chattering rhompson in a firetrack on the charging man in black. He never quite made it. Bolan's next burst jerked the guy around like a rubber toy, punching him into a deflated heap at road-center.
The other Thompson briefly challenged the assault from the protected side of the stalled car, but a furious fusillade of 1,000 rounds per minute tore through the vehicle at window level and the duel ended in a death shriek with the sound of disintegrating glass.
Bolan was counting beneath his breath — seconds, not bodies — and he was twenty seconds into the hit when the alarms began sounding from the hardsite.
By the numbers. So far, so good.
The second vehicle was secured, with two dead in the front seat, two dead outside and a groaning man in the rear with the money case. Bolan took the money and a pistol away from the guy, pressed a marksman's medal into his hand in exchange, and tossed the money case onto the road.
'Hit the floor and don't look up,' he coldly advised the wounded survivor. The man readily complied, and Bolan spun to look into the other mess.
A guy was staggering out of the target vehicle with his clothing in flames, Bolan took a step forward then grimaced and quickly sent a mercy burst from the Stoner into the human torch. The guy died quick and clean, liberated from the smouldering chunk of trash that fell to the roadway. Then something tumbled out of a rear door and began twisting about the ground just outside. It was a man, bloodied and still bleeding from a head wound. His hands were tied behind his back and a burnt rope was still coiled about one of his legs. A pantleg was afire, and the guy was feebly trying to smother the blaze with his other leg.
Bolan hurried forward, ripped the burning fabric away from the man and, with hardly a pause, went on beyond him, leaning into the demolished vehicle for a quick look inside.
The two front men were only about half-present, if that much. One had lost his head and a shoulder, the other his chest and adjacent areas, and both corpses were already charred and flaming in the intense heat. Two more bodies were sprawled about the rear section and beginning to ignite.
Bolan wrestled the heated money case clear and quickly backpedalled out of there, aware that the gas tank would go at any moment. The man With the bound hands was groaning with pain and trying to hobble clear on his knees.
Thirty seconds, and the numbers were still in pretty good shape Excited shouts were just now drifting down from the hardsite and somewhere up there the engine of an automobile coughed into life — the jeep, Bolan guessed.
He grabbed the bound man and dragged him across the road just as the target vehicle erupted into the iecondary explosion, sending a towering fireball whoofing into the sky.
The guy was muttering, 'Hell, I don't think I can…' Bolan deposited him on the shoulder of the road and hurried down to take possession of the other case of skim.
Forty seconds. He could hear the jeep whining down the steep drive, rapidly closing. But the nission had been completed and the Executioner was ready to fade into the night. The scene of the encounter was Slightly lighted now and getting brighter by the moment. 'ts his eyes iwept the battle site in a final ©valuation they collided with the gaze of the kneeling man, and even through the blood-spatterings there was no mistaking the silent plea being .ent his way.
Bolan engaged himself in a microsecond of argument, then he growled, 'You want to go with me?'
In a voice choked with misery the man told him, 'They brought me up here to bury me.'
The guy was in bad shape, and Bolan's timetable had made no allowance for such an encumbrance. He fidgeted and his eyes flashed to the curve ahead, then back to the kneeling man. Then Bolan stopped counting — the fifty seconds were gone, and all the numbers were cancelled.
He dropped the money beside his latest unrequested responsibility and walked slowly up the road. The jeep would be tearing into the curve any second iow. The ammo drum of the Stoner responded to his thumping finger with a discouragingly hollow sound, and Bolan had already written it off anyway. He had elected to go with the precision fire and superior stopping power of the heavy .45 Colt at his side; now the autoloader was up and at full arm extension, and Bolan was sighting into the point where the jeep would make its appearance.
And then there it was, braking into the curve and fighting against the ninety-degree swing, two guys in front and two in back, each of the rear men holding a Thompson muzzle-up in an entirely businesslike fashion and bracing themselves against the wild swerving of the little vehicle.
Bolan noted all this in the same flashing instant that his finger began its tickling of the hair-pull trigger. It was like a still photo, with the sizzling tracks of the big bullets caught there and preserved in the grotesque scene of leaping flames and broken bodies, the bullets themselves showing up as a line of instantly-sprouting holes in the jeep's windshield and mirrored in the concerned faces behind that glass. He saw the suddenly limp hands release the steering wheel and the wheel itself spinning back to the point of least resistance. Then the front wheels of the vehicle were humping up onto the raised shoulder of the road, the little car becoming airborne and sailing out into the void, disgorging flailing bodies in its flight.
Bolan did not see the jeep touch down again, but he heard it and drew a mental image of an end-over-end tumble down that mountainside as he returned the .45 to its leather and quickly retraced his steps to the hurting man. He hacked the sashcord from the liberated prisoner's wrists and told him, 'We'd better get moving.'
'I don't think I can walk,' the man groaned.
'Legs broken?' Bolan inquired gruffly.
The guy shook his head. 'No. But weak… hell, I'm so weak.'
'It's walk or die, soldier,' Bolan snapped. He retrieved the money cases and stepped off into the same direction the jeep had taken, down the mountainside. 'It's downhill all the way, if that's any comfort,' he added, glancing back to see if the guy was following.
He was, but slowly and with difficulty. Bolan scowled and tossed one of the cases down the mountain, then he swung back to wrap an arm about the man's chest.
'Arm over the neck,' he instructed him. 'Come on, dammit, let's shake it.'
The injured man showed his liberator a twisted smile. 'For once we're walking away together,' he panted, letting Bolan take most of his weight. 'You haven't recognized me, huh?' he mumbled a moment later as they lurched and slid along the steep incline.
'Mud,' Bolan growled.
'What?'
'Your name is mud, soldier, and so is mine if we haven't cleared this area in another few seconds. So save your breath for what's important.'
'Not mud,' the guy croaked. 'Lyons. I'm Carl Lyons, Bolan.' And with that he passed out and became deadweight in Bolan's arms.
The tall man in combat black emitted a startled grunt, and let the money case slide away as he hoisted the unconscious figure onto his shoulder.
Someone up there was rolling loaded dice into an executioner's destiny.
He'd come to this mountainside seeking a contribution to his deflated war-chest. It had been a perfect ttrike, right on the numbers. Then all of a sudden he had lost interest in war-chests and all the sk in the mob could throw at him.
So he was walking away with nothing but a half-dead cop on his hands.
The Executioner had no regrets. Loaded dice or no, it had been an entirely worthwhile fifty seconds.
Chapter Two
Directions to the front
Joe 'the Monster' Stanno had spent twenty years cultivating an image of ferocity. Naturally endowed for the role, Stanno's stubby legs and oversized trunk gave him the appearance of a gorilla — and the perpetually scowling face did nothing to soften the threatening strength of massive chest and shoulders. His reputation for savagery and his almost maniacal homicidal tendencies had assured Joe the Monster a respected position in an organization which was built upon mtimidation and violence.
