Chapter 20

Fragged

Hinshaw stepped from the doorway of the command hut and raised a finger to summon his executive officer. Morales drifted over, a cigarette dangling from parched lips.

"Make sure the grunts are set and ready," Hinshaw told him. "Something's out of whack here. Way out."

"Maybe our old buddy was leveling with us."

Hinshaw worriedly shook his head. "Nothing figures. That's what makes it so damn scary. I'll say one thing for Bolan. He knows these guys like a fisherman knows worms. I don't trust them as far as I can fart."

"It's the devil or the deep blue," Morales agreed. "I'll say this. If I gotta face Bolan or them, I'd settle for them."

"We may be facing both," Hinshaw groused. "I just had a crazy talk with the old man. He says it's over. He says we achieved all the objectives. Can you buy that?"

Morales spat. "Shit," he said.

"He says Weiss fragged Kaufman and came over. How does that sound?"

Morales rethought it. "Maybe. That's what I'd do. If I had Mack fucking Bolan and the whole bloody Mafia on my ass. Yeah. Frag the Jew."

"So maybe it does figure," Hinshaw mused. "But you're still worried."

"I'm worried, Angel, yeah."

"Okay. I'll make a round and set the men. Can I make a suggestion?"

"If it's not too long."

"Don't tip our hand to Paul Bonelli. Keep him outside. Let's keep the card in the hole."

"I was thinking the same thing. But it may be easier said than done. I had it all figured till the old man slipped me a klinker. I don't know how to figure it now. But you're right. We keep Junior outside. If the old man is setting us up— But why would he do that now? Either he's leveling — which sounds sort of crazy — or he's setting us up before the job is even done — and that's even crazier. Set the men. I'm going down to the gate. I got a message for Junior. We'll play it their way and see what happens. But carefully, Angel — very carefully."

Morales winked and walked away. Hinshaw lit a cigarette and gazed at the horizon. He hoped that blood-red sky was not portentous. James Ray Hinshaw fervently desired to spend every cent of that 200 plus per day ... especially the plus. The plus, especially.

Paul Bonelli halted his motorcade at the rendezvous point and leaned out the window to greet his forward scout. "What'd you find?" he asked the guy.

"They've set up a couple of big tents and moved most of their goods inside them. Looks like they cleaned up and made a bonfire out of those damaged buildings. There's only a couple of shacks still standing."

"How many people?"

"Not many I could see. Here and there, a guy standing or sitting. The Morales kid keeps walking around very restless."

Bonelli grunted as he tried to digest that. "How many cars?" he asked.

"Just what they had before. But a lot of brush has been piled in the canyon out back. They could have a Hertz fleet back in there somewhere."

"Give me your bone feel, Ernie."

The scout shrugged. "It looks okay. But I got creepy just lookin' at it."

"Did you scout the hills?"

"Best I could with the time I had. A camper rolled through a few minutes ago, heading north. That's all."

"What kind of camper?"

"One of those big RVS. GMC, I think. Looked clean."

Bonelli sighed. "Hell. I don't know any more than I did before. Why would the guy call me with a story like that?"

"You know how some wise guys are, boss. Anything for a quick mark or a free meal. He hopes you'll remember it as a kind thought that was just a little wrong."

"It stinks," Bonelli snapped. "How good could you see into that joint?

If he was trying to hide something in there, could you have tumbled to it?"

"That's hard to say, boss. But you can always hide what you don't want seen."

"And it creeped you."

"Right. It creeped me."

"That's good enough for me. Send the crew bosses up here. We'll parley. Then we'll move in."

"Are we moving hard?"

"Bet your ass we're moving hard," Bonelli assured the scout.

Damn right. The soldier boy was not going to frag this C.O. The brotherhood of the blood, by Jesus, had invented that little game. Paul Bonelli had been born to it. Sure as hell he was not going to die by it.

Bolan took the ridge in a grimly silent struggle, a garrote buried deeply in sentry flesh. Then he dragged the guy to the back side and returned to the battle cruiser for the strike weapons — selecting the Weatherby sniper, an M-79, and two belts of 40mm rounds in mixed configuration.

Back at the ridge again — the same one from which the earlier cutesy strike had been launched — he spurned the drop chosen by the dead sentry and moved on down to an outcropping of rock situated just above the camp.

It was optimum range for the M-79 hell-raiser and the overlook gave him a full 90-degree sweep into the flatlands.

He laid out the belts and thumbed in a round of high explosive for openers, then placed the wicked little launcher aside and raised the glasses for a quick recon of the combat zone.

A procession of heavy vehicles broke the horizon, moving swiftly, closing — one, two, hell, eight big crew wagons. Directly below, the Hinshaw camp was coming alive — guys scurrying about in desert denims, blending far too well with that landscape and getting set for a blow.

Bolan smiled grimly as he picked up the Weatherby. Yeah. It was likely to be a hell of a blow.

They came roaring in like a wild horse stampede, raising a cloud of dust that trailed out for a half a mile behind, single-filing it until the last fifty yards or so, then wheeling it over in a fancy maneuver that Put all eight cars In rank abreast, nose to the fence.

Hinshaw growled, "Lookit that. What the hell is he doing?"

Bonelli cracked a window to call over, "Send your boys out, Jimmy. We'll use our wheels. We got plenty of room."

Hinshaw flipped away his cigarette, gripped the gate with both hands and called back, "It's all changed. Word from your papa. Come on in."

The only immediate response to that was an abrupt raising of Bonelli's window. Hinshaw stood woodenly at the gate, wondering what the hell, feeling like a fool.

Long seconds elapsed. A door opened and a guy stepped out — one of the crew bosses, a Tucson hotshot. "Mr. Bonelli wants you to come talk to him!" hotshot announced.

"What the hell is this?" Hinshaw yelled. "YOU tell Mr. Bonelli I'm here, looking at him. I got a message from his papa. But I sure as hell ain't going along with this shit!"

The window came back down. Bonelli stuck his head out cautiously. "What's the message?"

"What the hell are you doing?" Hinshaw cried. "What am I suddenly, a leper? I don't talk to you this way, Paul."

"What's the message?"

Hinshaw ground his teeth together. It was true then. Bolan had it pegged for sure. He was about to fling an angry retort at the traitorous bastard when something quite remarkable got there first.

Paul Bonelli's face simply disintegrated. The mouth turned dark and gaping, the nose collapsed into it, the eyes disappeared and the whole miserable mess disintegrated into frothy pulp. The wheelman yelled something and lunged away from those spraying juices. Only then did the sound overtake the macabre scene, a hollow boom from somewhere up the canyon, and it was James Hinshaw's turn to react. He flung himself into the dust and rolled like crazy for the closest cover, a shallow depression near the gatepost, his mind racing ahead into the numbing understanding of what would immediately, inevitably, follow.

The hotshot crew boss was the next to go spinning off into eternity, caught dead in his tracks as he sprinted for the protected side of his vehicle, down and wallowing in deflated flesh even before the second big boom came down.

And then it was "Nam all over again, ambush in the wilderness, a hundred frenzied weapons in reflexive fire as hell came down all around — and Jim Hinshaw flat in the middle.

Several of the crew wagons from Tucson lurched forward, punching through the flimsy, fence in angry retort, muzzles blazing from every window.

Jim Hinshaw knew that it was all a horrible mistake.

But he was obviously the only one there who knew it. The guy with the big boomer knew it. Yeah, Bolan knew it.

And Jim Hinshaw knew, in a highly personal sense, what it was like to be the fraggee. He'd been had ... by an expert. And that went double for Bonelli Junior.

Chapter 21

Bagged

Bolan had monitored through binoculars the tense confrontation at the compound gate, read it accurately, sealed it with a thundering kiss from the Weatherby — then played the reaction entirely by ear.

The Bonelli force read the attack as treachery from the Hinshaw camp. Morales, commanding at the rear and unable to precisely understand the unfolding events, held no options whatever in the face of the furious retaliatory attack by the Bonelli guns. The inevitable result was a blazing firefight between two "friendly" forces.

And Bolan assisted that development, also, with a few touches from the background. He raised the M-79, sighted down on an invading hardwagon just inside the compound, and sent them some HE. The big vehicle heeled immediately and wallowed to a halt in enveloping flames. A following round of smoke deposited at the gate further confused the landscape there — then a rapid shoestring of alternating HE and Frag laced that hellground with walking destruction and cascading pandemonium.

The staccato chatter of automatic weapons mingled with the echoing booms of busy shotguns and the angry yapping of pistols as the clash of arms quickly reached full fury.

Hinshaw's "reserves" were no panty-waist platoon. It was a disciplined and combat-worthy fire-team — equal to anything Bolan had seen in "Nam. Except for the Bolan influence, there would have been no doubt as to the outcome of that battle. Those guys knew what they were about — and they had the heavy arms to back up the expertise. A heavy machine gun was chewing ass all along the Bonelli front until Bolan spotted it and took it out. Likewise another couple of well-emplaced units with grenade launchers which were playing havoc with the street-corner cowboys from Tucson.

Within forty seconds after the fight erupted, all five penetrating Bonelli "tanks" were destroyed and burning. The entire area was strewn with the dead and dying from both sides. Cautious movements in both directions signaled the approaching lull and probable stalemate. Neither side had much fight left. Bolan could count a mere handful of survivors in desert denims, about the same for the other side. Smoke and dust clouded the tableau, restricting visibility and aiding the cautious withdrawal of both sides.

The three Bonelli vehicles which had remained beyond the fence line were now maneuvering carefully to pick up retreating survivors.

Bolan caught a flash glimpse of another vehicle within the compound — Angel Morales, he thought, at the wheel — also maneuvering carefully to shield a sprinting ghost from the past, the one and only James Ray Hinshaw.

Bolan was gathering his weapons and preparing to quit that place when the Bonelli vehicles sped away into the sunset. A moment later, two cars emerged from the rear area of the compound and raced off in obvious pursuit.

Bolan grinned soberly and returned to his cruiser.

He set the navigation gear for automatic track and began the final maneuver, he hoped, of the battle for Arizona.

Weiss stood in the shadow of a dilapidated hangar and watched a sleek twin-engine Cessna jet as it taxied out of the sunset and braked to a halt.

Two burly gorillas immediately descended to the ground, nostrils flaring warily as they separated and energetically strode to flanking defensive positions beside the plane. Weiss knew that he would have to become accustomed to such unsavory presences in his life; he would be seeing a lot of it from this point forward.

A moment later, the Capo Arizona himself appeared in the doorway and made a quick exit.

The senator experienced an involuntary tremor as he stepped forward to grasp that entrapping hand. They were not exactly strangers, of course. But overt contacts with the likes of Nick Bonelli were not apt to produce the most desirable public image for an elected official. There had been no social relationship whatever.

One would think that nothing whatever had happened.

The mafiaoso gave him a sober smile and greeted him with, "Hi, Senator. Long time no see."

Weiss could not return the smile. "I appreciate this, Nick," he said solemly.

The guy made a funny little twitch with his lips as he replied, "What are friends for?"

"Did you take care of it?" Weiss inquired nervously.

"Before I left home, yeah. Forget it. It never happened. When my boys get done with it, you'll have a hard time believing what happened yourself."

"I don't want to know the details."

"Who's giving any? The less said the better."

They went into a little office beside the hangar. Bonelli guided him to a dusty chair, offered him a cigar, went to the window and craned his neck to scrutinize the approaches, mumbled something to himself, went to a scarred desk and perched atop it.

"What are we waiting for?" Weiss asked irritably.

"My boy Paul is coming with us. You ever been to Costa Rica?"

Weiss shook his head, smiling sourly. "We get few junkets in that direction. I called my Washington office right after I talked to you. Told them I'd be out of the country for a few days."

"That's fine," Bonelli replied. "Be a bit longer than that, though. A few little details left to be cleaned up around here. It don't need us. We'll get some sun. Play some golf. You play golf ?"

"Every chance I get," Weiss said, warming a bit to this strange mixture of thug and charmer.

"I seal more deals on the golf course than-" Bonelli's eyes flashed to the window. A car was approaching.

The Capo Arizona slid off the desk and said, "Here's Paul. Let's go."

It was three cars — moving fast and burning rubber as they braked to swing off the blacktop road.

Hell, they looked— They were! All shot up! Shattered window glass!

The two torpedoes at the plane spun away and raced to place themselves between the don and the approaching vehicles.

"It's okay!" Bonelli yelled to them. "They're ours!"

Weiss started off nervously toward the plane, halting about halfway to peer back at the unfolding drama.

The cars were lurching to a halt near the office.

Bonelli, swaying anxiously beside the leading car, speaking animatedly to someone inside. Bonelli, jerking the front door open and nearly ripping off the hinges. Bonelli, head thrown back in a soundless scream, pounding on the roof of that broken car with a jackhammer fist. Bonelli, leaning inside to drag out a human form — a terribly limp and obviously broken human form. Bonelli, tearfully clutching a horribly mutilated and soggy-looking once-human head to his breast. Bonelli, bearing up a dead son and staggering with his burden toward the plane.

All it really meant to Abraham Weiss was that something had gone terribly sour.

"Did they take care of it?" he gasped as the Capo Arizona staggered past with his gruesome burden.

"Let's go!" Bonelli croaked in passing. "Get inna plane!"

Other vehicles were approaching.

Energetic men were spilling from the parked cars and scurrying frantically toward defensible positions.

Weiss came unglued and ran on to the Cessna to shrinkingly assist with the boarding of Paul Bonelli's pitiful remains. Bonelli growled, "Holy ..." shoved the senator inside and hastily secured the door.

And it had. Yes, obviously. It had all gone terribly sour. And now the sun was also down — perhaps never to rise again for Abraham Weiss.

The Hinshaw raiders were keeping the Tucson survivors well occupied in the hangar area, the rippling explosions of an erupting freigh signaling an end to the chase.

Bolan had no further interest whatever in that chase — nor in the participants. Both had served his purpose.

He left the cruiser parked beside the blacktop road and set off cross-country on foot, hurrying toward the south end of the runway with the M-79 — sampling the wind and reading the aerodynamic considerations, thinking like the pilot of an aircraft. He knew the guy would make his takeoff roll to the south, into the wind.

Someone else apparently had the same idea.

A battered car was jouncing along the uneven surface of the desert floor, making a wide circle to avoid the conflict of arms at the hangar — on a course to directly intercept Bolan's.

And they'd spotted him. At about sixty yards out, the vehicle veered to home directly on the running figure, pistol fire blazing at him from the window on the passenger side.

He flung himself to the prone without breaking stride, rolling and twisting upon impact to squeeze off a do-or-die round from the '79.

The HE round dug sand at the front bumper of the charging car, the hurried and off-balance shot scoring a near-miss, which nevertheless gutted the engine compartment from below, and diverting the charge.

The car quivered, heeled, and took a roll toward the runway.

The M-79 had taken a load of sand in the breech. Unable to immediately free the action, Bolan tossed the weapon aside and pursued the stricken vehicle with a big silver pistol, the .44 Automag, up and ready.

Two men were in that vehicle — Morales and Hinshaw — Angel at the wheel, James Ray "riding shotgun."

They'd rode her through two full rolls to a shuddering upright position. Morales was unconscious, the head dangling off to the shoulder at a crazy angle. Hinshaw's right arm hung loosely, also at an odd angle, from the window. It had been caught outside in the roll and was now bleeding profusely, obviously broken.

The guy gave him a sick smile as he groaned, "Guess it's just you'n me now, stud."

"Wrong," Bolan said coldly. "It's just you and you."

He walked on past, gained the runway, and turned north. The freigh was sputtering to a close. Of more importance, a twin-engine Cessna was winding up screaming jets and launching itself into high roll, departing that combat zone with all possible haste.

Bolan moved to the center of the runway and jogged on. 100 yards ... 90 ... 80 — no man's land was shrinking fast as the screaming jet bore down on him. At fifty yards he dropped to one knee, coolly sighted the big pistol, and went into rapid unload.

All eight rounds went home, but none, apparently, found a vital spot. He ejected and clicked in a fresh load with the plane practically on top of him, the wheels now lifting into the take-off.

There was one of those stop-action moments — a mere microsecond of eternal time which somehow expands to fill all of eternity — in which he was eyeball to eyeball with Honest Abe Weiss. As viewed through the eye, the Senator was just beyond the windshield of that hurtling craft, that timeworn face contorted In a grimace of horror; as viewed through the trapdoor of expanded time and space, he was standing outside his home in Paradise, a Browning skull-buster dangling ineffectively in trembling grasp, declaring for the wide world to hear: "I run it. It's mine, I run it!"

"Run it all the way to hell then," Bolan had told him. He told him now, in para-time, "You ran it too hard, Abe."

And then the lifting plane was flashing up and over him, he was toppling onto his back and taking cool measurements, again stroking the fire of that spectacular .44.

They went home that time — all of them, each of them.

The sleek jet staggered. Flames whoofed along the wing. She tried to go straight up then seemed to halt dead in the air momentarily at a couple hundred feet up — but that was an optical illusion produced by over-the-horizon reds from the setting sun clashing with over-the-wing flames from a setting plane.

She blew straight up — and the flare from that explosion was probably seen in Paradise.

But the scattered and settling fragments would perhaps never be seen again — except maybe a glimpse now and then in some corner of expanded time and space.

The Executioner sheathed his weapon and muttered, "Bag that, Nick." Then he quickly put that place behind him. And it was okay.

This time, father cosmos had picked up all the marbles.

Epilogue

Other hellgrounds beckoned. He knew they always would so long as he lived.

But there were those times, those moments when Eden deserved a bit of attention also.

So it was no misdirection of the mind that sent the world's most wanted fugitive back along the cosmic curve to a winding drive in Paradise.

The odds were, of course, that she would just give him another kick in the seat of the pants and send him on to the next blood river.

But a corner of the Bolan mind held a lot of hope for Morris Kaufman's kid. At the very least, she deserved to be told of her father's death by someone who cared. Bolan cared.

So maybe they could find some basis for mutual understanding. It was the least he could offer.

And maybe, despite all that separated them, they could pull together the fragmented corners of a brief respite in Paradise. What the hell.

Mother Cosmos deserved equal time didn't she?

1

Richard G. Hubler: "Song for a Pilot"