Shoes went flying as the rest of the pirates blasted the tables, sending buckles and heels scattering. The front windows shattered, spraying glass into the street. Horrified people began screaming and running away. A score of car alarms started up as the vehicles dented from ricochets.
At the curb, the doors of the Land Rovers were thrown open, and the Albanians inside returned fire, laying down a thundering barrage of hellfire and doom. Inside the store, the pirates rocked under the incoming assault, their jackets and shirts quickly torn away to expose military-grade body armor.
Flipping over a steel table, Bolan switched to the Desert Eagle and started placing head shots. The powerful .357 Magnum hollow points punched neat holes in one pirate’s face and blew open the back of another’s head. One of them focused his assault rifle on Bolan, and his table dented from the incoming rounds, but the 7.62 mm rounds could not achieve full penetration. As the pirate’s magazine cycled empty, Bolan took him out with a well-paced shot to the throat. Dropping the rifle, the man staggered backward through the beaded curtain, gushing a hot torrent of life.
Suddenly, Chung rose into view once more, his eyes wild with amusement. His left shoulder was drenched in blood, and he held a chattering Skorpion machine pistol in each hand. Crisscrossing his arms as if directing an orchestra, the laughing man emptied the weapons in a single, continuous spray, concentrating on Svekta. But she had also taken refuge behind a steel table and was firing back single shots from the Glock 9 mm. She kept hitting the man in the chest, his body armor easily deflecting the soft lead rounds. Each time, he flinched.
Then, for just a moment, silence filled the air as everybody reloaded at the exact same time. Two pirates and the Albanian street soldiers fought back brief smiles over the freak occurrence, then the battle continued.
Staying under his table, Bolan whistled sharply and held out an open hand toward Svekta. Reloading her Glock, she frowned, then nodded in understanding. She pulled out the grenade and whipped it across the store. It hit the wall behind Bolan and bounced off the tattered pile of boots, landing a yard out of Bolan’s reach.
Muttering a curse, Bolan braced his shoulder against the table and heaved. The weight was too much to lift, but he managed to scrape the table along the floor until he reached the grenade. It was of Albanian manufacture, and he had no idea what the markings indicated.
Pulling the pin, Bolan flipped the arming lever and threw it as hard as he could toward the left wall. The sphere hit and neatly rebounded behind the counter.
Shouting a warning, a bald pirate went out of sight, only to reappear with the grenade in his hand. As he began to throw it back, Bolan fired three fast rounds from the Desert Eagle. The bullets flattened harmlessly on the other man’s body armor, but the impact knocked him off-balance and he lost control of the grenade.
Horrified, a bearded pirate tried to swat away the falling grenade with his assault rifle as if it was a baseball bat. He missed, and a second later a thundering fireball blossomed into existence.
Shoes, guns, loose change, beads from the abacus, blood, guts and ceiling tiles flew in every direction. Although he’d braced himself, Bolan almost lost his hold on the dented table as it was forced away by the stentorian shockwave. Then there came an unexpected second explosion, and what remained of the wooden counter violently disintegrated, spraying out a deadly halo of splinters and nails. Ricochets filled the air, and both Bolan and Svekta jerked as they were hit numerous times from different angles.
Long seconds passed before the air cleared, and Bolan dared to risk a look around. The counter was completely gone, as were the pirates. Only twisted pieces of steaming metal that had once been lethal weapons remained, distorted lumps of steel lying amid a ghastly montage of dripping stains. The pirates’ body armor had come apart, the ballistic cloth torn into shreds, ceramic squares merely more shrapnel, most of it now deeply embedded in the walls.
“Okay, what the hell was that?” Bolan whispered, working his jaw to try to pop his ears.
“A grenade,” said Svekta, rising stiffly. “My cousin makes them as a hobby.”
“I’ll buy a dozen,” Bolan said, checking the magazine in the Beretta before shuffling forward.
A lot of sticky debris littered on the floor, and the footing was treacherous. Bolan found enough assorted pieces of Chung to satisfy himself that the man was dead, then he saw a ragged flap of skin bearing the mark of the Sun Nee On Triad. It was surrounded by hash marks, depicting a lot of mistakes and failures. So, working for Narmada was a punishment, eh? This explained a lot.
Easing into the back room, Bolan saw the damage was less severe, the furniture merely shoved away from the primary blast into a jumbled heap. The room was both an office and a workshop, one side taken up by a single bench full of partially built shoes, the wall covered with a pegboard full of still-jingling tools.
Ripped sleeping bags lay on the floor, and cartons of canned goods, newspapers, magazines, books and a dirty mountain of pizza boxes burned near a row of battered file cabinets.
“The bastards were here for a long time,” said Svekta from the doorway, her face set in a contemptuous smirk. “Waiting for us.”
“So it would seem.” Grabbing a fire extinguisher off the wall, Bolan went to put out the blaze.
“Let it burn.”
“Not yet,” Bolan said, dousing another small fire and then another. The smoky air reeked of death, and the burning garbage was not helping.
She scowled. “Why not?”
Not bothering to answer, Bolan tied a handkerchief around his face and checked the bathroom. It was empty. But inside a broom closet he found the owner of the store. A small, bald Chinese man wearing glasses and wrapped in transparent plastic and duct tape. Shot in the heart at close range and then twice more in the back of the head. A double tap. Cold and professional.
“Come, my friend. Let’s check the files and get that address,” Svekta said, eagerly heading for the file cabinets. Made of heavy green metal, they had been shoved into the far corner and were badly dented but relatively intact.
“Freeze!”
She paused.
“Do you really think Narmada would set up an ambush,” Bolan said, “and then leave his home address in the files for us to find?”
Svekta took a hard look at the undamaged file cabinets and slowly backed away. “I’m surprised it has not exploded already,” she whispered, as if afraid the volume of her voice would set off the obvious booby trap.
“He didn’t want to ace his own men,” Bolan said, walking briskly about the room.
Open space had been cleared on the big workbench—it had clearly been used as a makeshift dining area for the pirates during their stay. A scrap barrel marked “Clean Leather Only” was piled high with empty takeout containers. Several cell phones were plugged into an outlet getting a charge. Bolan got closer. One of the phones had a pair of crossed six-shooters etched into the case. Chung? By God, if that still worked....
Carefully, as if it were a ticking bomb, Bolan unplugged the phone and eased it open. The phone turned on with a muted “Yeehaw!”
“Chung,” said Svekta, putting a wealth of emotion into the name.
“We hear sirens,” said an Albanian from the open doorway.
Speaking quickly in their native tongue, Svekta said something to the man. He nodded assent and left at a full run.
“He’s going to lure away the police,” Bolan said, studying the tiny keypad.
“That’ll buy us a few minutes.”
“More than enough.” Breathing on the phone, Bolan studied the condensation. The first speed-dial button was clean. No smudges. Only the second and third had been used. Nobody really cleaned their cell phones, which meant the first was probably an alarm, an explosive device or worse—it would delete all call records. But the second might yield gold. Bolan
hit the button and waited. The phone rang.
“Is it done?” Narmada asked.
“Not quite,” Bolan said.
He heard a low chuckle. “Okay, Turnip, enough games. I’m at the Lei Tung Estates on Aberdeen Island, near the top of Mount Johnston. Bring your men, and let’s finish this right now.”
“Done. We’re on the way.”
With a hard click, the phone disconnected.
Chapter 19
Aberdeen Island, Hong Kong
Escaping from the local police was a minor chore, easily accomplished with the help of the homemade smoke grenades, courtesy of Svekta’s cousin.
“The man is a genius,” said Bolan, watching the cloud of multicolored smoke fill yet another intersection. Horns blared and brakes squealed as traffic came to a swift stop. “I hate to say it, but the Family would make a fortune legally selling these.”
“And then our enemies would have them to use against us,” snorted Svekta disdainfully. “Grandfather taught us it is better to live in the shadows.”
“Something you have in common with Narmada,” said Bolan, tossing another smoke grenade out the window. It hit the pavement, bounced twice, then made the oddest noise while in the air and rapidly blossomed into a colossal rainbow cloud.
“Narmada!” As if biting into an apple and finding half a worm, Svekta curled her pretty mouth in disgust, started to reply, then shrugged. “You are also a creature of the shadows...Colonel Stone.” Svekta smiled.
“Guilty as charged,” Bolan said as they took another corner.
Soon the sirens were left far behind. A short ferry ride later, the three Land Rovers arrived on Aberdeen Island. Checking his GPS, Bolan had the drivers head for a parking garage almost a mile away from Mount Johnston.
“Why there?” asked Svekta, removing the curved magazine from a recovered AK-101, then sliding it back into place again.
“Because it is the tallest public garage,” said Bolan, “and it has a direct line of sight to the Lei Tung Estates.”
“Reconnaissance?”
“Something like that.”
As the Land Rovers reached the top level, Bolan ordered the drivers to stop near the edge. Exiting the vehicles, he had a commanding view of the sprawling city. There were few other cars on the roof, and for good reason. This close to the harbor, the air was full of seagulls, and their pungent droppings were richly splattered across the concrete.
“The penthouse is a trap,” said Svekta, adjusting the focus on a pair of binoculars.
The Lei Tung Estate was a collection of shining monoliths, all as identical as coves in a honeycomb. Without the signs out front, there was apparently no way to tell the buildings apart.
“Ambush would be the more appropriate word,” said Bolan, tucking an explosive grenade into his pocket. “The penthouse will be full of armed men. Probably the stairwell, too, and possibly the air vents. There will be an attack by an armed helicopter, and a locked room with a bulletproof door, with a big man inside who looks a lot like Narmada.”
“But it would not be him,” Svekta finished.
“No. He’ll be directing the fight from a safe location.”
“From where?” Svekta asked, biting a plump lip as she scanned the nearby buildings with the binoculars.
Suddenly, they heard the low rumble of powerful car engines from the access ramps.
“Probably right here,” Bolan said, grabbing a spare AK-101 and climbing out of the Land Rover. “Get hard, people! Here they come!”
Grabbing weapons, the street soldiers scrambled from the vehicles and took defensive positions among the other parked cars.
Working the charging bolt on the Russian assault rifle, Svekta aimed at the elevator bank set into a brick kiosk on the far side of the roof. “You sure about this?”
“No.”
“No?”
“Educated guess,” Bolan replied, shoving a 40 mm grenade into the breech of the grenade launcher attached to the AK-101. “But this is precisely where I would go to outflank an invader.”
With a worried expression, Svekta glanced at the access ramps. The sound of the cars was louder now, and there were obviously more than just one or two of them. “But you could be wrong.”
“Absolutely.”
“Theoretically, this could be a sweet old grandma driving the kids to church.”
“True. If that is the case, try not to shoot her in the head.”
“I’ll do my best.”
Moments later, a black Hummer rolled into view from the access ramp. The windows were not tinted, and Bolan could see that it was full of grim-faced men wearing Navy peacoats and carrying weapons, mostly M16 assault rifles. Target acquired.
Instantly, Bolan fired the grenade launcher. The 40 mm shell streaked across the lot, just missing a maroon Saab sedan, and slammed into the Hummer’s left front tire. The range was short but just enough to arm the warhead, and the entire left side of the oncoming vehicle was engulfed in strident fire.
Out of control, the Hummer swerved aside to crash into a Prius. As the windows on the hybrid loudly shattered, an Albanian threw one of the homemade grenades. It bounced twice along the smooth concrete, then rolled directly underneath the Hummer. Two seconds later, a fireball heaved the military transport into the air. As the gas tank exploded, the Hummer flipped over and came crashing down sideways.
With a musical ding, the elevator doors opened. A large group of Asian men emerged, clean-shaven and wearing expensive business suits. All of them were carrying sniper rifles.
Svekta cut loose with the AK-101. The stream of 5.56 mm rounds stitched across the group of snipers, then ricocheted about the interior of the elevator. But only two of the men fell with head wounds; the rest merely jerked and flinched as the soft-lead rounds ripped holes in their designer suits and flattened on the military-grade body armor underneath.
Now a second Hummer appeared. Traveling at full speed, it violently rammed the burning vehicle out of the way and started across the rooftop, the men inside firing their weapons through the gun ports and windows. Another Hummer followed close behind, and then an armored bank truck appeared from the exit ramp. It stopped there, blocking any further passage, and the doors flew open, disgorging more armed men. Two of them were carrying flamethrowers.
The world went still for Bolan as he held his breath and concentrated. Switching the assault rifle to single shot, he paused for a full second before squeezing the trigger. The AK-101 recoiled, and the tiny pressurized tank of butane situated at the front of the flamethrower dented as the 5.56 mm round punched all the way through. Instantly, the blue fire of the preburner licking the muzzle of the flamethrower vanished.
Hearing the hiss of the escaping butane, the pirate holding the dead flamethrower snarled in rage and sprayed the weapon toward the Land Rovers anyway. A column of fluid rushed from the flamethrower to form a long, slimy puddle across the rooftop.
Everybody was shooting, and for several minutes there was only the sound of breaking glass from the parked cars.
The Albanians tossed out the homemade smoke grenades, and within minutes, the roof was filled with a swirling, multicolored cloud that ebbed and flowed to the pulse of the salty sea breeze coming in from the nearby harbor.
Moving low and fast, the pirate with the last working flamethrower lashed out with his monstrous weapon, and a brilliant stream of fire extended through the billowing smoke like the burning finger of an insane demon. Multiple cars burst into flames, and several Albanians were engulfed. Shrieking hideously, the living torches began running around madly, slapping their burning bodies with hands of flame. Both Bolan and Svekta tried to mercifully gun down the doomed men but were unable to pinpoint them inside the dense smoke.
Then the puddle of spilled flamethrower fuel ignited, and the rush of
writhing flames briefly cleared the air. Hot lead mercy was unleashed.
Finally tossing the empty AK-101 away, Bolan switched to his Beretta and began to lay down some serious suppression fire, the low coughs of the silenced 9 mm weapon barely discernible amid the growing cacophony of urban warfare.
Unexpectedly, there came the sharp crack of a high-powered rifle, and a hole appeared in the Cadillac next to Bolan the size of a clenched fist. The Triad gunmen had clearly gotten their sniper rifles unpacked and were open for business. Not good. Bolan could recognize the sounds of both a Barrett M82 and a Zastava Black Arrow. They were deadly weapons even in the hands of rank amateurs, and he felt sure that the Sun Nee On Triad had only sent their very best for this task.
Zigzagging his way across the rooftop, Bolan was hit several times by incoming rounds, twice in the back from friendly fire. But then, it was almost impossible to see anything clearly through the bizarre rainbow fumes of the homemade grenades.
Targets were merely vague shapes, gloomy shadows, murky ghosts identifiable only by the sound of the weapons they used. Unfortunately, both groups were shooting a standard Model 17 9 mm Glock automatic, and that added a serious element of confusion to the mix.
Several times, Bolan let a man pass unharmed, only to then discover he had a pirate at his side. Pausing by a Bentley sedan to reload his Beretta, the pirate shot Bolan in the stomach with a full burst from his M16. His body armor held, but the hammering stream of 5.56 mm rounds drove Bolan backward, stealing the air from his lungs.
With no other choice, Bolan shot the fellow in the face with his Remington .22 derringer. The pirate recoiled from the double impact as the small-caliber rounds tore away most of his cheek, exposing his teeth. Then Bolan drew the Desert Eagle, the massive .357 Magnum, steel-jacketed, hollow point round. He blew out the back of the other man’s skull in a grisly spray of bones, brains and blood.
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