Don Pendleton - Council of Kings

Soft music sounded from concealed speakers. Bolan tested the door.

Unlocked. He opened it slightly and peeked into the next room. He saw an old-fashioned parlor with a couch, chairs, a spindle-legged dining-room table in heavy oak and four oak straight-backed chairs with cane-laced seats.

Antique tintypes and a large, oval, glass-framed picture of a dour man and woman decorated the walls. The man had a heavy mustache and stood behind the chair in which the woman sat, looking very prim and proper.

Bolan hurried across the room to another door.

Beyond was a kitchen and a bath, and farther on, a large bedroom. A man and two women, all naked, lay sleeping on the king-size bed.

Jody Warren was short and fat. His stringy brown hair was scattered over the pillow. Acne scars pocked his face. Brownish stains, possibly from lack of washing, splotched his face and neck.

He mumbled in his sleep and reached for the closest girl.

The Executioner held the Uzi an inch above his ear and fired into the wall. Warren jolted upward, his eyes wild.

He saw Bolan in the soft night-lights and swore. Both women jumped up, screaming. Warren yelled, "Who are you? And who the hell let you in?"

Bolan tossed a marksman's medal onto the bed and the small man began to shake.

"Hey, it ain't me you want. Get the big shots. Me, I'm small potatoes. Get the bosses!"

"They come next, Jody."

At a sign from Bolan, the women moved off the bed and out of danger.

"Get your pants on, Jody. I hate to see a man die when he's naked."

"Hey, you got no fight with me. I just follow orders." He started to rise from the bed, rolled over and grabbed a .45 automatic from under the big pillow. Bolan slammed three shots through his wrist, and flesh and blood and bone sprayed as the heavy gun fell to the sheets.

"Bastard!"

"Get your pants on."

With his good hand, Jody picked up a pair of blue pants from a chair and got into them. He was in agony.

"May I bandage his hand?" one of the women asked.

Bolan nodded. The tall slender brunette took a scarf from a dresser and wound it around the wrist, stopping the bleeding.

"Now show me how you turn off the juice in that hallway, Jody."

Jody glared at him in fury, then motioned with his bandaged hand. "Down here."

The Executioner followed him through another room to a closet. Warren leaped on a brass pole and slid through the floor.

A fireman's pole!

The Executioner grabbed the pole and dropped into the blackness below.

There was no light, absolutely none at all.

Bolan guessed he had landed in a second-floor room on the far side of the hallway. He held his breath.

Hearing a movement to the left, he drew the silenced Beretta and fired three single shots.

Then the Executioner snapped on his cigarette lighter. The small flame revealed a figure cowering in the corner.

"Nice try, but you're still a dead man, Jody. Now how do you turnoff the juice?"

"It's on a timer."

"Where is the door in here?"

Jody pointed to the right in the flickering light.

"Open it."

Warren rose and opened the door. He looked into the hall. The slick, electrified surface seemed unchanged, except that now a charred wooden chair lay on the floor.

"Juice is off," Bolan said. "It must have burned out your reset."

Then Warren dashed into the hall, ran past two doorways and through a third.

Bolan caught the slamming door and stopped six steps behind Warren, realizing they were in the mechanical dart room with the patchwork linoleum floor.

Bolan watched the pimp and loan shark hopscotch across the floor, and followed exactly in his footsteps. Then his quarry burst into the mined room, tripped over the retaining wall and fell into the sand. He turned to Bolan with fear on his face.

Bolan stopped at the door, the Uzi up, amazement on his face.

"How the hell did you miss the mines?"

"I didn't. There's only one in here that's live. The rest are practice mines with no charges."

"Let's find the live one," Bolan said, triggering the Uzi into the sand, hoping one of the slugs would detonate the mine.

"No! That's not fair!"

"Tell Charlotte Albers about fair, you bastard." Shielded by the door, Bolan moved his fire to the other side of the room.

One slug found the right spot and the room exploded with a deafening roar that slammed the Executioner back into the dart room. He felt a sting on the arm that had been exposed, and saw a four-inch gash where shrapnel had penetrated. A red stream poured out.

He returned to the door. The mangled, bloody remains of Jody Warren were strewn near the far door.

"That one was for Charlotte and Charleen," Bolan said.

The electricity was still off in the hall. Bolan hurried across it to the end room, and found the black girl dressed in street clothes, waiting for him.

"Glad you won," she said. "I got everybody else out. Just the girls in trouble were here. I told them never to come back. I don't care about the bitches upstairs. We better split, cause the cops gonna be here in a couple of minutes."

Bolan nodded. He let the Uzi hang on its cord, and they paced out to the street.

The black girl looked at him.

"Don't know who you are, but thanks for the vermin extermination." She paused. "Hey, if you ever..." She stopped and shook her head.

"No way, girl. This man don't ever have to pay for his loving."

She grinned. "Been nice," she said. "Thanks again." She walked away into the Portland dawn.

As the Executioner got into his Thunderbird, the rain began again, soft and cleansing.

It was after 5:00 A.M. when Mack Bolan unlocked his hotel door and entered the room. He sensed someone there and crouched, then snapped on the light.

Johnny slept on the bed, fully clothed.

He sat up, rubbed his eyes and grinned.

"Guess I dropped off to sleep."

"Yeah." Bolan went to his suitcase, took out a first-aid kit and broke it open. Johnny was beside him in a minute, checking the slashed left arm, taking over. He cleaned it with a wet washcloth, doused it with antiseptic, put a compress over it and bandaged it tightly.

Mack Bolan inspected his wound, then put on a clean black jersey and looked at Johnny. "When is that ship due to dock?"

"At 13.30 hours, one-thirty, at Terminal One, berth fifteen."

"So it'll enter the mouth of the Columbia about daylight. I should be able to find it along the Columbia on the way."

"You need help?"

"I need two hours sleep. Then I'll be ready to go. See if any of the helicopter rental agencies are open yet. See if you can find one that has a pilot who flew choppers in Nam, and find out about renting a bird from eight o'clock to about noon, cash in advance."

Johnny nodded and turned to the phone book. Before he found what he was looking for, the Executioner was asleep.

At nine A.M. Bolan and Scooter Roick slanted down the Willamette River from the Portland International Airport. Both were scanning the water. They were flying a Bell Jet Ranger, with enough speed and power for the job.

Scooter Roick was a lean man of about thirty-five. His eyes danced when Bolan told him that what they were about to do was highly illegal but that Scooter would be only marginally involved.

"Damn, just like Nam. Most of what we did there was a little wild, too!"

"Some guys on deck may shoot at us with handguns or rifles," the Executioner said. "Are you still game?"

"Hell, yes! I haven't had any fun in years. You want me to set you down on the fantail of some freighter?"

"Right. She'll be moving upstream at maybe ten knots. Get me within eight or ten feet of the deck, and I'll go down a rope. There might be some guy wires or cranes on this thing. I don't know."