Ripple Effect. Don Pendleton

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СКАЧАТЬ couldn’t duel the rifleman, but he could seize the moment to his own advantage.

      If he dared.

      Bolan stamped down on the accelerator, hurtling toward his enemies. “Be ready when I make another turn, and brace for impact,” he told Dixon.

      “Impact. Jesus.”

      Bolan tore across the parking lot, directly toward the second chase car, locked on a collision course. At the last moment, when it seemed explosive impact was inevitable, he swung through another tire-scorching one-eighty, starting so close to his adversaries that the swerving rear of his Toyota struck their front end like a half-ton slap across the face.

      The Executioner was out and running, even as the aftershocks of impact shuddered through both vehicles. He saw Tom Dixon moving on the other side, pistol extended as he raced back toward the chase car, his face etched in a snarl.

      Then Bolan started firing, pumping Parabellum rounds into his shaken enemies at point-blank range. The AK handler took one through his left eye socket, and another through his gaping mouth for safety’s sake. Up front, the shotgun rider had to have dropped his pistol, fumbling on the floor between his feet as Bolan turned and shot him once behind the ear.

      Dixon took out the driver, blasting rounds into his neck and chest. Behind him, Bolan saw the last man from the other chase car hobbling toward them, lining up a shot, and called a warning to his contact.

      Dixon turned, fired once and missed, then nailed it on the second try, even as Bolan helped him with a rapid double tap.

      And they were done.

      Around them, only corpses shared the battleground.

      “We’re out of time,” Bolan told Dixon, “and we need fresh wheels. Tell me your story on the way.”

      “WHAT KIND OF BACKGROUND do you need?” Dixon asked when they’d cleared the killing ground.

      “Start from the top,” Bolan replied, “but don’t go back to Genesis.”

      “Okay. I’ve been on-site for just about a year. Before that, I did two years stateside. Nothing relevant. You may know that al Qaeda and some other groups with similar potential have had cells in Indonesia since the nineties. Not surprising, when you think about it, since the population’s mostly Muslim. Eighty-odd percent. And they’ve got reasonable access to material support from China, too.”

      Bolan had known that going in. He waited through the appetizer, for the main course.

      “Now, this Talmadge character’s been in and out of Indonesia for the past three years, I understand,” Dixon continued. “We hear rumors that he may’ve been involved with some of the activity in East Timor.”

      Activity presumably referring to the genocidal action instigated by Indonesian rulers in 1999, when East Timor’s population voted to secede from its parent nation and enjoy self-rule. By the time UN peacekeepers restored a semblance of order and supervised East Timor’s first election in April 2002, an estimated three hundred thousand persons were dead, East Timor’s meager infrastructure lay in ruins and the mostly agricultural economy was belly-up.

      “Which side?” Bolan asked.

      “Hard to say. The rumors go both ways,” Dixon replied. “Since then, our boy has mostly been a gun-for-hire and part-time training officer for outfits like Hamas, al Qaeda and the Islamic Jihad. No Muslim background that we know of, but he likes those petrodollars. Has three bank accounts, one each in Switzerland, the Caymans and Sri Lanka.”

      “It’s a small world, after all,” Bolan remarked.

      “And getting smaller all the time, apparently,” Dixon said. “In the past eleven months, Talmadge has logged close to a half a million frequent-flyer miles. We’ve tracked him back and forth to different parts of Europe, to Australia and New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, and once to Canada—B.C., specifically. He’s literally all over the map. Some of it’s visits to his banks. The rest, we’re guessing meets with his employers and some contract jobs that just coincidentally occur when he’s nearby.”

      “Has anybody thought of handing him to Interpol?” Bolan asked.

      “Thought about it, sure. But on what charge? His bank deposits are straightforward, nothing to suggest a laundry operation. He’s not moving contraband, as far as anyone can tell. The people we can prove he’s spoken to aren’t fugitives—at least not in the countries where they’re living at the moment. On the hits, we can’t prove anything beyond proximity.”

      “And now, this Gitmo thing,” Bolan said.

      “Right. He’s up to something for the AQ crowd, but what? We’ve covered his apartment in Jakarta. Bugs and taps, the whole megillah, but he doesn’t use the telephone for anything important, and his only visitors are hookers. Once a week, like clockwork, he gets laid if he’s in town. Tonight’s the night.”

      “Maybe we ought to crash the party.”

      “It’s a thought. Take flowers, maybe?”

      “Maybe lilies. But we need another car, first thing.”

      “You won’t be trading this one in, I take it,” Dixon said.

      “I don’t think so.”

      “Okay.” The younger man considered that, then said, “I’ve never hot-wired anything before. I mean, they didn’t teach car theft or anything like that in training.”

      “I’ll take care of that,” Bolan said. “What we need right now is somewhere we can drop this one and not be noticed while we switch the plates to something suitable.”

      “My first thought would be HPK,” Dixon replied. “Halim Perdana Kusuma. The airport.”

      Bolan thought about it, judging distances. It meant driving three miles or so, across Jakarta, without being noticed by police. “What’s closer?” he inquired.

      “There’s Kemayoran, formerly the local airport,” Dixon said. “They’ve turned it into some kind of outlandish shopping mall, but there are parking lots.”

      Closer, the warrior knew, from memorizing street maps in advance. “Okay. Let’s try that first.”

      “Suits me. You know the way?”

      “I’ve got it,” Bolan said. “But just the same, correct me if you see I’m heading off toward Borneo or something.”

      “Right.” It was the first time he had seen Tom Dixon smile. “About just now…in case you couldn’t tell, I’ve never killed a man before.”

      Bolan could have replied, “First time for everything,” but that would be both flippant and a lie. Most people never killed another human being. Soldiers, cops and criminals were those most likely to take lives, but even then it was a relatively rare event. Millions of soldiers served their tours of duty in peacetime and never fired a shot in anger. Most cops never pulled the trigger on a suspect, making those who did so more than once immediately suspect in the eyes of their superiors. Even most criminals had never killed, restricting their activities to theft, white-collar crimes or petty СКАЧАТЬ