Don Pendleton - Baltimore Trackdown

The crawler responded well to his touch on the brakes, holding one tread and turning as the other tread kept moving. He adjusted his route once more and clanked, rattled and squeaked straight at the house.

Two more shots came and then silence. Glass broke in an upstairs window. Bolan looked up and realized Carboni could look down past the blade directly at him. He bailed out and ran into the house as a rifle slug from the second floor plowed into the ground where Bolan had been a moment before.

Bolan ran through the kitchen, hunting the stairs. This was house-to-house fighting, something he knew a lot about. He pulled one of the fragger grenades off his combat webbing and held it in his left hand.

The old wooden house creaked as the man upstairs moved around.

The hit man had worked himself into a corner. There was no way he could go except down. Bolan eased halfway up the open stairs and threw the grenade into the room where he figured Carboni was hiding. The bomb went off with a roar.

When the sound echoed across the fields, Bolan listened for human sounds. There were none. He charged up the steps, the Uzi ready with the last rounds in the magazine.

But Carboni was not in the room. Bolan edged around the hall to the second big room, but found it empty, too. The window was open and Bolan watched as Carboni limped across the roof, then ducked and jumped from the low front porch to the ground and out of sight.

Bolan heard a cry of pain as the guy landed on his wounded leg.

For a minute nothing moved. The yard was quiet. Bolan remembered that the hit man did not have the rifle with him when he ran across the roof. He could have dropped it over the side first. Either way the enemy was getting low on ammunition.

Bolan scowled — so was he. There were only five or six rounds in the Uzi, about ten shots left for the big .44 AutoMag, and the Beretta was on its last magazine.

He ran to the other room and looked out at the yard. There was no evidence that Carboni had gone to the barn or any of the sheds. He must still be hugging the first floor of the house. But inside or out?

The garage burned fiercely, sending a trail of black smoke into the sky. Somebody would report it soon by telephone, and a rural fire department would wheel in.

As if responding to his thoughts, a siren wailed in the distance. Bolan snapped a shot from the Beretta into some shadows near the front porch, then pulled back from the window. There was no answering fire.

The siren came closer. Bolan checked both windows again. No Carboni. Where had he gone?

The vehicle with the siren raced down the long farm driveway. That was when Bolan saw that it was a police car or a sheriff’s rig. The officer was driving directly into eternity. Carboni would waste him the second he stepped out of his car.

As a warning, the Executioner fired the Uzi near the rig. The car made a fast U-turn and careered toward the barn. When it stopped, the driver darted into the barn.

Now Bolan had another problem. Holding the Uzi in both hands, he ran downstairs and into the kitchen. No sign of Carboni.

At the back door he paused, then jumped on the crawler tractor, started the motor, kicked it into reverse and raced the engine as he let out the clutch and moved to the rear. Bolan was not sure if he took any fire from the front or not, but there had been no shots fired from the barn. He drove the big tractor directly at the open barn door and stopped just before the rear track touched the wood.

In one swift move he leaped off the tractor seat and surged into the barn.

“Don’t move,” a woman called unsteadily.

The Executioner looked around and saw a uniformed female deputy sheriff holding her service revolver with both hands.

“No problem,” Bolan said. “I’m on your side. But we’ve got a desperate killer out there somewhere. He gunned down the old man who lives here, and I’ve been trying to dig him out.”

The woman frowned. She was young, scared and not sure whether to believe him. Slowly she lowered and then raised the gun.

“How do I know you’re not the killer?”

“Would I risk my neck to come back down here and tell you what’s going on if I wanted to shoot you?”

She took a deep breath and shook her head, her short hair bouncing under her garrison-style hat.

“No, I guess not.”

“Right. I’m Scott, with the FBI. The killer out there is Mafia and he’s already murdered three times today. I don’t want him to add us to his list.”

“What can I do?” Slowly she lowered her gun.

“Get back in your patrol car, sit low in the seat and gun out of here and radio for some more units. We need some help before it gets dark.”

“I can do that.” Her brown eyes were coming back to normal. A small grin showed. “Hey, I was scared when that round whizzed by the car.”

“That was mine. I didn’t want you pulling up in front of the house and Carboni blowing your head off.”

“Thanks. I better get moving. Where is he, this Carboni?”

“That I would like to know — around the house somewhere.”

She nodded, went to the barn door and turned. “Thanks for warning me.” She ran to the car and spun gravel off the yard as she powered out of the driveway to the road.

Bolan went to the barn door and stared at the house. A rifle shot splintered the doorframe just over his head. He fell back out of sight and felt a splinter that had gouged his cheek. The shot came from the right side of the house. Almost the same spot where Carboni dropped off the porch. Maybe he had broken an ankle. Or was that too much to hope for?

The Executioner pulled a fragger from his harness and planned his route. His homemade tank was good for attacking, too. He darted out the door to the safety behind the raised blade and fired up the diesel.

He was going blindly now. Then he lowered the blade so he could stand to check his direction. When he was thirty feet from the front corner of the house, he pulled the pin and threw the hand grenade. It went off with a roar, shattering three windows.

Bolan pulled the last fragger from his webbing and powered the tractor forward again, watching alternately ahead and behind, aware that an attack from the rear was a possibility.

The big tractor plowed across the lawn to the front of the house.

The shot came from far to the right, from a field of wheat that was golden brown, dusty dry and ready to cut. The slug broke a window in the house. Bolan stopped the tractor, shut the engine and slipped behind it.

He released the magazine from the Uzi and checked it. There were four rounds left and another in the chamber. Worthwhile taking it along. He had seven rounds left in the Beretta and ten for the .44 AutoMag.

Knowing the extent of his ammo, the Executioner ran around the tractor and headed toward Carboni.

A slight wind picked up as he ran into the field. The weather was warm and dry. With every step Bolan mashed down wheat, but there was no other way. He saw Carboni running to the left and followed in that direction. Had the hit man given up on his target or was he luring Bolan into some kind of a trap?

If it was a trap, it had to be a good one. Bolan had no idea how the Mafia goon could set up anything out here.

From the gait of the man ahead of him, Bolan knew he was wounded worse than before. One of the parabellums must have hit flesh.

Bolan ran faster, his own arm wound almost forgotten as he held the Uzi. It was his long-range try. If that failed he would discard the heavy weapon and move in with his pair of handguns.

The wind increased, and Bolan wondered if there was going to be a late-afternoon thunderstorm. His watch showed 5:15. Lots of time before dark. He saw clouds scudding with the strong winds.