But the incendiaries did the real damage. A score of them, burning on impact for one-seventieth of a second at 2,000 degrees Celsius, screamed through the hole and ripped into the pine walls and wooden staircase at the rear of the hallway, setting them alight instantly.
Within seconds, flames, fanned by the draft sweeping in through the gap, were seething upward to set the floor of the upper story ablaze.
But the remnants of the Balestre gang were not without their own surprises. Indoors, men were yelling, but from one of the outbuildings at the side of the ranch an ancient four-wheel farm wagon loaded with bales of hay trundled into the moonlight. There were flames here, too, small ones that licked the tinder-dry bales... and spread… and increased... and then boiled skyward until the whole load had become a blazing torch.
A torch that was accurately directed down the slope, increasing speed as it hurtled with murderous aim at the place where the machine gun, the RPG-7 and the cannon were hidden; a torch that was piloted by the four hoods with SMGs who had started it rolling and were now racing behind it, sheltered by the flames and shooting as they ran.
Firing from the hip, they scored some hits among the attackers, but it was the blazing wagon that wreaked havoc.
Crashing into the undergrowth where the gun crews were hidden, it tipped over onto its side, spilling the burning fodder right and left. At once the sun-dried brushwood flared up; desiccated leaves on the lower branches of the trees caught fire; a ring of fire forty yards in diameter consumed the fringe of the wood and swelled outward across the grass of the pasture.
Ammunition buried beneath the flaming hay discharged like exploding firecrackers. A rocket grenade, ignited by the fierce heat, streaked a fiery trail into the sky and then self-destructed.
Once again Bolan savored the paradox of his situation, ready to fire but owing allegiance to neither side. If the Marseilles mob won, and he had helped them do it, this would obviously consolidate his position as Sondermann, the hit specialist, and prove his “loyalty” to J-P. If the defenders gained, on the other hand, it would surely widen the rift among the various Mafia factions and make the KGB tie-up less likely... which after all was the reason for Bolan’s Sondermann masquerade in the first place.
From the branches of a tree behind the shack, Bolan heard the ripping-calico snarl of the gang boss’s Uzi. Two of the gunmen stumbled and fell, jerking uncontrollably as their lifeblood soaked the moonlit grass.
And then the towering figure of Delacroix emerged from the fire, his singed hair smoking, tiny flames still traversing the shoulders of his flak jacket. Oblivious to the danger, the giant started swinging his knobkerrie, crushing the skull of one of the remaining hoods and dealing the last such a terrible blow on the temple that he dropped like a stone.
Delacroix beat out the flames with his bare hands and called in a hoarse voice, “Okay now, boss? Let ’em have it?” It was the first time Bolan had heard him speak.
“Go ahead,” Jean-Paul’s voice replied from the branches above.
The giant shouted an order. Immediately a dazzling beam of light sliced through the night from a spotlight located halfway along the driveway, illuminating every detail of the burning house.
The place was rapidly becoming an inferno. The whole upper floor was ablaze, and flames roared skyward beneath a pillar of black smoke that streamed out and up through the blasted porch.
Dark man shapes were running frantically right and left. Other figures were motionless on the stoop, one slumped head-downward over the sill of a shattered window.
“Sondermann!” Jean-Paul yelled. “Fat boy and the man in red! Coming out now!”
Staring through the nightscope, Bolan saw a group of defenders, firing what looked like Skorpion machine pistols, swarm through the charred doorway and fling themselves behind a stone balustrade that confined a terrace below the entrance steps.
They would be invisible to the attackers along the driveway and at the edge of the wood, Bolan figured, but from where he was he could see the heads and torsoes of several men.
Among them was a rugged type wearing a red nylon parka. Near him crouched a short, fat guy with massive shoulders and thick arms. The two of them seemed to have taken charge of the survivors: the man in red was waving his arms at men out of sight in the yard between the house and the shearing barn; Fat Boy was looking over his shoulder, shouting to someone in back of the house, where gunfire from Smiler and his companions now added to the pandemonium.
Bolan squinted again through the sight until the cross hairs settled between the shoulder blades of the guy in the parka. He held his breath.
Concentrated.
Squeezed the trigger.
The report of the big gun was deafening. His shoulder throbbed from the massive recoil. The bullet hurled the man in red across the terrace and tossed him like a rag-doll on the steps.
Bolan snicked the Husqvarna’s bolt and swung the barrel slowly sideways until Fat Boy was in the center of the scope. The cross hairs sank until the junction was steadied above his shoulders on the column of his throat.
Bolan fired again. The 150-grain slug slammed into the guy’s neck and almost tore his head from his body. He catapulted back against the stoop post and slid lifeless to the ground.
“Okay!” Jean-Paul shouted. “In for the kill now!”
Someone near the house fired a long burst from an SMG, and the searchlight faded to orange and died in an explosion of smashed glass. Now there were men running toward the house from all sides, zigzagging among the long pasture grass, firing as they came. Half a dozen spilled from the bushes lining the driveway; a couple more gave them covering fire; a survivor of the RPG-7 crew ran with Delacroix; Smiler and his companions raced around the corner of the barn. The sound of gunfire rose to a crescendo.
Jean-Paul dropped from his command post in the tree and followed. Bolan, obeying instructions, left the Husqvarna in the ruined cabin and brought up the rear. He unleathered the 93-R deathbringer, flipped off the safety catch and ran.
He was level with the sheep pens, dodging between the troughs when the hidden gunman fired.
He must have been lying low, waiting for the chance to bring someone down from behind. Bolan was less than ten yards away when the gunner triggered a 3-shot burst.
The Executioner owed his life to a tussock of coarse sheep grass, which tripped him the instant the killer fired.
He pitched forward as the triple report rang in his ears, momentarily deafening him. He felt the wind of the heavy slugs stir the hair on top of his head... and at the same time a searing pain across his left shoulder.
Bolan hit the ground, rolled over and lay still.
The Beretta, knocked from his grasp by the unexpectedness of the attack, had spun out of reach. If he moved, the hidden gunman could hardly miss a second time. He used the oldest trick in the trade: he played possum.
Lying on his back at an unnatural angle, the injured arm doubled beneath him, he allowed his jaw to drop, breathing as shallowly as possible and forcing his eyes to remain open. He hoped that any movement he made would be mistaken for a trick of the red light flickering from the burning house.
Ten seconds passed... twenty... half a minute.
Slowly a bulky silhouette rose into view from behind a fallen tree to one side of the pens. Cautiously, his gun close to the hip to minimize recoil, he advanced on Bolan’s supine figure.