Blood Testament by Don Pendleton Page A

in stone. "He's given me two days. The sit-down was his price."
    "You made the deal. You call it off."
    "I can't do that. Considering the so-called evidence, this meeting is the only thing that's kept me on the street. You need me on the outside if we're going to make this work."
    And Bolan couldn't get around his logic. The abductors would not deal with intermediaries if Brognola was arrested. Bolan needed time in which to rattle cages, turn the heat up under Nicky Gianelli and his outfit, but the time could only be obtained through Hal's negotiations with the enemy. If he should disappear, break contact suddenly, his family was as good as dead.
    The news of an impending sit-down with the President had taken Leo Turrin by surprise, as well. Before the Executioner could grudgingly consent, the former mafioso blurted out a cautionary warning.
    "I don't like it," he declared. "It's got the makings of a setup."
    Bolan smiled. "I don't think so," he said at last. "Okay, confirm the meet and give me the coordinates. I want it somewhere public, where I won't get claustrophobia."
    "No problem." Hal was on his feet, already moving toward the kitchen and the telephone. He hesitated in the doorway, cleared his throat again. "Uh, Striker..."
    Bolan heard it coming, moved to squelch the words of gratitude. "It's premature," he said. "Let's see what happens."
    With a thoughtful nod, Brognola disappeared. A moment later they heard his muffled voice in conversation on the telephone.
    "I didn't know about this meeting," Turrin told him.
    "Forget it. If the Man was working on a scam, he'd have the troops outside right now. I'm just concerned about the wasted time."
    And time was one commodity that they were short of at the moment, Bolan realized. Within the hour, Hal would be receiving his instructions for delivery of the information, stalling if he could, and listening to threats against his family. The Executioner had never seriously entertained the thought that Hal would fold, deliver names of undercover officers and witnesses in hiding, but he was afraid of the alternatives. The guy might crack, agree to the delivery with an eye toward laying hands on someone he could squeeze for information. In his emotional state, Brognola might react with violence that would doom himself and seal his family's fate — unless he had the nerve to sit and wait, ride out the threats and anything that followed, placing all his faith in Bolan and the Executioner's ability to turn the heat on his enemies.
    There was an outside chance that Gianelli's family had no hand in the abduction, but it didn't matter in the long run. Nothing on this scale could happen in a capo's jurisdiction if he had not granted his approval. Gianelli was the key, regardless of his personal involvement in the plot. If he was innocent, so much the better; it would make him that much more inclined to cut his losses and reveal the guilty parties once he felt the heat of Bolan's wrath.
    Whoever was behind the scam, they had been making use of Gianelli's Washington connections, and from all appearances the tentacles at Justice had been long enough to touch Brognola where he lived. It would be part of Bolan's mission to identify those tentacles, to search them out and sever them before their probing grip became a stranglehold.
    If he was not too late.
    The recent revelations of corruption in the FBI and NSA had shaken confidence in national security, but random spies imparting information to the Soviets were few and far between. The greater risk by far was the domestic threat of infiltration and subversion by the native cannibals who had so much to gain by undermining honest government: the lobbyists who lavished cash and gifts on pliant legislators; corporation presidents who kicked through with illegal contributions in the nick of time; the manicured mobsters standing ready with their payoffs and assorted favors in return for service rendered — venal politicians, outlaw businessmen, and