Savannah Swingsaw (5 page)

"Wait outside," Rodeo told the guard, who grinned and left. The door closed behind him with a hollow thud.

Bolan was silent. He eyeballed each man carefully, analyzing from the way they moved what their strengths and weaknesses were. He didn't find many weaknesses.

The three men faced Bolan in the narrow corridor like a wall of malignant flesh, their hard thick bodies tense and bristling. The flat, crudely made blades shone dully in their hands.

Behind them, Rodeo chuckled.

There was no way out. On the other side of the door, their bribed guard was waiting. On this side, three armed bone-crushers and one bald giant with spikes on his knuckles.

Some choice.

"You boys can cut him up some," Rodeo was telling them, "but I want him alive." He hoisted his studded knuckles. "For these. My tenderizers."

Bolan fell into his combat stance, feet apart, weight evenly distributed. The corridor was too narrow for any fancy moves, but if he could get the knife away from one of those guys, he might just have a chance. Slim, but a chance.

The first to step forward was the heavy one with the matted hair on his arms and neck, the one whose face Bolan had ground to guacamole dip earlier that day. The nose was pushed to the left now with blood crusted darkly at each nostril. Raw tracks swirled across his face where the skin had been raked away.

"Easy, Bradley," Rodeo cautioned.

"Watch him." Bradley lumbered forward, his long blade stabbing the air in front of Bolan.

Bolan backed up, keeping a few feet between him and Bradley. He watched the hands, the shank flipping back and forth between them as the man with the raw face tried to catch Bolan by surprise. "Get his nuts," one of the other guys encouraged. The third man nodded, but didn't say anything. He was the one whose teeth Bolan had kicked out. Bolan glanced over his shoulder at the thick glass window in the door. The guard who'd escorted him here had his face pressed against the glass. He was grinning, chewing his gum excitedly. He reminded Bolan of those guys who like to watch dogfights, cheering the dogs on until one has gnawed through the other's throat, leaving his dying body convulsing in the dirt.

"Come on, big man," Bradley said. His eyes looked huge and white set in that pulpy skinless face. His knife tattooed the air in front of Bolan's face.

The Executioner backed up another step, but there was only three feet between his back and the door.

He didn't want to get cornered here, so he had to make his move. Soon. He feinted to the left, then kicked up his right foot, trying to catch Bradley's knife hand. But this time the heavy man was ready. He pivoted away from Bolan's foot and slashed at it with his shank. The knife caught Bolan low on the shin, slicing through his heavy pants and socks, plowing open a furrow of skin all the way to the bone. Bolan felt the blade's bite, the blood soaking into his sock.

Bradley's eyes lit up when he realized he drew blood. Bolan could swear the man began to drool as he grew even hungrier for more. He plunged forward, a little too anxiously, his shank flicking upward toward Bolan's face. The Executioner yanked himself back just as the blade hissed by his right eye. Then he ducked under the knife, knocked Bradley's arm into the wall and drove his fist straight into the fat man's throat. Bradley managed to tuck his chin down enough to deflect much of the punch's power, but still he staggered back from the blow, flopping against the door of one of the solitary confinement cells.

He clutched at his throat with one hand, rasping while his other hand swung his knife at Bolan like a scythe. He moved toward Bolan on unsteady legs, his knife arcing back and forth, sizzling through the humid air. Bolan was backing up again. The shank nipped closer and closer to his stomach. Behind him, the door was only two feet away, the guard grinning through the glass. Bolan looked up from the probing knife into Bradley's savaged face. The scab tracks made him look even wilder, almost deranged. C'mon, Bolan thought, this isn't where it all ends. Not yet. Not here. Too much to do. For Hal, for April. For himself. The Executioner shrugged off the defeatist thoughts. He parried a quick thrust from Bradley and decided he'd played the guy's game long enough.

With no weapon and no place to run, he took a giant step back, his shoulders bumping into the door, then slid under the chopping blade, knocking Bradley's thick legs out from under him. The knifer toppled over and Bolan was on him like flames on gasoline. He twisted the shank out of the dazed man's hand, lifted the blade over his head with both hands and plunged it into Bradley's chest, puncturing the heart. Blood sprayed up over his hands and along his forearms. The struggling body went flaccid beneath him and he yanked the bloody knife out and faced Rodeo and his two men.

They stood unmoving.

Bolan glanced over his shoulder and saw the guard was no longer peering in the window. Had he gone to get help? No time to worry about that now. Bolan still had three armed men to face, and they weren't going to make the mistake of coming at him one at a time.

The door behind him burst open and Lyle Carrew sat there in his wheelchair, shaking his head at what he saw. "A party and no one invited me?" He rolled through the door, his wheels running over the hands of the unconscious guard.

"Stay out of this, Carrew," Rodeo said. "Ain't none of your business."

"I don't know about that, man. This fella stole my shank, then lets your bozo guard take it away from him. Guy like that needs a lesson."

Rodeo smiled, fingered his braided hair. "Just what he's about to get. You welcome to join in, get a piece."

Carrew tapped his shank against his palm, thinking.

"Nah, I guess not. Guess I'll just take him back to the cell and handle it my way."

"No way," the toothless henchman growled.

"Boone's right, Carrew. You best get your ass the hell out of here. Otherwise you're buying his trouble. That what you want?"

"Nope. It surely isn't." He backed up into the doorway, his wheelchair holding the door open, but blocking any exit. He dropped his shank into his lap, then began tugging at the armrest of his chair. It popped free. "I told this big dumb guy that he was on his own. That you'd be eating his liver for dinner."

"What're you doing?" Rodeo asked, stepping closer.

"I warned him. Didn't I warn you, Blue?"

"You warned me," Bolan said.

Carrew nodded. "See? I warned him." He pulled a piece of the aluminum tubing free from the chair. It was about a foot long. Then he began dismantling some of the spokes from the large wheel of his chair. They popped right out. "Me, I'm only in for a few days, maybe a few weeks, depending on how pissed that judge is that I yelled at. Contempt of court, no big deal. Am I right?"

"He's right," Bolan said to Rodeo.

Carrew twisted the spokes into six-inch lengths.

They looked to Bolan as if they'd been specially made that way, to break into those sections. Carrew leaned over the side of his chair and pried the unconscious guard's mouth open, probing inside with his fingers, then smiled when he found what he was looking for. The wad of chewing gum.

"What the hell you doing?" Rodeo snarled.

"Minding my own business, man. The only difference is...." He tore a hunk of gum from the wad, rolled it into a ball between his thumb and fingers, then stuck it on the end of one of the wire spokes. He inserted the spoke into the cylinder, put the tube to his mouth and pointed it at toothless Boone.

Carrew sucked in his breath, and puffed his cheeks out as he blew into the tubing. The makeshift dart whooshed down the corridor and pierced Boone's throat just below the Adam's apple.

Boone's eyes widened with surprise as his hands flew to the spike and plucked it out. He started to speak, but the words came out in a croak.

Blood was seeping from the little hole in his neck, leaking air, puffing pink foam around the hole.

"As I said," Carrew continued, "the only difference is that I'm shaving the odds a bit. Little trick I learned from an Indian tribe in South America."

Boone dropped his shank, clutching his hand around the hole in his throat, gasping for air. He started for the door, his interest in this fight over.

"Where you going, Boone?" Rodeo demanded.

"Doc... tor," Boone croaked.

"No one leaves I..." But Boone stumbled ahead. Suddenly Rodeo leaped at him, grabbed the back of Boone's shirt and smacked him in the back of the head. The tiny brass studs punched through the skin and hair, drilling through the bone. The momentum of the blow caved in the whole base of the weakened skull. Boone's knees buckled and he fell face first onto the floor.

Blood bubbled out the back of his head and sieved through his oily hair. "You wanted fair," Rodeo rasped, "you got fair. Two against two. Me and Sanders against you and Blue."

"Not exactly what I had in mind," Carrew said, loading another spoke into his tube and puffing it into the face of Rodeo's lone remaining henchman, Sanders.

The dart drilled through the cheek, enough to scare him but not enough to do him serious damage. But while Sanders was plucking it out, Bolan let fly his shank down the eight-foot-long corridor. It flipped end over end like a propeller until it finally thudded solidly into Sanders's chest. Sanders looked down at the protruding shank for a second, more annoyed than anything else, then suddenly his legs melted out from under him and he was sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall. He tried to speak, but his tongue flopped inside his mouth like a beached dolphin. He died trying to pull the knife out of his chest.

"Now this is what I call fair," Carrew said. "One on one. And I'm out of it. Go ahead."

Rodeo looked suspicious. "You ain't gonna help him?"

"No." Carrew looked into Bolan's eyes. "I've got a feeling he wouldn't have it any other way."

Bolan smiled. "You read people pretty well."

"Okay, okay. Then let's get on with it," Rodeo said. "You giving him your shank?"

Carrew shook his head. "No." Then he turned to Bolan. "I told you you were on your own."

The two gladiators squared off in the concrete arena, circling each other. The Executioner's heart was pounding and his fists were clenched. Not out of fear, but determination. The crazy thing was that, yeah, he really did want to fight it out now. Even his short stay in the prison had gotten to him. Despite his planning and information gathering for the escape, the inactivity of the place, the damned boredom, combined with the constant tension, had taken something out of him. Sapped his energy, his fierce drive. Now he was getting it back.

Somewhere out there, maybe even inside the prison, getting closer every minute, was Zavlin, the master assassin out to exterminate some poor kid who was sitting shivering in his cell. Inside that kid's head was something that was a threat to the KGB and Bolan had to know what that was. And soon. The only thing in his way was this bald, six-foot-six maniac with the studded knuckle-dusters.

Bolan wanted him.

Bad.

Lying on the floor between Bolan and Rodeo were the three bodies of Rodeo's dear friends. Two of their shanks were on the floor, the third buried deep in Sanders's chest.

Bolan was about to make a dive for Boone's shank, when Rodeo attacked, hurdling his fallen buddies as if they were piles of dirt. He screamed through clenched teeth, stampeding at Bolan like a madman, his braided tail trailing like a flag.

Bolan kept his eyes on Rodeo's hands, the brass studs winking in the light. He'd managed to drop the giant once before, but that was when he'd taken him by surprise. This time there would be no such advantage. Rodeo was right in front of him now, swinging a roundhouse that could demolish a tree.

Bolan ducked under it and the fist swished overhead, smashing into the wall. The studs chipped four holes into the concrete. Bolan angled past him toward the only shank not near Rodeo. The one nailed into Sanders's chest. The Executioner somersaulted down the corridor, rolling to his feet beside the body. Sanders's hands were still gripped around the shank where he'd tried to dislodge it. Bolan pulled at the hands, trying to loosen the fingers.

No time.

Rodeo was on him again, swinging those lethal fists. Bolan sprang to his feet, bobbing and weaving a couple of punches. He stepped inside one left hook and pounded Rodeo in the cheek. The giant's cheekbone shifted slightly, the skin ripping along the bone. A lightning bolt of blood etched down his cheek.

Rodeo was more cautious now, holding his fists up, but not wasting any energy on wild flurries.

He seemed determined to make each punch count. The tattooed snakes seemed fatter and meaner as the muscles in his arms flexed.

Bolan backed up, away from Sanders and the shank.

Now the blades were all at the other end of the hall, along with the exit. He'd have to go through Rodeo to get to them.

Bolan didn't expect any more help from Lyle, didn't really want any. Carrew had seen that this was Bolan's fight, that Bolan was fighting more than just one man, more than just Rodeo.

He was fighting what Rodeo was, what he stood for. Despite all appearances about "Blue" — the phony identity, the criminal record. Carrew had been able to see that much. Even now Bolan knew Lyle was probably debating with himself, tempted to toss him a shank, or spit a dart into Rodeo's neck. But Bolan didn't want his help now.

It had nothing to do with any adolescent notions of bravery, of proving himself or showing his cause was the stronger. He knew being right wasn't always enough, didn't always win battles. Yet sometimes there were doors you had to enter alone, maybe for no other reason than you didn't want to.

This was one door he was going through. Without knocking.

"Come on, Blue," Rodeo taunted, closing in. "Let me see what you got."

Bolan stopped backing away, squared his shoulders. Rodeo grinned. "I'm going back out there with your eyeballs stuck on the ends of these knuckles. Two from you, two from your black friend."

Bolan shrugged. "With that many eyes, maybe you'll be able to see this coming next time." And he snapped a front kick straight into Rodeo's chest. The chest bones dented inward as three ribs cracked from the impact.