Hostile Odds

“Fair enough,” Johnny replied. “I trust your instincts.”

“Let’s just hope I’m right,” the Executioner said. “I’ll be in touch.”

“Live large, bro.”

2

FBI Special Agent Jefferson Kellogg mentally rehearsed his announcement for a sixth time as he negotiated the winding drive that led to Mickey Gowan’s estate. Kellogg had warned Billy Moran to keep a low profile, and as usual the cocky Irish bastard hadn’t listened to him. Now he was dead, and Kellogg had the terrible task of breaking the news personally to Gowan.

Kellogg had no doubts about who was probably behind the hit: Matt Cooper. That guy had a habit of turning up where he was least welcome, and his nosiness didn’t set well with Kellogg. He had it under control, and he didn’t need some outsider meddling in his affairs. The fact Kellogg refused to admit he didn’t really have any control over the situation had nothing to do with it.

Kellogg parked his car, exited and tossed the keys to Gowan’s wheelman, who doubled as valet when he wasn’t chauffeuring the old man around.

“Take care of her, will you, Sid?”

The young man, who was barely twenty if he was a day, almost didn’t catch the keys but he managed to one-hand them at the last moment. Kellogg pretended not to see the dirty look Sid Harper fired his way, and a smile played across his lips as he sauntered up the flagstone steps and stabbed the doorbell. A melodious chime echoed from somewhere within and the door opened a moment later to reveal one of Gowan’s house soldiers. The guy looked unfamiliar to Kellogg.

“Yeah?” he rumbled.

Kellogg stepped inside and looked the man square in the eyes. “I don’t recognize you. New here?”

“Started last week,” he said. “Who the fuck are you?”

“I’ll take care of this, Charlie Boy,” a gravelly voice interjected.

Both men turned to see Gowan’s personal assistant, Struthers Sullivan, dance down the wide steps at the other end of the reception foyer. “Sully” bore the full Hiberno-English accent and touted himself a pureblood Irishman because he hailed from Dublin, a fact that had elevated him to his current status in the Gowan crime Family. Mickey Gowan had always tried to remain purist when it came to those in his immediate company. He had no problem hiring a Scot or other loose kinsmen, even Irish-Americans, for the “scut” work, but he made damned sure his closest advisers were as close to Irish as Irish could be.

“Well, Sully!” Kellogg said as Charlie Boy closed the heavy front door and then disappeared. “I wouldn’t have expected to find you here. I thought Mr. Gowan sent you on a long trip.”

“He did,” Sully said with a good-natured wink. “Job turned out easier than I expected so I got back early.”

Kellogg nodded, well aware of Sully’s specialty. When Gowan needed a problem taken care of permanently, he sent Struthers Sullivan. Kellogg always liked Sully, even admired him on some levels, although he didn’t trust him at all. Then again, he didn’t trust any of them—he knew what they did for a living. He’d spent his entire career putting away men like Sully until he discovered exactly how much money he could make playing for the other team. When he agreed to come over and work for Gowan, he insisted on only two things: he’d answer only to the old man, and any remuneration had to be unmarked and untraceable cash. For a guy like Mickey Gowan, neither request seemed out of line. And fifteen hundred a week to get a federal cop at Kellogg’s level in his pocket was chump change.

“Where’s the old man?” Kellogg asked.

“Upstairs with the missus,” Sully replied.

Kellogg knew what that meant. Mickey Gowan actually had three or four in his little harem, all of whom lived in different states and traveled regularly. The one here was actually his legal wife and the others simply mistresses. As Gowan had once told Kellogg, “Running an enterprise like mine leaves a guy with needs no one woman could possibly satisfy.”

“Well, I don’t want to crash his party,” Kellogg said in an all-business tone, “but I got to talk to him right away, Sully. It’s important.”

Sully jerked his head in the direction of the stairs. “Come on, I’ll take you up. They ain’t doing nothing special.”

Kellogg followed Sully to the second floor, which was as spacious and fancifully decorated as the first, and found Mickey Gowan in the entertainment room, where Gowan spent most of his time with friends and associates. The space took up the entire east wing of Gowan’s mansion, and sported the most impressive display of electronics money could buy. A custom-built HDTV with its seventy-two-inch screen and sixteen-channel surround-sound theater system took up nearly one wall. Theater-style seating branched off the central viewing area. Just beyond the seats the low-rise steps spread onto a wall-to-wall raised floor with a full wet bar and a burnished oval table that could easily seat twenty people. Massive mahogany pillars carved with intricate designs sprung up throughout the room. Contrasting honey-oak shelves ran along the exterior walls and supported wood carvings and hand-beaten metal pieces. The term rustic came to Kellogg’s mind the first time he saw this room.

A fire crackled in a free-standing brick fireplace in the middle of the room, although it had to be at least sixty degrees outside with plenty of humidity. The rumor mill had it that Gowan suffered from some malady that caused him to be cold most of the time, so the guy always kept his place like an oven. Kellogg usually needed a shower after staying in the house any length of time, although he hadn’t attributed it to the psychological component of washing away the filth that surrounded him.

Music played quietly over the hardwired entertainment system. It sounded to Kellogg like something from the River Dance, but he ignored the Gaelic-style tune. He’d heard enough of that shit to last him a lifetime. Gowan was hunched over a pool table, his bushy white eyebrows furrowed in concentration. His wife, Glenda, sat on a padded leather barstool while she nursed a sweating beer. Although nearly fifty, Gowan’s wife had the figure of a twenty-year-old, and Kellogg had to force himself to avert his eyes from the shapely legs in fishnet stockings that dangled seductively from the denim miniskirt.

Kellogg started forward and opened his mouth, but Sully put a finger to his lips and blocked the approach with a hand against Kellogg’s chest. Kellogg stopped in his tracks and bit his tongue. He folded his arms and waited at a respectful distance until Gowan took his shot. He missed banking the green No. 6 into a corner pocket by a long shot. Gowan cursed as he straightened and only then did he recognize the two arrivals.

Mickey Gowan looked at them a moment before his scowl transformed into a smile as false as that of a crooked televangelist. Kellogg didn’t trust Gowan any more than he trusted Sully, and he genuinely liked Sully. Part of it had to do with the fact Gowan treated him more like a hired hand than a partner—not that Kellogg had any high ideals about their relationship. And at least Gowan had been true to his word, which was fine as long as the old man kept the money coming.

“Jefferson, good to see you,” Gowan said. He stepped forward and extended a hand.

Kellogg took it with reticence; the old man had a slimy shake. “Sure. You too, Mickey.” He hated it when Gowan called him Jefferson. Christ, even his mother hadn’t called him that, and she’d named him.

“You want a drink?”

“No, thanks,” he said. “Mickey, I have some bad news. I think maybe you’re going to want to sit down for it.”

“I’m not a fuckin’ old man, see? I think I can take whatever you have to tell me, so out with ’er.”

“Okay,” Kellogg said, surprised at his enjoyment when he blurted, “Billy Moran’s dead.”

The room was so silent Kellogg wondered for a moment whether Gowan had heard him. Something fell in the old man’s countenance. The light went out of his azure-colored eyes, and his face went nearly the same shade of white as the shock of unkempt hair matted across his head.

“Stop the lights!” Sully cut in. “You didn’t tell me that was the news, ya yonker. Sorry, boss.”

After the old man’s lip quivered for a time, he finally said through gritted teeth, “Who? Who did this, Jefferson?”

“I don’t know yet. But I got my suspicions.”

“Who?”

“Like I said, Mickey, I don’t know—”

“I don’t give a shite! I wanna know who yer suspect!”

Kellogg felt his face flush as he replied, “Cooper…a guy named Matt Cooper.”

“Who is he?”

“I don’t know. But I think he might work for the U.S. government.”

“FBI? One of your guys?”

Kellogg shook his head. “Shit no, Mickey. If it were that simple, I’d already know about him right now. No, he doesn’t come up in anything I run his name through.”

“Well, what the hell does that mean?” Sully demanded.

“I’m not sure.” Kellogg shrugged and continued, “He could be a special operative of some kind, although black ops are technically illegal in the U.S. unless it has to do with terrorism.”

Kellogg couldn’t swear to it, but he thought he noticed a silent exchange between Sully and Gowan. Gowan was basically a glorified labor bully, with his fingers mostly into the most basic of the vices: illegal gambling, numbers and cons. He was also involved in prostitution and drugs, but Kellogg had learned to overlook that minor indiscretion. Recently, however, Gowan had got himself caught up in dealings with the Earth Liberation Front, and that little fact had started to make Kellogg nervous. Gowan wasn’t aware that Kellogg already knew about his relationship with the ELF. For the sake of plausible deniability and to protect his own interests, Kellogg decided to act as if he didn’t.

“If this guy’s onto us at all, boss, we need to get rid of him,” Sully declared.

Gowan nodded. “Ya, and it don’t mean shite to me if we can prove the bastard busted a cap on Billy or not.”

“That’s where I might be able to help,” Kellogg said.

“What do you mean?” Gowan asked.

“If he is operating illegally, then that would be enough for me to open an official investigation inside the Bureau. At best, he could be a freelancer, in which case he’s still operating illegally. And if he isn’t sanctioned and he did kill Moran then that’s homicide. We might be able to bring him in on that alone if I can get enough evidence.”

“Who’s looking into it right now?” Sully asked.

Kellogg shrugged. “Well, since it happened in Siskiyou County and Tulelake has no real police force to speak of, it will probably fall to the sheriff’s office and possibly the state if the locals call for help.”

“Naw,” Gowan said. “We’re already going to have enough cops crawling around here, and I don’t need that. Everybody knows Billy Moran was in my employ, and that’s going to bring some serious heat on my head.”

“Why didn’t you know about this guy before?” Sully asked.

“I did,” Kellogg admitted with a shrug. “But what the hell do you want me to do? I can’t just go rousting someone because he’s walking down the sidewalk.”

“That’s what you get paid for, Kellogg, to keep this kind of shit out of Mickey’s hair.”

“Never mind that!” Gowan’s face got red. “I want this matter cleared up, and I want it done in the next twenty-four. Sully, you’re in charge. Kellogg, you follow Sully’s instructions and do whatever you can to make sure this Cooper’s no longer breathing by Monday, sunrise. You think you can handle that?”

“Yes, Mickey.”

“All right, now both of you take a walk. I got some grieving to do.” A droplet of a tear had now formed at the corner of Gowan’s eye, but neither man dared comment on that. “And Sully, I want you to see to all Billy’s arrangements. We’ll make sure his old lady gets taken care of.”

“Yes, Mickey.”

“And his kids,” Gowan added. “You got that? We got to make sure we take care of Billy’s kids.”

“It’ll get done, boss.”

“And you’ll arrange it…personally?”

“Yes, Mickey.”

“All right.”

THE LUMINOUS HANDS of Mack Bolan’s watch read 0130 as he passed the city-limits sign for Timber Vale.

The road dipped down from the north side of the Siskiyou Pass, and a few winding turns brought Bolan to a level approach into Timber Vale. Traffic lights lazily winked red as Bolan slowed enough to take a look around him. He went about three blocks before the glow of a light shimmered through one of the storefront windows. Bolan pulled to the curb and watched for a moment. Three vehicles were parked directly in front of the building, which sported a decorative awning. Bolan eased his rental closer and saw Lamplighter Diner hand scrawled in paint on the glass.

It would be as good a place as any to start.

Bolan left his car and walked up the sidewalk. He checked the vehicles as he passed, verified no occupants and then pushed through the door. A bell tinkled over the squeak of door hinges as Bolan entered. Every eye in the place looked in his direction.

Bolan took an inventory. A middle-aged waitress with ash-blond hair and sun freckles greeted him with half a smile. Two burly men wearing baseball caps, one with a racing logo and the other advertising a well-known trucking firm, looked up from their beers and plates of half-eaten food. A man Bolan marked in his late sixties peered with little interest from around the edge of his newspaper. He wore a flannel coat—a bit crazy considering the heat even that time of the morning—and sported a white Fu Manchu mustache.

“Morning,” Bolan greeted them.

The old man went back to his paper, and the two men went back to their food after nodding in his direction. The waitress kept her attention on Bolan with an expression of half wariness, half interest. He walked to the other end of the counter before taking a seat in the booth where he could watch both the large window and the entrance while he kept his back to a solid wall.

“What can I get you?” the waitress asked.

Bolan thought hard a moment about just ordering coffee, but then realized he hadn’t eaten since lunch. “Got a menu?”

“Only thing Earl cooks this time of night is the special or fried chicken.” She smiled and winked. “We always got fried chicken, you know.”

“Any good?” Bolan asked.

She looked almost miffed. “Everything Earl makes is good.”

“Then in that case…”

Bolan didn’t have to finish his sentence. The waitress delivered another half smile, shouted an order to Earl in back and then poured Bolan some coffee unbidden. When she saw the Executioner’s questioning gaze, she said sheepishly, “You looked like you could use some joe. Don’t worry, it’s good, too.”

She returned the pot, cleared a few dishes and then said to him, “You new here or just passing through?”

Bolan shrugged. “Depends.”

“On what?”

“If I can find some work.”

“What do you do?”

“Little bit of everything, I guess,” Bolan said. He didn’t want to seem too obvious. He could already tell he’d garnered some attention from the two men who, having finished their meals, seemed to hang on every word of his conversation with the waitress. If he came straight out with something directly in their line of business, he might raise suspicions.

“I build houses, mostly,” he continued. “Do some electrical or plumbing work here and there.”

“Ah,” she said. “There’s always work to be had for a man who’s good with his hands.”

While the comment didn’t seem offhanded, Bolan could tell the waitress was making a show of flirting with him, particularly in front of the other pair. His eyes snapped quickly to her hand, he saw neither a wedding band nor the remnant of where she’d worn one, so either she was divorced, unmarried or nontraditional. She hadn’t made the remark to spark the two men into any type of action; they didn’t seem to care one way or another. In fact, it seemed that they had taken more than a passing interest in Bolan. Had he been followed? Were Gowan’s men on to him? If so, how had they managed to predict where he’d land?

It seemed too coincidental, but these guys were definitely more than they appeared.

“Do much working with wood?” the man in the trucker cap asked suddenly.

“Like I said, just building houses,” Bolan said.

“Never worked in a lumber mill?”

Bolan shook his head. “No, but I’m always willing to learn. Does it pay well?”

“It’s honest work,” said the man’s partner.

The first man withdrew a small card from his pocket and handed it to the waitress to pass to Bolan. “Tell you what, you show up at that address tomorrow morning and ask to talk to the lumber foreman. Louise here can give you directions. Give the foreman that card and tell him I sent you.”

“And you are?”

The man got up to leave with his partner and walked over to Bolan. He extended his hand. “Buck…Buck Nordstrom.”

Bolan held up the card with a nod. “Thanks.”

“No problem,” he said. “Grip like that and a guy your size…you’ll do a good job, I’m sure.”

With that, the two men walked out. It seemed almost too easy to the Executioner, but he decided to play it out and see how things went. Since logging and milling were the major industries in Timber Vale and he knew from casual talks at Tulelake that Mickey Gowan had his hands into everything in the town, all the odds were in his favor. He’d have to play it carefully; there was still a chance, however remote, he was about to walk into a trap.

But for now, the Executioner had his in.

3

With the waitress’s help, Mack Bolan managed to find a place to stay for the night. The shabby motel on the edge of town would make a remote and unobtrusive base of operations, but he politely declined Louise’s offer to join him. Once settled, Bolan stripped, showered and then crawled between the sheets for a few hours of sleep. The rest did him well, and he was up and moving by dawn.

Bolan dressed in his best working-man duds, a pair of jeans and plaid flannel work shirt with the sleeves rolled to the elbows, and then drove to the address on the card. He didn’t know what to expect or even whom to ask for, but that didn’t seem to matter; the three large men who met Bolan at the gate had apparently been told to expect him. One man offered to park his car. Bolan agreed without reservation, since he’d elected to pack the Beretta 93-R in a modified shoulder holster that rode high under his left armpit, its bulk concealed by the loose flannel shirt jacket, and nothing remained in the vehicle that would betray his identity. He’d even left some fast-food bags and a few empty beer cans under the seat just to reinforce the cover.

The remaining pair escorted Bolan to a security guard for sign-in and then handed him a hardhat and hearing protection. He declined the muffs with a shake of his head, but one of the men insisted it was policy. Bolan shrugged and donned the equipment. They continued through the mill, and the Executioner used the opportunity to study his surroundings. The earmuffs did a lot to decrease the piercing buzz and whine of saws cutting through massive logs. A few separate areas were crowded with workers running band saws, jigs and even a couple of lathes.

At the other end of the mill, the men escorted Bolan up a flight of metal steps to a second-story landing. They followed a catwalk that eventually terminated at a massive office with a large glass overlooking the mill floor below. An old-fashioned potbelly coal stove stood in one corner. The men showed Bolan to a seat where they indicated he could take off the safety equipment and then made their exit through a side door.

Bolan sat in one of the three chairs positioned beneath the glass window. A young woman with blond hair and blue eyes sat at a computer terminal. He detected a faint clacking sound as the secretary’s fingers almost danced over the keyboard. Other than a single furtive glance and a smile she completely ignored him. Bolan considered speaking to her, but the sound of a door opening distracted him. He looked up to see a large man step out. He had red hair, large lips, square jaw and a broad face. He stood at least six-foot-six with meaty forearms and broad shoulders, and he moved powerfully.

His face broke into a grin and he extended a hand as Bolan stood. “How ya be, laddie? Come on in.”

Bolan stepped through the doorway into an expansive office that he could only have described as a first-rate pigsty. Books and papers were strewed across a massive desk and equally large tabletop such that no part of their surfaces went untouched. The garbage can overflowed, and the room reeked of cheap whiskey and cigarette smoke. Bolan took a seat as the man wedged himself into a chair about two sizes too small between his desktop and credenza.

“The name’s Fagan MacDermott,” he began. The Irish accent when he pronounced his name left no doubts in Bolan’s mind whom MacDermott worked for. “I understand you’re new in town. Maybe lookin’ for work?”

Bolan showed him a wan smile. “Word travels fast.”

MacDermott shrugged in way of explanation and said, “No more than usual for a small town like this one.”

“I noticed you got quite a crew out there. Everybody work for the mill?”

“Hell, pal, the mill’s what keeps this town running!” MacDermott burst into laughter.

Bolan considered him uncharacteristically cheerful, but he decided not to push. Not yet. “I’m Matt Cooper. I’ve been on the road quite a bit, doing some odd jobs here and there.”

“On the run from the law?”

“No,” Bolan said.

MacDermott fished a cigarette from the pack on his desk, lit it, then sat back in his chair and studied Bolan through a cloud of smoke.

The Executioner remained impassive. He got the impression that if he’d said he was on the run, it probably wouldn’t make any difference but he decided not to make it up as he went along. He wasn’t working this one for Stony Man and thus he didn’t have time to put a real cover in place. If MacDermott decided to look into his criminal history, he figured it was better not to state he had one and then have to explain later why “Matt Cooper” not only had no record, but also had no fingerprints on file.

“It don’t make no difference if you got something to hide,” MacDermott said. “Best to be honest with me, Coop.”

“I’ve got nothing to hide,” Bolan said with a sigh. “And I’m not running from the law. Just looking for maybe a place to settle down. Sleeping and eating out of my car gets a bit old after a while.”

MacDermott studied Bolan a moment longer, and then leaned forward and tapped his smoke into a beanbag ashtray. “Yeah, I’m sure it does. Okay, so you’re not on the lam and you ain’t done nothing to be guilty for, and that’s good enough for me. You see, I trust my people and expect loyalty in return. Who sent you?”

“A guy named Buck Nordstrom.”

MacDermott took another long drag and then stubbed out his smoke in the overflowing ashtray. “Yeah, Nordstrom’s a pretty good guy for a Swede. Not much for inside milling, but he’s a hell of a powder monkey.”

Bolan recognized the term for an explosives man. “Done a bit of that myself in times past.”

“Oh, yeah? When’s that?”

“Military.”

MacDermott nodded, but it didn’t seem to impress him one way or another. “Well, afraid I got no use for another explosives guy. How you think you could handle a position as a chaser?”

“Sorry, not up on these logging terms yet.”

“You’d work on the yarding line…that’s basically where they bring the logs into the mill here. You’d be responsible for disconnecting the chokers and seeing the logs get onto the right conveyers. It’s a tough job, but it’s what I got and you look big enough to handle it.”

“I’ll give it a shot.”

“Fine, pal, that’ll be just fine.” He lit another cigarette before adding, “How you want to be paid?”

“I prefer cash,” Bolan said.

That brought a smile to MacDermott’s face. “You know what? I do, too! You’re hired.”