The hotshot crew boss was the next to go spinning off into eternity, caught dead in his tracks as he sprinted for the protected side of his vehicle, down and wallowing in deflated flesh even before the second big boom came down.
And then it was ’Nam all over again, ambush in the wilderness, a hundred frenzied weapons in reflexive fire as hell came down all around—and Jim Hinshaw flat in the middle.
Several of the crew wagons from Tucson lurched forward, punching through the flimsy fence in angry retort, muzzles blazing from every window.
Jim Hinshaw knew that it was all a horrible mistake.
But he was obviously the only one there who knew it. The guy with the big boomer knew it. Yeah, Bolan knew it.
And Jim Hinshaw knew, in a highly personal sense, what it was like to be the fraggee. He’d been had … by an expert
And that went double for Bonelli Junior.
CHAPTER 21
BAGGED
Bolan had monitored through binoculars the tense confrontation at the compound gate, read it accurately, sealed it with a thundering kiss from the Weatherby—then played the reaction entirely by ear.
The Bonelli force read the attack as treachery from the Hinshaw camp. Morales, commanding at the rear and unable to precisely understand the unfolding events, held no options whatever in the face of the furious retaliatory attack by the Bonelli guns. The inevitable result was a blazing firefight between two “friendly” forces.
And Bolan assisted that development, also, with a few touches from the background. He raised the ’79, sighted down on an invading hardwagon just inside the compound, and sent them some HE. The big vehicle heeled immediately and wallowed to a halt in enveloping flames. A following round of smoke deposited at the gate further confused the landscape there—then a rapid shoestring of alternating HE and Frag laced that hellground with walking destruction and cascading pandemonium.
The staccato chatter of automatic weapons mingled with the echoing booms of busy shotguns and the angry yapping of pistols as the clash of arms quickly reached full fury.
Hinshaw’s “reserves” were no pantywaist platoon. It was a disciplined and combat-worthy fireteam—equal to anything Bolan had seen in ’Nam Except for the Bolan influence, there would have been no doubt as to the outcome of that battle. Those guys knew what they were about—and they had the heavy arms to back up the expertise. A heavy machine gun was chewing ass all along the Bonelli front until Bolan spotted it and took it out. Likewise another couple of well-emplaced units with grenade launchers which were playing havoc with the streetcorner cowboys from Tucson.
Within forty seconds after the fight erupted, all five penetrating Bonelli “tanks” were destroyed and burning. The entire area was strewn with the dead and dying from both sides. Cautious movements in both directions signaled the approaching lull and probable stalemate. Neither side had much fight left. Bolan could count a mere handful of survivors in desert denims, about the same for the other side. Smoke and dust clouded the tableau, restricting visibility and aiding the cautious withdrawal of both sides.
The three Bonelli vehicles which had remained beyond the fence line were now maneuvering carefully to pick up retreating survivors.
Bolan caught a flash glimpse of another vehicle within the compound—Angel Morales, he thought, at the wheel—also maneuvering carefully to shield a sprinting ghost from the past, the one and only James Ray Hinshaw.
Bolan was gathering his weapons and preparing to quit that place when the Bonelli vehicles sped away into the sunset. A moment later, two cars emerged from the rear area of the compound and raced off in obvious pursuit.
Bolan grinned soberly and returned to his cruiser.
He set the navigation gear for automatic track and began the final maneuver, he hoped, of the battle for Arizona.
Weiss stood in the shadow of a delapidated hangar and watched a sleek twin-engine Cessna jet as it taxied out of the hated sunset and braked to a halt.
Two burly gorillas immediately descended to the ground, nostrils flaring warily as they separated and energetically strode to flanking defensive positions beside the plane. Weiss knew that he would have to become accustomed to such unsavory presences in his life; he would be seeing a lot of it from this point forward.
A moment later, the Capo Arizona himself appeared in the doorway and made a quick exit.
The senator experienced an involuntary tremor as he stepped forward to grasp that entrapping hand. They were not exactly strangers, of course. But overt contacts with the likes of Nick Bonelli were not apt to produce the most desirable public image for an elected official. There had been no social relationship whatever.
One would think that nothing whatever had happened.
The mafioso gave him a sober smile and greeted him with, “Hi, Senator. Long time no see.”
Weiss could not return the smile. “I appreciate this, Nick,” he said solemly.
The guy made a funny little twitch with his lips as he replied, “What are friends for?”
“Did you take care of it?” Weiss inquired nervously.
“Before I left home, yeah. Forget it. It never happened. When my boys get done with it, you’ll have a hard time believing what happened yourself.”
“I don’t want to know the details.”
“Who’s giving any? The less said the better.”
They went into a little office beside the hangar. Bonelli guided him to a dusty chair, offered him a cigar, went to the window and craned his neck to scrutinize the approaches, mumbled something to himself, went to a scarred desk and perched atop it.
“What are we waiting for?” Weiss asked irritably.
“My boy Paul is coming with us. You ever been to Costa Rica?”
Weiss shook his head, smiling sourly. “We get few junkets in that direction. I called my Washington office right after I talked to you. Told them I’d be out of the country for a few days.”
“That’s fine,” Bonelli replied. “Be a bit longer than that, though. A few little details left to be cleaned up around here. It don’t need us. We’ll get some sun. Play some golf. You play golf?”
“Every chance I get,” Weiss said, warming a bit to this strange mixture of thug and charmer.
“I seal more deals on the golf course than …” Bonelli’s eyes flashed to the window.
A car was approaching.
The Capo Arizona slid off the desk and said, “Here’s Paul. Let’s go.”
It was three cars—moving fast and burning rubber as they braked to swing off the blacktop road.
Hell, they looked …. They were! All shot up! Shattered window glass!
Bonelli growled, “Holy …!”
The two torpedoes at the plane spun away and raced to place themselves between the don and the approaching vehicles.
“It’s okay!” Bonelli yelled to them. “They’re ours!”
Weiss started off nervously toward the plane, halting about halfway to peer back at the unfolding drama.
The cars were lurching to a halt near the office.
Bonelli, swaying anxiously beside the leading car, speaking animatedly to someone inside. Bonelli, jerking the front door open and nearly ripping off the hinges. Bonelli, head thrown back in a soundless scream, pounding on the roof of that broken car with a jackhammer fist. Bonelli, leaning inside to drag out a human form—a terribly limp and obviously broken human form. Bonelli, tearfully clutching a horribly mutilated and soggy-looking once-human head to his breast. Bonelli, bearing up a dead son and staggering with his burden toward the plane.
All it really meant to Abraham Weiss was that something had gone terribly sour.
“Did they take care of it?” he gasped as the Capo Arizona staggered past with his gruesome burden.
“Let’s go!” Bonelli croaked in passing. “Get inna plane!”
Other vehicles were approaching.
Energetic men were spilling from the parked cars and scurrying frantically toward defensible positions.
Weiss came unglued and ran on to the Cessna to shrinkingly assist with the boarding of Paul Bonelli’s pitiful remains. The bodyguards roughly shoved the senator inside and hastily secured the door.
And it had. Yes, obviously. It had all gone terribly sour. And now the sun was also down—perhaps never to rise again for Abraham Weiss.
The Hinshaw raiders were keeping the Tucson survivors well occupied in the hangar area, the rippling explosions of an erupting firefight signaling an end to the chase.
Bolan had no further interest whatever in that chase—nor in the participants. Both had served his purpose.
He left the cruiser parked beside the blacktop road and set off cross-country on foot, hurrying toward the south end of the runway with the M-79—sampling the wind and reading the aerodynamic considerations, thinking like the pilot of an aircraft. He knew the guy would make his takeoff roll to the south, into the wind.
Someone else apparently had the same idea.
A battered car was jouncing along the uneven surface of the desert floor, making a wide circle to avoid the conflict of arms at the hangar—on a course to directly intercept Bolan’s.
And they’d spotted him. At about sixty yards out, the vehicle veered to home directly on the running figure, pistol fire blazing at him from the window on the passenger side.
He flung himself to the prone without breaking stride, rolling and twisting upon impact to squeeze off a do-or-die round from the ’79.
The HE round dug sand at the front bumper of the charging car, the hurried and off-balance shot scoring a near-miss, which nevertheless gutted the engine compartment from below, and diverting the charge.
The car quivered, heeled, and took a roll toward the runway.
The M-79 had taken a load of sand in the breech. Unable to immediately free the action, Bolan tossed the weapon aside and pursued the stricken vehicle with a big silver pistol, the .44 Automag, up and ready.
Two men were in that Vehicle—Morales and Hinshaw—Angel at the wheel, James Ray “riding shotgun.”
They’d rode her through two full rolls to a shuddering upright position. Morales was unconscious, the head dangling off to the shoulder at a crazy angle. Hinshaw’s right arm hung loosely, also at an odd angle, from the window. It had been caught outside in the roll and was now bleeding profusely, obviously broken.
The guy gave him a sick smile at he groaned, “Guess it’s just you’n me now, stud.”
“Wrong,” Bolan said coldly. “It’s just you and you.”
He walked on past, gained the runway, and turned north. The firefight was sputtering to a close. Of more importance, a twin-engine Cessna was winding up screaming jets and launching itself into high roll, departing that combat zone with all possible haste.
Bolan moved to the center of the runway and jogged on. 100 yards … 90 … 80—no man’s land was shrinking fast as the screaming jet bore down on him. At fifty yards he dropped to one knee, coolly sighted the big pistol, and went into rapid unload.
All eight rounds went home, but none, apparently, found a vital spot. He ejected and clicked in a fresh load with the plane practically on top of him, the wheels now lifting into the take-off.
There was one of those stop-action moments—a mere microsecond of eternal time which somehow expands to fill all of eternity—in which he was eyeball to eyeball with Honest Abe Weiss. As viewed through the eye, the Senator was just beyond the windshield of that hurtling craft, that timeworn face contorted in a grimace of horror; as viewed through the trapdoor of expanded time and space, he was standing outside his home in Paradise, a Browning skullbuster dangling ineffectively in trembling grasp, declaring for the wide world to hear: “I run it. It’s mine, I run it!”
“Run it all the way to hell then,” Bolan had told him.
He told him now, in para-time, “You ran it too hard, Abe.”
And then the lifting plane was flashing up and over him, he was toppling onto his back and taking cool measurements, again stroking the fire of that spectacular .44.
They went home that time—all of them, each of them.
The sleek jet staggered. Flames whoofed along the wing. She tried to go straight up then seemed to halt dead in the air momentarily at a couple hundred feet up—but that was an optical illusion produced by over-the-horizon reds from the setting sun clashing with over-the-wing flames from a setting plane.
She blew straight up—and the flare from that explosion was probably seen in Paradise.
But the scattered and settling fragments would perhaps never be seen again—except maybe a glimpse now and then in some corner of expanded time and space.
The Executioner sheathed his weapon and muttered, “Bag that, Nick.” Then he quickly put that place behind him.
And it was okay.
This time, father cosmos had picked up all the marbles.
EPILOGUE
Other hell grounds beckoned. He knew they always would so long as he lived.
But there were those times, those moments, when Eden deserved a bit of attention also.
So it was no misdirection of the mind that sent the world’s most wanted fugitive back along the cosmic curve to a winding drive in Paradise.
The odds were, of course, that she would just give him another kick in the seat of the pants and sent him on to the next blood river.
But a corner of the Bolan mind held a lot of hope for Morris Kaufman’s kid.
At the very least, she deserved to be told of her father’s death by someone who cared. Bolan cared.
So maybe they could find some basis for mutual understanding. It was the least he could offer.
And maybe, despite all that separated them, they could pull together the fragmented corners of a brief respite in Paradise.
What the hell.
Mother Cosmos deserved equal time … didn’t She?
Turn the page to continue reading from the Executioner series
CHAPTER 1
THE SPUR
He was rigged for soft penetration—clad in black skintights, lightly armed with the silent Beretta as head weapon, a Crossman air pistol, stiletto and garrotes—hands and face blackened for maximum invisibility.
The target was a nondescript warehouse, undistinguished from the many others in this active riverport, squatting gloomily in the deep darkness of the witching hour. A feeble luminescence glowed dimly from dirtied windows at the upper level; a naked yellow bulb outside the office door provided a small area of minimal relief from the inky night. To all outward appearances, Delta Importers was slumbering like most others in the Port of Memphis.
Mack Bolan knew better.
He moved in on the target as a soundless extension of the night, combat senses flaring through the atmospheres of that enemy turf in an effort to encompass all that might be lying there in wait. The lone security guard was an easy take. Bolan found him in his rounds, at the back corner of the building. He kissed him quietly with a silent dart from the Pellgun and left him there in tranquil sleep.
So far, so good—but the man in black grimaced as he consulted the wrist chronometer. It was to be a tight mission, with everything riding on the proper fall of the numbers.
Out over the river a nightbird called softly and dipped in flight to follow the track of an unwary prey. Eastward, the hushed sprawl of the city sent neon advertisements to form a faint aura overhead; but here all was blackness.
Bolan knelt motionless at the wall of the building, eyes intent upon the wrist—watching the numbers fall. He was not at all comfortable with this mission—not sure, even, in its very concept. But … it was committed, now. He sent a quick flick of the eyes northward as though they would perhaps reveal what the ears had not—wondering, as he did so, if he were the biggest fool alive.
No, he was not at all comfortable.
And perhaps he would not be the biggest fool alive for very long. But the moment had arrived and he was stuck with it. It was not a time for doubts. So he brushed the doubts aside and pushed off to
follow his numbers to their uncertain conclusion.
The roof was a cinch. He gained it with a bound, a swing, and a soft wriggle—then went on without pause to the skylight, which mission briefing had assured him would be another cinch. It was not. The wooden framing was rotted and swollen, threatening to dissolve in his hands at first touch. He went to work at the heavy glass with his stiletto, easing it out inch by breathless inch, until there was sufficient purchase with the bare hands to lift it clear.
Hell yawned up at him from that black hole.
According to the blueprints, it would be a twelve-foot drop to the floor of a storage loft—empty, supposedly. That would have been a cinch, also, if he could have lowered himself by hand to drop free the remainder of the relatively short distance. The rotten wood foreclosed that idea.
So this was where it really got ticklish.
He opted to risk the penlight for a quick flash into those depths. The loft was empty, right—but it looked more like fifteen feet than twelve, and there was no way to determine the strength of that dusty flooring.
The decision came with typical swiftness.
Bolan dropped to a crouch and pushed off with one hand, knees almost touching the chest as he dropped through the opening in the roof and entered free fall. Fifteen feet, yeah. The touchdown came with a bit more impact and noise than he was willing to settle for, even using knees and ankles to maximum cushioning effect. The old flooring swayed and groaned under the sudden weight—but it held—and Bolan whispered a thanks to kindly providence as he upholstered the Beretta and moved softly to the door.
He held there, frozen, ears straining for sign of reaction from below. Frozen moments, held together by the beating of his heart and the certain knowledge that all hearts stop beating sooner or later, for one reason or another, despite all efforts to the contrary.
Arizona Ambush Page 13