Don Pendleton - Baltimore Trackdown

He wondered if this was a room or just a narrow passage. A strobe light shattered the darkness with its pulsating beam, but it came only three times. Before his eyes became accustomed to the change in light the strobe died. The Executioner had seen movement to his left. He had no idea how many people were in the room. More than the two goons?

He moved three steps forward.

Someone with a smoker’s hack coughed ahead and to the right. Bolan took a coin from his pocket and flipped it so it would come down near where he thought someone crouched. The coin landed on the metal floor of the trailer louder than Bolan had hoped. The immediate response from the enemy was a pair of shots aimed at the sound.

The Executioner flipped the Beretta to 3-shot mode and drilled the blackness to the right of the place where the two muzzle-flashes showed. Before the echo of the two Mafia shots died in the room, someone screamed and fell hard to the floor.

A lighted ghoulish head popped out of the ceiling, braying a devilish laugh. A shaft of light appeared straight ahead, and a door creaked open. Bolan bolted for the door as it swung shut in the eerie light, which revealed a pair of teenagers trembling in one corner and the sprawled form of a man on the floor with a growing pool of dark-red blood forming under his chest.

Bolan swung the door open without going through it, heard a shot from the next room and a splintering sound as a slug ripped through the wood. Crouching, he went past the door and saw in the half light that the new room was peopled by a dozen frenzied wooden cutout figures, offering customers the chance to play any part in the wild and frenetic cast by standing behind the headless figures.

A head moved behind one of the cutouts and a .45 lifted. Bolan sent another burst of silent rounds at the arm and gun. Two of the parabellum rounds dug through Carlo Nazarione’s wrist, and he screeched, dropped the .45 and rushed toward the far door.

A loudspeaker announced that there would now be a twelve-second period of total darkness for characters to change places or for lovers to kiss. The recording ended with a shriek of evil laughter and the sound of a creaking door.

The sudden darkness masked Nazarione as he darted around the wooden figures and ran into the next room.

Bolan worked his way to the door, eased it open and looked into the next room. It was fully lighted, and straight ahead he saw someone staring back at him. He was about to raise the Beretta when he realized it was his own reflection.

He slipped inside the hall of mirrors. Normally, the trick was to find your way through. Now there was a double trick — find your way through and not get shot. He was sure Nazarione would have a backup piece.

Before he could move, a handgun barked — a .38, it sounded like. He looked ahead to see his image in the mirror shattered by the round.

“Goddamn!” Nazarione shouted, and Bolan heard footsteps. He moved down the narrow passage, touching mirrors on both sides. He came to a turn. Ahead the mirrored passage bent at a forty-five-degree angle. Bolan checked but did not see Nazarione or any reflection of the don. He was not sure he could tell the difference.

Now he ran down the passage, almost slamming into the end, peering around, running again, rounding the next corner carefully. Seeing Nazarione staring at him, Bolan fired at once, an automatic reaction, only to see the image shatter and hear Nazarione’s harsh laugh from somewhere to the right.

Bolan wished he could know for certain that there were no other people in the mirror maze. If that were the case, he would start shooting through the mirrors at sounds, not sights.

Again Bolan charged ahead, realizing the passages were turning back toward the beginning. He walked down an aisle and too late saw Nazarione pulling the trigger on his .38 automatic.

Bolan expected to feel the bite of hot lead; instead, a mirror shattered somewhere to his right. He heard Nazarione swearing and saw him running. Though he could see Nazarione and Nazarione could see him, neither was in the other’s line of fire.

The Executioner heard a roar of anger from the Mafia don and saw him turn and fire. Bolan dropped to the floor as the gunman fired four rounds into the mirrored panels. Glass shattered over Bolan’s head and to his right, then all was quiet.

“Give it up, Nazarione. You’re out of rounds.”

“The hell I am. I have plenty and I’m coming after you.”

Bolan saw him dart out of sight. He listened. The sounds moved to the left, then to the right, then almost beside him. Bolan looked at the damaged mirrors in the passage beside him. Foot-square panels had shattered on both sides of the thin wall, and he could see into the next aisle. He pushed his hand through the void and looked ahead. He could see his hand reflected in the mirror at the end of the passage. He moved ahead stealthily, positioned himself firmly against the mirrors at the end of the passage and waited.

Carlo Nazarione moved noisily through the maze. Bolan stood where he was and waited.

A moment later Nazarione appeared at the end of the passage, raised his gun but did not fire.

“No way. Not again, Bolan. I’m going to wait until I can see you bleed your life away before I shoot you. I’ve killed enough of the damn mirrors. I want the real you. I’ll blast you apart, then I’m gonna laugh.”

Bolan’s image at the far end of the hallway lifted its gun and stepped away from the mirror.

Nazarione gasped and jerked up his weapon. He was too late. Three rounds from the Beretta ripped into the Mafia don’s chest, then three more slammed into his face as he pitched to the side, hit the mirrors and slid to the floor.

Bolan went out of the maze the way he had come in, walked through the weird cutout-character room, the black room and the main entrance.

He nodded to the ticket taker as he went out.

“Too scary for me,” he said. His Beretta was under his shirt; Big Thunder, holster and all, was in his hand. He walked out of the carnival glad that the roaring sounds and shrieks of the sound effects in the fun house had covered the sounds of the shots.

The Executioner took a taxi back to his hotel. He would check in with Johnny at Strongbase One. Maybe he could even get back to San Diego for a week of deep-sea fishing. Maybe.

Mack Bolan inhaled deeply. Animal man was still out there, the Mafia was still clobbering the little guy, taking advantage of him. Until the Mafia was wiped out, Mack Bolan knew he would have no real rest.

As the taxi neared the hotel, a Baltimore Police Department squad car rushed by with red light flashing and siren blasting, on its way to a call at the traveling carnival fun house.