Jeff recovered quicker and snatched up his M-16.
Bolan squeezed the trigger. The gun chuffed out half a dozen bullets through the soft fleshy hollow of Jeff's throat. Blood sprayed out in a sunburst, drenching flannel shirt and khaki pants as the corpse collapsed.
Jeff's partner caught Bolan's next missiles in a vertical row down his sternum, splitting open his chest like an orchid in bloom. The guy flipped backward into the jeep, banged his head on the fender, slid to the ground dead.
Thanks to the suppressor and the flash hider, no one came charging out of cabins or tents. A couple of men a hundred yards away walked by the campfire and threw a few logs on it; the giant fire crackled and snapped loudly as if it were chewing the wood instead of burning it. Bolan booted the two corpses to the side, rolling them into a clump of mountain laurel.
Then he crouch walked to the cabin where the two dead guards had indicated April was being held.
The window shades were made of heavy burlap; nothing could be seen through them. He pressed his ear against the glass, heard an old song by Jefferson Airplane that his younger brother used to play about the time Mack first hit Nam. Beneath the pounding song he could barely make out the voices. One was April's.
Bolan took two deep breaths, gripped the Beretta, unleashed his muscles. So fluid were his movements they seemed to surpass light and become one with time. Fury was everything, everywhere.
His shoulder rammed into the thick wood. The deltoid and latissimus dorsi muscles were bunched like a fist. They smashed the door open with such force that it tore free from one of its hinges and dangled precariously.
The door barely slowed Bolan's pace. He charged through the tiny kitchen area, stacked with dirty dishes, and into the main cabin. He dived in a tuck-and-roll over a sofa and bumped up against the stone fireplace.
His eyes had already snapped half a dozen mental pictures of the room while in mid-flight, developing and processing them as he tumbled across the dusty wooden floor, studying them for targets as he swung the Beretta into place.
April was seated to his left in an old-fashioned rocking chair. The skin on her wrists was chafed raw by the rough rope binding them together; a blood-soaked bandage was wrapped awkwardly around her upper left arm. Ten feet to Bolan's right was a thin, weasely man with a scarred face. He was clutching an Uzi semi-auto carbine to his skinny chest. Standing behind April was the square brooding face of Byron York. No apparent weapon. That made him a secondary target.
The scar-faced sentry hissed as he jabbed the Uzi's muzzle toward Bolan. The Beretta boiled out its hornets from hell. The Uzi tumbled to the floor. The dead man twisted around with a last groan and flopped into the table, knocking the cassette player to the floor. The corpse fell on top of it, muffling the insistent beat of Jefferson Airplane.
Bolan spun around toward Byron York. The guy remained motionless behind April's chair. Bolan's finger twitched anxiously at the trigger, but something stopped him from shredding York into blood-soaked confetti.
The mission.
Yeah, the mission.
"You never miss a beat, Mack," April Rose said. Her face glowed with relief.
"That's the way I stay alive. What's your secret, April?"
She was stung by his sarcasm, the sharp impatience of a man pushed too long and too hard, but she recovered fast.
"I never miss a beat, either," she said. "I got your number and it's my number, too. And I'm picking up on the way numbers fall."
Bolan waved the Beretta at York. "Back up three steps, guy. Move!"
York held his hands high as he obeyed the command.
Bolan slid the Fairbairon blade from its sheath and sawed through the rope wrapped around April's wrists.
April stood up. She rubbed some circulation back into her bruised wrists. Then she pried the Uzi SAC from under the dead sentry's body, wiped the blood off to avoid slip, and held the machine gun at hip level, poised and impressive.
But she was looking sheepishly at Bolan. "I guess I blew it, huh?"
Byron York stepped forward impatiently. "Just who is this guy, April?"
April turned to him and jabbed her Uzi into his stomach. "There's no time for explanations now, Byron. Just tell us where J.D. Dante is."
"So that's it," he said.
"That's it," Bolan said.
"Where is he?" April repeated.
"I don't know."
Bolan thrust the Beretta's metal jaws of death into York's face.
York flinched. "I don't know, man. Bastard waltzes in here a few days ago, wants me to hide him out until he can grab the caboose."
"The caboose?"
"Yeah. Radical Express. A sort of underground railroad to California. He had some business out on the West Coast and needed to stay out of sight for a couple of days."
"Why'd he come to you?" Bolan asked. "This group isn't sympathetic to the Weather Underground's cause."
"Nobody here knew who he really was. Just me. They figured he was a mercenary because of his guns."
April shook her head. "You got out of that madness, Byron. Why'd you help him?"
"Didn't have much choice. J.D. carries a grudge like a pocketknife. Sharpened and ready to use. He could nail me with the cops, too. I drove for him in a heist, back when I was with Weatherman. The cops could hassle me for years."
"What about Grayson Strummer?" Bolan asked.
"You wanna know about that poor son of a bitch?" Byron York said. "He'd been trying to join up with us for months. But I made a rule up here: no drugs. So we wouldn't take him. Then he tells one of my men that a stranger's been following him, snapping pictures. J.D. hears about it, takes a couple of my men and goes after Grayson to interrogate him. Grayson's just a dumb ox, but J.D. thinks he's holding out on him. Insists all that fancy photography equipment in Grayson's room belongs to him. Thinks he's a spy. So the three of them beat the slob to death. Now he's got me and my people involved in murder. Screw it all. Screw all of you." He ran an anxious hand through his short dark hair.
"We have to find him," Bolan said, flicking the tip of the machine pistol's barrel under York's chin. "Now."
"You'll be lucky to get out of this camp alive," smirked York. "And trying to find J.D. on the Radical Express—you'd be trying to grab smoke."
"That's why you're coming with us," Bolan told him. "You're gonna be our engineer."
York's face froze. "Call your dog off, April. For old times' sake."
"We're not talking old times, guy," Bolan said. "We're talking new times. I'm changing every day, you know that? You have to haul ass to keep up with me." He shoved the barrel up under the survivalist zealot's clenched jaw. "I guess you came across me at the wrong time in my life. In one way or another, you will never recover from this, I can assure you. I am the choices you never made, punk, and they have come home to haunt you. Know anything about choices? You think you're so different from me?"
Bolan thrust the barrel upward once more. York spoke dryly, his neck at a tilt, his chin stuck in the air. "Choices are something I don't have. Apparently you do."
"No, you're not like me," Bolan decided, waving the gun toward the door. "April, the keys."
April snatched them up from the table next to the sofa.
"How's the Hummer running?" he asked.
"It's fine—the bullets didn't get anything vital, only the driver."
Bolan pointed the Beretta. "Let's go."
They moved out of the cabin into the crisp night air, crouching low in single-file formation. April went first, her finger taut against the Uzi trigger, her auburn hair whipping in the night breeze. York followed, weaponless, eyes darting nervously. Bolan covered them from behind, his Beretta relentlessly sweeping a wide arc as they ran.
Within seconds they were in the jeep. Bolan reached under the vehicle and dragged the XM-10 free from one of the dead guard's hands. He tossed it to York. The two men exchanged hard looks.
Bolan was taking a calculated risk, but York was taking his
only chance. York's survivalist associates would blame him for what had happened. Bolan was right; real survival meant choice, making the right choice, the one that lets you survive. York knew what his choices were damn well. He realized there was something about this black-clad warrior that he shared. "Survival, then. Long term," he said. "Right now I'm with you."
Bolan balanced his Beretta across his lap and poked the key into the ignition. Next to him, April turned in the passenger seat, propping the Uzi on the back of her seat. Behind them, York hunkered down, his XM-10 pointing out the back.
"The only access road in or out is blocked by guards," York added. "I know because I posted them there."
"I know, too," Bolan said. The jeep roared to life with a violent shudder.
People poured suddenly from their cabins and tents, alerted by the noise, their shirts open and flapping, pants unbuckled, shoeless.
They all brandished guns.
The few curious women and children were shoved brusquely aside as the men ran toward the revving jeep. Bolan rammed the Hummer into gear, spun the machine around, jammed the gas pedal to the floor.
Dirt and pine needles swirled behind the spinning wheels as the vehicle bolted down the narrow dirt road and out of the open camp.
April and York kept up fire, spitting molten gut grinders through the dark forest. Bolan saw two men crumple in the rear view mirror. A slug thudded dully into the metal frame of the jeep.
Bolan maneuvered down the dark tree-lined dirt road without headlights. Rocks, ruts and thick exposed roots kept the ride bumpy.
A sudden curve loomed and Bolan banked the jeep a little too sharply, bouncing the rear fender off a huge pine tree. April was tossed six inches into the air, the Uzi almost flying out of her hands. Bolan flicked on the headlights.
York called out to Bolan. "Within minutes we're gonna run into two surplus jeeps and four heavily armed greasers who've waited all their lives for an opportunity like this."
"Maybe," Bolan said.
"Ain't no maybe about it. SOP. This is the only road and they're at the bottom heading our way. I don't like the odds."
April smiled grimly. "He's beat the odds before, Byron."
"Well, I don't like it—"
A burst of semiautomatic fire flashed twenty yards in front of them, stitching a line across the hood. One of the headlights exploded, spraying glass into the air. It sprinkled onto their shoulders as Bolan jerked the wheel hard, tugging the jeep into a zigzag pattern while April leveled her Uzi ahead.
Another burst of fire from the other side of the road. The zigzagging jeep swept a single headlight through the woods. As a burst of fire came from ahead, the light washed over another enemy on horseback. He was unshouldering an M-16.
"Take the guy on the horse," Bolan shouted. "I've got the other one."
The man ahead stood spread-legged in the middle of the road and fired another series into the car. Half of the windshield blew out of its metal frame.
Bolan aimed the jeep directly at the bastard and slammed the gear into fourth. The vehicle growled hungrily, as it roared toward him.
The guy tried for the foot-high embankment on the side of the road, leaping aside and praying for a foothold.
Bolan bumped into the embankment. He kept the pedal down. The jeep devoured the sandy embankment, plowing forward and bulling into the scrambling gunman, flipping him up onto the jeep's bullet-scarred hood and rolling him into the shattered windshield, as if to give him an inventory of the damage he had done.
The body fell, and the back left wheel crunched over his chest, grinding sharp splinters of ribs through most major organs.
Meantime, April and York were pruning the forest with a dozen torpedos that sought the rider, not the horse. At least four of them found their mark, punching through a shoulder, a hand, the chest, finally the groin. The last bullet yanked the rider out of his saddle with a scream that terrified the horse. The roan reared back, trampling its rider's face into bloody mush before it galloped away, deep into the dark woods.
Bolan did not let up on the gas.
He had survived all these years by following a very simple philosophy: if you're already dead, it's harder to kill you. A warrior's philosophy, not often understood by civilians. It is as ancient as the Hagakure of Yamamoto Tsuetomo: "The way of the Samurai is found in death." It is as modern as a cop answering a call for a domestic squabble. Once you have accepted your own death and the inevitability of it—we all die, but few accept the fact—then you cannot be bullied or threatened. You are more complete as a warrior and a man. The dark side of human nature, the source of the drive to take life, unites with the side of nature that seeks only justice, that is guided by the light. The acceptance of mortality brings together a man's possibilities and helps him take aim with them. The criminal and the saint are, at their best, united in their acceptance of death. In death, Bolan would always be at his best: death was the condition of his life.
The echo of approaching cars came through the trees.
Bolan swerved the jeep off the road. He bounced between the trees.
"What the hell are you doing?" York demanded.
"Shut up, Byron," April snapped.
"He's heading us straight for the Allegheny River," York yelled in panic.
Bolan wove the jeep through the trees, bouncing off an occasional trunk like a pinball. They could hear the churning of the nearby river. Behind them they heard the whine of engines and the shouts of their pursuers. Closer and closer.
The woods became too thick to drive through. "This is where we get out," Bolan said. "We walk the rest of the way."
"I was afraid you'd say that," York grunted.
"Move it, York. They catch us, they'll go harder on you than us."
Bolan stopped, peered at the creases of pain lining York's face, saw his hand pressed against his right side. Then he saw the dark blood oozing between the fingers. "How bad you hit?"
"Bad enough."
The rumble of engines grew louder. Angry voices.
York choked out a laugh; it sent him into a coughing spasm. "This is the scene where I hold 'em off while you two get away, right? I think I've seen this scene before."
Bolan tucked his Beretta into its holster. Then he lifted York out of the jeep.
They jogged off through the woods, Bolan leading the way with York slung across his shoulders in a fireman's carry. April followed, glancing over her shoulder to watch for those who hunted them.
The ground began sloping. Through the thinning trees a rock-strewn shore became visible. The mighty Allegheny. The river bubbled here and there, its current swift but not treacherous. The moon spilled light across it like the pale underbelly of a giant fish.
Bolan could tell from the limp weight that York had passed out. The wound must have been worse than York had indicated. Bolan needed him alive. He was their only link to the Radical Express. He was to be their "engineer," the man who got them aboard. Only York knew where they could get aboard and who the "stationmasters" were.
A shotgun blast brought in a swarm of pellets that sparked across the rocks where Bolan and April ran. April pivoted, squeezed a burst of her own, heard a cry of pain, turned to concentrate on keeping up with Bolan. He was running through the water now, splashing by the side of a high embankment with no sloping shore.
"What now?" she gasped as she ran, the water soon waist deep. Then she saw it.
Tucked flush against the embankment was a small motorboat, anchored under some camouflage brush. Bolan laid York gently in the middle of the boat, hoisted himself over the side, then balanced the craft while April climbed in.
Bolan yanked on the starter and the motor sputtered to life. A quick slash at the anchor rope and they were skimming across the top of the river, heading downstream toward Bolan's automobile. The boat was dragging slightly. Bolan had not counted on the weight of a third passenger.
The hunters were rushing through the brush, firing blindly as they ran down toward the sho
re. Bullets splashed in the water. April returned fire, her Uzi snarling like a hound.
The nearest man behind them had waded into the water and was firing both barrels of his shotgun when April drilled a burst of bone mashers at him. He flopped backward in the water. Part of his face floated downstream. The rest of him sank.
Bolan held the rudder with one hand and fired the Beretta with the other. Two 9mm spikes hammered into an enemy skull, sending the back of it spinning into the night like a hairy Frisbee.
Bolan guided the boat around a bend as the river twisted into a severe S. Finally they were out of range.
"We're moving away from the path," Bolan muttered. "They can't follow us."
April slumped in exhaustion. Then she wedged the Uzi into the bow. Automatically she turned to tend to Byron York.
"There's a hospital twelve miles south of here," Bolan told her.
April tugged at York's closed eyelids, pressed her fingertips against his neck. Her voice quavered when she looked up.
"Too late, Mack. He's dead."
Their eyes locked.
"He was a lousy survivalist," Mack said. "He got it all wrong." He looked at the dim outline of the dead man. "There's the proof."
5
"Hey, lady." The old black man waved at April. "How 'bout a nice tattoo?"
April smiled, shook her head.
"Nothin' big, mama. A rose on your thigh. You'll see, drive your man wild."
"Some other time maybe," April said.
The old man shrugged good-naturedly and bent over the customer he was working on. The compact machine in his hand buzzed angrily as the sharp inking needle bobbed up and down like a sewing machine. The elaborate blue wings of a dragon began to appear on the customer's skin.
"See anything you like?" Bolan said. He had appeared suddenly at her side.
"He wants me to get a rose on my thigh. Says it'll drive you crazy."
Bolan grinned. "It would."
"You sure this is the right place?" April said nervously.
"Right upstairs there. Goodey's Gym. I ran a quick recon on the place. There's a fire escape from the second floor, just in case we need to make a quick scram. Ready?"
Executioner 057 - Flesh Wounds Page 3