that picked the Cuban off his feet and slammed him back against the fender of the nearest moving van.
More incoming rounds drove the
Another gunner toppled to his right, draped across the Caddy's hood, his pistol clattering on the pavement. Sacco saw his own chauffeur go down, blood pumping from a ragged throat wound, gasping out his life while those around him went about their business, killing and being killed in turn.
And suddenly, the adrenaline high was turning into fear. The
A tire exploded on the Caddy, then another, and Sacco crouched lower for protection. He listened to the bullets drumming into the bodywork now like rain on a tin roof, threatening to break through and find him on the other side at any moment.
He fought down an urge to cut and run for the safety of his armored Rolls. He had no driver now, could not be heard above the din of gunfire, and it suddenly occurred to him that he could no longer call off the battle even if he wanted to.
And he did want to, more than he could comprehend through the panic fogging his mind.
He half rose from his combat crouch, prepared to order anyone within earshot to retreat and make for the other cars, but before he could speak, a big gun opened up from the sidelines, filling the air with its thunder.
Sacco actually saw its projectile strike the rearmost moving van and suddenly the truck erupted, disintegrating at the seams and shooting everything inside into a towering inferno. Smoke, flames and shrapnel were heavenbound and bodies were flying, some of them flattened by the concussion.
Shock waves rocked the Caddy and Sacco stumbled, sprawling on his face. The stainless .45 spun out of his hand, and before he could recover it, there was another sharp explosion, and another, seeming to walk along the line of moving vans, closing in on his own exposed position.
Someone close to him was screaming, a sound of blind, unreasoning panic in the midst of hell on earth. And it took the
Mack Bolan was flying the skywatch with Grimaldi, circling high above the Rickenbacker Causeway in their Bell executive whirlybird, heading inland. Their radio was set to eavesdrop on the frequency employed by Phillip Sacco's walkie-talkies, waiting for the word that would confirm some contact with the enemy.
Riding shotgun beside Grimaldi, Bolan was rigged for hellfire. He was dressed in tiger-stripe fatigues, outfitted in military webbing with the sleek Beretta underneath his left arm and the silver AutoMag in place on his right hip. He held the XM-18 40mm grenade launcher in his lap; the bandoliers crossing his chest were filled with alternating HE, smoke and antipersonnel rounds, touch-coordinated for easy access in the heat of combat.
They were skimming in across the long deserted beach when the radio hissed into life.
'This is Digger, calling home base. You there, chief?'
'I'm listening. What is it?'
'Four vans headed your way, Cubans driving.'
'Slow 'em down the best you can. We're coming in.'
'You got it, boss.'
A brief hesitation, and when the commanding voice resumed, there was no mistaking Sacco's intonation.
'All cars, form up on number three's position. North on Brickell. Move it!'
Bolan glanced over quickly at Grimaldi and the pilot nodded, banking the chopper, homing in on Brickell Avenue and following its course along the shoreline. Within moments they had sighted the little convoy, the silver Rolls leading two Lincolns. Way back, just joining the parade but moving fast to make up time, two other crew wagons were trailing, pulling in the flanks.
Forty gunners, Bolan guessed, maybe more if they were packed in like sardines. The Executioner wondered how many Cubans it would take to fill three moving vans, leaving the fourth one empty except for its lethal cargo of explosives. Any way he counted it, the totals came up spelling bloodbath.
They skimmed over the skirmish lines where a black Caddy had the four trucks blocked and troops had already engaged each other on the street. Grimaldi swung wide, looking for a clean LZ, finally bringing Bolan in from behind a little shopping mall that fronted the street.
The ace flier hovered five or six feet above the flat roof of a Laundromat and Bolan flashed a thumbs-up prior to jumping. He landed on the run, ducking beneath the rotor wash to take up his position at the front edge of the roof, overlooking the battlefield some fifty yards away.
After discharging his passenger, Grimaldi lifted off and took position in the rafters, out of small-arms range. At need, he could get in touch with Bolan by means of a tiny transceiver headpiece that the warrior had included in his battle dress.
The reinforcements had arrived as Bolan reached his lookout post, and now gunners were spilling out of the assorted crew wagons, the Rolls and carbon-copy Continentals, trading fire with the scattered Cubans. From where he stood, Mack Bolan could make out the bobbing, weaving figure of Phil Sacco as he looked for cover down behind the makeshift roadblock formed by the bullet-punctured Cadillac.
He let them get to know each other for moment, watching troopers fall on either side, looking for the best angle of attack for himself. Finally, he decided that the Cubans would most likely have their explosives stashed in the rearmost van, for safety's sake, and also making it easier to shut down the causeway behind the three troop carriers.
He raised the XM-18 launcher and announced his entry to the battle with an HE round that impacted on the rearmost moving van. A secondary blast tore the early-morning scene apart. It was a thunderous explosion, shattering windows for half a mile along the boulevard, leveling every upright body on the battlefield with a massive shock wave that rocked the other vans and vehicles, deafening the participants and leaving them shaken, stunned.
The small arms fire below him dried out completely for a moment following the blast, and Bolan moved into the breach, his projectile launcher belching fire and smoke as he picked out new targets, walking the HE rounds along the line of makeshift troop vehicles. The vans were going up like a string of giant firecrackers, scattering their occupants in bits and pieces, driving the survivors in a frantic scramble-search for any cover that might save them from the rain of fire.
He pivoted and dropped another high-explosive can directly onto Sacco's silver Rolls, consuming it in fire and smoke that quickly spread to take the Caddy out as well. Below him all was chaos now, the gunners on both sides unloading aimlessly, none of them apparently pinpointing the source of their sudden disaster.
Bolan's HE rounds were spent, but he kept on firing, scattering the shaken, stunned survivors with round after punishing round of buckshot, blowing ragged holes in the disintegrating ranks, ripping flesh and fabric at the limit of his howitzer's effective range. There was no answering fire, and by the time he exhausted his first drum it was apparent to the soldier that none would be forthcoming.
The tiny earpiece of his radio was crackling at him, and Jack Grimaldi's familiar voice seemed to emanate from somewhere inside his ringing skull. Bolan eased back on the launcher's trigger, cupping a hand over his other ear to screen out the screams of the wounded and dying from below.
'Time to go, Striker. Cavalry's coming.'
Bolan grinned and shook his head. He knew better, yeah.
The cavalry had already arrived.
And in the distance now, he could hear the converging sirens. That would be Bob Wilson, leading in the SWAT teams on a mop-up mission. Bolan backed off, leaving the remains to Wilson and his troops.
The Executioner's mind was already racing away from the smoky killing ground toward the final stop along his hellfire journey through Miami.
The soldier had some final business to transact with Toro yet, before he called it quits and started looking for another hellground.
Toro was waiting for him, right, and Mack Bolan could not afford to be late. The fate of his mission could be hanging in the balance, still undecided, and the soldier never left a job unfinished.
