Don Pendleton - Blood Dues

The Executioner's mind was already racing away from the smoky killing ground toward the final stop along his hellfire journey through Miami.

The soldier had some final business to transact with Toro yet, before he called it quits and started looking for another hellground.

Toro was waiting for him, right, and Mack Bolan could not afford to be late. The fate of his mission could be hanging in the balance, still undecided, and the soldier never left a job unfinished.

Bolan closed his eyes and waited for Grimaldi to find him through the smoke.

Raoul Ornelas knew his time was coming. He was seated in the rear of Toro's ancient Cadillac with one of Toro's commandos close behind him. Toro and his wheelman in the front, the renegade was searching for a way to save himself before his captors got down to their final business of the day.

They had not bound his hands or feet, leaving him free to move, but the soldado on his right had a Browning 9mm automatic pistol cradled in his lap, its muzzle pointed casually toward the floor. The gunner was pretending to stare distractedly out of the window now, but Ornelas had no doubt of what would happen if he tried to extricate himself.

They had been driving aimlessly around Miami for better than an hour, finally pulling into Lummus Park, just west of the North-South Expressway. The driver nosed the Caddy into a turnout overhung with trees; directly to their front were a barbecue and several deserted picnic tables.

It was a peaceful scene — and they had brought him there to kill him.

Ornelas was sure of it. There was no other explanation. If they had intended to deliver him to the police, he would be looking out through bars right now, instead of staring through a dirty windshield at abandoned picnic tables.

The knowledge that they meant to execute him compelled Ornelas to consider desperate action. They would shoot him if he tried to escape — and if he did not make the effort, they would kill him all the same.

With all the odds against him now, he saw no reason not to try. That they seemed to be waiting for someone or something might provide him with the hairbreadth opportunity he needed to effect his getaway.

Toro's men had searched him at the house, but they had overlooked the hidden knife that he habitually carried. It was disguised as a belt buckle, and its two-inch double-edged blade fit tightly into a built-in sheath, parallel to his waistline. One simple twist, a gentle pull....

Ornelas shifted restlessly on his seat, bringing both hands together in his lap. The gunner beside him did not stir, but Ornelas caught one of the driver's eyes in the rearview mirror pinning him briefly, then looking away. Ornelas's right hand inched up to find the buckle, finally clamped around it, locking down.

Timing was of the essence; he had the slimmest fraction of a chance if he was swift and coordinated enough — if he still had the skill he once possessed when he fought side by side with Toro in the jungles.

A different jungle now, oh yes, and they were no longer compadres. The world had turned, and one of them had been left far behind.

Ornelas took a deep breath and held it, clenching his muscles, praying that the guard beside him could not feel him trembling and become alarmed. The blood was pounding in his ears, deafening him. He felt that he might faint at any moment.

A twist and tug. The stainless blade came free, and he was moving, pivoting in his seat, sweeping the stubby dirk around and over in a vicious two-handed thrust. The gunner was reacting, feeling rather than seeing the death blow as he began his countermove.

The razor tip disappeared into dusky flesh, its passage lubricated by a spill of crimson as Ornelas found the jugular instinctively, ripping back and forth with furious strength, opening the gunner's veins and airway, watching as the wound expelled a single glistening bubble.

The bubble burst as Ornelas withdrew the blade, already craning forward, slashing at Toro in profile as the warrior turned to face him. The knife glanced off a cheekbone, shearing through an eyeball, knicking the bridge of Toro's nose before ripping free. Toro jerked away, bringing one hand up to clasp the spurting wound.

Ornelas never faltered, twisting in his seat again, driving the dagger deep into the hairy base of the wheelman's skull. The driver screamed, his back arching in agony, both hands coming up and back, trying to remove the blade that had been wedged in deep between his vertebrae.

Ornelas left it there, lunging for the Browning that had fallen down between his closest captor's feet. He reached it, thumbed the hammer back, already pushing himself backward, against the door, one hand clawing at the latch while he thrust out the gun with his other.

He shot the back-seat gunman in the temple, taking no chances that he might still be alive. The young man's skull exploded, sending scarlet streamers out the open window beside him.

Now Ornelas had the door open, sweeping on with the pistol and jamming it against the dying driver's skull.

He squeezed the trigger twice, explosive impact hurling the dead man forward, smashing his ruined face against the steering wheel with a resounding thump. Ornelas was deafened by the gun blasts fired in close confinement, his ears ringing.

Toro was turning to face him again, his pistol already nosing up over the back of his seat as Ornelas tumbled backward through the open door. He fired wildly through the seat cushions into Toro's ravaged face, aiming at his one remaining eye and finding it with point-blank rounds. Already dead or dying, Toro got off a single shot that plowed a bloody furrow under Ornelas's left arm, driving him out of the car.

Ornelas sat there for a moment, stunned, then slowly found his feet. He clutched one arm against his side, to stanch the flow of blood from the in-and-out wound in his side.

Cursing, he leaned back inside the car and pumped three more rounds into Toro's lifeless head, finally backing away, faltering. He was giddy with elation at his close escape, already feeling shock from loss of blood. He was alive, damn right, but he would have to find a doctor soon.

He lurched onto the narrow roadway that wound through the park, deserting the Caddy and its lifeless passengers. There was a sound, a movement, something that he knew he should recognize and take into account, but his disordered mind could not assimilate the data pouring in upon him.

Mack Bolan caught the turnoff into Lummus Park and shifted down, putting Evangelina's little drop-top through the gears smoothly, powering into a gentle curve. He was looking forward to the meet with Toro and Ornelas. It would be his last chance to get some answers in Miami.

He'd get the final evidence to tie the Cuban embassy and DGI in with the near-atrocity on Key Biscayne, damn right, and once he had it, he would be equipped to place the full responsibility where it belonged.

There were authorities that he could get in touch with, secretly, of course. Some newsmen who would plant a story without asking too many embarrassing questions of the source. But he would need the proof, and Raoul Ornelas was his ticket to the final grand slam in Miami's tournament of death.

Bolan took the little fiery sportster along the curving path that wound in and out through the park, passing a couple of early-morning campers on the way. A tropic sun was burning off the morning mists now, and he knew it was going to be a beautiful day.

For someone, right.

The drive was narrowed down to two lanes when he spied the Cadillac ahead. From fifty yards, he saw some sort of frantic struggle going on inside there. At forty yards a man tumbled backward, out the rear door on the driver's side, exchanging shots with one or another of the occupants.