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  He stuck his head above the mattress, spotting movement in the doorway as the gunner made his charge. Bolan met him with a rising burst that ripped the man from crotch to breastbone, punching him into an awkward pirouette of death.

  Still firing with the Uzi, Bolan dipped his free hand inside the duffel bag and withdrew a grenade. He pulled the pin and lobbed the orb overhand, retreating toward the cover of the bed as startled cries announced the grenade's arrival on the sidewalk.

  Detonation, microseconds later, tore the night apart with sound and fury. Bits of shrapnel whined through the door and windows, peppering the walls and ceiling. As the ringing in Aguire's ears subsided, he could hear a tortured voice begin to call for help. A gunshot was the answer, and the voice fell silent.

  Aguire made his move without thought. Gathering his legs beneath him, he lunged for the duffel bag. He wouldn't cower in the shadows while his escort bore the brunt of the fighting. There were weapons in the bag, and…

  Bolan intercepted him, resting the smoking muzzle of his Uzi against Aguire's chest.

  "Don't even think about it, guy."

  "You must allow me…"

  "Save it," Bolan snapped. "I don't have time to play the ground rules back for your amusement."

  "I am not a child!"

  "That's right. You're baggage. And I say again, no guns."

  "I won't…"

  Aguire saw the blow, but there was nothing he could do to brace himself or pull away. The Uzi clipped him sharply on the left side of his head and drove him backward. Darkness spread its cloak to catch him, and before the world shut down, Aguire heard the sound of distant guns.

  9

  In the wake of the grenade explosion, Bolan heard the crack of pistol shots outside. He thought of Johnny, trapped outside, and realized the kid had more mobility — more combat stretch — than if he had been «safe» inside the room.

  Reloading as he moved, the soldier scuttled forward, covering the open doorway and the window frame. Outside, the Cajun Cottage sign provided green and blue illumination for the parking lot, and Bolan felt a little like a deep-sea diver as he cleared the threshold in a combat crouch.

  One of his enemies was standing in the open, looking dazed, his eyes shifting back and forth between the door to number thirteen and a station wagon on his left, the windows shot to hell. Four men lay stretched out on the pavement, leaking life.

  The gunner spotted Bolan in the doorway and pivoted to bring him under fire with a Heckler & Koch submachine gun. Bolan beat him to it, rattling off a short burst from his Uzi that knocked the man off his feet into an awkward sprawl. His heels drummed briefly on the blacktop, raising dust before the last faint spark of animation flickered out.

  Downrange, a burst of fire from secondary forces filled the air with angry hornets, driving Bolan to his knees. He reached the station wagon, heard the body work absorbing hits, and was prepared to answer fire when sudden movement on his left flank demanded full attention. Bolan had his finger on the trigger when recognition flooded him with sweet relief.

  "Where's Carlos?" Johnny asked.

  "He's napping. You okay?"

  "I think the Cokes are getting warm."

  The soldier grinned. "How many have we got down there?"

  "I counted four outside the room. They left one in the office with the manager."

  "Okay, we'll call it five. I don't want any stragglers."

  "Right." Johnny nodded in the general direction of their enemies. "They might have other thoughts on that."

  "We'll have to be persuasive."

  "I heard that. Suggestions?"

  "One or two." The warrior laid down his Uzi and freed a pair of fragmentation grenades that he had clipped onto his belt. He handed one to his brother. "I hadn't planned to use these all at once, but what the hell. On three."

  They pulled the safety pins together, cocked their arms and Bolan started counting.

  "One."

  If they succeeded, there would be a period of several seconds while the opposition was disoriented, dazed, and they could take advantage of the lag time for a final rush. If they should fail…

  "Two."

  He tried to calculate the distance in his mind, preparing for the pitch. His only view of their assailants was a fleeting glimpse before he hit the deck and scrambled to the cover of the station wagon. A miscalculation now would make the grenades fall short, their force diffused by distance, the shrapnel less effective.

  "Three."

  No time for doubts now. Bolan and his brother broke their crouch in unison, arms whipping forward to release their missiles. Thirty yards away, the enemy responded with a concentrated burst of fire that rocked the station wagon on its hinges, stray rounds drilling through both doors and whispering past Bolan's face.

  He hugged the pavement, waiting for a thunderclap that would save his world or end it.

  * * *

  The punk called Rick was getting fidgety, and that made Justin Harris wonder how much longer he had to live. They'd be forced to kill him once the shooting began outside. He knew their faces and a couple of their names — first names, at any rate — and they'd have to be insane to think that he would keep that information to himself, no matter what he promised in a desperate bid to stay alive.

  And if they meant to kill him, he didn't have a goddamned thing to lose.

  Harris kept an Army-issue.45 out front, concealed where he could reach it as he stood behind the register, to make him feel secure when nights were long and weirdos came in off the highway. He had practiced shooting cans and paper targets with the pistol, knew the moves and combat stance, but he'd never been confronted with a killing situation on the job.

  Before tonight.

  And now the goddamned gun was twenty feet away, with Rick prepared to blow his ass to kingdom come if a sudden move was made in that direction.

  They were seated in Harris's living room behind the office, where he sat and drank and tried to watch TV between the interruptions from his customers. The bedroom and a tiny bathroom lay behind his captor, with the exit to the motel office on his left, the gunner's right.

  It might as well have been the frigging moon.

  "You want a beer?" He gestured toward the six-pack on the stand beside his easy chair. "It's warm, but it ain't bad."

  "No beer."

  "You mind if I go on and have one, then?"

  Rick thought about it, finally nodded. "Might as well."

  "My thoughts, exactly."

  Sudden gunfire echoed from the parking lost, two shots in rapid-fire and then all holy hell broke loose. Rick flinched, half rising from his chair, and Harris saw the only opening that he would ever have.

  Without a second thought, he pitched the still-unopened beer can, lunging from his chair before the missile struck Rick's forehead with a hollow thunk. The gunner toppled backward, squeezing off a reflex shot that gouged the ceiling, missing Harris by a yard or more.

  The manager made the office doorway, almost stumbling on the threshold where the carpet changed to vinyl, and dropped to his knees behind the register. His fingers scrabbled for the Colt. He snapped back the hammer as he found his grip and turned to face his enemy.

  Sweet Jesus, was it loaded? Had he left a live round in the chamber?

  There was no damned time to check it, as Rick lurched through the doorway, blood streaming from a crescent wound above one eye. The gunman fired again, a wild shot that drilled through the register and rung up a void. The cash drawer rattled out to full extension over Justin's head, and he was praying as he squeezed the trigger, startled by the weapon's recoil in his hand.

  Rick took the heavy round in his breastbone, and it emptied out his lung. A shocked expression crept over his face as he slumped against the doorjamb. He was sliding toward a crouch, his pistol still at full arm's length when Harris fired again.

  The bullet punched a blowhole in Rick's forehead, its explosive exit stenciling a crimson halo on the watt. The gunner dropped hi
s pistol as his buttocks thumped the vinyl floor. His mouth sagged open, drooling blood and spittle down his shirt.

  Outside, the battle had been heating up, complete with automatic weapons and explosions, sounding just like reruns of The Rat Patrol. It would have been the smart thing, Harris thought, to phone the sheriff right away, let someone else sort out the whole damned mess. But he was angry now, and flying on a rush of pure adrenaline that made him feel like he could lick the world.

  "That's one," he said to the lifeless Rick, and hobbled out to join the war.

  * * *

  From where he stood, it seemed to Arnie Norris that the operation had already gone to hell. Meyers had screwed things up beyond redemption with his too-cool attitude and the obnoxious way he had of pushing everybody else aside so he could run things his way.

  His way sucked.

  "You see them, Claude?"

  Bodeen stood on tiptoe and craned his neck. "I can't see nothin'. We've got 'em, though."

  Like hell.

  The fact that they had two men pinned behind the wagon didn't mean anything to Arnie, now. If the truth were told, it felt as if he were in the trap, his opposition holding all the cards. If they could kill five men that quick and easy when they were surprised, who knew what they were capable of doing once they got their act together?

  Behind him, Jason shouted, "Blast them out of there!" He fired a burst directly at the car, exploding window glass and puncturing a tire, but he was wasting bullets. Claude joined in, unleashing three quick rounds, but Arnie played it smart and held his fire.

  In case.

  A nagging premonition of disaster made him turn and glance toward the office — just in time to see the old man waddle out, a pistol in his hand. Arnie faced the new arrival, catching just a flash of Jason from the corner of his eyes, convinced the cyclops thought he was about to break and run.

  "Look out!" he bellowed, swinging up his Colt Commander as the old man let loose with what sounded like an Army.45. Before he could return fire, Claude Bodeen was on his knees and groping for a bloody wound above his belt line in the back.

  "I'm hit!" he cried. "Aw, Jesus, Arnie…"

  "Bastard!" Norris triggered two quick rounds and watched the old man totter, before falling down as if his legs had been yanked out from under him. Blood pooled in Harris's lap, but he still held the automatic leveled straight at Arnie, finger frozen on the trigger as a warning shout distracted Norris from the game.

  "Grenade!"

  Already moving, Arnie shot the old man once again, indifferent to the outcome as he broke for cover, wondering if he could reach the nearest vehicle in time to make a dive and…

  Thunder wrapped itself around Norris, lifted him completely off his feet and hurled him toward the car he had selected as his sanctuary. He hit the fender with his face, and everything shut down.

  * * *

  They followed the explosion in a rush, each circling a different way around the car. As Bolan cleared the grille, he saw one gunner on his feet, another kneeling on the asphalt, wounded. Others had been dropped by the explosions, lying torn and twisted on the ground.

  The standing gunner missed the warrior, somehow. He fired off a burst at Johnny, then broke toward a car that had been parked outside the office. Bolan tracked him with the Uzi, lining up his sights too late. His target scrambled behind the wheel before he had a decent shot.

  The engine growled to life, and brake lights flared as Johnny started firing his Beretta. Bolan held the Uzi's trigger down and emptied the magazine, two seconds' worth of concentrated firing at a cyclic rate of seven hundred and fifty rounds per minute. Parabellum rounds chewed up the trunk and smashed the vehicle's rear window.

  And somewhere in the middle of it all, one round — or several, found a spot in the fuel tank, sparking with sufficient heat to trigger an explosion. Bolan felt the heat wave where he stood, and he watched a fiery mushroom melt the canopy above the car.

  In the smoky no-man's land, a lone survivor of the raiding party saw his death approaching as he knelt on the asphalt, pistol in hand. He saw grim death before him, multiplied by two, and the predominant expression on his face appeared to be surprise.

  "We should've had you," he announced. "Meyers fucked it up. I knew he would."

  "Who are you?" Johnny asked.

  "What difference does it make? I'm dead."

  "Not necessarily."

  "Oh, yeah. I'm checking out, all right." The man was fatalistic in his mortal pain. "The only question left is, who goes with me?"

  "Don't be stupid," Johnny cautioned, sighting down the slide of his Beretta.

  Bolan was immediately conscious of the fact that he had let the Uzi run dry. Would there be time, he wondered, to draw the 93-R from its shoulder rigging?

  And he knew the answer as he met the wounded gunner's J eyes. It would be Johnny's play or no one's.

  "Eeny meeny," the gunman taunted, managing a grin.

  "Don't do it."

  "Miny mo." His weak voice faltered, but he dredged enough strength up from somewhere to continue. "Catch…"

  Bolan saw the move in progress and faded sideways, digging for his weapon in a hopeless race with time as Johnny fired a single shot that slammed the gunner backward, dead before his shoulders hit the asphalt.

  "One more inside the office?" Bolan asked his brother.

  Following Johnny's gaze, he saw the structure wrapped in leaping flames.

  "I doubt it," Johnny answered, turning back toward room thirteen. "We've got some company."

  Aguire stood outside the room, one hand pressed to his aching head, examining the bodies strewn about the sidewalk. Lights were going on in other rooms, but none of the assorted guests showed themselves until the soldier found a fire alarm and rang it in.

  "Let's go," he said above the din. "It's checkout time."

  10

  "How the hell did they find us so quickly?"

  "Your guess," Bolan answered, "would be as good as mine."

  Johnny swiveled in his seat and pinned Aguire with a steady gaze. Their passenger looked sullen. "Man, if you've got anything to tell us, now's the time."

  "You think I knew those men? Did they behave as if they hoped to rescue me?" The witness looked disgusted with his escorts. "You told me Pratt has problems with security. A leak, perhaps."

  "Pratt doesn't know our route. He can't send shooters somewhere that he's never heard of."

  "Then it must be Vos," Aguire countered. "He may have a full description of the car by now… perhaps of you, as well. His eyes are everywhere."

  Somehow it didn't play. The pieces wouldn't fit.

  "We changed the plates," he said to no one in particular. "There have to be a couple thousand Jimmys in the state at least. What kind of network are we talking about that can pick us up that fast and put a hit team in the field?"

  "Whatever," Bolan replied, "it ought to take a while for them to get the word on what went down back there. Add more time while they cast the net again. I'd say we have an hour, anyway."

  "We won't make Texas in an hour," Johnny told him.

  "I don't plan to. First I'm touching base with Wonderland, and then we burrow in to get some sleep."

  Johnny recognized the wisdom of his brother's plan. If someone had them marked — and clearly someone did — the highways could be crawling with patrols inside the hour. Ambush or a running battle through the darkness was a solid possibility, attracting the police and God knows who else in the process. It was safer to find a hole and pull it in behind them.

  He missed the chicken. Hunger gnawed around the edges of his stomach, grumbling audibly.

  "You guys enjoy your dinner?"

  "We were interrupted," Bolan replied.

  "I know it's probably a bad idea for us to stop, but still…"

  "I need a pay phone," his brother said, "Keep an eye peeled. Maybe we can do both jobs at once."

  "I'm on the case."

  They found an all-night gas stati
on and convenience store outside of Taylortown, in Bossier Parish. Bolan parked on the side, where they wouldn't be immediately visible to passing traffic. Out front, a pickup and a pair of motorcycles occupied the parking lot.

  "The menu's up to you," Bolan announced, already rummaging in the console for a role of quarters. "I'll see if I can find out what we're up against. Ten minutes ought to do it."

  "Easy," Johnny replied. He disembarked and pulled the passenger's seat forward for Aguire to exit. "Everybody out."

  "My head…"

  "You'll live," the younger man cut him off. "And I'm not letting you out of my sight."

  They left the Executioner at the outside pay phone and pushed through glass doors. In a corner, Johnny noted the surveillance camera that covered the entrance and the register. Two biker types were paying for an eight-pack, while an older, balding man browsed through the meager fare of skin magazines displayed beside the dairy cooler. Johnny nodded to the night clerk, an imposing slab of muscle sporting tattoos on his arms and pale scars on his knuckles.

  "See anything you like?" he asked Aguire.

  "I'm not hungry."

  "Suit yourself. I think it's safe to say we'll miss the champagne brunch tomorrow."

  Grudgingly the man chose a hero sandwich wrapped in cellophane, a bag of corn chips and a soft drink. Johnny added two more sandwiches to the list, more chips and half a dozen candy bars of different types. He kissed the balanced diet off in favor of convenience, knowing it would be a bitch to handle cans. They couldn't afford a fire to heat things up, in any case.

  "How long until they find us?" Aguire asked as Johnny stopped to grab a quart of milk.

  "You're asking me? I don't know how they found us this time."

  "We are as good as dead."

  "You might be right, but when we go, it won't be from starvation. Here, my treat."