“Come on out, Cooper!” one of them called. “We don’t want to shoot you.”
Bolan checked his watch. Its surface was gouged and scratched, but the hands underneath were undisturbed. He could still make the rendezvous by cutting across country.
But first, that meant getting past the enemy.
REBECCA ANTHONY HATED her name. She’d chosen Viscious Honey as her Goth name. Her hair was the same dark golden color of honey, and nearly as slick and fluid looking. Her green eyes stared out of heavily shadowed eyelids framed with thick black.
Honey leaned against the window and sighed. She tried to remember the day before. There’d been a rave at the club, maybe just a little too much Ecstasy and then she’d been stuffed into the back of the car. A pillow case had been thrown over her head and she’d struggled, but not hard enough.
She hadn’t had a chance to shower, and she had deliberately let her hair go for a while, letting natural oils and sweat darken her otherwise light and fluffy hair. Copious amounts of gel and hair spray made it glossy and heavy, spiking out and curling down in wild arcs from the center of her head. She’d colored it with grape Kool-Aid to make streaks of purple.
Her father hated her look, and that’s just what she’d wanted. She didn’t want to be the daughter of a millionaire who got his money from the spilled blood of the helpless, a man who helped design guidance systems for the bombs responsible for depriving people of power and water and sanitation utilities in two Gulf wars.
Honey always said she would rather be dead than living off her father’s money.
She was horrified at the idea of being traded for some of that blood-spattered cash.
Honey trembled, shuddering as she realized that, because of her, the Yakuza would get hold of the kind of high-tech weaponry that would allow them to rain death on their enemies and slaughter hundreds at the touch of a button. All because she got careless and was yanked into the back of the wrong car by a group of muscle-bound Japanese thugs looking to make some extra money.
She glared at Machida.
“What was I worth to my father?” Honey asked.
“We’ll learn that soon,” Machida answered.
2
Back against the wall, outgunned and outnumbered was not a new situation for the Executioner. In fact, being outgunned and outnumbered with his back against a tree trunk wasn’t even out of the ordinary. But, Bolan thought, at least he couldn’t grow complacent. Not with a supersonic round smashing into the bark sending splinters of wood stinging into his biceps. He dived out of the way before a sweeping scythe of automatic weapons fire cut across the tree at chest level.
Twisting, he landed with the Glock 23’s muzzle aiming at the gunman who’d taken the shot at him. Bolan pulled the trigger and there was nothing but a click. The striker had either snicked home on an empty primer, or the firing pin was malfunctioning. Or both.
Four armed men and a malfunctioning pistol would be enough to make any man give up the ghost.
But Bolan wasn’t just any man.
He rolled out of the way as the machine gunner, spotting the movement on the ground, compensated. Bullets slammed into the earth where he had been only moments before. With a surge of speed, Bolan plunged himself deeper into the woods.
Bullet strikes kicked up leaves at his heels and the Executioner grimaced at the thought of having to run from a fight. He grabbed a tree trunk and swung himself around, cutting away at a hard right angle, leaping over a log and finding himself in a clot of bushes.
He could see the men in the woods following his trail. They hadn’t counted on him breaking the course so quickly. Still, each was watching the other, eyes sweeping the backs of their partners as they advanced. It was a slow leapfrog. They weren’t keeping to the same pace as their prey.
Professional soldiers, to a man, and the Executioner was unarmed except for his wits, a folding knife in his pocket and the steel slide of his Glock. Wrapping his fingers around the barrel, his thumb through the trigger guard, he had a good hunk of square, exposed steel with which to smash the heavy dome of a skull, provided he had enough stealth to sneak up on these men, and had enough strength and speed to take out one man while his partner was preoccupied with advancing. The folding Applegate-Fairbairn combat knife would be his backup, four inches of deadly double-bladed steel that might be able to punch through the heavy Kevlar vests the mercs wore.
Rising silently, the Executioner advanced through the woods, circling back. He closed in on the last man in line.
Bolan sidestepped, knowing that if he missed, he was going to raise a racket. The folding dagger opened soundlessly, but locked securely. Steel in each hand, he was going to make his move, and his legs coiled up tight.
It was only four long strides, two and a leap if he timed it right, to take down the tail gunner. He took a deep, slow, silent breath, let out half and then lunged.
Gun metal struck bone head-on with a crunch, and the enemy mercenary was stunned by the unexpected impact.
Bolan dropped the knife and held on to the man, keeping him from tumbling to the ground. He was hoping the others hadn’t noticed the commotion when he felt the first impacts of the 9 mm rounds strike the man that Bolan suddenly used as shield.
“He’s got Tom!” came the cry, followed by a second burst.
Bolan held the back of Tom’s armor. The fingers on his right hand ached from holding both the Glock and the collar of the protective vest, but his grip on the man’s belt was much firmer.
A third burst hit Tom, and the multiple shocks shook the body so much that the weakened and sliced web belt came apart. The mercenary fell dead from Bolan’s hands, but the Executioner still had his hands on whatever gear the gunman had on his belt.
Bullets tore through the air, and Bolan was in retreat again. He had a handgun and spare clips on the belt in his fist, and at least a mile to cross overland.
Sticking around to take out the three fully armed mercenaries would swallow too much time, allowing Hogan and the Yakuza to meet unmolested.
He couldn’t let the girl exchange hands.
Bolan didn’t know what would happen next, but he intended to get there before anything happened to the innocent life he was suddenly responsible for protecting.
There were no acceptable losses to the Executioner. He had only a few minutes to reach Rebecca Anthony and secure her freedom.
Bounding through the trees, the Executioner raced as fast as he could. He slowed enough to glance down at the gun he had in the holster.
He was carrying an old Walther P-38 K in his holster. With the five-inch barrel trimmed to three inches, yet still holding nine shots ready to fire with a pull of the trigger, it was an attractive weapon. Not as attractive as having fourteen rounds of bigger, fatter .40-caliber slugs, Bolan thought, but it wasn’t massive missiles and having dozens of rounds of firepower that made a gun worthwhile.
It was the ability of the gunmen to hit a target.
The Executioner had that ability. And with a couple spare magazines, he figured he might actually stand a chance. It was a small chance, made even smaller as gunfire chased him through the foliage as he crossed the hillside road, but Bolan wasn’t dead yet.
The Executioner charged on.
HOGAN HEARD THE CLICK of the radio and tilted it toward his mouth, his earpiece feeding him the frantic words.
“The target is climbing the hill as we speak. He’s cutting across country,” Frye stated on the other end.
“Damn,” Hogan murmured. “He’s got a useless Glock—”
“No. He got Tom.”