Firebase Seattle

But Bolan was not betting a nickel on the sanity of those two. He was betting entirely on himself.

4

Death touch

The AutoMag was a most impressive weapon. Developed by a West Coast gunsmith in the late sixties after years of frustrating trial and error, the autoloading .44 magnum was a triumph of weapon technology. The huge handgun measured eleven and a half inches from tip to tip, weighed three and a half pounds unloaded, and was constructed mostly of stainless steel. It was strictly a man's weapon — preferably a big man. It took a rather large hand and a well-developed grip to comfortably handle the piece. Designed primarily as a hunter's handgun, the big silver pistol would do most anything that a big-game rifle would do, except in extremely long-range situations.

The heavy loads in .44 magnum hollow-nose had hi-shock and instant knockdown capability at more than a hundred yards — which is the length of a football field. Bolan made his own ammo of cutdown .308 brass, using a powder charge of twenty grains behind a bullet of 240 grains, which produced a muzzle velocity of about 1400 fps. With such loads, the performance of the slickly-engineered weapon was truly outstanding and remarkably uniform. At twenty-five yards in combat stance, Bolan could rip a one-inch bull out of a target in rapid-fire. At a hundred yards, using a two-hand stance and firing deliberately, he could consistently group a full clip of the big bullets into an area the size of a man's head.

And that was some shooting.

Bolan had, of course, been a remarkable marksman since early in his army career. During those earlier years, however, his chief interest lay in the weapons themselves — the technical end. He was an armorer, with an almost instinctive understanding of weaponry from the very begi

For more than a year he had toured the country for the recruiting service, staging marksmanship demonstrations and — toward the end of that period — trick-shot shows, using rifles and handguns.

The traditional combat stance for shooting competitions is a sort of head-on crouch, knees slightly bent, weapon extended straight out from the chest in one hand, with emphasis on rapidity of fire and reload. Bolan had usually performed these demonstrations with a standard army version of the .45 Colt autoloader, and his speed was dazzling — ejecting spent clips and reloading in less than one second. As a variation of this routine, the youthful Bolan developed some interesting choreography for his audiences, changing stance with lightning speed — from combat to prone and rolling prone — while reloading and continuing to fire with incredible accuracy. He performed similar routines using a thirty caliber carbine and a light auto.

Then came Vietnam, and Sergeant Bolan's expertise was diverted into more serious applications of soldiering.

Now here he was on the Seattle waterfront, the formidable .44 at the ready — trick-shot time again with all his expertise invested in the outcome.

It was not a situation he would normally choose for himself. He much preferred to be in full command of a battle situation, from the pla

There were, of course, one or two items which he could partially control. And he did have the advantage of surprise to partially offset the superiority of numbers on the other side.

The jokers in the deck were, of course, Flora and Trinity — his nervous companions of the moment. There was no way of knowing what they would do once he cut them loose on their own. Bolan could only try to influence that open question.

Okay, stop right here," he commanded the wheelman. They had reached the point where Bolan had earlier encountered the lookout. The guy was nowhere in sight now.

Ontario Charlie brought the big car to a smooth halt.

"Turn on your parking lights!"

The wheelman did so.

Trinity was glaring tensely ahead. "They're still loading down there," he observed glumly.

"How many boys you say?"

"Eight, dammit. Eight damned mean boys. This is crazy."

"Only as crazy as you make it," Bolan reminded. "I'm getting out here, but I'll be no more than ten paces to the rear. At that range, Da

"Sit tight till when?" Flora croaked.

"Until the shooting starts. Then I suggest you dig a hole quick."

Da

"Watch me," Bolan told him, and stepped out onto the wharf. "Move it!" he commanded, and closed the door.

The limousine crept forward. The lights came up and choked on the heavy atmosphere, reflecting back to create a weird halo of light to the front.

Bolan fell to the rear and moved along the wall of the warehouse.

Halfway to target, two guys ran out onto the wharf beside the parked truck. The Mafia vehicle surged forward suddenly, horn blaring, picking up speed quickly in a heavy-footed acceleration.

Some guys just never knew when they were well off.

Bolan smiled grimly and punched them as he'd promised, four big rolling booms in rapid-fire sealing the fate of that plunging vehicle as the AutoMag leapt in full-throated response to the situation as an extension of the man himself. The rounds crashed in at shoulder level through the rear window in a deliberate search pattern.

They evidently found something. The limousine immediately heeled and tacked sharply to starboard, hit the warehouse, and went into a roll. Bolan sent three blind rounds thudding into the door on the passenger side as the vehicle went over. He ejected the spent clip and fed in a reload as he moved around the wreckage and into direct confrontation with the two hardmen on the wharf. They were already unloading on him, although without effect — their fire wildly adding further havoc to the shuddering vehicle. Even at ten yards, the guys were no more than indistinct shapes in the misty light spilling from the interior — crouching and backing into the warehouse an arm's length apart.

The AutoMag roared twice again with blazing rapidity, the double fire track touching both targets simultaneously and punching them over onto their backs in a dual slide to doomsday.

So okay. Two down and six to go — if Da

Bolan advanced to the open door of the warehouse and moved inside, presenting himself and inviting fire. None came.

A large cargo skid sat on the cement floor directly behind the parked truck. The big marine crate had been ripped open; the top and one end lay on the floor. Smaller crates were inside; others were stacked neatly on the bed of the truck. A guy in work clothes sat behind the controls of an idling forklift, his hands elevated, eyes scared. The lift was raised and bore a crate identical to those already loaded.

"Where are they?" Bolan growled.

The guy's head moved almost imperceptibly toward a glassed-in cubicle across the way.

"How many?"

"Two," the guy whispered loudly.

"You're betting your life on that number, you know."