Wednesday’s Wrath

by Don Pendleton

  Not all of it.

  Still lying ahead was the final showdown with another fine military mind gone crazy.

  “How many people does Harrelson have?” he asked Thompson.

  “On the scene … not counting air crews … about two hundred strong.”

  “How many of those are combat people?”

  “Less than fifty, scattered all over the range.”

  “They’ll be closing, though, at five o’clock.”

  “They should be closing right now, yes. I see what you mean. I’d call it fifty good combat troops.”

  “He had a hell of a lot more than that in Colorado.”

  “Yes, sir. But he lost a hell of a lot more than that in Colorado, too. They’re not easy to replace. And about half of the survivors drifted away soon after, I understand.”

  Bolan wondered aloud, “Were you with him in Colorado?”

  “No, sir. I came in with the new wave.”

  “Did you have a brother, then, in Colorado?”

  “You must be thinking of a man named Thomas. He was staff, too, but not the same name. He died.”

  Bolan muttered, “Yes, I know.” A moment later: “Why, Thompson?”

  “Why what?”

  “What the hell are you doing here?”

  The guy shifted his gaze, intertwined his fingers, and replied, “It seems that nobody else wanted me, sir.”

  A good answer.

  No … a bad answer. What nobody else wanted was what the guy did best.

  And that was a tragic answer.

  They were bivouacked in a dry gulch along the north base of Tularosa Peak—and God it was an impressive collection.

  Four huge Chinook cargo ’copters, all buttoned up and awaiting the lift-off command, were at the head of the parade. Behind them were lined two jeeps, three personnel carriers, and a long convoy of military ground transports, followed to the rear by two more jeeps.

  Each of those jeeps boasted a machine gun mount on the rear deck—and they were manned.

  Hovering above it all was a Bell Huey Cobra identical to Bolan’s gunship. The original plan had evidently called for three of those gunships to ride the airspace above the convoy.

  They had been prepared to punch through whatever disorganized opposition might be encountered along that route. Even now, two Hueys shy, it was a formidable force.

  The ground transports were of the type designed to be driven right aboard a waiting air transport. So it could have been a slick operation, sure. The Chinooks would have gone ahead on their own, no doubt, and their hot cargo would have been transferred to the waiting planes by the time the ground convoy hit the scene. They could be buttoned up and gone within a matter of minutes after the convoy arrived at Holloman.

  It could have worked beautifully, sure.

  But Bolan had other plans for that bunch.

  It was precisely seventeen hundred hours when Grimaldi slid the Cobra into the airspace above the bivouac area. He had a hot position on the other gunship and Bolan knew that he would keep it that way. With all the other commotion around there, it seemed likely only Harrelson’s ship was immediately aware that someone new had come to play.

  Bolan punched into their tac net to announce, “You lose again, Captain.”

  That Arkansas drawl came back at him calm and unruffled: “You can’t lose the game on the opening kick-off, Hawg.”

  “Better think of it as a two-minute drill,” Bolan advised him. “The ball is on your one-foot line and you’ve used all your time-outs.”

  That other Huey was trying to get position on Grimaldi, with no immediate success.

  Meanwhile Harrelson was telling his old hellgrounds companion, “But you haven’t seen my gimmick plays yet, Hawg. There’s still time for you to concede the game and come on over to my yard for champagne and Texas steaks.”

  Grimaldi warned, “It’s getting tight.”

  Bolan radioed that other ship, “You offered me better than that the last time out, Captain. Is the market dropping?”

  “Hell no, the market is not dropping. Tell you what, name your own reward. How ’bout that?”

  It had come down to now or maybe never for Grimaldi. His tight voice hit that channel with a snap. “Hold it right there, dude! Another foot of altitude and I send you a hot golden goose!”

  The other craft abruptly stabilized.

  Bolan radioed, “You have the shoe on the wrong foot, Cap. This parley is for your sake, not mine. If you’re wondering why it’s past seventeen hundred and you’re hearing no range emergency signals, I can rest your mind on that number. There will be no CBW on the range today. You should also be made aware that the skies over Holloman are closed. Your bogus flight crews are in chains and your air transports are now manned by the Air Police. You have a single option. Put that bird down and step outside where I can see you. Kill all engines and move your personnel out of that gulch and into open country. There’s a force out there waiting to greet them. Not with champagne and steaks, but I can promise your boys bread and water, at least, for a while. You put it down right now or my friend the heat jockey will put you down, his way. Right now, Harrelson!”

  Others had been listening in on that death moment parley. Another carrier came in and a shaken voice pleaded, “Do it, Cappy. There’ll always be a next time.”

  Another chimed in with a vote. “They got us cold, Cap. Let’s quit.”

  Brognola’s marshals chose that moment to expose themselves at the rim of the dry gulch. They wore flak jackets and toted big submachine guns. There must have been a hundred of them lining that rim.

  And Frank Harrelson chose that moment for his decision. His gunship lurched skyward and dropped her tail, seeking a hot line to Bolan’s ship. A missile zipped away from there, inscribing a fiery path across Grimaldi’s bow and another quickly followed, to also miss by inches.

  Grimaldi was reacting to the maneuver, however, jockeying quickly and sending a pair of answering firebirds whizzing down in instant response. The firing angle had been momentarily lost, though, and both birds zipped past the bucking Huey to plow into a ground transport directly below it.

  Bolan yelled into the intercom, “Fifty!” and sent a wreath of fire encircling the other Cobra’s tail section.

  Harrelson’s tail rotor flew away on its own independent program and the big gunship immediately lost stability, going into a slide to starboard and beginning to slowly windmill around the main rotor.

  Down below, troopers were spilling from that line of vehicles and stretching both hands toward the small sky above their heads. The Chinooks were also shutting down, and people were moving quickly away from the big ships.

  Harrelson’s Huey slid around the face of Tularosa Peak in a windmilling climb to nowhere.

  Grimaldi’s face was tight and sad as he commented to his partner, “No place to go from there, man. No place at all.”

  “Stay on them,” Bolan instructed.

  They followed the disabled craft in a crazy plunge eastward along an aerial path, which seemed to be headed straight toward Rancho Jacundo.

  That’s where it was headed, all right, and that was where it came down—a scant fifty yards from the adobe huts. It hit with a hell of a bang and sent crumpled parts of itself scattering across the rocky ground, spilling bodies and other debris across bandit country.

  Grimaldi set down at a safe distance and a grim-eyed Mack Bolan strode across the impact area for a close inspection of the crash site.

  None of those bodies had belonged to Frank Harrelson—not the spilled ones.

  The ruptured fuselage was draped across a large rock and the odor of released fuel was strong in the air. He found Harrelson there, seated upright in the wreckage, strapped to a seat that was no longer connected to anything else.

  The eyes were open and they were watching the careful approach of Mack Bolan.

  That bloodied mouth opened also, forming words that would have sounded straight from Arkansas if there’d been any sou
nd at all.

  He was twenty feet out when a sheet of flame erupted across the line of vision, concealing everything within that wreckage from outside view, then quickly scattering the whole mess in a puffing explosion that sent Bolan to the ground, covering up against flaming debris.

  He returned to the gunship and climbed aboard.

  Grimaldi tightly commented, “That was tough.”

  And Lt. Thompson found his first words of the strike. “Hell of a way to go, isn’t it? But I guess there’s no doubt now, Colonel, that you won this one.”

  Bolan settled into his seat and fastened the harness. He lit a cigarette and watched his hands shake for a moment. He looked at Thompson, then dropped the gaze as he responded to that comment. “Nobody, Major,” he said quietly, “won this one.”

  Well, it would have been a hell of a scenario in the flesh, for damn sure.

  Nerve gas drifting across New Mexico toward Tucumcari and maybe getting there via an Indian reservation—a final word to the Apaches, eh?

  Then panic throughout the southwest: communications piracy briefly splitting the country apart; manipulation of emergency communications networks; an anxious NATO alliance wondering where all the generals had gone; perhaps even a brief national emergency in the confusion of the moment, with strategic missiles and nuclear bombers and subs poising for a response to something dreaded but not really happening.

  For the final stroke, no one anywhere actually aware of the real peril for perhaps days, or until those forbidden weapons created a bona fide emergency for another nation or two … then, maybe, for the whole trembling world.

  Yeah, Phil, it was a hell of a scenario.

  And Mack Bolan was not a damned bit sorry that the crazy bastard had not lived to see its flesh.

  In the very deepest regions of this man, though, there was a genuine and terrible sorrow that Frank Harrelson had not survived its single flaw.

  EPILOGUE

  “We have Minotti on ice,” Brognola reported. “But we found him with clean hands and I really doubt that we can make anything stick. I believe the best way to handle that guy would be just to turn him loose and let his own people have their will with him. It would probably be much harsher treatment than anything he’d find with us. I take it this whole thing with Harrelson was his baby—I mean from Colorado on. I’ve had some people back east checking this thing out all day and it seems there was a connection between those two predating Colorado by several months.”

  Bolan smiled sourly and commented, “Then he stuck the family treasury for gobs of bucks poorly spent. Maybe you’re right. Go ahead. Send him home in tatters. For sure, that won’t be doing the guy any favors.”

  Brognola seemed a bit startled by the easy argument. “Okay. We’ll do that, then. Uh, listen—I’ve had people in Dallas all day, too. We, uh, went ahead and swept the place clean.”

  Bolan quietly said, “Okay.”

  That, too, apparently came to Brognola as a surprising response. He fidgeted for a moment, then said, “So there’s no damage to your timetable. We can go on with—”

  “Wait, Hal,” Bolan said, holding up a hand in quiet protest. “I believe I want to rethink my position.”

  “Well, now wait a minute. I thought we had all this ironed out. You’re going to put me in a hell of an uncomfortable posture if I have to go back to the White House and tell that man … well, dammit, I’d almost rather change places with Marco.”

  Bolan sighed tiredly and said, “I’m not welshing on the deal, Hal. I just want to make sure I know where I am and where it’s heading. I need to breathe on my own for a while, think my own thoughts, make my own decisions.”

  “That’s fair enough,” the fed said, though obviously not entirely satisfied with the response. “How much time do you need for this?”

  “I’ll meet you in Florida tomorrow, as planned.”

  “Oh! Okay, swell. Hell, I thought you were—okay, tomorrow as planned.”

  Bolan focused his tired gaze on April Rose. “Understand?” he quietly inquired.

  She nodded the lovely head and replied, “Sure. It’s okay. See you tomorrow.”

  He got up and went out of there.

  Grimaldi was waiting for him in the plane. Bolan stepped aboard and said, “We go.”

  “Fine. But where the hell?”

  “Just pick a spot, Jack. Anywhere between here and Pensacola where it’s quiet and peaceful.”

  “You’re mad, huh?”

  “Mad as hell,” Bolan replied in a soft voice.

  “Thought so. You’ve been mad all day. Not like you, pal. Who you mad at? Why?”

  Bolan did not know why, nor did he know with any certainty at whom the anger was directed. At himself, perhaps. Or maybe at Frank Harrelson … or Bob Thompson … Phil Jordan, Mary Valdez, the whole crazy pattern … or maybe none of it.

  He just knew that he was mad as hell, deep down where it really felt.

  And this was only Wednesday.

  Turn the page to continue reading from the Executioner series

  1

  H-HOUR

  It was a dawn landing, with nothing but a makeshift windsock emplaced beside the dirt strip to guide the way in. Grimaldi made a sign with his thumb and went around one time at low altitude for a quick recon. Bolan checked the action on his Beretta then returned the piece to concealment beneath a Levi’s jacket as he scanned the layout below.

  The hammock was several hundred yards long by maybe a hundred wide, barely distinguishable from the sea of sawgrass marshland surrounding it. There were no trees and hardly any vegetation—an indication that someone had farmed the tiny island in recent times. Now it was little more than a primitive airstrip buried deep within the Florida Everglades, one of those countless oases-in-reverse that dot the shallow waters. There were no manmade structures on this one except for a rickety pier near the north end of the airstrip. A couple of small boats were alongside and a swamp buggy had been run ashore close by.

  Bolan counted five human figures standing in a clump at the north end of the strip. Off to the west about a mile, two large swamp buggies were approaching the hammock via a narrow channel of open water imbedded in tall grass; that presence would be undetectable from the surface of the hammock.

  “I guess it’s going down,” Bolan muttered to his pilot.

  “They said dawn,” Grimaldi grunted. “Is it a go?”

  “Yeah, go,” Bolan replied without emotion.

  They went, a wing of the twin Cessna dipping into a ninety-degree turn as Grimaldi lined up with the runway.

  The thing was going down, and Bolan was not thinking of the descent of the airplane. “It” was going down—no question about it. Death was overhanging that tranquil scene below—a heavy, smothering presence which a man such as Mack Bolan had long ago learned to recognize as an entity—to be felt on the skin like hot wind, tasted on the lips like brine—entering the body like smoke through the lungs to energize the bloodstream with quiet whisperings.

  Death was here, yes—palpable, imminent, unavoidable.

  Bolan and his partner could avoid it, though—this time, this place. Those down below could not; and, of course, it was Bolan’s task to challenge, not to evade.

  “See the devil force?” the pilot inquired quietly as he continued the landing procedure.

  “About a mile west,” Bolan replied.

  “Yeah—I thought I caught a glimpse. Okay. Here we go. This could be a rough one. Grab your teeth.”

  But it was not so rough a landing. The heavily mineraled soil of the hammock was nicely compacted and relatively smooth for a dirt strip. The Cessna used only about a third of the available runway for the landing roll then turned about for a quick return to the offload area at the north end, where the reception party waited.

  Some party. They were mere kids, those five. And two of them were female.

  Grimaldi ground his teeth as he commented, “Would you look at that! Babes in joyland! What the hell do they think they’
re …?”

  “Kids younger than that died in Nam,” Bolan growled.

  “Sure, but … two of these are baby dolls!”

  “Equal rights,” Bolan muttered and stepped outside.

  Baby dolls, right. Pert, smiling, overly energized by the thrill of the adventure—dancing eyes, butts wiggling in too-tight jeans as they strode forward in greeting.

  Baby guys, too. Not your stereotype smuggler, for sure. These guys would look more natural at a pantyraid or pep rally. Bright … aware … alive. Nothing really terminal could ever happen to them, could it? Life was just a game, wasn’t it, after all? The worst that could happen was that you would not collect your two hundred dollars as you passed “Go.” Right?

  Wrong.

  Bolan showed those bright smiling faces his Beretta as he coldly commanded, “Get in the plane. No arguments. Just do it.”

  Bright smiles turned to worried frowns and questioning glances furtively exchanged, but all five entered the Cessna, doing it with no arguments and no vocal comments whatever.

  They probably thought it was a bust. Big deal. So they would not collect their two hundred bucks: Go to jail; go straight to jail; do not collect your two hundred dollars.

  Grimaldi kicked a couple of bundles to the ground as he said something quick and quiet to his new passengers, then he quickly spun the plane around and returned aloft.

  The two bundles appeared to be identical. One, however, contained hi-grade cocaine worth well beyond two hundred bucks, for sure, in the underground trade. The other contained a wicked little Uzi submachine gun, some extra ammo clips, and two fragmentation grenades.

  Bolan carried the bundles to the pier and was opening the one containing the weapons when a miniature breast-pocket radio beeped an incoming signal. He extended the antenna and responded, “Striker.”

  Grimaldi’s voice came back immediately with a terse report from high overhead. “Two hundred yards off the pier in high grass and moving in. It’s a double. I count four per each.”

  Two buggies, eight guns … the “devil force.” It was a new phrase being whispered about the ’glades and along the Florida coasts, a new version of a very old game … modern pirates preying upon the smuggling lanes with a savagery never approached by Blackbeard. But this bunch was not going to find unarmed college kids awaiting their mercy. Instead, this time, they were going to find …