Don Pendleton - Death Dealers

“I know your pin took a twistin’. I did it, mate,” McCarter told the prisoner. “You going to tell me who you are or where you came from?”

“Eat the dicks.” The attacker spit.

McCarter sighed. “Then just lay there and shut up.” To emphasize his point, the Phoenix Force leader pulled the revolver from his jacket pocket and leveled it at the man’s face.

“Only a .22,” the prisoner said. “It’ll roll right off my skull.”

McCarter smirked. “But it’ll take out both of your eyes and mutilate your face. I’ll leave plenty for you to talk with, but you’ll be blind and hideous for the rest of your miserable existence.”

That quieted the assassin.

Now to find out how Blancanales was doing with his hunt.

* * *

THE BRUISERS GREW closer to Rosario Blancanales as he leaned heavily on his cane. They regarded him with stony, hate-filled glares. Both were taller than Blancanales, and seemed to have been chosen for the sake of the width of their shoulders and thickness of their limbs. That didn’t mean they didn’t possess skill, but Blancanales was hedging his bets on keeping them mentally disarmed. As he stood, using the cane as a crutch, and dressed in loose, baggy clothing, he tried to cast the image of an old man trying to play a young man’s game.

Both of them were European, possessing Slavic features. At least they were smart enough not to wear sunglasses at night, but now, the Able Team veteran was on the alert that these two guys could be so much more than just bags of cement with fists.

“Gentlemen?” Blancanales greeted them as they got within a few yards of him. “I’m afraid you found me out.”

Neither spoke as he scanned Statue Square, the park where Blancanales had been observing the Hong Kong cenotaph. They were making certain they hadn’t been drawn into a trap with human bait. This spread-out tourist attraction would provide plenty of places for Blancanales’s backup to hide and there were rooftops that could be used for sniper overwatch.

One of the men had yellow scrub for hair. The other, with a rust-colored scouring pad for his top, Blancanales noted, stepped right up to him and looked down upon him.

“Your friend, he will not be speaking to you again,” Blondie said.

Blancanales looked down, sighing. “He was a good man.”

“We will need to ask you some questions.” Blondie’s big hand wrapped around Blancanales’s shoulder and squeezed hard. Those fingers, thick as sausages, clamped down with painful precision, making Blancanales stand straighter, no acting required to twist his features into agony. The blond Russian reached down to take away Blancanales’s fighting cane.

You underestimated them, Blancanales thought the moment before he slashed the hardwood cane against the side of his oppressor’s knee. Through his knowledge of human anatomy and his years of not only training but field experience with the fighting stick, the simple slice suddenly toppled the brawny Russian, forcing him to release the Able Team veteran’s shoulder.

Blancanales stepped back, already feeling the bruises forming from the monstrous claw that had threatened to crush his shoulder joint. He whipped the cane up and was ready to destroy the blond man’s face when Red lurched toward him, moving with all the power and speed of a charging buffalo.

Blancanales threw himself aside as 250 pounds of freckled muscle surged past him, breaths and ponderous footfalls making him sound like a locomotive. The hurt Russian grit his teeth and sprung off his remaining leg, fingers hooked like talons to tear at Blancanales’s flesh. The Able Team warrior speared out, the brass tip of his cane striking the blond in his Adam’s apple before sliding down into the notch of his collarbone. The brawny thug gurgled, but Blancanales could feel his opponent altering his course, minimizing the jarring effect of being jammed in the throat.

Even so, Blondie gasped, sliding into the grass and taking a moment to clasp his hands around his dislocated knee.

Blancanales barely had a moment to look for the other man before a thick rope of muscle wrapped in black leather lashed toward his head in his peripheral vision. Blancanales dipped his head. The clothesline maneuver mussing his salt-and-pepper hair. Muscles glancing off his skull informed him that he’d have lost his head to the strike. Blancanales pivoted the cane in his hands, slicing at his foe’s hip, but the collision between man and wood spun both combatants.

Blancanales stepped quickly to recover his balance and looked with dismay upon the Red-topped ape that merely dropped one of his meaty paws to rub the sore spot on his side. Green eyes glared from under a beetled brow, and Blancanales couldn’t see a hint of humanity in those features now. This thing before him was a raging beast, and somehow those shoulder muscles seemed to spread even wider, like something out of a werewolf movie. Spittle frothed at the corners of the Russian’s mouth, and he surged forward at the Able Team warrior.

Blancanales charged, as well, pressing the attack and stabbing forward as if his cane were a sword. The brass cap struck rippling chest muscles and dragged heavily off the Russian’s leather jacket. It hit a wrinkle and suddenly it was as if Blancanales rode a tidal wave, being shoved backward off his feet. His red-haired opponent continued steaming toward him, but Blancanales’s grasp on his cane kept him just out of reach of a gigantic hand.

Blancanales slammed his feet into the grass behind him, throwing all of his weight and strength into slowing his freight train of an opponent. Sod wrinkled and tore under the soles of his boots, and the Russian let out a bellow of pain as the hardwood cane snapped in two.

Blancanales’s only weapon shattered, he lurched aside as the beast stormed past him, striking a cobblestone walkway chin-first. If that brute could snap his battle cane, then there was no way that Red could have come away from that crash without a broken rib or three. Still, Blancanales rushed to the big thug’s fallen form and jumped onto his broad back, coming down on both knees. He put all his weight into the attack, hoping to further stagger the man.

Blancanales saw those thick arms lift, hands flattening against the ground to raise his ponderous bulk and return to combat. The Russian’s haircut was too short to get a sufficient grasp on it, but there was no trimming his ears. Blancanales grabbed the twin dishes of flesh and cartilage on either side of Red’s head and pushed forward hard, mashing the man’s face into the sidewalk. With brutish energy, the Russian reared up like an untamed stallion, seeking to wrest Blancanales from his back.

The Able Team warrior slammed his knee between the attacker’s shoulder blades and wrenched back hard. Both ears were torn from the sides of his skull, skin ripping away along his scalp, eliciting thunder from deep within the man-beast’s breast. Red bent away from Blancanales’s knee, giving the wily Able Team fighter enough room to bring up his other leg and push down hard. Bones cracked as the Russian’s face struck cobblestone, blood spurting from a burst nose.

The blond was back, gingerly favoring his injured knee, but still on two feet and ready to step in to make up for the loss of his partner in this conflict.

Blancanales was breathing heavily, but he stood his ground, glaring at the blond Russian, standing astride the corpse of his even more brutish partner. Blancanales lifted his hand, borrowing from one of Hong Kong’s greatest breakout action heroes, folding his hand toward himself in challenge. The Able veteran figured that he had a good chance if this fight continued, as he still maintained his full mobility, while Blondie was limping. Bulk and power were nothing in comparison to skill and intellect.