Blood Play. Don Pendleton

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СКАЧАТЬ to himself. He wasn’t sure how much horsepower Colt had harnessed under the hood, but he suspected it was a lot more than whatever would be powering the taxi.

      “I’ll catch up soon enough,” he vowed as he revved the engine and shifted into Reverse.

      In his haste, Cherkow squealed out of his parking space just as a Mercedes GLK was pulling forward from the space directly behind him. Cherkow cursed as he rammed the SUV, crumpling its front end. The Nova hadn’t been retrofitted with air bags, and the impact threw Cherkow against the hard plastic of the steering wheel. Dazed, the Russian groped at his bruised ribs. Behind him, the other driver rocketed from his vehicle and stormed forward, kicking the Nova.

      “Look where you’re going!” he roared. “I just bought this car!”

      The man had nearly reached Cherkow when the Russian threw open his door and pointed the MP-446 Viking combat pistol he’d just yanked from his shoulder holster. He fired a single 9 mm round into the other man’s forehead, then slammed the door shut and threw the Nova into first gear. His rear bumper was still snagged to the Mercedes and when the Chevy screeched forward, the steel strip pulled loose and clanged to the asphalt a few feet from where the owner of the Mercedes had fallen, spilling his blood into a growing puddle of rainwater.

      Cherkow sped toward the pay station, reaching it just as the parking attendant had charged out to inspect the damage caused by the panel truck. The man dived to one side to avoid being run down when Cherkow raced past the pay booth and quickly veered past the disabled Cadillac so that he could take up pursuit of the taxi. There were no cars between them, and as he eased down on the accelerator, Cherkow quickly began to gain ground. Given the rain-slicked surface, the mobster was forced to toss his gun on the seat beside him and keep both hands on the steering wheel.

      “That’s all right,” Cherkow told himself, “I won’t need a gun to take care of them.”

      ONE EXIT BEFORE INTERSTATE 25, the panel truck abruptly cut across two lanes of traffic and shot down the ramp leading to University Boulevard. Grimaldi followed suit in the taxi. It would have been a dangerous enough maneuver on dry ashpalt and both vehicles nearly hydroplaned off the road as they took the sharp turn. The taxi, its front hood already scarred by AK-47 rounds, took on more damage as it swerved onto the shoulder and brushed against a guardrail before Grimaldi corrected course and eased back onto the roadway.

      “Nice save,” Kissinger told him.

      “Yeah, well, I’d stay buckled up if I were you,” Grimaldi responded, keeping an eye on the truck. “I’m sure they’ll keep trying to shake us.”

      Bolan was in the backseat, pensive, Beretta at the ready. He’d only fired at the truck once since getting into the taxi, but if Grimaldi could get within closer range, he hoped to get off a few more shots.

      At the end of the ramp, the panel truck turned left, heading away from the city. By the time Grimaldi made the same turn, there was nearly a hundred-yard gap between the two vehicles. The rain had begun to pick up, forcing him to peer through the mad thrashing of the windshield wipers. A streak of lightning lit their way briefly as the pursuit continued southward, past an industrial park and the University of New Mexico’s Championship Golf Course. By the time they passed the Rio Bravo intersection, the center median had widened and there was no longer any other traffic to contend with. Grimaldi gave the taxi more gas, quickly gaining on the truck. A quick look in his rearview mirror revealed the flashing lights of a police cruiser turning onto University Boulevard far behind them.

      “No guarantee they know we’re the good guys,” Kissinger said.

      “Hopefully we’ll get to the truck before they catch up with us,” Grimaldi said. He’d reached an incline leading to a barren stretch of flatland and coaxed the speedometer another ten miles per hour. He was now pushing eighty, and once he crossed over a bridge spanning a railroad trestle he slowly began to close in on the panel truck. They were within thirty yards of it when a face appeared ahead in the rear window Bolan had shot out earlier. Once again, one of Franklin Colt’s abductors raised his assault rifle and pointed it through the opening.

      “Incoming!” Kissinger shouted, ducking in the front seat.

      Grimaldi eased off the accelerator and tapped his brakes, falling back a few yards. Behind him, Bolan powered down his window and leaned out, rattling off a diversionary burst. The ploy worked. The Stony Man warriors heard the faint throttle of the AK-47, but its rounds flew wide of their mark.

      Kissinger righted himself and clenched his pistol, his eyes fixed on the rear of the truck before them. The shooter had pulled away from the shattered window.

      “Looks like he’s reloading,” Grimaldi said, flooring the accelerator. “Hang on, I’m going to try to ram them.”

      AS THE TAXI BORE down on the truck, another jagged shaft of lightning brightened the desolate terrain. Glancing behind him, Bolan, for the first time, caught a glimpse of Franklin Colt’s Chevy Nova. The muscle car had been traveling with its lights off and had managed to sneak up to within less than twenty yards of the taxi. The police cruiser, by contrast, was still more than a mile away.

      “We’ve got company,” Bolan called out to Grimaldi. “Give it all you got!”

      Grimaldi spied the Nova in his rearview mirror and cursed. His words were drowned out by the Executioner’s Beretta. Bolan fired through the rear windshield of the taxi, clearing the way for a better shot at the Nova’s driver. Before he could draw bead, however, Viktor Cherkow suddenly flashed on his brights. The raised beams half blinded Bolan and startled Grimaldi, as well. The Stony Man wheelman had closed in to within a few yards of the panel truck, but the Nova had already caught up with him.

      There was a sickening crunch as Cherkow beat Grimaldi at his own game plan and slammed into the rear of the taxi. He’d made a point to strike at a slight angle, and the cab immediately began to swerve out of control despite Grimaldi’s best efforts to compensate.

      “Not good,” he murmured.

      CHAPTER FIVE

      The taxi had spun completely by the time it left the road and crashed into a guardrail. Unlike earlier, this time the car didn’t merely glance off the barrier. Instead, it snapped the wooden supports and left the railing in twisted shards as it flipped and went briefly airborne before landing upright on a steep-pitched dirt incline leading to Tijeras Arroyo, a normally dry flood channel that was now swollen with runoff from the day’s rain. The taxi was still turned around and momentum carried it backward downhill into the raging current. For a moment the vehicle bobbed on the surface, surrounded by clots of tumbleweed and other brush dislodged by floodwaters. Then, as water surged through the opened windows and shattered windshield, the taxi slowly sank and had soon disappeared from view.

      Back on the roadway the Chevy Nova had also spun completely before coming to a stop. Cherkow groaned in the driver’s seat, his rib cage throbbing from yet another collision with the steering wheel. His right knee had slammed into the dashboard and throbbed with pain, as well. The engine had died and the right front headlight had been crushed, leaving a single beam shining through the rain, illuminating the stretch of road Cherkow had sped along moments before. Far up the hill leading back to the airport, a police cruiser raced downhill toward him, its rooftop lights flashing.

      Cherkow grimaced as he retrieved his MP-446 and staggered out into the rain. Behind him, the panel truck had stopped in the middle of the road and was backing up.

      “Nice work!” one of his cohorts called out СКАЧАТЬ