He let the Camry drift, came up behind the Trailblazer and gave its right rear bumper just the slightest nudge, then backed away. It was enough to spoil the shooters’ aims, their first rounds jarred off-target, gouging shiny divots in the black Ford’s roof.
The Wah Ching driver gunned it, rapidly accelerating, while his backseat passenger—the one they’d picked up at the ferry terminal—rolled down his window, ready to return fire.
Bolan rolled down his window and reached across with his left hand to lift his submachine gun, even as he checked his rearview for patrol cars. They were clear so far, but every driver and pedestrian along Canal Street likely had a cell phone and was fumbling for it now, to punch up 9-1-1 and shout some garbled message about gunfire on the road.
No time to waste, then.
Bolan swung his MP5K out the window, bracing it against his wing mirror, and fired a 3-round burst into the SUV’s lift gate. The 9 mm Parabellum rounds shattered the tinted glass, one of them flying on to crack the windshield while another ripped the backseat dome light from its socket. Bolan knew the hunters had to be going crazy in there, wondering who had brought them under fire, just as the Wah Ching gunner who had brought the heroin from Jersey started popping at them with a semiauto pistol.
Bolan swung his stuttergun around to fire a burst across the Camry’s hood, stitching three holes across the Ford’s C-pillar inches from the triad gunner’s face and shooting arm. The young man lurched backward, out of sight, just as his wheelman tried to milk more speed out of the Ford’s 2.0-liter Duratec engine. A short burst from the Chevy’s shotgun rider ripped across the Ford’s trunk as it fled, while Bolan saw the backseat shooter leaning well out of the SUV to bring his Camry under fire.
He swerved back to the left-hand lane, putting himself behind the Trailblazer just as his adversary loosed a burst, his bullets wasted on thin air. Bolan responded with another three rounds through the lift gate’s yawning maw, putting them roughly where the SUV’s tail gunner ought to be. This time the Chevy veered off to starboard, running up behind the Focus in Canal Street’s right-hand lane, its left rear window gliding down to give the soldier in the rear another angle on his mark.
Bolan was faster, falling into line behind the Chevrolet and pumping three more rounds into it. When the SUV began to swerve, he guessed he might have winged the driver, but it straightened out again in seconds flat and Bolan had to duck a short burst rattling through the blank space where the lift gate used to be. Most of the bullets missed, but one punched through his windshield near the upper frame and sent his rearview mirror flying somewhere toward the seat behind him.
It became a duel then, Bolan swerving back and forth to keep the Chevy shooter guessing, ruining his aim, and all the while returning 3-round bursts that scarred the SUV’s tailgate, rattling around inside the passenger compartment. In the driver’s seat, wounded or not, the Chevy’s driver did whatever he could think of to evade incoming rounds, while still pursuing his intended targets in the Ford.
They’d nearly cleared the park when the Trailblazer swung around as if to pass the Wah Ching vehicle, then swerved hard right to slam the Ford along its driver’s side and force it off the pavement onto sloping grass. Tires churned brown tracks across the turf, lost traction, turned them into long sidewinding loops, the Chevy following the Ford and both cars spitting gunfire. Civilians scattered, ran for cover where some scattered trees provided it, or simply hit the ground and prayed.
It was not what he’d hoped for, but the Executioner had long since mastered adaptation in adversity. Without a second thought he braced himself and swung off-road, trailing the two combatant vehicles into the wedge-shaped park between Canal Street and Sixth Avenue.
Two Days Earlier
Winchester Regional Airport
Frederick County, Virginia
“I could have driven down,” Bolan said to Jack Grimaldi after their handshake on the tarmac.
“What, and miss the pleasure of my company?” Grimaldi replied, smiling.
“Point taken. Any idea what we’re looking at?”
Grimaldi shook his head, saying, “I got a call to show up here and prep the chopper. End of story.”
Sitting on the helipad in front of them, the chopper was a Fairchild Hiller FH-1100 four-seater, powered by a Rolls-Royce M-250 turboshaft engine. It was small, as helicopters went, just under twenty-eight feet long and nine feet high, with a maximum takeoff weight of 2,750 pounds. It cruised at 122 miles per hour, with a service ceiling of 14,200 feet and a range of 348 miles. It was enough to make the eighty-odd-mile trip to Stony Man Farm and back four times.
“I’ve done the checklist,” Grimaldi said, “if you want to get on board.”
Bolan secured his carry-on behind the copilot’s seat, then settled in and buckled up, donning the headphones that would be required for any kind of normal conversation once Grimaldi switched on the chopper’s engine. The soldier’s old friend was at his side a moment later, strapped into the pilot’s seat, scanning the perimeter and checking gauges, engaging the clutch switch, contacting the tower in preparation for liftoff. Once they were airborne, Bolan settled back and let himself appreciate the scenery.
Winchester was located in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, between the Appalachian Mountains and the Blue Ridge range. They would be following the path of Skyline Drive, a 105-mile road running the length of Shenandoah National Park, until they reached Stony Man Farm and set the chopper down some ten miles north of Waynseboro.
It would be safe to land because they were expected. Uninvited drop-ins didn’t happen at the Farm, the secret base of the nation’s top antiterrorist squads—at least not twice for any given trespasser. Tall fences posted with specific warnings kept the normal hikers out. Those who arrived with mischief on their minds—a rare occurrence—would be taken into custody for questioning, all depending on the circumstances. Any aircraft that attempted to land on the property without advance approval would be blasted from the sky by FIM-92 Stinger missiles or shredded in flight by M134 Miniguns spewing four thousand 7.62 mm NATO rounds per minute.
It was serious business if you were on the receiving end.
Bolan normally drove to the Farm, and often spent his downtime there if he was in-country between assignments, but this time he had been mopping up a little something in St. Louis when the summons came from Hal Brognola, routing him to Winchester, where Jack Grimaldi waited with the whirlybird. Brognola would be flying down from Washington—had likely reached the Farm ahead of them, in fact—with information on a rush job he had marked for handling by the Executioner.
It could be anything, as Bolan knew from long experience. He didn’t try to second-guess Brognola based on what was in the news from Asia, Africa, wherever. Crises-making headlines were normally covered by established law enforcement or intelligence agencies, while Stony Man tried to stay ahead of the curve, defusing situations that were working up to detonation or pursuing fugitives who had outwitted every other operative sent to bag them. Stony Man—and, by extension, Bolan—was the court of last resort, employed when following “The Book” had failed and nothing else would do except a hellfire visit from a fighting man who specialized in neutralizing human predators.
So it was going to be bad. He knew that going in, and focused on the woodland scenery below instead of trying to imagine just how bad it might turn out to be. Sufficient unto each day was the evil it contained.
Amen.
A line of white-tailed deer crossing Skyline Drive paused to glance up at the helicopter passing overhead before they bolted, seeking cover in the forest on the other side. Another half mile farther on, two motorcycles rode in tandem, northbound, trailing vapor from their tailpipes in the chilly morning air.
The