Dark Savior. Don Pendleton
Чтение книги онлайн.
Читать онлайн книгу Dark Savior - Don Pendleton страница 7
Название: Dark Savior
Автор: Don Pendleton
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Морские приключения
Серия: Gold Eagle Executioner
isbn: 9781474045704
isbn:
“Great.”
“We’ll play it by ear, right?” Grimaldi suggested. “I don’t wanna die any more than you do. If you can’t drop in safely, we’ll try something else.”
Except Bolan knew there would be nothing else. He’d either jump into the storm for Arthur Watson, or he’d have to sit it out. Ground travel through the High Sierras would be deadly slow, if it was even possible. He was already starting out behind the field, no way of knowing where the hunters were, what kind of lead they had, or how they would approach their prey.
Bolan had searched Holy Trinity on the internet while he was passing over Kansas. The place looked ancient, like a fortress from a movie about medieval times, when knighthood was in flower and encroaching armies laid siege to a rival’s keep for weeks or months on end.
Neither Bolan nor the hunters had that kind of time, of course. The shooters would be aware that their mark could change his mind again and get permission for the FBI to land at Holy Trinity, extract him and return him to New York to testify. In that case, there would be no payday, and the failed hunters might find their own heads on the chopping block.
The flight from Sacramento to Modesto was a short hop, sixty-odd miles, under thirty minutes at the Cessna’s cruising speed. They landed and refueled with ample daylight left to make the drop, Bolan trusting Grimaldi to have checked his parachute first-hand. Bolan strapped it on when they were airborne, heading east toward a wall of gray and white that was the blizzard blanketing the Golden State’s main mountain range.
And all that he could do was tough it out from there, bearing in mind the cost of failure if he turned back or was otherwise prevented from completing his assignment. Arthur Watson was the target, but it didn’t take a West Point graduate to figure out that U.S. Global’s mercs would leave no witnesses alive. From what Bolan had read online, there were about three dozen full-fledged monks at Holy Trinity, plus a handful of postulants, juniors and novices. Call it forty-plus to be on the safe side, and write them all off if the mercs got inside with no one to stop them.
What could one man do?
That was the question Mack Bolan had fielded from day one of his private war against the Mafia, through combat on a global scale against the predators who menaced civilized society. His answer, then and now, remained unchanged.
One man could do his best. If he was trained, experienced and willing, that could make the difference between a massacre of innocents and a defeat for evil. Permanent elimination of the threat was never part of the equation. Every battle was a thing unto itself. The enemies you killed today would be replaced tomorrow.
But one man could make his mark, all right. In blood.
Sierra Nevadas, California
Descending from the ancient pine tree was a slow and awkward process. Bolan relied mostly on touch, as swirling snow and frosted goggles prevented him from seeing more than a few feet in any direction. Swiping the goggles clear meant letting go of a branch, a dicey proposition, but he risked it periodically to keep himself from being completely blinded.
Another problem: Bolan’s high-topped jump boots were designed to save his ankles from a break or sprain on landing, and for marching the necessary distance to his goal, but their lug soles quickly caked with frozen snow, putting him at even more risk for a fatal slip.
He felt exposed up in the tree, knowing that anyone who’d seen him drop could wait below for an easy shot and pick him off, no problem. On the upside, Bolan thought he was at least a mile from Holy Trinity. That meant a grueling hike through knee-deep snow, but it also limited the possibility of encountering an enemy.
If there were shooters in the neighborhood, they would be headed for the monastery, bent on finishing their work and getting out again before the storm trapped them there. Meeting a hostile party here and now would be a fluke, defying logic and the odds, though it was not out of the question.
As for the High Sierras’ natural predators, they would be deep in hibernation or long departed for warmer elevations by now, or at the very least huddled in shelter from the storm. The checklist wasn’t long to start with—mountain lions, bears, coyotes, rattlesnakes. If he met killers here, they’d be the worst that nature had to offer: human beings.
And the Executioner was used to those.
A heavy-laden branch snapped under Bolan’s feet. One second he was balanced, pausing to wipe his goggles, and then his perch dropped out from under him, its crack sounding as loud as rifle fire.
Sixty feet of empty air yawned underneath him, broken only by the branches that would bruise and break him as he fell. Bolan had one hand on a limb, and he felt his fingers slipping through the slush. His free hand found another one in time, but only just, and dangling there in space, his shoulder sockets burning, Bolan knew he was in trouble.
He would have to find another branch to stand on, then use as his next handhold, which meant moving closer to the pine’s trunk, and inching to his left or right until he found another limb to take his weight.
A bare inch at a time, he worked his way toward the trunk. It was too stout for him to wrap his arms around, but with one hand on the branch overhead and the other hugging the tree, Bolan was hopeful he could extend a leg to the left or right and find another perch before he lost his grip and fell. The pine’s bark, normally as rough as ancient alligator hide, was glazed with ice that made it slicker than a polished fireman’s pole.
It took the better part of ten minutes to pull it off, each minute giving an advantage to his enemies if they were closing in on Holy Trinity. Even if they weren’t—say that the storm had overtaken them in the foothills somewhere and prevented them from getting to the monastery—time still mattered. Bolan had to find the place, wangle a way inside, find Arthur Watson and convince him that he had to finish up the job he’d signed on for.
All that, and then get Watson out alive through snow that might be chest-deep by then, with no flat, open ground to let Grimaldi land, if he could even fly in the blizzard. Did Watson have cold weather gear? The monks, presumably, would stay inside when weather canceled gardening or other chores, huddling by their simple fires or meditating in their Spartan living quarters. Bolan would carry Watson out swaddled in homespun blankets if he had to, but he didn’t like the odds of surviving that scenario.
Bolan’s foot found the branch he had been searching for and he shifted his weight forward, still bracing against the trunk. When he was certain the limb would hold him, he swung his other leg onto it, leaning into the tree for stability. He rested briefly, and when he could feel his arms and hands again, resumed his grueling descent toward whatever awaited him below.
* * *
THE SNOWCAT WAS A Thiokol 601 Trackmaster, designed originally for the U.S. military and adapted over time for various civilian tasks. It was bright orange—or had been, before snow and ice had crusted over it—and reminded Spike O’Connor of a school bus jacked up to accommodate tank treads. The heater worked all right; in fact, he felt a little sweaty, packed in with eleven other guys. The heavy-duty windshield wipers were another story, snow-clotted and leaving more behind than they were clearing on each pass. Not that it mattered СКАЧАТЬ