"Now!" he shouted. "Double time!"
Bolan and the young girl dashed for the opening. An auto-weapon snapped flame as a wounded terrorist limped after them, firing an AK with one hand. The other hand been amputated by flying shrapnel.
Bolan hurled his last grenade, an American M-26 fragger. It exploded with monstrous force, tearing the lone terrorist limb from limb.
The tactic was overkill, but it was meant to encourage any other survivors to keep their heads down long enough to allow Bolan and Kathy to reach the gate. The tactic worked.
The Executioner and his female ally ran across the fallen barricade. They were finally out of the terrorist compound and into the meadow.
Perhaps, at last, the Rocky Mountains nightmare was over.
17
WHEN RAUL HERNANDEZ SPOKE to his second-in-command he slowed his speech automatically, allowing a fractional pause to separate each word.
"No attackers will leave this valley alive. Not one!"
"Of course."
"Check out the 4WD hidden in the reserve area and make certain it is functional. It is our only vehicle. Lock in the hubs. Check the .30-caliber, and get it into its mounts on the cab. Remain with the truck. Listen for me on channel three."
When Raul said no more, the second-in-command turned on the heel of his polished boot and double-timed it to the reserve area.
If Raul said no one was to leave the valley alive, then no one would leave it alive. There was no question in his mind.
VIETNAM! Grim memories flooded Bolan's fading consciousness. A red yellow flash had erupted only yards from the fleeing pair. The murderous blast had filled the air with steel the size of ball bearings. Antipersonnel landmine!
The shock of the radio-detonated claymore's bellyful of destruction numbed his mind. But the shrapnel that had torn through his right calf muscle shook his dazed consciousness awake.
Bolan saw that Kathy too had been hit.
He rose to his feet and dragged Kathy with him. He willed the girl upright as much by his mind as by the pressure of his hand.
Hot steel had bored into her. Not knowing how badly Kathy was hit, knowing his own right leg was now less than fifty percent effective, Bolan's drive to continue was halted.
"It hurts," Kathy said. Her tone was fatalistic.
"We'll live!" Mack Bolan said. Everything depended on the will to survive.
Bolan saw the spreading stain on the left shoulder of the girl's T-shirt. It looked low enough to have missed the collarbone, high enough not to have damaged ribs.
Bolan decided to push onward, not stand and fight against unknown odds.
With legs pumping unevenly and lungs working like a pair of tortured bellows, Bolan limped on. Kathy was draped around his left shoulder. The AutoMag was drawn and leading the way.
Every time his damaged leg reached out and touched down, he feared it might betray him and buckle. Yet with each stride the leg held, despite the jolts of electric-hot pain traveling the length of it.
Together the slender girl and the tall, powerful man staggered into the night while behind them the muffled sound of the engine of a 4WD roared to life.
Their pursuers had already detonated the mine; now they were set to chew up the meat.
18
SLIPPING AND SLIDING, Josh followed his granddaughter down the wooded slope. For the third time in less than a minute he caught a boot toe on a fallen branch and lurched for-ward.
"You all right, Josh?" she called.
"About as okay as a man can be when he's just run head-on into a lodgepole."
Sara moved ahead. Through the maze of tree trunks and branches ahead and below, she could see the glow of the inferno blazing within the compound.
Puffing and wheezing, Josh reached her side.
"You going to spend all night standing here enjoying the view? Maybe you think that Winchester of yours is head-shot accurate at this distance.. . . "
"Isn't it?" Without awaiting his reply Sara plunged ahead. Knowing that the combination of distance and darkness made their efforts all but hopeless, yet determined beyond measure to do something, anything, Sara blindly ate up ground.
AT HIS SIDE, Kathy continued to match his speed. When Bolan veered from the road the girl stumbled, but his powerful arm refused to let her body lose balance.
Blood flowed freely from their wounds. Each step was a lesson in pain.
Behind them the roaring of the heavy 4WD came closer with every second.
Suddenly a probing finger of white light slashed from the side of the truck as the driver activated the spotlight.
Desperately Bolan tried to pick up the pace. He kept their course straight. There would be time enough to waste energy by dodging and darting once the light located them.
The big .44 was a match for most hardguys at up to a hundred yards. Bolan sought a rock outcrop or even a depression where he could launch his counterattack. Knock out the driver, then deal with foot soldiers when and if they closed the gap.. . .
Kathy caught a sneakered toe on a small rock and fell headlong. She pulled the big guy in a swinging arc that brought him around to face the oncoming truck.
The truck's .30-caliber fired a dozen rounds of belt-fed as a range check. The incoming slugs chewed the mountain meadow a scant half dozen yards behind where Bolan was pulled up at bay.
Kathy's commands came in choppy bursts. "Leave me. Go on. I can't get up. Go on." She struggled for breath. Her wound and the long run had taken their inevitable toll. For the shaking girl at his feet the end was at hand.
Bolan went into two-handed combat stance. The big .44 came on target, steadied, and roared.
The shot smashed into the truck's wind-shield, inches to the right of the driver's head. Though bits of glass peppered his face and neck, the zombie driver did not react. The truck continued its relentless plunge across the meadow.
AWARE THAT TIME WAS UP, Sara stopped on the top side of a length of substantial deadfall. By the time Josh joined her she had the little .243 Winchester 70 tight against her shoulder as she sought to make sense of the scene below through the K6 scope.
"That fire give any backlight?" Josh's words were clear though his lungs worked double time to supply him with oxygen.
"It helps." Sara continued to search the area in front of the oncoming 4WD where she had noticed a flash of T-shirt and bare legs. If the girl's skin had not been exposed and her shirt had got a little dirtier, Sara would never have seen the pair.
As she brought the fallen girl into view, a muzzle-flash flickered on her scope lens. "He's shooting at the truck."
The .30 caliber chattered some blind rounds as the light reflected the truck's swerve.
Bolan's big .44 roared again. This time Sara caught the flash as she worked to bring the oncoming vehicle into her cross hairs.
Using the driver-side headlight as her point of reference, she elevated the rifle until she estimated she had the driver's torso as her target. Her slender forefinger tightened and the .243 responded.
Sara squeezed off a second round, then a third.
Hounded by the 100-grain rain, the truck went into a power slide.
BOLAN'S REACTION WAS IMMEDIATE. He bent, scooped the shaking girl into his arms and turned toward the woods as the truck came to a sideways stop.
Kathy sobbed brokenly, trying unsuccessfully to still the shaking of her shoulders.
Carefully but without ceremony, Bolan dumped the girl to the ground, then put a dozen paces between her and himself. He went prone and used both hands to steady the .44.
Four times Bolan's trigger finger tightened, sending destruction into the side of the vehicle.
Sara, aware of the unusual calm she experienced in her vantage spot, triggered more 100-grains into the stricken vehicle. One of her efforts caused Gino Cabelli to bow out of his life in a mist of head gore.
Whether it was the AutoMag or the Winchester made no difference: a chunk of metal tore its way through the thin skin of the truck
's reserve fuel tank.
Nearly empty, the reserve tank was filled with explosive fumes.
Friction from the passage of the spinning slug did what was necessary.
The vehicle erupted in a punishing blast.
Seconds later the main tank became a gushing fountain of fire.
Thrown free when the truck began its slide, Raul Hernandez was showered with a liquid blaze that engulfed him and turned his life into blazing pain.
19
TWICE JOSH STUMBLED AND FELL. Each time the girl he held in his arms moaned softly but bit back any outcry.
Sara supported a portion of Bolan's weight as the quartet made its way up the steep hillside toward the Williamses' 4WD.
"We'll make it, child. Just keep hanging on," wheezed the old man, "and I'll try and stop stumbling and falling about like the old fool that I am."
Kathy's indistinct reply was lost to Bolan; Josh's boots had dislodged a stream of loose rock. At eleven thousand feet, conversation was not always possible as their lungs sought oxygen to offset their burdens, and their pain.
Josh crested the top of the ridge. He stood with Kathy in his arms, briefly outlined against the night sky that would soon show signs of dawn.
"Made it here!" They had reached the old man's vehicle. Within minutes the four mountain warriors were aboard and settled.
Bolan supported Kathy's head on his shoulder during the bone-jarring drive down the sloping back of the mountain. The trail, obvious only to Josh and perhaps Sara, took them in a circuitous route that seemed neverending. Eventually the tough vehicle emerged onto a gravel road.
Bolan felt Kathy's forehead. It was warm to the touch.
By the time the high-riding vehicle drew to a halt before the mountain ranch house, the girl's teeth were chattering despite her best efforts to stop them.
At Sara's direction Bolan supported Kathy long enough for Josh to scramble around the front of the truck.
"I've got her."
Wordlessly Bolan released his hold on the girl.
THE SPACIOUS KITCHEN became the scene of immediate medical and recuperative activity. Within minutes Sara was ready to begin work.
Kathy's T-shirt parted as Sara slid a pair of scissors up the length of the garment. With professional skill she eased the bloodied cloth away from the raw wound.
"You're lucky. It passed through."
In a soothing tone, Sara told the girl what she was doing step by step.
"These injections are for local pain. But when I begin to clean the wound, it's still going to hurt. John will hold your shoulder still."
Pain-dulled brown eyes looked from Sara to Bolan. Wordlessly the girl nodded her acceptance.
"Josh, hand me the things as I call for them."
Kathy's breath hissed through clenched teeth as Sara delved with the medicated swab beyond the point the local had reached. When, with brutal efficiency, she forced the medicated swab through the girl's shoulder, Kathy O'Connor gave way to the pain and screamed in anguish.
Fifteen minutes later Mack Bolan ground his own teeth as a similar operation was performed on his leg.
"Curse and swear if it will help," Sara suggested.
"I'll spare you any noise," Bolan smiled grimly. "But I feel it, believe me."
"I don't have the facilities to do this properly, but what I've done is effective. You won't lose your leg to blood poisoning." Sara hesitated, then added, "I suspect you're the type that needs to keep moving."
Their eyes met and locked for seconds. "You're a very resourceful person," Bolan said finally. "I owe you."
He moved slowly around the big room in a test of his bandaged leg. Then he asked the whereabouts of the telephone.
"Sorry, John," said Josh, "I don't have one. Blasted lines were always down. But I do have that ham radio rig over there. Want to check it out?"
Bolan followed the old fellow to the radio table in a dark corner of the room. Bolan surveyed the amateur's equipment for long seconds before turning to Josh.
"I reckon you'll want to talk privately," said the old man.
"Josh, I doubt that I could even turn that thing on."
"Give me some numbers," Josh said. His gnarled fingers moved over the bank of knobs and dials.
Bolan gave out a series. Within seconds the voice of April Rose came clearly into the room.
"Striker here," Bolan identified himself into the mike.
"It's good to hear from you," glowed the woman's warm voice at the other end.
"Good here too. I'm finished in Paradise, lovely lady. I could use a ride out."
"Same place for pickup as for arrival?" Bolan caught Josh's eye.
"How do you plan on leaving?" asked the old man.
"By helicopter."
"Yeah, figures. Well, if your pilot is worth anything, I've got an open pasture just below the house. We can bring him in with lights."
Bolan nodded his thanks. To April he said, "Tell Jack I'll be in an open area due north of target and south by west from the original landing site. Let's say forty minutes from now."
"Consider it done. Welcome back in advance, Mack."
Bolan signed off, then turned to look at Kathy. She sat at the hearth, holding a cup of hot chocolate; she was wrapped in a flannel robe whose better days were years in the past.
"I reckon maybe Kathy will be good company for Sara," Josh said, as if in response to Bolan's unspoken concern. "Kid looks as though she could do with some mountain air and good food."
Bolan questioned the girl by raising his eyebrows. Her smile was fleeting but it spoke volumes.
Bolan turned to Josh.
"It's just possible people may be asking you questions about me."
"Questions are cheap," muttered the old man amiably. "It's the answers that may be hard to come by."
Sara's expression indicated her agreement. "They may insist," Bolan prodded.
Josh shot a glance at the fully stocked gun cabinet. "Not many call me a liar on my own land."
Bolan surveyed the young girl at the hearth. It was time to go. There was nothing to be gained by staying.
Josh caught the silent cue. "Best we go on down and make sure everything's ready." He reached for his Remington. "Just in case any of those coyotes are out and about." He moved toward the door.
Sara stepped toward Bolan. Her hand was warm in his. "Take care, John." Without awaiting his response, she pulled his head gently toward hers. Her lips were feather light on his cheek. Tears glistened in her eyes. For seconds she held onto the big guy, Then she let her arm drop from around his muscular neck.
Sara's expression revealed sadness at what might have been, at the enjoyments foregone by an attractive woman whose real beauty was in her independence and aloneness.
Bolan smiled a farewell to young Kathy, then turned and, without looking back, followed old Josh Williams into the remains of night.
Already the black was turning to silver gray with the promise of a new day to come.
"The only true morality is survival."
—Robert Heinlein
"A handgun is a truer friend than a Swiss bank account."
—Carl Lyons
"Truth is my highest goal—to do what is good and true—but the way to that goal is a low road of hellfire that I must endure again and again. And I will have it no other way, if the lowest road allows for the survival of life at its best."
—Mack Bolan
"Mack Bolan is constantly challenged and forever under pressure, but at all times he commands. There is no time or circumstance to permit life's luxuries for this man. Everything is transmuted in the fires of Bolan's world to focus in a white-hot spot upon the desperate situations always surrounding him. Bolan has supreme command, and I have known such men in real life."
—Don Pendleton,
Pendleton's kind of man makes up the Gold Eagle squad of writers and researchers who are now working with him to ensure a new Bolan, as well as an Able Team or Phoenix Force adventure, every mont
h of the year. It is an immense task for the creative team, and a commanding one for Don. But the call for new titles has become so great that Mack Bolan's creator needs the very best backup available.
The Gold Eagle team of specialists has produced most of the Executioner titles in recent years, and Don Pendleton says its members have done "a beautiful job, producing classic Bolan adventures: multi-dimensional, well-structured and compelling. We have hellfire, and terror turned against terror, and very suspenseful writing that just sings from the pages."
This is an exciting development for Don Pendleton after years of single-handedly writing bestselling books, and it guarantees that his unique talent in the heroic-adventure genre (which he invented) will grow and flourish through the medium of the other energetic talents on the team. Gold Eagle's commitment is Don's commitment to provide only the very best.
"He freshens all the oldest words with all his blood," says Don of his leading character, Mack Bolan, a.k.a. Colonel John Phoenix. Bolan knows that the Stony Man team stands for the sanctity of life and that his enemies do not. Bolan's task is clear: "I have the tools, I have the ability, I am obligated." Bolan is in an enviable position for all men in that he knows the way "to be" is "to do." All of Bolan's men—and Pendleton's men—will do the job right, to the very best of their ability.
The Executioner is ready and willing to spend his blood, and that of his enemies, to freshen those old words: peace, justice and virtue.
The Executioner and his men are prepared to put the meaning back into those hallowed words.
With all their blood.
"Rocking action, explosive scenes, hard-hitting dialogue. Mack Bolan is great reading!"
—New Breed
Executioner 054 - Mountain Rampage Page 9
