Not a one, apparently, had ventured away from his assigned station to investigate the hullabaloo in the billeting area. They were poised and waiting for a pigeon to blunder it—and they numbered at least a baker's dozen.
The only way was a thunder punch, straight up the middle. He shed all extraneous gear, tossed a smoke bomb to dead centre, heaved a percussion grenade to either side, and ran the gauntlet in a balls-out sprint, the AutoMag in rapid fire straight ahead.
An immediate volley with handguns greeted the daring challenge, fire triangulating on his path from both sides and a rather weak return from dead ahead—then he was into the smoke and the grenades were pummelling the night on his flanks.
He hit the door at full gallop, moving in with a puff of smoke and a fresh clip in Big Thunder. Two boys with shrinking eyes fell away from there, stumbling backwards into the building and jerking off their shots much too carelessly. The .44 magnum boomed in reflexive response, roaring twice and hurling those boys aside like so much ground meat on the hoof.
Another guy stood up quickly from behind a control console and made an exaggerated show of lowering a pistol to the floor. He was wearing technician's white coveralls and his voice held a Texas sound as he hastily reported to the invader, "Wait, mister, I just work here!"
A gunshot sounded from Bolan's rear and a slug whistled past him and caromed off a piece of equipment. He swivelled and sent three quick rounds into the doorway. A guy fell back out of there screaming in an explosion of glass and shredded metal.
Bolan moved out of the line-up and coolly told the technician, "You're working for me, now. I want the heart out of that doomsday device. Don't try to screw me around and maybe you can live to tell your grandchildren about this. I've seen the schematics. I know what I want."
The guy didn't even think about it. He went straight to a panel in the back wall, pulled out a sliding chassis, and began disconnecting wires.
The time required for the operation was less than a minute, during which Bolan discouraged another rush on the door with three big booms of the AutoMag.
It was the last of the scatter loads. He ejected the empty clip and snapped in a reload of heart-stoppers as the guy in white delivered the control chassis from the demolitions network.
Bolan said, "Yeah, that's it." He dropped it to the floor and sent a pair of big .44 slugs smashing into it, then he told the guy, "Okay, show me the soft way out."
"There's a fire door in back."
Bolan sent the technician an almost smile. "Thanks," he said. "Here's a souvenir." He flipped a medal and the guy caught it. Then Bolan made fast tracks to the rear.
It was the type of door with a quick-release lever running the entire width. He hit the lever with a foot and went right on through in a twisting leap, hitting the ground outside at full prone and sending somebody out there sprawling with him.
A pistol flared, almost in his face. He felt the heat from the muzzle and sensed the passage of whistling metal past his nose at the same instant that he squeezed into his own pull, the thunder of the AutoMag eclipsing the report of the other gun.
The guy beside him caught his breath and held it, the pistol skittered away, and Bolan knew immediately that he was lying down with Woofer Tolucci.
Another shadowy form was cautiously approaching. Bolan angled the thunder piece two degrees right and let go again. The guy went over backwards without a sound and stayed there.
Bolan stayed there, too, waiting for his eyes to readjust to darkness and trying to orient himself to the environment. There was a ringing in his ears and he knew that he'd taken a bit too much audio from Tolucci's weapon.
He was partially disabled, momentarily anyway. The Animal was breathing again, but with difficulty. Bolan told him, "End of the line, Woofer." "Don't kill me," Tolucci groaned. "I can make it." "You're dead already, guy."
"No! Just my leg. I think you blew it off."
Almost, but not quite. Bolan's reflex round had smashed in just above the guy's knee, and it had made a hell of a mess. The pain must have been next to unendurable, but the big animal was not complaining about that. He wanted only to survive.
"Call it even, smartass. It's twice you got me. So okay, I'm ready for pasture. I swear, I'm finished in the business, anyway."
Bolan knew better. Guys like Tolucci were never finished, until they were buried.
People were moving around out there, cautiously, setting up. Bolan shook his head, willing it to find its motor.
"I swear," Tolucci groaned.
Then another sound stole between the two grounded men. It was a reedy, electronically distorted voice issuing from a small, two-way radio which lay between them. Bolan had heard that voice before, very recently. It was Lileo.
"Woofer! What's going on down there? What's all the fires?"
Tolucci snarled, "Oh Christ!"
"Woofer, damn it answer! We're coming in. What's the situation there?"
The Animal tried to raise himself to an elbow but fell quickly back with a moan. "That runway is mined," he woofed. "Tell 'em, Bolan. Don't let them land."
Bolan picked up the radio, put on his street voice, and reported to the head shed. "That guy is runnin' wild down here, sir. We need help, quick!"
"Who is this? Where's Woofer?"
"He's down, sir. We're catchin' hell!"
"Light that runway!"
"Can't, sir. The guy killed all the outside lighting. But you better hurry." Bolan held the transmission button open and squeezed off another round from the AutoMag, then thumbed-off and tossed the radio away.
"You lousy bastard," Tolucci groaned.
"Yeah," Bolan agreed, and shot the suffering animal squarely between the eyes.
Then he raised his voice in a fair imitation of Tolucci's and screamed, "Get down to the airstrip! Wave 'em off, damn it! They don't know it's mined! It's Lileo's force, don't let them land!"
Someone screamed back, "Use the radio, boss!" "You asshole, it's shot up! Get down there!"
There were immediate sounds of movement and someone called, "Mr. Tolucci?"
"Yeh, yeh, I'm awright! It's just my goddam fuckin' leg! I got Bolan! Now get down there and wave off that plane!"
Bolan knew that all the king's men could not stop that landing
But people were scrambling, and this time with relief and abandon and in the pursuit of a desperate mission.
Bolan came to his knees as the last fuzzy forms faded away, and tried to focus his eyes on the dial of the wrist chronometer.
His numbers had fallen to hell. Less than ten minutes remained. So how now, big bad Bolan? Did he throw it all to hell and go on with the depot hit? Or did he scrub out, and hope for another time?
He was opting toward the latter and pulling himself wearily together when another dark form materialized from the darkness, stepping into the open, arm extended, pistol in hand.
He was big, like Texas, and his name was Arthur Klingman.
In a voice nearly as icy as Bolan's, the old man was saying, "I told you I'd kill you, Tolucci."
Bolan checked his squeeze and quickly replied, "You're a bit late. The Animal is dead."
The gun arm dropped immediately and the big Texan moved in to stand tall above the kneeling man in black suit. "I damn near blasted you. I thought I heard—oh, that was you."
"It was me. I thought I sent you home."
"You sent Judith. I stayed behind to bury Flag Seven."
Bolan said, "Congratulations." The numbed sections of his brain were coming alive again. He got to his feet and hooked an arm into Klingman's and said, "There's just time, maybe, to get an airlift out of here. We have to breach the fence and get out near the staging area."
Klingman was allowing himself to be hurried across the grounds but he had vocal objections. "It isn't safe out there. I told you. I'm burying it."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I sent a shipment out. It should be arriving in a few minutes."
"Through the pip
e?"
"That's right. It's set to go off in the main distribution tank. There's more than oil out there, Bolan. I told you. It's an ammunition dump, too. When that high tank goes, it's going to take a hell of a lot of everything out there with it. I also programmed a load for relay into the gasoline storage, vehicle area.
The two refugees from hell had come to a halt on high ground near the west fence. Bolan said, "A load?"
"Yeah. Explosives, incendiary. That whole place will be an inferno within another five minutes or so."
Bolan mentally tipped his hat to Jack Grimaldi. So okay, it could be done and Arthur Klingman was trying it.
The Executioner was thinking about that and gazing back upon the low ground when a bright flash lit up the landing strip, for one brief instant outlining in brilliant relief a two-engine transport plane which had apparently just touched down. The moment moved on, the aircraft became an exploding part of that brilliance and sent a fireball whoofing skyward, and Bolan muttered, "Goodbye, Bolan Bunch."
More than Flag Seven was getting a burial at Klingman's Wells. Bolan rolled a percussion grenade toward a post of the electrified fence and pushed the old man to the ground in anticipation of that blast.
They moved quickly through the gap and joined the darkness at the backside of the rise, and Bolan got his star shell ready for the signal to Grimaldi.
Then he heard him. The guy was up there, hovering somewhere high in the blackness in direct disobedience of orders. Bolan could hear the eggbeater punishing the air up there, directly overhead.
The hot-wing guy had probably had them in sight all the way across those grounds, spotting them with the fires of the compound.
And he'd just earned himself a long vacation wherever he wanted it, with all the Mafia bucks at Bolan's disposal.
Bolan squeezed the old man's arm, said, "Not every thing is getting buried at the wells tonight, Klingman," and let fly the signal flare.
Texas, by God, was not getting buried there.
EPILOGUE
They tracked over to the north—south pipeline and took Judith Klingman on board, then rose high for a bird's eye view of the big storm on the Texas plains.
The fires were burning out in the Klingman compound. Even the twisted mess on the airstrip had been reduced to a feeble glow.
Over to the west, though, the show was just beginning. The night lit up over there several seconds before the shock waves set the little bird to rocking, and thunder rumbled across the land.
Great streaming streakers of flaming liquid catapulted skyward like a Fourth of July fireworks fountain, and raging lakes of fire spilled everywhere in a consuming flood.
Another fantastic explosion in the vehicle area sent a column of flame higher than Grimaldi's bird, and hell took a march across those haunted acres.
They moved closer, with caution, and Bolan watched through binoculars as men swarmed like ants in panic in the Midst of the inferno.
"There's your picnic, boys," he muttered.
The most satisfying part, to Bolan's mind, was that a tough old Texan had laid the picnic spread.
Klingman's eyes were watering, though, as he turned away from the spectacle. "Rest in peace," he intoned in a rumbling voice.
Bolan donned the headset and told Grimaldi, "That's all the tally I've got, Jack. Let's pull out."
Grimaldi smiled sourly and heeled eastward. He told the Executioner, "You might enjoy something I heard on the radio a few minutes ago, just the same. Massive police raids all over the state. The news guy says a special federal force is calling the shots. Sounds like a clean sweep."
"Yeah," Bolan said. "Let's hope so." But his tone did not sound so hopeful. He was all too familiar with the great American circus of political influence and clouted courts. "A start, anyway," he concluded.
Judith Klingman leaned forward suddenly and rubbed his back with a soft touch, then spoke her first words of the evening to Mack Bolan. "You're bleeding," she gasped.
"Imagine that," he growled.
"You need a doctor!"
"I know a good one," Bolan said, sliding a tired grin toward Grimaldi. "What I really need is a good nurse. For about three days of R&R." If he was bleeding, then it could be no more than a battle scratch. More than likely it was enemy blood. He swivelled about to regard the girl with an Executioner stare. "Can you recommend some one for the job?"
Her gaze fell from that probing inspection and she replied, "I'm not much of a-nurse, I guess." The eyes flared up defiantly. "But I'm pretty damn good at R&R. Are you?"
He grinned and said,. "I'll bet."
So this one was winding up, maybe, in a little shaft of sunlight—star shine, anyway. The Executioner had won another brief victory. He was among, friends, for a while. The Heart of Texas was bursting forth within that beautiful young lady behind him And, sure, he had to do something between here and Detroit.
"Take the young lady to her rest and recreation area, Jack," he told the pilot.
A small hand crept along his side and nestled his arm. "And her knight," Judith Klingman commanded.
"What night?" Bolan asked, too weary to think.
"Knight." She spelled it. "The one with the shining eyes—and no armour, no armour at all."
Bolan took that hand and held it, and let all the tension go as his over-used frame settled into the seat cushion in total repose.
If this was damnation, then he'd earned it. Yeah.
Pendleton, Don - Executioner 018 - Texas Storm. Page 14
