Don Pendleton - Council of Kings

Bolan fingered the two fraggers he carried on his webbing. If the target came near enough to the Cadillac, Bolan could decimate man and machine with one grenade. But that was wishful thinking.

Another booming round zapped through space, hitting a dozen feet away.

Bolan's machine pistol punched out nine shots this time, aimed on both sides of the muzzle-flash. But again no hits.

His target was back in the brush now, moving deeper into the woods.

The Executioner heard a clunk on the pavement and expected the worst. He dived over the two-foot log edging the parking lot as the rain-filled sky was split open by the ripping, tearing blast of a fragger. But none of the shrapnel found Bolan.

He uttered a stream of agonized screams, which became groans, then died.

The Executioner lay behind the log, the Uzi charged and ready for the man to come gloat over his kill.

Bolan crouched behind the log for five minutes, waiting for the Mafia hit man. He did not come. The ruse had failed.

He rolled silently toward the brush, came to his feet by two sheltering trees and looked toward the parking lot.

The enemy crew wagon was still there. There was no sign of the other man but Bolan knew he was out there somewhere, a skilled, patient guerrilla fighter. The consequences of their meeting would be deadly.

The Executioner leaned around a tree and aimed the Uzi across the lot.

He fired a 3-round burst into the crew wagon, then scattered six rounds where he figured the enemy might be hiding. There was no return fire. As soon as he fired, Bolan darted to another large fir ten feet away. Bolan pondered his next move. There was only one thing to do: flush out the gunner.

The Executioner moved through the woods silently, working away from where his enemy must be and toward the Thunderbird. There was no sign of his opponent near the car. There had been no time or opportunity for his enemy to booby-trap the vehicle.

Crouching, he ran to the rig, jumped in the passenger door and slid across to the driver's seat.

The little light inside the car had lit and darkened.

Bolan watched the lot and saw a tiny light flash in the Caddy.

Someone had seen and done likewise.

The Thunderbird charged across the wet pavement toward the other car. As it neared, the Caddy came to life, snarled across the lot, slithered out the exit and roared onto the highway along the Columbia River, moving eastward. The Thunderbird followed.

The highway was deserted. Bolan sent two rounds from the Beretta toward the fleeing crew wagon, and saw an answering muzzle-flash.

He tried to remember what was along the river.

A few small towns. He was trying to second-guess the man in the Caddy, but his mind was drawing a blank.

The cars rocked along the freeway at sixty-five miles per hour, then accelerated to seventy-five. After a few minutes, the lead car slowed and took an off ramp toward the Oregon side of the huge Bonneville Dam, which spans the Columbia.

There was a parking lot beside the project, and a guard station, both locked.

Bolan spun the Thunderbird around to block the road to the parking lot.

There was no way the crew wagon could pass.

A figure sprang from the Caddy and ran toward the gate leading into the complex. The Executioner followed with the loaded Uzi and Big Thunder ready on his hip.

Evidently there was no exterior guard at night. The man went over the first low gate, and as Bolan pursued he saw the man climb a fence that, according to a sign, led toward the fish ladders. Without hesitation, the Executioner charged after his quarry.

Bolan could see no reason for the hit man to lead him here, but he did not want to lose him now.

For a moment he caught a good glimpse of his enemy under a floodlight.

He was tall and looked muscular. The man vanished around a corner. So far no one had challenged them. Probably few people trespassed there. But Bolan knew that a lot of gunfire would produce armed guards.

The man stopped near a long, inclined concrete plane with a fence on top: the fish ladders. These devices allowed salmon to leap up a series of long ladders, or steps, to spawn; the fish literally climbed upstream around the dam.

The hit man ran along the ladders to a narrow beam that crossed a twenty-foot gap. It was only twelve inches wide, and when he reached the center he spread his arms for balance.

By then Bolan was close enough to use the Beretta.

The round slammed into one outstretched arm. The man fell from the narrow walkway into the concrete fish ladders six feet below. Two feet of water flowed over them.

The man tumbled down three of the wide steps, then came up brandishing a big cannon.

The weapon roared, but its round missed Bolan as he peered over the concrete side. The handgun opened up again and the round whizzed over Bolan's head. The blast reverberated in the heavy concrete-lined enclosure.

Within ten seconds lights snapped on and a spotlight moved around, searching. A voice over a loudspeaker boomed, "Put down your weapon, and surrender. You are in a restricted area of the Bonneville Power Administration. Our guards are armed and will return fire."

Bolan slipped into the shadows. He had missed his chance to snuff the hit man. Now he had to flee before the guards closed in. He retraced his steps.

At the last gate, a searchlight swept over him and away, and he darted into the darkness. A voice called to him from a tower on a loudspeaker, but he ran hard for the Thunderbird.

Once inside he pulled Big Thunder from its holster and drove near the crew wagon. He rolled down the window and slammed three shots into the engine of the big car and a fourth into the gas tank. The Cadillac exploded in a fireball.

The Thunderbird roared through the exit as a Jeep with siren wailing came through a gate from the interior of the complex.

It was no contest. The Thunderbird rolled onto the highway, leaving the Jeep far behind. There was no chance the driver of the Jeep could identify the vehicle or get its license number.

As soon as he had time, Bolan wanted to contact Nino Tattaglia, a mafioso who chose to become an informant rather than spend forty years in prison.

Nino could find out if the Commission had put a new bloodhound on the Executioner's trail. He could find out about this new threat: his name, his home base, his training, his methods.

It took the Executioner almost an hour to drive to the Portland address that was his destination.

He planned to tie up the loose ends of the twin-sister killings before the night was over. Untouched so far was Jody Warren, the loan shark and pimp who had put Charlotte into the situation that had provoked her death.

Warren's kingdom extended over an industrial section of Portland that once contained important ports and was now home to slums, factories, warehouses and abandoned buildings taken over by rats and derelicts. It was after 3:00 A.M. when Bolan found the building he wanted. It was three-stories high; most of the upper windows were covered with plywood.

The bottom floor, now vacant, had once been filled with a miniature farmers market. There was probably a basement, Bolan figured.

He tried a door. The knob turned easily and the door swung open on oiled hinges. Inside a night-light glowed on a small counter. A young black man sat behind it, snoring softly, his head in his arms.

Bolan figured that since there were few blacks in the Mafia, the man was hired help, sleeping on the job. The Executioner removed a pair of plastic riot cuffs from his shoulder bag and looped and tightened one around the young man's hand before he awoke. Bolan's hand, and then a wide piece of tape went over the struggling youth's mouth.

Another cuff went around an ankle, and Bolan put him behind the counter on the floor.