Don Pendleton - Blood Sport

Everything depended on it.

"It's huge," she said at last, looking up at the massive metal building at the back of the army compound.

"It used to be an airplane hangar," Bolan told her, whispering in the darkness as she marvelled at the shadowy form that they approached. "But it was converted into a storage building about five years ago. I have my own private little corner in there that no one else even knows about. Come on." They jogged quickly across the paved street, Bolan in military uniform, Tanya in black jeans and sweater, then they crept toward the armed guard who stood semialert in front of the entrance. As the guard saw them he swung his rifle and took aim.

"Relax, Bendix, it's me."

"Sarge?"

"Who else?" Bolan looked around. "I heard the guards had been doubled, where's your shadow?"

Bendix pointed with his rifle. "Leadline's over there someplace taking a leak. Jeez, Sarge, I don't know, when Cottonwood offered a cut of this action, I had no idea what I was getting myself into."

Bolan took a step toward him, his Beretta gripped firmly at his side. "Now you know, wise guy. Any problems?"

Bendix swallowed hard and shook his head. "No problems, Sarge. None at all."

Bolan smiled menacingly at the stranger.

"I'm sure Cottonwood filled you in on the whole operation, right?"

"No, sir. He just told me I was to let you in."

Bolan lifted the Beretta and tapped the soldier on the chest. "Good. That was the right answer, son. You don't need to know anything more. Now let's get moving."

"Right, Sarge." PFC Bendix unlocked the small metal door inset into the main hangar doors and let Bolan and Tanya enter. He closed and locked the door behind them.

"Over here," Bolan said, aiming a small pocket flashlight, leading the way down huge aisles of stacked goods.

"My God," Tanya whispered, "this building must have everything. The things we could do with such equipment."

They came to a dark corner piled high with hundred-pound bags of what the powerful odor indicated to be fertilizer.

"Right here," said Mack Bolan.

"Here?" She surveyed the stacks of bags, piled to a height of fifteen feet on pallets.

She guessed there were at least ten wooden pallets up to the back wall.

""Watch." Bolan grabbed a hand-operated dolly, slipped the metal prongs into the slots of one of the pallets, then dragged the wooden platform back. Behind it was pitch blackness.

"Generally the smell keeps most people away," Bolan told her as he started into the entrance.

Inside was wooden bracing separating and supporting walls made up of hundreds of bags of fertilizer. The stench was staggering.

"It ain't much," Bolan said, "but I call it home."

She sighed wearily. "Can we get to business, Sergeant Grendal?"

Bolan handed the woman the flashlight, then hefted a crowbar and pried off the lid of a nearby crate. He reached in, pushed aside some packing material, pulled out a .45 MW submachine gun. He held it at chest level for a second, smiled, then tossed it across the space at her. She caught it with one hand, nearly dropped it, regained her grip with both hands and examined it.

"This is different than the ones we have," she said, fumbling with the flashlight.

Bolan shrugged. "You might have some of the old M3's. The MW is an upgraded version. It's a superior weapon."

She looked up from the gun and stared at Bolan in tire fragmented gloom. "How so?"

He had a feeling she damn well knew the difference, was just testing him out. "First you'll notice the larger ejection port here. The old retracting handle's been eliminated. Also, this piece has got a finger hole for cocking and a larger oil can inside the grip. It's got a stronger cover spring, a guard added for the magazine catch, a stock plate and magazine filler added to the stock. She weighs eight pounds but can fire three-fifty to four-fifty rounds permin was ute at approximately nine hundred and twenty feet per second. Quite a handful. In the right hands."

"It's nice," she said simply, laying the gun aside on top of a crate."

"Nice? You have a flair for understatement, lady."

"What else do you have?"

"Pretty much what I told you before. Two crates of these M3Als, a couple of the M1911AI.45 pistols. I can get you grenade launchers within the week and probably some 7.62mm NATO machine guns by the end of the month."

She shook her head impatiently.

"Let's just talk about what you have right now, Sergeant. Here and now."

"Well, I do have one particular item you might like." He disappeared behind two monolithic crate's and came up with what looked like a laser gun out of some science fiction epic.

She gasped.

"Yeah, I knew you'd feel that way," he nodded, stroking the weapon. "It's a Heckler and Koch G-11 Caseless assault gun. This smooth exterior is a very tough plastic with the one scope mount an integral part of the receiving molding. That makes the scope available as a carrying handle. And this little switch here allows you to go automatic to semiautomatic to single-shot."

"It looks like something out of the future."

"Yes, it does. But don't let its streamfined looks fool you. This baby can deliver. Its magazine holds fifty in-line caseless cartridges, mounted right here in a horizontal bar along the barrel, extending all the way back to the receiver. There's no recoil and no bullet casings flying all over the place. Its caliber is four-point-seven times twenty-one millimeters and, in full automatic, it fires around one thousand rounds per minute."

"Nice," commented Tanya distantly.

"The ammunition has a muzzle velocity approximately three thousand one hundred feet per second. And its ammunition uses a propellant whose cook-off point is one hundred degrees higher than the standard nitrocellulose powders which."

She waved a dismissing hand. "Yes, yes, Sergeant. I am convinced of its usefulness. You may stop your sales pitch."

"The base has a consignment of one dozen of these, but this is the only one that's gotten 'lost" so far..."

Tanya Morganslicht glanced at Bolan with a special curiosity. "You look and sound like a man who understands killing well," she said. Then her voice became hard again. "We'll take it, plus the rest. How much?"

All talk of prices was interrupted by the clatter of heavy combat boots, echoing under the metal roof. The shout of military commands fissured the still air.

"This is Major Thompson, Grendal," a deep voice hollered. "We know you're in here and we know what you've been up to. I have Cottonwood in my custody."

"Son of a bitch," Bolan muttered, extinguishing the small flashlight. Lights beyond their hiding place flashed all over the interior of the big building.

"What's happening?" Tanya whispered, her voice and features almost psychopathically calm.

"Oh, nothing, just that they know about us and what we're doing here and they're going to arrest us. You'll probably get thirty years in prison and I'll be shot sometime next week while trying to escape. That clarify the situation for you?"

"I must not be caught," she said urgently.

"Hey, I'm with you, lady. Now tell it to those bozos. They get all mushy inside when they hear a sad story." Bolan poked his head through the doorway, saw the men taking positions, ducked back in. "There's only one way out of this." He went back to the crates and picked up the Heckler and Koch G-11. He slapped in a magazine, then grabbed four square magazines'and stuffed them into his pockets. "Here," he said, handing Tanya his Beretta pistol. "You use this."

"Why not give me one of the submachine guns? I can give better cover with one of them."

"Because I'm the one giving cover. You're the one running. The only chance we have is to blast a hole through them just big enough for us to make a break. Now let's go!"