The first priority was driving Bolan out of Hartford, toward the killing ground. It would be simple, really; he was pointed in the general direction now, and one more solid shove should see him on the road. Precision timing would be necessary, but what else was new? The hunter had the target covered, knew his every move before it was made. He was certain, now, that Bolan would seek cover. Someplace safe to puzzle through the meaning of the business card. Someplace to hide.
The hunter knew Bolan's lair already, had discovered it when the quarry led him there. A firm believer in reconnaissance, the Executioner had made a point of casing Giulianno's property in Hartford, driving by the would-be capo's house, his restaurant command post, the businesses in which he held controlling interests. During one such pass, the hunter, on a stakeout of his own, had recognized his prey and given chase. Discreetly. Cautiously. Unlike this evening, when Bolan had been meant to see, that time the soldier had never guessed that he was being followed back to the safe house he had rented in suburban Newington.
The hunter knew his address now, the alias he was using in Connecticut. He could have punched up the soldier's number on any telephone and spoken to him, man-to-man. But he restrained himself, preferring stealth to amateur theatrics. He did not wish simply to kill the Executioner; he could have done that tonight, or half a dozen other times in the past three days. The hunter had a point to make. If he failed in that, then all the rest was bullshit, anyway.
He had to take the Executioner in Pittsfield, at the scene of his initial murders. He had to make it clear, to Bolan before he died and to the world, precisely who had defeated the Executioner, and why. Exposure posed no danger for him; he had given up the family name years before, when he enlisted with the Corps. Some phony paperwork acquired from friends, a lie about his age, and he was in. The war was winding down by then, with television bringing firefights to the living room and stirring up a maelstrom of dissent at home. Still time enough for action, time to blood himself; no one in the Corps had been anxious to reject an able-bodied volunteer. America's involvement in the Asian hellgrounds and his own term of service had expired within a week of each other. He had been sorry when it ended, angry at the grim necessity of coming home.
He had already conceived the general outline of his plan, but it had taken time to make the pieces fit. He had shopped around for suitable employment, something that would keep him fit, make use of his talents, while permitting him to track his quarry from a distance. The answer was simplicity itself. Settling in, the hunter strove to appear innocuous, maintaining an unremarkably average profile. If he never bungled, neither did he shine. Accepted by his peers, ignored whenever possible by his superiors, he did his job and kept his counsel.
The Corps had taught him patience, endless hours squatting in the jungle darkness, staking out a game trail, never moving while the worms and vipers twined around the ankles, insects scuttled into sleeves and collars, poked their bristly feelers into ears and nostrils. Later, on the job, he honed those jungle skills, adapted them to the urban jungle and prepared himself for the contest of his life.
The final confrontation had been long in coming. He had tracked his quarry through the media, through channels open only to his own profession. For a time, he had felt desperate, cheated, by the news of Bolan's fiery death in Central Park, but hope had been revived by subsequent announcement of his enemy's survival. He suspected that the soldier had been "sanitized," absorbed by the establishment. Then the Executioner had finally emerged from limbo, shoring up the hunter's belief that there was still a chance, still time.
The face had changed, of course, but not since Texas. There had been mug shots, leaked and published by the media, descriptions circulated by the FBI and Texas Rangers. Plastic surgery was possible, of course, but with the syndicate after him, stripped of government support, it stood to reason the Executioner would hesitate to put his faith in hospitals, entrust his life to any surgeon's hands.
The hunter's stakeout had confirmed his first impression. Bolan had not changed since Texas. Oh, his hair was longer, and his tan had faded, but he was still the same in every critical respect. Before his first full day in Hartford had elapsed, the soldier had been made.
There was a world of difference, though, between identifying Bolan in the field and running him to earth. The first required only perseverance and an eye for detail; the latter would demand a great deal more. Courage, though the hunter did not think himself exceptionally brave. His move against the Executioner was necessary, he could no more shirk that duty than he could deliberately cease to breathe. Extraordinary skill would be required, and here he cast false modesty aside. For years he had been training, exercising martial skills against the day when he would face his enemy in mortal combat. When the moment came, the hunter knew he would be worthy of the contest.
It wouldn't hurt him any, though, if his prey's confidence was shaken in the interim. Step one had been the business card, a subtle thorn beneath the Bolan hide. Step two was coming, and the hunter felt his bowels constricting in anticipation, gooseflesh rising on his arms. The sudden sense of power was erotic in its swift intensity. He was forced to calm himself, to remember that tonight was only the prelude, edging Bolan closer to the final killing ground.
If Bolan died tonight, the hunter would have failed, disgraced himself and his mission. He needed every ounce of concentration to ensure the right effect, elicit the desired reaction from his quarry. If the soldier balked and stood his ground, or broke and ran for any point except the designated battleground, the hunger would have wasted years — his life — in the pursuit of empty shadows.
It was all or nothing tonight; if he failed, the hunter knew he would not be going home alive.
The morbid thoughts had drained away his brief elation of a moment past, and now the hunter sought to recapture equilibrium. Depression might be every bit as lethal to his plans as manic overconfidence; extremes of any sort betrayed a soldier in the field. Stoic silence was his only friend; his enemy was the only other living man on earth. Later, when they were finished, he would be alone. Alone and free.
Logistics had been a problem for the hunter. Transportation and the like — two cars in Hartford, plus the other special items — had already eaten up a large part of his budget. But it would be worth the cost when he had the thing behind him. The hunter would have gladly mortgaged his remaining days, leased out his vital organs one by one to see his duty through.
He felt the beginning of a headache behind his eyes, and swallowed two Excedrin tablets. The sour flavor helped him focus, bring his mind to crystal clarity. Mere moments now, and he would see the second phase of his campaign completed.
He had picked a car at random near the cul-de-sac where Bolan had disabled his first set of wheels, had used a special set of master keys designed for repo men and had driven clear before police arrived. The move had cost him time, but there had been no way around it. He could never have predicted the direction of his quarry's flight from Giulianno's warehouse. Accordingly he had parked his backup rental at a central point designed for easy access. Luck was with him, and the quarter hour that elapsed before he took up his position at the secondary target was acceptable, though tight.
The groundwork had been taken care of earlier that afternoon, while Bolan ran a final recon of the Giulianno properties that he had selected for attention. Confident that he could keep the soldier on his leash, the hunter had spent an hour in the safe house, breathing Bolan's air and soaking up his essence from the sparsely furnished living quarters. He had stood in Bolan's bedroom, urinated in his toilet, seen his own reflection in the soldier's bathroom mirror. For a moment, he felt he had stepped inside Mack Bolan's mind and peered out through his eyes to face a hostile world.
A world that Bolan would be leaving soon.
When he was certain that he knew the Executioner as well as any man could know another, he had done his job and slipped away, careful to leave nothing of himself behind. An expert at invad
ing privacy, he knew the soldier's sanctuary bore no telltale signs of penetration. Bolan would return when he was finished with his recon, gird himself for war by night and sortie out again, completely unaware that hostile eyes had scrutinized his very soul.
The hunter's calculations had allowed for no mistakes, and there had been none up to now. His plan was operating with a slick precision that was gratifying, clockwork ticking down the heartbeats toward extinction for the Executioner.
The quarry was approaching; he could feel it in his bones, inside his vitals. One step closer, and another, each stride tangling him more securely in the hunter's snare. When Bolan split from Hartford, rolling north in search of answers, there would be a lethal shadow running with him, clinging to his heels. When he was safely in the killing zone, aware that he had been manipulated, suckered, that would be the shadow's time to strike.
Not yet. But soon.
He felt the quarry's presence microseconds before his headlights appeared at the end of the darkened residential street. The soldier was predictable in some things, anyway. It would be the death of him, in time.
For now, an object lesson would be satisfactory.
Another piece of bait, and nestled in its midst, a deadly hook.
The hunter settled back in darkness, waiting for his prey.
5
Bolan followed Hartford Avenue until it canted south and changed its name to Main Street, running smoothly into downtown Newington. He spent another fifteen minutes cruising aimlessly, until he was sure that he had not been followed, finally homing on his safe house when he felt secure. The hideout was a four-room crackerbox removed from other, larger houses on the block by wide expanses of lawn that had gone to weeds from neglect. Perpetually for rent, the house would never be a showplace, but was not yet an eyesore that the neighbors openly lamented. Here, the soldier knew, he would be comfortably ignored.
The neighborhood was dark as Bolan entered from the east, a porch light here and there providing sparse illumination, leaving predawn shadows undisturbed. Alert, he made one pass around the block to check for tails, another to observe the empty vehicles at curbside, keen eyes scanning for lookouts near the drop. He kept the Mini-Uzi cocked and loaded on the seat beside him just in case, but saw no sign of a stakeout. On his third pass, from the west this time, he pulled into the shaded driveway of the safe house, shutting down his lights and engine, coasting toward the one-car garage in back.
If anyone was waiting for him, he knew, they would hit him while he was trapped inside the car. A single burst of automatic fire would do the job, and he would never know the difference if they timed it right. He had no reason to believe that anyone knew about his safe house, that anyone had traced him, but still…
The nagging apprehension had been with him since he discovered the business card for TIF. Against all odds, it was apparent that some enemy had traced him into Hartford, following his movements well enough to pick him up at Giulianno's warehouse and pursue him from there. Discovery of the safe house was unlikely, true, but not impossible. For the remainder of his stay in Hartford — if he stayed at all — the soldier would be forced to watch his back at every turn.
As always…but with a twist. He had been hunted by his enemies for years, and some of them had very nearly done the job, but none had ever touched the hidden nerve that this opponent had found with such unerring accuracy. Unseen, unknown, his adversary knew precisely how to jerk the soldier's chain. Bolan knew he would have to be on guard against the psychological effects of being hunted like an animal. Whoever his assailant was, the guy was still at large. He had not staged the production back in Elmwood solely for his own amusement. He was not about to fade away and leave the Executioner in peace.
No problem there. He wanted one more chance to face his enemy, identify him and settle it between them one-on-one. And if the enemy turned out to be a crew, an army… well, so be it. He had played against the odds before, and would again… provided he survived this strange Connecticut campaign.
It had been simple going in, a hit and run designed to leave the fledgling syndicate in disarray, but it was turning into something else entirely. Something dark and dangerous, beyond the soldier's understanding.
He parked the rental, set the brake and picked the Mini-Uzi off the seat beside him. He was ready if they tried to take him here, at least as ready as a man could be for death. If they were waiting for him, he would play it as it came, and damn the consequences. No one lived forever. The Executioner had long resigned himself to the fact that he was spinning out his life, his war, on borrowed time.
The predawn chill invaded Bolan's body as he locked the car and stood in darkness for a moment under the drooping branches of a tree. His clothing could not keep out the cold entirely, and an involuntary shiver raced along his spine. If he had been a superstitious man, he might have seen the physical reaction as an omen of impending doom. But Bolan had no time for imaginary fears.
He circled warily around the car, the Mini-Uzi held against his leg, invisible in shadow. Checking out the garage would take only a moment, and it was the sort of detail that a savvy warrior never leaves to chance. The little clapboard structure seemed secure, but Bolan walked the circuit anyway, applied his pencil flash to grimy windows, satisfied himself that only roaches lurked within.
No danger there. Bolan relaxed a fraction, though he knew it was premature. The house would be his adversary's preference for a trap. It would be easier to take him inside, away from prying eyes. Of course, his nemesis was not exactly shy; the Elmwood set had been a public free-for-all.
As he finished checking out the small garage, Bolan thought about the bullet-punctured rental. He would have to ditch it now, secure new wheels. A minor inconvenience, taken by itself, but each compulsory exposure put the Executioner at risk, a fact his unknown enemy was doubtless counting on.
He scanned the trees that stood like sentries, guarding the perimeter of his rented hideaway. No movement in the darkness there, no shadow out of place. If anyone was watching him, he was inside the house.
Bolan crossed the driveway, overgrown with grass and weeds, and angled across the lawn to enter through the kitchen, at the rear. Two steps up, and he was standing on the narrow porch outside the kitchen door. The drapes were drawn on windows to his right and left, and Bolan half expected the dusty panes to shatter with gunfire as he fished inside his pocket for the key.
Not yet. Outside, he would be a moving target, initial rounds deflected by the window glass and screens. If the hunter played his hand too soon Bolan might escape completely. But once inside the kitchen…
Of course, he had no alternative. It would be folly to desert the safe house now without a look inside. If the enemy had not discovered the hideout, he was safe tonight. If he decided a move was necessary, it could wait for daylight, when the rental offices were open. But if the nest was blown…
Then he might not be moving anywhere. If they were waiting for him in the darkened safe house, it could be all over, here and now.
Enough.
He turned the key. Alert for any sound of movement from within, he stooped forward, one ear pressed to the door. No sound at all. He straightened.
The door swung open at his touch. Bolan paused on the threshold, realizing that his silhouette made a perfect target from within. When the silent darkness did not blossom into gunfire, he let his pent-up breath escape between clenched teeth. Too early to relax, but he could feel the tension easing slightly. Later, after he had checked the rooms and found them empty, peered beneath beds and inside closets, he would pour himself a drink and offer up a toast to paranoia.
But it wasn't paranoid to watch your back when enemies were out to kill you. After one close brush with death tonight, the soldier knew his caution was entirely justified. As long as one of Bolan's enemies survived, as long as there was a price on his head, a healthy paranoia would be his best defense.
Bolan stepped inside, his Mini-Uzi still directed toward the
floor. The empty kitchen mocked him silently, moonlight reflecting off stainless steel and porcelain. The inexpensive dining table with its brace of chairs was planted in the center of the room, the spindly legs affording no concealment for a crouching enemy.
The Executioner was alone.
The living room and bedroom next, the bathroom with its curtained shower saved for last. Relief had sparked a sudden pressure in his bladder, and the soldier would be glad when he finished checking out the house. A wasted effort, all his fears in vain.
The sound alerted Bolan as he stepped stealthily across the kitchen. From the living room came a thin, metallic ratchet sound, barely audible, as if some tiny clock was winding down.
Bolan recognized the sound from grim experience. Without a second thought or backward glance he sprinted for the door. Split seconds left, if there was any time at all, and Bolan knew he was racing for his life against the clock.
The timer.
He cleared the doorway, running with his head hunched between his shoulders, like a fighter braced to take the blow that will bring him down. Another stride and he would clear the porch, find refuge in the darkness of the lawn. A few more yards…
Too late.
Behind him, Bolan felt the shock wave microseconds before it arrived. He was diving forward when the awesome crack of the explosion tore the night apart, the heavy fist of its concussion slamming square between his shoulders. Airborne, tumbling, he caught a quick, inverted glimpse of the disintegrating safe house, walls bowed outward, roof in flames and canted crazily. Instinctively he closed his eyes against the spray of shattered glass and plaster.
Peppered by debris, he hit the grass and rolled with arms and legs tucked in against his body, like a fetus violently expelled from some explosive womb. A smoking strip of lumber shot overhead and speared the wall of the garage, protruding like an outsize javelin. Around him, bits and pieces of the crackerbox rained down, the shingles drifting lazily like embers, snagging in trees and setting boughs alight like torches.
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