The Executioner studied the near wall and saw a small slit four feet high. The wall was evidently an addition, built to conceal something. He could see slots along this false wall, some four feet, a few three feet high.
He watched the wall as he pushed the board against another bare square.
A black dart flashed from a slot and rammed into the far wall.
Crouching, Bolan moved toward the far wall, carefully avoiding the squares with no tiles. Finally he reached the door. When he tried the handle, it would not budge. Locked.
The time for finesse was over. Bolan still sweated from the nerve-jangling bout with the mines. He stepped back and drove his right foot forward, mightily kicking the door below the doorknob. It sprang open.
The room ahead was smaller, and empty except for another iron spiral staircase at the far end. He detected no booby traps. He held the Uzi as he walked toward the staircase. Nothing moved.
No sounds came.
He looked up the staircase and found the same type of dim electric lights that existed in all the rooms. With a critical eye, he cased the small room. No hidden dangers were apparent. Maybe he was through the gauntlet.
Electrified stairs? Easy enough, since they were metal. He dropped a penny on the metal. Nothing unusual happened.
He touched then gripped the hand rail.
He moved up the steps soundlessly, the Uzi raised, his finger on the trigger. There was no steel plate barring the top of the stairs. At last he had access to the inner sanctum of Jody Warren, Beast of Portland.
He climbed to a small landing, and peered into it over the top of the ladder. Sensing no danger, he continued upward into the room. It was about eight feet square, bare except for a door.
Soft music sounded from concealed speakers. Bolan tested the door.
Unlocked. He opened it slightly and peeked into the next room. He saw an old-fashioned parlor with a couch, chairs, a spindle-legged dining-room table in heavy oak and four oak straight-backed chairs with cane-laced seats.
Antique tintypes and a large, oval, glass-framed picture of a dour man and woman decorated the walls. The man had a heavy mustache and stood behind the chair in which the woman sat, looking very prim and proper.
Bolan hurried across the room to another door.
Beyond was a kitchen and a bath, and farther on, a large bedroom. A man and two women, all naked, lay sleeping on the king-size bed.
Jody Warren was short and fat. His stringy brown hair was scattered over the pillow. Acne scars pocked his face. Brownish stains, possibly from lack of washing, splotched his face and neck.
He mumbled in his sleep and reached for the closest girl.
The Executioner held the Uzi an inch above his ear and fired into the wall. Warren jolted upward, his eyes wild.
He saw Bolan in the soft night-lights and swore. Both women jumped up, screaming. Warren yelled, "Who are you? And who the hell let you in?"
Bolan tossed a marksman's medal onto the bed and the small man began to shake.
"Hey, it ain't me you want. Get the big shots. Me, I'm small potatoes. Get the bosses!"
"They come next, Jody."
At a sign from Bolan, the women moved off the bed and out of danger.
"Get your pants on, Jody. I hate to see a man die when he's naked."
"Hey, you got no fight with me. I just follow orders." He started to rise from the bed, rolled over and grabbed a .45 automatic from under the big pillow. Bolan slammed three shots through his wrist, and flesh and blood and bone sprayed as the heavy gun fell to the sheets.
"Bastard!"
"Get your pants on."
With his good hand, Jody picked up a pair of blue pants from a chair and got into them. He was in agony.
"May I bandage his hand?" one of the women asked.
Bolan nodded. The tall slender brunette took a scarf from a dresser and wound it around the wrist, stopping the bleeding.
"Now show me how you turn off the juice in that hallway, Jody."
Jody glared at him in fury, then motioned with his bandaged hand. "Down here."
The Executioner followed him through another room to a closet. Warren leaped on a brass pole and slid through the floor.
A fireman's pole!
The Executioner grabbed the pole and dropped into the blackness below.
There was no light, absolutely none at all.
Bolan guessed he had landed in a second-floor room on the far side of the hallway. He held his breath.
Hearing a movement to the left, he drew the silenced Beretta and fired three single shots.
Then the Executioner snapped on his cigarette lighter. The small flame revealed a figure cowering in the corner.
"Nice try, but you're still a dead man, Jody. Now how do you turnoff the juice?"
"It's on a timer."
"Where is the door in here?"
Jody pointed to the right in the flickering light.
"Open it."
Warren rose and opened the door. He looked into the hall. The slick, electrified surface seemed unchanged, except that now a charred wooden chair lay on the floor.
"Juice is off," Bolan said. "It must have burned out your reset."
Then Warren dashed into the hall, ran past two doorways and through a third.
Bolan caught the slamming door and stopped six steps behind Warren, realizing they were in the mechanical dart room with the patchwork linoleum floor.
Bolan watched the pimp and loan shark hopscotch across the floor, and followed exactly in his footsteps. Then his quarry burst into the mined room, tripped over the retaining wall and fell into the sand. He turned to Bolan with fear on his face.
Bolan stopped at the door, the Uzi up, amazement on his face.
"How the hell did you miss the mines?"
"I didn't. There's only one in here that's live. The rest are practice mines with no charges."
"Let's find the live one," Bolan said, triggering the Uzi into the sand, hoping one of the slugs would detonate the mine.
"No! That's not fair!"
"Tell Charlotte Albers about fair, you bastard." Shielded by the door, Bolan moved his fire to the other side of the room.
One slug found the right spot and the room exploded with a deafening roar that slammed the Executioner back into the dart room. He felt a sting on the arm that had been exposed, and saw a four-inch gash where shrapnel had penetrated. A red stream poured out.
He returned to the door. The mangled, bloody remains of Jody Warren were strewn near the far door.
"That one was for Charlotte and Charleen," Bolan said.
The electricity was still off in the hall. Bolan hurried across it to the end room, and found the black girl dressed in street clothes, waiting for him.
"Glad you won," she said. "I got everybody else out. Just the girls in trouble were here. I told them never to come back. I don't care about the bitches upstairs. We better split, cause the cops gonna be here in a couple of minutes."
Bolan nodded. He let the Uzi hang on its cord, and they paced out to the street.
The black girl looked at him.
"Don't know who you are, but thanks for the vermin extermination." She paused. "Hey, if you ever..." She stopped and shook her head.
"No way, girl. This man don't ever have to pay for his loving."
She grinned. "Been nice," she said. "Thanks again." She walked away into the Portland dawn.
As the Executioner got into his Thunderbird, the rain began again, soft and cleansing.
14
It was after 5:00 A.M. when Mack Bolan unlocked his hotel door and entered the room. He sensed someone there and crouched, then snapped on the light.
Johnny slept on the bed, fully clothed.