The Bone Yard te-75

by Don Pendleton

  To the gate then, and whatever hard defenses lay in store there. Running through the darkness without lights, the soldier put his trust in the remaining slim advantage of surprise... and in audacity.

  Beyond the gate, if he could get that far alive, the desert night was filled with peril and with promises.

  Also the wrought-iron barrier was visible at sixty yards despite the darkness. Bolan saw that they were closed, and he could make out moving shadow-shapes to either side. They would be gunners, perhaps alerted now to what had happened at the house. But even if he took them by complete surprise they would still be dangerous.

  At thirty yards he flicked the Lincoln's headlights on and kicked them into high beams, pinning the huddled gatemen in the sudden glare. They were collected in a little semicircle, and Bolan got a glimpse of handguns and a sawed-off twelve-gauge leveled at the speeding Continental.

  Instinctively he hit the Lincoln's horn and held it down, a warning blaring out against the night, reverberating from the wall ahead of him. It took the gunners by surprise, and they were breaking, faltering, responding with conditioned reflexes that made them move out of the way before the Lincoln plowed them under.

  A straggle-fire swept over Bolan's metal steed, most of the rounds going wild or ricocheting off the bodywork. A single bullet drilled the windshield and exploded through a window on the woman's side, but she was safely below the line of fire on the seat beside him. Bolan held the pedal to the floor and braced himself for impact with the gates.

  A single sentry failed to get the message or refused to heed it. He was standing at ground zero when the Lincoln's bumper met wrought iron and drove on through, flattening him between the hard unyielding layers of metal like a slice of ham inside a ghastly sandwich.

  Bolan had an image of the guy's head poking up above the grille like some human hood ornament, little of him left below the armpits where his body had been riced by impact with the gate. Then he was gone.

  The gates buckled, ripping loose from hinges set in concrete. Bolan set his teeth against the grinding, scraping sound as metal tore metal off the Lincoln's roof and sides. Then they were through, briefly losing traction on the gravel of the driveway, fishtailing as they found it again and gained the purchase of the blacktop highway. They were clear but far from out of danger. Bolan knew he could expect pursuers. He was waiting for them. Still, the speed of their reaction almost took his breath away.

  Before the Continental had covered a hundred yards he saw the two pursuit cars in his rearview, one emerging from the ruined gates and then the other, close behind. Their high beams cut a yellow tunnel through the darkness, reaching out and blinding him, until he pushed the mirror up with an impatient gesture.

  Both his headlights had been shattered when they hit the double gates. Bolan shut them off, simultaneously killing the Continental's taillights with the hope that pursuit would be a trifle harder. It was dark, with a sliver of moon riding low in the sky. There was just a chance that he could get some mileage out of running dark.

  The woman groaned, stirring on the seat, and Bolan glanced across at her. She was coming around, already struggling up through fitful semiconsciousness, instinctively using both hands in an effort to push herself upright. She made a little retching sound, but held her own against the dizziness that gripped her.

  Behind them the chase cars were closing, filling both lanes as they ran two abreast. The wheelmen were pushing it and their passengers had started to unlimber their weapons, trying out the range and scoring scattered hits on the Lincoln. Heavy rounds plunked into the trunk, the fenders, probing for the fuel tank.

  Suddenly a Magnum round burst through the broad back window, whistling past Bolan's ear before it took out half the windshield. Pebbled safety glass blew back against his face, the fragments filling up his lap and bouncing off the dash like hailstones.

  The woman gave another lurch and sat upright, a perfect target for the gunners who had found their range. Bolan reached across and shoved her roughly down beneath the dash, wincing as he heard her skull make contact with the glove compartment. Still, his companion had the best seat in the house in terms of safety.

  Not that it would matter if the gunners on their tail should find the gas tank or hit a tire and send them off the road into a lurching death spin at ninety-plus miles an hour.

  Behind the Executioner, the chase cars jostled for position, first one surging forward then the other. Gunners leaned out of both, sniping at the stolen Continental. Some rounds scored, some missed — but they were good enough and close enough to let him know that it was only a matter of time. A bullet clipped the useless rearview mirror off its post and sent it bouncing across the hood; another burned through the seat beside him, grazing his arm before it plowed into the dash.

  Bolan hunched his shoulders, trying to minimize the target he presented to his enemies. He braced himself, fists white knuckled on the wheel as he waited for a round to burrow between his shoulder blades.

  He played a long shot, easing back a fraction on the gas as he allowed them to close the gap still further. When the closest tail was almost on his bumper, Bolan reached out and flicked on the taillights again, then held his breath. A long shot, right... and it paid off.

  The wheelman on his tail mistook the sudden flash of red for brakelights and slammed on his own brakes reflexively, almost standing the Caddy crew wagon on its nose. It drifted hard left, cutting right across the center stripe and jostled hard against the other chase car. A shower of sparks glittered briefly on the asphalt, quickly burning out. The two vehicles ran along together for a hundred feet or so as the shaken drivers fought to correct. Then they separated, weaving like two wounded dinosaurs, losing precious momentum.

  Bolan seized the opportunity and gunned it, pulling away from his enemies before they could recover from their near catastrophe. He used the extra numbers he had gained to put some ground between himself and his pursuers, momentarily losing sight of them as he rounded a curve in the highway.

  It was merely a respite, but he had carved himself some breathing room. The enemy would be cautious now, and it could all work in his favor if he played it skillfully enough.

  If he was not already leaking gas from bullet ruptures in the fuel tank. If he did not allow himself the sin of overconfidence that marked a destined loser.

  He followed the highway through a series of S-curves, pushing the captured Continental to the limit, feeling her drift on the outer curves as he approached the boundaries of her tolerance. The speed was essential, but he could not risk their lives on unfamiliar highway with a wounded vehicle.

  A morning recon had revealed the winding stretch of highway to him. He knew there were five or six more of the looping S-curves dead ahead, but darkness strained perception, played myriad tricks with the mind.

  Even a conditioned warrior might misjudge, miscalculate, and when it happened.... Bolan dismissed the thought and concentrated on his driving. Two more curves and he would be back on the open straightaway with nowhere in the world to hide or make his stand.

  It would have to be soon. He did not intend to let the chase cars tail him back to downtown Vegas.

  He was not prepared to put his battle on the streets.

  Not yet.

  The woman stirred again, and Bolan saw that she was awake and watching him. Her eyes were wide with fear, reflecting pinpoints of the dash light as she huddled against the floorboards. There was no time for words of consolation as Bolan saw his chance and acted on an impulse, going for it on his instincts, without preparation or planning. He stood on the brakes and cranked the wheel hard to starboard as he brought the Lincoln around, rocking to a halt diagonally across the two-lane blacktop. He set the brake and left the engine running, reaching for the woman in the same fluid motion as he sprang his door and shoved it open.

  She recoiled briefly, but their eyes met in the semidarkness and something flashed between them. She let Bolan pull her out of there with moments left to spar
e and followed him on shaky legs as they put the Lincoln behind them in the darkness.

  They had barely reached cover — the woman lying prone and Bolan crouching with the AutoMag in hand, when the chase car came into view around the curve. The vehicles were running single file now, but with no loss of speed. If anything, the hunters anger and frustration seemed to milk some extra RPM out of the straining engines in carbon-copy Cadillacs.

  The leader saw his peril much too late, and there was barely time for him to tap his brakes before the stunning impact of collision. Heavy-metal thunder filled the desert night, and Bolan watched an oily ball of flame devour both vehicles along with everyone inside. The second car was screaming in toward the roaring funeral pyre, but the driver somehow gained control, hit his brakes and leaned on the wheel to put his gunboat in a sidelong skid.

  The Caddy drifted with its four tires smoking, but the wheelman missed the pileup by a yard or two and came to rest upon the shoulder of the road, his engine stalling. A single figure staggered from the raging bonfire in the middle of the highway. He was wrapped in flames, a lurching, screaming scarecrow. The Executioner was sighting for a mercy round when a secondary blast rolled out and knocked the figure sprawling, snuffing out the final spark of life.

  Doors were springing open on the second Caddy, shaken gunners piling out with weapons in hand but aiming nowhere as they took in the holocaust at center stage. One or two of them were shielding their eyes from the heat, none looking out for Bolan as he drew down on them, with the silver AutoMag from less than thirty yards away.

  His first round took a shotgun rider in the chest, 240 grains of pitiless extinction ripping through his heart and lungs and blowing him away. His flaccid form rebounded off the fender of the Caddy, touching down beside a startled comrade.

  Number two had heard the shot, had long enough to gauge its source and pivot on his heels in that direction before Bolan stroked the hand cannon's trigger once again, dispatching death across the intervening no-man's-land. The gunner's head snapped back and kept on going, portions of it outward bound and lost in darkness. The guy was dead before he knew it, and the Executioner was tracking on to other targets long before the gunner hit the ground. Three.

  Four.

  Five.

  They toppled like silhouettes in an amusement arcade's shooting gallery, the last one getting off a single shot that never came within a hundred yards of Bolan. The Executioner took a moment to recon the vehicle, making sure that there was no one left alive inside or crouching behind it. Then he slipped Big Thunder back into its military holster. The probe had gone to hell, and he was nowhere near the battlefield intelligence that he had hoped to gather from Minotte. For a fleeting instant, Bolan wondered if the Dixie capo had survived the hit on his estate. No matter. There would be other sources of information available in Vegas.

  The big warrior knew that he would need that information now more than ever. There were wild cards in the game — for all he knew the whole damned deck was wild — and he could not proceed another step along the campaign trail without some hard intel.

  The Vegas warning signs were badly out of synch, and he had to get some stretch, some cool perspective to prevent himself from making lethal errors along the way.

  One means of gaining that intelligence, perhaps, was already within his grasp. The woman, right. Someone had thought she was important enough to steal her from Minotte and to lose lives in the process. Bolan meant to know what made her worth the trouble.

  It was deathly still beneath the velvet midnight sky, except for the hungry crackling of the flames. The warrior made a final fleeting survey of the dead, then turned back toward the living.

  2

  "I haven't thanked you properly... for everything."

  Bolan glanced over at the lady, noting that she had fixed up her hair a little while they drove.

  She did not look so battle weary now in the reflected dash light and the glaring neon from outside.

  "You're welcome," he said simply.

  They were driving north along the Strip in Bolan's rental car. Some fifteen minutes earlier they had ditched the captured crew wagon, swapping it for a nondescript sedan, which he had leased for the duration under a cold alias.

  "Just like that? You saved my life."

  He shrugged it off.

  "We both got lucky."

  She gave him a quizzical look.

  "Well... I guess we ought to introduce ourselves. I'm Lucy Bernstein."

  "Blanski. Mike." He paused briefly, considering an angle of attack, then forged ahead by the direct route. "What are you to Minotte?"

  She made a sour face and tossed a strand of hair back from her forehead.

  "A minor headache," she responded. "I work for the Beacon."

  "Reporter?"

  "Don't look so surprised," she said. "I've been assigned to do an in-depth series on the local Mob, their infiltration into gaming."

  The lady read his face and when she spoke again her tone had gone defensive.

  "We're not all in their pockets, if that's what you've heard.""

  "It never crossed my mind," he told her sincerely. "I'm just surprised Minotte would agree to interviews." Despite the semidarkness he could see the blush that crept across her cheeks.

  "He didn't. Actually, I guess you'd say I broke into his house."

  The soldier looked at her with growing interest and a touch of admiration for her courage.

  "You don't look much like a burglar."

  "It's a last resort," she told him. "But you're right, I didn't pull it off. His houseman bagged me right away. I think they might have killed me... if they'd had the time."

  "Minotte had a busy night."

  "I'd say." Her voice faltered, the brave exterior slipping out of place. "Mike... I saw him die. One minute he was sitting there and asking questions, then..."

  "The hit team?"

  Lucy nodded shakily.

  "They came in out of nowhere, hacking, shooting. It was like a nightmare."

  "Did you recognize them?" Bolan prodded. "Anything at all."

  She shook her head.

  "There wasn't time. Beyond the fact that they were Oriental... Japanese, I think..."

  Her voice trailed off and Bolan heard her fighting to hold back the tears. He felt a tremor at the confirmation of his first impression from the battlefield.

  "Go on," he urged her.

  Lucy took another moment to collect her thoughts and bring her voice under control.

  "There have been rumors lately that the Mob is facing competition from abroad. The Yakuza, for instance. That's..."

  "I know what it is," he interrupted, recalling his encounter with the Japanese mobster organization, on a former mission to the land of the rising sun.

  She frowned.

  "You seem to know a lot. Who are you, anyway?"

  "Let's just say that I'm an interested observer."

  She raised an eyebrow.

  "You were doing more than just observing at Minotte's. Not that I'm complaining, mind you."

  "Well?"

  He felt her watching him as they proceeded for another block or two in silence. When she spoke again her tone was thoughtful, introspective.

  "There was an item on the wire from Washington last week. Maybe ten days ago..."

  The tension spun between them like a taut steel thread as she hesitated before resuming. Bolan felt his stomach turning over as he knew, with sudden certainty, what Lucy Bernstein was about to say.

  "It was all about a soldier with a score to settle," she continued. "Seems he doesn't care much for the Honored Society."

  "A lot of people feel that way," the Executioner told her, knowing that he could not bluff it out.

  "Not many take it this far," she responded evenly. "Fact is, I can only think of one."

  His gut was churning, but he kept the tension from his voice as best he could.

  "That so?"

  She nodded distractedly, seeming lost in
her story now.

  "I understand that he was out of circulation for a while, presumed dead or some such." She paused briefly for effect, then went ahead. "But now the papers say he's back in action — maybe westbound."

  "That's a lot to swallow," Bolan countered, trying to keep it light and flippant, knowing that he missed the mark.

  "Up until an hour ago, I thought so too."

  He pinned her with a steely glance.

  "We were talking about the Yakuza," he said.

  She smiled.

  "Just rumors, bits and pieces." As she continued, the little smile became conspiratorial. "I might be able to come up with something, given the incentive. Say, for instance, we cooperated..."

  Bolan cut her off.

  "Where can I drop you?"

  She looked stunned as if the Executioner had slapped her face.

  "Wait a second, now..."

  "Forget it, lady. I'm not planning any media events."

  "Well, dammit!"

  "Where can I drop you?" he repeated curtly.

  Grudgingly, she let him have an address off West Sahara, a mile from the Strip proper.

  "Is that home?"

  She nodded silently, her profile reminding Bolan of a pouting child.

  "Better try an alternate," he told her. "You might have unexpected company."

  She got his meaning and the pout softened a shade, giving way to a new rush of fear and uncertainty.

  "I didn't think of that." Civilians, right.

  She shifted in her seat and turned to face him, clearing her throat.

  "I've got a friend. She'll let me stay at her place, but I've got to make a call."

  He took a side street off the Strip and drove for several blocks until he found an all-night convenience store. He pulled into the lot and waited at the wheel, the engine idling, while she made her call from a phone booth. She was back inside the car within a minute.

  "It's set," she told him, rattling off another address.

  Bolan put the car in motion, rolling toward the drop. They did not speak at all for the duration of their journey through the desert night. The warrior's mind was on his mission now — and on the lady, granted. She was civilian excess baggage, and he could not afford to carry her along with him into the hellgrounds. It would spell death for both of them and Bolan was not ready yet to spend his blood without a valid purpose. Pulling her out of the fire at Minotte's had been one thing — a conditioned reflex. But dragging her back with him into the furnace was a different game entirely. One the Executioner refused to play. There would be opportunities enough for spilling blood — his own and others — in the coming hours. Bolan felt it in his gut and in the lifting of the small hairs at the back of his neck as he drove through the darkness, away from the synthetic day produced by glowing neon. Away from the Strip, Las Vegas lay in darkness, waiting.