Bolan nodded. As an afterthought, he picked up a pair of empty water bottles and cut open a vein on two of the bodies. He hoped the blood samples would reveal what types of toxins were used to turn humans into weapons.
âWho were they?â Rudd asked.
âSomeoneâs pawns,â the soldier replied. âMost likely, they were kidnapped tourists, harmless people sparked to insanity by some biochemist.â
âWhoâd do such a thing? And whoâd let them loose here, where thereâs just kids?â
âIf thereâs a clue in the blood, Iâll use it. Iâm going after them,â Bolan stated grimly.
âAlone?â Rudd asked.
âAlone. With an army. It wonât matter. Iâm going to find the people behind this,â the Executioner said.
Age after age, the strong have trampled upon the weak; the crafty and heartless have ensnared and enslaved the simple and the innocentâ¦
âRobert Green Ingersoll 1833â1899
I have witnessed the innocent being ground into the earth by heartless monsters. Enough! They will be avenged.
âMack Bolan
Mack Bolan, running at full speed, speared his foot into the door of the laboratory and was stopped cold. Usually the Executionerâs 220-pound frame and the forty pounds of gear he wore were more than sufficient to easily splinter a door. Bolan grimaced under the impact as he rebounded from the heavy panel. It took a few steps for the soldier to recover his balance. The stench of incinerating heroin was heavy in the air, impenetrable cloying clouds obscuring the burning processing tables sprawled throughout the long room. The soldierâs brilliant, tactical mind was unaffected by the airborne opiates, as his face was masked. He doubted that heâd been physically affected by the gases filling the room, so without muscular impediment, he realized that the door was reinforced. Under the usual set of circumstances, such a kick would have loosened the crossbolt from its mooring in the doorjamb, but the door was locked from the outside, which made sense.
No drug lord wanted his drug processors to have a free way out when they could slip packets into their mouths or other orifices. Locking the lab from the outside was a means of control. Only Long Eddy himself made the profits, not some emaciated, poor, jittery lackey with a rectum full of heroin-stuffed condoms. Thatâs why Bolan kept a 12-gauge shotgunâa Masterkeyâunder the barrel of his rifle. He triggered the stubby blaster, and a cylinder of lead powder turned the locking mechanism to scrap.
With a push, the door flew wide open. Even as the first shafts of sunlight and fresh air rolled in through the crack, Bolan realized that heâd made a mistake. With a new supply of oxygen rolling into the burning laboratory, the flames flared even hotter. The process was called a backdraft, and it was one of the most terrifying traps that professional firemen could walk into.
The Executioner had made a mistakeâhe was only humanâand now his nerves were screaming at him, announcing the harm the blast of superheated air around him was causing. It was survivable. The heat rose, air rumbling behind him and igniting under superheated force. His legs pushed, long limbs releasing coiled energy as he sprung out onto the sand, trying to push himself prone and let his heavily protected back and boots absorb most of the damage that vomited into open air. Flames seared the back of Bolanâs head, his hair curling up and snapping off instantly, his scalp singed. Something struck him hard between his shoulder blades, the Kevlar back of his armored, load-bearing vest and the trauma plates inside sucking up much of the force. Something hot and painful seared across his right shoulder, flesh parting under the impact.
Bolan hit the sand and buried his face in it as the gush of superheated air created a vacuum. The walls of the corrugated aluminum and plywood laboratory crumpled inward, the implosion crushing the building like a beer can. Twisted, and spewing smoke in the sand behind Bolan, the Jamaicansâ drug laboratory was history. He knew that he had left wounded enemy gunmen inside, and by now, those people were dead. There was a pang of regret. While he was known as the Executioner, Mack Bolan wasnât a cruel man. The wounded heâd left behind were knocked out of the fight, no longer a threat to him. Theyâd have received medical aid once the battle was over, just small fry who didnât deserve to suffer after theyâd been put out of the fight.
It had been Long Eddy whoâd set off the conflagration, and the dreadlocked crime lord had little concern for the people under his command. Right now, the Jamaican was racing along the beach toward a long pier where a couple of cigarette boats had been moored. His legs looked skinny and now completely black in contrast to the pristine white shorts that flapped above his knees like a skirt.