Baltimore Trackdown (13 page)

Then he saw the nozzles and the water surging into the tank ahead of him.

He tried to stand. A baseball bat swung around and slammed into his back. He slumped into the box. He tried to crawl out, but the cattle prod and the bat touched him again and again.

Chief Smith screamed as his container moved forward on the cog machinery and the heavy chain. When the first splashes of water hit him he realized what was happening.

“I got a wife and three kids! You don’t want to do this. You scared me, you hurt me. I’ve learned my lesson. Let me out. For God’s sake, let me out of here!”

The water chilled him immediately, making his legs useless. He lifted his good arm and the ball bat swung, breaking the bone.

Chief Smith stared at the men. Someone had turned on the lights and he could see them now. There were two Mafia thugs and a smaller man in a white shirt and tie, probably the manager of this plant. He knew at once what it was, but he couldn’t believe what was happening.

“You can’t do this! Call Carlo, he’ll tell you I been cooperating great for six months now, and nobody knew. Not even that slime Captain Davis.”

The chief’s voice went high then, as the ice-cold water covered his legs and worked up his torso. His heart was pumping wildly to bring warm blood to the frigid areas.

The water rose to his chest, four inches from the top of the container. Automatically the weight of the box tripped the off switch and the container moved ahead.

Chief Smith looked forward and screamed. His head was above water, and over the top of the metal container. Two feet down the chain the boxes passed through an opening barely large enough to let them slip inside. There was only two inches leeway into the freezer box, where the containers would “cook” for eight hours to turn them into five-foot blocks of crystal-clear ice.

Chief Smith’s screams were endless. Both of the Mafia men laughed, making a bet on whether he would or would not pass out again before entering the freezer.

The container behind his was full and began to move slowly forward.

Chief Smith looked at the sheer side of the heavy metal opening ahead. He had to lower his shoulders and head or be decapitated. Slowly he sank into the water, immersing his shoulders, neck, chin, mouth. The water was now within an inch of the top of the container. Expansion would move it up to the top. Now he had two inches between his nose, the water and the oncoming top of the freezer.

His head moved yet lower.

Then he relaxed and smiled. Hell, he was in his own swimming pool and diving for marbles on the bottom with the kids. Damn, they were good! He took a deep breath and headed for the bottom, wondering why his arms would not work. It was going to be a great day of swimming with the kids. Hell, he’d taken the day off from work. That was why they built the pool!

The two Mafia killers stared in amazement.

“See that? He just went under, no scream, no getting his head chopped off.”

“Must have been out of his skull. Hey, think of the big surprise some ice man is going to have tomorrow when he starts taking the big slabs of ice out. Inside one of them there will be the former chief of police. Bet you fifty bucks that asshole Smith will even have a smile frozen on his face.”

“No bet. Give the man the five hundred and let’s get out of here.”

“Five hundred? I thought this was Carlo’s ice house.”

The taller hit man shook his head.

The other one went to talk to the plant operator.

“All automatic, right?” the Mafia goon asked.

“Yeah, right. I pushed the buttons. It will fill the cubes, feed them into the freezing area and even turn out the lights in this section.”

“Good,” the hit man said. “That makes it easier.” He shot the operator twice in the face, made sure he was dead, then left for the car.

“You didn’t think we could leave a witness who wasn’t in the family to a kill like that, did you?” the hit man asked. He split the five hundred with his partner. They went to the car and drove away.

The form huddled on the dark Maryland ground did not move. When the sudden coolness of the thunder-shower erupted over the land, the body twitched, writhed, then returned to consciousness.

Vince Carboni sat up in the rain-drenched wheat field. He lowered his hands to support himself. When they touched the ground he cried out in terrible, agonizing pain.

Carboni looked at his hands and saw the charred flesh. Sweat beaded on his forehead.

Damned near burned to death, he thought as he looked around. It was dark. The hard shower was a quick one, soaking him thoroughly, dumping an inch of water on the land in fifteen minutes, then charging away.

He could not move his fingers. His arms were hairless, black in spots with heavy burns. His pants had burned halfway to his knees, and he wondered if he could walk on his blackened legs.

Carboni remembered that the wind had shifted suddenly and blown the wall of fire toward him, cutting off his escape route. The flames had danced all around him like a fire storm. He had tried to run through the fire, but the flames had been so intense he could not breathe.

Now he took a deep breath and screamed. A new pain seared inside him. His lungs must be scorched, too.

Move. He had to move or die. He had to get to a doctor or a hospital or he might not even live until morning. His head felt strangely cool.

His hair!

It had burned off. He felt damned lucky to be alive. Vaguely he remembered crawling from the blackened stalks into this unburned part. Or was it across a road?

Road.

The word touched his logic center. He should move toward the road. Where was it?

He heard something disturb the stillness of the countryside. It sounded again, closer. He looked and saw lights — headlights! The road was that way, and not far. He tried to stand. He cried out in pain when he pressed down with his hands to rise.

Slowly he moved to his knees and balanced there a moment before he attempted to straighten up.

Three times he tried. Three times he fell. On the fourth try he windmilled his arms and gained his balance.

But could he walk? He tried one short step and did not fall. Took a second step, then a third. He turned toward the road. The car had long since passed. He had no way of knowing how far away the road was, but even a hundred yards would be a marathon for him.

His feet were not burned inside the shoes. That might be all that saved his life... if he could get to the road.

Another car came, and he saw he was now less than a hundred feet from the road, but he would not get there in time to stop the car.

One more step.

Another step.

He felt as if he were walking through knee-deep mud. He had never been so tired, so physically spent.

“Lucky to be alive. Lucky to be alive!” He chanted the words out loud as he worked with half steps slowly toward the hazy shape of the ditch ahead and the road.

Damn, it was a long way.

For the first time in years he had not checked to see if his weapon was in place. Now his clublike hands reached for his hip holster. It was empty, the big .44 AutoMag gone. Should not have a holster on. People would ask questions.

He tried to undo it. His belt went through a loop on his holster; again and again he tried to get the belt unfastened. His hands refused to obey his commands. Three fingers on his right hand were burned together.

Carboni tried with his left hand. On the fourth try he opened the belt and painfully pulled it out of the loops until the holster fell off.

He took a deep breath of relief, only to scream as the cool air hit his burned lungs. He gagged, almost threw up, then shook his head in fury and frustration and continued for the road.

He realized his shirt was nearly burned off. There was little left of the front. He would need a great story to explain this. He would think of something. First, the road.

He struggled ahead.

The ditch itself came as a surprise. He fell into it and rolled into the foot of water from the thunderstorm. The coolness felt marvelous on his burning hands. He immersed them again, then dunked his head.

He almost lapsed into unconsciousness. The sound of a car whizzing by roused him. He struggled to his hands and knees. His hands felt better. He turned his palms upward, raised his fingers and used the backs of his wrists to hold his weight as he crawled forward.

He lay at the edge of the blacktopped lane, hoping the next driver saw him before he ran over him.

Vince Carboni, who vowed to destroy Mack Bolan, lay on the warm blacktop waiting to find out if he would live or die.

Mack Bolan drove back to his hotel and changed from a conservative business suit to a black skin suit with the silenced Beretta 93-R under his arm. He hooked a fragger on his web belt opposite his “flesh-shredding” .44AutoMag.

He called Nino Tattaglia but there was no answer. He probably had already been picked up by the police. This would help cement his position in the mob, and he would be out in a week or so.

Bolan figured Nazarione would find out about the warrants for him before they could be served. Which meant he would be holed up in his mansion or off on a sudden trip in his private jet. Either way there was one proved method to find out.

Wearing a light-blue jacket to cover his weapons, the Executioner went to the rented car and drove to the Nazarione estate.

He parked within a block of the gate and left his car unlocked in case a quick getaway would be needed. He walked to the high block wall bordering the estate, seeing that only the second floor of the mansion was lit. He slipped along the wall to a point across from the pool and its acre of lawn. This was the long way to the house. It also should be the least patrolled.

Bolan peered over the wall. Security seemed nonexistent. Perhaps Nazarione was trying to convince prospective jurors that he was just another businessman. A guard slid from a shadowy area beside the pool to some low trees and worked toward the fence. He made a circuit of the fence, then passed behind the house. Only one guard outside?

Again he studied the house. Rooms were lit on the second floor, but no lights showed on the first or third floors or in the half basement recreation and crew rooms he had seen before.

Possum. They were playing possum, pretending not to be there. The Executioner would find out in a hell of a rush. He took the small radio detonator from his pocket and flipped the toggle switch to activate it, then pushed the red button twice.

There was an immediate splintering roar from one of the bombs Bolan had planted days before in the mansion. The first came from the third floor, the one near Nazarione’s office. Almost at once a deeper, heavier roar came from the half basement; that would be the powder magazine and arms cache. Two more smaller blasts added to the noises echoing in the previously quiet neighborhood.

No fire was visible. Dust spewed from upper windows, and clouds of smoke and dust gushed from the basement door.

Calling to somebody, the guard ran for the basement. Bolan scaled the wall, darted for the shadows, then worked across the lawn to the back door. It was unlocked. He cautiously slid inside. He expected at least five hardmen guarding the don. There did not seem to be that many.

A shout sounded above. A door opened near Bolan. It was the elevator. A tall man ran out, a handkerchief held to the side of his head, a .45 in his right hand. He saw Bolan and fired, but too late — his target had leaped into the shelter of a doorway. Bolan returned the fire with the Beretta on single shot.

The man was Nazarione. He ran out the door and into the yard.

Bolan waited to see that no one was backing him, then raced after the Mafia don. He met a hardman rounding the corner of the hall. The Executioner stroked the trigger of the Beretta automatically, putting two rounds in the Mafia soldier’s chest, eliminating him from the payroll for all time.

The Executioner charged the side door. By the time he was outside he heard a car engine roar, and reached the parking lot in time to see a crew wagon race away.

Bolan ran to the next black Caddy in line, saw the keys on the car seat and jumped inside. The rig started on the first twist of the key, and he raced after Nazarione. By the time the guard had opened the big gate at the end of the drive for his boss, Bolan had made up the fifty-yard lead. As the iron grillwork began to close, the Executioner’s crew wagon screeched past it, scraping the side of the Caddy, but charging forward after the other black car.

The Caddies screamed through the posh residential section, then down a hill into a more modest area. Soon they careened through a small deserted industrial park. Bolan found a safe spot to shoot the big .44 and put one shot through the crew wagon’s rear window and a second through the left rear tire.

His next blast punctured another tire, and the big rig swerved but continued through the industrial area, stopping beside a vacant lot. Two doors popped open and two figures ran across the lot toward a traveling carnival that had set up on the far side of the field next to a shopping center.

The Executioner jumped the curb with the Caddy and drove into the field until he reached a large ditch. He bailed out and ran after the pair, but saw he could not reach them before they entered the midway.

By the time Bolan ran to the big trailers that opened into carnival attractions, he saw Nazarione and his driver rush past a ticket taker into the fun house.

Bolan charged forward, said, “Police,” to the ticket taker and hurried after them.

It was a slow night. Only two teenagers were inside the first room, inspecting themselves in the skinny-fat mirrors. The door closest to the entrance swung toward him and Bolan guessed the Mafia hardman and his boss had gone through it. He crouched as he followed, and two shots snarled over him in the darkness.

The area was as black as a Mafia don’s heart. A soft recorded voice pleaded with them to save the fair maiden from the villain who was about to terrorize her.

Bolan held absolutely still, listening.

He wondered if this was a room or just a narrow passage. A strobe light shattered the darkness with its pulsating beam, but it came only three times. Before his eyes became accustomed to the change in light the strobe died. The Executioner had seen movement to his left. He had no idea how many people were in the room. More than the two goons?

He moved three steps forward.

Someone with a smoker’s hack coughed ahead and to the right. Bolan took a coin from his pocket and flipped it so it would come down near where he thought someone crouched. The coin landed on the metal floor of the trailer louder than Bolan had hoped. The immediate response from the enemy was a pair of shots aimed at the sound.

The Executioner flipped the Beretta to 3-shot mode and drilled the blackness to the right of the place where the two muzzle-flashes showed. Before the echo of the two Mafia shots died in the room, someone screamed and fell hard to the floor.

A lighted ghoulish head popped out of the ceiling, braying a devilish laugh. A shaft of light appeared straight ahead, and a door creaked open. Bolan bolted for the door as it swung shut in the eerie light, which revealed a pair of teenagers trembling in one corner and the sprawled form of a man on the floor with a growing pool of dark-red blood forming under his chest.

Bolan swung the door open without going through it, heard a shot from the next room and a splintering sound as a slug ripped through the wood. Crouching, he went past the door and saw in the half light that the new room was peopled by a dozen frenzied wooden cutout figures, offering customers the chance to play any part in the wild and frenetic cast by standing behind the headless figures.

A head moved behind one of the cutouts and a .45 lifted. Bolan sent another burst of silent rounds at the arm and gun. Two of the parabellum rounds dug through Carlo Nazarione’s wrist, and he screeched, dropped the .45 and rushed toward the far door.

A loudspeaker announced that there would now be a twelve-second period of total darkness for characters to change places or for lovers to kiss. The recording ended with a shriek of evil laughter and the sound of a creaking door.

The sudden darkness masked Nazarione as he darted around the wooden figures and ran into the next room.

Bolan worked his way to the door, eased it open and looked into the next room. It was fully lighted, and straight ahead he saw someone staring back at him. He was about to raise the Beretta when he realized it was his own reflection.

He slipped inside the hall of mirrors. Normally, the trick was to find your way through. Now there was a double trick — find your way through and not get shot. He was sure Nazarione would have a backup piece.

Before he could move, a handgun barked — a .38, it sounded like. He looked ahead to see his image in the mirror shattered by the round.

“Goddamn!” Nazarione shouted, and Bolan heard footsteps. He moved down the narrow passage, touching mirrors on both sides. He came to a turn. Ahead the mirrored passage bent at a forty-five-degree angle. Bolan checked but did not see Nazarione or any reflection of the don. He was not sure he could tell the difference.

Now he ran down the passage, almost slamming into the end, peering around, running again, rounding the next corner carefully. Seeing Nazarione staring at him, Bolan fired at once, an automatic reaction, only to see the image shatter and hear Nazarione’s harsh laugh from somewhere to the right.

Bolan wished he could know for certain that there were no other people in the mirror maze. If that were the case, he would start shooting through the mirrors at sounds, not sights.

Again Bolan charged ahead, realizing the passages were turning back toward the beginning. He walked down an aisle and too late saw Nazarione pulling the trigger on his .38 automatic.

Bolan expected to feel the bite of hot lead; instead, a mirror shattered somewhere to his right. He heard Nazarione swearing and saw him running. Though he could see Nazarione and Nazarione could see him, neither was in the other’s line of fire.