Loose Cannon. Don Pendleton

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      MACK BOLAN WAS RIDING shotgun in the second of the two Jeeps racing down the road from the airport. Jack Grimaldi was behind the wheel and John Kissinger was in the back along with one of the Densus 88 commandos, Daud Umar, a 37-year-old native of Banda Aceh.

      “So far, so good,” Grimaldi said as he watched the Huey bank toward the mob. Like the police chopper, the larger aircraft was using its rotor wash to keep the protestors off the road. Clouds of dust rose into the air, providing a protective screen as the motorcade began to inch forward. The lead Jeep had stopped thirty yards ahead of the motorcycle officers. Shelby Ferstera stood in the front seat, gesturing to the motorcycle cops that the Jeep would turn around once the motorcade had passed and would follow as they proceeded to the airport.

      Watching things play out, Bolan had a sense that something was wrong. It was all going far too smoothly. Ferstera’s informant, after all, had said that Jemaah Islamiyah had planned to go after the governor, and from what he knew of the terrorist sect, he thought their game plan would have consisted of more than setting loose a rock-throwing mob.

      “Keep an eye on the crowd,” he called out over his shoulder.

      “On it,” Kissinger replied. He was already putting to use a pair of high-powered binoculars. “It’s a little hard, though, with all that dust.”

      Bolan turned his attention to the other side of the road, where the skeletal wooden frames of several hundred homes spread out across a series of unpaved streets. A few of the structures closest to the road were nearer to completion than the others, their inner walls hammered into place with foil-backed insulation strips secured between the studs. A handful of construction vehicles was parked nearby, but there was no sign of activity. Bolan had binoculars, too, and he used them to take a closer look at one of the bulldozers situated between a Dumpster and a large stack of lumber. Half-hidden behind the earthmover’s large front scoop, the Executioner spotted a body sprawled across the dirt.

      He was about to pass along his findings when, out of the corner of his eye, he saw a thin ribbon of smoke trail out from a second-story window of one of the homes near the road. A split second later, the police helicopter disintegrated in a fireball, showering the road with debris.

      “A trap,” Bolan shouted, even as a second missile streaked through the air, broadsiding the Huey. In an instant, Governor Zailik lost his aerial support, and the Executioner knew his instincts had been correct.

      5

      Once the last fiery remains of the two downed helicopters had crashed onto the roadway between his Jeep and the governor’s motorcade, Shelby Ferstera fought off his shock and cursed. Jemaah Islamiyah had lured him into an ambush and now, in the blink of an eye, more than a dozen of his best men were gone. He could see a few of them scattered amid the flaming shrapnel, lifeless bodies rent and torn by the force of the explosion. Some were engulfed in flames, others spattered with blood, all of them missing limbs so that they looked like the remains of storefront mannequins that had been run through a threshing machine. There was nothing to be done for them other than to see to it that they had not died in vain. And despite the devastating blow to his ranks, Ferstera was determined to carry out Densus 88’s mission and ensure the governor’s safety. To do that, however, he had to make certain the rest of his men were not slaughtered by the enemy.

      “Out of the Jeep and take cover!” he commanded, bolting from the vehicle. The surviving commandos followed suit, and not a moment too soon. Even as they were flattening themselves against the roadway, a stream of gunfire strafed over their heads and pelted the Jeep. The shots were coming from the direction of the tent city, so Ferstera crawled around to the far side of the vehicle. His men were right behind him. Three of them made it. A fourth caught a hail of bullets and slumped to the roadway, dead by the time his face struck the asphalt.

      “Jackals!” Ferstera shouted.

      He glanced quickly behind him. The Americans in the other Jeep had detoured from the road and were headed toward the housing development. They were veering to and fro to make themselves less of a target for the JI snipers firing from the upper floor of one of the uncompleted homes. Smoke and flames from the downed Huey’s charred fuselage blocked Ferstera’s view of those snipers, but he trusted that meant the enemy was similarly unable to take aim his way, allowing his men to focus on the gunners across the road.

      Readying his M-16, Ferstera rose to one knee and peered over the Jeep’s hood. Through the rifle’s scope he was able to pinpoint a sniper positioned behind a large boulder on a raised knoll just beyond the tent city. The gunman had spent his ammo and was slamming a fresh cartridge into his rifle. He was a long way off, barely within range of Ferstera’s M-16, but the Aussie was an expert marksman and proved it as he cut loose with a burst that streaked above the rocks and found home in the enemy’s chest, taking the sniper down.

      Wasting no time on self-congratulation, Ferstera scanned the knoll for more targets. He knew the playing field was a long way from being leveled….