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“More CID sniffing around, you think?” Moseley inquired.
“You’re full of questions, brother. How in hell would I know?”
“Well, for one thing, they’re coming outside.”
“Shit! We need to haul ass out of here.”
“Won’t be quiet.”
“Screw quiet,” Tanner snarled. “These 750s can outrun that Focus on the best day it ever had.”
“Or we could take ’em out.”
“That, too. Let’s try to lose them first, if we can swing it.”
“Roger that, Captain.”
They kicked their Harley-Davidsons to life as one, plowed through a screen of trees that should have hidden them but obviously hadn’t managed it, accelerating with a double roar like dirty thunder as they hit the pavement, rolling south on 313 and angling for the cutoff that would take them into Centreville. More traffic there, with forty-three hundred inhabitants plus summer visitors, and they could break from there to Grasonville or Chestertown, even split up if necessary to make sure that one of them escaped.
Tanner’s rearview mirror showed him the Focus with two passengers in close pursuit, gaining a bit before he cranked up his 750 and Moseley did likewise. His preference was evasion without contact, but he’d do whatever he considered necessary to escape, even if that included collateral damage among stray civilians.
It was bound to happen sooner or later, before their small team reached its goal.
A quarter mile from Centreville, they started running into traffic, dodging in and out among old farm trucks and minivans that had seen better days. Tanner eased back, let Moseley pull ahead of him to pass a vintage Dodge Ram pickup, while he retrieved an M-33 fragmentation grenade from under his leathers, dropped its pin into his bike’s slipstream and tossed the metal egg into the Dodge’s open bed before he powered out of there, leaving the startled sixty-something driver in his wake.
Tanner was grinning as he counted down the six-second delay fuse, waiting for the storm to break.
* * *
“Grenade!” Grimaldi snapped, already easing back his pressure on the Ford’s accelerator.
“Saw it,” Bolan said, bracing himself for the explosion that was sure to come in four...three...two...
The blast’s impact was physical, even inside their car. It must have scared a good year off the pickup driver’s life, then he was back to business, swerving left, then right, trying to get his ride under control while smoke poured from its open bed, the sides bowed out over its rear fenders, its tailgate flapping in the breeze. Something had happened to the rear axle, as well, but Bolan thought the real danger was fire now, with the pickup’s gas tank likely holed by shrapnel and inviting any spark to set its fumes alight.
“And there it goes,” Grimaldi said.
The Dodge Ram’s driver gave it up, swerved toward the highway’s grassy shoulder on his right, and bailed as soon as he slowed down enough to make it practical.
“Pretty spry for an old guy,” the Stony Man pilot commented.
“Concentrate on the youngsters,” Bolan replied.
“Bikers. Ten-four.”
The Dodge Ram detonated when they were a half block past it, following the Harley-Davidsons toward Centreville. The bikes were making tracks, topping the 90 mph mark without missing a beat. Bolan reached underneath his jacket, drew the black Berretta M-9 pistol from its shoulder rig, and thumbed its ambidextrous external safety lever from the Safe to Fire position with a red dot showing on each side.
“You want to take them off the road?” Grimaldi asked.
“Find out if we can catch them, first.”
“Good point,” the pilot granted as he trod the Ford’s accelerator to the floor.
* * *
“Still coming,” Moseley called to Tanner. “They’re not stopping for collaterals.”
“Not yet,” Tanner replied. “Maybe they need some more.”
“Say where and when, Captain.”
“We’re coming to the city limits now. I want to split up, left and right, when we’re in town, and make them choose.”
“Whichever one of us they pick should stand and fight?”
“Avoid that if possible,” Tanner replied. “Clutter the streets with more collateral, then regroup on the north side and head back to meet the others. There’s a seafood place they call the Bay Shore Steam Pot on East Water Street. Whoever gets there first, wait ten minutes, no longer, then get out and warn the rest.”
“Sounds good,” Moseley said. “You just tell me when and where to turn.”
“Block and a half, up on your right. I’ll take the left, same time. And don’t be shy about the locals.”
“Never have been, never will, Captain.”
The cross streets, each with different names, came rushing at them and they swerved apart without a backward glance.
* * *
“And there they go,” Grimaldi said. “Which one you want to chase?”
“I doubt it matters,” Bolan answered. “Left’s as good as anything.”
“Easier turn, at least,” Grimaldi said, putting a crooked smile on Bolan’s face by signaling his turn. Catching the look, the flyboy said, “Hey, I obey the law. Mostly.”
As if on cue, an ancient Chevy station wagon blew up on the right-hand side road, trailing smoke, expelling four towheaded children from its tailgate, while their parents leaped for daylight up front. The biker who had fed them a grenade soon vanished in a pall of smoke, with Bolan leaning into Jack Grimaldi’s sharp, tire-squealing turn.
It couldn’t be too long before their chase started attracting lawmen, most particularly if their quarry kept scattering grenades in their wake. Another one went off just then, under the front end of a newish Kia SUV just pulling out from its curb space outside a burger joint. Both airbags inflated instantly, obscuring Bolan’s vision of the driver, while another frag grenade took out a family sedan just signaling its turn into the parking lot of a dry cleaner’s.
“Damn!” Grimaldi swore. “How many of those eggs you think he’s carrying?”
“Too many for a confrontation in the heart of town,” Bolan replied. “Smart money also says he’ll have at least one gun, either a decent pistol or an automatic subgun.”
“You want to call it, then?”
Bolan hated to pull the plug, but he didn’t intend to spark a further bloodbath in the streets of Centreville. On top of that, he heard a siren’s distant wail, either the local cops—with twelve men on the force full-time, as he recalled—or a Queen Anne’s County deputy out on routine highway patrol. He didn’t want the law drawn into this with no idea of what they’d wind up facing, so he made the only call that suited him.
“I’m calling it,” he told Grimaldi. “Let’s get out of here before SWAT hears a rumble and starts gearing up.”
“At least we didn’t pick up any shrapnel,” the pilot said.
“Small favors,” Bolan replied as Grimaldi swung down an alley and began reversing their direction back toward 313.
“I’m thinking Hal won’t like it.”
“Not one little bit,” Bolan agreed.
“You think he’ll pull us off?”
“Doubt it,” Bolan replied after considering. “Right now, we’re all he’s got.”
“I wish that didn’t carry so much weight.”
“Comes with the big bucks.”
“Yeah. I’m still waiting for those,” Grimaldi said with a grin.
“You and me both.”
When they’d cleared Centreville and started back toward Goldsboro, where the chopper waited for them on the ground, Bolan began rehearsing what he’d say to Brognola. He’d never polished up bad news before, and wouldn’t start today, but at least he still had other leads, besides the father who had not seen Walton Tanner Junior in so long most people would consider them estranged.
Another of the AWOL Rangers, Tyrone Moseley, had a brother in Newark, New Jersey, chasing a bachelor’s degree in engineering. Moseley’s file had sketched sufficient background on the kid to mark him as a “normal” student, but he was an African American whose hackles might rise at confrontation with two white government agents looking for his brother, handing back their cards without revealing much of anything.
Life in a city of a quarter million people, some still brooding over riots forty years ago and nursing grudges that might never heal. Some would be militants, the bulk of them just ordinary people conscious of the fact that they’d been wronged repeatedly for years on end, while no one in authority extended an apology, much less making them whole for loved ones killed or maimed along the way.
That wasn’t Bolan’s problem, and he couldn’t solve it if it was. His more immediate concern was to find out if one young man bent on making a new life for himself had been in contact with his elder brother. And what—if anything—had passed between them when they’d spoken, and whether Tyron had been crass enough to drag the kid into his mess.
Bolan hoped not, but as he’d learned to his private sorrow, families were complicated, nursing secrets rarely spoken to outsiders, if at all. He would reach out, learn what Jesse Moseley had to say, if anything, and hope for any clue that put him on the AWOL Rangers’ trail.
Failing that, he’d have to play the rest of it by ear.
Nothing unique in that approach for Bolan, since he’d struck out on his own against the Mafia so long ago, and carried on from there into a world gone mad with terror, tyrants and the endless clash of hostile creeds. He soldiered on, because that’s what a soldier did, until the Universe allowed no choice but to lay down his or her weapons and surrender in the end.
He and Grimaldi had a job to do, and there could be no turning back.
Chapter Four (#ulink_e78ef996-b871-5ffb-a0f9-f27bcea745a3)
Robert F. Kennedy Department of Justice Building
Washington, DC
Hal Brognola heard his cell phone buzzing, vibrating atop his desk. He picked it up and read the message on its screen. Detective Orley Pratt was calling from Newark PD Homicide.
It didn’t take a mastermind to know the news wouldn’t be good.
“Detective Pratt. Brognola here.”
“I thought I’d better catch you early. Your department has a flag on Jesse Moseley, a junior at the Newark College of Engineering?”
“Right. I take it, since you’re calling...”
“He’s downtown right now. The city morgue.”
“Not accidental, I presume.”
“You got that right. Kid goes up on the roof of his apartment house last night to catch a smoke break. Somebody comes up behind him, hits him with a double tap up close, 9 mil, and then collects the brass.”
“Professional,” Brognola said.
“I’d say so,” Pratt replied. “Of course, the street dicks call it gang-related, drug-related, some kind of related. Nothing in his file suggests involvement, but it is Brick City, sometimes called Manhattan’s Sixth Borough. We’ve got Crips and Bloods, your Latin Kings and Trinitarios or ‘3ni,’ Dominicans expanding out from New York City. All of them are moving shit as fast as they can handle it. Beat cops call it an SCO—self-cleaning oven.”
“Nice.”
Pratt let that go, saying, “So the bottom line is, we’ve got nothing on your boy, either. Not even a street interrogation card, which makes—or made—him a rare bird for that preserve.”
“Any contact with next of kin so far?” Brognola asked.
“Sole living relative’s supposed to be an older brother in the Army, but we’re getting squat as far as any feedback from the Pentagon. I guess you wouldn’t have anything to share on that?”
“Sorry,” the big Fed said. “It’s strictly need to know.”
“And lowly cops don’t need. I get it. Same old story.”
“If I could pass anything along...”
“Yeah, yeah. Well, let me pass this on to you. We haven’t publicized the hit yet, but it’s likely going to the media today, maybe tomorrow. If anybody comes around to claim the body, I’ll try to let you know in time for interception. Whether it helps or not, I guess I’ll never know. If nobody shows up, the city carries out cremation after ninety days and bills the taxpayers. The ashes go to Woodland Cemetery, with a plastic label that’s supposed to last five years or something.”
“Not the best sendoff,” Brognola said.
“It’s all you get when no one gives a damn. Be talking to you later,” Pratt told him. “Or maybe not.”
“Thanks for the heads-up, anyway.”
“I’d say it was a pleasure but...you know.” The line went dead and Brognola shut off the link.
Professional. A double tap...collect the brass, Brognola thought. That fit the Ranger style, far as it went, but why would Darby’s AWOL team take out Lieutenant Moseley’s brother if he had no part in their subversion? And why would he, with what appeared to be a spotless record and his future goals apparently laid down?
Brotherly love?
The big Fed hoped it couldn’t be that simple, but you never knew. And if Jesse had been connected to his brother’s group somehow, they’d lost another chance to crack the case before it all revved up and went to hell.
The setback Bolan and Grimaldi had reported out of Maryland was bad enough. One innocent civilian dead, two others critical, and all they could report as “good news” was that they’d avoided contact with police. Shit happened, and Striker was a human being, sure, albeit head and shoulders taller than the rest Brognola had been privileged to know. Still not infallible, of course, and he was hustling to play catch-up after someone slapped the first ball from his hands.
Two watchers on the home of Walton Tanner Sr., and the way they had reacted to exposure meant the members of the AWOL Ranger team were keeping tabs on family. Had they come gunning for the ex-Marine and been cut off, compelled to flee? If so, had it provoked the hit on Jesse Moseley in Newark—and had the whole unit, including Jesse’s brother, signed off on the execution?
If they hadn’t...well, it just might be a crack susceptible to leverage, but that meant getting close enough for piling pressure on. And how would they accomplish that?
Frowning, Brognola grabbed his cell again, secure as any phone could be these days, and hit speed dial.
Gaithersburg, Maryland
