Don Pendleton: California Hit

He should have received the initial ding when the first huge signboard blurred across his vision, proclaiming in red letters a foot high, SAVE THE BAY — but with everything else that had transpired that day, he wasn't as quick to draw the connection. Several signs and as many jogs in the road later, they came upon the houseboat, about a hundred yards off the road, snuggled into a cozy inlet and tied by heavy hawsers to a couple of accommodating trees.

It was small, as some houseboats go, but the letters blazed across it from stem to stern — BAYSAVERS — would be a difficult item for anyone to miss — and this time there was no miss inside Bolan's brain.

Already, though, Mary was swinging the van onto the little trail to the boat and Cynthey was on her knees directly behind him and proudly declaring, "That's it, that's the home where the heart is."

It was also a home where a lot of hell was likely to be unleashed, and it didn't even take an executioner's mentality to recognize that harsh fact of winner-take-all warfare.

He snarled at Cynthey, "Is this also the home of Baysavers Incorporated?"

Her eyes were baffled and recoiling from the savagery of his tone as she stammered, "S-sure, well n-no, I mean, Mr. Vericci gave us the boat. You've heard of him?" She shrank back all the way, reading the truth of Bolan's eyes, and wailed, "Oh, no!"

Oh yeah. He'd heard of him.

Bolan would never cease to marvel at the fantastic interconnections in the world of Mafia, and the way they always seemed to reach out and tie up a guy when he was least expecting it.

Touch one and you reach them all, that was the lesson the Executioner had learned many hot battles ago, but one which he apparently had not learned quite well enough.

A heavy car had already pulled crosswise onto the trail behind them, blocking the way out.

Movements, now — excitedly surreptitious ones — were taking place down there around that boat... and, yeah, all the numbers had crowded together on that narrow trail outside of Sausalito.

His leg pushed Mary's aside and his foot found the brake pedal to stand the warwagon on her nose.

He knew now, yeah, why he'd been feeling so irritable.

He had goofed, he had overlooked something, and that little sentinel of the inner mind had been screaming into his blindness that he had left something behind in San Francisco.

It wasn't his, heart, either.

He'd left his caution and his combat quick and maybe his whole damn lousy war.

He'd become weary of the stand alone.

He'd ridden blithely and blindly into the most outrageously obvious set-up of them all — and he'd come in stupid, deaf, and feeling sorry for himself.

In a voice quivering with self-disgust, he commanded, "Out Mary's side and into the dirt, all of you! Hit the water on my signal and stay the hell clear!"

And then Bolan tried for the only save he knew.

He came out shooting.

Bolan exploded through the rear door of the war-wagon, a combat belt slung hastily across his neck and a blazing burpgun in his hands.

The immediate target was that rear guard vehicle with its six occupants, and it was obvious that they had not expected anything like this. The range was less than fifty yards, far less than the maximum effective for the combat machine gun. The assault caught them on the seat of their pants and clawing like hell to get out of that sitting target; their first few rounds were hasty and purely reactive.

Bolan himself was firing for cover, not for effect. He moved out behind the blazing attack and found the so-so shelter of a stubby tree before the boys could pull their wits back together.

By the time they had their doors open, he had snatched an ornament from the combat belt and base-balled an HE grenade along the course to facilitate their scrambling exit. It hit the ground a few yards shy and rolled on home, exploding directly beneath the vehicle and lifting it to full spring travel in a rocking-rolling motion.

Two guys were still inside at that instant, and the others were no more than a pace away. Two of the outsiders were flattened, hard, by the blast. The other two were reeling away from there and firing handguns at the moon. The burpgun cut them down before they could get their legs fully beneath them.

One of the guys still in the vehicle was screaming bloody murder... and then the secondary explosion came, the gas tank letting go with a horrible whooosh and sending a horizontal jet of fire streaking along the undercarriage like a flame-thrower. The car came up off its wheels, riding that cushion of fire, and the screamer lost it all in a final high-pitched gurgle.

That took care of the rear.

If you wanta play, guys, it's best to bring your own ball.

Bolan was already running along the treeline in a reverse course toward the houseboat.

As he passed the van he shouted, "Okay, hit the drink!" — and again he turned the burper loose, desiring only to attract all eyes to that flaming muzzle and away from the girls.

It was a successful diversion. He was drawing plenty of fire.

Something tore through the fabric of his coat and another sizzling chunk practically parted his hair.

Bolan dived in behind a rock, about midway between the warwagon and the boat, and he reloaded the heated burper while he ran a spot on the enemy.

Some clown was on the roof of the houseboat with a lever-action rifle. That boat had a flat, square roof, absolutely flat, with nothing more than a couple of 3-inch stovepipes and a TV antenna to serve as cover.

Another guy was kneeling just off the gangway, taking cover behind a trash barrel, and plinking at Bolan with a small caliber pistol.

The woods in front of the boat, now, were another matter altogether. Most of their firepower seemed to have been concentrated out there. Muzzle flashes were visible from about five widely scattered points, grouped in multiples, and they were laying a withering fire on him, keeping him pinned behind the rock.

Bolan risked a craning inspection of the bay, and he was partially satisfied to note two girlish heads bobbing around out there just offshore.

It was the two kids.

Mary Ching was nowhere in evidence.

Cynthey seemed to be stroking for the houseboat. As Bolan watched, she paused to tread water and cup her hands for a shout toward her goal. "Everybody out!" she screamed in a high falsetto. "Alla you kids get out of there!"

Somebody was thinking.

The guy on the roof levered a shot at Cynthey.

Bolan splattered him with a single burst from the burper, then he yelled, "Cynthey, stay under!"

It was an unnecessary direction. A glistening bare bottom rose to the surface as she went for depth, and she was gone in a flash. Panda, too, knew where safety was, and she immediately followed suit.

San Francisco Bay had cold, cold water — and Bolan felt a bit bad about that — but it was still the best place for them, especially since both seemed in pretty good control of their environment. There was no control over that other environment — not for the non-combatant — and Bolan had not wanted them in that fire zone.

He cast about for a glimpse of Mary Ching and came up with zero.

Behind him the plug vehicle was now in roaring flames and sending a dense cloud of black smoke soaring skyward.

It was a bad situation. He could have gone on out through that dissolved rear plug, sure, and left everybody to pick up their own marbles. But Bolan just did not play the game that way.

So here he was — pinned down. Probably 15 or 20 guns out there somewhere. Several more on the boat.

A Mexican stand-off could work no way but against Bolan. The heart of the village was less than a half-mile away; there would be an official reaction to that smoke and rattling firefight, and it could come damn quick.