19

Take-down

Bolan worked the sighting screws on both mortars, then again pulled pins and fired as fast as he could, once more putting twenty rounds into the air before the first hit. For a moment he thought the big house was beyond maximum range, or maybe the powder in all the increments was old and he was getting short rounds, because the first three hit along the road between the camp and the house.

Then the others rained down like shooting fish in a rain pond, all seven direct hits or such close misses they whapped the stone walls. But the goddam house refused to fall.

The flare died out and Bolan sat back resting. He lit a cigarette and puffed. He wanted them to think that was it. That it was over, all clear, okay to come out of your holes now, boys.

He rolled over and pulled the BAR to his shoulder, slapped the bottom of the magazine to see it seated firmly, cocked the automatic rifle, and ran off the first magazine, five bursts of three rounds each and a final burst of four, all tracers. He adjusted for a slightly higher angle, changed magazines, then poured it on three, three, three, three, three, four. Changed magazines and repeated it again, and again.

In military terminology it was plunging fire. To the men down there, the bullets seemed to be coming from the sky, coming straight down on them.

Bolan fired his last flare shell from the mortar.

Even as it left the muzzle, he began firing the BAR once more, professionally, methodically. The flare burst open in a hellish green light, and he saw men reeling, frantically rushing in every direction, knocking each other down. A few were shooting, in every direction. Two men seemed to hear gunfire at the same time, wheeled around, and shot each other.

Hellground.

Slaughter in Sicily, right in the Mafia's womb. Where the bastard fathered by terror and birthed by a bitch named expediency had grown to monstrous size and strength, so it could wipe out the family of a professional soldier fighting in Vietnam.

Bolan pulled the bagful of remaining BAR magazines to him and looped the strap around his neck. He slung the M79 grenade launcher across his back. He got the bagful of frags and hefted them on his other shoulder. He pulled the pins on two frags but held the spoons tightly, then dropped them down the mortar tubes. When the surviving malacarni came up the mountain and found the mortars, unless they knew their business, there would be more deads. When they tipped the tubes up from the baseplates the grenades would fall free, flip their spoons, and detonate.

But as he dropped the frags down the tubes. Bolan went fast and low down the steepest part of the hill from his fire-base. Those tubes could be hot enough to cook-off the frags and Bolan didn't want his ass full of hot steel.

Bolan skirted the malacarni camp, hardly bothering to conceal himself except to stay in the shadows. The camp lay in ruins. The stunned survivors staggered about in a state of shock. No one had made any effort to mount a counterattack.

Bolan still had three objectives before calling the mission accomplished.

Well, perhaps four ... if he counted on getting away.

But three for sure, first. Then see about getting out.

He found a place offering concealment and good cover behind large boulders, stopped and dropped his heavy load. He unbagged the shotgun-shell propellant charges for the M79 and laid them out in a row on the ground in front of his knees. He loaded the grenade launcher, sighted, and put one into the counterfeit documents shop, then another. The frame building went up in a sheet of flaming kindling.

Calmly, Bolan reloaded, shot down the door of the ammo dump with the first round, laid the second inside, and then he crouched behind the boulders and waited for the secondary.

The ammo dump went like the start of World War Three. When earth, wood, metal, and parts of bodies stopped raining down, Bolan looked over the boulders and saw the armory also flattened and afire. Only a large smoking hole where the ammo had been.

He gathered the remaining gear and slipped on through the shadows. It was beginning to get light. He realized he could see farther, make out distinct shapes rather than darker masses in the dark.

If he wanted to get out, he should go. But he could not stand the thought of leaving without a complete takedown. He wanted to see that goddam house — that. . . that castle, yeah, ruler of Agrigento, the late Don Cafu. Bolan wanted nothing left for the sons of bitches to look at but rubble, junk. It's hard to build a legend on trash, difficult to worship the residue of destruction.

He stopped again near the place he had first approached the house. He could see the white shape of Riarso's naked body.

The house was a gutted, still flaming ruin; but it also still stood, big, blocky, stone and mortar, and looking too goddam much like a monument.

Standing in the open, methodically firing one grenade after another with the M79, Bolan sent the stone-crunchers into the foundation, blowing out one corner after four shots, the other after five. He moved farther along so he could see the side of the building. He refused in his mind to call it a home, or even a house, and shot again and again, until his grenades were gone, and the house still stood.

He felt like crying.

He turned to go back to the BAR when a sound slapped past his ear and he whirled around. An ivory white Rolls Silver Cloud came up the paved drive toward the house, and from the back window behind the driver a man was shooting at Bolan.

Bolan dropped, drawing the Automag. He sighted on the driver and squeezed, then threw the shot wide in the last possible instant when a first ray of sun glinted on the badge above the driver's heart. The shot took out the front windscreen of the car and the driver lost control. Bolan fired again and again, punching .44 Magnum holes through every glass of the Rolls.

The door on the far side suddenly flew open and a man leaped out, shouting, "Bolan! Bolan! Wait. I want to talk."

"Okay, stand up and talk." Bolan watched from cover.

The big man rose to his feet in his silk suit, brushing at his sleeves.

"Come out and talk." The man gestured. "We can deal, Bolan."

"Who am I dealing with?"

"Police. Get out Chief. Look, Bolan, we can fix this. Goddam you, Chief, get out!"

The front door opened and the fat policeman struggled from behind the wheel, gasping so loudly, Bolan may not have heard the command if he had not seen the man in silk also move his lips. "Now!"

The back door flew open and a man armed with a shotgun, lying on the floor of the car, let off both barrels at Bolan. One of the slugs caught Bolan below the right knee and knocked him down as he rose. The rest of the deadly double-aught buckshot went wide and low, ripping a long wide hole across the ground.

Bolan discounted the shotgunner. He was an empty gun for the moment. Instead, he shot the burly dude in fancy clothes, through the guts. The .44 Mag folded Brinato in the middle like a wet taco and drove him ten feet backwards until he tripped and fell rolling. He screamed, holding his middle.

"Live with it a while, you mother," Bolan said, "yeah, let's talk." He shot the other man lying on the back floorboard just as the cool bastard shoved in another pair of double-aught loads and snapped the shotgun into battery.

The policeman lay on his side in the dust and Bolan knew he'd finally done it.

Killed a cop.

Stray round, ricochet, whatever. The Executioner would get blamed for it. He dragged the man out of the back and dumped him, dropped a marksman medal on his chest.

"Pleese-a, don't-a keel me, signor."

Bolan whirled to find the cop on his knees.