front gates, shattering those portals and flinging the debris of stone and humanity about like so much flotsam on a raging sea. Number two impacted between two limousines parked in the curving drive, lending shreds of blackened steel and streamers of flaming gasoline to that lethal atmosphere. Numbers three and four had been reserved for the manor house itself, and they plowed in as ordered by the warwagon's electronic brain, unleashing a volcano of flame and oily smoke within that palace of corruption.
Men were milling around that funeral pyre like ants In a bonfire. They were shouting and brandishing weapons, but confusion reigned supreme and no man seemed certain where to go or what to do. The Executioner helped to resolve that fatal uncertainty, sweeping the ranks with a prolonged burst from his automatic rifle. Guys were flopping around down there, wallowing in their own Juices and shrieking as the spray of steel-jackets ripped through them. Those still standing spun toward Bolan and flung Ineffectual pistol fire in his general direction.
He emptied the clip of the M-16 into those stumbling, staggering straw men, then slammed a fresh clip home and emptied that one as well. Unsatisfied, he gave the M-79 Its roaring head, alternating rounds of buckshot and high explosives as he marched a parade of death across those hellgrounds.
A handful of walking wounded were frantically dragging themselves toward hopeful cover.
Bolan let those survivors go, turning his attention to the house itself. It was burning now in spots, sagging badly in others where the deadly firebirds had impacted in their flight, but the overall structure stood defiantly, a symbol of all that Bolan had sought to eradicate in Arizona. He turned the grenade launcher on that castle of gloom, spewing round after round of explosives and gas into the smoking shell. Masonry flew. Bricks showered the grounds, punching holes through the pall of smoke in their passage. Secondary explosions sounded within the bowels of that structure as a plume of inky smoke rose straight into the cloudless Arizona sky.
It was enough. The message was loud and clear.
Bolan poised there for a long moment surveying that scorched landscape, the stench of gunpowder and blasted flesh irritating his nostrils, then he spun about and went out the way he'd come.
The old man may or may not have survived that holocaust. Either way, the message was sent and received. There would be no easy take-over in Arizona ... not this time.
But the real battle still lay to the north. Bolan was strongly aware of that fact. He'd monitored the telephone conversations, knew that fresh troops were being rushed to the combat zone, knew that plenty of hellfire and thunder lay in his future.
The presence of people such as Hinshaw and Morales in this environment of corruption constituted a clear and present danger unimaginable to the average citizen. A natural rapacity combined with military expertise and further combined with the greed and power lust rampant in the area could spell nothing but death and dishonor to the people of Arizona.
So no one had appointed Mack Bolan their lord protector. So what?
So the common man In the street looked on underworld hoods as some sort of glamorous, charismatic defiers of the system. So what?
Bolan was not there for applause, nor was he there to save Arizona from itself. He was there because his destiny was there, because he could not turn away from his fate. He was an instrument of an evolving universe.
He was Judgment. Not the judge, not the jury, not the sentence itself.
Mack Bolan was the Mafia's Judgment and he knew it and accepted it.
Let the people of Arizona accept what they would.
Chapter 13
Face
"It's hard to believe one man could do all this." Paul Bonelli was fit to be tied. His narrowed eyes scanned the compound, lingering over various points of particular carnage.
"Well, one did," Hinshaw replied, a defensive tone edging his weary voice.
The two men
Men were milling around that funeral pyre like ants In a bonfire. They were shouting and brandishing weapons, but confusion reigned supreme and no man seemed certain where to go or what to do. The Executioner helped to resolve that fatal uncertainty, sweeping the ranks with a prolonged burst from his automatic rifle. Guys were flopping around down there, wallowing in their own Juices and shrieking as the spray of steel-jackets ripped through them. Those still standing spun toward Bolan and flung Ineffectual pistol fire in his general direction.
He emptied the clip of the M-16 into those stumbling, staggering straw men, then slammed a fresh clip home and emptied that one as well. Unsatisfied, he gave the M-79 Its roaring head, alternating rounds of buckshot and high explosives as he marched a parade of death across those hellgrounds.
A handful of walking wounded were frantically dragging themselves toward hopeful cover.
Bolan let those survivors go, turning his attention to the house itself. It was burning now in spots, sagging badly in others where the deadly firebirds had impacted in their flight, but the overall structure stood defiantly, a symbol of all that Bolan had sought to eradicate in Arizona. He turned the grenade launcher on that castle of gloom, spewing round after round of explosives and gas into the smoking shell. Masonry flew. Bricks showered the grounds, punching holes through the pall of smoke in their passage. Secondary explosions sounded within the bowels of that structure as a plume of inky smoke rose straight into the cloudless Arizona sky.
It was enough. The message was loud and clear.
Bolan poised there for a long moment surveying that scorched landscape, the stench of gunpowder and blasted flesh irritating his nostrils, then he spun about and went out the way he'd come.
The old man may or may not have survived that holocaust. Either way, the message was sent and received. There would be no easy take-over in Arizona ... not this time.
But the real battle still lay to the north. Bolan was strongly aware of that fact. He'd monitored the telephone conversations, knew that fresh troops were being rushed to the combat zone, knew that plenty of hellfire and thunder lay in his future.
The presence of people such as Hinshaw and Morales in this environment of corruption constituted a clear and present danger unimaginable to the average citizen. A natural rapacity combined with military expertise and further combined with the greed and power lust rampant in the area could spell nothing but death and dishonor to the people of Arizona.
So no one had appointed Mack Bolan their lord protector. So what?
So the common man In the street looked on underworld hoods as some sort of glamorous, charismatic defiers of the system. So what?
Bolan was not there for applause, nor was he there to save Arizona from itself. He was there because his destiny was there, because he could not turn away from his fate. He was an instrument of an evolving universe.
He was Judgment. Not the judge, not the jury, not the sentence itself.
Mack Bolan was the Mafia's Judgment and he knew it and accepted it.
Let the people of Arizona accept what they would.
Chapter 13
Face
"It's hard to believe one man could do all this." Paul Bonelli was fit to be tied. His narrowed eyes scanned the compound, lingering over various points of particular carnage.
"Well, one did," Hinshaw replied, a defensive tone edging his weary voice.
The two men
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