Part 2 (2/2)

The outside guard numbered less than ten, with just about all of these engaged in the final preparations for the coming night.

He carried the .44 AutoMag flesh-shredder strapped to his right hip, the whispering Beretta in snap-draw leather beneath his left arm, the little auto chatter-pistol dangling at waist level from a shoulder cord.

Fragmentation grenades and incendiaries were clipped to his belts. Smoke sticks occupied the slit pockets below his knees. Coils of dough like plastic explosives were wrapped about his neck.

A one-man a.s.sault force had to also be a pack mule. In a show like this, he got but one jump-off and he had to have it all together the first time around.

Bolan had it all together.

Thirty seconds inside the walls he already had plastic ”goop” clinging to four of the bungalows, with ninety-second fuses attached and counting down.

By thirty-five numbers past jump-off he was moving between the two central bungalows. At that same moment Shotgun Pete came striding out of the courtyard at the side of the main building, a sandwich in his left hand, the right hand enjoying the subconscious back-of-the-hand stroking of concealed hardware.

The guy gaped in mid-bite, then threw the sandwich over his shoulder and broke b.u.t.tons getting the coat open as he spun into the confrontation with advancing death.

The range was about fifty yards. Bolan instinctively went for the heavy piece, the AutoMag arcing up and exploding into the hair-trigger response even before reaching full extension.

Shotgun Pete's spinning motion was arrested as though he'd run into some invisible wall and he died at thirty-nine numbers, the itchy right hand mutilated by a big 240-grain bullet that blasted on through and ripped the heart right out of the guy.

The roaring report of the .44 brought immediate response from several quarters.

Not a spare number was available to the tall grim man in black, however. He ignored the angry yapping of the several handguns which were challenging him, and continued the charge.

At thirty yards out he baseballed a fragmentation grenade through the big window at the front of the joint, following immediately with an incendiary blast. The quick one-two punch jarred the old building, sending flames and smoke huffing through the shattered window.

At forty-seven numbers he turned the chatter- pistol into a retort to the growing menace of the handgun defenses, forcing two guys on his right flank to dive for cover behind a bungalow and catching a malacarni on his left who was sprinting in for closer range with a figure-eight burst that removed him from the range utterly and forever.

Mixed somewhere into those numbers a shotgun barrel emerged from an upstairs window of the old building, and Bolan found himself moving through an atmosphere suddenly thickened with spraying buckshot.

Luckily the person behind the gun had not bothered with choke-settings; the few pellets which found target were insufficient to the task at hand.

Bolan shrugged away the stinging strikes, emptying his clip in a blazing sweep of the four windows facing him up there. The shotgun clattered to the courtyard, accompanied by a rain of shattered gla.s.s and nothing else-but there was no more static from the upper level.

It was seventy numbers into the strike. The AutoMag was effectively persuading a noisily alarmed hard force to remain with the burning building when Bolan suddenly broke off the attack and began his withdrawal along the reverse course, back between the bungalows and along the wall to the precise point where he had entered.

A hot pursuit was materializing behind him, with guys pouring in from everywhere. On top of that, a familiar figure was on his knees and peering into a foxhole directly in Bolan's path.

At eighty-five and counting, he sent a 240-grain magnum bone crusher exploding into the forehead of Big Swagger as the latter raised startled eyes from an inspection of Bolan's first victim of the strike; then Bolan was over the wall and crouching behind it, eyes on the GP Quartz at his wrist.

Silently his lips formed the word ”ninety” as right on the numbers the four bungalows he'd gooped for doomsday found the end of their ninety-second fuses and lifted themselves into oblivion -a goodly number of malacarni, Bolan presumed, tagging along in a sudden departure from hot pursuit.

He sheathed the AutoMag, crossed casually to the war wagon, and unhurriedly drove away from there.

At the intersection with Germantown Avenue , he met and yielded to a screaming procession of firefighting equipment and police vehicles. When they were all safely by and tearing along Bolan's backtrack, he again consulted his wrist.w.a.tch, blotted a spot of blood from his cheek, and muttered, ”Bingo, right on the numbers.”

From Bolan's journal: I have met the enemy and I guess they're mine. But let's not get too c.o.c.ky about it. Ten more seconds in there and I'd have been a dead dude. And it's not ended yet.

No, the Philadelphia hit had not ended yet, nor had it even found a pause. Already the Executioner was racing toward the next round with the Angeletti Mafiosi.

Chapter 6.

Without Numbers.

Stefano Angeletti had been seated at the small dining table with his son Frank and two of his lieutenants, Carmine Drasco from South Philly and Giles Sticatta from downtown, when the fireworks started.

On the wall above the table hung a large, hand- painted sign in a foreign language which, translated, urged everyone within sight of it to:

SPEAK AMERICAN.

THINK AMERICAN.

BE AMERICAN.

The soldiers who were seated at the long table just opposite were obviously being intimidated by the instructions. They were eating in absolute silence, devouring stacks of roast beef sandwiches and was.h.i.+ng them down with cheap wine as the Capi at the small table went through their final review of the strategy for the night.

Only a moment earlier, Frank Angeletti had caught the eye of one of the Sicilian crew bosses and, breaking his own rule, growled a command in the old tongue: ”Scrusci-scrusci.”

Literally translated, the phrase meant ”squeaky shoes” but in old-country Mafia slang it referred to a reliable scout, one who could be counted upon to recon a dangerous situation.

The man got up and went out, taking his sandwich with him.

Immediately thereafter the h.e.l.l began, with a single rolling boom from a high-powered firearm.

Frank the Kid froze with his wine gla.s.s halfway to his lips, eyes glazing as they sought rea.s.surance from the others at the table.

Papa Angeletti was raised off his chair and stared speculatively toward the front of the house.

A wave of quiet exclamations was surging along the long table of soldiers.

Then the building shook and a great explosion banged open the door at the front of the room, sending in whoofing smoke and powdered plaster.

Before anyone could react to that unsettling development, angrily popping sparks of white-hot chemicals sizzled through the opening and sent the soldiers scattering in all directions from their dining table.

As fast as that, the place was a disaster area-the table overturned, chairs scattered about and excited men scampering to escape the popping incendiaries.

Don Stefano was screaming, ”Awright, that's it! Get out there, out there!”

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