Season of Slaughter

by Don Pendleton

  “Are the fingerprint security systems set up?”

  “Hell, no. This was a field demo. Be damn embarrassing if we couldn’t get the damn truck working because Joey called in sick!” the driver yelled.

  “Where’s Joey?” Bolan asked.

  “Right here,” the guy in the passenger seat said. “What’re you planning?”

  “Driving the SmarTruck the hell out of here and limiting the potential for casualties. If I have to, I’ll scuttle the damn thing,” Bolan told him. “It can be rebuilt. People can’t.”

  “I’ll drive. You can handle the drones,” Joey replied, slipping through the back window and into the transport bed. “Let’s go.”

  Bolan weighed the consequences of letting the young Terintec driver accompany him, then realized he would need help. He ripped the tarpaulin free from the body of the SmarTruck and was taken aback by the so-called updates. The vehicle looked like it was straight out of a science-fiction novel, its nose a black Kevlar square that swooped into a windshield like a pilot pulling out of a dive. The whole vehicle was nearly one uniform shade of black, so much that he didn’t even believe the windshield was made of glass.

  Joey tore open his door and Bolan crawled in the other side.

  “There’s the controls for the missile launcher and the 25 mm cannon. There’s only dummy ammo in it, so it won’t tear through solid steel, but it’s not blanks, it’s plastic-tipped. If we’re close enough…”

  Bolan’s smile apparently told Joey that he didn’t have to finish the thought. The soldier knew that the plastic shells would still impact on a human body with enough force to break bone, even if they didn’t penetrate flesh.

  An eruption of white smoke burst to one side, a choking tendril being sucked into the cabin of the SmarTruck, and Bolan was caught off guard by the sudden rush of tear gas. He gasped, eyes burning. Joey was screeching and clawing at his face as his mucus membranes were put under savage assault. Bolan reached across him and yanked the door shut.

  “Into the back!” Bolan ordered Joey. He gave the driver a good push to help him along, and settled behind the wheel, setting the truck into gear. Through the windows he saw that the ground around the truck was erupting with flashes and more bursts of smoke. The testing field was under assault, and crowds were being forced back by flares and columns of tear gas.

  It was an efficient sweep, good enough to keep the security force busy helping civilians out of harm’s way while the SmarTruck was attacked.

  Stomping the gas, Bolan launched the SUV off the back of the transport. He counted four hammering heartbeats before the wheels struck the ground, digging into the grass as the SmarTruck slewed in a semicircle. His eyes were burning, but not to the degree that Joey’s were. He hadn’t breathed enough, and over years of hands-on experience and training, he’d inured himself to CS-CN exposure. His nostrils were dripping salty streams onto his lips as his mucus membranes swelled in response to the savage gas.

  If this was the most that he experienced, then he wouldn’t have to worry.

  But life never went that easy for the Executioner.

  One of the Black Hawks swung over the path of the SmarTruck, and the big blond giant from the Dulles massacre, Adonis, was in the door, aiming an M-79 grenade launcher at the windshield.

  Bolan stomped on the gas, cranking the wheel to get out of the way.

  That’s when it felt like something more powerful than a locomotive smashed the SmarTruck.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Dark yanked on Adonis’s arm, trying to keep him from blasting the SmarTruck to pieces with the grenade launcher. Instead the rippling, hard-muscled arm was immobile, despite Dark’s best efforts to sway it. “Thunder wants that fucking truck in one piece!”

  Adonis glared at him with hard blue eyes. “I used a flash-bang grenade. It’d feel like I hit them with a LAW rocket, but except for a broken windshield, our precious prize is intact!”

  Adonis looked down at the hand that was gripping his forearm. “Remove your hand from my person, or I’ll remove your hand from your person.”

  Dark let go, then thrust his finger into Adonis’s face. “One of these days…”

  The Black Hawk suddenly lurched as thunder sounded from below, Dark and Adonis stumbling into their troops in a tangle of limbs.

  “Quit arguing, you old ladies!” Harpy snapped. “We’re taking fire!”

  Dark was up, hauling himself toward the doorway, seeing that the SmarTruck was tearing away from them, the cannon on its roof swiveling and popping off rounds. “They said that thing was going to be loaded with practice ammo!”

  “A hunk of plastic moving at Mach 3 is still going to snap our rotors, simpleton!” Harpy returned. The Black Hawk lurched again, swinging around. Dark saw sky as his fingers dug into the flooring. Gravity yanked the other way and he felt his nails crack, his fingertips ripped raw by the g-forces.

  “You’re going to get us killed anyway!” Dark bellowed.

  “I wish,” Harpy muttered as she kept working the controls. “Shut up, hold on and get ready to unass!”

  “In any particular order?” Adonis asked. He was standing on the helicopter floor, surfing against the turbulence, keeping level and steady. He’d traded his M-79 for a Calico, which he held in one beefy paw.

  The Black Hawk went into a screaming dive toward the SmarTruck and Dark brought up his weapon, opening fire on the black Kevlar shell of the speeding war wagon.

  MACK BOLAN’S EARS still rang from the concussive shock that left the windshield with a silver-dollar-sized hole in it. That gave him some hope, as it meant the hijackers still wanted the SmarTruck in one piece. He glanced in the back to Joey, the test driver, who had finally managed to stop choking and gagging. Bolan couldn’t take the time to trade places with the wheelman, and even now, the Executioner didn’t quite trust Joey’s capacity for combat driving. His eyes were still raw and red as he gave Bolan a thumbs-up. The soldier let go of the joystick from where he was firing blindly into the sky.

  Normally the Executioner would have made more certain of his backstop when firing off any weapon, but in this case, with ammunition that was designed to flutter harmlessly to the ground after a certain distance, he grabbed the stick, held down the firing stud and threw panic at his enemies. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to give him breathing room. He was tromping the gas and blazing toward the tree line, where the Black Hawks would be forced to work for their prey. He glanced back. “When we get to the forest, get out of the truck and run for cover.”

  Joey nodded, mopping his tear-stained cheeks with his sleeve, wincing at each touch to his tenderized eyes. “I don’t want to stick around for another round of what these guys can put out. I’m no hero.”

  “You’re hero enough, Joey,” Bolan replied.

  He swerved as the ground erupted in front of him. Another concussion grenade landed and the roof of the SmarTruck rippled and thumped with the rain of slugs hammering into it. From the sound of it, the gunners were firing 9 mm submachine guns, and the whole effect wasn’t to stop the SUV with any damaging hits, but to steer the vehicle by panicking the driver. Unfortunately for them, Bolan knew he was driving a tank, and wasn’t going to be fooled. He plowed onward, pedal to the metal. He shot a glance at the driver’s-side mirror. Sable Burton wasn’t taking Bolan’s advice and was plowing the rental car through the grass, keeping pace, but staying away from close proximity of the SmarTruck.

  The soldier’s brow furrowed. Burton dealt herself into this battle after he’d specifically told her to get the hell out of the way. Still, he tallied the arsenal in his war bag, resting in the trunk of the rental car. Anything would be better than plastic 25 mm shells and his short-barreled Beretta pocket gun against terrorists with grenade launchers.

  The Executioner hit the parking brake and the SmarTruck swerved hard, performing a 180-degree turn, mud and grass flying in rooster tails from the spinning rear wheels. The Black Hawk was lunging up on him, and Bolan flipped the controls
for the SUV’s dazzle lights. Even in bright day, the headlights of the SmarTruck were designed to produce a blinding, painful burst that could stun and disorient enemy troops. The lamps flared and the first Black Hawk swerved hard again, spiraling higher while the second Black Hawk swerved wildly toward a copse of trees to one side.

  The second helicopter wasn’t recovering from its terrifying plummet and it crumpled into the ground. Armor plate and ceramic rotors bent, twisted and shattered apart in a lethal impact. Trees were shredded by the tons of aircraft plowing through them and a burst fuel tank suddenly sent a blossom of fiery orange spewing into the sky before it blackened into a dark cloud of smoke.

  One down.

  He looked around for Burton and saw that she was still driving the rental toward the tree line. She may have chosen to get in over her head, but she wasn’t stupid about it. She was sticking with Bolan’s original plan, and he wouldn’t mind having the option of a smaller set of wheels than the bulky SmarTruck to drive out of the forest.

  The first Black Hawk flew back over him, and gunfire scythed out of the side of the helicopter, slashing at the back fender and tires of the Honda. Burton managed to swing the nimble little car between two trees and get out of sight. Bullets chased, and bark burst from multiple impacts, but Bolan was confident she wasn’t hurt. He reached for the stick again, but Joey cut across him and slipped into the shotgun seat.

  “Nail them?” Joey asked as he settled in, swinging the coaxial camera to focus on the Black Hawk.

  “Cut loose,” Bolan ordered. “I’m going to be rolling for the trees again.”

  “Once I get the camera lock, you can flip this thing upside down and the cannon wouldn’t miss!” Joey boasted.

  “Let’s not test that,” Bolan growled, tromping the gas again. The 25 mm cannon thundered above, the entire SmarTruck shaking with the recoil of the heavy charges spitting plastic shells skyward. The Black Hawk took a torrent of hits and literally leaped out of the way before too many impacts skewed it out of the sky. The pilot impressed Bolan, though. He thought about the woman from the warehouse back in Washington. Harpy. She was a top pilot, and again, it was another Black Hawk helicopter, heavily equipped and charging after Terintec technology. If the skilled pilot wasn’t the predatory witch who nearly blew him into flaming hamburger only a couple days before, then Bolan would eat his Desert Eagle.

  Another salvo of 9 mm slugs crashed across the roof of the SmarTruck and Bolan jerked in conditioned reflex. He heard Joey curse and looked over to see if anything had hit him.

  “They knocked out the coaxial targeting camera,” he told Bolan. “I can’t see the chopper to hit it.”

  “What about the MARS?” Bolan asked as he aimed for where Burton had plowed the Honda into the forest. “The chips are live, right?”

  “Yeah. We set up a dummy radar target. The drones would be launched, home in on it and pow!”

  “You think that Black Hawk’s operating with radar systems?” Bolan asked.

  Joey glanced into the mirror. “They have the radome on the nose.”

  “Fire at will,” Bolan ordered, again spinning the SmarTruck out to run down the Black Hawk.

  Joey flipped the missile controls and the SmarTruck gave a hydraulic grunt, two square launchers pumping themselves loose from the sides of the vehicle. The helicopter swerved, gunners pumping out rounds and sweeping the truck in merciless bursts of autofire.

  Bolan swung the SmarTruck around, keeping the missile launchers pointed in the general direction of the Black Hawk. “Locked?”

  “Got it!” Joey shouted.

  The SUV shook, reminding Bolan of his original war wagon, when it would unleash a firebird missile on a target. He mused about having the Farm acquire a SmarTruck for him in his stateside missions in the heartbeats it took for the first MARS missile to barely miss the enemy Black Hawk. The pilot was exceedingly good, and the unarmed drone slashed into the sky, curving around and seeking out the radar pulses from the nose dome like a hungry shark seeking blood. Even without enough explosives in the tip to blow a radar installation to smithereens, the rocketing drone would hit a flying helicopter fast enough to shred steel and knock it out of the sky.

  The Black Hawk poured on the speed toward the SmarTruck, the MARS channeling in full throttle behind it. The helicopter was moving at mere feet off the ground, and if the pilot didn’t move, Bolan would have to hit the brakes or swerve hard to avoid smashing both vehicles into tons of flaming wreckage.

  Suddenly the helicopter popped up, gaining a hundred feet in a single bound.

  But the MARS was still on its original course, right down Bolan’s throat.

  SABLE BURTON GOT OUT of the Accord and looked back into the field where the SmarTruck and the Black Hawk were staging their desperate battle. She didn’t dare step closer to the tree line, as the rattle and hammer of automatic fire was almost deafening. She glanced toward the rear of the car. The fender was chewed to ribbons by what looked like thousands of gunshots, and the trunk was half popped open, its lock mechanism destroyed. The license plate was long lost, but Burton was certain she’d knocked that loose bouncing the Honda over fallen branches and ruts.

  She glanced back at the SmarTruck, then reached for the trunk, wrestling to pull it open the rest of the way. It took two tugs, but she was strong enough to pop the broken mechanism. Colonel Brandon Stone had mentioned that he didn’t have anything on him, but she knew a man like him wouldn’t be too far from the tools of his trade.

  Burton was betting on the fact that there would be something in the trunk that would help out. She wasn’t a trained rifleman, but she was an engineer. The workings of an automatic rifle wouldn’t be that hard to figure! The lid swung up and a canvas bag lay in the middle. She quickly checked the sides—no holes were punched in it. The zipper ripped loudly back as she tugged it open, seeing a neatly arranged selection of handguns and rifles inside. Her heart skipped a beat at the sight of such imposing firepower.

  She grabbed one weapon, the largest she could find, and studied it. It was an M-16, she knew that much. She’d seen it used by guards at Terintec and its use in countless movies. Her hand searched for the cocking knob and located it, but she stopped herself, checking to see if there was even a magazine in place. She found a big curved box that looked as though it would fit and she slammed it in, driving it into the feed well. There was a reassuring click and she reached for the bolt on the black rifle. The T-shaped prong slid back along the butt of the rifle, and when she couldn’t pull it farther, she pushed it back into place, unsure if letting it go would damage the mechanism. She remembered from a cable television program that the mechanisms were damaged by rough handling in Vietnam.

  She swung the rifle around and took aim at the helicopter, pulling the trigger.

  Nothing.

  Panic filled her, then she looked along the side of the rifle. Above the trigger was a lever pointing to the word Safe in raised metal letters. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what happened if she moved the lever, but being one helped in looking for what to do on the rifle. Safety lever slid into play, she shouldered the rifle again and saw the Black Hawk diving at the SmarTruck.

  Burton pulled the trigger and the M-16 erupted. The sound was deafening and she was shocked off balance. She wasn’t sure if she hit anything, but something big and explosive smashed into the ground just off to the side of the hard-swerving SmarTruck, vomiting sod and grass into the air.

  The contrail of a jet engine spewed from the impact site and Sable trembled with shock. It had to have been a one-in-a-million shot. She’d downed a missile in flight!

  She almost let the rifle drop, but held on to it, turning back to the Honda to get another magazine out of the bag. She probably couldn’t hit another moving target in her life. Still, what did Einstein say about God playing dice?

  She stopped.

  The SmarTruck was barreling through the trees, the front fender taking dents that quickly popped out, leavin
g nothing more than scuffs on the flexible, resilient nose. She recognized Joey Lambert coming out the driver’s-side door, his face red and swollen, but otherwise none the worse for wear. Colonel Brandon Stone was coming out the other side, and a wave of relief came over her. A momentary smile on his face told her he had the same sentiments.

  “You got the trunk open?” Bolan asked.

  “Enough to get one of the rifles out. But I closed it again in all the excitement.”

  Bolan frowned, then lifted one boot, stomping the jammed lock mechanism. The trunk flipped open and he reached in for his war bag. “I don’t have much time. Joey, Sable, I’ll need your help.”

  He looked up, face growing grimmer as the sounds of rotors thundered closer overhead.

  DARK HUNG ON, glaring out the side of the Black Hawk. Mr. Big and Scary had to have thought that the trees would provide some protection. He sneered and aimed into the canopy and tapped off a long burst with his Calico to let the mystery man know that he wasn’t in the clear yet.

  “Stop wasting ammo,” Adonis called.

  “It’s not wasting ammunition to lay down suppressive fire,” he answered. “Who knows what he’s doing down there?”

  Dark glanced over. “That Skycrane near yet?”

  “I don’t know, and I’m not bloody well turning on the radar again!” Harpy snapped. “Not when he has more of those missiles, warhead or not!”

  Dark shook his head. “You’re going to have to switch to decaf, Harp.”

  The woman was too busy keeping the aircraft in a steady orbit to flip him the finger, but she was right. In the hands of someone who could improvise on the spot, even dummy weapons were as lethal as the real thing. He only had to look over at the flaming wreckage of the second Black Hawk to be reminded of that grim fact. Hard trained men, and one of Harpy’s own black-leather clad lady sky-pirates were roasting their way to hell down there.

  The militiamen and the terrorists could go rot, but a fine piece of ass like one of Harpy’s shiny black air-witches was a damn shame. The man their informant had identified as Colonel Brandon Stone was going to need to pay a little extra for that. Dark knew that Harpy already despised the mysterious soldier for nearly getting caught in the backwash of her own inferno.