Confusion flickered through the copilot's eyes, then fear masked his punished face.
"Tell ya what," Weiss told him. "Since I don't need you anymore, I'm going to give you a chance to split." The game was on, Weiss thought, and felt a surge of energy, the fire building in his belly in his lust for violence and death. "Khan," he snapped at the Mongol, "I want to see how good you are with that bow of yours."
The copilot had had enough. He lunged at Weiss, but the Viper drove the muzzle of his Uzi into the fly-boy's face. A sickening crack, and the copilot toppled to the snow, hands clapped over his face as blood gushed from his crushed nose.
The Viper loved every second of it. For some reason he loved to feel cartilage or bone cracking under a blow. It didn't matter whether he used a gun or his hand.
Al Krumpf grinned.
Glancing at his watch, Weiss told the copilot, "You got thirty seconds. If you sprint, I figure you can cover close to three hundred yards by then. Khan tells me that bow of his has a pull of 160 pounds, giving it a range of more than 350 yards. If you can beat the arrow... you're on your own. Home free. Comprende, amigo?"
The copilot held his ground, fists clenched.
"Move it!" Weiss shouted at the copilot. Checking his watch, he added, "You're down to twenty-eight seconds. Time's wasting, pal."
With no options left, the copilot took off, breaking into a dead run.
"Khan," Weiss said, lowering the Uzi to his side, "use one of your incendiary arrows. I want to see this guy burn. Hit him in the ass. Right cheek." He spoke just loud enough for the copilot to hear his impending fate.
Khan dropped to his right knee and loaded his bow.
Weiss looked at his watch. Fifteen seconds.
At one hundred yards the copilot stumbled, fell, then struggled to his feet.
When Weiss heard a whimper of fear from the doomed fly-boy, he smiled. It had been a while, too long, since he'd watched a man burn to death.
Khan pulled the string taut with the Mongol thumb-lock.
Godfried and Rolaff stood, waiting, eyes fixed on the fleeing target.
Weiss gave his watch one last look. Twenty-two seconds. He was tired of waiting.
"Go ahead, Khan."
The arrow whistled past Weiss, and a heartbeat later it drilled into the target's ass. A scream ripped the air. The fly-boy tumbled into the snow, and a sheet of fire erupted, consuming him as he gave a piercing wail of agony.
"Nice shot," Weiss told the Mongol. "I'll see you get a bonus if you keep up the good work."
The human torch flopped in the snow for several stretched seconds, then the screaming died, but an echo seemed to linger in the air as if trapped by the hills.
The flaming target lay motionless in the distance.
Weiss was satisfied. Khan was, indeed, good with the bow.
The viper looked around at his troops. They were silent. Obviously the demonstration had given them something to think about. He could tell most of them were impressed and ready to accept the three assassins. He could also tell that one of them had misgivings.
The doubter spoke up. "I don't like outsiders. Max. We've all worked together before, we know each other's MO, know we can trust each other in a tight squeeze. I don't like these guys already."
Weiss pinned John Rubin with a hard gaze. If the tall, thin, dark-haired Rubin wasn't such a damn good headhunter in the bush, he'd have kicked the guy's ass halfway across the world by now for being such a stinking malcontent all the time.
"Well," Weiss told Rubin, "you'd better learn to like it, Johnny. Bolan's gonna be tough enough, and as many guns as Alchupa's got down there, the colonel and his boys could prove to be a good fight, too."
Jake Thompson, a short guy with tattoos of eagles and snakes up and down both of his beefy arms, grunted. "Yeah, the big badass Executioner, Mack Bolan." Leaning up against a Jeep, the mercenary with the crew cut patted his M-16 and added, "We all know about this million-dollar bounty. Max. Think you could cut us in for a piece of the action? One clean shot at Bolan, Christ, that's all I'm asking for."
"I'll tell you what, Jake," Weiss replied. "We bag Bolan and dangle him out there for Alchupa, and there'll be more money for all of us than you've ever seen in your wildest dreams. No one kills Bolan — at least not yet. That's an order. Dead, Bolan's worthless to us when we go for Alchupa. Alive, he's bait.
"All right, here's what we've got. Inside this jet of Alchupa's here, there's a radio transmitter. It looks like the first guy out after Bolan failed. On Alchupa's orders, he planted a homing device on Bolan or whatever he's driving. The range of the homer is 350 miles, and it looks like Bolan's within range now. So let's get the hardware loaded on these birds and move out. It's time to bag us one Executioner."
Weiss gave the shriveled black mummy of the copilot one last look.
Big game was just ahead, and Max Weiss intended to take this hunt to the limit.
The limit was Hector Alchupa's death.
The limit was conquest.
And annihilation of the enemy wherever he stood.
* * *
Trouble. Danger. Bolan saw it coming, and warning bells sounded in his head. He had expected the enemy to find him again, but wondered how he had been tracked so quickly. Somehow, some way, their progress was being monitored.
The chopper cleared the tree line to the south, angling toward the lone vehicle on the road. An assault chopper.
Spiraldi was sleeping, and Bolan nudged the special agent awake. Instantly he came alert, his gaze falling on the M-16 that Bolan hauled from his duffel bag. Spiraldi's jaw dropped when he saw the chopper.
"What the..."
"Look alive, Spiraldi," Bolan growled, spotting the miniguns on the warbird as the chopper, nose down, began a strafing run toward the Chevy pickup.
"Shit!" Spiraldi rasped as the miniguns opened up a second later.
Bolan braced himself for the inevitable. There was no place for the driver to run or hide, and the old-timer was going to take that line of tracking lead. Dammit, Bolan raged to himself. The first innocent victim in this battle against Anaconda was about to take a one-way ride into oblivion.
A hail of 7.62 mm lead chopped into the road, stitching twin lines right at the Chevy.
The driver cursed. The dogs began barking at the on-rushing chopper.
The gunship closed to within twenty yards of the target truck, miniguns flaming.
"Pull off the road!" Bolan yelled at the old-timer, banging on the roof of the cab with the butt of his assault rifle, knowing that the driver's only chance was to send the vehicle on an instant course of evasion toward the woods.
Too late.
The leadstorm swept over the truck. Bolan and Spiraldi hit the floor of the bed, hugging the back of the cab as slugs screamed off the asphalt.
And the gauntlet of lead claimed victims.
Bolan heard the windshield shatter, then the back window on the cab exploded. Glass was chopped into thousands of razor-sharp fragments, and Bolan could do nothing but let the tidal wave of glass and lead wash over him. With a 40 mm grenade loaded in his M-203, the Executioner was ready to return fire, to blow the warbird out of the sky. But as the chopper shrieked past the truck, he was forced to turn his attention to survival.
The old-timer was slumped against the door, gaping bloody holes in his back testifying to death. Blood ran slick over the dash, and the dogs had stopped barking.
Like a flash of lightning, Bolan knocked away the hanging strips of jagged glass and dropped into the cab. Glass had ripped through his parka, and blood ran warm and sticky down his arm. But pain was better than sudden, violent death.
Unmanned, the truck swerved off the road and bounded through a ditch. Though his movement was encumbered by the body of the driver, Bolan reached over, grabbed the wheel and wrenched it hard to the right. Then a tree seemed to spring up out of nowhere. Bolan's swift reflexes saved them from a head-on collision, but he knew he hadn't acted quickly enough. The left f
ront end of the truck slammed into the tree, metal crumpling like tinfoil, the hood popping up. The impact whiplashed the truck sideways as Bolan held on to the wheel in desperation. Glass slivers sliced across his face, cutting dangerously close to his eyes. Less than a heartbeat later, the truck started to tip. The crash had kicked it over the edge of an embankment.
Holding Bolan's weapons bag, Spiraldi jumped from the bed and hit the ground as the truck rolled down the bank. The duffel bag flew from his hand, and his head cracked against a rock.
As Bolan tumbled in the cab of the pickup, its roof caved in. He rode out the roll, knees banging the dashboard, head smacking off metal. The thirty-foot tumble down the bank ended with Bolan stretched out over the bullet-riddled carcasses of the three dogs. He spit a sliver of glass out of his mouth and tasted the blood on his lips. No broken bones, but his parka, torn around the shoulders and chest, was stained red with blood.
There wasn't a second to waste. The enemy was coming, and Bolan wanted to give them a proper greeting.
The truck had landed driver's side down. M-16 in hand, aching from head to foot, Bolan knocked out the passenger's window with the butt of his assault rifle. As he hauled himself through the battered opening, he saw the chopper touch down on the road, less than two hundred feet away. Time enough, he figured, to disappear into the woods. There, he would have to lure the enemy to him. Ambush. With no idea of the enemy numbers, there was no other way. The unknown enemy, Bolan determined, would have to pay for spilling the life of the old man who had given two strangers a ride.
But where was Spiraldi? Bolan looked back up the bank.
The special agent was stretched out on the ground. Bolan hoped his vault from the truck had left him unconscious, not dead. Even so, if Spiraldi was out cold, then Bolan would have to carry the guy away from the hunting guns.
Then more numbers joined the hunt.
Bolan heard the shriek of turbojet engines. Head snapping sideways, he saw the silver jet land on the road, one hundred yards south but rolling hard toward the gunship. Reinforcements.
And the enemy was already disembarking from that warbird.
The Executioner took a step up the bank toward Spiraldi. Before he reached him, autofire opened up. He dived to the bank as slugs tore into the wreckage behind him.
10
Spiraldi stirred at the sound of weapon fire. With the din in his ears, Bolan scrambled the rest of the way up the bank, intent on hauling the special agent to cover.
While he climbed, Bolan checked the terrain. The only possible retreat would be east, deeper into the woods. There were hills to the southeast, and Bolan intended to reach those hills and make his deadly play from there. From the high ground he could gun down the enemy as they came to him, or seek out, engage and destroy them.
The jet taxied to a standstill on the road, the ramp ladder quickly dropping down. More soldiers. More trouble. More death. But something puzzled the Executioner. The field of fire seemed to be directed all around them, slugs drilling into the snow, stitching up trees, as if the enemy had been ordered not to kill either him or Spiraldi. Bolan had only one conclusion to make: the enemy didn't intend to kill them, but rather to keep both of them pinned down. Encirclement, then capture.
Reaching Spiraldi, Bolan saw blood flowing from the gash on his forehead. His eyes half-closed, he moaned, only semiconscious. Knowing the special agent would have to move or meet certain death, Bolan called his name and shook his arm in an effort to rouse him. Then he grabbed his weapons stash, silently thanking Spiraldi for having the foresight to take the duffel bag with him when he'd leaped from the truck.
A rocket streaked through the air. Out of the corner of his eye, Bolan saw the smoke and flame tailing its tracking line from the roadway. The warhead pulverized the Chevy pickup.
As the ball of fire boiled up the other side of the incline, Bolan hauled Spiraldi up, his M-16 searching for any target to mow down. Together, as wreckage of the Chevy pounded the bank, they angled down the slope, Spiraldi gradually getting steadier on his feet. The enemy was trying to drive them into a panic. Okay, Bolan could play that game, too. Panic had never been, could never be a state of mind for a soldier constantly walking the hellfire trail, but maybe they were trying to shake up Spiraldi.
"Move out!" Bolan growled at Spiraldi. "I'll cover you."
Spiraldi hesitated, but a look from Bolan sent him scurrying in retreat.
Ahead, Bolan saw the shadow killers, sliding off the roadway, skirting through the trees. Through a narrow break in the trees, he spotted the gunship. He cursed, knowing he couldn't trigger off a warhead with his M-203 and obliterate that bird with a true line. If he could circle around the hunters to get off a clean shot with the M-203... but there wasn't time. Bolan knew, though, that a well-placed 40 mm grenade could spread some death and confusion in the moving pack of headhunters. He'd take care of the warbird later. Maybe the jet, too. If the enemy intended to strand Bolan and Spiraldi, then Bolan could do likewise to them.
Quickly he took cover behind the closest tree, crouching as four muzzles blazed and spit lead into the snow ahead of and beside him. The enemy had gathered in force. His adversaries' next step would be to spread out and bring the hunt to him.
Bolan triggered the M-203. As the 40 mm grenade rocketed away, he turned and ran after Spiraldi. A split second later he glanced back and saw the HE round impact solidly into a tree. Two figures were kicked away from the explosion, their screams ripping the air, then ending abruptly.
The pack surged ahead.
Bolan caught up with Spiraldi. The special agent was wiping the blood off his face with the back of his hand. "Now what?" he asked, breathless.
Bullets kept chewing off bark beside the Executioner and the DEA man.
"We move to higher ground," Bolan rasped.
"One last stand? C'mon, don't be crazy. We're outnumbered ten, maybe twelve to one."
"Then make every round count, guy."
* * *
Weiss was angry and frustrated. The warhead from Bolan's M-203 had snuffed two of his men. Now the rest of his troops were questioning his no-kill order. It wasn't so much what they said, but how they were looking at him. In a firelight there were always casualties, and he knew his men understood that. The dead were comrades, and his order was indirectly responsible for the deaths of those men. They obeyed him, but they didn't have to like it.
They were crouched behind a stand of trees, awaiting Weiss's orders to move out. There was no question in the Viper's mind about what had to be done. Bolan was the game, and they were the hunters.
"You still want that bastard captured alive?"
Weiss knew he'd better answer Thompson's question carefully. One wrong word and his men could turn on him. "Yeah, you bet your ass." He looked at his men, even directed a hard stare of warning at the three hired assassins. He wanted those three killers, too, to understand where he was coming from.
"Listen, those men were my friends, too. If you want Bolan to pay for them in blood, we bring him in alive. I don't care how we do it. Leg shot, blow off a kneecap, I don't give a shit. Place your frags carefully. Confuse the bastard, keep him off guard, knock his ass down. When we bring him down, there'll be plenty of time to make him regret killing our people. Killing him outright would be too easy for the son of a bitch. Pain, people, pain — let's make it last for Bolan. Everybody who wants to can have a shot at making Bolan feel some pain. No, strike that, not some pain. A lot of pain. I intend to kick the hell out of him. You understand what I'm saying?"
Weiss could tell they didn't like it. But torture rather than sudden death made sense to them. It always had. They understood the logic behind torture making vengeance last longer. Making vengeance last longer made it that much sweeter.
"What about that other guy with Bolan?" Krumpf asked, slapping a fresh 30-round mag into his M-16.
Weiss peered into the woods. Tendrils of black smoke curled from the twisted wreckage of the Chevy, shielding the
retreat of Bolan and his accomplice. Within seconds Bolan and the other dude had vanished.
"They're going for the hills," the Viper told his men. "Split into four teams. Move out and in. I want them circled. Remember, go for the legs. As for the other guy — fuck him. Kill him as soon as you can."
They understood. Perfectly, deadly well.
* * *
The sun was setting beyond the jagged peaks of the Rockies. Long shadows stretched over the valley of engagement. Crouched behind a tree, halfway up the easternmost hill, Bolan silently invited his ally, darkness, to come. Darkness was a cover, a shield that would allow him to step up, meet the enemy face-to-face and deliver death.
The Executioner had opted to go with the silenced Beretta 93-R. He had already laid out his plan for Spiraldi, who was perched behind a tree twenty-five feet away. When the hunters came closer, he and the agent would move out to meet them and drive a murderous wedge right through the heart of the stalking killing machine. Each deathstrike would get them that much closer to their objective, which was the gunship. On occasion Bolan had flown slicks in Vietnam. Now he aimed to commandeer the enemy's gunship and use its miniguns and rockets to annihilate his adversaries.
But first, he had to get there. A realist in any situation, Bolan knew he was fighting long, long odds. Grim, deadly odds.
Bolan checked Spiraldi. Even in the cold air, the DEA man was sweating. Okay, the guy was nervous, scared. How Spiraldi would act and react when it came time to stalk out and slay the enemy, Bolan wasn't sure. Perhaps it didn't really matter, unless he screwed up somehow. For all intents and purposes they were both on their own. For this killhunt, Bolan had given Spiraldi a silenced mini-Uzi. Make no mistake, Bolan thought, the guy would get the chance to use Little Lightning.
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