He heard crashing from inside a stall as a man fell, dead there. Another came partway out, firing wildly with an M-16, muzzle-flash lighting the darkening street. Bolan held a beat, letting him exhaust the clip, then jumped, stitching the man up his left side as he turned to duck into the shop.
The sound of firing erupted behind the Executioner, and he dived back across the steps and into his stall as more men with guns charged down the steps. A sandwich, with Bolan as the meat.
He grabbed the expended clip from the MAC-10 and threw it aside, jamming another into place. He came around the opening, dicing another terrorist coming down for him, while the others took up positions inside the stall. Turning quickly, he fired a burst farther down the stairs, then fell back in.
The sound came up behind him faster than he could react. He turned in time to see a heavy vase arcing toward his head in the hands of the woman he had protected in the stall.
It smashed on his head, bringing darkness spotted with brown. He fought unconsciousness with the will of a demon, standing to throw the woman out onto the steps and the fate that awaited anyone who stepped out there. But he fell behind her, control of his motor functions gone, and rolled down the stairs.
Then hands were all over him, beating him — killing him.
25
He barely felt the punches, the kicks. Stunned from the blow to the head, he resisted feebly the army of silhouettes that pounded him, grunting and laughing gutturally in the darkness of Chain Street. His mind was whirring, the life instinct struggling to take hold, to propel him away from the certain death that was slowly overtaking him.
He took a foot to the side of the face, his vision blurring, the false beard ripping from his chin. He clung desperately to consciousness, wanting to be awake for the end. Then, through the dark prison of legs that surrounded him, he saw it.
One of the bodies that littered the steps was struggling to rise. One of the wounded, a woman, got weakly to her knees. Then, using his discarded MAC-10 as a crutch, she made it to her feet.
She stood, weaving, observed by no one except Bolan, the others too intent on punishing him. She raised the Ingram with familiarity, all Israelis being schooled in the use of firearms, and braced it against the crook of her arm.
She jammed the trigger, firing point-blank on full auto into the crowd of thugs, bright flashes flaring the night.
They fell away, screaming, blood spattering everywhere, raining down upon Bolan. She didn't stop firing until they were all down.
A big man had fallen on top of the Executioner. He wriggled out from under and faced the specter. She stood, not five feet from him, the smoking machine gun still tucked in her arm, unsure of whether to kill him or not.
There was something about her. There, in the dark, her features clouded by the night, she seemed familiar. He blinked as the woman took another faltering step toward him. Tears came to his eyes. No. This was insane.
The words wrenched from his swollen lips. "April…" he said. "April?…"
She took another step, the apparition of April Rose, her own bloody lips moving into a slow smile… and she fell to the steps, dead, the Ingram falling from her hands to slide within inches of Bolan's fingers.
He crawled to her body and cradled her head in his lap. Close now, he could see she wasn't April and couldn't have been at all. The woman's body was ripped and bloody. He couldn't imagine what had kept her alive this long. His eyes, the light, must have played tricks on him.
"Thanks," he said quietly, and smoothed her hair out of her face, closing her eyes. He laid her head gently back on the hard ground.
His head pounded. He was dizzy and disoriented. The Ingram was empty. He struggled to get the clip out and pulled another from his pocket.
He could hear voices farther up the steps, but they were swallowed in the darkness. He had to keep moving.
He stood on shaky legs, going back to the stall where he had been hit to retrieve the Linda. He heard movement on top of the stall. Turning the MAC-10 up, he traced a burst at the ceiling. Seconds later, a body fell silently from the roof, crumpling to the stairs.
He drew off the heavy coat and white shirt, sticking the extra clips and the .38 in the waistband of his pants. He still had a distance to cover before reaching the Wailing Wail. All in black now, he merged with the darkness.
The street was quiet as he stepped out onto it, but he knew they were out there, waiting. His head still spun as he continued down the steps, picking his way around the bodies.
It was a dark and twisted nightmare world of black, looming shapes and disjointed sounds. In the distance he could hear a bell tolling, the call to prayer for the Muslims. He didn't think the ones after him would bother to stop for prayers.
He looked up. Another Arab terrorist ran the rooftops ten feet overhead. He took the man out in midstride, the body falling with a loud scream to the stairs. One above on his right, ready to fire. He ran toward him, going right under him and firing upward again. Thuds on the pavement as several of them jumped down to face him.
With the Linda in one hand, the Ingram in the other, he jumped from the stall immediately, firing in both directions at the same time. The Linda churned a bearded man's chest as he fell, firing, to the ground, choking on his own blood seconds later. The Ingram had jumped away from Bolan when he fired it, cutting a jagged line straight up the other guy's torso. The man stumbled, then died on his feet, pitching head first down the stairs.
Bolan ran then. Still hurting, he forced his body to move, to react mechanically, instinctively. When he heard firing behind him, he ducked into a stall and came out shooting up the stairs, driving back the opposition, immediately charging off again.
A dark form above — he looked up to see a shadow with a long knife jumping at him. The guy hit hard, both of them falling and rolling down the stairs. Bolan managed to get a knee to the man's groin, and pulled the Linda from the shoulder holster as the man's body sagged under the blow.
They rolled into a glass case of earrings, shattering it. Bolan jammed the Linda under the guy's chin and pulled the trigger, taking his head off.
The Executioner was up again, stumbling, moving forward. Chain Street dead-ended at a wall where Bet Ha Bad crossed it. A quick jog to the right and Chain picked up again, except here it was called Ha-Shalshelet.
He came around the corner, the Ingram ready, and ran into a band of Abba's blacksuits. He was getting close. There must have been six or eight of them.
He fired, sending them searching for cover. This wasn't going to work, there were too many behind him. Then an idea came to him.
Running back, he picked up Chain again, firing at a group of Abba's henchmen thirty feet up the stairs. He then jogged around to Ha-Shalshelet, firing sporadically, doing no more than drawing them to him like rabbits to headlights. Then he retraced his steps to Chain, repeating the procedure, drawing them forward, then diving into one of the stalls as they charged.
As Abba's blacksuits came around the dead end onto Chain, Bolan jumped out of the stall, firing in both directions, then diving back in again.
Everyone fired at once, in the dark neither band knowing the other was there. Caught in their own cross fire, the two groups tore hell out of each other, most of them dying before they knew what had happened. When the firing let up, Bolan jumped out again.
A few men still stood, confused, wounded. Bolan took out two of Abba's people, then turned and got another one on the steps.
So much for the warm-up. Now for the main event. Bolan checked his load, then charged around the cul-de-sac and headed down Ha-Shalshelet for the wall.
The street was totally deserted, shops and stalls abandoned by frightened owners. Bolan walked on deliberately, feeling the pull of his destiny. All his questions would be answered here. The dull ache that had gnawed at him since the Catholic church in West Palm Beach had turned into a full-blown pain. What was he worth?
In the distance, Ha-Shalshelet dead-ended just as Chain had. B
ut there were no more streets after that. This dead end meant he had reached his destination. He began to hear a sound, low-pitched, almost like the howl of the wind. He couldn't place it.
He kept walking, the sound getting louder. There would undoubtedly be opposition at the Ha-Shalshelet wall entry. He drew a sound suppressor out of his combat harness and fitted it on the Linda. Silence was essential now.
He neared the dead end, the wall's courtyard a right turn away. Hugging the far right of the street, he made the crossroads. On the blank wall in front of him was a small sign written in English: Western Wall. An arrow indicated the direction. This was it.
He jumped into the opening, the Linda stiff-armed out in front of him. He peered down a narrow passageway ten feet long, and saw three men armed with SMGs at the other end.
He fired on auto, two of the men spinning quickly to the ground. The third jumped away from the opening, Bolan charging in after him.
He emerged in an open space as large as a football stadium, the sound loud, overpowering. He now realized where the noise was coming from: several thousand people stood facing the wall, moaning, wailing. The wall stood huge and imposing at the far end of the large courtyard.
The third guy was screaming across the courtyard, his cries swallowed up in the sounds of the crowd, as he tried to prime his M-16. Bolan took him out with a dead-center burst, and his body fell from the small plateau on which they stood to the mass of chanting humanity below.
Bolan passed a small guard shack, several Israeli army regulars piled up dead around it, and stared at the wall. He wasn't prepared for its size, its magnificence.
More than twenty of Abba's blacksuits were working on it, laying C-4 plastique and cases of dynamite all along its incredible length, as much destructive power as the Executioner had ever seen in one place. The crowd was held at bay by men with submachine guns, people already lying dead, many others tied up near the wall, holding explosives, some with dynamite sticks in their mouths. The moaning was their chant of sadness and loss for the wall, for their heritage.
Bolan was overwhelmed, his arms dropping slowly to his side. What kind of events had brought him to this place? Should he further desecrate it with more killing, or was he, like many of those in the courtyard, there to martyr himself? Had his years of bloodshed accomplished anything at all or was he simply another mad dog to be put to sleep? Could he have been wrong all this time? His own brother thought so.
The fight was gone from him, drained away by pain and loss. If it was time for him to die, so be it.
* * *
Tony Metrano crouched in the guard shack, watching the Executioner from the cut-out window. He almost laughed, it would be so easy. The idiot was just standing there, waiting for someone to take him out.
Tony straightened quietly, bringing the M-16 slowly up to his shoulder. He fixed the man in black in his sights, then stroked the trigger lightly, lovingly.
26
Mack Bolan's combat senses sent the short hairs prickling on the back of his neck. But even as he turned, he knew it was too late. He was finished. Things seemed to move in slow motion and the Ingram weighed a ton as he tried to drag the weapon into target acquisition before Tony Metrano could blow him away.
But just short of the flash point, Metrano screamed, his hand exploding off the stock of the M-16, part of his face disintegrating under a burst of silenced MAC-10 frenzy.
The Executioner turned to see his brother staring hard, smoke still curling from the barrel of the Ingram. Behind him, the remnants of Sabra stood, looking grim, looking hard.
Bolan watched Johnny stride slowly toward him, and something about the man looked different.
He wasn't a kid anymore.
Johnny walked to within inches of Bolan, the two locking eyes; Johnny's were diamond-hard, and just as cold.
"You were right," he said.
Bolan searched those eyes. "Was I?" he asked.
Johnny slung the Ingram over his shoulder and took his brother by the arms. "About everything," he said, and the Executioner didn't need to ask any questions, for the story was right there, written in pain in Johnny's eyes.
He looked at Johnny, and thought about the fact that he had been saved twice tonight — once by a dead woman, perhaps a long-dead woman. Mack Bolan wasn't a religious man, not in the orthodox sense, but something had spared him when he walked to the chasm. And maybe he'd been spared for a reason.
Johnny had been the vehicle for his own self-doubts, and Johnny now stood before him, a mirror of himself. There was a difference between him and those he fought against. It was the difference between right and wrong, between human and savage — it was the difference that kept civilization and all that was good and holy one step away from the jungle.
Where Mack Bolan lived was a dark and lonely place, but it was his place, his mission.
Johnny nodded toward the Sabra agents. "Me and the others," he said, "figured to stop some cannibals here tonight. Care to join us?"
Bolan turned and watched the distant spectacle at the wall. The terrorists were hurrying to complete the laying of the charges. The wailing still droned on, rising in pitch and intensity. Abba's people still hadn't seen Bolan and Johnny there in the shadows across the courtyard, or if they did, they probably thought it was their men.
Taking Johnny to him, he hugged him fiercely. "I'm sorry," he whispered, and said a silent prayer for Judith Meyers. Then he pulled away and put a new clip in the Ingram. He stared at the Sabra agents. "No prisoners, okay?"
To a man, they nodded, Hillel most vehemently.
"Do you have a plan?" Johnny asked.
Bolan smiled grimly. "Yeah," he said. "We wade in and blow them away."
Johnny returned the smile. "We brought along something that might help."
Several of the Sabras brought out heavy tote bags, and began pulling gas masks out of them, passing them around. Then they dug out the canisters.
"Tear gas," Johnny said, handing his brother one of the masks. "Here. Put this on."
Bolan fitted the mask over his face, snugging it up with the adjustable straps. He shot Johnny the thumbs-up sign, and slung his own Ingram on his shoulder, filling his free hands with tear gas.
Ten stone steps led down to the courtyard proper. Bolan led his small, determined band of freedom fighters down the stairs. Hillel, arm still in a sling, led the Sabras.
They moved into the crowd, mourners parting with gasps as they marched through. In the rear sections, people began running up the steps as they realized they weren't being held back any longer.
Mack and Johnny strode through the crush of people shoulder to shoulder, the others fanning out to cover the length of the wall.
The terrorists were beginning to realize that something had gone wrong as they saw a stream of people escaping the enclosed courtyard. They were waving to one another, shouting. Bolan kept moving, drawing closer and closer. There was nowhere to hide down here; it was all open, flat ground. All that separated the Executioner from his quarry were fifty feet and a curtain of humanity.
But the curtain was beginning to part, the crowds shying from the commandos. Bolan elbowed Johnny and began pulling the pins from the tear gas canisters.
He lobbed the first one. It arced through the night on a streamer of bright white, bouncing against the wall to spew smoke everywhere.
One of the terrorists fired into the crowd, and all at once tear gas was coming from everywhere. The crowd scattered, charging madly in all directions, as Bolan and Johnny broke into a run.
Smoke filled the proximity of the wall, and the Executioner charged into the dense fog. He knew the wind would dissipate it soon, so they'd have to make use of the fumes' effects immediately.
He saw a muzzle-flash through the haze of smoke and fired at it; a terrorist stumbled into view and fell near his feet. Then the night was ripped apart by the rattling of submachine guns.
Civilians threw themselves to the ground, coughing and crying from the gas an
d utter terror. Better that, Bolan thought, than on their feet getting killed.
A terrorist ran past him. Bolan turned and blew off the man's head at six feet. The body took ten more paces before collapsing.
Hillel dashed past, his Desert Eagle in his good hand. Bolan almost shot him accidently, holding up at the last second. He smiled, the reflexes strong again.
The smoke began to roll into the night sky, visibility clearing somewhat. Bolan saw his men, up and down the wall, pounding the terrorists, ripping them to shreds with automatic fire.
The Executioner saw two Arabs rushing the wall, trying to touch off the charges. The first he got on the run, the man's back exploding, his body somersaulting forward. The second made the wall and was trying to join the electrical connection with the blasting caps when Bolan tore a hole right through him.
And as the smoke cleared, his people were mopping up. Blacksuits littered the stone courtyard. A few were on their knees, fingers scrabbling at their burning eyes. They were dispatched quickly and finally. Remarkably, none of the hostages tied to the wall was hurt.
Bolan ripped his mask off and began looking for Abba. The two thousand people remaining in the courtyard rushed to their wall, their cries now of pure happiness as they untied the hostages and pulled the explosives down and away.
Bolan and Johnny walked along the line of dead, searching for the mastermind of such sickness. Occasional shots rang out as Hillel moved to each body, putting a bullet through the head of those who still lived.
Abba was not among the dead. Rather than wait around to go down with the ship, he must have taken off, leaving his men to face death by themselves. Bolan shook his head. It figured.
"We have to get out of here," Johnny said.
Bolan nodded, looking around the courtyard. It was surrounded on all sides by walls, some of which had doors in them. "Can we get out that way?" he asked.
"The doors lead to the Arab quarter," Hillel said, walking up. "God only knows what could be waiting for us on the other side."
Death Has a Name Page 14