Colorado Kill-Zone Read online

  The leading troop carrier was now centered in the range marks on Bolan’s viewscreen. He locked in the tracking system, receiving a Target Acquisition red glow on the screen, then banged his knee with a fist to send the hot bird streaking away from the roof. The horizontal column of fire sizzled across that short range and instantly erupted into a blinding ball of roiling flames and dense smoke, totally obscuring the target area momentarily as the thunderclap shook the air and staggered the very earth beneath it. Mangled bodies and dazed faces appeared briefly on the viewscreen as Bolan corrected left and again banged his knee. Another vehicle went into dramatic destruct and spread its parts about the battlefield as an awed voice with no military precision whatever gasped into the UHF monitor: “My God! Get those people out of there!”

  “Belay that!” snapped another, the voice of command. “Standard infantry deployment! Move ’em out and get ’em down!”

  Bolan sent them a third whizzer, this one impacting on the nose of a big carrier which had become trapped in the wreckage of the first two. He then disabled the rocketry—saving that final round for another moment—and quickly prepared for EVA. The initiative was his, for the moment, and he knew that his only hope lay in a manipulation of that confusion down there—to keep hitting them with hellfire and thunderation so that their stunned senses could have no chance to get it back together, to regroup, to reform the attack.

  He had them reeling, and he knew it—and he knew that he had to keep them that way.

  Hardly before the shockwave from that third rocket had dissipated, the magnificent warrior had draped a readybelt across each shoulder, thumbed a high explosive fragmentation round into the waiting M-79, and ventured forth into the deepening dusk of that Colorado mountain-side.

  A mere thirty seconds of warfare, and already the battlefield was battered and groaning, traumatized by the brooding atmosphere of doom—terrorized by the hopeless cries of the dying and horrified by the shocking stillness of the dead.

  Even so, it was a superior force awaiting him out there. He hadn’t a chance of bulling his way through—and this much became immediately obvious. They had good leadership and they were playing it cool—quickly regrouping into small teams, going to ground and staying there, waiting him out.

  One thing, at least, had been accomplished by the rocket attack. He’d cleared the spine area of the ridge. Nothing was up there, now, but the blazing wrecks of the three vehicles and the scattered dead. The other two troop carriers had plunged down the side of the ridge, and it would take some fancy maneuvering just to get them topside again. The foot soldiers had taken cover on both slopes; few were even in a position to return fire, and these few were obviously loathe to call attention to their positions.

  The night was coming on suddenly, also—a characteristic of the eastern slopes of high mountain ranges. On the dark side of mountains, he recalled, gray dusk often goes to blackest night in a fingersnap—and that very thing appeared to be occurring here, now.

  All of which gave Bolan pause to rethink his situation. The combat pause was a very brief one—a mere heartbeat of pause—and then he was flowing into a conditioned response to the survival instinct, taking maximum cover available and paying out the loads from the ready-belts, arranging the M-79 rounds on the ground beside him in a newly planned firing sequence. The idea, now, was not to decimate the enemy before they finally got to him—the idea was to keep living.

  There was a slot down there—about fifty feet wide and two hundred feet long—a little chunk of no-man’s-land which stood between entrapment and freedom, a slot which Bolan intended to neutralize completely.

  When the M-79 began sending, the pattern was designed to obscure that slot to the maximum extent possible and also to keep it a highly unpopular zone. He was varying the rounds in a methodical sequence—high explosive, then gas, then smoke and repeating the sequence as he shoe-strung the pattern back and forth along the fire zone.

  The barrage consumed about two minutes, and carried him into the anticipated sudden blackness of nightfall. Additionally, an acrid mixture of gas and smoke now overhung that slot in a suffocating cloud which obviously was also seeping down the slopes on either side, as evidenced by the fits of coughing and scurrying about in that area. At the slot’s dead center, the burning wreckage from the rocket salvo glowed feebly through the pall, serving as a beacon in the gloom.

  Bolan quickly returned to his vehicle and sent her rolling silently forward into the combat zone, without lights and without power, coasting in neutral and navigating by the muffled light of his own fires, gradually picking up speed through the hundred yards or so of quickening descent.

  He was moving smartly through the slot before the sidelined enemy became aware of the maneuver, and there simply was no reaction possible, at that late moment. A futile volley of untargeted rifle fire was their only response, with Bolan already clear and rolling free toward the “rear plug”—that armored Detroit Black with a nervous crew of six hot guns.

  Bolan slipped the warwagon into gear and brought the power in but left the normal lighting extinguished, bringing up instead the infra-red optics for instrument navigation.

  The UHF command frequency was at that moment advising the plug vehicle of the situation. “It appears that our bandit broke out,” clipped the cool voice. “Suggest you stand clear and let him pass. He has some kind of crazy firepower on that bus. Give him room and let him run but keep him in sight.”

  “Scout One—roger, understand.”

  Bolan, also, understood. And his “crazy firepower” already had the rear plug in its range-marks.

  He banged his knee just as the armor-plated vehicle began a slow movement to starboard in an apparent attempt to “stand clear.”

  The sizzling missile lifted away and roared along the firetrack in a hot intercept. The entire vehicle was enveloped in the fireball. It was punched around in a complete cartwheel then flipped onto its side, mortally wounded but saved from total disintegration by the protective steel plates.

  Two guys were crawling clear of the smoking Cadillac when Bolan’s vehicle reached the scene. Both were bloodied and dazed, but one of them raised a pistol and waved it drunkenly at Bolan as he stepped from the warwagon.

  Bolan blew the guy away with a hipshot from the .44 AutoMag. The other one was the man from Cleveland, Jingo Morelli.

  “Kiss your ass goodbye, Jingo,” Bolan icily advised him.

  The guy was not all that dazed. He fell onto his back and showed the man from blood empty hands and pleading eyes. “Hey man—don’t do it.”

  Bolan dropped a death medal onto that frozen chest. “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t, guy.”

  Those doomed eyes rolled toward hope. “Uh—anything. Say it. Anything.”

  “Who’s your boss?”

  “Uh—God, I dunno. Wait! Now wait! Give me time to lay it out! I—”

  “I didn’t ask for a layout,” Bolan coldly reminded him. “It’s now or never, Jingo.”

  “Hey, we never see the guy. God’s truth. He’s not one of us—that’s all I know.”

  Bolan understood that but he wanted the guy to say it, flat and straight. “It’s a dumb time for double talk,” said the voice of death.

  “I swear! He’s a contractor. From outside somewhere. Those soldier boys are his, not ours.”

  “So what are you doing here, Jingo?”

  “Advisors, that’s all. They needed someone to finger you. I didn’t ask for the crummy job, Bolan. I don’t even like the—listen, this guy is an operator. Read me?—an operator! He’s working for the million bucks head money plus full expenses. He’s got a whole fuckin’ army stashed around here somewheres. I mean all of it. Troops, weapons, vehicles. We call him the little general.”

  It was all very interesting, much more than Bolan had expected to get. “What else do you call him, Jingo?”

  “I swear I don’t know his name!”

  The AutoMag came up to stare the guy squarely in the eyes. “
Kiss it goodbye, then, Jingo.”

  “Okay, okay,” Morelli sighed. “He’s got a code name. They call him Trooper. Now that’s the all of it, I swear. I never seen the guy. I don’t know nobody that did. The contact is always by telephone or radio. He’s got a secret base up here, somewhere. He runs everything from there.”

  “So who was running this hit?”

  “He was. By radio. I swear.”

  Bolan’s numbers had run out. Already too much time had been spent here, at the edge of the death zone.

  “Tell him I’ve come for him, Jingo. Tell him I got his message. Tell him.”

  The guy could hardly believe his good fortune. Relief flooded the voice with emotion as he replied, “Sure, sure, I’ll tell ’im, Bolan.”

  “Don’t move a muscle until I’m clear,” Bolan commanded.

  He returned to the warwagon and went on, without lights, to the highway.

  But the Executioner was not now “running hard” anywhere.

  He pulled on across the highway and into thick brush, then returned to the roadway to erase any tracks or signs left there. Moments later, and long before the remnants of the “killer force” began their quiet withdrawal, all of the warwagon’s surveillance systems were fully operational—reading and waiting for directions to the next front.

  The game had changed. There was now no clear distinction between the hunter and the hunted. And the entire “kill zone” was now noman’s-land.

  3: COLD

  A very bold mind was running that operation.

  Sharply uniformed troops with MP armbands stood guard over the entrance to the battlefield while work parties and graves details picked the area clean of every evidence of combat. Large, flatbed semitrailers hauled away the gutted hulks and incidental pieces of the shattered troop carriers while field ambulances carted off the dead and broken bodies and medics provided first aid to the walking wounded. Even a wrecker showed up to tow away the remains of the armored Cadillac.

  Bolan maintained his surveillance throughout that cleanup operation, recording the terse radio communiqués, photographing faces and equipment with infra-red techniques, monitoring personal conversations with his sensitive audio pick-ups.

  And, yeah, it was quite an operation.

  Too much, perhaps, for too little. Bolan simply could not believe that such a formidable force had been organized for the sole purpose of stopping the Executioner’s war.

  There had to be more to it than that.

  These guys were operating openly, brazenly—masquerading as a bona fide U.S. military force, utilizing restricted radio channels for their communications, riding around in “official” vehicles and arming themselves with modern weaponry from the U.S. arsenal—and the hell of it all was that they were pulling it off flawlessly. Observers from the Joint Chiefs of Staff would not have detected a suspicious anomaly.

  All this … for one lone man?

  The financial considerations alone were staggering. Even supposing that they’d managed to steal all the equipment, weapons, and ammunition, the day-to-day cost of maintaining such a force would be immense.

  Dark suspicions were lurking at the threshold of the combat mind as Bolan tailed the last of the column away from there. The track led north and then west, deeper into the mountains in a torturous and winding ascent which seemed to be holding a general northwest focus. The final few miles were accomplished via a succession of narrow roads and back trails which culminated in a swift descent along a broad, freshly paved private road which dipped into an almost pastoral valley, high between snowcapped peaks.

  Bolan had endeavored to maintain a track-plot, but he was not at all certain as to the precise geographic location of this “base.”

  The air was very thin, and quite cold—rare enough to noticeably impair the efficiency of the warwagon’s engine. The stars had never seemed brighter, the sky closer.

  Bolan broke off the track at the beginning of that final descent and pulled into cover at about two hundred yards above the base. A high chain-link fence was set behind barbed-wire escarpments. A large sign at the gate identified the enclosure only as “U.S. Government Property.” A pair of MP’s closed the gate behind the last vehicle of the column and returned to an All Terrain Vehicle which was parked at the approach, serving apparently as a guard house. Considerable activity was going on behind that fence—a lot of lights, vehicles whining around, a miscellany of muffled sounds. Apparently, though, the main area was nestled into the base of the mountain slope and at a right angle to Bolan’s line of sight; he could see nothing in the nature of buildings or organized human activity.

  In preparation for an EVA, he stripped down to the blacksuit, briefly debated the mission requirements, then removed that also and put on a “life suit”—a lightweight jumpsuit which maintains body temperature within the comfort level. Over this he added the usual “light probe” gear—9mm Beretta Brigadier with silencer, a high-powered air pistol with tranquilizer darts, stiletto, nylon garrote, various gadgets. Then he applied a black cosmetic to face and hands and quietly invaded the night.

  The temperature down on the plains had been in the mid-fifties; here, it was closer to the freezing mark. Occasional light patches of old snow created patchwork patterns on the landscape. Light sagebrush shared the dotted valley floor with a thin scattering of small pines. Erratic gusts of wind moaned fleetingly along the soft terrain and sometimes howled against the rocks, somewhere above.

  Bolan blended with all that, became one with it, absorbing it while himself becoming absorbed by it as he moved off in a quiet reconnaissance.

  He followed the fence line, at a distance of about fifty yards, pausing frequently to watch and listen, quiveringly alert to any suggestion of the presence of land mines, trip wires, and other silent security provisions. It was not a huge base. He covered the entire open perimeter area in less than twenty minutes, completing the “close recon,” then withdrew for a quicker transit along the base of the opposite slope, in an open reconnaissance of the entire valley.

  Not large, no—but a hell of a neat setup.

  The topography here seemed to suggest a moraine area—the melting point of some ancient glacier—with the secret base situated between a pair of lateral moraines with peculiar angles. The rear area was butted into the mountainside, two sides protected by the moraines, only the front boundary unobscured by natural terrain features. Because of the rise and angles of the land, the whole thing was shuttered from the view of casual passersby—probably even from above—except for a line of sight covering no more than fifteen degrees of arc.

  They apparently felt pretty damn secure in there.

  No guards were posted, except at the gate. The fence was electrified, though, and there was evidence to suggest that perhaps some sort of electronic alarm system was functioning.

  Bolan sat on a rock in the shadow of a scrubby pine and sketched the layout. Fifteen medium-sized quonset huts—each capable of housing, probably, twenty to thirty men, depending on how much they wanted to crowd it. Large motor pool area with plenty of rolling stock. A central, low-profile building—probably a mess and lounge area—now serving coffee and sandwiches to a subdued “killer force” who gathered in apathetic groups outside. Smaller building with an Alpine roof, set off from the other structures—headquarters, probably—brightly lighted inside, much bustling about. A small shack, off to the other side—infirmary, judging by the activities there. Couple of large metal warehouses, a miscellany of smaller storage sheds.

  Nice setup, yeah.

  Bolan completed the sketch and carefully put it away for safekeeping. Then he settled into a quiet vigil, eyes and ears alert to all the lifesigns in and about that incredible encampment in the Rockies. Two hours passed before the patient scout was satisfied that he “knew” the place—had its heartbeat, its rhythms, its very metabolism.

  The facts, however, still did not compute. It was too damn much for much too little; Bolan simply could not buy this full-scale military o
peration as nothing more than a headhunting force. They’d gone for his head, sure—but there had to be more to it than that.

  Jingo Morelli had tried to make it sound like a head force—He’s working for the million bucks head money plus full expenses—but he’d also referred to the top man as an “independent contractor,” a situation which could cover a variety of bold ideas.

  “Full expenses,” for an operation such as this one, would make peanuts of the million-dollar bounty on Bolan’s head. Was the mob really financing the entire thing? Bolan’s dark suspicions would not leave him. Something was out of whack here.

  Was it possible that the mob was playing footsy with some official government agency, a furtive agency, perhaps?

  Possible, sure—anything was possible.

  Lucky Luciano had been let out of prison by an official government agency, to run the New York docks during the scarey days of World War Two.

  The mob and the CIA had gotten chummy in the face of Castro’s Cuba, and it was no secret that “the boys” had lately managed to forge friendships in the shadow of the White House itself.

  No, nothing was impossible.

  Bolan was preparing to break off the reconnaissance and return to the warwagon when another piece of the puzzle suddenly fell from the skies—literally. The unmistakable windmill sounds of a small helicopter froze him to the shadows, and he watched as the little bird dropped quickly from the peak behind him and settled into the compound. The angle of vision into the landing area was a bad one; Bolan had only a sensing of shadowy figures moving quickly about the grounded craft—whether embarking or debarking, he could not say—then the chopper was lifting away, with less than a minute on the ground.

  The chopper itself held the most interest for Bolan.

  It carried U.S. Army markings.

  He made a thoughtful mental note of that as he began the withdrawal. It was a cold withdrawal—inside cold—as the most hunted man in America began to assimilate the full implications of his situation.