He had to see it again from outside. He hurried from the room and down the curving stairway and onto the patio, then sat on the wall and gazed up at the second-level window. Yeah, yeah, it was perfect, just perfect. The place looked alive, with a full council going on. Plasky grunted with satisfaction and paced about the flagstoned patio in hot antic.i.p.ation of the little welcome The Family had in store for the sonuvab.i.t.c.h of the century.
Walt Seymour was about to burst with contained excitement. "How do we know he"ll hit South Hills tonight?" he asked nervously, watching Turrin"s face in the reflected glow of the instrument panel.
Turrin"s teeth gleamed in a smile as he turned down the freeway ramp and began to climb into the exclusive neighborhood. "It"s a thing the cops call modus operandi," he said. "Bolan isn"t interested in s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up our wh.o.r.ehouse operation, he just wants to stir us up. It worked for him once, he figures it"ll work again. He sweeps in, see, and raises h.e.l.l down in the gra.s.s roots to force us all to the council table. Then, he figures, he"s got us all together and he can plunk us like rats in a water barrel, see. This is what we been waiting for, Walt." "I wonder where the b.a.s.t.a.r.d"s been all this time." Turrin scowled. "Well--I hope he"s just been licking his wounds. I"m positive Angie hit him the other night." The scowl deepened. "But from what I been hearing of his antics tonight--well-- I dunno--he must o" not been hit too d.a.m.n hard." "He"s probably onto us," Seymour said, his agitation visibly increasing. "He"s probably been laying up there somewhere watching us all this time, probably with binoculars." He shivered. "Or through that d.a.m.n sniper scope. How good are those scopes, Leo? You were in the service. They any d.a.m.n good?" "They"re plenty d.a.m.n good," Turrin replied.
"Good enough to see a fly"s p.e.c.k.e.r at fifteen hundred yards." Seymour exploded into a mirthful fit. "A fly"s p.e.c.k.e.r," he howled. Turrin grinned along with him, and he chuckled for a while, his tensions seeming to disintegrate in the penetrating good humor. "If that guy is fool enough to hit us again," he commented, following a long silence, "we"ll nail his a.s.s for good." "Yes, I believe we will," Turrin agreed.
But he was scowling again, and it was still with him when he turned into the hillside estate of Sergio Frenchi.
Bolan stopped at a public telephone in the darkened approaches to a closed service station, dropped in a dime, and dialed a rehea.r.s.ed number. The receiver at the other end was lifted before the first ring could be completed and a trembly feminine voice said, "Yes?" "This is the phantom of the bedroom," he announced pleasantly.
"Mack! Oh, Mack! Everything"s okay?" "Sure," he said. "But the night"s still young. I just wanted to check in, let you know I"m still in the picture. I may be tied up the rest of the night.
Uh--you been waiting up for me to call?" Her reply came in a tumble of words. "Mack, I"ll never go to bed again until it"s with you. I tried, I really tried to, but that old bed just shrieked at me. No, I-I"m sitting up, I"m on the couch--oh Mack, don"t let anything happen to you." "It"s not in the plan," he said, chuckling rea.s.suringly. "I, uh, you know, Val, there"s always a possibility of something going haywire, though. I forgot to tell you about the money.
It"s in a leather case, in the storage s.p.a.ce above your hall closet. If anything-was "I don"t want the darned old money!" she cried.
"Just listen to me. If anything should go wrong, I want you to keep that money. Now, I mean it.
Consider it as my estate. It"s as much mine as anybody else"s." "Mack, you"d better come back here to me.
You"ve just got to!" "h.e.l.l, I"m sorry I mentioned it," he said uneasily. "Anyway--I"ve got this kid brother, see. You know about him. He could use some money, too, and-was "Mack, I"m going to start screaming!" "Don"t do that," he said quickly. "Don"t worry, it"ll all come out okay. I just thought I should mention the money, just in case." "I just want you." She was sobbing. "Call it off, Mack. Just come back. Come back right now." "You"re making it awfully tough on me, honey," he told her. "You know what I have to do." She was regaining control. "All right," she said.
"I"ll be brave. Is this better?" "Much better. Be a good girl now and go to bed. I want you nice and fresh when I get home." "I"ll try." "I love you, Val." "Oh G.o.d, Mack, I love you nutty!" "It"s great, isn"t it." His voice was glowing.
"Yes, yes darling, it"s great." "Well--back to work. Stay cool, now." "I promise. I"ll stay cool. You do, too. And Mack..." "Yeah?" "I don"t care who you have to kill, or how many.
You come back here to me." "I"ll be back," he said, chuckling. He hung up, and his smile faded, and he stared glumly at the black box. It was odd, he reflected, how life came in bunches and gobs, and always at the wrong times. He had so much more to live for now than ever before, and he was facing the most perilous moment of his lifetime. He sighed, muttered, "I"ll get back, Val," fingered a kiss onto the telephone mouthpiece, and The Executioner went off to join the gathering.
Lieutenant Also Weatherbee of the Metropolitan Police sleepily gathered his thermos jug and sandwiches and headed toward the police garage with his young sergeant, John Pappas. "Well, Johnny," he said tiredly, "If our intelligence is good, tonight will be the night." "You say he knocked off three of their joints tonight?" Pappas asked, grinning.
"Yes, and don"t look so happy about it.
He"s making us look like monkeys too, you know." They stepped into the elevator and were silent in the descent to the garage. They stood quietly and waited as a half-dozen marked patrol cars gunned up the narrow ramp to the street, then went over to their squad car. Pappas slid behind the wheel and reached over to help Weatherbee with his burden. "You planning on eating all this in one night?" he asked.
"Oh, between the two of us, I figure we can take care of it all right," the lieutenant replied. "And it could be a long, long night." "Well, it"s three o"clock already, and I just ate at two." "It could still be a long time till breakfast." Weatherbee settled into the seat, nodded to his companion, and the car eased up the ramp.
"How many units they sending out?" Pappas wondered aloud.
"We have a dozen cars in the general area, eight of them a.s.signed directly to us, the other four for backup as required. The sheriff is cooperating on this one, also. He"s promised a minimum of ten men in the canyon, on the county side, and possibly some mounted units. I think we"ll have him pretty well sewed up. If he shows, and I think he will, I don"t see how he can possibly slip away from us this time. Unless..." Weatherbee scratched his cheek thoughtfully and showed his partner a wry smile. "Unless he really is a ghost, like the newsmen have been calling him." They hit the expressway with the warning light flashing, pulled into the far-left lane, and hurtled along in steadily building momentum.
"I don"t think there"s all this big a hurry, though, Johnny," Weatherbee said uneasily.
"Never can tell," Pappas replied, flicking a gleaming glance toward his superior. "And I sure as h.e.l.l don"t intend to miss this one." The lieutenant sighed, scratched his cheek again, and said softly: "And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon." "What?" Pappas said, chancing another quick glance.
"That"s from the Book of Revelation," Weatherbee said. "Somehow it seemed appropriate to the moment." Pappas shivered involuntarily and hunched closer over the wheel. "Armageddon," he repeated musingly. "That"s a sort of h.e.l.l, isn"t it?" "No," Weatherbee said quietly, hanging onto the door handle to brace himself in the hurtling automobile, "it"s supposed to be the place where the final battle will be fought between the forces of evil-- watch it, will you!" Pappas had swerved between two slower-moving vehicles, setting the lieutenant rocking and swearing beneath his breath. "Between the forces of what?" he asked, ignoring the complaint.
"Between the forces of good and evil. G.o.ddammit, we"re going to find our Armageddon right here on this expressway if you don"t slow this son of a b.i.t.c.h down. Now d.a.m.nit, that"s an order, johnny!" Pappas reluctantly released some of the pressure from the accelerator. "Just hurrying to the gathering," he said, grinning. "I sure as h.e.l.l wouldn"t want to miss Armageddon." "I"ll remind you that you said that," Weatherbee said quietly.
Execution Hill The Executioner had left his automobile at a carefully preselected spot in dense brush near the crest of a wooded hill directly opposite the South Hills home of Sergio Frenchi, and was making his fifth trip from the car to his "drop" on the side of the hill. "Execution Hill," as he had come to dub the site, was largely uninhabited, with only three or four residential plots on the entire rise of ground, and there were no buildings of any description on Bolan"s side of the hill.
Nevertheless he had encountered various sounds of human presence during his trips between car and battlesite, mostly distant rustlings and voices; once he heard a male voice cursing vehemently, and on his third trip a horse and rider crossed his path no more than forty feet ahead of him, the horse slipping and snorting on the steep hillside and the rider speaking to his mount rea.s.suringly.
The Executioner was exercising the utmost caution and stealth, but there was a lot of equipment to be moved, and he was going ahead with his plans despite the obvious patrol activity around his battlesite. He had selected a shallow hollow lying beneath an outcropping of rock which was angled about thirty degrees easterly of, and roughly ten degrees above, the Frenchi estate, and well-screened behind an overhanging droop of evergreens. He had run his trajectory calculations earlier, based on a range of five hundred yards, estimated. Now he had a GI rangefinder with which to refine those calculations, and he was surprised to learn that his estimate had been so close to reality. He applied the corrections for a 530-yard range, then consulted the graph he"d worked up for the Marlin and decided he would need to target fifteen inches above actual target to allow for trajectory drop.
He extended similar calculations for the other weapons he had "commandeered" from the armory earlier, devoted another fifteen minutes to making his "setups," then took time for a leisurely cigarette, carefully shielding the tiny glow from any hostile eyes in the vicinity.
As he smoked, he followed a timeworn tradition and scribbled his thoughts in a black leather-bound book. This concluded, he got to his feet and lightened himself, removing everything from his web belt except the.45 and the knife, even emptying the slit-pockets above his knees of the spare clips for the.45, and moved out quietly in a "recon" of the area.
Weatherbee had told him that The Family was lying in wait for his next a.s.sault. This could mean nothing but a planned counterattack, and it would have to be a highly personal and concentrated one if it were to be effective. Bolan was not overly worried about their abilities in this regard, not unless the Mafia army had been recruited from combat-trained veterans of recent warfare. He had blackened his face and even the heavens seemed to be in his corner tonight, a nice broken layer of clouds keeping the night a black one most of the time. He paused beside a tree as one of the occasional breaks in the cloud-cover drifted overhead, briefly illuminating, faintly, Execution Hill. As he waited, stony and hardly breathing, a match flared a few yards uphill from his position and he could hear clearly the heavy exhalation of a cigarette smoker. The heavy darkness descended again almost immediately, and Bolan went into motion with it, moving silently in a tight circle up the hillside, homing in on the glowing tip of the cigarette. He came down from above and to the rear, and to within a matter of feet from the smoker. It was a man alone, his back to Bolan, seated on a rock and hunched slightly forward. Bolan unsheathed his knife, felt on The ground and found a rotted stick, and tossed it over the man"s head and a few yards downhill. The stick hit a tree and the man"s body stiffened. "Hank?" he called softly.
Then Bolan was upon him, one arm curled tightly into the throat, the knife moving in a swift arc toward the rib cage. The body went limp, a rifle toppled and slid slowly down into the brush, and Bolan lowered the suddenly still form gently to the ground. He absently crushed out the lighted cigarette which had fallen to the ground, then stepped quietly down the hill, continuing the seek-and-destroy mission.
Mounted police, crashing about on horseback down below, did not particularly trouble his mind, but he could allow no enemy patrols on Execution Hill. His plan for the a.s.sault on the stronghold, once the major thrust was underway, would definitely limit his mobility; therefore the area would have to be positively secured before the attack was launched.
His finely tuned ears detected another sound off to the right, and he moved toward it through the darkness, himself an item of darkness and silent, sudden death.
The following is an excerpt from The Executioner"s diary, headed "Thoughts at Execution Hill." I suppose that the chief difference between me and ordinary people is that I recognize the challenges of life and find it impossible to turn my back on them. I can"t let somebody else do my killing, or bear my blood-smears, or stand in judgment in my behalf. If there is a battle to be fought, I must fight it. If there is blood to be spilled, I must spill it. If somebody is to be judged, I must stand at the bar. I suppose that I am not truly civilized. Maybe I"m a throwback to another time, to another kind, to another ideal. But this much I know: I am alive tonight because of violence loose upon the earth. Each breath I take is paid for by crushed and digested once-living things. Violence is the way of the world because compet.i.tion is the way of life-perpetuation. Without violence there can be no compet.i.tion, and without compet.i.tion there can be no life.
Something dies for every instant that something else lives.
I just had the thought that I am being morbid--and why not? Life itself is a morbid business. Each life lived is built upon a hill of death; each body is a living monument to death and a moving graveyard. It is the way of life, and even --no, especially--in a civilization. But in a civilization there are appointed executioners, some appointed to serve the greater good, some the greater evil.
I am self-appointed, but this fact in no way alters the responsibilities of office.
Valentina, G.o.d love her, would die herself before she would crush the skull of a baby steer--but this tender child thoroughly loves her veal steaks. An executioner of baby steers has been appointed in Valentina"s behalf, an executioner to crush the skulls of baby steers and thus provide the juicy steaks for tender Val"s table.
Valentina, G.o.d protect her, is thoroughly repulsed and disgusted by the evil brought to this earth by men like the Mafiosi, yet she would allow every indignity upon herself, even to the final indignity of death, before she would pick up a gun and exterminate the vermin. An executioner of vermin has been appointed in Valentina"s behalf--for all the Valentinas everywhere. It is a self-appointment, a necessary one in this civilization of ours, and I cannot stand away from the responsibility of this office.
Life is a compet.i.tion, and I am a compet.i.tor. I have the tools and the skills, and I must accept the responsibilities. I will fight the battle, spill the blood, smear myself with it, and stand at the bar of judgment to be crushed and chewed and ingested by those I serve. It is the way of the world. It is the ultimate disposition. Stand ready, Mafiosi, The Executioner is here.
Battle Order Sergio Frenchi was a man who loved a good sc.r.a.p; this much was obvious. The old eyes were sparkling with the excitement of antic.i.p.ation, and he seemed to infect the others with his enthusiasm. The entire area Family was present, and a roll call would have sounded like a polling of the Greater Chamber of Commerce. Practically every strata of the business and professional communities were represented in the a.s.semblage. There were bankers, lawyers, a medical doctor, accountants, insurance executives, two prominent educators; these rubbing elbows with gambling czars, small-time politicos, and racketeers of every stripe.
It was the first full-council, area-wide, which Leo Turrin had been privileged to attend. He was both amazed and impressed by the number and stature of those present. He moved alongside Nat Plasky and said, "I don"t get it. Why bring everybody out at a time like this?" Sergio himself answered the question, as if on cue, raising his arms to quiet the hubbub. "When The Family is in trouble, The Family belongs together," he intoned. He smiled and let his eyes dance around the large room. "Besides--a lot of you have never had to face up to a real threat before. You"re soft--look at you, your manicured fingers and your two-dollar cigars--how do you think you got all this security, eh? You got it because men like me, men who never could relax enough to try those manicures and expensive cigars, were out there fighting and grabbing while you were in your mama"s bellies, that"s how you got it." "We"re getting an object-lesson," Seymour said, sotto voce.
Again right on cue, Sergio continued: "You boys don"t know what it feels like to be shot at and-was "The h.e.l.l I don"t," Plasky growled.
"Maybe it"s true what they"re saying about the organization, eh?
Maybe we get too soft with all this legit business we got going. Don"t forget where it all came from! Don"t forget those dirty dollars keeping us UP there at the front of the line! Listen!" He spread one arm in a dramatic sweep towards a group seated at his right. "I even hear some of The Family is beginning to sneer at boys like these. Leopold, here, and his girl operation. Any of you gentlemen got any idea how many millions Leo"s operation grossed so far this year? Eh? Well it makes any one of the rest of you look like peanuts! You hear? Peanuts!" He stabbed a shaking finger at a well-dressed man down the table to the left. "You, Scali, where do you think the five million came from to back up your insurance reserves, eh? From heaven?" He waggled the finger and fixed the executive with a stern gaze.
"It came from wh.o.r.ehouses, yeah. How do you good gentlemen think we manage to keep our girls operating, eh? Through our contacts with the Chamber of Commerce? Eh? Lemme tell you all something--you are soft! And I-was "I haven"t heard him wind up like this in fifteen years," Seymour whispered.
"I just wish he"d wind down," Turrin said uncomfortably, but his eyes were all attention on the powerful and compelling old warrior at the head of the table. "I"ll bet he was a h.e.l.l of a man in his day," he added softly.
"He survived the wars," Seymour grunted.
"He"ll survive this one, too. Anybody making book on the outcome?" "Not a chance," Plasky chimed in softly.
"Now there"s guns on the wall down here by the door," Sergio was saying. "Most of you may not get a chance to shoot one off, but you better d.a.m.n sure have one in your hand when you walk out the door.
Don"t move around any out in the open, keep yourselves down and don"t do anything stupid. We got the regular council room rigged so it looks like we"re having a meeting up there. Don"t n.o.body show themselves until he starts banging away, and even then don"t do any shooting unless you can see something to shoot at. For G.o.d"s sake, don"t shoot each other. Something else, now, when..." He held them for another five minutes, then released them. They straggled out in groups of three and four, a few wise-cracking about the pistols coming down off the wall. Turrin hung back, hoping to get in a few private words with Father Sergio.
Plasky and Seymour joined the exiting crowd, Seymour glancing back impatiently at Turrin then going on without him.
Sergio took Turrin by the arm and said, "It"s like old times, Leopold. I wish your Uncle Augosto was with us, eh?" "That"d be great," Turrin agreed, smiling.
"I, uh, I been thinking about that hill across the canyon. We have any men over there?" The old man was smiling craftily. "No, not on the hill, Leopold. Don"t you worry about it. Sergio is ready for the war." "I was just thinking," Turrin persisted, "this guy"s a soldier, you know. He thinks like a soldier, and I"ve been thinking.." Sergio patted his arm affectionately. "Don"t worry about the soldier," he said grandly. "Sergio has fought a couple of wars himself." "I"d like to go over there and scout around," Turrin blurted.
"Oh?" The old eyebrows raised in high peaks. "You"d go out there, alone, to meet this in the dark? Eh?" "Yeah." Turrin shifted uncomfortably under the strong stare. "Regardless of the firepower we have ma.s.sed over here, he could still slip away from it.
I"d like to go over there and plug his escape route." "What makes you so certain his attack will come from over there?" The tone of voice was plainly teasing.
"I said, he thinks like a soldier. So do I." The old man laughed, and said, "You"re a good soldier, Leopold, and a good Mafiosi. Sure, sure, you go over there and take this Bolan single-handed. I believe You can." Turrin was still not certain if the old man was taunting him or not, but he took the words as official sanction. He left him standing there and raced up the stairs to the main level and ran to the parking lot, extricated his car from the jam, and tore out the drive in full acceleration.
"Where"s Leo going?" someone asked, staring after the careening auto.
Sergio stood at the wall, arms crossed over his chest, smiling. "He has gone to herd the lion in his den," he said proudly, then added, under his breath, "I hope." The speaker crackled and a terse voice announced: "A car is speeding out of the Frenchi estate." Weatherbee s.n.a.t.c.hed up the mike and said, "Let "im pa.s.s, don"t one unit move off station until I give the word!" "What do you think is going on out there?" Pappas asked.
"Plenty, I"d say," Weatherbee granted.
"I"d give a nickel to get in there and have a look at some of those faces. I bet there"d be some interesting ones." "Where do you think Bolan will strike from?" "That"s a good question. It"s like trying to outguess the quarterback on a third-down play. Tell the truth, I don"t envy this Mafia bunch. They have to sit and wait for him to make his. .h.i.t before they will know how to react and where. It"s like waiting for the beginning of an atomic attack with this Bolan, anyway." Pappas was grinning. "Well, it"s a new role for the Mafia, isn"t it. The tables are turned, so to speak." "Yeah. What time is it?" "four-thirty." "See, I told you it would be a d.a.m.n long night. You want a sandwich?" Pappas shook his head emphatically. "I couldn"t eat a belly dancer"s navel right now." "Nervous?" "You could say that, yeah. We been on plenty of stake-outs before, but this one..." "But this one, you"re rooting for the other side, is that it?" Pappas shifted about uncomfortably and lit a cigarette.
"Isn"t that it?" "Well s.h.i.t, so what? I kind of admire the guy." "Don"t be embarra.s.sed, Johnny--so do I.
I"m just hoping he won"t try to shoot his way through a police line, that"s all." "So why do you think I"m b.u.t.terflies?" Pappas announced, laughing.
"We can"t afford to let sentiment ride the trigger finger, Johnny." "h.e.l.l, I know that." "A sentimental cop is a dead cop." "h.e.l.l, I know that." "The order is shoot to kill." "Well, G.o.dd.a.m.n it, I know that!" Weatherbee smiled grimly. "Just don"t forget it," he said quietly.
The Big Kill The Executioner made a final check of the weaponry and did a mental rehearsal of the sequence of events, then returned to the range finder to study once again the layout on the opposite hillside. For minutes, now, that bunch had been going through the exact same motions, as evidenced by the shadows on the large window. Either they were having a prayer service, or some sort of elaborate rite, or else.
He kept his eye to the range finder and moved his watch close alongside and began a timing. Mark --the guy at the head of the table lifts an arm at the exact instant the third guy from the end leans over ... mark--three seconds, and somebody walks past in the background... mark--five seconds, and the arm comes down, the other guy straightens.
mark--three seconds, and a guy walks past in the opposite direction... mark--five seconds, and.
Bolan studied the shadow-movements for a full five minutes, then grinned and moved on to other things. Pretty cute, he had to admit, pretty d.a.m.n cute--but now, where really was the pack congregating? There were very few lights showing. Of this few, all were at the lower levels, with the sole exception of the dim rectangle of light at the large window on level two.
He could make out one corner of the parking lot, and as he watched, a car moved rapidly through the narrow vision-field allowed by the telescopic lens; he followed it, saw the headlamps flare into brilliance, and the car careening along the drive.
He wondered about it, but only briefly, returning to the inspection of the house itself. He could see nothing whatever of the roof, no more than a faint outline against the black. He swung back to the ground level, and picked up the figure of a man standing on the patio, near a waist-level wall, partly concealed in shadows. The man moved then, and rubbed something against one shoulder. A pistol--he was scratching his shoulder with the barrel of a pistol. Some idiot. What did they have down there--idiots? The range finder tracked along the wall, seeking other evidence of human habitation. A door flashed open, bright light spilling onto the flagstones for a split second, then was hastily closed. He held the spot and saw the door open again, this time without accompanying light-spillage, and two men scurried out the door and ran up some steps at the corner of the building. Bolan grinned. They were learning--but too slowly. He lost the men in the upper darkness, his wonderment growing with respect to the darkened roof area.
Bolan glanced at his watch, and waited. He had a timed sequence planned, and he preferred a firm jump-off time. Just a few minutes more. He allowed his thoughts to wander to Valentina, to Mom and Pop, to Johnny, the kid he"d barely known and now probably would never know, to Cindy whom he had known better than any living soul and yet had not known at all.
One minute to jump-off. He"d promised Val that he"d be back. An empty promise, one that he"d never expected to keep. Bolan was a soldier--he knew a soldier"s odds, he knew the chances of walking off this hillside alive.
Cops were all over the place; maybe they"d even bring in dogs. If the Mafia didn"t get him, the cops would. Sweet Val. Tender little, pa.s.sionate little, sweet little Val--a girl who had saved her love only to hand it over to a doomed man. There was a sadness; yes, there was a sadness.
He pushed aside the sadness and moved over to the long tube-like object positioned alongside the range finder, final-checked the azimuth calculations, and began the ten-second countdown. The tube belched and hissed and the projectile roared down the range. The Big Kill was on.
"Jesus Christ!" Pappas yelped. "What was that? Where"d it come from?" "Rocket of some kind!" Weatherbee yelled.
The streaking glow had roared through the night air at dazzling speed, impacting on the lower corner of the mansion in a thunderous explosion. All lights had winked out and only the dull, licking flames at the devastated corner were providing illumination. A man was screaming in obvious agony, and the excited, raised voices of other men could be heard calling to one another.
Weatherbee and Pappas were on their feet outside the squad car at the perimeter of the property, looking down on the house from about 300 feet.
"Where"d the d.a.m.n thing come from?" Pappas repeated excitedly.
"Those hills over there," Weatherbee snapped.
"Hand me those binoculars!" "Think we oughta go down there, maybe give "em a hand?" "You outta your mind? They"d shoot you as quick as they"d shoot Bolan. Besides, he isn"t finished with them, bet your a.s.s on that." "Good Mary, Mother of G.o.d!" Plasky cried.
"He"s bombing us!" "Shut up, shut up, and get your head down, you idiot," Seymour snapped. "Christ"s sake, that was just the first shot!" "Shot? Shot? You call that a shot? Where"s Sergio? What the h.e.l.l is Sergio doing?" "Everybody keep down and stay calm," Sergio"s voice intoned loudly, floating down from the higher level. "Did anybody see where it came from?" A chorus of excited voices all tried to report at once.
"Outta the sky!" yelled one.
"The south corner!" came another intelligible response.
"It came right outta the f.u.c.kin" moon," reported a voice close to Seymour.
"Aw s.h.i.t, s.h.i.t!" Sergio cried. "Keep your eyes open now! Look for a flash, anything, a bit of smoke, just keep your eyes open!" "Heads up, pip, pip, and all that s.h.i.t," Seymour muttered to himself.
The Executioner was completing another countdown.
He hit Zero and the flare gun at the same instant, then smiled and picked up the Marlin, peering through the scope. Seconds later the flare sh.e.l.l opened in the sky directly above the Frenchi mansion and floated gently groundward in startling brilliance, lighting the area like a personal sun.
Bolan"s scope was already seeking the Frenchi roof when the sh.e.l.l burst into brilliance; a dazed, upturned face raised to the white hot sun loomed into the vision-field and Bolan"s educated finger took spontaneous action. The big gun roared and bucked against him; he fought it steady, hanging grimly to the eyepiece and saw his target go down, hands digging at the belly. Bolan nodded in confirmation of his correction; from chin to belly was about 15 inches. He swung slightly left and picked up another target; another squeeze and buck; a few more degrees left, another target, again a squeeze; and another, and another, and he had counted off but five seconds. He laid down the Marlin and bent his eye to the range finder for a broader view. That roof was full of men, some still standing and staring stupidly into the brilliance, others seemingly frozen with surprise and fear, one was trying to support a b.l.o.o.d.y and obviously dead body; but most were at least partially concealed behind the low parapet at the edge of the roof. Obviously n.o.body had spotted his muzzle-flashes; there was no return fire.
Bolan shook his head sadly, muttered, "Who"s the amateur?" and went into another countdown.
"There"s four dead and one wounded up here," an excited voice called down.
"Sergio! Sergio? What do we do?" "How long do those d.a.m.n things burn?" "Down, down, everybody keep down and eyes open!" It was Sergio, huffing with excitement.
"Pete! Barney! Start raking that hillside!" The abrupt chatter of a machine gun broke the deadening pall, then another, and n.o.body really cared if there were a target to shoot at or not. Just the sound of firepower, coming from their camp, was a comfort in itself.
Then another light streaked in from the darkness.
"Christ, lookit, another whizzer!" The rocket slammed into the roof with a heart-stopping thunder of sound and flame, just as the flare burned out, dislodging men, stone, and mortar alike to rain onto the patio below. Screams of terror and groans of agony rose up in its wake, and then there was nothing but the frightening blackness of the night. A machine gun resumed its chatter, firing sporadically, but there was little cheer to its impotent message. Men were running blindly through the darkness. m.u.f.fled curses, labored breathing, and exclamations of pain and horror told the story of untrained would-be combatants; and still it was not the ending, but only the beginning. The walking explosions began then, in a pattern of terror that left no stone of the Frenchi mansion untouched or unshaken. And even the machine guns ceased their useless chatter, and the exodus of The Family was in full sway.
"He"s sh.e.l.ling them with mortar fire," Weatherbee announced grimly. "My G.o.d, that must be sheer h.e.l.l down there." "Where"d that guy get that kind of stuff?" Pappas wondered, in an awed voice.
"That"s not the point. The point is, he knows how to use it. h.e.l.l this is full-scale warfare.
One-sided, yeah, but h.e.l.l, this is the side I was feeling sorry for. Jesus Christ!" The vibrations of warfare were being felt even from their vantage point, and a chunk of shrapnel whizzed into the door of the squad car, missing Pappas by inches. "Hit-the-f.u.c.king-dirt," he said calmly, and fell to a p.r.o.ne position alongside the car.
"I think I"ve spotted him," Weatherbee declared. "Near the top of the hill, almost directly across from the house. You can"t see anything from these mortar launchings, but if he shoots another of these rockets--well, just keep your eyes peeled thataway." The sergeants eyes were peeled another way, however, onto the horror of sound, vibration, and powder flashes below; then another flare lit up the sky, and the sergeant shielded his eyes from the brilliance and peered dutifully toward the distant hill. "What a guy," he said softly. "What a h.e.l.l of a guy." The h.e.l.l of a guy was having troubling second thoughts of his own. It had gone entirely too easily. The enemy was in full rout and not one threat, not one, had come his way. Either he had grossly overestimated them, or else... He put his eye to the Marlin"s scope and rapid-fired five rounds into an automobile that was swerving along the looping driveway. The car left the drive, curved about, and bounced back onto it and toppled onto its side like a toy, then burst into flames.
Another car, which had been following closely behind, plowed into the wreckage, and moments later there was another explosion. The scene revealed beneath the glare of the second flare was a tribute to carnage and destruction. The house was all but levelled, two of its walls standing grotesquely in a pall of dust and smoke. Many of the cars in the parking area were buried beneath debris; broken windows and damaged bodies of others showed the marks of concussion and flying objects. Human bodies were strewn everywhere.