Prairie Fire Read online

  "I don't even know your name," she said at last.

  "Frank LaMancha," Bolan answered, falling back upon the alias he had used in other jungles.

  For the Executioner was dead, officially. Twice dead, in fact; as Sergeant Bolan and again as Colonel Phoenix, he had sacrificed two lives and two identities.

  Another shift, and he could feel the lady reaching for something, working toward it by degrees, as if reluctant to address the thing head-on.

  "If there was something I could do..."

  "You've done a lot already."

  Momentary silence, and there was a distance in her voice when Toni spoke again.

  "My husband, Jerry, was a deputy with Butler County, and he loved it. Helping people, fighting crime... or what there was of it. He used to talk about his job like it was a crusade or something, but it made him happy. We were shopping for a house, about to start a family..."

  There was a small catch in her voice, and Bolan felt her on the verge of tears. He waited, let her get around to it in her own way.

  "It was our anniversary — one year, a Friday night — and Jerry got off early. He was going to pick up some wine for dinner, and he walked into the middle of a robbery in progress. They had shotguns, and... the doctors told me that he didn't suffer."

  She was facing Bolan, and despite the tremor in her voice, the shining eyes were dry.

  "It's like a war, isn't it?"

  Damn right.

  There was no way, no need, to answer her. A sudden flash of understanding that was almost physical had passed between them. They had touched and drawn apart, but in the silence they were closer than before.

  "I've got no family living," she continued. "Jase and Emma took me in, and they've been wonderful — don't get me wrong — but still, sometimes I think there must be... something else."

  There was an almost wistful quality about her voice, and Bolan knew that she was opening a private corner of her thoughts to his inspection. It was a sort of intimacy, and he felt attracted to her even as he sought to remain aloof.

  "You'll find it, Toni. Give yourself some time."

  But Bolan knew that time could be a problem.

  He did not choose to make this woman — any of these people — active members of his own crusade. But sometimes, choice became a casualty of war, and men — or women — fought because they had to, not because it was their hearts' desire.

  Bolan was a volunteer but he had never loved the killing. It was necessary, even right, because it was the only way on earth to keep the cannibals at bay.

  And the Executioner was not infatuated with the bloody business of his everlasting war. Provided with a choice, he might have chosen any other path and spent his life away from jungles and the predators who dwelt therein.

  Except that Bolan never had a choice. Not really.

  From the moment he donned a soldier's uniform, took on a warrior's duty, he surrendered many of the basic freedoms that he sought to guarantee for others.

  Toni's whispered voice intruded on his thoughts.

  "I really didn't mean to ramble on like this," she told him sheepishly. "I only wanted you to know that I believe your story. I don't pretend to understand it, but I count myself a decent judge of people.''

  "So do I," he said.

  Their eyes met and once again he felt the flow of something pass between them. When she said goodnight and rose to leave, he felt a sudden urge to reach for her and keep her there beside him.

  Bolan stifled it and let her go.

  The time and place were wrong for weaving dreams, and he was more familiar with the nightmare side, in any case. The soft and gentle life was left to others; Bolan had devoted all his strength and energy to winning it for them. Sentiment would only slow him down, delay him when the moment came for swift, decisive action.

  He had spent a lifetime fighting mortal enemies; unarmed or outnumbered he would keep on battling. The only road lay through his enemies. No detours allowed.

  The Executioner would not have it any other way.

  10

  The first real light of morning roused him, and the soldier stirred, reminded of his wounds immediately by the fleeting pains that settled around his torso.

  In a flash, Bolan remembered everything. He understood the tether that restrained him, recognized the dozing watchman seated opposite, his scattergun between his knees, the muzzles pointed toward the floor.

  The soldier rose, resigned himself to angry protests from the bruises that were somehow fainter now than on the day before. Stiff, Bolan gingerly stretched himself with both arms raised above his head, alert to any sign of stress on the sutures in his side. In spite of everything, he felt rejuvenated by the very sleep that he had struggled so long to avoid.

  The night was over, and they were alive. What lay ahead for Bolan and his captor-hosts was something else again.

  He gave a soft, experimental tug on the chain. It held. Another jerk, with greater force this time, and he could see the grillwork of the heater start to budge. Once more...

  "Save your strength, boy. Never know when you'll be having need of it."

  Bolan turned to face the farmer, found him upright in the easy chair. His 12-gauge was no longer pointed at the floor. Its double muzzles hovered at a point between Bolan's chest and groin, unwavering. He shrugged, and with a gesture of dismissal let the choke chain slither through his fingers.

  "Worth a try," he told his jailer.

  "Reckon so."

  They faced each other for a moment, soldiers separated by a generation. Bloody years lay between them, but when Bolan looked at Jason Chadwick there was something like a momentary flash of recognition deep behind his eyes. This man had seen his duty once, had followed it to hell and back. He saw another kind of duty now, no less compelling, and again he answered to the call.

  Mack Bolan could respect his captor, certainly. He understood the farmer, but his understanding did not change a thing.

  One way or another, Bolan had to break away.

  A bedroom door swung open on the farmer's flank, and Emma Chadwick came to stand beside her husband. Jason spared his wife a glance, and handed her the scattergun. She took it from him with the same expression of uneasiness that Bolan had observed the night before.

  "You keep him covered, now," the farmer told her, "while I get him ready for the ride to town."

  Jason Chadwick crossed the living room and stooped beside the radiator, fumbling with the padlock for a moment, finally releasing it. He unwound the chain, stepped closer to release it from Bolan's handcuffs.

  Weighing angles and percentages, the soldier knew that he could pull it off. A simple sidestep, close the gap. No problem. He could use the farmer as a human shield, force Emma to discard the weapon, or at least to hold her fire while he retreated to the pickup truck outside.

  As quickly as the thought materialized, he let it go. The Executioner had done enough.

  The farmer had retrieved his shotgun, and he covered Bolan with it as he circled toward the open kitchen door.

  "Time to go," he said to Bolan, and gestured toward the exit with his weapon. "Move it."

  Bolan was turning toward the kitchen, when another door was opened at his back. He glanced around, caught sight of Toni in the doorway of the second bedroom. Her expression was a mixture of sadness and bewilderment, as if she had awakened from a morbid and confusing dream.

  Their eyes made fleeting contact, but there was no time for lingering goodbyes. A jerky motion from the scattergun revealed his captor's own impatience, and the Executioner moved out of there, with Jason behind.

  Outside, beyond the covered porch, it was still cool, despite the early-morning sunshine. Bolan waited at the steps until his warden prodded him in the direction of the barn. From where they stood, the tailgate of a pickup truck was visible around the corner of the barn, hidden so that Bolan had not seen it on his superficial recon of the farm the previous afternoon.

  They crossed the dooryard briskly,
Emma following, with Toni watching from the porch. The Executioner felt suddenly exposed, as if a dozen pairs of eyes were on him. He wondered if the trackers could have found him in the night, if they were watching as he moved across the open ground.

  If they were waiting in the corn, or there — behind the barn — it could be over in a flash. A muzzle-flash, damn right, and there was nothing Bolan or his captor could do about it. One determined sniper, or a firing squad with automatic weapons, could command the barnyard from a hundred different vantage points.

  Bolan waited, half expecting death — searing pain between his shoulders blades, or simply blackness as the bullet cored his brain. He wondered if the fatal gunshot would be audible before he fell and spilled his life into the dust.

  He was almost surprised when they reached the truck without incident. A feeling of foreboding was upon him now, and he could not escape it. There was something...

  Jason's pickup was a battered Dodge. The dents and dings and peeling paint reminded Bolan of the farmhouse, of the owner himself.

  "Stand up against the barn," his captor said. "I need to think this out."

  The Executioner obeyed and took the opportunity to scrutinize the truck more closely. There was ample room for both of them inside the cab, but with the shotgun, Jason would be crowded, at a disadvantage. Maybe, when they reached the highway...

  Bolan's eyes had come to rest on the rusting hood, and now he felt a chill along his spine, the warning tremor raising the hair on his scalp.

  The hood was open. Just a fraction, as if someone had not slammed it hard enough. As if they were afraid of making noise to rouse the sleepers in the farmhouse.

  Bolan made his move. He was standing at the pickup's nose, with both hands searching for the hood latch, when the farmer reached him. Sudden pressure of the twin muzzles underneath his chin forced Bolan's head back at a painful angle.

  "Tired of livin', boy? Just what the hell you think you're doin'?"

  Bolan kept it calm and cool.

  "I thought I'd take a look under the hood."

  The farmer snorted.

  "Reckon I can get to town and back without a tune-up, thanks."

  "We may not make it to the highway."

  Silence for a heartbeat, and Jason Chadwick's eyes were scouring his face.

  "You've got five seconds to start making sense," he growled, but at the same time he stepped back a pace, removed the muzzle of his shotgun from the soldier's throat.

  "Your hood is open," Bolan told him simply. "Now, if you've been working on it, fine. If not..."

  He left it hanging, but the fanner understood him, and his eyes were darting back and forth from Bolan to the truck, remaining longer on the open hood each time. Another moment, and he cleared his throat to speak.

  "You're saying someone's been around here messing with the engine."

  It was not a question.

  Bolan shrugged. "No way to tell, unless we have a look."

  "All right, go on. But no sudden moves. I'll be watching every moment,"

  Bolan found the latch, released it, raised the pickup's hood. The effort cost a bolt of pain between his ribs as he tried to manipulate the hood with manacled hands, but he finally got it to stay upright on its own. He circled to the right, the truck between himself and Jason now, as he bent closer to inspect the engine.

  It took him only seconds to discover what he sought, wedged in against the fire wall of the pickup.

  "There."

  He pointed, and the farmer craned his neck to get a look.

  "What is it?"

  "Plastic explosive," Bolan told him. "Wired to blow when you turn on the ignition key."

  Somewhere behind him, Emma Chadwick gasped. The farmer shot a glance at her, returned suspicious eyes at once to Bolan.

  "Somebody trying to kill me?"

  "Like I said, I'm the target. You're just in the way."

  The farmer glanced around him at the silent fields.

  "They must've hooked it up sometime last night. I never heard a sound."

  "It wouldn't have taken them long," the soldier said. "You're dealing with professionals."

  "Your kind of people."

  "Not exactly. But we understand each other."

  "Mmm. I take it they don't want the sheriff in on this." He faced the man in black, his eyes demanding. "Don't suppose they'll let it go at this."

  "They can't afford to," Bolan answered, nodding toward the plastic charge. "This is just for openers; we call it, and they'll have to raise. No choice."

  "It's thirty miles to town."

  "We'd never make it. Backup teams are standard on a hardset. They'll have gunners waiting for you by the time you reach the highway."

  Jason Chadwick stiffened, hands white knuckled as he gripped the shotgun fiercely. Anger and uncertainty were mingled on his face.

  "Damn. We'd best get back inside the house."

  "Agreed. But first, I need to disconnect this."

  He was reaching in across the fender, stretching painfully, when Jason laid a firm hand on his arm.

  "Just hold on there a second. You know what you're doing?"

  The soldier nodded, hoped the little smile conveyed more confidence than he was feeling at the moment.

  "Nothing complicated. But you might be smart to wait for me inside."

  The fanner eyed him closely, but there was a new expression on his face, replacing some of the suspicion there. Then he turned to his wife, waving her away.

  "I'll stick," he said. "You go back inside and see to Toni."

  "Jason..."

  "Goon now!"

  Reluctantly, she left them, and as if by mutual consent, neither man spoke or moved until they heard the screen door slam.

  "No point in taking chances," Jason told him simply.

  "No."

  And Bolan noticed for the first time that his captor's shotgun was not pointed at him anymore. The muzzles were directed skyward.

  "Best get on about it," Jason said, the voice a blend of nervous tension and impatience.

  Slowly, cautiously, Mack Bolan went to work.

  And it was nothing complicated, right. A simple and straightforward wiring job that any demolition man might learn his first day on the job. No problem there.

  Unless a sniper in the fields behind them saw what he was doing and decided it was time to bring the curtain down.

  The soldier closed his mind to morbid possibilities and concentrated on the task at hand. When it was time to die, there would be no choice in the matter.

  11

  "A bomb?" There was bewilderment in Toni Chadwick's voice.

  Bolan and the fanner had left the yard. Now they were all seated around the dining table.

  "One thing's plain enough," the farmer said to Bolan. "Someone doesn't want you on the street."

  "Will you believe him now?" the younger woman asked. There was a hint of desperation in her voice.

  Jason thought it over for a moment, frowning. Finally he cleared his throat.

  "I won't pretend to understand it all," he answered. "But 1 don't believe police are sneaking in and out of here at night, planting bombs in trucks."

  "What are we going to do?" Emma asked.

  "First, we try the phone again," her husband said.

  She rose and crossed the kitchen, lifted the receiver gingerly, as if she feared it might explode. She listened briefly, jiggled the switch hook with an index finger, finally cradled it again, disgusted.

  "It's still dead."

  She rejoined them at the table, eyes downcast. The silence grew increasingly uncomfortable.

  The lump of deadly C-4 lay before them in the center of the table. Bolan had removed the blasting cap and slipped it in a pocket of his skinsuit to eliminate the risk of accidental detonation. Close behind the brick of gray explosives lay a hacksaw; Jason had detoured to retrieve it from the barn while Bolan finished defusing the pickup truck outside.

  "Reckon we can look for trouble any time,
" the farmer said, his voice was harsh.

  "They'll likely wait for dark," the warrior told them, "but there's no sense taking chances. Someone ought to close the drapes. And stay away from windows if you can."

  At a nod from Jason, both women left their seats and started drawing curtains shut across the kitchen windows. In another moment, they were moving toward the living room and bedrooms, leaving Bolan and the farmer alone.

  The soldier watched his captor closely, finally raised his arms, both fists together. "I could use some hands."

  "I figured."

  With a sigh of resignation, Jason shifted places so that he was sitting next to Bolan. He picked up the hacksaw, studied Bolan's cuffs a moment, finally brought the narrow blade to rest across the manacle.

  The tempered steel in Bolan's handcuffs was resistant to the blade, but finally Jason Chadwick freed Bolan's left arm, started on the right. A second blade was needed to complete the job, but after forty minutes Bolan was released and felt the life returning to his cramped and aching hands.

  The women had returned, and Toni flashed a little smile at Bolan as she moved to help with breakfast. The kitchen was alive with sounds and smells of food in preparation. The Executioner believed that he had never savored any smells before with such intensity; it seemed impossible that reeking death would dare intrude upon that small domestic scene.

  But one glance at the molded plastic charge, squatting in the middle of the breakfast table like a dark, malignant growth, was all it took to bring the warrior back to reality.

  Breakfast arrived at the table, piping hot, and Bolan quickly swept the C-4 out of sight, deposited the charge beneath his chair. He had no fear of an accident; without the blasting cap, plastique was eminently stable. But he knew the innocent-looking lump beneath his seat could easily have totaled Jason's pickup truck or taken out the front half of his farmhouse.

  With any luck at all, Mack Bolan figured he might be able to make use of the explosive himself.

  Confronted with the ample breakfast spread, he ate ravenously. Finally he pushed his empty plate away.