Bolan was counting beneath his breath — seconds, not bodies — and he was twenty seconds into the hit when the alarms began sounding from the hardsite.
By the numbers. So far, so good.
The second vehicle was secured, with two dead in the front seat, two dead outside and a groaning man in the rear with the money case. Bolan took the money and a pistol away from the guy, pressed a marksman's medal into his hand in exchange, and tossed the money case onto the road.
"Hit the floor and don't look up," he coldly advised the wounded survivor. The man readily complied, and Bolan spun to look into the other mess.
A guy was staggering out of the target vehicle with his clothing in flames, Bolan took a step forward then grimaced and quickly sent a mercy burst from the Stoner into the human torch. The guy died quick and clean, liberated from the smouldering chunk of trash that fell to the roadway. Then something tumbled out of a rear door and began twisting about the ground just outside. It was a man, bloodied and still bleeding from a head wound. His hands were tied behind his back and a burnt rope was still coiled about one of his legs. A pantleg was afire, and the guy was feebly trying to smother the blaze with his other leg.
Bolan hurried forward, ripped the burning fabric away from the man and, with hardly a pause, went on beyond him, leaning into the demolished vehicle for a quick look inside.
The two front men were only about half-present, if that much. One had lost his head and a shoulder, the other his chest and adjacent areas, and both corpses were already charred and flaming in the intense heat. Two more bodies were sprawled about the rear section and beginning to ignite.
Bolan wrestled the heated money case clear and quickly backpedalled out of there, aware that the gas tank would go at any moment. The man With the bound hands was groaning with pain and trying to hobble clear on his knees.
Thirty seconds, and the numbers were still in pretty good shape Excited shouts were just now drifting down from the hardsite and somewhere up there the engine of an automobile coughed into life — the jeep, Bolan guessed.
He grabbed the bound man and dragged him across the road just as the target vehicle erupted into the iecondary explosion, sending a towering fireball whoofing into the sky.
The guy was muttering, "Hell, I don't think I can…" Bolan deposited him on the shoulder of the road and hurried down to take possession of the other case of skim.
Forty seconds. He could hear the jeep whining down the steep drive, rapidly closing. But the nission had been completed and the Executioner was ready to fade into the night. The scene of the encounter was Slightly lighted now and getting brighter by the moment. 'ts his eyes iwept the battle site in a final ©valuation they collided with the gaze of the kneeling man, and even through the blood-spatterings there was no mistaking the silent plea being .ent his way.
Bolan engaged himself in a microsecond of argument, then he growled, "You want to go with me?"
In a voice choked with misery the man told him, "They brought me up here to bury me."
The guy was in bad shape, and Bolan's timetable had made no allowance for such an encumbrance. He fidgeted and his eyes flashed to the curve ahead, then back to the kneeling man. Then Bolan stopped counting — the fifty seconds were gone, and all the numbers were cancelled.
He dropped the money beside his latest unrequested responsibility and walked slowly up the road. The jeep would be tearing into the curve any second iow. The ammo drum of the Stoner responded to his thumping finger with a discouragingly hollow sound, and Bolan had already written it off anyway. He had elected to go with the precision fire and superior stopping power of the heavy .45 Colt at his side; now the autoloader was up and at full arm extension, and Bolan was sighting into the point where the jeep would make its appearance.
And then there it was, braking into the curve and fighting against the ninety-degree swing, two guys in front and two in back, each of the rear men holding a Thompson muzzle-up in an entirely businesslike fashion and bracing themselves against the wild swerving of the little vehicle.
Bolan noted all this in the same flashing instant that his finger began its tickling of the hair-pull trigger. It was like a still photo, with the sizzling tracks of the big bullets caught there and preserved in the grotesque scene of leaping flames and broken bodies, the bullets themselves showing up as a line of instantly-sprouting holes in the jeep's windshield and mirrored in the concerned faces behind that glass. He saw the suddenly limp hands release the steering wheel and the wheel itself spinning back to the point of least resistance. Then the front wheels of the vehicle were humping up onto the raised shoulder of the road, the little car becoming airborne and sailing out into the void, disgorging flailing bodies in its flight.
Bolan did not see the jeep touch down again, but he heard it and drew a mental image of an end-over-end tumble down that mountainside as he returned the .45 to its leather and quickly retraced his steps to the hurting man. He hacked the sashcord from the liberated prisoner's wrists and told him, "We'd better get moving."
"I don't think I can walk," the man groaned.
"Legs broken?" Bolan inquired gruffly.
The guy shook his head. "No. But weak… hell, I'm so weak."
"It's walk or die, soldier," Bolan snapped. He retrieved the money cases and stepped off into the same direction the jeep had taken, down the mountainside. "It's downhill all the way, if that's any comfort," he added, glancing back to see if the guy was following.
He was, but slowly and with difficulty. Bolan scowled and tossed one of the cases down the mountain, then he swung back to wrap an arm about the man's chest.
"Arm over the neck," he instructed him. "Come on, dammit, let's shake it."
The injured man showed his liberator a twisted smile. "For once we're walking away together," he panted, letting Bolan take most of his weight. "You haven't recognized me, huh?" he mumbled a moment later as they lurched and slid along the steep incline.
"Mud," Bolan growled.
"What?"
"Your name is mud, soldier, and so is mine if we haven't cleared this area in another few seconds. So save your breath for what's important."
"Not mud," the guy croaked. "Lyons. I'm Carl Lyons, Bolan." And with that he passed out and became deadweight in Bolan's arms.
The tall man in combat black emitted a startled grunt, and let the money case slide away as he hoisted the unconscious figure onto his shoulder.
Someone up there was rolling loaded dice into an executioner's destiny.
He'd come to this mountainside seeking a contribution to his deflated war-chest. It had been a perfect ttrike, right on the numbers. Then all of a sudden he had lost interest in war-chests and all the sk in the mob could throw at him.
So he was walking away with nothing but a half-dead cop on his hands.
The Executioner had no regrets. Loaded dice or no, it had been an entirely worthwhile fifty seconds.
Chapter Two
Directions to the front
Joe "the Monster" Stanno had spent twenty years cultivating an image of ferocity. Naturally endowed for the role, Stanno's stubby legs and oversized trunk gave him the appearance of a gorilla — and the perpetually scowling face did nothing to soften the threatening strength of massive chest and shoulders. His reputation for savagery and his almost maniacal homicidal tendencies had assured Joe the Monster a respected position in an organization which was built upon mtimidation and violence.
In his early years, Stanno had been a blackjack and brass-knuckles man, a muscle-man for shylockers and protection racketeers in Brooklyn and later in Cleveland, "progressing" to roles as hit man, bodyguard, and mob enforcer. An Ohio grand jury of the early 60's heard evidence connecting Stanno to sixteen specific acts of murder, twenty-three instances of conspiracy to commit murder and an almost infinite list of assaults and extortion. The jury failed to act on these charges and Stanno abruptly dropped from view. Some time later Joe the Monster turned up in Las Vegas as "security chief" at the Go
ld Duster, one of the strip's newest luxury hotels.
Intelligence gleaned by interested federal officials indicated that Stanno's major role at Vegas was that of an inter-family "enforcer" — and that his line of authority descended directly from La Commissionc, or the national ruling council of syndicate bosses. It was known that the mob xgarded Las Vegas as an open city, meaning only that no one family exercised territorial jurisdiction over the underworld action there — the field was open to any and all. Joe the Monster's position was therefore a highly important one; it was his task to see that inter-family rivalries and competitive pursuits were maintained at a peaceful and mutually productive pace. He was, in short, the ruling council's "man on the scene" and responsible for «yndicate discipline throughout the state of Nevada.
None would argue that Joe the Monster Stanno was not the perfect man for the job. His mere presence in any family gathering was enough to calm belligerent moods and soothe aggressive instincts. It had become such a standing joke, in fact, that when disputes arose within the cadre, a peacemaker would warn the belligerents: "You guys knock it off or I'll call Joe the Monster in here to stare at you." The jest was not without factual foundation. A mere scowl from Stanno was usually enough to calm the ruffled sensitivities of even high rankholders in the various families.
And now Joe the Monster was standing woodenly in the midst of a disaster area and scowling at the incredible carnage visited upon that mountainside. In the illumination provided by several pairs of vehicle headlamps, a small collection of hardmen from the hilltop retreat prowled the scene with shotguns and Thompson automatics, making a body count, identifying the dead and trying to pull together some understanding of what had transpired there.
A gun-crew chief spun away from the blackened and smoking hulk of a skimwagon and called over, "It was a heist all right, Joe. There ain't no sign of money. Them boxes was fireproof. And they ain't here."
Stanno rumbled, "So where'd it get off to so fast?"
"Jeez I dunno, Joe," the man called back. "All I know is they sure made a hard hit. I never saw such a mess."
"Well I want a headcount!" Stunno yelled. "I want every goddam man accounted for, and they better damn sure come up with some straight stories!"
"You don't think some of our own boys..."
"Shut up what I think! Don't tell me what I think! Where the hell is Georgie Palazzo and his boys, huh? I don't like the way they just up and disappear, right when all hell is breakings I wanta know..."
"Down here!" came a cry from the darkness behind Stanno. "It's Georgie's jeep, tore to hell!"
The enforcer jerked a thumb toward the distant voice and commanded the crewchief, "Go check it out!"
The head gunner selected two men to accompany him and the three of them disappeared down the mountainside. Another man hurried over to Stanno and announced, "Sorry, Joe — Tickets just died."
"You got nothing out of him?" the enforcer rumbled.
The man shook his head. "Not from his mouth.— But he had this in his fist." He handed over a metallic object and stepped back to a respectful distance.
Stanno hefted the object in an open palm and squintingly inspected it in the harsh light. "What the hell is that?" he growled.
"That's what you call a marksman's medal," the hardman replied. 'This was a Bolan hit, Joe."
"Bolan? Stunno exploded.
The soldier swallowed nervously and took another retreating step. "It sure looks like it, Joe. Those things are his business cards, those medals. He always leaves one. I was down in Miami when..."
"Awright iwright!" Stanno roared. He exploded into forward motion and wept the gun soldier out of his way as he descended wrathfully upon the wreckage for a personal inspection.
The other soldiers maintained a discreet distance as Joe the Monster plowed through the remains of his skim convoy. Someone muttered, "Watch it, Joe is pissed."
The crewchief and his small party reappeared on the roadway and crossed grimly to the other side to make their unhappy report to the boss. Stanno's huge shoulders flexed restlessly as he listened, then he tossed his head back like a jungle ape and bawled, "Awright, back to th' joint!" He flung himself away from the wreckage and moved quickly up the road toward his vehicle.
"Don't fuck around with this junk! Shove that stuff off the road and get these dead boys up to the house!" He spun about in mid-stride to jab a quiver-ng finger toward the crewchief. "Get on the radio and tell that chopper to come on back. That guy is either long gone or he's just hanging around waiting to throw us another punch. But get everybody back to the joint. We're going hard."
"Going hard!" simply meant a withdrawal into heavy defenses. Joe the Monster had not survived twenty years violence on ferocity alone. He had learned, also, when to pull in his horns and retrench.
And for one split-second there, on that macabre mountain road, he had shown a face to his boys which they had never before seen atop Joe Stanno's beefy shoulders — a face filled with fear and anxiety. Perhaps the old adage is true, the one which suggests that at the heart of every thug lurks an inherent weakness and fear… and perhaps even cowardice. Or maybe Joe the Monster was simply a realist with an instinctive respect for the imcomprehensible.
One thing seemed certain.
Not even Joe Stanno was willing to blunder about out there at the edge of oblivion with Mack the Bastard on the warpath. Besides, the Talifero brothers — Stanno's direct superiors on La Commissione — had a national alert out for this guy. They were demanding immediate notification of any contact with Bolan.
Stanno was only following orders.
Even for a monster man, it seemed the sensible thing to do.
Carl Lyons had first crossed paths with Bolan during the latter's strikes against the Los Angeles based family of Julian DiGeorge. when the young sergeant of detectives was assigned to the special "get Bolan" detail, code-named Hardcase. They had come together in one of those electrifying nose-to-nose encounters at the height of a Bolan hit, and found themselves staring at each other over a pair of hot and ready weapons.
Some hours prior to that confrontation, Bolan had made something of an ass of the young cop during a high speed chase along the Los Angeles freeways, and Lyons had been fairly itching to get another crack at the illusive man in black. And then when the opportunity had come, this tough up-and-coming L.A. cop had simply stood there in frozen amazement and watched the audacious blitz artist sheath his weapon, turn his back, and calmly walk away — after announcing, "You're not the enemy."
The worst part, from the detective's point of view, was that he had allowed the most wanted man in Los Angeles to do just that… walk away. Their lives became a bit more interwoven after that 'tight, though reluctantly so for Lyons, and this tense "friendship" had contributed heavily to Bolan's Southern California victory over the mob. It was also directly responsible for the fact that Bolan exited breathing from that battleground, and that was not the sort of debt a man shrugged away. Not a man like Mack Bolan, at any rate.
He deposited his burden on a makeshift bunk in the rear of the "warwagon" — a Ford Econoline van which Bolan had purchased and outfitted during the New York battles — and which now was backed into the shadows of a narrow blind canyon just off the state road. Lyons regained consciousness as Bolan eased him onto the bunk, and he exerted a feeble resistance until his rescuer commanded, "Knock it off, Sergeant!"
"What… what's the situation!" the L.A. cop asked, sinking weakly back. "That you, Bolan?"
"Yeah." It was pitch dark in the little van. Bolan's fingers were delicately probing the other man for wounds. "Where are you hurt?" he asked gruffly.
"Just from top to bottom," the cop replied faintly. "They've been working on me all day."
"Carefully, I'd say," Bolan told him. "You seem to be all here."
"Yeah. I think they've knocked something loose inside of me, though. I… if I don't make it, Bolan…"
"You feel that bad?" growled the man in black.
"Yeah. I feel that bad," Lyons groaned.
Bolan had determined that the cop's head wound was no more than a superficial scalp laceration. "You must be wearing Mafia blood," he concluded. "You couldn't have bled all that from this wound."
Lyons grunted "It was gushing at me from every direction Damn, what a hit." He groaned again and twisted about in a strong paroxysm of pain. "Listen to me," he hissed. "My cover name is Autry… James Autry. I'm on loan to the Nevada authorities. You've got to protect that cover, no matter what. Get me? Don't let..."
Bolan brushed aside the plea with a gruff, "Don't worry. We'll sweat it through. You strong enough to handle a weapon?"
"I guess so. Where are we?"
"Less than a mile from the hardsite," Bolan replied. "We're going to make a soft run for it. We just might make it clean if they don't have that chopper up there spotting for them."
"Listen… if it goes sour… contact Pete O'Brien in Carson City Tell him I stuck to the cover story and the thing is still secure from my end. Tell him. Bolan."
"Sure, I'll tell him," Bolan promised. "You think you're bleeding inside?"
"Yeah, I guess so. Listen, tell him it's the California carousel. Remembei that. California carousel."
"Okay. Pete O'Brien, Carson City, California carousel — I've got it." Bolan was twisting the top from a canteen. He lifted the weakened policeman's head and touched the canteen to his lips. "Just wet your mouth," he cautioned. "Swish it around and spit it out."
Lyons did so, and a moment later declared, "I — I'm okay."
Bolan fed a fresh clip into his .45 and pressed the gun into Lyons' hand. "She's ready to roar," he warned him. "I'm going up front now. We could get into a firefight yet. If you hear someone whistling Yankee Doodle, that's the one you don't shoot at."
Lyons chuckled weakly and said, "You're always thinking."
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