“Not to mention the fact that they’re going to start shooting as soon as it’s obvious the law is after them.” Jessup paused for a low chuckle, deep in his chest. “At least I’m the law,” he said. “I still haven’t figured out exactly who or what you are.”
The Executioner chuckled himself. All Jessup knew was that he had been assigned to work with Bolan—whom he knew as Matt Cooper—for a series of drug deals to which his snitch was privy. He had already seen Cooper bend conventional law so far as to break it. But it was always for a final good, and the end really did always justify the means.
“You’re right about the shooting,” Bolan finally said. “As soon as I turn this baby their way, it’s going to start. So the longer I can stay on the county road, the more it’ll appear that we’re just headed for someplace past them.” He paused and took in a breath. “That means I’m going to wait until we’re right across from them and then cut a hard right their way.”
“Short of bringing in air support, that’s about as good a plan as I can think of,” Jessup said. He leaned forward and slid an AR-15 from beneath the Hummer’s passenger’s seat. Pulling back the bolt of the semiautomatic version of the military’s M-16, he chambered a round, all the time keeping the weapon below the windows of the vehicle.
The Executioner knew he would need both hands on the wheel for the breakneck turn he had planned in the next few seconds, so he left his 9 mm Heckler & Koch MP-5 submachine gun where it lay near his feet. Then, as soon as he was perpendicular to the cars parked out in the cow pasture, he whipped the Hummer their way.
The Hummer fishtailed slightly as it descended into a deep bar ditch. Then it straightened again as it climbed up the other side. The sturdy personnel vehicle punched through the barbed-wire fence between two wooden posts as if it were snapping a dry rubber band. The razor-sharp barbs on the strands dragged across the Hummer’s sides, scratching deeply into the yellow paint job. A second later, they were creating another dust storm behind them. But this time, the clouds flying up through the air from the Hummer’s tires included not only dirt but long blades of wild grass.
Bolan and Jessup had been right in their assessment of the drug dealers’ reaction.
The shooting started immediately.
The Executioner heard several engines roar to life, and then the Jeep and two of the pickups fled from the oncoming Hummer. The loud, frightened mooing of several dozen cattle, who had gathered together deeper into the pasture, rose up between the other noises as the escaping vehicles headed toward them, forcing the animals to part, and causing them to stampede in opposite directions.
The men escaping, Bolan knew, had to be the sellers, who already had their money. The buyers of the cocaine were still loading cardboard boxes into the backs of their vehicles from piles on the ground. But now they were forced to postpone that task and turn toward Bolan and Jessup.
“We can go after the guys with the money,” Bolan said. “Or we can get the guys with the dope right here.” He paused for a second, then added, “But we may not be able to get them both.”
“Let’s go for the dope,” Jessup said without hesitation. “At least we can keep it from getting onto the streets.”
“You’re right,” Bolan agreed. Reaching inside his light jacket, he drew the sound-suppressed Beretta 93-R. In the corner of his eye, he saw Jessup kneel his right leg on the seat, then wrap the seat belt tightly around his calf. As Bolan extended the Beretta out the window with his left hand, Jessup leaned out with his entire torso.
Both men began firing simultaneously.
As the Hummer crested a short rise in the pasture, it went momentarily airborne. Both the Executioner and the DEA agent waited for it to settle on flatter ground, then pulled their respective triggers.
A trio of subsonic, nearly inaudible 9 mm hollowpoint rounds rocketed from Bolan’s Beretta. One round struck the shoulder of a man wearing a charcoal-gray suit and striped tie. Bolan frowned slightly, then nodded. The pickups the Mafia gunners had chosen fit right in with the landscape, but their clothing made them stand out.
Next to him, the Executioner heard Jessup pop off three semiauto rounds from his AR-15. They were still at least an eighth of a mile away, and none of the .223-caliber rounds seemed to find a target.
By now, the mafiosi in the field had taken cover around their pickups—three almost identical Toyota Tundras. One was burgundy colored, another green and the third one blue. All were parked with their beds facing the oncoming Hummer, the tailgates were down and the cargo areas roughly half-filled with cardboard boxes.
Cardboard boxes that, the Executioner knew, had to contain kilo after kilo of white powdered cocaine.
A rifle round struck the Hummer’s windshield, then skimmed up off the bullet-resistant material. Only a tiny speck appeared on the glass to show where it had hit. Bolan drove on, squeezing the trigger of his Beretta yet again. This time all three rounds of automatic fire struck the right front fender of the green pickup as the same man he’d hit in the shoulder a little earlier ducked back behind the engine block.
Jessup fired again, and Bolan saw the rear windshield of the blue pickup shatter into thousands of tiny pieces.
“Dammit!” the DEA man shouted as he pulled his rifle back inside the Hummer.
Bolan glanced his way as he sped on toward the pickups. The still-smoking brass case from the last shot Jessup had fired stood straight up out of the breech of the weapon. Such a jam was called a stove pipe and it could come from a faulty magazine, a faulty round or a faulty gun.
Jamming the stock of his AR-15 back against the car seat, Jessup pulled back the bolt and brushed brass out of the weapon with a sweep of his left hand. His eyes stared down into the opening, and when he released the bolt again a fresh round was shoved into the chamber.
“I’m going to drive right through them,” the Executioner said just as Jessup began to lean out of the window again. “This Hummer’s the best cover we’re going to get.” His eyes narrowed as the brows above them furrowed. “And we may take out some of them in the crash.” He paused for another quick glance over at Jessup. “Better stay in here and put your seat belt on right.”
The DEA special agent understood. Taking a sitting position, he snapped his seat belt and shoulder harness into place, then rested his AR-15 across his lap with the barrel pointing at the door.
The mafiosi behind the pickups didn’t realize what was going to happen until it was almost too late. They continued firing toward the Hummer, their rounds doing little more than make more specks on the windshield.
Then, suddenly, the fact that the huge civilianized military vehicle wasn’t going to stop or even slow suddenly sank into them all at the same time. Six men suddenly emerged from behind the pickups and began running in different directions across the cow pasture.
The Hummer crashed into the tailgates of the burgundy and green Tundras, folded them up into a mangled mass of steel, then blew out all four of the rear tires. The burgundy truck was thrown out and to the left, directly atop one of the fleeing mafiosi.
The man’s lone scream abruptly cut short as he was crushed to death. As soon as they were past the vehicles, the Executioner twisted the Hummer around in a breakneck U-turn and started back toward the crumpled green pickup. It had been knocked onto its side, and one of the mafiosi dived back behind the cab, not seeing any other possible escape.
But the overturned green pickup was no cover for the Hummer, either. Bolan turned the wheel slightly and a second later he and Jessup bumped up and over the wreck, squashing the Mafia soldier below their wheels and what remained of the green Toyota Tundra.
There had been a total of six