Savannah Swingsaw by Don Pendleton Read Free Book Online

with the matted hair on his arms and neck, the one whose face Bolan had ground to guacamole dip earlier that day. The nose was pushed to the left now with blood crusted darkly at each nostril. Raw tracks swirled across his face where the skin had been raked away.
    "Easy, Bradley," Rodeo cautioned.
    "Watch him." Bradley lumbered forward, his long blade stabbing the air in front of Bolan.
    Bolan backed up, keeping a few feet between him and Bradley. He watched the hands, the shank flipping back and forth between them as the man with the raw face tried to catch Bolan by surprise. "Get his nuts," one of the other guys encouraged. The third man nodded, but didn't say anything. He was the one whose teeth Bolan had kicked out. Bolan glanced over his shoulder at the thick glass window in the door. The guard who'd escorted him here had his face pressed against the glass. He was grinning, chewing his gum excitedly. He reminded Bolan of those guys who like to watch dogfights, cheering the dogs on until one has gnawed through the other's throat, leaving his dying body convulsing in the dirt.
    "Come on, big man," Bradley said. His eyes looked huge and white set in that pulpy skinless face. His knife tattooed the air in front of Bolan's face.
    The Executioner backed up another step, but there was only three feet between his back and the door.
    He didn't want to get cornered here, so he had to make his move. Soon. He feinted to the left, then kicked up his right foot, trying to catch Bradley's knife hand. But this time the heavy man was ready. He pivoted away from Bolan's foot and slashed at it with his shank. The knife caught Bolan low on the shin, slicing through his heavy pants and socks, plowing open a furrow of skin all the way to the bone. Bolan felt the blade's bite, the blood soaking into his sock.
    Bradley's eyes lit up when he realized he drew blood. Bolan could swear the man began to drool as he grew even hungrier for more. He plunged forward, a little too anxiously, his shank flicking upward toward Bolan's face. The Executioner yanked himself back just as the blade hissed by his right eye. Then he ducked under the knife, knocked Bradley's arm into the wall and drove his fist straight into the fat man's throat. Bradley managed to tuck his chin down enough to deflect much of the punch's power, but still he staggered back from the blow, flopping against the door of one of the solitary confinement cells.
    He clutched at his throat with one hand, rasping while his other hand swung his knife at Bolan like a scythe. He moved toward Bolan on unsteady legs, his knife arcing back and forth, sizzling through the humid air. Bolan was backing up again. The shank nipped closer and closer to his stomach. Behind him, the door was only two feet away, the guard grinning through the glass. Bolan looked up from the probing knife into Bradley's savaged face. The scab tracks made him look even wilder, almost deranged. C'mon, Bolan thought, this isn't where it all ends. Not yet. Not here. Too much to do. For Hal, for April. For himself. The Executioner shrugged off the defeatist thoughts. He parried a quick thrust from Bradley and decided he'd played the guy's game long enough.
    With no weapon and no place to run, he took a giant step back, his shoulders bumping into the door, then slid under the chopping blade, knocking Bradley's thick legs out from under him. The knifer toppled over and Bolan was on him like flames on gasoline. He twisted the shank out of the dazed man's hand, lifted the blade over his head with both hands and plunged it into Bradley's chest, puncturing the heart. Blood sprayed up over his hands and along his forearms. The struggling body went flaccid beneath him and he yanked the bloody knife out and faced Rodeo and his two men.
    They stood unmoving.
    Bolan glanced over his shoulder and saw the guard was no longer peering in the window. Had he gone to get help? No time to worry about that now. Bolan still had three armed men to