Читать книгу Desperate Passage - Don Pendleton - Страница 9

Bolan came awake instantly as Charlie Mott touched his shoulder.

“We’re fifteen minutes out,” Mott informed him. “Jack’s already reported engine difficulty to the control tower. We’ll dip down to five hundred feet, equalize things back here and put you out the door.”

“I’ll be ready,” Bolan said.

Mott handed him a thick envelope. “I just counted it out of the safe. That’s for the stringer once you link up. The stringer knows nothing about what you’re doing, or why. She’s there to provide transportation and navigate the locals.”

“That’s what Barb said,” Bolan replied, nodding.

“You want me to help you suit up?”

Bolan shook his head. “No. I’ll do it. Give me a couple minutes, and then you can double-check my hook-up before you kick me out the door.”

Mott laughed, then retreated up the center aisle.

Bolan slid the envelope into his blacksuit, then pulled his parachute from under a seat and began checking the harness and adjusting the straps for a good fit based on long experience.

He worked methodically, with diligent attention as he slid into his harness and readjusted the straps. He double-checked that his weapons were secure and pulled on a nondescript helmet that he buckled under his chin. He decided he was better off without it and took it back off again and tossed it under a seat.

He stood and manhandled his backpack toward the rear door of the plane where he started attaching his guidelines. His ears began to pop, and he knew Grimaldi was bringing the plane down toward jump altitude. At five hundred feet the drop would be over in an instant. He’d be out the door and on the ground so fast there’d be no room for miscalculation of any kind.

Mott began making his way toward Bolan. The Executioner felt the plane tilt sharply as Grimaldi began his circle over the landing zone. Bolan could see a dark mass of thick tropical foliage below the plane.

“Jack’s told the tower in Jakarta he’s compensating for a bad turboprop,” Mott told Bolan as he checked the fittings on the parachute harness. “The weather’s clear with a half moon. The old landing strip is easy to spot in the vegetation. There’s about a five mile per hour wind out of the southeast.”

Bolan nodded. “I’m ready when you are.”

Mott moved to the door and grasped the handle. Bolan fitted a pair of goggles into place. After two long minutes during which Bolan could see the ground growing closer through the plane’s windows, Grimaldi killed the lights in the rear compartment and Mott jerked the door open.

Bolan felt the pull of the open door. He saw the nude scar of the old, overgrown airfield and orientated himself toward it. The sound of the plane’s engines was deafening. He shuffled forward, and Mott slapped him on the back as he went through the doorway into space.

The slipstream took him and he was buffeted away from the cruising aircraft. He pulled his rip cord almost immediately. The chute unfurled behind him then popped and his free fall was over. He plummeted toward the earth, the parachute hardly seeming to slow his rate of descent. His eyes quickly adjusted to the low light, and treetops sped toward him beneath his dangling boots.

He twisted hard and let the backpack dangle. The pack struck the ground and he overshot it. He hit with both feet and felt the impact slam all the way up his body, immediately rolling and absorbing the landing.

Bolan quickly popped up and stripped away the harness connecting him to the parachute. He tore off his goggles and drew his Beretta machine pistol from its sling under his arm. He turned in a slow circle, looking for danger. Seeing nothing, he quickly began gathering in his parachute and shouldering his bag.

He marked the position of the low hanging, half moon and headed to the east of the abandoned airfield. The old landing strip was made of hard-packed dirt dotted with patches of shrubs and jungle grass. Just on the edge of the field the Indonesian jungle encroached aggressively. At the end of the landing strip was an ancient, dilapidated Quonset hut hangar where his stringer had been told to meet him.

In order to increase operational security the stringer hadn’t been informed of how Bolan was making his approach to the meet, only the location. Skirting the tree line, Bolan made his approach toward the abandoned structure.

He slipped into the shadows of the trees and bushes before putting away the Beretta and concealing his parachute gear in the undergrowth. He took his M-4 carbine from his pack when he was finished.

A rickety chain-link fence encircled the hangar, and the windows set into the structure were all broken. Nothing moved.

As Bolan drew closer to the building, his instincts alerted him to trouble. He then saw the earth in front of the fence gate was freshly turned up in semicircular patches, revealing darker earth and, once he was close enough, tire treads.

Bolan adjusted the grip on his M-4 and moved out of the nominal safety of the tree line. He stopped at the fence. One of the gates hung from only a single hinge. The frame was bent near the center, and rested, old metal had been scraped clean. A medium strength steel chain hung limp from the fence links. Bolan picked it up and inspected it. The chain had been broken cleanly through on one of its individual links.

Bolan saw something in the turned up earth and bent to retrieve it. It was an old key-operated lock. A bit of the broken chain fell away as he plucked it from the mud where it lay in the middle of a wide tire track.

Bolan looked up, scanning the silent hangar.

He moved through the gate and put himself at an angle to the door, then jogged forward and put his back to the wall next to the slightly open sliding door.

He paused for a moment, listening, but heard only the silence. Steeling himself, he flipped around the corner and penetrated the dilapidated hangar, M-4 up and leading the way. He moved out of the light of the opening quickly and took up a defensive position on one knee beside the sliding door. He felt the hard cylinders of spent brass under his knee and detected the aroma of cordite.

He flicked his muzzle around the cavernous hangar and found nothing.

The meet location was deserted.

The Executioner left the building and hurried across the short stretch of yard between hangar and ramshackle fence. As he searched the environment, he saw a black pool that had been hidden in shadow. He knelt beside it and reached out his hand, his fingers coming away sticky and damp. He took in the copper-tang smell, confirming his obvious suspicions. The pool was blood, and whoever had been wounded had either made his or her escape or the body had been taken away to hide evidence.

Bolan rose and made for the shelter of the jungle.

THE EXECUTIONER his GPS unit and noted the time on his watch. He was early, as the plan had called for, giving him time to recon the area around the contingency rendezvous zone. He let his sniper’s eye take in his surroundings, cataloging them with terse efficiency, discounting shadow, penetrating dark while his ears strained to catch even the slightest and most innocuous of sounds.

The stringer, Arti Sukarnoputri, had been told to meet him at a given coordinate should the initial contact not be made, but not how Bolan had made his insertion. That had been a deliberate precaution to avoid his being captured should Sukarnoputri prove duplicitous. But Bolan knew the fact that he had not been immediately ambushed was in no way a guarantee that the Indonesian stringer was legitimate.

A she watched the old logging road, his finger rested on the smooth metal curve of the M-4 carbine’s trigger. Gnats, thirsty for the salty flow of his sweat, descended on him in a cloud and he could feel them batting against his face. He made no move to shoo them away.

The minute hand on his watch moved and on cue headlights appeared in the curve on the road from the north. Bolan frowned and grasped the stock of the carbine tightly. The car was moving too quickly for the road conditions.

The vehicle was unidentifiable in the deep gloom. He remained motionless as the car skidded to a stop on the dirt road precisely at the spot he had noted with GPS readings. The driver’s door was thrown open and Bolan saw a slim figure hop out, leaving the engine running and breaking the protocol for the meet.

“You are a long way from home! You are a long way from home!” a feminine voice hissed in a frantic tone.

Bolan rose and was forced into making a decision. The stringer had been instructed to stop her car, kill the engine and lights before getting out and moving to the rear of the vehicle. There Bolan would approach her. Upon seeing him she was to say “You are a long way from home.” His reply would be “Home is where you hang your hat.”

It was simple, direct and slightly cliché in the way most tried and true methods often were. Anything other than the proper protocol and Bolan was supposed to avoid the contact. This was an extreme deviation Bolan readjusted his grip on his M-4.

Suddenly, from the direction the stringer’s car had driven, a second and then a third set of headlights appeared. Bolan saw the women turn her head toward the light.

Once again she called out, and Bolan was able to hear the racing of the other two car engines as the vehicles sped toward the rendezvous site. He gritted his teeth then committed himself to his course.

“Home is where you hang your hat,” he snapped and rose from the shadow of the bushes.

“Thank God!” the woman said in heavily accented English. “Hurry! Those are Laskar Jihad!”

Bolan sprang forward as the woman ducked back behind the wheel of her vehicle. Bolan snatched open the rear door and threw his pack inside before slamming the door and jumping into the front passenger seat.

He had barely touched the leather seat before his contact floored the gas pedal of the SUV. The vehicle shot forward down the rough and potted secondary road, bouncing hard and rattling Bolan’s teeth. He fought his way around in the seat to look out the rear hatch window. The chase vehicles had closed a little bit of the distance.

“Laskar Jihad,” he said. “They aren’t supposed to be active in this area.”

“Your intelligence is wrong. They entered into an operational alliance with Jemaah Islamiyah. They undertake activities in the highlands around Jakarta, drawing resources while JI conducts attack in the city. Besides, I’m almost positive Zamira Loebis is running them through bribes,” the woman said.

Bolan didn’t know whether to believe her. It seemed too coincidental that his contact should arrive under fire, potentially killing his own mission before it had even begun. Still, the situation on the ground in Indonesia was extremely fluid, and half-a-dozen terror groups operated in the poverty stricken country. But it would have been easier to simply ambush him.

“Pop the hatch,” he ordered.

He crawled between the front two seats and into the back of the SUV, folding one of the seats down to sprawl out in the back.

“What are you doing?” The woman shrieked.

“Shut up!” Bolan snapped. “Do what I say and pop the hatch!”

The woman swore, then reached down and yanked on the plastic lever controlling the catch release. The rear hatch popped open and swung up, revealing the racing road just beyond the bumper. The two vehicles were following close behind.

Bolan was tossed to one side as the SUV dipped into a rut and bounced out on the other side. He grunted under the impact but maneuvered his M-4 into position. The hydraulic support struts caught, locking the hatch door open.

From the darkness next to the windshield of the first chase vehicle a sudden brilliant star-pattern burst erupted. Bolan heard the unmistakable sound of 9 mm rounds being burned off. The SUV lurched hard to the side as Sukarnoputri wrestled it around a corner.

Bolan used his thumb to click the fire selector switch on his carbine to the 3-round burst position. He spread his legs wide in the rear compartment to equalize his balance and dug in with his elbows to steady his weapon. The buttstock slapped into his cheek and opened a cut as the SUV drove over a jutting rock shuddering the vehicle on its frame.

Bolan ignored the stinging wound and crammed the stock back into the pocket of his shoulder. The headlights of the first vehicle appeared around the tree-choked turn of the road, and Bolan caught a brief flash of a human figure hanging outside the passenger window of a battered white truck.

Bolan squeezed his trigger and saw the left headlight on the truck wink out as one of the 5.56 mm rounds struck home.

The submachine gunner on the truck’s passenger side returned fire, burst for burst, but the effect of speed and road conditions on the two men’s aim made the duel nearly futile for several exchanges.

The Executioner rode out another jarring pothole and adjusted his fire. Suddenly the SUV hit a patch of gravel. He felt the rocking lurches of the road give way to an almost even vibration as the SUV slide across the gravel, and he squeezed the trigger on his M-4.

He put two 3-round bursts into the front windshield of the pickup, shattering it. The pickup swerved hard to the right and the front tire rolled up an embankment. It rolled onto its side as it half climbed the embankment, then slammed into the gnarled and twisted trunk of a squat jungle tree. The hood crumpled under the impact, then the truck flipped. It struck the broken road hard, the cab smashing flat with a crunch followed immediately by the thunderclap of metal on metal as the second chase vehicle slammed into the first. The overturned truck spun away from the contact like a child’s top while the second vehicle lost control and careened off into the heavy underbrush beside the road.

Bolan scrambled up and grabbed hold of the open rear hatch from the inside and yanked it closed.

“You killed them all!” Sukarnoputri shouted as Bolan shoved himself back into the front seat.

“I doubt it,” Bolan muttered. “And stop shouting.”

“Whatever you say!”

“How did you know that was Laskar Jihad?” Bolan asked, buckling his seat belt. He placed his still smoking M-4 carbine muzzle down between his legs.

“I know because I know. They tried to stop me at a roadblock where this access road starts off the main regional highway. Your people gave me very good car. I drove into the ditch and around them, no slowing down. But they caught up with me at the hangar. I got away.”

“Good job,” Bolan said.

“I want more money. This was a stupid place to pick you up.”

“I’m not the company accountant. And I needed to get to Jakarta in a hurry.”

“Why? What do you have to do?”

“You’re not getting paid to ask questions,” Bolan pointed out. “And slow down. No one’s chasing us anymore. You’re going to shake my teeth out of my head if you don’t wreck us first.”

“First I do good driving then you’re worried I’ll wreck you?”

Bolan turned to look at his driver. She was slim and pretty with raven hair. When she took her eyes off the road to meet his he saw a calculating intelligence.

Bolan turned his attention toward the road. A thick wall of tropical forest formed a shadowy corridor along the logging road. Vines, branches and rotted logs had fallen across the single lane, forcing Sukarnoputri to swerve the vehicle around the obstacles while navigating potholes, rain-wash trenches and protruding rocks.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Offroad, back down to the regional highway, then the road into Jakarta. Forty-five minutes, maybe one hour.”

“Patrols? Roadblocks? More Laskar gunmen?” Bolan asked.

“Possible. There are Indonesian marines in the area to combat Laskar’s influence. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.”

They rounded the corner fast and Sukarnoputri screamed. Headlights filled the windshield as another car raced up the narrow road toward them. Sukarnoputri yanked the wheel hard to one side, swerving to avoid the onrushing vehicle. The SUV lurched to the left, and there was a horrendous screech as the two vehicles skidded off each other. A shower of sparks formed a rooster tail in the driver’s window, and Bolan had an impression of a battered jeep filled with figures.

Immediately behind the first vehicle was a second, and Bolan caught a glimpse of a third set of headlights beyond. Then the front of the SUV bucked up hard and came down, leaving the windshield filled with the leaves and branches of jungle foliage.

Sukarnoputri tried to turn the SUV back out of the jungle, but suddenly the massive trunk of a tree appeared in front of the out of control SUV. Bolan threw his arms up instinctively.

The impact was followed by the violent reversal of momentum. As the hood crumpled and the fender was bent inward, Bolan was thrown hard against his seat belt. He felt something smack his face, then heard the air bags deploying.

He was blinded by the emergency cushion and could see nothing of what was happening but felt the car begin to roll. His world suddenly inverted, and he was thrown against his door. Then just as suddenly he slid up in his restraint to bang his head on the roof as the SUV completed its roll and landed on its blown-out tires. The air bags settled, quickly deflated and Bolan sprang into action.

“Are you all right?” he asked.

He snapped the release on his seat belt and reached for his door handle, but the door refused to budge. There was no answer from Sukarnoputri.

“Are you all right!” Bolan repeated, shouting.

“Yes, I’m fine,” she said.

The Executioner threw his shoulder against the inside of the passenger door.

“Can you get out?” he asked.

“No, my door is jammed!” Sukarnoputri’s voice sounded panicky.

Bolan leaned back and kicked. With a screech the stubborn door finally opened. Bolan snatched his M-4 and scrambled out.

“Come on!” he snapped.

He looked over the caved in hood and saw a short convoy of three vehicles stopped in the middle of the logging road on the other side of the thick brush from his wreck.

Two Indonesian men dressed in grungy civilian clothes and packing AKM assault rifles appeared. Bolan moved toward the rear of his vehicle as one of the men raised his assault rifle to fire. The Executioner drew a snap-bead and put the man down.

Bullets struck the ruined SUV, and Bolan sensed Sukarnoputri crawling out of the wreck behind him. He pivoted his barrel across the collapsed roof and fired a second time, putting the other man down as well.

Angry shouts came from the road and weapons up and down the length of the convoy erupted into action. A hailstorm of lead cut through the jungle, ripping the flora apart, shredding bark and leaves and riddling the SUV.

Pinned down, Bolan struggled to act.