"Julie!" Bolan called loudly, and her vacant eyes found his. "Run! Now, or we're dead!"
She bit her lower lip, mind reeling. Then she kicked open the unlatched door and rolled out in a crouch. Bolan followed, scrambling over the body to fall headfirst from the vehicle and somersault to his feet.
Julie was at the edge of the woods by the time he got his feet, the ground kicking up death all around her. Bolan ignored the action behind him, firing from instinct at shadows in the forest.
He heard a groan; a body slumped from the tree line and fell directly behind him as he made the woods. As he ran through the darkness, he tried to keep his attention on the woman, saving his peripheral vision for the enemy, not wanting to confuse the two. He fired twice at a muzzle-flash on his right, and was rewarded by a piercing scream. They were twenty feet into the thicket now, voices loud behind them. The enemy fire had become more sporadic; it appeared that the forces were regrouping.
They had broken through the front line, and Bolan caught up to Julie a hundred feet into the Piney Woods of the national forest. He grabbed her, pulling her behind a longleaf pine.
She was panting, her face streaked with tears.
"What do they want?" she whispered harshly.
"Us," Bolan said. "Dead."
"Why?"
"I was hoping you could tell me."
"Could they be KGB?"
He shrugged, pulling the AutoMag out of his harness. "Seems like they wanted you two alive," he said.
Her lower lip started to tremble, and she looked at the ground. "Harry was so damned...hard-assed…" she sobbed "… but he was a good..."
"Stow it," Bolan snapped. "We'll talk about him later. Right now we've got to save our own hides. Do you know how to fire one of these?" He held the automatic out to her.
She took the weapon, her face hardening. "The government made us all take training," she said. "I can get by."
"Great," he replied, straining past her to try to see through the fog. "If anyone other than me gets anywhere near you, don't even think, just shoot it."
She nodded grimly and primed the gun.
"Bolan!" Givan's amplified voice shouted from a distance. "Mack Bolan! We don't want you! We couldn't care less about you! Send us the woman, or shoot her yourself! We don't care! Do it and leave. You have my word that you're free!"
Julie Arnold looked up at him, her eyes frightened.
He smiled in return. "Let's move," he said. "They're going to make a sweep of the area.''
"Move where?" she asked.
"I want to try to flank them and get back to the roadway," he replied, taking her by the arm and moving off again. "Maybe we can take some of their transport."
"That sounds dangerous."
"You're already winded from the short run we've made," he replied. "You'd never survive a firefight out here."
"Why is this happening?" she asked, voice strained.
"Stick close," he said, ignoring her question. "Think about nothing but making that roadway. This isn't going to be easy."
He moved out at a jog, angling at what he hoped was a parallel to the road. The opposing force was undoubtedly fanning out at this point, preparing their sweep. He wanted to get beyond them, then cut back.
As they ran, keeping their arms up in front of their faces to ward off branches, they could hear voices calling out, setting up their free-fire zone. Time was running out.
All at once the fog lit up brilliantly around them, trees standing out in stark contrast to the brightness of the light.
"Flares!" Bolan called. "Hurry!"
Flares began going off everywhere, magnesium burning the brightest white, as voices yelled orders. Then an explosion shook the ground, and a large limb crashed into the brush. Grenades.
"They've spotted us!" Bolan said, taking the woman by the arm. "Come on!"
Silhouettes backlit by the bright lights charged the fleeing couple, small fires crackling where the flares had set the undergrowth ablaze. Bolan turned and fired at one of the silhouettes, the body punched hard backward before slamming into the ground.
They were going to have to make their move. Bolan dropped to a crouch, pulling the woman down with him. He encompassed the area around them with a wide sweep of his arm. "Lay down a pattern of fire," he said. "Empty the gun. When you're finished, we take off."
The woman complied without question, firing at any movement, while Bolan aimed more carefully. They would only have a few seconds before Givan figured out what they were up to and took countermeasures. Every shot had to count.
Bolan took out a silhouette at the legs, then another chest high, knocking the man into one of the brush fires, his screams reverberating loudly through the forest.
The fires were growing in intensity, threatening to get out of control.
"Empty!" Julie Arnold shouted, just as another explosion drove them flat to the ground.
Bolan jumped up and dragged her to her feet. "This is it! Let's go!"
They cut straight back, charging in the direction that they had cleared with their own fire — the weak link in the chain. The fires helped. Large and bright now, they blended pluming black smoke with the fog.
And Bolan was through the line, taking advantage of Givan's tactical blunder. They gained the roadway fifty feet beyond the roadblock. The fires were huge now, burning out of control and, farther down the blacktop, men were straggling out of the woods coughing and gagging.
"Almost there," Bolan told the woman, who was bent over, wheezing, out of breath. "Come on. We need wheels."
She nodded, straightened and took a deep breath. They charged toward the armored carrier, a manned M-60 atop it; the gunner watched the fires, oblivious to their approach.
Ten feet from the carrier, Bolan stopped, drawing down on the gunner with the Beretta. The man saw him too late. He hurried to swivel the M-60 around, but Bolan already had him nailed, lacing him across the chest with an automatic burst.
There were other trucks parked in the area, personnel carriers and supply vehicles. Bolan spotted an Air Force pickup half on, half off the road. He and Julie raced toward it, reaching the vehicle just as they were spotted.
They jumped in the truck and Bolan turned the key — which was already in the ignition — and fired the machine to life. He jammed into reverse, the wheels screeching, rubber burning as he jerked the vehicle back onto the road. He hit the brakes so hard that they were thrown violently against the seat. Then he pulled the stick into gear and drove out of there, the sounds of gunfire fading behind them.
He drove fast, plunging blindly into the thick fog, hoping against hope that no one was coming from the other direction while he was driving down the middle of the road. Within minutes, the warrior found a side road and took it, then another, and with every passing mile he felt a bit more relaxed.
The woman had been looking out the back window since their escape. Two bullet holes had spider webbed the glass neatly, forcing her to peer through the small, intact sections. Finally she turned around and slumped down in the seat. "Thanks," she said wearily, her expression shocked as the events of the previous ten minutes fully sank in. "I don't know what..."
"We're not out of it yet," Bolan said. "We're both as hot as pistols."
She nodded and leaned her head back against the seat.
"What are you researching, anyway?" he asked finally, unable to keep it in any longer.
She looked at him with wide, innocent eyes. "Electricity," she said with a shrug. "Just electricity."
"Electricity," he repeated, shaking his head. Amazing.
Chapter Two
Julie Arnold sat nursing a cup of tea in the Vicksburg Holiday Inn coffee shop, watching as the man who had saved her life talked heatedly on the phone attached to the wall near the entrance. Who he was exactly, she didn't know. More than just a driver, surely, but beyond that things just got too complicated.
She was dirty, grimy, her good clothes torn and smelling of sweat. They had stopped a
t a gas station's rest rooms to clean the soot and filth from their faces and arms, but it hadn't done much good. Even here, in the restaurant, people were staring at her with narrowed eyes. Unconsciously she reached up and tried unsuccessfully to straighten her hair.
She thought of Harry and shivered at the memory of her last glimpse of him. She was still numb on the subject of Harry. The grief would have to come, but when, and how much? It wasn't as if she had loved him — his death brought a freedom that she had longed for — but he had been a vital part of her life for many years. His death was going to leave a void that would be hard to fill. So, her sorrow, then, would be more for herself than for Harry. She took a sip of the lukewarm brew. Wasn't that what all sorrow was, though?
So, Harry Arnold was dead, killed, apparently, by the government he had worked so long and hard for. He was dead on the eve of the breakthrough that would have earned the respect and admiration of his colleagues, which he had craved. A few ounces of lead stuck in the right places had stilled that great mind; and here she sat, her life in the hands of a man she knew nothing about. Scientist to fugitive, the brim to the dregs, all in a few hours' time. She was frightened, and would have been more frightened if it wasn't for the numbness.
All around Julie waitresses in frilly aprons hurried between the tables, refilling coffee mugs for businessmen in a rush to get back on the road and make their presentations. She felt so removed from all that, so distant from the routines of life. She wanted to shout at them, to tell them that everything wasn't fine and good, that something dark and nasty had gone down in the Mississippi woods. But she didn't dare.
She didn't know whom she could trust.
Her eyes drifted once more to the question mark at the telephones.
Bolan had an eye trained on Julie Arnold. So far she had held up better than he could have hoped, but he knew that much of that could simply be shock. She was an amateur caught up in something prickly and professional, and once she cracked, Bolan's job was going to be difficult. He wanted her off his hands fast, because the people who had pulled the ambush in the woods were connected, powerful and obviously motivated. Julie Arnold was going to need more protection than he could provide.
"Okay," Hal Brognola said on the other end of the line. "We're secured."
"Are you sure?" Bolan asked, irritation evident in his voice. "We're in no shape here to…"
"We're secured," Brognola said, his voice rising slightly. "What the hell's going on out there?"
Bolan glanced quickly around, making sure no one was listening. Then he cupped the receiver and spoke low. "We were stopped in the middle of the night by an Air Force convoy. They knew me, and they knew my cargo."
"Good God..."
"Yeah, good God. When they couldn't get us out of the car, they blasted us while we were in it. Dr. Arnold's dead. His wife and I managed to get away in one of their trucks."
"Where are you now?" Brognola asked.
"You sure this line is clear?" Bolan returned.
"Striker..."
Bolan drew a breath. "We drove most of the night and ran out of gas outside of Vicksburg. We made it in on foot, staying off the roads. The woman's holding up all right. What's this all about?"
There was a slight hesitation on the line. "I honestly don't know," the man finally answered.
"You know more than you're telling me," Bolan said.
"Yes. I want to get as much together on this thing as I can before we talk about it." There was another silence, the shuffling of papers. "I'm looking at a report about a fire in the Bienville National Forest," Brognola said.
"That's where they hit us," Bolan answered.
"The reports are clean. The fire was brought under control by one Colonel Kit Givan with some loss of Air Force personnel. It doesn't mention Harry Arnold, but the reports treat this Colonel Givan like some sort of hero for putting out the fire."
"Great. They've taken care of the evidence," Bolan said, and wondered how Julie Arnold would react to the disappearance of her husband's body. "Hal, we've got to get out of here."
"I don't trust regular channels at this point," Brognola replied. "Someone in my department is obviously in on this, and I can't take the chance of tipping them. I'm going to take a plane out to where you are. Sit tight for today. We'll meet tomorrow."
"Where?"
"I've been to Vicksburg. The city was under siege during the Civil War. The battlefield is a national park. Let's meet tomorrow morning at ten in the battlefield cemetery. It commands a wide view from high ground. Is there any chance that they'll find the abandoned truck?"
"I ditched it in the thick woods," Bolan replied. "I think we're all right for now."
"Get a room there under an assumed name. We're going to bottle you up right now until we know what we're up against. Fair enough?"
"It suits," Bolan growled. "It has to."
"I'm sorry, Striker," the man said, his voice low.
"It happens, Hal," Bolan replied. "Not your fault. We'll see you at ten sharp...with answers."
"With as many as I can give you," Brognola responded, and hung up.
As Bolan replaced the phone, he looked through the coffee shop archway and into the lobby proper. Two SPs were standing at the registration desk asking questions.
He moved quickly back to the table, the look on his face alerting the woman that something was wrong. She was on her feet immediately.
"What is it?" she whispered urgently.
"Maybe nothing, I…" Then Bolan saw the SPs through the window in the outer courtyard. Several of them were walking around the pool, checking the rooms that faced it. It was obvious they were searching for something — or someone.
Bolan turned 360 degrees, then realized there were no other exits from the coffee shop except through the lobby. The kitchen might have had an exit, but it was possible it would come out on the parking lot, near the Air Force vehicles.
He picked up the check for the coffee. "Come on," he said, taking Julie by the arm and moving toward the archway cashier stand. With any luck, they could slip quickly past the registration desk and wait it out in the rest rooms located in the lobby hallway. But as they neared the archway, that hope was dashed.
The SPs had left the desk and were moving quickly toward the restaurant. The cashier was smiling expectedly at them, but Bolan turned and moved back into the room.
"Still hungry," he said over his shoulder, and led his companion toward the long breakfast buffet table set up in the front of the room.
"What are you doing?" she asked, as he picked up two plates and handed her one.
"Saving our lives," Bolan said, his eyes scanning the room to see if anyone was watching them. Satisfied, he quickly crouched to the floor, pulling the woman down with him.
The long tables holding the buffet had been covered with white linen tablecloths that hung to the floor. Without a word, Bolan scurried under the table.
"Come on," he whispered urgently.
She picked up an end of the cloth and peered at him under the table. "This is your idea of saving our lives?" she asked, her face incredulous.
He grabbed her arm and jerked hard, so that the woman tumbled from her crouch and fell beside him. He pulled her under completely, letting the tablecloth fall back in place.
"What kind of maniac are you?" she rasped, scrambling away from him.
"Quiet."
"Don't you shush me," she whispered. "This is ridiculous. We're grown-up so this is no way to…"
"All right," Bolan whispered in return. He drew the Beretta from his combat harness. "Do you want us to blast our way out of here?"
Her face sagged when she saw the gun, memories of the previous night flooding back, reminding her that she was on somebody's hit list.
"All right," she said quietly, nodding. "We'll do it your way."
"Okay," he replied, holstering the weapon. "The first thing you need to do is to keep quiet. The second tiring is to trust me."
"I'll try."
The feet moved slowly past their position, both of them holding their breath as the SPs stood just inches from them.
Something hit the floor with a metallic ping, a booted foot kicking it under the table. It was a ring of keys.
"Damn!" he heard from above. The man got down on hands and knees to retrieve the keys.
A slight gasp escaped Julie's lips, but she stifled it with her hands.
Bolan began edging the key ring back toward the linen that separated them from death. All at once, a hand poked under the cloth, searching.
Bolan drew the gun out again, the barrel nearly touching the tablecloth. Time stood still as the large-knuckled hand continued to fumble around the floor.
"Just lift up the damned thing," a voice said. Bolan's finger eased onto the trigger, tensed slightly.
"Yeah, I...wait!" the kneeling man said, his fingers finally brushing the keys, then closing on them. "Got it!"
The man climbed back to his feet and moved farther down the line. Julie Arnold let out a huge sigh as the SPs moved away.
"Is your friend getting us out of here?" she whispered when the men had left the table completely.
"Tomorrow," Bolan said.
Julie's face tightened. "We could be dead ten times over by tomorrow."
"Yeah," Bolan replied. "I know."
"What are we supposed to do in the meantime, steal meals from the buffet table?"
Bolan holstered the Beretta. "We'll get a room after they've gone. You got any money?"
"I didn't stop to get my purse when we were running for our lives back there," she said, the anger growing in her voice. "And what are you telling me, that we're going to spend the rest of the day and a night in a motel room together?"
"Unless you've got a better idea."
"Yes. Two rooms."
Fire in the Sky Page 2