"Death Squad" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pendleton Don)

Chapter Six The Ambush at the Buttes

quot;Has that station wagon been behind us all the way or hasn't it?quot; queried the nervous young man with the briefcase.

quot;Off and on, sure he has,quot; Giordano replied smugly. quot;You just now catching on?quot;

quot;Well, I thought at first ... well, there was this Ford sedan back there for a while, and now the station wagon is back. It looks like the same one.quot;

Giordano chuckled and slumped contentedly into the plush upholstery. quot;Games,quot; he said. quot;They like to play games. Okay. Let 'em play.quot;

They had left the freeway some minutes earlier and were powering smoothly through gently lifting countryside on a smooth blacktop road, the big cars eating the pavement at a steady eighty-mile-per-hour clip. Soon they would drop onto the desert-like flats bordering the city of Riverside and swing north into the rocky buttes. Giordano's groves lay in there, in a sheltered valley between the stark rock formations. Grapefruit, lemons, tangerines, and avocados were grown there, but hardly in sufficient quantity to support the rich Giordano appetites. Actually, the groves had proved to be an excellent deduction for income-tax purposes; Giordano made money by losing money in his farming operation. As a legitimate business venture, the farm was a minor item in the varied Giordano interests, but it tied in neatly with his more secretive activities, serving as a sort of central clearing house for an underworld empire.

The Rolls was slowing for the turn onto the backroad approach to the groves. Giordano frowned and punched the intercom button. quot;What happened to our hide-and-seek pals?quot; he growled.

quot;He kept falling back,quot; the driver reported. quot;Lost sight of him about a mile back.quot;

quot;Pull onto the back road and stop,quot; Giordano commanded.

They made the turn. The heavy car came to a smooth halt. The black Continental proceeded on for several hundred feet, then halted also and backed down to within a few yards of the Rolls.

quot;Keep your eyes open,quot; Giordano snapped. quot;Dumbhead can't even play hide and seek. Soon as you see him coming, start up again, but slow. We don't want him to lose us.quot;

The driver poked his head out the window and shouted instructions to the car ahead. They waited. Giordano chafed. He lit a cigar after several minutes and growled, quot;Dumbhead! Dumbhead! How could he lose us on a country road?quot;

quot;Maybe he had car trouble,quot; the young man ventured.

quot;Aaagh! So where the hell is Bruno! Eh? Where the hell is Bruno?quot; He punched the intercom button. quot;So where the hell is brilliant Bruno, who knows the goddamn route, eh?quot;

quot;Someone's coming up!quot; the driver announced.

Giordano's head snapped to the window. He squinted down the road they had left minutes earlier, then made a disgusted sound deep in his throat. quot;A truck! A goddamn truck!quot;

A huge blue-and-white diesel van was sweeping up the road toward their position, a thin column of dark smoke ejecting from the overhead exhaust. Giordano watched its approach, his disgust growing. Two men were in the cab. As it thundered by, the driver sounded a salute on his air horn.

quot;Some ambush,quot; Giordano muttered. quot;Two dumbheads. One can't even play tag, and the other can't remember the route two times In a row.quot; He punched the intercom button. quot;Awright, go on. Go on, goon!quot;

Bolan had fallen off into a leisurely forty-mile-per-hour advance moments after leaving the freeway. Blancanales had remained at the cutoff to await the horse, which was several minutes behind.

quot;Heading into my kind of country,quot; Loudelk had reported. quot;Good place for a hit.quot;

quot;Play it cool,quot; Bolan instructed. quot;Rotate the track.quot;

quot;Okay. I'm falling back. Come on up, Zit.quot;

quot;Roj. Those bastards must be doing ninety. This old wagon is shaking apart.quot;

quot;Just eighty,quot; Loudelk reported. quot;Can't you overtake me? I'm dropping off to seventy . . . sixty. You'll have to push ninety, Zit, or you'll lose them.quot;

quot;I'm doin' a flat hunnert right now!quot;

Bolan grinned and stayed out of it.

quot;Bye-bye, Birdie,quot; Loudelk sang a moment later. quot;You're looking great. Hang in there, white eyes.quot;

quot;Okay.quot; Zitka's voice was strained with excitement. quot;I have them in sight. Don't get too far behind, Brother. Those cats are flat moving out.quot;

quot;Affirm. What's that up there on the left? Buttes?quot;

quot;Yeah.quot; Moments later: quot;Uh-oh. There's a fork up here. They're swinging north, into the buttes.quot;

Bolan jumped into the conversation at that point. quot;Tailor made for you, Brother. Pick a good spot to eagle for us. Say when and where.quot;

quot;Affirm,quot; responded Loudelk's cool whisper.

quot;Somebody better get on me then,quot; Zitka advised. quot;This old bomb may not hang together much longer.quot;

quot;Coming up,quot; Bolan reported. He power shifted the little car into a smooth leap forward, the tach climbing steadily toward the max line.

The voices of Harrington and Washington took over then, signaling the Horse's arrival on the Riverside cut-off. Bolan picked up the radio and said, quot;Welcome aboard. Close on me with all speed.quot;

quot;Gotcha,quot; Harrington replied.

quot;Have you been following the play?quot;

quot;'Firmative. Understand, north at the buttes wye.quot;

quot;You know this area, Guns?quot;

quot;Like my own little sandbox.quot;

quot;What's up in those buttes?quot;

quot;Not much. A few citrus farms. Couple of ranches.quot;

quot;Okay. Continue closing. Tracker, I've got you in sight now. What the hell happened to Brother?quot;

quot;Dunno. Saw a cloud of dust in my rear view a minute ago. Think he took a dirt road.quot;

quot;Tracker Two, report,quot; Bolan commanded. quot;Bloodbrother!quot;

An agonizing silence followed. Bolan was now deep into the buttes and casting anxious glances onto the terrain to either side of him. The Corvette hurtled on, maintaining the visual track on Zitka. Presently Loudelk's smooth baritone boomed in loud and clear: quot;Eagle is on station. Situation magnificent. Instructions.quot;

quot;Do you have quarry in sight?quot; Bolan snapped.

quot;Affirm, and half the country from L.A. to Riverside.quot;

quot;Report terrain conclusions!quot;

quot;Dirt road, leading east, about . . . three miles beyond present position of quarry. Greenery at end of road—trees, I guess. No other exits visible.quot;

quot;Break off ground track!quot; Bolan immediately commanded. quot;I want a wilco.quot;

quot;Wilco, and just in time,quot; Zitka responded. quot;I'm heating up.quot;

Bolan slowed his vehicle. quot;Where are you from my present position, Eagle?quot; he asked.

quot;You passed me quot;bout a minute ago.quot;

quot;Good. Maintain eagle watch and report developments. Backboard, you and Horse pour on the coals, get up here as quick as you can.quot;

quot;Roger.quot;

Zitka had pulled the Mercury onto the shoulder of the road and was standing beside it. Bolan stopped and picked him up, then resumed a leisurely advance. He thumbed on the transmitter and said, quot;Backboard, one of you transfer to the wagon. It's on the side track just ahead of you.quot;

quot;Roger,quot; Washington replied. quot;I'll take it.quot;

quot;Horse, keep closing until further instructions.quot;

quot;Roger.quot;

quot;You cooled it right, Maestro,quot; Loudelk came In. quot;They just pulled onto the dirt road and stopped. Like they're waiting.quot;

Bolan grinned and allowed the Corvette to begin coasting to a halt. quot;Good show,quot; he told Loudelk. quot;Maintain watch.quot; He swiveled about and looked behind him. quot;I can see your smoke, Horse. Keep rolling. Quarry has gone to ground about three minutes ahead. Proceed on beyond them, then come about at first convenient spot and hold. Backboard, fall back to the wye with both vehicles and look innocent. Report all passings onto this road.quot;

quot;Gotcha.quot;

quot;Backboard, roger.quot;

quot;Now,quot; Bolan said to Zitka, quot;we will separate the foxes from the hounds.quot;

Emllio Giordano was in a very nasty mood. Nothing could possibly be right at the ranch on such a day. He fired two of the freight handlers who were engaged in a playful slap fight at the loading dock; then he chewed on the ranch manager for not having an up-to-the-minute inventory of the warehouse. A few minutes later he physically attacked the nervous young man with the briefcase and told the world at large, in loud and certain terms, what he was going to do to Bruno quot;when and if he ever finds his way here!quot;

Bruno and the other four occupants of the rearguard Continental did show up about thirty minutes after Giordano's arrival. The grillwork of the expensive automobile was misshapen here and there, and the glass was missing from the headlamps.

quot;We got into an accident,quot; Bruno reported, his voice muted in the face of his employer's towering rage.

quot;We got into an accident,quot; Giordano mimicked in a mealy-mouthed twang. quot;You son of a bitch you! I oughta kill you! I oughta kill you!quot;

quot;Christ's sake, 'Milio, it could happen to anybody,quot; Bruno protested.

quot;It don't not supposed to happen to you!quot; Giordano screamed in tongue-twisting rage. quot;What if those bastards'd jumped me? Huh? Huh? Where was Bruno when those bastards jumped 'Milio, eh? I oughta ...quot; He stepped forward and delivered a stinging slap to Bruno's face, then hit him with the other hand.

The bodyguard stoically accepted the indignities, though paling somewhat with suppressed anger. quot;I couldn't help it,quot; he muttered. quot;We got into a tangle on the freeway, and we got hooked onto a cop's rear bumper.quot;

quot;A cop? A cop?quot;

quot;Yeh. That's why we were delayed so long. Had to show our licenses for the hardware; then they had to make out this full report on the accident, and ... well, the cops were pretty damn pissed off, too. I thought for a minute there...quot;

quot;Spare me,quot; Giordano groaned. quot;Spare me the dumbhead details. Get inna car. Get inna goddamn car! We're goin' back. Well start all over again.quot; He summoned the briefcase bearer with a wave of his hand, then shoved him roughly toward the Rolls.

The ranch manager was standing nearby, a strained expression on his face. quot;Lookit this,quot; Giordano fumed, turning to the manager. quot;I go to all this planning, I even bring my shakin' bookkeeper with twenty-five thou just to make the armed guard look legit for the cops, we come all the way out here—and for what? For what? For Bruno the Brilliant to lock bumpers with a cop car? Huh? Is that what it was all for?quot; His rage was quickly wearing itself out. quot;How much is in the exchange box?quot; he asked the manager.

quot;Seventy thou,quot; the manager replied. quot;You want to pick it up?quot;

Giordano nodded. quot;With my luck today, sergeant dumbhead will wander in here lost, an hour after I leave, and decide to knock the joint over.quot; He swiveled about and called Bruno. quot;Hey, Brains. Go get the box.quot;

Bruno got out of the car and followed the manager into the office. Giordano called after him, quot;Try'n carry it to the car without having an accident, eh?quot;

Minutes later, the small caravan was headed back along the dirt road, the white Rolls sandwiched between the two black Continentals, and this time with Bruno's vehicle leading. The bookkeeper sat quietly alongside Giordano, the briefcase on his lap, a small metal box between his feet.

quot;Hey, kid, I'm sorry I lost my temper, eh?quot; Giordano said quietly.

quot;Sure, Mr. Giordano. I understand.quot;

quot;Just one of those damn days, I guess,quot; Giordano muttered. quot;Guess it couldn't get much worse, eh?quot;

quot;I guess not, sir.quot;

But it did, very shortly.

quot;Motorcade on the trail,quot; Loudelk reported calmly.

quot;Roger,quot; Bolan replied. quot;Anything to our rear?quot;

quot;Negative,quot; Loudelk said, from his high observation point. quot;All clear.quot;

quot;Last thing through the wye was the dented Detroit black,quot; Washington reported.

quot;Roger. You set, Horse?quot;

quot;Horse is set,quot; Harrington's voice reported.

Then roll it.quot;

The whine of a motor-driven winch broke the stillness. A big boulder at the side of the roadway began to dance with vibration, then tilted and rolled abruptly onto the roadway. The winch was silenced. Zitka and Andromede ran out to the boulder, freed a network of cables, and dragged them into the shadow of a high butte.

The death squad could not have found a better location for an ambush. They were about midway between the blacktop county road and the citrus grove, at a point where the private dirt road curved abruptly to thread between two high-ridged rock formations. The roadblock was dropped directly into the eye of this needle, halfway through and just beyond a ninety-degree curve. The jeep had been unloaded from the horse and was angled into the shadow of the butte just beyond the roadblock, with its big fifty caliber commanding the situation there. Andromede was manning the fifty.

Zitka had the left flank, Bolan the right, both with light automatic weapons and with good cover on high ground that allowed a good triangulation of firepower.

Gunsmoke Harrington was at the front end of the needle, ahead of the roadblock. His six-guns were strapped low, and a light automatic was slung at bis chest. He would plug any attempted retreat.

quot;Coming up on one mile,quot; Loudelk reported.

Bolan thumbed the transmitter and snapped, quot;Roger.quot; Then, quot;Backboard, start your move. Hold at the junction of the dirt road.quot;

He received acknowledgements from Blancanales and Washington, then tossed the radio aside and waited.

They came on fast, as if they knew the road was their very own, the dust from the lead vehicles all but obscuring the third car in the file. Bruno swung the big Continental expertly into the curve, as he had done so many times before, and then was frantically grabbing for more brake pedal than he would ever find. Bolan could see electrified alarm replace the dreamy smile on the handsome face; he could see Bruno's body stiffening and the tightened fingers clawing at the steering wheel.

It was a long microsecond. Then the Continental was trying to climb the barricade and failing to do so as three tons of hurtling metal met sixteen tons of unmoving rock. The grinding crash sent a bodyless head arcing through the shattered windshield, to bounce along the quickly shriveling hood. The passenger compartment continued moving briefly after the forward part had come to rest, telescoping into the flattened engine compartment—and then the armored Rolls smashed into the rear, brakes screaming and horn blaring inanely. Almost instantly the third crash came as the rear Continental plowed into the Rolls.

To this bedlam was suddenly added the staccato chopping of the big fifty as Andromede began spraying the wreckage with steel-jacketed projectiles. A man staggered out of the third car, firing blindly into the rock walls with a pistol. A higher-pitched chatter responded immediately from both sides of the trap, and the man was flung backward, and down, and dead.

Incredibly, fire was being returned from the Rolls, and the heavy vehicle was rocking forward and backward, the powerful engine straining mightily as the driver fought to extricate the armored car from the jamming smashup.

It's a tank, all right,quot; Bolan grunted to himself, noting the battering-ram writhing of the Rolls. He snatched up his radio and barked into it, quot;Gun-smoke! Bring up the big stick!quot;

All three members of the fire team were now concentrating their assault on the Rolls, Andromede from almost point-blank range. Still it snorted and struggled like an enraged bull elephant caught in a bog, and still a sporadic return fire issued from it. Then Bolan caught a glimpse of Harrington sprinting around the curve, a long tube like object hefted onto his shoulder. He watched him approach to within 100 feet of the Rolls, then drop to one knee and sight in the bazooka. An instant later the familiar whoosh, fire, and smoke of the armor-piercing rocket was introduced to the Battle at the Buttes, the enraged bull elephant was enveloped in a deafening explosion, and its struggles immediately ceased.

quot;Awright, awrightlquot; a voice screamed out a moment later. A thickset man staggered out of the smoke and into the open.

Bolan sprang atop the rock that had served as his cover and called down, Time to pay the tab, Giordano.quot;

quot;Dumbhead!quot; the Maffiano screamed. His arm jerked up, and the .38 reported three times. The third report, however, was no more than the spasmodic reflex of a quickly dying muscle. Bolan had fired from the hip in one rapid burst that split the rackateer's body from groin to skull, and Il Fortunato was dead on his feet.

All in all, the battle had lasted less than two minutes. Zitka took a blackened briefcase and a metal box from the passenger compartment of the Rolls. The heavy weapons and the spoils were tossed into the Jeep. Andromede jumped behind the wheel and sped off toward the rear of the needle.

Zitka told Bolan, There's a guy still alive back there. In the tank.quot;

Bolan sent Zitka and Harrington on to the vehicles and went to investigate Zitka's report. He found a frightened young man cringing on the smoldering rear floor of the still-smoking Rolls, tightly gripping a bleeding shoulder.

quot;I-I'm just his bookkeeper,quot; the casualty moaned.

Bolan bolstered his .45, reached into his first-aid pouch and tossed a sterile compress onto the seat. quot;Know nothing, see nothing, say nothing,quot; Bolan growled. That way you may live awhile.quot;

The bookkeeper jerked his head in a vigorous assent. Bolan spun away and ran to rejoin the others. The jeep was already inside the van, and Harrington was pacing nervously alongside the retractable ramps. quot;Anything else for the horse?quot; he yelled, as soon as he noted Bolan's approach. quot;Not yet,quot; Bolan replied. quot;Pick up the wagon down at the blacktop. Then head for home—the long way.quot;

quot;Gotcha.quot; Harrington was already rolling the ramps into the van. Andromede hastened to assist him. Bolan and Zitka sprinted to the Corvette.

Zitka was reaching for the radio as Bolan spun the sportster around. quot;How do you say, Eagle?quot; he demanded into the transmitter.

quot;Clean, man, clean,quot; Loudelk's drawl came back. quot;And I missed all the fun.quot;

quot;Okay, split,quot; Zitka told him.

quot;Affirm, I am splitting.quot;

Bolan glanced at Zitka and said, quot;Tell Deadeye about the wagon.quot;

Zitka nodded and again spoke into the radio. quot;The wagon goes in the horse,quot; he said. quot;Backboard regroup in the Mustang and head for the stable.quot;

quot;Roger,quot; responded a strained voice. quot;Is anything wrong with Maestro?quot;

quot;Naw, I'm just riding shotgun and radio for him. God, it went great, great, and I think we got another boodle.quot;

quot;I see your dust,quot; Washington reported. quot;Glad it went good. Next time I want up front.quot;

Bolan grinned and reached for the radio. He depressed the transmitter button and said, quot;Good show, group, all of you, but play it cool now until we're home clean. Radio silence, beginning right now, except for emergencies. Read?quot;

quot;Read,quot; replied Deadeye Washington.

quot;Gotcha,quot; said Harrington.

quot;Affirm,quot; reported Bloodbrother Loudelk.

quot;Wilco,quot; Blancanales responded.