“I know!” Bolan called back.
“I was paying attention when old Link explained how the weapon works!”
“Wouldn’t expect anything less, Force! Now give it up!”
“It fuses four ways! One is by radio signal—nice job on jamming the one in D-Town, by the way!”
Bolan ignored the compliment. “Surrender!”
Scott ignored the order. “The other three fusing methods are proximity, impact and timer!” These were all things Bolan already knew, and he had a sinking feeling that he knew where this was going. The soldier moved at a crouch to a stack of crates. A dead Aryan lay behind them, still clutching his Uzi. Bolan nodded back at Patrick and Rudy, and they began moving in from the sides. Scott lectured on. “Now, I’m not sure what good proximity would do me, and as for impact? Well, Cooper, I’ve watched you work. I really don’t want to have to be slamming the goddamn thing against the floor, hoping it goes off while you go kamikaze on me.”
“Force, don’t make me come over there and take it from you—”
“You assholes are fine right where you are!”
Rudy and Patrick froze.
“Any of you make one more move toward me and we all go up!” Scott snarled. “Which leaves the timer. Just so you know, I set it at thirty seconds as a fail-safe. All I have to do is twist two fusing rings! Then we are half a minute away from a thermonuclear Frackville, and there will be nothing either you, me or anyone else will be able to do to stop it. That leaves you with two big questions, Cooper! One! You doubt I’ll turn those rings?”
Bolan knew Scott would. “No.”
“Do you want me to turn these rings?”
“You know I don’t. What do you want?” Bolan asked.
“Nothing, just a head start. Who’s out back?”
“A cop named Ottewalt. She deputized us.”
“Nice. You’re going to have to order her to stand down.”
“They’ll catch you. You’ll never get anywhere near the President.”
“Probably,” Scott conceded. “But first, they’ll have to catch me, and I’ll use Ottewalt to get me out of town.”
“So I just let you go and that’s it?”
“Well, sorry to say, I don’t trust you, Cooper.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“So you’re just going to have to stand up and let me shoot you.”
“I’m not sure I approve of that plan,” Bolan said.
“Cooper, we both know I don’t want to detonate in Frackville, but we both know I will. I walk out of here, Frackville never knows how close they came, and you just have to bet your life that your people are better than mine and can track me down and take the weapon before I do something exciting with it.”
Bolan considered his dwindling options. Rudy and Patrick shot him questioning looks from behind cover. Renzo was most likely bleeding out in the office.
“There’s about four thousand souls in this town, Cooper, and not much surrounding it for miles!” Scott prompted. “Maybe Frackville is an acceptable sacrifice for you!”
It wasn’t. Bolan stood.
“I’m afraid I’m going to need the Rudolphos to stand up as well!”
“Rudy!” Bolan called. “Patrick!”
The Rudolphos rose. They were clearly shocked and horrified, but Bolan had to give them full marks for conspicuous bravery as they stood up in the face of certain death.
“Fuck,” Rudy declared.
“Lower your weapons!” Scott ordered.
“You heard him,” Bolan said.
His team lowered their weapons. Scott rose with the nuke cradled in his left arm. In his right hand he held a gleaming stainless-steel revolver. He held it loosely and kept his bottom three fingers on the bomb’s fusing rings. “Lose the weapons! You first, Cooper!”
Bolan tossed away Buddy the carbine and the gas launcher.
“And the pistol!”
Bolan tossed Schoenaur’s revolver.
“Now you, Rudy!”
Rudy glanced at his son and gave Bolan one desperate look.
Bolan shook his head.
Rudy bitterly tossed away his shotgun. He relinquished his two pistols and stood with his fists clenched in helpless rage.
“Now the kid!”
Rudy’s voice shook with everything he would never have the chance to tell his boy. “Son...”
Patrick’s voice broke. “Dad!”
Scott dropped back partially behind cover. “Don’t fuck this up!”
Bolan spoke calmly. “Patrick?”
“What?”
“Don’t fuck this up.” Then Bolan barked out in his sergeant’s voice, “Shoot the barbecue!”
Scott’s reddened eyes flared.
“Shoot it!” Bolan ordered. “Now or not at all!”
The Aryan’s eyes flicked to the grill three yards away. Once the firefight had started no had bothered to turn off the barbecue. It was still on high, and a pair of steaks were burning into briquettes and sending black smoke to mix with the tear gas. Scott clamped his fingers on the fusing rings.
Patrick shoved out his Thompson and put fifty rounds through the barbecue.
Bolan dropped behind the crates as the propane tank went off like a bomb. The heat and pressure blew over the crates he was using for cover in a wave, and buried him. That was a blessing as the skylights blew out and shards of glass the size of kitchen knives rained from the ceiling. Bolan ignored the ringing in his ears as he pushed free of the crates. He stripped the Uzi from the fallen Aryan and rose.
Scott stepped out of the smoke.
He was a mostly skinless, hairless, clothesless, blistered thing. His whole body was swathes of lobster-red and charcoal-black. Blood leaked from his eyes, ears and mouth. He still clutched the nuke. It seemed his hands had been seared to the metal cylinder. A piteous howl came out of the burned pit that was Scott’s mouth.
Bolan put a 3-round burst through Scott’s face and ended the Aryan Circle man’s suffering. The soldier winced as the nuke clanged against the floor, but nothing nuclear happened. The good news was the propane blast had dispersed most of the tear gas. “Rudy!” Bolan called. “Patrick!”
Rudy rose unsteadily from behind cover and tottered toward his son. Patrick sat in the middle of the warehouse. His face and arms were nearly totally black, but as he opened his eyes and yawned, that appeared to be mostly from smoke. His eyebrows were missing, as was the first inch of his hairline. His mouth opened and closed several times.
“I think he’s trying to say ‘awesome,’” Bolan guessed.
Patrick flopped back and stared up into the shattered skylights. “That was awesome. Admit it.”
“I admit it,” Bolan told him. “You are awesome.”
“Finally.” Patrick coughed. “Some recognition.”
Bolan staggered to the office and hit the button for the main warehouse door. The remaining gas began to billow out into the street in a low fog. He groaned as he limped into the office. Renzo had a bloody hole in her shoulder and she had stuck her finger in it.
“This is going to hurt,” Bolan rasped. He dragged Renzo from the smoke-and-gas-filled office and out to the curb. Ottewalt came pounding around the corner. “Oh, shit!”
“Medical kit!” Bolan ordered. “Stat!”
Rudy came out of the warehouse with his son leaning on him heavily. He shot Bolan a grin. “We did it.”
Bolan considered the Rudolphos and their actions. He glanced back into the main warehouse. “You see that van?”
“Yeah.”
“I bet there are two suitcases of money in it, and probably Schoenaur’s uniform. “Put it on and drive for Lake Erie. Leave the guns. Pick up Renzo’s tablet from the alley on the way and find a place
to charge it. By the time you reach Erie my people will have contacted you on it. They will tell you which ferry to take, and have you cleared for customs.”
The Rudolphos just stared.
“You’re a hacker and an embezzler, Rudy. Your son is a hoodlum. Your United States privileges are revoked. Try to straighten up and fly right.” Bolan jerked his thumb northward. “Now get the hell out of here. And call your wife. She’s probably worried and probably needs to buy a plane ticket.”
Bolan turned back to Renzo before the Rudolphos could say anything.
“So how did you find us?”
“I called my iPad with my phone and used the Where Is My iPad? GPS app. I figured you might need some backup.”
“Your talents are wasted in Corrections, Renzo.”
“Yeah, we need to talk about that.”
The van pulled out of the warehouse. Rudy waved. Bolan waved back. Ottewalt reappeared with the first-aid kit from her cruiser and began applying a field dressing to Renzo’s wound. “It doesn’t look too bad. I’ve seen worse.”
“Hurts every time I cough.” Renzo coughed.
Patrick walked out of the warehouse and set Buddy at Renzo’s feet and the nuke at Bolan’s. “It was all stuck to him and stuff.” He held out three Rolling Rock beers. “The cooler survived. You looked like you could use one.”
Bolan took the beer and twisted the cap off with an effort. “Thanks.”
“Well, later!” Patrick limped to the van and jumped in. The Rudolphos pulled away.
“Later.” The soldier wiped the sweating bottle across his brow. He took a long pull and nearly coughed it up. Bolan decided to just press the cold bottle against his head for a moment while he admired the sea of flashing lights deploying into Frackville off the highway. The state police van carrying the Rudolphos drove right past them.
“Hey, Cooper,” Renzo groaned. “Shit or get off the pot.”
Bolan held out the beer. “Trade you for your phone.”
“It’s a deal.”
The soldier took the phone, picked up the blackened nuke and rose creakily. The moment Renzo had called her iPad, Kurtzman had invaded it, Bolan knew. He tapped in a number from memory and Kurtzman popped up in a window immediately. “Striker!”
Bolan took a left at the alley and began walking out of town toward the reservoir. “Bear, the nuke is secure. I need extraction.”
Every inch of the Executioner’s body hurt like hell, and he knew that it would take more than a couple weeks of solitude and R and R to get back into fighting shape. But did he have the time? A warrior’s work was never done; another mission always loomed large.
But then again, tomorrow was another day.
* * * * *
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ISBN: 9781460312643
Copyright © 2013 by Worldwide Library
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