"Дон Пендлтон. Caribbean Kill ("Палач" #10) " - читать интересную книгу автора

funeral - but he also could not allow a self-appointed executioner to prowl
the streets of his city. He pointed this out to Bolan, and suggested that
the soldier return immediately to the more appropriate battle areas in
Vietnam.
Bolan, however, had discovered something of his own, as witness this
entry in his personal journal, dated the day following the initial slayings:
"Scratch five. Results positive. Identification confirmed by unofficial
police report. The Mafia , for God's sake. So what? They can't be any more
dangerous or any smarter than the Cong. Scratch five, and how many are left?
A hundred? A thousand? Ten thousand? So - I've got another unwinnable war on
my hands."
Yes, decidedly, Bolan had another war on his hands. He knew the Mafia,
had grown up in neighborhoods dominated by the lordly Dons - he knew their
power, their viciousness, and their patterns of intimidation which could
never tolerate a successful retaliation from their victims. They would be
after Bolan's head, and they would follow him all the way to Southeast Asia
if necessary. If the police had been able to put the story together, Bolan
knew with a certainty that the mob's own formidable intelligence network
could not be more than a step or two behind.
He was a doomed man, and he knew it.
But, as he noted in his journal, "I'm dead anyway, I may as well make
my death count for something. The cops can't do anything about the mob. The
Mafia is a leech at this nation's throat and they know all the legal tricks
and shady angles to keep themselves clear of the law. Besides, they're just
too big. What they can't beat, they buy. If they can't buy it, they simply
stamp it out. As they'll stamp me out one day very soon. But they are going
to have to work for it. I won't just roll over and die for them. Ill die,
sure, but while they're making it official I'm going to rattle their teeth
and shake their house with everything I have."
For a "dying man," Bolan had a considerable amount of shake and rattle
left in him. He hit the Pittsfield arm of the Mafia with a thunder and
lightning blitz which indeed shook their house down and all but eliminated
the Mafia presence in that city - for awhile.
Following that unexpected victory, Bolan faded away like the guerilla
expert he was - believing himself to be ten-times doomed now, and determined
only to stretch his "last bloody mile" to its highest toll of enemy lives.
He resurfaced in Los Angeles a short while later, this time with a "death
squad" of hastily recruited combat buddies from Vietnam - and the Bolan Wars
began in earnest. He lost his valiant squad in the battles for Los Angeles,
but he gained a new appreciation of the forces arrayed against him - and a
deeper understanding of his own situation. And he began to believe that just
possibly he could beat the mob at their own game.
From an old friend, an ex-army combat surgeon, Bolan received plastic
surgery and a new face - not to retire behind, but to come out fighting in.
He called the new face his "battle mask" - it gave him a definitely Sicilian
appearance, and he used this new advantage with a vengeance in exploiting
the enemy's greatest weakness: their own suspicion and mistrust of one
another. He moved among them at will, sat with them at their councils,
plotted with them his own demise - even romanced the Capo's daughter. And as
he systematically set them up and knocked them down, the Executioner's