Terror Ballot

by Don Pendleton

  A man with a red bandanna tied around his neck was leaning out the side door of the chopper, held in place by a harness anchored to the helicopter’s crew area. He had an FN Minimi on a second harness around his body. It was a fearsome weapon, fielded by the United States military as the Squad Automatic Weapon, the SAW. The chopper passed them and began making a wide circle. The pilot was looking for a better angle, while keeping the gunner out of range.

  “Corruption is a way of life, Cooper,” Bayard said. “The police must have orders to communicate our position to elements within the Red Spiders. Vigneau is still using them to eliminate us.”

  “Do you think he’s trying to protect Gaston?”

  “Doubtful. You said yourself that what is left of Levesque and his ES is guarding Gaston at the estate. Vigneau does not care much for politics as long as he controls the streets. He will be prepared to work with Gaston as readily as anyone else, but the elections are already chaos. Vigneau will not care about that. This is about his control. His ability to eliminate us.”

  “My people won’t be happy about what I’m going to do to Gaston,” Bolan said. “But it’s what’s best for the country and, more important, it’s what’s best for the French people. Gaston’s a power-mad, corrupt lunatic. Not to mention a murderer who consorts with and uses terrorists. He can’t be allowed to ascend to power. Just the appearance of legitimacy will make him that much harder to dislodge, like an engorged tick.”

  “That is colorful,” Bayard said. “I agree with you. We should—”

  Whatever Bayard was going to say was cut off by the violent maneuver he was forced to make. The Frenchman turned the wheel so hard that Bolan felt the passenger-side wheels come off the ground. The helicopter was back, strafing them again. The SAW’s bullets chewed up the road on the driver’s side, tearing into and through the Peugeot, doing serious damage to the engine compartment. Black smoke began to pour from the engine. The vehicle slowed.

  There was blood all over the seats.

  “Bayard!” Bolan shouted. He had the M16 in his lap and was trying to find an angle from which to return fire on the chopper. The pilot was good, though; he was using his height advantage to keep the craft to the rear and sides of the Peugeot, putting the car’s roof struts between the chopper and Bolan, using the ground vehicle’s natural blind spots.

  “I am all right,” Bayard said. He was clenching the wheel with white knuckles. “A scratch. Much blood, but nothing serious. We must get off the road or he is going to get alongside us and kill us at his leisure. Stop looking at me that way. I am all right, I tell you.”

  But Bayard was not all right. He was gravely wounded, perhaps mortally so. He had taken shrapnel to the face and blood was freely flowing down the side of his head. He was steering with one arm, clutching at himself. Bolan wanted to stop and look him over, but there simply wasn’t time to argue with him. Then the idea hit the soldier.

  We must get off the road or he is going to get alongside us, Bayard had said.

  That was it.

  “Bayard,” Bolan instructed, “slow down. Get over, put lots of room between you and the opposite side of the road. I want you to look as juicy as bait can look.”

  Gaston’s estate loomed ahead. The road they traveled was a winding one, but it led to the large building. A low wall encircled the estate, most likely providing cover for multiple gunmen. Bolan relished the thought of getting into the thick of battle with the ES once more. It was time to smash those terrorists for good.

  “Trust me,” Bolan said. “We can do this.”

  Bayard nodded. He slowed the car, and, just as the soldier had hoped, the chopper dipped low. The SAW gunner was probably urging his pilot on, too. He wanted the delicious target that was the Peugeot directly in his sights, broadside, like a tiny sailing vessel bracketed by a mighty galleon, helpless under the onslaught of the larger vessel’s guns.

  “That’s right,” Bolan said softly. “You want it. Come get it.”

  Blossoms of gunfire began to glitter along the wall surrounding the estate.

  “They are shooting at us from the house,” Bayard stated. “They must be in contact with the helicopter.”

  The chopper crept up, low and slow, on the passenger side of the Peugeot. The skids were scant feet from the ground now. The SAW gunner lined up his shot and savored the thought of it. He began to lean into the butt of his weapon on its harness.

  “Bayard,” Bolan shouted. “Make a hard left, now!” He brought up the M16 and shoved it out the window.

  The SAW gunner saw it, but too late. Bolan triggered the grenade launcher as Bayard pulled the damaged Peugeot away from the chopper. The grenade struck the aluminum skin of the helicopter and detonated.

  Bolan would always remember the expression on the face of the gunner when his world turned to fire.

  The grenade tore open the chopper and spilled it and its contents across the vast field next to the estate’s approach road. The SAW landed in the dirt. The tail of the chopper ripped through the rear of the Peugeot, spinning the car, pushing it over on its side. Bolan tasted blood as something smacked him in the side of the head. His ears rang with the force of the blast.

  Then the vehicle stopped moving.

  Bolan crawled out of the Peugeot, dragging the wounded Bayard with him. Their stolen car was now standing on its side with part of a helicopter sticking out of its trunk. The car was good cover as bullets began to rattle around and past it. Bolan risked a look past the chassis. A delegation, of sorts, was driving out along the estate road. It was a pickup truck full of men in camouflage fatigues and black face masks.

  Some portion of what was left of ES was coming to meet him.

  Bolan made sure Bayard was sitting up and resting as comfortably as he was able. There was a lot of blood. The Frenchman looked at Bolan, dazed, but the soldier shook his head. “Stay here,” he said. “Don’t try to move too much.”

  Bolan was going to give the ES what they came for.

  He found the M16 on the ground. It had been thrown from the vehicle, but it did not look damaged. He checked it, made sure a round was chambered and loaded a fresh 40 mm grenade into the M203. Then, using the Peugeot to shelter his body, he waited for the truck to come just close enough.

  “American!” someone from the back of the pickup truck shouted through a bullhorn. “Surrender and you will not be killed.”

  “That’s fine for me,” Bolan said, “but what are you going to do about not getting killed?” He stepped away from the damaged car, flicked the M16’s selector switch to 3-round-burst setting and stroked a symphony of death from the trigger, laying into the oncoming vehicle with precise trios of 5.56 mm NATO rounds.

  He shattered the headlights and the mirrors. He perforated the radiator and spiderwebbed the windshield. He watched as blood coated the interior of the truck, and the dead driver, slumping against the wheel, turned it too sharply in his death throes. The pickup truck tried to make a ninety-degree turn and failed, flipping over, crushing several of the ES troops beneath its spinning, hurtling chassis.

  Bolan emptied his magazine into the ES gunmen.

  There were some who were still alive and some who were wounded. All were still a threat. This was no time for mercy.

  When he was certain no resistance remained, he set his sights on Gaston’s estate. He judged the distance; it was not too far. He gauged the angle; it was not too severe. Then, with his M16/M203 combination, he advanced on the estate and began firing high-explosive and incendiary grenades at the wall around the estate perimeter, targeting the muzzle flashes of enemy guns.

  The gunfire sometimes reached out for him, came close to him, grazed the dirt at his feet. Bolan ignored it. He was intent only on unleashing his lethal payload on the men trying to protect Gaston. Finally when he ran out of grenades, he began firing the M16, using the hol
ographic site, emptying magazine after magazine, reloading automatically, using aimed bursts to bring down all who dared to mount that perimeter and oppose him.

  It was not enough; it was never going to be enough to take and hold the building. For that the Executioner would have to enter. He would have to bring the fight right up under the enemies’ noses. He was fueled by a desire to once and for all bring his mission to a close.

  He was spurred by righteous anger about all the innocents who had died at the hands of the ES, at the hands of the gang leaders and the corrupt officials, at the hands and through the machinations of corrupt men like Jean Vigneau. It was these conditions that the Executioner had set out to correct, to put right, to eliminate with the force of his guns and his fists and his fury.

  The immediate threat was nullified, and the next step was to proceed to the main house. But first he had to see to Alfred Bayard, who he knew was dying.

  Stinking of war, Bolan went back to the Peugeot and knelt next to Bayard, who leaned against the upended car and stared at the blue sky. Tears were running down his right cheek. His left cheek was covered in blood. He was smiling.

  “Inspector?”

  “It is beautiful,” Bayard said. “It is beautiful because it is the last thing I shall see. The blue sky of Marseille. The clouds. A flock of birds. And the black smoke of your revenge, Cooper. I am not going to survive, am I?”

  Bolan paused. He checked once more, to be sure. He had been right; when Bayard was wounded in the attack, it had been mortal. His condition was not the result of the crash.

  The soldier had seen enough wounded men to know. It was a miracle that Bayard had hung on this long, in fact. How he had continued to drive like that, Bolan could only chalk up to an iron will. Bayard’s shirt was completely soaked through with blood. He had one arm wrapped around his abdomen, and it was holding in his intestines. A piece of shrapnel had blinded him in one eye, but he did not seem to notice.

  “Can you do one thing for me, Cooper?”

  “I will.”

  “Please,” the inspector said. “It is going to drive me crazy for not knowing. Who are you, Cooper? What are you?”

  “I’m a member of a counterterrorist organization,” Bolan told him. “The Sensitive Operations Group. I was sent here specifically because of the threat to American interests represented by ES’s interference in the elections...and because of the people I could help. The lives I could save. Using methods that...well, that you didn’t approve of when we met.”

  Bayard smiled again. “Of course. Of course I did not. Who are you, Cooper?”

  “I’m just an American,” the Executioner said.

  “You are a liar. But I thank you. It...it felt good, Cooper, to do the right thing. To fight...to fight for...what was right...”

  “Inspector, I want you to know that you’re a good man. And it was an honor fighting beside you.”

  “You can tell me your name,” Bayard said. “I will not have time to tell anyone before I die.”

  “My name,” the soldier told him, “is Mack Bolan.”

  “I...know that...name...” Bayard whispered. He was struggling now. “I remember. I remember.”

  “So do I,” Bolan said to the dead man. Bayard now stared at the sky without seeing it. A look of peace had come over his features.

  Mack Bolan stood and looked down at Bayard, offering a quick prayer to the universe. Then he checked his M16/M203. He had emptied its grenades and most of its ammunition. It had served its purpose. He discarded it. The fallen SAW appeared undamaged. He picked it up, slung its heavy weight over his shoulder and made sure it was ready to fire.

  The Executioner walked toward the house, ready to take on everyone inside. He did not look back at Bayard.

  He did not look back at his friend.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Mack Bolan stalked through the halls of Gaston’s main house. The resistance he had encountered outside had been the majority of the forces arrayed against him. Once inside the lavish home, he had found relatively few enemies. Those he did, he cut down unceremoniously with the SAW. The weapon’s heavy rounds and high rate of fire enabled the Executioner to scythe through his opponents.

  Bolan prowled through the halls, checking every room he came across, searching for Gaston. He rounded a corner and gut-shot an ES terrorist who almost ran into him. The SAW blew the man onto his back, and Bolan stepped over him.

  He found himself facing an ornate wooden door. The French word for “library” was carved into its frame. He tried the doorknob, which turned at his touch.

  Gerard Levesque stood there. “You!”

  “Me,” Bolan said, dropping his chin, peering at Levesque with death in his eyes. “I hope you’re ready for that trip to the other side we talked about, because I’m going to send you there screaming, Levesque.”

  Levesque actually paled. “My men are dead,” he said. “There is no one left but Gaston, hiding at the pool. He is through these doors behind me.” He pointed to the set of doors at the other end of the library. “We dismissed all the girls, all the hangers-on. We were prepared to fight you tooth and nail...but yours were the sharper teeth, yours the stronger nails. So. You can kill me. Or you can bring me in.”

  “I’m not bringing you in.”

  “Think of the information I have at my disposal,” Levesque pleaded. “My knowledge of international terrorism, my connections.”

  “I’m prepared to live without that,” Bolan said. “Seeing as how I was going to let you do the honorable thing and blow your brains out.”

  “But I can be of so much help to you and your organization, Cooper!”

  “I don’t want your help.” The soldier leveled the SAW. “I’m going to cut you in two now. Although if you’d like to blow your brains out before I do, be my guest. I figure you’ve got one coming.”

  Levesque held up his hands. “Please! Please! Do not kill me, Cooper.”

  Bolan’s jaw worked. Finally he said, “You’re right. Shooting you in cold blood like this, while you’re begging. I can’t do it.”

  Levesque looked relieved.

  “Do you have a gun?”

  “I do,” Levesque replied.

  “Drop it.”

  Levesque removed the item from his coat and threw it far across the library.

  Bolan unslung the SAW. His shoulders ached from its weight. He fixed Levesque with a glare.

  “You have a knife?”

  “Yes. Shall I lose that, as well?”

  “No,” Bolan said. “I want you to use it.”

  Bolan dropped the SAW to the floor. The switchblade snapped open in his hand. He charged Levesque, and the Frenchman, operating on instinct, reacted, slipping back, dodging the blade. His own fighting knife came out in his hand. It was a bayonet of some kind, an old M7, Bolan thought. Levesque’s expression changed when, suddenly, he thought he might have a fighting chance.

  “A duel?” he said. “You actually want to duel me, Cooper? I’m flattered that anyone could be so foolish. You thought Lemaire was good with a knife? I’m better.”

  “You talk too much.”

  Levesque tried a series of savate kicks. Bolan easily dodged them. Levesque was fast, but he lacked practical experience against a man who wasn’t fooled by his tricks and refused to fight at Levesque’s preferred range. With each kick, Bolan would step in, smashing away with hammer-fist blows to Levesque’s thighs, until finally Levesque gave up on the technique. His movements were less agile now. He was feeling the beating.

  Their knives flashed. Bolan surged forward, direct, unafraid. He slashed and stabbed, working an angle pattern, pressing his attack. Levesque proved adept at staying out of the “barrel,” the zone in which the knife was dangerous to the opponent.

  The Frenchman used very p
recise footwork to turn back and away at forty-five-degree angles, staying out of the range of a counterattack. But he was trying to pass Bolan’s blade and step in for a thrust or a slash of his own, and he was finding this difficult. That was because Levesque knew knife fighting, savate and close-quarters combat very well.

  But Mack Bolan was more adept.

  “I have always wanted to have a grand, climactic battle like this with a worthy adversary,” Levesque said as they moved back and forth. He seemed to have no lack of wind with which to jaw while he fought Bolan. The pair fought for a few minutes more until Bolan decided he was tired of toying with the French terror leader.

  Then Bolan poured on the power.

  The knife was not a weapon that required strength behind it. This was what made the blade so effective. It merely had to be fast, clever, to get past an opponent’s defenses and cut deep. Combine those attributes with good footwork, good structure to one’s techniques, and you had a “knife fighter,” a man who was very deadly with his chosen weapon.

  Combine all of that with real strength, with raw power, and you had a warrior. You had a special operations soldier.

  You had an executioner.

  With a grunt, Bolan stepped in, and now when Levesque tried to deploy his techniques, the soldier slapped the man’s arms away with such power that the blows were dealing damage by themselves. The pain began to register on his adversary’s face. Bolan was hammering away at him with a ferocity he had not expected and had not previously encountered.

  Levesque came in again. Bolan let the strike come.

  He lowered his knife and smashed Levesque’s forearm between his right elbow and his left hand, snapping the bone. The terrorist leader screamed as his knife fell to the floor.

  “Cooper—”

  “This isn’t a grand, climactic battle, Levesque. This is a rabid dog being put down.”