“You cannot kidnap me!” Sugarman’s tone thundered. “I am a United States congressman! Do you have any idea the hellstorm you are about to bring down on yoursel—”
“Enough,” Bolan said, interrupting. “Let me get a word in edgewise. My name is Cooper. I’m an agent of the Justice Department.” He gave his Justice credentials a workout, passing them first to Orozco then to Sugarman. “You gentlemen were the targets of a Mafia plot, conceived by the Corino crime family in Chicago, to eliminate the two of you. Well, specifically, to eliminate Ambassador Orozco and, as I understand it, make you look weak, Congressman.
“Jack, find me a spot where we can put these two gentlemen down safely. A police station, something like that. Then bring us around. I want to put eyes on that news truck.”
“Stony Base has tracking up,” Grimaldi informed him. “I’m getting reports on the tactical frequency now. They’ve got the truck moving away from the venue. Verified by satellite. Harmon’s in the truck, and the truck is moving south, away from the venue.”
“That’s good.” Harmon must have aborted. Seeing the two mission objectives plucked from his grasp and fly through the sky, he simply decided to leave. What his plans might now be, Bolan could not guess, but he would not get the chance to execute them.
“I’ve got a police station with a helipad,” Grimaldi announced. “Big enough for us to get in and out.”
“Do it, Jack. Then pick up that tracking feed. We can’t lose Harmon.”
* * *
THE TRUCK WAS on the highway when Grimaldi brought the Osprey to hover pace from above. Harmon and his mercenaries most likely thought they had escaped by now. They were far enough out that there were few people moving around. The ruins of the once-great city of Detroit surrounded them. This part of the city had been hit hard by the area’s numerous financial problems. Years previously, the Executioner never would have expected to encounter this kind of blight in a once-great area like the Motor City...but time reduced everything to rubble eventually. There was no reason this city should be any different.
The phone Harmon still carried, the one Pierce had given him for reporting to the Corinos, had led Grimaldi and Bolan straight to the truck. Rarely did anything go quite so smoothly to plan. Pierce was good luck. Bolan smiled. How did that old saying go? It was better to be lucky than smart? Hopefully, he qualified as both today.
Bolan took the M-110 from its case and, using the fast-rope rig to stabilize himself, stood in the open hatch of the Osprey. To make shots from the open hatch of a twin-rotor aircraft, while it was moving, from this height, would be difficult even for expert marksmen. Fortunately for Bolan his skill surpassed that of most men who considered themselves experts.
“Look at it down there, Sarge,” Grimaldi said through his headset. “This part of Detroit looks like...”
“A war zone?” Bolan supplied. “Yeah, but these neighborhoods can be rehabilitated. The city can still snap back. Most American cities do. But right now, we need a battlefield free of civilians. And I’m not seeing anybody moving around down there. Let’s take them here.”
“You got it, Sarge. Putting us into position...now.”
The pilot brought the Osprey around in a sliding maneuver that put the side door in line with the fleeing truck. It was a straight-line shot, so Bolan would not have to try to lead the vehicle. Grimaldi matched the vehicle’s velocity, too. That was Jack, doing his best to eliminate variables and make Bolan’s life easier. They had worked together for so many years that it was easy to take for granted the many ways they had learned to help each other in the field.
Bolan lined up the sights. He targeted the rear wheel of the news van. There was nothing special about the truck; Harmon’s people had either stolen a news van or they had purchased a simple box truck and painted it. It didn’t matter which. The truck didn’t appear heavy enough to be armored, nor was it moving fast enough to boast a beefed-up power plant.
There was nothing special about the tires, either.
Bolan’s first round burst the rear tire on the driver’s side. The truck started to yaw, but the driver recovered. He motioned to Grimaldi, who nodded. The Osprey circled, giving the Executioner a clean shot at the driver’s side of the vehicle.
Now Bolan had a judgment call to make. If the mercenaries had taken a real news team hostage, there could be innocents in the truck. That wasn’t likely, at this point, given there had been no report of a team missing, but it was entirely possible. Bolan ranged the driver and waited. When nothing happened, he targeted the large mirror on the driver’s side and put a single bullet through it.
The driver rolled down the window and a muzzle flare blossomed as he began firing blindly at the Osprey. The craft was too high; nothing came close to them.
That, he thought, answered that.
Bolan lined up the driver for a head shot and took him out.
The driverless truck careened to the left at top speed. It struck the curb, bounced and hit a corner. The tight curve and the curb bounce put it up on two wheels. Then it was sliding across the pavement of a deserted suburban Detroit street, sparks flying from the box of the van and black-clad men scrambling to dump themselves out the rear doors.
Bolan hit the release on the FRIES and fast roped from the Osprey. He ripped himself free when he hit the ground, using the quick releases on the harness. He’d left the M-110 on the aircraft; he was carrying his handguns only. The Beretta 93-R was in his fist as he ran for the crippled truck, triggering tribursts from the sound-suppressed machine pistol.
To their credit, the mercenaries tried to return fire. They weren’t able to mount more than token resistance, however. Bolan overtook them and shot them one by one. He ripped open a door of the truck and fired at the men inside. Each was dressed in tactical military gear and each carried full-automatic weaponry.
They were all down and out of play before firing a shot.
The whup-whup-whup of the Osprey hovering overhead, the tiny cyclones of dust and debris it stirred up in the broken, crumbling neighborhood, provided a surreal backdrop as Bolan surveyed his handiwork. There were no more mercenaries to kill...but Vincent Harmon wasn’t here.
“Jack, get me tracking on Harmon! Is he still moving?
“Yeah, Sarge,” said Grimaldi. “On your nine o’clock. Head down that alley, the one with the stripped car. He’s moving at the far end. Be careful. If you go after him, chances are good he’ll assume it’s you. He might be waiting for you farther ahead.”
“No problem,” Bolan said. “Vincent Harmon and I have long-overdue business.”
The Executioner ran through the street. He dodged piles of bricks and cinder blocks, trash bags and random items such as rusted bicycles. There were more than a few stripped cars. Nothing and no one was moving in the street. Abandoned businesses, abandoned homes and parking lots overgrown with weeds were everywhere. Vegetation thrust up from the middle of the asphalt, finding any vulnerable crack, striving for life.
This was how the Earth would reclaim its surface when humankind was extinct, Bolan thought. The power of nature was inexorable. It was relentless, unstoppable in its mission to reclaim its domain. Evil was like that, too. Harmon was the sort of relentless, malevolent force that showed Bolan just how sick some parts of society were. He was a vicious monster, a rabid dog, and Bolan was going to put him down for good.
A cluster of empty industrial buildings stood tall up ahead. Whatever they had once been was not clear. One faded sign hinted at the presence of machine shops, but that could have been years previously. Manufacturing, once the principal business of Detroit, had long since left this place behind.
A voice echoed through the deserted street.
“Cooper,” came Harmon’s mocking call. “Cooper, I didn’t know you cared. You came all this way for little old me?”
Bolan stopped and f
ound cover behind a rusted, overflowing Dumpster. The trash here had sat for so long that it no longer smelled. The container was just part of the general debris now. Everything about this part of the city was dying.
He decided to risk it. Harmon was a sociopath, but he was a prideful sociopath. He saw himself as the best killer in the world. Bolan intended to show him how wrong he was.
“Come out, Harmon,” Bolan called. “Come out, and I’ll take you into custody. You don’t have to die here today.”
“Arrogant, aren’t you?” came the reply. It was followed by bullets. Several hit the Dumpster and the crumbling brick walls around Bolan. Harmon was shooting blind. He had a general idea of where his adversary was, but couldn’t really see him.
Bolan raised the Desert Eagle.
One of the things that made a sniper effective was patience. The Executioner had learned to be very patient. He had also learned to become very still. With the triangular muzzle of the Desert Eagle raised, he braced it against the side of the Dumpster and waited, focusing on the landscape at the opposite end of the alley.
Harmon was there somewhere, and he would make a mistake. He would move—
There! Bolan saw the movement and squeezed the trigger. The mighty Desert Eagle bucked in his fist. A single .44 Magnum hollow-point round flew downrange and struck home.
At the shout of surprise and shock, Bolan was up and running, weaving in and out of the debris and obstacles, closing the distance. He needed to get to the end of the alley, to where Harmon was. He needed to be within range of his foe before his opponent could effectively reengage him.
Muzzle-flashes warned him. He dodged sideways then hit the ground. Rounds struck all around him. Harmon was wielding what sounded like two pistols and doing his best to empty them both.
“Why won’t you die?” Harmon demanded, still shooting. “Other people die pretty quickly when I shoot them. Why are you so special? Why do you refuse to go away, Cooper? What is it with you?”
Bolan heard the slides of Harmon’s pistols snap open. He holstered his gun, jumped to his feet and ran again, finally within range.
He tackled Harmon, driving the man to the ground. A hard fist found Harmon’s jaw. Bolan leaned in, pinning the assassin beneath him, hitting him again and again. He drew the Desert Eagle once more and began to line it up for a shot.
Harmon was well-versed in ground-fighting. He managed to power himself free, grabbing the barrel of the Desert Eagle and slamming his booted foot up against Bolan’s head. The Executioner rolled, feeling the glass and fragments of brick and concrete dig into his body.
He rose to one knee and leveled the Desert Eagle.
Harmon threw a brick at him.
Bolan was able to dodge the missile before it gave him a concussion, but in the time it took to do that and reacquire Harmon with his pistol, the assassin had fled.
Bolan listened intently. He could hear traffic far away, in the distance—and the sound of a man’s boots on concrete and plaster debris. Harmon was climbing into the building on Bolan’s right.
The Executioner followed. The building loomed before him, and he noted several places a person could gain entry. Large holes had crumbled in parts of the building’s façade. The windows, once boarded up, had been spray-painted and then ripped open by vandals. Bolan chose the one that afforded the most cover and worked his way into the building.
The smell that struck him was familiar. It was the smell of decades of human sweat. This had once been some kind of gym or community center. A few shredded pieces of filthy, water-stained equipment still stood. He spotted the remains of a weight bench and a pommel horse. Ahead, at the far end of the open space within the building, was an empty swimming pool.
Bolan approached with caution.
Harmon was waiting inside the pool, which was remarkably free of debris, though by no means clean. The assassin made a show of removing his pistols from his belt and placing them on the tiled floor of the pool. Then he kicked them away. “Come on down.”
“Maybe I’ll just shoot you from up here.”
“And you’d do it, too,” Harmon said. “You’re not the kind of guy who stands on ceremony. You’re like me. You’re the kind of guy who wins. You don’t care which direction I’m facing when you put a bullet in me. You just want me on the ground. Isn’t that right, Cooper?”
“Predators deserve no mercy.”
“True,” Harmon replied. “And I am nothing if not a predator. You probably could have shot me before, but you didn’t. Do you want to take me in? Parade me in front of a judge somewhere? I suppose you really want me to rot in some black-ops prison for the rest of my life. Well, now’s your chance, Cooper. Come on. Face me like a man. I’ve got no gun. You can take me down. And then you can put me in prison. Come on. I know it’s what you want. I know you’re just itching to cuff me.”
“I would prefer to take you in, yeah.” Bolan holstered his Desert Eagle, watching Harmon very carefully. This might be a trick. Harmon could have a hidden weapon.
From his belt, Harmon removed a large combat knife. He waved it through the air. “Come on, then. Let’s do this, Cooper.”
Mack Bolan leaped into the pool, landing heavily on his boots. Standing once more, he removed Harmon’s OTF knife from his pocket and snapped it open.
“That’s mine, and I want it back.”
“Then come and take it.”
18
Steel flashed.
Bolan and Harmon circled each other. The terrain was slippery. Grime, grit and debris had worked their way into the tiles of the pool, making them slick and treacherous. Harmon’s knife—a big, military-combat model with a single edge and a sweeping curve—was much larger than Bolan’s. The OTF had maybe four inches of blade, but it would be enough. Bolan was very skilled in close-quarters combat. He was not hindered by something as simple as a difference in blade length.
“What made you a zombie for the Feds?” Harmon asked, circling. He slashed and feinted, stabbed and stepped back. Bolan kept his distance, moving quietly and efficiently. “What made you decide to live out your life by their Boy Scout rules? You’re like me. You could take what you want. You could have it all.” He slashed again.
Bolan knew what he was doing. Trying to engage the conversation center of an opponent’s brain was an old trick. If you could get a man thinking about his answer to a question, you could distract him from what he was supposed to be doing. But Mack Bolan was not so easily fooled.
“I’m nothing like you,” he replied.
“No, I guess you’re not. To be the person I am takes balls and brains. You look like you’re running short on both—”
Bolan slashed him in the face.
Harmon squalled and reared back. He touched at his face with his free hand. Face strikes were always a good bet when fighting with knives. An opponent had no natural defense for a blade to the face and it unnerved anyone. Bolan kept the pressure on, driving forward, thrusting with his knife at eye level. Harmon tried to regroup, to move his knife in some kind of fancy reverse-grip pattern, but his heart wasn’t in it. He was bleeding from the face, and he didn’t like it.
They continued like that for a few more minutes. It quickly became obvious that, as dangerous as Harmon was, as skilled as he was, the Executioner was better. Every trick Harmon tried, Bolan countered. Every step Harmon knew, Bolan had seen before. Harmon was a skilled assassin, a world-class killer...but he was a not a warrior. He was a not a soldier. It was one thing to take lives. It was another thing to stride boldly into combat and dominate it.
Harmon had filled the role of soldier, yes. But it was clear from whatever was faulty in his mind, whatever was wrong that made him a sociopath, that he had never been what Bolan and countless others who served their country honorably had proven to be. Harmon was a trigger-puller and a murderer, but
he was no warrior. He now knew what it meant to face a truly determined, truly skilled fighter.
It was time to get into his head. The doubt in Harmon’s eyes made him vulnerable.
“You killed those guards when you escaped,” Bolan said quietly. “I bet you thought you were pretty vicious. I bet you thought you were pretty scary. Big, bad Vincent Harmon. Beats a couple of federal guards to death and thinks he’s a big man. Well, you’re in the big leagues now, Junior. It’s time you realize that.”
“Shut up!” Harmon roared. He slashed again. His movements were wild now, without control.
Bolan waited for him to come in again. Then he drew his knife around Harmon’s forearm. Had he driven the blade deeper, he could easily have deboned the man, but he didn’t do that. He couldn’t have Harmon bleeding out before he could take the man in.
Harmon shrieked in pain and dropped his knife. Bolan, watching, slowly closed the switchblade. He dropped it into his pocket while Harmon watched.
“You’re dead,” Harmon gritted. “You’re dead, Cooper.” He adopted an esoteric martial arts stance, his hands in front of his body, his knees bent.
“Seen it,” Bolan told him.
Harmon roared his fury and frustration. He tried kicking, then punching. He tried an elaborate series of moves with different hand postures and structures. He used his fingers like claws, then pincers. He held them like spears. He tried first one stance then another.
Bolan had fought many men through the years. There were few fighting techniques he hadn’t seen. His own fighting style was simple, effective and practical. There was nothing Harmon had that he couldn’t counter.
Harmon was slowing down. He was also getting scared. Fear was something the murderous Vincent Harmon had seldom encountered in his life, Bolan thought. Slumping, Harmon started to back up, to look around him. His eyes shifted to the shallow end of the pool. There was a gradual slope to the opposite end of the pool, where the shallow end would have been, that terminated in a series of steps. Harmon was thinking about escaping. His eyes were giving away his plan.
Death List Page 15