Executioner 022 - Hawaiian Hellground

by Pendleton, Don

  "What a beautiful cover," the girl said. "Who would think to look for a missile base in a volcano!"

  "What do you think'?" Lyons asked Bolan.

  "King Fire," Bolan said. "And, sure, it fits. Nobody would question the movement of heavy equipment into a place like that. And it's not unusual for scientific installations to be fenced off and guarded against trespassers."

  "What trespassers?" Anders commented, shivering slightly. "Mountain goats, maybe."

  "Cute time is over," Bolan decided. "Let's go look it over, Skipper. Look right down their throats. If we draw so much as revolver fire, you've got yourself a fire mission."

  "Rah-jer. Here we go.,Gunners, take stations." Smiley was evicted from her seat as the copilot slid in to man his station.

  They came in at treetop level, breaking into a clearing several hundred feet beyond the fencing. At dead center was a prefabricated building, long and flat and practically invisible, poised at the rim of a shallow depression which from on high would look like a crater. At this altitude, it was apparent that a huge tarpaulin, painted the same color as the surrounding lava rock, was suspended like a bowl into the depression.

  Beneath that tarp, sure, could be a genuine crater—with a surface diameter of about 100 feet. That was small, as Hawaiian craters go. The giant Haleakala Crater on Maui could swallow the island of Manhattan. This one, if indeed it were a crater, could certainly swallow a few illicit ballistic missiles.

  The cincher was standing nearby on glistening rails, concealed in covering vegetation—a small gantry crane.

  Bolan said, "Bingo. Lift away, Skipper."

  Two men in shirtsleeves had stepped out of the building and were looking up at the chopper, hands on hips, simply watching. One of them waved genially as the Huey pulled away.

  Smiley's breath caught in her throat. "That's Nate Flora," she exclaimed.

  "Where's the helicopter?" Lyons wondered. "Maybe it flew under the tarp," Lyons said. The Huey was now circling and climbing to a holding altitude, several hundred yards beyond the installation.

  Bolan moved his team to the waist, where they began rigging for combat.

  "Here's the way we go," he told them. "It'll have to be a punch-in, ramming all the way, quick-quick numbers. Worse, we'll have to play the ear. Smiley, you stay close on me. I might need your linguistics."

  The pilot had joined the clutch for the combat order. The guy's face was sober and a bit drawn, but there was a gleam in the eyes.

  "Lyons and Anders will cover our butts outside. Keep that yard clean. Work with Richards here, he can give you plenty of comfort. We'll look for Toby first, and try to spring her. Richards—you see a beautiful blonde staggering around out there, go get her. Carl—if you get clear, try to drop that tarp."

  The pilot was passing out radios. He said, "Don't dwell on formalities. You want a blast somewhere, just scream it. Try to give me some sort of coordinates, though. Sarge—you want to tell me now what's under that tarp?"

  Bolan slung a chattergun from his shoulder and told the guy, "Maybe five or six megatons of hell on earth, Skipper. Don't put any rockets in there. We could have this whole damn island spewing again."

  The guy's face turned a bit gray. He said, "What the hell is it?"

  "We think it's ChiCom IRBM's. Tell your gunners to play their fire accordingly. Look, give us a standard infantry drop, then pull back for fire support. This is an ear play, so you'll have to use yours, too."

  "Right. Are we ready?"

  "We're ready."

  The pilot returned to his station.

  Bolan showed his people a solemn smile. "Live large," he said. "Follow my lead out of here. He'll bring her down to a few feet off the ground. You'll feel the nose dip. That's go time. Don't hesitate and don't look back. Hit the ground running and ready for a fight. Any questions?"

  "Yeah," the comic-fed said, his face cast in pained lines. "How do you get out of this chicken outfit?" "You die," Bolan replied with a wry smile.

  "I guess I’ll stay."

  The Huey went in on a descending curve, skimming the treetops and dropping steadily. She broke the clearing and gave a momentary, gut-grabbing upward lurch, then bored on in with the nose high and running parallel to the ground. People were spilling out of that building over there and a siren was sounding when the ship gave the telltale shiver, hanging suspended in a split-second hover, the nose dipping.

  Bolan yelled "Tally ho" and launched himself into the jarring descent. The others spilled out behind him and the Huey lifted away, machine guns spitting a withering fire across those grounds in advance of the landing team.

  Bolan's piece was blazing before his conscious mind pulled the trigger, and he was aware of chattering hand guns behind him

  On the forward track, a very impersonal thing was happening--men were dying with grotesque screams choking their throats, bodies rolling across the hell-grounds and pumping blood onto the lava rock into pools that could not be absorbed.

  He hit the door of the building at full gallop and crashed in, a fresh clip in the chattergun and death on his mind. A trio of khaki-clad Orientals rose up from somewhere and promptly descended into nowhere as death chattered on.

  Smiley. Dublin ran into his corner vision, a wreath of fire encircling the snout of her weapon—and that part of his mind, mostly submerged now, that gives rise to intellectual activity was sharply jolted by the death snarl on that pretty face.

  There were no inner walls here and no back wall whatever, only a gaping wound in what had once been volcanic rock, an elevator shaft which could transport several automobiles at once. The building was crammed with work tables and exotic machinery and, off to one end, a glass cubicle outfitted for lounging during leisure moments.

  A pair of familiar Caucasians from Manhattan had just run into there, Dominick and Flora—and, sure, they had to know—there was no China con game here —La Commissione were present, alive, and trying to stay well in King Fire and Bolan was sickened by the stench of depravity represented by all this.

  Before he could react, Smiley Dublin was on them, with her kill mask intact and her gun blowing death into that glass house.

  The cubicle walls shattered and the glass rained down in tinkling accompaniment to the shrilling siren, chattering weapons, and the despairing moans of souls departing under duress.

  Bolan yelled, "Smiley, hold it!--hold it!"

  Her weapon fell and she turned to him like a sleepwalker just jolted awake. The voice was small and unbelieving as she cried, "My God, Mack! I was enjoying it!"

  "That's just gut talk!" he barked. "Toby's in there. Get her out!"

  Bolan ran on, to the edge of the pit. Beyond and to his right, behind another glass wall, were consoles and the usual trappings of a launch control center. He spewed that wall with steel-jacket slugs—and they merely bounced off. He pivoted and ran along the rim, found a steel circular stairway, and descended into the pit. Abruptly, all the lights went out and the siren failed and all sounds of gunfire topside dwindled away.

  He was in stygian blackness and descending deeper into it when something fluttered high overhead and bright sunlight converted the depths of hell into a twentieth-century nightmare. Gleaming steel casings glittered hotly under the sun and spoke to him of manmade suns that hurtled through the skies in search of mass souls—and, yeah, even here, in this madness, could be found a sort of perverted pride in the accomplishment of a living species who had climbed down from the trees many, many eons after Pele's fires had raged in this pit. An example of human excellence, yes—but an excellence run amok.

  A pair of them stood there, graceful and threatening yet impotent, incomplete. There were no nose cones no payloads. The man who had walked through several hells to reach this place had to stifle an: impulse to sit down and laugh, to light a cigarette and hurl taunts at the unfanged wonders from across the world.

  He went deeper, into the very bowels of the place, following the sounds of moving feet and hushed voices, and fo
und more unfanged marvels, lying on their sides, asleep and strapped to their beds. And there were tunnels down here, narrow-gauge rails, holes in the rock leading God knew where, and running feet scurrying everywhere.

  And there was Chung.

  He stood beside a sleeping giant, one hand raised as though to caress it, staring at the man in black with inscrutable eyes.

  The Big One told him, "Here's my head, General. Come and take it."

  "You did not beat me," the guy said. "She beat me." "Beat is beat," Bolan told him. "Let's go."

  "She intercepted the payloads. She sent them back. The lotus blossom is my Achilles heels. Is it true?" Bolan told him, "I guess it is."

  The guy turned around and walked away. Bolan called out, then sent a burst of fire around his feet, and the guy walked on.

  Pele beat you, guy. I met her, upstairs, just a minute ago.

  Bolan let him go, to meet defeat in his own way.

  When he returned to the upper level, Carl Lyons was moving gingerly through the litter of dead and dying—looking for faces, probably, that could merit a written report.

  "Let's get out of here," Bolan told him.

  "What is—did you find—?"

  Bolan grabbed his arm and pulled him along. "I found. There's only one way to finish this place. Let's go."

  "Smiley said—"

  "Pele."

  "Huh?"

  "I found her, too."

  "Are you okay?"

  "I will be—when this place is buried."

  The girls were aboard the Huey. It stood there, hovering a few feet above the ground, proud sign and symbol of controlled excellence. Anders ran to join them and they climbed aboard. Bolan went immediately to the command chair and told the excellent human being there: "Take her up. Rocket range. Bury it."

  The guy's face drained and he said, "Six megatons worth?"

  "A Chinaman's pride worth," Bolan corrected him. "There's nothing down there but rocket fuel. Bury it."

  A minute or so later, a succession of bright, streaking arrows of fire whizzed through the Hawaiian skies to enter a primeval hole in the ground.

  The hole belched back with rolling flames and towering smoke, a drumbeat succession of thundering, trumpeting explosions that quivered the ground and shook the atmosphere.

  Bolan stood in the open doorway of the gunship to watch a mad dream expire and to comfort a weeping lotus blossom who, for one mad moment, had found exultation in violence.

  Flames roared into the sky and—for one mad moment of his own--Mack Bolan thought that he saw Mother Pele dancing in the open pit, smiling at him with the face of a lotus blossom.

  The one beside him said, "Mack ... it is a paranoid business. I haven't told you everything. Maybe I never can. There are many secret games. And I—I . . ." He said, "Shush. It's okay."

  There was nothing so paranoid about an undercover fed who sang and danced, spoke in many tongues and loved in the line of duty—and completely broke a renegade Chinese general.

  "How's Toby?" he asked her.

  "Hurting, but healthy."

  "How's Smiley?"

  "Healthy, but hurting. Mack . . What happened to me down there?"

  "Happens to all of us," he told her. "Sooner or later . . . if we're really alive. You found infinite zero. You roared back, Smiley. That's all."

  Yeah. Primeval forces were still at work on Planet Earth.

  And some of us, thank God, roared back.

  Epilogue

  The government was a machine, sure, but the machinery was maintained and the program buttons pushed by people. Brognola had exercised a prerogative of his office. He would do it again, whenever he thought that his government would be best served through such an exercise.

  He told the big, damned guy, "I'm assuring you safe conduct back to the mainland. Miss Dublin will go along to make sure it doesn't get violated. Soon as she releases you, you're on your own again."

  The big guy showed him one of those humourless smiles as he turned the offer back. “thanks, I'll find my own way back."

  "Look," Brognola fumed, "I hocked my soul to spring you out of here. You owe me. Another scrape with the law in this jurisdiction and I'll be hanging by my thumbs from the Washington Monument. I mean to escort you back to—"

  "No way," the blitzer said adamantly. "If it will make you feel better, though, Smiley can tag along with me. Part of the way, at least."

  The chief fed had to settle for that.

  Miss Dublin seemed delighted to settle for that.

  So it was the end of another wild one. Lyons and Anders would be pushing off soon for Hong Kong, even hotter now on the scent of the Chinese connection.

  Toby Ranger would spend a few days in the hospital under medical observation, just to make certain that there were no hidden injuries from that plane crash. Then she would drift toward the Far East.

  Smiley would be heading that way, also, as soon as her escort assignment was concluded.

  As for the chief fed, it was back to Heat Town—and a lot of explaining to the men in the hotter seats back there.

  There were times when Brognola wished he could drift away to the next battle line. It could be difficult enough wearing one hat in the rarefied higher atmospheres of official Washington—Hal Brognola was trying to juggle two of them, one for the Justice Department and another for the National Security Council.

  Sensitive Operations indeed—what a hell of a misnomer.

  It had been tough enough trying to overcome a domestic enemy with infinite tentacles trying to eat the country from within. Since it had started sprouting infinite heads, as well—with many of those heads situated outside the country—the task had become next to impossible.

  It was a tough world.

  Thank God for people like Anders and Lyons, Ranger and Dublin—with a special prayer for the one and only Mack Bolan.

  Some kind of guy.

  This guy was more than a mere hell bender. He ran the place. And there weren't many secrets around this guy.

  "How many hats are you wearing these days?" he'd ask the chief fed, with one of those knowing smiles.

  He knew, sure he knew. Probably knew all about the double-agent role for Smiley Dublin—maybe knew, even, about the sensitive mutual assistance operation between the two governments. Or, at least, sensed it.

  "I'll get your China gal back to you in a few days," the big guy assured Brognola over that parting handclasp.

  There was nothing to be gained by playing dumb—except maybe to save a bit of face. Hal Brognola had given away his face long ago. "Do that," he replied. "We couldn't SOG it without her."

  "Neither could I," Bolan replied, grinning.

  And then, with a spin of the foot, he was gone.

  It was a lot of bullshit, of course—a concession to Hal Brognola's missing face. The guy could get along without anybody. He'd been doing it for a hell of a long time. Couldn't last forever, of course. The guy was damned—and, sure, he knew it. Only a doomed man could do the job this guy was doing.

  As Brognola watched the big one stride away, he felt a surge of pride. There went one hell of a man—one excellent hell of a man!

  The chief fed felt dignified—perhaps even consecrated—as he watched the hellbender and the "China gal" fade into the blood-red horizon of a Hawaiian sunset.

  "Over the hill and far away," the fed muttered to himself, ". . . and on to the next hellground. Stay hard, guy, dammit. Stay as hard as you are!"