The .44 AutoMag rode position of honor at his right hip. Numerous reload clips for the weapon were grouped to either side of the holster within easy reach.
Head weapon for the mission was Bolan's favorite heavy piece — the M-16/M-79 over n' under combo. The '16 spat a hot trail of 5.56 mm tumblers in auto or could be fired as a semiauto. The 79 was a hard-punch piece, breechloaded and versatile, handling rounds of high explosive, fragmentation, smoke, gas, flare, or double-aught buck. With any load, she was hell in hand. For the moment, the double weapon was strapped across the back of his shoulders, secured.
Grimaldi fiddled with his headset and announced, "Ceiling now is one fifty and sloping high. We'll have to drop through at least two hundred feet of clear to set you down. It's going to be tense."
Bolan replied, "I leave it to you, Jack. Scrub it if you must."
"No, hell no. I'll get you in. Rather do it this way than drop you from four thousand feet." He chuckled nervously. "I was always a sucker for grunts, especially you teeth-baring gung-ho types. I'm climbing up top, now. We're getting close."
Bolan smiled at the guy in complete understanding, then began mentally reorienting himself to the lie down there.
A moment later the phones crackled with a report on the air/ground channel. "Low Boy to High Boy. Anybody there?"
It was Leo Turrin, in the warwagon.
Grimaldi punched the channel selector and gave Bolan a visual go-ahead.
"Go ahead, Low Boy," Bolan replied.
"Okay, they're sprung and scrambling. Give it about one hour from this moment for them to organize and get there."
Bolan punched the mark on his wrist chronometer. "Roger, understand one hour from now. Thanks, Low Boy. We're going."
"That's good. I'm about went. Now moving the vehicle to backdrop position."
"Roger."
"Tally ho, man."
"Thanks, stay hard."
Grimaldi returned the setup to intercom and asked, "Who's our friend?"
"Best left nameless, Jack," Bolan replied.
''Gotcha. Okay, get set. We should be about a thousand yards uprange. 'Bout time to hit that flare. Your wind is ... yeah, okay, right on our tail. Let it go at my mark."
Bolan extended a flarepistol through the open doorway.
"Mark!"
The pyrotechnic whizzed off in a straight-horizontal trajectory, headed upwind. It had a long fuse. In a moment, the parachute would open and the flare would descend far to their rear, breaking the cloud cover over water and coming down on the forward shore. Hopefully. It was purely a diversionary move. Bolan intended to set down in the quiet area to the rear. He simply wanted a brief moment with most eyes on that island directed the other way.
Grimaldi was now executing a wide circle and losing altitude rapidly.
Bolan poised himself at the opening in the floor and reported, "Headset coming off, Jack. I'll be on visual."
"Right. Watch yourself. I'll give you all the running room I can. But drop at your own discretion. Your view will probably be better than mine. Good luck, man. Like the guy said, tally-ho."
Bolan snatched off the headset and raised a fist to his flying friend. Then he bent headfirst through the floor opening, steadying himself outside by a skid strut.
The mists dissolved in a flash. Land appeared, darkly. Buildings rose up in fuzzy outline.
Far ahead, brilliance was breaking the cloud cover and descending in a gentle float through open skies.
The little craft lurched, rose slightly, dropped greatly, lurched again — then spinning and side-slipping in a steady drop. Earth was whizzing by. Fencing flashed past, barely off the skids. Bolan launched himself, seizing the skid in both hands as though it were a parallel bar at the neighborhood gym, swinging, now hanging vertically. Toes dragged slightly — legs pistoned up with knees bent, and he let go.
He hit the earth running, then stumbled under the momentum with too much weight — fell — slid to rest.
Already the chopper was out of sight, its sounds a distant thumping upon the night.
Bolan pulled himself to a crouch and tested his working parts.
All systems were go. No hurt more serious than a skinned knee. All weaponry intact. Those plastics, thank the fates, still inert.
Things were happening up front, though. People in fast movement, shouts, the coughing of an outboard motor. The diversion was working.
He jogged toward the sounds, thudding at every step with the extra weight, then broke toward the cover of the buildings.
Other feet thudded ahead. Bolan stepped into the lee of the building and froze.
A voice, pretty close, called out, "Okay, but I swear I heard a chopper!"
Said another, obviously a leader with rank, "You'll be hearing a bullet in the belly if you don't follow orders! Get out there and back up those beach defenses!"
The feet thudded away.
A radio, directly ahead, squawked briefly with some unintelligible message.
That leadership voice responded. "Wilco, I already did. Compound's about stripped clean though, Jerry. I'd hate to have to handle any serious threat in here."
Another squawk, then the reply: "Roger. Be glad when they get here."
So would Bolan. The mighty 200. Not, however, until he had properly prepared their reception.
He'd be preparing nothing whatever if he remained pinned here. He moved on. That guy up there was no more than an indistinct shadow in a deeper shadow when he suddenly stiffened and turned in half-visible profile, with Bolan still several paces back.
"Got a light?" Bolan asked casually.
"Who the hell is that?" the guy demanded, irritably startled.
Bolan hit him from two paces out with a judo kick to the groin and a simultaneous straight arm to the throat. The soldier went down with a faint squawk as the only sound. Bolan finished the silent job with a nylon garrote, pinning the victim with his knees as he took key ring and radio then moved quickly on.
No — there would be no soft touches on this visit.
This one was for keeps.
Another lone human barrier stood quietly at the front of the center building, head cocked slightly to one side as though listening intently to distant sounds, his back to Bolan.
The Executioner called over, "Hey!" and the guy spun around just in time to catch the stiletto in his throat. He dropped his auto and stood there bug-eyed, hands to his throat, then toppled over.
Bolan stepped over to the door, found the proper key, and pushed inside. A battery lantern at the head of the stairs was throwing a soft light. He moved the two dead soldiers in there and left them in a dark corner, then took the lantern and descended toward the mission goal.
Ten minutes later, Bolan was completely satisfied that he knew all the secrets of the installation — all that were readable, at any rate. The work was nowhere near half-completed. Three large chambers had been hollowed out, one beneath each building. Only the central chamber was at any degree of finished work. Tunnels ran off at a dozen angles from the central core but led nowhere — perhaps one day they would have.
He found a supply shaft above the room that lay beneath the east building — and up there, in that building, he located the main powder storage.
And yeah, Hal old worry wart, there was a bundle on hand.
Then began the arduous and time-consuming task of moving the TNT into position for the big event.
At forty minutes past touch down he was shaping plastic detonators and implanting time fuses. He ran out of numbers during this period, knew it, but kept on until the task was complete.
It would be daylight up there now, or at least the early stages of the transition from night to day.
If the weather-guessers were right this time, there would be no more heavy atmosphere except for a thin layer relatively high.
Grimmest of all — the Terrible 200 should now be on board. And there sat Bolan in an underground vault, with many tons of TNT for company, set to go in a matter of minutes.