Bolan's weapon of the moment was a portable artillery piece, the XM-18 semiautomatic launcher. It resembled nothing quite so much as an old-fashioned Tommy gun complete with pie-pan drum, but time had wrought some drastic changes in the formula. The smoothbore weapon chambered 40mm rounds and could deliver them with accuracy at one hundred fifty yards. An expert hand could place a dozen lethal rounds on target in the space of five seconds anything from high explosives and incendiaries to the deadly needlelike flechettes.
But at the moment, warrior Bolan's launcher was equipped with ammunition of a different nature. Cans of smoke and tear gas alternated in the drumlike cylinder with nonlethal batton rounds, specially designed for crowd control in riot situations. While the current mix would let him blind and gag an enemy, or knock him on his ass with stunning force, it would not deal a fatal blow to any man of average health.
The Executioner was rigged for battle, right but with a crucial difference. This time out, nobody was supposed to die. If blood was spilled, Mack Bolan did not want to be responsible.
And yet, of course, he would be.
He had already turned over the options in his mind, examined every facet. This was simply, undeniably, the only way to go.
He was breaking Toro out of prison.
It was the first time he had ever tried to liberate a prisoner from "friendly" hands, and he was pledged to bring it off without a bloodbath. Prison guards were like police in Bolan's estimation soldiers of the same side in his war against the savages who preyed upon a civilized society.
Their methods differed radically, and many of the men in uniform would drop him if he gave them half a chance, but soldier Bolan had preserved a unilateral ceasefire with law-enforcement officers from the beginning of his Mafia war. No matter what they did or tried to do in the performance of their duty, regardless of the strain of corruption left upon some isolated badges, Bolan would not drop the hammer on a fellow fighting man.
But the soldier was a realist. He was well aware that Toro's airlift out of prison would require some cover fire. A little something that would cause confusion, leave the guards a bit disoriented, and perhaps a little bruised.
The XM-18, with its riot loads, had solved the problem for him. If he played his hand with skill they could be in and out before the reinforcements gathered, bringing up the heavier artillery.
Mack Bolan pushed the odds out of his mind and concentrated on the countryside below. They were no longer following the highway, but a narrow asphalt ribbon sliced across the landscape off to Bolan's left. In front of them the prison compound was a tiny clutch of buildings, growing closer by the moment.
As they crossed the outer fence a mounted guard made visual contact, waving frantically to warn them off. When they ignored him, he removed a walkie-talkie from his saddle horn and started speaking rapidly into the mouthpiece.
Bolan marked the rider and dismissed him. He could never catch them now, and if they played it right, the reinforcements he was calling up would not have time or opportunity to cut them off.
It hinged on Jack Grimaldi now, and on their small remaining element of surprise. Assuming that the mounted guard had radioed direct to the command post, instead of warning personnel on duty in the fields, they had a chance.
Bolan primed the launcher, tucking it beneath his arm. He shrugged out of the safety harness, moving back to take his station in the chopper's loading bay. Below them, rows of crops flashed past beneath the Bell, almost close enough to touch.
They flew over another horseman and he wheeled around to follow them, brandishing the lever-action .30-30 that was standard issue. Convicts, scattered up and down the rows, were taking full advantage of the interruption, leaning on their hoes and shovels, watching the helicopter.
More cons below them now, more horsemen rapidly converging, driving mounts into a lather. Bolan spotted Toro in among the others. The Executioner knew Grimaldi had the Cuban now, as the bird began circling, hovering, preparing to land. The chopper's rotor wash flattened the rows of collard greens and forced men down there to shield their eyes.
They were a dozen feet from touchdown when Mack Bolan opened fire. He swung up the XM-18 and triggered three quick rounds, the belching muzzle swinging on a track from left to right. Two bursts of smoke erupted on the field, and in the midst of it a tear-gas can exploded, mingling noxious fumes with Bolan's artificial fog bank.
Grimaldi set the chopper down amid the greens, and rotor wash was working for them now, propelling clouds of smoke and gas across the field in an expanding screen.
There was mass confusion as the cons started shouting, gagging as they scattered, seeking daylight. Bolan saw a pair of riders bearing down on the helicopter, then the smoke screen cut them off from view. He lobbed another sputtering can in their direction.
Above the general din, he heard a guard attempting to bring order out of chaos, shouting at his charges, firing in the air. Off to Bolan's right another rifle cracked in answer, the bullet drilling through his smoke screen.
A mounted guard exploded into view, his animal colliding with a startled inmate, hurling him to the ground. The rider was fighting with his reins and rifle simultaneously, struggling to stay aboard and get a shot at the intruders. He was tracking onto target when the gelding made a break for cover in the smoke and dumped him off the starboard side.
He touched down hard, the .30-30 jarred out of his hand on impact.
The fallen convict scrambled toward the .30-30, retrieving it and fumbling with the lever action for a moment, finally chambering a round. Ignoring Bolan and the helicopter, he was sighting on the semiconscious guard, already tightening his finger on the trigger when the XM-18 roared.
The range was thirty feet and there was little need to aim. The hard batton projectile struck the convict underneath his arm and punched him over sideways in the dirt, his captured rifle spinning free.
A running figure cleared the smoke and Bolan recognized El Toro, sprinting for the chopper. Close behind him, three more inmates were intent on keeping pace, the nearest of them threatening to overtake him in the break for freedom.
Bolan swung his light artillery around to intercept them, but the Cuban was directly in his line of fire. To take out the leader he would have to topple Toro, and the other two were fading back now, legging it in single file to let their pointman take the heat.
The Cuban feinted left, and Bolan was about to drop his closest competition when El Toro spun around and drove a fist into the convict's sweating face. Momentum did the rest, and Toro's opposition touched down shoulders first, a tumbling rag doll.
His companions hesitated, breaking stride, and they were circling Toro in a pincer movement, Bolan and the chopper momentarily forgotten. One of them threw himself at Toro with his arms outstretched, talon fingers groping for the Cuban's windpipe.
Toro took him low and inside, catching him off balance with a slashing knee that crushed his genitals. The man doubled over, retching, and his nose was flattened by the toe of Toro's boot. He vaulted backward, unconscious before he hit the turf.
His backup was considering an angle of attack, but he never got the chance to follow through. A rifle cracked and Bolan saw the straw man airborne, pitching forward on his face beneath the deadly impact of a .30-30 slug.
The Executioner reacted swiftly, pivoting to face the source of gunfire. He spotted a prison guard some thirty paces to his right. The rifleman was seeking other targets, blind with panic now and desperate to do something, anything, before it was too late.
The launcher bucked and bellowed, sent another stunner out to close the gap between them. Downrange, Bolan's target hurtled backward, propelled into a sprawl by the batton round's impact. Bolan turned his full attention back to Toro, focusing upon the mission.