"Twisted Path" - читать интересную книгу автора (Pendleton Don)

6

A Bolan lowered the 7x50 Zeiss field glasses from his stinging eyes. His vantage point in the upper reaches of the rusting hulk of a disused crane allowed him to observe the activity in the bustling Los Angeles dockyard without the possibility of detection.

His attention was focused on the Pacific Rambler, two hundred yards away. Badly in need of a paint job, the small freighter didn't look capable of sailing out of port, let alone braving the Pacific waters.

The cargo carrier had arrived earlier in the afternoon from San Francisco. According to McIntyre, it contained the munitions that tomorrow would be loaded onto the Pride of Peru, destined for Lima.

For once luck had been on the warrior's side. It was simple good fortune that the arms dealer had timed a delivery so conveniently for Bolan. Less than six hours had elapsed since their conversation, long enough for him to contact Kline, grab a commuter flight to Los Angeles, dress as a workman and choose his observation post.

Bolan had gotten all the information he needed from the arms merchant, except a list of the cargo itself.

He had been sure that McIntyre would refuse to give specifics over the phone, and just asking the question might have caused the wary dealer to clam up.

The late-afternoon sun was creeping toward the horizon. The shadow of the crane where Bolan lay concealed stretched immense over the banks of warehouses below.

The sweating stevedores had unloaded several pallets of goods already, but nothing had triggered an alarm in Bolan's head as yet.

The workmen were waved off for a break as the last heavy barrels of a chemical shipment were stowed onto a stretched flatbed truck. The oversize rig moved laboriously toward the exit gate, diesels grunting under the load.

The white-hatted foreman and an assistant toting a clipboard loitered near the gangplank, glancing down the dockyard road as though on watch.

They were not disappointed, for ten minutes later a grey Ford arrived, followed by a canvas-topped two-and-a-halfton truck. Three men in jeans and matching jackets spilled from the Ford, followed by a burly man with a full beard. Tubs appeared to be the leader, for the foreman singled him out and began to shout and point to his watch.

Bolan guessed that the crew boss was forcefully reminding the newcomers that it was nearly quitting time.

The discussion ended when the bearded man pulled a brown envelope from an inside pocket and handed it to the foreman. Work resumed within moments.

One of the newcomers disappeared into the hold with the work crew. Two large men climbed from the truck to pull back the canvas top. One after another, three pyramided pallets swayed up from the bowels of the hold and were deposited in the rear of the truck.

Each was covered by a tarpaulin, shielding the contents from Bolan's eyes.

After a ritual of form signing, the dockyard workmen sauntered away, bound for the nearest tavern to spend their bonus. The Ford and truck traveled in the opposite direction, deeper into the maze of warehouses that lined the docks.

Bolan watched the truck take the fourth left and then the second right before it disappeared from his binoculars. He waited until the activity had subsided, then cautiously climbed down from his perch' making a last-minute weapons check. His stained blue workman's coveralls concealed the holstered thunder. He was ready to start plugging the pipeline of death. This was one weapons deal that was going to go down hard.

Damn hard.

Bolan wandered the lanes between the warehouses, hoping to spot the truck and guard crew. It had been a calculated risk to remain so far from the dock that he couldn't follow the cargo when it was unloaded. But he had expected that the armament wouldn't be moved farther than necessary before being reloaded in the morning. Now it was only a matter of time before he ran the men to ground.

This remote area of the dock seemed to be deserted. Early-evening shadows filled the spaces between the neglected warehouses. The faint scuffing of Bolan's shoes on the cracked asphalt seemed magnified.

A sporadic hammering resounded from somewhere dead ahead. Bolan edged closer, ears cocked to pinpoint the source.

The hammering seemed to emanate from the next warehouse ahead on the left, a ramshackle structure with traces of faded blue paint peeping through the peeling battleship-gray overcoat. As the warrior approached, the sound increased in volume.

As Bolan halted outside towering double doors, the erratic noise ended and was followed by a few inaudible shouts. No light penetrated the doors, so Bolan had no idea of what was going on inside.

He continued on, looking for a way to do a reconnaissance of the situation before plunging in. He had no intention of dropping guns blazing into unknown territory, particularly when he was unsure that this was even the right spot. The strategy and tactics of staying alive had taught the warrior to know his enemies and their dispositions.

He had learned the lessons well.

Around the far corner, the warrior found a window that looked into an office. He chanced a quick glance and recognized the bearded leader of the work detail stooped over a battered desk, facing away from the dirt-encrusted panes. The leather of a shoulder holster crisscrossed his back. Peering through the grimy window, Bolan could see right across the office and into the main area of the warehouse. He spotted the squat deuce-and-a-half bathed under roof lights. The rest of the work crew was outside his line of vision.

Bolan circled the warehouse, looking for an unobtrusive way in.

On the side opposite the office, a medium-size window stood twelve feet aboveground. There was no way up the side of the warehouse without a grappling hook, an item that Bolan didn't possess at the moment.

An idea flashed to mind. He retraced his steps down the lane and along to the next warehouse.

Ranged by a platform were ten fifty-five-gallon drums labeled Acetic Acid. Bolan tipped each one in turn. Nine were full, and probably weighed five hundred pounds apiece.

Fortunately one was more than half empty.

Bolan heaved on the last in line, easing it onto the heavy metal rim. He then carefully wheeled it down the lane, balancing the drum on an angle such that he had only to guide it. A few minutes' work saw two full drums below the window, with the half-empty one beside them. With a muscle straining effort, Bolan lifted the third canister into place, creating a secure pyramid.

He scrambled to the top. The window ledge was now just above waist height. The window was locked, but when the hammering inside reached a momentary crescendo, Bolan rapped a small pane with the butt of the Beretta, shattering the glass. He reached through to flick open the catch.

In seconds, Bolan lay prone on the edge of an upper-level loft, peering at the activity below.

Four men were working in pairs around the pallets that had been removed from the back of the truck. As Bolan watched, two of the men picked up a long crate and carried it to a separate area. They dropped it into a slightly larger and deeper crate, so that the original container was completely concealed. The two men added a precut sheet of plywood, which rested on the edge of the box inside. Gathering several spades from a supply in a corner, they covered the crate of guns with a layer of farm implements. A few more minutes' work with a hammer and a paintbrush, and the load of guns was transformed into an innocuous shipment of rakes, hoes and tractor parts from the California Machinery Company.

It would take a very suspicious customs inspector to discover anything unusual about an apparently ordinary delivery of farm tools.

Very neat, Bolan had to admit. No doubt the paperwork was just as efficiently done. In some foreign capital, a less than honest official would be pocketing the bribe necessary to sign the papers showing that the arms had really arrived. Payment would be made to the McIntyre Arms Corporation in the normal manner but siphoned back to the phony customer through a dozen tortuous legal and accounting tricks. With the documentation complete, no one would suspect that anything was out of the ordinary.

Until these guns were used to kill people in Peru.

The Executioner wasn't going to let that happen this time. Payment was due in full for what had gone down already, and he was going to collect.

Starting now.

Bolan had seen what looked like an Uzi resting against a box between the workers. No doubt more firepower lay around the area within easy reach. Five to one odds. Not bad, particularly with the advantage of surprise. However, he didn't want to chance that the guy in the office might signal McIntyre before Bolan arrived to deliver his own personal greeting. He decided to be patient a short while longer and see if a better opportunity presented itself.

Bolan's moves were restricted as long as he was on the upper level, so his first problem was to find a way down without alerting the crew. Discarding the coveralls to increase his mobility, he crept to a rear corner stairway that led to the lower level. The ground floor was littered with old packing materials and drums, so it would be easy to conceal himself once he got there. But he'd have to wait for a distraction, since the stairwell was in plain sight of everyone below.

He resumed his watch, steeled to the waiting by long hours of suspense on a thousand battlefields.

Hurry-up-and-wait was an experience familiar to every soldier, and Bolan had learned to master the boredom without sacrificing his alertness.

Sometimes the numbers counted down fast, and when he had, Bolan could move with the speed of a striking cobra. But he believed that when time allowed it was better to let the other guy make the mistake, the momentary inattention or bad move that made the difference between life or death. It was always a gamble when the Executioner went into battle. One stray bullet by a panicked gunner could obliterate the best-laid plans. War was sometimes a matter of luck, and you had to take your chance and roll the dice with your life bet on the outcome.

But the secret was knowing how much to leave to chance.

In half an hour the workmen had finished packing the illegal arms. The bearded guy emerged from the office to inspect the handiwork, and after a cursory check, he gave his okay. One of the crew jumped aboard a parked forklift, rewed it up and loaded the truck.

Bolan decided that this was the best opportunity he'd have. Unleathering the Beretta, he padded down the stairs, eyes fixed on the chatting group. He was conscious of the stairs creaking under his feet, although the noise couldn't penetrate far above the roar of machinery.

He found an ideal spotting post behind a large old boiler, which afforded a clear view of the office and the single exit, as well as the area around the truck.

When the last crate was stowed, the driver switched off the lift and joined his friends. Bits of conversation drifted to Bolan's hideout, informing him that the guard was to be relieved in eight hours.

Three of the workmen departed while the remaining two made themselves comfortable for the long watch ahead. One pulled a holstered pistol and a small radio from a cloth bag and settled them on a box. He lit a cigarette and tuned in to an L.A. Kings game.

The other gunman sat beside his Uzi and pulled a comic book from a shopping bag.

The two gunners were on the opposite side of the warehouse, near the office entrance. Both were facing the door, although "watching" was too strong a word for the minimal attention they were paying to their job.

Bolan waited another few minutes to be sure that one of the other three wouldn't return for some reason, then began his stalk.

Circling wide to the far end, he eased his way through the dimly lit edges of the warehouse.

Part of his attention was focused on the lazy guards and part was required to make sure that he didn't slip on any of the abundant oil slicks or walk into cast-off bits of garbage.

It would be so easy to just pick off the thugs, seize the weapons and turn them over to an openmouthed Kline. But the agent had been adamant that the big guy keep his hands clean and leave the muscle to the Bureau.

Bolan had to smile as he recalled his brief conversation with Special Agent Kline from a telephone booth at the commuter terminal of San Francisco International.

"Kline? Blanski. I want you to get your team together and be ready to move at my signal. I've got a few things to check out first, and then we should have McIntyre in the bag."

The announcement for the flight to L.A. interrupted him as he was about to sign off, giving the Fed an opening.

"What the hell are you talking about, Blanski? Where are you? I didn't authorize any of this." Bolan could almost feel the receiver heat up in his hand as Kline's anger was transmitted across the connection. "Blanski, I want an explanation and full details."

"You'll get what I give you, and that's all you're getting now."

"Who the hell do you think you are? There are procedures that must be followed, and I'm not about to blow this case on account of some undisciplined renegade, even if you are connected." The sarcastic emphasis on the last word was not lost to Bolan.

Kline clearly had no appreciation of Bolan's take-charge way of doing things. He obviously hadn't learned that procedure was of little value when the top-ranked crime mongers were involved. The criminal elite were rats, clever and wary, and if you gave them even a second's head start, they would take advantage of the delay and scramble back into the gutters and garbage piles where they'd come from.

Still, a little PR wouldn't hurt, but he had better be fast. The last call for Flight 602 to L.A. rang through the busy terminal. Bolan softened his tone slightly. "Don't worry, Kline. I'm just going to recce the situation and relay back. Then you can swoop in for the kill."

The agent seemed slightly mollified; either that or he recognized when he was outmatched.

"Listen up, Blanski, and listen good. I want this reconnaissance of yours clean."

Here it comes, Bolan reflected, the FBI by-the-book lecture. He knew it by heart and had to restrain himself from just dropping the receiver and letting Kline ramble on to himself.

"In other words, look but don't touch. The minute, and I mean the very minute that you have anything, I expect this phone to ring. Make no mistake, if you so much as muss the hair of any of the suspects your ass will be wrapped so tight in interagency paperwork that you'll be lucky if you ever get out from under. And I don't care who you're working for. You got that?"

"I heard you, Kline." Bolan hung up and ran for the plane.

He shoved Kline's warning into his mental file under C, for crap, then coiled for action.

Fifteen feet away from the two guards, Bolan let loose with the Beretta, one silenced round exploding the radio into chips of circuit board and flying plastic.

"Don't even think about it," Bolan growled as the two men spun to face him. The man on the left, the older of the two, settled back with an expression of anger written across his face as he slowly raised his hands above his head. He didn't spare a glance for the holstered pistol three feet in front of him.

The second guard was young, long-haired and muscular. Eyes flickering back and forth between Bolan and the Uzi just beyond arm's reach telegraphed the kid's foolish impulse.

"Get your..." Bolan barked, but the kid made his move anyway, falling to his left. Battle-trained reflexes gave the proper response, and the Beretta spit a 3-round burst as the guy dived for the Uzi.

All three rounds grouped around the gunner's left ear, blowing his brains in a red hail over his bag of superhero comics. Bolan felt no remorse. The kid's own stupidity in making a suicide play had killed him.

That's what happened when comic-book fantasy was confused with real life.

The surviving gunner raised his hands a little higher, eyes bulging as his companion collapsed across the Uzi.

Bolan knotted the other man's hands behind his back and rapped him behind the ear with the Beretta. He collapsed onto the floor, without a sound.

The Executioner looked down at the two bodies. "Sorry, Kline." He then padded into the office and rifled the drawers. The only item of note was a clipboard containing the manifest of the shipment. Bingo!

Bolan rolled back the warehouse doors and drove the deuce-and-a-half into the night, pausing to shut the doors behind him. He gunned the rig toward the gate, fingering the FBI badge in the name of Michael Blanski that he would use if the gatekeeper gave him any trouble. He still had a lot of ground to cover before morning. As the warrior roared away, the office phone began to ring.

Bolan had plenty of time for thought on the lonely drive up the coast. This end of the pipeline was closed or would be when he caught up with McIntyre so the mission was just about wrapped up.

Or was it?

The load he carried convinced Bolan that this was only a part of the mission he had set for himself, a mission that didn't confine itself to borders or briefings or favors for the Justice Department.

If these weapons didn't arrive, it would only be a matter of time before some other greedy vermin passed a cargo of death into the hands of the Shining Path.

Bolan wasn't so naive as to believe that only he could make a difference, or that he could settle a problem that had an entire country teetering on the brink of civil war.

The big man had known of the Shining Path for some time now, and he had despised their fanaticism, a mania that led to murder in the name of freedom. Holding the truths of justice and equality as their banner, the Shining Path had become a twisted path leading to destruction.

The ideals they once stood for had become corrupt in the withered, skeleton hands that reached out to the oppressed peasants, a knife clasped to slit the throats of anyone who didn't want their particular brand of comradeship. Justice and freedom had been forgotten long ago, reduced to meaningless phrases mouthed by crazies whose only reality was a smoking gun.

The names changed, from Red Brigades to Black September to Shining Path. But the hand holding the knife pointed at the heart of innocent pawns of political terror tactics always stayed the same.

Bolan had planned to visit the Shining Path in their mountain retreats one day, but it was a big world, with violence exploding in what seemed like every corner.

It was hard to know where to begin, which was the current priority, since at every turn a hundred targets abounded for the Executioner's fury.

But this mission had tied him to the Shining Path, even if the string was thin and insubstantial. He wasn't about to walk away.

Several hours later, Bolan eased the rig to a stop in the San Francisco dockyard. The arms had come back full circle to where they had departed from a few days ago.

Kline and his men were waiting as Bolan had instructed during a quick call from a truck stop along the route. To say the agent was angry was an understatement. His ego was bruised from losing control of what had been his case, and he was hell-bent on making the big guy pay for the "minor, but necessary casualties" that had been left in the warehouse.

While Kline was steaming, waiting for Blanski's call, the ID report on the guy had come in.

Surprisingly it had shown that the man was really Michael Blanski, a war hero with a biography that made him the next thing to Michael the Archangel.

One thing that jumped from between the lines of the rundown was that Blanski had some very powerful political connections, so potent that Kline, who had the nose of a bloodhound for politics, could smell the touch of the White House.

To make matters worse, a few hours later he had been awakened at 4:00 a.m. by an assistant to the director, calling from Washington.

Kline was informed that he had come to the director's attention. The director had been admonished for questioning the Justice Department's direct involvement in this affair. Needless to say, the director didn't relish being admonished, nor did he look favorably on subordinates who involved him in such a predicament. Kline was urged to cooperate fully with Mr. Blanski in future. The director wished to be kept informed of the progress of the case. With that the phone went dead.

Kline got the message. One more screwup and he might find himself teaching fingerprint identification in Montana. Or worse.

He had resolved to maintain a very low profile where Michael Blanski was involved, but to keep lots of notes just in case. Now, remembering the conversation with Washington, Kline suppressed an urge to quiz the man on how he had acquired the truck.

Bolan spoke first. "McIntyre is in it up to his neck. Just check this." Bolan tossed over a clipboard. He didn't bother to explain the circumstances behind the body in the warehouse. He hoped to keep his distance and didn't want any complications with the police.

Kline flipped through the invoices, a low whistle escaping from between tightly pursed lips. Listed on the yellow sheets were enough deadly toys to supply a small army. Apart from a couple of cases of small arms and ammunition, the shipment contained fragmentation and thermite grenades, rifle grenades, antipersonnel and antiarmor mines and two cases of Stingshot antitank rockets. A real surprise was the load of Jackhammer combat shotguns. Able to fire four 12-gauge shotgun blasts per second from a preloaded ammo cassette, the Jackhammer was a deadly close-assault weapon.

Kline was excited by the captured arms, practically dancing with anticipation. "This will make excellent evidence. I have no doubt that we can tie it back to McIntyre. He should get ten years. Although, of course, I was hoping to get him for Sharp's murder. But I suppose we can hope for a confession. Or maybe further evidence will surface when we raid the plant. I'll be able to get a search warrant with this."

"No."

Kline's jubilation turned to anger as Bolan halted him in full flight. "No? What do you mean, no? This is evidence!"

Bolan's eyes bored into the agent's.

"It won't be evidence, Kline, because I'm taking it with me. Why do you think I had you meet me at the docks? That ship behind us sails in a day for Central and South America. And those weapons are going to be on that ship. Is that clear enough? And one more thing. About that body in the warehouse, don't even fantasize about pinning anything on me."

He didn't enjoy playing the heavy when it involved coming down hard on people in the law-enforcement community. But sometimes there was only one way to deal with guys like Kline, who were used to running things their own way you stepped on their toes until they apologized to you for getting their feet in your way.

"But if you take the stuff away, how will we make the case against McIntyre? Are you going to let him get away with this whole business?" Kline didn't bother to hide how annoyed he was at the possibility that McIntyre might escape punishment. Bolan liked him for the first time since they had met.

"Don't worry, Kline. Just make sure that you handle your end properly. I want all of this forwarded to Lima and stored in a warehouse. I've left written instructions with the invoices. Handle the paperwork and leave the rest to me. McIntyre won't get away with anything. I'll see to it personally." Bolan grinned, a tight humorless smile that reminded Kline of the toothy snarl of some feral cat.

Kline didn't ask any more questions.