War Against the Mafia

'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 nobody 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. Muffled 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 shelling them with mortar fire,' Weatherbee announced grimly. 'My God, that must be sheer hell 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. Hell, this is full-scale warfare. One-sided, yeah, but hell, 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-fuckin'-dirt,' he said calmly, and fell to a prone 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 sergeant's 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 hell of a guy.'

The hell 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.

They should have a big punch somewhere,' Bolan murmured. 'Surely, surely.' He fired off another flare and began searching the rubble through the range finder; then he heard a familiar sound, one he had not heard at such close range since Vietnam; it was a chopper, a helicopter, and it was close, damn close. Cops? he wondered. Or The Family's big punch?

Bolan hastily selected a flare with a short-time fuse, reset the azimuth on the flare gun, and let it fly. It flashed into brilliance almost immediately, lighting the sky at high altitude above the canyon floor and catching the chopper in bright illumination. It was so close that Bolan could see the pilot throw a protecting arm across his eyes, and the startled face of a white-haired man showed clearly in the window. The settling flare also illuminated Bolan's position; the chopper heeled rapidly over into darkness as Bolan reached for the Marlin. He could hear it swooping close in a tight circle, then it edged back into the flare's circle of light and began spitting fire at him from the rear deck as an automatic weapon began unloading on him. The range finder skittered away, propelled by a steel- jacketed slug, and Bolan rolled away, fighting the Marlin to his shoulder, fighting also an impulse to fire from the hip, and then the chopper was gone again. Bolan rolled over to a tree stump and sat placidly, waiting, sighting along the side of the scope toward the sound of the windmill.

Suddenly it was back, heeling in from the other direction, and Bolan's eye slid over onto the eyepiece and his trained finger waited for a target. A white-maned head appeared in the vision-field, clear enough for Bolan to read the bubbling excitement in the heavy-browed eyes, and then his finger did its part, the big gun bucked, and the excitement went out of white-head's eyes as the chatter of the machine gun once again took up the challenge.

'I can see him!' Pappas said excitedly. 'They see him too. Hey! They've got a machine gun in that chopper!'

'Gimme those damn glasses!' Weatherbee commanded.

'Here- hell-don't even need glasses! Hell-this is like the TV reports on the Vietnam fighting.'

'This ain't Vietnam, kiddo,' Weatherbee murmured.

'Hell, who'd know it?'

'That son of a bitch. How about that son of a bitch?'

The heavy cra-ack of the Marlin came loud and clear above the other sounds, then the heavier staccato of the machine gun, punctuated thrice more by the Marlin's reply. The thump- whump of the whirling blades seemed to take on a different sound and the helicopter lurched and wheeled crazily, plainly visible in the light from the still-high flare.

'Well, Goddamn, I believe he hit 'em,' Weatherbee breathed.

'Damn right, that chopper is falling!'

'The Executioner,' Weatherbee said flatly, 'has come through Armageddon.'

The Executioner would not have been so quick to agree with Lieutenant Weatherbee's assessment of the battle. His shoulder wound had reopened and the blood was soaking his left side. He watched the chopper disappear into the trees, waited for the explosion and grunted when it came, then limped back over to his drop and fumbled about for the first-aid box. He'd done something to his ankle during that final skirmish, and now he could hear sounds above him, somewhere in the woods. He hastily folded in a gauze compress over the shoulder wound and limped into the shadow of a tree, leaving the Marlin behind and wishing the damn flare would hurry and burn itself out.

Someone was coming down the hillside, obviously trying to be both quiet and quick, and the twain would never meet, not in these woods. A rock the size of a baseball was dislodged and came bounding down the slope to crash into a tree several feet from where Bolan stood. Moments later Leo Turrin hove into view, panting with exertion and tension, the cords of his neck standing out plainly above the V-necked polo shirt.

'Bolan?' he called softly. 'Bolan, are you there?'

Bolan shook his head sorrowfully. 'Will you never learn, Leo?' he asked, stepping out from behind the tree, the.45 out and ready.

'Goddamn I'm glad you're all right,' Turrin declared fervently. 'I came over to tell you about the helicopter, but damnit I couldn't find you.'

'Who the hell you trying to kid?' Bolan asked, his tone clearly one of disgusted amazement.

Turrin held his hands straight out in front of his body and carefully sat on the ground. 'Shit, I gotta give up cigarettes,' he said. 'I can hardly breathe.'

'You gotta give up more than cigarettes, kid,' Bolan told him.

'Can I take off one shoe?'

Bolan's shoulder was beginning to burn maddeningly. 'Is that your last request?' he asked impatiently.

'Yeah, yeah, call it my last request. Can I take it off?'

The flare was growing dim and was beginning to disappear over the horizon of trees. Bolan moved closer and dropped to one knee, the.45-held grimly forward. 'If you've been trying to delay me into darkness, you can forget it already,' he said.

Turrin had the shoe off and was peeling out the insole. He withdrew a small plasticized rectangle and proffered it to Bolan. 'Look at this first, will you?' he asked quietly.

Bolan studied the small card in the dying light of the flare, trying to keep one eye on his captive while doing so.