Bolan saw a half-dozen more men streaming toward him. There was no choice. He had to check out his leg, then come in from a different angle. Now he was sure what was here and that he did not want to harm the trailer or any of its equipment. Sooner or later Dr. Dunning was going to have to give those MIRVs back to their respective governments.
The Executioner started to backtrack, limping only a little. He knew he was losing blood, but he could not tell how much yet. One man to the left fired and Bolan sent two rounds of double-ought buck after him. Then Bolan plunged into the thickest of the underbrush and worked silently away from the scene. He could hear them following him. For half a mile he jogged away from them until he found a thicket of wild briars and brush and gently wormed his way into it. He was concealed and they would not bother to look inside.
Gingerly he examined his leg. The wound had not slowed him more than half a step, but he had lost blood. Quickly Bolan pulled a bandage from his first-aid kit on his belt and wrapped the twin wounds on each side to stop the bleeding. Then he waited.
They came, but were a hundred yards to the left. No one approached the thicket.
They gave up at dark and faded away. Bolan had taken the time to catch a few hours' patrol sleep, that state of total relaxation and mind rest, but with all vital senses on alert. Now he stood, felt the stiffness in his leg and slowly worked his way out of the thicket. He had to get to their emergency assembly point to see if Kitty was there.
He had not planned on her getting hurt or captured, but he would not cry bitter tears if she did. The tall pine with the twisted top was harder to find at night, but Bolan got there an hour later. Kitty sat at the base, sleeping. He roused her gently and her hand flew to her weapon.
"Easy, easy, it's Mack."
"What happened? I thought we were going to capture the place."
"We probed it, and now we know more about them. Did you get hurt?"
"Just a scratch."
"Let's see it."
The round had gone in her shoulder and left a bloody wound and had not come out. She could still move her arm and did not seem to be in too much pain.
"You still on the team?"
"Yes. How is your leg?"
"Just a scratch."
"But of course. Do we go back in tonight?"
"I work best at night. Can you walk?" She nodded. "Good, let's move. This time we hit them from the other side, away from the trailer. But we go in silently. By morning we'll have their ranks cut down to size."
"Nothing new on the radio. The big powers are gathering the diamonds. One commentator said the two hundred million was about what one missile full of M1RV warheads cost. So it is a cheap solution to the problem."
"We'd better get moving. Thank your Russian ancestors there isn't a moon tonight." He paused. "Now we'll see how good you are. The real test of a combat soldier comes in the dark."
17
The Executioner and his KGB helper walked quickly through the trees toward the far side of the target, midway between where Bolan had hit them and where Kitty had struck. They were still a quarter of a mile away when Bolan realized the game had changed. Ahead he could see a glow of lights. Yamaguchi had planned with night in mind. As they came up slowly they learned the bad news.
The entire perimeter of the small armed camp was lighted up. Bolan wished he had a long gun to knock out the lamps. He would have to go in and blast the lights with double-ought buck, and that put him in too damn close.
Bolan had considered blowing up the generator, launching a silent attack against it, but then realized he couldn't. That would eliminate all the electrical power to the facility, and there would be no way to send the MIRVs back to their proper owners.
It would have to be stealth and finesse.
The Executioner and his companion moved the final twenty yards and looked down on the encampment. It seemed the same, except for the lights. The trailer door was open, the tall steps still there for access, and men walked around with submachine guns slung over their shoulders. A cooking fire and open-air mess had been set up under some trees where an overhead shelter had been stretched.
The Executioner grunted as pain streaked up his wounded thigh. He thought about his next moves carefully.
A born combat expert does not have to sit and reason out his strategy. He is already equipped with the combination of thought, logic and reason, and the next step is simply there waiting at his command. Mack Bolan was such a soldier. Now he knew what he had to do.
"Kitty, I want covering fire. Find a secure position between two trees or behind a log, and give me automatic fire at any specific spot where I need it. Count your rounds. Keep them busy wherever I am. If they come out after you, don't be a hero — do a tactical withdrawal and keep as many of the guns busy as you can."
"Where will you be?"
"Busy. You'll see me now and then and hear me. I'll be using the shotgun. Before that it may be rather quiet. If you hear nothing for fifteen minutes, start some general covering fire into the far side. But don't hit the trailer. Dr. Dunning has to be alive to send that MIRV back to Russian control."
"Good luck. I was never efficient at that sort of thing — the silent kill."
Bolan left, bringing the Childers battle shotgun from his back, checking to make sure it was fully loaded. It was. He had spares in a pouch on his hip. He slid the weapon back in place, leaving his hands free. The Ingram still swung from the cord around his neck, but now he had secured it in his belt so it would not get in the way. He touched the pouches on his web belt. They were ready.
It reminded him too much of Nam: the darkness, the forest, the attack on an armed camp. For a moment the memories flooded through him: the death, the heat, the constant wet jungle, the luxuriant growth. Then he was past it and moving toward another enemy. Now he had to get control of the trailer.
He had no reading on Yamaguchi. The man had no trouble rounding up troops who would fight and die for him. The money was part of it, but men think before putting their lives on the line for a few thousand dollars, even for a hundred thousand, especially when there is a chance they will not live to spend the money.
The Executioner crouched in the darkness and searched the floodlighted area behind. From time to time he saw armed guards walking set positions. He timed them. No pattern, a random movement. Less than fifty yards away, the door of the control room trailer sat invitingly open.
Bolan smelled diesel fuel. He looked closer to his left and behind a wall of pine boughs found the light green Kenworth tractor. It would do for a start. He slid in that direction, and saw that the truck was just outside the lights. He put half a block of C-4 plastic explosive under the dash and attached a small radio-controlled detonator.
Fifty feet ahead, Bolan saw the first foxhole. It was just out of the circle of light, an exterior first line of defense. The man in the hole was nervous, watching in front of him and on both sides, then looking into the lighted areas and back again.
The Executioner crawled along the forest floor past two trees and behind a log, then paused when he was a dozen feet from the lookout. As soon as he saw the forward observer turn and stare into the lighted area, Bolan was up and running hard for the hole. The big man carried a two-foot-long piece of piano wire in his hands. Both ends of the garrote had been welded into a stiff loop that had been encased in a tough hard rubber tube to protect the user's hands.
Bolan took another step and stormed into the shallow foxhole just as the guard turned back. The defender's light-saturated eyes could not adapt quickly enough, and he was blind for ten seconds after he looked back. Those ten seconds were fatal.
Bolan's rush carried him into the small hole, straight toward the unsuspecting guard. The Executioner rammed the guard against the far wall. The big attacker's knees crashed into the enemy's chest, slamming his head against the earth wall. Before he could cry out, the deadly strand of steel looped around his neck and Bolan jerked the handle ends in opposite directions. The wire bit int
o the soft neck tissue, slicing through Adam's apple and voice box and a second later rupturing both carotid arteries. Thick red blood gushed from the tubes.
The Japanese man's face turned to Bolan in one last frantic effort to see who was killing him. Thirty seconds later his head drooped, and his arms fell limp to his sides from their wild tearing at Bolan's hands. The man died where he crouched, warm blood oozing from his ruptured neck.
Bolan dropped him into the hole, searched it and found two hand grenades, the old U.S. Army pineapple type, and a fully loaded M-16 with the grenade launcher mounted below the barrel. Five of the rifle grenades lay on a shelf cut into the dirt wall.
The Executioner grabbed the explosives, slung the weapon and continued to the left, working slowly. If there was one, there would be more. He found three others, eliminated each with the killer wire, and left half of a bar of C-4 in two of the holes with a radio- controlled detonator. One signal from a small radio transmitter in one of his pouches and all would explode at the same time.
Some distance ahead he found the Bronco hidden in the brush. He quietly lifted the hood and took out the distributor rotor. The car could not run without it, and Bolan might need transportation soon.
The harsh stuttering of submachine-gun fire rattled among the trees. Bolan ducked, then realized it came from Kitty and that it was aimed far from him. He was still not sure about her. She might try to blow up the trailer and Dr. Dunning and Yamaguchi with it, eliminating the threat, but he was not convinced that she would make her move yet. There were too many variables to consider.
Bolan slid around to the next piñon and scanned the lighted area. Men were diving for cover on the side away from the trailer. Good. The Executioner had considered the attack plans and knew that the ideal would be to waste Yamaguchi.
With him gone the hijack would fade away, and Bolan could deal with Dr. Dunning. But the wily Oriental had not shown himself. Bolan saw six men forming a unit, working slowly toward Kitty's firing position. He unslung the M-16 and dropped two rifle grenades among the formation, knocking down all six men. Only two got up to continue the attack. They were soon out of his sight.
Fire and move. Bolan sprinted twenty yards from the spot where he had fired the two explosives and a moment later return fire chewed into the spot where he had been.
The probe just went hard.
* * *
High over the firefight a tired and bleary-eyed pilot swung the U-2 on another cruise along the target line from Houston to San Francisco. He was looking for a pinprick in a massive dartboard. It was almost impossible. They should have had a definite triangulation by now. The tri-guys kept yelling something about dual transmissions and satellite bursts and secondary transmitters. It was all a crock and they knew it. So they dumped it on him.
Something blinked in a scope that displayed a visual of the landmass far below. Somebody had turned on one hell of a big yard light somewhere. He concentrated on the spot and shot thirty pictures, moving up as close as he could with his zoom lens. Whatever it was, he would know shortly.
He turned the little plane with the gliderlike wings and kept on the trail across the southwest United States.
* * *
In NASA headquarters in Houston they took a call from Secretary of Defense Jensen.
"What the hell do you mean, you can't triangulate this bastard? He's made a dozen transmissions."
"Yes, sir. We know that, sir. We're just as confused by it as you are. It's done with some new kind of modem downstream from the transmitter, so the entire message is shot out in a short burst that lasts only milliseconds. By the time our instruments pick up the damn thing it's finished and gone."
"I don't want excuses, I want results. I'm sitting here telling this to the President! Do you know how that makes me feel, how that makes all of us look? I want that asshole triangulated within an hour even if it is wrong. Do you read me, General? I want it done right now!"
The phone slammed down and the general in Houston winced.
"Get that bird on the horn, U2-11. We've got to produce some results and do it yesterday."
A full colonel scowled. "I take it the President chewed tail a little. This might help. We had a message from U2-11 three minutes ago. He says he spotted something unusual in Arizona. That's Arizona again, sir. He said one section in the unoccupied hills is lighted up like a circus."
"Forest fire?" the general asked.
"No sir, stationary lights, incandescent."
"Tell U2-11 that nobody in his right mind is going to light up the woods at night if he's trying to hide. Get his ass back into motion and find something. We all may be back on guard duty at the DB barracks before long if we don't produce some results for the President — like now!"
"Yes, sir, I'll tell him. Instead of landing him we'll aim him back along the line for another look. And get a new plane in the air to cover Arizona, watching for a triangulation. Haven't we got something that will plot a signal's heading automatically, without some human getting in the way? Let me call those electronic people again."
The commanding general of the Houston facility nodded, but swore softly under his breath. This headache was getting bigger all the time.
18
Attrition. That was the best strategy Bolan could work out for this sensitive situation. The man in the trailer still controlled enough warheads to destroy most of the major capitals in the world. Bolan could not take any action that might trigger such a response.
With Yamaguchi in charge, there was no telling what might happen.
The whole area was alive now. At least a dozen men were running around looking for a target. Bolan waited and watched from behind a small ponderosa. He brought up the Ingram, pushed it on automatic mode and looked around the tree. Ten yards ahead in the edge of the light a green-clad paramilitary lifted his rifle.
A 3-round burst from the Childers slammed into the man's chest. Then the Executioner darted forward to another pair of trees. There was no counterfire.
Someone barked an order and the men who had been charging around vanished. Probably into holes, Bolan decided. Now it would be harder.
The Executioner heard submachine-gun fire from his left. It sounded like Kitty's. Good, maybe she could help a little. He ran to the next tree, his attention focused on the edge of the light, until he spotted the foxhole. This one was better. No head showed. Bolan grabbed a grenade from his webbing, pulled out the safety pin and let the handle pop off. He counted two seconds, then tossed the bomb into the hole ten feet away.
It exploded on contact, sending a gush of smoke and sound straight up. Scratch one Yamaguchi warrior.
The Executioner waited and listened. For two minutes he heard nothing. He circled cautiously in the darkness around the lighted area.
To the far left a figure slowly emerged from a hole, then the man scurried into the vehicle. Bolan had no chance for a shot. The trailer was sacred ground in this battle, totally immune.
Ahead someone fired from the light toward the darkness. The rounds streaked harmlessly into the night, away from Bolan. About twenty yards from the trailer, Bolan looked again and saw a yawning trench. A moment later a head poked up. Bolan triggered the Childers combat shotgun and two rounds of double-ought buck whizzed just over the lip of the ditch. Four of the slugs tore through the gunner's face, dumping him lifeless in his ready-made grave.
Somewhere ahead a voice shouted in English.
"Hell, I didn't know I was getting into a goddamn war. I quit! I just want out! I'm putting down my rifle and taking a hike."
Bolan did not respond.
"Hey, goddammit! I surrender. Just don't shoot. You wouldn't shoot an unarmed man."
Movement — there! The Executioner watched as a man rolled over a mound of dirt and began crawling toward the darkness. He was a few feet from it when an M-16 chattered its deathsong. The man screamed, rolled over and died in the dirt.
When the sounds of the shots died, an angry voice yelled at the remaini
ng defenders. The shouts were in Japanese, and Bolan could not tell where they came from. The speech was short and evidently loaded with threats.
The MP-40 sang its deadly tune again. Kitty. The sound was followed by the blast of a hand grenade exploding.
Silently Bolan continued his rounds.
Somewhere metal clinked against metal. To the right, deeper in the darkness. Bolan held his breath, listening. Another hole.
Whispers in the gloom.
Bolan waited, tuned his eyes to the darkness. Soon he could make out some shadows. Two of them moved. They dumped something on the ground and vanished, moving away from the compound farther into the woods and downhill.
Deserters!
Bolan moved up to the hole as silently as a cat until he was six feet from the defensive point. But no one moved. Suddenly a sound to the left of the hole made him jerk the Childers around. Nothing. Probably some harmless nocturnal animal, he thought. But he was dealing with nocturnal animals. And these were larger — and deadly. The Executioner continued his advance on the suspect foxhole. When he peered over the side he found a form huddled on the bottom.
"Get out of there!" Bolan commanded in a gruff whisper. "Or I blow your head off!"
A kid no more than sixteen crawled from the hole. Even in the dark Bolan knew he was terrified. The young Japanese boy shivered, his teeth chattered. The Executioner thrust the muzzle of the Childers against the kid's chest.
"How many defenders does Yamaguchi have around the trailer? And I want exact numbers or you'll never see the rising sun tomorrow."
The youth trembled, looking at Bolan and nodded.
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