The Trial, page 2
part #91 of The Executioner Series
He would refrain from letting slip his true identity at any cost. The architects of his predicament were well aware of who he was, but Bolan had convinced himself by now that these did not include the local law.
With countless charges hanging over him, an officer who knew his whereabouts would have no need to fabricate a murder case. Nor would they send a dozen deputies to bring him in when there were state police, the Army's CID, the FBI and CIA snapping at his heels. There would have been an army at the Blue Oasis if they had known whom they were bringing in.
So Bolan had to stall and prevent his true identity from leaking to the feds or the press. A standard make through Washington would leave the locals empty-handed, giving him some time to plan.
The bogus name inscribed on Bolan's driver's license and assorted other travel documents would likewise lead them nowhere. "Michael Blanski" had no past, no real existence to the best of Bolan's knowledge, and his record would be clean. He had no prior arrests, no military service record, had never filed an income tax return or contributed to social security. The very unreality would raise a momentary smoke screen while he sought a way to extricate himself.
A trace on Bolan's weapons would reveal, no doubt, that they were stolen over time from military reservations or the loading docks in San Francisco, Cleveland or New York. He had obtained them from a dealer in L.A., without the benefit of federal registration forms, and tracing any single weapon to its point of origin would be a fruitless task, if not impossible. Again, the mystery could help him if he played his cards correctly, staying on a full alert for any opening.
The squat McLary County jail stood next to an ornate but crumbling courthouse. Renovated in the early sixties with the Ruby-Oswald incident in mind, it was connected to the courthouse by an underground tunnel, facilitating transport of the county's prisoners to trial. As time had gone by, the rumblings of revolution in the late sixties had caused the jail to be remodeled yet again until it now resembled nothing quite so much as an adobe bunker ready to repel assaults that had never come.
The cruiser drove around in back and down a narrow ramp to reach the underground garage. The stench of grease and stale exhaust was stultifying as they left the squad car, striking off in lockstep for the double doors that opened on the booking room and cells inside. Bolan was relieved to feel the air-conditioning and took the opportunity to scrutinize the layout with a practiced eye.
There is a kind of healthy paranoia in America's police mentality. Conditioned by years of revolutionary rhetoric and violence, the men in uniform had come to see themselves as a visible minority under siege. McLary County had no history of violent incidents against police, but they were ready just the same.
Inside the double doors an officer observed them from an armored cubicle, examining their faces, lingering on Bolan's for a moment, finally waving them along the narrow corridor. Beside him on the wall hung a riot shotgun, its muzzle toward the door, and Bolan knew the hallway could become a deathtrap for any uninvited visitor.
The booking room was small but organized. His captors had led him to the wooden counter where a red-faced, balding officer prepared the booking forms in triplicate.
"Your name?"
The soldier met his level gaze and said nothing.
"Name?"
And nothing.
"Smart ass, huh?"
On Bolan's left, the meaty deputy in charge stepped forward, opening the wallet they had lifted from him back at the motel.
"I got it here," he said, extracting Bolan's false id. "We got a Michael Blanski here. What kinda nationality is that?"
"American."
"Uh-huh."
He rattled off the date of birth and the meaningless address in Sacramento, California.
"You got a birthday comin' up here, boy. Might be we could arrange a little celebration for you there. We could let ya hold a coupla sparklers when they strap ya in the chair and pull the switch."
"What charge?" the deskman asked.
"We got a murder one for openers. Probably kidnap and rape. Concealed weapon. There'll be some others when the boys get back with all the stuff, but that'll do for now."
"I guess it will."
After booking he was guided to the far end of the counter where a desk had been arranged for fingerprinting purposes. The handcuffs were removed while two of Bolan's captors stood back cautiously, their hands on holstered Magnums, ready if he should attempt a break. The soldier flexed his fingers and stretched, making no resistance as the deputy in charge gripped one wrist, then the other, rolling out his prints on numbered cards. They let him clean his hands with liquid soap and paper towels before proceeding to get his mug shot.
"Say cheese."
He faced the camera deadpan, turning into profile as they ordered. Photographs would be a problem down the road, and he would have to deal with that in time. Hell, mug shots, fingerprints would be the least of it, if he couldn't get out of this mess. Besides, he was certain he could count on Hal Brognola's help in getting rid of any files...
Bolan dismissed it. He had more pressing problems now.
"I'll need them leo-tards," the ranking deputy informed him, nodding toward a swinging door on Bolan's left. "Get on in there an' skin 'em off."
The chamber was a combination locker room and shower, with a sloping floor and a single open stall downrange. With half a dozen lawmen looking on, he shed the overcoat, untied his shoes and stripped the skinsuit off. The shorts were last, and Bolan dropped them with the rest of it.
"We gotta check you out, you unnerstand? Make sure you ain't got any contraband or anythin' like that."
The ranking officer stepped close to Bolan, right hand clasped around his holstered weapon, flourishing a pencil flashlight in his left.
"Le's see them teeth."
The soldier opened wide and waited, lifting his tongue on command, relaxing when the deputy was satisfied that there was nothing hidden in his mouth.
"Jus' one more stop. Assume the position."
Bolan turned his back on the officers and bent forward.
"Awright, spread 'em."
He followed orders, unembarrassed by the posture, concentrating on survival, noting every small detail of his surroundings.
"Okay, go shower down. An' don't miss anything."
He lathered quickly beneath the stinging, icy spray. When Bolan finished, he was chilled and shivering. A deputy was standing by with towel and denim uniform.
"Get dressed."
He toweled off briskly, then put on the scratchy denims, relieved that it was not a tighter fit. The deputies had guessed Bolan's size and come up large, allowing him some room to breathe inside the jailhouse uniform.
"It ain't exac'ly panty hose, but it'll do," the grinning officer in charge declared. "This way."
The cell block stood behind a double set of locking doors, controlled by jailers on the outside who could scrutinize the block on color monitors through a tiny window in the outer door. After a signal from the ranking deputy, they went through the outer line, then delayed while someone closed and locked the door behind them and released an electric signal to the second locking mechanism in its turn. The inner door rolled back on hidden tracks, and Bolan was escorted through.
"You might as well get useta this. It's home."
He scanned the block, six cells on either side, devoid of windows, skylights, any contact with the outside world. The double doors controlled his only exit from the cage, and Bolan knew at once that he could not escape from this point. When it came, his move would have to be upstairs, inside the station proper, or within the court itself. He could do nothing here.
A claustrophobic feeling nibbled at the corners of his mind, and Bolan shook it off, dismissing it as the reaction to a new and dangerous environment. He was aware that bars of steel could not protect him. He was a sitting target for the men who had conspired to frame him and he would need his wits when they came.
And they were coming.
Bolan felt it in his gut. They had him caged, and they would be along for him when the time was right.
But soon.
"I've got a phone call coming," Bolan said to no one in particular.
The ranking deputy stared coldly at him for a moment, chewing on his ample lower lip.
"Tha's right, you do. Down here."
The telephone was set against one wall beneath a plastic bubble that provided something less than perfect privacy.
"The first one's on the house. So make it count."
His guards stood back against the wall, watching with contempt etched deep into their faces. They were barely out of earshot, but it would be enough to satisfy the strictures of the courts. If Bolan was consulting with a lawyer, they could testify the privileged conversation had been unobstructed by the state.
The phone would almost certainly be tapped, but Bolan didn't care. He dialed the sterile number from memory and waited, listening through the distant trilling tones until the switches went to work a thousand miles away.
The pickup phone was in a safe apartment overlooking San Diego harbor, with a view of the Pacific that he had enjoyed on more than one occasion lately. When it wasn't answered on the second ring, a relay switch would automatically transfer the call to Johnny Bolan's base of operations, Strongbase One, outside of town.
Two rings, and then two more before he made the link. A distant humming on the open line, and Bolan knew that he was talking to the tape. He made his message short and to the point, secure in knowing that they couldn't trace the call to his brother if they tried. At worst the safe apartment would be sacrificed... along with any chance of a successful prosecution once it leaked that local deputies had traced a confidential call.
But it would never come to that, he knew.
The men who had devised his frame did not intend to see him in court. They would have other means of dealing with him now that he was caged, unarmed.
But not defenseless.
As long as he was still alive, the Executioner would never be an easy mark. And when they came for him in jail, he would be ready, waiting, to defend himself.
He replaced the receiver, confident that Johnny would be checking on the tape within an hour, two at most. It was a ritual, established to protect them both, and it had worked out well so far.
But what could Johnny do?
Employ a lawyer? Doubtful. He could not afford to get involved in any public way, attracting dangerous attention to himself.
He could assist with any plans for flight, of course, but it would be a risky undertaking, hampered by the fact that he couldn't communicate with Bolan in the jail. Johnny would be flying blind unless they could devise a way of getting messages beyond the walls.
"Le's move it, boy."
He was conducted to the last cell on the left, surrounded by the beefy deputies as if they feared that he might make a break for freedom in the narrow corridor.
"I need it open here on number five."
A disembodied voice responded, an affirmative that issued from a ceiling vent, and then the door to number five clanged open, offering an unobstructed view of Bolan's cell. He scanned the stainless-steel toilet, tiny sink, the single bunk bed bolted to the wall.
A rough hand shoved him in, and the door clanged shut again behind his back. He heard the shuffle of departing feet and sensed instinctively that one man had remained behind.
"Ain't quite as nice as the Oasis, is it?" There was grim, sardonic laughter at his back. "I guess you'll have ta jus' make do without the company. Doc Ferris gotcher girlfriend now, wha's left of 'er. But don't you worry, you'll be seein' her again. Real soon."
Bolan turned to face the deputy, and there was something in his face behind the graveyard eyes that struck the officer speechless and drove him back a pace into the corridor. His mouth worked silently for a moment, then he cursed and turned away. His boot heels clopped off along the corridor, receding in the distance and leaving Bolan alone at last.
Inside his cage.
3
The telephone rang as Johnny Bolan tossed in troubled sleep. In misty dreams he pursued a faceless woman down a narrow, winding corridor that echoed with her screams. She needed him; he knew that much instinctively, and yet she ran, compelling him to chase her through the darkness at a breakneck pace, unmindful of the dangers that might lie ahead.
Why was she running, dammit? Johnny tried to call her name, but the exertion of his run had left him breathless. Worse, he found that he could not recall her name, and with that knowledge came a burning pang of guilt that twisted through him like a white-hot corkscrew.
Ahead of him, the slamming of a heavy door eclipsed the sound of running feet. He reached the door and threw himself against it, feeling it yield slowly. Another rush, another jarring impact, and he half fell through the open doorway, stumbling into a chamber hewed from stone.
Blood was spattered everywhere around the room. Its centerpiece and only furniture, a stainless-steel operating table, bore what seemed to be a side of beef. He knew better, instinctively, and his stomach was already starting to roll as he approached the table on faltering legs. From twenty feet he recognized the once human form, and with chilling certainty he knew precisely who it was.
The mutilated face was turning slowly, painfully, in his direction, staring at him with one remaining eye. The bloody mouth, already stripped of lips and teeth and tongue, was gaping to emit a mindless scream that shattered Johnny's sanity.
Sweet heaven, Sandy, no, I'm sorry, no NO NO.
And he realized at once it was the jangling of a telephone. It took a moment for his mind to clear, but he was wide awake before the answering machine kicked in on the second ring, silently acknowledging the message from his safehouse by the bay.
He checked the bedside clock and found that it was 5:45 a.m. It would be Mack, of course, but Johnny checked the sudden urge to lift the receiver and hear his brother's voice direct. They had agreed upon the cut-out number for security. If there was an emergency, he could be back in touch with Mack in moments at the number that his brother would be sure to leave.
The tape shut down, and Johnny hastily rewound it to the leader, turning up the volume so he wouldn't miss a word. There was a momentary hissing as the relay made connections, then his brother's voice filled up the little bedroom like a living presence.
"This is Blanski," brother Mack informed the answering machine, relying on his code name of the week. "I've been arrested in McLary, Texas, on a murder charge. I'm in the county jail. You'll have to take the necessary' steps as soon as possible."
There was a pause, and Johnny's reeling mind attempted to digest the message. Then the quiet voice came through again.
"Whichever way it goes, stay hard."
Johnny killed the tape, rewound it and listened through it once again. There had been no mistake — but what the hell was going on?
His brother was in jail. The "how" and "why" of that apocalyptic thought would have to hold for later when he had the time. A murder charge, and yet his brother had been using the Blanski name.
Which meant that the authorities in McLary, Texas, had no real idea who was sitting in their jail. It meant he still had a chance of saving something from the situation.
If he could get to Mack in time.
Mack in a cell would be Mack dead before much longer. Johnny knew it without a doubt, but there were preparations to be made before he hit the road. They had discussed the different possibilities in depth, and while arrest had never been a serious concern, there were contingencies for everything.
And there were calls to make before the day got any older. Johnny calculated time zones swiftly, deciding that it didn't matter if some people lost their sleep. His brother's life was riding on the line.
He found the card file, thumbing through it quickly and pulling out the numbers he would need. Two calls would do for openers, to give his brother something in the way of minimal security while he was still en route. If he could only bring himself to trust in others now before it was too late.
He had no choice, of course. A road map told him that it would be after midnight when he reached his destination, even if he drove nonstop. He couldn't fly, not with the military hardware he would need, and there would be no time to get a reservation now. The others would be swifter in reacting.
His hand was trembling as he reached for the receiver, and he drew it back, compelling it to grim rigidity with strength of will alone. No time for breaking down when Mack was counting on him. He had blown it once, with Sandy Darlow, and he would not make the same mistake again.
He would not hesitate to kill, to die if necessary, in his brother's cause. And if he came too late, he was prepared to carry on the war alone.
Beginning with the bastards who had locked his brother in a cell.
May God have mercy on them all. There was no mercy left in Johnny Bolan's soul.
He lifted the receiver and with a steady hand began to dial.
* * *
Susan Landry turned off the shower and nudged the frosted sliding door open. She was reaching for a towel when she heard the shrilling of the telephone.
"Damn."
It never failed. They caught you in the shower every time — or when your nails were wet, your dinner burning on the stove.
It had to be a business call, of course. She had no friends in Kansas City, none at home who had the name and number of her room at the TraveLodge Hotel. She snared the towel and wound it once around her naked body, betting on the local bureau as she padded toward the phone beside her unmade bed.
It was an hour yet before she would be due in court, but someone at the local might have gotten some ideas about a sidebar piece. They could forget about it, Susan told herself, and damn the consequences. She was concentrating on the Gianelli trial, preparing to drop some bombshells of her own once the jury was safely sequestered. The local bureau could send out its stringers to cover the sideshow action.
