They rolled over Buckhorn Island and across the Niagara River, then west along the river route. Chebleu told Bolan, “This is the zone I would choose for the attack.”
“I expected them sooner than this,” Bolan replied. He did not like the cat-and-mouse aspect which had developed here. “They’re playing it too cozy. Must be expecting reinforcements somewhere along the way. Get ready, Andre. We start our game now.”
Chebleu nodded and took his position—on the floor, at the midships doorway—a light autopistol at the ready.
They were moving along within a small clump of traffic, flowing leisurely at the speed limit—perhaps a dozen vehicles, in all—the tail car hanging grimly to the trailing edge of the formation.
Bolan hit his flasher and the wheel at the same instant, tromping the accelerator and swinging into a gap in the adjacent traffic lane, gathering momentum and weaving through the pack until he was clear and hurtling along in a free run toward the next pack, far ahead.
The crew vehicle, though faster and more maneuverable, was not finding the holes quite so well. The warwagon was a full thousand meters out front before the other car broke clear—but then the gap began quickly shortening between the two, and Bolan knew that it was going to be a horse race into the chosen zone of combat. He needed a lonely stretch, a place where innocent bystanders would not be subjected to the hellfire of open warfare. And that place lay just ahead. The countdown was on. The engagement at Niagara was about to be consummated.
“Did you see that!” Sandini cried. “He’s sniffed us! He’s running!”
“Not far,” Roselli growled, leaning toward a hole to the right.
From the jump seat, Vacchi marveled, “I didn’t know those big jobs could move that fast.”
Roselli swore and tromped his brake. That hole on the right had disappeared. He hit his horn and surged up to the rear bumper of the car ahead. The guy up there was watching him through the rearview but otherwise ignoring that presence on his tailgate.
Sandini yelled, “Move ’im, dammit! We’re losing the show!”
It was at such times that a professional wheelman earned his daily bread. Roselli growled, “We’re going through—hang on.” The big car leapt onto the bumper of the car ahead—just a tap and a shove before falling back and swerving right to graze the other vehicle of the box.
The startled drivers of the other cars immediately gave room, the one falling back and the other surging ahead. Roselli cackled as he swung into the hole and he flipped a finger at the driver on his left as he powered on through and ahead. The lights of the “bus” were receding into the distance as he extricated himself from the rest of the pack and began really laying rubber.
“Move it, move it,” Sandini growled.
“We’re doing a flat hundred.”
“Don’t give me speed reports, dammit. Catch that bastard!”
“He ain’t going nowhere, boss.”
“Damn right he ain’t. We take no more chances.” Sandini swiveled tautly toward the rear. “You boys get it ready. Shoot the son of a bitch off the road. Rosy will tell you when. Right, Rosy?”
“Right,” the wheelman replied. He was hunched over the wheel, giving the big cruiser every rein she would take. “I’ll pull by fast,” he explained. “Get your windows down, back there. Hoss—you lay your shotgun right down in the tit of the window. I’ll put you right even with the driver’s seat. That’s when you let go, and that’s when I let go. We’re going to be moving like hell, so don’t muff it.”
“We gotta stay clear,” Sandini cautioned. “Don’t want the damn thing rolling over on us.”
“You blow ’im away with that shotgun, Hoss,” Roselli said. “I’ll take care of the rest, boss.”
The Broadway crew trusted wheelman Roselli’s instincts in a moving vehicle. There was no real worry in that regard. It was Vacchi who voiced the real worry. “Sounds too easy,” he fretted. “That guy isn’t going to let us just slide up there and start booming away. If he’s sniffed us, then he’s getting ready for us. That’s for sure.”
“You got a better plan?” Sandini asked coldly.
“No, I guess not.”
“Hit ’im, Rosy. Just like you called it.”
They were moving up, now, swiftly and surely, eating away the distance to sudden riches and glory. The RV was no more than a football field ahead.
Sandini suddenly made a noise in his throat, following with: “Do you see that?”
“What, boss?”
“I thought that bus was flat on top. Now it’s got a—a …”
“Air conditioner,” Roselli said, instinctively slowing the advance, however.
“Naw, naw, that ain’t what that is,” Sandini growled.
Vacchi suddenly grabbed the seat by Sandini’s shoulder and gasped. The “thing” above the RV was moving, swiveling about, and it suddenly became quite apparent to the ex-GI what that “thing” was. “Stop, Rosy!” he yelled. “Stop the car!”
“You crazy?” Sandini snarled.
“It’s a rocket launcher! That’s a Goddamn—!”
Yes, the Broadway crew had themselves a tiger by the tail, and now all knew it for once and all—“all” being the final fleeting seconds of the motley assortment of misspent lives.
Vacchi was still trying to scream an explanation of what the “thing” was when a flaming arrow leapt clear up there and whizzed along the backtrack in a hustling intercept. The moment became frozen, illumined by the certain knowledge of what was coming for them, the horror heightened by the rustling sound the thing was making and the inevitability of the firetrack.
The big rocket met that speeding vehicle smack on the windshield, and engulfed it in a shattering, roaring, all-consuming fireball that lifted it completely off the road, spun it drunkenly in a plunging cartwheel, and swept it into the Niagara River.
And far ahead, Mack Bolan deactivated his fire-control system, retracted his launcher into the roof, and told his passenger, “Stay alert. There could be more.”
Chebleu was shaken, stunned by the unexpected turn of events. “I think not,” he replied quietly. “If so, they would have lost the heart, just now.”
He came forward, ruefuelly inspecting his unused weapon, and dropped into the seat opposite Bolan. The look he was giving the man held new respect. “I think, also,” he added quietly, “that I can hardly wait for Montreal.”
Nor, indeed, could the Executioner. The French-speaking capital of North America was next on his hit parade.
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About the Author
Don Pendleton (1927–1995) was born in Little Rock, Arkansas. He served in the US Navy during World War II and the Korean War. His first short story was published in 1957, but it was not until 1967, at the age of forty, that he left his career as an aerospace engineer and turned to writing full time. After producing a number of science fiction and mystery novels, in 1969 Pendleton launched his first book in the Executioner saga: War Against the Mafia. The series, starring Vietnam veteran Mack Bolan, was so successful that it inspired a new American literary genre, and Pendleton became known as the father of action-adventure.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 1975 by Pinnacle Books, Inc.
Cover design by Mauricio Diaz
ISBN: 978-1-4976-8575-8
This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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