His first approach was all wrong, and he stopped just short of slamming into the fence. Bolan backed up for another go. On there next try, he altered his stride just enough, planted the sturdy bamboo and hurled himself toward the sky. The bamboo wasn't as flexible as he would have liked, and his shoulder sockets felt as if they'd been filled with hot lead, but the pole held and he clung fast. As he sailed over the wire, he closed his eyes and braced himself for the impact.
Bolan landed heavily. He lay there, listening to the bamboo still rattling the wire while he caught his breath. He got to his knees, rubbing his left shoulder. It burned a little, but the arm moved, and he shrugged off the pain. Gathering his ammunition and the rifle, he moved along the fence until he was right behind the middle building. If he was right about McRae, this would house the arsenal.
It was the only windowless building, and the front door was locked. He realized there was something to be said for arrogance as long as it was the enemy's as he slipped around to the front door.
Relying on technology instead of humanity, Harding or whoever passed for a honcho at the moment had chosen not to post sentries. That was his second big plus, and Bolan was not unappreciative.
Keeping his ears open, he used the survival knife to carve through the wood around the padlocked latch. It took several tries, but he managed to loosen the lag bolts enough to pry the latch free.
Inside he closed the door with relief.
For a few minutes he'd be safe from discovery.
Using the small light again, he took inventory of the large room. Just as he'd suspected, it contained nothing but munitions. But how was he to take on an unknown number of men, even if he had control of their backup firepower?
A crate of LAW rockets was part of the answer, but only part. He pulled the crate over near the door. An M-60 was another part, if he could find the ammo. It took a few minutes.
The quartermaster was anything but systematic. The stuff was piled haphazardly, without regard to any rational order he could discover. The search paid off, though, in something better: a spare M-134 Minigun for one of the choppers, a folding mount already attached. It sat in a dolly with a 3000 round canister. He didn't need the M-60 now, or its ammo. His first inclination was to blow the arsenal first, but he might need something when this was all over. The LAW's were eleven pounds apiece, and the crate weighed a ton. He pried it open and removed six of the drab-looking tubes.
Bolan worked quickly, wanting to do as much as he could inside. Once the fireworks started, there would be no time for second thoughts and should haves. He got a dozen LAW'S fire-ready, then checked the magazine of the minigun. It was loaded for more than bear, chock full of 7.62 mm killers.
Bolan opened the door and jammed a sliver of crating under it to keep it open. He sprinted straight across the compound, over near the gate, and stacked an armful of LAW's. A second trip put the rest of the dozen in place.
One more turn, this time waddling under the dolly weight of the minigun, and he was ready, except for the lights. He couldn't leave them intact. He had little enough edge as it was. If he sat there under the sudden siege of illumination, he'd be a sitting duck. As it was, after the first startling seconds of his onslaught, somebody was bound to figure out where he was. The LAW's would give him away, or the flashes from the Minigun. But at least he'd be a shadow in a sea of other shadows, no more substantial than a wave in an ocean full of them. And no less elusive.
Grabbing his rifle, Bolan moved quickly to the mess hut, following the fence. If he was right about the layout, that's where the main power supply was. The generator was the key. Disable it, and he would have the night and its friendly darkness as an ally. At the back of the mess hut, he pried the screen loose and crawled in through the open window.
In a corner of the modified field kitchen, the generator sat like a hulking dinosaur crouched on stubby legs. He played the flashlight across its surface until he found the main cable. Socketed and screwed in, it was just a simple matter to unscrew the sleeve and pull the plug. Just to be sure, he slashed at the cable and severed the end. They could pull an the switches and throw all the levers they wanted. With the main cable down, the camp would stay black.
After slipping back out the window, Bolan retraced his steps along the fence. One final adjustment occurred to him. He strung the LAW's along the fence, about ten feet apart. Now he could fire one and move. Let them scorch the air behind him all they wanted he'd be long gone.
For a second he thought about Marisa and Carlos, sitting there in the dark. He wondered what they would think at the first explosion. There was no way he could have told them, because he hadn't known what he was going to do, and the time for warning them was long past.
It was time to go to work.
21
The first rocket left the tube with a throaty growl. It streaked across the compound, a thin stream of smoke trailing behind it, and slammed into the nearest hut. Dead on target, it punched through a screen and crashed out a window. A single mushrooming flame speared up through the ruptured roof. Pieces of the tarpaper shearing and long slivers of wood cartwheeled through the air, starkly outlined by the brilliant yellow flash. A fraction of a second later the baritone crump of the detonation rolled across the yard.
Gouts of flame spouted up through the broken roof. By the time the ball of smoke gave way to a slender column, Bolan was already on the move.
The second rocket went off with the same result, and added its lights to the growing illumination.
The first shouts started, little more than confused bellowing, as the third LAW found its target. Bolan chucked the empty and useless tube away and moved to the fourth.
Zeroing in through the bluntly utilitarian sight, he saw a door fly open two huts down from his target and shifted his aim. The rocket homed in and knocked a string bean of a man off his feet as it grazed him before entering through the open doorway. It took out the back wall, and the slender man, wearing nothing but khaki shorts, spun out through the door, carried along by the force of the explosion.
In quick succession, Bolan let fly with three more before the first sporadic fire cracked. None of the slugs came near him, and even the noise of the gunfire seemed tame under the deepening roar of the burning buildings. As nearly as he could tell, the men still had no idea of Bolan's firing location.
Stunned by the suddenness of the attack and the terrible destruction already inflicted, the surviving members of the Leyte Brigade started to stretch a ragged blanket of fire across the compound.
Several of them sprinted into the shadows between the undamaged huts. They would be coming for him, Bolan knew, but there was still time to take out the rest of the buildings.
Staying close to the ground, he rolled from rocket launcher to rocket launcher. Bolan took out two more buildings, catching the supply shed as well as another barrack hut. Secondary explosions, probably gasoline or kerosene, tore the supply dump to pieces as easily as if it had been made of cheap cardboard. Great slabs of the wall pinwheeled away from the huge balloon of liquid flame and tumbled to the ground. It looked as if a house of cards had been set on fire. The flammable liquid in drums kept exploding, and every blast spewed scorching flame, spreading the blaze and setting fire to the hut on either side.
Bolan let his last LAW loose and crawled to the Minigun on its tripod. He scanned the dancing flames, holding fire until he had something real to shoot at. The flames twitched and twisted, tossing strange, gnarled shadows at one another, letting some fall on the ground and ooze out toward him as the flames grew taller.