He and Jill jogged off beyond the tree line, away from approaching Vietcong.
At the sound of gunfire the child started squirming under Bolan's arm. He had seen home and family destroyed; innocent eyes witnessed what it was like when cannibals ran unchecked in the world.
A white-hot poker stabbed Bolan in the left leg.
He stumbled but did not go down. Not at first. Then the leg buckled, and he fell.
Bolan cradled the kid to prevent him from being hurt as he rolled over and got to one knee.
Jill stopped beside him, breathless from running.
He scanned the terrain behind them with combat-cold eyes, the M-16 ready. He handed the boy to Jill.
'Move!' he barked.
In the night their eyes met for a timeless moment. Then she ran off, clutching the little boy to her.
Bolan turned toward the direction of the pursuing VC.
Suddenly the jungle darkness blazed into brightness.
At first, Bolan did not see where it came from. There was no time to pinpoint the phosphorous flare that floated down from above.
He heard frantic scrambling noises close by. Squinting against the glare, he sent a long stream of hot lead into the wall of green made silver by the eerie glow of the flare.
Some of the scrambling and rustling sounds stopped. Some.
When the rifle's magazine ran dry, he barely paused in his firing to feed the M-16 a new clip so the mighty weapon could continue hammering, bucking in his steady grip.
It was then he realized the pounding wasn't in his veins but the rotor throb of an approaching chopper.
A big Huey gunship sailed into view overhead, its mounted machine guns raining death on the remaining VC.
Bolan got to his feet as the chopper settled down on the road. The heat of battle had made him forget the pain of his leg wound. Now it hurt like hell. His left leg was stiff from the gouge an enemy bullet had put there.
He looked around. Jill Desmond had stopped down the road a few hundred feet. He could make her out in the Huey's flight lights. She looked stunned.
Even the child was wide-eyed and quiet.
Blancanales called from the open door of the Huey.
'Move it, Sarge! We've got to get out of here before Charlie calls reinforcements.'
The flare sputtered and died in the sky.
Jill Desmond ran over to Mack Bolan by the chopper.
Bolan took the kid from her and passed him up to Zitka's outstretched arms. He saw other members of Sniper Team Able inside the Huey.
'Must've read my mind,' he said to them as he helped Jill into the gunship.
'You mean Colonel Crawford read your mind,' Blancanales called above the rumble of the chopper's engine directly overhead. 'The CO hit the ceiling when he found out you'd gone off on your own. Your butt is up for a chewing.'
Bolan grinned as he climbed aboard.
'We'll see. Won't be the first time.'
Gunsmoke was at the controls. 'Still playing at Sergeant Mercy, huh, soldier?' he called over in his Old West twang. 'God bless you, guy.'
Jill Desmond looked sharply at Bolan.
'Sergeant Mercy?'
'Sure,' Blancanales said when Bolan made no reply. 'That's what all the Viet civilians call him. Didn't you know?'
'There's a lot of things I didn't know, soldier,' the woman admitted, 'until tonight.'
The chopper's engine revved.
Bolan's hand found Jill's and squeezed. She returned the pressure. Feminine, yeah. Divinely so. But
Bolan would be coming back.
Back to the job he did so well.
Back to the hellgrounds.
Sergeant Mercy.
The Executioner.
One man.
For now, though, that one man had earned a rest, however brief.
The chopper lifted off and banked up into the first light of a new day.
The future would take care of itself.
With a helping hand from Mack Bolan, as long as this soldier lived to fight the good fight.
Wherever it might take him.
