Crucial Intercept. Don Pendleton

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ his own vehicle.

      The side door of the van slammed open. A man shouted furiously at him, his features twisted in rage. In his hands was the futuristic-looking assault rifle. The muzzle of the weapon spit flame.

      Bolan hit the pavement painfully, his right hand at full extension before him. The 3-round burst of 9 mm bullets caught the shooter under his chin and folded him back on himself, where he disappeared in the dimly lighted interior of the cargo van. Bolan had time to roll sideways before several streams of what his ear identified as rifle fire converged on the pavement where he’d just been, spraying him with sharp pieces of asphalt.

      The soldier recognized his attackers’ language readily enough. He had spent more than a little time operating covertly in cities like Tehran. It was Farsi, also known as Persian, the most commonly spoken of several languages in Iran and Afghanistan.

      Very curious, he had time to think, with the incongruous detachment that often occurred in his mind when his body was engaged in the well-remembered and deeply ingrained mechanics of battle. The Executioner was nothing if not a thinking soldier, and his mind was always active, always analyzing the fluid and unpredictable rhythm of lethal combat.

      Rising to a half-crouch, Bolan took a two-hand grip on the 93-R and glided heel-to-toe around the rear corner of the van, using the vehicle as cover. Predictably, shots began punching through the windows of the rear doors, but the angle was awkward and the gunners inside couldn’t get a clear shot.

      He heard footsteps and saw feet wearing desert-sand-colored combat boots hit the pavement on the side of the van, as the men within piled out. They were shouting instructions to one another in Farsi. Bolan’s command of the language wasn’t up to interpreting it, certainly not in the rapid, clipped tones they were using, but it didn’t matter; the intent was clear. They were trying to coordinate their efforts to kill him.

      Whoever these shooters were, there was no way they weren’t related to whatever had been happening across Virginia—though how a witness could have confused men of Persian descent with Asians, he could not say and would not bother to speculate. The Executioner was painfully aware that whatever vehicle or vehicles these men had been chasing and shooting at, as well as however many more vehicles full of gunners there might be on the road between Bolan and the presumably fleeing Baldero, were now well beyond the range at which he could reacquire and pursue them. There was nothing he could do; he had to deal with the immediate threat, or he wouldn’t be alive to continue with the mission.

      It had only been by the blind luck of the battlefield that he had stumbled across the rolling gun battle in which he was now involved. Whoever these shooters were working for, whatever the connection to Baldero, erasing them and removing them from the combat equation was the one possible option.

      Bolan threw himself flat again, lined up on the row of feet on the other side of the van and held the 93-R sideways to aim below and across the big vehicle’s undercarriage. Then he triggered several 3-round bursts.

      Two of the men dropped, screaming, their ankles shattered. Bolan put a burst into each one of them, ending their misery. Then he was up again, coming around the front of the van.

      The driver was still in position, holding a pistol that looked like a SIG-Sauer. Bolan put a single round through the glass and reloaded on the move, swapping the 20-round magazine for a fresh one from his shoulder harness.

      There wasn’t much time. The police would be on the scene before long, responding to what would have to be countless phone calls about the war going on in the middle of the street in this mixed commercial district. His Justice credentials would put him above suspicion, at least eventually, and Brognola could always intervene on his behalf if he got embroiled with the locals, but it would cost time, and time was what he didn’t have. He could hear the combat clock ticking in his head.

      He heard the second vehicle moving in from behind him; the throaty roar of the heavy cargo van was unmistakable. There were still shooters from the closer van to deal with, so he focused on those, maneuvering to put this threat between him and the newer group.

      Risking a glance around the corner of the near van, he sighted down the driver’s side flank. Two men using the engine block for cover returned fire from where they crouched by the van’s grille. Bolan ducked back just in time, as bullets sparked and ricocheted from the metal of the rear corner of the vehicle.

      He considered going for foot shots again, but he dared not place himself prone as the other group moved in from the passenger side. Bolan was already outnumbered and was going to be outflanked, if he was not careful.

      The soldier reached into the war bag and found the familiar cylinder of a smoke grenade. The metal was cool to the touch. He drew the canister, popped the ring and let the smoke bomb fly into the midst of the enemy gunners.

      The cloud of acrid purple smoke that erupted was a tribute to Kissinger’s skill with ordnance of that type. It immediately enveloped the shooters, obscuring their view of Bolan. They began firing blindly through the smoke. The Executioner hurried, moving to circle their position. As he did so, he drew the Desert Eagle from its hip holster and jacked the hammer back.

      The first of the shooters burst from the cloud of smoke, assault rifle blazing. Bolan put him down with a single shot to the head from the big .44 Magnum pistol. The next man came, and the next, but they were blinded by the smoke, shooting wildly, their rounds far off the mark. The Executioner stood his ground and, gun in each hand, shot each man as he cleared the cloud of purple haze.

      The gunners weren’t stupid or suicidal. As soon as they figured out what was happening, the parade of half-blinded men stopped.

      Then a grenade rolled out of the smoke.

      Bolan didn’t pause, didn’t deliberate and didn’t question his instincts. He simply kicked the bomb under the closer van and ran.

      The explosion rocked the cargo van, pushing the nose up into the air as if the vehicle were rearing back on its hind axle. Thrown onto his stomach on the asphalt, Bolan felt the sudden wave of heat on his back. The breath was forced from his lungs and he lost his grip on his weapons. The spray of glass, plastic and metal fragments pelted his neck with tiny needles. There was no time to check himself for injuries, though he felt blood trickling down the back of his shirt.

      Some sixth sense, some combat instinct—or perhaps just his awareness of the nature of battle—warned the Executioner that death was coming for him. He rolled over onto his back in time to see another man stagger through the last wisps of purple smoke. He had no weapon that Bolan could see. Blood trailed from his ears and his face was burned. He had been too close to the explosion, apparently.

      Fixing Bolan with a hateful glare, the wounded man came straight for him. Bolan crabbed backward but had no time to regain his feet. The olive-skinned man landed on him, causing pain to shoot through Bolan’s battered ribs and up his lacerated back.

      Fingers wrapped around Bolan’s throat. The weight pressing down on his stomach forced from him what little breath he had managed to regain. Suddenly he was fighting simply to draw air, dark clouds swirling around the edges of his vision.

      The man on top of the soldier was screaming in what might have been Farsi. It might also have been simple gibberish; he was clearly mad with pain. Bolan could see burned skin peeling from his attacker’s face as the man roared his fury.

      The Executioner’s hand fell to the right front pocket of his blacksuit pants. There, clipped inside his pocket, was a tactical folding knife with a wickedly serrated hawkbill blade. Bolan’s hand clenched around the textured plastic handle of the knife and yanked СКАЧАТЬ