He saw a subtle but definite movement of the slender tassels of corn. He watched a wave of motion as though a man was working through the corn toward the barn.
Two cows behind the barn moved slowly into view, chewing their cud. They wandered near the fence toward the spot where the man should emerge from the corn.
Then he appeared. Crouching, Carboni rushed out and ran hard for the barn. The cows were in precisely the wrong spot, shielding Carboni from any shot Bolan could make.
Bolan ran around to the side of the barn and slipped inside. He figured Carboni would come in the building for protection, maybe to pick out an ambush spot. He crouched beside a row of milking stalls and waited.
For a minute there was silence. Then a door squeaked and a shaft of light penetrated the darkness. A silhouette crossed the shaft of light and then the light disappeared as the door closed.
Through the blackness, the Executioner saw that the man whose only job was to kill him stood less than twenty feet away.
Then he heard someone outside the door. Again it opened, again a glaring shaft of light penetrated the blackness, again a dark figure stepped inside and closed the door.
“Now where the hell are you? Seen you come in here, you ornery critter.”
It was the old man. Bolan wanted to warn him, but didn’t, lest he give away his position. Then the time for warning was gone. Carboni’s big .44 AutoMag roared twice. Instantly Bolan raked the area where the AutoMag had fired with a 12-round burst of parabellums.
The back door slid open and before the Executioner could move away from the milking stalls to fire again, Carboni had crawled out. Bolan moved cautiously toward the front of the barn where the old man must be. He opened the door slightly to let in some light and found the farmer on his back, his hands over his chest.
Blood dribbled from his lips.
“I tried to tell you, old-timer,” Bolan said gently.
“Oh,” the farmer said. “Well, it’s too late now.” His head turned slowly to one side as his lifeless hand slid to the straw-covered floor.
The Executioner ran to the door. Carboni had killed again, and he was out there somewhere. This was one score the Executioner had to settle now!
13
The Executioner jammed a new magazine in the Uzi and ran to the barn’s front door. Outside in the bright afternoon sunshine he saw no movement. The side screen door to the house stood open. He remembered the old man saying “we.” Was there a woman in the house?
Then he thought of something more deadly. The farmer had a shotgun; it was likely he also had a rifle. Bolan backed away from the door, realizing that Carboni might already have a rifle from the kitchen or from over the mantel. Found it and be loaded and waiting for Bolan to step out the door.
The Executioner went out the back door and moved around to the side. He could see everything in the yard — the barn, a machine shed, a small granary, a chicken coop, the well house, the house, a garage. Parked in the garage was a Ford Edsel with its unique grill and front end outward. This was one farm that was not entirely up-to-date.
Bolan lay beside the barn, shielded from the house by the foundation. Carboni was not running now. The Executioner could sense the man’s hatred, his eagerness to use his long gun.
This would be a battle of willpower and nerves, Bolan decided. He glanced at his watch. Four-thirty. Another three hours until dark. Bolan shifted. He could lie there without moving until dark if he had to, but he knew that Carboni would be active long before that.
Ten minutes later a roar came from an upstairs window. Now a rifle barked six times, as the weapon — a single shot bolt action, Bolan guessed — pounded rounds into each of the buildings the gunner could see from his high ground.
“You son of a bitch! Come out and fight!” Carboni yelled.
Bolan sent five rounds from the Uzi into the open window, then slid back out of sight of the target and waited. After a few moments he moved up quickly, looked at the house, then jerked back as Carboni put a rifle slug into the foundation beside Bolan.
It was a stalemate. Bolan had to turn it around. If he could get close enough he could pitch a fragger in the upstairs window. But by then Carboni might have moved.
He had to lure Carboni out of his shelter and not get himself killed doing it. The Edsel kept creeping into his mind. He ran behind the barn, into the cornfield and over to the rear of the garage. It had a back door. He slipped inside and checked the Edsel. It was out of gas and had one low tire in front.
The machine had not been used for some time.
But Carboni didn’t know that. The window where the Mafia hoodlum lay was almost out of sight. Carboni would have to lean out to see the garage. Bolan eased the hand brake off the car, pushed the shift lever to neutral and went to the back of the rig.
The farmyard had a slight slope. Bolan pushed the car to the end of the garage, then jumped back and stayed inside the cover as the Edsel rolled fifty feet forward and stopped. He threw a rock at the Edsel, banging it off the front fender.
Through a crack in one of the boards in the garage Bolan could see the second-floor window. Carboni’s head popped out for a second. He looked at the old car and swore.
The Executioner gave the killer enough time to get down the steps and check out the Edsel from a side window in the house. Vince would kill the car or try to get it for his own use.
A minute later the side door jolted open and Carboni ran through it. In each hand he carried a jar with a flaming rag on top of it. A deer rifle was slung over his shoulder. He ran halfway to the car and threw one of the jars. It flew over the Edsel and splattered burning gasoline toward Bolan.
The Executioner blasted four rounds from the Uzi through the smoke. Then he saw the other firebomb sailing through the air and ran to the side. The bomb hit and broke, gushing burning gasoline inside the garage. The Executioner dashed away from the smoke and fire and saw Carboni trying to start the Edsel. The battery ground the starter three times, then the solenoid only clicked as the battery went dead.
Before Bolan could fire, Carboni left the car and ran behind the gasoline smoke screen back into the house.
Slowly the fire ate up the gasoline in the yard. The garage blazed up into a real fire. The Executioner ran to the barn for cover. He waited there for a few moments, then sprinted to the machine shed.
Because Carboni didn’t fire again, Bolan figured he must be running short on ammunition for the heavy pistol.
The Executioner looked around. The shed contained a variety of farm implements. Right in front sat a midsize crawler tractor with a bulldozer blade on it. Bolan knew how to operate the machine. He checked the tank; it was half full of diesel fuel. The engine kicked over on the third try, and he lifted the blade until it blocked his view and shielded him from any rifle rounds from Carboni, then nudged the big doors open with the blade.
He hit the throttle and moved straight for the farmhouse’s back door. A shot barked from the house, hit the steel dozer blade in front and ricocheted. It sounded like the deer rifle, maybe a 30.06.
The crawler responded well to his touch on the brakes, holding one tread and turning as the other tread kept moving. He adjusted his route once more and clanked, rattled and squeaked straight at the house.
Two more shots came and then silence. Glass broke in an upstairs window. Bolan looked up and realized Carboni could look down past the blade directly at him. He bailed out and ran into the house as a rifle slug from the second floor plowed into the ground where Bolan had been a moment before.
Bolan ran through the kitchen, hunting the stairs. This was house-to-house fighting, something he knew a lot about. He pulled one of the fragger grenades off his combat webbing and held it in his left hand.
The old wooden house creaked as the man upstairs moved around.
The hit man had worked himself into a corner. There was no way he could go except down. Bolan eased halfway up the open stairs and threw the grenade into the room where he figured Car
boni was hiding. The bomb went off with a roar.
When the sound echoed across the fields, Bolan listened for human sounds. There were none. He charged up the steps, the Uzi ready with the last rounds in the magazine.
But Carboni was not in the room. Bolan edged around the hall to the second big room, but found it empty, too. The window was open and Bolan watched as Carboni limped across the roof, then ducked and jumped from the low front porch to the ground and out of sight.
Bolan heard a cry of pain as the guy landed on his wounded leg.
For a minute nothing moved. The yard was quiet. Bolan remembered that the hit man did not have the rifle with him when he ran across the roof. He could have dropped it over the side first. Either way the enemy was getting low on ammunition.
Bolan scowled — so was he. There were only five or six rounds in the Uzi, about ten shots left for the big .44 AutoMag, and the Beretta was on its last magazine.
He ran to the other room and looked out at the yard. There was no evidence that Carboni had gone to the barn or any of the sheds. He must still be hugging the first floor of the house. But inside or out?
The garage burned fiercely, sending a trail of black smoke into the sky. Somebody would report it soon by telephone, and a rural fire department would wheel in.
As if responding to his thoughts, a siren wailed in the distance. Bolan snapped a shot from the Beretta into some shadows near the front porch, then pulled back from the window. There was no answering fire.
The siren came closer. Bolan checked both windows again. No Carboni. Where had he gone?
The vehicle with the siren raced down the long farm driveway. That was when Bolan saw that it was a police car or a sheriff’s rig. The officer was driving directly into eternity. Carboni would waste him the second he stepped out of his car.
As a warning, the Executioner fired the Uzi near the rig. The car made a fast U-turn and careered toward the barn. When it stopped, the driver darted into the barn.
Now Bolan had another problem. Holding the Uzi in both hands, he ran downstairs and into the kitchen. No sign of Carboni.
At the back door he paused, then jumped on the crawler tractor, started the motor, kicked it into reverse and raced the engine as he let out the clutch and moved to the rear. Bolan was not sure if he took any fire from the front or not, but there had been no shots fired from the barn. He drove the big tractor directly at the open barn door and stopped just before the rear track touched the wood.
In one swift move he leaped off the tractor seat and surged into the barn.
“Don’t move,” a woman called unsteadily.
The Executioner looked around and saw a uniformed female deputy sheriff holding her service revolver with both hands.
“No problem,” Bolan said. “I’m on your side. But we’ve got a desperate killer out there somewhere. He gunned down the old man who lives here, and I’ve been trying to dig him out.”
The woman frowned. She was young, scared and not sure whether to believe him. Slowly she lowered and then raised the gun.
“How do I know you’re not the killer?”
“Would I risk my neck to come back down here and tell you what’s going on if I wanted to shoot you?”
She took a deep breath and shook her head, her short hair bouncing under her garrison-style hat.
“No, I guess not.”
“Right. I’m Scott, with the FBI. The killer out there is Mafia and he’s already murdered three times today. I don’t want him to add us to his list.”
“What can I do?” Slowly she lowered her gun.
“Get back in your patrol car, sit low in the seat and gun out of here and radio for some more units. We need some help before it gets dark.”
“I can do that.” Her brown eyes were coming back to normal. A small grin showed. “Hey, I was scared when that round whizzed by the car.”
“That was mine. I didn’t want you pulling up in front of the house and Carboni blowing your head off.”
“Thanks. I better get moving. Where is he, this Carboni?”
“That I would like to know — around the house somewhere.”
She nodded, went to the barn door and turned. “Thanks for warning me.” She ran to the car and spun gravel off the yard as she powered out of the driveway to the road.
Bolan went to the barn door and stared at the house. A rifle shot splintered the doorframe just over his head. He fell back out of sight and felt a splinter that had gouged his cheek. The shot came from the right side of the house. Almost the same spot where Carboni dropped off the porch. Maybe he had broken an ankle. Or was that too much to hope for?
The Executioner pulled a fragger from his harness and planned his route. His homemade tank was good for attacking, too. He darted out the door to the safety behind the raised blade and fired up the diesel.
He was going blindly now. Then he lowered the blade so he could stand to check his direction. When he was thirty feet from the front corner of the house, he pulled the pin and threw the hand grenade. It went off with a roar, shattering three windows.
Bolan pulled the last fragger from his webbing and powered the tractor forward again, watching alternately ahead and behind, aware that an attack from the rear was a possibility.
The big tractor plowed across the lawn to the front of the house.
The shot came from far to the right, from a field of wheat that was golden brown, dusty dry and ready to cut. The slug broke a window in the house. Bolan stopped the tractor, shut the engine and slipped behind it.
He released the magazine from the Uzi and checked it. There were four rounds left and another in the chamber. Worthwhile taking it along. He had seven rounds left in the Beretta and ten for the .44 AutoMag.
Knowing the extent of his ammo, the Executioner ran around the tractor and headed toward Carboni.
A slight wind picked up as he ran into the field. The weather was warm and dry. With every step Bolan mashed down wheat, but there was no other way. He saw Carboni running to the left and followed in that direction. Had the hit man given up on his target or was he luring Bolan into some kind of a trap?
If it was a trap, it had to be a good one. Bolan had no idea how the Mafia goon could set up anything out here.
From the gait of the man ahead of him, Bolan knew he was wounded worse than before. One of the parabellums must have hit flesh.
Bolan ran faster, his own arm wound almost forgotten as he held the Uzi. It was his long-range try. If that failed he would discard the heavy weapon and move in with his pair of handguns.
The wind increased, and Bolan wondered if there was going to be a late-afternoon thunderstorm. His watch showed 5:15. Lots of time before dark. He saw clouds scudding with the strong winds.
The Executioner came over a small rise in the wheat field and looked for his target. The man was not in sight. Bolan stopped running and scanned the general area where he had last seen Carboni. The wheat came nearly to Bolan’s waist. Carboni could be down somewhere in the eighty-acre field, out of sight and crawling toward a ditch.
The wind blew stronger in Bolan’s face and he wished he could smell out his enemy. Ahead he saw the grain waver and tremble in one spot. He sent two rounds from the Uzi there and waited.
Nothing.
He scanned the northern part of the field again.
Lightning flashed a dozen miles away, and the roll of thunder came faintly.
Momentarily standing above the wheat, Carboni saw Bolan and dived again. Bolan saw him and surged toward him through the high wheat until he felt as if he were running through water.
He was close now to Carboni, and had out the big .44 AutoMag, watching and waiting.
The wisp of smoke rose to his left, then another rose in front of him, and in five seconds a solid wall of flame was consuming the stalks. The wind whipped the fire into a frenzy. Almost at once the flames were eight feet high and roaring toward Bolan.
The Executioner turned, but suddenly flames appeared ahead of him.
He turned again — more fire.
He was surrounded by fire.
He heard a weird, wild laugh from Carboni, who stood on the already burned and blackened stalks, screaming in delight.
Bolan wanted to run, to leap through the flames. He could pull his shirt over his face and hair. The flames roared closer. His small island of unburned wheat was shrinking drastically.
The Executioner heard the crazed laugh again as he prepared for his dash. There was no guarantee that he would make it. The ravaging fire would suck up all of the oxygen in the air. He must try to hold his breath until he was out of the flames.
The wild laugh came once more and Bolan unleashed two shots from the .44 AutoMag in that direction, then held the big gun and backed up six feet to make his dash.
He was ready. Was this the way he was going to buy the farm? If it happened, it happened. He began to run.
As he moved the wind shifted, and he stopped, unsure what effect it would have on the flames. The fickle wind changed again, now blowing in the opposite direction.
Lightning split the cloudy sky, hitting a tree about half a mile away.
The flames ahead of him died down for lack of fuel, blowing back on the blackened wasteland. The fire behind him raced forward, but all he had to do now was jump over the crawling, low flames to the smoking ashes of the ruined wheat field.
Carboni’s wild laughter had turned to screams of terror. Bolan saw him ahead, charging around in the middle of a circle of fire. Carboni was trapped.
Lightning struck the ground a hundred yards away and the smell of raw sulfur blended with the smoke. Bolan jolted into action. He ran through the burned area, getting safely away from the flames.
When he looked back at the spot where he had last seen Carboni, he could see only the flames whipping forward, consuming the entire circle that had protected the Mafia hit man. It had developed into a searing, boiling fire storm.
Bolan knew he should wait for the fire to burn out and check for a body to be sure that Vince Carboni was dead. But an inner voice drew him away.
Baltimore Trackdown te-88 Page 11
