The Fiery Cross

by Don Pendleton

  Of course.

  Bowers.

  Who else, for Christ's sake, would show up in full Klan regalia and shoot up the party? Who else had a stake in preserving Brown as a witness in upcoming trials for conspiracy? Who had already defeated the best guns Mason Ritter could field?

  It was strange for a government man to react with such violence, but "strange" did not count anymore. If the evidence Bowers secured had been gathered illegally, it would be thrown out of court by the judge — but it wouldn't mean shit to the men he had killed in the process. A dead man was just so much meat, and before he lay down with the rest of them, Axelrod had it in mind to resist. With his last ounce of strength. With the last breath of life in his body.

  If worse came to worst, he could still use the girl as a shield, compel Bowers to give him a running head start. And if that did not work... well, then, Axelrod thought that he just might have something to trade.

  Make that someone.

  A KGB sleeper, for instance, with twenty-odd years of subversion behind him. What Fed in his right mind would pass on a bargain like that?

  And if Bowers was not in his right mind? What then?

  He needed information, and quickly, before he met Andrews. Before he went back on the street. He would have to know more about Bowers from inside: the way he reacted to pressure, the way he thought, anything. And, as he glared at the telephone, Axelrod knew where to get everything that he needed. The answer had been right there under his nose fall along.

  * * *

  In blacksuit, Bolan stalked the razor-wire perimeter of Axelrod's encampment, counting heads and logging numbers in his mind. Two sentries on the gate, another four assigned to walk the wire in pairs, with lights on in the camp commander's office and the smaller of the barracks buildings. Bolan played a hunch: assuming that the visible security would be reduced in daylight, that left three or four men from the day shift sleeping in the larger, darkened barracks. Axelrod would be inside his office, possibly with backup, probably alone. Inside the smaller barracks, he would find the prisoner, perhaps alone.

  He chose a spot along the wire and waited for the roving guards to pass before he cut an opening and slithered through. From visits to the camp as "Bowers," Bolan knew the fence was not electrified or linked to any sensitive security devices. It was just a fence, defended by a force that would be much too small — and much too tired at 3:00 a.m. — to keep a lone, determined man from gaining entry to the compound.

  Once inside, he knew that Lynn was not his first priority. The barracks was not soundproof, and he heard no screams or other sounds from its interior. It crossed the soldier's mind that he might be too late, she might be dead, but if he bought the absolute worst-case scenario, then there was nothing he could do for Lynn in any case. Alive or dead, the prisoner could wait a few more moments while he dealt with other business.

  If he meant to help Lynn, or avenge her, he would have to pin the Vanguard troopers down, eliminate as many of the hostile guns as possible in one deft stroke. The less resistance he encountered when he went for Lynn, the better he would like it.

  It was easier to kill a sleeping man than one awake and armed, so Bolan took the day shift first. The barracks was not locked, and no one saw him as he slipped inside, the Uzi dangling from its shoulder strap and his sleek Beretta, with its custom silencer, in hand. The larger barracks had the capacity to sleep twenty-eight, but only four bunks now were occupied. He passed among the sleeping neo-Nazis like a nightmare molded into flesh and gave them each the benediction of eternal sleep. The third one struggled for an instant, woke the man beside him, but a silent parabellum closed the trooper's startled eyes before he had a chance to shout for help.

  Four down, a minimum of seven left to go, including Axelrod. It had been easy so far.

  Too damned easy.

  Stepping from the silent barracks, Bolan nearly ran into a sentry who had deviated from his rounds en route to the latrine. The trooper had a semiautomatic shotgun in his hands, and after half a second's hesitation, realizing that he did not recognize the man who stood before him, he was stepping backward, leveling his weapon.

  Bolan shot him in the face, short-circuiting the fire command and knocking him off balance, but he could not halt the reflex action of a dying trigger finger. Angled toward the stars, the 12-gauge blasted empty air, then discharged again on impact with the ground.

  He might as well have taken out an ad to tell the Vanguard he was coming. With a shout from one side and a whistle from the other, Bolan heard the gunners coming for him, primed to kill.

  A minimum of six against one man.

  Against the Executioner.

  22

  "Who's firing? What the hell is going on out there?"

  One of his troopers faltered, glancing back at Axelrod. "Intruder, sir!" he answered, sprinting off to join the sweep. Across the compound, from the general vicinity of Barracks I, the muzzle-flash of automatic weapons laced the night with fire.

  Mike Bowers? Who else could it be? Somehow the Fed had traced him back to camp, and he was closing for the kill. But had he come alone? Was he that stupid, to attack a dozen men without some kind of backup?

  And why not? There had been twenty times a dozen at the rally earlier, and Bowers had apparently come out of that all right. The bastard was some kind of one-man army, a machine, but he was not invincible. One of the sentries might get lucky, blow his ass away... but Axelrod was not prepared to take that chance.

  He tugged the squat Detonics autoloader from its shoulder rig and sprinted for the smaller barracks, keeping one eye on the action to his left. The compound was not lighted, but he saw the silhouettes of running, crouching figures, gunfire winking in the darkness. Moonlight showed him that the door to Barracks 1 was open. The day-shift troopers should have been responding, but they showed no sign of life. A nagging apprehension gripped him as he stared at that vacant doorway, and he started running faster. Toward the light.

  The girl was on her feet when Axelrod burst in, eyes wide with fear and hope. "What's happening?" she asked, a tremor in her voice.

  "Sit down!" He shoved her backward toward the cot, and kept her covered as he fished the key out of his pocket, dropping it in her lap. "Unlock the iron and come with me."

  She did as she was told, taking a moment to massage her ankle. He grew impatient, reaching out to tangle fingers in her hair, jerking her to her feet and dragging her toward the door.

  "You're hurting me!"

  "Tough. My car's around in back. We're going for a little ride. If anybody tries to stop us, you're my cover, understand? You try to run, I'll kill you like I would al cockroach. Do you hear me, woman?"

  "Yes."

  "All right, then, you go first, and take it slow unless I tell you otherwise."

  He killed the lights — no point in giving Bowers any easy shots — and followed Lynn outside. Upon arrival, he had parked his car in back of Barracks 2, providing easy access to the lockup, and he had not moved it afterward. It was unlocked, and Lynn was forced to enter from the driver's side. He kept her covered as he slid behind the steering wheel, fumbling his key into the ignition. He reached across: in front of Lynn to lock her door from the inside.

  "Nothing fancy, now," he cautioned her. "I know you've got the nerve to jump, but it won't get you anywhere. Nowhere but dead. You understand?"

  She nodded, fighting back the tears that glistened in her eyes. He felt encouraged by the minor victory, her gesture of submission. In a few more moments, he would be away from here and running free, beyond the reach of Bowers or his sponsors. In a few more hours, he would have the cash from Andrews and would be on his way to Mexico. To freedom.

  But he was not ready to retire. Not yet. There was no reason to retire once he had proved his cleverness a second time, escaping from the snare that had been laid for him. Twice, now, his enemies had tried to bring him down, and twice he had outwitted them. In fairness, it was time for Axelrod to turn the tables, let the hunte
rs know precisely how it felt to be the hunted.

  Starting, possibly, with one Mike Bowers, federal agent.

  First, however, it was necessary to complete his getaway. He turned the engine over, slammed the car into reverse and cut a sharp 180, aiming for the gate. It would be locked, of course, with no one left on guard to let him out, but he could crash the chain-link barrier without impairing the performance of his vehicle. The paint job did not matter anymore.

  "Hang on!" he barked at Lynn, pleased to see her flinch and cower in her seat. "It gets a little rough from here on in."

  * * *

  A bullet whistled past his ear, and Bolan went to ground. He tracked the hostile muzzle-flashes with his Uzi, squeezing off short, measured bursts in answer to the fire from running sentries. On his left a trooper stumbled, arms outflung to welcome death before he plowed the soft earth with his face. Behind the fallen gunner, two more separated, breaking off in each direction, firing as they ran.

  He took the nearest of them first, a rising figure eight of parabellum manglers riddling the man from crotch to throat and knocking him off stride. He staggered, reeling like a vaudeville imitation of a drunkard, finally sprawling on his back, spread-eagled in the dust.

  His partner used the opportunity to close on Bolan, firing with a semiautomatic rifle from the hip, his hot rounds chewing up the sod a yard to Bolan's right and creeping closer, slapping into mother earth. The Executioner responded with a burst that cut the sentry's legs from under him, and held it as his target fell across the line of fire, a dozen bullets ripping through his chest and face before he had an opportunity to scream.

  Then Bolan was on his feet, already moving as the hunters tried to flank him, emptying the submachine gun in a ragged burst designed to hold the opposition back while he looked for cover. Finding it against the near wall of the larger barracks, he took time to feed the Uzi another magazine, prepared as two more challengers assaulted his position.

  They were shouting, firing as they came, and Bolan wondered who had taught them that maneuver. It was something from a grade-B movie, obviously meant to terrorize the enemy, but shouting would not make the troopers bulletproof. He fired a burst around the corner, left to right and back again, too close for aiming to be necessary. The intimidating shouts immediately turned to screams as Bolan's two assailants toppled, gut-shot, writhing on the ground. He spared them each a mercy burst before he stepped from cover — and he nearly lost his head as a surviving sniper brought him under fire.

  The first round missed his cheek by a fraction of an inch and rang against the corrugated metal of the barracks wall.! A second round was dead on target, square between the; eyes, except that Bolan had already gone to earth, avoiding death by a fraction of a heartbeat. Clinging to the shadows as the automatic fire ripped overhead, he tried to spot the sniper, finally succeeding as a muzzle-flash betrayed his enemy.

  The guy had found himself a place atop the camp command post, flattened on the roof and using altitude to his advantage. Bolan gauged the distance, made it something less than forty yards. It should have been an easy shot, and he assumed that shadows must have spoiled the gunner's aim, preventing him from scoring with a first-shot kill.

  It would be suicide to rush the sniper over open ground. no better to retreat and leave him in position to command the compound. Searching for a third alternative, the soldier found it quickly, snapping off a burst to draw the gunner's fire and simultaneously backing toward the oper barracks door. He slipped inside, moved past the leaking brownshirts in their bunks and eased a window open halfway down. It was a short drop to the ground outside and Bolan scuttled toward the cracking sound of rifle fire the barracks now between him and his enemy.

  The sniper obviously thought he had his prey pinned down, continuing to squeeze off random probing rounds a ten-and fifteen-second intervals. He paused at one point to reload, but Bolan waited for the firing to resume. He wanted both eyes fastened to a gun sight when he made his move.

  His new location was a few yards closer to the camp command post, better shielded from the sniper's view. The final twenty yards would still be open ground, but Bolan did not plan to rush the sniper. Unclipping two frag grenades from his military webbing, he gripped one tightly in each hand, removed the pin from each and stepped into the open.

  Twenty yards. An easy pitch. The first egg wobbled slightly in its flight and disappeared inside the CP's open window. Shifting hands, he dropped the safety spoon from number two and let it fly, a looping overhand that dropped it on the roof behind his prostrate target.

  Now the sniper saw him, swiveling with startled, jerky motions, squeezing off a hasty burst that missed him easily. He ducked behind a corner of the barracks, counting down the doomsday numbers, waiting for the end.

  His first grenade went off inside the CP shack like muffled thunder, blowing off the door and rattling the walls. The sniper screamed, aware of what was happening too late to save himself, and then the second thunderclap erupted at his back, hot shrapnel ripping through his flank and side, blowing him off the roof like a scrap of rag in a hurricane.

  Bolan saw him crumpled on the ground and knew a mercy burst would be a waste of time. There was an outside chance that Axelrod had been inside the CP when it blew, but he could not afford to take the chance. Before he left the compound, he would have to find his prey, make doubly sure.

  But first, to Lynn.

  The grating sound of tires on dirt and gravel startled Bolan, brought his heart into his mouth. Too swiftly for conscious thought, he recognized the sound for what it was: disaster in the making, failure laughing at him, mocking his defeat. Before he had a concrete plan in mind, he was moving out to intercept the car in a final, desperate effort to prevent his quarry from escaping, dragging Lynn along to certain death.

  To Bolan's left, the headlights blazed to life like dragon's eyes, the engine's snarl eclipsing every other sound. He sprang the silver Auto Mag from military leather, braced it in both hands and stood his ground.

  * * *

  Acceleration pressed Lynn Halsey back against the cushion of her seat as Freeman gunned the heavy car, tires spewing dirt and gravel in their wake. Despite his warning, she was tempted to escape, unlock the door and leap before he had a chance to raise his gun and fire. If she succeeded, would he chase her? Back up over her, perhaps? Would the incessant gunfire from the center of the compound drive him off before he could make good his threat?

  Her hand was on the door latch when the double-punch of rapid-fire explosions ripped the night apart. Ahead and to her right, she saw the camp command post spewing fire and twisted sheets of metal, smoke already pouring from the open door and windows. In the firelight, twisted bodies cast their abstract shadows on the earth, dark bloodstains soaking through the tunics of their uniforms.

  A running figure, tracking from their right and closing on a hard collision course, erupted from the shadowed hulk of Barracks 2. A man, no more than eighty yards away as Freeman flicked the headlights on and kicked them into high-beam.

  Bowers.

  Standing like a rock, a silver handgun leveled at the hurtling car as if its puny rounds could stop the juggernaut from crushing him to pulp beneath its wheels.

  Lynn knew precisely what she had to do. Unmindful of the danger to herself, she lunged at Freeman, struggled with him for the steering wheel and felt the car begin to drift. Another yard or two should do it, and...

  His elbow struck her squarely in the forehead, stunning her. Before she could react, his arm was locked around her throat and he was hauling her into his lap, wedging her body between himself and the windshield, the gunman outside. Unable to breathe, she saw colored motes spinning in from of her eyes, and she knew she was dying. Prevented from speaking, her mind still cried out: Kill him, Mike! Kill him! Kill him!

  * * *

  Bolan watched the charging vehicle swerve left, then back on course, its headlights boring toward him through the night. Unable to observe the struggle for
the steering wheel, he supposed Lynn must still be inside the car, and he dropped his aim, eyes squinting in the glare, until his sights were centered on the Caddy's grille.

  He squeezed off three in rapid-fire, the hammer strokes impacting on his target with a sound like someone pounding on a kettledrum. A cloud of steam erupted from the punctured radiator, turning black with oil smoke as his rounds drilled through the engine block and stalled it out. The hood flew back, a flapping alligator's jaw obscuring the windshield, as the vehicle's momentum kept it rolling.

  Thirty feet from Bolan it began to veer, the driver losing confidence, the power steering frozen in his hands. Bolan circled, closing, as the Caddy jolted to a halt against the flaming hulk of the command post. He had the driver's door and window covered when his adversary called him from the dappled, firelight shadows on the other side.

  "Mike Bowers?"

  Bolan kept the car between them, giving up his view of Axelrod to keep his enemy from gaining the advantage of an open shot.

  "I'm listening," he said.

  "Why all of this? Why me?"

  "I missed you in Zermatt. Let's say I owe you one."

  The spokesman for survivalists was silent for a moment. When he found his voice again, there was a tremor in it, rippling the surface of his cultured tones.

  "So that was you?"

  "I had some company."

  "And this time?"

  "You and me."

  "What's your percentage, Bowers?"

  "No percentage. And the name's not Bowers."

  "Yeah, I figured. Want to share it with me?"

  "Bolan."

  Silence on the dark side of the car while Axelrod mulled thai one over. And the tremor in his voice was more pronounced a moment later when he said, "What put you on to me?"