Vigilante Run. Don Pendleton

was up and stalking as the afterimages of the blast left floating green shapes in his vision. There were three of them writhing on the floor—two to the right and one to the left, where they’d been waiting to ambush him. Two handguns and a shotgun littered the floor. The men wore Purist colors. This time he didn’t bother collecting weapons; he simply moved on, reloading the Beretta to replace the partially spent magazine with a fresh twenty rounds.

      He chose the right-hand corridor; the left was a dead end that terminated in a bare cinder-block wall. Bolan made his way down the hallway, keeping his head, arms and weapon steady and searching for adversaries. There was a shriek, and then another. Ahead of him, he saw movement. Suddenly, five half-naked women ran from a dressing room ahead and to the left, brushing past him as if he wasn’t even there. Bolan let the strippers pass, his Beretta held at low ready. He waited.

      The two gunners ducked out, one high, one low. The bottom man got off a shot that went high and wide. Bolan drilled him with two bursts through the torso, the Beretta rising to sweep the top man in the same arc. The second man—both were dressed in Zippers T-shirts and khakis, probably what passed for club security in this crime pit—was punched backward as the slugs entered his neck and chin. The little .380 Colt Mustang he had been clutching fell from nerveless fingers and clattered on the floor.

      Bolan took the corner wide to maximize his cover and keep any potential targets in his field of vision as he entered the dressing room. He passed the lighted mirrors and scattered lingerie without a glance, instead scanning every corner for hidden threats. The door leading from the dressing room to the main part of the club was shut. He planted one boot just left of the doorknob and cracked it open without trying the handle, diving low as he entered.

      “Now! Now!” someone yelled. Gunfire ripped from three points at once and Bolan had no choice but to blitz forward, legs pumping. The club area was multileveled, colored lights washing down from scaffolding on the ceiling. One of the shooters was in the DJ booth, where deafening techno continued to bleat from mammoth speakers along the walls. Another was somewhere in the scaffolding—Bolan couldn’t tell where—and a third was on the move on the lower dance-floor level. Bullets ripped the slick tiling behind Bolan’s feet as he ran for the DJ booth. Strobe lights flashed from above, obscuring the muzzle-flashes from the gang members’ guns. There were no customers. Bolan had reached the club before it opened. With the strippers gone, he knew chances were good there no innocents to get caught in the cross fire.

      With no cover afforded by the tiered but largely open club area, Bolan shoved the Beretta before him and unleashed a fusillade of 9 mm rounds at the DJ booth, forcing the gunman there to duck. Gunfire followed him as the other two shooters tried to claim him, but he was moving too fast and the colored, flashing lights were causing the Purists as much trouble as they were causing the soldier. Bolan threw himself flat beside the half-height doorway to the DJ booth. The biker within—a broken, older-looking man with a shaved head, wearing a leather jacket with one sleeve cut off—swung his short-barreled 9 mm Colt submachine gun in Bolan’s direction, but he was too slow. The Exectutioner stitched him up the groin and through the torso, emptying the Beretta with two last triple bursts.

      The two remaining shooters concentrated their fire on Bolan’s position. He stayed low, letting them rip up the wall above his head, dousing him with drywall dust. The dead Purist had several spare magazines for his Colt, so Bolan appropriated them and the weapon, shoving the long stick magazines under his web belt at his side. He reloaded his Beretta and holstered it, then reached up blindly and began slapping buttons on the DJ board. On the fourth try, the music stopped. Bolan slapped a couple of more buttons and managed to switch off the strobe lights and the track lighting, plunging Zippers into darkness.

      He waited for the shooting to stop, then crept silently from the booth, feeling his way along the outer wall of the club area, walking in a low crouch with a corner of the Colt’s telescoping stock tucked against his shoulder. Then he stopped and remained perfectly still, controlling his breathing.

      “Gord!” one of the Purists finally shouted. “Gord! Gordy, man, where are you?”

      “Over here, moron,” Gordy finally answered.

      “Do you see him?”

      “No, Chigger, I don’t see him. If I saw him, I’d be shooting at him! I can’t see anything.”

      “I don’t hear him.”

      There was a pause. Bolan waited. He very quietly slipped the combat light from his pocket and held it in his fingers, wrapping his remaining free support-hand fingers around the forestock of the Colt.

      “I think he snuck out!” Chigger offered from a spot across the room and to Bolan’s right. “Maybe when the lights were out!”