Читать книгу China White - Don Pendleton - Страница 11
ОглавлениеCanal Street, Lower Manhattan
“Keep going, damn it! Don’t stop here!” Louis Chao snapped.
“No choice,” John Lin answered back. “We’ve got a flat, in case you couldn’t tell.”
“Drive on the rim!”
“Too late. We’re bogging down.”
Those words were barely out before Chao felt the sharp edge of their left front wheel plow into grass and sod. The Focus shuddered, wallowed in the trough it was digging, then stalled as Lin kept bearing down on the accelerator.
“Stop! You’re flooding it!”
The engine coughed and died then, leaving Lin to pound his fist against the steering wheel, cursing in Cantonese.
“Stop it!” Chao snapped at him. “They’re coming! Everybody out!”
The car would be a death trap if the Afghans caught them in it and they couldn’t drive away. Chao didn’t plan on being caught inside with bullets ripping through the windows and the flimsy bodywork into his body. He’d already cocked the Bushmaster and held it ready as he rolled out of the car, crouching behind it with his door open, where it could serve him as a partial shield from either side. It wasn’t much, but better than if he was caught out in the open by his adversaries.
Martin Tang was last out of the Ford, clutching a pistol that seemed woefully inadequate under the circumstances. He was empty-handed, otherwise, and Chao snarled at him, “Get the bag!”
“But—”
“Get it! We’re not leaving it behind!”
Tang did as he was told, leaning inside the Ford to grab the suitcase filled with heroin and drag it out behind him. As he did so, Chao could hear the SUV approaching, fat tires ripping furrows in the grass someone had spent a fortune tending, and the men inside it had resumed their firing at the Ford. He wondered for a fleeting instant who the other man had been, glimpsed briefly in a car behind the Chevy Trailblazer and firing at it, then at Chao’s car. A policeman? Would he join the fight without the usual flashing lights and siren?
There was no more time to think about it then, as the Trailblazer passed their small sedan, two automatic weapons spitting deadly fire, their bullets hammering the Ford along its driver’s side. Chao cursed them and returned fire with his Bushmaster, the first time he’d been able to retaliate so far. He was pleased to see his bullets stitch a line of bright holes on the chase car’s left rear fender, even if they didn’t reach the men inside.
Lin was out and firing with his Uzi, ripping off what seemed like half a magazine in one long burst. Chao hoped that he had spares, firing like that, but didn’t take the time to chastise Lin for wasting ammunition. Time was better spent aiming his own shots more precisely, if he could, instead of yelling at his Wah Ching brothers in the middle of a firefight.
Do or die, he thought. If they went home without the heroin, no explanation he could fabricate would placate Paul Mei-Lun. Death from a bullet would be preferable to whatever Mei-Lun devised as punishment for losing merchandise worth three cool million. Bearing that in mind, Chao braced himself and tracked the Chevy as it turned, preparing for another strafing run, this time on his side of the crippled Ford.
“Watch out!” he warned the others, just in case their nerves had blinded them somehow. He saw Lin crouching with the Uzi held in front of him, while Tang was trying to crawl underneath the Focus, making little progress with its chassis low against the ground.
“Martin! Come out and fight!”
Tang obeyed, but seemed as if he were about to weep, a pitiful display that shamed him and his Wah Ching brothers. If they had not needed him just then, Chao thought he might have shot the whining little coward.
Chao dropped to one knee, shouldered the Bushmaster’s stock, and hoped that the sedan’s door would prevent the first few rounds from striking him. He craved a chance to kill one of his enemies, at least, before he died. Just one would be enough to prove that he had fought with courage, done his best, and he could face his triad ancestors without a trace of shame.
* * *
BOLAN COULD FEEL the Camry start to slide on the grass and turned his steering wheel into the skid, easing his foot off the gas pedal. The chase was ending, since a lucky shot had flayed one of the Ford’s front tires, and plowing over soft ground had it bogging down. The Chevy SUV was slowing, too, its front-seat shooter popping off rounds toward the Focus, while his partner in the backseat tried to keep an eye on Bolan’s progress.
The Executioner made it harder for him, cranking through a U-turn that maneuvered him away from the location where the Ford had stalled and left his Camry with its nose pointed uphill, back toward Canal Street. That way, if it started taking hits, the bullets ought to spend their force inside his trunk, or in the backseat, without doing any damage to the rental’s engine. He’d be able to evacuate the scene, at least—if he was still alive and fit to drive.
That was by no means certain, with the automatic fire already hammering the park, no more than thirty yards from where he took the battle EVA. Pursuing the Trailblazer any further would have made the fight a demolition derby, likely leaving him afoot when the police arrived to spoil the party. And since being jailed was not on Bolan’s list of things to do that afternoon, he opted for audacity to shift the odds a bit.
Audacity, and maybe just a little bit of luck.
The MP5K wasn’t heavy. Truth be told, it weighed about the same as the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle autoloader Bolan often carried as a backup piece. Add roughly a half pound for the Beta C-Mag and it still came in below six pounds, lightened a fraction of an ounce with every 3-round burst unleashed. He wasn’t firing at the moment, though. The soldier was covering ground instead, closing the gap between himself and six men trying hard to kill one another in the middle of the park.
The Executioner came at the Trailblazer from its blind side, more or less, half crouching as he sprinted across the sloping turf. The shooter in the backseat tried to get an angle on him, squeezing off a burst to get the range, but rushed it so that half his bullets struck the inside of the tailgate, peppering the grass while Bolan ducked and rolled aside.
He squeezed off two short bursts in answer to that fire and saw his target flinch from the incoming rounds. Wounded? It was impossible to say, but when the Afghan fired again, his rounds tore through the Chevy’s roof, a reflexive act accompanied by what Bolan assumed to be a shout of profanity.
Closer. The SUV’s tailgate and left rear quarter panel were his cover now. They wouldn’t stop a rifle bullet, but they kept the shooters in the Trailblazer from spotting him until he showed himself—which, as he saw it, couldn’t be put off for any more convenient time.
Nine blocks from the Fifth Precinct and he was running out of time.
Bolan reached up, holding his SMG one-handed, and unloaded through the Chevy’s left rear tinted window, spraying the interior with Parabellum rounds and shattered glass. A cry from somewhere near at hand told him he’d scored at least one hit before the SUV lurched forward, roaring off to make another sweep around the Ford sedan.
Leaving Mack Bolan totally exposed.
* * *
“DAOUD? DAOUD!”
Ahmad Taraki, bleeding from his scalp where shards of glass had stung him, swiveled in his seat when Daoud Rashad refused to answer him. The reason for his silence was revealed immediately. Fresh blood spattered the backseat of the SUV; Rashad was sprawled across that seat with half his face and skull sheared off.
Taraki still had no idea who had attacked them from behind, but he could see the bastard now, as Kazimi took them on another run around the crippled triad vehicle. The stranger was a white man, not Chinese, and he had fired on both cars during the pursuit along Canal Street, which made no sense in Taraki’s mind.
The answer: kill the attacker now before he harmed them further.
But the three Chinese were firing at Taraki and Kazimi was swerving enough to spoil Taraki’s aim as he tried to return fire on the drive-by. His magazine ran dry after unloading half a dozen rounds, but he was satisfied to see one of the triad gunners stagger, clutching at his chest before he fell. Taraki fumbled to reload the rifle, cursing his clumsy fingers, and then his driver had them lined up to charge directly at the white man who had killed Rashad.
“Run over him!” Taraki ordered. “Smash him into pulp!”
“I’m trying!” Kazimi snapped.
Their unknown adversary stood his ground, waiting, some kind of machine pistol held steady in his hands. Taraki snarled a curse and started firing through the Chevy’s windshield, scarring it with spiderwebs before a chunk of glass the size of his own head broke free and slithered off the hood, clearing his field of fire. By then his enemy was firing back, not panicked as might be expected, but squeezing off precision bursts.
Kazimi croaked out a dying gasp as he slumped back in the driver’s seat, his hands sliding off the steering wheel and down into his blood-drenched lap. His foot was still on the accelerator as he slid down in the seat, the SUV still charging forward, though it had begun to drift off course. Taraki grabbed the wheel and tried to bring the vehicle back on target, toward the man he meant to kill, but when he tore his eyes away from Kazimi’s corpse, his enemy had leaped aside, out of the Chevy’s path.
Taraki cranked the wheel sharply, swerving to the right. He guessed it was too little and too late, but what else could he do? Firing the Bushmaster with one hand, steering with the other while a dead man held the SUV at cruising speed, he tried to salvage something out of the disaster that had overtaken him.
Too late.
Another burst of submachine gun fire blew through the Chevy’s shattered windshield, ripping through Taraki’s left shoulder and arm with stunning force. He might have squealed in pain—couldn’t be certain of it with the roaring in his head—then he was slumping to his right, against his door, as the Trailblazer tipped and rolled onto its side. Kazimi, never a fan of seat belts when he was alive, slithered across the console, settling with his mutilated face jammed underneath Taraki’s chin.
“Get off me.” Taraki’s voice grated, but he had no strength left with which to shove his former driver away, much less crawl out from under him. His left arm was a useless dangling piece of meat, his right pinned underneath his own weight and the corpse’s, still clutching the Bushmaster but now incapable of lifting it.
He heard footsteps approaching; knew that it could only be an enemy, but didn’t know whether it was the white man who had wounded him or one of the Wah Ching gunners. Cursing and weeping in frustration, straining with whatever strength he still possessed to raise his gun, Taraki listened to the grim approach of death.
At the last moment, with an effort that exhausted him, Taraki craned his neck to peer out through the windshield, focusing on feet and legs outside. He struggled impotently to free his weapon, mouthing curses as the man dropped to one knee and peered inside the toppled SUV. It was the stranger, naturally, frowning at him as he raised his submachine gun toward Taraki’s face.
Before the world went black.
* * *
A BULLET SIZZLED past Mack Bolan’s ear and panged into the capsized SUV, leaving a shiny divot in the roof where paint had flaked away. He ducked and rolled, putting the blunt nose of the Trailblazer between himself and the Wah Ching thugs who’d missed a chance to take him down.
Stalemate?
He couldn’t let it go at that, with precious seconds slipping through his fingers. Sirens would be coming at him any time now, closing off Bolan’s escape route from the battle that he’d never meant to fight in this location, with civilians in the way. He glanced around as best he could, saw no one raising cell phones yet to record the action as it happened, but the idea added one more level of concern.
His face on YouTube? Not a great idea.
Of course, it wasn’t his face. Not the one he had been born with, anyway. No one would look at him and think Mack Bolan? Someone told me he was dead! Still, going viral to the world at large would definitely cramp his style, and might require yet another session with the surgeon who had given him his battle mask.
No, thanks.
Before he made another move against the Wah Ching gangsters, Bolan pulled a roll of silky black material out of his left trouser pocket and slipped it over his head. It was a balaclava, black nylon and ultra-thin, that fit him like a second skin, with a “ninja” oval opening for eyes alone, masking the rest of Bolan’s face. Now he was ready for his close-up, if it came to that, switching out the MP5K’s nearly empty magazine for a fresh one, bracing for his move.
First step: to take the triad hardmen by surprise within the limits of his present circumstance. They had to have seen where he had gone to ground, so Bolan crept along behind the Trailblazer until he reached its rear end, pausing there just long enough scout the landscape cautiously and choose his angle of attack. Behind him, twenty yards or so from where he crouched, the Camry waited for him, still had access to Canal Street if he finished his business soon enough and wasn’t cut off by police.
Too many ifs.
The way to do it, he decided, was a plain, straightforward rush, with cover fire as needed on the relatively short run to his destination. Short was relative, of course. Ten feet could feel like miles when a person was under hostile fire. The first step could turn out to be his last. Still, Bolan had to make the effort, or his intervention in the fight had been for nothing, a colossal—maybe catastrophic—waste of time.
The best scenario would be a short dash, unopposed, to reach the Ford and— Then what? Killing at close quarters was an ugly business, where the outcome could go either way. One slip and he was done. There’d be no do-over, no second chance to get it right. End game.
But if he got it right...
His plan had changed, against his will, when the Afghans stepped in and made the hunt a firefight. Now, instead of following the Wah Ching thugs to their leader, Bolan had another end in mind, requiring him to face them and relieve them of the cargo they’d transported from New Jersey. Ten or twelve kilos of heroin that would become his lever for upsetting Paul Mei-Lun’s enclave in Chinatown, with any luck.
And what about Wasef Kamran?
Bolan planned to take it one step at a time. Survive this challenge, then move on.
A final peek around the Chevy’s tailgate and he was just in time to see one of the Wah Ching gunners rise and fire a short burst from an automatic rifle toward the SUV’s front end. Trying to pin him down so they could make a run for it, perhaps? The last thing Bolan needed now was a pursuit on foot along Canal Street, running from the park and toward the Fifth Precinct.
A distant siren got him up and moving toward the triad vehicle, clutching his little SMG and hoping that his time had not run out.
* * *
“WHO IS THAT crazy bastard?” Martin Tang asked.
“It doesn’t matter who he is,” Louis Chao replied. “We need to get the hell away from here before we’ve got pigs crawling up our asses.”
“What’s the plan?” John Lin demanded. “Are we just gonna walk away from here?”
“Unless you get the damn car running,” Chao snarled back at him.
“He’ll pick us off, first move we make,” Tang said.
“You mean he’ll try to,” Chao replied, and rose to fire a short burst from his Bushmaster as punctuation, stitching holes across the broad hood of the Afghans’ SUV. “That lets us have another chance to drop him.”
Chao didn’t have a clue about the round-eyed stranger’s motive or identity, was grateful that he’d taken out the triad goon, but that didn’t solve his problem. They were half a mile or something from the cop house, sirens in the air now, and he couldn’t lose the suitcase full of heroin. Not if he wanted to survive the day.
“Get ready,” he commanded. “Switch your mags out if you’re running low. There’s no time for it once we start to run.”
“Run where?” Lin challenged him.
“Just run. We get a block or so away from here, split up and make it harder for whoever’s following. I’ll see you at the Lucky Dragon.”
Neither Lin nor Tang replied to that, both staring at him as if Chao had lost his mind. Maybe he had, in fact, but he was dead certain of one thing: staying where they were right now was not an option.
“Ready?”
Tang bobbed his head while Lin glowered and muttered to himself.
Maybe the plan was freaking stupid, but it was the best Chao could devise. He had a final thought, leaning in toward Tang and snatching the heavy suitcase from him.
“I’ll take this,” Chao said, not giving Tang a choice.
“Suits me.”
The bag would slow him a bit, no question, but he couldn’t trust it to their younger Wah Ching brother with a madman breathing down their necks and cops converging on the battleground. Whatever happened to the skag, it would be Chao’s neck on the chopping block with Paul Mei-Lun. He might as well die running with it, as to show up empty-handed at the Lucky Dragon, pleading ignorance of where the dope had gone.
“Okay,” Chao said. “Remember now—”
He never had a chance to finish as running footsteps made him turn and then all hell broke loose. The round-eye was upon them, spraying death among them from his compact submachine gun. Chao gasped as the bullets struck him, punched him over backward, glimpsing Lin in a fighting stance, then falling through a cloud of crimson mist. Chao couldn’t see what had become of Tang and didn’t care.
He’d failed his brothers and the Wah Ching Family. Whatever lay in store for him, if there was anything at all beyond this life, at least he wouldn’t have to answer for his last snafu to Paul Mei-Lun.
The attacker stood above him now, face covered, bending to lift the suitcase Chao had tried to rescue, all in vain. Chao tried to curse him, nearly managed it, but felt his final breath escape as a gurgling whistle from his punctured lungs before he closed his eyes.
* * *
BOLAN HEFTED THE BAG—ten kilos by the feel of it—and turned back toward his waiting rental car. He sprinted past the Ford, beyond the SUV slumped on its side, and reached the Camry as the sirens sounded louder in his ears. He opened the driver’s door and pitched the suitcase right across into the footwell of the shotgun seat. Sliding in behind the wheel, the soldier dropped his MP5K on the empty seat beside him, leaving on the balaclava while he gunned the Camry’s engine into growling life and powered out of there.
Careful!
He had to hurry, but could not afford undue attention as he picked an escape route. Pulling out into the two-way traffic on Canal Street, Bolan had a choice to make immediately. Turning to his right, he could proceed directly toward the Fifth Precinct, the source of the sirens closing in on him even now, then turn north on Sixth Avenue, running one-way, or keep on for another block to West Broadway, another one-way street bearing him north. Beyond that, he’d be rolling past the cops and into Chinatown, a move that he was not prepared to make just yet.
A left turn on Canal would take him back to Varick Street and one-way traffic heading south into Lower Manhattan, renamed after eight long blocks to become West Broadway. If he passed that, his next choice would be Hudson Street northbound, or on from there to Lincoln Highway where his tracking of the Wah Ching hardmen had begun. That route would take him north or south along the Hudson River, with a choice of side streets offered either way.
Bolan turned left.
He didn’t make a big deal of it, didn’t screech his tires with a dramatic peel-out from the scene. If someone memorized his license plate or snapped a photo of it on a cell phone, well, so be it. He would have to ditch the Camry anyhow, and soon, then find another set of wheels to keep him mobile in New York. He’d bought insurance on the rental, so the vendor wouldn’t take a hit from any damage suffered in the fight, and Bolan’s fingerprints had been expunged from every file that Hal Brognola could access from his office in D.C.—which meant all files, across the board. The cyber team at Stony Man had taken care of the rest.
The danger he faced now was that of being overtaken by police before Bolan could slip away and lose himself among the Big Apple’s eight million people and two million automobiles. He didn’t need much of a lead, maybe a mile or so, and he could likely pull it off.
Two blocks from where he’d killed six men, Bolan ditched the balaclava and turned right on Hudson Street, slowing to match the flow of traffic moving northward. The map in his head told him that Hudson would become Ninth Street when he had cleared the next two dozen blocks, past Greenwich Village, and then continue toward Times Square and the Theater District. Somewhere along that two-mile drive he’d find a place to ditch the Camry and proceed on foot until he caught a cab and went from there.
Next stop: a different auto rental agency, where he’d present a driver’s license and Platinum Visa in the name of Matthew Cooper, home address a mail drop in Richmond, Virginia, that forwarded bills and whatever to Stony Man Farm. There’d be no problem picking up another ride, and he’d be on his way.
Easy.
After that, however, things would once again get complicated in a hurry.
Bolan’s plan had been diverted by the battle on Canal Street, but it wasn’t scuttled. In fact, he thought Plan B might serve him better than the scheme he’d started out with. Now that he’d acquired a load of smack worth some three million dollars, he could try a new game, not restricted to the Wah Ching base in Chinatown.
Divide and conquer, right. He’d played that hand before, with good results, and Bolan couldn’t think of any reason why it wouldn’t work this time. At least, not yet.
New wheels, then phone calls. He would reach out to the Wah Ching Triad first, since he’d relieved them of their merchandise, then he would float an offer to Wasef Kamran. Neither would ever lay hands on the suitcase full of poison, but they wouldn’t know that going in.
Hope springs eternal, even among savages.
They would believe that every person drawing breath came with a price tag, ready to abandon principle if someone offered them a payday large enough to salve their qualms of conscience. Moral ambiguity was absolutely necessary for survival of a criminal cartel. It was the mobster’s stock in trade. Neither would be familiar with a man like Bolan, who regarded the performance of his duty as an end unto itself.
A rude awakening was coming to his enemies, but if he played his cards right, none of them would live to profit from the lesson.
And when they were gone, the Executioner would deal with those who’d sent them to New York.
