Don Pendleton - Baltimore Trackdown

Panting after the four hundred yards, he approached the sixteen or twenty fruit trees behind the house, most large enough to give him some protection.

He took no enemy fire.

Again he dashed from one tree to the next, edging closer to the old two-story frame farmhouse. There was no back door. He knelt behind a bushy apple tree closest to the house. From there he walked casually, the Uzi at his side. He hoped no one would glance out the rear windows.

As he reached the house he heard the roar of an AutoMag. A scream followed. He hit the ground, edged to the corner of the house and looked around.

Thirty feet away, Carboni held a woman around the waist and pulled her close to him. In his right hand was the big cannon. The two figures walked forward and out of sight around the front of the house.

Bolan sprinted to the next corner, and saw a man sprawled on the grass by a wooden gate. Bolan knew he was dead. The mobster must be inside the house with the woman. Kids? Probably. The woman looked to be in her thirties.

The Executioner peered in a window on the side of the house. In a large kitchen with a long wooden table, Carboni sat on a bench, his gun pointed at the woman, who was bandaging Carboni’s calf with some cloth. Behind them a baby sat in a high chair, and two children about six and eight sat rigidly on the far side of the table.

Carboni said something to the woman, who went to a refrigerator and brought out cold cuts. The man was not going to move for a while, but maybe he could be faked outside.

Bolan drew the Beretta 93-R and worked around the front of the house, moving below windows until he was four feet from the open screen door. He cupped his hands around his mouth.

“Carboni!” Bolan called. “This place is surrounded by our SWAT team. Come out with your hands up and you won’t be shot.”

The Executioner heard movement inside the house, then a woman’s light steps running up some stairs. Heavier footsteps came toward the door.

“Damn! Nobody out there. Must have been that bastard Bolan!”

The steps retreated, and the Executioner went to the kitchen window and looked in. The three kids sat where they had been. The woman was gone.

Carboni grabbed the six-year-old and held him against his chest. The big .44 AutoMag muzzle pressed on the boy’s head.

“Farm lady. You come down here in ten seconds or I’m gonna blow this kid of yours right straight to hell!”

“No!” she screamed and came running into the room, a deer rifle still in her hands. She dropped the weapon and held out her arms.

Carboni kept the child. “Sit down and shut up. There’s a guy outside gunning for me, and I’m aiming to make him dead before I leave this place. You got a shotgun?”

The woman shook her head.

“Quit lying, bitch! You like this kid or don’t you?”

“Yes, I forgot! It’s in the cupboard, right over there.”

“Bring it and a box of shells over here. Do it now, lady. I ain’t got nothing against you but I don’t like you, either. Means not a damn thing to me whether the rest of your family lives or dies. Understand?”

“Yes.” The woman put the double-barreled shotgun and a box of shells on the table beside him.

“And finish that goddamn sandwich. You put anything in there that you wouldn’t eat yourself, and I blow this kid’s brains all over you and the kitchen.”

Even through the window, Bolan could see the strain on the woman. She was short and brunette, and now her face was frozen tight with terror. She made a sandwich of cheese and ham and lettuce, and another one of tuna and put them in front of Carboni with a can of beer.

“Two more beers,” he said. He ate with his left hand, his right holding the weapon against the boy.

Bolan had no chance for a kill shot. Even a head shot would give the hoodlum time to pull the trigger, killing the boy. There was no device on his combat harness that would help him rout the man out of the kitchen.

He checked the grenades and remembered he had brought one flash-stun grenade for a test. He had never used it. He balanced out the possible damage the concussion might do the baby. The stun effect would be far less harmful than a round from Carboni’s big .44.

Carboni would not leave witnesses. He would kill without a thought if he figured it would help him even slightly. After all, hadn’t he already murdered the man of the family?

The Executioner moved to the front door and looked inside. Could he get down the hall to the kitchen without being heard? He made sure his equipment wouldn’t rattle, then pulled the pin on the flash-stun grenade and dropped it on the grass. He held the arming spoon around the grenade tightly and eased onto the first step.

Gingerly he pushed the handle on the aluminum screen door. It moved without a sound. He pulled it open a foot, slipped through and let it touch his back and close gently as he started down the hall. He had the Beretta up and on single shot. There were too many innocents in there to be spraying bullets.

Step by step, he worked down the hall, which had been resurfaced with ceramic tile — no squeaks. He pressed against the left wall, since this was the side the killer could not see.

He was halfway down when the woman, walking to the refrigerator, turned and stared straight at him. Either she was too surprised to react or had great control. She lifted her brows slightly and walked out of sight.

She must have instantly realized he was on her side. There had been no time to whisper anything or mouth any words.

He moved forward. Now he could hear the sounds from the room. The baby whimpered.

“He’s wet. Can I take him out and change him?”

“No, he won’t melt. Just shut him up.”

A beer can hit the table.

There was a chance the man would release the boy and go after Bolan, but the Executioner doubted it. This guy was a professional. He would take every advantage he could.

At the edge of the doorway, Bolan could see half of the kitchen, but the table and the people were in the other half. He would throw the flash-stun grenade near the table. Pitch it and hope. If the hit man got Bolan, the rest of the family was dead, anyway. He had to take the chance.

The Executioner wanted to look inside, but knew he couldn’t risk it. He was ready. Kneeling, he brought up the Beretta and let the arming handle pop loose in his hand. Two seconds later, he lobbed the grenade into the room.

It exploded almost as it hit the floor.

Bolan had closed his eyes and put his hands over his ears, and saw the flash through his eyelids. Then he charged into the room.

The blast was louder than anything Bolan had heard outside a war zone for a long time. The baby screamed. Carboni dropped his AutoMag, then grabbed the woman. Both blinded, they stumbled backward, but Carboni remained covered by the woman. Bolan had no sure shot.

“Bastard!” Carboni screamed. He produced a knife from his pocket and opened it into a five-inch murderously sharp blade.

“Move a step, Bolan, and I gut her. You want that? Move and she and the kids are dead. You got that, bastard?”

He was still blind, stalling for time. Bolan aimed at the only sure target, his right shoulder, and the knife fell from his hand. Carboni screamed and hunched behind the woman, one hand around her throat. He stumbled toward the door into the living room.

“Stay there, Bolan, or I’ll rip out her carotid artery.”

Bolan lifted the baby, gave him to the girl and hurried the children out of the house. They ran toward the barn.

Bolan returned inside just in time to grab the shotgun and realize the .44 was no longer on the floor where it had fallen. The Executioner heard something and dived just as the big .44 AutoMag like his own fired twice in rapid succession.