False Front

But this time the picture was of Charlie Latham. The Texan had indeed exited the Cherokee. Somehow he had even made it to cover beneath the vehicle.

Coming to a halt on his stomach, the Executioner extended the big .44, gripped in both hands. The four men still in front of him had expected him to rise to his knees and their auto-volleys raged high over his head. Bolan pulled the trigger back once more and watched a man wearing a mud-stained yellow T-shirt take the result between the eyes. The top of his head disintegrated from the nose up.

Three down, three to go. But that didn’t count the attackers on Latham’s side. Or the two men posing as auto accident victims to his front. In the back of his mind, as the front dealt with the more immediate crisis, the Executioner registered that the phony drivers seemed to have disappeared.

Bolan swung the .44 left again, letting the front sight fall onto a burly, bare-chested Filipino wearing nothing but camouflage pants. His long, straight black hair was tied back from his face with a white cloth. The white made a perfect target. The Executioner let the sight fall on the bright strip across the man’s forehead then pulled the trigger. The would-be kidnapper lost the top half of his head the same way his friend had.

With four of the assailants on his side now down and out of the game, the Executioner rolled behind the Cherokee and came up onto his knees, his head just above the bumper. On Latham’s side of the vehicle he saw two men firing at the Cherokee. One .44 Magnum round took out a clean-shaven kidnapper wearing blue jeans and a BDU blouse. A second after he’d pulled the trigger, the Executioner saw a faint red dot appear on the black T-shirt of another man. The sun was too bright for Latham’s laser sight to be at its best, but at close range it could at least be seen. He heard a boom from beneath the car and the man in black went down.

Bolan smiled inwardly as he fought on. The red dot meant that both the Crimson Trace laser sight and Charlie Latham were still working.

Another massive Magnum round from the Desert Eagle took out a young Filipino with an acne-pocked face. Now, with both sides temporarily clear, the Executioner dropped the near-empty magazine from the Desert Eagle, jammed a fresh load between the grips and transferred the big gun to his left hand. As he drew the Beretta 93-R with his right, rounds continued to pepper the vehicle from the front.

Bolan took advantage of the short pause in the action to evaluate the situation as it now stood. He didn’t know how many men Latham had been able to take out. He did know if Latham was still alive. The man might well be wounded but he had to find out the Texan’s status before he went on. Latham’s condition would have a major effect on his next moves.

The Executioner leaned down under the bumper. “Charlie!” he yelled over the cacophony. “You all right?”

“I’m not hit if that’s what you mean!” Latham yelled from beneath the vehicle. “But ‘all right’ might be stretching it a bit. I’ve been—” Yet another barrage of rifle fire drowned out whatever else he had to say.

Bolan had ascertained Latham was unharmed, but that could change at any second. There were still two men with pistols in front of the Cherokee. Still a pair of AK-47s blasting away near the front on the Cherokee’s passenger’s side. To reexamine his battle plan, it was imperative that he find out exactly how many men were still in the fight.

Round after round continued to bombard the Cherokee. Jamming the Desert Eagle into his belt, the Executioner quickly unscrewed the sound suppressor from the Beretta. There were times when you needed a quiet weapon. Other times you wanted noise and confusion. This situation fell into the latter category.

Bolan’s arm snaked around the rear bumper, firing a blind burst of three 9 mm rounds toward the two men still on the passenger’s side. Then, without hesitation, he leaned the other way and triggered the Desert Eagle twice.

Then he stood.

In the fraction of a second during which he was forced to make himself a perfect target, the Executioner saw three bodies on the ground—one he remembered shooting himself, the others evidently fallen to Latham’s Browning. Two other men stood near the corpses. They started to swing their AKs his way as the Executioner’s eyes skirted to the other side of the vehicle.

The two men he had left standing on that side still fired away full-auto. More shots—slower, from pistols—came from behind the parked cars in front of the Cherokee.

Bolan nodded to himself. That had to be where the phony accident victims had taken cover.

Bolan hunkered down behind the Cherokee a half second ahead of a thunderstorm of 7.62 mm rounds that now sailed his way. Dropping to his belly, he saw Latham’s shadowy form still under the car. The Texan turned to look at him as the Executioner squirmed beneath the bumper toward the right rear tire well. Latham lay on his back, the Browning Hi-Power aimed toward the passenger side of the vehicle. As the Executioner moved beneath the Jeep, his head passed within a foot of the Texan’s.

Latham turned to face him in the shadows. “What I was trying to say earlier, before we were so rudely interrupted,” he said, “was that I’ve been better.”

Bolan grinned as he moved in farther beneath the Cherokee. T. J. Hawkins had been right. Latham could definitely keep his cool under fire.

When he’d come as close as he dared to the edge of the vehicle, the Executioner could see two sets of legs from the knees down. Without hesitation, he extended both hands. The man on the right caught a .44 Magnum round in the shin. The man on the left took a 3-round burst of 9 mm rounds in an ankle. Both men fell to the ground, screaming. Mercy rounds from the Beretta ended their suffering.

The Executioner crawled backward again.

“How many left?” Latham whispered as he passed.

“Two to the right,” Bolan whispered back. “And the two guys faking the accident. Behind their cars.”

“I hit one of them on my way down here to this hobbit hole,” Latham said, looking up at the Jeep’s undercarriage. “Don’t think it killed him, though.”

Bolan emerged from beneath the back bumper, his brain taking in the fact that the quantity of return fire from the kidnappers had withered considerably. Part of that, he knew, came from the fact that many of the riflemen had been killed. But there was more to it than just that.

The kidnappers—if that’s what they really were—had outnumbered the Executioner and Latham twelve to one when the gunfight had begun. They’d planned on an easy snatch of two unarmed foreigners if ransom was their game. Or an easy kill if Subing had sent them to assassinate him. But now, regardless of their motives, within sixty seconds or so, they had lost three-quarters of their manpower. That had a way of playing on the mind and they had to be wondering just what kind of men they’d run into. Which, in turn, was causing them to hesitate.

Bolan leaned down beneath the bumper once more. “Roll out on the driver’s side and cover me,” he ordered Latham. “On three. One, two—”

The Executioner rose up as he said, “Three!” stepping out to the side of the Cherokee. The final two men who had emerged from the jungle on his side of the car had indeed been hesitating. But they had obviously made their decision.

They were one step away from returning to the brush when Bolan shot them with a double tap from the Desert Eagle.

In his peripheral vision, Bolan saw Latham standing next to the open driver’s door. The Texan held his Browning in both hands, sending a slow but steady stream of .40-caliber hollowpoint rounds into the parked vehicles. At this distance, the laser sight was unusable in the bright sun, but Latham was proving he could shoot without it.

The Executioner turned away from the road, leaping over the body of a man he’d shot earlier and darting into the leaves and vines. Quickly, while the men behind the vehicles were concentrating on Latham, he made his away through the foliage until he had gone past the point where the cars were parked.

From there, it was easy.

The Executioner saw that Latham had indeed hit one of the men high in the arm. The man had ripped half his shirt off and tied it around the wound in an attempt to staunch the blood. But the makeshift bandage wasn’t working; crimson fluid drained past his elbow and along the limp limb before splattering onto the asphalt.

Bolan flipped the Beretta selector switch to single shot. With plenty of time to use the sight, he lined the weapon up on the injured man and squeezed the trigger.

A lone 9 mm round streaked from the 93-R into the injured man’s temple.

The other man behind the car whipped his face over his shoulder to stare at the Executioner in shock. The reality of what was happening suddenly spread across his face and he tried to turn farther, swinging his pistol around with him. He didn’t make it.

A second 9 mm round entered his open mouth and blew out the back of his skull.

Suddenly what had sounded like a Chinatown fireworks factory exploding became as quiet as a graveyard. Bolan stepped out of the trees and walked forward. Quickly he stopped by each man he passed to be sure none of the bodies would suddenly rise from the grave to shoot again. All were dead.

The Executioner met Latham between the kidnappers’s parked cars and the Cherokee. “We’ve got to clean this place up and hope one of the vehicles still works,” he said, glancing over his shoulder to see the Ford Fairlaine resting on its rims, all four tires blown out. The Chevy had lost only one tire but water dripped from the punctured radiator. When he stepped forward, the distinct odor of gasoline filled the air. Turning back to the Cherokee, he saw that while the body was riddled with holes, all four tires were still intact. Bolan nodded at the vehicle. “See if it still starts,” he ordered Latham. “And while you’re there, grab my sound suppressor off the ground behind the rear bumper.”

As the Texan walked toward the Cherokee, Bolan began to lift the bodies and drag them toward the jungle. Behind him, he heard Latham’s car cough to life. Or at least a half life. Something beneath the hood had been hit and the timing was off. And a periodic ping meant the half life wouldn’t be long, either.

The Executioner tossed another body into the brush, reached down and sent the AK-47 the man had wielded flying out of sight. In addition to no longer having any faith in the engine, the bullet-ridden Cherokee would be a mobile sign attracting attention they didn’t need. It was time for another change in plans. He’d just have to hope this vehicle would get them out of the immediate vicinity and back into town where they could appropriate a more reliable and less conspicuous mode of transportation.

With the engine still choking and coughing, Latham joined the Executioner in hiding the bodies. When all but two of the attackers had been hidden, they pushed first the Ford, then the Chevy off the road onto the shoulders. Setting a body behind both steering wheels, they turned the dead eyes to face each other across the highway.

To anyone passing, it would look as if two drivers had met on the road and pulled off to have a quick conversation. At least it would look that way as long as no one noticed the pools of blood spotting the asphalt.

Bolan glanced at the mutilated autobody as he hurried to the Cherokee again. Latham’s Jeep looked as if someone had methodically gone over it with an awl, punching holes every half inch into the body. He ducked inside as the Texan took his place behind the wheel again.

“This thing’s gonna stand out in Rio Hondo like an ex-husband at the bride’s second wedding,” Latham said.

The Executioner shook his head. “Change in plans,” he said. “Turn us back toward Zamboanga. We need some new wheels.”

Latham immediately saw the wisdom in the order and didn’t argue. He threw the Cherokee into drive, made a U-turn in the highway and started back toward the city. As soon as they were moving he stuck his tongue into his tobacco can. Twice.

Miraculously, there had been no traffic during the few minutes of the gunfight. But now, having gone less than a hundred yards, a rusty, primer-painted Datsun topped the hill, heading toward them. As the war-damaged Cherokee chugged on, Bolan adjusted the rearview mirror and watched the reaction of the elderly Filipino behind the wheel.

The old man passed the parked cars without giving either of the dead drivers a second look.

As they drove away from the scene, Latham frowned.

“You okay?” Bolan asked. The man had proved himself to be a more than adequate warrior, living up to what Hawkins had promised.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Latham said. “Just trying to remember something.”

It was Bolan’s turn to frown now. “What?” he asked.

“Whether or not I made my last auto insurance payment,” the Texan said.

The Executioner’s frown curled into a grin.

CHAPTER TWO

Bolan was faced with a problem: ditching the bullet-ridden Cherokee and finding a set of wheels that blended with the local atmosphere of Rio Hondo. He and Charlie Latham were going to look out of place as soon as they stepped out of any vehicle. He didn’t need a stand-out car to announce their presence ahead of time adding to that problem.

Dusk fell over the island of Mindanao as Latham drove past Fort Pilar and Bolan pointed toward an intersecting road. He had studied a map during the flight to the Philippines and knew the road curved around the southeast corner of Zamboanga, eventually merging with General V. Alvarez Street and leading to the heart of the city. By the time they reached the downtown area twilight had become nighttime.

Beggars and gangs of youths began to appear on the streets as they drove. The Executioner was reminded that every city, in every country, in all of the world, had its share of “night people,” men and women who were never seen when the sun was in the sky but emerged from robber’s dens, crack houses and from under rocks as soon as darkness fell. Zamboanga seemed to have more than its share of such people.

But not all of the night people were evil, Bolan knew. Many were simply unfortunate.

The soldier pointed Latham into a left turn onto Lorenzo and more groups of shiftless teenaged boys appeared in front of the stores and other businesses lining both sides of the street. Angry black eyes set in berry-brown faces stared into the Cherokee as they passed. The Executioner could understand their anger. They had been born into a world of poverty and sorrow with little hope of ever escaping. But anger alone changed nothing. Anger put no food on the table. It purchased no medicine for the sick. It didn’t change a dirt-floored house into one with tile or carpet. And now, the loathing in the black teenage eyes that watched the Cherokee pass changed to fury, which Bolan knew would produce tomorrow’s terrorists if men like him didn’t work for change.

Latham had finally had enough silence. “What are we looking for?”

Bolan started to answer, then stopped as the Buick Century Custom they’d been following for the past several blocks pulled over and parked on the street a half block ahead. “That,” he told Latham, nodding toward the windshield. As the driver’s door opened, the Executioner’s eyes turned toward the sidewalk where yet another gang of teenagers leaned slothfully against the plate-glass window of a small café. As he watched, a dark-skinned man wearing a black-and-white checkered shirt stepped away from his cohorts and grinned at the car. The man was incredibly tall by Filipino standards—probably just under six feet. As he swaggered toward the Buick, the driver got out, walked to the sidewalk and handed the taller man a key ring.

“Pull in behind them,” the Executioner said.

Latham followed orders as Bolan studied the man who had just driven up. Actually, calling him a man was stretching the term if not a complete misnomer. He was well under five feet tall and looked to be around thirteen. The taller man took the keys and slapped him on the back with his free hand. The child who had driven the Buick beamed as if he’d just become the new president of the Philippines.

“Well, there’s a rough one to figure out,” Latham said as he halted the Cherokee ten feet behind the Buick.

Bolan chuckled as he opened his door. Car theft was as common as kidnapping on Mindanao with older boys often using the younger ones to actually perpetrate the crimes. Just as in the United States, the younger the criminal, the more likely he would get a light sentence or get off altogether, if caught. Now, as the Executioner stepped out and up onto the curb he saw the tall man, the driver, and half a dozen other Filipino youths turn his way.

Although smiles appeared on many of the faces, the young men didn’t look happy. Their expressions were more like what could be expected on the face of a wolf upon spying a particularly large sheep.

Bolan could hear low chatter among the men as he walked forward. Here and there, he heard a snicker as some of the younger ones pointed at him and spoke. Behind him, the Executioner heard Latham exit the Cherokee, the Texan’s sandals flapping on the pavement with each step he took.

“Normally I’d say stopping to chat with these guys wasn’t the smartest idea in the world,” came the Texas drawl behind the Executioner. “Of course, it’s all in your point of view, I guess. Compared to what we just finished doing, it pretty much pales by comparison.”

The voices were clear now but in a dialect unfamiliar to the Executioner. Stopping five feet from the man in the checkered shirt, Bolan turned to Latham as the Texan fell in at his side. “You understand them?” he asked.

Latham shook his head. “They’re Samal,” he said. “One of the indigenous Manobo tribes. Got their own dialect.”

“They speak Tagalog, too?” Bolan asked.

“I’d imagine,” Latham said. He pulled out his can of tobacco, opened it, snaked his tongue inside then stuffed the can back in his pocket. With a smile on his face, he looked at the young men in front of him and spit out a fast mouthful of the national language. Bolan caught only the word “Pilipino.”

The man in the checkered shirt smirked, shrugged and held out his hands, palms up. The rest of the Filipino gang-bangers laughed.

“I asked him to switch languages. He’s acting like he doesn’t understand me,” Latham said.

“But he does,” Bolan said.

“Hell, yes, he does. He’s just got to screw with us a little to save face in front of his boys.” He sighed quietly. “It’s all part of the game.” Pausing again, he turned slightly toward Bolan. “You do realize that they won’t be able to resist trying to rob a couple of Yanks like us, don’t you?”

“That’s what I’m counting on,” Bolan said.

“Yeah, well….” Latham chuckled and shook his head in disbelief. “Okay, what do you want me to tell them next?”

Bolan looked the tall leader in the eye and grinned. “Tell him we’d like to trade cars with him. The Cherokee for the Buick he just stole.”

“Oh, that’ll go over big, I’m sure.” Latham cut loose with another flurry of undecipherable words.

The man in the checkered shirt leaned to the side and looked at the bullet holes in the Cherokee. When he answered this time, he did so in Tagalog. Whatever he said brought riots of laughter from the others.

Bolan glanced to his side.

“It’s a little hard to translate directly,” Latham said. “But, loosely, he said the Cherokee has more holes in it than your father’s prophylactic must have had.”

The Executioner chuckled politely. But he was quickly growing weary of this whole game. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a large roll of paper money. “Tell him we’ll throw in a few extra pesos to cover the holes.”

The eyes of the tall leader fell on the money and his smile turned predatory again. Still staring at the Executioner’s hand, he spoke again, pointing to the alley behind him.

“Do I need to translate that?” Latham asked. “He wants to go—”

“He wants to do the deal in the alley.” Bolan shoved the money back into his pocket. “Tell him that’s fine.”

Latham spoke, then waved his hand toward the alley. The tall leader and the others fell in around Bolan and Latham, escorting them toward the dark opening between the buildings. The dialogue between the young men went back to the Samal dialect and with it came the return of the snickering. In the shadowy light from the overhead streetlight, Bolan could see that each and every one of them believed they had just met the two stupidest Americans who had ever been born. Now, they were leading the sheep to slaughter.

The Executioner walked calmly on as the tall man in the checkered shirt reached out with his left arm and took Bolan’s, much as one might do to help an old lady across the street. He seemed to have no perception whatsoever that he has herding not a sheep but a sheepdog.

Twenty feet into the alley, the group halted. Dim light filtered in from the sidewalk and high above them on the roof to Bolan’s right a spotlight brightened the barred-and-locked back door to the building. Still holding the Executioner’s arm with one hand, a flash of silver suddenly appeared in the gang leader’s other hand. What little light was available seemed to be drawn directly to the object, which sparkled brightly as it began to swing through the air accompanied by a series of clicks and snaps.

Bolan would have recognized the sounds even if he hadn’t seen the knife. Although it had originated in the Philippine Islands, the balisong had become a worldwide weapon and various versions were now manufactured all over the planet. He was about to reach out to grab the gang leader’s wrist when the man suddenly dropped his arm and stepped back.

The balisong began to dance through the air, making circles, squares and cutting figure eights. The man holding the knife stepped under the spotlight in front of the alley door. Amid a chorus of oohs and ahs of awe and delight from his young minions, he continued to open and close the wings of the butterfly knife.

“Want to just shoot ’em?” Latham whispered. “Of course it’d be sad to see so much worthless talent go to waste.”

Bolan ignored him, watching silently as the leader finally finished, clamped the handles together in his fist and holding the balisong threateningly out in front of him.

“Does this mean the show’s over?” Bolan asked.

He was a little surprised when the man in the checkered shirt nodded. “Unless you would like to become part of it,” he said in overly dramatic, heavily accented English. The wolverine grin had returned to his face and, standing beneath the spotlight, he actually looked more like an actor on stage than a man with a knife in the middle of a robbery.

“Excellent grammar,” Latham chimed in. “And here I was wasting all that time translating.”

“We will take the money and both cars,” said the man in the checkered shirt. “If you are lucky, we will let you two leave with your lives.” He opened and closed the balisong one final time for effect. “Do you feel lucky, punk? Well, do you?”

“Oh, man,” Latham said. One hand shot up to his face to cover his eyes. “This is getting really embarrassing now.” He turned to Bolan. “Everybody in the Philippines loves movies, but they get them pretty late.”

Bolan had had enough of the whole Bruce-Lee-Dirty-Harry show. With one smooth movement he swept the tail of his chambray shirt back past the Desert Eagle, pulled the big .44 Magnum pistol from his belt and stepped forward. Using the heavy weapon as a club, he brought the barrel down across the wrist holding the balisong. A sharp, snapping, almost nauseating crack of bone filled the alleyway as the gleaming blade flew from the gang-banger’s hand to clatter onto the ground.

The Executioner jammed the bore of the big .44 into the man’s forehead. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that Latham had drawn his Browning. The red laser-dot moved back and forth from chest to chest as the Texan covered the rest of the gang.