Shock Waves(54)
And Bolan never wasted anything if there were viable alternatives.
He set the Uzi in front of him and from his pistol belt plucked a frag grenade with each hand. The greenish metal eggs were cool, their slick exteriors belying all the jagged death inside. Enough of fire and steel and smoky thunder there, he thought, to clear his road — assuming he could pull it off.
Bolan freed the pins and let them fall, firmly holding in the safety spoons. It would require precision timing, with a certain reckless disregard for all the odds arrayed against him. If Bolan faltered, hesitated in the least, then he would die. It was that simple.
The soldier picked out his targets by their sound, memorizing their locations for future reference. There would be no damn time at all to spot them when he made his move, and Bolan knew that if he missed his targets by a yard or more, assorted furniture would bear the brunt of the explosions and neutralize the fire and thunder that seemed to be his only hope.
He moved, and hostile weapons were already barking at him as he showed himself. A .38 drew blood beneath one upraised arm, and semiautomatic rifle slugs were chewing up the coffee table, searching for him.
Bolan pitched left, then right, and the eggs were airborne, spiraling along separate flight paths. He ducked under cover, grunting as a rifle bullfet plowed a bloody track across his shoulder blade.
He kept his balance, scooping up the Uzi, holding it against his chest so he would be ready for the hellfire moment that was coming.
Now! And the explosives detonated almost simultaneously, sharp concussions battering his barricade and rocking Bolan on his haunches, filling the air above his head with singing shards of steel. No time to wait; he was on his feet, already moving as the hostile gunners tried to understand precisely what was happening to them.
Three of them no longer cared. Their mutilated bodies lay where they had fallen, twisted by the shock waves, punctured by the storm of shrapnel. Bolan put them out of mind now, concentrating on survivors. Four were visible, the nearest staggering around in circles, fresh blood streaming down his face from ragged scalp wounds. He was struggling to raise the nickel-plated pistol in his hands.
He never made it. Bolan's submachine gun chattered briefly, and a sizzling wreath of parabellum manglers settled on the target's shoulders, drilling flesh and bone and fabric, turning bloodied face into a screaming death mask. Bolan was already moving as the headless body toppled back into an easy chair.
The Uzi tracked on, spitting lethal indignation at its human targets, mowing down a gunner who fought to rise, his shotgun awkward in hands almost devoid of fingers. Kneeling, a third was tracking the warrior with an automatic pistol when the hell storm broke around him, punched him over backward, out of sight and out of mind.
On the run, the remaining gunner winged a shot at Bolan, his bullet shattering a vase somewhere behind the Executioner. Two loping strides, and the gunner was almost to the kitchen door, almost to sanctuary, when he stumbled on a string of parabellums, slammed face-first against the wall and smeared it with his dying essence.
Bolan scanned the battlefield, moving out of there in search of other prey — the capos, right — when he heard a scream on the stairs.
A female voice, as hurt and angry as it was afraid.
He reached the staircase at a run, found Sally Palmer crouched upon the first-floor landing, wrestling a pistol from its holster underneath a dead man's arm. He was about to call her name when movement on the stairs alerted him to danger, and he spied a gunner with his Browning braced in both hands, sighting on the lady Fed.
Bolan swept the Uzi up, squeezing off as the target entered his sights. Three rounds ripped out in rapid fire and then the bolt locked open, smoking, frozen on the empty chamber.
On the stairs Bolan's target staggered, jerking with the impact as a single bullet burrowed through his rib cage, throwing off his aim. The banister absorbed the other rounds. There was fight enough inside him yet to do some lethal damage here before he died. The Browning wavered, torn between two targets, finally choosing Bolan, centering upon his upturned face.
The soldier didn't waste time with his stutter gun. He thumbed off the safety as his arm extended rising to the classic dueling stance, his body angled to narrow the hostile gunner's target zone. But before he could fire, Sally Palmer brought her captured weapon into play and squeezed off in rapid fire, the echo of her pistol filling the stairwell.
Her target twisted, fell back against the banister, his gun arm drooping out of line. He was either dead or nearly dead, right, but there was no damned point in taking any chances. Bolan's bullet drilled into his forehead between the staring eyes. The gunner's head snapped back, and he plunged over the railing backward, the lady Fed continuing to fire until the slide locked open on her weapon and it wouldn't answer any more.