Don Pendleton - Justice Run

Bellew pulled a Walther pistol from beneath his jacket and flicked his gaze at Dumond.

“I have him right here,” Bellew said. “Yes, I think you’re right. Let me call you back.”

By now, Dumond had returned his phone to its belt holder. He opened the lap drawer of his desk, withdrew a holstered Beretta and, pulling aside the tail of his jacket, attached it to his belt. He fished a couple of magazines from the same drawer and slipped them into his pocket. When he looked up, he saw Bellew staring at him.

“We should get you out of here,” Bellew said.

Dumond shook his head.

“We need to get the woman first.”

“There’s no time,” the security chief replied. “We had half a dozen men patrolling the grounds—”

“Had? What the hell?”

“We’ve lost contact with them.”

Dumond’s hands clenched into fists. “Lost contact? Are they dead?”

“I have no idea,” Bellew replied. “I just know we can’t reach them and there are no technical problems with the radios. We have the capability, but no one is answering us.”

“Son of a bitch!”

“We need to go,” Bellew repeated.

“I can’t leave her here,” Dumond said. “She knows things. If I leave her here, there will be problems.”

“Problems? You mean from the Germans?”

“Mind your place,” the other man said.

“My place is to evacuate you.”

“We try to get the woman first,” Dumond replied. “Otherwise, I lose everything.”

“And what if we come across these intruders?”

“Then we damn well better kill them.”

* * *

BOLAN CLIMBED THE steps to Dumond’s mansion, the MP-5 held at the ready. Turrin hung back a couple of yards so he could cover Bolan’s six. The soldier moved up to the door. He tried to work the handle, but it wouldn’t budge.

Feeling someone moving up behind him, Bolan looked over his shoulder and saw Turrin there.

“Don’t worry,” the little Fed said, patting the shotgun. “I brought a key.”

Bolan nodded and stepped back from the door. He watched as Turrin swung the shotgun’s barrel toward the lock. The soldier knew the weapon was loaded with slugs capable of pounding through a steel lock. Unlike ceramic rounds, though, the slugs wouldn’t disintegrate before pierced their target. Bolan figured it was worth the risk.

The shotgun boomed once. The slug mangled the lock and shoved it through the door, leaving behind a ragged hole. As the door swung inward, Turrin moved through it first, followed by Bolan.

The door led into a foyer with high ceilings. Paintings covered the walls and several busts stood on pedestals. Bolan guessed the items were expensive, paid for with the blood of innocents shed on the world’s killing fields.

Movement to Bolan’s right caught his attention. He turned and saw a pair of Dumond’s gunners step into view. The man in the lead, dressed in a gray suit, his hair shellacked with gel, swung the barrel of a machine pistol toward Bolan. The Executioner’s MP-5 coughed a fast line of bullets that pummeled the guy’s center mass. Even as the gunner crumpled to the floor, the second guard had marked Bolan’s chest with the red dot of a laser sight. Before the soldier could react, the hardman’s head suddenly snapped back in a spray of crimson.

Bolan threw Turrin a glance. The former undercover mobster had slung the shotgun and unleathered one of his Berettas. Bolan nodded his thanks, turned to the left and crossed the room, making his way to one of the exits, which opened into a long corridor. He’d taken a half dozen or so steps when he heard voices, accompanied by shoe soles clicking against the floor tiles. He held up a hand for Turrin to stop, but he had already halted. An instant later, a heavyset man with a shotgun stepped into the corridor. His eyes lighted on Bolan and he swung the shotgun in his direction. The soldier had the guy by a microsecond. He tapped the MP-5’s trigger and stitched a line across the new arrival’s torso. The shotgun clattered to the floor, but fortunately didn’t discharge. A second shooter appeared around the door frame, his hand filled with a submachine gun.

The hardman squeezed off a fast burst. The bullets sliced through the air just to Bolan’s left, missing him by several inches.

The Executioner responded by firing a burst at the shooter. The fusillade missed the shooter, but came close enough that it forced him to jerk back out of sight. The soldier edged down the hallway, hugging the wall. When he got close to the door, he snagged a flash-bang grenade from his web gear, pulled the pin and tossed the bomb into the room where the man was hiding. An instant later it exploded with a loud crack and a flash of light visible to Bolan even in the hallway.

As the noise died down, he went through the door low and found the guy standing near the doorway, disoriented. A burst from the MP-5 took the man down.

* * *

BELLEW DESCENDED the stairs, his eyes sweeping the area as he searched for the intruders, his submachine gun leveled and leading the way. His heart slammed in his chest and blood thundered his ears. It had been years since he’d been in a live-fire situation. That had been back in Africa, where he’d been surrounded by a dozen or more well-armed and well-trained mercenaries. Over the past few years, he’d spent more time sending other people into harm’s way while he sat back and planned.

Who the hell could have broken through their defenses? he wondered. For a residential area, the estate had been as secure as possible. They’d deployed sensors, cameras, armed guards, dogs. That someone had gotten past all that told him he wasn’t dealing with a run-of-the-mill burglary or home invasion. Besides, most of the underworld in the city, right down to the low-level thieves, knew better than to break into Dumond’s property.

That he couldn’t reach his mercenaries only heightened his anxiety. He obviously was dealing with at least one combat professional, if not more.

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, Bellew paused and listened hard. Somehow all the cameras had gotten fried. He’d tried to reach the monitor room, but they hadn’t responded. There was no way for him to know how many people he was up against or their location.

That left him to handle it the old-fashioned way—rely on his instincts and his senses.

To his right, he heard something. It was muffled, but unmistakable to anyone who’d spent any time at all in his deadly trade. Someone had just fired a weapon, and he heard the clank of brass hitting the marble tiles.

Bellew crossed the entryway, making his way to a door that would lead him deeper into the mansion’s first floor. Coming up on the door, he paused, chancing a look around the door frame. Down the hall, he spotted three men. He recognized one—a guy sprawled on the floor—as one of his guards. Arms and legs splayed out, his midsection was dark red.

Two men stood over the corpse. One was short with a medium frame. The second guy was tall with broad shoulders and jet-black hair. Bellew recognized the gun in the taller man’s hands as a Heckler & Koch MP-5.

Chancing another look, he saw the men were moving in his direction. Fear gripped him, and for a moment he considered bolting out the door. Maybe he could take these two by surprise. But it would be a damn sight easier without backup just to run out the door, flee the estate and get away with his skin intact. He guessed they’d already taken down nearly a dozen men. It wouldn’t be easy for him alone to take them down.

But if he ran? He’d get away with his skin, but it’d come back to haunt him.

He’d lose his reputation. Once word spread that he’d bolted on a client, he’d end up blacklisted. While he’d never bought into the notion of death before dishonor, he’d sure as hell choose death before poverty.