More cons below them now, more horsemen rapidly converging, driving mounts into a lather. Bolan spotted Toro in among the others. The Executioner knew Grimaldi had the Cuban now, as the bird began circling, hovering, preparing to land. The chopper's rotor wash flattened the rows of collard greens and forced men down there to shield their eyes.
They were a dozen feet from touchdown when Mack Bolan opened fire. He swung up the XM-18 and triggered three quick rounds, the belching muzzle swinging on a track from left to right. Two bursts of smoke erupted on the field, and in the midst of it a tear-gas can exploded, mingling noxious fumes with Bolan's artificial fog bank.
Grimaldi set the chopper down amid the greens, and rotor wash was working for them now, propelling clouds of smoke and gas across the field in an expanding screen.
There was mass confusion as the cons started shouting, gagging as they scattered, seeking daylight. Bolan saw a pair of riders bearing down on the helicopter, then the smoke screen cut them off from view. He lobbed another sputtering can in their direction.
Above the general din, he heard a guard attempting to bring order out of chaos, shouting at his charges, firing in the air. Off to Bolan's right another rifle cracked in answer, the bullet drilling through his smoke screen.
A mounted guard exploded into view, his animal colliding with a startled inmate, hurling him to the ground. The rider was fighting with his reins and rifle simultaneously, struggling to stay aboard and get a shot at the intruders. He was tracking onto target when the gelding made a break for cover in the smoke and dumped him off the starboard side.
He touched down hard, the .30-30 jarred out of his hand on impact.
The fallen convict scrambled toward the .30-30, retrieving it and fumbling with the lever action for a moment, finally chambering a round. Ignoring Bolan and the helicopter, he was sighting on the semiconscious guard, already tightening his finger on the trigger when the XM-18 roared.
The range was thirty feet and there was little need to aim. The hard batton projectile struck the convict underneath his arm and punched him over sideways in the dirt, his captured rifle spinning free.
A running figure cleared the smoke and Bolan recognized El Toro, sprinting for the chopper. Close behind him, three more inmates were intent on keeping pace, the nearest of them threatening to overtake him in the break for freedom.
Bolan swung his light artillery around to intercept them, but the Cuban was directly in his line of fire. To take out the leader he would have to topple Toro, and the other two were fading back now, legging it in single file to let their pointman take the heat.
The Cuban feinted left, and Bolan was about to drop his closest competition when El Toro spun around and drove a fist into the convict's sweating face. Momentum did the rest, and Toro's opposition touched down shoulders first, a tumbling rag doll.
His companions hesitated, breaking stride, and they were circling Toro in a pincer movement, Bolan and the chopper momentarily forgotten. One of them threw himself at Toro with his arms outstretched, talon fingers groping for the Cuban's windpipe.
Toro took him low and inside, catching him off balance with a slashing knee that crushed his genitals. The man doubled over, retching, and his nose was flattened by the toe of Toro's boot. He vaulted backward, unconscious before he hit the turf.
His backup was considering an angle of attack, but he never got the chance to follow through. A rifle cracked and Bolan saw the straw man airborne, pitching forward on his face beneath the deadly impact of a .30-30 slug.
The Executioner reacted swiftly, pivoting to face the source of gunfire. He spotted a prison guard some thirty paces to his right. The rifleman was seeking other targets, blind with panic now and desperate to do something, anything, before it was too late.
The launcher bucked and bellowed, sent another stunner out to close the gap between them. Downrange, Bolan's target hurtled backward, propelled into a sprawl by the batton round's impact. Bolan turned his full attention back to Toro, focusing upon the mission.
And his passenger was there, one arm outstretched to grasp the helping hand that Bolan offered. Jack Grimaldi saw the Cuban come aboard, and the pilot reacted instantly. The ship lifted off, ascending vertically, the altered angle of their rotor blast dispersing smoke and gas.
Below them riflemen were searching for the range and finding it. A bullet whispered next to Bolan's ear and drilled an exit port behind him, through a pane of Plexiglas. Another twanged against the fuselage and spun away.
Grimaldi took them out of there, the Bell responding to a master's hand and climbing, banking, rising in a spiral that would get them out of rifle range.
The Executioner and Toro scrambled into seats and buckled up, riding out the storm. Grimaldi soon had them running true and arrow straight above the scrublands, with the prison compound dwindling, behind them.
Across from Bolan, Toro was beginning to relax, but his deliverer could not afford to share the feeling. They were flying out of momentary danger into greater peril, and the heat would follow them inexorably. The spark that he had struck that morning might ignite a lethal conflagration in Miami.
Fine.
Warrior Bolan was familiar with the heat; he thrived on it.
And he was carrying the fire this time, a cleansing flame to scorch the savages and drive them underground.
A number of his enemies had felt the Bolan heat already. More would follow. Hell had come acalling in Miami, and the purifying flames would have to run their savage course.
A skillful hand could fan the flames, attempt to channel and direct them, but the end result would be in doubt until the final shot was fired. There was every chance that warrior Bolan would be counted with the fallen, but he knew the long odds going in, and they did not deter him.
The Executioner was blitzing on.
9
Toro stood before the open kitchen window, leaning on the sink and staring out across a scruffy yard in the direction of a peeling clapboard fence. The nearest neighbor was an auto graveyard, its rusting hulks piled high above the fence.
"Sorry we couldn't set up something with a view."
Grinning, the Cuban turned to face Mack Bolan.
"The view is fine, amigo. I was getting tired of open spaces, anyway."
He retrieved a mug of coffee from the kitchen counter, sat down at a narrow dining table to face the Executioner.
"I have not yet thanked you for delivering me."
"No thanks are necessary," Bolan told him.
"Ah. Without the need, then. Gracias, amigo."
"Welcome."
They were seated in the combination dining room and kitchen of a rented bungalow in Opa-locka, a Miami suburb. It was five minutes from the Opa-locka airport and well removed from Little Havana. And Bolan knew that it was there the main heat of the coming search for Toro would be concentrated. With any luck the hunt should pass them by completely.
Not that Bolan or the Cuban planned on hiding out while the search went on around them. Far from it.
They were pausing at the rented safehouse only long enough to coordinate a course of action.
There was work to do yet in Miami, and before proceeding with it, Bolan needed information.
"You mentioned a suspected sellout in your group."
Toro glanced up from his coffee cup, a frown etched into his forehead. He hesitated, and when he spoke, his voice was solemn.
"I will deal with him myself."
"I understand your feelings."