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* * *
BOLAN HAD RACED around the line of semitrailers, running almost to its end before he whipped the RAV4 through a rocking bootlegger’s turn. It wasn’t too hard, once taught the trick, using the hand brake and accelerator in collaboration, power steering helping out. With an SUV there was a risk of tipping over, but he had kept them upright—though not without eliciting a little gasp from Adlene Granger.
“Out!” he snapped, when they were barely settled, reaching toward the backseat for his hidden Colt AR-15. She bailed from the passenger’s side. He had already doused the domes, but a pool of light still glowed beneath the dashboard with the SUV’s doors open. Not enough to matter for his purposes, as Bolan crouched behind his open driver’s door and Granger found her cover in between two massive semis.
Any second now...
The chase car roared into view right on schedule, headlights lancing toward the parked RAV4. They had to see it, but the black car sitting there, stopped dead and going nowhere, would confuse them long enough for Bolan to begin the fight on his own terms. A slim advantage, when he guessed they were outnumbered two to one, at least, but he would take what he could get.
Which, at the moment, was a blast of high beams for the chase car’s driver, followed by a clean shot through its tinted windshield. Bolan didn’t count on hitting anyone with that first round, but it did have the desired effect, forcing the larger SUV to swerve away from him, tires screeching on the asphalt as its wheelman panicked.
Bolan tracked the Yukon with his rifle sights, squeezed off another round that sent its left-front tire into a wallowing rumble, the rim biting blacktop. That didn’t help the driver with control, but he still managed not to flip it, trying to put space between himself and Bolan as he rolled off toward the tall white stacks on the far side of the parking lot.
Looking for cover, Bolan realized, and he was determined not to let them reach it. Breaking from his own partial concealment, after switching off the Toyota’s headlights, Bolan sprinted in pursuit of the Yukon. He was the hunter now, whether the Yukon’s occupants knew it or not. The game had turned around on them, but there was no change in the stakes.
Still life or death.
Before his targets reached the three silo stacks, Bolan stopped short, lined up his shot and punched a double-tap through the retreating 4x4’s rear window. Glass imploded, and he thought he heard a man cry out; whether in pain or mere surprise, he couldn’t say. Then the SUV changed course again, now rolling toward a fence and wall of shrubbery that screened the parking lot’s west end.
Better.
Over there, the only cover waiting for them was the vehicle they had arrived in. They could try to scale the fence and run away, but that would place them with their backs toward Bolan, no hands free for fighting while they made the climb. He could shoot sitting ducks all night, though Bolan hoped to wrap this up without much wasted time.
And if he had a chance to quiz one of his enemies, so much the better.
The Yukon rolled on toward the fence, then veered off to the right. That placed the driver’s side away from Bolan, and he saw the doors fly open, dome lights glaring briefly until they were shut once more. It looked like four men piling out, none seemingly impaired, going to ground behind the full-size SUV.
Now Bolan was in the open and in danger as they started firing—one from each end of the Yukon, one underneath it and one blasting directly through the SUV, its back windows both rolled down.
Not good.
His opposition had two shotguns and two rifles, both feeding the standard 5.56 mm NATO ammunition by their sound. One hit from any of those guns could be enough to finish him. Whether they scored with buckshot or one of the NATO tumblers traveling at 3,100 feet per second, either would create catastrophic damage upon impact with flesh and bone.
He hit the deck and rolled, scrabbling away to his left, toward the last semitrailer in line. It stood some fifty yards from the Yukon, easy pickings with his AR-15, but Bolan still had two problems.
He needed a line on his targets, of course.
And he had to reach cover alive.
* * *
“GET OUT! OUT! OUT!” Bryar Haskin shouted, shoving Folsom when the driver moved too slowly to suit him.
“Jesus, man! I’m go—” Folsom’s words were cut off as he spilled from the Yukon, Haskin crowding out behind him on the driver’s side, the steering wheel bruising his ribs. He nearly stepped on Jesse as he fell.
Cursing a blue streak, Folsom kicked back at him, almost brought him down, and in the process accidentally saved Haskin’s life.
The impact made Haskin stumble and drop to one knee just as a bullet smashed the Yukon’s right-front window, passing within an inch of Haskin’s head. He could have sworn he felt it graze his hair before it whispered off into the darkness. Another bullet hit the open driver’s door a heartbeat later, spraying Haskin’s face and neck with jagged bits of steel and plastic.
“Agh!”
He slammed the door behind him, cutting off the Yukon’s dome lights, staying low in case the rifleman kept shooting through the SUV.
“Shoot back!” he ordered. “What in hell’d we bring these guns for, anyway?”
It took another second, but his boys got in the spirit of the thing, returning fire. Haskin angled his Ithaca across the Yukon’s hood and fired a blast toward the parking lot, seeing a figure drop and roll out there but having no idea if he’d been hit. Doubtful, in the confusion, with his own guys firing wild and ducking back before a lucky shot could pick them off.
Speaking of which, Haskin felt too exposed aiming across the Yukon’s nose, so he went prone and aimed his twelve-gauge underneath the SUV. Not hiding, get that straight; being crafty, with a bid to cut their adversary’s legs from under him, leaving him helpless on the blacktop. Might have worked, too, but it seemed as if the guy was gone now. Likely over by the nearest of the semitrailers, lining up another shot.
And what about the lady Ranger? Where was she?
Haskin had little time to think about it, as his first guess was confirmed. A muzzle-flash winked at him from the darkened space between two trailers, fifty yards or so away, and Haskin heard slugs punching through the Yukon’s right-front fender, hammering the engine.
Shit!
Damned inconvenient for them if they had to leave their ride behind, although its registration wouldn’t lead investigators anywhere. That was the beauty of a holding company, something Haskin had heard about but never really understood until it was explained to him in simple terms, of late—a paper trail that led the cops in circles without yielding any information that could hang him or his friends if anything went wrong.
Like now.
As for escaping, they could always take the other guy’s Toyota once they’d finished with him. And the Ranger. Couldn’t forget her, since she’d started this whole fouled-up business in the first place. Kent still wanted her alive, but Haskin wasn’t sure he could deliver on that order, given how things stood right now.
How long before the shooting brought a prowl car, followed by a SWAT team? He wasn’t sure, but every passing minute made their prospects worse. He tried to picture Kent’s reaction if they all wound up in jail but didn’t like where that was going, so he pushed the image out of mind.
More bullets slapped at the Yukon. “We gotta flush that bastard out of there,” Haskin told his men.
“Go for it,” Jackson answered, making no attempt to move.
“You scared of goin’ out there?” Haskin challenged him.
“Damn right!”
“Well guess what?” Haskin snarled, jabbing his shotgun’s muzzle into Jackson’s ribs. “You’re goin’ anyhow.”
“Son of a bitch!”
“Move it!”
Still cursing, Jackson waddled toward the Yukon’s tailgate, braced himself and charged into the open, firing as he ran. And covered all of ten feet, maybe less, before a bullet brought him down.
And that left three.
* * *
BOLAN HAD DROPPED the runner with a head shot, easy, and his friends were clearly having second thoughts about an all-out rush to finish it. He glanced back toward the RAV4, saw no sign of Granger and hoped she’d keep it that way while he finished up the skirmish. Bolan’s chance of capturing a shooter for interrogation seemed less likely now, but any hope remaining would require the gunmen to be driven out from under cover, where he’d have an opportunity to pick and choose.
How best to do it?
While they popped off wasted rounds—some scoring hits on semis, others squandered on thin air—he sighted on the SUV’s fuel tank. The Yukon carried twenty-six gallons of gasoline when it was filled to the brim, but Bolan didn’t need a full tank for his purposes. Three rounds fired through the right-rear quarter panel were enough to set it dribbling, a small lake forming underneath the vehicle.
Now all he needed was a spark.
The cornered gunmen didn’t seem to see where he was going with it, firing back at Bolan for the sake of making noise, the nearest of their shots missing him by two feet or more. Meanwhile he concentrated on the Yukon’s right-rear wheel. He flattened its tire with one shot, then directed three more at the rim, trying to strike a spark.
He was rewarded by a puff of flame, the gas fumes catching, then the spilled gas on the blacktop came alight and sent its head back to the leaking fuel tank. Bolan waited for combustion, heard one of his hidden enemies growl out a warning to the others, but it came too late. The gas tank blew, lifting the Yukon’s rear end on a bright cushion of fire, some six to eight feet off the ground.
That sent them running. One man, in flames, broke out to his left with staggered steps, wailing, then dropped to hands and knees, trying to roll the fire out as it bit into his flesh. His two companions ran the other way, toward the silo stacks, firing in Bolan’s general direction as they fled.
A pistol cracked from somewhere to his right, distracting Bolan for a split second before he made it out as a .45. Granger was pitching in to help, her second shot dropping the forward runner in a boneless sprawl. His sidekick skidded to a halt, couldn’t decide which way to turn his automatic rifle, so he swept the parking lot at large with crackling fire, hoping to score a lucky hit. He drew more fire from Granger, off the mark this time, and ran toward the stacks again.
They’d lose him there, and Bolan couldn’t have that, even if he gave up the chance for an interrogation. Lining up his shot, be put a round between the shooter’s shoulder blades, the impact lifting Bolan’s target and propelling him some six or seven feet, shoes churning empty air. He landed facedown on the asphalt, rifle skittering away from lifeless fingers, and lay still.
All done...except that one of them was still alive and whimpering.
Bolan crossed to stand by the shooter who had been on fire a moment earlier. Reached down to pluck a pistol from the burned man’s belt and to toss it out of reach, into the shadows. Crouching down beside him, breathing through his mouth to minimize the stench of roasted flesh, Bolan asked, “Who sent you after us?”
“You...get...nothin’...from...me.”
“A name, that’s all,” Bolan replied. “You don’t owe them a thing.”
“What the hell...do you...know?” Wheezing smoke came from the man’s mouth and nose.
“I’m guessing Crockett,” Bolan said.
“Screw...you.”
“Or maybe Ridgway?”
One eye widened slightly, or the other might have narrowed. With the scorching on the shooter’s face, Bolan couldn’t be sure. A wink? He doubted it. More likely pain, sending a tremor through seared flesh.
“So, nothing?”
“Uh...uh.”
“Okay then.”
He rose, backed off a pace and plugged a mercy round into the shooter’s blackened forehead.
“Jesus God!”
And turned to find the Ranger watching him, a grim expression on her face.
“We’re done here,” Bolan told her. “Time to go.”
Chapter 4
“You blew that guy away like it was nothing,” Adlene Granger said.
“You saw him,” Bolan answered. “He was suffering.”
“So that was mercy?”
“Partly.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll agree we couldn’t help him, right? And who knows when the first responders might arrive.”
“We could have called it in anonymously.”
“Then what? If they saved him, what comes next? You want him talking to police, or to whoever sent him and his buddies after you?”
“How do I know that they weren’t after you?” she challenged.
Bolan ticked the points off on his fingers. “First, nobody knows me here. Second, there’s no way they could know who was specifically coming to meet with you. Third, the Yukon had a set of Texas plates and wasn’t rented. Fourth—”
“All right, I get it.”
They were rolling north on Dwyer Avenue, circling back toward Alamo Plaza and Granger’s car, left in the parking lot when they had ducked the shooters there. Taking their time, they might have been returning from a late date, taking in a movie.
Or a massacre.
“Okay, so someone set me up.” Her voice was grim.
“Not necessarily,” Bolan replied.
“How’s that?”
“Did you tell anyone about our meeting?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then no one could have leaked it. They’ve been trailing you. You missed it. These things happen.”
“Trailing me. Damn it!”
“They obviously knew your brother. Maybe they had time to check his cell phone after he was—”
“Killed. Go on.”
“But even if they didn’t, you’re a logical connection. Sister, law enforcement, who else would he talk to?”
“No one.”
“What’s your next move?” Bolan asked her.
“Try to stay alive, I guess. How’s that?”
“When are you back on duty?”
