"Дон Пендлтон. Chicago Wipe-Out ("Палач" #8) " - читать интересную книгу автора

spreading menace of organized crime. In his personal journal, he had
written: "It looks like I have been fighting the wrong enemy. Why defend a
front line eight thousand miles away when the real enemy is chewing up
everything you love back home? I have talked to the police about this
situation and they seem to be helpless to do anything. The problem, as I see
it, is that the rules of warfare are all rigged against the cops... what is
needed here is a bit of direct action, strategically planned, and to hell
with the rules. Over in 'Nam we called it a 'war of attrition.' Seek out and
destroy. Exterminate the enemy. I guess it's time a war was declared on the
home front. The same kind of war we've been fighting at 'Nam. The very same
kind."
During the course of that "very same kind" of initial engagement, Bolan
rejected the protection of a sympathetic police official and vowed unending
warfare against "this greater enemy." It is problematical whether or not
Bolan's vow could have strongly influenced the course of his life from that
point. The fact of the matter was that the syndicate had also declared Bolan
dead. His name was entered upon a Mafia death certificate, or "contract,"
with a face value of $100,000. It was open season on Mack Bolan and the big
hunt was on, with every ambitious hood and freelance gunman in the country
anxious to collect the bounty. So even without a personal commitment to
battle the Mafia kingdoms, Bolan would have been forced into a purely
defensive mode of warfare, with lifelong flight or imprisonment as the
alternatives.
While rationalizing his own position and formulating an offensive
posture, Bolan allowed his jungle instincts to take over. He faded from the
scene of original combat and resurfaced shortly thereafter in Los Angeles
with his battle plans firmly in mind, and he recruited a squad of former
combat buddies to carry this war to the new enemy. It was to follow this
battle plan: "We'll hit the Mafia so fast, so often, and from so many
directions they'll think hell fell on them. We steal, we kill, we terrorize,
and we take every Goddamn thing they have. Then we'll see how powerful and
well organized they are." (The Executioner: Death Squad.)
But Bolan's challenge was not only accepted by the enemy - it was taken
up also by the Los Angles Police Department, and the Los Angeles battles
became a personal tragedy which also revealed the full scope of this
seemingly futile contest against insurmountable odds. Only partially
victorious, Bolan again faded - resolving to never again involve others in
his private war with the syndicate - and again he was alone, desperately
seeking to evade police dragnets and with all the hounds of hell baying
along his trail.
On the California desert he located another battlefield friend, now a
cosmetic surgeon, who gave Bolan a new face and at least the prospect of a
new orientation to life. Again Bolan opted in the direction of duty, and he
used the new face as another combat tool, infiltrating the inner family of
Julian George with a quiet ferocity that left this Southern California
kingdom in reeling ruin. (The Executioner: Battle Mask.)
With the new face now as much a liability as the old one, the one-man
army followed a trail from the dry sands of the southwest to the glittering
beaches of Miami Beach to crash a nationwide Mafia summit conference
attended by all the families of La Cosa Nostra . A new dimension was added