The Executioner (book Series) - Mafia Wars

Mafia Wars

Bolan was a weapons specialist and skilled armorer. He was serving his second tour of duty in Vietnam as a sniper, where he scored 97 confirmed kills, when he returned home on leave to the United States following news of the death of his parents, Sam and Elsa, and younger sister, Cynthia (Cindy), and the critical wounding of his younger brother, Johnny.

Sgt. John Pappas, Pittsfield Police Department, informed Bolan loan sharks of a local Mafia "family" (familia), controlled by Sergio Frenchi (in the guise of a legitimate business, Triangle Loan Company) had been intimidating and harassing his family, as well as luring his seventeen-year-old sister into a life of prostitution, under the control of Leo ("The Pussy") Turrin, a top Frenchi lieutenant. When Sam Bolan learned this, he committed a triple-murder/suicide, which only the fourteen-year-old son, Johnny, survived, telling big brother Mack the truth. Bolan decided his war with the "real" enemy was at home and not on the battlegrounds of Vietnam.

Bolan's response was characteristically direct, shooting down three members of Triangle Loan in broad daylight, but leaving just enough doubt he was involved Pappas could not arrest him. He also stole Mafia money (destroying "loan" records as he did so), using it to finance his own efforts, and in the process earned a measure of public sympathy. Then, in a brazen move that would become characteristic, he offered his services to the same Leo Turrin who "turned out" Cindy Bolan. As Bolan began tearing down Frenchi's empire, Turrin revealed he was, in fact, an undercover Federal agent who had tried to protect Bolan's sister, and the two became allies. Soon, they would be best of friends. In the process, Bolan was aided by Valentina "Val" Querente, who would be the love of his life. In the aftermath, a $100,000 open contract was issued for Bolan's head.

After his surprise victory over the Frenchi Family, Bolan made his way to California, where he hoped to find former Army doctor Jim Brantzen. Instead, he fell into an ambush, and only by reluctantly enlisting aid from his sniper team's former scout, George "Zitter" Zitka, did Bolan escape. Zitka persuaded a hesitant Bolan to recruit a team of former Vietnam veterans, what Bolan would dub his Death Squad: Zitka, Jim "Gunsmoke" Harrington, scout Tom "Bloodbrother" Loudelk, sniper Mark "Deadeye" Washington, demolitions man Bill "Boom Boom" Hoffower, heavy weapons specialists Angelo "Chopper" Fontinelli and Juan "Flower Child" Andromede, communications and electronic intelligence expert Herman "Gadgets" Schwartz, and camouflage expert Rosario "The Politician" Blancanales. (Only Gadgets Schwartz and Pol Blancanales would survive.) The team would take on Julian "Deej" DiGeorge's Los Angeles Mafia, uncovering a scheme of record piracy in the process. They would also encounter the first "Bolan Task Force", Operation Hardcase. This was headed by Captain Tim Braddock, LAPD (who would be converted to a Bolan ally before the battle was over, no longer convinced Bolan was the maniac he was portrayed by media), and manned by, among others, Sgt. Carl Lyons (whose life Bolan would save from Chopper Fontinelli, naming Lyons a "soldier of the same side") and crooked cop Lt. Charlie Rickert (who Bolan would also leave alive, calling even a bent cop a "soldier of the same side").

Bolan fled to the California desert and the Palm Village clinic of former Army doctor and former colleague, Jim Brantzen. Brantzen, a plastic surgeon, gave Bolan a new face, one that resembled a former buddy, Frank Lambretta. In escaping pursuit, Bolan would be aided by police chief Robert "Ghengis" Conn. Bolan immediately used his new face to infiltrate the DiGeorge mob, posing as a top-level enforcer Frankie Lambretta (nicknamed "Lucky" for his alleged near-miss encounter with Bolan), using Blancanales' lessons in role camouflage, which would become a Bolan trademark. "Lambretta" soon became Deej DiGeorge's trusted lieutenant (feeding information to Lyons) and lover to DiGeorge's daughter, Andrea. In the meantime, enforcer Louis "Screwy Looey" Pena found the flaw in Bolan's "'Lucky' Lambretta" story, and tortured Brantzen to death (reduced to a "turkey") to discover Bolan's new face. In response, Bolan would shatter the DiGeorge familia.

Leaving Los Angeles, Bolan made his way to Miami, where a conclave rivalling the 1957 Apalachin Meeting was taking place. It would be his first strike against the national organization, rather than just individual familia, and in a forty-eight hour period, Bolan delivered a substantial shock. In Miami, Bolan would first encounter the Commissione's top enforcers, twin brothers Pat and Mike Talifero, and the de facto capo di tutti capi, Augie Marinello; all three would be encountered many more times afterward. Bolan would also be introduced to Harold "Hal" Brognola, head of a Mafia task force, who would offer him a "hunting licence", which Bolan would refuse, saying the government should not be associated with his illegal crusade.

Prodded northward by Brognola's dossier as well as rumors of narcotics smuggling out of Dulles Airport, Bolan would meet an ambush, instead, and escape to France. It would mark the first of only three overseas campaigns in the Mafia War, and of only five not in North America proper. There, he encountered the ambitions of the Mafia "ambassador", Thomas "Monzoor" Rudolfi. Bolan shattered Rudolfi's Algerian white slavery racket, and was met with treachery. Rudolfi's boss, Arnesto "Arnie the Farmer" Castiglione (who Bolan would encounter again) sent "Quick Tony" Lavagni to oversee a "Judas kiss" from a disabled Vietnam vet turned numbers banker Wilson Brown. Trapped in a waterfront ambush, encircled by French police and mafiosi, Bolan would instead find an ally in Brown, whose courage returned at the last instant. And Rudolfi's encounter with even a wounded Bolan would prove to much for the mafioso to survive.

Fighting clear of France, Bolan began the England phase with a kinky sex club, run by Ann Franklin (who became an ally and lover to Bolan) and Edwin Charles, and a discovery of blackmail of Members of Parliament. This also marked the rise of Leo Turrin to national Mafia status, being deputized by Marinello (at the suggestion of New York capo Joe Staccio) to offer Bolan a deal not unlike Brognola's, if a vengeful Castiglione's team of hitmen, under "Nick Trigger" Woods, did not get to "that bastard Bolan" first. Fatigue and desperation brought Bolan to the verge of suicide, but an immediate threat, and his habitual deadly response, turned the trick. It was in London, after surviving this encounter, Bolan discovered he had inherited a superb weapon, the .460 Weatherby that would become his trademark long arm. In the storm after Bolan found Charles tortured, another "turkey", Castiglione and Woods would be killed and the London racket smashed. In London, too, were the first rumblings of something bigger still, the cosa di tutti cosa ("thing of things"), to which Turrin tipped Bolan.

Freddie Gambella, capo to one of New York's Five Families, had begun putting the cosa di tutti cosa into action, buying judges and perhaps even a Senator, possessing clout reminiscent of Vito Corleone. Gambella, along with Marinello and other Manhattan capi, hoped Bolan would try an attack on their stronghold, believing it would lead to his inevitable doom. With his next stroke, he did. Met at the airport by Sam "The Bomber" Chianti with a dozen hardguys, Bolan shot his way clear, though wounded, with the aid of three women—Paula Lindley, Rachel Silver, and Evie Clifford—and a fortuitous helicopter. Clifford would become another "turkey", and Bolan's New York blitz would leave over thirty mafiosi dead, along with the corrupt politicians Gambella had bought.

Chicago, "The Loch Michigan Monster", had been one of the most corrupt cities in the U.S. since the days of Capone and Prohibition. Bolan could no more ignore it than stop breathing. He took on Arturo "Don Gio" Giovanni and "Joliet Jake" Vecci, with intelligence from the files of reform-minded attorney Leopold Stein, who the Chicago Outfit had been unable to frighten into silence, despite crippling him. Stein's files would continue to be invaluable for the rest of Bolan's War against the Mafia. In Chicago, too, Bolan would reprise his masterful role camouflage, infiltrating Vecci's headquarters to wire the phones and, ultimately, make provocative calls playing one mafia faction against another.

After his experiences in Miami and Chicago, Bolan began to realize the Mafia was like a hydra, or like the Viet Cong: for every soldier he killed, there could be ten, or one hundred, to fill the vacancy, and there was no way he could hope to win on that basis. Instead, he struck at the Mafia's biggest vulnerability, money, as he had done in smaller ways in Pittsfield and elsewhere. In the open city of Las Vegas, protected by Joe "The Monster" Stanno, millions of dollars in "skim" were generated. Bolan would snatch $250,000 in an attack that was almost routine, until he came upon a battered Carl Lyons, late of LAPD, on loan to Brognola. The "Caribbean carousel" Lyons had uncovered could just as well serve a revived cosa di tutti cosi, and Las Vegas hosted the beginnings of a plan to dominate the entertainment industry in a way even Frank Nitti and Willie Bioff (soon joined by Lepke Buchalter, "Lucky" Luciano, and Longy Zwillman), with the manipulation of the projectionists' and performers' unions in the 1930s, could not have dreamed. They were faced down by ethnician and standup comic (and undercover fed) Tommy Anders, assisted by federal agents Georgette Chebleu, Sally Palmer, Smiley Dublin, and Toby Ranger. (Toby Ranger would reappear twice more.) The opposition, in a measure of Las Vegas' importance, was led by the Talifero brothers, while Brognola (reluctantly but dutifully) ramrodded Justice's efforts to bring Bolan in. Bolan survived (thanks to the aid of ace flyer Jack Grimaldi, whose assistance Bolan would call on again), but Stanno was killed, Pat Talifero was rendered a vegetable, and Brognola was wounded.

On the reception committee at Glass Bay, Puerto Rico, was heir presumptive to Arnie the Farmer's Commissione seat, "Quick Tony" Lavagni (last seen in Continental Contract), as well as contenders Jack "Weenie" Scarbo and Big Gus Riappi. Bolan's Mafia money, liberated along with Lyons, went up in flames, but he rescued undercover fed Evita Aguilar from Vince Triesta. He was soon prompted to rescue other temporary allies and restored to contact with Grimaldi, who had now become a full-fledged ally, breaking Lavagni's trap (and killing him in the process). Along the way, he dismantled the new incarnation of the cosa di tutti cosi.

Rumbles in San Francisco brought The Executioner into contact with the Chinatown tongs, and the enigmatic Mary Ching, retired federal agent, freelance spy, and (as might be expected) Bolan lover. Along with efforts to dominate the city's pornography industry, there were rumors of a Mafia alliance with the People's Republic of China (a possibility that resurfaced later), an attempt by tottering Don Roman DeMarco to defend against inter-family war between Franco Laurentis, Vincenzo Ciprio, and Thomas Vericci. Aid from the tong boss Daniel Wo Fan did nothing to help, and Bolan toppled DeMarco for good.

Boston had been in chaos, from an organized crime point of view, since the 1960s, when Bo Bo Binaca was supplanted by Irish mobs, who themselves self-destructed, leaving the field to the Middlesex Combination, led by Harold "Skipper" Sicilia, labor racketeer Manfredo "Manny the Clock" Greco, and disbarred lawyer Terencio "Books" Figarone. Entry of Bolan into this situation was the last thing they wanted; the kidnapping of Johnny Bolan and Val Querente, engineered by Sicilia, assured it. In an intensely personal campaign, Bolan unleashed a fury the likes of which the Mafia had never seen before his hostages were returned, safe, with the co-operation of a Commissione troubleshooter, "Al 88". Bolan vowed never again to permit them to come to hazard.

The very existence of "Al 88" suggested bigger trouble in the offing, and an apologetic Brognola confirmed it, calling on Bolan to come to DC. Mysterious deaths, disappearances, and resignations led to unspoken fears of conspiracy (and the Watergate scandal would substantiate some of them). Bolan found the London system, sex for blackmail, restored and improved in the hands of Gus Riappi underboss Carlo Spinella, with Mafia widow Claudia Vitale, ostensibly aid to Rep. Harmon Keel, acting as bagwoman. Spinella answered to Comissione rep J. A. "Lupo" Carrico, faceman of the Institute for Minority Action Group Encounters, heir to Joe Columbo's Italian-American Civil Rights League. The Executioner's response, as it had been in Puerto Rico and Chicago, was to treat the corrupt aides and politicians no differently than mafiosi, which led to a public relations backlash for the first time. Carrico would exploit it, using one of the Taliferi, "Faces" Tarazini, to masquerade as Bolan. To restore his reputation, Bolan had to cripple the new cosa di tutti cosi, the takeover of a Caribbean nation in the fashion Chicago had long since been corrupted, in the process uncovering Keel's treason and the triple identity of "Al 88", "Lupo" Carrico, and the "dead" "Smilin' Jack" Vitale.

The ghosts of Los Angeles would awaken, when Schwartz and Blancanales' Able Group (an allusion to Bolan's team in Vietnam) stumbled into trouble deeper than expected, and Bolan again was forced to contradict his rule of not involving allies. There were other echoes of Vietnam, in the form of his former commanding officer, Colonel "Howlin' Harlan" Winters, who Bolan found dead by his own hand in an early intelligence probe. Bolan was reunited with his old friends, and Blancanales' sister, Toni, who (no surprise now) became Bolan's lover. Bolan and company promptly "liberated" US$105,000 from DiGeorge heir apparent Ben Lucasi, adding fuel to the fire in Lucasi's conflict with Anthony "Tony Danger" Cupaletto. Schwartz's electronic magic had discovered Lucasi's plan to use sophisticated military surveillance equipment, declared "defective" and provided by Winters employee Maxwell Thornton, to tap results from Mexican horse racing tracks and "steal a march" on the Chicago Mafia, which traditionally controlled this racket. (A similar scheme would resurface in the week before Bolan's "death" in # 38, Satan's Sabbath.) Bolan freed Thornton from Lucasi's blackmail, almost casually broke Lucasi's narcotics ring, and left the race track scheme in ruins and the San Diego Mafia shattered, yet again.

Philadelphia was next on Bolan's hit parade. He found a new kind of import, Mafia soldiers "rented" by Old World dons, being systematically trained to blend into the U.S. culture. Aging don Stefano Angeletti was using the imports to prop up his heir, Frank "the Kid", who (despite having conceived the scheme) was seen as lacking in courage and ingenuity: "with no legs", in the Mafia idiom. Nor did they come in ones and twos, as they had traditionally, but in large numbers, called gradigghia. Bolan met them with the full fury of his talents, honed by Hoffower and Andromede, achieving a victory, if only a temporary one. In the process, he came into intelligence on the arrival of Talifero hitman Johnny Cavaretta and, despite police and Mafia pursuit, amid the chaos, "displayed incredible audacity by seeking refuge within the Angeletti camp". He executed Cavaretta and, with astonishing nerve, assumed the wild card's identity, "Bolan's greatest stroke of role camouflage since Palm Springs". The very anonymity the wild cards enjoyed working in Bolan's favor; here, for the first time, was seen the marker, the calling card, the only sure way to identify the Taliferi's most proficient enforcers, the deadly "Black Ace". It was later revealed a Black Ace had almost unlimited power, able even to unseat the head of a Mafia family on his own authority. Cavaretta carried the ace of spades. In the role of the Taliferi, Bolan, as he had in Palm Springs, claimed he had killed The Executioner, and the "assistance" on the way from Augie Marinello in New York was, in fact, a "hostile takeover". Leading the delegation from La Commissione was Leo Turrin, whom Bolan extracted before the lethal crossfire (to which he added fuel, assuring underbosses Carmine Drasco and Jules Sticatta the imported guns were actually invaders) became a firestorm. In the process, he added yet another chapter to Turrin's own growing legend as the only man to have seen The Executioner face to face and live.

The arrival of genuine Taliferi headhunters left Bolan thrice wounded as he fled into New Jersey. The wounded Bolan found trouble, falling afoul of a crooked doctor who had lost his licence for performing illegal abortions, and was drugged; only Bolan's sheer determination enabled him to escape into Manhattan, where he again found an ambush, and the help of the ubiquitous Leo Turrin. A firefight in a major hospital was followed by Bolan's departure for Napoli, flying out of Teterboro unusually without "Terrifying Flying Service"'s Jack Grimaldi at the controls. It marked just Bolan's third excursion outside the U.S., and his second to Europe. He immediately struck Don Tronfio Frode's famiglia hard, starting a blitzkrieg down the length of Italy and into Sicily, where he found the source of the gradigghia in the territory of Don Cafu. His blitz of Agrigento left Don Cafu's familia in ruin. Bolan would leave Sicily by way of Algiers, taking a swipe at the white slave trade (last visited in Continental Contract {#5}) en route.

Returning home via New Jersey, whence he had come, the seriously wounded Bolan was aided by Bruno Tassily, a medic whom he had encountered in Vietnam, and his sister, Sara (who would, no surprise, become Bolan's lover) By assisting him, the Tassilys attracted attention of Taliferi, who ignored Bolan's lethal efforts at distraction and snatched the siblings. Bolan managed to rescue Sara, but despite adopting the guise of a Black Ace and personal envoy to Mike Talifero, was unable to prevent Bruno from being reduced to another "turkey" torture victim. Responding with a storm of fire, Bolan struck back at a Mafia conference then in progress, maiming capo Augie Marinello (then uncharacteristically letting him go) and finally killing Mike Talifero.

Texas was next on the agenda. Amidst a national energy crisis, Bolan found a Delaware corporation, International Bankers Holding Corporation, which was nothing but a front funded by Italian and French Mafia money with the connivance of a radical sheikh, under the supervision of La Commissione henchman Bobby "Butch Cassidy" Cassiopea out of Detroit. IBH had corrupted oilman and staunch patriot Arthur Klingman, who opposed federal energy policy and hatched a scheme to monopolize American oil.

Bolan would continue his one man battle against different Mafia and Mafia-controlled organizations throughout the country for twenty-one more books. His successes in breaking up various Mafia operations (mainly by killing the leadership and most of the local muscle) were attributable to his use of a mix of stealth & infiltration and military-style attacks, including heavy weapons (grenades, mortars, automatic weapons, missiles, sniper rifles) plus his excellent marksmanship with rifles and handguns. His own during the "Mafia Wars" was a marksman's medal on or near his victims, an idea borrowed from earlier characters in pulp fiction.

During his campaigns against the mafia, which he refers to as his "Mafia Wars," Bolan vows to "Shake their house down." He uses such aliases as Lambretta and Omega in conjunction with a laminated playing card, an ace of spades.