Well, never put off till tomorrow ... no time like the present ... and all that old shit....
Only the last slug of the three-shot burst got Bolan, and he went down, partly from the shocking impact of the slug, but mainly because the shots had come from so close. How in hell had he let that happen! He cursed himself.
His back felt afire, but he did not feel anything loose or busted apart inside himself, so maybe he'd had more luck than he deserved. Bolan had no way of knowing he'd been shot only because the hardman was off his post, that he belonged where Bolan had seen the gap in the house-patrol, that he was a junkie nicknamed Drymouth, and that Riarso had sneaked away from his post to give himself a jolt of morph and just happened to see Bolan; and with the euphoric high just hitting him solidly, lifting him ten inches off the ground, Drymouth ripped off a burst at the man-sized shadow he saw moving toward the house. Drymouth had to protect the house. Frig that old don. Drymouth had to protect Tony Guida. So he shot whoever he thought he'd seen sneaking up on the house.
Bolan lay on his back and waited, gritting his teeth against the pain. From hunter he had in an instant become prey. He was shot and down, fifty yards from Don Cafu's house. Somewhere in the dark behind him was the man armed with a submachinegun who had shot him. It was miles back to his weapons cache, and the malacarni camp lay between him and his heavy weapons. What was it he'd told himself earlier that day? Laziness killed more men than caution ever did. I got lazy. I got overconfident. I walked in like I owned the joint, and got blown up.
Still, Bolan waited, unmoving, breathing shallowly and silently through his wide-open mouth.
Then he heard the shooter coming. Lying on his back, Bolan saw him emerge from the shadows, and Bolan shot Drymouth through the right eye. Riarso took his Last Trip ever. He took an OD of Mack Bolan, The Executioner.
Bolan rolled over on his stomach and shoved up on his knees. The pain in his wound took his breath, and for a moment the pain was so bad Mack Bolan could not believe it. He put the Beretta on the ground, then felt high up under his left arm and around over his back. The slug had gone into the heavy muscle up fairly high, just missing the shoulder blade, then Bolan felt sticky wet on his right wrist, and probed lightly with his fingertips. The bullet must have hit a rib, skittered along it and emerged almost directly under the armpit. There was a small puckered exit hole, slightly shredded at the edges.
Bolan thought, this isn't possible. The brachial artery runs right through there somewhere; it's probably nicked and I'm bleeding to death like a faucet inside my body cavity. Bolan remained there on his knees, waiting for the dizziness, the faintness proceeding death. Nothing happened ... except the excruciating pain that went on and on and on.
Bolan retrieved the Beretta and knee-walked to the dead.
He searched the man, astonished to find two morphine syrettes wrapped in a handkerchief in one pocket, exactly the same kind of syrettes used by combat medics. Bolan did not hesitate. The pain was too bad. He could not hope to function, keep his senses clear and alert while fighting such intense pain. He peeled back his left sleeve, made a fist, felt with his fingertips and found the vein, slipped the needle in and squeezed the small plastic container, shooting the morphine into his bloodstream.
Within a minute, Bolan felt the pain diminish enough so he could think past it. He also felt drowsy, but knew he could overcome that. He dropped the remaining syrette into one of the leg pockets of his blacksuit in case he absolutely had to use it later on.
Bolan took a compress from his combat med-kit, put it over the bullet-exit hole and clamped his left arm down over it; he put another compress on the hole in his back. With his right hand, Bolan slipped the dead man's belt from the body, then the necktie. Holding his arm clamped to his side, but leaving his left hand free, Bolan tied the belt and tie together, fashioned a loop, slipped it over his head, fitted it across both compresses, then drew it as tight as he could stand, mashing the bandages into place over the wounds. For a moment he rested there on his knees, head hanging, dripping sweat, muzzy and faint. He'd have given almost anything for a cigarette, and the safety in which to enjoy the smoke.
He bolstered the Beretta and drew the dead's submachine gun to him, an MP40/1 Erma — 9mm Parabellum full automatic, fitted with a folding stock made of two metal rods and a buttplate. When full, the long box magazine held thirty-two rounds, so it should still have twenty-nine loads in it, Bolan thought. Even many would-be experts called this weapon a Schmeisser machine-pistol, but it was an Erma even though some of the million-plus made during World War Two had been turned out by Schmeisser under subcontract. Bolan found two more full magazines and slipped them into his carrying pouches just as the front door of the big house flew open and a man stepped out, shouting, "Who shot? Who fired those rounds?"
No one answered and the man shouted again. "Check in, by the numbers!"
To Bolan's surprised pleasure, the man shouted in English, and the answers came back likewise. At least some of them were studying their English: Post One, okay; Post Two, okay....
At Post Three the answers stopped. Tony Guida cursed, then shouted viciously, "Riarso, you son of a bitch! Answer up!"
Bolan knew then who'd shot him, who'd he'd killed, whose Erma he now held.
Guida called for Four, Five and Six, and the soldiers answered at once. "Okay, scout around. That stupid goddam Riarso shot one of the soldiers coming down from camp, so fan out and find them. The soldier's name is Gino, maybe's he's still alive."
"Hey, Tony," one of the guards called, "you wanna use the jeep?"
"No, you lazy shit, I don't wanna use the jeep. Find that Gino first, dumbhead, scout up the road. I'll personally take care of that buttfaced Drymouth."
Mack Bolan could hardly believe his luck, except he'd made his luck.
Muttering curses, the hardmen left the house grounds and came out to the road, formed a loose line across it and the drainage ditches, and began moving toward the camp. Bolan watched them go, but he kept track of them by their shouting back and forth even after they vanished in the darkness.
Bolan sprinted across the road and the grounds and came to a halt in the shadows of the house, back pressed against the ancient stone wall a few feet from the front door.
This was not how he'd planned it, but now he had a target of opportunity.
The target of opportunity.
Inside this house, protected by at least one, but probably no more than three hardmen, was the man Bolan had come to Agrigento to kill. The man who'd put a whole new face on "this blessed thing of ours"; training hitmen, assassins, enforcers, ruthless malacarni who could turn the streets of any American town into a vicious, deadly jungle. Men who could turn back the clock in the States, so that parks, and front lawns and streets became open fire-fields between warring factions. Some dream Frank, The Kid, Angeletti had for himself, seeing himself as Scarface Al Capone, ruling whole cities by armed force, so powerful even the police became powerless — the corrupt bought off, the straight cops blown up.
Bolan slipped to the corner of the house. In the back yard, beside an old-fashioned barn with stone walls and a tiled steep roof, stood a U.S. military jeep. Bolan grunted with satisfaction. If he took the house down quick, fast, right, it wouldn't be so far back to his heavy weapons cache. Now he had wheels.