Anvil of Hell

by Don Pendleton

  Before the deadly little weapons could be distributed, three Europeans were slumped over the iron railing and a fourth was yelling in pain and rage as he nursed a shattered knee.

  The others crowded back away from the edge of the gallery. Only Broken-nose, Joe and another torpedo with a sandy crew cut dared to advance and hose a deathstream down into the cavern. But by this time the soldiers had fired again. Several of them were bowled over by the murderous .45-caliber hail, but the remainder coolly sent a third broadside bellowing upward.

  They were well drilled, and their aim was good. The guy with the crew cut, who folded forward over the rail and dropped to the floor of the cave, was one of three cored by the Kalashnikov slugs. That did it. The hoods and the technicians withdrew from the gallery.

  Courtney was the last to go. He saw Ogada running toward the control room, his face a mask of conflicting emotions. Fear, disappointment, fury that he had backed the wrong horse, bitterness at the knowledge that he, like Halakaz and the others, had been fooled after all? The Englishman didn't know. Perhaps he thought the colonel was out to avenge himself on Giovanni.

  Whatever the reason, he raised the pistol he had taken from Habibi and pumped three shots into the soldier's back.

  Ogada tripped, fell, somersaulted and then lay still with his limbs in grotesque positions, leaving a huge splash of blood on the rock wall.

  The soldiers below waited a few seconds, then hustled the rest of the workers out, dragging the dead and wounded with them. The control room was empty; Halakaz and Mtambole had disappeared from the gallery on the far side of the cavern. In less than a minute the place was deserted.

  After the thunderous echoes of weapon fire the cave was eerily silent.

  Mack Bolan had slipped out from behind the half-tracks during the firing and dodged into the center of the vast floor. Now he was sheltering behind the crates of machine parts on an abandoned forklift truck, evaluating the courses of action open to him.

  His overwhelming reaction was relief that at last there was action, however dangerous it might be.

  His problem was very different from his enemies'. To Giovanni and his toadies it was no more than a matter of rounding up two interlopers — three if Mahmoud had recovered consciousness and told them about Yemanja — killing them, and then trying to get back on good terms with the workers.

  And even if that was impossible, they could almost certainly send the radio messages and blast off at least that first fatal missile.

  Bolan, on the other hand, with his limited firepower and restricted numbers, was faced with a question of tactics: he must somehow force the opposition to show itself and eliminate it member by member.

  Yemanja had been left in the antechamber with the Ingram they had taken from the camel master. Mettner, no expert shot, was still behind the half-tracks toting the Combat Magnum and Mancini's Browning. Bolan himself had retained Big Thunder and the M-16. He figured the woman was more likely to hit something with a weapon that could spray knockdown slugs at a rate of more than 1100 per minute than she was with a single-shot handgun possessing a heavy recoil. The lightweight Browning and a revolver carrying only six shots were a natural choice for the newspaperman, who was only expected to give covering fire when Bolan needed it.

  A low murmur of voices from the passage behind the control room grew louder as Giovanni, Courtney and Habibi appeared on the gallery and climbed down the stairway leading to the cavern along with Broken-nose, Joe and the remaining technicians.

  "Remember, you guys," Giovanni was saying, "there's only a couple of these bastards as far as we know. They won't know the layout of the place, and I don't even know if they linked up yet."

  "Any special order you want us to search?" one of the technicians asked.'

  "Yeah," the mafioso replied. "You, Manson and Trottman take the passage leading to the power station. Courtney, you go with Joe and Goldberg and turn over the administration sector. I'll take Azziz here and Fawzi. We'll do the reactor cavern. The rest of you can look around here."

  As the men began to fan out through the base, he called after them, "Don't forget they're armed. So shoot to kill. But if you can take them alive, that's fine. I want they should die slow if possible. With witnesses."

  Bolan shifted silently around to keep the forklift between him and the searchers as they separated. They were all within easy range, but it would be suicidal to drop one of them while the others were still in touch. He wondered which of the four groups it would be smartest to attack first.

  Giovanni, Habibi and Fawzi — the guy with the broken nose — vanished through the archway leading to the reactor. Three technicians headed for the first passage Bolan had explored, when he found the hydroelectric turbines. Courtney's detail advanced toward the corridor Bolan had recently left.

  The Mafia boss's voice, distorted by echoes, boomed out from the reactor cave. "And if any of the blacks show their faces, shoot them, too."

  Bolan deliberated. Should he follow the hood and take a chance on silencing him and his two confederates first — cut off the snake's evil head and leave the writhing corpse until later? Or were the odds too long again? Would the others be alerted and come running to corner him in the cavern?

  Would it be better to deal with the three men near at hand? Could that be done without shooting? And if he decided that was on, how the hell was he going to contact and brief his own two companions, when the enemy were all around?

  He didn't have to decide.

  There was a sudden warning shout from Mettner. Bolan swung around to see the torpedo with his arm in a sling. He was twenty yards away, back in position at the foot of the ramp — and the .38 Police Special in his good hand was pointing straight at the Executioner.

  Big Thunder flashed up in the warrior's right hand, but before either of them could fire, Mettner leaped from the roof of the nearest half-track and landed on the wounded hood's shoulders. He went sprawling with a cry of pain, the pistol spinning away down the slope. After that it was all movement.

  The three technicians in the cavern spun in the direction of the noise, scattering to find what cover they could. There was an abrupt outburst of shooting. Bolan dropped one with a short blast from the M-16, simultaneously forcing another to dive for shelter behind a crate of machinery. The third fired at the same time as the newspaperman with his borrowed Browning.

  Both shots went home. The gunman was hurled to the floor with half his face shot away; the slug meant for Meaner slammed into the back of the killer with the wounded arm just as he was rising to close with the newspaperman.

  "Make it to the gallery while I cover you," Bolan yelled. "Get the guns from the dead."

  He could hear Giovanni's furious voice, and footsteps clattering his way from the reactor cave. He fired two thunderous shots from the AutoMag into the packing case, pinning down the technician behind it, while Mettner sprinted for the stairway. At the same time, one-handed, he sprayed a burst blind toward the reactor. Fawzi and Habibi withdrew hurriedly around the corner of the archway. The mafioso had prudently remained out of sight.

  "Any luck?" Bolan called. Mettner's face appeared over the edge of the gallery — for once without a cigarette hanging from the mouth. He shook his head.

  "They already thought of that and lifted them," he replied. "Should I... Bolan! Behind you!"

  It was way out of range, but he fired the Browning and a deafening sound from the Combat Magnum at the halftracks as Bolan whirled and flung himself flat behind the forklift.

  A fusillade of shots erupted from among the trucks, fanning the air above the Executioner's head and gouging splinters of wood from the crates on the forklift. Courtney and company had returned.

  Beneath the low chassis of the loading truck, Bolan stretched the M-16 out at arm's length to get the highest possible elevation of the muzzle and stitched a withering figure eight to crisscross the gaps between the half-tracks. Glass shattered and fell, a ricochet whined, pieces of metal clanged to the rock f
loor. And one at least of the high-penetration bullets scored. The warrior heard a choked cry, a stumbling clatter of feet and then the sound of a fall. Someone had dropped beneath a half-track.

  A moment later a second volley from the parking lot struck sparks from the steel frame of the forklift uncomfortably close to Bolan's face. He couldn't see where the gunmen were hidden, then suddenly a final shot from Mettner's Browning, which had been firing sporadically in his support, flushed out the torpedo Joe. He careened sideways from the cab of one of the trucks, scrabbled futilely at the starred windshield and collapsed to the ground leaving a trail of bloodied fingermarks over the glass and camouflaged metal.

  Courtney had had enough. He dashed back to the corridor that led to the administration offices and disappeared from sight.

  But Bolan and his companion were now victims of a pincer movement — Fawzi and Habibi firing from the far side of the arch that led to the reactor; Trottman, Manson and a third technician advancing from the hydroelectric plant.

  Bolan rose to his feet behind the stacked crates. It was at this moment that the sudden silence was shivered by a woman's scream. Shrill and terrified, it came from someplace behind the control room.

  Mettner burst through and into the passage beyond.

  Mahmoud, clothed only in his underwear, his swarthy face mottled purple from Bolan's karate attack, was standing over Yemanja. She was lying in a tumble of robes on the ground, with one eye blackened and a trickle of blood oozing from the corner of her mouth.

  "You dirty little slut," the big camel master ranted. "I'll teach you to meddle in affairs that don't concern you and help foreign spies to escape, you no-good whore!" He dragged the woman to her feet and slapped her face viciously with the back of his hand.

  Mettner landed on his back, much as Bolan had done some time before. But the newspaperman was no match for the muscular Nubian. Mahmoud twisted and dropped to the floor, bringing Mettner down with him. Locked together, pummeling and gouging, they rolled down the passage and back into the control room. Mettner managed to free an arm and caught the camel master with two uppercuts to the jaw, but the blows hardly seemed to shake him.

  He rose up onto his knees, arms at full stretch, and closed his great hands inexorably around Mettner's windpipe. The newspaperman thrashed and writhed on the floor, his feet and knees seeking a purchase. But the thumbs pressing into his throat would not relax their iron grip. The thundering behind his eyes was threatening to engulf the universe when there was a whining of hydraulic rams, and Mack Bolan rose slowly into view over the gallery rail, seated on the forklift of the loader truck.

  The big stainless-steel autoloader held in his two hands spit fire once, and the pressure on Mettner's throat relaxed. Mahmoud gave a strange coughing groan and plunged downward, a deadweight across his body.

  Bolan ducked beneath the rail and helped the sobbing woman to her feet and he rolled the body off Mettner. It was only then that Mettner saw the raw wound, pricked out with bone, smashed through Mahmoud's chest and realized his own bush shirt was soaked with blood.

  "We're running short of ammunition," Bolan said quietly. "The M-16 is finished. My backpack and the spare clips for this..." he held up the AutoMag "...are down in the antechamber. You must damn near have exhausted that Browning. How many shots do you have left in the six-shooter?"

  "I should have thought that was an academic question," a voice said levelly before Mettner could reply. Courtney stood in the doorway at the far end of the gallery, an Ingram in his hands. "Drop your weapons, both of you. Mettner, take the revolver out of your pocket, very slowly, and throw it beside the Browning. Then I want the two of you back on top of that forklift."

  Bolan's M-16, its magazine exhausted, was down below. As he threw the AutoMag at the Englishman's feet he stole a glance over his shoulder.

  The two of you?

  Surprisingly Yemanja must have ducked back into the control room just before Courtney appeared. She was nowhere to be seen.

  Courtney was at the edge of the gallery. "Fawzi!" he called. "Habibi! You and the others can come out now. The bloody birds are caged! One of you operate the lift to bring them down to your level while I whistle down the stairs... and keep them covered!"

  "You really earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records," Mettner said as he stepped off the gallery onto the forklift. "Murder, treachery, deceit, inefficiency and the double-crossing of two separate employers at the same time, all in the one worm — that sure takes a lot of beating!"

  Courtney flushed. "If you want to live even thirty seconds more, shut your bloody mouth, mate," he said, jerking the Ingram threateningly. He kicked the AutoMag, the Browning and the Combat Magnum over the edge of the gallery and called out, "Right you are. Lower away now."

  Fawzi was at the controls of the forklift. Perched on top of the crates, Bolan and the newspaperman sank slowly toward the ring of armed men waiting for them.

  Courtney turned on his heel and made it to the staircase. He was halfway down when Yemanja appeared from the control room with the Ingram in her hands.

  With tears streaming down her face, she clenched the fingers of both hands around the pistol grip and squeezed frantically on the trigger.

  The explosive rip-roar of the .45-caIiber skullbusters thundered around the rock walls of the cavern and shook the woman's slender body with the force of their compound recoil. She stood there until the entire 30-round magazine was empty, then threw the gun down the stairs after Courtney and sank to the floor of the gallery with her face in her hands.

  Eleven of the ACP rounds struck the man between the shoulder blades and the hips, shredding flesh, bones and interior organs, founiaining blood over the walls of the cave. The impact of the deathstream lifted him from the stairs and flung his lifeless body through the air to impact against a concrete buttress. The corpse, cut almost in two by the lethal hail, flopped to the ground as limp as an empty rag doll.

  Instinctively the gunmen surrounding the forklift had raised their eyes to gaze horrified at the carnage. It was the opportunity Bolan had been waiting for.

  He dropped from the top of the crate stack onto Fawzi.

  The motor was already running to power the hydraulics. He slammed the lever into reverse as he grappled with the hood, and the machine, veering from left to right, began backing up toward the cavern wall.

  Bolan and Fawzi fought frenziedly between the saddle seat and the controls. The Arab's gun was tucked into his waistband, and Bolan was determined it was going to stay there. He had a score to even with the broken-nosed torturer, dating back through his ordeal in the Arab hill village to Marseilles, and he suspected the man also had a hand in the bomb outrage that destroyed the world of Mustapha Tufik. This, the Executioner felt grimly, was a matter he would prefer to settle hand to hand.

  Eyeballing among pedals and levers, the two men grappled viciously, each searching for the advantage.

  Mettner jumped a fraction of a second later than the Executioner, when the startled killers had already opened fire. He dropped facedown beside the forklift and lay still.

  Bolan cursed. He rode two savage chops to the throat, kneed Fawzi in the belly, freed a hand to tweak the wheel and grunted with pain as stiff fingers jabbed his kidney. He lodged a thumb between the man's jaw, probing for the pressure point on the artery, then was forced to back off as Fawzi butted him with paralyzing force in the face.

  The rear of the forklift slammed against the rock wall, stalling the motor and spilling the two fighting men to the ground. Bolan was underneath, the hood's fetid breath hot on his face. His hands were pinioned beneath him as Fawzi seized both his ears and began banging his head on the ground.

  Half stunned, the Executioner made a superhuman effort and drew up a knee, raising his antagonist's body off him enough to free both arms. He clawed the heels of his hands beneath Fawzi's chin, then straightened his arms violently.

  Fawzi uttered a choked gurgle. His eyes opened wide and the pupils rolled up b
eneath the lids. Blood poured from his mouth and nose as Bolan shoved himself forcefully out from under and stumbled upright.

  Bolan looked up at the clock above the control room window. With Hartley, Habibi and the Mafia chief still at large — and the remainder of their forces concentrated now in the big cavern — it was still possible for the blackmailing radio messages to be transmitted and that first catastrophic missile to be fired.

  As long as the Executioner was pinned down here on the shop floor.

  The one-hour countdown began in fifty-two minutes. The forklift was backed up into a corner. Bolan was protected from the fire of the conspirators by the stacked cases... until the gunmen spread wide enough on either side and a man climbed to the gallery to enfilade him from above.

  After that? Big Thunder was on the floor beneath the gallery, and Fawzi's gun was a Colt Python carrying only six shots.

  Faced with that situation, what could a cornered man do?

  Make use of the little ammunition he had and eliminate the guys capable of launching the missile.

  He shrugged. What the hell. Fight to the last man and the last round, the old soldiers used to say. Well, he was the last man all right, and he had six rounds.

  He would waste the three bosses and take another trio with him when he went.

  It didn't work out that way.

  He risked a rapid recon, peering around one side of the crates. Bullets thudded through the wood and splatted against the machine parts inside. Giovanni and Hartley were nowhere to be seen, but Habibi was on the far left of the gunmen encircling the truck.

  Crouching behind the wheel, Bolan restarted the engine and engaged the forward lever. He would rush them and hope the surprise might get him through...if the word rush could be used for a vehicle whose top speed was four miles per hour.