Executioner 024 - Canadian Crisis

by Pendleton, Don

  He found, first, Joe Staccio.

  The body was laid out naked on the artifical lawn with a small mountain of ice cubes covering the body. His flanker gasped at the sight of that there was no need to shush her.

  Standing off about six paces, beside a potted tree, was Leo.

  The muzzle of a Colt was at the back of his head, and behind the gun stood Little Al DeCristi. It was one of those sudden confrontations, an eyeball meet from out of nowhere—and the moment congealed outside of space and time.

  The entire world seemed encapsulated in that frozen moment. It finally, always, came down to moment such as this—and Bolan had learned to expect them although there was simply no way in the world of space and time to prepare for them.

  DeCristi began cackling like a crazy man.

  Leo said, "Don't let him suck you, Sarge. Blow him out."

  Translated : I'm a dead man anyway and so are you if you play his game.

  Bolan knew the game.

  And he knew guys like Little Al DeCristi. Faithful servants to the end, a life in the shadow of a life—the true meaning of fealty. For guys like DeCristi, Bolan had always felt a twinge of something approaching respect—even though they deserved it no more than a bird deserved respect for flying.

  Bolan moved only his lips to instruct his flanker. "Put a burst into the ice," he commanded.

  No sooner said than done. The hot little burper sent ice flying everywhere and the body beneath it quivered with the impact of steel-jacketed slugs at high velocity.

  DeCristi's horrified attention flew there for one fatal instant—an instant outside of space and time—and then Leo Turrin was on the deck and rolling and the .44 was saying goodbye to fealty.

  The hit flipped the little guy around like a rag doll and deposited him alongside ice mountain.

  "Slick, slick," Turrin growled as he rolled to his feet. He cast a quick glance at the lady with the chattergun and the question was there in the eyes but there was no time to voice it.

  Several boys were running over from the south wall, all that remained of the roof crew. They had been watching the massacre on the street, and it was a wonder that they even heard the rooftop gunfire in the background of all that. But they had, and they were coming to investigate.

  Turrin told Bolan, "There's only three. That's one apiece. Let's take them."

  "We'll take them," Bolan replied, indicating the girl with a flash of his eyes. "You get that chopper up here."

  Turrin nodded and moved clear, digging into his pocket for the radio.

  The Executioner's icy eyes gave his flanker a glint of confidence as he explained her fire assignment. "I'll be moving center and right. You take whatever pops on my left flank."

  She was scared, sure, but it was the fear of the novice—the green soldier—more afraid of herself and her own reactions than of any enemy.

  Bolan's fear was a professional one. He knew that all of life was lived on the heartbeat, and he knew how frail was that beat. One stagger, one moment of indecision or one heartbeat of error—no matter who the enemy—could mean the end of war.

  The final answer, always, is death.

  This girl had to learn that—if only in the way Bolan had.

  He moved across the steps of the penthouse terrace and went down to meet the enemy, his petite flanker and apprentice-at-war moving quietly in his shadow.

  These boys were playing it cagey. They'd split up and were moving stealthily now along three converging lines of approach.

  Bolan found his position and pushed the girl into the shadow of a potted tree. "Wait them to the wall," he whispered.

  She nodded understanding and crouched over her weapon.

  Bolan grinned at her and she smiled back, though it was a quick one.

  The first one to show himself was in her fire zone. The guy slithered over the wall and was down in the shadow of it in a twinkling. Bolan saw it, and he saw Betsy's muzzle lunge toward that target but a heartbeat too late. She stayed her trigger finger and Bolan said to himself, good girl.

  The other two followed almost immediately. First, one up over the right flank then another at dead center—the latter hefting a short shotgun and moving a bit less gracefully over that low wall.

  Bolan hit the guy on the right with a thunder round as he was dropping toward the shadow. It was a sloppy hit. The guy fell with a gurgle and was thrashing around in the darkness. The second round from the thundering .44 gouged the wall where the shotgunner had been a heartbeat earlier.

  Both survivors were crouched in the two-foot shadow where wall met roof, utterly without cover except for the darkness, undoubtedly very much aware of their unhappy situation but with no place to go but forward.

  Bolan swivelled his head but not his eyes as he growled to his flanker, "Spot them?"

  "More or less," she replied in a quavery whisper.

  "Take them," he said.

  He sensed her hesitation and repeated it, more commandingly, "Take them!"

  The burper erupted immediately, figure-eighting the left flank and leaping right. The guy with the shotgun jumped up as the burst from the chattergun swept toward him, the weapon at his shoulder in a desperate bid for survival.

  The AutoMag roared out a double thunder roll, eclipsing momentarily the chatter from the left. The shotgun blast went toward the moon as the guy was flung back against the wall—and, at that same instant, the fast tattoo from Betsy Gordon's automatic ripped into the guy and held him there for a moment, pinned to the wall, the life forces exploding out of him in a dozen rivers of death.

  Bolan went forward to verify the hits. He had to put another round into the first one down. The guy at the center had died on his feet. The one on the left was alive but choking on his own blood.

  Betsy had crumpled to one knee, the muzzle of her weapon resting on the cement of the garden patio in the same spot from which she'd been firing.

  Bolan trudged back to her position and coldly told her, "Clean it up."

  "Wh-what?"

  "Your man is suffering. Finish it."

  She shrank from that chore.

  He lifted her by the arm and guided her to the place. The dying man's eyes were open and pleading as he weakly fought and kept losing to the blood in his throat—the breathing bubbly, lips flecked with red foam.

  "Do it !" Bolan commanded.

  She could not.

  The AutoMag leapt to the task, giving instantce to a lingering certainty, then Bolan curled an arm around the girl and led her to the open area beyond the patio wall.

  There were no words for the aftermath of this "lesson" in "answers." They waited quietly until Leo Turrin rejoined them.

  "On the way," the little guy reported. He was giving the girl a curious inspection. "How far is the lady going?"

  "As far as she wants to go," Bolan replied quietly.

  "I recommend very, very far," Turrin said. "There's been a slaughter below. The cops are entering the building now."

  A question remained unspoken in Betsy's eyes. Bolan asked it for her. "Any word of another battle?"

  The underboss shook his head uncertainly. "I don't know what you mean."

  "So there's no word, yet," Bolan said, for the girl's benefit. To Turrin, he explained, "The battle for Quebec. Chebleu is leading a force against the Mafia Quebecois."

  "Hell, I hadn't heard of that," Turrin replied. "You will," Bolan assured him.

  Familiar windmill rhythms were approaching through the air from the south.

  Turrin said, "Stay hard, Sarge."

  "You're not coming?"

  The largest little guy shook his head at that. "Wouldn't look right, would it? Naw. I'll wait for the cops in the penthouse." He grinned. "My lawyers will have me sprung from this rap before the cell door closes. Think of all the wild stories I can tell when I get to New York."

  Bolan grinned solemnly and clasped the little guy in a bear hug. "Give my best to Hal," he said gruffly.

  "Will do. I guess he'll need it. P
robably has his tit in a wringer, right now." Eyes flashed to the lady. "Sorry, ma'am."

  She'd not even heard. Glistening eyes were on that wall back there.

  The chopper was settling in.

  The three strolled casually to the touchdown spot. Handshakes all around, a word to the pilot from Leo Turrin, then the little guy was out and clear and the chopper was lifting away from the Tree of Montreal.

  The girl collapsed entirely into Bolan's embrace, nuzzling the cold little face onto his shoulder.

  She moved moist lips to his ear and whispered, "It's a nightmare."

  Sure, Bolan thought, relaxing into his own weary soul. An eternal nightmare.

  But also, it was war.

  EPILOGUE

  The helicopter set them down within a two-minute jog of the warwagon. They lost no time claiming the battle cruiser and quitting that area.

  Bolan was in blue jeans and flannel shirt, the battered fishing hat, all weapons stowed.

  Betsy wore one of Bolan's shirts and nothing else but the effect was little different than that of a mini.

  He activated the radio scans and set course for Bois des Filion.

  Betsy was awed by the warwagon but as interested in the living accommodations as in the war-are capabilities.

  She perched on the seat at Bolan's side and listened to the swirl of intelligence coming through on the radio monitors. She had snapped back quickly from that horror on the roof. The colour was back in her cheeks and those lovely eyes were finding their proper depths again.

  She asked, "Where are we going?"

  He told her, "I'm headed to the next combat zone. How about you?"

  She showed him a self-conscious smile. "Thanks, no. I think there must be a better way. For me."

  He assured her that there was, then said, "I guess I'll stay north of the border until the fur settles a bit. Couple of days in the woods, maybe. A little fishing, a lot of sleeping."

  She smiled at that. "A little hunting?"

  He rolled his eyes as he replied, "No way. What are your plans? Immediate plans, I mean."

  The girl turned up her palms and inspected them. "Gosh, I don't know. I suppose I should try to get back to Andre."

  "You can forget that," Bolan told her, lapsing back to the sober mood. "There will be no revolution in Quebec."

  She replied, small-voiced, "I know that."

  "You knew about Andre—his many lives ?"

  She nodded. "I knew that he was acting doubly. I guess I've always known that he would one day make the choice one way or the other. I kept hoping it would be our way." She spread her hands and tried on a bright smile. "Actually, I guess, every way is our way. Some ways just take longer."

  "And last longer," Bolan added.

  "Right, right—I guess you're right."

  "Want to go fishing with me?"

  She giggled, the kid forever. "Sure. Why not?" Bolan reached over to squeeze her arm and said, "Welcome aboard."

  "You, uh, mentioned something else on the program, other than fishing."

  "I did?"

  "You, uh, said ... a little fishing, and . . ."

  He gave her a sidewise glance and said, "Questions, questions."

  She giggled. Hell, he liked that giggle.

  "I'll bet you have an answer for that, too," she told him.

  "I have my answer," he said, smiling.

  "I'll settle for that," the ex-guerrilla softly told him.

  So would Bolan. For a while.

  But there were many other questions prowling the landscapes of humanity, savage questions, and the Executioner knew the answers.

  A little fishing, a lot of life with a grown-up kid who had a lot of that to share, then back to the wars.

  Mack Bolan could live with his answers, and it therefore mattered not a damn that he would one day die with them.

  Could any man ask for any more?