Some of the soldiers had not yet given up; they still stalked him in the night. But their training had been either inadequate or their discipline lousy. They sounded like cattle moving around, and what they thought were low-voiced commands or questions came to Bolan atop the hill as shouts. Had he been capable, Bolan might have felt some pity for them.
He went down and got the Browning, and the ammo.
During his years as a professional soldier, more than ten years including two extended tours in Vietnam where he first became known as The Executioner, Mack Bolan had seen, fired, experimented with, learned to field strip and reassemble, virtually every type of small-arm known to man. As a pro, it was his business to know weapons.
He had seen them all, from the most primitive copies made in China and North Vietnam, which were as likely to explode in the gunner's face as kill an enemy, to the most highly sophisticated, particularly including the vastly overrated Swedish weapons. After years of experimentation, and thousands of rounds of ammo fired in practice and combat, Sergeant Mack Bolan arrived at the same conclusion that most combat men eventually did....
Nothing, nothing, could beat the BAR.
Range, accuracy, dependability, mobility, every way from dawn till dark and all night long.
Yeah, the BAR had its limitations.
Call them faults, if you're of a mind. So?
The son of a bitch is heavy, sixteen pounds, empty.
Put in a twenty-round magazine and you've got close to twenty pounds, including a stout leather sling. It's long, just an inch short of four feet — forty-seven-inches!
And it shoots .30 caliber ammo, the damned brass big around as your ring finger, and the steel, springload magazines aren't exactly weightless.
But the only thing about it is, Jack, when your ass is in a jam, whether in desert grit and grime, or jungle mud and slime, all you have to do is pull the trigger on a BAR and it will shoot exactly where it's aimed. On full-auto, high-cyclic rate of fire it cranks off 550 rounds per minute. On slow rate, 350 rpm. A man with the touch can shoot it one, two, three, rounds at a time.
The goddam weapon was invented in 1917 and used in World War One!
But nothing yet had ever beat it. Any dogass soldier could pick up a BAR and knock down men at 500 yards. Mack Bolan could bullseye men through the torso at 1500 yards. The BAR's maximum range was 3500 yards, roughly two miles.
Long ago, when Mack Bolan set out on his war against the Mafia and "burglarized" a weapons dealer's warehouse (leaving money to pay for his "purchases") it had not been by accident, but by deliberate design that Sergeant Mac Bolan, late of the U.S. Army, chose Browning Automatic Rifles and several thousand rounds of .30 caliber ball and tracer ammo, and a whole sack full of extra magazines, among his primary arsenal.
Bolan could hear the more persistent stalkers now, clearly in the vast, quiet stillness of night atop the Sicilian mountaintop.
It was tune to give them something new to think about.
He picked up a heavy HE mortar shell, pulled the arming pin, placed the fins down inside the tube, then let it drop, covering his ears tightly so the firing would not deafen him.
When it hit bottom, the shell primer fired, ignited the increment charges, and with a solid chuonk! the round went.
A voice called out. "Hey! Franco, what the hell wasa that!"
"I don't know. I think I saw a flash, up above a little."
Bolan squatted on his heels and waited, counting.
He didn't care where the first round hit, all he wanted was the effect, the mental, emotional, personal effect.
He counted down, and when his lips silently mouthed zero, he saw far below him the bright orange blossom, a gush of smoke, but no sound. He dropped in another round just as the noise of the first explosion washed up the mountainside.
"What the hell was that," the same voice shouted again.
"Some kinda explosion. Christ in all His mercy! Look!"
The second round hit and blossomed, like hell rupturing through a fissure in the earth.
"Son of a bitch, he slipped past us and got back inside!"
"No, no, wait. I know that sound. It's a mortar. He's up here, firing a mortar."
"You know shit!" Franco answered. "He's back down there. Come on!"
"I know what I'm saying, goddammit. Go if you want but I'm staying. I know."
Bolan thought, you know too much, asshole; so lie down and stop breathing, you're already dead."
He could hear the one man going downhill, fast, crashing through the brush, tumbling stones, calling out, "Come on, come on."
Bolan dropped another round down the tube.
Each time he fired, Bolan not only clamped his hands over his ears, but ducked away and clamped his eyes tightly closed. That a mortar threw no muzzle flash at all was fiction. It blazed enough to blind a careless gunner, and enough to be spotted by a careful observer who knew where to look.
Night vision unimpaired, Bolan drew the silenced Beretta, sat with his elbows locked on his knees and waited for smartguy Franco. He saw the bulky shape appear, and heard the man panting like a hospital case dying of asthma. Bolan let Franco have his small victory. Let him see the firebase Bolan had established. Let him turn, even let him shout, a shout unheard as the third round's explosive noise came rebounding up the mountainside.
Then Bolan shot him three times through the chest, for insurance, not completely certain he'd adequately protected his night vision.
Bolan got up and walked over to Franco and rolled him over and saw he'd wasted two bullets. He dragged the body back to his firebase, laid him down carefully, then unwrapped another chocolate bar and ate it.
18
Reversal
From Journals, Mack Bolan, The Executioner:
Many times when 1 go in, I never know how I will get out, or if I will. More than once in these pages I've declared myself already dead. All I care about is accomplishing the mission. Beyond that nothing matters.
The central piazza of Agrigento was but three miles inland from the seaport of the same name. Around the town square, as in most cities throughout the world, stood offices of the local, provincial, and federal governments. In the office of the Night Chief of Police, sat a man of great bulk and substance. He wore a uniform, and polished cavalry style boots actually equipped with small spurs. He wore a Sam Browne style waistbelt and shoulder strap, and a tiny automatic pistol. Above the left breast pocket of his nicely tailored uniform the man wore an ornate solid gold, silver inlay, blue and green enameled badge.
The door to the man's office was locked and his telephone off the hook.
It required considerable concentration, but the Night Chief did not heed the pounding on his door, the shouts of the door pounders, or the thin high-pitched squawk issuing from the earpiece of the telephone. Instead, the man read with some relish the latest scandal among the cinema actresses, and licked his lips lasciviously when he looked at highly revealing photos of Sophia Loren.
The Night Chief of Provincial Police was not only aware of what seemed to be happening a few miles outside his city, but had been aware of it for at least thirty minutes before the townspeople. A policeman relied heavily upon informers. Policemen who wished to live good and satisfying lives, grow old, retire gracefully, die in bed of such reasonable ailments as heart disease or other disorders brought on by a lifetime of dissipation did not foolishly rush off into the night when any damned fool with ears knew there was a war in progress at Don Cafu's.