by Dick Stivers
There were too many of the enemy for a grandstand play to be successful.
Unless it was one hell of a grandstand play.
He circled the camp, encountering no more lookouts. They had to feel secure; this was their territory.
Bolan returned to his original position at the back of the munitions dump.
There were three sentries posted behind the building. They looked none too alert, though, and they were huddled fairly close together. That would help.
The sentries laughed and talked among themselves as they passed around a liquor bottle.
Bolan hoped the noise of their voices would be enough to cover up what happened next.
Bolan raised the M-16.
He squeezed the trigger.
He did not see the bullet zip through the eye of one guard. He was already tracking to the next, firing again.
The second man kicked into a loose death sprawl. He hit the ground a split second after the first.
The third sentry actually got his mouth open to yell as he tried to bring his weapon up into firing position.
Bolan sent a slug sizzling into that open mouth. Flesh and bone erupted out the back of the head.
The three kills had taken seconds.
Bolan waited until he was sure the guards' deaths had gone unnoticed. Then he moved out as silently as a flitting moth.
He slung the M-16 over his shoulder, stepped over the bodies and took a running leap at a low wall of the building.
He went up the wall easily, lithely.
When he reached the top, he lay flat.
No sounds came from the other side.
He had to chance it.
He swung himself down through the bomb-damaged roof into the building.
It was dark and still inside.
Nothing moved.
The fire outside cast a feeble glow down through the opening where the roof had once been.
As Bolan's eyes adjusted, he saw that the floor was littered with rubble from the collapsed roof. Moving carefully, he skirted the bigger chunks and made his way toward a heavy wooden door set in one wall.
The door was not fastened, just rested against the opening in the wall.
Bolan grabbed both edges of the door and shifted it sideways, creating a space just large enough to slip through.
Before him was a narrow corridor that was a little brighter than the room Bolan stepped from.
At the end of this hallway there was another door, which was ajar. The glow from a lantern filtered into the passageway. The floor of the hall was also covered with broken chunks of the roof.
Bolan padded along a pathway through the junk, taking great care not to set off a clatter, however slight.
As he had suspected, the hallway led to a main room at the front of the building. He stopped before he reached the door and flattened himself against the wall.
"You are a very stubborn woman," a man's heavily accented voice snarled.
"And you're a murderer of women and children."
Jill Desmond's voice was cold and flat and showed not a trace of the terror she must be feeling.
Bolan could not help but smile in the gloom.
Bullheaded she might be, but Jill Desmond, journalist, had guts.
"We can make things very unpleasant for you, Miss Desmond." The accented voice continued.
Has to be the VC leader, Bolan thought.
"If you will only cooperate with us, things will go much easier for you."
"Bullshit," live-wire Desmond shot back. "You'll do what you want anyway, no matter what I say. I won't give you the satisfaction of seeing me beg."
"That is regrettable." The VC sighed. "I must therefore summon assistance in this interrogation."
* * *
Jill was cold.
Tropical country or not, she was cold. Fear made her that way.
She didn't have to be told what cooperate meant.
If she gave in, she would be smuggled north to Hanoi and made to parrot their line of garbage.
And garbage was what it was.
She knew that now.
They called themselves freedom fighters and patriots. No way. They were murderers, rapists, cold-blooded ravagers of the weak and defenseless.
Who was there to stop them?
The VC grunted his frustration. He grabbed Jill's hair, lacing his dirty fingers through her chestnut strands, and pulled cruelly, bringing a gasp of pain from her lips.
Then he gave her head a rough shove and stepped toward the door to call the torturers. The real interrogators.
Jill sensed movement behind her. She twisted her head to see what awful thing was going to happen next.
A tall young American soldier with chips-of-ice eyes stalked into the room.
Recognition flared in Jill's brain.
Sergeant Bolan!
The rifle in Bolan's hands spit death.
The round from the M-16 caught the VC leader in the throat. The man's neck disintegrated as blood splattered all over the room. The dead man tumbled and sprawled into a corner.
Jill Desmond, her fatigues torn but not indecently, sat tied in a crude wooden chair.
One quick step put Bolan beside the chair where Jill sat. Her eyes were wide, stunned, shocked by the violence she had seen and experienced tonight. But she was coherent. Bolan unsheathed his knife and cut the cord that bound her.
"You okay?" Bolan asked in an urgent whisper.
She took a deep ragged breath, then nodded.
"How did you find..."
Bolan interrupted the question with a gesture. "No time. Let's get out of here."
He walked to the dead officer and bent down. He rolled the corpse over and stripped the uniform jacket from it.
"Here," he snapped, and threw the garment to her.
Jill flinched from the jacket. It was specked with blood in places. But common sense and survival instinct prevailed over her revulsion.
She slipped into the jacket, knowing she would have to wear something over the torn fatigue tops or the jungle growth would flay her flesh to ribbons.
Bolan grasped the VC corpse and hauled it away from the door, shoving it against a wall where it would not be seen unless someone came all the way into the room. Then he extinguished the kerosene lantern that sat on a table.
In the last instant of light before the lantern went out, he saw Jill watching him. She was damned attractive, even after everything she had been through tonight.
He grasped her arm in the darkness.
"Come on."
He guided her into the narrow corridor that led to the back of the building.
She stumbled several times over the rubble, but Bolan's firm grip kept her from falling.
They had to hurry.
Much as he might have liked to take it easier for Jill's sake, they could not afford that luxury.
They had to get out of Xan Lung before the VC leader's body was discovered.
A startled shout echoed down the hallway, then harsh yells.
The body had been discovered.
Within seconds the chase would be on.
Bolan jerked Jill Desmond into the room at the end of the corridor of the damaged munitions dump. He pushed her toward the back wall.
"I'll give you a boost," he told her. "Once you're over, head for the tree line."
"What about you?" There was a genuine concern in her voice.
"I'll catch up to you," Bolan grunted.
He stooped and grasped her around the hips. He hoisted her into position so she would grab the top of the wall.
She started to pull herself up and over to the outside. Bolan placed one hand behind on a nicely shaped rump and gave a purely strategic push.
Jill hauled herself to the top. A second later she disappeared over the wall.
* * *
Bolan was right behind her.
He paused at the top of the wall.
There were several sections of the old munitions depot roof that were intac
t, though drooping, especially near the edge of the roof.
Bolan moved out onto one of those sections for a better look at the uproar gripping the Xan Lung camp.
The VC were disorganized. But only for the moment. Already someone had thrown more wood on the fire so that it blazed and shed stronger illumination across the jungle surrounding the clearing.
Time for the play, grandstand and all.
Last chance, in fact.
The blitz artist tugged grenades off his belt, moving smooth and efficiently, pulling out the pins one by one. He tossed the bundles of death and hellfire into the VC camp.
One Cong saw things dropping from the sky and let out a startled yell.
The first grenade blew and ripped him apart, leaving a shallow hole in the clay and a mangled splotch where a heartbeat before a man had stood.
One after another the grenades exploded.
Some of the VC dived for cover, but many of them never had a chance. Shrapnel tore into them, shredding lives and limbs in a fireworks display of airborne body parts. The air was filled with high-pitched screams as men died.
It took just seconds for Bolan's five grenades to unleash their hellfire. At least half a dozen VC died as the Executioner canceled their tabs.
That left quite a few of them alive. Some of them spotted Bolan.
Bolan flicked the M-16 to full-auto as the cooking muzzle tracked an arc of death. Bolan cut down three more of the enemy in a figure eight of blistering lead. They never knew what hit them. The 5.56mm slugs ripped through flesh, splattering brains, pulverizing hearts. Vietcong did weird death dances in the flickering firelight, before sprawling immobile into the dark shadows.
Bullets whizzed all around Bolan, singing angry songs near him.
From his position atop the wall he cast a glance toward the tree line where waist-high elephant grass bordered the jungle.
Jill had already vanished into the night.
Even if he never left this clearing, Jill would have a chance, he thought.
And that was all you could ask for in the jungle.
The M-16's muzzle spit its last round, planting a death kiss on the forehead of a Cong who had peeled off some rounds at Bolan from half-assed cover.
Bolan slung the rifle over his shoulder and grabbed for his holstered .45. But his weight suddenly became too much for the section of roof on which he perched.
With a rumble, it caved in.
Bolan fell with it.
As he dropped, he twisted his body in an instinctive reflex. His back scraped the top of the wall, but he fell outside the building.
He hit the ground, rolling, and came up ready to dive toward the back corner of the bombed-out arms depot.
Too far away.
His body would be butchered by VC slugs before he could cross the clearing.
"Hit the dirt!" a female voice yelled at him from somewhere beyond the flickering blaze.
Bolan hit the dirt, his .45 and eyes panning the night for targets.
He saw Jill come around the corner of the old munitions building with one of the fallen sentries' AK-47s. She held the rifle awkwardly, but there was nothing clumsy about the chattering stream of hot lead that erupted from its muzzle.
Bolan stayed prone under the line of fire and let the slugs chew up the careless enemy. Several went into stumbling death slides, blood spurting.
Bolan triggered his .45, adding to the carnage.
Jill reached his side and crouched there.
Their combined firepower, the lady journalist with her confiscated AK and marksman Bolan with the .45, was withering.
The smattering of answering fire from the darkness stuttered into nothing.
The jungle line was only a few meters away.
Bolan seized the lull, leathered his side arm and grabbed the lady's wrist, guiding her along with him as he withdrew for the tree line.
They plunged into the dark jungle undergrowth needless of the branches and vines whipping at them like hungry things.
Jill let out a ragged breath from time to time, but Bolan urged her on. They could not afford to face more VC who might be in the vicinity.
Within moments, sounds of pursuit rustled in the distance behind them.
"Where did you learn to fire an assault rifle like that?" Bolan asked the woman.
"Back there," came the grim reply.
There was no trail through this part of the jungle, but they were heading in the general direction of the road from Three Click Fork.
Or so Bolan hoped.
His instincts proved right.
They stumbled out onto the rough surface of the road forty minutes later.
They would be better targets at the moment, if the VC managed to close in on them from behind, but they could move faster on the road.
The VC had not yet reached the road.
A shadow moved in front of them.
Bolan spun Jill away from him, splitting them up to make them harder targets. He brought up the reloaded M-16 and tracked the rifle on the moving spot.
His finger froze on the trigger a fraction of a second before sending a bullet into the night.
He heard the cry of a child.
A little boy, no more than four or five years old, stumbled into the road, tears running down his cheeks. His clothes were in tatters. There was blood on his face from a gash in his scalp.
He was alone.
Jill crouched on the other side of the road, her AK-47 up and ready. She saw the child, too, and moved back into the center of the road to join Bolan. He was already advancing toward the boy, more wary than ever of an enemy trap.
The child saw the two adults approaching and turned to run away.
Bolan caught the child's arm and stopped him.
Two still forms on the road nearby caught Bolan's attention. He took a closer look: the child's parents. Dead. Slaughtered.
"From that burned-out village, more than likely," Bolan grunted under his breath. "The VC caught them on their way out. This is no place for the little guy. Not tonight."
The soldier gathered the child up in his free arm and glanced at Jill.
She looked as if she needed to catch her breath, dangerous though the delay might be.
There was still no sign of Charlie.
Bolan let himself start to hope they might successfully escape.
"Take a minute," he told the woman. He looked at the boy and saw the terror on that young face. "It's okay, son. You'll be all right now." He patted the child.
The boy didn't understand the words, but Bolan's gestures reassured him. He stopped crying.
Jill watched the care and compassion with which Mack Bolan handled the Vietnamese youngster.
"Thank you," she said abruptly. "After everything I said to you earlier tonight, I don't know why you put your life on the line to save me."
"Orders," he said gruffly, grinning.
"I'm not so sure. I'm not sure about a lot of things I used to be very sure about."
"Like who the savages are?"
She grimaced.
"I think I was just introduced to them. What I saw… the atrocities they committed… that's what this war is all about, isn't it?"
"The families in that village were feeding us intel on VC movements," Bolan told her. "This war is about a lot of things, Jill. Some good, some bad, and all of it matters. I've learned a few things, too. I didn't figure anybody who felt like you do about this war could care enough to fight the way you just did. You are some lady, lady."
She met his eyes.
"I decided we were on the same side after all, soldier."
Bolan nodded.
Yeah, they were on the same side.
The side of humanity.
Bullets cracked past them.
The range was bad and so was the light, but the pursuing VC were peppering the night blindly from way back in the jungle as they closed in.
He and Jill jogged off beyond the tree line, away from approaching Vietcong.
> At the sound of gunfire the child started squirming under Bolan's arm. He had seen home and family destroyed; innocent eyes witnessed what it was like when cannibals ran unchecked in the world.
A white-hot poker stabbed Bolan in the left leg.
He stumbled but did not go down. Not at first. Then the leg buckled, and he fell.
Bolan cradled the kid to prevent him from being hurt as he rolled over and got to one knee.
Jill stopped beside him, breathless from running.
He scanned the terrain behind them with combat-cold eyes, the M-16 ready. He handed the boy to Jill.
"Move!" he barked.
In the night their eyes met for a timeless moment. Then she ran off, clutching the little boy to her.
Bolan turned toward the direction of the pursuing VC.
Suddenly the jungle darkness blazed into brightness.
At first, Bolan did not see where it came from. There was no time to pinpoint the phosphorous flare that floated down from above.
He heard frantic scrambling noises close by. Squinting against the glare, he sent a long stream of hot lead into the wall of green made silver by the eerie glow of the flare.
Some of the scrambling and rustling sounds stopped. Some.
When the rifle's magazine ran dry, he barely paused in his firing to feed the M-16 a new clip so the mighty weapon could continue hammering, bucking in his steady grip.
It was then he realized the pounding wasn't in his veins but the rotor throb of an approaching chopper.
A big Huey gunship sailed into view overhead, its mounted machine guns raining death on the remaining VC.
Bolan got to his feet as the chopper settled down on the road. The heat of battle had made him forget the pain of his leg wound. Now it hurt like hell. His left leg was stiff from the gouge an enemy bullet had put there.
He looked around. Jill Desmond had stopped down the road a few hundred feet. He could make her out in the Huey's flight lights. She looked stunned.
Even the child was wide-eyed and quiet.
Blancanales called from the open door of the Huey.
"Move it, Sarge! We've got to get out of here before Charlie calls reinforcements."
The flare sputtered and died in the sky.
Jill Desmond ran over to Mack Bolan by the chopper.
Bolan took the kid from her and passed him up to Zitka's outstretched arms. He saw other members of Sniper Team Able inside the Huey.
