was a sharp, sudden shock and his tenuous grip weakened and then slipped. He fell backward down the shaft for a second time. His leg was jerked cruelly in its socket and he came to a brutally abrupt halt, his ankle twisted in one of the rungs.
Hot spears of pain lanced through his leg and muscles and tendons shrieked in protest at the tension.
Above him the elevator raced down.
Bolan reached up with one strong hand to pull himself back up. His face was sticky with blood from his nose, and his lips were bloody and swollen as he fought to regain control of his breath.
Bolan fought himself up into a vertical position. Standing on the ladder, favoring one leg, he stretched out a blood-smeared hand and pried his fingers into the rubber buffer curtain set between the floor-level doors.
The muscles along his back and shoulders bunched under the strain. With a final desperate exertion, the top half of the fingernail on his middle finger was ripped away, but the doors came open under his grip.
He looked up. The bottom of the elevator was in plain sight, rushing down toward his upturned face. Bolan tensed then sprang off the ladder rung, reaching out for the opening. He scrambled through the opening just as the elevator filled the space directly above him.
Adrenaline shot through his body, and Bolan found the desperate strength he needed to live. He pulled himself through the opening just as the elevator dropped past him. He had made it.
PAOLINI STRUCK the Executioner like a runaway locomotive, driving him back into the open shaft. Their momentum was greater than the elevator’s and they hit the roof of the carrier hard. They fell like squabbling cats, punching and striking at each other as they dropped.
In the split second before they smashed into the elevator roof, Bolan managed to twist his enemy beneath him so that he landed on top of the capo. Paolini kicked his adversary away from him, knocking him back across the elevator roof to the other side of the lift. Bolan rebounded off the wall of the shaft and bounced forward to his knees before coiling and leaping to his feet.
Both men sprang forward and, locked together, they struggled as the elevator descended to the basement.
When Bolan had been in the Army, he’d undergone training in defense against attack dogs. The premise had been as simple as it was brutally effective. You gave the animal an arm, knowing it would be bit, then the free arm came down like a bar and wrapped around the back of the dog’s head where the skull met spine. The man then fell forward and the beast’s neck snapped like a stick of rotten wood.
Bolan’s arms broke the clinch and one forearm pressed hard against the Italian’s face. His other arm slid into place behind the man’s neck, right where the skull met the spine. He began to push.
Paolini could feel his neck begin to break. Terror lent him a superhuman strength but to no avail. His huge fists hammered into Bolan’s midriff, his knee attempted to maul Bolan’s crotch, but the Executioner ignored the blows, the damage, the pain.
The elevator settled into position on the ground with a subtle lurch, just enough to cause Bolan’s injured leg to buckle. He tripped back and fell through the open maintenance hatch, dropping straight down through to the elevator compartment below.
His purchase suddenly gone, Paolini tumbled forward, as well. His momentum carried him down through the elevator hatch to land on top of Bolan. A backward elbow caught the Italian in the face, stunning him for a second as Bolan lunged for the pistol lying on the floor next to Delgaro’s limp hand.
Bolan lifted the pistol just as the elevator doors slid open and Paolini’s heel cracked hard against his wrist, sending the handgun spinning off out of the compartment. Bolan twisted back toward the Mob enforcer and saw him clawing his own Croatian HS 2000 out of a shoulder sling. Bolan brought a hammer-hard fist up from the hip and smashed it into Paolini’s temple, staggering the man as he tried to rise to his knees.
Bolan’s other hand lanced out and tried to take the pistol from Paolini. The two men struggled for control of the weapon. Bolan drew back his left hand to strike the other man again.
Paolini squeezed the trigger, and 9 mm rounds riddled the roof and walls of the elevator as he continued jerking the trigger. The pistol bucked and kicked in their hands as Bolan tried to wrestle it free, slugs stitching a crooked line across the wall toward the control panel.
Three soft-nosed slugs smacked into the delicate electronics and chewed their way through the thin outer casing. The elevator doors finished sliding open as sparks flew in rooster tails. The lights went out the instant Paolini pulled the trigger on the final bullet in the handgun.
Once again darkness enveloped Bolan.
Paolini swung wildly in the darkness, his knuckles clipping Bolan on the chin. The American’s head snapped back and he rolled with the force of the blow, letting it carry him back away from the mafioso.
As he finished his backward somersault, he felt the cool hardness of a concrete floor. He had cleared the elevator, but the basement was as dark as a tomb.
Bolan rose and reached out a hand to either side of him in the pitch blackness. He walked quickly forward, lifting his feet high and putting them down flat to avoid tripping in the dark. Despite his precaution, he nearly tripped over some obstacle and he used the noise to dodge hard to the left, coming up against a wall.
He pressed his back against the structure, his ears straining to catch any sound. Silence was the key. When you fought with one sense gone the surest way to victory was to deprive your opponent of his other senses.
He stood motionless, fighting to control his breathing, painfully aware of how loud his ragged, gasping breath had to be. After what felt like an eternity he regained control of his body.
Holding his breath, Bolan strained to listen.
Soon the sound of his own blood rushing in his ears deafened him to the point that he was defeating his original purpose. Slowly he exhaled, struggling to keep the escaping breath silent.
Then he heard it. He heard Paolini breathe. He couldn’t be sure, but it had seemed, in that instant, that Paolini was no more than a few yards from him.
Bolan began to move. He kept his back flat against the wall, his hands reaching out far to the sides to feel for obstacles. He moved slowly, crossing one leg over the other. He swallowed tightly, concentrating on pinpointing Paolini’s exact location.
Five steps and then he halted. He could hear no sound. Tension gripped him, but only for a moment. Bolan had spent too many years on the hellgrounds to be killed by indecision.
He swallowed tightly and then stepped away from the safety of the wall. He couldn’t hear Paolini moving, and he froze. After a short while he heard the strained outlet of escaping breath and realized Paolini had been listening for him.
In the deep darkness of the basement Bolan had his enemy pinpointed. He stepped forward and reached a sprint in three quick strides. Bolan leaped into the air, thrusting out both feet before him.
His injured leg struck Paolini in the gut, driving the younger man’s arm into his own stomach and forcing the air from him. Bolan’s other leg struck the cinder-block wall Paolini had been standing against and buckled under the force of impact.
Bolan bounced away, striking the floor on his rebound. Paolini fell beside him and the Executioner rose, smashing
