Don Pendleton - Baltimore Trackdown

The first bullet missed Bolan by inches. The second slammed into his left arm and then out. An inch lower and it would have broken the bone. He was lucky to get only a surface wound.

His Beretta stuttered out three rounds in return, chipping away at the doorframe through which the commission’s hit man had vanished. Bolan bolted through the kitchen into the living room. The hit man and his hostage had moved to the back hall, near a bedroom.

The woman screamed.

“You just lost your advantage, Carboni.”

“I’ve got the woman.”

“You kill her, what do you have left?”

“You won’t let her die.”

“Don’t count on it,” said Bolan. “Go ahead and blow her away. That will make my job of killing you that much easier.”

The only answer was silence. Bolan heard a muffled scream, then a window shatter. The Executioner sprinted out the front door and around to the back. Carboni, dragging the woman, was running for the barn. Bolan fired into the air, the woman fell and clawed at Carboni until he released her.

The Mafia’s hireling turned and sighted the heavy pistol at Bolan. Knowing how accurate the AutoMag was, Bolan dived to one side and rolled. He came up with the Uzi ready and sprayed a dozen rounds, then zigzagged for the barn. Another three shots from Carboni missed him. Carboni dived through the barn doorway. The woman ran back to the house.

Bolan retreated to a cement well house, six feet square, that stood between the barn and the house. The woman left the house and ran to the well.

She was frantic, her eyes wild, her hands clawing the air.

“Where are my babies?” she screamed at the Executioner.

“They left the house,” Bolan said. “I think they went to the barn.”

“But that monster is there!”

The hayloft door swung out and clattered against the side of the barn. From the shadows inside came Carboni’s voice.

“I have three hostages now, Bolan. Here’s what you’re going to do. You’re going to throw out your weapons one by one, and then stand in the middle of the yard. If you don’t do that in twenty seconds, I’m going to take this little girl and smash her skull against this post, then toss her out.”

“No! No! No!” the woman screamed. Bolan grabbed her and pulled her behind the well.

“Listen to me!” he said to her, staring into her face. “He’ll do exactly that if I stay here. So I’m going to run into the fields. If he wants me, he’ll have to leave the kids here. When he goes, get the kids away. If you don’t have a car, run for it in the opposite direction. Don’t stay here. Understand?”

The woman nodded. Tears streamed down her face.

“Just don’t let him hurt my babies!” she whispered.

Bolan took out his .44 AutoMag and put two shots through the hayloft door.

“Give me a minute, then yell to him that I ran into the fields through the apple orchard. He’ll leave. Stay hidden until he’s gone.” She was shivering. He hugged her tightly. “Your kids will be fine. Just do what I told you.”

Bolan put one more round through the hayloft opening, then turned and ran. Just past the house, Carboni fired the big .44 at him but missed. Bolan jogged behind the house and continued. He had to get the maniac away from the children.

He ran to the stream and splashed across, continuing into the brush on the far side, occasionally splashing back across the little creek. He still had his three weapons but was not sure how he could use them out here.

Hearing an unusual noise, he turned and saw a tractor bouncing across the field. It came to a fence and plowed through it, knocking down posts and snapping barbed wire.

Bolan stopped running but stayed hidden in the brush.

Two minutes later he saw that the tractor was being driven by Carboni. Rolling along at ten or twelve miles an hour, it was soon entering Bolan’s range of fire.

“Just a little closer,” Bolan said, urging the killer to swing toward the creek. The Uzi was good for accurate firing at more than 200 yards, but the closer the better, and the target was still 150 yards away. He steadied the Uzi on a small log and sent five rounds toward the bouncing tractor. They slammed into the tractor but missed the driver.

Carboni was moving off the seat as the second spray of 9 mm parabellums slashed toward him. One must have hit him because he fell off the tractor. When it chugged by, he was nowhere to be seen. The tractor kept on going until the engine coughed and died fifty yards down the field.

Bolan fired into the tall grass just to the left of the spot he had last seen Carboni, then rolled to his right on instinct. A .44 round sang through the trees.

That gave the Executioner an idea. He picked a sturdy small tree and climbed fifteen feet high.

Now he could see the flattened grass where Carboni had slithered away. Evidently he had crawled toward a farm road half a mile away. A small depression opened into a little ravine, and Bolan saw that it soon became deep enough to hide Carboni as he ran.

The Executioner climbed down and ran along the high ground, certain he could find a spot somewhere ahead where he could pin down the Mafia hoodlum in the low ground.

There came a scream as of an animal in mortal danger. Bolan ran over a small rise and peered into the gully. Three hundred yards ahead Carboni was lying in the grass, struggling with something on his foot.

The Executioner fired twice toward the hoodlum, not expecting a hit.

Carboni screamed again, tore something off his foot and limped into the brush along the stream in the narrow valley.

A hundred yards farther, he climbed the bank, then disappeared over a ridge, evidently working toward the country road.

Bolan ran, cutting through the ravine to see what had given Carboni trouble.

It was a steel-jawed animal trap, now with blood on its teeth. It could easily have broken Carboni’s ankle. At least it would slow him down.

The Executioner ran up the hill, made certain Carboni was not waiting to ambush him at the top, then went over the ridge along a different route than the Mafia killer had taken.

Limping, Carboni was well down the slope, angling for the road. Down the road about a mile, Bolan could see a pickup truck approaching. Carboni saw it, too, and hurried to get to the road before it passed.

Bolan wished he had brought the Weatherby Mark V instead of the Uzi. With the Mark V he could have picked Carboni off at half a mile.

Bolan ran forward, surprised at the strength and determination of the wounded man in front of him, yet hardly aware of his own injured arm. Carboni ran hard the last hundred yards and stumbled onto the macadam roadway before the pickup arrived. He dropped to his knees and waved.

Billy Olsen saw the man running toward the road and slowed. As the man fell to his knees and waved, the year-old pickup slammed to a stop.

Billy’s wife, Faye, frowned.

“We’re gonna be late, Billy.”

“Man needs help. Got blood on his leg.”

He turned off the engine, stepped out of the rig and went around the front.

“Looks like you could use some help, mister,” he said.

“Sure as hell can,” Carboni said, swinging the big AutoMag around and killing Billy Olsen with one shot through the heart.

Faye screamed and moved to start the pickup. But the keys were in her dead husband’s pocket.

Carboni saw her and laughed.

“Need keys, lady. Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you. I just want your rig. Get out.”

He took the keys from the dead man’s right-hand pocket and returned to the pickup. He knew Bolan was around somewhere, but in another thirty seconds it would not matter.

“I said get out of the truck, bitch!” Carboni shouted.