Extraordinary Rendition. Don Pendleton

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СКАЧАТЬ of the enemy’s vehicle sweep across the parking lot and focus on her VAZ.

      “Now!” she told Bolan, squeezing off three rounds in rapid fire, aimed at the driver’s deeply tinted window.

      Pilkin heard glass smash as she fired, then Bolan’s borrowed pistol barked in unison with hers. The chase car’s driver hit his brakes, then switched to the accelerator in a heartbeat, revving past her VAZ, on toward the lake.

      Go in! Go in, she urged them silently.

      But it stopped just short of splashdown, and the engine died.

      YURI BAZHOV FLINCHED from the first crash of gunfire, cursing as something wet and warm spattered the left side of his face. Bek was gagging, choking in the driver’s seat, still clinging to the steering wheel as dark blood spurted from his neck, streaking the windshield and dashboard.

      The BMW jerked, then powered forward as Bek slumped in his seat, his right foot jammed on the accelerator. Bazhov saw that they were headed for the lake, and he envisioned sinking with the car into its strangling depths.

      He cursed the dead or dying man beside him, who was once a friend of sorts. When a hard slap had no effect on Bek, Bazhov bent to grab his right leg, slammed his head against the steering wheel and cursed again, then wrenched Bek’s foot sideways and off the gas pedal.

      The BMW slowed, stuttered and stalled. Peering across the hood, Bazhov could see that they had stopped with yards to spare before taking the final plunge.

      More bullets struck the car, cracking its rear window, drumming against the trunk and left-rear fender. Perov and Radko shouted from the backseat, angling to return fire, finding no immediate targets.

      “Get out!” Bazhov ordered. Feeling absurd, he added, “And remember! Do not kill the man!”

      Bazhov nearly dropped his cell phone, stumbling from the car, while Perov and Radko unlimbered their guns. He speed-dialed Pavel Malevich, and this time got an answer on the second ring.

      “What’s happening?” Malevich asked.

      Bazhov raised his phone and let the man hear staccato gunfire.

      “That’s what’s happening, idiot! Do you hear it? Osip’s dead, and where in hell are you?”

      “On Chertanovskaya Street. You said—”

      “Look for a park,” Bazhov said, interrupting him. “I don’t know what they call it. On your left, somewhere. It has a lake. Listen for gunfire. Move your ass!”

      A bullet struck the car within a foot of Bazhov’s head and ricocheted into the darkness with a sound that nearly made him wet himself. He had been under fire before, of course, and more than once. But this, somehow, felt different.

      It felt like his last moments of life.

      In which case, what did he have to lose?

      Morozov could hardly punish him if he was dead. There was no pain beyond the final moment of oblivion…unless the priests were right about hellfire.

      Bazhov could only face one peril at a time, on one plane of existence. If the fires of hell were waiting for him, by God, let them wait.

      Edging around the BMW’s right-rear fender, Bazhov risked a peek in search of targets. He saw muzzle-flashes, moving closer, and heard more rounds strike the car.

      Thankfully, the BMW had been stolen. It was no great loss, nothing for Morozov to be angry about, he thought. Letting the stranger from the airport slip away, however, was another story altogether.

      Bazhov saw his targets now—a man and woman, racing through the night, advancing as if totally devoid of fear. They used the shadows as a cloak, but still came on to meet their enemies.

      Bazhov admired that, in his way, but admiration wouldn’t interfere with duty. Aiming at the woman, he fired two quick shots, then ducked back under cover as a bullet struck the BMW’s taillight inches from his face.

      FOUR SHOTS GONE, and Bolan wasn’t sure that he’d hit anyone. He’d definitely hit the BMW, and it wasn’t armored, but that didn’t mean he’d scored on any of its occupants.

      Time to get serious.

      Pilkin dodged two hasty shots from someone crouching at the Beemer’s rear, and Bolan drove the shooter under cover with a round that blew out the right-hand taillight. Almost simultaneously, two guys popped up to fire across the sedan’s sleek hood.

      One had a pistol, the other one some kind of stubby submachine gun. Possibly a Bizon, with its 64-round magazine, or the smaller PP-2000. As he hit the dirt and rolled, his ears told Bolan that the stuttergun was no Kalashnikov. It was 9 mm, tops, but no less deadly for its caliber.

      He came up firing, two quick rounds to make the shooters duck, then rushed them. It was the only option available, since Bolan couldn’t linger where he was, and a retreat would only let them shoot him in the back.

      Off to his right somewhere, he heard Pilkin firing on the run, another pistol answering. Bolan could only fight one battle at a time, and left her to it, with a silent supplication to the Universe.

      The shooters he was looking for had made a critical mistake, both emptying their magazines together. It was easy, in the heat of battle, to forget coordination with the troops around you, but there was no “little” error on the firing line. One slip could get you killed.

      Like now.

      Instead of wasting precious time and energy to run around the front end of the Beemer, Bolan launched himself across its hood, sliding to meet his enemies. He had a flash impression of their faces, gaping at him, then their guns were coming up, ready or not, to meet his charge.

      Chaos took over then, with Bolan rapid-firing at the startled faces, blowing them apart at point-blank range where it was strictly personal. The Russians died as Bolan guessed they had to have lived, with brutish violence. They jerked, danced, stumbled, fell together in a twitching heap.

      The slide on Bolan’s pistol locked open on an empty chamber. He dropped it, claimed the nearest dead man’s SMG—it was a Bizon, after all—and snugged its unique cylindrical magazine into place.

      In front of him, with his back turned, a final shooter blazed away at Pilkin, somewhere beyond the BMW. Bolan shot him in the back without the High Noon drama of asking him to turn around and make it “fair.”

      In Bolan’s world, the fair fights were those that he won. No holds barred. There were some lines he wouldn’t cross, but none of them applied to adult predators in battle.

      “Clear!” he called to Pilkin, and gave her time to chill before he rose from cover.

      She approached him, frowning.

      “You got all of them yourself,” she said.

      “I wouldn’t claim the driver.”

      “What are you, exactly, Mr. Cooper?”

      “Just a public servant, like yourself.”

      “I don’t think so,” Pilkin replied.

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