The gunfire from the house continued.
Other rounds were slapping into the far side of the cabana as the teams out front continued to advance, peppering the air before them.
"Forget trying to solve the murder," Bolan told the security man. "Get back to the house and give your boys some backup."
"What about you? Let's fall back together. There's six men closing in on you from out front!"
With one hand Bolan hefted himself up the ladder onto the sun deck, while he carried the M1 in the other.
"Suit yourself," he told Minera. "There's nothing you can do at this range with that .44. You can keep low and hide here, or you can fall back and help your men."
More rounds whistled into and around the small building. Some rounds made deadened plop noises as they hit the tarp covering the pool.
Bolan's analysis of Minera as a fighting man proved correct.
"I'm on my way," he called up to Bolan. He took off at a sprint around the darkened pool toward the big house.
The gunfire from the house had become more sporadic but was continuing, as if one faction had pulled back but was still giving resistance.
Bolan fell prone on the sun deck and through the Startron began scanning the driveway area for targets, to keep the commando teams busy while Minera made his run.
The firing between the guard patrol and the commandos on the right flank had died down to occasional rifle fire in the night.
The hail of incoming bullets at Bolan's position had intensified.
Bolan sighted in on the commandos to the right flank, who were engaging Minera's dog patrol. He flicked the M1's shot — this time for the grenade launcher.
He yanked one of the SAS-style flash grenades from the belt across his chest and fed it into the launcher with practiced precision.
The hellfire here tonight had only just begun.
12
From Mack Bolan 's journaclass="underline"
Moral shades of gray can be very troubling. I much prefer the simple black and white situation of the mafia wars, when there was never any question as to who the enemy was.
This guy Nazarour is as big a shark as any I've ever encountered. It really bruises the soul to have to keep a man like this alive. In basic black and white, the guy should die. But I no longer deal just in basics. For the moment — for a very limited moment, I hope — the complications of world politics have lent a synthetic virtue to his presence here on American soil. So... for now... the man must live, and I must do everything in my power to ensure that he does. But, yeah, it bruises the soul just a bit.
My feelings for the man have nothing to do with where he comes from, or whom he served while he was there. The same goes for my feelings regarding the job at hand. The whole truth of the matter is that there is no moral issue in Iran, at this moment. I hope that one day soon there will be. As of now, though, what is happening there is a contest between savages... with neither side morally superior to the other. Were it not for the fact that it is always the innocents who suffer most in any such situation, I would say: let the world draw a curtain around Iran and let the savages have at one another until there are none left — or until the good people finally rise up and smash the savages one and all. But it does not appear that anything like that will be happening in the foreseeable future, so we who are on the sidelines will just have to do, what we can to keep the game as clean as possible in whatever limited way that we may. This is the thinking that led me to accept the present mission. I do not want Iranian hit squads roaming this country looking for targets. I do not want their war on our territory. So I am here, and I intend to do what I can to discourage any future operations of this nature. It does not mean that I approve of Nazarour or anything that he may stand for. It simply means that I cannot turn my back on what is happening here.
At the same time, I have to keep the mind alert and the options open. Everything is not as it appears to be....
There is the question of the general's wife: precisely what is her situation and precisely what could or should I do about her?
And then, of course, there is Minera. Shades of gray, indeed. This particular picture appears to be focusing more along the classic lines of black and white. My mental radar picks up strong mafia blips every time I look at the guy. So what is he to Nazarour? And what is Nazarour to him?
Well... the answers will come. And I have the feeling that when they do, the shades of gray will all resolve into strong patterns of opposing colors, and black and white. Then all the options will have narrowed to one.
13
"Striker, this is Stony Man on channel bravo. Do you read?"
For the past seven minutes Hal Brognola had been droning on with that single phrase into the transceiver of the radio set.
April Rose stood behind Hal, trying to ward off the chills that she knew had nothing to do with the temperature in Stony Man Farm's command room.
Hal grunted a curse and tossed the transceiver onto the counter with an angry clatter.
"Damn. We're not getting through at all. He's either deactivated his set or jammed the frequency on the other end."
There was another possibility, of course. But April knew that she didn't have to remind Hal of that other alternative. She tried not to think about it herself.
"The attack may be coming down right now and he's too busy to respond," she said with a confidence that sounded forced even to her own ears. "He'll get back to us."
Hal nodded acknowledgment without turning from the radio. "I just wish we could get through to him."
"You think it's that important, the information about those men he killed at the canal earlier tonight?"
"The fact that they were all Americans — the fact that according to our man in Org Crime they are a direct franchise of what's left of the local Family since Striker's last swing through here — yeah, I think it's plenty important that he know.
"They're Mafia torpedoes. Now where the hell would they fit in? This thing gets screwier and screwier."
April stepped forward and touched feather-light fingertips to the boss's shoulder.
"Hal...."
The fed chuckled mildly. He reached across with his left hand and patted those fingertips.
"I know, April. Cool down and easy does it. But we've got to keep trying."
Then, with his right hand, he brought the transceiver back to his mouth and began repeating over and over again, "Striker, this is Stony Man on channel bravo. Do you read?"
April pulled back and returned to her own chair. She couldn't shake the feeling somewhere deep inside that all hell was breaking loose at this moment, ninety miles north in Potomac.
The feeling was tearing her guts to shreds.
At that moment, the man she cared about was probably fighting for his life.
The big, beautiful man named Mack Bolan who had come into her world and touched her soul and changed that world forever.
A man who had taught her the true meaning of the words sacrifice and concern.
Yes, it was happening in Potomac at this minute.
She could feel it.
But all she could do was sit and wait. And hope. And try not to think about bad things.
Bolan was playing the enemy's game, doing his best to take them by surprise. Keep them guessing.
A quick scan up-range had shown that two of Minera's guard patrol had been hit. One was wounded but returning sporadic fire; the other appeared dead. One looked okay in the scope's greenish tint.