Don Giorgio and Sacks had arrived!
CHAPTER NINETEEN
“Grenades!” Blade bellowed, tugging the second grenade from his pocket and pulling the pin as slugs smacked into the walls around him. He heaved the grenade into the corridor and dove for the floor.
Geronimo and Helen were just releasing their grenades at the group charging across the casino. Geronimo grunted and twisted to the right, then flattened. Helen followed suit.
The grenade in the corridor detonated first, and the cries of torment from the maimed and dying arose an instant later.
At the sight of the two grenades arching their way, the group in the casino frantically endeavored to disperse. They bumped into one another in their frenzy to escape the hurtling doom, and they were largely unsuccessful. A mere handful survived. The grenades went off in their midst— Whomp’. Whomp.’— and literally blew them to shredded pieces.
Blade crawled into the corridor, the Commando in front of him. Five or six trigger men were alive and closing. He fired, sweeping the Commando from side to side, stopping the mobsters with a withering wall of lead. As the last one fell, he jumped to his feet. “Oh me!”
Helen darted into the corridor.
Geronimo joined them, his right hand pressed against his side, grimacing. “I’m hit,” he mentioned.
“How bad?” Blade asked.
“It creased my side,” Geronimo said. “I can manage. Let’s move!”
Blade raced for a door at the far end of the hallway. He could hear his companions pounding after him. They wound past the bodies of the dead mobsters, past unattached, ruptured limbs and contorted torsos. Once he almost slipped in a puddle of gore. Some of the trigger men were groaning piteously.
One of the soldiers, a man with a gaping hole in his abdomen, clutched at Helen’s legs. She tripped, righted herself, and shot him in the mouth.
Blade was beginning to believe they would reach the door without further incident, but he was wrong. They were less than 15 feet from their goal when gunfire broke out to their rear.
The Warriors whirled, dropping to their knees.
Seven mobsters from the casino were in hot pursuit, firing as they ran.
Geronimo went prone, sighting the Browning and squeezing the trigger with a practiced economy of movement, the BAR thundering.
The leader of the pursuing pack dropped.
Helen lifted the Armalite and aimed at the next mobster. His life was momentarily spared when the carbine clicked instead of discharging.
“Empty!” she cried, discarding the Armalite and drawing her .45-caliber Caspians. She fired both automatics simultaneously, and her original target tumbled to the floor.
Blade removed his third grenade, slipping it from his left front pocket and yanking on the pin. He spied one of the mobsters doing the same thing, and he tossed his before Giorgio’s man could let fly. “Grenade!” he yelled, and sprawled onto his stomach.
The five remaining gangsters were virtually obliterated. They were packed together when both grenades exploded, one after the other. The corridor heaved and shook, plaster falling from the ceiling, dust permeating the air and obscuring the grisly remnants of the mobsters.
Blade was up and jogging to the door before the dust could settle. He distinctly heard shots from the casino, and he wondered if Don Pucci’s men were assaulting the Palace. He reached the door and wrenched it wide, finding a stairwell on the other side.
Geronimo and Helen ran to the door. Geronimo was reloading the Browning. Helen had replaced the Caspians and was slapping a fresh clip into the Armalite.
“Ready?” Blade queried.
They nodded grimly.
Blade darted into the stairwell without bothering to establish whether Giorgio’s men were already there, and he immediately regretted his foolhardiness.
Six well-armed trigger men were rounding a bend in the stairs above, halfway between the doorway and the next landing. They opened up the second they saw him.
Blade hit the floor and rolled alongside the stairs, effectively screening his body from view from above.
Geronimo and Helen, still in the corridor, provided covering fire.
The mobsters were compelled to retreat up the stairs to the landing.
All firing abruptly stopped.
Blade risked a hasty glance upward. The trigger men were not in sight.
Were they hiding on the landing, waiting for the Warriors to ascend, or had they fled? Giorgio’s men did not impress him as the craven type.
A minute elapsed.
Blade rose to a crouch and moved to the base of the stairs, his eyes on the landing.
Nothing.
Geronimo and Helen were waiting at the doorway, one on either side.
With his Commando angled upward, Blade cautiously advanced to the halfway point.
Still nothing.
Blade hesitated, chafing at the delay. Reaching the third floor swiftly was imperative. Don Giorgio’s termination was essential if Don Pucci was to triumph. Every second the Warriors dallied increased the likelihood of Giorgio escaping.
Giorgio must not get away!
His lips a compressed line. Blade moved higher. In four strides he could see the landing clearly.
The mobsters were gone.
Geronimo and Helen were waiting at the bottom of the steps.
Blade motioned for them to join him, and while they climbed the steps he inserted a new magazine into the Commando, even though the one he replaced still con-lained over a dozen rounds.
“Where did they go?” Geronimo whispered.
“Beats me,” Blade replied quietly.
“Do you hear all the gunshots coming from the casino?” Helen inquired.
Blade nodded. “Don Pucci’s men, I bet. Which means Giorgio’s soldiers in the casino will be preoccupied for a while. There could be more of his trigger men scattered throughout the building. If there are any on this next floor, I don’t care. We’ll leave them for Pucci’s men to mop up. I say we’re going directly to the third floor. Odds are, that’s where we’ll find Giorgio.”
“Then what are we waiting for?” Helen asked sharply. “I want to get my hands on that bastard!”
“Let’s go.” Blade took off up the stairwell, alertly scanning the stairs overhead for any sign of the six trigger men. They passed the landing and kept going, and only when they were almost to the next bend did he realize his blatant error.
The six mobsters had not fled. They had gone into the corridor and crouched low against the walls, waiting for their foes to open the landing door so they could gun the giant and the other two down. Their ambush was thwarted when the three continued upward, but the mobsters were equally pleased. They simply waited for the giant, the woman, and the Indian to climb a little higher, and without any warning the trigger men spilled onto the landing and blasted away.
Blade heard the landing door opening, and he tried to spin, knowing he had committed a grave mistake. Geronimo and Helen were also in motion, but they were all too late.
All three Warriors were hit.
Blade felt a searing, burning sensation in his right side. He winced, forcing his mind to disregard the pain as he returned the mobsters’ fire.
Geronimo took a slug in the left thigh. He stumbled backwards and fell, landing on his right side. Twisting, he brought the Browning to bear and squeezed the trigger.
Helen, her body at an angle, trying to reach the cover of the bend as she sighted on the trigger men, was struck twice. The first shot dug a bloody furrow in her right cheek. The second shot tore through her right shoulder just under the bone. She was bowled over by the impact, stunned for several seconds.
Blade saw two of the trigger men go down. The remainder ducked into the corridor. He could guess their strategy; they would regroup and reload, and in a minute or so they would try another sneak attack. With Geronimo and Helen both down, he couldn’t afford to wage a running firefight. He couldn’t allow the trigger men to harass them. W
ith the realization came action, a maneuver the mobsters would not be expecting.
Instead of assisting Geronimo and Helen, instead of helping them to reach the bend, he opted for, as Hickok would say, the direct approach.
He charged the landing.
One of the trigger men was at the slightly open landing door, and he shouted a warning to his fellows as the giant bounded down the steps four at a leap. He poked his shotgun through the opening.
Blade saw the shotgun barrel and fired from the hip, his burst striking the edge of the landing door, splintering and chipping the wood.
There was a gurgling screech from the far side, and the shotgun barrel disappeared.
Blade never missed a beat. He vaulted onto the landing and grabbed the doorknob, flinging the door wide.
The trigger man with the shotgun was on the floor, writhing and convulsing, miniature crimson geysers spouting from his neck and chest, the shotgun lying across his legs.
Three mobsters were left. One, on his knees, was coolly reloading a Marlin. The other two were armed with machine guns, and they automatically swung their weapons toward the doorway as the giant materialized.
Blade fired first.
The pair with machine guns were both stitched across the chest, their bodies propelled backwards to collapse on the hall floor.
Blade pivoted and lowered the Commando barrel to bag the trigger man with the Marlin.
The mobster possessed incredible reflexes. He had dropped the Marlin and sprang toward the giant in a flying tackle as his two associates were mowed down.
Blade never got off a shot. He felt strong arms encircle his legs below the knees and he was knocked backwards, losing his balance and falling, landing hard on his back.
The mobster, a powerful man with dark hair and green eyes, wearing a gray suit, released the giant’s legs and lunged, grasping the Commando.
Blade tried to jerk the Commando free, and for several seconds the two men thrashed on the landing, wrestling for control of the gun.
The mobster broke the deadlock by kneeing the giant in the nuts.
A spasm of pain caused Blade to bend forward, his privates twinging, as the man in gray rolled to the left. He saw the mobster’s right hand vanish under the gray jacket and reappear holding a 14-inch survival knife. With a monumental effort, his teeth gritting, perspiration beading his forehead, Blade heaved to his feet.
Not expecting the giant to recover so quickly, the mobster had not immediately pressed his advantage. Now he crouched, the survival knife gleaming, his wary eyes on the Commando barrel which was pointing directly at him.
Blade took a deep breath, feeling his privates returning to normal. He noted the look of defiance in the mobster’s eyes, and he admired the man’s courage.
Several seconds elapsed.
Already perplexed by the giant’s hesitation in shooting, the mobster was positively stupefied when the giant unexpectedly placed the Commando on the landing and drew the right Bowie.
“Are you any good with that toothpick of yours?” Blade asked, baiting him.
For an answer, the mobster came in fast and low, swinging the survival knife in a glistening arc.
Blade blocked the blow with a swipe of his Bowie, the two knives clanging as they struck. He backpedaled to avoid another swing, his movements slightly awkward due to lingering discomfort in his groin.
The mobster, noticing, pressed his attack.
Blade parried and evaded a skillful series of feints and jabs. He allowed himself to be forced to the railing, letting the mobster’s confidence grow.
Overconfidence bred carelessness, an adage proven time and again.
Like now.
Believing he was the superior knifeman, the mobster tried to end the fray quickly by feinting a stab at the giant’s stomach, expecting the giant to counter by lowering the Bowie and leaving his neck exposed. So the mobster feinted, then arced his survival knife upward at the giant’s throat.
Only the giant wasn’t there.
Blade had lowered the Bowie to protect his stomach, but he had also shifted to the right at the same instant. As the mobster’s arm swept the survival knife up, leaving the trigger man’s midriff completely unprotected, Blade drove his Bowie into the man’s abdomen to the hilt, then twisted.
With a strangled wheeze, the mobster stiffened and started to sag.
His enormous arms bulging, Blade used both hands to slice the Bowie from the mobster’s stomach to the sternum. He yanked the Bowie out and stepped aside.
The mobster’s eyes were wide and unfocused. His intestines and organs were bulging through the abdominal wound. He tottered forward into the railing and clutched at the top rail for support, but he couldn’t seem to get a grip on it. Slowly, so slowly, he limply sagged over the top rail, his arms flailing weakly. With a pathetic whimper he pitched over the railing.
Blade wiped his Bowie on his pants and faced the stairs leading upward. He stopped and retrieved the Commando.
Geronimo was sitting on the step below the bend, the Browning in his lap, his legs drawn inward, staunching the flow of blood from his injured left thigh with a strip of cloth torn from his shirt. He grinned. “It’s nice to see you haven’t lost your touch.”
Blade dashed up the stairs. “Can you walk?”
“I can hobble,” Geronimo responded. “But I won’t be running any marathons for a while.”
“Maybe Helen can…” Blade began, then stopped, his eyes narrowing and searching the stairs above. “Where is Helen?”
Geronimo jerked his right thumb upward. “She went after Mindy.”
“What?”
“She took off for the third floor while you were using that mobster for carving practice,” Geronimo explained.
“Damn!” Blade snapped in annoyance. “She’s not supposed to make a move without any orders.”
“She’s a woman, isn’t she?” Geronimo remarked.
“What does that have to do with anything?” Blade demanded.
Geronimo chuckled. “How can you be married and ask such a ridiculous question?” he rejoined.
“We’ve got to go after her,” Blade stated. “Here. I’ll give you a hand.” He extended his right arm.
“No,” Geronimo said. “I’ll slow you down. Go on alone. I’ll wait here.”
“You’re coming with me,” Blade declared, “and that’s final!”
“Fine by me,” Geronimo agreed, taking Blade’s arm and rising. He stared at his friend for a moment, then grinned. “Has anyone ever told you that your cheeks twitch when you’re mad?”
CHAPTER TWENTY
“Don Giorgio!” Ozzi blurted out.
Don Giorgio entered the chamber, Sacks right behind him. The Don carried his Weaver Arms Nighthawk in his left hand. Sacks was armed with a pump shotgun.
Giorgio gazed at Ozzi’s face. “What the hell happened to you? You look like you lost a collision with a cement truck.”
Ozzi wagged his Bushmaster at the Warrior on the floor. “Hickok,” he said simply.
Giorgio frowned as he looked at the Warrior. “Is he dead?”
“No,” Ozzi said. “Just unconscious.”
“Then we’ll finish the son of a bitch off before we leave,” the Don stated.
He shifted his attention to Mindy. “I want her alive.”
“I want to waste her!” Ozzi protested.
“We need her alive,” Don Giorgio reiterated. “She’s our ticket out of here. Don Pucci’s men are in the casino. They’ll be here before too long.
We’re leaving while the leaving is good.”
“Where will we go, boss?” Sacks inquired.
“I have hideouts Pucci doesn’t know about,” Don Giorgio replied. “He hasn’t won yet! I’ll reorganize and throw everything I have at him.”
“Where can Kenney be?” Sacks asked.
“We’ll worry about him later,” Giorgio said. “Right now, I need to grab my papers from my safe. You two stay put.” He walked to a door o
n the left side of the chamber and went into the next room.
Ozzi glanced at Sacks. “I want the honor of snuffing the Warrior.”
Sacks shrugged. “Suit yourself. He means nothing to me.”
Mindy gazed from one hit man to the other. “You two are despicable!”
“Listen to who’s talking!” Ozzi retorted.
“I hope I’m around when Blade catches up with you,” Mindy taunted Ozzi. “I want to see the look on your face.”
“Shut up!” Ozzi barked.
Mindy’s loathing and resentment supplanted her caution. “Big, tough man, huh?”
“I said shut up!” Ozzi growled.
“We have babies at the Home who are more manly than you’ll ever be!” she mocked him.
Ozzi took a step toward her, scowling in fury. “Keep it up, bitch!”
“Ozz!” Sacks said. “The Don needs her alive.”
“But he didn’t say I couldn’t rearrange her face a bit,” Ozzi hissed. He jabbed the Bushmaster stock at her face.
Mindy instinctively raised her hands to screen her head.
Which was the reaction Ozzi wanted. He smirked as he rammed the stock into her stomach instead.
Gasping, Mindy doubled over.
Ozzi laughed. “Want some more, scuzz?”
Mindy looked up through tears of anguish. She saw Ozzi cackling, and near the doorway Sacks was staring in disapproval at the younger button man. Sacks started to open his mouth, to say something, but the words never came out.
There was a swishing noise from behind Sacks, and a scintillating, streaking, metallic object swept into the rear of his head.
Sacks arched his back and uttered a choking, inarticulate, panting sound. His eyes bulged, his arms dropping loosely to his sides, the shotgun falling to the floor.
“Sacks?” Ozzi said in surprise.
Sacks took a single step, then keeled over, his head bending downward as he fell, revealing the rear of his cranium; his head was split open from neck to crown.
Mindy straightened in amazement as her gaze alighted on the person responsible for Sacks’s demise. “Mom!” she cried.
Helen stood in a martial-arts stance, jodan-no-kamae, her bloody machete held in the same manner as the traditional katana. Her amber hair was disheveled, her black leather vest and pants spattered with gore.
Nevada Run Page 17