Prairie Fire

by Don Pendleton

  The Executioner severed the morbid train of thought before it had a chance to carry him away. Defeatism was a sickness, terminal variety. A soldier who surrendered to it might as well confront his enemy unarmed. But Bolan was fighting back with everything he had, until the final spark of life was smothered in the darkness.

  It was cool and dark inside the master bedroom, and he stepped across a mercenary felled by Jason's shotgun. Stooping briefly, he retrieved a Colt Commander from the lifeless gunner's shoulder rigging, wedged it inside the waistband of his overalls.

  He crouched beside the open window frame, his jungle senses probing the night. A velvet breeze caressed his face, inviting him outside to join the dance.

  It was an offer he could not refuse.

  Without a backward glance, Mack Bolan wriggled through the window, merging with the outer darkness, and was gone.

  20

  Soft grass cushioned Bolan's landing below the window. He froze in combat crouch, immobile, but his every sense was on alert, waiting for a shout of warning or a muffled fusillade from the perimeter. When neither came, he let his breath escape from aching lungs. He moved away from there, the captured Ingram up and ready, taking extra care with the weighted sack.

  Out here, the revving of the saw was amplified, redoubled, filling up the night and grating on the warrior's nerves. He let it pass for now and circled to his left, intent upon the cellar. At the moment, smoke and fire were greater dangers than the gunner on the roof, and Bolan had to rout the infiltrator before the enemy brought the house down in flames.

  Another moment, and he reached the target unopposed. The slanting double doors were open wide, thrown back on either side; below him, sturdy wooden steps descended into darkness. Tattered wisps of smoke were rising through the open hatchway, thicker now than it had been inside the house. The fire was taking hold down there and growing. He could hear it now, a crackling like a sheet of cellophane in palsied hands.

  Time to move, and there was nowhere for the Executioner to go but down.

  He crouched beside the bag and opened it, withdrew a makeshift hand grenade. A pair of woolen socks was rolled down around the lip of the explosive can, to help protect the blasting cap, and now he peeled them off, discarded them and straightened up, returning to the open cellar door.

  Beneath his feet, a human shape was stirring in the smoky darkness, closing on the stairs. Bolan held the can at full arm's length, the blasting cap inverted, and released it. He was backpedaling away from there, when the crude grenade erupted into hollow thunder. A cloud of smoke and dust rolled up and out from underground, and jagged shrapnel set the wooden doors to flapping.

  Bolan followed with a rush, the Ingram leading as he took the battered stairs in stride. A crumpled body waited for him at the bottom of the stairs, spread with one leg twisted underneath him. He had worn a gas mask to protect him from the smoke, but it had not deflected roofing nails from ripping through his throat and chest and abdomen. The guy was far beyond resisting, and the Executioner dismissed him, moving on to find and fight the fire that he had kindled in his final moments.

  In a corner of the basement, jagged teeth of flames were rising from a pile of old magazines, already nibbling at adjacent wooden shelving. Bolan cast about for something to fight the blaze. He settled on a dusty patchwork quilt he found atop a hope chest.

  He waded in, the flying quilt a bludgeon that he used to beat and smother out the licking flames. Gagging on the acrid smoke, he held his ground and fought it out until the fire had been reduced to embers, and the embers scattered wide. He poked among the magazines and ground them underfoot until he finally satisfied himself the fire was out.

  Above him, Bolan's little troop was out of danger — for that moment.

  There was no way to secure the cellar with the time and tools at hand. His enemies could try again if Bolan let them have the opportunity, but he had other plans in mind.

  The Executioner was launching an offensive of his own this time, reverting to a style of warfare that had served him well in other killgrounds.

  Moving cautiously, he followed the ascending smoke as it evacuated, reemerging into cool, clean darkness topside. No one was responding to the blast of his grenade, and Bolan offered up a silent prayer of thanks. The hostiles must be getting careless; they had either failed to hear the detonation, or dismissed it as a natural result of fire raging in the cellar. Either way, it gave the jungle fighter a bit of breathing room.

  Bolan circled back, retracing his steps and avoiding the front of the house with its clear field of fire toward the barn. If they were thin enough in numbers now, the enemy would concentrate on that approach, commanding all the major exits.

  Navigating by ear, he reached a point at which the whining, snarling saw was loudest. Deprived of visual contact with his target, Bolan had to guess the position as he stooped, withdrew another high-explosive can from his sack and stripped the stocking cap away.

  The warrior knew that any small mistake or fluke; could spoil his shot. If the can did not impact upon its blasting cap, or if the cap should fail to detonate for any reason, it would skitter off harmlessly across the sloping shingles.

  He shrugged away the momentary hesitation, then let fly the weighted can of high explosives. It looped away and out of sight as Bolan counted down the seconds to doomsday or failure.

  Overhead, a flash of brilliant light, the crack of an explosion, and the farmhouse shuddered from the blast. A strangled scream, and then the growling saw was airborne, spinning in a cloud of exhaust smoke before it plunged to earth and died almost at Bolan's feet. Above him, desperate scuffling noises, then the barrel-rolling sound of a descending body — tumbling away from Bolan.

  And his mark had fallen down the opposite slope — in the direction of the porch and barnyard.

  With his captured Ingram up and ready, Bolan doubled back, aware of the impending danger, knowing he could not avoid it. The warrior was exposed, and now his only hope of a successful follow-through would be to make it brisk and bold. Take it to the enemy and ram it down their throats before they had a chance to organize effective countermeasures.

  It was down to Bolan's kind of war, against the odds. The kind of one-man war he had been fighting, more or less, since his return from Vietnam. A dozen automatic weapons might be waiting for him in the barn or the surrounding fields, but Bolan owed the effort to his three reluctant allies. To himself, damn right.

  And allies — volunteer or otherwise — were more than simply soldiers in a common cause. They were complications, and sometimes fatal ones at that. In his soul, the warrior was responsible for each and every one of them. When they blew it, when he failed them, Bolan bore the scars of loss alone.

  His mind, unbidden, started running down the roster, men and women who had sacrificed their all in Bolan's holy war. He shut off the gloomy train of thought. The dead had made their sacrifice already; Bolan's war tonight was for the living.

  He was closing quickly on the northwest corner of the house, prepared for anything except the bloody scarecrow that appeared directly in his path, approaching on a hard collision course. The specter seemed disoriented, following the wall with arms outstretched, and Bolan saw at once that he was blind.

  It was the rooftop gunner, battered but alive. Even in the darkness, Bolan could pick out the ragged wounds where flying nails had pulped his eyes and sliced a bloody channel right across his nose. The heads of other roofing nails protruded from his cheeks and jaw.

  Bolan moved to intercept the lurching zombie, swung his Ingram hard against the mutilated skull. The gunner stumbled, fell, and Bolan followed him, a silent, stalking jungle predator. The enemy was on his back and struggling feebly to rise when Bolan drove a crushing heel against his larynx, brought an end to pain.

  That made it twelve. A butcher's dozen, yeah.

  How many more would have to die before the nightmare ended?

  Bolan edged around a corner of the porch, and suddenly he did
not need to look for anyone or anything. The enemy found him, announcing the discovery with a near-miss burst that shredded screen above his head. The second burst was right on target — but Bolan had retreated out of range.

  Now, with time to think, the soldier knew exactly what he had to do in order to survive. Pinpoint the gunners. Take a measure of their strength, dispersal, weaponry if possible. Neutralize the threat with swift, effective counteraction.

  All of which required the jungle fighter to expose himself again, in order to assess the hostile force. It was a split-second operation that could feel like a lifetime.

  Or end one.

  Timing was the key — reflexes coupled with visual acuity. If Bolan could not spot his targets first time out, he might not have a second chance.

  The warrior poked his head around the corner, scanning rapidly with narrowed eyes. He was ready, waiting, when an automatic rifle opened up, this muzzle-flash distinctive even with the silencer attached. He ducked and scuttled backward, flattening himself against the wooden planking as a swarm of tumblers sought him out.

  A single gunner. In the hayloft of the barn.

  It made his problem marginally smaller — if the gunner was, in fact, alone. Assuming that he did not have backup staked out and waiting for the fox to make his move.

  Bolan launched himself headlong from cover, somersaulting out of shadow into his assailant's line of fire. The movement ended with him in a fighting crouch and facing toward the darkened barn, his weapon braced and ready.

  Startled, his assailant took a second to react, and Bolan had his answer ready when the hostile weapons stuttered to life. He pressed the Ingram's trigger, held it down and swung the stubby muzzle in a roaring arc. The steel-jackets rattled out at seven hundred rounds a minute as he hosed the open loading bay from left to right and back again.

  The assault rifle tracked him, homing onto target, and he heard the bullets whispering around him, eating up the ground in front of him and to either side. Another moment and the creeping rounds would find him, or the Ingram would exhaust its load — and either way, the end result would be identical.

  The final number clicked, his little stuttergun gave a dying burst — and nothing.

  No incoming rounds.

  Out of darkness, Bolan saw a slouching figure as it suddenly appeared and teetered on the verge of falling. The sniper's empty rifle tumbled from his dying fingers, clattered in the yard below. His life was running out through half a dozen holes, and in another moment he plunged headlong through the opening, a lifeless, sprawling bundle.

  Bolan straightened up, the smoking submachine gun dangling uselessly at his side. He waited, half expecting other weapons to explode around him, other rounds to seek him out and knock him reeling into death and darkness everlasting.

  He did not expect the sudden glare of headlights, kicking into high beams, blinding Bolan as a Caddy crew wagon lumbered toward him out of nowhere, flattening the stalks of corn like so much tender grass before a reaper. Grim Reaper, right, and now the brilliant orbs were carving tunnels through the night, transfixing Bolan where he stood and pinning him at center stage.

  21

  The Cowboy crouched in darkness, staring at the farmhouse through his mirrored shades. The stainless-steel Smith & Wesson .44 was heavy in his fist, but it helped restore his failing confidence. It made him strong.

  And inner strength was nearly all that he had left.

  He had put two waves of men inside the house, ten sharp guns in all, and none of them were ever coming out again. His backup team was shot to hell, and now the sound of firing from the yard informed him that his target was alive and kicking ass.

  Okay, it's come down to this.

  The Cowboy moved out from the corn, gliding across the open stretch of ground. He reached the bedroom window unobserved and knelt before it for a moment, listening, before he slipped inside.

  He required a moment to adjust his eyes, and briefly contemplated taking off the shades, but finally dismissed the thought. Somehow, the mirrored glasses made him feel invulnerable.

  He crossed the littered room, avoiding shattered glass and toppled furniture. And he knew that he was all alone inside the bedroom, but out there, beyond the open door, he smelled his prey, their fear and trembling.

  The Cowboy did not plan to keep them waiting long.

  One of his professionals was lying lifeless in the doorway. He resisted a sudden impulse to lash out and grind a boot heel in the shredded face. His business here was with the living — and with those about to die.

  Someone would be waiting just beyond the open door, no doubt about it.

  With all the wasted soldiers he had put in here, the hicks would have a smorgasbord of weapons to select from, assuming that they had the smarts to use them. Even if they lacked the skill, an idiot could have a lucky day, and parabellum bullets had no way of telling friend from foe.

  It was the Cowboy's job to take the guesswork out of it, make doubly sure that any luck his adversaries had was bad.

  Standing just inside the bedroom door, he hesitated, easing back the hammer of his stainless-steel Smith & Wesson. From his belt, the mercenary drew a smoke grenade the size of a beer can, hefted it.

  He looped a finger through the safety ring and yanked it free, already winding up an underhand release before the can began to spark and sputter. Almost absentmindedly, he watched it bounce across the living room, releasing clouds of artificial fog to camouflage his entrance.

  Low and fast, he took the doorway in a rush, the Smith & Wesson sweeping ahead of him and seeking targets. He was ready for it when a submachine gun opened up to his left, discharging half a magazine in one indignant burst.

  The Cowboy pivoted, and at a range of less than thirty feet there was no need to aim. The silver Magnum was a ravenous extension of himself as he swiveled into target acquisition.

  A single round was all it took, 240 grains of sudden death directly through his target.

  * * *

  Jason Chadwick heard something land on the living-room floor, followed by the sound of rapid boot heels on the boards. Swinging his sights on the intruder, the farmer triggered the unfamiliar SMG. He tried to ride the recoil of the captured weapon, but bone-deep weariness conspired with gagging smoke to spoil his aim. The little chattergun was climbing hopelessly before a dozen rounds had left the muzzle, chewing up the ceiling and very little else.

  A tremendous roar filled the room and something very like a cannonball slammed into his shoulder. Weakened fingers lost their grip on his gun and he felt himself being propelled through space. A solid barrier arrested his flight and several colors swam before his eyes, the myriad hues changing to black as nothing seemed to make sense anymore.

  * * *

  The killer straightened up, searching for another mark. The target came to him, colliding with him in the smoky darkness. Smaller than the gunman he had blown away, this one was a lightweight. The Cowboy turned to meet his enemy, the barrel of his Smith & Wesson chopping down on a wrist and emptying the ! hand of weaponry. He followed through, a stunning backhand to the face, got one arm looped around his j victim, who was spinning from the blow.

  His hand closed around a firm breast.

  The Cowboy had a sudden inspiration, even as be pressed the muzzle of his weapon up against the lady's cheek and held it there.

  She was his ticket out, a passport to success when he was staring brutal failure in the face. She changed the whole percentage.

  The Cowboy was a sterling judge of character. He knew his enemy, though he had never met the man or even seen his face. He could predict how this one would react to damsels in distress, and it was all the lead he needed.

  While the poor, pathetic bastard was deciding how to save her ass, the Cowboy would be busy blowing them away. The gunner first, and then the broad. It would be too easy.

  * * *

  Bolan stumbled as he reached the corner, and that saved his life. A burst of tumblers razored the a
ir above his head exactly where his shoulder blades had been a moment earlier. Then he was away and out of there, scrambling along on hands and knees. He gained the sanctuary of the corner and slid around it, welcoming the momentary shelter.

  Forty yards away and closing rapidly, the juggernaut was bearing down on him, the flankers keeping pace and wisely saving ammunition now until a target was presented. In another moment they would have him, bring the lights and guns to bear.

  Bolan ripped the satchel wide open, stripped his final crude grenade of its protective covering. Bolan moved, and not away this time, but toward the enemy. His trackers would have planned for everything — except a suicidal rush directly down their throats. With any luck at all, initial shock would get him into range, and guts would do the rest.

  He cleared the corner running, one arm cocked, prepared to lob the high-explosive can with deadly accuracy. He chose the Caddy's windshield as his target and let fly, already veering, rolling to his left and digging for the Colt Commander as the riflemen began to snipe at him.

  The Executioner was prone and trying desperately to wriggle out of range when the plastique erupted into oily flame, devouring the Cadillac and anyone inside. The shock wave flattened infantry on either side, and Bolan held his belly-down position as a swarm of twisted roofing nails whined overhead. Another moment, and the crew wagon's fuel tank followed in a ringing secondary blast, the dinosaur settling on melted tires, hissing in the throes of fiery death.

  Bolan made it to his feet, the autoloader in his fist and ready as he crossed the firelit yard. To the left, one of his pursuers was attempting to prevent himself from frying, using blistered hands to slap at flames devouring his trousers. Bolan braced the heavy .45 with both hands and put a single deadly bullet through the screaming face.

  The Executioner found the second, final gunman struggling to his feet and searching all around him for the rifle he had dropped. It was a toss-up whether he discovered it or Bolan first, but his reaction was immediate. A diving lunge, with arms outstretched and fingers splayed to grasp the silenced M-16, a look of desperation on his bloodied face.