When he couldn't find a ready answer to the question, the former chief of homicide was shaken. Still speeding, he fished one hand inside his jacket, withdrew the .38 revolver he had carried through the years of active service and laid it on the seat beside him, ready.
Bolan or the slick imposter. Either way, Al Weatherbee was in the game, and no one had to tell him he was gambling with his life.
* * *
The hunter parked his car and killed the lights, surrounded instantly by darkness. South Hill streetlights were on strategic corners only, leaving tree-lined streets in shadow for the most part. The residents relied on patrols that were, perhaps, more frequent than the miniscule amount of local crime appeared to warrant. Money talked. Squad cars made their regular rounds in South Hill, even though districts with soaring crime rates were gravely understaffed.
Tonight, the locals would be thankful for the black-and-whites that usually were merely tolerated as a necessary eyesore. Tonight, they would be grateful for the men in uniform, with their flashing lights and creaking leather and guns. When the fireworks started going off at Ernie Tarantella's place, the neighbors would have welcomed tanks, if they had been available.
From where the hunter sat, the gunfire sounded strangely distant, muffled, though he knew ground zero was no more than half a block away. The intervening houses, trees and shrubbery deflected sound, served as baffles for the sharp, staccato fireworks.
He wanted to be part of Bolan's final moments, had been waiting for the call. He knew Bolan would be forced to try for either Tarantella or Girrardi. The hunter would have put his money on Girrardi, since he held the higher rank, but undoubtedly Bolan had his reasons for deciding on the Spider. Bolan always had his reasons, and so far his strategy had always seen him through.
Until tonight.
South Hill was not the hunter's choice, but it would do, if Bolan showed himself and offered an opportunity to bring the curtain down. It wasn't perfect, granted, but if Tarantella didn't tag the soldier, it would be enough to nail him in the act of wreaking havoc on a peaceful, wealthy neighborhood. The hunter would have preferred to put Bolan through his paces himself and deliver him on schedule to the chosen killing ground, but if it came to now or never, he would be a fool to let this golden moment slip away.
The hunter was no fool, by any means.
Beside him on the seat, his right hand rested on the Colt Commando's telescopic butt. A cut-down version of the classic M-16, the weapon had a ten-inch barrel that was eleven inches shorter than that of the original assault rifle. With its telescoping stock collapsed, the lethal stutter gun measured thirty-two inches overall, weighed less than seven pounds. For all that, it had surrendered nothing of the original M-16's firepower, maintaining the same cyclic rate of 700 rounds per minute, spewing its 5.56 mm tumblers at a muzzle velocity of 2,974 feet per second.
The Commando was a devastating weapon, and the hunter knew he would be needing it tonight. With Bolan on a roll, already blooded by his contact with the Tarantella guns, he would be running hot and killing anything that moved. The hunter might have milliseconds once he spotted Bolan, and any wasted motion could be fatal to his scheme. If Bolan showed himself — when Bolan showed himself — there would only be time to hold down the trigger, let the Commando do its bloody work on automatic pilot.
It was a goddamned shame.
But it was better than no damned shot at all.
The hunter had no fear that Bolan would elude him, pass him by unseen. The Spider's house was on a corner lot selected for defensibility, which meant Bolan would be boxed when black-and-whites began arriving, mere seconds from now. The bastard couldn't leg it down the middle of the street with Tarantella's goons and half the uniforms in South Hill spraying bullets up his ass. He would be forced to seek another exit, down the narrow, darkened alleyway.
The hunter's car was parked across the street, downrange, where he could bring the alley under fire without emerging from the vehicle. He kept the engine running, ready to pursue if he missed, against all odds at such short range. If he missed, if Bolan went to ground, there would be time for a single strafing run, and that would do the trick. No doubt about it, the game was in the bag.
Except that he was sweating now. Despite the open windows and the cool night breeze. Despite the gooseflesh crawling on his arms and shoulders. The hunter was sweating like a rookie sneak thief, terrified of being collared, held up to the light of day. Exposed.
He took a breath and held it, willed the nervousness away. He picked up the Colt Commando and held it in his lap, the fingers of his right hand curled around the pistol grip, the stubby muzzle resting on the window ledge. He told himself the chance of a miss at such a range was negligible. Hours and hours of practice had prepared him for the worst.
Still, he could not be certain of the kill, and that uncertainty was gnawing at him, causing him to sweat. He swabbed a palm across his face and dried it quickly on his slacks, disgusted by the clammy moisture on his skin.
Tonight.
The Executioner would come to him as surely as water ran downhill. The hunter would be waiting for his quarry, primed and ready to erase the hatred of a lifetime in one searing blast of automatic fire.
Here.
Tonight.
In Pittsfield.
Near the scene of Bolan's original atrocities.
The Executioner was going to be executed, brought to justice by a man whose fearsome dedication matched the soldier's own.
He would not — could not — miss. He concentrated on success, the moment when his sights would settle on Mack Bolan's face, his finger tightening around the trigger, squeezing off.
Tonight. Right here.
And after it was finished, then perhaps the restless ghosts would leave him, let him rest in peace.
15
Bolan cut the gunner's legs from under him with a short, precision burst and watched him fall across the Uzi's line of fire. A second snort of parabellum manglers punched the straw man over on his back and left him sprawling on the patio, his vital fluids pooling, cooling, on the flagstones.
Other guns were yapping at Bolan, angry hornets buzzing overhead. It was time to move. He hit a flying shoulder roll and came up on his knees behind a hedge of juniper, momentarily secure from hostile eyes. The shrubbery wouldn't save him once they started in with probing fire, however, and the soldier hesitated only for a moment, gathering his strength before the next gymnastic lunge.
Three down, so far, and half a dozen others, minimum, returning fire from all around the patio. Other guns inside the house would be prepared to join the action, if he breached the Spider's first line of defense. How many more? No time to think about it now. This probe was swiftly going sour, like so much else over the past two days.
It should have been a relatively easy strike, despite the obvious alert of Tarantella's gunners after Manny Ingenito bought the farm downtown. Girrardi's number two was huddling with his lieutenants, the smoking deep-pit barbecue had not been cooking steaks for Ernie's button men — but they had moved to Tarantella's conference room before the Executioner arrived. It should have been so simple, with Girrardi's fighting brass assembled on the wide veranda, chowing down, but "simple" hadn't been the soldier's strong point lately.
Missing Tarantella's crew was bad enough, but setting off the infrared alarm had been a near disaster. Bent on his objective, he had overlooked the sensors buried in the undergrowth, and gunners were converging on him from left and right before he realized what was happening. He had been quick enough to drop the pointmen on either side, but then triangulated fire was snapping at his heels. Suddenly he was on the defensive, fighting for his life.
The gunners on the patio were feeling for him now, their well-spaced bullets slashing through the hedge at three-foot intervals. He hugged the grass and wriggled on his stomach, just below their line of fire, until he reached a spotty clearing in the foliage. Peering through, he marked their muzzle-flashes, counted seven gu
ns, inched his way around until he could bring them under fire. He double-checked the Uzi's load by feel and poked the weapon's stubby muzzle through the scratchy undergrowth, juniper and rose thorns sharp against his bare hands.
It would be impossible to take them all at once, before they brought their guns around. If he could drop a couple of them, double back beneath the angry fire they would hurl in the direction of his muzzle-flash, then find another bracket in the hedge…
How long before police arrived?
Not long, in South Hill, Bolan knew. They would be close at hand, responsive to the shooting call. But he would hear their sirens approaching, if the gunfire didn't drown them out.
There might be time enough.
His finger curled around the Uzi's trigger, squeezed. Parabellum stingers marched across the wall of bricks downrange, exploding terra cotta flowerpots to find the sniper sheltering behind them. Bolan stitched a bloody pattern on his chest and let him find his own way down, already tracking on before the lifeless body toppled headlong to the flagstones.
Number five was good… but not quite good enough. The shooter saw his comrade fall, reacted swiftly and professionally, pivoting and swinging up the stubby riot gun he carried. Finger on the trigger, he was braced to fire when Bolan disemboweled him with a parabellum ripsaw, spilling all his secrets out as he toppled backward, triggering a blast of buckshot toward the stars.
And it was time to move, with five remaining gunners blasting Bolan, peppering the hedges with their rage and panic. Scuttling along on knees and elbows, he felt a lucky round trace fire across one hip, but he kept moving, gritting teeth against the pain.
He seemed to crawl for miles — though he knew it was no more than thirty feet — before he found another narrow firing port. A glance to fix the muzzle-flashes in his mind, then he let the Uzi go almost instinctively, his parabellums raking stone and brickwork, shattering windows, punching holes through trendy bits of furniture. He saw one adversary stumble, sprawl. Another. And another. They were breaking, caving in, retreating toward the house.
He dropped one runner — number nine — who wallowed on his stomach dying, while Bolan searched the kill zone for a final target. As if responding to his mental summons, number ten erupted from behind the barbecue, firing from the hip and making for the house, arms and legs pumping as he tried to outrun his doom.
The manglers overtook him squarely on the Spider's doorstep, hammering a lethal fist between his shoulder blades and driving him face foremost through the still-unbroken half of Tarantella's sliding doors. The sheet of glass resisted for a microsecond, finally yielded with a crack of brittle thunder, raining slick, transparent guillotines upon the dying soldier as he fell.
The way was open. All Bolan had to do was step inside.
No sweat.
Except there were gunners waiting just inside the house, ready to blow his head off when he showed himself.
He fed the stutter gun a second magazine and eased a frag grenade from where it hung on his harness. Hooking one thumb through the pin, he worked it free, his fingers tightly wrapped around the egg, securing the safety spoon in place. The doomsday countdown wouldn't start until he let it fly, and after that, the Executioner would have five seconds before it blew.
He scrambled to his feet, the Uzi in his left hand, firing as he rose, the right arm cocked and sweeping forward with the pitch, his fingers opening. The lethal egg was airborne, wobbling toward its target through the semidarkness, disappearing through the shattered sliding doors. The housemen inside were unloading on him, giving everything they had, but Bolan's Uzi kept them down, prevented them from sighting carefully enough to make it count. Another second, then the Uzi emptied. It was time to dive for cover, hugging Mother Earth before the frag grenade exploded, spraying jagged shrapnel high and low around its kill zone.
Bolan felt the blast as much as he heard it, didn't need to see the remnants of the sliding doors as they were battered outward, hurled across the patio. Inside the house flames had taken root already, spreading to the drapes, the carpets. He could hear the wounded crying out their pain. He would help them, end their misery if there was time, but first…
The sirens stopped him halfway to his feet, distant still but drawing closer by the heartbeat, closing his options, telling him it was time to cut and run. No time to seek the Spider out, to teach him fear.
Perhaps the lesson had already reached him, traveling ahead of Bolan like the smell of battle smoke.
Perhaps.
But it was time to go. Bolan fed the Uzi as he ran, retreating from the house and homing on the alley that was his only means of exit from the killing ground. His rental lay beyond, and if he was quick enough he could make it yet, before the first patrol car cut him off.
Bolan scaled the fence, landing in a combat crouch outside, the submachine gun ready to answer any challenge with lethal fire. The silent shadows mocked him. He wasted no more time, backtracked toward the car.
He almost made it.
From the darkness, muzzle-flashes stabbed him, angry tumblers whined close behind his ears. Instinctively, the soldier feinted to the left, then hit a combat crouch and scuttled to his right, the Uzi rattling a sharp response to his assailants.
Make that singular. Bolan fixed the second flash, an ugly blossom flaring in the window of a dark sedan across the street. He went to ground, and none too soon, as half a dozen rounds sliced above his head, near enough to ruffle his hair.
It seemed impossible that any of the Spider's men had closed the door behind him. They were scrambling to save their asses in the house, and in another moment they would have the law to deal with, nasty questions to answer at the very least. For one or more of them to break away, predict his exit route and plant an ambuscade along his backtrack would require psychic powers. From Bolan's observations thus far, the Spider's crew did not possess the talent or the brains to pull it off.
Then who?
No matter now. The car was bearing down on him, tires screeching with the force of its acceleration from a standing start. Despite the darkness, he could see the muzzle of an automatic weapon jutting from the driver's window, leveled for the strafing run. Bolan knew it was time to move or die.
He moved, erupting in a single, fluid motion from his prone position, through a running crouch and on to stand erect. In his hands, the Uzi beat a sharp tattoo of challenge, peppering the charger as it closed the gap between them. He saw the dirty yellow flame explode from his adversary's weapon. He sidestepped, went down on one knee, the Uzi hammering its song of death.
Too late.
The first round bored in low on Bolan's side, deflected by a rib and tumbling before it ripped an exit wound above his hip. Round two punched through his thigh and ripped the leg from under him on impact. Bolan toppled, sprawling, and the third round drilled his shoulder, spinning him around to lie faceup beneath the stars.
He scarcely was aware of the other rounds that snapped and danced around him, chewing up the manicured lawn. As if from miles away, he heard the car accelerate out of range, retreating now, its job completed. He realized he had dropped the Uzi, lost it somewhere as he fell, and then darkness settled over Bolan like a blanket.
Like a shroud.
* * *
Disgusted with the waiting, almost ready to go after Bolan on his own, the hunter had been alerted by a sudden lull in the hostilities. When he heard the sirens he wondered if they might spook the Executioner, compel him to withdraw before he could crush the Spider.
Five more seconds, ten without a shot, and he was certain of it. The Executioner was pulling out the back way, breaking off from the enemy and sprinting through the darkness toward his rendezvous with death. Retreating from the frying pan into the hunter's line of fire.
There was a kind of poetry about it, he supposed, though he was not a man who spent much time on abstract thought. He had been longing for revenge since he had come of age, and now it was within his grasp. Another moment and he wou
ld have the soldier in his sights. Just one more time.
He raised the Colt Commando from his lap and braced it on his forearm, sighting down its barrel toward the alley's mouth. He had no fear of witnesses at this point. The patrol cars would be closing from the north, and any neighbor shaken from his sleep by the explosive fireworks would be homing in on Tarantella's shooting gallery, oblivious of one more car against the curb. If someone broke the odds and spotted him, they would be dealt with, swiftly and efficiently. He would not let some absurd accident deter him from fulfilling his appointed destiny.
A movement there, against the deeper shadows of the alley. He squinted down the rifle's barrel, intent on picking out the silhouette. If only he had access to a night scope… But it did no good to whine about deficiencies that could not be corrected. You did the best you could with what you had, and the Commando should be good enough.
The gliding shape detached itself from darker shadows in the alleyway, became a man edging across the nearest lawn with supple, catlike movements. Bolan! Rigged for doomsday, all in black, he was a wraith made flesh, the hunter's nemesis.
Come and get it!
He was squeezing off before the conscious thought had time to form, transmit itself along the network of his nervous system. The Commando rattled a warning burst, and before the final round was fired he could see that it was high, outside. Reacting with the swiftness of a jungle cat, the Executioner was dodging, feinting, seeking cover as the second burst screamed out across the blacktop, echoes battering against the houses opposite and ringing in the hunter's ears.
Another miss, but closer. He had seen the bastard jump that time.
The quarry triggered a searching burst from his abbreviated weapon. A single stinger drilled the car door, startling the hunter.
Forget it! Make your move before the bastard's aim gets any better.
Eternal Triangle Page 13