The loudest sound to him now was the thumping of his own heart, so anxious to act.
As he counted off the final three seconds, he felt the predictable cold spurt of adrenaline spearing through his stomach.
Three.
Two.
One.
Go! Go! Go!
Bolan sprang through the closed window, an unleashed, lashing-out body of muscle. His head was tucked down. His Beretta was tight in his right hand.
Glass exploded everywhere. Bolan had burst into the room like some avenging angel, or devil. The startled men at the table gasped in shock and horror.
The violent appearance of the warrior with the black grease smeared over his face, his shape all clad in black, was the coming of their fate.
As planned, Bolan's action had distracted them long enough to allow Cleveland and Tandy to bust open the hotel door and cover the three prisoners with their rifles.
""Don't move!" he heard Corporal Cleveland command.
Sergeant Grendal was first to recover. Aware of what grim punishment the army would have in store for him now, he obviously decided to take a chance. A desperate chance.
He slammed his chair forward to the floor and grabbed at one of the guns on the table, snapping in a magazine with his palm. It took only a couple of seconds for the two MP'S to pivot their rifles directly in the fat sergeant's direction, but by then too much else was already in motion. Taking his cue from Grendal, the pasty-faced corporal vaulted out of his chair like a damn fool and lunged at the throat of Corporal Cleveland. "Black sonuvabitch!" he shrieked.
Corporal Cleveland swung his rifle butt up and into the smooth face of the flying corporal. It caught the soldier squarely in the open mouth and jaw. The jaw broke with a crack like it was some cheap plastic toy. The whole anatomical mechanism twisted too far to the left and white splinters of bare bone poked through the cheek's skin. Several blood-drenched teeth had exploded from his mouth and the dumb corporal tumbled into a heap of convulsions against the folding metal chair. His coughing sprayed a pink mist of bloodied phlegm out from his face and onto his shirt.
Corporal Tandy, diligent of Bolan's command to take these creeps alive, was meanwhile attempting the same rifle butt technique on Sergeant Grendal. But Grendal was combat trained, and despite his bulk he easily sidestepped the inexperienced MP, deftly clubbing the younger man on the back of the head with the butt of his just-grabbed pistol. Then with brazen expertise, he swung around to face Bolan, and squeezed off several rounds from a two-fisted crouch position. But Bolan was not a sitting target.
From the moment he had plunged through the window he had kept moving, rolling across the wooden floor and its new carpet of glass shards to a better vantage for return fire. He heard the loud report of the .45 as he came out of his roll, saw dust and splinters kicked up from the floor before him as the sergeant's bullets dug in.
Bolan heard the third shot and felt a tug at his pant leg, enough to know it had been too damn close.
He twisted around, gaining enough leverage to dive behind the hotel's torn overstuffed chair near the corner. Halfway through the dive, he squeezed off two rounds of his own. The Beretta spat its smoldering chunks of brimstone into the fleshy neck of Sgt. Edsel Grendal. The hardguy's throat burst open like a water balloon, pouring forth crimson blood over his chest and fat stomach. Grendal reeled for a moment, desperately wrapping his hands around his throat like a tourniquet and choking out some rasping words of protest. But the blood merely pumped out between his sticky fingers as he collapsed face forward into the card table, knocking it over. The guns and ammo clips rattled across the floor.
It was not over yet. Bolan continued his roll out from the other side of the chair, beading the Beretta toward the last soldier. The wretched redhead stood in the far corner, his hands already raised high over his head. "Jesus," he was saying. "J-Jesus goddamn..."
Bolan rose slowly to his feet. There was no way anyone could mistake the shots from those M191IAIs as anything else but gunfire. However, it was doubtful that anyone would come snooping around. Especially the law. It was that kind of hotel, in that kind of neighborhood, it had been built in the 1600's to house the finest Dutch banking firm in the land, but time had changed and now all of this section of Frankfurt was frequented by anyone with a few bucks to spend on the dirtier pleasures. Especially bored young American soldiers killing time. The police avoided the area. There was no need to worry about the noise.
The Executioner had other things to worry about. He approached the redheaded kid. "You PFC Gary Cottonwood?"
"Yes, sir. Cottonwood. T-t-that's me."
Bolan poked the corporal aside with the barrel of the Beretta as he stepped toward the slumped Corporal Tandy, just now coming back to consciousness.
"How's the head, son?" Bolan asked.
Tandy rubbed the back of his neck, rolling his head slightly to bring himself to alertness. "Fine, Colonel. I'm fine."
"I want you to take your prisoner." Bolan pointed Belle at the face-wrecked corporal on the floor. "Comeback to the base and lock him up, and tell General Wilson what happened. He'll know what the hell I need."
"Yes, sir. What about him, sir?" Corporal Tandy asked Bolan, glancing over the body of Grendal toward PFC Gary Cottonwood.
"I'll be bringing him along myself. After I ask a few questions." At that, the doughy-faced victim on the floor tried to shout a threatening warning at the red-headed Cottonwood, but anything that came out through the mashed and mangled jaw was badly garbled. Two more teeth fell from his mouth and bounced across the floor.
"I hope you like oatmeal, Corporal," Bolan said. "Because you're gonna be eating it for a whole lot of months to come. Now get him out of here."
Corporal Tandy hesitated. "Sir?" he asked in a quiet voice.
"Yeah?"
"I'm sorry, sir. I mean about not taking them all alive and everything. It was my fault, I know."
"Like hell it was," Bolan grunted. "Grendal knew he was facing a firing squad or worse. He was bound to take his shot, no matter how bad the odds. Had nothing to do with you. You understand?"
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir."
"Now move out."
"Right, sir!"
Then they were gone, and Bolan turned a hard eye on the frightened private. Nudging aside Sergeant Grendal's corpse with his foot, he freed one of the overturned chairs. He set it in the middle of the room and sat down, his Beretta still aimed at PFC Cottonwood's chest. Cottonwood swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing tightly in his throat. "S-sir?"
"Yeah?"
"May I sit down please? Otherwise."
Bolan pointed his gun at the floor. "Sit." Cottonwood sat and waited silently.
"'Are you glad to be alive, Cottonwood?"
"Y-yes, sir."
"Well, don't be too glad, because it may be a very temporary situation."
"I see, sir."
"I'm going to give it to you straight, and then you're going to give it to me straight."
"Yessir."
Bolan stared icily into the boy's eyes.
"You're the one who passed on the report about this location and the meeting to the authorities. Right?"
"Yessir."
"Why? And don't waste my time with rationallations or excuses."
"No, sir, I won't." Cottonwood swallowed something thick in his throat. "I work the VT100 computer terminal for incoming shipments of everything from toilet paper to tanks. Sergeant Grendal approached me a couple months ago with his idea of how to program the computer so that it kicked out certain supply orders as duplicate shipments. Hell, CFU is the most common explanation for anything that goes wrong over here."