Death Squad

doorway announced the results of the first retort, and already the second and third words were being introduced into the reply. Then there was silence, except for a sighing groan off to one corner of the room.

'Zitter?' Bolan called out softly.

'Zitter,' came an immediate reply. 'That you, Mack?'

'It's me.' Bolan was rolling slowly as he spoke. 'You okay, Zit?'

'Yeah. There's three of 'em. You get all three?'

'Check—three,' Bolan replied. He sighed and got to his feet, returned to the door and found the light switch, then closed the door and turned on the lights.

Three men were lying about the small room like grotesque statues of death. Zitka sat in a corner on the floor, ropes binding his wrists and ankles. Bolan produced a pocket knife and cut the ropes. 'You should have told your buddies the password,' he said, grinning.

'Buddies hell!' Zitka muttered. 'What'd you do to your hair?' He was rubbing the circulation into his hands and feet.

'Bleached it,' Bolan said. 'Cute huh? Tried the mustache route too but couldn't stand the filthy thing. What'd you let them tie you up for?'

Zitka growled an unintelligible response and reached for a pack of cigarettes on a nearby table. A dark man, heavily built, he moved with surprising grace. He was dressed only in a swimsuit.

Bolan had moved to one of the dead and was busily searching pockets and laying the contents out for inspection. 'How'd you know they weren't cops?' he asked off-handedly.

'Cops don't slap you around and tie you up like a turkey,' Zitka growled.

Bolan nodded. They're Maffios,' he reported.

'Dammit, I told you to stay clear.'

Bolan smiled and moved to the next body. Thanks for the tip. But the ambush at Kwang Tri was a helluva lot hotter than this one.'

These bastards ain't playing games, Mack.'

Bolan was still smiling. 'Weren't much of a match for a couple of old jungle fighters, were they? Pretty cute the way you tipped me, Zit. Of all places to go for R and R. Kwang Tri, for God's sake.'

'Yeah,' Zitka said sourly. He had yet to find a glint of humor in the situation.

'How long they been encamped, Zit?'

The big guy there has been hanging around a coupla days. I knew he was reconning. I figured they had a phone tap on me. The TV and papers here were full of your private little war with the Mafia. I had the setup figured, all right. The phone was tapped. Soon as you hung up they came busting in here. Hell, I hadn't been worried until I got your call, Mack. You're the last guy on earth I expected to show up here. You shoulda stayed clear. You really should've.'

Bolan's smile became a dark scowl. 'I couldn't stay clear, Zit,' he replied. The bastards have backtracked my entire life. I found stakeouts every place I went. They were waiting for me in Omaha, in Denver, at Gordon's place up in Evergreen, at Vegas—and now here. It's getting to be too damn much, Zit, Dammit, I need ...' His voice trailed off, and he raised baffled eyes to his friend.

'What you need, buddy, is a miracle,' Zitka declared. His eyes dropped. 'And what I need is to get this garbage the hell out of here.'

Bolan sighed. 'Call the cops, Zit. Tell them what happened. Meanwhile I'll be fading across the nearest horizon.'

'You want me to kick the hell right outta you?' Zitka fumed.

This isn't your war,' Bolan said quietly. 'No need for you to get involved.'

'Shut up, just shut up!' Zitka said angrily. 'I wouldn't even be here if you hadn't dragged my riddled ass out of Phung Duc.'

'I just don't want...'

'Screw what you don't want. You came here, didn't you? Awright, you're here, and I ain't blowing no whistles! Let's just get these stiffs to hell out of my apartment. Then we'll figure out what to do next. But you ain't fading across no horizons, buddy.' He held out his hand, and Bolan gripped it tightly. 'Now unless I'm up there scoutin' for you.'

They shook hands solemnly, then stood quietly surveying the latest carnage of The Executioner's war. Bolan kicked lightly at a dead foot. 'Don't suppose anybody's tumbled to the gunfire yet,' he murmured. 'Not with all the other racket around here. What kind of joint is this, Zit? Does this noise go on all the time?'

'Just about.' Zitka smiled. 'Places like this are the new scene, Mack. Residence club, it's called— for swinging singles only. I had to lie about my age to get this apartment. Would you believe I'm in the older generation?'

Bolan chuckled. The guys over in 'Nam don't really know what they're fighting for, do they? Well... I'm driving a 'Vette. It makes a lousy garbage truck. What kind of car do you have?'

'It'll serve as a garbage scow,' Zitka replied. The only way outta here, though, is out through the patio. We'll have to lug them right through the swingers.'

'From what I saw, it wouldn't be too startling a sight,' Bolan said musingly. 'Well, let's give it a try. You lead the way.'

Zitka picked up a keycase from a corner table, then carefully positioned a body on the floor and heaved it onto his shoulder. Bolan swung on aboard in a fireman's carry and followed Zitka onto the porch and down the stairway. He found it weirdly incredible that such a short time had elapsed since he had climbed those stairs. The revelries at poolside seemed unchanged, except that now the blonde go-going in the pool had been joined by several others; they seemed to have some sort of contest going. Someone shouted a greeting to Zitka, and a playful couple nearly spilled Bolan and his corpse into the pool. Otherwise, they were totally ignored. Bolan paused alongside a table to reposition his load. He smiled at a gargantuan-chested cutie in a technically topless swimsuit, lifted her glass to his lips and tasted it, then thanked her and went on. He found Zitka stuffing a body into the rear seat of a late-model Dodge and added his own burden to the repository.

Zitka was huffing with exertion and complaining about his feet and the rough pavement. 'One to go,' Bolan declared. He was pushing at a protruding foot and trying to close the car door.

'Let me get him,' Zitka said. 'I need to get into some clothes anyway. I'll make it fast.' He hurried back toward the patio. Bolan walked over to his Corvette, took a handful of ammo from the glove compartment, and dropped it into his coat pocket. Then he returned to the Dodge, reloaded his weapon, lit a cigarette, and waited. The cigarette was less than half-gone when Zitka reappeared, dressed in jeans, a knit shirt, and deck shoes and carrying the third gunman.

A car swept up the drive at that precise instant, catching Zitka in the full glare of the headlights. It halted with a lurching bounce, as though the driver had floorboarded the brake pedal; doors on each side were flung open, and a flurry of human activity erupted around the vehicle. Jungle instincts moved Bolan into a flying dive across the Dodge just as the chatter of an automatic weapon laced the night air above the sounds of patio revelry. Projectiles were zipping into the Dodge in a full sweep from bumper to bumper. In the periphery of his vision, Bolan noted that the dead gunman who had been on Zitka's shoulder was now lying across the trunk of a parked automobile; Zitka himself was not in sight. Bolan's .32 was in his hand, but it seemed small comfort in the face of the burpgun that was methodically spraying the area about him. He rolled and crawled along the line of parked cars until he was directly opposite the attacking vehicle.

Another chattergun had joined the action, one on either side of the car now, and the fire was still being directed in the general direction of the Dodge. A pistol cracked from somewhere down-range, then again; both headlamps of the enemy car shattered, and the lights went out. One of the gunmen yelled a muffled warning, and one of the automatics began spraying the car upon which Zitka had dumped the body.

Bolan smiled grimly; Zit was in the action—he had anticipated Bolan's movement and was providing diversionary fire. The gas tank of the latest target exploded in a spectacular fireball. An unfamiliar voice cried, 'Goddammit! Lookit that!' Bolan jerked to his feet just as a nattily dressed man pounded around the line of cars; his .32 arced up and exploded, and the man hit the pavement and slid grotesquely into a fetal ball.

One does not plan each successive step of a firefight. Actions in warfare proceed from the instincts, not from the intellect, and Bolan's first shot, at such proximity to the enemy, of necessity became a fusillade. Diving and