The other three were still not too quick on the uptake, but there were still four men firing from cover, their weapons chattering in response to the Executioner’s own fire. Bolan dived toward the entrance to the warehouse, tumbling under the loading dock doors and barely avoiding a barrage of slugs that detonated in a precision line to where he’d been a moment ago. Plunging into the depths of shadow, he banged his shoulder hard against a stack of wood.
The Olympic Arms subgun bounced free from his hands, but he knew the weapon was secured to him by its nylon straps. Instead of grabbing the weapon, Bolan slipped into the darkness deeper, his hands feeling through the impenetrable blackness to guide him as he worked the maze of stacked planks. Behind him, gunfire ripped at the rolling door, bullets punching through corrugated metal with ease, spilling more dim light into the scene. It was still impossible to see, but the Executioner could tell that his enemies were charging after him.
He spun, pulling out his Beretta and Desert Eagle, guns filling both hands and speaking almost as one. Screams filled the air as the rounds found flesh on at least one target. The soldier in black then dived behind a column of stacked two-by-fours, gaining cover only moments before a hail of return fire chewed after him. Old wood splintered and exploded under the hail of bullets. The cover he found wasn’t much, but it granted him an extra ten seconds to dart toward the back exit, the doorway illuminated by the small square of reinforced glass high in its center.
A head appeared in the little window and Bolan snap-aimed his Desert Eagle, thundering the last .44 Magnum shell through the glass. It broke, 240 grains of lead pounding like a freight train through the skull of the man at the door. The Executioner hit the doorway at full speed. Not even breaking stride, he went from step to full-force kick, slamming his two-hundred-plus pounds right under the doorknob. The lock frame exploded under the impact and he could feel the door only stop when it struck the inert, lifeless corpse slumped behind it.
Bolan dived to the right, out of the crack he had opened the door by, striking the ground in a skid before a burst of gunfire chewed along the wall. Rolling, he brought up his Beretta, flicking the selector switch to burst mode and hammered a trio of rounds into the belly and chest of the gunman trying to track him. The guy did his dance of death, twisting and tumbling to the ground, emptying the last of his SMG’s ammo into the dirt at his feet before falling facedown.
Bolan got up to one knee, popping the empty magazine out of his Desert Eagle and feeding it a fresh one before returning it to its holster. The Beretta also got a fresh stack of Parabellum rounds before returning to its resting place under his left arm. He checked the load on the OA-93 and topped that off, too.
He finished just in time to spot a pair of men coming around from the front of the warehouse. One was limping, blood soaking his light-colored windbreaker from chest to waist. The other was a man that the Executioner recognized from the group looking to secure the office.
Bolan took the uninjured man first, cutting him off at the knees at 800 rounds per minute, hyper-velocity 5.56 mm bullets smashing through his legs and sending him flying. The soldier shifted, sidestepping as the injured man cut loose, trying to control his MP-5 with one hand. The gunfire went wild, missing the Executioner by a good foot. The soldier’s return fire didn’t miss. This time, the gunman flopped backward under an invisible baseball bat of force, multiple rounds punching through him in a deadly rainstorm of fire and lead.
The man on the ground continued to scream, holding both hands desperately over his severed leg. Tears were pouring down his face, and Bolan ended his suffering, tapping out a controlled, short burst that smashed open the side of his skull.
A gunner shouldered the door that Bolan had just come through, firing on the move. The impact threw off the shooter’s aim, but the bullet sliced the top of his thigh. Ignoring the pain, the Executioner whipped around, holding down the trigger on the OA-93 and ripping a storm of 5.56 mm armor piercing rounds through the enemy gunman and the door. Bullets sliced through flesh and sheet metal with equal ease, the tungsten-cored slugs being undefeated by any surface encountered in the savage salvo. The gunman in the door vomited his lifeblood and slumped, held up by the squeeze of the door and the jamb, his shoulders wedged between them as he slid down.
Bolan fed the OA-93 a fresh magazine and continued on, scanning for more targets. By now, the gun battle should have drawn the attention of Adonis, Dark or Harpy. Nobody was racing for the Black Hawk, and the office itself was lit well enough that Bolan could tell nobody was moving around inside it. As much as the soldier wanted to rush the office, he had to make sure all the opposition was down. Being gunned down because he assumed the battle was over was the mistake of too many good soldiers.
Instead, Bolan moved slowly around the corner. Enemy gunners were still scrambling for cover. There were three of them, but they were already inaccessible before the Executioner could bring his weapon to bear on them. Ducking back, he avoided a snarling swarm of lead hornets searching for his flesh. His leg started to throb from the gunshot wound and he scrambled back behind more hard cover to take a look. The bullet had only creased his skin, creating a furrow four inches long and a quarter-inch deep. Blood still glistened and ran stickily down his leg. From the war bag, Bolan pulled out a square of gauze and pressed it onto the wound, taping it down and securing it with a strip of duct tape. Stashing his roll of tape, he fisted the OA-93 again and filled his other hand with an M-18 smoke grenade.
Popping the pin, Bolan rolled the grenade toward the trio of gunners. Plumes of white smoke billowed out and would continue to gout from the nozzle on the canister for the next fifty to ninety seconds. As soon as the cloud bank appeared, gunfire ripped into it and the Executioner waited the few seconds it would take for them to empty out their weapons. All three went silent at once, and Bolan rose, charging through the purple haze he’d tossed into the battleground.
A shout alerted Bolan to one gunner spotting him, and gave away the shooter’s position. The gunman was frantically trying to stuff a fresh magazine into his weapon, but the Executioner denied him that chance, raking him with a burst of heartstoppers that crucified him against the porch of the cabin. The other two gunmen shouted curses and a pistol exploded at the Executioner off to his right.
Diving onto the porch, and having the high ground, Bolan targeted the remaining two AHC gunfighters, hosing them down with the Olympic Arms subgun.
Neither man rose, and Bolan crouched on the porch for several moments, recovering his hearing and scanning the smoky darkness for any further signs of life.
Nothing.
Bolan kicked aside the corpse slumped at the entrance to the office, testing the doorknob. It was unlocked and he opened the door, stuffing the muzzle of the OA-93 through it. Turning the corner slowly to keep as much cover as possible, the Executioner slipped into the office. It was silent.
A hallway just off the door lead down a deathtrap gauntlet of open doors, each spilling moonlight onto the floor. He grit his teeth and pressed into the building. A breeze through the open window of the reception area rustled a piece of paper taped to the wall. He turned and immediately was upon it, gun trained on the hallway.
“You might want to check the helicopter, Colonel Stone,” it read.
Bolan grimaced, then turned out of the office, keeping his gun trained on the door to the cabin. The tarp-covered Black Hawk was sitting only twenty yards away. He reached it in no time.
Adonis, Dark and Harpy were gone. That much was obvious. He scanned some more, but nobody was moving except one half-blind, completely deafened AHC militiaman, his hands filled with his bleeding ears. Bolan ignored him and drew his knife, slashing open the tarp.
Sitting at the controls of the Black Hawk was Jack Grimaldi, blindfolded, ropes binding his arms to his torso. Jack’s head jerked up.
“Sarge?”
Bolan didn’t say a word, because packed around Grimaldi’s seat were dozens of quarter-pound cakes of C-4 explosi
ves, enough to launch the Black Hawk into orbit.
JACK GRIMALDI DIDN’T LIKE waking up a captive, but as Mack Bolan’s pilot and fellow warrior, he’d done it often enough. This time, his eyes were taped shut, his skin peeling and burning as his facial muscles squeezed together in agony. His head hurt like hell, but other than that, he couldn’t find anything wrong with him that getting out of his ropes and this seat couldn’t fix.
He didn’t know how long he’d been awake, but the rattle of gunfire through the blindfold-induced darkness had alerted him to the coming of the Executioner. The one-man cavalry was once more busting heads to save the Stony Man pilot’s bacon, so he set about evaluating his current situation.
Grimaldi immediately recognized his surroundings by feel. He was in the bucket pilot’s seat of a UH-60 Black Hawk, probably the same helicopter that Adonis used to swoop down and capture him. The bruise on Grimaldi’s temple throbbed as he remembered the sledgehammer shot to the skull that had knocked him out. He winced and tried shifting his weight when a familiar odor filled his nostrils. His heart slumped.
Plastic explosives.
It was faint, but with his eyes covered and silence filling the cockpit, the familiar old nitrate smell was there. He opened his mouth and the scent disappeared some as he started breathing through his mouth. Plastic explosives had a slight odor, more easily picked up by the sensitive nose of a dog than a human, but Grimaldi and the other warriors of Stony Man Farm had been exposed to the stuff for the length of their careers. He wondered at the strength of the initial smell, especially since C-4 didn’t vaporize that quickly. He had to have been surrounded by pounds of the stuff.
Neck stiff, he tested the limits of his movement, tendons popping along his spine. For all he knew, he was on a pressure plate and shifting his weight more than an inch would send him to his final reward.
Of course, that meant only one thing.
He was live bait for Mack Bolan.
If he could get any leverage with his feet, he’d do his damnedest to stand up right now, depriving Adonis and Dark of their cruel taunt. Better that he give his life so that the Executioner could continue his crusade to defend the helpless against Animal Man than—
Fabric ripped with the razor zip sound of a knife slashing nylon.
It was too late. If he moved now, he’d take out Bolan with him.
“Sarge?”
There was silence. He had to have been sitting on half the C-4 in Wisconsin to shock Bolan into silence.
“Sarge, just turn the hell around and head back home,” Grimaldi said.
“You know I don’t leave friends behind.”
Grimaldi shook his head. “How bad is it? I mean, the smell—”
“Looks like ten, twelve kilos packed under your seat,” Bolan told him.
Grimaldi felt the sweat break out on his hairline. He swallowed hard. “Just go. Call a bomb squad or something and they’ll take care of it. You have to stop Adonis and Dark.”
“Don’t worry about them. O’Hare is wrapped up tight,” Bolan told him. “I’ll take care of this.”
“There’s probably a million booby traps.”
“The biggest one being the boob sitting on top of it. Now be quiet,” Bolan quipped. “I need to concentrate.”
Grimaldi frowned. “All right, Sarge.”
“Anything wrong?”
“Just kind of wishing I hadn’t bought the extra-large coffee at the airport, that’s all,” Grimaldi replied.
“We’ll be hitting the head in a few minutes,” Bolan told him.
Grimaldi chuckled. “Yeah, but at what speed?”
Bolan grunted. He was probably doing some fine cutting. “How fast can you run?”
Grimaldi started to shrug, but didn’t. “Not fast enough. I’m here, ain’t I?”
“Well, hang on. I’ve got a couple more leads and wires to snip.”
Grimaldi nodded, but couldn’t be sure if Bolan was paying attention. There was a sharp intake of breath from the soldier, and the pilot clenched up.
“Relax, Jack.”
Grimaldi tried to smile, but it ended up looking like a twitch. “Sure. Easy for you to say.”
“Actually…” Bolan said. He paused, making a sucking sound, then continued, “No it’s not easy for me to say.”
“Cut yourself?” Grimaldi asked.
“Got shocked by a bare lead,” Bolan answered.
“It’d be a lot easier if I could see what you were doing,” Grimaldi admitted.
He heard Bolan chuckle. “After all these years, now you’re doubting me?”
“Just worrying like hell about your safety, Sarge.” The pilot knew, though, that Bolan was working on the bomb first, just in case it was on a countdown timer. If he was only having a few moments to work with, wasting time on peeling tape off Grimaldi’s face would only slow things down.
Duct tape tore off its roll with the familiar quacking sound that gave it the nickname “duck” tape. Strips were ripping and Grimaldi felt Bolan’s hands tuck something under his thighs.
“Just hang on,” Bolan told his old friend. The side door of the Black Hawk rolled open slowly. The chopper shifted slightly as the weight of the big soldier was added to the vehicle and he padded around, duct tape quacking some more.
“Taping down the pressure plate I’m on?” Grimaldi asked.
“It’s a stopgap. I took care of the bubble gauge that acted like a motion sensor,” Bolan answered. “That’s why I felt safe coming on board.”
“Now if you mess up, there’ll be two dead men flying.”
Grimaldi felt his wrists suddenly freed with the soft hiss of steel parting the ropes around him. Blood rushed back into his fingertips and he reached up, tearing away the tape over his eyes. He winced at the tiny amount of light creeping through the slit tarpaulin.
“What’s the plan, Sarge?” Grimaldi asked, letting his eyes adjust to being able to see again. His vision focused and his head stopped hurting within a few moments.
“We get out of the helicopter, go through the hole in the tarp and run like hell,” Bolan said. “This isn’t going to last long.”
Grimaldi nodded.
“Go!” Bolan shouted.
The Stony Man pilot didn’t have to be told twice, leaping down from the seat. He could already hear the beginning tearing of one tape strip from the metal seat. Grimaldi didn’t even bother to look back, plunging through the knife-rent in the tarpaulin, legs pumping hard as he reached open air. The graying of dawn produced enough light to make his eyes ache. Footsteps pounded behind him.
He looked back to see Mack Bolan hot on his heels.
“Keep going!” the Executioner yelled.
The Black Hawk detonated a heartbeat later, and the two men found themselves tossed like leaves in a tornado.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
David Kowalski stirred from his quick catnap, feeling the car roll to a complete stop. His eyes opened and he looked at the young Filipino man behind the steering wheel. Glancing over to the mall as they pulled up, he noticed that except for a big department store on one end, and a restaurant just off the middle, everything on the roster was a branch of a Christian missionary center. Kowalski smirked at the sight of it.
“And this amuses you how?” Artemio asked.
Kowalski poked his thumb at the mall. “Hide in plain sight.”
Artemio nodded. “That’s the plan. See, nobody is going to give a shit about a bunch of Asians hanging around a Christian reading room.”
“Does Suarez know you use such language?” Kowalski asked.
“Suarez doesn’t care. He’s too busy kissing up to Sahleen and Logan. We’re the weak partners here,” Artemio explained. “And the other two sides show it every time they look at us.”
“Shame,” Kowalski said.
“Yeah?”
“Well, the Filipino segment…they’re a mixed religion contingent?”
“Muslim and Christian. Yeah.”
Kowalski nodded an
d the two men got out of the car. “Way I see it, you’re the bridge. After all, you show that true men of faith on both sides can coexist.”
“That’s true,” Artemio answered. “But how come you see this and they don’t?”
“I’m a Marine. Blacks. Filipinos. Japs. Arabs. All of them show they have the sacks to be the few, the proud,” Kowalski told him. “I’ve been in the field and I don’t base my trust on eye shape or skin color. If I did, I’d be insulting a lot of good men.”
Artemio snorted. “Are you sure you’re one of Logan’s men?”
“I’m my own man. They recruited me because they thought I was exactly like them. Judging by your description, though, they’re dead wrong.”
“So why are you still hanging around?” Artemio asked.
Kowalski shrugged. “You’re fighting a corrupt government. The system’s broken, and someone has to sweep away the pieces so that the world can be a better place.”
Artemio regarded him for a long moment.
“Course, you try to tell Logan that, I’ll kill you. Can’t have him busting a cap in my ass.”
Artemio laughed. “All right, Pete.”
They entered the mall, Kowalski holding the door for Artemio.
The U.S. Marshall settled back down into himself, mind racing as he took in the details of the mall. It was scarily empty, entire storefronts voided of their original wares and replaced with stacks of religious books that bordered on propaganda. He wondered if the mall itself didn’t just implode, the religious fanatics at the missionary center driving out the jewelers and clothiers with their zealous presence. The whole building put his skin to a tingle, as if there were something dark and corrupt underneath the surface.
The mall, only a quarter-mile long, and one level, was completely empty. He stopped, looking at furniture from a previous store being used as display pedestals for books. Kowalski recognized the books by their covers, having had to read through countless such volumes as he’d researched Christian Identity groups. As a faithful man, these books filled him with a bottomless sense of hollowness; their contents didn’t preach love and understanding, but appealed to fear and estrangement. They were barnacles that had spread out from a single source to cling to the wreckage of crushed businesses driven out.
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