The Executioner: Arizona Ambush (6 page)

Mack Bolan had first encountered Jim Hinshaw and his two sidekicks during his second Asian tour of duty. Their encounters had been rare, brief, and — for Hinshaw at least — very unfortunate. The last of those encounters had resulted in Hinshaw's brief imprisonment, and the less than honorable discharge of all three men. Bolan had known only part of it then, picking up bits and pieces as the court martial progressed, and the sequence flashed before him now as he tracked Angel Morales and his raiders toward their lair.

Hinshaw, Morales, and Worthy were lifelong natives of Tucson. They had become fast friends in grade school and remained so ever since, their interracial camaraderie a minor curiosity in a city whose schools were not entirely unfamiliar with ethnic antagonism. While other adolescents banded together for safety, and sport in racially homogenous gangs, Hinshaw, Morales, and Worthy stood apart, dubbing themselves "The Desert Rats" and displaying a belligerent pride in their mutual alienation.

Fighting and rumbles were inevitable, and with them came a string of adolescent capers beginning with shoplifting and gradually progressing to car theft and assault. Through it all, Jim Hinshaw emerged naturally as the head of the tiny gang, the strategist and "brains" for a series of minor-league depredations. Worthy and Morales recognized Hinshaw's native craftiness and qualities of leadership, deferring to him without protest, accepting his counsel readily and generally profitting thereby. Hinshaw's operations were logically and meticulously planned, lucrative more often than not. Only the hot car ring had gone sour, and even that was a blessing in disguise, for it inspired Hinshaw's Rats to join the U.S. Army en masse one step ahead of nosy police investigators.

The trio from Tucson had enlisted and trained together, volunteered for the Special Forces together at Hinshaw's earnest suggestion, and arrived in Vietnam together as members of the same Green Beret A-team. Comrades and superiors found them zealous and adept at the martial skills, and then-Corporal James Hinshaw was especially singled out for praise concerning his selfless devotion to duty.

Those commanders had missed the mark there, badly misreading their man. For Jim Hinshaw was devoted not to duty, but to power. He lived for power, worshipping it as some men do their gods, lusting after it as other men do beautiful women. He cared not so much for money, though he never passed up an easy profit, recognizing material wealth for what it was, a means to an end and a symptom of deeper power and influence. To Hinshaw, power was an almost spiritual concept, the ultimate goal of all endeavor, the ability and right to impose order on the lives of lesser individuals. Floyd Worthy and Angel Morales understood their comrade and were content to board the bandwagon in subordinate positions, assured in the knowledge that Hinshaw's ultimate success would bring benefits to all.

Vietnam had been heaven on earth for Jim Hinshaw and his Desert Rats. Assigned to the Army's pacification program in Trah Ninh Province, operating out of My Hoi village, they immediately began taking stock of the local situation and its potential for manipulation by skilled hands. Shortly after their arrival, the sergeant in charge of Hinshaw's A-team was the single casualty of a midnight "guerrilla raid." The attackers were never identified, although troopers Worthy and Morales did bag three peasants near the camp an hour later, riddling them before they could escape or surrender. Hinshaw was routinely elevated to the rank of sergeant, and the marksmanship of his friends was rewarded with commendations and, in Worthy's case, promotion to corporal.

Things began to change in Trah Ninh Province, as Hinshaw led his henchmen in the subtle establishment of a personal jungle fiefdom. Their commanding officers were naturally preoccupied with the broader conduct of the war, leaving the trio more or less free to institute a campaign of intimidation against inhabitants of the region. The Desert Rats gradually became a greater object of local fear than the Viet Cong, and the local peasants accepted their plight with a stoicism born of centuries-long oppression. That is, most villagers accepted it, although two village chiefs in My Ho were assassinated by "known terrorists" before Hinshaw could install a leader of suitable pliability.

Then began the long night of Trah Ninh Province. Artisans, Politicians, and eventually almost everyone Was forced to pay "Insurance" premiums to Hinshaw or face arrest on charges of subversion and involvement with the communists. Local girls and women were recruited and sold like chattel to whore-masters in Saigon, while a few were retained by Hinshaw for a local prostitution network of his own. Persons of every age and both sexes were forcibly enlisted as couriers of drugs and other contraband between villages and into neighboring provinces. Dissenters were rare, due primarily to the overabundance of lethal accidents which haunted the exponents of discontent. When Hinshaw's commanding officer responded to rumors of unorthodox proceedings in the province, he gained dubious distinction as one of the earliest victims of "fragging" in the Asian war. A black GI was observed running from the scene of the grenade blast, but no assailant was ever identified.

Disaster came to Hinshaw's personal kingdom In the Person of Mack Samuel Bolan. Bolan had met Hinshaw several times while working the delta with Sniper Team Able and had considered him a competent, if unusually stern, soldier. His opinion changed drastically following a raid during which Bolan executed VC Colonel Tra Huong and two lesser associates in the south of the province. Returning toward their base camp outside My Hoi, Bolan and Corporal T. L. Minnegas had encountered Hinshaw, Worthy, and Morales in the act of executing three unarmed villagers. One was already dead, but Bolan's intervention had rescued the others and resulted at length in the indictment of all three men on manslaughter charges. Villagers slowly and cautiously came forward with tales of coercion and violence, and other charges were added. Military prosecutors did their best, but matters were seldom clear in Vietnam during the late sixties, and the Desert Rats offered a vigorous defense, asserting their efforts were to stem Red aggression in the province, portraying their accusers as communist partisans. The final verdict was at best a compromise. Morales and Worthy escaped with less than honorable discharges, while Hinshaw was sentenced to six months in the stockade and a similar discharge.

Mack Bolan had recognized the vengeful bitterness in Hinshaw, but chose to forget it as the Asian war and a later, more personal one enveloped his life and transformed it into a never-ending cruise down Blood River. Now the shadows of the past had been resurrected, and much of what had only been confusion now made grisly and ominous sense.

James Hinshaw was an organization man, a master strategist backed by two guns as lethal as his own. Or rather, one other gun now, with Floyd Worthy a smoking twist of lifeless meat back there at the ambush site. Hinshaw with his team had been the perfect man to train and lead Nick Bonelli's private military force, a totally ruthless and immoral man whom the Tucson capo could count upon to serve the project with unswerving dedication and zeal.

A serpent, yeah, and a damned lethal one at that. A sidewinder.

Bolan tracked the hastening crew wagon north out of Echo Canyon Park, following Morales and his men as they swung west onto MacDonald Drive and skirted the limits of Paradise Valley. He was with them when they veered due south on 44th Street, pursuing discreetly but inexorably as they angled back toward the heart of Phoenix. The Executioner remained alert for any deviation from the track, dreading the confrontation to come if Morales should lead him back into the teeming center of the desert metropolis.

Bolan's silent prayer was answered. The crew wagon chose an intersecting desert highway, nosing eastward in an apparent effort to complete a perfect rectangle with its progress. Bolan gave them a lead, then resumed the track, driving on by as the limo swung onto a graveled access road and faded into a screen of dust.

The Executioner sought a parallel track and found it a quarter-mile further on. A mile from the paved highway he was able to pick out buildings off to the side, and leading to those structures, the plume of dust trailing Angel's vehicle. Bolan found his own track circling slowly toward the distant cluster of houses and followed it gratefully, homing on what he knew to be the viper's nest he had sought since entering Phoenix.

Bolan left the warwagon where his route intersected a sagging barbed-wire fence, completing his cautious approach on foot. He circled the dry, rolling terrain warily, Big Thunder and the Beretta Belle ready for action at right hip and left armpit. No man opposed his penetration. Judging from the known body count in Phoenix and a mental sizing of the barracks at the Tucson hardsite, Bolan estimated that close to two-thirds of Hinshaw's force had been eliminated. He hoped to confirm that estimate by direct observation preparatory to any penetration of that armed camp.

He found a low ridge 100 Yards from the cluster of buildings, with desert sagebrush and stunted trees combining to offer adequate concealment for his purposes. Prone amid the thorny vegetation, Bolan scanned the compound with his field glasses, taking in the reception for Morales and his surviving raiders. Counting Angel and his crew, there were eleven heads down there, hardmen all, milling about the dusty Crew wagon and peppering the new arrivals with demands for information.

And Jim Hinshaw was present and accounted for at the heart of the miniature mob scene, questioning Morales, and not at all happy with the answers he was getting. Bolan could not hear what Hinshaw was saying, but he could read plainly that furrowed brow and the grim set of the mouth. The guy was anything but happy, but he seemed to be maintaining control of his temper. As always, control and order were Hinshaw's watchwords. Even when Hinshaw resorted to torture and murder, it was done methodically, devoid of emotion.

Cool as ice ... and deadly.

Bolan's eyes narrowed as he watched Hinshaw lead his shrunken hardforce into the largest of three buildings. The man was a menace, his lethal potential compounded by the almost phlegmatic precision he brought to every endeavor. Whatever the end goal of the Arizona game plan, Jim Hinshaw was the man who could carry it off.

Unless he was stopped ... totally and permanently ... cut off at the knees by a superior force.

Bolan scanned the buildings and grounds through his glasses, noting relationships and proportions, angles and planes. The largest and central building was probably Hinshaw's command post, with space reserved for quartering at least some of the troops. The function of the other structures was open to surmise, but the tall radio antenna erected beside one of them gave Bolan a clue to its primary purpose. He felt safe in assuming that he had found the nerve center behind the "ears" in Phoenix ... the alert and deadly head of a serpent whose heart lay to the south in Tucson.

A penetration was indicated. More, it was mandatory at this stage of the Executioner's Phoenix campaign. The suck play had now fulfilled its purpose by leading Bolan to his ultimate target in the desert city, and he meant to strike against that serpent's head before the brain could recover from earlier stunning blows to marshal a venomous counter-stroke.

Bolan was formulating his strategy as he turned away from that and tableau and retraced his steps to the battle cruiser.

An effective strike would require an effective penetration — and that could be tricky with a pro like Hinshaw. But Bolan was not going for a simple hit-and-run, he was hoping for the knockout — a quick one-two — not just to the head of this beast but to the entire fetid structure. That would call for a bit of audacity. Audacity, hell, he had plenty of it.

Hinshaw's voice was tense, taut — dangerous. "From the top, Angel. What went sour?"

"It all went sour, Jim," Morales replied with a disgusted gesture. "I think it started sour. It was a suck play straight from the jungle book."

"You said a rocket attack?"

"Yeah. They sucked us into a horseshoe slot, then layed into us from the high ground. There was no way to save it. I'm damn lucky I got out. Poor Floyd ..."

Hinshaw kicked the desk and raised his eyes to the ceiling. "Bastard!" he growled. "He must have tumbled to the telephone tap. How cute. Did you eyeball the bastard?"

The little Latin shook his head and said, "All I eyeballed was them damn rockets whooshing down from the heights. He's got some kind of fancy firepower. Forget them fucking LAWS, this was big stuff. More like guided missiles."

Hinshaw muttered, "So he's teamed up with Kaufman."

"Looks that way," Morales quietly agreed. "You know what this means."

"Yeah," Morales said, sighing. "And we're running about 70 percent casualties as of right now, man."

"So what are you reading?" Hinshaw growled.

"I'm reading scratch," the surviving lieutenant replied. "We can't pull it now. Not without reinforcements anyway."

"You ready to tuck your tail?" Hinshaw asked heavily, "and slink back to Tucson? You ready to face the old man with that?"

"You should've seen what I faced a little while ago, Jim. Listen. That guy deserves his reputation."

"So does Bonelli," Hinshaw said worriedly.

"Well, shit." Morales threw up his hands and walked nervously about the room waving them as though seeking applause from some invisible audience. "This is crazy. I say we call out the hole card and tell them all to go to hell."

"Not yet," Hinshaw said. He gnawed on his lower lip for a moment, then added: "We can still pull it out, maybe." His eyes gleamed with silent speculation, then: "There's a million bucks on Bolan's head. Right?"

"You know why the bounty is a million?" Morales inquired quietly. "It's a million because the meanest guys in the mob haven't been able to take the guy. That's why. I wish you'd been out there with me awhile ago. I wish you had."

"He's just a soldier," Hinshaw mused. "What the hell, Angel ... he's just another soldier."

"Go tell that to Floyd and B Troop," Morales replied bitterly. "With a cool million on his head."

"Shit."

The debate was interrupted by a knuckle rap at the door. A squad leader poked his head in to report, "We got company." His gaze flicked to the window. "You better see."

A big guy in Levi's was standing outside the fence, jawing with a sentry.

Hinshaw turned from the window to scowl at the squad leader. "What is it?"

"He walked in. We spotted him about three minutes out. Walking the phone line. He says we got trouble. Do we have trouble?"

Hinshaw picked up the telephone, listened to it for a moment, then put it down and said, "Yeah. Sounds like eggs frying on there. Dammit! No wonder I got no-how long has it been out?"

The squad leader shrugged. "I didn't know it was until the guy came along."

"Okay, let him in," Hinshaw growled. "Make sure somebody sticks with him. Give the guy a beer. He looks hot and bothered."

"Shit, it's about a hundred out there in the shade, if you can find shade," the squad leader commented. He went out muttering, "I wouldn't have that guy's fucking job on a ..."

Morales was standing at the window, silently gazing out, hands stuffed into his pockets. "What d'you suppose a job like that pays?" he said with quiet reflection. "Couple hundred a week? — maybe two-fifty?"

"You thinking of joining up?" Hinshaw asked heavily.

"Look at the guy. Probably been out there all day in that heat. For what? Tell me for what, Jim."

"Maybe he lost his nerve," Hinshaw pointedly replied. "Maybe he never had any. How 'bout you? Ready to trade it all for a timeclock and a pile of bills?"

"Hell no," Morales said quietly.

But he remained at the window and watched "the telephone guy" go about his little duties. The guy went up the pole, carrying a bag of tools and crap with him.

"What a dummy," Morales commented softly. "Can you beat it?"

"We're doing it, aren't we?" Hinshaw replied. "We're beating it. Right?"

Morales turned around with a grin. "Sure, man. We're beating it."

"Go keep an eye on the guy, huh? Just for safe? I have to call old man Bonelli."

"You're forgetting the phone."

Hinshaw chuckled. The tensions were gone. Angel was back and they'd pull it out together somehow. "We're going to collect that million, Angel. Us. We're going to bag a bonus baby. Go watch the dummy. Let me know as soon as the line is restored. I need a parley with our noble benefactor in south Arizona. I want him to get his bank ready."

Angel laughed and repeated his little applause routine as he headed outside to keep an eye on "the dummy."

But that dummy, be sure, was no dummy.

"The dummy" now stood on a little ridge far removed from, but overlooking the base camp. He'd gone down there and rubbed shoulders with the enemy, sampled their iced beer, played games with their telephones, traded a couple of tall stories while getting their numbers and reading their strengths and weaknesses — and closing the adventure on a note of a most ludicrous melodrama.

Angel Morales had tried to recruit him. It had been a deft try, full of veiled promises while devoid of job description — but certainly a recruiting pitch to anyone "in the know" and able to decipher the doubletalk. Bolan played dumb and, in the process, bought himself enough time to complete the mission in proper fashion — thanks entirely to Morales.

Of course, in all fairness to the guy, Angel Morales had never actually "known" Sergeant Mack Bolan. They had crossed gazes a couple of times in "Nam but that had been a long time ago; also, since then, Bolan had undergone surgical alterations to the facial structure to the point where a close friend from the old days would pass him by without recognition.

Still, it was quietly satisfying to Bolan that he could successfully penetrate a professional camp. There were no false illusions regarding the expertise and military capability of men such as Hinshaw and Morales. Renegades, right — but soldiers still, and they had trained in the same classrooms as Mack Bolan, had survived the same hazards of combat. And it was not contempt for the enemy which provided Bolan with confidence enough to successfully penetrate; it was a recognition and understanding of the complex mental processes which allow identification.

With that understanding, Bolan had early become a master at what he termed "role camouflage." Often he had been totally isolated deep in VC territory, his freedom and survival dependent on wits alone. He had survived many such entrapments. Once he had donned a standard black poncho and an appropriated coolie hat to kneel for hours beside a narrow stream, "mending" abandoned fishermen's nets in the midst of an occupied village. Somehow, even in such an alien environment, Bolan had always seemed to "belong" to any scene to which he lent himself.

Variations upon the same theme had served him well throughout his personal war against the Mafia, always to their disaster.

With a bit of luck, this time, renegade soldier James Hinshaw would fare no better from a walk-in visit by Mack Bolan.

His "tool kit" for that penetration was in reality a mobile munitions lab. And he'd gooped that joint for destruction from end to end, despite the watchful attentiveness of his hosts. Plastics with time-delay fuses were left at a critical Point on the outer wall of the communications hut, tamped to blow inward — hopefully to buckle the wall, drop the building, and topple the mast for the radio antenna. Another application would level the barracks; others were placed for strictly psychological effect.

And that was but one side of the "knockout" equation. The other side was psy-war all the way. Bolan was hoping to stage a master illusion which would confuse and divide the enemy toward their ultimate destruction. Not just here in Phoenix, but back at the heart of the operation as well.

The "psy-war" equipment was now being emplaced. And it hurt the warrior's soul to contemplate the loss of such a fine weapon — but then, weapons were expendable. Human freedom and dignity were not.

Head weapon was the slick M2 .50-caliber heavy-barrel machine gun. He set it gently upon the sandy soil of the ridge and threw off the cover. Sixty-six inches of sleek death machine, the M2 was the most lethally impressive weapon in Bolan's mobile arsenal. Tripod-mounted, the heavy gun would deliver at the rate of 650 rounds per minute from a muzzle velocity approaching 3,000 feet per second. No flesh — and few vehicles or buildings — could stand before that withering stream of big steel-jacketed slugs.

And this one came with a difference — one of armorer Bolan's own devices.

He emplaced the big weapon with care, adjusting the tripod legs and sighting-in for maximum effect. Then he locked in the ammo box and fed the disintegrating-link belt into the weapon's receiver. Two steel rods went into the earth, emplaced nine inches to each side — swing-stops, Positioned for a desired 45-degree arc. He rotated the weapon to verify the arc, then completed the sighting, making fine adjustments for range and azimuth.

Finally he affixed the "difference" — a boxlike device designed to fit over the butt and grips of the M2, a spring-loaded metal tongue meshing with the trigger assembly. A simple timer surmounted the metal box. Bolan consulted his watch, set and wound the timer, and activated it. Psy-war, yeah.

If all went well, those guys would think themselves involved in a very hot freight, precisely 150 minutes from that moment. The planted plastics and the robot gun would do their things together. In the heat and hysteria of the moment, who would know between timed-explosives and another "rocket attack."

To complete the stage dressing, Bolan strewed throwaway fiberglass tubes from several expended LAW rockets about the emplacement. Anyone who'd ever handled an M2 would not be fooled for long by the little charade, but Bolan was not going for longs; he would be content with an early confusion among hot tempers and shaken combat instincts.

Somehow, he had to either equalize or destroy the warring factions in this state — and he had to do it damn quick. He was a sitting duck on the desert and he knew it. Plenty of combat stretch, sure, but damn little comfort in the "withdraw and retreat" department. Any concerted and determined reaction by the police community would be his undoing for sure.

"Damn quick" was the name of the game in more ways than one. He had to cover nearly 200 miles of desert highway between Phoenix and Tucson damn quick. He had to do it in the convincing neighborhood of 150 minutes. And by God he would. He summoned all the horses from the big Toronado power plant and headed for Inter state 10.

The Executioner had to deliver a message.

Not to Garcia, no.

It was a message that only a Mafia boss would understand ... loud and clear.