Baltimore Trackdown by Don Pendleton Read Free Book Online Page A

the kitchen and bummed a roast-beef sandwich and coffee, pleading that he had not eaten on the plane.
    The Executioner met Nino Tattaglia in the hall and the turned-around hoodlum’s mouth dropped open in surprise.
    Bolan came up quickly. “Hi, I’m Lonnie Giardello. Just down from Boston to watch the Bolan fight.”
    “Yeah. I’m Nino Tattaglia,” he said, his face still showing surprise.
    “Didn’t I used to know some of your people in Brooklyn? Bunch of Tattaglias up there. There was a Joe and Frank, as I remember. Any of your people?”
    “Not that I know of. Need a guide around this place?”
    “I could use one.”
    They talked quietly then.
    “What the fuck are you doing? Half the town is looking for you and you charge in here!”
    “I was invited. Best way. I see you got away from that motel room before the cops arrived.”
    “Yeah, barely. Somebody saw me. At least nobody in the family suspects me. Thanks for that.”
    “Who killed the girl?”
    “Big Jake, the guy you wasted first. He enjoyed it, the bastard!”
    “Any way I can look in the weapons room? You have one here?”
    “Sure. No one man runs it. Usually it’s locked. Let’s go check it out.”
    It was in the basement next to the recreation room. Several of the pool players looked up and waved when Nino came in. He talked to a couple of them for a minute.
    “The weapons room open? Wanted to show our loaner around.”
    The men laughed, and the one Bolan had talked to first unlocked it. “We got in a special order this morning,” he said. “Look at these beauties!”
    Spaced out on a workbench on clean wipe towels lay three Uzi submachine guns.
    “Damn!” Bolan said. “They full-auto?”
    “As full as you can get. They forgot to send us any ammo, but it should be here tomorrow.”
    Bolan picked up one of the stubby little submachine guns that had been developed by the Israelis from the Czech models 23 and 25 chatter-guns years ago. It was still one of the most effective in the world.
    He slipped out the 32-round magazine that would hold the 9 mm parabellums and whistled.
    “What we could do with these in Boston!”
    “Get your own,” Nino said.
    The other Mafia soldier laughed and returned to the pool game. It was his shot.
    Bolan picked up a tool off the bench and went to work on one of the Uzis. In two minutes he had stripped off enough parts so he could remove the firing pin. He reassembled it and did the same thing to the next one. Just as he finished that one, two more soldiers came in to look at the new weapons.
    As they fawned over the Israeli burp guns, Bolan planted another cube of C-4 plastique under a case of ammunition. This one had been set for detonation by a transmission on the second radio channel. The triggering device in Bolan’s suitcase looked like a radio the size of a pack of cigarettes.
    Nino and Bolan eased out of the room, watched the pool game and then wandered outside.
    “You are crazy!” Nino said. “The first time they try to shoot those weapons they’ll find out they have no firing pins.”
    “Let’s hope it isn’t too soon. Right now I need you to show me three more vital spots where I can hide these little surprise packages of C-4.”
    “Plastic explosives? Just be sure to tell me before you light the damn fuses.”
    They put the other three plastic bombs in hidden places around the mansion. The last one went in a small niche in the wall opposite Nazarione’s office.
    They walked outside in the soft Maryland evening.
    A horn bellowed on the ground.
    “Bolan alert!” Nino explained. “Let’s go!”
    They ran for the crew wagon near the basement door. Bolan got in the first car and Nino the second. When they were filled, the big Cadillacs roared out the driveway, barely waiting for the gate to completely open before racing through.
    “Where is he?” Bolan asked the Mafia soldier wedged in the back seat next to him.
    “Damned if I know,” he said.
    The driver explained that some big