unquote. He thinks it's the greatest thing since Joe Valacchi's Atlanta concert."

All the fire seemed to have drained out of Bolan. He muttered, "You know I can't, Leo. I can't even let those people think think they've won. I've got to keep them falling over each other's a.s.ses for just as long as I can keep it all together." they've won. I've got to keep them falling over each other's a.s.ses for just as long as I can keep it all together."

"You haven't heard what Staccio is empowered to offer you, Sarge. They want you to take over as lord high enforcer, or something along that line."

Bolan smiled thinly. "If you can't beat 'em, buy 'em or join 'em. That's their philosophy, Leo, and it always worked for them in the past. I won't let it work this time." He was thinking of a twenty-six year old virgin beauty who must have wanted to beat the whole world, then simply decided to join it. "No, I can't do it. I'll stay in my own jungle, thanks."

"At least think it over," Turrin urged. "Brognola says he can d.a.m.n sure work up an amnesty case for you once you get inside that Commissione Commissione."

Bolan shook his head doggedly. "No. Leave me alone, Leo. I have to do it my way."

The Italian scowled unhappily, but replied, "Okay, I respect your decision, even if I don't like it. So maybe you can use this dirt on Nick Trigger. Maybe you can drive a wedge in somewhere, turn things over good. I can't use it. It would be too far out of the character I've been building up these past five years." He sighed. "Anyway, that's all I've got. Now I suggest we split, and quick, before Arnie decides to come in looking."

"Let's not leave you out in the cold," Bolan said quietly. "Tell your Amba.s.sador of Peace that I refuse to consider the idea until I get back home. Tell him well get together over there and talk about this thing."

Turrin smiled sourly and said, "Yeah, that'll save me some face."

"You go on out," Bolan suggested. "I'll leave my own way."

They shook hands and Turrin said, "I saw a good place to go over the fence."

Bolan grinned, showing an echo of his earlier fire. "I saw it too. Thanks, Leo. Take care."

Turrin said, "You too," and spun off in a rapid departure. He looked back and waved from the corner, then disappeared.

Bolan took his own prearranged way out, back past the Beefeaters Beefeaters and the clipped-wing ravens and to the soft spot in the wall he'd staked out during his recon. and the clipped-wing ravens and to the soft spot in the wall he'd staked out during his recon.

From down in front somewhere came the sudden crackling of weapons, just as Bolan found his toehold and boosted himself toward the top.