And the Grim One came like a crackle of lightning for the black punk in front of Bolan.
The Executioner had known it was coming, but the runner acted with surprising speed. Bolan had hoped to give him a chance to wise up, but the punk blew his one chance of saving grace in a frenzied moment of glory-seeking and ass-saving.
The would-be Superfly committed suicide.
The runner spun around in one smooth motion, a .357 Colt Python filling his fist. His dark eyes glittered for a split second, betraying his arrogance in the face of certain triumph over the lone dude in the back seat.
Bolan looked the punk dead in the eye and blew his brains out.
The Beretta 93-R sneezed once. Muzzling at 375 mps, the 9 mm parabellum slug punched a gory hole in the black guy's forehead. Shock became the runner's shattered death mask, as the back of his skull blasted open in a spray of blood and gray brain matter. There was a dull crack, the parabellum round drilling through the BMW's windshield, spiderwebbing the glass, which was dappled with thick crimson rivulets.
The dead punk crunched against the dashboard and slid to the floor.
The ounce man glanced at the corpse, forcing indifference into eyes that a split second ago had held naked fear when he saw his ace-in-the-hole burned out of the picture.
"He was dumb," Bolan said, his voice sounding as if it came from the bottom of a tomb. "How much smarter are you?"
"Hey, look," the dealer said, a nervous smile dancing over his lips, "that nigger was nothin' to me. You just did this city a small favor. He's a dime a dozen."
"So are you. And I'm not out of favors yet."
"Look, p-mister, I'm a family man, for Chrissakes. I got a legitimate business in Jersey. I got a wife and three kids, awright? I'm a citizen, I pay taxes. I ain't some scumbucket out of Harlem."
"You should've thought a little harder before crossing the battles lines... citizen."
"Hey, look, we all got problems, okay. Mine happens to be money. Look, goddammit, I don't enjoy this kinda life, I ain't no Superfly. And I sure as hell ain't no hero. You go charging into that main cut-house, mister, you'll get us both fried."
"I hear you," Bolan quietly replied. He noticed the garbage was sweating hard now. Good. The guy wasn't about to try anything. He was along for the ride. It was up to the garbage whether or not this was a one-way ticket to the incinerator.
With a few quick folds and tucks, Bolan turned the duffel bag into a rucksack. He slapped a 32-round clip into the mini-Uzi, "Little Lightning."
The ounce man watched Bolan in the rearview mirror. As the Executioner strapped on the holster with the stainless-steel hand cannon, dropped the frag grenades, spare clips and mini-Uzi into the rucksack, the dealer shook his head and sighed. "You crazy..."
'The Devil's Horn."
The dealer went as rigid as a board. "What did you say?"
"It's no secret in my circle, guy. What is it, who is it, and where is it?"
The dealer chuckled, as if Bolan had said something absurd, then he laughed out loud. His throaty laughter ended just as abruptly when Bolan jammed the silenced Beretta muzzle against his neck.
"I don't remember telling you to laugh."
"Y-yeah, sure, mister, sure." There was a moment of tense silence as the guy worked on his composure. "So you're after the Horn, huh. Well, there's nothing I can really tell you about it."
"Then you'd better make up something fast," Bolan growled, pressing the muzzle into the guy's neck, knowing the dealer was trying to bullshit him.
"Awright, awright. Like I said, I'm only small potatoes in this organization."
"What organization? The Mafia?"
"Hell, buddy, from what I've heard on the streets and among the other ounce men, these guys own those Sicilian creeps, lock, stock and barrel."
"Who are they?" the Executioner prodded. He already knew the answer, but hoped to dig more information about the Devil's Horn out of his handle by playing dumb.
"I dunno," the dealer answered gruffly, glancing sardonically in the mirror at Bolan as if he'd been asked a stupid question. "How the hell should I know?"
Bolan's jawline flexed, and he pinned the guy in the mirror with graveyard eyes.
The dealer got the message. "Look, I'm sure you know as much as I do. I ain't the guy to talk to. You want Ronny Brennan, the pretty boy uptown. He's the big gun, the guy in bed with the Families here. I hear he's the one who got the Horn in on the action in the first place."
Bolan knew exactly who the dealer was talking about. Ronny Brennan was the sweetheart of the New York jet set, a playboy with big tastes and big ambitions. He was strictly a Mob puppet, but he was a front-runner in heroin and crack. And Ronny Brennan owned a big chunk of the city's drug traffic. He was dirty, and Bolan was grimly intent on rubbing the maggot's face in his own shit. But first, that pretty boy would squawk.
"I'll get to him. He's next in line. Tell me more about the Horn."
"Hell, buddy, I told you all I know. The stuff comes from overseas, y'know, Southeast Asia, the big Golden Triangle. The heroin anyway. And that's what the Horn is working. The Horn is here, it's there, it's friggin' everywhere, buddy. They've muscled in on some pretty tough turf and kicked some butt, Mafia butt. I gather that these guys in the Horn must be controlling the operation on the other end. Hell, who knows? Maybe they threatened to cut the pipeline if the Sicilians don't dance to their tune. What do you think?"
Bolan glanced at the guy, knew the dealer didn't give a damn what he thought. The only thing Armani Suit was interested in was getting out of this alive, in one piece, and with his reputation intact so he could carry on being a "citizen."
Bolan flicked up the latches on the briefcase. Opening the case, he saw the dealer's stash. He counted twelve large plastic packets of heroin, maybe fifty vials of crack, and a thick wad of hundreds, twenties and tens.
"Looks like business is good."
The dealer cracked a smile. "Better than usual. And growing," he said, but the smile died when he realized what he'd confessed and who was in the back seat.
"I thought you said you were a smart guy?"
"I may not be brilliant, pal, but I'm smart enough to know you ain't gonna make it through the night."
Bolan looked into the mirror, met the dealer's gaze and showed the guy another graveyard smile.
"Yeah, you keep grinnin'."
The dealer muttered a curse, turned off Park Avenue. Dirty tenement dwellings loomed above the narrow streets that were like slits in the black curtain above the city. Cats and mangy dogs roamed the gutters and alleyways. Beneath the fractured maze of streetlight, cars became dark hulks. Shadowy figures were hunched in niches and alleyways or scuffling down the sidewalks.
"Nothh' but niggers and spics here," the dealer grumbled in an acid voice, as Bolan gestured for him to pull over and park in the next alley. "I'll be lucky if they don't walk away with my car, for Chrissakes."
"Your luck should hold out," the Executioner said, slipping his arms into the rucksack, fisting the briefcase and opening the door. "Get out. Look casual. Play it cool."
The Executioner fixed his gaze on the dark maw of the alley, the shadow-dark abyss that opened up before him. He saw no sign of life. Then a door at the far end of the alley squeaked open on rusty hinges. A hulk showed in the pale yellow light, then moved out into the alleyway. Bolan figured they'd been spotted by a lookout on the roof. This was it, the Executioner thought, the main drug house where his mark did business, bought and distributed the poison.
The first tentacle of the Devil's Horn octopus.
His blood racing hot, Bolan nudged the dealer ahead.
The shadow closed the door to the drug house and stepped into the stygian gloom.
"Stop right there, both of you!" the hulk snarled.
And Bolan saw the guy reach inside his jacket.
Yeah, this was it.
Paydirt!
2
Bolan had intended the hit on the crack house to be
search and destroy, take no prisoners. Still, he at least wanted to get inside the door to size up the action, separate the wheat from the chaff. Then again, he reasoned, anyone inside this house of poison was dirty. They were all chaff, and Bolan had come to reap this filthy harvest.
The black hulk who guarded the doorway to the house of poison decided for Bolan how the opening round would go. The stiletto that slid from inside his denim jacket glinted in a shaft of fractured light from a nearby window.
"Whatsa hassle down there, Skeebo?"
Bolan pinponted the voice from the rooftop, directly overhead at nine o'clock. Damn! He had played this one without recon, opting to go for the long odds instead. But he knew the anatomy of a crack house, and had resolved to blaze into the wolves' lair and burn the goddamn house down. In and out. Hit and run.
Bolan threw the dice.
The black hulk crapped out.
With a front snapkick, the Executioner drilled the steel-capped toe of his black rubber-soled wingtips into wristbone. There was a sickening crack as the giant guard's wrist bones shattered. A howl of pain ripped from Skeebo's mouth, but Bolan silenced that cry with a piledriving roundhouse right that slammed off jawbone like a thunderclap.
"Shit!" the rooftop lookout snarled.
The ounce man from Jersey decided to play it cute, and bolted as the hulk hit the alley. Bolan finished off the guard with a stomp kick that snapped his neck like a brittle twig. In his panicked flight into the shadows, the dealer tripped over a cardboard box. Bolan was all over him, snatching him off the alley floor like a hawk swooping up a hare.
Bolan shoved the briefcase against the dealer's chest. "Take it," he rapsed. The ounce man didn't have to be told twice.
The .44 AutoMag filled Bolan's fist, a four-pound stainless steel hand cannon searching for the head of the first cannibal there. Scanning the rooftop, he saw no sign of the lookout. Bolan was certain the guy had rabbited to alert that den of wolves.
Time to dig in and let it rip.
The numbers had sent Bolan tumbling into the eleventh hour.
The dealer, jacked up by the nightscorcher and hauled toward the doorway, began whimpering and shaking like a pissed-on leaf. He, too, sensed the icy specter of doom.
And Bolan became the vanguard of death and destruction.
The door to the drug house flew open. Bolan saw the muzzle of a shotgun stab through the pale yellow light, glimpsed a grim black face intent on slaughter. It was all the Executioner needed to see.
Big Thunder cannoned, split the night asunder. At the sight of the head in the doorway exploding like some rotten tomato the ounce man in Bolan's grasp nearly fainted.
Bolan shoved the thug through the doorway. In less than a heartbeat the Executioner took in the contents of the viral caldron: six viruses, five of whom were clawing for iron, and one long wooden table in the far corner of the room. The table was covered with vials, white packets, a scale and pools of dirty cash.
The five blacks around the table leaped to their feet, their faces twisted by fear and feral rage.
"Don't shoot!" the ounce man shrieked, and fell to his knees. He dropped the stash case and spread his arms as if imploring some almighty force he had never believed in until then to spare him, because all hell was breaking loose and he was the lone, the only, sonofabitching dogface in that shell-plastered foxhole. "No-o-o-o, you fucking black bastards!"
Big Thunder roared, bucking out peals of cleansing death that shook the flimsy, dirty room. Five slugs sizzled the air at 1640 fps, and the hollowpoint 240-grain screamers exploded faces and blasted open skulls, as they hammered through the table and drilled into the wall. Gore spattered the wall as headless human bowling pins toppled.
The kneeling ounce man, who had suddenly found God, sputtered, then puked, tears rolling down cheeks drained of color.
Bolan clubbed the guy over the head and dropped him in his own vomit. From above he heard shouts, feet pounding out of the rooms and down the hallway. Soldiers, zombies or punks? He'd find out.
Then the Executioner turned his attention to the sixth occupant, who was sitting in a chair hugging the far wall and looking as if he wished he was part of that wall. Bolan took two big steps toward him. On the seated dude's lap was an open case, in which fat white packets and dozens of vials trembled as the pusher's knees knocked. The guy's right hand was frozen in midair, his fingers just inches from the butt of a large-caliber handgun in a shoulder holster. The blitzkrieg had taken the pusher by complete surprise, and Bolan could tell he wasn't ready to cashier out.
Tough. Too bad for him, Bolan thought.
"Hey, man, gimme a break," the dealer whined. "I didn't do nothin'."
The pusher wore skintight black leather pants, white snakeskin boots with spurs, and a black leather vest. In his ear a diamond stud glittered, and his purple Mohawk stood up like a porcupine on the dough-white bowl of his skull.
The guy was looking good, Bolan decided.
The guy was dogshit.
Bolan raised his hand cannon, and the pusher's eyes bulged. "That's only part of the problem," the Executioner growled. "This haircut's on me."
And Bolan shaved the token white Superfly with 240 grains of grim medicine.
As arms and legs twitched in the quagmire of muck behind him, Bolan swiftly checked his rear and flanks and stepped into the dimly lit hallway. The place reeked of sweat, puke, feces — the anything-but-subtle stink of human misery. And it reeked of fear. Cold, cold fear. The scum were being hit, and they knew it.
A door crashed open to Bolan's right. He saw the club headed for his face. Whirling, his right hand snaking out, Bolan caught and locked onto that club, an eight-inch steel spike quivering inches from his eye. The snarl on the face behind the club became surprise at the lightning reflexes that had abruptly ended the assault. Then the assailant's expression twisted into shock and agony as the Executioner plunged 6.5 inches of cold cannon steel into a soft beerbelly and squeezed the trigger. That .44 slug, married with a cutdown 7.62 mm NATO rifle cartridge, exploded like a land mine in the punk's abdomen, and he vomited out guts, blood and bone through the gaping maw in his lower back. The corpse sailed back into a dark tomb.
Bolan, still hanging on to the spiked club, wheeled as a skinny black with nunchaku in his hand charged out of the gloom. The punk howled, swinging the nunchaku around his head, behind his back, between his legs. A real showboat, yeah.
Bolan looked the punk in the eye. He might have laughed if the situation hadn't been so grim and ugly; for Bolan, death was never a joking matter. He figured the punk was either stupid or suffering from delusions of invincibility. Whichever, he was checking out. Bolan could have used the AutoMag, but he decided to let this guy's lamp blow out in true barbarian style. As soon as the nunchaku went behind the punk's back again, Bolan flattened the would-be Bruce Lee, burying the spike in the crown of the attacker's skull, wood cracking bone like eggshell. The martial-arts display was over. It was thumbs-down for that guy, who would have brought shame to the ancient samurai code of bushido.
Yeah, Bolan thought, there's kung-fu fighting all over the Big Apple tonight. He moved down the hallway, caving in doors with thunderous kicks, the Flesh Shredder sweeping the interior of each hellhole.
In every room on the first floor, Bolan found the same sight. Drugged-out zombies, shells of human beings. Drool running from vented mouths. Bloodshot eyes and expressionless faces. Crack pipes and needles. Bolan had seen a lot of hells during his long and unremitting war. But how, he wondered, did a warrior fight this kind of hell? Drugs had become the life's blood of the zombies under this roof. Insidious drugs were their idols, their gods. The highs had become more important than their lives, or than the lives of others. No amount of war or earth shaking was going to clean up their act. They would have to do it for themselves. They would have to want to do it for themselves. The users, he realized, were not the ultimate enemy. No. It was the heart of the beast that had to be cut out. The demand called up t
he supply, yeah. But if the poison wasn't supplied, pushed, in the first place, there would be no demand.
Bolan moved back down the hallway. It was time to put this hellhouse behind him. The word of the hit would spread, and the message would be clear. The Devil's Horn, Bolan knew, would start looking over their shoulders. Their cage had been rattled. And Bolan was determined that there was nowhere on the face of the earth they could run or hide from him.
He would find them. And he would crush the life out of them.
Back in the charnel room, Bolan scattered the white packets to the floor, crushed every last vial of crack under his foot. This was only the beginning, and he was far from satisfied.
Suddenly, ever alert, the warrior made out the faint whine of a distant siren.
Bolan quickly hauled the moaning ounce man to his feet, and ordered him to pick up his stash case. Then he shoved the miserable dealer out into the alley, and followed him.
The blitzkrieg was striking hard, and crackling blood and thunder. The war machine that was Mack Bolan was shifting into high gear.
It was no time to slow down.
Hell, no. It was time to take the war into the belly of the monster. It was time to cut the throat of the Hydra.
A pretty boy was next on the Executioner's hit list.
One Ronny Brennan. The cute one. The lapdog of the cannibals.
Bolan hoped the bloodsucker was throwing a party.
Because it would be the last one he ever threw.
3
Ronny "the Top Dog" Brennan threw a party every night. Come hell, high water or Viking women in black leather, he was always ready for a good time. Not even death or taxes would keep him from getting the party juices flowing. Well, maybe death, he reflected, but certainly never taxes. Hell, he hadn't paid Uncle Sam a dime in more than ten years. It was something he would have liked to boast about openly, but he was a slick dude in his eyes and in the eyes of all the broads who wanted to be part of his life, and he knew when to keep his mouth shut. Still, the urge was always there to let his circle know he was screwing the system and the system was helpless to stop him.
Devil's Horn Page 2
