"We also have a glove for your right hand," Thomas said, "and rubber balls to silence the string when it's released."
"I don't need the glove," he said, tugging slightly on the string to get a feel for the tension. "As for the sound of the string, well, there'll be enough surface noise to cover that anyway. So let's get on with it. What are my targets?"
Thomas shot a self-satisfied grin at Tanya, who remained coolly aloof as she watched the proceedings.
"Those three cabin doors," he said, pointing at the cabins lined up on one side of the camp. The farthest was fifty yards, the closest twentyfive yards. "Let me see how quickly you can hit each door. If you can..."
But before he could finish his sentence, the Welsh archer was already moving. He pulled the string back to his cheek and released, sending the thin shaft whistling at the farthest door. It struck with a thud and twang. But by then he was already firing at the next target. And then the next. Each struck home, all within five seconds of the first shot.
"Amazing!" Thomas said. "Incredible." But while Thomas continued to praise the shot, Bolan noticed something else. A look in the Welshman's eye. It was a look not many people would recognize, it required a specialized kind of training and experience. It isn't everybody who can tell when a man is getting ready to kill. It's a flicker, really, a darkening of the iris, a grimness around the mouth that reveals that a heavy decision has been made, one that cannot be reversed. That was the look Bolan saw in Clifford as he watched the archer casually ease another arrow from the quiver as if to get ready for the next trick shot. Trick shot, yeah, one that would end up sticking out of Thomas Morganslicht's chest. And he would probably get another one into Tanya, too, before the surrounding hardguys pumped a couple hundred rounds into him. And into the rest of the athletes. And into Mack Bolan. The archer notched his arrow and tightened his three-fingered grip around the string. He started to raise the bow.
Bolan stepped forward and grabbed the bow. "Hey, I used to hunt a little with a bow. These arrows don't look long enough."
"Don't be an idiot, Sergeant," Thomas said angrily. "You can see for yourself they'll do just fine."
Clifford tried to pull the weapon free from Bolan's iron grip. "Leave me alone," he growled in a low whisper.
"I don't know," Bolan said loudly. "Arrows have to be measured according to each man's pull. These look a little short."
"Would you please shut up," Tanya said. "Mr. Barnes-Fenwick doesn't seem to mind. Rudi, take the bow and escort out guests back to their room. We want them to get plenty of rest before this afternoon."
Rudi elbowed Bolan aside and jerked the bow out of the Welshman's hand. Bolan smiled grimly with relief, but Clifford scowled at him in frustrated rage.
"What about the skier?" Thomas asked. "Shouldn't we run him through one more time?"
"I think not. He's done it perfectly every day, so there's no need to wear him out so soon before the real thing. He knows the route and he can make the jump off the mini-ramp that we have already constructed." She addressed Udo. "You can drop the knapsack in the truck as it passes under you?"
"Yes," Udo said nervously. "I have not missed once so far."
"Fine. Then once you've dropped it, you can keep skiing to freedom."
"With the army chasing after him instead of you," Bolan added.
She smiled smugly. "Yes, but it's still a chance for him to live. Now, you help Rudi lock our little Olympians back in their room. The cabin, not the garage. We want them ready. We have only hours to go."
Rudi pounded his club against the ground. "Let's go," he roared, and the four athletes began to shuffle away in a loose line.
They had not gone ten yards before Babette tripped and pitched face first into the snow. Bolan reached over, grabbing her elbow to help her up, but as she rose she whirled around and pushed him away.
"Don't touch me, you pig!" she yelled, pushing him away. But as she struggled against him, their faces only inches away, she looked up at him, and with the briefest of movements, winked at him. Then he knew for sure that she would be ready for the break, whenever it came. The slaps had been part of her act, an act so convincing he hadn't been sure himself.
"Get away!" she hollered, brushing the snow from her jacket and marching on.
Bolan looked over his shoulder at the terrorist twins. Thomas merely looked annoyed.
But Tanya, obviously pleased, was smiling her thin, evil smile.
20
"How much longer?" Bolan asked from the back of the van.
"Twenty more minutes, Sergeant," Tanya answered.
Once again Bolan found himself in the lead van with Tanya driving and Rudi riding shotgun, cradling the same 12-gauge Stevens shotgun he had used the night before on the Black Sunday raid. Bolan had the same H and K G-II balanced across his knees, and Tanva still had the remaining clips. The big difference was that instead of being filled with terrorists like it had been last night, the van was filled with four ex-Olympic champions; on their way to the hellgrounds of horrific death, the doomland of chemical fire.
The grotesque Rudi kept his shotgun leveled on them from the front of the bus, and another faceless hardguy kept his Uzi pointed at them from the back of the van.
Through the rear window, Bolan could see Thomas behind the wheel of the trailing van and Hermann sitting next to him. And crowded behind them in the back of their van were ten hardened killers stroking Uzis, sweating and dreaming and praying it would be their buddy and not them that gets killed.
Whatever was going to go wrong had to go wrong soon.
They were less than twenty minutes from the hardsite and Bolan could not wait until they arrived there.
First, he wanted these animals nowhere near striking range of that "yellow rain." Second, with all the excitement, he wanted to avoid soldiers firing innocently on the hostages. And third, he wanted to prevent Clifford from having to fire arrows into any unsuspecting guards... although he had an idea that the Welshman had no intention at all of killing anyone, at least anyone outside the Zwilling Horde. Bolan tried to catch Mako's eye, but the slim Oriental stared straight ahead as if in a self induced trance.
"That was quite a stunt you pulled back there at the camp," Bolan told him.
Mako glanced at the big American and nodded.
"Child's play."
"Perhaps you just need a more challenging situation." Bolan let his stare penetrate Mako's eyes.
Mako shifted on his seat, seemed to understand the message beneath the words. "Perhaps."
"Shut up!" spat Rudi, waving his shotgun between Bolan and Mako. Bolan could not be sure that Mako had understood him, had caught the movement of the eyes that assigned the guy with the Uzi to him. But there was no more time to decide. If they were ever going to make their move it would be now.
And so it was.
Bolan lunged forward, using his left forearm to drive the barrel of the shotgun toward the floor, using the butt of the H and K to club Rudi's skull. Even as he was still grabbing at the shotgun he saw Mako leap across the van at the terrorist with the Uzi. The van wobbled from the shifting of weight, but it wobbled even more when the butt of Bolan's gun cracked Rudi's skull, causing the giant to emit a curdled cry as he impulsively pulled the trigger of his shotgun. The blast tore a hole in the floor. Tanya swerved the van, struggling to maintain control with one hand, reaching for her 9mm Firebird with the other.
Bolan was still grappling with Rudi when he saw Mako and Babette rush forward. Mako grabbed Tanya's wrist between his thumb and forefinger and applied enough pressure to snap the wrist. There was no mistaking that cracking sound coupled with her scream of pain. He yanked her out of the driver's seat while Babette deftly slid in behind the wheel, flooring the gas pedal. Rudi still clung to the shotgun, trying to wrench it out of Bolan's grip. His huge yellow horse teeth flashed in a grimace of pain and concentration, but he was already too weak from the blows to the head. With a sudden twisting movement, Bolan pulled the shotgun free and sw
ung it around to face Rudi.
"I am unarmed," Rudi pleaded. "You would not shoot an unarmed man."
"You've been watching the wrong movies, guy," Bolan said, and fired into the giant's face a 12-gauge boxcar with death as the freight. Ragged chunks of flesh bloodied the inside of the windshield. Fringe pellets shattered the window of the passenger's door.
"God!" Babette shouted and the van swerved before she got it under control.
Bolan swung around to face the back of the van.
Mako hovered over Tanya, the 9mm Firebird pointed at her chest.
The terrorist toughguy lay sprawled on the floor, his eyes wide open, his neck floppily distorted from being broken by an expert.
Clifford Barnes-Fenwick gripped the dead man's Uzi with a stranglehold as if uncertain who to turn it on.
Udo Ganz remained seated where he'd been, staring blankly through the hole in the floor as the road rushed like rapids beneath the speeding van.
"All right, listen to me," Bolan said. "I'm going to tell you what to do and you're going to do it without question or argument. In about thirty seconds, Babette will stop the van. That will force the van behind us to stop too. I'll stall them long enough for you to tear the hell out of here. They will not be able to follow you."
"You against twelve of them?" Babette protested.
"I'll have her," he replied, nodding at Tanya.
"You fool," Tanya snarled. "We could have made you wealthy. A wealthy idiot."
"The only thing you were going to make me is deceased."
"Why can't we just shoot it out,", the Welshm an boomed. "We could shoot out their tires and keep going. We have guns too."
"Because they have more guns," Bolan said simply. He did not want to tell them that their safe escape was only a mirror corollary to his main mission, which was the total destruction of the Zwilling Horde. No, the Executioner didn't want to escape. "Now stop the van."
Babette hesitated, began pumping the brakes until the van slowed down. When the speedometer showed less than twenty kilometers an hour, she eased it off the road onto the icy shoulder.
Thomas's van followed suit, slowing and pulling off the road and parking twenty yards behind them.
Bolan could see their exhaust pumping into the chilly air.
"Cut the motor," he told Babette.
She turned the motor off but left the key in the ignition. "Udo, you'll have to drive. I'm too nervous. Udo!"
"Of course," he said and climbed forward to the driver's seat. "Okay, they've cut their engine," said Bolan. "Now, I'm going outside to talk. When you think you're ready to go, go! Start her up and drive like hell."
"I'm as handy with a gun as I am with my hands," Mako said quietly.
Bolan was touched by the slender man's subtle offer. He had proven himself a lion of a man already, but his skills would be better used helping the others escape. "I'll bet there's not a whole lot you aren't good at, guy. But this one's a solo."
Mako nodded understanding and gave a look of such sincerity that it expressed more friendship than a dozen speeches.
"Let's go, Sweet Pea," Bolan said, grabbed Tanya under the arm and hoisted her to her feet. "Toss me those clips."
Udo threw Bolan two clips for the H and K. Bolan slipped one into place over the nuzzle and looked back to the man. "You keep the Uzi, you may need it if I don't stop them." He slid open the VW side door and stepped out, pulling Tanya behind him. He looked back into the van at the brave band of athletes and smiled. "Good luck," he said, then slid the door closed with an echoing thud.
He dug the barrel of the H and K into the back of Tanya's skull while guiding her forward with his left hand. "Just stay cool, Commander," he whispered. "You wouldn't like what a couple rounds from this baby would do to your pretty little head."
"The only thing I don't like is your head," she hissed. "Maybe, but right now your head is mine. I have it." He took a careful step, used the corner of the van for cover. "Come on out, Morganslicht," Bolan called. "New deal."
"That's an American phrase, FDR'S New Deal?" Thomas was crazed with uncertainty.
"Yeah, this is going to be just like that."
The side door of the other van slid open and four armed hardguys jumped out, leveled their guns at Bolan. Then the front doors opened, Thomas and Hermann stepped out either side, and remained standing behind the metal doors.
"What happened, Tanya?" Thomas asked.
There was a slight taunting in his voice, like he was pleased to see his sister screw up.
Bolan pressed the gun harder against her skull. "I'll do the talking for now."
"What do you want?" Thomas called.
"A bigger cut for one thing. And a permanent position in your organization. I think Rudi's position might be open." What was taking Udo so long? Now was the time to pull out, while half of them were out of the van. The motor coughed once, caught, and the van lurched forward, squealing against the ice as it shot into the narrow road. Thomas leaped back to his seat to give chase.
"Forget them," Tanya ordered her brother.
"We will have another time. Now we must just regroup and replan." Thomas watched as the van roared down the road, glancing anxiously back and forth between his sister and the disappearing van.
Finally he climbed back out. "I am sorry, Tanya," he said, "but we are too close for that now." He pulled his Luger from his shoulder holster and fired three slugs into his sister's chest.
Bolan shoved her forward at Thomas's first movement, fired a full automatic burst into both tires of the van before diving over the embankment, tucking the H and K close to his chest as he rolled ten feet down the other side into the underbrush and the thick dark forest. "Get him!" Thomas screamed. Ten armed men jumped over the embankment, sliding after the American.
Bolan dodged out from behind a pine tree and caught two of the hardguys as they hit the bottom of the embankment. He sprayed a hailstorm of bullets across their groins, cutting them almost in half at the legs. They collapsed in heaps, their guts steaming as they were exposed to the cold air.
It was time to run, to weave back and forth behind trees, to lure them deeper into the forest. The deeper he went, the thicker the woods and the darker the atmosphere. He became the nightfighter once more, man of stealth and silence and cunning. The terrorists were spreading out farther and farther from one another, making Bolan's strategy inevitable.
He caught their point man all alone from behind, and using his garrote, choked the man until eyes and tongue bulged out of his head. The second man he surprised by silently leaping out from behind a tree, thrusting his stiletto into the startled man's stomach, twisting it until he found the spine. He quietened the dying victim with a suffocating grasp around the face.
Bolan headed deeper into the woods, deeper into the hellground, full tilt. The forest whipping by him stank of moist undergrowth. It was good here for the Executioner.
In some dark spot real soon, he would show the light. The light of the truth that to kill a terrorist is not vengeance or cruelty, it is just common sense.
The public truth.
For, of course, it is the public who is most exposed. He sprinted ahead, cradling the case less G-II in a relaxed midriff sweep.
Its plastic-molded housing was a bizarre even glorious feature among these trees, its loud modern streamlining a brave stab at circumstances already too far gone.
As Bolan soft soled it from pockets of dark places to even gloomier spaces in the steaming woods, the gun was soundless. Every tick and rattle of its engineering was completely baffled by the casing, itself almost weightless in the superb balance of Bolan's flying grip. Gun and man their noise lessness allowed the man the nice advantage of surprise. He heard clues to the positions of his pursuers. Glaring clues, for they were playing a different game. They were snapping a twig or two, calling out, cursing once or twice. Very precise for Bolan. And he was already a football field ahead of them, ready for a stadium performance, listening in as tight as he co
uld get it reaching with the ear as far as a human can and them some to score a victory. That was Bolan's game. He knew the game was on, the minute he saw the hut. Right there in his path. Now victory was inevitable.
The hut was made of round pebbly rock. It was covered with a dense disguise of vine, thriving greenery, and sported a quaint but decaying Bavarian roof. Two windows, one on either side, one low entrance holes in the wall gaping square sockets. Perfect. And better yet, this helpful litle edifice blessed with that true and dramatic magic that we know as timeliness was further blessed by its position, now perfect after many years, a little woodman's storage hut lying neglected all these years in wait. In wait, slap bang in the middle of the advancing line of shooting clowns.
Hot brother, little architecture! Bolan tapped the top of the small doorway as he ducked into the hut. Its floor was thick with undergrowth.
Light from the windows on either side came through in a band between waist and head height. It was dank in the hut, but great. The ideal spot for the extraterrestrial action that Bolan had in mind.
The action that isn't there when you look at it.... The action that plays somewhere else. The kind of action that calls up the barrel of the Heckler and Koch assault weapon like an eagle on the wing, breathtaking in the easy way it rose, its only real weight aside from the magazine being its scope, which now beaded in on its first visible target.
Light as light waves, true as fate. Bolan shot the scum soldier who was in his sights at last. Swiveling around instantly in the cramped hideout, arriving at a proper aim within the crack of the first shot, Bolan fired another short round out of the opposite window. His second visible target fell. Bolan swung back to check the accuracy of his first shot. Empty woods showed where the target had been. But visible in the nearer view was a punk trooper taking aim, an anonymous shootist of the Zwilling Horde, a being with no love for life and therefore of no worth, a man prepared to waste his lousy existence on a dumb move. A really dumb last move.
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