But, of course, he did have access to other resources.
He consulted an automated display at his remote console to double check the local police radio frequencies, then set the scanners and threw the system on audio monitor. The console lights flickered as the scan began, and a new game was launched.
The Smokies were not the only ones with eavesdrop capability.
He told his trailing road buddy, “Bye-bye, Delta, we down, we thankful, we gone,” as he put that hammer down and gave the cruiser her head.
The game was not yet lost.
20: Convoy
The chase led north, precisely back along the way he had traveled earlier to Decatur, reversing now onto 1-75 and hell-bent for Marietta.
He was only about two miles south of the Marietta marker when an urgent report was passed on a police frequency, indicating that the track was leaping westward at that point. A moment later, the same “eyeball” came down on the CB channel. The police frequencies then came alive with a flurry of new instructions and reassignments. The movement was now north on U.S. 41 out of Marietta.
Bolan was feeding the automated map display for the Marietta region when a familiar sound drifted through his CB speaker, a soft and whispery modulation caressing the break. It was a female voice that sounded like candlelight and wine, silk sheets and sweet scents, and hell, there was no mistaking it.
“You big guys on 1-75 make a girl feel very secure. I’m running on north toward the choo-choo city and hoping to find good company along the way. It’s the Superskate Lady looking for a back door. Bring it on back, honey.”
A couple of guys jumped in quick, one of them harshly scolding “that cotton-picking flaky beaver, breaking the Ten-thirty-three,” but Bolan immediately recognized that one, also. It belonged to a Georgia cowboy.
“Take it down to seven, flaky breaker, if you gotta talk,” the cowboy said in his concluding remarks.
Bolan quickly switched to Channel seven and made the break. “I’ll talk to the lady breaker,” he said. “Come on, sweetness.”
“Hi, superstud. Want to back-door me on up the superslab?”
Bolan asked, “How far you going, doll?”
“As far as you’d like to go, big man. Just follow the little red car.”
Bolan told her, “Just try to shake me, sexy lady.”
He was both glad and mad: mad because Miss Superskate was supposed to be safely tucked away in a cool motel for the duration of hostilities; glad because the good buddies had evidently tumbled to his problem and had stepped in to lend a hand.
The police chase had been diverted onto Route 41, by one device or another. Bolan suspected that a dummy vehicle had been rung in on them. The cops would hardly divert by CB reports alone. They had methods of their own and would not be easily thrown off by bogus radio signals.
By whatever device, the cops were running off on a tangent and Bolan had been discretely advised of the true track. So, yeah, he was plenty glad.
“Do you have me in sight, big man?” asked the sultry lady.
“Negatory. What’s your twenty?”
“Just passed the Marietta marker. You’re going to stay with me now, aren’t you?”
“Ten-four, I’m about a mile behind and closing. Do we have a convoy?”
The cowboy came in to say, “Big Ten-four on that convoy. You’ve got the one Shaky Jake at the front door with the hammer down. Bring it on. We got it clean and green; not a bear anywhere and nothing ahead but a ship on the horizon.”
The guy was playing it nice and cool, perfectly so. He’d changed his handle to offset identification from that very warm other channel—and that “nothing but a ship” coder could mean only the Ship.
Bolan replied, “I got your make, Shaky Jake. It’s the Happy Hunter rolling up the backside with the hammer down. Keep me advised.”
“Ten-four there, Happy Hunter. I hear tell of a convoy of eighteen-wheelers rolling southbound from Dalton, and the word I get is that it meets the ship for a quick-change near the Calhoun interchange south.”
“Come back on that convoy. Is that a Ten-four on eighteen-wheelers?”
“It’s a big Ten-four, for sure, very definitely a southbound convoy running with heat for a rendezvous at Calhoun. They be eighteen-wheelers for sure. Ten-four?”
“What are they running, Jake?”
“They be running the warm goods, and their jockeys be Yankee-Doodlers. Ten-four?”
“Ten-four and I thank you for the info. Those jockeys be not soft but hard. Ten-four?”
“You got the big Ten-four, Hunter, on those jockeys. They be a front door and a back door with two in the rocking chair. And they be hard all the way. Shaky Jake is on the side.”
Bolan put his mike down and thought about that development.
Four big diesel rigs hauling hot merchandise with armed men in the cabs?—and planning a rendezvous with Sciaparelli? Where the hell could the guy have gotten that information?
“Bring it back, Shaky Jake.”
“Go.”
“What’s your source?”
“We be confirming through the ears at Dalton town.”
“What be the source, Jake?”
The guy sounded a bit hesitant, but he brought it on. “You know the childhood buddy with the unforgettable name, Ten-Four?”
“Ten-four,” Bolan replied. He sighed, thinking how curious the wheels that moved the universe.
“He be working hard since your last eyeball together. He be scratching in the sandbox and finding the roots to a dollar tree. The ship carries a lot of cargo that the ledgers never see. Ten-four?”
“Ten-four,” Bolan sighed back.
“Two and two spell four, Happy Hunter. The ship is running north and the convoy south. The usual rendezvous is Calhoun. We see that ship be looking for escort to cooler places. We be putting that together.”
“Ten-four,” Bolan said.
Yeah. They be putting it together, all right. Damned good cops, and what a hell of a waste of talents.
“Tell the unforgettable name when you see him that the accounts are square in that big book. The Hunter would think twice about the public turnaround unless he can safe a plea and stay with the game. We got too many saviors on the crosses already. One more won’t move the universe off-center, will it?”
“You just told him, Hunter. The Brown Mount is running in the rocking chair just ahead of the sexy lady.”
The guy came in then with a mouthdown sound. “Thanks, big fella. I’ll give it a think.”
Bolan said, “Things could warm up at Calhoun. I suggest this convoy seek the cool route. Happy Hunter will run ahead and beat the bushes.”
“Negatory, that is a negatory for sure!” replied the Georgia Cowboy. “The sexy lady should take the grass when we approach the marker, Ten-four on that, but that’s all the cool we gonna take. This front door is movin’ on with the hammer down. We clear, we gone, bye-bye.”
“Brown Mount is clear, we gone, bye-bye.”
And that, dammit, was that.
There was no comeback possible; nor did Bolan even desire to give one.
The sexy lady asked, “Do you have the little red car in sight?”
“Affirmative, I’m about to blow your doors off.”
“Is that you? In that thing?”
“It’s me.”
“You’ll never reach the front door in that.”
He told her, “Watch me,” and he gave the big Toronado power plant all the pedal there was.
He’d overtake them, sure, long before Calhoun. He’d blow their doors off, too and, if they wanted to come on along to cover the rear, then fine and dandy.
The Corvette hunched and leapt forward as he swept past in the passing lane. She began to pace him right down the track, shoulder to shoulder.
He commanded, “Lay back, lady, and get ready to hit the grass.”
“That is a negatory,” she replied sweetly. “We clear, we gone, b’bye.”
He w
atched her hang up the mike and turn to him with a go-to-hell smile.
So okay.
This damn convoy, such as it was, was in a footrace to hell. It was not exactly the way Bolan would call it, but it was the way that it was.
It was too late to try changing the signals now.
And only the hands of the universe could pick up the pieces.
It all came together like a choreographer’s dream. Bolan could not have called the numbers closer if he had put it on the plotting board and rehearsed beforehand.
He “blew the doors off” the Georgia Cowboy’s tractor as they swept around a bend and plunged downgrade toward the Calhoun marker.
The Corvette was still shouldering him, and she had powered through the closing gap just before he overtook the cowboy, the hot little red car running up the front door in the passing lane.
Bolan caught the flash of consternation from the rig as the girl danced past.
The guy grabbed his mike and barked, “Put a rein on that hoss, lady! Bring it over! Let the man go!”
She waved without looking back, moving over in an almost lateral movement to the far right. Bolan pulled alongside and told her, “Back it down, honey. You’re in the game, okay, but at least let’s do it sanely. Get behind the cowboy.”
She waved at that and moved behind him as he powered on by in the descent; then Bolan saw her ducking behind the diesel rig at the same instant that the play ahead materialized.
One-half mile ahead, at the bottom of the grade, an old two-tone sedan was pulling onto the median opposite four big diesel semi-trailer rigs that were stationary on the shoulder of the southbound side.
Bolan called back, “Tally ho! We go! Are you hard, back there?”
The cowboy replied, “Ten-four, we’re hard!”
“I’m going for head,” Bolan announced. “You guys take care of the play on the flank.”
“That’s a Ten-four.”
A lone eighteen-wheeler that was laboring upgrade on the southbound had picked up the channel and was apparently aware of the play going down.
As Bolan flashed past in the meet, the guy called over to him, “Watch it there, good buddy. You got snakes in the grass two clicks to the rear of those eighteen-wheelers, two carloads, and they be looking mean.”
The “professionals,” maybe, sure—and they apparently had not missed a trick yet themselves.
Bolan told the trucker, “Thanks,” and told his rear, “It could be a kicker play! Watch for snakes!”
Sure, it could be a kicker. The guys could have been playing the same game the cops were playing, all the way, except that they hadn’t been suckered off at Marietta. And they could be cooling it, waiting for Bolan to show for bloody doubles.
But then he was throwing brake and making the move to the median.
He had Ship centered in his front glass as the guy opened his door and stepped to the ground.
Their eyes met for one electric instant as the guy whirled and saw what was upon him—and the tension there recalled that first meeting of the early morning when first their gazes clashed.
The guy was toting a pistol this time, and it came up in a reflex motion just before the final curtain descended upon the Rat of Atlanta.
Bolan took him with the warwagon, flattening the man down and rolling the man up as the big vehicle passed on over him.
A hard-looking guy who’d been watching the drama from ground level across the way reacted with a warning shout and a dive for cover. A pistol cracked from somewhere over there, and a slug ricocheted off the plating at Bolan’s left leg.
He was extra-vehicular with the .44 thundering before the next round came from the other side—and then the cowboy and the Mountie were running up his flank with riot guns in play and holding forth.
Even above that din, Bolan heard the engine roars and screeching of tires as two heavy sedans peeled out of the bushes downrange and joined the fray in a shoulder to shoulder charge along the southbound.
The AutoMag reached out in rapid-fire to meet that charge head on at fifty yards out.
Both drivers lost control at about the same fatal instant. They swerved together in a grinding sideswipe then leapt off to either side in a quick parting.
The car in the mon ford lane hit the median, took a roll, and flipped onto it’s wheels broadside across the northbound. The other one hurtled across the shoulder, climbed the embankment, and fell back onto its roof.
Bolan reloaded on the run and pumped another clip of headshrinkers into the upright vehicle on the northbound, catching them dazed and frozen in place.
One guy was still alive in there when Bolan reached the scene. He was wedged in the rear seat between two near-headless horsemen, and his eyes were the same as every man’s who knows that death is here and there’s no hope beyond.
“Which one are you?” Bolan asked him.
Nothing moved but the lips. “I’m John.”
“That’s cute,” Bolan said. “Hello, John.” Then he blew John away.
The other car burst into flames as Bolan jogged across the median to close on it. A half-in, half-out guy screeched a shrieking plea for help, and Bolan promptly sent him some via thunder and lightning.
Another guy had been ejected by the crash and was sprawled across the shoulder of the road, facedown and bloody.
Bolan turned him with a foot and, yeah, it was the other ace. The guy must have been dead already, but Bolan put a sealer on the guy, just for sure. He dropped a medal on him and muttered, “Hello, James or Paul. The cute is ended.”
Bolan’s two helpers had the other situation fully in hand. A line of tough-looking guys were lined up at one of the rigs, feet spread and hands on heads.
Bolan walked on back to the battle cruiser and beyond it.
Jennifer James was standing beside the smashed figure of Charles Sciaparelli. She shuddered and told Bolan, “Look, he died with his guns on.”
“Couldn’t have happened to a more deserving guy,” Bolan said. He dropped a medal into the mess and led the girl to her superskate.
“It’s okay now,” he told her. “Go home.”
“I want—where are you …?”
He said, “Over the hill, pretty lady, and far away.”
“Can’t you—couldn’t we just—just for a short-short, huh?”
He smiled, and it was a tired and regretful one he gave her as he replied, “You need some new theories, honey. Get to work on that, huh?”
Those great eyes dropped. She said, “It’s just a game, anyway. What’s so important about the theories, huh?”
The big tired guy’s gaze swept that tortured landscape of the Dixie Corridor and the human litter once again deposited there as he suggested to the overprotected young lady, “Ask Susan.”
He left her standing there with nothing at all to hold her to discarded theories.
A moment later he was in the warwagon and pulling out for the northbound roll toward another desecrated ground.
The cowboy noted the departure and quickly climbed into one of the captured rigs. A moment later, Bolan heard the guy’s farewell.
“We thank you for the visit, big man. Come and see us again when we’re all looking better.”
Bolan replied, “I never saw anything more beautiful than right now,” and meant it. “It’s a bonny night for trucking, though, and it’s time to dear this Ten-thirty-four. Please pass my appreciation. And keep the hammer down, guy.”
“Y’all come back, now,” invited a whispery siren of the superslabs.
And Bolan hoped that he would.
Some day, yeah, Bolan hoped that he could.
Epilogue
He tried a mobile phone combination from Chattanooga and caught the man as he was going out the door.
“How is the citizen’s blockade going?” he asked the Fed.
“Looks like you were partly right, anyway,” Ecclefield reported soberly. “It’s working in this area, for sure. Haven’t you seen?”
Bolan
replied, “I’m long gone, friend, but yeah, I’ve seen a few trailers in the grass here and there. Work it to a proper conclusion, guy.”
“You know I will. And-listen, friend, if you ever need a friend again … pull the chain.”
Bolan chuckled and told the guy, “I’ll call you, don’t call me.”
“Hell, don’t worry,” the Fed said. “I got enough games of my own.”
“Right,” Bolan said quietly and struck the combination.
Games enough ahead for everyone, sure.
And Mack Bolan knew, at that moment, that he was right now headed for the grimmest game of all.
Pittsfield was next on tap.
Turn the page to continue reading from the Executioner series
CHAPTER ONE
Bolan’s Game
Numbers, yes—the numbers had meaning again as the big man in executioner black, practically invisible in the rainy night, made the quiet reconnaissance into no-man’s-land. The time was a few minutes past ten o’clock. Here and there, throughout that suburban neighborhood, muffled light showed behind draped windows, but there was very little stirring about—an occasional automobile venturing cautiously along the rainswept streets, a dog barking nervously in the distance, now and then a light appearing at an upstairs window as the residents prepared for bed.
There was more, though, than that.
There was a vehicle with two solemn men inside parked inconspicuously at the curb a few hundred feet north of the Turrin home, another at the first intersection to the south.
They were not cops, and they were not locals.
Bolan knew who they were. They were the hounds of hell, staked out along the game trails, patiently awaiting the appearance of prey. Both cars were radio equipped. Both were lightly manned. And, yeah, Bolan had their numbers.
He quietly withdrew, returning to his own vehicle which had been discreetly stashed well clear of the stakeout zone, and drove back along the game trail—making his approach from the south in a sedate run which carried him past the stakeout vehicle there and on along the street to Leo Turrin’s deserted residence.
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