Devil's Horn

by Don Pendleton

  "We pulled it off," Harry Kam said in a tremulous voice. "By God, we did it!"

  "We ain't done nothin' yet, man," Jones rasped.

  Bolan knew the black soldier was right about that. The Executioner had a bad gut feeling. They had gambled. And won? So far. But what next?

  "Bo-leen!"

  Bolan peered over the hood of the transport truck. Near the far end of the village Kam Chek stepped from a doorway. The warlord dragged a small boy beside him, fisting a handful of the child's hair.

  Bolan cursed.

  Kam Chek stopped in the center of the village. "Bo-leen, you listen to me. If you care about saving innocent lives, you had better throw down your weapons. Now!"

  "Shit!" Jones snarled, the sinews in his hands rippling, the veins in his neck prominent, as he gripped his AK-47 tightly. He looked as if he wanted to break the weapon in two with his bare hands.

  Grimaldi hopped out of the bed of the transport truck, hit the ground, and wheeled behind the vehicle.

  Bolan thought fast. This was a standoff. The bastards held the entire village hostage. But Bolan had some bargaining power of his own. He held their precious fortune in heroin. It was all he had to deal with in exchange for innocent lives. He hoped it would be enough.

  "Kam Chek!" Bolan called out. "If you people want your heroin back, you'll let every man, woman and child there go free. Unharmed. You kill them, we'll come right in. And you won't die easy, mon ami. I promise you that."

  Kam Chek appeared to think about the situation for a moment. His hostage pulled at his hands, struggling to break free, crying out in pain. Kam Chek shook the boy as if he were a wet rag. "Shut up! Stand still!" he hissed.

  "Nobody gets to these trucks, Kam Chek, unless they get by us!" Bolan went on. "You'll save yourself a lot of trouble, and a lot of lives. Like the lives of your men, Kam Chek. Let those people go."

  Bolan had no intention of turning the heroin over to the Devil's Horn again. Likewise, he knew that Torquemandan and his warlords would not just let him and the other prisoners walk away from this engagement. The Devil's Horn might let the villagers walk away. But Bolan already knew that the whole bloody affair was building toward an even gorier slaughter. Still, it was necessary to move one step at a time. He was gambling that the Devil's Horn would relent at this point. It was a question of who could outbluff whom.

  Dragging his hostage, Kam Chek headed back to the hut at the end of the village for a conference with Torquemandan. He vanished through the doorway to the hut.

  Tension mounted among the escapees. Kara voiced the anxiety that gripped everyone there. "He's not going to deal, you know that? They'll kill everybody there, then attack us."

  "We have to wait and see, soldier," Bolan answered. "We rolled the dice, and this is what we came up with. You watch — Torquemandan's greed will win out. He'll have to deal."

  "I hope you're right, man," Jones breathed.

  So do I, Bolan thought. Too many innocent lives have been snuffed out already.

  "And if he doesn't deal?" Polanski wanted to know.

  "Then we try something else," Bolan answered. "Try a little harder approach."

  Kam Chek reappeared, walked back to the center of the village. He still grasped the boy by the hair.

  "Bo-leen. It seems you have overestimated your position. We can afford to wait and hold you off, if necessary. When we do not show at our destination, the relief force stationed at the laboratories will come in search of us. Your position is hopeless. We will not deal. The best you can do for yourself and your comrades is to surrender without delay. You will be treated mercifully, I assure you."

  Bolan ignored the guffaws and the snickering. An iceball of fury lodged in his stomach. Torquemandan had called his bluff. But Bolan wasn't about to throw in the towel. Not yet. Not ever.

  "I suggest you reconsider, Kam Chek," he called. "I've got sixty men here. We'll make an accounting of ourselves, bet on it, friend. I'm pulling out with the heroin, but I'll be nearby. When you change your mind, just stand there and shout. My offer, and my threat, still stand. You start killing villagers, I'll stomp every last ounce of the poison in these trucks straight into the mud. And you'll find out damn quick that the world isn't big enough to hide you and your comrades. Have I got a oui on that, mon ami?"

  "You are a very stubborn, but foolish ferang, Bo-leen," Kam Chek said with a smile. Then, without warning, he pulled the Tokarev pistol from its holster.

  "Oh, God, no," Grimaldi rasped through gritted teeth.

  Kam Chek leveled the muzzle of the Tokarev against the boy's temple. The child stood paralyzed for a split second, then screamed as Kam Chek squeezed the trigger. Blood sprayed away from the child's shattered head. Kam Chek threw the little body to the ground.

  A woman wailed in anguish. A moment later, she ran from a hut, stumbled down the street with an awkward swinging gait. Horror was written on her face.

  Bolan had seen enough. His guts knotted up with hatred, he lifted the Uzi over the hood of the truck. He drew target acquisition on Kam Chek's face, and his finger tightened around the trigger.

  "Mack, no!" Grimaldi implored. "They'll kill everybody."

  Bolan steadied the tremor in his arms. He looked Kam Chek dead in the eye. The bastard just stood there, clenched fists on his hips, ignoring the bloodstained body of the child he'd just murdered in cold blood. The woman draped herself over the small corpse. Her racking sobs chilled the silence.

  Bolan so badly wanted to squeeze the Uzi's trigger that it was all he could do not to erase Kam Chek's grinning visage, turn that face into crimson mush. But Bolan knew Jack was right. If Kam Chek died, the mercenaries would most likely massacre the villagers.

  You win, you soulless bastard, Bolan thought. For now.

  Bolan let the Uzi fall to his side.

  Kam Chek chuckled.

  A terrible hatred threatened to overpower Mack Bolan, a black, icy feeling that ate at his guts.

  The woman weeping for her child echoed through Bolan's head. The cry of pure misery fed his hatred for Kam Chek and for everyone connected with the Devil's Horn.

  21

  "What are they doing now?"

  Torquemandan cringed, then despised himself for doing so. His voice sounded weak and scratchy to him, and he could have sworn he detected a note of panic in his question. But why the hell shouldn't he panic at a time like this, anyway? he asked himself.

  Viciously, silently, he cursed himself for allowing his mercenary cutthroats to dictate the routine for the march. Now, a fortune in heroin was about to go straight down the toilet, and the only thing he could do about it was peer out a hole in this tumbledown hut and feel like some rotten, frightened street punk who's about to get his ass beat. Worse, he felt as if he was hiding, like some rat in a hole. "Hole" was fucking well right, he thought. This village was nothing but a hole. But just who was dug in at the moment, quaking in fear? he asked himself in disgust.

  He turned and looked at the rats who had gotten them all buried in this hole in the first place. As he looked at Kan Khang, Kam Chek, and the nine members of his organization, all huddled down inside the front wall, watching their wealth roll away right before their eyes, Torquemandan didn't know whether to feel rage, disgust or contempt. Perhaps what he should do was grab the gun off that punk, Davis, and start blowing heads off. But he knew he couldn't do that. He needed these jerks. He needed them to seize the scag and take back the night.

  Then the sound of an engine growling to life drew Torquemandan's attention back to the street.

  Three transport trucks were turning away from the village and starting to roll across the rice paddy. He saw eight, maybe a dozen shadows move around in the moonlight, pitch pack after pack of heroin into the remaining two transport trucks. Then the shadows were recognizable as men as they leaped into the jeep. Damn it! They were taking everything, he realized with horror. Everything but the armored personnel carriers. Just leave me something with wheels, you sons of bitches, Torq
uemandan said to himself. His mind was working furiously. If he couldn't win here, he decided, he'd better cut his losses, get back to the palace, scrape together all the raw heroin in reserve there and move his business elsewhere.

  "Khang, why aren't your soldiers doing something, dammit?" Torquemandan glowered at Khang. For a moment, he thought a smile flickered over Khang's lips, but in the wavering torchlight it was hard to tell.

  "What would you have us do, Mon Général!"

  Torquemandan had to admit he didn't know what his next move should be. He had thought Bolan would cave in when his bluff was called. But the guy just blew the smoke back in their faces. Bolan the hardass. The bastard.

  They had just three options. Take flight, fight or wait for the reinforcements to show up. But Torquemandan knew that wait could take days. Days that were numbered. He made the only decision possible.

  "Kam Chek, get your ass in gear," Torquemandan growled. "Here's where you finally earn your keep." Torquemandan paused, more out of sudden fear than anything else. Kam Chek was fingering the hilt of his sword. And Kam Chek, he could tell, most definitely did not like to be talked to in the tone of voice he'd just used. Too bad, Torquemandan decided.

  "As you wish," Kam Chek said, his words clipped, his voice a low growl, like that of a trained attack dog about to bite off a stranger's hand. "How shall we attack this problem, Mon Général?"

  That's better, Torquemandan thought. Respect. He still commanded their respect. "Round up your men, whatever the hell you've got left. Half of them stay here to guard the hostages. The other half go with you."

  "Are you suggesting we hunt down Bo-leen and the prisoners, Mon Général?" Kam Chek asked silkily.

  Torquemandan clenched his jaw. "I'm not suggesting anything, Kam Chek," he snapped. "It's the only option we've got. With millions of dollars out there in the hands of some maniac, I'm not about to sit here and do nothing."

  Khang spoke up, his eyes narrowed. "Are you not forgetting, Mon Général, that perhaps as many as one hundred prisoners are on the loose in the jungle around us? Worse still, it is dark. In such conditions, the defender has the advantage. He can wait in the deepest, darkest shadows of the jungle for the prey to invade his territory."

  "I thought you people were supposed to be the world's greatest guerrilla fighters, Khang. I thought this bush fighting was your specialty, huh?"

  Neither Khang nor Kam Chek liked his implication, Torquemandan saw. They went as stiff as bamboo, as silent as death. He was questioning their bravery, and he'd struck a nerve.

  Finally Khang jerked a nod at Kam Chek. "Go."

  Now we're getting somewhere, Torquemandan thought. Now there's going to be action. And results.

  Before the Devil's Horn leader could say anything further to Khang, a tremendous explosion erupted from somewhere with a sound like rolling thunder.

  As he looked out to the street again, Torquemandan saw one of the two armored personnel carriers mushroom into a fireball, flaming wreckage riding the crest of a searing wave. Damn! he thought. It was Bolan. The hardass had just blown up one of the only two vehicles Torquemandan could use to escape if Kam Chek failed to bring back the bastard's head.

  Torquemandan and the other members of the Devil's Horn in that hut listened to the night, but they heard only the crackle of fire.

  Turning his gaze away from the fiery debris, Torquemandan stared at the hulking silhouette of the lone transport truck. Was it still sitting there unharmed because the hardass didn't want to waste any more high-explosive rounds? he wondered. Or was the vehicle meant to serve some other purpose?

  Like bait.

  * * *

  Mack Bolan intended to be the one who took back the night.

  By force. By fire and blood. By death.

  Driving the jeep, Bolan had led the other vehicles far across the plain. Now he braked the rig, killed the engine, signaled for the rest of the column to halt. They were a little more than four hundred yards south of the village. In the distance, the flames of the armored troop carrier were licking the night. Destroying the troop carrier with the MM-1 had been meant to serve as his personal message of doom for the barbarians — unless they gave in to his demands to free their hostages. And even if the enemy relented, Bolan still intended to kill them all. He had no choice but to kill them all.

  The other APC still sat, shining dully beneath the white fingers of light filtering down over the village from a full moon. A rat trap, damn right, Bolan thought. He was out of effective range with the MM-1, but he was about to change that. Very soon.

  The strike force under Bolan's command assembled along the foothills. He had already briefed them; they knew what must be done.

  Quickly, Bolan, Grimaldi and the others hauled several drums of gas from a truck. Uncapping the drums, they sloshed the gasoline beneath all the vehicles. Two flamethrowers had been discovered in a truck bed, and Bolan intended to use their fire to erase the poison of the uncut heroin from the face of the earth. Only the jeep and the supply truck, laden with food and fresh water, would be spared.

  Toting AK-47s and commando knives that they had stripped off the dead, Bolan's grim-faced soldiers appeared eager to carry the sword to Kam Chek and his cutthroats.

  "Everyone knows what to do, right?" Bolan asked.

  Jones cocked a lopsided grin. "I think we've done this bit before, Sergeant," he told the Executioner.

  "Yeah, I suppose you have," Bolan answered. Each of the surviving prisoners from Bolan's hut would lead a group of men through the jungle. They would circle the village, trying to determine exactly where hostages were being held. Then they would move in, delivering swift and silent death by knife or with their bare hands. If they took the mercenaries by surprise, Bolan hoped the cutthroats would turn their attention away from the hostages when they found themselves embroiled in a life-or-death struggle.

  It was a hope, yeah, not a certainty. But Bolan knew that the villagers could be saved. Must be saved. Bolan swore not another innocent life would be taken by the savages. Too many gentle souls had already perished. Memories of the senseless violence and coldblooded murder Bolan had witnessed during the past several days would leave a bitter taste in his mouth for a long time to come.

  As planned, Kam had stayed behind with those prisoners who had not taken arms during the breakout. If the situation turned desperate and Bolan was faced with another stalemate, Kam had orders to torch the trucks loaded to overflowing with the heroin. The panic and horror Torquemandan, his partners and their mercenaries would feel as they saw their treasure vaporized would surely break their backs. Bolan intended to strike decisively, with deadly lightning force, during the seconds of paralysis that the avaricious vultures would experience as their dreams went up in smoke.

  For some reason, Bolan noted, Bruno Polanski had opted to strap on the second flamethrower. He caught Polanski's eye, and Bruno offered an explanation.

  "We didn't have enough weapons to go around, Sergeant," the big Polanski said. "The way I see it, you'll need every gun you can muster here. Besides," he said, the ghost of a grin on his lips, "payback's gonna be hell for those bastards. An eye for an eye, as far as I'm concerned."

  As Bolan nodded, he heard the faint rattle of brush. Looking past the assembled strike force, Bolan saw three figures step off the trail. They were the two Thais and the Montagnard, Jhade. They had volunteered to stay behind at the village for a while so that they could alert Bolan if they noticed any new developments there. From the recon men's taut facial expressions, Bolan could tell something had happened.

  "Kam Chek has left the village," Jhade announced. "We counted sixteen men with him. They went behind the village, then moved on up the hills."

  Bolan digested the intel. Apparently Torquemandan had ordered that the fight be taken to their adversaries. Good, Bolan thought. They would meet those human vipers head-on.

  "I know these hills," one of the Thais said. "I have lived here all my life — before Kam Chek captured me and k
illed my family." His voice was bitter. "They will take the main trail that runs like a backbone through the hills. I am sure of it. There are two other trails that lead back toward the village. The trails join at a clearing, about halfway back."

  Bolan unslung his Uzi SMG. The AutoMag was hooked inside his belt, opposite his commando knife. "All right," he announced, "let's go greet Kam Chek."

  "And give him a real warm welcome," Polanski muttered.

  Swiftly, silently, Bolan led his thirty-man vengeance force into the jungle. Within moments, they were gone, melted into a maw of blackness.

  Gone to seize back the night.

  * * *

  Kam Chek figured Torquemandan was using him for a patsy. Very well then, he decided, it was time for a change anyway. Time to strike down the ferang. Kam Chek was not a man to be taken lightly. When this was over, he would kill the ferang. But Torquemandan would not be allowed to die easily, or quickly. No. Kam Chek vowed to disembowel the CIA renegade with his sword. Torquemandan would watch his own guts spill from his belly in a torrent of blood. And Kam Chek would look him in the eye, and laugh. He would dance all over the dead ferang, then spit on his rotten carcass. Then he would take whatever raw heroin was left and distribute it himself. He knew he had to include Khang in the power play, but that was fine with him. Khang was of his own blood, he owed a certain amount of loyalty to his fellow warlord. For years Khang had struggled alongside Kam Chek against the Americans and the hated Montagnards before the long-awaited victory by the North Vietnamese.

  But he had to finish this business with Bo-leen first.

  The Tokarev in one hand, his samurai sword in the other, the sadistic warlord followed his soldiers down the trail. They were moving too fast, making unnecessary noise as they trampled brush, snapped twigs. They were scared, he guessed, and he cursed silently.

  Then he sensed some presence in the jungle, some movement that only years of brutal experience in bush fighting could detect. He decided he'd better fall back, and swiftly crouched behind a tree.