Tennessee Smash

CHAPTER 1

He was rigged for soft penetration-clad in black skintights, lightly armed with the silent Beretta as head weapon, a Crossman air pistol, stiletto and garrotes-hands and face blackened for maximum invisibility.

The target was a nondescript warehouse, undistinguished from the many others in this active river port, squatting gloomily in the deep darkness of the witching hour. A feeble luminescence glowed dimly from dirtied windows at the upper level; a naked yellow bulb outside the office door provided a small area of minimal relief from the inky night. To all outward appearances, Delta Importers was slumbering like most others in the Port of Memphis.

Mack Bolan knew better.

He moved in on the target as a soundless extension of the night, combat senses flaring through the atmospheres of that enemy turf in an effort to encompass all that might be lying there in wait. The lone security guard was an easy take. Bolan found him in his rounds, at the back corner of the building. He kissed him quietly with a silent dart from the Pellgun and left him there in tranquil sleep.

So far, so good-but the man in black grimaced as he consulted the wrist chronometer. It was to be a tight mission, with everything riding on the proper fall of the numbers.

Out over the river a nightbird called softly and dipped in flight to follow the track of an unwary prey. Eastward, the hushed sprawl of the city sent neon advertisements to form a faint aura overhead; but here all was blackness.

Bolan knelt motionless at the wall of the building, eyes intent upon the wrist-watching the numbers fall. He was not at all comfortable with this mission-not sure, even, in its very concept. But… it was committed, now. He sent a quick flick of the eyes northward as though they would perhaps reveal what the ears had not-wondering, as he did so, if he were the biggest fool alive.

No, he was not at all comfortable.

And perhaps he would not be the biggest fool alive for very long. But the moment had arrived and he was stuck with it. It was not a time for doubts. So he brushed the doubts aside and pushed off to follow his numbers to their uncertain conclusion.

The roof was a cinch. He gained it with a bound, a swing, and a soft wriggle-then went on without pause to the skylight, which mission briefing had assured him would be another cinch. It was not. The wooden framing was rotted and swollen, threatening to dissolve in him hands at first touch. He went to work at the heavy glass with his stiletto, easing it out inch by breathless inch, until there was sufficient purchase with the bare hands to lift it clear.

Hell yawned up at him from that black hole.

According to the blueprints, it would be a twelve-foot drop to the floor of a storage loft,--empty, supposedly. That would have been a cinch, also, if he could have lowered himself by hand to drop free the remainder of the relatively short distance. The rotten wood foreclosed that idea.

So this was where it really got ticklish.

He opted to risk the penlight for a quick flash into those depths. The loft was empty, right-but it looked more like fifteen feet than twelve, and there was no way to determine the strength of that dusty flooring.

The decision came with typical swiftness.

Bolan dropped to a crouch and pushed off with one hand, knees almost touching the chest as he dropped through the opening in the roof and entered free fall. Fifteen feet, yeah. The touchdown came with a bit more impact and noise than he was willing to settle for, even using knees and ankles to maximum cushioning effect. The old flooring swayed and groaned under the sudden weight-but it held-and Bolan whispered a thanks to kindly providence as he upholstered the Beretta and moved softly to the door.

He held there, frozen, ears straining for sign of reaction from below. Frozen moments, held together by the beating of his heart and the certain knowledge that all heartd stop beating sooner or later, for one reason or another, despite all efforts to the contrary.

He was inside a Mob powder factory.

If the intel was accurate, a full crew of chemists were at that moment busily refining and packaging a large shipment of raw heroin from Central America-under the watchful eyes of at least a dozen heavy torpedoes under one Dandy Jack Clemenza, reputed new heroin king of the Western Hemisphere.

The shipment which had arrived that very day was said to have a value of 22 million dollars after Clemenza's chemists finished stepping on it-and the streets were said to be hungry for the stuff.

So, sure, it was a big day in Memphis. And Bolan had no illusions whatever concerning the "security" for the affair, despite the easy look outside. According to the Intel, each of Dandy Jack's hardmen would be toting automatic weapons and the boss himself would be right there until the last bag was sealed and the reshipment completed.

So much for all that. Apparently none had heard Bolan's heavy entrance. He easily defeated the locking mechanism of the flimsy door and moved quietly onto the open loft. Below and directly across from his position was the area of major activity, the proceedings taking place in semidarkness and stealthy' silence. Several long tables supported a surprisingly professional-looking array of laboratory equipment,-Bunsen’s, beakers, the whole bit. Ten white-coated men wearing filter masks manned the "laboratory" while in the background of the darkness faceless stoics hovered in business suits and casually dangling sub-machine guns.

Clemenza himself sat at a table at the end of the line-weighing, packaging, and labelling the precious finished product.

The only light in the place was that provided at the tables-a small high intensity lamp for each of the chemists, plus two for the boss.

No one talked, except in grunts and monosyllables concerning the business at hand. Bolan counted eight gunners-and wondered if there were more and where they might be. The gossip placed them at an even dozen-but of course those things were often exaggerated.

He stood in frozen silence and watched his numbers tumbling away into infinite nowhere, looking for a handle and hoping for a miracle. Ten minutes moved like hours as he watched and waited, then fifteen… and then came the handle. One of the chemists raised his head and said something in a muffled grunt to Clemenza. The heroin king snapped a reply heavy with displeasure. The guy got up and walked away, the filter still in place over his nose and mouth. A gunner fell in behind the guy. Both disappeared at the edge of darkness. Bolan heard a toilet flush moments later.

And, yeah, there was the handle.

He watched the two reappear and take their places, then he made his move-maneuvering cautiously down the creaky stairway and blending quietly into the deeper shadows as he made his way across the no man's land and into the lighter area across the way.

The toilet was a mere closet, set into the corner of the building, forward. The door was latticed and the yellowish light filtering through was just enough to serve as a beacon to those in need in the darkness.

The man in black had a need of his own. He took a tactical position in the darkness and settled in to wait the need of others.

The wait was not so long, this time. Bolan had barely settled in when footsteps approached-two pair, moving casually-then a white coat materialized in the escaped light from the toilet-a tall, skinny guy-mask removed from the hawkish face and riding the throat. Right on his heels was the armed keeper, a real iron man complete with scowl and swagger.

"What's the matter with that guy?" the chemist growled quietly. "When you gotta, you gotta. Right?"

"The man is always right," replied the other-the voice flat, utterly devoid of emotion. "What you tell me, you're telling him."

They'd come to a halt, not an arm's length removed from Mack Bolan.

"I just meant-"

"He's right. You should shit on your own time. What's the beef? He told you okay, didn't he? So okay." Emotion crept in then. "Do it. And don't take all night."

The man in the white coat sneered and went on to the toilet. The guy with the burper slung the piece at his shoulder and went for a cigarette-probably as glad for the break as the other guy.

Bolan waited for the lighter to flare, then he said very quietly, from about three feet out, "Hold the light, eh?"

Those startled eyes flared in double-take and the guy choked on the inhalation as he tried to do too many things with too little time. The lighter dropped toward the floor, both hands fought the other over the strap of the burper, the glowing cigarette fell into the jacket, and the guy never got his breath back. A hand of real iron crushed the fragile windpipe as another bent the spine into an impossible contortion. He was a dead man even before his lighter reached the floor-and both man and submachine gun were over the Bolan shoulder and moving quickly into the blackness of the warehouse before the man in the toilet could remove his white coat.

The corpse was stashed and the Executioner was at the door as the coat was coming off. The guy never saw what had come for him. A two-hand chop at either side of the neck sat the guy down and shuttered the eyes without so much as a gasp of understanding.

Bolan tugged the coat back into position and secured the sash, then hoisted the unconscious man to his shoulder. Satisfied, now, that the most direct route was the best route, he headed straight for the front door, threw the double bolts, and stepped into the little security room which marked the final obstacle to a successful mission.

The guy in the room had both feet on the desk, a Schmeisser one lunge away. Both feet crashed to the floor as he tried for it-a mere heartbeat removed from instant fame and glory, but a heartbeat too late.

The Beretta spat once from the doorway, chugging its silent skullbuster toward a bone-shattering denial of fame and glory. The guy fell back into the chair and stayed there, the broken head slumped limply over the backrest.

Bolan rolled chair and all into the darkened interior of the building, then got the hell out of there with his prisoner. As he rejoined the night, he knew that it had been a successful mission. But he did not know what lay at the end of the numbers. And he had not yet reached that end. He jogged along with his burden, heading due north and into God knew what.

He still was not comfortable with this mission.

He still did not know what lay beyond the mission numbers. One thing he knew for sure, though. Whoever wore the spurs, Dandy Jack Clemenza was in for a decidedly undandy night. And that was enough right there to make the whole thing worthwhile.

Even if it should turn out that the spurs were into Bolan as well.