Through his night-vision goggles, Bolan studied the man with the sled weapon as he began preparing the contraption. At first glance it appeared to be a stubby cylinder mounted onto a rectangular metal box, but as Bolan continued to observe, he noted that the tube was not hollow, and thick cables ran the entire length of the protrusion. There was a sighting mechanism close to one end, and dual handles similar to those found on antiaircraft guns. The operator fiddled with what had to have been dials or switches on his side of the box before grasping the dual handles and maneuvering the tube. The comparison to an antiaircraft gun was further reinforced with the cylinder being mounted on a free-floating ball pedestal affording the gunner complete three-axis rotation.
The two men who had passed Bolan continued on their slow route circling the cabin. They were halfway between Bolan and Sherry’s hiding place when she abruptly burst from under the pine, hysterically begging them not to kill her. As they hastily grabbed to pull their Uzis into firing position, Bolan’s silenced 93-R coughed twice in such rapid succession the rounds sounded as if they shared a single retort.
The first 9 mm Parabellum round struck the driver of the snowmobile on Bolan’s right, entering the base of his neck on an upward trajectory. The hot lead tore through his skull, exiting from the center of his forehead and splattering most of his frontal lobes onto the machine’s dashboard controls. The tissue immediately froze upon contact with cold metal that had been exposed to frigid air for hours. The man’s throttle hand froze in a death grip, causing his snowmobile to surge forward, accelerating him directly into the side of the building where the machine crashed and revved angrily while the spinning tread underneath chewed and spit out a thin stream of snow for a few seconds before stalling.
His partner fared no better. Bolan’s second bullet slammed a millisecond after the first into the middle of his back, piercing his heart and shattering his sternum on its way out. The gaping chest wound left in the slug’s wake was immediately filled with a scarlet fountain rushing forth in a torrent of steaming blood that painted a thick swath across the ground. He slumped forward, bounced off the steering wheel and fell sideways into the snow. His vehicle came to an abrupt stop a few feet from the lifeless body.
The mind-numbing chatter of automatic fire filled the air as the three who had circled the cabin from the other direction opened fire on Sherry. The 9 mm steel-jacketed rounds sliced diagonally from her left knee to her right shoulder, causing the young woman to jerk and dance wildly. A burst into her upper torso lifted her off her feet and hammered her backward into the woods, where she landed faceup, unseeing eyes staring into the star-studded sky.
Realizing they were under attack, the gunmen immediately shifted their fire away from the dead woman and began hosing the woods with a steady stream of lethal lead. Not being sure of Bolan’s position, they swept their weapons in wide overlapping arcs, reducing branches and saplings to a blizzard of matchsticks that rained down onto their intended victim’s head.
With their wild response telling him that his enemies had not yet zeroed in on his position, Bolan remained prone while pulling the Desert Eagle off his hip.
An electronic humming, so low it sounded almost like an earthquake’s rumbling, emanated from the sled weapon. The operator shouted out a warning to his companions seconds before the hum increased in both intensity and pitch. The entire cabin began to vibrate. Thin tendrils of smoke rose from the weathered siding like surface fog rolling across a body of water, then the cabin abruptly burst into flame. An instant later, the propane tank exploded in a fireball reaching two hundred feet into the sky.
Microwave, Bolan thought, immediately elevating the weapon’s operator to the top of his hit list. Unaware that his cohorts on the other side of the cabin were under attack, the gunner leaned forward over a control panel to make an adjustment, exposing the upper half of his body. With the noise from the crackling fire racing through the wooden structure masking his Desert Eagle’s authoritative discharge, Bolan squeezed off a single round while remaining concealed behind the base of the thick maple. The pistol’s hefty .44-caliber slug caught the microwave gunner square in his chest, tossing him airborne for a few seconds. He bounced once upon hitting the frozen ground, landing on his back with arms extended to the sides.
The Executioner directed his fire toward one of the remaining three who was visible beyond the burning cabin. Pulling the trigger as rapidly as he could, he released a stream of bullets, forcing the gunman within his line of sight to dive off his snowmobile and take cover behind the vehicle. Bolan’s rounds sparked and whined as they impacted the snowmobile’s metal fuselage, adding to the visual and auditory chaos of combat.
Displaying a telling level of advanced training, the gunmen fanned out in an attempt to separate sufficiently to establish a triangular focus on Bolan’s position, which was now fully exposed by the Desert Eagle’s prolonged volley. While the two who were still mounted on snowmobiles moved away, the man on the ground covered their progress with his Uzi on full-auto, filling the air around Bolan with deadly shot.
The warrior had seen the maneuver countless times. If he stayed put, his enemies would flank his position and kill him in a cross fire. He remained low while edging away from the tree trunk, waiting for a break when the gunman would be changing magazines. As if his enemy was enacting his mental script, there was a momentary tapering off in the covering fire, and Bolan seized the opportunity to dash in a crouch into the thin woods to the spot ten yards away where he had stashed his snowmobile. As he ran, he ejected the spent magazine in his Desert Eagle, grabbed into his ammo pouch for a fresh one and rammed it home.
Behind him, the cabin groaned once and collapsed on itself with a heavy sigh resembling a man’s final exhale, becoming a fifteen-foot heap of flickering rubble. Without the building’s hungry flames leaping high into the air, visibility was abruptly and dramatically reduced.
Peering through the trees with his night-vision goggles, Bolan could see his adversary in a prone position behind his snowmobile, the stubby muzzle of his Uzi poking around the vehicle’s front end. The man’s partners had moved far enough away to be outside the halo emitted by the burning cabin, apparently playing the odds that their opponent would not be equipped with night vision. Considering what his course of action would be if the tables were turned, Bolan thought his enemies would take cover in one of the little snow gullies before attempting a flanking movement. He jumped onto his snowmobile, revved the powerful motor, and sped straight toward the gunman who had been attempting to pin him down while his partners maneuvered.
In an effort to reduce his profile as much as possible, Bolan hugged his snowmobile’s fuselage as he shot out of the tree line on a direct course for the man lying in a covered position behind his vehicle. Making sure to maintain a straight-on approach to take advantage of the protection his snowmobile’s windshield offered, Bolan fired the Desert Eagle with his left hand, holding the snowmobile’s handlebars steady with his right.
The move obviously surprised his opponent, who hesitated for a fatal second before engaging the fast-approaching warrior with his Uzi, filling the night air with the chilling sound of automatic chatter. The 9 mm lead sprayed wildly across the space separating Bolan from his enemy. Bullets ricocheted off his bulletproof windshield as he charged forward at full throttle, covering the distance between him and his foe in less than thirty seconds. In a move resembling that of a bullfighter, the Executioner swung outward at the last instant in order to avoid a collision, his Desert Eagle roaring death in triple-time tempo. A few rounds sparked upon impact with the gunman’s Uzi a nanosecond before a pair of .44 rounds whizzing through the air in heel-to-toe configuration found the man’s face, exploding his head in a crimson blossom. Bolan pulled hard on the snowmobile’s handlebars while depressing the brake, causing the machine to slide sideways next to the dead man’s vehicle. Throwing himself to the ground, he rolled into a prone position taking advantage of both snowmobiles for cover.
From his new location, he looked out beyond the pile of smoldering rubble of the cabin. One of his two remaining opponents was crawling toward the microwave cannon, while his partner engaged Bolan with a steady stream of lead from the relative safety of a snow gully approximately fifty feet away. Bolan drew his Beretta and