Edge Of Hell. Don Pendleton
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silence was deafening.
Bolan reloaded the guns he had on him, then went to retrieve his Desert Eagle from where he’d thrown it down. He checked the battlefield which was the cargo container yard, eyes surveying the carnage. Each body was checked to make sure it was dead and out of the fight. Using the partially spent Beretta, Bolan finished off those who were wounded and suffering from his grenade attacks, giving them a final pill to release them from their pain.
Westerbridge wasn’t among them.
Bolan picked up a new radio and listened to the mobster barking orders. What was left of his hardforce was bracing themselves, getting ready to repel the Executioner when he came for them in the warehouse.
The warehouse that an Interpol agent had lost her life trying to locate. Her murder had drawn the Executioner’s attention. Inside, Westerbridge was trafficking in everything from heroin to enough small arms to equip a small army. That traffic had cost a fellow warrior her life.
Bolan hadn’t known her personally. Neither had Hal Brognola. But Westerbridge was a vermin the Executioner had been intending to visit with a torch of cleansing flame. Other missions had popped up, delaying his actions.
And now, a cop was dead.
Bolan thumbed a 40 mm antiarmor shell into the breech of the M-203, targeted the loading dock doors and fired.
The explosion was sudden and violent. Two mobsters standing near the doors were thrown aside, a third almost cut in two by a quarter ton of steel slamming into his torso.
SONNY WESTERBRIDGE WAS pulling open the crate when the dock doors were hammered off their hinges by an invisible freight train of force. He was startled, but the surprise didn’t leave him flat-footed or numb.
Westerbridge hadn’t fought his way to the top of his organization only because he was six foot eight and 320 pounds of pure muscle. He was a man who fought for every bit he owned, learning every angle, his brain as formidable as his physical form. He wasn’t going to let some asshole in black take everything he had and flush it into the sewers.
Ham-sized hands wrapped around the grips of two Ultimax light machine guns. Built in Singapore, they resembled beefy Thompson submachine guns, just like in the old American gangster movies. Except, instead of holding pistol bullets, their big, fat round drums held one hundred rounds of high-powered 5.56 mm NATO ammunition capable of slicing a person in two.
Westerbridge slung two of the machine guns, then pulled out two more. These were on top of the big Smith & Wesson .44 Magnum revolver he wore in a shoulder holster.
“By God, you fucking son of a bitch, you’re not going to take me down without a fight!” he shouted at the phantom fighter.
Gunfire rattled as two more of his shooters opened up on the shattered entrance. They swept the dock with automatic fire, making it inhospitable for any living creature trying to get through. Westerbridge’s instincts, however, warned him something was wrong.
The regular access door beside the opening suddenly kicked open, and the bastard in black stepped through, his weapon spitting a red pencil of flame, barely visible in the backlighting from the lot. Westerbridge watched another of his men spasm, pierced in a half-dozen locations.
“Eat shit and die!” Westerbridge snapped, lifting one Ultimax in his beefy hand and spraying an extended burst at the doorway. Sparks flew, chunks of wall and crates exploded in puffs as the mysterious attacker dived out of harm’s way.
The massive gangster sidestepped on the platform, held out his other hand and pulled the trigger on the other Ultimax, hosing the area where he thought his assailant was going to be with a stream of 5.56 mm slugs. Instead, he chewed up empty floor.
A round object sailed over the crates as his men took up firing positions. The gang boss bellowed a cry of warning, but the ball bounced and disappeared in a flash of thunder, smoke and chunks of shattered humanity. Westerbridge swung both guns back to where the grenade originated, holding down the trigger and shooting through the crates, splintering wood and denting metal with his firestorm of slugs. Even his thick, powerful arms ached from controlling the weight and recoil of the light machine guns. Sweat soaked through his suit as he cut loose with a throat-ripping roar of fury.
A shadowy form flashed around one aisle and Westerbridge sidestepped, taking cover behind a column of stored military supplies. He checked the load on both Ultimaxes, realizing that he was almost empty. He dropped the near empty guns and snatched a fresh one from its sling.
This time, he wasn’t going to grandstand and waste ammunition like an amateur. Just because he had four hundred rounds of firepower didn’t mean that it would find its target on automatic pilot. Both hands on the weapon, he stalked, keeping tight against the crates or anything that would stop a bullet.
Westerbridge didn’t have the benefit of the smaller attacker’s fleetness of foot and agility to dart between shelters from automatic fire. He poked slowly around one corner, spotting another gunman coming around the other way. The gangster’s mind flashed quickly on the fact that this guy wasn’t dressed in street clothes, and his face was smeared with black grease paint.
The massive gangster pulled the trigger a heartbeat before the man in black, pressing himself flat to the corner. A fireball from the front of the Ultimax burned like the inferno of hell just where he intended the mystery man to go.
THE EXECUTIONER HIT the ground as Sonny Westerbridge’s torrent of machine-gun fire exploded. The big man may not have been able to beat Bolan in a footrace, but with his finger on the trigger, and at eight hundred rounds per minute, he had the advantage, Kevlar body armor or not, with the deadly weapon. Bolan rolled hard to keep out of sight and out of the way of the blistering fusillade.
From behind the sheltering concrete of a support column, Bolan weighed his options. The distance was too short for a 40 mm grenade to prime and explode. One of his conventional fragmentation grenades would likely take him out as well, if the shrapnel and shock wave weren’t both deflected by the rows of shipping crates.
“You’re gonna die, little man,” Sonny Westerbridge said with a chuckle. “Your choice how—”
The Executioner wasn’t a man who was afraid to die. Whether it was in the terrorist wars of the Middle East, stopping a Chinese spy plot threatening world peace, or just locked in battle with gangsters in Soho, he knew that one day his luck would run out, defending the weak and helpless on any scale. He wasn’t, however, going to give up.
“Was that the same choice you gave Brenda Kightley, Westerbridge?” Bolan called out. This fight wasn’t going to be won with mere bullets and brawn. The giant gangster was too savvy, too tough for a simple slug in the brain box.
“Kightley, Kightley… I don’t remember no whore named Kightley, mate,” Westerbridge answered. He was moving. Trying to home in on the Executioner’s voice.
“An honest cop, ended her days with her head twisted 180 degrees, floating in Surrey Water,” Bolan returned. He shifted his position after speaking, getting ten feet away from where he’d hidden. Neither man could see the other, though Bolan heard the indefinite scuffle of Westerbridge’s heavy tread.
“Oh her. Fiery little minx… She really kicked when I gave her pretty little head a turn. You her partner? Naw, you’re a Yank, and packing way too much firepower to be a London cop. Boyfriend?”
Bolan paused. The row he was heading toward was composed of cardboard boxes filled with contraband electronics. They’d provide some protection against a salvo of 5.56 mm military rounds, but hardly enough. Westerbridge was herding him toward a position of weakness. The Executioner cursed himself for not being fully aware of his battlefield. It was a small detail, but it could mean the difference between a crippled arm and full protection.
A minor, hairbreadth mistake could put him at a disadvantage in a serious, up close conflict. Bolan pulled one of his fragmentation grenades off his harness and cupped it gently. He rolled the mini-blaster on the floor, making sure it clattered and skittered on the hard concrete.
Westerbridge