"That is right. There is nothing left of Alchupa's camp. Nothing at all. No money. No cocaine. Nothing but ashes and dust and death."
"Then this Pinadante must have something. We could go there and take it ourselves. Listen, Fernando, I've got no bone to pick with you. You help me, I'll help you."
Fernando appeared to think this over for a long moment. He nodded several times, a strange smile stretching his lips. Finally he picked up his AK-47 and walked across the deck. He stood in front of the Viper and gazed deeply into the killer's eyes.
"Well?" the Viper prodded.
Suddenly Fernando jabbed the muzzle of the AK-47 under the Viper's chin, forcing his head up.
"You listen to me, and you listen to me good, cabrón," Fernando rasped. "I am no man to be bought, by you or anybody. When I give a man my word, I keep my word. Bolan has my word that I am going to help him. I help him now by watching a snake and making sure that snake does not slither away.
"Perhaps, cabrón, you have underestimated me, and overestimated yourself. You are a bad, bad man. I see in you many things in myself, things I do not like. Things I am trying to kill in my soul. Greed. Viciousness. Deceit. Things that have come with ray trade, but things I have had to do to survive. In this matter money is not everything. Indeed it is nothing. There is honor here in what I do. I have helped you. I have helped Alchupa. Had I known what vicious dogs you both would turn out to be, perhaps I myself would have set you two at each other's throat. I should kill you right now."
The Viper swallowed his rage, but defiant hatred blazed in his eyes as he told Fernando, "Go ahead, amigo, if you've got the guts. Go the fuck ahead."
Fernando showed the Viper clenched teeth. His trigger finger twitched. "I will not, cabrón. Do you know why? Go ahead and ask me why."
"Fuck you."
"I will tell you. It is simple. Dying would be too easy for you. It is living that you hate. As long as you are alive you are driven mad by yourself. Letting you live is the best revenge, because you can feel nothing but hatred, and like a cancer, your black soul is eating at your guts this very moment."
Fernando stepped away from the Viper, lowering the AK-47 to his side.
Weiss didn't really know what to make of what Fernando had just said. He didn't really care. He was going to get loose somehow and bust the spic's face in half, then he was going to ram that AK-47 up Fernando's asshole and just pull back on the trigger.
Because the Viper was one bad son of a bitch, and nobody talked to him like Fernando just had.
18
Crouched in the brush north of Pinadante's camp, Bolan counted twenty soldiers armed with submachine guns around the perimeter of the camp. They were lounging and smoking, talking to one another in low tones. They didn't seem to be expecting anybody, but they came alert at the sight of Alchupa, and three of them escorted the colonel across the camp. The Colombian druglord vanished from Bolan's sight as he slipped into Pinadante's tent.
Other soldiers emerged from several large tents that were positioned at intervals all around the camp. Several of those soldiers pointed in Bolan's direction, the direction from which Alchupa had appeared. It looked as if they were going to investigate. If they did backtrack on Alchupa's path through the jungle, that would make sense. Okay, Pinadante's men wanted to find out if the colonel was alone. Bolan was steeled to greet those troops. The marshal's soldiers were going to get a warm welcome.
A reception as warm as blood.
Helltime.
One of the sentries was less than thirty feet away from Bolan and was puffing on a cigarette. The three assassins were looking at Bolan, awaiting word to move out. Since they were outnumbered by Pinadante's troops, surprise would be the key element here. The MM-1 would have to rain instant death, destruction and chaos if the four of them were to meet with any success. And the sentry would have to be dealt with first. Any movement around the perimeter of the camp could be sighted by the sentry.
Bolan suspected, however, that they might never get a chance to move into position. Already a dozen soldiers were striding across the camp, heading their way. The soldiers held their FMK-3 subguns by their sides, and looked ready, even anxious to use their weapons.
Bolan decided to take the gamble. He would have the assassins move out anyway and attempt to get into some kind of position for the assault. He nodded to them. Khan and God fried slid off into the jungle to Bolan's left while Rolaff moved out to cover the right flank.
Mentally counting down the doomsday numbers, Bolan set the MM-1 down and drew his commando dagger. He grasped the point of the blade in his fingers and prepared to sink the blade in the sentry's throat with a clean throw as soon as the other soldiers came closer.
The first gray light of dawn was breaking across the sky.
Bolan waited in the bush.
* * *
"What do you mean, no sample? You dare come to me with this story about being wiped out? And you bring me no sample?"
Pinadante and Alchupa stood near the netting-covered doorway of the marshal's tent so that he could keep an eye on the camp while berating the colonel, whose grandiose plans had collapsed to put them both in jeopardy.
"What can I tell you? No sample means no sample. And why would i lie to you about my men being slaughtered? You were there. You saw the gringos. They came ready to make war against me."
"Yes, I did see them. But I do not like this. In fact, I am very disturbed about the events of the past few days, Colonel. Tell me, why do I get the feeling I am being set up?"
"Don't be paranoid."
"I cannot afford to be otherwise, Colonel. You come here and play fast and loose with me, then you call in outside help for some personal vendetta against this man you call Bolan. Just what was the purpose of bringing outsiders into our arrangement?"
"I was looking for leverage."
"What leverage?"
"To win some respect in our inner circles."
"Bah! You have no inner circles here, Colonel. I am the man with all the connections, all the power. You have been played for a fool, and now here I am stuck right in the middle of this circus."
"I am no fool," Alchupa said with steel in his voice. "And if there is a fool in this..."
"Yes?" Pinadante prodded.
Alchupa kept a defiant silence.
Pinadante stared at Alchupa. How dare this outlaw tell him not to be paranoid? he thought. Worse, how dare Alchupa come to him with no sample? Pinadante strongly suspected that Alchupa was hiding something, and if he was, the marshal was going to find out what. Indeed, while Pinadante pinned the colonel with his sharp gaze, he saw the colonel's eyes give him away. Alchupa's eyes flickered over the ivory-handled .380 Llama holstered on Pinadante's right hip.
The marshal draped a meaty hand over the Llama. Was he really being paranoid? he wondered. Was Alchupa stupid enough or brave enough to try for his gun right there while three soldiers armed with submachine guns stood guard? Just how crazy was Alchupa?
Pinadante took a step closer to Alchupa. Towering over the colonel, Pinadante believed he could crush Alchupa into the dirt with his sheer bulk. And he was tempted to do just that. Alchupa had made a ton of money from his drug empire, and Pinadante hated and resented him for that. No way in hell was the marshal going to be denied a big piece of the action from here on in. Even with Alchupa dead, the marshal believed he could reach the colonel's sponsors in Colombia and begin bargaining himself.
"Did you come here alone?"
Alchupa scowled. "No. My men rose from the dead."
"I see. How did you get here?"
"By boat, how else?" Alchupa abruptly changed the subject. "What about the revolution?"
Pinadante laughed. He lifted his bottle of rum to his lips and took a swallow of the liquor. "Revolution? What revolution?"
"You lied then," the colonel said in a matter-of-fact voice.
"Of course. I had no choice. You see, we have a serious problem now, Colonel."
"What is that?
"
"Ingratitude."
"You call me ungrateful when you had no intention of honoring our deal?" Alchupa spit on the ground. "Then there is my word to you."
Pinadante trembled with rage. "I could have you killed, do you know that?"
"You wouldn't. I still have my connections in Colombia. Even after this setback, I can round up a new force and begin again."
"So you think."
"So I know, Marshal. You seem to forget that without me there would be no precious cut for you."
"And you seem to forget that you came to me on bended knee months back when you were run out of Colombia, chased here by the imperialist Americano dogs. You were groveling for your life then."
"Things have changed."
"Just what does that mean?"
"It means things have changed."
"So they have. Your arrogance makes me want to change them even further."
"So...where do we go from here?" Alchupa asked, glancing over his shoulder at the FMK-3-wielding soldiers.
"I go back to Brasilia, Colonel. You..." he paused to take another drink of rum, some of the liquor spilling down the sides of his mouth "...may go straight to hell." Pinadante laughed, and his soldiers chuckled, too.
At that moment the sound of autofire ripped across the camp. Pinadante's soldiers whirled toward the sound.
Frozen for a second by the sight of his soldiers corkscrewing to the ground in the distance, Pinadante was caught off guard, allowing Alchupa to make his move.
Explosions thundering across the camp, fireballs boiling behind him, the colonel — in spite of his shattered wrist — tore a subgun out of a soldier's hands. At point-blank range he opened fire on the soldiers who had escorted him to Pinadante. A quick burst of 9 mm lead stitched them across their chests and sent them colliding into one another with horror and agony frozen on their faces.
Desperately, in panic, Pinadante clawed at his holstered Llama, feeling an urgent need to empty his bladder. The marshal had just discovered how crazy the colonel was.
Alchupa's face was twisted by demonic rage and hate as he turned the blazing subgun on the marshal. Screaming like a banshee, he emptied the entire magazine into Pinadante. A dancing bloody sieve, the marshal was knocked off his feet to crash into a table, the rum bottle flying from his hand.
Even before Pinadante hit the ground, Alchupa was running into the jungle.
* * *
Pinadante's soldiers were scattering pell-mell all over the camp. They had plenty of reason to be scared as Bolan began peppering the grounds and perimeter with HE rounds belching from his MM-1. Like bowling pins, Pinadante's men soared through the air, their screams cut short as they were chopped to death by the raging firestorm of explosions unleashed by Bolan's deadly weapon.
The sentry whom Bolan had taken out with a perfect toss to the throat was still writhing on the ground in death throes, his hand twitching for the blade embedded in his neck as a second line of HE explosions ripped through another dozen of Pinadante's soldiers.
Still more slaughter. Still more of Pinadante's goons paid the price for helping Anaconda. But Bolan was far from being satisfied with the destruction of this branch of Anaconda. The mission wouldn't end here.
Bolan glimpsed a shadow in the distance and recognized Alchupa. While explosions were shredding apart Pinadante's men and hurling tents into the air on fireballs, the colonel was beating a hasty retreat into the jungle. Bolan figured the colonel was going to try and make his way back to the gunboat. He hoped Fernando was ready and waiting, preferably with some .50-caiiber lead for the colonel.
But Bolan was forced to turn his attention back to the battle at hand. There was nothing he could do about Alchupa for the moment, and he wanted to be sure of the outcome of the struggle here.
FMK-3 subgun fire opened up on Bolan's position as the remainder of Pinadante's troops rallied to defend the camp and themselves. Foliage was churned up by the 9 mm leadstorm around the Executioner's head.
But the Executioner was primed for the mop-up.
So were the three assassins.
Arrows streaked through the smoke that was curling away from the bomb blasts. With arrows thudding into their chests, three of Pinadante's soldiers tumbled to the ground, hands clutching the shafts. G-11 autofire mowed down another six men within seconds. A 40 mm grenade rocketed away from Rolaff's M-203 launcher and added still more chaos and destruction into the foray.
Unleathering Big Thunder, Bolan charged into the camp. Well-placed headshots began decapitating the rapidly diminishing enemy numbers. A wounded Brazilian soldier took a lethal round from the Executioner's AutoMag through his back as he crawled across the ground, clawing for his FMK-3. The guy arched his back, blood poured from his mouth, then he lay still.
It was over in less than a minute.
On a dead run Bolan reached Pinadante's tent. Sweeping aside the mosquito netting, Bolan found the marshal drenched in blood, wide eyes staring lifelessly at the tent opening. So much for another would-be druglord.
Behind Bolan, Geoffrey Godfried had walked into the hellgrounds, and now approached Pinadante's tent.
He drew down on Bolan's backside. A smile slid across Godfried's lips.
19
Godfried was smiling because he felt he had damn good reason to smile.
Bolan was finished.
Bolan was dead meat.
The prize kill that everybody from Alchupa to the Viper wanted was going to be Godfried's for the taking, and there wasn't a thing Bolan could do to stop him.
For a second Godfried waited, watching Bolan as he stared into Pinadante's personal abattoir. Godfried wanted to wait until Bolan at least turned partly his way. It would be chickenshit stuff to poleax the Executioner with an extended G-11 backshot. Backshooting was the kind of cowardly garbage that well-known Americans like Billy the Kid and Jesse James were famous for.
The Brit tightened his finger around the G-11's trigger. He had just put a fresh mag into the caseless assault rifle, and he was going to empty the whole damn magazine into Bolan, then watch and smile as the Executioner twitched and flopped all over the ground. If he had lied and cheated the Executioner by pretending to be on the level but intending all along to break some code of honor, then so what? Men who killed for money weren't supposed to be honorable anyway. Hell, in the end it didn't really matter how you took out a target, as long as you got the job done. Killing was killing; it was that simple. At least for some people. Even so, when it came down to man-to-man, the final confrontation between two hunters, two professionals, then killing should be done face-to-face, eye-to-eye. Winner take all. Loser dead. End of game. Hell, look at the Viper. He had the attitude that human life, or any life other than his own, was merely garbage to be burned in the wastelands of human existence, and maybe the Viper was right. The world was shit.
A twisted grin touched Godfried's lips. Unfortunately for him, it froze there. Permanently.
Stayed locked in a death mask.
The first arrow took Godfried in the back, square between the shoulder blades. The wind was driven from his lungs, then an incredible pain knifed down his spine, reaching right into his toes with a fiery explosion. The Mongol, he thought, as he dropped to his knees. The Mongol had claimed another victim.
Khan's second arrow drilled right through Godfried's back.
The arrowhead punched out through his throat. In his final second he saw the blood-slick arrowhead jutting away from his neck.
But in that last moment the Brit didn't experience pain or terror. No, what he felt was anger. With himself.
All this smiling had killed him.
* * *
Bolan, who had sensed someone behind him, turned in time to see the Brit slump to his knees. AutoMag in hand, the Executioner was about to decapitate the assassin when he saw the arrow grow out of Godfried's throat as if it were an extension of his body.
So much for Godfried, Bolan thought. So much for one more lying bastard in this v
icious circle of deceit and treachery.
Khan stood in the distance, behind a drifting wall of black smoke, waiting, as Rolaff the Headhunter made his move to follow through on Godfried's line of thinking.
The Swede walked through a curtain of smoke, tall and arrogant and as cool as an icicle. The M-16 leaped up in his hands. Whatever had been going through Rolaff's head, whatever had made him decide to turn against him, Bolan would never know. Nor did he really care to know.
Bolan turned Rolaff into a headless headhunter with one booming .44 round from the AutoMag. The Swede slammed to the ground, his brains splattering over two shredded corpses. The guy, Bolan briefly reflected, had died too damn easily, almost as if he had expected to die, hell, almost as if he wanted to die.
Liao Khan didn't want to die, or so it seemed to Bolan in the next instant.
The Mongol lifted his arms, bow in hand. "I believe they had intended to kill you all along."
"I believe you're right."
"I do not intend such a thing."
Bolan, his AutoMag trained on the Mongol, measured Khan for a stretched second. A dirty gray light had broken across the jungle. Surrounded by burning tents, the crackling of flames gathering strength, Khan and Bolan stood, mere shadows on the killing field.
"Why should I believe you?" Bolan asked.
"Because I say so."
"So did they."
"If you do not trust me, then kill me now."
"Maybe I should."
"Maybe you should," the Mongol agreed.
And maybe he shouldn't. There was something in Khan's voice, a look in the Mongol's eyes that Bolan detected as honor. Bolan decided to let him live. First, Khan had saved his life — or had that been just some ploy to set him up for a strike later? Bolan wondered, then dismissed the thought. Second, Bolan could use some help. He had to get back to the gunboat, and unless he missed his guess, Pinadante would have backup on the river. Fernando was a quarter mile downstream, and the river was almost the same distance from Pinadante's camp, which meant the sounds of autofire and the rumble of explosions would have reached the ears of Pinadante's troops.
Blood of the Lion Page 16