Edge Of Hell. Don Pendleton

the head, ripping off another burst, but the big man’s skull and shoulders were back behind the protection of metal-skinned containers. Hollowpoint rounds sparked off steel, and the soldier stopped shooting.

      The London giant was not going to be easy.

      The Ultimax’s barrel of the Ultimax poked around a corner, flaming, but Bolan was as well entrenched as Westerbridge. This would keep up until the law responded to the gunfire and explosions.

      With his back to the hard concrete wall the warehouse’s office stood on, Westerbridge was hard to approach.

      Bolan’s eyes narrowed, and he stuffed a new 40 mm shell into the breech of the grenade launcher. The stubby little M-576 round held scores of buckshot pellets, making the M-203 the equivalent of a sawed-off shotgun.

      The Executioner stepped into the open, figuring his angles like a pool player, and triggered the blast from the rifle-grenade launcher combo, spitting out pellets in a sizzling barrage at the concrete embankment at Westerbridge’s back. The big gangster might have been unapproachable, but the swarm of round projectiles struck stone hard. Some embedded in the concrete, others bounced and sprayed back in a fan of peppering projectiles.

      The gangster growled and grunted in rage and discomfort, stumbling into the open and spraying wildly. His pant leg on one side was soaked with blood, and his face was twisted into a mask of fury. Bolan felt two hammer blows strike him as he sidestepped. One round smashed his weapon from his fingers, plucking it from his hands and sending it hammering back into his chest. A second impact rolled off his vest-protected shoulder, the hit feeling like someone had dropped a small safe on his collarbone.

      Westerbridge’s Ultimax locked open empty, but Bolan could see that the man had a massive revolver holstered, and another light machine gun slung over his shoulder. Right arm numbed, Bolan was slow in grabbing for his Desert Eagle, his left hand instead twisting and plucking the Beretta from its shoulder holster, trying to outdraw the huge mobster.

      But Westerbridge wasn’t going for a fast draw. Instead, like a freight train, he lunged at Bolan, using the empty Ultimax like a spear and jarring Bolan’s left forearm. The Italian machine pistol went flying from the Executioner’s numbed fingers, but he managed to swing up his right fist, stuffed with the Desert Eagle, to jam it into Westerbridge’s gut.

      The wounded giant didn’t even flinch from the impact, nor did he react to the first gunshot that exploded against his heavily muscled, Kevlar-wrapped side. Instead, massive arms slammed down on Bolan’s shoulders, driving him to his knees with almost crippling force.

      “I told you! I told you, but you didn’t believe me!” Westerbridge shouted. “You’re gonna get like that Kightley bitch, except I’m twisting your head all the fucking way off!”

      Bolan hooked his right arm behind the giant’s good leg and yanked back hard, punching the Englishman hard in the crotch. Westerbridge toppled backward, arms windmilling, fat, stubby fingers clawing at air and crates to keep from crashing to the floor. It was to no avail, and Bolan kept up the attack. Even as the British kingpin’s foot left the floor, Bolan rolled forward. Using his own broad, muscular chest for leverage, he heaved with all the strength in his right arm on the big man’s leg, hammering his left elbow with punishing force into Westerbridge’s lower gut. The sound of a popping knee joint accompanied a strangled belch and the smell of vomit in the wake of the attack.

      The Executioner lunged off Westerbridge’s body, grabbing the Beretta and the Desert Eagle. His right arm still felt like limp spaghetti hanging from a battered shoulder, and his left forearm still tingled from the gangster’s chop, but he twisted, aiming both cannons as Westerbridge was clawing for his revolver in its holster.

      There was no contest this time in the fast draw. Bolan had the drop on Westerbridge and triggered both his handguns, only marginally recognizing the feeling of a heavy .44-caliber slug rolling across his ballistic-nylon protected ribs. The big man’s head exploded. One lifeless blue eye stared at the ceiling, the other dangling from its socket from the impact of a .44 Magnum slug that had cratered his cheek.

      The Executioner staggered to his feet, breathing hard. He shrugged his right shoulder, and from experience knew that it was only a minor injury, at worst a hairline fracture. He was certain that his left forearm was similarly bruised and battered from the way it tingled. Everything else, he could tell from a few twists of his torso, were mere bruises.

      Bolan looked at the corpse at his feet, and frowned.

      He wouldn’t have much time to rest and mend.

      There were plenty of murderers like Westerbridge in the world, and perhaps because the Executioner had waited too long to take his shot at the English kingpin, a cop was dead.

      The howls of London’s police cars reached his ears.

      It was time to go.

      2

      Mack Bolan stopped at his war bag, sore and aching, but the first thing he did was pull out a bottle of antiseptic, no-rinse cleaning gel, and squeezed a healthy blob into the palm of his hand. Rubbing them together, then across his face and up into his hair, he smelled the rapidly evaporating alcohol content of the gel burning in his nostrils. After a few moments, his hands and face were dry, and the smell of gunpowder and blood on him was cut by half. He pulled out a packet of paper towels and gave himself another squeeze of the gel, and wiped the grime off his hands and face, so he wouldn’t look like he’d just been engaged in a commando raid.

      The approaching London police cars were small little boxes that the Executioner knew no American lawman would ever want to be driving around in. He stuffed the broken Colt SMG and its grenade launcher into his war bag, and covered himself up with a boot-length black duster that he had rolled up inside.

      The Underground entrance at Brunel Road wasn’t busy at that time of night, and dressed in black, with his collar flipped up, he didn’t look so much like a badass as someone trying to dress too hip for his age group. Bolan wasn’t interested in making the cover of GQ, though, so he didn’t worry about what people thought of the big guy in a black turtleneck, the duster and boots. In fact, he encountered more than a couple of people who made him look positively tame, adorned in black leather and gleaming, reflective steel studs and body piercings.

      He collapsed into a seat on the train and allowed himself to relax, rummaging a bottle of acetaminophen out of a side pocket of his bag and swallowing four of them dry. The ache in his bones subsided some as they came out from under the river and stopped at Wapping to take on and let off passengers. By the time he reached his stop, he was feeling refreshed and revitalized.

      Getting up and out of the Underground system, he jogged north, stopping occasionally along the way to check for any tails.

      There were no hunters in evidence, so Bolan pulled a bottle of water from his gear bag and took a sip, then continued walking toward the bed-and-breakfast where he’d rented a room.

      Bolan passed a small synagogue and was crossing Nelson Street when a police car crawled around a corner. The soldier lowered his head and casually stepped into an alley without skipping a beat.

      His shoulders tightened, instincts kicking into gear, footsteps softening to mere whispers as he gently put his weight on the balls of his feet. The war bag was lowered gently to the ground, the duster’s front flap opening so that Bolan could reach the Beretta 93-R under his left arm.

      He’d ducked into the alley to avoid police attention, and anything louder than the sound-suppressed Beretta would bring that weight down on him like a ton of bricks.

      The Executioner had sworn an oath long ago—never to take the life of a lawman trying to do his job. He didn’t think that would be a risk. London policemen were rarely armed, and any cops who did pack heat were members of the famous “Flying Squad.” And by all reckoning, the Flying Squad would be back at Rotherhithe, all the way across the river, cleaning up the carnage of Westerbridge’s shattered empire.

      Danger was always present, though. He remembered that