Numbers moved backward in Bolan's head, and ran out.
Bolan tromped down on the gas of his darkened vehicle, and the Jaguar leaped at the rear of the car ahead. The wheelman of the tag car was good at his work, and the Saab was fully the Jag's equal in acceleration and speed. But the guy found himself sandwiched, with nowhere to go. His partner twisted in the passenger seat, and automatic weapons fire splattered through the louvered rear window of the Saab. One end of the spoiler wing tore loose and banged across body metal in a shower of sparks. But by then Bolan had already pulled up on the driver's side. His image eerily enhanced by the Night Vision Goggles, the wheelman was momentarily profiled through the Jag's passenger window. Bolan saw the guy start to wrench the wheel over hard, setting to broadside the Jag.
He never finished the motion.
The Beretta 93Rather machine pistol in Bolan's right hand chattered out a three-round burst of 9mm tumblers; though both cars were careening down the road, the range from the pistol's muzzle to the wheelman's head was no more than ten feet.
At the same moment Bolan floored the Jag.
The British sedan leapt forward like it had been goosed. The Saab caught the Jag's left rear quarter-panel and Bolan steered one-handed against the fishtail skid. A spasm of protesting pain shot through his left shoulder, but then the Beretta was in his lap and he was able to get both hands on the wheel again.
The two guys in the Saab weren't so lucky.
In the rearview mirror, Bolan saw the tag car tear diagonally across the road, momentarily going airborne as it cleared the shoulder. When it hit, the right front corner seemed to catch, and the car did a one-and-a-half flip through midair before landing on its roof.
Scant seconds had passed since Bolan had made his move. The driver of the big Mercedes was milking it for all the speed it had, but the boxy diesel machine was designed for reliability, not racing. Bolan's headlights were on now, high beams cutting a trail to the lead vehicle. It took the Jag only a heartbeat to close the thirty yards to it. One of the baby-sitters in the back seat twisted out the window, an M-16 cradled in his arms. Angry 5.56mm whizzers hemstitched starbursts across the Jag's windshield.
Bolan slumped in the contoured seat and eased more speed out of the rig. A moment later he felt the substantial thump, of his front end tagging the Mercedes, heard the distinctive whine of tearing body metal. The weapon's chatter stopped.
Bolan rose, dropped back ten feet to get the angle, and put three-round bursts into each of the Mercedes's rear tires. The vehicle settled down on its haunches, one tire throwing a ragged strip of rubber off into the night.
Bolan cranked the wheel hard, snaked the Jag around the crippled Mercedes, then tapped the brake and pulled the wheel all the way around with his good right arm. The car ceded around in a perfect one eighty. Leaving the high-beam headlights on, Bolan was EVA almost before the skid was over.
The Uzi hung from a lanyard around Bolan's neck. He sprayed a line of 9mm slugs across the front of the Mercedes, the big sedan still lumping toward him. Headlights blinked out in a shower of glass shards, and superheated steam wheezed from the punctured radiator.
Answering fire raked the Jag.
But by then Bolan was already circling for the Mercedes.
In the blacksuit he was nearly one with the encompassing night, but the NVD goggles revealed the other four players in this game of death as clear as daylight.
Three of the sedan's four doors were open wide. From the far side of the back seat, Toby Ranger and the Green Beret deserter T.W.Hansen had pulled out. Hansen was dragging her roughly by one arm into the scrub grass. Despite the unexpected ambush, the guy had stuck with his primary assignment.
The driver and his partner were crouched behind the cover of the other doors, frantically searching the dark for a target.
They were looking in the wrong direction.
From off to the side, the Uzi spoke again, the hider concealing any revealing muzzle flash. The upper half of the driver's body punched back inside, sprawling him across the front seat. His partner reacted automatically and sensibly, diving across the deck for the cover of the other side.
A precise line of 9mm hollow-points helped him on his way.
A harsh voice broke the momentary silence. 'Hold it! You move and the woman dies!'
T.W. Hansen was maybe fifty feet into the scrub grass. He held Toby Ranger's arm in the vise grip of his left hand, and an Ingram M-10 machine pistol in his right.
Bolan let the Uzi hang free from its lanyard, unsheathed the big Beretta, setting the selector on single- shot.
The NVD goggles revealed a pulpy bruise on one side of Toby Ranger's forehead. Her eyes seemed half- closed.
'Show yourself, hands empty,' Hansen called. 'You do it, right now.' It was the odds on gamble for the tall professional soldier, but Lady Luck was riding with the Executioner.
Lady Luck, and the lady named Ranger.
Toby moved suddenly, wrenching hard enough to force Hansen to take a step to keep his balance, yet not hard enough to break his grip. In reaction Hansen jerked her back toward him, and Toby stumbled to one knee. The target was already framed over the Beretta's sight.
Bolan squeezed off the single round, and the heavy 9mm bonecrusher flashed through the night, seeking impediment, and found it in the middle of Hansen's forehead, punching him away and onto his back. When Bolan reached him his eyes were open, and he was still holding Toby in lifeless fingers.
Toby pulled free. She looked up at Bolan, gasped, and got her hands around the fallen Ingram.
She leveled the weapon on Bolan's midsection. 'One more step, Mister Whoever-You-Are,' she said. She was obviously hurting, and this was costing her more pain. 'One more step, and you are stew-meat.' Only then did Bolan realize that in the Night Vision Goggles, with their twin extruded vision tubes, he must have looked like some kind of bug-eyed apparition from someplace highly unpleasant.
He pulled the goggles off, keeping both hands visible. The Ingram in Toby's hand lowered, forgotten.
'Captain Cavalry,' she breathed. 'In the flesh.' She managed to stand. 'If you aren't a sight for sore eyes.' Toby tried to take a step toward him and pitched forward instead. Bolan caught her soft bulk against his chest and lowered her gently back to the grass.
It was a reunion, for sure. But the popping of champagne corks and the rehashing of old times would have to wait.
Toby was out, but she didn't seem to be badly hurt. The laceration on her forehead was the only visible sign of abuse. Bolan's hard fingers, moments before gripped around gunmetal, took her wrist with infinite gentleness. The pulse was regular and strong, and her breathing, though a little ragged, was steady.
Bolan stripped off Hansen's jacket and covered Toby with it, then replaced the Night Vision Goggles in position and moved out along his backtrack. The Saab Turbo was a ruggedly constructed machine, built to take even the kind of roll this car had endured without major structural damage. The same was not true of the human body.
The shotgun rider was slumped out of his seat belt into what had been the roof, his head bent over at nearly a ninety-degree angle to his torso, his neck snapped like a wishbone. The top of the driver's head was not even there, except as a gory smear on the upholstery; Bolan's three-round burst had obviously found a tight grouping in its target.
When he got back, Toby was sitting up.
'What's broken?' Bolan's tone was gruff.
There were too many other things be really wanted to say and ask, but right now there was only time for business.
Sooner or later — the later the better F— rank Edwards was going to miss his five hardboys.
'Nothing.' She took the hand he offered, let him pull her to her feet. 'I'm okay, Captain Quick, honest Indian.' In the Jaguar he dug a first-aid kit from a pack. He swabbed the forehead wound with an antiseptic towelette; once the dried blood was gone it didn't look too bad, as if someone had hit her a glancing blow with a gun barrel or a hand on which a ring was worn. Bolan squeezed antibiotic ointment from a tube, smeared it over the cut, covered it with a small adhesive compress.
