Savannah Swingsaw (2 page)

The Executioner sat in the back of the squad car and stared through the wire-mesh screen at the nearby Blue Ridge Mountains. The sun was barely tinting Atlanta's skyline with pink. A slight breeze whipped through Atlanta today, but it was still hot. His prison garb was stiff and scratchy. The handcuffs, clamped on too tight by an overzealous guard, chafed at his wrists.

"Be on our way soon," the driver said, scratching at his uniform as if it was as starchy and hot as Bolan's.

They were idling inside the jail entrance while the driver's partner chatted with one of the gate guards.

On the other side of the thick metal barrier, cars drifted slowly to work, to friends, to family, the occupants listening to their favorite deejay, planning their Sunday fun. Traffic was sparse, the city still sleepy.

They'd kept Bolan overnight at the precinct while the paperwork was shuffled from file folder to file cabinet. The fingerprints had finally been attached to a name and case history — Damon Blue. Their curiosity satisfied, the cops were anxious to kick him on to Fulton County Jail, where prisoners awaiting trial were held. Bolan knew that.

Counted on it. Because that's where Dodge Reed was.

And that's where Zavlin would have to kill him. But why?

The reasons still baffled Bolan. The KGB's top eliminator coming halfway around the world to kill a nobody who was already locked up in prison. It didn't make sense. Yet.

It didn't matter. Whatever Bolan could do to sabotage the KGB was enough of an excuse. Taking out Zavlin in the process would just be icing on the cake.

"Can't figure you, son," the driver continued.

"What do you mean?" Bolan asked.

"I been a cop for close to twenty-eight years now. Pretty much tell the bad ones with just a glance. Don't matter what kind of clothes they wear or how much money they make or who their friends are. I just look 'em in the eye and I can tell the bad ones."

Bolan stared at the sunburned skin at the back of the driver's neck. A thin white scar curved up from under the collar, climbed his neck like a vine and disappeared into the thick mat of gray hair. Looked like a knife cut.

"So, like I'm looking at you and thinking, 'He looks tough enough, all right. Real tough. But tough ain't exactly mean. Not the same thing at all. And most these bums got that mean look. Know what I'm sayin', son?"

"Uh-huh," Bolan said. "You think I'm pretty."

The driver sighed, shook his head sadly.

"Then again, I'll knew anything I wouldn't be driving this damn car spending all my morning with criminals, would..."

"Guess not," Bolan said. He hated to come on so rough with the old cop, but he didn't want anybody getting the idea he was anything other than what he was pretending to be: a hardened career criminal. But, yeah, he knew what the driver meant because Bolan had seen the same look himself in the scum he'd been dealing with these past years. That arrogance in the expression, as if nothing else in the world mattered but what they wanted. As if there was no greater good than satisfying their enormous appetites.

Yeah, he'd seen that look, even managed to blow it off a few choice faces. Now he had to wear it himself. The sneer, the swagger, the cruel talk.

The driver's overweight partner opened the car door and climbed in, a clipboard in one hand, two doughnuts in the other. "Here, Gus," he said, handing one to the driver. "Jelly, just the way you like."

"Thanks, Deke," Gus said, nodding, taking a big bite, licking the jelly from his lips. He gestured over his shoulder at Bolan. "What about him?"

"Hell, it was tough enough wrangling these two. Those guys are more interested in guarding their doughnuts than this gate." He fastened his seat belt. "Besides, Gus, you'd think that damn scar on your neck woulda taught you what happens when you care too much about these cons."

Gus shrugged, accelerated the squad car through the open gate.

Despite himself, Bolan felt a sense of relief as they passed through the gate. As if tight metal bands had been snipped from his chest. He took a deep breath. Better not get too used to that feeling, he warned himself. In case things go wrong.

"They did it again," Deke said, chuckling.

"Did what?" Gus asked.

"Last night, they hit Clip Demoines's bookie joint down in Augusta. Those guys at the gate were telling me about it. Broke in and trashed the place."

"Cops?"

"No, them night riders. The ones the papers are calling Savannah Swingsaw."

"Jeez."

"Yup. They chewed that place up with chain saws and axes, took the money and closed the joint down for good."

"Demoines," Bolan interrupted. "Isn't he the local Mafia kingpin?"

"As if you didn't know," Deke sneered, munching on his doughnut, crumbs powdering his chin.

"Maybe this guy's not local," Gus said, referring to Bolan. "Don't sound local, anyway." Gus caught a yellow light and gunned the car through it. "Yeah, Demoines is connected. Runs most of Georgia, from Atlanta to Savannah. But not for long, not if this Savannah Swingsaw keeps up the pressure."

"Just some other thugs muscling in," Deke said.

"Not likely," Gus said. "Don't act like no Mob I've ever seen. All dressed in black with hoods, like them Oriental ninjas."

"Kept these guys carry guns and axes and chain saws."

"Guns or not," his partner said, "I'd hate to be in their hoods when Demoines's hoods catch up with 'em. I've seen some bodies he's ordered extinct. Hardly qualify as human afterward." He gobbled down the last bite of doughnut.

"Well, the Swingsaw's hit him three times so far. Managed to get away each time without a scratch."

"Just a matter of time, Gus. Time and manpower, and Demoines has got plenty of both."

"That's true. Only this Swingsaw bunch seems to know its way around these Mob types. Kinda like that Mack Bolan fella used to."

At the mention of his name Bolan looked up, startled. He listened to the conversation for a moment, then settled back into his seat, unconcerned. The Executioner was a master of role camouflage. It had worked for him in Nam many times, dressed as a peasant in a paddy, while the enemy walked by a few feet away, none the wiser. But sometimes no disguise is the best. The brain doesn't register what the eyes see. Now, as Bolan listened to the good-natured bantering in the front seat, he realized this was one of those times.

"Hell, that guy was nuts, man. Taking on cops and the Mob."

"Maybe," Gus said. "And you know I don't condone no vigilante behavior. Only this Bolan, he was different. Seemed to know the difference between the law and justice. Wasn't afraid to do something about it, neither."

"Don't matter. He was then and this is now, Gus."

"Could be this Savannah Swingsaw is Mack Bolan. Same MO. And word's gotten around he ain't dead at all, like they was saying before."

Bolan rapped his handcuffs against the screen.

"Hey, just where is this Demoines guy located?"

"What's it to you?" Deke asked.

"Might want to look him up when I get out. Guy with that kind of dough might be looking for a few good men. If the price is right."

Deke snorted.

"He may not be around when you get out of jail, Blue. If you get out alive, that is."

"You know those prison movies where the new fish comes in and his cellmate is this muscle-bound asshole that tells him to take the top bunk or else get his head busted?"

Bolan nodded. "Yeah."

The muscular black man in the wheelchair looked at Bolan menacingly. "Well, you got the top bunk, new fish."

Bolan didn't move. "What if I'm afraid of heights?"

The man rolled his wheelchair to within three inches of Bolan's feet.

"How do you feel about a shank in your gut?"

Bolan aimed up to the top bunk, bounced on the thin mattress. "Hmm, not as high as I'd thought."

The black man in the wheelchair grinned.

"Well, well, fish. You're a lot smarter than most guys in here. One look at me in this chair and they figure they can take me. All they got to do is maybe tip over my chair or run around behind me. Some tried." He chuckled in a gruff rumble.

Bolan jumped down from the bunk, carrying his toothbrush to the sink. The black man whirled his chair around faster than Bolan thought was possible in the small cell. He was in his late thirties, but his arms were huge globes of muscles with thick veins crisscrossing his forearms like underground cables.

His chest was equally as developed, slabs of dark stone straining at the cotton prison shirt.

Only the legs looked out of place, shriveled stems flopping limply from side to side as he moved the chair.

"My life story isn't any of your business, chump, so don't ask," he snapped, catching Bolan's stare.

"Right," Bolan said. He didn't have to ask.

He'd seen men like that before. And there was a look in the man's eyes, the kind of hidden pain recognizable only by someone who'd shared at least a glimmer of that pain. Bolan splashed some cold water on his eyes and turned to face the man in the wheelchair.

"Nam?"

The black frowned with surprise, nodding slowly.

"When?" Bolan asked.

"Sixty-six, near Saigon. We bulldozed some rubber plantations near the Cambodian border."

Bolan nodded. "Operation Cedar Falls."

"Yeah, that's right. You there?"

Bolan hesitated. He heard a hopeful note in the man's voice, but being in Nam wasn't part of the biographical file he and Brognola had created for Damon Blue. If there was going to be any chance at all of this, mission succeeding, he'd have to stick to the script. "Nah, I wasn't there. My brother had a friend. He yapped about it all the time."

"Sure," the man in the wheelchair said bitterly. "Everybody had a friend. Shit." He spun his chair around and wheeled forward to the bars. "Just stay outta my face, Blue."

"Fair enough. Only what's your name? I like to know whose face I'm staying out of."

The big man in the wheelchair kept his back to Bolan, his dead knees pressed against the bars. He didn't bother answering.

"Lyle Carrew," Gordon Schultz said.

He blew his nose into his napkin, then peeked into the napkin before crumpling it and tossing it onto his lunch tray. "That's his name. Shame about him being crippled and all."

Bolan shrugged, spooned more tomato soup into his mouth. The food wasn't too bad, no worse than most hospitals, but there wasn't enough of it. He'd finished his Salisbury steak and beet salad and had given Gordon Schultz two cigarettes for his soup and half a pack of crackers. The information came free.

Schultz stashed the smokes in his shirt pocket.

"Cripple or not," he went on, "the guy can handle himself. Saw him bust the arm of Billy Fieldstone last week. Young Billy's from down Folkston way, that's Okefenokee Swamp land, and he's got a bit of the KKK in his blood. Figured Carrew was an easy target. Learned different real fast."

"What's he in for?"

"Lyle?" Schultz smiled. "He's 'waitin' trial like us. Only he ain't as smart. At least you and me was just practicin' our trade, tryin' to make a buck. You holdin' up the liquor store, me a bank. But Lyle there..." Schultz chuckled "...he was just havin' fun. Tore up a whole wing of the V.A. hospital. Dumped files, beat up a doctor, scared the hell outta the nurses. Tossed a desk and a coupla TV'S from the eighth-floor window. Took four cops to cuff him. Not bad for a guy in a wheelchair."

Bolan stopped in midsip and looked across the room to where Lyle was eating at a table by himself.

"Has a temper, huh?"

"Damn straight. And that ain't the first time he tore that joint up. Last time he got thirty days. This time, I dunno. If he opens his smartass mouth to the judge...." Schultz shook his head to indicate it would be plenty of time. "They usually keep guys in wheelchairs in the infirmary, but Lyle put up such a fuss, you know, discrimination against the handicapped, that kinda crap, they stuck him in here with the rest of us. Some victory, huh?"

Bolan shrugged. "That's his problem, not mine. He's just my cellmate." He pointed his spoon at a table across the isle where Dodge Reed sat hunched over his ice tea looking frightened. He seemed even younger than in the photograph Hal Brognola had shown him. "What's the kid doing here? Mess up on some fraternity prank?"

"Him? That's, uh, Reed. Got some stupid first name, what is it? Chevy or Ford. Somethin' like that." Schultz laughed. "We got him coupla days ago from the downtown jail. Some kind of embezzlin' from a record store. Kid stuff. Well, he's going to do some growin' up real soon."

Bolan kept his voice bored, indifferent.

"Whaddya mean?"

"See that guy over there? The one with the bullet head and the tiny eyes."

Bolan followed Schultz's gaze to a tall lanky man stacking empty trays and glancing possessively at Reed. "Big fella."

"Yeah, about six-six. Strong, too. Name's Bertrand Stovell, but calls hisself Rodeo. He's let it known that the Reed kid is his."

Bolan studied Rodeo from across the room. There was the mean look in the eyes that Gus had talked about.

Tattooed snakes crawled out of each sleeve of his shirt and coiled around his wrists like bracelets. He was completely bald except for one six-inch tail of braided hair at his nape.

Reed glanced up from his tray once and saw Rodeo looking straight at him. Rodeo grinned, showing a set of brown, twisted teeth.

Reed frantically looked back into ice tea.

"Rodeo always get what he wants?" Bolan asked.

Schultz snickered. "Mostly. Hell, just look at him. This ain't no federal pen, Blue. Not the Big A or anythin', where they got your hard-core dopers and killers. This is county, mostly made up of nonviolent types who're just pullin' their time, smokin' a little weed now and then. But basically they're just tryin' to get as much good time as possible to get out. They don't want no hassles. Problem is, we got a hell of a lot more cons in Georgia than we got cells, so the Big A, that's the Atlanta pen, been sendin' their overflow here. Screwed everythin' up, man. Those guys got their own rules, their own way of doin' shit, man. The rest of us just stay outta their way. Rodeo wants the Reed kid, fine. Who's gonna stop him? There'll be more tomorrow. One thing this place ain't short on, it's residents."