Bolan extended a flarepistol through the open doorway.
“Mark!”
The pyrotechnic whizzed off in a straight-horizontal trajectory, headed upwind. It had a long fuse. In a moment, the parachute would open and the flare would descend far to their rear, breaking the cloud cover over water and coming down on the forward shore. Hopefully. It was purely a diversionary move. Bolan intended to set down in the quiet area to the rear. He simply wanted a brief moment with most eyes on that island directed the other way.
Grimaldi was now executing a wide circle and losing altitude rapidly.
Bolan poised himself at the opening in the floor and reported, “Headset coming off, Jack. I’ll be on visual.”
“Right. Watch yourself. I’ll give you all the running room I can. But drop at your own discretion. Your view will probably be better than mine. Good luck, man. Like the guy said, tally-ho.”
Bolan snatched off the headset and raised a fist to his flying friend. Then he bent headfirst through the floor opening, steadying himself outside by a skid strut.
The mists dissolved in a flash. Land appeared, darkly. Buildings rose up in fuzzy outline.
Far ahead, brilliance was breaking the cloud cover and descending in a gentle float through open skies.
The little craft lurched, rose slightly, dropped greatly, lurched again—then spinning and side-slipping in a steady drop. Earth was whizzing by. Fencing flashed past, barely off the skids. Bolan launched himself, seizing the skid in both hands as though it were a parallel bar at the neighborhood gym, swinging, now hanging vertically. Toes dragged slightly—legs pistoned up with knees bent, and he let go.
He hit the earth running, then stumbled under the momentum with too much weight—fell—slid to rest.
Already the chopper was out of sight, its sounds a distant thumping upon the night.
Bolan pulled himself to a crouch and tested his working parts.
All systems were go. No hurt more serious than a skinned knee. All weaponry intact. Those plastics, thank the fates, still inert.
Things were happening up front, though. People in fast movement, shouts, the coughing of an outboard motor. The diversion was working.
He jogged toward the sounds, thudding at every step with the extra weight, then broke toward the cover of the buildings.
Other feet thudded ahead. Bolan stepped into the lee of the building and froze.
A voice, pretty close, called out, “Okay, but I swear I heard a chopper!”
Said another, obviously a leader with rank, “You’ll be hearing a bullet in the belly if you don’t follow orders! Get out there and back up those beach defenses!”
The feet thudded away.
A radio, directly ahead, squawked briefly with some unintelligible message.
That leadership voice responded. “Wilco, I already did. Compound’s about stripped clean though, Jerry. I’d hate to have to handle any serious threat in here.”
Another squawk, then the reply: “Roger. Be glad when they get here.”
So would Bolan. The mighty 200. Not, however, until he had properly prepared their reception.
He’d be preparing nothing whatever if he remained pinned here. He moved on. That guy up there was no more than an indistinct shadow in a deeper shadow when he suddenly stiffened and turned in half-visible profile, with Bolan still several paces back.
“Got a light?” Bolan asked casually.
“Who the hell is that?” the guy demanded, irritably startled.
Bolan hit him from two paces out with a judo kick to the groin and a simultaneous straight arm to the throat. The soldier went down with a faint squawk as the only sound. Bolan finished the silent job with a nylon garrote, pinning the victim with his knees as he took key ring and radio then moved quickly on.
No—there would be no soft touches on this visit.
This one was for keeps.
Another lone human barrier stood quietly at the front of the center building, head cocked slightly to one side as though listening intently to distant sounds, his back to Bolan.
The Executioner called over, “Hey!” and the guy spun around just in time to catch the stiletto in his throat. He dropped his auto and stood there bug-eyed, hands to his throat, then toppled over.
Bolan stepped over to the door, found the proper key, and pushed inside. A battery lantern at the head of the stairs was throwing a soft light. He moved the two dead soldiers in there and left them in a dark corner, then took the lantern and descended toward the mission goal.
Ten minutes later, Bolan was completely satisfied that he knew all the secrets of the installation—all that were readable, at any rate. The work was nowhere near half-completed. Three large chambers had been hollowed out, one beneath each building. Only the central chamber was at any degree of finished work. Tunnels ran off at a dozen angles from the central core but led nowhere—perhaps one day they would have.
He found a supply shaft above the room that lay beneath the east building—and up there, in that building, he located the main powder storage.
And yeah, Hal old worry wart, there was a bundle on hand.
Then began the arduous and time-consuming task of moving the TNT into position for the big event.
At forty minutes past touch down he was shaping plastic detonators and implanting time fuses. He ran out of numbers during this period, knew it, but kept on until the task was complete.
It would be daylight up there now, or at least the early stages of the transition from night to day.
If the weather-guessers were right this time, there would be no more heavy atmosphere except for a thin layer relatively high.
Grimmest of all—the Terrible 200 should now be on board. And there sat Bolan in an underground vault, with many tons of TNT for company, set to go in a matter of minutes.
He regrouped himself in the central control room, chose his weapons with care, balancing delicately the trade-off of weight versus effect, and made himself ready.
At precisely sixty-five minutes into the mission, he erupted onto the grounds of that joint with the bellowing ’79 poised, and ready.
If the Fates watched over angels and fools, Bolan did not have to wonder about his particular category of care.
Striding across those grounds not 20 yards uprange, coming down between the bungalows, was Captain Johnny himself and retinue—five of them in close military stride and clipping it off smartly.
They spotted Bolan at about the same moment that his trigger-finger reacted to the situation.
Quick reactors they were, but not quick enough—startled surprise blending smoothly into evasive choreography with bodies flinging in every direction as the big piece boomed and heaved 40 millimeters of hellfire into the midst of them, adding a new dimension to the dance and a new movement to the overture.
He caught a glimpse of Franciscus through the firecloud, rolling and flopping to rest against a bungalow—but then another party came pounding around the corner of the big house.
He swung into that one with the ’16 ablaze and hurtling lightning, scattering people in another crazed dance for survival.
Then, suddenly, soldiers were pouring in from everywhere—through the back door of the house, from bungalows, and from every perimeter.
Right—the numbers were off and the 200 were on—and Bolan the Bold had bought himself a belly buster this time.
He hit them with gas, and smoke, and HE, and tumblers—he hit them with snorting .44s and grenades—and he gave them all the war he’d been able to bring with him, laying down finally a billowing curtain of chemical smoke behind which a tactically retreating soldier boy may sprint like hell.
And he was doing so—lungs turning to solid blood and legs going to lead when the heartening whomp of rotary blades overhead reassured him that Jack the Birdman had come through again.
The swooping eagle came in across his quarter in a calculated intercept, moving a bit faster than Bolan would have desired—but then so were those others
to the rear.
He caught the skid on his chest with the last leap left in him. It jerked into the armpits with wrenching pain as unequal momentums came into balance—then he was swinging clear—man and machine becoming united in common flight as they lifted up, up, and away.
The whole thing must have been as mind-blowing to those left behind as to the man dangling from the eagle’s talons—or else it was all just too demoralizing to encourage further effort from the ground; not another round came after him—and with the way Grimaldi was balling it, there wasn’t much time for the ground crews to get it back together in time, anyway.
They were a mile downrange before Bolan got himself together and got it aboard—then it finally took a helping hand from the man at the stick for that last pull onto solid support.
Bolan lay there panting for a moment, then he drew himself clear of the hole in the floor and sat there watching his hands quiver until Grimaldi tossed him a headset. He donned it, and the damn guy was saying. “Where the hell you been goofing off the past ten minutes, dammit? I came in at count sixty and I came back at count sixty-five. Then I got curious about all the smoke at count seventy and figured I’d give ’er one last swoop. We can go back and try it again, though, if you demand perfection.”
“Get screwed, you beautiful bastard,” Bolan panted.
The fantastic flyboy laughed for outrageous joy and sent the hot little bird circling back the way they’d come.
“How much fuse time is left?” he asked.
Bolan tired to hold his trembling hand still long enough to read the time, then couldn’t focus his’ eyes, finally giving it up to reply, “Couldn’t be long now.”
“I hope not,” the pilot said, still chuckling. “Look below.”
Bolan really did not wish to. He was quite content to be where he was, but he leaned forward to peer through the hole and immediately said “Brognola’s navy.”
A solid wave of a dozen or more U.S. Navy landing craft was cutting wide wakes toward Langley Island.
Grimaldi laughed and said, “I’m going to miss you, guy, if you ever retire. This is my second eagle’s eye view of a big boom with you.”
The guy was talking about the energy storm over Texas.
Bolan sighed and asked, “How’s the visibility?”
“Come up and see.”
He tried his legs and found them operable, coming up into a crouch at the instrument panel. The bird was hovering. Langley Island was dead ahead about two thousand yards and maybe a thousand feet below. Bolan’s vision cleared and his other physical systems went into second-go. He glanced at the watch. “Countdown,” he announced to the pilot. “Thirty seconds to boom.”
Grimaldi lit a cigarette and handed it to the hell-fire guy.
Bolan accepted it and took a careful drag, favoring the raw lungs, watching intently a countdown to the destruction of some men’s dream, some men’s nightmare.
It was a weird blow. Things moved down there, as in an earthquake and by no other means—no fire, no smoke, just movement. Three buildings collapsed and disappeared momentarily, then spewed forth upon trumpeting streamers of fire and smoke—the sound wave arrived along with that and rocked the whirlybird—a long series of rumbling explosions hurling all manner of debris high into the sky. Then a cloud of smoke began forming, to overhang a bowl-like depression in the earth still rambling and belching flame.
The bungalows were gone, the big house was gone, the pier and its new building were gone—there was nothing down there but scorched earth and an artificial volcano.
Grimaldi whispered, “Man oh man. That’s hard to believe.”
Many things, Bolan could have told his friend of the Terrifying Flying Service, could be hard to believe.
But not that.
It was the hardest touch of Bolan’s war against the mob. He believed it. A lot of discarnate souls were right now believing it. Damn right. And those that were left would believe it—and might think two times around before trying it again.
“Take me home, Jack,” the Executioner said tiredly.
There was, thank God, still a home to return to.
EPILOGUE
Leo Turrin was standing outside the warwagon, awaiting the return of the warrior. He turned away, keeping his face down, until the chopper lifted away, then he came forward to hug the man about the waist and speak gruff words about heroic deeds.
“Go home, Leo,” Bolan told him, grinning.
“Fast as a four engine jet can take me,” the double-lifer replied. “Hal is welcome to what’s left around here. You go, too, Sarge. Quick and far.”
Bolan said, “Sure,” still grinning.
“Well. Jocko’s waiting patiently just down the road. Better go before he gets nervous and comes looking.”
“Don’t blow it now, guy. Good times are just around the corner.”
Leo Turrin turned his back to that and went away, laughing like a crazy man.
Bolan stepped into his infernal machine and lit a cigarette, cranked the engine, and set his sights for somewhere “quick and far.”
Nice town, Seattle. Nice people, too. Even the too young and too natural, especially artfully mature and ethically balanced.
But this warwagon was “home” for the warrior. Wherever she traveled, he would find war and nice people.
Quick and far.
That would be the next battle line. Always too quick and never quite far enough.
But that was Bolan’s world, and he was stuck with it.
Worse still, perhaps, it was stuck with him.
Turn the page to continue reading from the Executioner series
1: Aloha
Every war has to begin somewhere. For the Hawaiian mob, it began at the plush apartment of Paul Angliano, the drug trade’s chief distributor for the Waikiki district. It had been a lucrative territory, with daily receipts averaging in the fifty-thousand-dollar range. Even so, it was a small beginning for a raging war which would rock that entire island state.
The Mafia boss of Waikiki was standing beside an open wall safe when the door exploded inward and black death strode into that room. Angliano had perhaps a single heartbeat to see what had come for him—and the final image recorded upon those doomed eyes could have been no more than a duplication of the same death image which had overhung and haunted the Mafia world from the beginning of Mack Bolan’s personal war: a tall figure clad in black, a face chiseled from ice, a black pistol extended and silently chugging a pencil of flame—then a nasty red fountain erupted from between those shocked eyes and Paul John Angliano sloppily departed the world of men.
A military medal clattered to the desk as the only other occupant of the room—one Joey Puli, a Polynesian—staggered clear of the falling body and raised both hands in a desperate stretch for survival.
“Wait, wait!” Puli yelped, his horrified gaze bouncing from the remains of Angliano to another crumpled form which lay beyond the shattered doorway.
“I’ll need a reason to wait,” the voice of death responded.
“Hell, I—I don’t even know the man!”
“Not good enough, Joey.” The Beretta coughed again, sending a quiet whistler zipping into the floor between the guy’s feet.
“Okay, okay!” Puli yelled, dancing backwards and coming to rest with his shoulders pressed to the wall. The devil in black had called his name. It was clearly no time for cute games. His life hung on a heartbeat, and Joey Puli knew it.
“I’m listening,” said cold Judgment.
“Okay, I work here,” Puli admitted weakly. “Messenger.”
“Runner,” Bolan corrected him.
“Sure, yeah. I pick up things and deliver things.”
The death gaze flicked to the military medal that lay on the desk. “Pick that up and deliver it, then,” the icy voice commanded.
A grin engulfed the terror of the runner’s face as he replied, “Sure, man. Anything you say. Who gets it?”
“Oliveras gets it.”
&nb
sp; The grin shrank. “I’m not sure I know—”
“You know,” Bolan told him. “And I’ll know when he gets it. If he doesn’t get it, Joey, then it’s yours to die with.”
“He’ll get it,” the guy said in a choked voice.
“Take off,” Bolan quietly commanded.
Puli snatched the medal from the desk and bolted from the room. Bolan went immediately to the wall safe and transferred its contents to his pouch—then lost no time getting out of there himself.
Minutes later the Executioner was at a darkened window of a high-rise hotel near Ala Wai Harbor. It was a carefully preselected “fire base” with an unobstructed view of another high-rise building far down the beach. A gleaming Weatherby Mark IV mounted in a swivel tripod shared that window with the marksman. The impressive weapon was equipped with a 20-power scope, a Startron model especially designed for night targeting. In the scope’s field of vision, another window was framed—nearly a thousand meters downrange. This one was brightly lighted and revealed one half of a sizable room—a luxury pad, even for Waikiki. Nothing human was moving through that field of vision, however, as Bolan checked and doublechecked the calibrated range marks of the crosshairs. He grunted with satisfaction, doggedly ran another calculation on the trajectory graph which had been laboriously set up for this mission, then he checked once again the lateral stops on the swivel mount.
Finally, fully satisfied with his preparations, Bolan bent once again to the eyepiece of the scope and patiently waited.
That was the name of the game now. Wait. For targets.
The whole thing now depended entirely upon Joey Puli.
The object of Bolan’s concern was at that moment checking in to the swank diggings of Frank Oliveras, the reputed heroin king of the islands. “Listen,” he reported urgently into the house phone, “this is Joey Puli. You know. Angliano. Listen—he just got smeared. Know what I mean? I got to see Mr. Oliveras damn quick. His life might depend on it.”
Puli smirked at the security man and handed the telephone to him. A moment later he was passed through to the elevator to begin the quick ascent to the upper levels. Both hands in his pockets, the little runner mentally rehearsed his speech to the great man while nervously fingering the outlines of the military medal.
Firebase Seattle Page 14