His finger found the rectangular activation button and pressed it.
There was peace.
Gravity was gone and silence held Caine in a vacuum cocoon. He felt the world turn in a slow somersault, like a carnival ride. Justin had loved the carnival when they were kids, but the second-rate affairs the old man had been able to take them to had quickly killed the charm for Caine.
Justin never seemed to see past the neon and the primary colors to feel the grit of the dust or see the grime or the toothless, hollow-eyed smiles of the operators and barkers. He believed in the magic even after he grew old enough not to. For all Caine knew, Justin had believed right up until the Iraqi police unit had come under fire at the roadside checkpoint and left the Marines on their own.
Maybe Justin had never stopped believing the way Caine had after Mogadishu. Maybe he kept right on believing while the 7.62 mm AKM rounds had chewed into his body from that unprotected flank. The government letter, the followup to the official visit, hadn't touched on that part. It hadn't mentioned what the An Bar insurgents had done to Justin's body after the ambush, either. But Justin had been stubborn, just like their old man had taught them, and maybe he'd gone right on believing.
In a way, Caine kind of hoped so.
The spinning limousine hit the ground with a shudder and Caine's forearm snapped inside the shield braces with a clean, audible crack. His body was tossed around like a bull rider's inside the limo cab. The big black vehicle tottered on its side for a moment, then pitched over onto the roof.
The ceiling caved in and the compromised safety glass divider shattered further, ripping like cloth. Caine lay twisted and bruised, his mind stunned but his body so supercharged on methamphetamine that he was hardly slowed at all. He had lost the Automag when he'd detonated the charge in the trunk of the Suburban. Waves of heat poured off the burning vehicle, and through his shield Caine got the impression of a massive crater in the middle of the street.
He slid his broken left arm out from the shield braces. He felt something wet and heavy tangled up in the broken face shield of his helmet and he used his right hand to slap at it. A human jawbone, looking like a crimson boomerang, fell away as he knocked it aside.
Caine was deaf as he pulled himself up. Like the persistent ringing of a telephone, the pain from his body kept trying to draw his attention but the warm gauze of his Oxycotin high made it easy to ignore. He could see through the dangling shreds of the ruined safety glass into the rear compartment of the limousine.
He saw a big, black-haired man in a black bodysuit lying unconscious on the floor. A middle-aged woman in an expensive evening dress lay unconscious across a gray-haired man in a blood-splattered tuxedo. Scarlet leaked from the man's slack mouth and her eardrum. The man looked up, blinking confusion from pained eyes. The President.
Caine snarled and drew his knife. His rage was primal and senseless, and maybe if he hadn't been so high he would have drawn one of his remaining pistols, but his target was close and it revved his bloodlust beyond his ability for reason.
Caine slid the boot knife from its sheath and lunged forward, but his armor-bulked shoulders caught in the narrow window opening.
The President roused out of his stupor and saw the ruined, bloody face of his assassin come snarling straight at him. The most powerful man in the world threw himself across the inert form of his comatose wife, trying desperately to protect her. Caine shoved himself through the opening, swinging the fighting knife like a lion's claw. The door on the President's left side popped open. Caine had an impression of a forest of legs and feet crowding around the opening. Waves of heat from Caine's burning Suburban washed into the ruined limo compartment like hellish wind.
Caine tried to grab the lapels of the President's jacket, but his left arm was broken and he couldn't make his hand move properly. With only one eye working he could no longer gauge his depth perception, and when he slashed again, his knife missed the inviting target. Instead he sank three inches of stainless steel deep into a Secret Service agent's shoulder.
"The blood of martyrs," Caine whispered, unaware he'd spoken.
Blood splashed and Caine struck again, trying to fight off the bodyguard. The diving agent's momentum wrenched the fighting knife out of Caine's grasp and instinctively he went for the pistol slung under his left shoulder.
Strong hands grasped him by his straining legs and yanked hard. He turned onto his side to kick free and clear the weapon from its shoulder holster. He saw a square-jawed black man, his face streaked with soot, thrust himself over the agent who had taken the knife to the shoulder.
Caine thought about the twenty-foot aluminum Boston Whaler with the twin outboards waiting for him in the Potomac Tidal Basin just off Independence Avenue. It's time to go, he thought. Better get home now, got to see Charisa and Emma. They're probably worried.
Caine felt the muzzle of the Secret Service agent's pistol strike him hard under the chin, forcing his head back painfully. Instinctively Caine pulled the trigger on the Ruger P-95 he was drawing even though he hadn't cleared the holster yet.
He felt suddenly tired as the gun flashed hot under his arm and he put a 10 mm bullet through the wing of his own latissimus dorsi muscle. He looked in the direction of the pain with his good eye and registered the Secret Service agent's arm and the hard metal press of the gun muzzle under his chin. He killed the black Secret Service agent.
* * *
Mack Bolan swam up out of unconsciousness as the last agent died. He was moving before his mind had fully articulated the chaos swirling around him. His hand found the trigger of the agent's pistol still shoved up against the bloody attempted assassin, whose eyes were squeezed shut.
Bolan yanked the trigger, and the assassin's head exploded.
Bolan quickly dropped the smoking pistol, his head still spinning, to prevent confused Secret Service agents from firing on him. He looked at the ruined, gunshot deformed head of the assassin and let his breath escape.
He turned toward the President as more Secret Service agents pushed their way into the car.
"Are you two okay, sir?" he asked.
The President looked at the first lady, then nodded to Bolan. "I think so."
Moving slowly so as not to panic the keyed-up security team, Bolan pulled out his cell phone to call Hal Brognola, who was riding in a SUV well behind the main motorcade. He was going to need a ride out of here before the media cameras arrived in force.
He had traveled all this way just to shoot a would-be presidential assassin at point-blank range. Even for me, he thought as he dialed Brognola's number, this is strange.
The irony was not lost on the Executioner. Moments earlier he had received a personal thank-you from the President, and he had no doubt that another would soon be forthcoming.
Collision Course Page 16