Pendleton, Don - Executioner 17 - Jersey Guns

by Pendleton, Don

  Some clown poked a light machine gun over the edge of the roof and began spraying slugs wildly into the ground across his route of advance.

  Without breaking stride, Bolan angled his multi- weapon upward and squeezed into the pistol grip of the M-79.

  A forty-millimetre HE round whizzed into that parapet with a thunderous impact and sent man, gun, and goodly portions of roof tumbling onto the portico.

  He coolly inserted another round of high explosives into the slide breech and went on, beneath the portico and inexorably toward that shattered entranceway.

  Now it was the Executioner who was smelling blood, and already he was sickening on the overdose.

  But it was that kind of world, this Mafia jungle; better their blood than the altar sacrifices of goats both scaped and bled.

  Mike Talifero was about four heartbeats removed from the judgment of the universe.

  It was no time for the instrument of execution to falter. He moved on up, kicked aside the twisted aluminium remains of the door casing, and went back into hell.

  And it was almost pitiful, this climactic end to the great fox chase of central Jersey.

  He was met by two batteries of stacked and overturned tables, one to either side of the doorway, with nary head nor weapon showing at any edge.

  This hard site had gone mighty soft mighty fast.

  A scramble at the far side, accompanied by the angry swearing of Mike SuchIron somewhere in the murky interior, signalled the frantic departure of more battlefield deserters.

  The place was filled with smoke, and a lot of heat was coming down from the ceiling area, but he could see a dude in the background, slumped over a table and covering it with blood.

  Talifero gave away his position in the rear with an emotional scream, "Open fire! Shoot, shoot, dammit!"

  The snout of a Thompson came hesitantly around the side of one of the table-turrets.

  Bolan flipped a grenade into that one and dispatched forty millimetres from the M-79 into the other one.

  Tables splintered and flew and rolled all over that place while men in both sectors screamed until Bolan's M-16 mop-up put an end to that agony.

  Mike Talifero was yelling something in a strange tongue, and Bolan could dimly see him moving around back there in the smoke—coughing and stumbling about.

  Then a door back there opened and closed, and the target of the night abruptly disappeared.

  It just had to be.

  Bolan knew precisely which door.

  The maze had a way of turning back, folding in, devouring those who played cruel games in her chambers.

  He went on, slid in another round of HE, and let it fly into that door, then followed quickly with his own imposing figure.

  It was the men's locker room, yeah.

  He went in under the cover of his own smoke while selecting another round for the M-79, and he stalked the fox to his final burrow.

  And the guy was standing there, in the only place left—in the corner of that shower with Bruno's blood darkly caked about his feet.

  Those eyes were positively wild, and there was not a hint of a smile upon the face that had snickered at human agony lo these many years. He had a gun in each hand, and certainly at least a fighting chance, unlike any he'd ever offered another poor bastard who screamed and pleaded only for death.

  But he was frozen there—tongue-tied for probably the first time in his life—stammering something about strong men who die together; but there was nothing truly strong about this man about to die, nothing commendable or admirable.

  He was just another cornered punk, alone and contemplating his own death and seeing nothing of value beyond.

  Without a word, and from about six paces out, the Executioner squeezed the pistol grip of the M-79 to send a chewing pattern of double-aughts grinding in at chin level.

  The pistols clattered to the floor, the body sagged in a flowing river from the shoulders, and a shredded head bounced off the back wall and rolled along the incline toward the drain.

  “May his soul thank mine,” the Executioner muttered.

  He threw a marksman’s medal into the gore; then he turned his back on that and walked away from there.

  And it was a very short step out of hell.

  EPILOGUE

  He appropriated one of the few remaining vehicles at Boots and Bugle—ironically enough, a camper van—and calmly withdrew along that trail of tears, taking with him along those darkened Jersey roads new fodder for future nightmares along the river of blood, as well as some fond memories of tender moments agreeably spent.

  He heard but did not see the approach of the federal task force screaming into that grim ex-encampment back there in the smouldering ashes of the night, and he mentally tipped his hat to Leo Turrin and Hal Brognola, a couple of true friends who, he was sure, would forever figure in his future —no matter how many lifetimes lay ahead.

  He was leaving Jersey with himself in better shape than when he entered. All things considered, that should say something for the place. So he sent a quiet "thank-you" into that corner of quivering universal mould and apologized for all feelings harshly held—while at the same moment promising to return one day for a closer look at the nature of things there.

  And when he arrived at the little airstrip "a few miles south" of the hard site, he was already relaxing into that post combative torpor and mellowness that characterize a hard campaign honourably met.

  Waiting there at that quiet edge of the hell grounds was a sleek executive jet, of the type used by corporations to fly their executives around with style and efficiency.

  Another type of corporation and a decidedly different sort of executive had been calling the shots for this particular air vehicle; Bolan could think of no more fitting exit for himself from the late and not so great shadow of the Jersey guns.

  A single "sentry" waited there, a Marinello hard-man with more sand in his eyes than brains in his head; the guy's eyes flickered but briefly into an awakening one startled heartbeat ahead of the flying fist that sent him back into a deeper and perhaps a more peaceful sleep.

  The pilot was lying in the aisle way of the cabin, fully dressed, a pillow propped beneath his head, feet crossed, sleeping like a baby.

  The Executioner intruded into his dreams and brought him back to the hard world with an awesome black Beretta tickling the tip of his nose.

  The guy's eyes flared into an awareness of that which was and must be, and his greeting to the man in black was a quiet, "Oh, hell."

  "Let's fly," Bolan suggested, with ice cubes enclosing the words. "Like the birdies. South."

  It was to be the sole exchange of dialogue until they reached the southern-flow altitude corridor for air traffic; then the pilot advised Bolan, "You'll have to give me a destination for an ATC clearance."

  The man in the co-pilot seat replied, "Forget ATC. Just fly south. I'll tell you when and where to do different."

  The pilot showed him a half hearted smile and agreed, "It's a good night. I can fly visual."

  Yes, it was a fairly good night. It had been good to Mack Bolan. And all but a few festering wounds had been expiated into that night.

  He shrugged out of his combat rig and tossed it to the rear, then asked the pilot, "You know a fat ghoul they call Sal?"

  "No, I—"

  "A turkey doctor."

  "Oh, hell no. I just fly these people, I don't—"

  "When you get home, you pass the word. In the right places. There's a contract on Sal written deep into my guts. You pass that word. Sal is out of business. Or he'd better be."

  "Sure, I . . . I'll see that the word gets around."

  Bolan sighed, lowered his lids about halfway down those blood-wracked eyes, and settled into a light "combat sleep"—that divided state of consciousness which gave him rest yet kept him animally alert to the outside world.

  The pilot was telling him, "Between you and me, Mr. Bolan . . . I mean, just between the two of us, I think you're an okay guy."


  The animal side of the Executioner grinned. Sure.

  Sara was okay.

  Bruno was okay.

  And—for the moment, at least—that wild and woolly universe of Mack Bolan's was okay.

  His soul stretched, seeking a shortcut through the maze, sending a gentle probe into that receding countryside down there, giving form to the thought:

  Good-bye, Mother Sara. Stay hard.