Читать книгу Patriot Acts - Don Pendleton - Страница 11

The Executioner heard the gunmen’s thundering footsteps below him in the stairwell. Bolan took the flights fast and furious, hopping when he was halfway down and rolling along the walls to eat up his forward momentum and get turned around to take the next flight. He was almost to the second floor when he heard the emergency exit slam open one floor below.

Bolan swung around and saw a dark-suited fake Treasury agent swing up his machine pistol. He lurched backward. A stream of 9 mm slugs filled the air where his head had been only moments ago, plaster chewed out of the under-sides of the stairs above his head. He aimed his Desert Eagle and spiked a quartet of .44 Magnum slugs at the shooter. There was a snarled curse of panic as the man retreated.

Bolan bounded down the final steps as he holstered the big handgun and pulled his shoulder-holstered Beretta. The two men, posing as federal agents, had infiltrated the Los Angeles Crime Lab in an effort to gain control of counterfeit cash that Bolan was investigating. The two had survived the initial conflict, and the Executioner was going to keep the pair from escaping.

At the bottom of the steps, he burst into an alley and spotted the pair piling into their car. The Executioner raised the Beretta and ripped off a 3-round burst that took out the rear window of the car. They had a driver waiting behind the wheel, and he gunned the engine, tires spewing smoke before they caught hold and pushed the car forward.

Hot pursuit time, Bolan mused as he charged the length of the alley, punching more rounds, this time ripping 9 mm bullets into the road by the tires. After two tribursts, the right rear tire of the sedan exploded violently, flopping on its rim. The right fender screeched, wailing as it was shredded on contact with the wall, pulled off course by the deflated ring of floppy rubber.

Gunshots tore through the rear window, automatic weapons in the hands of the fake Feds churning out slugs. Had the driver not been in a struggle to maintain control of the limping sedan, the gunmen could have nailed the Executioner as he charged after them. But rather than hit their target, autofire sprayed wildly. As it was, the sedan ground to a halt, the front bumper rammed into a telephone pole. The driver ground the stick shift, trying to get the car into Reverse.

Bolan fired again, sinking another burst through the rear window, and suddenly the two muzzle-flashes became one. Bolan ducked behind a large garbage bin and reloaded his Beretta, knowing that at full gallop, he couldn’t have been certain of a direct, fight-stopping hit on one of his opponents. Rather, it was likely that the silent weapon needed recharging, or had jammed.

Sure enough, a handgun took up the slack of the quieted Uzi. Bolan took a moment as bullets hammered the garbage bin, drew and tapped off his Desert Eagle with a few deft movements. He swung around the side with the Beretta and the .44 Magnum pistol in each hand. The sedan lumbered relentlessly back toward him, the enemy driver trying to turn his car into a missile.

The Executioner’s handguns blazed out thunderbolts of Magnum firepower and sputtering lightning jolts of 9 mm bursts, ripping a dozen slugs into the charging beast. Then he whirled and jammed himself in the walkway between two structures.

The sedan bulldozed past, hurtling the garbage bin onto its side with a thunderous crash.

“Luke! Don’t stop shooting!” a voice cried from the dark car. The rear passenger door was visible to Bolan in the walkway, and he could see an Uzi-toting man kneeling on the backseat. Bolan raised his Desert Eagle and fired twice. The second bullet was insurance in case the window deflected the first shot, but both Magnum slugs detonated gory holes through the gunner’s back, sprawling him across his wounded partner.

“Stop the car!” Bolan shouted.

The driver leaned back to the rear of the car, leveled a pistol and opened fire. Bolan hit the sidewalk as slugs ripped into the brick around him, knocking loose explosions of stone splinters that rained down on him.

The sedan lurched forward, mangled metal chewing at the front tire, but the driver managed to wrestle some speed out of the damaged car.

Bolan burst into the alley and continued the chase as the enemy driver urged his wheels along. Wrecked as it was by impacts and tire-shredding bullets, the automotive dinosaur finally slowed enough to make foot pursuit possible.

But the driver suddenly jammed the car crosswise at the end of the alley, forming a barrier. The two survivors got out. One was hobbled by a bullet wound that had torn a chunk of muscle out of his thigh. The driver hooked his arm under the wounded man’s and lurched into the street, aiming his handgun at the windshield of a passing SUV.

Bolan reached the alley’s end and vaulted over the car, just as the driver deposited his wounded partner into the SUV. On the ground a woman, her chest bloody, gasped as she clutched the spreading dark smear. The Executioner stopped long enough to see if there was anyone else in the vehicle who could be a hostage. Bolan’s pause to ensure the safety of innocents provided time for the fleeing driver to swing his pistol around and open fire. The driver blazed away at the Executioner and forced him to race in a serpentine charge for the nearest available cover. Bullets smashed the concrete at Bolan’s heels.

The Executioner fired at the grille of the stolen SUV, hoping his Desert Eagle would have enough punch to render the massive V-8 engine useless to the escaping murderers. If he could force the pair into retreat, he could check on the woman and apply emergency first aid.

The driver was a wily, quick snake, however, diving into the seat well and jamming on the gas with his hand. The SUV lurched and rocketed down the street.

Bolan raced to the wounded woman.

“Can you talk?” he asked.

She winced, and blood trickled from her nose. The right side of her chest showed a ragged laceration, indicative of a glancing wound through her upper chest. The bullet went in, but had deflected off a rib bone and exited the side of her chest, slashing across her biceps. It was a grisly injury, but survivable. A closer examination showed that her nose was swollen from a brutal impact. Bolan was relieved to see that the nasal trickle wasn’t bright red as if from an injured lung.

Bolan looked at the SUV as it disappeared into the distance.

A trio of LAPD squad cars screeched to a halt. The Executioner had his Justice Department badge around his neck, but he still held his hands up as the cops got out.

“Agent Cooper, FBI!” he announced. “Get this woman an ambulance.”

HENRY COSTELL PICKED UP Cameron Richards in a nondescript, rusted old van. Richards didn’t have to ask if his pilot and wheelman made certain that the vehicle was clean of any tracers or identifying features.

“Los Angeles was a screw job, Hank,” Richards explained. “I think I was set up for a fall.”

“It means they’ll want to retire me and the others, too,” Costell said. His close-cropped blond hair was a fuzz on top of his round, big-eared head.

“I can’t believe that after all we’ve given them…” Richards said. He took a deep breath, putting the frustration away for later. “I’ve saved this country from countless threats.”

“You’ve saved the whole world,” Costell explained. “It doesn’t matter. The weaklings in government aren’t strong enough to do what has to be done against the hordes hemorrhaging through our southern border, or the maniacs in the Middle East.”

“Don’t even get me started on some of the shit we’ve seen in China,” Richards whispered. “Hell, we’ve seen so many things that could destroy the world that we wouldn’t have to look far.” He paused for a moment.

“Why not?” Richards asked.

“Why not what?” Costell asked. “Destroy everything we’ve worked for?”

“We know enough to destroy the puppet masters,” Richards said. “The ones who’ve been pulling our strings, the ones who’ve been pulling the strings of our enemies. We could take out the whole set of them, maybe give this world another chance.”

Costell pulled into a parking lot and turned off the engine. “They’ll kill us, no matter what we do,” he admitted.

“This way, we not only give ourselves a measure of vengeance, but we create a new world. A world where people can live like they were meant to, by their own wits and courage,” Richards said.

“There’d be battles across the country, not to mention international conflicts. And all we have is Weist and his men on our side,” Costell countered.

“Not just him. We’ve got tabs on dozens of groups who would jump at the chance to play with the toys we’re going to pull out of the chest,” Richards stated. “We could build an army.”

Costell stared, unfocused, out of the windshield. He didn’t see the storefronts before him, but instead he saw a world that could be forged in the fires of a single act of apocalyptic revenge. He glanced back to Richards. “What would we use?”

“We’ve got everything from the Rage Pulse to Blue Fire,” Richards answered.

“That stuff is under lock and key. The Initiative wouldn’t let us touch it when we still were their trusted soldiers,” Costell said.

“So what?” Richards asked. “We know where we can get it. They might have had contingencies for us, but we’ve got our own ideas.”

“You’re not really paranoid if they are out to get you,” Costell agreed. “So we bust in, and pop off some doomsday weaponry.”

“And if we’re lucky, we can survive,” Richards said. “But if not, we at least hit the real bastards.”

“We’ll need transportation,” Costell noted.

“First we call up Weist and his boys,” Richards said. “I’ve got some ideas for a ride that will get us exactly where we want to be.”