The echo of gunfire faded from suburbia.
Residents got braver. They clustered along the tree-lined street that had so suddenly become a hell-ground. Curious chatter filled the air.
Gridell lowered his pistol.
He turned, wearily, painfully, forcing himself to limp back to the nearest house.
Six men dead, including a partner; a kid who never had the chance to prove himself.
A stolen unmarked car.
And a wild card.
John Phoenix.
11
Bolan caught up with the van on Rhode Island Avenue. It was heading southwest, back across the state line into D.C., retracing the route that had led the parade of death into Brentwood.
The Executioner held his tracking position as far back as possible.
Traffic along the main artery was even sparser than before, and Bolan realized the men in the van were not trying very hard to evade him, heavy traffic or light. Unless, of course, they were luring him into a trap.
John Phoenix intended to trail these rats back to their hole.
The Executioner would blow hell out of whatever rat hole the van led him to.
The trail was heading back to the sprawling ghetto.
He followed the van off the main avenues, away from the bright lights, to a city block of vacant tenements that loomed like monoliths against the cloudy night sky, a city block of condemned renewal.
Bolan watched the customized vehicle turn into a street flanked by deserted tenements and another block that had already met the demolition crew's iron ball.
It was a desolate scene in the middle of the city. The sounds of midnight D.C. were muffled, distant; it could have been a universe away.
The driver doused his headlights as the van came to a stop in front of an apartment building. Car doors opened. Bolan guided his own vehicle into a turn, out of sight, before the occupants of the van could turn fully around on their way into the nearest tenement.
They disappeared inside.
Bolan unleathered the AutoMag and padded after the two men.
He paused, flattening himself against a wall at the open entranceway to the condemned building. He held up the stainless-steel .44, ready for anything. Ready to kill. He eased into the tomblike shell that had once housed life but now only reeked of dry rot and decay.
He heard faint voices coming from down a dark corridor. The voices were muffled by walls.
Bolan kept his back pressed to the grimy wall of the corridor. He moved slowly, being careful to step only where the floor met the baseboard of the wall, avoiding any loose floorboards that could cause a warning squeak in a building this old.
He followed the sound of the conversation to a room where the door had been taken off the hinges. A rectangle of dull grayish light fell upon the scuffed floor of the corridor.
Bolan made it to that entrance in a half dozen soundless strides.
He stood just out of view of whoever was talking inside.
He listened.
"The bastard shot my fucking ear clean off!" a voice whined in agony.
Another male voice said, "You bleedin' like a stuck pig, Jimmy Lee."
"You made your report. Have him patched up, Sam," said a third voice.
"Uh, what about you and, uh, the lady here?" the second person asked.
"John Phoenix is dead, ain't he?" growled Boss Voice. "I plan to stay right here and keep on doing what I've been doing. Ain't nothing to worry about."
Bolan had heard enough. He stepped into the room.
Three black guys.
The driver, and a guy who held his ear and looked like all his blood was draining out of the wound where Bolan had shot him.
They were talking to a lithe black dude who wore a pair of slacks and nothing else. This guy was pacing back and forth between Sam and wounded Jimmy Lee. On a bed in the corner of the room lay a nude blonde.
She was at the precious stage between girl and woman, innocence and sensuality in equal measures.
Bolan guessed her age to be eighteen. Shoulder-length golden hair framed a pretty face with a smattering of freckles. Her blue eyes held a glazed look and perspiration glistened on her nubile body.
Bolan straddled the doorway, tracking the .44 to cover the three men.
He addressed the young woman without looking at her.
"You're in a killing zone, young lady. Back off."
"I'm Ali's woman. Go to hell, mister," she said rebelliously.
"Cap him!" hissed the half-naked dude.
All three men fell away in separate directions, clawing for hardware. Even the bleeding Jimmy Lee.
Bolan put the wounded man out of his misery with a .44 headbuster from Big Thunder that sprayed the wall behind him full of brains and skull bits.
Sam, the driver of the van, was tracking on Bolan with an Uzi that he had slung beneath his jacket; the gun he'd ambushed Bolan with. But Sam was too slow.
Big Thunder spoke again as another projectile opened Sam's throat. A gaping hole appeared in his neck. The guy shuddered and collapsed lifeless on top of Jimmy Lee.
Bolan heard the blonde shriek.
He whirled in a crouch, just in time to see Ali half dragging the naked blonde out of the doorway.
The young woman was stumbling along willingly after the black, as they disappeared into the corridor outside the room.
Bolan angled for a bead on the woman's boyfriend, but she kept getting into the line of fire.
Bolan realized that they were heading toward the front of the tenement building.
Bolan quick-stepped into the corridor just as the black guy and the nude blonde reached the front entrance of the building.
Ali still had a tight grip around the woman's wrist.
"Hold it right there, you two," ordered Bolan.
He sighted down the hallway on the man.
The blonde was still in the line of fire.
The man spun around, releasing the girl's wrist. He flashed his right forearm up under her throat, pulling her back against him as a shield. Ali raised the .45 and pressed the automatic's muzzle against the girl's right temple.
Her eyes flared with new panic.
Ali's arm crushed the breath out of her.
"Wait!" she screamed. "No!"
The black glared over her shoulder at the man with the AutoMag.
"Drop your piece, motherfucker, or I'll waste this bitch."
It registered fully with the blonde.
"Ali! What are you doing?"
Bolan had aimed at a spot between Ali's eyes, but there was death reflex to consider. The damn .45 could still go off.
The girl jerked her head sideways, away from her lover's pistol.
Bolan triggered a round and the minihowitzer recoiled in his hand, spitting flame and a .44 flesh-eater that blew Ali's .45 automatic to bits. The impact obliterated three of his fingers along with it in a violent red spray.
Ali snarled in pain like a wounded tiger. He released the blonde and shoved her at Bolan, delivering a brutal chop to the side of her neck with his good hand.
The girl's eyes rolled back in her head.
She was deadweight coming at Bolan.
Ali expected Bolan to catch the nude form.
Bolan sidestepped, the AutoMag tracking back to Ali.
In the heartbeat it took for Bolan to sidestep the blonde and let her collapse against the nearest wall, the wounded black dodged out of the condemned tenement, back onto the sidewalk.
Bolan raced after him.
The big blitzer cast a glance at the crumpled figure of a naked woman on whom the tables had turned. She was unconscious.
A car engine roared to life in front of the building.
The Ford that belonged to the CIA was stolen again.
Bolan reached the front steps of the deserted tenement just in time to see the Ford flash past a sporty Lancia that was parked near the tenement. The fleeing car disappeared from sight around the corner of the building.
Nothing moved.
Bolan held in a bitter curse that burned in his throat.
He turned and reentered the building.
He walked by the unconscious blonde into the room where he had killed the two other blacks.