Don Pendleton - Meltdown

This one, too, had been gutted; the rooms had been dismembered to make way for a dormitory. Three rows of bunks, all empty, filled the space.

Bolan heard a shout as he crossed toward the stairs to the first floor. Another gunner bounded up the steps and burst into the sleeping quarters. Bolan sprayed lead in his direction and dived for the floor.

One of the .45 caliber Ingram rounds shattered the newcomer's right hand. His gun clattered to the floor. Before he could retrieve it with his left, Bolan was on him. Grabbing the man by the collar, he hauled him to his feet.

"Don't shoot me, please," he screamed. Reaching for Bolan's hands, he tried to free himself from Bolan's grip, more in desperation than rage. "Please, don't shoot me."

"I'm looking for somebody," Bolan snarled. "I can see she's not here. But somebody knows where she is. I want that somebody to get a message. Do you understand?"

The young man nodded. "What message?"

"You tell him I'm coming. You tell him I'm going to find him. Tell him that if anything happens to Rachel Peres, he'll wish he'd never been born. Understand?"

"Who... who am I supposed to tell? Who's the message for?" The young man's eyes were rolling. His voice was barely intelligible through the blubbering.

"You just tell everybody you know. He'll get the message. Understand? Because if he doesn't get it, I'll be back." Bolan tossed the injured man to the floor and returned to ground level, unopposed. If anyone else had been there, he was long gone. Rousting punks was something Bolan had been doing forever. Or so it seemed. Ever since the Mafia wars, it had been necessary. But the punks had never learned, and this new breed was no different. Just harder to understand. The mob had wanted money, and it did whatever it could to get it. But terrorists were either true believers, or cynics.

The true believers never saw the contradictions. They preached the sanctity of personal freedom and made a living by violating it, or denying it to those who opposed them.

Worst of all were the cynics. They would say or do anything to advance their aims. And when you sloughed off all the rhetoric, ripped the curtain of bullshit aside, it was all about power. Power over people who had precious little of their own. Not over their lives, their futures, not even over the time of their own deaths. The terrorist slime that was spreading over the planet, like mold on a piece of exposed cheese, had to be stopped. But first somebody had to get their attention.

Hell, it wasn't Bolan's choice for a hobby, but somebody had to do it. And with Rachel's life hanging in the balance, he had all the reason he needed. The armory in the East Village would never be the same. But it had seemed like an empty exercise. For all Bolan knew, those guys at the crash pad were blameless. But when somebody comes after you with an SMG, Bolan knew you had better assume he was up to no good. There was another stop he wanted to make, and this visit would be quick. The whole point was to make it clear that the houses weren't as safe as their residents thought. They had no secrets. Not from the Executioner. The thing they never seemed to understand about a rat hole was that there was only one way in. And sometimes no way out.

Bolan drove across town to the docks. South of Fourteenth Street, New York's West Side was a nightmare after dark. The area consisted of winding streets and row after row of abandoned warehouses. It was so gloomy and oppressive that even the hookers preferred to ply their trade farther north under the lights. It was a place where anything was possible.

And where anything could hide.

Hal Brognola knew a great deal about Parsons's little game. And it was becoming increasingly evident that Parsons was little more than the mouth that roared.

Someone else was calling the shots. Bolan's lead on Glinkov looked promising. They didn't have everything yet, but they would shortly. And what they already had told them they were playing with people who operated in the big leagues. It meant Parsons couldn't be in control. He was small time.

Parsons had never been involved in the kind of thing they were turning up. Public disturbance was his ball game, not murder. True, there were links to Parsons, but some of them were merely circumstantial. And some of them looked manufactured. It was as if someone wanted Parsons on the hook. Or already had him there.

Weapons were being stockpiled all over the place.

But that wasn't a secret. Bolan knew the best way to get a line on the bastards was to smoke them out. If they ran, they would lead him somewhere. If they stayed put, it could take days, even weeks, to find them. Bolan didn't have days. Neither did Rachel.

The target was a munitions dump just off the river.

The West Side Highway was lined with dozens of places just like it. Tiers of broken windows in rotten frames. Rusted doors on rustier hinges.

Broken asphalt parking lots. And behind it all, the murk of the midnight Hudson. The river had no glamour in this part of town. In the distance, the dim lights of New Jersey flashed halfheartedly, now and then highlighting a piece of garbage bobbing in the oily water. When Bolan was done, there'd be even more trash in the river.

The place looked like all the others — a monument to urban decay. Single storied, its few remaining windows had been unwashed for years. Leaving his vehicle on a side street, the warrior swiftly made his way through the deserted streets. At the last corner, he slipped into an alley as a police cruiser slid down the off ramp from the highway above. It turned a corner and made its way down one of the winding side streets.

When the cruiser was gone, Bolan sprinted across Twelfth Avenue. At the back there was a loading bay that opened onto a door of corrugated sheet metal. The water lapped at rotten pilings behind and below it. Bolan took a small jimmy from his pocket and wedged it under the ring mount of the door's padlock. The old screws groaned, then squealed as the ring came loose. The chain dangled uselessly, slowly banging against the door. The hollow echo from inside the warehouse sounded like a death knell. Mack Bolan slid the door open and entered the building. The scurry of rats stayed just ahead of the beam of his torch as he walked among the assorted crates and cartons. Opening a few, he confirmed Brognola's latest intel. There were enough weapons here to equip a small army. Most of them were packed in cartons that belied their contents.

Tractor parts had been replaced with automatic rifles, submachine guns and handguns. They were of every make and model, a collection of black market arms worth thousands of dollars. A large crate labeled Generator actually contained smaller boxes of ammunition.

Near the rear door, Bolan's flashlight picked out a small panel truck. His search of the vehicle uncovered two five-gallon gasoline containers, one full, one half empty. Quickly Bolan poured the volatile fuel over the stacks of crates. With the jimmy, he punctured the truck's gas tank, adding its contents to the pyre.

Selecting a LAWS rocket from one of the crates, he slipped back through the door, leaving it open to let the wind inside.

Back across the highway, Bolan took careful aim. With a whoosh like the opening of hell's gates, the rocket streaked across the deserted highway, piercing one of the few intact panes of glass. The elevation was perfect. The LAWS rocket blew with a sound like thunder, igniting the gasoline. In seconds the place was a roaring inferno.

Bolan ran up the block toward his car, reaching it just as the first munitions detonated. In minutes the place would be leveled. Bolan regretted that he didn't have time to stay and watch. But as his Camaro roared to life, he smiled grimly. It wasn't only money, he thought, that could burn a hole in your pocket. And when the pocket belonged to the KGB, you could stand and watch or you could fan the flames.