Even the child was wide-eyed and quiet.
Blancanales called from the open door of the Huey.
"Move it, Sarge! We've got to get out of here before Charlie calls reinforcements."
The flare sputtered and died in the sky.
Jill Desmond ran over to Mack Bolan by the chopper.
Bolan took the kid from her and passed him up to Zitka's outstretched arms. He saw other members of Sniper Team Able inside the Huey.
"Must've read my mind," he said to them as he helped Jill into the gunship.
"You mean Colonel Crawford read your mind," Blancanales called above the rumble of the chopper's engine directly overhead. "The CO hit the ceiling when he found out you'd gone off on your own. Your butt is up for a chewing."
Bolan grinned as he climbed aboard.
"We'll see. Won't be the first time."
Gunsmoke was at the controls. "Still playing at Sergeant Mercy, huh, soldier?" he called over in his Old West twang. "God bless you, guy."
Jill Desmond looked sharply at Bolan.
"Sergeant Mercy?"
"Sure," Blancanales said when Bolan made no reply. "That's what all the Viet civilians call him. Didn't you know?"
"There's a lot of things I didn't know, soldier," the woman admitted, "until tonight."
The chopper's engine revved.
Bolan's hand found Jill's and squeezed. She returned the pressure. Feminine, yeah. Divinely so. But hard, too. The right stuff.
Bolan would be coming back.
Back to the job he did so well.
Back to the hellgrounds.
Sergeant Mercy.
The Executioner.
One man.
For now, though, that one man had earned a rest, however brief.
The chopper lifted off and banked up into the first light of a new day.
The future would take care of itself.
With a helping hand from Mack Bolan, as long as this soldier lived to fight the good fight.
Wherever it might take him.