A few more scars. A few more ergs of energy burned on a long and deadly day.
He’d gone through half of Majnuna and Asada’s comrades, all in the space of a few minutes. The struggle seemed longer due to Bolan’s mental hyper-focus in combat. Able to concentrate on a battlefield, his senses formed a radius of information all around him and could also laser in on the closest threat in moments. Dodging bullets and grenades wasn’t a matter of reflexes, because the quickest reactions in the world meant nothing without situational awareness. That was why he had mapped out the garage for minutes under careful scrutiny, why he had noted as many gunmen and their positions as possible. Upon entrance, he did what he could to limit their ability to perceive him through deafening blasts and blinding smoke screens. Thanks to noise-canceling earbuds, he’d minimized the effects of the blasts and the gunfire in the enclosed garage, while he still could hear footsteps and their shots.
The hand grenade’s blast was swallowed by the undercarriage of the Malibu he’d taken cover at the beginning of the fight. Smoke billowed from beneath, its hood puking out dark cottony blossoms. Bolan saw the flicker of flames from bends in the lid. The soupy haze in the garage thickened as tongues of flames rose from the floor behind the vehicle. The fuel tank had taken much of the grenade blast and ripped open. Gasoline spilled and ignited. Smoke grenades already produced enough caustic clouds, but now the fire and toxic petroleum fumes turned the atmosphere even more deadly.
This new development was both an aid and a hindrance. The Executioner would hide easily in the more intense smoke, and the flames limited paths of approach from the terrorists. The bad part was that the fire spread, could light other vehicles aflame and cause explosions that Bolan couldn’t shield himself from. The blaze would make target identification far more difficult, especially post combat. Burned bodies wouldn’t confirm that he had taken out the two leaders of this terrorist cell.
One of the Islamist radicals released a wail of agony and Bolan saw that he had turned into a blazing amber tower of flame. The terrorist’s machine pistol chattered and spit projectiles while his hand seized up tight in response to the fire tearing through his epidermis. The gun emptied within a few seconds and none of its bullets had come anywhere near the Executioner. Bolan ended the gunner’s suffering. He pulled the Desert Eagle from its quick-draw holster and punched a single .44 Magnum slug through the bridge of the guy’s nose.
The burning man’s forehead burst under the hammer blow of the heavyweight hollowpoint round. He collapsed, his scream reduced to a whistle of steam from emptied lungs.
Bolan saw the foot traffic entrance of the garage only a few strides ahead. The gunman assigned to that door, whom he’d seen through a fiber-optic camera on his tablet, was nowhere to be found. He had to have been driven away from his post by smoke, fire, grenades or just the general ruckus of gunfire and battle. Bolan kept his senses about him. The MP-9 hung on its sling, secured until he could inspect it for shrapnel damage. He surged forward, his mighty .44 Magnum autoloader leading the way.
The guard for that doorway might pop up at any moment, and the Executioner wanted to be ready with a jacketed round.
“Don’t let him out!” Bolan recognized the voice as Majnuna’s, and in an instant, his gunmen opened up. A wave of gunfire washed across the garage and Bolan took a quick knee behind the frame of a vehicle. Bullets that weren’t stopped by the hatchback cracked into the wall and door above and behind him.
The Stony Man warrior triangulated muzzle-flashes through the windows of the hatchback and found his targets, even through the smoke and flames. The first silhouette that presented itself, cast in a halo of muzzle-flashes, was the first one to catch a .44 Magnum round through the face. The punch of a Desert Eagle slug wasn’t the body-flipping impact as seen in movies or on TV. However, the face it struck imploded. Skull caved and brains liquefied, and one more of the enemy guns fell silent.
As soon as the terrorists saw their comrade in arms fall, his face crushed like a grape, they stopped shooting, as well. The shuffle of feet amid the reloading of firearms told the Executioner that he’d opened up a window of opportunity to find himself a better position in this fight. He kicked out of the service walk-up for the garage and, while the door was open, took his sole fragmentation grenade, armed it and tossed the bomb under the hatchback.
So be it if neither Majnuna’s nor Asada’s corpse could be identified after the flames. Bolan raced out of the door and circled back to the minimart. He put the Desert Eagle away and drew his Beretta 93-R machine pistol. Its extended magazine and full-auto capacity in 3-round bursts were needed, especially since he still hadn’t cleared the B&T MP-9 after the wave of shrapnel flew. Besides, the Beretta was like an extension of his arm. He’d used it nonstop for years, and if there was one gun he knew even more intimately than the Desert Eagle, it was the 93-R.
Even as he’d looped around outside, the fragmentation grenade he’d lobbed beneath the hatchback detonated. Secondary blasts shook the windows and the glass doors to the minimart. He pushed in, the ding of the entry bell innocuous among the crashes and booms from within the attached garage. The connecting door opened and Bolan caught sight of shadowy figures ahead of him.
He brought the Beretta up, the selector switch flipped to 3-round-burst mode, and pulled the trigger. A trio of 9 mm slugs ripped into the closest of the silhouettes and dropped him to the floor. All three rounds had struck center of mass.
Bolan switched to the next target and another salvo of bullets raked the dark form. This gunner stumbled, crashed against a cookie display and fought to bring the weapon he held into target acquisition. The Executioner pumped another triburst and the terrorist and the cookie display crashed to the floor. The gunner sprawled across cold tile, hot blood spreading beneath him in a growing pool.
“You psychotic bastard!” That was Asada’s voice. “You’ll burn us alive?”
“No. Come out into the bullets,” Bolan answered. “Quick, painless.”
The door slammed open once more and gunfire vomited into the minimart. Here, Bolan had only concealment rather than solid cover, because the flimsy metal shelving and the stock on it were no impediment to high-velocity projectiles. Still, he kept low to the floor as gunfire ripped at what would be chest level. Through a gap in the aisle, he took aim with his Beretta. He shot two more bursts; two men collapsed from the deadly salvos. The terrorists in the doorway swung their weapons to catch him, to burn him down, but the Executioner moved as soon as the last of the recoil faded in his hands. The spot where he’d crouched exploded in crumbs and cereal flakes.
Bolan performed a quick combat reload then pumped the trigger on the Beretta, zipping three more bursts toward the connecting door to the garage. Gunfire on the enemy’s side of the concealing shelves stopped immediately.
The Executioner knew better than to look too soon, to expose himself to enemy fire. He pulled a mirror from his load-bearing vest and peeked around the corner. The doorway stood empty, riddled with holes. Three bodies propped the door open. He caught moving shadows, silhouetted against the flames in the garage, doing their best to stay out of sight of their relentless adversary.
Bolan had fired nine rounds and decided to reload the Beretta again. He did the same for the Desert Eagle, then did a fast safety check of the MP-9. Sure enough, a piece of shrapnel had wedged itself in the weapon’s ejector port. He worked the action and the shard of metal struck the floor, sounding like a coin flipped against tile.
He worked the action a couple of times and bullets emptied out. He cleared the magazine and looked down the barrel for any more imperfections, then reloaded and primed the gun. Even as he performed the minor repairs and maintenance, he kept his ears peeled for sounds of movement. He poked the mirror around the corner at ground level and peeked at the doorway again.
One shadowy figure stepped tentatively out of the smoky garage. Bolan didn’t see any movem
ent behind him, so maybe the last of the gunmen had collapsed from smoke inhalation. Low to the floor, the toxic cloud burned in Bolan’s lungs, but he still received plenty of oxygen. He needed to end this fight fast. He rose and stepped back, the red-dot optic framing the shadow. It was Asada, armed with a rifle.
Bolan held down the trigger, ripping a sustained burst that punched open the Taliban veteran’s chest. Asada staggered, pulled the trigger of his weapon, but he was in too much pain; too many muscles had been torn and disabled. The gun fired, its payload drilling into the floor before the weapon tumbled from weakened hands. Bolan fired another burst to end his suffering. Habib Asada collapsed, ruptured torso glistening with blood and gore in the firelight.
Another automobile exploded and a tire rocketed through the doorway. Bolan dived away, but the shelves crashed onto his back. Had the tire hit him full-on, this blitz would be over and he’d either be dead or badly injured. As it was, his back would be a mass of bruising. He pushed upward to get the ungainly, warped metal off his backside. The fire licked across the mound of corpses at the connecting doorway. Even if he wanted to, Bolan would be unable to check the bodies to match one with the other terrorist leader.
Krahiat Majnuna could be dead, he could be alive, but as Bolan pushed through the minimart entrance, replacing acrid smoke with fresh air, he knew that he couldn’t be certain. He got on the phone to Lyons and hoped the Able Team leader could stand guard over Dr. Hassan.
Chapter Ten
The Ford Transit was a warm cocoon after baking in the evening sun, but it was still cooler and softer than the firefight Mack Bolan had just been in. His phone call to Lyons had found the big Able Team leader at the motel, newly introduced to Annis Hassan.
“This joint is equal parts I hate it and I love it,” Lyons grumbled.
“Great safehouse, but the exact kind of place you’d hate as a cop, right?”
“You took the words right out of my mouth,” Lyons quipped. “So, want to hear something interesting?”
“Lay it on me,” Bolan told him.
“I did some checking to see who Colton Howard has in common with Nolan Malone,” Lyons said. “Ever hear of a Morris Flyright Junior?”
Bolan frowned. “He’s the heir to the largest evangelical church in America. Someone who has a ton of money and enough millions of followers that he could afford to sacrifice a couple score of them. Flyright is under some scrutiny for real-estate scams and affiliation with a truly bent businessman, Barry Lemmon. You’re telling me that he’s got something more violent under the surface?”
Lyons grunted an affirmation. “The Society of American Lawful Theists has supplied plenty of campaign donations to the New Jersey real-estate tycoon, enough that Lemmon was on the verge of committing election fraud. However, once the asshole got into office, he pulled all the strings necessary to kill that particular investigation. At least, in New Jersey. Barbara and the cybercrew back at the Farm didn’t have any such pressure to desist.”
“SALT is associated with Flyright and Lemmon?” Bolan asked.
“SALT is called in to raise hell wherever they are needed. You know where the Foster Portman Women’s Health Center is?” Lyons prompted.
Bolan nodded, even though his old friend couldn’t see over the cell phone. “In a neighborhood that is in the running for massive gentrification.”
Lyons’s grimace could almost be felt through the phone line, accompanied by his slowed response. “Yeaah. And what makes a neighborhood’s property values suddenly much less expensive?”
Bolan frowned. “A bloody shooting at someplace important. Like a women’s health center.”
“Adoption or abortion, Flyright didn’t care what happened at Foster Portman. The owners wouldn’t sell because they weren’t in business for the money but for the care of people who couldn’t otherwise afford health care,” Lyons said. “But, if Flyright could frame the center as a so-called baby death factory...”
“Gun-and bomb-toting true believers from across the state would willingly assail it,” Bolan concluded. “That’s why so many men were sent to kill Howard.”
“Hassan’s apartment building was in the same area. It’s on the edge of the gentrification zone,” Lyons said. “I saw enough of this kind of bullshit back in Los Angeles. Though, there, the weapons of choice weren’t Jesus freaks, it was Crips and Bloods. Or whomever else these bastards could goad into a full-blown shooting war.”
“It’s a cliché as old as time. What really helped tag Flyright to this?”
“Birthright University,” Lyons said. “They bought properties around Foster Portman. Including three that had caught fire.”
“Arson,” Bolan said. “Anyone hurt in those fires?”
“One fatality. An old priest was smoking in bed,” Lyons answered. “And as he was an old black priest, the Caucasian American news outlets didn’t give much of a damn about his dying. The community, however, cried foul. Father Bicks survived lung cancer, and had half of a lobe of his lung removed. They didn’t think that he would go back to killing himself with coffin nails. Anyway, how do we handle this?”
“I’m heading in to clean up. The Taliban guys were in a garage and a lot of gasoline spilled and lit up,” Bolan told him. “I wanna scrub that petroleum smoke off before going on another hit.”
“Should I get suited up for backup?” Lyons asked.
“I didn’t get a confirmed kill on everyone at the gas station. I might want you to still sit on the doc.”
“Someone got away?” Lyons said. “Okay. I’ll babysit.”
“No gripes?” Bolan countered.
“When you give me a babysitting gig based on one of your hunches, I know damn well I’m going to be more than just a paperweight,” Lyons answered. “At least one asshole is going to show up on my doorstep and eat a .357 Magnum.”
“I’ll be there in a few minutes,” Bolan said. “Thanks.”
“I’m here for you. Ever since you took on Julian DiGeorge,” Lyons said. Bolan remembered their fateful meeting on the Los Angeles beach. Bolan was a vigilante, one of the few who’d walked away from a death-squad raid on the Mob boss. Lyons was an LAPD detective enlisted into a joint task force to stop the Executioner’s rampage in the city.
Bolan was under the gun of a bent lawman who had been in the pocket of the mobster; Lyons had cut the lawman down with his police sidearm. The two men had come to an understanding and respect for each other, Lyons holding the line for justice as well as he could within the confines of the badge, and surrounded by bigots, crooks and con men, Bolan stepping in when the limits of law enforcement failed.
It took a few years, but finally, Bolan had brought Lyons in on the ground floor of the Sensitive Operations Group. He’d made Lyons leader of Able Team, one of the Farm’s two direct action groups. After a Russian scheme to destroy the SOG failed, Bolan became an outlaw vigilante once more, but Lyons remained at Stony Man Farm. He and Able Team did what Bolan couldn’t or wouldn’t do, and the Executioner did likewise.
Now, Bolan was back in an arm’s-length alliance with the Farm, and could call upon the resources of the organization at any time, with impunity. That included calling upon an old friend like Lyons for extra muscle.
“Thank you,” Bolan said.
“I’ll see you at home,” Lyons answered.
* * *
Bolan took a long shower and scrubbed his hair and skin thoroughly to remove the stench of smoke. His body was a mass of bruising, and he had a couple of new scars. Nothing was broken, but splinters of shrapnel had scratched him through his protective blacksuit. The cuts were mostly minor, some merely pinpricks, but they still stung as he soaped and rinsed them.
He took some time to clean the cuts with alcohol and then bandaged the worst of them. There was a knock at the door.
“Carl?” Bolan asked.
“No. Annis.”
>
Bolan wrapped a towel around himself and opened the door for her.
“I want to just take a look at everything to make sure you’re okay.”
“And the bathroom always has the best lighting for such things.”
Hassan nodded.
Bolan allowed her to check him over. She was professional, clinical in her examination of his battered form, though she did pause here and there. She took a penlight and checked inside his ears.
“There’s some slight irritation in your right ear. Probably from the earphones you wear,” Hassan said.
“It’s a new addition to my kit, so it’ll take a bit to get comfortable with its fit,” Bolan said. “It still manages to protect my hearing.”
The doctor then produced the stethoscope Bolan had picked up for the van’s first-aid kit. She put it to his chest and told him to breathe deeply. “A little bit of rasp. You took some smoke, but it doesn’t sound like it’s serious. You’ll cough up some black gunk for a day or two. Heart’s strong.”
She pushed his head back, tilting it so she could shine the light up his nostrils. “Yeah. Your sinuses took most of the smoke. Let me lavage it.”
Hassan went to the sink and filled up a cup with piping hot water. She spent a few moments running it through some folded cloth. By the time she was done, the water was warm but tepid. She took out a large plastic syringe and drew half of the cup into it. She sprayed the water in and Bolan felt it flush throughout his head, around his ears, around his forehead, at the back of his throat, before it ejected into a second cup. The fluid that came out was dark, viscous, full of blackened flakes. Bolan’s eyes watered, as well, and by the time she’d finished the first cup, his head felt much clearer.
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