The Executioner #18: Texas Storm

The Executioner #18: Texas Storm, by Don Pendleton

March, 1974  Pinnacle Books

By this 18th installment of The Executioner hero Mack Bolan is essentially a superhero; he plows through the Mafia presence in Texas without breaking a sweat, coming off like such a figure of myth that there’s even a bizarre bit where Bolan, in his black commando suit and with grenades and guns and etc dangling from his shoulders, walks into a hotel and starts talking to the receptionist while the hotel guests scramble in fear at the sight of The Executioner himself. I mean no one calls the cops or anything…but then even if they did, the cops would probably pat Bolan on the back. 

I mean that’s the sort of series Don Pendleton is writing at this point. Literally nothing is hard for Mack Bolan anymore, despite the tension Pendleton tries to develop. Hal Brognola, the “head Fed” who is supposed to be bringing Bolan down, is literally chauffered around Dallas by Bolan himself while the two men discuss the Mafia’s latest plan. There’s also a go-nowhere subplot about the “Bolan bunch,” a team of (supposedly) hardbitten Mafia exterminators, who are serving as the new Talifero brothers (ie the previous Mafia killsquad that was after Bolan in earlier volumes), and Bolan constantly makes them look like fools. He’s not even concerned by their presence, seeing them mainly as a nuissance. At this point we’re basically in the same sort of vibe as The Destroyer, but it’s sort of more funny here because you can tell Pendleton doesn’t have his tongue in his cheek. He means it, man. 

There’s no real pickup from the previous volume, but we’re immediately informed that we’re in a new, superhero-esque tone for The Executioner in that Bolan now has his own personal pilot: this would be Jack Grimaldi, a former Mafia pilot who went over to Bolan’s side in a previous volume. The last installment ended with Bolan taking a nap as Grimaldi headed his plane elsewhere; Texas Storm opens some indeterminate time later, with Bolan again in a plane piloted by Grimaldi, but he’s not taking a nap, he’s ready to stage an assault on a Mafia hardsite in the Texas midlands. And the action scenes that ensues follows previous ones, with Bolan all-too-easily wading through superior numbers with his Auto Mag and Beretta pistols, blasting hapless Mafia stooges to hell. 

The thing is, we don’t really get an idea why Bolan is here. He suspects something rotten with the oil business, but it takes almost the entire novel to find out what exactly it is. The main thing is that here Bolan saves a nude and stacked gal (presumably a blonde, per Gil Cohen’s cover) named Judith Klingman, who is being kept drugged and locked away by the Mafia. Judith’s dad is a famous oil baron or somesuch; Pendleton delivers some of his lovably-goofy dialog here, with Bolan and Judith discussing things in the safety of a hotel later on. One thing I’ve noticed is that Pendleton will introduce some gimmick in the narrative or dialog and hammer it past the point of being funny; for example, Judith and Bolan, apropos of nothing, start discussing things in football terms. For like a few pages. 

Another recurring gimmick Pendleton uses throughout Texas Storm is referring to “numbers” Bolan is always up against. “The numbers were running down,” and etc, etc, to the point that it gets annoying. I mean the guy has a template and he’s sticking to it. But unlike Mack Bolan, Don Pendleton was not a superhero, so one can understand his struggling to keep up with the writing pace Pinnacle Books put on him. It’s just that Texas Storm seems to be building and building to something, but various subplots are just dropped (Judith Klingman flat-out disappears from the narrative after this opening scene, only to show up again at the very end), and when climactic events do happen, Bolan waltzes through the situation with nary a concern. 

I mean take that Bolan Bunch deal. So there’s a lot of buildup, these new Mafia killers, coming down to Texas to get Bolan, etc. As soon as the bastards show up, we have one of those series staples where Pendleton writes things from the mobster point of view, and “that bastard Bolan” swoops out of nowhere and ambushes them. But this time it’s particularly goofy. Bolan, hanging on a telephone poll and in a worker uniform, shoots at these guys from half a mile away and they’re all panicking as he blasts apart the house -- but doesn’t kill any of them. I mean seriously. Bolan at this point is like a cat toying with a mouse. Pendleton tries his best to explain away why Bolan doesn’t kill these guys, something about how instilling fear is just as important, etc. It’s kind of lame. It’s also humorous to imagine a guy just hanging on a telephone pole and blasting away at a big house half a mile away and no one even calls the cops on him. But then again, the cops would probably show up and provide cover support for him. 

The plot is pretty prescient, though. Bolan, with his usual omnipotence in regards to the inner workings of the Mafia, eventually gets wind of “Flag Seven,” a plan started by oil man Klingman (apparently), which has something to do with Texas becoming a separate country. There are “extremists” today who are pushing for that very thing, but the irony here is that the Mafia has taken over Klingman’s plan mostly due to the ownership it would give them of Texas oil. It was interesting to read all this from the perspective of our era…though on a side note, I did see something the other week that made me laugh out loud, and I wish I’d taken a photo of it. There was a truck outside of someone’s house, a Tesla-branded truck that was there to set up the electric charging station or whatever in the person’s home…and folks, the Tesla-branded truck was a standard gasoline engine truck. I mean that pretty much said it all, and damn I wish I’d taken a photo. 

Well anyway, that’s the plot of Texas Storm, as exposited for us in the long scene where Bolan drives Brognola around Dallas. Also I have to say, at no point did I get the impression that Pendleton had ever been to Dallas; there was no attempt at bringing the city or its environs to life, and the book could just as easily have taken place anywhere else. Bolan doesn’t even spend any time with many locals; both Klingman senior and his busty daughter are minor presences in the book. The latter as mentioned only returns in the final pages…where Bolan, again apropos of nothing, apparently decides he wants to get laid (because how many volumes has it been?). He then makes insinuating comments to Judith that he needs a “nurse” for some “r&r,” even specifying that he needs this nurse for “three days.” While Judith says she isn’t a nurse, she’s all for the “r&r” point, so I guess we’re to assume there’s some boinkery in the Executioner’s future. Not that Pendleton tells us about it, for the novel ends here. 

The most interesting thing about Texas Storm is how it’s all such a cakewalk for Mack Bolan, even though Pendleton tries his hardest to make it all seem tense. But Pendleton constantly undermines his own tension. Like there’s another part, toward the end, where a big deal is made out of all the “electronic” sensors and stuff the Mafia has set up around a hardsite to keep the Executioner at bay. But Bolan, again dropped off by Grimaldi, blows through all this stuff with such ease that we’re only told about it in passing. Hell, even the majority of the Bolan Bunch is wiped outt off-page. “It was [Bolan’s] kind of fight,” Pendleton states a few times in the narrative. To the point that you wonder what kind of fight isn’t his kind. 

But at this point, 18 volumes in, you pretty much know what you’re getting with The Executioner. I did feel that Pendleton was a bit “off” with this particular installment, though.