Wednesday’s Wrath

by Don Pendleton

  “And there could be a dozen more within quick-reaction strike range,” Bolan told him.

  “Uh huh. So it all depends on a quick in and a quick out.”

  Bolan said, “It all depends on you, pal.”

  The pilot took a deep breath and said, “Okay. I’m game.”

  They were looping back northward, now. The adobe huts were directly below. Two vehicles were on the dusty road, heading out.

  “Your way,” Bolan said. “Go.”

  “There’s only one way,” the gutsy pilot responded. He had been studying the terrain and now evidently had his approach fixed in the mind. “Hang on,” he warned, and immediately altered the pitch of the rotor for fast descent.

  The sensation in Bolan’s belly was one of falling in a runaway elevator. They fell for what seemed to be several thousand feet before the motion took on a noticeable horizontal attitude—and now Bolan could see the people on the ground in the adobe area. They were Indians—or appeared to be—and all in view were female. Some of them were shading their eyes and looking into the sky toward the “falling” aircraft—but then all that flashed past and Bolan realized that Grimaldi had executed a 180 during that descent and they were now sliding along the backtrack and angling into the buttes, at about 200 feet over the deck.

  He could see the zigzag canyon through which he had earlier entered the stronghold and the present point of view confirmed the earlier feeling that the inner basin was considerably higher than the outer one.

  Grimaldi was an absolute master of the rotary wing. The entire approach maneuver had consumed a mere few seconds; suddenly they were above the inner basin and settling quickly onto the operations pad alongside the Hueys.

  Bolan growled, “Neat, neat.”

  “You’ve got to buy me at least a minute, guy,” the pilot reminded him.

  “I’d guess you already bought it,” Bolan replied. He had the hatch open and was climbing out. Nothing in his vision field was yet moving inside that camp. He stepped out from beneath the whirling blades and took several paces toward the trailers, then halted and knelt to the ground as though to tie a shoelace.

  Behind him, the rotors of the rented helicopter continued to churn the air in a neutral idle.

  A guy in fatigues emerged from a trailer far downrange, shielding his eyes and staring toward the pad for a moment before moving back inside.

  Behind Bolan, the deeper rumble of Bell Cobra power began to grow and quickly eclipse the churnings of the little bubbletop.

  Bolan stood up and lit a cigarette, hunching against the turbulence from the whirling blades and cupping his hands to shield the flame.

  A jeep appeared from around the corner of a trailer, making its leisurely way toward the pad.

  A guy in khakis hurtled out of another trailer to shout some anguished command to the man in the jeep.

  The jeep stood on its nose and waited while the man in khaki sprinted toward it.

  Bolan casually flipped his spent match into the air and walked back toward the whirling blades.

  Grimaldi had the Huey firing smoothly and already beginning to rise off the pad. Bolan climbed aboard and they lifted away.

  The jeep was directly below, now. Thompson was standing up in there and waving both hands in a frantic effort to call the chopper back.

  But that chopper was not going back.

  Bits and pieces from it, yeah … Bolan would gladly send that back. He was, in fact, already preparing to do so.

  There was some kind of commotion outside. The soldier kept throwing these quick glances at the window, only giving about half of his attention to where it belonged. And Minotti was getting sick of this shit.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you!” he growled.

  “And I’m listening,” said the stiff-ass.

  “Well, what the hell is going on out there!”

  The guy tossed Minotti a go-to-hell look as he got up and marched to the window. That son-of-a-bitch marched everywhere he went. Minotti could almost hear drums beating and martial music every time that guy made a move. And he was sick of that shit, too. Still … you had to feel something for this guy. He was hard as nails, a big guy with a cast-iron jaw and not a damn soft spot on him—no soft spots between the ears, either. If the guy could only unbend a little, now and then. Did he always have to be on parade?

  Minotti stayed where he sat and looked the guy up and down, wondering what the hell. “What is it?” he asked him, softening the voice just a bit.

  “Helicopter,” Harrelson said quietly, thoughtfully. “Incoming. Not one of ours.”

  “Oh,” Minotti said, looking at his watch for no conscious reason.

  The stiff-ass was at parade rest or something, standing there with the feet spread and hands clasped behind him, gazing out the little window of the trailer. He needed a swagger stick, Minotti decided. That would cap the whole thing off.

  Suddenly Harrelson moved toward the door and tossed a single word to explain it all. “Jordan.”

  Minotti knew a sudden irritation. And he knew, now, why he’d instinctively looked at his watch. The boys must have blown it. They were supposed to. … If the son-of-a-bitch … Bean said he was there. Now Harrelson was saying he was here.

  Well, there was going to be a hell of a scene, probably.

  But, after all, who was bankrolling this damn …?

  Minotti surged to his feet and followed the soldier to the door. The guy went out to stand on the little porch, leaving the door open. The chopper pad was about a football field away. Minotti could see a figure emerge from the background of machinery, then drop to one knee.

  Harrelson stepped back inside and told the radio guy to send a jeep to pick up Jordan.

  Minotti growled, “Why don’t you send ’im a fuckin’ limousine. What? He can’t walk a few hundred feet?”

  The hardass muttered something about “courtesies” and returned to his desk.

  Minotti just stood there in the center of the trailer, deciding on a little hard for himself. He yelled at Harrelson, “Courtesies my ass! You know how much goddam loot we got invested in this goddam thing already? Forget Colorado! I’m not talking about Colorado, although I could! I’m talking about right now! You know how much?”

  The damn guy was a Southerner. His talk was a cross between buttermilk you-all and West Point gesundheit. And you knew when he was getting pissed because some of the gesundheit got left behind and it was almost entirely you-all. The buttermilk drawl told Minotti, “I can give it to you in fractions of cents, hoss, if you really want it. If you don’t—what’s this thing you’ve got for Jordan?”

  “He gives me the goddam creeps,” Minotti muttered. “Listen, I got a right to check out a guy that makes me feel that way.”

  “He didn’t affect your people in New York that way,” Harrelson pointed out calmly. “This has been his show from the very beginning. You know that. Why this eleventh hour freeze? Is it the interrogation? He learned that routine from your own people, so—”

  “Aw, bullshit!” Minotti exploded. “It’s got nothing to do with that. And let’s get something straight right here and now! I am the people in New York! What I say goes!”

  Harrelson stretched back in his chair as he replied, “So that’s the way the ball has bounced. I’ve been wondering about that command structure. Since Marinello—”

  “Hey, don’t say that name in my presence!” Minotti stormed.

  The guy was looking sort of amused and that just angered the Mafia boss all the more. He went over and kicked the guy’s desk and yelled, “And I’m not throwing no switch for this so-called accelerated schedule until I feel better about that fuckin’ guy! You put that in your fuckin’ buttermilk and drink it!”

  But he’d lost his audience again.

  All that rage within the trailer could not now compete with the sudden hullabaloo outside.

  Harrelson reached the door in three long strides and was outside before Minotti could open his mouth to order him back. He yelled
, “Hey!” and ran after him.

  But the ironpants had taken no more than a couple of steps beyond that door. He had an army forty-five in his paw and was whirling about to shout something to the radio guy inside the trailer. Minotti collided with that whirl and both of them sprawled to the ground.

  Meanwhile over at the pad one of those big gunships was taking off. The little chopper, which had brought Jordan in, was still sitting there with its engine churning but nobody in it.

  The radio guy was now standing in the door of the trailer. Harrelson yelled at him from all fours, “Who’s the idiot in the Cobra?”

  The guy yelled back, “It’s not an authorized liftoff, sir! Those ships are on ground secure!”

  “I know that!” Harrelson raged. “Call ’im down, dammit!”

  The radio guy disappeared back inside.

  Thompson was out there cutting donuts in the jeep.

  And stiff-ass Harrelson was damn sure fit to be tied.

  Minotti found the entire scene hugely pleasing, although he was a bit disturbed by the confusion himself. But it was a kick to see these guys with their asses in their hands, for a change.

  He said to Harrelson, “You’re a little bit fucked up, aren’t you?”

  Then the scene focused a bit in his mind.

  He snarled, “Where’s that guy Jordan?”

  Harrelson replied, very stiffly, “That guy Jordan is, I believe, in the Cobra.”

  There was a perverse pleasure in that, even though the captain’s mood was more than a little disquieting.

  Minotti was saying, “Well, that’s just—” when the scene focused again.

  The Cobra was almost directly above them now, maybe a couple hundred feet in the air.

  Something flashed from the side of it, something bright and hot looking, then something else—or maybe the same thing—zipped away and flew a hot beeline to one of the big equipment rigs at the far side of the camp.

  The big equipment rig was instantly engulfed in flames and the whole goddam place shook with the kaboom that came away from there.

  Minotti screamed, “Is he crazy?”

  But the stiff-ass was not talking, now, neither in gesundheit or you-all.

  He had Minotti by the arm and he was pulling him along in a fast retreat to the cliffs.

  Sirens were going off, all around the place, and suddenly the whole camp was alive with running men and pandemonium.

  This was crazy! It was just crazy! What the hell was going on?

  That crazy CIA guy was shooting the place up!

  An electronically amplified voice was wafting across the compound to compete with all the other sounds, endlessly repeating, “Situation Blue, Situation Blue, Situation …”

  And it was that, okay.

  It was a hell of a blue situation.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  FRIENDS AND FOES

  The craft was a Bell Huey Cobra, white-glove clean and fully outfitted with rocket pods and fifty-caliber machine guns.

  “This is old home week,” Grimaldi grunted as he lifted her away, “but with a few very impressive changes. Cockpit’s roomier, too, and you better take a look at that gun.”

  Bolan went straight to the fifty-caliber mount to check out that impressive weapon. “Cross the fingers,” he muttered into the intercom.

  Grimaldi was chuckling. “They’re trying to raise us on the radio,” he reported. “Aw, hell, they’re mad at us.”

  It was at that moment that Bolan spotted Harrelson.

  The two had not met eyeball to eyeball in Colorado, so it had been a long time—but it was instant recognition, nevertheless.

  And it could have been yesterday that they were eyeing each other over a Montagnard campfire along the Ho Chi Minh trail; the guy had changed not a quiver.

  For one fleeting instant, now, their eyes met and locked at a distance of perhaps a hundred feet or so … and it was one of those electric moments. Bolan realized once again that it is not the face of a man that carried identity, but the soul itself, projected through the eyes. Because there was an instantaneous mutual recognition in that meeting of eyes. Frank Harrelson had never before seen that face in the chopper … but he knew who was looking at him … and Bolan knew that he knew.

  During that moment, Jack Grimaldi exultantly reported, “She’s hot! I’ve got a firing go!”

  Bolan broke the eye contact with the frozen man on the ground to yell back, “Let’s see something burn, then!”

  A Two-Two whizzer leapt away immediately and streaked to a meeting with a heavy equipment van. The whole target erupted into a firestorm and the shock wave from that hit staggered even the big Cobra.

  Grimaldi was some kind of damn guy. He’d flown more combat missions in gunships just like this one than most guys would want to think about and he had a string of decorations as long as the arm. He could fly anything that could ride the atmosphere and he had nerves like piano wires, with guts to match. Yet he’d been unable to find satisfactory employment in a nation weary of no-win warfare and embarrassed with its returning warriors.

  What a goddamn waste!

  But he was not being wasted now. He was coaxing that fabulous weapons system into a performance her designers had only dreamed about, and one quick look at the guy was all it took to know that here was a man in his own element and in full command of it.

  Bolan’s weapon was a “flex fifty,” which merely meant that it could be targeted and fired independently of the attitude of the aircraft—but there were limitations to that, of course. Beyond those limitations, the gunner must depend upon the quick cooperation of the pilot to establish a firing line into a hot spot. And one of those hot spots had presented itself as a quick echo of that missile hit. A squad of uniformed men with assault rifles had tumbled into view for a hot response to the emergency.

  Hundreds of fire missions had conditioned Grimaldi for the proper reaction. He knew these ships and knew their fire parameters. He must have known, too, that Bolan’s fifty was about ten depression degrees shy of the hot spot. The chopper rolled and dipped just like a conditioned reflex and Bolan’s big fifty cut through that rifle squad like a scythe in wheat.

  Only it was not wheat, of course, but the flesh and bone of men Mack Bolan had once regarded as comrades.

  And there was no joy there, no.

  He turned the fifty onto the machines at the operations pad and coolly dismantled the enemy’s flight capability from that camp, concentrating upon mechanical effects, which would disable but not destroy.

  The little rented bubbletop sent her idling blades windmilling into a nearby trailer. The tail rotor of the grounded Cobra dropped away, taking a sizeable piece of the tail assembly with it. The three smaller choppers took their disabilities via shattered cockpits and mangled landing gear.

  Two fuel tankers, off to the side, blew columns of fire heavenward.

  Meanwhile Grimaldi had sent some more firebirds streaking through the New Mexico atmosphere to wreak havoc on the installations there. Three large vans and two instrumentation trailers were in flames when Bolan gave the signal for breakaway.

  The Cobra cocked her rotors for quick git and the whole hellish scene down there slipped away in a twinkling as Grimaldi expertly swung away in a terrain-hugging withdrawal. Not until they were swooping once more over the adobe huts did he send her stretching for altitude.

  “Well done,” Bolan breathed into the intercom. And he was not just blowing smoke at the guy. It had been spectacularly done. The wrist chronometer showed an elapsed time of just under two minutes from touchdown to breakaway.

  The pilot growled, “Guess I’m getting too old for this. How do you feel?”

  “I feel terrible,” Bolan admitted.

  But someone else, he knew, was feeling a hell of a lot worse. And that was the whole object of warfare.

  “You never get used to this stuff,” said the veteran pilot.

  Bolan said, “Ummm.”

  “What?”

  “Yo
u wouldn’t want to get used to it, would you?” Bolan asked quietly.

  “God no.”

  “But …”

  “But what?”

  “Ask me how many men I’ve killed today, Jack.”

  “How many men have you killed today, Sarge?”

  “Not,” Bolan replied quietly, “nearly enough.”

  Minotti began breathing again and raised himself to hands and knees. Harrelson helped him to his feet and the two of them stood like statues at the edge of the chaos.

  “What the hell happened?” the Mafioso mumbled.

  Harrelson raised both arms in front of him, then let them fall limply to his sides. “Your eyes are as good as mine,” he replied in a choked voice.

  The eyes were sort of hard to believe, though. Just a minute ago this place had been an impressive and smoothly functioning military encampment with gobs of exotic equipment worth millions and millions of dollars. Now it was …

  The whole place seemed to be on fire. And nobody seemed to be doing anything much about that. Columns of smoke were rising high into the sky—visible, probably, in Alamogordo.

  Thompson drove up in a jeep and stood up in it to make his report to Harrelson from above the windshield. “We have six dead and two seriously wounded. All of the aircraft are disabled and will require extensive repairs. We lost the fuel tankers. We lost two power vans, the electronics lab, the communications facility. All, total loss. We do still have limited radio capability.”

  Harrelson may have looked a bit stunned but he was not the kind to fold up and cry over his losses. “Okay, let’s move the rest of it out, on the double. We’ll consolidate at Point Echo. Recover your casualties and move them with you. Activate Contingency Bravo.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  But the guy was still standing there. Harrelson snapped, “So what are you waiting for? I said on the double!”

  “It was Doctor Jordan, Cappy.”

  Minotti growled, “I knew that son of a—”

  “It was Bolan,” Harrelson declared coldly.

  “No, sir. I saw him clearly. It was—”

  “You saw what he wanted you to see!” Harrelson snarled. “The guy in that Cobra was not Phil Jordan!”