Shock Waves

by Don Pendleton

  It was survival of the fittest, but he could not afford to travel with the excess baggage he was holding now. If he was going to travel fast, then he would have to travel light.

  He hesitated as they reached the top of the curving staircase, turning to his flanker, consternation written on his face.

  "You take the point," he said.

  The other gunner brushed past him, toward the stairs, and Lazarus let him lead, watched him descend the first few steps. Lazarus drew the Browning, thumbed back the hammer and sighted quickly down the slide.

  One shot was all it took, the parabellum slug hitting left of center, blowing a rat hole in the gunner's skull and peeling back a strip of scalp before the body fell face-first down the stairs.

  And he was starting downstairs when the woman made her sudden, unexpected move, both hands clasped tight around the dead gunner's dropped pistol, immobilizing the hammer and slide, as her knee whipped around to find Lazarus's groin with agonizing accuracy.

  Lazarus was on his knees, his eyes screwed up against the pain, and she was kicking him, bare heel striking the bridge of his nose, drawing blood, driving him back on his haunches. Grunting, he struck out, and his left hand sank into yielding belly-flesh, expelling the wind from her lungs.

  She staggered back, and his weapon was clear. He squeezed the trigger blindly, thunder in his ears, and heard the startled little scream as she toppled backward, thumping downstairs in the wake of a corpse, losing her weapon.

  The goddamned bitch!

  Lazarus struggled to his feel, clutching at his wounded genitals with one hand, dragging the Browning up with his other. He slumped against the banister, ignoring the hot blood that dribbled from his lips, blanking his mind against the painful throbbing in his groin.

  Below, the woman was crouched beside the body of his former henchman, wrestling with the corpse and running one hand beneath the suit coat, frisking him for his side arm. If she reached it...

  "Too late, bitch," he snarled.

  He used both hands to raise the automatic and aim at the target.

  His finger tightened on the Browning's trigger, and he smiled.

  * * *

  "Hit the siren!"

  Hunched across the steering wheel, his knuckles white, Rafferty stared at the taillights of the Lincoln ahead of him, his own accelerator on the floor. Beside him, the lieutenant keyed a switch beneath the dash, and a hysteric banshee wail began to emanate from somewhere out front, beneath the cruiser's hood.

  Behind them, other sirens joined the chorus, Rafferty's commandos keeping up, two men jumping from the tail car to seize the gate guards, line them against the wall and keep them prisoner while the cavalry went in to do its stuff.

  The driver of the rental limousine did not respond to the siren's call or Rafferty's cyclopean scarlet beacon mounted on the roof. Determined to keep pace with those ahead of him, the wheelman kept on pushing it, now running flat-out for the Minelli manor house along the curving graveled drive.

  Rafferty heard the gunfire and explosions, despite the siren and his engine's whine. He knew that hell was coming down, and even though his entrance was somewhat premature, there was no way on earth to stall it once the guns went off back there around the gate.

  It might be one thing to park outside the walls and listen for a moment to the distant sounds of combat from within, restraining his enthusiasm long enough to let Mack Bolan have a decent start, but it was something else when bodies started falling right before his eyes, with twenty other cops behind him, looking on.

  Bill Rafferty had had no choice at all, and he was in it now for good or ill. He hoped the Executioner would hear him coming, know that it had fallen through and have time to clear out before the roof fell in.

  The brake lights on the lead car, which was perhaps a hundred yards ahead, were winking as it pulled even with the house. Directly in his high beams, Rafferty saw a head pop out a window on the driver's side, pop back — and then the gunner had his shoulders through the opening, a shotgun in his hands.

  And he was aiming at the goddamned cruiser.

  Rafferty stood on the brake, instinctively twisting his wheel hard left, taking the charge on his side to spare the lieutenant. He heard the shotgun boom, the impact of its pellets on the door behind him, boring through and shredding fabric on the back seat, missing flesh by inches.

  His passenger craned out and angled a shot across the windshield, the muzzle-flashes from his snubby side arm flaring with each shot. Rafferty ripped his own piece clear of leather, driving one-handedly, tailgating the Lincoln and battering it with his grill, throwing the shotgunner off balance. He had a fleeting glimpse of the gunner's weapon as he lost it while he went cartwheeling through the darkness.

  The Continental swung wide, turning around in front of the house, sliding into line beside the other Lincolns. And doors were springing open all along the line, disgorging i shapes into the night, armed figures sprinting for cover, some going toward the house, others turning back to face the screaming cruisers as they formed a secondary ring around the first.

  A heavy slug ripped through the cruiser's grill and Rafferty could feel the engine die. He opened the door and rolled clear, leaving the high beams on to pin his targets at center stage. Crouched behind the door, he sought a target for his Magnum, sweeping the four-inch barrel back and forth until he found his mark.

  A beefy soldier was squatting by the nearest limo, shooting at the house and then back toward the cruisers, with an Army-issue .45.

  Rafferty watched the guy duck a shotgun blast, then fumbled briefly with the fresh magazine. The captain sighted down the Magnum's barrel, squeezing off in double action.

  His target sat down hard, one fat hand coming up to cover what was left of the face, feeling briefly for the missing nose before the life went out of him and he collapsed backward on the bloody gravel.

  Rafferty's blood was pounding in his ears as he sought another target, and another. Around him other weapons had joined the skirmish, automatic rifles and riot guns. The cavalry was weighing in, and they would not be stopped until they brought the curtain down this night.

  And it was their war now, although they didn't know it yet, not really. They were fighting for their lives, and it would take some time, some education, for the strike-force men to know that they were also warring for a higher cause.

  Bill Rafferty would find a way to tell them all about it, if he lived.

  When the smoke cleared, Rafferty was well aware that he might find his own men there, among the dead and dying on the field. If so, well, there was nothing he could do about it but try to even up the score another day.

  And he was counting on another day. This couldn't be the end of it, not now.

  It couldn't be.

  If there was any justice out there, this had to be a new beginning for them all.

  22

  Mack Bolan fed the stutter gun another magazine and wriggled back between the sofa and a capsized coffee table, doubling his legs beneath him, rising to a crouch. Beyond the makeshift barricade, a ring of hostile guns surrounded him, their hot converging fire almost sufficient now to root him out from cover and destroy him on the run.

  Almost.

  The Executioner was not done yet, and every passing heartbeat served as a reminder that his prey — the capos there convened — were slipping farther from his grasp.

  Bolan knew that it was now or never. If he allowed the gunners to immobilize him there before he reached the killground, he would have wasted his life.

  And Bolan never wasted anything if there were viable alternatives.

  He set the Uzi in front of him and from his pistol belt plucked a frag grenade with each hand. The greenish metal eggs were cool, their slick exteriors belying all the jagged death inside. Enough of fire and steel and smoky thunder there, he thought, to clear his road — assuming he could pull it off.

  Bolan freed the pins and let them fall, firmly holding in the safety spoons. It would req
uire precision timing, with a certain reckless disregard for all the odds arrayed against him. If Bolan faltered, hesitated in the least, then he would die. It was that simple.

  The soldier picked out his targets by their sound, memorizing their locations for future reference. There would be no damn time at all to spot them when he made his move, and Bolan knew that if he missed his targets by a yard or more, assorted furniture would bear the brunt of the explosions and neutralize the fire and thunder that seemed to be his only hope.

  He moved, and hostile weapons were already barking at him as he showed himself. A .38 drew blood beneath one upraised arm, and semiautomatic rifle slugs were chewing up the coffee table, searching for him.

  Bolan pitched left, then right, and the eggs were airborne, spiraling along separate flight paths. He ducked under cover, grunting as a rifle bullfet plowed a bloody track across his shoulder blade.

  He kept his balance, scooping up the Uzi, holding it against his chest so he would be ready for the hellfire moment that was coming.

  Now! And the explosives detonated almost simultaneously, sharp concussions battering his barricade and rocking Bolan on his haunches, filling the air above his head with singing shards of steel. No time to wait; he was on his feet, already moving as the hostile gunners tried to understand precisely what was happening to them.

  Three of them no longer cared. Their mutilated bodies lay where they had fallen, twisted by the shock waves, punctured by the storm of shrapnel. Bolan put them out of mind now, concentrating on survivors. Four were visible, the nearest staggering around in circles, fresh blood streaming down his face from ragged scalp wounds. He was struggling to raise the nickel-plated pistol in his hands.

  He never made it. Bolan's submachine gun chattered briefly, and a sizzling wreath of parabellum manglers settled on the target's shoulders, drilling flesh and bone and fabric, turning bloodied face into a screaming death mask. Bolan was already moving as the headless body toppled back into an easy chair.

  The Uzi tracked on, spitting lethal indignation at its human targets, mowing down a gunner who fought to rise, his shotgun awkward in hands almost devoid of fingers. Kneeling, a third was tracking the warrior with an automatic pistol when the hell storm broke around him, punched him over backward, out of sight and out of mind.

  On the run, the remaining gunner winged a shot at Bolan, his bullet shattering a vase somewhere behind the Executioner. Two loping strides, and the gunner was almost to the kitchen door, almost to sanctuary, when he stumbled on a string of parabellums, slammed face-first against the wall and smeared it with his dying essence.

  Bolan scanned the battlefield, moving out of there in search of other prey — the capos, right — when he heard a scream on the stairs.

  A female voice, as hurt and angry as it was afraid.

  He reached the staircase at a run, found Sally Palmer crouched upon the first-floor landing, wrestling a pistol from its holster underneath a dead man's arm. He was about to call her name when movement on the stairs alerted him to danger, and he spied a gunner with his Browning braced in both hands, sighting on the lady Fed.

  Bolan swept the Uzi up, squeezing off as the target entered his sights. Three rounds ripped out in rapid fire and then the bolt locked open, smoking, frozen on the empty chamber.

  On the stairs Bolan's target staggered, jerking with the impact as a single bullet burrowed through his rib cage, throwing off his aim. The banister absorbed the other rounds. There was fight enough inside him yet to do some lethal damage here before he died. The Browning wavered, torn between two targets, finally choosing Bolan, centering upon his upturned face.

  The soldier didn't waste time with his stutter gun. He thumbed off the safety as his arm extended rising to the classic dueling stance, his body angled to narrow the hostile gunner's target zone. But before he could fire, Sally Palmer brought her captured weapon into play and squeezed off in rapid fire, the echo of her pistol filling the stairwell.

  Her target twisted, fell back against the banister, his gun arm drooping out of line. He was either dead or nearly dead, right, but there was no damned point in taking any chances. Bolan's bullet drilled into his forehead between the staring eyes. The gunner's head snapped back, and he plunged over the railing backward, the lady Fed continuing to fire until the slide locked open on her weapon and it wouldn't answer any more.

  Mack Bolan joined her on the landing, gently pried the smoking weapon from her grasp and helped her to her feet.

  "It's over, Sal," he told her, and her eyes focused for the first time on his face, the tears already etching tracks across her cheeks.

  And she had been through hell, no doubt about it. Bolan knew the signs — and knew, as well, that she had come through relatively clean, ail things considered. Any longer, though...

  A banging door beneath them severed Bolan's morbid train of thought. One long stride brought him to the banister. Below, a clutch of frightened men rushed from the conference room. Their plan seemed to be to cross Bolan's private battlefield and reach the hoped-for security of the cars parked out front.

  He recognized some of the men — most of them, at any rate — and put names to them as they trooped below him. Bonadonna and Gregorio. Reina and Aguirre. Vaccarelli and D'Antoni. Patriarcca and Galante. Lazia and Cigliano.

  And Tattaglia, sure.

  The little mafioso-turned-informant was the first to spot Mack Bolan poised above them, the Beretta held in front of him as if to bless the throng. His reaction made the others notice. Pallid faces swiveled around to recognize their doom, the shock of recognition registered differently on each countenance.

  A dozen faces, give or take, and fourteen rounds still nestled in Bolan's silenced Beretta.

  He leaned across the railing and exchanged a knowing glance with Tattaglia. The little mafioso nodded almost imperceptibly and closed his eyes.

  The parabellum bullet drilled his shoulder, high and clean, its exit clear of bone and vital organs, any major arteries. The impact spun him like a top and dumped him facedown on the carpet, outside the line of fire as the Executioner got down to lethal business with his prey.

  The capos scattered, fanning out in all directions, but the warrior took his time and did it right. There was no room for error.

  Gregorio was sprinting back into the conference room when swift death overtook him, drilling between his shoulder blades and spouting blood before he toppled on his face, momentum carrying his dead weight on between the open doors.

  Aguirre and Reina were running hell-bent for the safety of the kitchen, too damned far away to do them any good, and straining all the same. A silent double punch reached out to tap their shoulders, ramming them together and throwing both men off balance, their arms and legs entangled as they sprawled in a lethal embrace.

  Frank Bonadonna began to draw a pistol from his belt, then remembered he didn't have one as a parabellum mangier punched his face inward, transforming it into a collapsing rubber mask that bore no trace of its original humanity.

  D'Antoni had a gun, but there was no time for him to use it as a silent round drilled through his throat, disintegrating larynx and esophagus, its passage opening the floodgates of his jugular to leave the mobster gagging, drowning in his own blood.

  The Windy City capo, Paulie Vaccarelli, also had a weapon, and he cleared his holster with it, squeezing off a single round skyward, dying on his feet as Bolan drilled him through the forehead, blowing brains and all the rotten rest of him away.

  Miami's Jerry Lazia and Cleveland's Vince Galante made their break together, racing for the broad French doors and patio beyond, but Bolan never let them get there, squeezing off two rounds that pitched them both headlong into the awkward, tumbling sprawl of death.

  L.A. Lester Cigliano tried to stick with Patriarcca, but the older don brushed past him in his panic, elbowing the younger man and knocking him off balance. He was down on one knee when the parabellum drilled his temple, wiping out his anger, fear and life in one seari
ng pain.

  The capo of Seattle was a plodding form, almost grotesque, his back presented to the marksman as a perfect target. Mack Bolan thought of Sally as he flicked the fire-selector switch to automatic mode and raised the 93-R, braced in both hands, the sights immediately lining up between thick shoulder blades and rising to include the ruddy, balding skull. A squeeze... and three rounds rippled out of there, virtually decapitating Patriarcca on impact, depositing his faceless body belly-down across a bloodied, shrapnel-punctured couch.

  And it was over, right, except for Don Minelli, who had put it all together in the first place. Feeding the Beretta with another magazine, he turned to Sally Palmer. She stood, head down, leaning against the wall. Her arms were wrapped around her, as if to give her warmth. If she had observed the massacre, she gave no sign.

  "I need Minelli and Eritrea," he told her simply, waiting as the eyes came up to meet his own.

  "It... it's not Minelli, Mack," she told him haltingly, her soft voice coming to him through a fog of pain. "It's Marinello."

  "What?"

  He gripped her shoulders, released them when he realized he was causing her pain. The soldier's eyes were riveted with hers.

  "He's Augie's son."

  "Where is he, Sal?"

  "I don't know." Sudden recognition, burning in the blue eyes like a cobalt flame. "Oh no, the cars."

  Bolan didn't hear the rest. He was taking the stairs three at a time, sprinting through the hellgrounds toward a deadline he could not afford to miss.

  A family reunion, right, with Grim Death serving as the host.

  * * *

  Ernesto Marinello pushed Eritrea in front of him, his heavy Colt revolver prodding at the captive's back and urging him to greater speed. The smoky atmosphere of the narrow passageway was heavy with a smell of burning dreams.

  It was only another fifty yards to the rear garage, where Marinello kept his backup wheels. The sleek Mercedes would be perfect, he decided. Power underneath the hood, and just enough room for himself, together with his ticket out.