Detroit Lynch laughed again and shook his head at Bolan. "White chicks, man. No wonder you honkies can't get it up."
The jangle of the phone sliced through all conversation.
Detroit moved fast into the kitchen, yelled at everyone there to get out as he snatched up the receiver. From the living room, Bolan could hear only mumbled conversation.
Minutes later Detroit returned, tapping his largest throwing knife in his palm. A cruel smile twisted his lips. "That was Dante," he said unnecessarily. "He's on his way over now."
April shot Bolan a glance.
"He says there's a spy in this place right now." He walked slowly across the room, looking at everyone, his smile frozen, teeth glistening. Finally his gaze rested on Bolan. "Yeah, Dante says one of you mothers is an undercover Fed. Baby John, is your little popgun aimed at our visitors?"
"Yes, Detroit."
"Allison, you got 'em covered real good with that thing?"
"Yes."
He crossed the lush carpet and stood between Allison and Bolan. "Good. We don't want any-body making any sudden moves. Except, of course, me—" And he pivoted around with the heavy metal handle of his throwing knife sizzling the air like a blackjack as it crushed the high chiseled cheekbone of Allison Dubin's face. With his left hand he jerked the Linda from her hand and clubbed her again with the knife handle, this time mashing the back of the hand held up desperately to protect her wounds.
Belinda screamed and Carly whimpered. Everyone else just stared.
Except Allison. She crumbled to the floor, her face swollen with red knots, her hand bleeding and limp.
Detroit stood over her, eyes wide and fierce, chest heaving with excitement. "Now you're gonna find out what we do to cops around here, scum. By the time we're done with you, you ain't gonna be a woman. Hell, you ain't even gonna be human."
11
"Keep the gag real tight!" Detroit yelled at Baby John. "We don't want the bitch screaming and bringing in the whole goddamn neighborhood."
Baby John tugged the dishtowel tighter, jerking Allison's head back sharply as he tied the knot. She was bound to the wicker chair with thick yellow rope from the store downstairs. The left side of her face was puffy around a bony white lump, stretching her skin so taut across her cheek that the freckles disappeared. Her left eye was swollen shut.
"Gonna teach you a little lesson." Detroit laughed. He raised the point of the throwing knife to Allison's face, ran it lightly across her forehead, circled her one good eye.
Belinda and her college friend wore sickly pale expressions as they sat cross-legged in the corner.
The two hardcases that Dante had sent were sitting at the dining-room table sharing a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken. They watched Detroit with dead eyes, occasionally licking their fingers and grinning.
Dolph Connors sipped his fifth can of beer. His eyes were slightly blurry, his lips were loose.
Carly, the soap star, squirmed with delighted anticipation. She watched the whole scene like a starving woman devouring a feast.
Bolan and April sat quietly on the sofa. Waiting.
Occasionally they spoke, whispering beneath the noise of the stereo.
"What about Allison?" April said, her head down.
"She's a trained agent. I hope she can hold out until Dante gets here."
"And if she can't?"
Bolan fell silent. There was nothing he could do except mentally construct his death list. But when the time came, first Detroit, then Dante. The more he got to know these people, the longer that hit list would grow.
Detroit leaned down, his face inches from Allison's. He bared his teeth in a repulsive grin. "Well, I guess I know why you were always so prim when I tried to make it with you. I thought you were a dike. Now I find out you're a Fed."
She stared back through her one open eye. Pain clenched her damaged face, but her eye gleamed with defiance. Broken but not bowed; Bolan noted her attitude with admiration.
"Any time now, J.D. Dante will be struttin' through that door, baby. And he ain't gonna treat you nice like me. He can get real mean." Detroit ran the tip of his knife along her bare inner thigh to the hem of her shorts. Tiny white scratches etched into her freckled skin. "The thing is, sweets, you're gonna talk sooner or later. The only question is, how much irreparable damage will there be when it's over?" He nodded at Baby John, who quickly removed the dishtowel gag. "Now, it would look good to my boss, ole J.D., if I already had the information before he got here. You dig? So maybe you can tell me how much you passed on to your piggy buddies?"
"I didn't have a chance to report in yet," Allison muttered. "Not since last month."
Detroit shook his head, began tapping the point of his knife on the knob of her broken cheek. She winced from the touch. "That's jive, bitch."
"No, it isn't," she insisted. "We only report in once a month when we're on deep cover. That's standard."
"She's right," Bolan said. "I worked Army intelligence once. That's the way our spy book read. Once a month in deep cover, depending on the length of the operation."
Detroit spun around, spraying saliva as he yelled, "Shut your hole, Jack. I ain't talking to you. You got your own problems to worry about."
"Just being helpful," Bolan smiled.
Detroit turned back to Allison, his fingers walking along her leg, across her thigh, pressing into her crotch. He made a fist and leaned his weight roughly into her.
Her mouth opened with pain, but she wisely made no sound. Sweat beaded along her forehead.
Baby John chewed on his lip as he watched excitedly. Carly urged Detroit on with her eyes. Dolph stared drunkenly. The college kids looked scared. The hardcases argued over an extra-crispy drumstick.
"I want answers!" Detroit screamed into her face, his nose pressed against hers. "What did you report?"
She shook her head.
Then the cutting began.
"A throwing knife ain't very sharp," he said as he moved the blade. "But it's got a decent point. It'll do."
And he began gouging furrows of skin from her face. First a strip from her good cheek. Blood welled from the two-inch wound, dripping down her chin onto her T-shirt. Then he dragged it cross her busted cheek and she swooned. More blood splashed down her face.
Bolan felt April's fingers flexing around his arm. He glanced at his watch. There was no telling where Dante had phoned from, how long it would take him to arrive. If Dante was in another town it could take an hour through the winding Pennsylvania roads. But by then, if Allison was still alive, she'd wish she wasn't.
Bolan assessed the tactical situation.
The college kids were unarmed and were in too much shock to do anything anyway. The celebrities were just as useless. Baby John had his Sentinal, but Detroit and Allison were in the line of fire to Bolan. The hardcases at the dining-room table had their guns tucked in their waistbands, but they were bellied-up to the table, their fingers greasy with chicken. They'd have to push themselves back to get at the guns, and that would take precious seconds. Life and death seconds.
Detroit had his throwing knives and he knew how to use them. And lying on the wicker coffee table less than five feet in front of him was Allison's Wilkenson Arms Linda with the Aim-point.
Bolan nudged April. He pointed surreptitiously with his chin at the Linda laying on the wicker table. He raised his eyebrows to ask if she could handle the weapon. She studied it a moment, barely nodded. Then he nodded slightly, too.
Detroit dug his knife into Allison's skin again and Bolan and April bolted off the sofa in different directions. While April lunged across the living room for the semiautomatic pistol, Bolan dived over the side of the couch into the corner where the spear guns were leaning.
He was raising the Sharpshooter at the same time Baby John was aiming his Sentinel at April's back.
Bolan squeezed the trigger and the spear leaped from the gun, zipped across the room and punched through Baby John's skinny neck. The guy's eyes bulged as
his hands flew to the shaft, trying to tug it out.
But the hinged barbs had flattened against the back of his neck, anchoring the spear permanently in place.
He spiraled to the ground, his hands still wrapped uselessly around the shaft. He was dead.
The hardcases at the dining-room table pushed themselves backward, grabbing at their guns. But April had snatched up the Linda and was slinging a dozen rounds of 9mm hardballs at them.
Brass casings piled up around her feet as the bullets gnarled the table, two chairs, and the thigh, hip and ribs of the guy at the table.
The woman somersaulted back into the kitchen and closed the door. April tossed another half-dozen rounds through it to keep the woman out of the way.
The college kids were huddled against each other, flat against the floor, their faces buried in thick shag carpeting. Belinda was screaming. Dolph sat uncomprehending, his mouth hanging open stupidly. Carly's eyes sparkled with frenzy.
But it was Detroit who had Bolan worried. As soon as Baby John dropped, the crazed fanatic spun and snapped his throwing knife at the black-suited nightfighter. The blade sliced air with a high-pitched whistle, missing Bolan's head by a hair.
Bolan tossed aside the spent Sharpshooter and hooked the Frontiersman, aiming and firing in less than two seconds.
It was enough time for Detroit to yank Carly in front of him. Enough time for the rocketing spear to drill through the actress's abdomen, soaking her expensive Ralph Lauren sweater with her blood.
She pitched forward, slammed facedown on the floor. The shaft was driven all the way through her body.
Detroit scrambled toward the dining-room table for the dead man's gun. April stitched the last row of 9mm peepholes into the kitchen door, then in one movement swung the Linda around at Detroit as Bolan hefted the last spear gun. They both fired simultaneously.
The spear caught Detroit square in the chest, just above where his jacket zipper stopped and bare skin began. April was less generous. She started low and fired a burst from crotch to neck and back down again. Detroit's pulpy body flew up against the wall, splotched the paint with flecks of bloody flesh and cloth, then flopped onto the carpet. It twitched in death.
April had already untied Allison and was helping her to her feet.
"You should have waited for Dante," she gasped with agony. "Gotten them all."
"We didn't have your guts," Bolan said. "Let's get out of here before the cops come."
They started toward the door, stepping over corpses, wading through pools of guts and blood. Each had an arm around Allison as they half-dragged her with them. On the way, Bolan dug his Beretta 93-R out of the credenza drawer where Detroit had tossed it, then trained it on the kitchen door. "If you know what's smart," he called through the door, "you'll stay put and live."
April fumbled with the front door, opened it, began edging Allison through.
Dolph Connors stood up, staggered forward a couple steps. "Hey, man," he demanded belligerently. "What about me?"
Bolan lifted the Beretta slightly and squeezed off a round into the floor between Dolph's legs. The impact raised dust and a couple of tiny splinters. The shocked football player imagined he had sustained some sort of wound to his precious legs, whose knees had already seen so much surgery. He sank moaning to the floor.
"You ought to be selling used cars," Bolan muttered. It appalled him that reckless idiots strayed into his appointed path and bared themselves up as victims to him. No man was more truly merciful than a soldier like Mack Bolan who had lived on the edge of creation and brought back gifts of compassion for mankind and the gift of mercy for each individual. Victims who put themselves wilfully into the cross fire, begging for a lesson they'd not forget, only distracted a soldier from his path, although the lesson must always be taught in full.
Belinda was screaming. The college boy pressed his hand against her mouth to silence her.
Bolan thought about saying something to them, some piece of counsel for their lives. But he shrugged instead and ushered Allison and April down the stairs. They were old enough to learn for themselves. If, after everything they had seen tonight, they still had a taste for the radical life, then so be it. He would see them again someday, probably through the sights of his Beretta.
They were halfway down the stairs when they heard a car pull up outside the rear of the building. Three car doors slammed. The buzzer sounded upstairs in the apartment.
"Front door," Bolan whispered. "Through the store."
Allison was running under her own strength now, keeping up with April, holding a rag carefully against her bleeding face. Bolan backed out after them, his Beretta covering their escape.
"Keep going," he told them. "I'll catch up later."
April's expression was concerned, but she nodded reluctantly. She and Allison ducked through the fishing net and out of sight. They would be out the front door and safe within minutes.
But Bolan still had business here. Maybe he had screwed up the mission in order to save Allison, but it had been necessary. "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?"
Mack Bolan knew that Allison's life was not his to sacrifice. Saving her was what he was all about. Saving her and every good soul like her.
He edged around one of the metal shelves stacked with low-pressure compressors. He hunched down in the dark room and waited.
The buzzer sounded a couple more times, an impatient finger jabbing it outside. Then heavy foot-steps thundered down the wooden stairs. Bolan peered around the shelf.
It was the woman who had hid in the kitchen. She quickly unlocked the back door and began frantically explaining as the three men entered.
Bolan recognized the pale angry face of J.D. Dante.
"Slow down, dammit!" he snapped, shaking her shoulders. "What's going on here? Where's Detroit?"
"Dead," she panted, barely able to catch her breath. "So's Baby John and that soap bitch. And Billy. They killed them all."
"Who, the Fed?"
She nodded. "She and the couple Byron York sent."
"I told Detroit to keep an eye on them! Where are they now?" Dante boomed.
She pointed out the front door.
Dante spun around and shoved his two soldiers in that direction. "Go after them! Kill them!"
The two men tugged their Colt MK V Troopers out of concealed holsters. They ran through the dark storage room and out the front door.
Dante raked his thick hair with his fingers. "Any of them know anything?"
"I don't know how they would," the woman said. "None of us knew anything to spill except that it's going down Sunday."
"Good. That's all you need to know. Zossimov has everything set up, regardless of the shit that's going down here. If the weather holds and the smog's not too bad, we'll have half a million people on target."
"Jesus," she whispered.
"And that's just the beginning," he bragged, as if to talk himself out of bad news. "That little caper will set off a chain reaction of bombings and attacks that'll make the Weather Underground more talked about than E.T."
The woman looked around. "Where's Bleeder?"
"C'mon, you don't think I'd actually bring that asshole here, do you? He's good for money, some laughs, a safehouse, that's all." He pointed up. "Anybody else upstairs?"
"A couple of college kids, the football player."
"They alive?"
"The kids are okay. But the big man who busted Allison out of here, he scared Dolph all to hell, told him to start selling used cars."
Dante laughed arrogantly, rocking slightly. "Hell, I'd like to meet this guy."
The woman sighed. "I don't think so, J.D. Something about him. . . You had to see him move. The bastard speared Baby John and Detroit. Carly got in the way and he speared her, too. The chick snatched up that Linda and split Billy and Detroit open like eggs."
"Then get upstairs and finish off the others. We don't want any witnesses talking."
A siren wailed nearby.
Dante spat in disgust. "I'll get the car started." He turned and moved out the back door.
The woman scampered up the last few stairs as Bolan sprang out from behind the shelf and chugged several 9mm parabellums into her side. The impact whirled her around, yanked her off the stairs and through the wooden railing.
Her body belly-flopped into a metal shelf half-filled with boxes of fins and wet suits. She knocked the shelf over as she fell face first against the cement floor. Blood puddled around her crushed face.
The car outside roared loudly as tires screamed across pavement. Dante was getting the hell out.
Bolan had no more intention of getting picked up by the police than Dante did, so he dashed through the room and out the front door, tracing the path he suspected April and Allison had taken.
The dark streets were deserted. There were no residential homes, only small businesses, offices and a bank. That was why it had taken so long for someone to call the police.
Bolan ran silently, his footsteps no more than a sigh as he paced through the alleys looking for April and Allison. And for the two gunmen following them.
Ahead of him, a distant burst of gunfire, a couple of single shots, another burst . . . Then silence.
He ducked between the post office and a drug store, following the sound. Behind him he heard several sirens wailing as patrol cars screeched up to the diving store.
Bolan ran across Third Street. He made no effort to hide his weapon in the deserted street. Bolan had seen plenty of towns like Williamsport before. The sidewalks rolled up after five o'clock and no one was seen again until seven o'clock the next morning.
As he hit the curb on the other side of the street, he knew he was on the right track. Propped up against the wall of a Thrifty Loan office door was a man, his head hanging down, his legs sprawled out like a drunk's. Enough to fool most people. Except Bolan had seen him with Dante a few minutes earlier. The man was dead.
Carefully Bolan edged around the corner of the building into a dark alley. It was like a tunnel. He took two steps before his foot nudged another body. He flipped the corpse over, grimly acknowledged the features. Dante's other gunman. Bullet holes had chewed a hunk of flesh from his chest.
Executioner 057 - Flesh Wounds Page 7