Bolan spotted movement down the hill. Two shadows danced from tree to tree. If the enemy was coming up on them from behind — and Bolan was certain they would try a pincer movement — then they would discover that both he and Spiraldi were already gone. Like ghosts vanishing into the forest gloom.
With his Beretta, Bolan motioned for Spiraldi to move out. The time had come to get on with it, strike first this time, strike hard and last.
Bolan drew target acquisition on the first shadow downhill as the guy bolted to the next tree ahead. The Beretta sneezed out a parabellum slug, and shadow number one toppled. How many more were out there, around them?
Swiftly Spiraldi crouched and headed downhill.
Breaking from cover, Bolan took out the second hitter with another whispering message of doom. The distance was less than twenty yards. Bolan's second target took the 9 mm slug in the forehead, spun and slammed against the tree he was seeking as a shield from the violent death that had so suddenly claimed his comrade. Just as suddenly as his comrade had died so did the second hunter.
Securing momentary cover behind a tree, Bolan checked his flanks and rear. Nothing. Then he forged ahead into the deepening darkness. Turning, looking for Spiraldi, he saw the special agent trigger his mini-Uzi at I point-blank range into the stomach of a hunter, pinning him against a tree. But death didn't come as quickly for that guy as Bolan wanted — or needed. The dying man screamed before Spiraldi pumped a 3-round burst into his face.
Dammit! They needed clean, quick kills and Spiraldi had already sounded the black siren on them.
Racing ahead, switching the Beretta to 3-shot mode, Bolan dropped a trio of hunters with a rapid stitching across their chests as they surged ahead. The looks oi wonder, then of shock and horror on their faces were erased forever. They toppled like dominoes, and with a feeling of grim satisfaction, Bolan knew breakout was just another few kills away.
Then all hell broke loose.
Bolan glimpsed Spiraldi suddenly break into a dead run. The DEA man's nerve had snapped. But Bolan didn't have time to baby-sit or to curse Spiraldi. Nor could he have warned the special agent about what happened next.
A bone-chilling scream ripped the air. Spiraldi went down, an arrow solidly embedded in his right thigh. He kept screaming, thrashing wildly in the snow. Then another arrow drilled into the DEA man's shoulder.
Bolan knew they were surrounded. Shadows were suddenly ringing the perimeter around them. Explosions began pounding the earth all around him. The blasts blew tree bark and snow into his face. With a terrible ringing in his ears, Bolan almost lost his balance and pitched to the ground when a third grenade blew behind him. But although deafened for several moments by the explosions, Bolan held his ground. Outnumbered, encircled, he realized there was nothing he could do but fight it out and take as many of the bastards with him as he could.
Like panthers springing on prey, two hunters leaped out from behind trees. Bolan saw the one to his left swing his M-16 like a baseball bat, trying to cave Bolan's head in with the assault rifle. One 9 mm slug to the face took care of that guy. But the second hunter dropped Bolan with a chopping butt over the back of his head.
Bolan hit the snow, grunting. If he was going under, he was going to go with a roar.
Vision blurry, Bolan looked up and saw the cannibals charging him from every direction. Unleathering Big Thunder, he pumped a .44 slug into the breadbasket of a shadow to his right. Then a boot kicked the AutoMag out of his hand.
More rifle butts to the head. A kick to the jaw. Someone cursing. Bolan even heard laughter through the shrieking buzz in his ears. Instinct told him they wanted to punish him for killing their comrades, not kill him outright. Still, he was going to get in his own licks.
From his knees, Bolan drove an uppercut into somebody's balls. A man howled in agony. Vicious oaths. Harsh grunts. Sounds of men fighting one another to get a kick or a punch in.
Then the sheer weight of numbers crushed Bolan. Another rifle butt to the skull. Fists delivering jackhammer blows to his face.
Bolan plunged face first into the snow. With sheer iron will he kept himself from falling into the peaceful black void of unconsciousness.
Then cold water splashing on the back of his head shocked him into full alertness. "C'mon, bastard, get up! We're a long way from being finished with you yet." Hands clawed into his shoulders, hauling him to his feet. Several times he squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them, finally clearing some of the fuzziness from his vision — and found himself surrounded. Mean faces with grim eyes, the eyes of savages and the faces of cannibals. There was vengeance in those eyes.
"So this is him, huh, Max? The great Mack Bolan, the Executioner."
The man addressed as Max stepped up to Bolan. He had a Uzi canted on his shoulder. The guy wa6 confident, sure of himself, his troops and his position. He had every right to feel that way. Everywhere Bolan turned he found assault rifles and subguns trained on him. He sensed that fingers were itching to squeeze triggers, and knew Max was the only thing between him and death. Judging by the sadistic gleam in Max's eyes, Bolan knew the worst had only begun. And there were worse things than dying.
The circle parted in front of Bolan to reveal Spiraldi, hauled to his knees by two men. Spiraldi grimaced, his face twisted in agony, his hands wrapped around the arrow in his shoulder.
The DEA agent's pain was short-lived.
The man named Max grinned. He walked up beside Spiraldi, stuck the muzzle of his Uzi in the agent's ear and squeezed the trigger. The short burst kicked Spiraldi to the snow, brains and shattered fragments of skull splashing over the virgin-white snow.
Max Weiss turned the Uzi in Bolan's direction. Again he grinned his ghoulish grin. "Now, bastard, it's your turn."
11
They had kicked and punched Bolan all the way back to the jet. Finally he had collapsed into unconsciousness from their vicious pummeling of his face and head with their fists and rifle butts.
Now, prying open eyelids that were crusted over with dried blood, Bolan found himself aboard the enemy jet. He counted fourteen men, including Max.
Bolan's hands were tied with rope. He tasted the blood in his mouth. His ribs and legs were aching, stiff and sore, but no bones were broken. His head, though, felt as if it had been split open with the edge of a shovel, and his brain throbbed feverishly. He hurt like hell, and he wanted to lash out at his tormentors and captors in a berserker rage of violence that would leave them crushed and dead in their goddamn tracks. At the moment that was impossible, but he was a long way from giving up.
Bolan saw Max grinning at him as he struggled to sit up. With effort, Bolan kept a grimace of pain off his face as he braced his back against the wall of the cabin. He had seen Max's type a hundred times before. He was the kind of savage who derived pleasure from watching other people suffer. Bolan would keep a poker face if it was the last thing he did.
"How you feeling, buddy?"
Bolan looked Max dead in the eye. He wanted to rip the guy's throat out right there.
"Aren't you wondering how we found you so easily, Bolan?"
Bolan had wondered about that.
"The Arab put a homing device on your buddy," Max explained. "It had a range of three-hundred-plus miles. It wasn't hard tracking you at all, Bolan. You've made it easy for us."
Spiraldi, Bolan thought, and recalled how brutally the DEA man had been murdered. His blood boiled with rage. The Arab killer must have put the homer on Spiraldi after knocking him out back at the safehouse. Like an animal, Spiraldi had been made use of, then butchered. Okay, Bolan thought, if if s been easy for the bastards so far... well, things are going to get hard in a hell of a hurry.
"You know," Max went on, the grin fading from his thin, bloodless lips, "these boys here were pretty pissed off that you wasted some of our people. Damn good men, I might add. True friends of ours, worst of all — worse for you as well as us. If I'd let them, the boys would have kicked your brains out. But do you
know why I didn't let them kick your ass into the grave? Go ahead, ask me why I didn't."
Bolan sat in cold silence. He could tell Max didn't like his silence. He was the kind of man who was used to being obeyed.
"C'mon, Bolan, don't be such a hard guy." The killer named Max chuckled. "The best is yet to come, I promise. Okay, hard guy, since you don't want to talk, I'll let you know what's up. See, the reason you're not dead is because there's a million-dollar bounty on your head. These guys here..." Max nodded at three men, a blonde, an Oriental and another nondescript man who fired up a cigarette with a Ronson lighter "...were coming after you, when I decided to make my own play against Alchupa. You do know who Colonel Hector Alchupa is, don't you?"
"Renegade Colombian colonel... druglord... garbage man. My principal target."
Max chuckled. "Garbage man," he said, and glanced at his troops. "I like that. But let's cut the philosophy crap here, Bolan. We're all garbage in our own way."
Bolan showed Max the ghost of a smile. "Now who's waxing philosophical, Max?"
"Sure, Bolan, sure. I'll put a lid on it. You know who I am?"
Bolan had a hunch. "I know you want me to ask you. So who are you?"
"Max Weiss, but they call me the Viper. The organization I'm involved with is so powerful that one day, yes, one day soon, we're going to make a run at the toilet bowl of a country that the United States has become and scrub it out for good. Our way. The only way."
"You're a sick man, Max. With sick delusions of sick grandeur."
"Maybe..."
"But we're all sick in our own little way, huh, Max?"
"Yeah, but there's one difference here, Bolan. One big glaring difference. I'm a winner. My troops are winners. You're the loser here. And do you know why? Because I'm just a little better than you. A little tougher, a little smarter. My vision isn't clouded by bleeding-heart Robin Hood bullshit like yours is."
"Sure, Max. You're a man with a mission. So am I."
"So you are. But we'll see whose mission is meant to be fulfilled by fate."
"Fate? I thought success was always achieved by the better man."
Bolan could tell Weiss didn't have a ready answer to that one.
"I'm going for Alchupa. And you, buddy, are going to help me nail him."
"Why Alchupa?"
"First, for his resources. He's the biggest druglord in the southern hemisphere. He's got the big bucks, the coke. We muscle him out, then we take the loot and open shop for ourselves. Get the picture?"
"Not really. Not yet. Is this the organization talking or you talking, Max?"
"A little of both. This organization is right under your very nose. The fucking DEA."
"The Special Operations Division of the DEA?"
"You've been briefed well, buddy. But whoever's been doing the digging better start digging a hole for himself, because he's gotten his nose into something he shouldn't have."
"You're pretty sure of yourself."
"I can afford to be. I got all the right guns in my own backyard. The biggest ones are in Washington. They're the ones I have to answer to. I'm just fulfilling my end of the bargain."
"Which is what?"
The Viper shrugged. "What else? Rub out Alchupa."
"So you can finance your own paramilitary strike force?"
"It's already been financed. What we need is more men. As I'm sure you're aware, there's a lot of people down south who don't care too much for Uncle Sam. We can use them, too. Infiltration. Sabotage. Terrorism. First things first, though. Alchupa's dope and money, they're my meal ticket."
"Just what is Alchupa planning to do in Brazil?"
"No one's really sure. The way the headshed in D.C. figures it, Alchupa's got some big revolution brewing, going to overthrow the government in Brasilia or some such shit. At least, that's what he says. Yeah, these Anaconda spies might just march into the capital with the backing of the army and make things right."
Bolan gave the Viper a crooked smile. "Just like you and your boys marching into the White House to make things right."
"Eventually. First, I wouldn't mind dealing the White Lady for a while, fatten up my Swiss bank account."
Bolan read the Viper as thoroughly evil. There was going to be only one way to reach him, only one thing he would understand. In lime, Bolan told himself, he'd get his chance. But when? And where?
"Shut your eyes and get some sleep, Bolan. We've got a long ride yet. I've got reinforcements on the way to the Amazon now. There's going to be a war down there. I want you rested and primed for that war. And, buddy, if you try any shit, I'll cut up your ass and feed you to the piranhas. You understand?"
Bolan said nothing. What could he say to that? What could he do right then but ride out the flight, and look for his chance?
There was going to be a war, all right. All the savages were gathering in one hot spot for the dance of death.
At least almost all of the savages. Whoever it was back in Washington who was responsible for hiring the Viper and his thugs would be held accountable.
Mack Bolan looked at the man called the Viper.
Max Weiss grinned.
In time, Bolan vowed to himself, he would wipe that grin right off the Viper's lips. In time, the Executioner was going to crush a viper.
* * *
The glass of vodka trembled in his hands. It was James Clarence's third drink in less than an hour, because he was worried. Normally he took his vodka with grapefruit or orange juice. Normally he didn't drink quite so much. But there was nothing normal about the situation he found himself in. If he was smart, he would get the hell out. But he knew there was no way out now, no turning back. He was in this one for the duration. A storm was brewing, and he was stuck right in the eye of the oncoming hurricane.
"Relax, Jim. That's the third vodka you've had in an hour. Keep drinking like that..."
"Shut up," Clarence growled at Charles Martin, who stiffened in his wing back chair, offended.
Clarence then glowered at the deputy administrator, Thomas At worth. Both Atworth and Martin looked like typical bureaucrats to Clarence. Soft, fleshy, well-fed bodies. Soft eyes that had seen little, if any, suffering. Soft faces with no lines, no scars, no mileage, no nothing. The sight of them made him sick, filled him with disgust and contempt. But Washington was full of their type. It was the Atworths and the Martins who kept the real men in the real world from doing their job. And James Clarence considered himself a real man. He'd been there, he had done some things as a Company specialist and a free-lance assassin that would make their hair stand straight up. But he couldn't expect either Atworth or Martin to understand him. At least not yet. Later on, well, Clarence had plans for these two. When the Viper returned, Atworth and Martin would be set straight. There was one bullet for each of them.
"All right, so Weiss hasn't called. Big deal," Martin said.
"Big deal?" Clarence shook his head. "Let me tell you two something. I've done more dirty work for the CIA, been on more covert operations than you two have ever dreamed about. I know when it's time to worry."
"What are you saying?" Atworth growled. "That Weiss isn't going to come through?"
"That's not what I'm saying at all, pal. I had you hire Weiss because he's the best man for the job. But I'm worried because something's gone wrong."
Martin held his hands out. "Like what?"
"Like one of three things. Either he's dead, or he's switched sides, or he's lone-wolfing it, meaning he wants all the fucking marbles for himself."
"I don't understand," Martin said. "Why did you have us hire somebody we couldn't trust?"
"Read my fucking lips. I just gave you one of three possible scenarios, and for my money I'm going with number three. Let me tell you something. I've been around the block a few times. There's a certain mentality that comes with a guy like Weiss, a man who kills for a living. Sooner or later, usually sooner, he starts thinking he can do whatever he wants to anybody he wants. In short, he starts playing God
because he thinks he's above and beyond any law. If that's the case this time, then it'll be my ass in the fire. If that's the case, then I'll have to be the one to go down there and bring him in-close."
"In-close?" Martin queried.
"Terminate him with extreme prejudice. Kill. Snuff. Waste. Are you getting the picture? There's no telling how a guy like Weiss thinks. He could blow in here tonight and start spraying this room just to see some blood spill."
"Have another drink, Jim," Martin said. "Your imagination's starting to run wild."
"Shut your face," Clarence snarled. "And don't call me Jim again or I'll stick my foot up your ass. Listen, I came up the hard way, not pushing papers like you two or waving around a college degree. I earned my keep through fire and blood."
Atworth tried to put steel into his voice. "But you're taking orders from us."
Clarence looked at Martin, who was sitting there in the wing back chair looking smug and confident.
"For now, yeah, for now I am. You two may have faked some papers for me, gotten me into the division through your bribes and bullshit games, but now this thing could blow up in all of our faces."
"We're in it for the money, that's all," Atworth explained.
"Which is why you're in it for all the wrong reasons, pal. Wrong living got you here in the first place. Two wives you're paying alimony to. Fancy home. Fancy cars and credit card expenses you can't afford. You're so stuck in greed and corruption that you can't even smell your own shit."
"I resent that," Martin rasped.
"So resent it. The truck sucks, but just keep on sucking."
"I think we'd better go," Martin told Atworth.
"Sit down and shut up. You're not going anywhere, at least not until we hear from Weiss."
"But that could be days, maybe weeks," Atworth protested, his voice nearly a whine.
"Yeah, that it could," Clarence agreed. "You pull some strings, make some calls. I don't care how you do it, but as of now, you're both officially on vacation. An extended vacation."
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