After the last rock rolled by in a cloud of dirt and pebbles, Bolan leaped forward and raced around the slope in time to see his target leave a cleared section and enter heavy timber again not far from the highway.
Bolan ran faster now, fired his .44 AutoMag twice just to let Joey know he was still around.
In the heavy timber, Bolan heard the sounds ahead. The sounds of exhaustion, gasping and coughing. He came around a bend in the trail. A few steps later, the Executioner stopped.
The chase was over.
Joey Canzonari lay on the ground, exhausted. He struggled to sit up when he saw Bolan before him. The mobster's face was bright pink from the exertion.
Sweat dripped from his nose and chin. His hair was wet and plastered against his head.
"You going to blow me away?"
"Why not? Isn't that the way you made your bones?"
"I'm only a bookkeeper and a computer man."
"Yeah, one of the innocents. And your hobby is killing girls and importing submachine guns for fun and profit."
"Who the hell cares?"
"Right. You have bigger worries. Like trying to convince me that you did not help torture Charleen."
"I don't know what you're talking about." Canzonari clutched his wounded right hand with his left, sliding both of them toward his ankle. Bolan seemed not to notice the movement.
"So what do we do now?" Joey glared at the Executioner.
Bolan lowered the 93-R. "Up to you. Do you want to go back and face smuggling charges on the guns?"
"Look, there's enough money for you to live like a prince for the rest of your life. Five million dollars!"
"You don't have that much, Joey."
"My father does. He can get it for you." Suddenly Joey pulled a snub-nosed .38 from an ankle holster.
The weapon barely cleared leather when Bolan lifted the Beretta and fired at the Mafia gunman.
The round slammed through Joey Canzonari's right cheekbone and was deflected upward into his brain. He dropped the .38 and fell against the bloodsplattered fir. A gray-brown pulpy mess spilled from his shattered head.
Bolan stared a moment, his finger still on the trigger.
Then he walked away from the corpse and slowly slid the 93-R back in leather.
The Executioner deduced his bearings from the snow-capped side of Mount Hood and walked back toward the cars.
Fifteen minutes later he saw Joey's car.
On the front seat was an attache case filled with money, probably some kind of downpayment on the submachine guns. It would make a good deposit in The Executioner's war chest. He threw the case in the crew wagon he had driven out and started toward Portland.
16
He drove to the Portland International Airport and parked outside the chopper service.
"Coming up in the world," Scooter Roick commented, eyeing the Caddy.
"Belongs to a friend of mine."
The pilot chuckled.
"Hey, looks like your little boat ride turned out fine."
"Fair. You have any problems?"
"Not yet." Bolan tossed him a stack of hundreds from the attache case. "Here's a little bonus for you."
"Must be at least five thousand dollars here! Anytime you need a jockey, call me!"
Bolan waved, got in the rented Thunderbird he had parked there that morning and put the attache case and his weapons on the seat beside him.
Heading downtown, the Executioner considered his enemy: the Mafia, an international organization of the lowest and most cold-bloodedly violent criminals in the world. Many lives before, he had vowed to wipe them out, or at least thin their ranks.
The Executioner knew that a well-placed bullet, indeed, a stray, could finish his own life anytime. He was flesh and blood, and one faltered step would spell the end.
But until then he would never waver in his mission, launched in anger as a vendetta to avenge his family. But Bolan had long ago understood that personal hatred had no place in his quest, and that his fight had become a commitment to duty and justice.
For Mack Bolan, other people's fear of death was a weapon in itself.
Unleashed against the Mafia organization, the fear could tear it apart, create gaps large enough for The Executioner to move in and wipe out the Mob.
The warrior's conflict had taken to many states of the Union, and also to diverse foreign shores. During the terrorist wars he had even struck at the heart of the hydra, Moscow.
Now here he was, in a place where the land was truly bigger than man; where the majestic beauty of the Northwest seemed to humble ordinary mortals.
Bolan's rental neared the hotel, and as he entered the ramp of the underground parking garage, the Executioner put his past behind him and thought no more about it.
The present required all of his attention.
For the sake of any future at all.
Bolan took the elevator to his room. He had no sooner kicked off his shoes when there was a knock on the door. Bolan snared the 93-R and moved against the wall next to the door.
"Who is it?" he asked.
"Johnny."
Bolan relaxed a fraction, slipped the chain off the catch and turned the knob to let his brother in.
Johnny was waving a newspaper.
"Look at this, guy."
"Read it to me," Bolan said, relocking the door and unfastening his weapons gear. Then he moved to the bed.
"The FBI has discovered a big cache of smuggled guns, worth over three million dollars, in a shipment of industrial machinery at a Gresham farm equipment dealership," Johnny read. "The military-type automatic weapons, rockets and launchers have been turned over to the Forty-first Division of the Oregon National Guard, and the rest is being held by the FBI.
Gresham police are unable to account for the small-scale war that took place in the farm-equipment firm warehouse where the guns were found. By the time firemen and police reached the scene the exchange was over. Automatic weapons and hand grenades had been used, and police report men killed and wounded.
Survivors claimed that some of the munitions in the shipment blew up.
However, police pointed out that most of the wounded were hit by bullets, not shrapnel. A large number of shell casings were also found in the warehouse, many of the 9mm parabellum size, as well as .45 and .38 caliber."
Johnny read another story about a Japanese ship captain reporting a hijack attempt on his ship when a group of men overpowered the river pilot and boarded along with him at Astoria. The captain reported he and his crew had killed or pushed overboard all five invaders. Neither the police nor the captain could explain the attack.
Johnny smiled grimly and turned to the Executioner.
Mack Bolan was fast asleep.
Johnny Bolan let the newspaper drop to the floor as he studied his big brother. Sadness assailed him as he reflected on the tribulations of this brave warrior. The younger Bolan wondered what path Mack's life, indeed, the lives of the entire Bolan clan, would have taken had circumstances not been as they were.
Bolan awoke with a start, muttering April Rose's name. He took in his surroundings, then looked at his watch.
"Damn," he said, strapping on his weapons.
He had unfinished business in Portland.
Downstairs in the rented Thunderbird he checked over his equipment. A plan for dealing with Gino Canzonari, the Portland Godfather, had been forming in his mind.
He drove to a convenient phone booth and called Canzonari's private line, an unlisted number that changed every thirty days.
The Godfather himself answered.
"Joey, is that you?" the father asked, obviously worried.
"No, this isn't Joey, but I know where he is. Interested, Canzonari?" Bolan held the phone away from his ear when a roaring scream blasted through the receiver.
"Bolan, you bastard! Where is my son?"
"How much is he worth to you?"
"Half a million! I'll get you half a million in cash, no traces."