Executioner 059 - Crude Kill

by Pendleton, Don

  He arrived in time to pluck his mentor from a wind-and battle swept Colombian hilltop after a hurricane had closed down all escape.

  And he found a bonus. The colonel had a new convert in tow, a battle-hardened, highly skilled and very beautiful lady terrorist named Soraya. Grimaldi had a weakness for women; he always had. Soraya was not just any woman. She was—well, he had to find out. After accepting criticism for his disobedience, and praise for his nick-of-time rescue, he took Soraya along on the other problem.

  Costa Rica was quiet. He found nothing. Oh, he found out about Soraya. . . . And then came the message from Stony Man, from Hal Brognola. The terrorist wars were on. He was needed full time. It was a new beginning.

  He remembered then that hollow feeling when he'd gone into his first solo takeoff roll, as a young man and had looked at that empty instructor's seat.

  He had that hollow feeling right now, in the Mediterranean, ready to go to war once again with Bolan, ready to go to war against a truly crude killer.

  17

  The Executioner blew the guy away on the run with one carefully placed AK-47 head shot. The sentry's body slumped against the door and Bolan had to push the corpse aside.

  He ran up the stairs to the third floor. He met no one on the steps and looked past the door cautiously. One guard down the hall turned and brought up a rifle.

  Bolan removed him from the human race with a silent 3-round burst from the Beretta, then ran to the second door on the left. Locked. He shot the lock twice with the Beretta and kicked open the door.

  Fifteen men poured out. Graciously they thanked the man who helped them escape captivity. Bolan nodded, then fired instructions. "Oil is being pumped out. We've got to stop the pumps. And the sea is blazing with burning oil. Move this ship away from that fire. Now."

  They all ran for the stairs. Bolan opened the second door, released the rest of the crew and told them the same thing. They hurried away and Bolan followed. As he stopped to pick up two full magazines from the dead guard at the door he heard the chatter of machine-gun fire coming from the sky.

  Jack Grimaldi in his borrowed French attack chopper slammed in from the left.

  Bolan watched the chopper, its motor wide open as the attacking bird flew down in a diving strafing run.

  Grimaldi must have thought he was flying a fully armored Tomcat fighter aircraft, the way he zeroed in on the grounded chopper and blazed away at it with his fixed twin machine guns!

  The G-Force man had attacked so suddenly that there was little return fire, even from the guards around the chopper. Grimaldi and his French bird flashed past them, then ducked below the deck of the high ship, swinging away from the target before the gunners could sight in.

  On deck the enemy chopper took dozens of direct hits from the machine-gun rounds. Bolan watched as the lead messengers burned lines along the body of the craft, then raked over the cockpit.

  Grimaldi came toward the chopper again, aiming first at the small-arms fire that blinked at him from the deck, scattering the opposition, then he spun around and strafed the big chopper.

  Bolan hit the talk switch on the transceiver under his shoulder.

  "Nice shooting, G-Force."

  Even as he said it he heard a whup-whup-whup from somewhere ahead of him on the other side of the big tanker.

  "G-Force. Can you see the other bird?"

  "Negative. I saw it on the first pass, but it's gone now. Must have lifted off into the darkness."

  "Alert all our radar in the area. We need to watch for her. We must have some kind of a heading."

  "Right, they're watching. Now for some more target practice."

  Grimaldi completed the third run on the chopper. This time he concentrated on the helicopter's cockpit.

  The Plexiglas went first. Immediately a small fire started. By the time Grimaldi wheeled away and broke off his attack, the big bird had slumped on one side and her slowly spinning rotor grazed the deck, breaking one blade off.

  "Splash one, G-Force. Does that bus pick up passengers?"

  "Only if you got the fare."

  "Come in on the starboard side toward the bow, away from those guns. I'll get up there so you can see where I am. We still have some angry shooters down here, so watch your tail."

  "Got it, Stony Man."

  Bolan studied the big ship. He had a quarter-mile run through enemy troops.

  An automatic rifle stuttered behind him, chipping paint from the steel beside his head. The big man surged up and ran down the depression toward the middle of the ship, where Grimaldi could land without taking too much small-arms fire.

  The mission was not yet half done. One more chopper to find, and one mad terrorist to locate. Not half over.

  18

  A rifle bullet slammed past Bolan as he ran forward. From the other side of the ship, an automatic weapon chattered sudden death at him, but missed. For a few seconds he could not turn either way. He had to bore straight ahead, away from the protection of the loading pipes and the steel walkway on top and the valleys between the holds.

  A shadow moved ahead of him, and he fired three rounds from the Beretta 93-R he held in his right hand. The shadow screamed and fell backward.

  Behind Bolan an explosion ripped through a second-floor room, blasting furniture through the wall, billowing with red and black smoke.

  The bomb room was potent after all! And it had triggered at least fifteen minutes early.

  When the resounding slap of the explosion slammed past, the nightfighter saw a section between the holds and darted into it. He ran hard toward the center of the ship.

  A burst of fire forced him back toward the area where the chopper lay dead, tilted to one side. They were trying to herd him. He paused at another junction of the holds and checked over his shoulder. He could see no one in pursuit. Twenty yards ahead stood the wounded chopper, and just beyond that was the forklift truck the terrorists had used. He heard sounds behind him, took a grenade, yanked out the safety pin and threw the bomb. Bolan darted toward the forklift. The grenade explosion seemed louder than usual because all other firing had stopped. The quiet continued.

  He sprinted past the bird and jumped on board the steel-plate-protected forklift truck. No key was needed. He switched on the electric engine, put a lever in `forward' and the rig responded.

  A rifle slug bounded off the metal plate. Then another hit it, and he felt a third slam into the sheet metal of the small tractor. But he kept moving. He rumbled across the pad and up the side of the tanker free of loading pipes, and on toward the far bow of the ship. Bolan heard a chopper pass overhead and hit his small-transceiver talk button just as another pair of rounds careened off the metal sides.

  "G-Force?"

  "Got you."

  "See the moving forklift? That's me. Anywhere you can set down, I'll be a paying passenger."

  "I'm looking. Yeah. A spot a hundred feet ahead of you near the rail. Flat. See you there."

  The chopper hummed in close, its machine gun beating a tatoo at someone behind Bolan. Then Grimaldi was overhead and soon touched down.

  The Executioner piloted the forklift as close as he could get, felt three more rounds sprang off the metal protectors, and then bailed out, darting in a zigzag toward the French chopper. He jumped in and slammed the door. An inch from his face a round hole appeared in the aluminum metal. The chopper jolted into the air. Another round hit the Plexiglas window and glanced away. Before Bolan could find his seat belt, two more rounds zapped through the cockpit.

  The chopper tilted away from the ship and slanted downward toward the waves until it was less than ten feet off the dark water as it raced away from the huge tanker. A few farewell shots blinked from the Contessa, then they were out of range and away. Clean.

  "Thanks," Bolan said.

  "Like driving a bus," Grimaldi cracked.

  "Any compass bearing on that other bird?"

  "Sketchy, but the military boys have a radar track. As far as they can tell, the h
eading will take that hot bird over a small island about twenty miles to the northwest and about a mile off the French coast."

  "That could be it," Bolan grunted. "Can we find the spot?' '

  The French chopper had more speed than Bolan figured. He knew the other bird was heavily loaded.

  The radio chattered. A voice reported that radar had spotted the enemy helicopter again. It was still on the same course. French aircraft would be rising to meet it.

  "No," Bolan barked into his mike. "No military planes of any kind in that area. I want one target out there, not a batch of friendlies shooting at each other. No military air in that area. Make everyone understand that. And I want an assault force to hit the Contessa and mop up the mess there, got it? Make it a French force."

  The U.S. destroyer commander took the message without comment.

  They flew for ten minutes.

  "Something coming up on the screen," Grimaldi said.

  "Moving?"

  "No, it must be the island. Now if the damn clouds will stay away from the moon for a few minutes."

  The small island materialized ahead of them from the soft night sea mist. It was little more than a high sandbar with a few trees and one small hill. On the far side of the five-acre plot of land huddled the dark forms of two buildings. Winking lights came from below and Grimaldi jolted the bird to avoid ground fire.

  "Somebody down there doesn't like us," the pilot said.

  "Yeah, but who is it—our hot-cargo chopper?"

  They made a quick pass, coming up low from the water to check out the building. Bolan fired the AK-47 out the side door as they slammed past. Partly hidden by a tarp, a helicopter sat beside the cinderblock building.

  "That's as close as we're going to get to a positive ID on them," Bolan said. "It looked like the same chopper to me. Let's make a strafing run."

  Grimaldi nodded. The ex-Mafia pilot hovered the craft 400 yards away and poured machine-gun fire into the chopper. The hot lead sliced through tarp and found metal.

  Grimaldi swung the chopper out and came back at a different angle and slanted his double machine-gun fire into the chopper once more.

  After a third hosing down of the area, Bolan spoke. "Let's take a look."

  They came in slowly, at a hundred feet, ready to cut to either side. As they flew closer they could see the riddled canvas.

  A sudden flash exploded below them.

  "Watch it!" shouted Bolan.

  The minisecond Jack Grimaldi caught the flash, his finely honed reflexes slammed the chopper downward and to the right, away from the trajectory of whatever fired.

  "What the hell was that?" Grimaldi asked.

  By that time the fiery trail of a rocket tore through the sky above and to the left, exactly where they had been a second before.

  "Some kind of a hand-held rocket launcher," Bolan said. "Maybe an old 2.2. or 3.5 bazooka—but when that round hits you, it doesn't matter what tube it came from."

  "I suppose you want to go down and mop up and check for radiation," Grimaldi said.

  "Got to. Only way we'll know if it's the right chopper. Put me down at the far end of the place so I can sweep it as I go."

  They landed in the darkness on a sand spit two hundred yards from the downed chopper.

  Bolan stepped out and Grimaldi was right behind him, pulling the lever, charging an Ingram sub-machine gun without a silencer. The pilot extended the telescoping stock of the weapon and put three 36-round magazines in his jacket pockets. The magazines were loaded with the standard 9mm parabellum cartridges.

  "This is a two-man job," the sky jockey said. "Like it or not—and I don't—I better give you some close support."

  Bolan smiled. "Told you I'd make a foot slogger out of you yet. We must make sure they're terrorists before we shoot. If they blaze away at us, they're fair game. There could be some civilians on this island."

  The slab of land was a hundred yards wide, so they spread thirty yards apart and went down the middle in the moonlight, clearing any possible hiding spot by autofire as they moved. Bushy grass covered the island's far end, which meant there was no place to hide. Fifty yards ahead was a growth of stubby trees, twisted and battered by the strong sea wind, but still surviving.

  The two warriors were halfway to the trees when rifles sounded. Both men hit the ground.

  Bolan watched the fire for a moment. Two enemies, he decided. When the next burst came from the one on his side, Bolan sent three 5-round bursts from the AK-47 into the position.

  Two minutes later there had been no more firing from Bolan's man, but Grimaldi's terrorist kept shooting. The Executioner sent five rounds into the other enemy spot, then surged up and charged twenty feet ahead and hit the dirt on knees and butt of his rifle before lying flat. Just as he hit the ground, a spatter of deadly whistlers parted the air over his body. He rolled five yards into a slight depression and waited.

  Now would be a good time for Grimaldi to give him some covering fire.

  From behind he heard the Ingram chattering, blasting out a stream of 9mm parabellums at 1200 rounds per minute.

  Cover! Bolan leaped up and ran forward. He made it to the trees and flattened just inside the scrub growth. The moon was tagging the clouds again. He waited for a bright spot but could see nothing to his left. He moved at combat stalking speed, slow enough not to miss any danger, but fast enough to cover the ground before the quarry bugged out.

  A cough came from the left. Bolan froze. The cough sounded again, strained. The combatman moved slowly, not disturbing a leaf, not breaking a twig. After ten feet, he looked around a small twisted pine. A man in jeans and a blue T-shirt lay on the ground, a rifle at his side. He had turned on his back and Bolan saw the blood on his chest. The terrorist moved, tried to rise, then flopped down. A rush of the last breath he would ever take whistled from his mouth.

  Explosive automatic fire just ahead sent a dozen lead death-dealers screaming around Bolan, thudding into his protective tree, zinging past him. He slammed to the ground, his automatic AK up and ready, but he had no target. The Ingram screamed again, and Bolan edged forward toward the direction of the incoming fire. He took a frag grenade from his straps, pulled the pin and held the arming handle down in his right hand. Bolan put the AK-47 over his shoulder on the sling and carried the Beretta in his left hand.

  The moonlight spilled down for only a few seconds between new cloud cover, and Bolan stared past the pine. Twenty feet ahead he saw a man in a blue-and-white shirt and camouflage pants working on a jammed automatic rifle. The combatman rolled a grenade toward the terrorist.

  The rifleman, hearing a sound, looked up, his eyes wide with a fear visible even in the silvered darkness. He screamed just as the grenade detonated.

  The terrorist's body lifted a foot in the air from the force of the explosion and the chunks of shrapnel slamming into it. The rag doll then tilted backward, blood pouring from a dozen deep wounds before it fell to the ground.

  Silence flooded the end of the small island. Bolan cupped his hands around his mouth and called. "That's a go, G-Force. Clear here."

  "Thanks. You do good work."

  Bolan waited a minute, saw Grimaldi edge from behind a pine tree thirty yards over, and waved. They moved forward.

  There was no more opposition as they cleared the remaining hundred yards to the buildings. They had worked up with basic infantry tactics: one man advancing and covering the other. Now they lay in the short brush at the edge of the open space and looked at the chopper. The helicopter sat near the block building.

  Bolan pulled out his Starlite Scope from his belt pouch and studied the bird. He could see into the open cargo hatch. He could make out the long heavy caskets containing the fuel rods.

  Bolan and Grimaldi lay there not making a sound. They watched and waited. The attacking force always has the advantage in a siege. The defenders must defend at every second, but the attackers can pick their time. A break came three minutes later when someone coughed inside the
chopper. A whispered reprimand followed. Two terrorists in the bird, Bolan concluded.

  Bolan had seen that the lead-encased fuel-rod caskets were strapped together with steel bands for security and protection. They would easily withstand a grenade blast. He pulled his last frag grenade from his pack.

  "Going hard," Bolan whispered. He handed Grimaldi the grenade, indicating the chopper's open cargo hatch. Bolan sighted in with the silenced Beretta, folding down the front grip, putting his thumb through the enlarged trigger guard for a firm support.

  He feather-touched the trigger for a 3-round burst. The chugging of the shots came through as distinct coughs. Grimaldi threw the grenade.

  The three rounds drove through the terrorist's neck, pulverizing his spinal column, smashing his body back four feet.

  Bolan and Grimaldi waited without moving. For five minutes they lay there in the sand watching, listening for any movement.

  Bolan leaned over to his pilot, whispering so low the sound could not carry.

  "I think our condition red is over. I'll check. Cover me."

  The Executioner rose soundlessly, sprinted to the chopper's side and edged around to the cargo door. Big Thunder was out and in his hand as he checked the chopper's interior.

  An animal cry pierced the silence. A terrorist dived at Bolan, thrusting a bayonet toward his chest.

  Big Thunder bellowed twice, slanting 240 grains of hell-bent lead into the figure's belly and chest. The force of the .44-Magnum rounds stopped the terrorist, and he fell to the chopper floor, eyes glassy, the bayonet dropping from his hand.

  The Executioner stormed through the rest of the chopper, clearing it. No one else on board was alive. He found another body behind one of the large lead-lined caskets. All three of the containers were intact.

  Bolan jumped from the chopper and ran to the cinder-block building. The door was open. He charged inside and came out a minute later. It was an unused shell. No one was in either of the buildings; both had been empty for a long time.

  He started out the door when he heard a burst of gunfire. He dropped to the sand and recognized the almost-continuous explosive sound of an Ingram firing 1200 rounds a minute. It had to be Jack. Bolan crawled to the corner of the building and found his pilot standing in the middle of the clearing, staring at a body at his feet. The terrorist lay in a death sprawl, a grenade—with the safety pin still in it—held in his hand.