But no one, Bolan grimly resolved, was ever going to get that far.
Light suddenly swept toward Bolan's position. Crouched in the brush, he opened up with the Ingram. A quick burst of .45 ACP lead, and the searchlight popped and went blind. The guy manning the light went blind forever as Bolan stitched the goon across the chest, flinging him back into the bushes.
Turning deathsights on the goons scrambling for the house, the Executioner hosed the grounds with a long burst. Wounded men crawling from the smoke of the grenade blast were nailed to the ground when Bolan's sweeping surge of lead drilled into their backs and heads. Littel, blood gushing from the stump where his left leg had been, reached for an M-16, but his trembling fingers never touched the assault rifle. Three .45 ACP rounds punched into the back of Litters head.
Pulling the pin on two more MK2s, Bolan hurled the grenades at the porch. Angling down the side of the house, he heard the grenades blow and men scream when lethal metal fragments tore them to shreds and hurled them through the air.
Bolan glimpsed the Viper scooping up an M-16. Slapping home a fresh 30-round clip into the Ingram, Bolan was prepared to cut Weiss down. Then return fire began ripping into the woods around Bolan, and dashing ahead, he left behind the tracking line of fire.
The Executioner was going in for a backdoor appearance. A hellfire entrance.
* * *
Clarence burst through the front door. He couldn't believe what had just happened. No, he didn't want to believe it. Behind him were at least a dozen dead men, and Littel had gone down in the grenade blast. He had given that guy a cash advance for nothing.
The Viper, M-16 in hand, followed Clarence through the door.
"Get them out there!" Clarence barked at the sentry guarding Martin and Atworth.
"What are you going to do?" the Viper asked.
Turning, Clarence pinned him with a steely gaze. "Finish what you started. Finish what you failed to do. If you had done what you were supposed to do down in the Amazon, none of this would have happened."
"What the fuck's that supposed to mean?"
"It means I don't think I'm getting the whole picture here. It means I think you had something else in mind besides rubbing out Alchupa for me."
"Like what?"
"Like taking the whole action for yourself, that's what."
"That's a mighty strong accusation, you know that? You ought to watch your mouth before you start jumping to conclusions."
"Look, Weiss, we're both in the same business. We know guys fuck each other all the time. Lie. Cheat. Steal. Don't pay up when they're supposed to for a job that's long since been done. Hold out on money. Stall. Throw up a smoke screen."
"You think that's what I'm doing?"
"I'll let you know... later. Cover the back door."
The Viper moved past Clarence toward the rear of the house.
The sentry shoved Martin and Atworth out of the room where they had been held, but before Clarence could give further orders, he heard a series of tremendous explosions.
Throwing open the back door, the Viper called down the hallway, "The bastard's just blown up your gateway."
"Dammit!"
Then another explosion ripped from somewhere down the hall. Near the kitchen, Clarence decided, pinning down the location of the rumble. Bolan was dancing around the house, trying to make it appear that he was everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The guy was smart. Tough, too.
James Clarence was beginning to wonder if maybe they'd bitten off more than they could chew.
"What do you want us to do?"
Turning, Clarence saw two of Littel's soldiers flanking the front door.
"I want you to get the hell away from the door for starters. How many men you got left?"
"I count eight here."
"Move it out! Take the fight to him."
"Bolan's got a Jimmy down at the end of the drive," the Viper said as he rejoined Clarence.
When he heard this, Clarence snatched Martin and wrapped a forearm around his throat. Pressing the muzzle of his Magnum against Martin's temple, Clarence growled, "Grab the other one, Weiss. We're getting the hell out of here. We'll use these two to get to Bolan, then gun the guy down. No shitting around this time. Drop him in his tracks."
* * *
Four vehicles were in flames behind him as Bolan skirted the side of the house. MK-2 in his left hand, Big Thunder in his right fist, he neared the corner of the house. He heard wood creaking ahead. The porch. Soldiers coming.
Having already pulled the pin on the MK-2, Bolan released the spoon. Mentally he counted off two seconds, then lobbed the MK-2 around the corner.
A curse ripped the air.
An explosion.
Screams.
In a crouch, Bolan whirled around the corner. Four targets bounded down the porch. Five fresh, torn, twisted corpses littered the porch, greasy blood and guts dappling the wall and pillars.
Big Thunder roared and bucked four times in Bolan's fist. Gaping holes were punched into the backs of the fleeing mercs. As if they'd been bowled down by a fourteen-wheeler, the goons were launched down the porch by the .44 rounds.
Pulling the pin on another MK-2, Bolan rolled the grenade along the porch. Just then the Viper poked his head out of the doorway. Weiss triggered a burst at Bolan, then saw the frag grenade roll up to the front door.
"Get back!" the Viper yelled, a split second before the MK-2 detonated.
The Executioner was already moving to the rear of the house again. Firelight wavered over the patio. Bolan hugged the wall and closed in on the back door. He would soon find out whether the Viper or anyone else had been ripped apart by the MK-2.
As Bolan, crouching, whipped into the doorway, he saw all hell break loose down the hall.
The Viper had survived the frag explosion.
Both the Viper and Clarence were holding Atworth and Martin as hostages. Another merc was leading the advance down the hall. Bolan took that guy out with a gut-opening .44 round, driving the sentry into the Viper. The force of the collision knocked the Viper off balance, causing him to release Atworth.
"You stupid shit!" Clarence screamed. In the next instant he did something crazy, suicide crazy. He pumped a .45 slug into Martin's brain. Blood and muck splattered the wall. Clarence let Martin's limp weight fall from his arms, then shrieked like some banshee, swinging his aim toward Bolan.
The Executioner sent a thundering .44 death message down the hall. It tore through Clarence's forehead, showering his brains and chunks of his skull over the Viper.
Atworth had seized his opportunity, moving like a flash of lightning. Whatever possessed him, Bolan could only guess, but Atworth scooped up the dead sentry's M-16 and turned the assault rifle on the Viper.
Unaware that he was marked for extinction by Atworth, the Viper cut loose with his M-16, spraying the doorway. Chips of wood pelting his face, Bolan ducked back from the tracking line of fire.
Then he heard another burst of autofire. The telltale burst. The question remained, was Atworth friend or foe?
Wheeling into the doorway, the Executioner saw Atworth pin the Viper to the wall with an extended burst. Finger held back on the trigger, Atworth emptied the whole magazine into the Viper, bursting open his stomach, stitching him up the chest and drilling 5.56 mm rounds into his face at point-blank range.
When the final spent shell tumbled from the M-16, the Viper sliding down the wall in his own juices, Atworth let the weapon fall from his hands.
Bolan stepped cautiously into the hallway.
Shaking, Atworth turned toward Bolan. There was a haunted look in his eyes.
"They're dead... all of them," Atworth told the Executioner. "I...I..."
"Save it, Atworth," Bolan growled. "You're coming with me."
Atworth looked at Bolan for a second, confused. "What? Where?"
"I'm taking you in to Justice."
A bitter chuckle from Atworth. "Why not? Hell, it's over anyway."
&nb
sp; Bolan nodded at the dead. "For them it is, yeah."
And for Anaconda, the end had come. Hard. Bloody. Bolan had put to rest the DEA SOD scourge.
Epilogue
Bolan delivered Atworth to Brognola's office, dumping him in a chair in front of the big Fed's desk.
The big, grizzled Fed was standing near his open window. It was midnight, and darkness hung over the streets of Washington. Another kind of darkness was in the room.
Human darkness.
Brognola took a sip from his coffee cup, set it down on his desk, then looked at Atworth for a long moment.
"And Martin, Striker?"
"Dead. Clarence blew his brains out."
"Jesus." Brognola rested a hard gaze on Atworth. "What about you, Atworth? Are you going to talk?"
"He already told me he would, Hal. He's got a list of names a mile long. You'll be busy picking up the pieces of this for a long time."
"Why, Atworth? Why did you turn on your own people?"
A bitter smile flickered over Atworth's lips. He hung his head, unable to look either Brognola or Bolan in the eye. "Why? I don't really know why. Money, I suppose."
"Money!" Brognola growled. "Christ, man, you had a good career. I checked your record. You were one of the good ones. Where the hell did it all go wrong?"
Atworth shook his head, as if searching for the answer to the question himself. "I got fed up."
"With what?"
"Losing. Fighting a losing battle."
Bolan drew a deep breath into his tired body. All right, he could understand where Atworth was coming from. But he couldn't justify it. Not one damn bit. Sure there were times, plenty of times, that Mack Bolan felt he was fighting a losing battle. But, dammit, that didn't mean a guy just got up one morning and threw in the towel. If you did that, you became one of the savages, one of the predators. Bolan felt disgust. Not so much with Atworth, but with the world that shaped men like Atworth. The Vipers. The Hector Alchupas. Perhaps there were circumstances that led certain men, weaker men, in directions that they believed were good. Good, though, only for them. When a man started living for himself and only himself, it was the beginning of a short, ugly walk down the road to self-destruction.
"So now you've had a change of heart, that right?"
"Maybe," Atworth admitted. "What can I say?"
"There's nothing you can say, Atworth," Bolan said quietly from behind the man. "You've already said it all."
"If you're sorry, Atworth, maybe it's because you got caught."
"Whatever." Atworth was lapsing into a state of despair. "But I'm here."
"You're one of the lucky ones," Bolan cryptically commented, recalling all the dead men he had left behind on this mission since Colorado.
Again Atworth smiled bitterly. "If I talk, will I be granted immunity from prosecution?"
Brognola returned Atworth's bitter smile. "I doubt it, Atworth, but I'll see what I can do. Everything depends on how much you help me from here on in."
That seemed to be good enough for Atworth.
For Bolan, though, it wasn't good enough.
As tired, as beaten and as frustrated as he felt, he knew War Everlasting would call him as soon as he walked out of that room. The savages never slept.
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