The driver of the rental limousine did not respond to the siren's call or Rafferty's cyclopean scarlet beacon mounted on the roof. Determined to keep pace with those ahead of him, the wheelman kept on pushing it, now running flat-out for the Minelli manor house along the curving graveled drive.
Rafferty heard the gunfire and explosions, despite the siren and his engine's whine. He knew that hell was coming down, and even though his entrance was somewhat premature, there was no way on earth to stall it once the guns went off back there around the gate.
It might be one thing to park outside the walls and listen for a moment to the distant sounds of combat from within, restraining his enthusiasm long enough to let Mack Bolan have a decent start, but it was something else when bodies started falling right before his eyes, with twenty other cops behind him, looking on.
Bill Rafferty had had no choice at all, and he was in it now for good or ill. He hoped the Executioner would hear him coming, know that it had fallen through and have time to clear out before the roof fell in.
The brake lights on the lead car, which was perhaps a hundred yards ahead, were winking as it pulled even with the house. Directly in his high beams, Rafferty saw a head pop out a window on the driver's side, pop back — and then the gunner had his shoulders through the opening, a shotgun in his hands.
And he was aiming at the goddamned cruiser.
Rafferty stood on the brake, instinctively twisting his wheel hard left, taking the charge on his side to spare the lieutenant. He heard the shotgun boom, the impact of its pellets on the door behind him, boring through and shredding fabric on the back seat, missing flesh by inches.
His passenger craned out and angled a shot across the windshield, the muzzle-flashes from his snubby side arm flaring with each shot. Rafferty ripped his own piece clear of leather, driving one-handedly, tailgating the Lincoln and battering it with his grill, throwing the shotgunner off balance. He had a fleeting glimpse of the gunner's weapon as he lost it while he went cartwheeling through the darkness.
The Continental swung wide, turning around in front of the house, sliding into line beside the other Lincolns. And doors were springing open all along the line, disgorging i shapes into the night, armed figures sprinting for cover, some going toward the house, others turning back to face the screaming cruisers as they formed a secondary ring around the first.
A heavy slug ripped through the cruiser's grill and Rafferty could feel the engine die. He opened the door and rolled clear, leaving the high beams on to pin his targets at center stage. Crouched behind the door, he sought a target for his Magnum, sweeping the four-inch barrel back and forth until he found his mark.
A beefy soldier was squatting by the nearest limo, shooting at the house and then back toward the cruisers, with an Army-issue .45.
Rafferty watched the guy duck a shotgun blast, then fumbled briefly with the fresh magazine. The captain sighted down the Magnum's barrel, squeezing off in double action.
His target sat down hard, one fat hand coming up to cover what was left of the face, feeling briefly for the missing nose before the life went out of him and he collapsed backward on the bloody gravel.
Rafferty's blood was pounding in his ears as he sought another target, and another. Around him other weapons had joined the skirmish, automatic rifles and riot guns. The cavalry was weighing in, and they would not be stopped until they brought the curtain down this night.
And it was their war now, although they didn't know it yet, not really. They were fighting for their lives, and it would take some time, some education, for the strike-force men to know that they were also warring for a higher cause.
Bill Rafferty would find a way to tell them all about it, if he lived.
When the smoke cleared, Rafferty was well aware that he might find his own men there, among the dead and dying on the field. If so, well, there was nothing he could do about it but try to even up the score another day.
And he was counting on another day. This couldn't be the end of it, not now.
It couldn't be.
If there was any justice out there, this had to be a new beginning for them all.
22
Mack Bolan fed the stutter gun another magazine and wriggled back between the sofa and a capsized coffee table, doubling his legs beneath him, rising to a crouch. Beyond the makeshift barricade, a ring of hostile guns surrounded him, their hot converging fire almost sufficient now to root him out from cover and destroy him on the run.
Almost.
The Executioner was not done yet, and every passing heartbeat served as a reminder that his prey — the capos there convened — were slipping farther from his grasp.
Bolan knew that it was now or never. If he allowed the gunners to immobilize him there before he reached the killground, he would have wasted his life.