Blood Rites. Don Pendleton

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      Hearing that, she almost turned to grapple with him, then decided she might have a better chance once they were on the staircase leading to the ground floor. He would be off balance then, distracted by the chaos going on below, and if she timed her move exactly right—

      Big if, she thought.

      One slip, and he would punch the blade up through her soft palate, into her brain, or simply slash her throat. There’d be no time to cut her head off with the relatively small knife, but Channer didn’t need to. He could kill her with a short flick of his wrist, and have the same effect on her father.

      Not that it would save Channer.

      Garcelle hoped she’d live long enough to see her father’s men blast Channer into hamburger and leave him leaking on the stairs. It would be worth it, to die knowing she had outlived the worthless Rasta piece of crap.

      He shoved her through the office door, onto the landing and toward the staircase. More shots echoed from below, but they were dying out now. Which side would emerge victorious? She guessed it didn’t matter, but she hoped to see Channer’s thugs laid out, dead or dying, when they reached the stairs.

      Not justice, necessarily, but vengeance.

      Other Viper Posse soldiers had collected on the second-story landing, staying well behind their captain and his human shield. They seemed content to let Channer press forward, face the danger on his own and possibly distract the enemy before they joined the fight.

      Cowards. Given the chance, she would have spit on them. But there would be no chance. Garcelle knew she was almost out of time, about to die at twenty-six years old.

      They reached the stairs and Channer shouted, “Hold on down there! I wanna show you somethin’.”

      “Come down, then,” somebody answered. Not a voice she recognized.

      A white man stepped into view, surprising Garcelle. She didn’t recognize him, knew she would have remembered that grimly handsome face if they had ever met. Who was he, then? And why was he here, killing Channer’s men?

      “Who are you?” Channer demanded, tightening his grip on Garcelle’s hair, pressing his blade’s tip deeper into yielding flesh until she nearly sobbed.

      “Is that your last question?” the white man asked.

      “How about I cut this gal’s head off. How’d that be?”

      “You could do that,” the gunman said. “But what comes next, without your shield?”

      “I’m not joking,” Channer snarled. “Ya think I’m scared? I’m going to—”

      Before he could complete the thought, the white man raised his weapon, aimed, and fired a shot that seemed to be directed at Garcelle.

      * * *

      THE BULLET FOUND its mark, ripping through Channer’s left arm, which was raised to let him clutch the woman’s hair. Its impact drove him backward and broke his contact with the hostage, who immediately lurched away from him and tumbled headlong down the stairs. A fall like that could kill you, but she landed at the bottom more or less intact and started struggling to her feet.

      “Come on!” he snapped at her, still covering the balcony above. Channer had fallen back, beyond Bolan’s line of sight, but others were crowding after him, their faces peeping cautiously downstairs.

      Bolan discouraged them with a short burst that ripped through ceiling tiles and brought fragments raining down. A couple gunmen fired blindly in his direction, pistol shots, and missed by yards. Bolan stood his ground and let the woman scramble toward him, fresh blood weeping from her nose and from a cut beneath her jaw.

      “Please, get me out of here!” she begged him. “I can pay you!”

      “That way,” Bolan said, nodding toward the hallway leading to the back door, “while I cover you.”

      She ran, seeming no worse for having fallen down the stairs. If she was hurt, she managed to disguise it well. Bolan retreated from the staircase, walking backward as he followed her, still covering the Viper Posse shooters on the second floor. Each time one showed his head, Bolan squeezed off a round or two and sent them ducking out of sight.

      He heard the back door open as the lady shoved against it, bursting out into the night. She might run off without him, and if so, he wished her well. The last thing Bolan needed was a sidekick looking for sanctuary.

      But she didn’t run. He found her waiting in the alley, looking frantic. “Don’t tell me you walked here,” she implored, her accent something from the French Caribbean. Haitian, maybe, though there were other possibilities.

      If she was Haitian, it put her presence at the Kingston House into a new perspective. Not merely a captive, but perhaps a prisoner of war.

      “The car’s down that way,” Bolan told her, pointing. “Half a block.”

      “You’ll take me out of here?”

      “I didn’t plan to hang around.”

      “Please hurry, then, before they catch us!”

      She was off and running after that, with no idea what Bolan’s ride might look like. To delay pursuit, he fired another short burst through the open door, no targets yet in sight, then followed her at double time.

      “The Mercury,” he told her as he caught up.

      “This? It’s old.”

      “It’s vintage,” he corrected, and unlocked the doors remotely, sliding in behind the wheel while she sat next to him.

      Downrange, he saw armed men erupting from the back door of their social club, scanning the alley and the street beyond for targets. Bolan left his headlights off as he revved the Marauder’s engine, cranking through a tight U-turn, but they were sure to spot him anyway. Less than a minute later, he had two cars in pursuit and gave up the deception, switching on his lights.

      “They’ll catch us,” she worried aloud. “We can’t outrun them in this…this….”

      “Don’t underestimate three hundred ninety cubic inches,” Bolan said, still not entirely sure he wanted to escape from Channer’s men. More damage could be done by getting rid of them for good, but he required an open killing ground for that, without civilians in his line of fire.

      Someplace like the nearby park, perhaps, where he could find some combat stretch, with all the kiddies safely home for dinner, schoolwork and TV time with families.

      “They’re coming!” his passenger warned.

      “Stay down after we stop,” he told her.

      “Stop! What do—”

      “Hang on! We’re almost there.”

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