Ripple Effect. Don Pendleton

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СКАЧАТЬ come back and bite them in the ass, he thought.

      But there were still enough behind them to kill him and the man he knew as Matt Cooper. All the men and guns they needed were in the two chase cars. He didn’t know if Cooper could evade them, doubted it, and doubted even more his own ability to come through any kind of urban gunfight with body and soul intact.

      Dixon had trained for this, after a fashion, but he’d never really taken any of it seriously. No one in his graduating class believed that they’d be shooting anyone. They were paper pushers, marginal investigators, only dubbed field agents out of courtesy. Even the posting to Jakarta, with the various advisories upon departure, hadn’t driven home the point.

      But he was thrashing in the deep end now, and no mistake about it. Under other circumstances, Dixon might’ve said he had a choice—to sink or swim—but as it was, his choices seemed to be preempted by the driver of the vehicle in which he sat, and by the killers burning up the road behind him, shooting as they came.

      “You know this neighborhood?” Bolan asked.

      “More or less,” Dixon replied.

      “I need some kind of cul-de-sac or parking area where I can get some combat stretch, maybe to turn around.”

      Dixon thought hard enough to give himself a headache, which was no great trick just then. “Okay,” he said. “You’re heading for a turnoff to the lake. Penjaringan. It’s on your right. Take that and go down toward the water. There’s a parking lot for tourists. Shouldn’t have too many cars, this hour on a week day.”

      “Let’s find out,” Bolan said, as the sign rushed at them. This time, when he made the screeching turn, there was no warning to hang on. Dixon was ready for it anyway, and gripped the handle overhead as if he’d been aboard a subway train racing at top speed through the dark.

      “We’ve got at least four guys behind us,” Dixon noted when his driver had the gray Toyota running straight and true again. “There could be twice that many.”

      “Right.”

      “You plan to take them all?”

      “I’m working on it,” Bolan said. “But if you have a plan, I’m open to suggestions.”

      “Nope. Not me. Just wondered how you meant to pull it off.” The sinking feeling in his gut told Dixon that he was about to die.

      “When you’re outnumbered,” Bolan said, flicking another quick glance toward his rearview, “there are three things you can do. I doubt our friends back there are interested in negotiation or surrender.”

      “What’s the third option?” Dixon asked.

      “Fight like hell.”

      “Uhhuh.”

      “You’re not a pacifist, I hope?” Bolan asked.

      “No.”

      “All right, then. If you get a chance to use that Smith, remember what they taught you on the range.”

      “Center of mass. Don’t jerk the trigger. Double tap, if feasible.”

      “Sounds like the ticket,” Bolan said. “And here we are.”

      They roared into a spacious parking lot with fewer than a dozen vehicles in sight, all clustered at the far end, near an area of restaurants and gift shops. Lake Penjaringan was popular for boating, fishing and assorted other water sports, but weekends were its busy time.

      “I bluffed their wheelman once,” Bolan said, his eyes locked on the rearview now. “I don’t know if he’ll tumble twice, but it’s the only chance we have right now.” And then, “Hang on!”

      Dixon couldn’t be sure exactly what the stranger did next, but he seemed to stamp down on the brake and the accelerator simultaneously, meanwhile spinning the wheel rapidly to his left. The net effect included squealing tires, a revving engine and a dizzying 180-degree turn that left rubber scorch marks on the sun-bleached asphalt of the parking lot.

      Dixon was still recovering from the bootlegger’s turn, trying to get his stomach back in place, when Cooper floored the gas again and charged off toward their enemies.

      This time, two chase cars were approaching, side by side and barreling ahead at sixty miles per hour. Dixon wondered if the drivers were prepared to lose their second game of chicken to this brash American.

      “Ready?” Bolan called as his window powered down, right arm extended with his Glock clenched in his fist. “Okay, then. Give ’em hell!”

      BOLAN WAS COUNTING on surprise and sheer audacity to give him an advantage over his pursuers, but it was still a gamble. Repetition of a tactic could be perilous, yet Bolan’s options were distinctly limited. He couldn’t drive around Jakarta with the shooters on his tail until his car ran out of gas, nor did he care to bail out in the middle of a crowded thoroughfare and take the battle back to urban infantry maneuvers.

      Barring reinforcements, which he didn’t have, the chicken run would have to do—but with a twist this time.

      The chase cars were advancing side by side, with several feet of empty space between them, giving the shotgun riders and whoever occupied the back seats room to aim and fire their weapons. Bolan’s angle of attack meant that, unless they rammed him, he would pass along the driver’s side of the vehicle on his right, while Dixon faced the front-and back-seat guns of its companion, on their left. Bad luck for Dixon, but if he had nerve enough, they just might make it work.

      Bolan began to fire his Glock when they were twenty yards from impact, three rounds out of eighteen gone before he sighted on the left-hand chase car’s windshield. Two shots drilled through the driver’s side, and then he saw the black sedan begin to swerve off target.

      He had a glimpse of someone in the back seat, leveling a weapon larger than a pistol, flinching from the windshield hits. Before the shooter could recover, Bolan triggered two more shots and punched him backward, out of view. A jagged muzzle-flash spit bullets through the right-hand chase car’s roof.

      To Bolan’s left, Tom Dixon’s .40-caliber pistol was hammering away, while a Kalashnikov erupted, chattering defiance. Bolan heard a couple of the rifle’s slugs strike home, like hammer blows against the hired Toyota’s flanks. They apparently missed the tires and engine, but Bolan flinched when Dixon grunted, wondering if he’d taken a hit.

      They roared on past the chase cars, Bolan’s eyes pinned to the rearview mirror as he asked, “Are you all right?”

      Dixon was swiping at his cheek with bloody fingertips. “I think so. Caught a splinter, maybe.”

      Lucky.

      “Here we go again,” Bolan warned. “This time, don’t expect a break.”

      “I’m ready,” Dixon said.

      Swerving through the turn, Bolan saw one carload of his assailants stalled, its lifeless driver slumped behind the wheel, the shotgun rider scrambling out on foot. The other car was swinging back around to make another run, with the AK protruding from a window on the driver’s side.

      The other side could make a sieve of СКАЧАТЬ