Bolan helped along the understanding. He shot Fat Sal at the arch of heavy thighs with a 240-grain chunk of nonsurgical steel. The guy screamed and grabbed and fell forward onto his knees, clutching hands instantly dyed red, eyes wild with understanding now.
“How’s the perspective from down there, Sal?” Bolan asked soberly. “That’s just tab one, spelled Bruno.” He kicked the guy out of his path, and the turkey doctor fell onto his side, legs still doubled, and lay there grunting.
Bolan found the springset on his own and opened the trick door, steeled himself, then stepped into the Dark Ages.
A chamber of horrors, yeah. Complete with candelabra and sacrificial altar. Low ceiling, dank cement walls, the smell of mold and mildew surpassed only by that other odor—that turkey smell that chased Bolan’s dreams down blood river and haunted his wakeful strolls across hell’s back acres.
It was a long, narrow room—dominated by the raised surgical table at the center. A series of eight-by-ten glossy photos lined the wall on one side, telling the graphic story of the shredding of a sentient being in grisly, step-by-step detail, each one carefully dated to preserve he continuity of the crime, each one a picture of the same pitiful wreck who now lay upon that dreadful table with the candelabraum at her head.
Crazy Sal sentenced her to fifty days in the chamber.
Fifty enternities was more like it.
A medical device for intravenous feeding stood at the side, connected to the “patient” by a length of clear tubing. It could be used for blood transfusions, as well.
A small table at the other side held hypodermic syringes and vials of liquid.
Oh, how Fat Sal had struggled to keep this one alive and aware. And, God in heaven, what an awareness.
She had no feet and no hands.
One eye socket was empty and ghastly in the candleglow.
The other eye was intact but had no lid with which to shutter reality—a reality helped along by an arrangement of mirrors placed for unavoidable viewing.
She also had no breasts.
Where genital labia had been was now a smooth skin graft with a miniature artificial penis to facilitate urination.
A crude “badge” had been carved into her abdomen, glowing redly with raised scar tissue that had been encouraged rather than inhibited.
Yeah! Step by step and day by grisly day the dismemberment of a once beautiful woman had gone relentlessly forward.
Bolan’s guts creaked with this firsthand realization, shaking his faith in the worth of the whole human experience.
And—yes, Toby—she was alive … breathing with shallow little grunts, defenseless cyclops of an eye roving the face in a mute plea from the bowels of hell itself.
He stood beside her in frozen immobility and groaned, “Canuck, baby—okay, okay.”
She tried to speak, but then he saw that she had no tongue and also no teeth—but no speech was really necessary to convey the message from that pleading eye.
He whispered, “Okay. God rest you, Georgette.”
The automag roared and the reverberations of that blast sent him reeling out of there.
The lunatic from Hades was still curled into a knot on the floor. He’d managed to get his pants down and was attempting to stanch the flow of blood with his bare hands.
Bolan stepped over him without a second glance and went on to the larger chamber and through to the main basement. He shrugged off the backpack and carefully removed the contents, shaped the plastics and emplaced the timers, then methodically set the explosives for maximum demolition.
He took a last look around, murmured woodenly, “Rest in peace”—and got out of there.
He was onto the grounds and in clearing atmosphere when the charges detonated. The ground beneath him quivered, and the whole flaming wreck collapsed in on itself, like a giant sand castle gone dry and all its props kicked out.
Bolan was free of excess baggage, now—of the mule-pack variety—but loaded even heavier with burdens of the soul.
Two guys ran upon him in the confused jumble of darkness and promptly wished they hadn’t. The automag bellowed massive anger from beneath a face carved in granite death—and the man strode on, oblivious to the shouts and screams and tumult behind him.
He walked unseeing past a crouching Toby Ranger at the edge of nowhere. She trotted along beside him, casting anxious glances into that frozen face but saying nothing, asking nothing.
Finally he halted and dropped to his knees, head falling forward to rest upon the heaving chest, the snout of the .44 pressed into the earth.
She knelt beside him, anxiety now overriding temerity, and she cried, “Are you hurt?”
“No,” he whispered. “Not where it shows, Toby.”
“My God, but you zonked them. I never saw such a … Mack—what about—what about …?”
“She’s dead,” he croaked. “Long dead, Toby.”
And then he wept.
But not for Georgette Chableu, particularly.
He wept for all mankind.
EPILOGUE
Bolan would not presume to question the internal logic of a universe that he would never understand. He played the game as the numbers fell … and what was the sense of shaking one’s fist at the heavens?
Death had brought him here to this troubled but improving “City of the Strait” … but the death of whom and what?
Death had watched as he stumbled blindly across that makeshift stage of human destiny … and he’d imagined that he was gazing back at her when in reality he had seen nothing but his own distorted image in search of the role written for him in the stars.
Perhaps a tortured and desperate soul had searched for him through that universal maze of living misery, and had led him here to lend it death.
Yeah, maybe.
Death was a happening, not a state of being.
He had recovered from the spiritual shock of that ghastly stroll along hell’s corridors, and he and his partner were hurrying toward greener pastures when a stolid figure loomed out of the darkness and halted their plunge with a pistol at Bolan’s head.
Toby gasped, and Bolan shoved her facedown onto the road as a calm voice inquired, “What took you so long, Stryker?”
The snout of the automag was buried in the guy’s belly, Bolan’s finger frozen on the trigger by that quietly amiable voice.
He slowly withdrew Big Thunder and holstered him. “You’re not the enemy, Holzer,” he told the cop. “Either squeeze off or stand aside. There’s only one way to take me.”
“Take you where?” the guy asked. He sheathed his own pistol. “Sorry about the weapon. Cop can’t be too careful on a Mad Dog, you know.”
Bolan replied, “Yeah. I know.”
“Your, uh, vehicle got destroyed. About the same time and place as mine. Lucky for me, eh? I, uh, figured you’d need a replacement.”
The tall man in black held out a helping hand to his partner. She scrambled to her feet and stood beside him, glaring into the confrontation with a puzzled frown.
Holzer was asking, “Who was wheeling? The lady here?”
Bolan said, “Could be.”
“You’ve got to be more careful, Stryker. You bear an amazing resemblance to another guy. The whole town is after him. Thought I’d better find you and advise you to vacate the area, very quickly. The, uh, vehicle is just down the street. Keys in. Leave it where it’s convenient.”
“Thanks,” Bolan growled. A hint of a smile played at his lips. “Glad you found me.”
“Me, too. Straight-lined you, thinking in a military manner. Figured you might like to know—a place over on the lake shore tumbled down a little while ago, very troublesome place for a cop with territorial pride. With it went three of the meanest old men in Detroit. Plus half of the torpedoes in the area, and half of their boss—a guy called Charley Fever. The other half of Charley, the living half, is enroute to the hospital. Might make it and might not. I’d guess he’d rather not.”
“Men
die easy, Holzer,” Bolan growled.
“As opposed to things, eh. Guess you’re right. Some things you can never touch. Well, a few things died tonight, too. Good luck, Stryker.”
They touched hands. The man and his lady went on, finding the car where promised.
“Some men die hard,” Toby observed, speaking for the first time since the encounter with the law.
“Only if they stay hard,” Bolan said. He cranked the engine and put distance between themselves and that hellground back there.
“Does that mean no green pastures?” she asked, small-voiced.
He gripped her hand and showed her a brief smile. “Green pastures are a state of mind, Toby,” he said quietly. “I have business in New Orleans and I guess nothing is green down there, not even the grass.”
“I see.”
“Travel with me part of the way?”
“All the way,” she murmured. “Far as you want to take me.”
“How about Cloud Nine?”
“I’d settle for Cloud Three or Four. For a day or two.”
“Sold,” he said, “to the lady with the shiny gold badge.”
A tear popped loose as she whispered, “To the memory of Georgie girl. She was a damned good cop, Mack.”
Bolan said, “Yeah.”
“I’m coming back up here after … after …”
He said grimly, “Do that. Bust their asses, Toby.”
“I intend to.”
“Stay hard. Don’t give them a goddamned inch. Fight them until they’re digesting you, then spit in their bowels. Hit them any way you can, anywhere you can.”
She said, “Let me write that down. I’ll save it, for your epitaph.”
“Do that,” he muttered.
She curled an arm into his and whispered, “That’s enough shoptalk for now. Let’s forget, huh? For a day or two? Just forget?”
Bolan would never forget. Nor would Toby, he knew that. His gaze slid to the rear view mirror, in which was reflected the fading red glimmer above the hellgrouds.
And Death gazed back through there … smiling, content, sated for the moment. She would rise again, soon, on Bolan’s next horizon. He would be ready for her there, too, gazing back upon her.
But, for now, the deathwatch was over.
He snuggled his temporary helpmeet to his side and soberly intoned, “Long live the dead. Forever die the living.”
“Down, Captain Coffin, just damn it down.”
He chuckled, and squeezed her, and they drove into the cosmic sprawl of things to be and things not yet dreamt.
Turn the page to continue reading from the Executioner series
1: REMEMBRANCE
It was a perfect spot for an ambush. The road was narrow, winding through dense woods, remote—seldom traveled at this hour of night. The terrain was flat, swampy; this was bayou country. Climbing vines clung to the trees and trailed from their branches, interlocking in the air to form an unending network that seemed to encompass the entire forest—bringing it all together in a living unity.
Yeah. Jungle country, American style. Impenetrable except by water and the thin thread of macadam highway.
It was Mack Bolan’s kind of place.
He was rigged for heavy combat. A black suit as snug as his own skin covered him from neck to ankles. Hands and face were blackened. Supple swamp-moccasins reached to just below the knees. Military web circled his waist to support the head weapon, a .44 AutoMag, as well as other deadly items of ordnance. Other belts crossed the chest like bandoliers but were narrower and bore another selection of munitions. A black Beretta Brigadier rode shoulder harness beneath the left arm, and an Israeli weapon—an Uzi submachine gun—dangled from a neck strap.
On the ground beside him were four harmless-looking fiberglass tubes. They were officially designated “light antitank weapon”—or LAW—and they were far from harmless. The Disposable Age’s answer to the bazooka, these prepackaged armor-piercing rockets came in their own throwaway launchers and could handle most any battlefield job.
The dawn was still an hour away. All the preparations for battle had been completed, and there was nothing to do now but wait. As was his style, Mack Bolan’s preparations had been elaborate and exhaustive. A pro did not leave the smallest detail to chance. Mack Bolan was certainly a pro. He had lived in this swamp for more than a week. He knew the roadways and waterways, and he had mockedup this operation for dry runs over and over again. He knew what had to be done and how—and he knew full well the elements of chance and the percentages for success or failure—which, in Bolan’s line of work, meant living or dying.
But, yes, it was Mack Bolan’s kind of place. He remembered his surprise, some years back, at finding a jungle within a march of Saigon. And the Cajun kid—what was his name?—the one that stepped into the VC snare trap and died with a stake through his belly—Clautier, yeah, nice kid—Clautier had remarked that it was no big deal. There were jungles within walking distance of New Orleans, denser than anything he’d seen yet in Vietnam.
Bolan hadn’t really believed the kid then. Now he believed.
An armadillo waddled onto the highway and paused for an unemotional inspection of the black-clad human interloper before continuing on to the other side.
Smart kid, sure, move on. You’re in a war zone. All the armor in Louisiana won’t keep you safe here—so move it on out. Bolan grinned. Some kind of funny-looking animal—like a possum with armor plating. Not funny, though … tragic. The world of nature had abandoned the armor-plating experiment long before man came on the scene. Still the armadillo lingered on. Bolan’s gaze fell on the armorpiercing rockets in their neat little fiberglass tubes. Sure … and the idea lingered on in the minds of men.
The smile faded from the warrior’s face as he took final stock of the situation. Any minute now a convoy would be rounding that curve up there at Point Able and lining into this brief straightaway. He’d clocked them on three previous runs and there’d been no deviation from the routine. It would take them ten seconds to reach Bolan’s position at Point Baker. In another ten seconds, if they were incredibly lucky, they’d be scooting around the next curve at Point Charlie. In the lead would be a Cadillac limousine—one of the big jobs with jumpseats and a full crew of eight gunners. Certain barely noticeable alterations to the body lines revealed that it was armor-plated like the armadillo, but much more so.
Close behind the point vehicle would be the Brinks-type truck carrying the goodies—three days’ receipts from the string of mob-owned joints along the Mississippi Gulf Coast—black money from the casinos and the take from girlie operations, contraband booze, the drug scene, illicit rackets of every kind. This particular shipment would also include fifty kilos of uncut heroin plucked from a Central American banana boat at Gulfport just three hours earlier and destined now for a powder plant in the French Quarter at New Orleans. Manned gunports in the van indicated a minimum of three heavily armed guards inside.
Bringing up the rear would be a second limousine identical in all respects to the lead vehicle.
About nineteen guns, at least—including automatic weapons. And some of the meanest boys south of the Mason-Dixon, old man Vannaducci’s best.
Through a nice piece of official larceny, each of them toted “special police” credentials. The armored truck was legitimately registered, licensed, bonded, etc. And still they made their runs along the back trails like the scurrying vermin they really were.
Vermin, sure. These boys were Mafia, each of them sworn in blood. And each of them was going to die in that sworn blood. As for their black money—it was going to get liberated … into the Executioner’s war chest, about $300,000 by conservative estimate. And people were still saying that crime doesn’t pay. It paid, all right—for the organized psychopaths swaggering about their vicious little kingdoms of syndicated cannibalism—it paid to the annual national tune of about $70 billion—more than the top three U.S. corporations combined—a GNP higher than most nations of the
world.
The Dixie mob was getting its fair share of that. The boys had been having things their way in this area for much too long. The Executioner’s gaze had been focused on Vannaducci’s little empire for some time—and he’d decided it was time for the universe to present the bill to Uncle Van and all his little savages.
The Mafia presence here went back a long way—further back than most people might think. As early as 1890 they’d murdered a chief of police who couldn’t be bought, then bought a jury to get the killers off scot-free. An irate citizenry then lynched the bunch. Hysterical repercussions from that, around the country as well as abroad, saw an embarrassed U.S. Government officially apologizing and even paying damages to the Italian government to still the furor. Naturally, the Dixie mob promptly returned to business as usual, raping and looting the economy of the South with renewed zeal—and nobody had really presented them with a bill of complaint since.
So now the note had matured. The collector had come. It was time to pay the tab for nearly a century of plunder. “The city that care forgot” had not been forgotten by everyone.
The Executioner cared.
His fingers traced the outline of the little transistorized pocket detonator that would officially announce the Battle for New Orleans. He was ready. The jungle was ready. And the glow of approaching headlamps was now sweeping into the curve at Point Able.
The time had come to throw the first punch for the New Orleans knockout.
The wheelman reflexively jabbed an elbow toward Jimmy Lista and growled, “Boss!”
Lista, the convoy boss, jerked upright in the seat, and his eyes flared as he muttered, “Yeah. What? Why the slowdown?”
“Something’s ahead. On the road.”
“Accident or what?”
“Could be,” the wheelman replied. “Looks like railroad flares, just around the curve.”
Lista snatched up the mike and spat hasty instructions into the radio net. “Peckers up!” He was wide awake now but still fighting the cobwebs from his eyes. “Close up, close it up! I want a tight one-two-three.”
Detroit Deathwatch Page 13