The sound of that thunderous blast was echoing from the white columns along the porch when a hardman came pounding around the corner of the house on a dead run, making the scene just in time to catch another stream of tumblers across the chest.
A round of double-aughts clicked into the breech of the 79 and immediately sped away toward that smoking doorway, instantly cooling that area of any hot interest which could be developing there.
A hand and a pistol appeared at a lighted upstairs window. A round of HE flew that way, impacting just below the window sill. That entire section of wall fell away, screaming man and window and all crashing to the flowerbeds below.
Hasty feet were pounding the turf somewhere out in the darkness. Bolan thumbed in a round of tear gas and fired for the ground in that sector, then followed with a searching pattern from the M-16.
He was pacing about in front of the house, right at the fringe of darkness, coolly selecting targets and sending hot war a’winging wherever his attention centered—and the entire joint was in total pandemonium, unseen men stampeding and yelling, flames shooting everywhere—and very quickly there was no darkness anywhere about those grounds.
Sporadic and totally ineffective return fire was beginning to come in from several quarters of those grounds, but none from the house itself. Those people in there were scrambling just to keep their bodies intact.
Bolan sent a few more rounds of HE inside and followed with a shot of gas to each floor, then he returned to the Porsche, stowed the weapon, and got out of there.
He’d planned no more than a wild haymaker, after all. A hit and run, and it was time to run.
For someone else, too. The gateman had just come unglued from his station and was panting up the drive. Bolan screeched to a halt, took a pistol from the guy’s hand without protest, and replaced it with a marksman’s medal.
“Give that to Lileo,” he instructed. “Whether he’s dead or alive.”
The guy just gawked at him, and he was still rooted to his tracks when the Porsche screamed on through the gate and back into no man’s land.
“There you go, amici,” Bolan muttered into the rearview mirror.
There was no way of knowing how much actual damage had been done—and Bolan did not particularly care. The joint was gone, sure. Already the flames were leaping high above the treetops and lighting the neighborhood.
The actual damage could not be measured in property or blood, though. These boys had come to Texas for a war, and they were learning just how hot an Executioner war could get.
There was the value.
“And now,” Bolan said, speaking only to the hot wheels, “we trade you in for a set of rotary wings.”
This war was due to become much hotter, very quickly.
And Bolan was perhaps a bit modest in the assessment of that latest haymaker to the mob’s Texas headshed.
At that moment a tattered and bleeding chief honcho was staggering from the shattered mansion and finding a place of rest upon the grass outside. Two of his men followed quickly behind, bearing the blackened remains of once-jaunty Joe Quaso. They dumped the body unceremoniously onto the ground beside the boss and went back for more. Lileo took a sickened look and hastily averted his eyes from the mess.
All the Superchicks in Dallas could not put that guy together again.
And the boss of the Bolan Bunch was already gripped by the cold reality of the moment when the gate guard knelt beside him and held out the little medal. “He said you should get this, boss,” the hardman reported.
Lileo batted the hand away and spat after it. “How’d he get in here?” he asked in a coldly controlled voice.
“I dunno, boss,” the man lied. “All of a sudden here he was just. Blazing away at everybody. I never saw nothing like that before.”
“You’re never going to see it again, either,” Lileo promised. “Get the cars around here and let’s split before the badges arrive.”
“Where we going, boss?”
“We’re going after that guy, that’s where. I want that guy so bad I can taste his blood on my tongue.”
“Me too, boss.”
Lileo knew better.
The shaking sonuvabitching two-bit gunsel wanted nothing so much as getting the hell out of this state. Probably most of the boys felt that way, those that were left living and able to move.
“Bring those cars around!” Lileo snarled. “I’m doubling the bonuses on this trip. Spread that around. Did you see the guy’s car? Did you see it?”
“Yessir, I saw it, a new Porsche, gray, and I’d say superhot.”
“Form a caravan! Don’t leave no bodies laying around, load them all in. Let’s go! Let’s go!”
The big chase was on.
Clear to hell.
19: MISSION CONTROL
It was nearing eleven o’clock. The base camp Holiday Inn was having a pretty good night of it. “Steve & Willie” were entertaining in the lounge and enjoying a pretty good draw. The parking area was filled at that end of the place but spotted with empty spaces on the back lot for lodgers.
Grimaldi spoke through the intercom to verify Bolan’s intentions. “You sure you want to set down there? These birds draw a lot of attention wherever they land.”
“Put her down on the back lot,” Bolan instructed. “As close to the war wagon as you can get. You make the hardware transfer. Bring aboard as much as we can carry. Concentrate on the heavy stuff.”
Grimaldi nodded in understanding and made a quick drop to treetop level, then maneuvered cautiously into an open area about twenty feet from the van. They settled in with a gentle bump and the pilot quickly cut the power.
Bolan opened the hatch, tapped his watch with a finger, and repeated another important order. “If I’m not back in two minutes, get going and don’t look back.”
He was rigged for combat, in black suit and full supporting regalia. The AutoMag rode the right hip in military leather. The Beretta was snugged-in beneath the left arm. Utility belts hugged the chest in crossing diagonals to support ammo clips and dangling munitions of varying capabilities.
He was moving on tight numbers and he had a job of scouting which could not wait for a tomorrow that may never come.
He hit the door at room 115, looked in, closed it up and went on without pause, across the pool-patio enclosure where several late hangers-on watched his transit with unblinking curiosity, and into the lobby at full stride.
Several couples were standing about in there, apparently awaiting seating in the lounge. Through the open doorway the amplified rock sounds of Steve & Willie were competing in an even match with the buzz of voices raised in carefree community.
A tired looking man in travel-rumpled slacks and stained shirt gave awed way to his place at the registry desk, stepping back to give the armed warrior an “I-don’t-believe-it-but-I-guess-anything-can-happen-in-Texas” inspection and plenty of elbow room.
The clerk looked as though he did not wish to believe it, either, but this was no reason to lose his official cool. “Yes sir, can I help you, sir?” he asked smoothly.
Bolan dropped a medal on the desk.
The clerk looked at it, picked it up, said, “Yes, Mr. Bolan, yes, sir.”
“There was a lady in one fifteen,” Bolan stated flatly. “Don’t screw me around, I’m in a hurry. What happened to the lady?”
The guy’s eyes were longingly searching the lobby for some evidence of imminent assistance. But the place had cleared, magically, and the sudden silence from the lounge indicated only that he was being watched with interest from afar.
He hung a smile in front of that icy Bolan gaze and told the most talked-about man in Texas: “A blonde lady, yes sir, it’s interesting you should ask about her. Another man—an older gentlemen—was here just a short while ago on the same—”
Bolan snapped, “Ten seconds, mister. Where is she?”
“I’m trying to tell you. I haven’t seen the lady in one fifteen. But the day man—he recognized h
er from the photo—he told them he saw her during a police inspection this morning—I don’t—”
“Told who?”
“The two men who came in this evening. We were changing shifts. Grover was still here. That’s the day man, Grover Sills. These men had a photo of a beautiful blonde. The one man said she was his wife and he was looking for her. The other man tried to slip each of us a twenty—said he was a private detective. Grover recognized the lady and—”
Bolan growled, “Describe the men.”
The guy gave a hopeless shrug. The pupils of his eyes were showing the strain of the interrogation—they seemed to be growing. Official cool was departing rapidly. This was a situation plainly not covered at motel training school. A hubbub of reaction was beginning to swell from the lounge. Two elderly ladies were standing on the patio just outside, faces pressed curiously to the glass wall, staring in with hands cupping their eyes.
Bolan’s hands were pressed stiffly upon the desk top, the knuckles showing white. He said, “I’m not going to hurt you. It’s life or death for that girl. Damn it, give me something.”
The clerk came unfroze. He said, “The man who claimed to be her husband was very … mean looking. A real tough guy, you know. And he talked … funny.”
“Funny how?”
“Well like … like …”
Bolan helped. “Like an animal.”
“Yes sir. He sort of growled and snorted as he spoke.”
Bolan said, “Thanks. For the lady, too.” He spun around and went out of there, moving quickly on dwindling numbers.
The blades of the copter were turning in a slow idle and a number of curious folk had formed an observation line along the side of the building when Bolan rejoined.
Grimaldi showed him a strained smile as he reported, “I got most of it. How’d you do?”
“Lift off,” Bolan commanded and closed the hatch.
The engine revved and the little bird lurched upward.
Bolan got into his headset and reported his find to the man beside him. “Woofer snatched her back.”
The pilot’s eyes marveled at that. “How the hell did he find her?”
“Simple, methodical police work. Sometimes I have to wonder who are the better cops.”
“I warned you about that guy. He’s got instincts.”
“Yeah. Klingman was here asking questions, too. I imagine he got the same info I got.”
Grimaldi asked, “Does this change the plan?”
“It does not. It looks like all trails lead to the same target.”
“To the wells, then.”
“That is affirmative,” Bolan replied grimly.
Sure. The numbers were all falling in. And another campaign was reaching critical mass—the final flashpoint.
Bolan became aware of that familiar coldness centering in his chest. No two campaigns were ever entirely alike. Each had its own targets, its own hazards, its own unique problems. And each one had seemed uniquely urgent.
But they all shared a common denominator. The responsibility for it all lay squarely upon the shoulders of this lone individual. This did not downgrade the value of a guy like Grimaldi. But in the final equation, guys like Grimaldi simply made the campaign larger by their very presence. They increased the personal responsibility of Bolan simply because they widened the scope of the job at hand.
And that coldness in Bolan’s chest was fear, sure. But it was not a fear of dying or of suffering. He had known forever that there was but one way out of this lousy war for the Executioner. He would war until he died, and he had long ago accepted the inevitable fact that he would die warring and damned.
That was not the fear which this living dead man carried into each flashpoint.
The fear was of failure.
Could he pull it off? With so much riding on his every move and simplest decision, could he thread that eye of storm and pull everything through the other side?
Damn it, he had to pull it off. Too much was at stake even to contemplate failure.
“Affirmative,” he repeated to Jack Grimaldi. “The target is confirmed. The mission is go.”
Yeah. Come hell and damnation or whatever else the night may hold, the numbers were all coming together at Klingman’s Wells—where they had started.
The eye of the storm had closed in upon itself.
20: DROP ZONE
It was midnight, and the Woofer was insuring that the guard was changing in a military manner. There would be no more by God goof-ups like that terrible mishap of the morning.
He was walking with a limp, thanks to that bastard in black and his fancy fireworks, but he would walk on his goddamn hands to get another crack at that guy.
He could have left a small force at that motel, sure, just in case the guy did come back there. But the Klingman chick had enough sense slapped into her that he believed her story. The guy had not planned to return to that motel.
Woofer trusted his instincts, though. He knew that Bolan would find out about the girl. And it seemed a dead certainty that the guy would come gunning back for her.
And this is where Woofer wished to meet the Executioner—on his own sod again, but this time under his own carefully planned conditions.
The runway was mined. Let him try landing there again.
The fence was electrified, with high voltage. Let the fancy bastard put one paw on it.
All the tricky security gimmicks laid in here by the general—electronic systems that Tolucci had once sneered at—let the smartass find a way inside the compound—and bang!—they’d have the guy in a steel trap that a goddamn infantry company couldn’t fight their way out of.
First, Quaso had reinforced him. Then Lileo sent over a force. Coupled with Tolucci’s Mexicans, he had a God damn impregnable armed camp here.
So, sure, let fancypants Bolan try Tolucci once more. He’d show the bastard that Jim the Animal didn’t get that nickname just by the way he talked.
The Mexican corporal was showing his El Capitain a dazzling smile and assuring him that the guard force was posted and alert.
Tolucci pulled his mind out of its grim thoughts and he told the corporal, “I catch a man asleep and I’ll shoot him where he lays. They better all understand that.”
“Si, Capitain. The soldados will not fail you again.”
Tolucci nodded and moved off toward the house, then halted in quivering alertness and raised his eyes to the black sky. “Did you hear that?” he asked the corporal.
The guy said nothing, but his face was tilted skyward also.
Then Tolucci heard the distant sound again.
“A chopper!” he snarled, and snatched a solid-state radio from his belt to alert the force. “Eyes and ears open!” he commanded via the radio. “Something’s coming in. Watch it down! And goddamn it I want a ring of steel where it lands!”
He pushed a special button on the radio and floodlight sprang into brilliance throughout the compound; then he hurried toward the hacienda to man the command post.
The unmistakable egg-beater sounds of the helicopter continued growing louder and accompanied the head cock across the grounds. Navigation lights became visible, then a landing flood.
The chopper was coming down directly in front of the hacienda!
“Watch it, watch it!” he snarled into the radio. “The guy is tricky! Get those fire teams in there!”
The little bird settled onto the floodlit grounds—a shiny red-and-white job with the decal of a Dallas flying service swirled across the fuselage.
Tolucci moved up behind his firing line, fidgeting with bated breath and unrelenting anticipation as the rotors spun into idle mode and the door of the helicopter swung open.
A tall figure stepped out, stooping for all possible clearance beneath those twirling blades, and stepped into the spotlights of Klingman’s Wells.
He was wearing starched khakis, had a thick thatch of white hair, and was thrusting forward a very angry pioneer chin.
Blazing eyes f
ound their focus above the heads of a crouching line of riflemen, settling upon the dismayed gaze of Jim the Animal as the old man thundered, “What the hell have you done with my girl, you nitwit!”
Bolan completed his study of the Klingman diagrams, then he draped a master chart across Jack Grimaldi’s leg and told him, “Spellman has the place wired for no surprises. The system wasn’t operative this morning but I’m betting it is now. I’m going to need some cool navigation from you, partner.”
“Lay it out,” the pilot said.
“I want you to give me a running drop back here in this new construction zone.” His finger was circling an area which lay between the tank farm and the Klingman security compound. “The detail map shows a trench running through here on a north-south line. They’re laying a new pipeline, from the compound outward, three-foot diameter pipe. The trench is about six feet deep. I should be able to move along it with no trouble, and it will provide good cover. Some of the pipe is in place. Most of it is laid out along the trench, awaiting emplacement. I want to scout it. Maybe I can pipe myself into that compound.”
Grimaldi whistled softly through the intercom. “Sounds mighty chancy,” he commented.
“What isn’t? The main risk will be at the inner end. There’s a new pumphouse in there. I saw it this morning. Windows not in yet, lot of machinery sitting around still in the crates. I’m betting the pump is not installed yet. That could mean a pipe open at both ends, inside and outside.”
“Great,” the pilot said, his voice edged with sarcasm. “That gets you in … maybe. What gets you back out?”
Bolan was not planning a return to the drop point. The logistics would require quite a bit more than mere “cool navigation.” It would take an almost uncanny degree of dead-reckoning, seat-of-the-pants accuracy on the part of a damned cool pilot.
“I’ll just have to seize the moment,” Bolan explained. “I’ll set up the diversionary fireworks and raise all the hell I can inside the compound. I’ll just have to play it by ear in there.”
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