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  He eased up to the corner and peeked around. The semi was still there, but now the dock had a pair of guards on this side, and Bolan figured there was at least one more on the platform leading inside.

  He ducked back. “Two guards on this side, probably at least one more on the other side. I’m going to try to take them. Be ready to go for the truck on my signal.” He mussed up his hair and rubbed his sleeve in the dirt, then across his face. “Keep an eye out behind you as well.”

  Tucking his pistol under his lab coat, Bolan hunched over and staggered around the corner, groaning as if in pain. “¡Ayúdeme!” he gasped as he stumbled toward the guards. One of them went to help him, the other hit his lapel mike and began speaking into it.

  Bolan reached out a hand to the nearer guard as if he was about to hold on to him for support. He did grab his arm, then brought out his Beretta and stuck it in the man’s stomach, making sure to go underneath the bulky body armor he was wearing.

  The guard had just enough time to look down and register what was about to happen when Bolan pulled the trigger twice. The bullets tore through his lower abdomen, mangling the small intestine and dropping the man to the ground. He clutched his middle, trying to suck in enough air to scream.

  The other man was pulling his pistol while still talking into his walkie-talkie. Bolan yanked his gun free and brought it around, sighting on the man and firing a split second before he did. The guard’s bullet whizzed by, cracking the air as it broke the sound barrier. Bolan’s shot hit him in the collarbone, which did make him drop his pistol. Steadying his right hand with his left, Bolan put a second shot through the man’s nose, killing him instantly.

  Ducking, Bolan looked underneath the trailer for running boots. Seeing none, he looked back at Casey and her daughter. “Let’s go!”

  The two women ran behind him as Bolan headed toward the tractor trailer. Hopping up on the gas tank, he opened the passenger door and hustled both of them inside, then joined them, scrambling past into the driver’s seat.

  “Shit, no keys!” Casey had already checked both visors, hoping for a spare.

  “Give me a minute. Keep watch out the driver’s window!” Bolan was already wriggling beneath the steering column and used the butt of his pistol to crack open the plastic housing. Quickly isolating the correct wires, he drew his dagger and stripped the ends, then touched them together. The engine turned over, then rumbled to life, just as several shots were fired out of the driver’s window.

  “What’s happening?” Bolan asked as he came back up and Casey scooted over into the passenger seat.

  “Guards coming out the door. Put a few shots above their heads to keep ’em inside.”

  “All right, we’re leaving anyway.” Hitting the trailer release button, Bolan pressed the clutch, shifted into low and stepped on the gas while releasing the clutch. The semi lurched forward, and he quickly gave it more gas to prevent a stall. He heard a grinding noise, then a loud crash as the trailer broke loose and crashed to the ground.

  Picking up speed, Bolan pulled out of the dock area and headed for the main gate. He had just pulled around the corner of the building when he was confronted by two Escalades coming right for him. Hitting the gas, Bolan picked up enough speed to shift into second gear and drove straight ahead. The pair of SUVs tried to swerve around him, but Bolan didn’t want both coming after him.

  “Hang on!” As they passed, he wrenched the wheel hard right, sending the bumper of the semi into the side of the Escalade. The heavy truck crunched into the rear quarter panel of the SUV, crumpling metal and sending a dagger of steel into the rear tire, which exploded under the pressure. Bolan saw the vehicle roll to a stop in a cloud of dust. He shifted again, picking up even more speed.

  By then he was aligning the truck with the main gate, which had gone to full compound lockdown mode. However, they weren’t really expecting a semi to come barreling at them. Scattered shots came at the truck, one bullet starring the right windshield but not hitting anyone inside. Bolan braced himself for return fire, but none came.

  “Watch out for the road spikes!” Casey shouted.

  Glancing at the road next to the guardhouse, Bolan spotted the tire shredders that had just popped up. “No problem.” He aimed the truck a few degrees to the right.

  “You’re not going to—”

  “You better get your daughter into the back.” Bolan didn’t look at her as he adjusted his aim a bit, then braced for impact. The guards tried to wave him off, then aimed their pistols, but realized his intent and dived out of the way just in time.

  The semi hit the guard shack at fifty miles an hour, demolishing the small building in a shower of wood, shingles and metal. Part of the roof slid onto the hood, until Bolan juked the wheel hard enough to make it slide loose. He checked his mirrors for pursuit, but the escape had been so quick that the company hadn’t mounted an effective group to chase them. Even the untouched SUV wasn’t coming after them.

  “Everyone okay?”

  Casey’s head stuck up from behind the passenger seat. “Yeah, until Cristobal gets their act together and comes after us. You got enough gas in this thing to get us to Canada?”

  Bolan shook his head. “No one’s running or hiding anymore. We’re going to take care of this once and for all—right here in Quincyville.”

  15

  Fifteen minutes later, Bolan stood in the middle of a deserted Main Street, staring off to the south. The alarm siren at Cristobal had fallen silent a few minutes ago, and that was the signal he’d been waiting for.

  His gaze flicking left and right along the empty street, devoid of cars or the slightest sign of other human life, he flipped open Everado’s cell phone and hit the speed-dial button for the elder De Cavallos.

  It was answered on the second ring. “You either possess incredible skills or unbelievable luck, Mr. Cooper.”

  “I just don’t like innocent people getting in the middle of our business, Mr. De Cavallos.”

  “Are you saying that my son isn’t innocent?”

  “Anyone who tries to kidnap a Department of Justice agent is far from innocent,” Bolan said.

  “You are as much a DOJ agent as I am. No true agent would have done what you just did at my compound. Your government would never have allowed it.”

  “You learn fast. I did that to serve you fair warning. You have approximately twenty-five minutes to meet my deadline. You’ve already seen what I did to your security. If you don’t go, I’m coming after you as well.”

  “I was in the process of wrapping things up here until our perimeter was breached, which delayed the safe shutdown of our production lines. There are many dangerous chemicals on-site, and it would be a shame if, due to haste or improper storage procedures, a toxic cloud were to escape and contaminate the town.”

  Bolan heard the implied threat loud and clear. “That would be too bad, especially considering that your son would be at ground zero.”

  “Yes, that would be a shame. You’ve outmaneuvered me at every turn, Mr. Cooper. It seems that I have no choice but to acquiesce to your terms. I would, however, like to pick up my son before I leave.”

  “Fine. Come to Main Street in ten minutes. He and I will be waiting for you.” Bolan snapped the phone closed, then flipped it open again and used the walkie-talkie feature to contact Rollins.

  “How’d it go?” the man asked.

  “About how I expected. De Cavallos is planning to roll into town and collect his son, then extract a big load of pay-back for my messing up his operation.”

  “Except we’re not going to let that happen.”

  Bolan smiled at the determination he heard in the man’s voice. “That’s the spirit. I can’t promise this’ll go down without any collateral damage, but I’ll do my damnedest to keep it to a minimum. Keep everyone in position and ready to go on my signal.”

  “Yeah, some are getting a touch overheated, but they’ll all be ready to go when you give the word.”

  “Goo
d. You sure your nephew won’t get into any trouble with that ‘requisition’ he pulled from the armory?”

  “Considering the commander of the Guard in this county is my brother, I don’t think there’ll be any trouble. They’ve already signed off on the paperwork that says they were on ‘maneuvers’ when they encountered the situation.”

  “Good. You all are taking enough risks here already.”

  “It’s something we should have done a long time ago. You just opened our eyes to what was really going on here.”

  “I’m sure you would have handled it yourselves in time.”

  Rollins grunted. “Maybe. This town was like a lot like a hound dog lying on the porch with a nail poking it. As long as it didn’t really start to hurt, we were all willing to put up with the occasional twinge of pain. Now, however, it appears that nail is about to get shoved somewhere deep.”

  “Not if I can help it,” Bolan replied.

  “Before all this gets underway, is there anything else you need?” Rollins asked.

  Bolan looked around one last time and nodded. “Just the bait.”

  “We’ll have that order of punk-on-ice out to you shortly.”

  “Thanks.” Bolan cut the walkie-talkie feature and dialed Stony Man Farm. “Bear.”

  “Striker. Good to hear your voice this morning. I guess the fact that you’re calling in means you haven’t left that town yet.”

  “No. Our friends from south-of-the-border are pretty good poker players, but they haven’t learned that I hardly ever bluff.” Bolan filled him in on the conversation with De Cavallos, including the implied threat about the gas cloud. Kurtzman’s reaction was typical.

  “Damn it, Striker, Barbara and I had our hands full getting a strike force together that was close enough—which is inbound as we speak, which, by the way, was no small feat, I might add—and now you want me to somehow come up with a hazmat team that can handle a potential toxic gas cloud that might rival Bhopal?”

  “Barbara” was Barbara Price, mission controller at Stony Man Farm. “Something like that. Look, I’m going to do everything in my power to ensure that nothing happens here, but you’d best have that team on standby, just in case.”

  “I just got the phone out of my ear for the first time in the past three hours, and now I gotta get back on it again. By the way, you don’t even want to know what Hal thinks of all this.”

  Bolan couldn’t help grinning at the image of Hal Brognola, one of his oldest friends and allies in his global fight against evil, chewing his unlit cigar as he tried to handle what was happening in America’s heartland. “Just tell him it wasn’t my fault—really.”

  “Oh no, I’m not even gonna try to justify this. You’ll have plenty of time to tell him yourself when you get back.”

  Bolan spotted a pickup truck turning onto Main Street from the direction of Brian Rollins’s diner. “Almost show-time, Bear, I gotta go.”

  “Give ’em hell, Striker.”

  “You know it.” Bolan shut the phone and waited.

  Twenty seconds later, a frost-covered and shivering Everado De Cavallos was driven up in the back of a pickup truck, watched by three members of the high-school football team. He was dumped over the side with little grace, and landed on his hands and knees in front of Bolan. In the driver’s seat, Rollins nodded at Bolan before driving off again. In seconds the street was deserted except for the soldier and Everado.

  “M-my f-f-father…will k-kill you…for this…” Everado said through chattering teeth.

  “We’ll just see about that, won’t we?” Shading his eyes from the rising sun, Bolan looked south again. “You should probably just stay down there. It’ll be safer for you.”

  Everado mustered enough nerve to spit on Bolan’s shoe. “Fuck you, cabron!”

  Bolan eyed his shoe, then wiped it off on Everado’s torn, stained designer jeans. He didn’t say a word and kept looking to the south.

  Three minutes later, his patience was rewarded by the sight of a convoy of Escalades coming up the highway, escorted by something Bolan wasn’t expecting. The steady thrum of a helicopter’s blades beat the air as the aircraft flew above the SUVs coming into town.

  Bolan got on the horn to Rollins. “You spot the air support?”

  “Yeah. I shoulda told you about that, but we got it covered. Don’t worry, they won’t spoil the surprise.”

  “All right, get everyone ready, and above all, wait for my signal. It’s going to happen in the next three minutes.”

  Bolan clicked the phone closed, put it in his pocket and waited. The helicopter flew past him, circling around the Main Street area, no doubt looking for hidden people or vehicles. Bolan hoped Rollins had concealed his people well. The entire plan depended on maintaining the element of surprise.

  The Escalades, six in all, purred up the street. Two pulled past Bolan and took up positions a block away, stopping in a V-formation that blocked any traffic that might try to come in from the north. The trailing pair did the same at the south end of the street, cutting off access or escape on that end as well.

  The main vehicle, an extended Escalade that Bolan noticed was heavily armored, rolled to a stop in the middle of the street, flanked on the right by the last SUV. As if choreographed, doors opened and men spilled from every one of the immaculate vehicles. Each was armed with a machine pistol or submachine gun, and they all took up positions watching Bolan from the cover of their car doors or behind the engine blocks of their Escalades.

  Bolan watched the show without moving a muscle, his hands still at his sides, shoulders relaxed, feet about shoulder-width apart. After all, his efforts had ensured that they were missing at least nine men, including the injured deputy from the previous night. He had to be looking at pretty much everybody who was left in Cristobal’s security force. The helicopter passed by overhead, its racket shattering the stillness.

  The front right passenger door of the extended Escalade opened, and a man who had to be De Cavallos stepped out. He was dressed in a cream-colored linen suit, its crisp lines accentuating his lean form. Hand-tooled cowboy boots with chiseled silver points on the toes adorned his feet. His black hair was immaculately styled, his eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses. Bolan watched him carefully as he took in the scene, with his son prone in front of the man who had been giving him so much trouble over the past day and night. He didn’t react upon seeing the insulting sight, but simply glanced left and right before strolling toward Bolan. The two men who had gotten out of the vehicle before De Cavallos fell in behind him, weapons at the ready. Bolan noticed that one of the men was Deputy Rojas Quintanar, holding a sawed-off pump shotgun.

  Bolan let them approach to within a few yards before prodding Everado with the toe of his boot. “Get up.”

  The young man rose to his feet, swaying unsteadily next to Bolan.

  “That’s far enough.”

  De Cavallos lowered his sunglasses to look at Bolan, then past him, then around at the rest of the street. “You are an incredibly bold man, Mr. Cooper. I cannot think of anyone in our respective lines of work who would be so daring as to meet me alone.”

  Bolan shrugged. “I have friends in high places.”

  De Cavallos frowned, as if trying to discern whether his words had a hidden meaning. When nothing changed in the barren landscape around them, he smiled. “That I find hard to believe. You’ve already confirmed that you’re not with the government. No organization would ever sanction what you’ve done over the past twenty-four hours. Yet you are also not a mercenary, since you didn’t seek to extort any kind of ransom or payment in exchange for you leaving me alone—a ransom, I might add, I would have gladly paid. In fact, given your skills, I would have been happy to have gotten a chance to hire you myself. Someone with your capabilities would have proved quite useful to our organization.”

  Bolan stared evenly at him, his ice-blue gaze boring into the man’s deep brown eyes. “Unfortunately for you, I’m not for sale. Besides, I think I would
have screwed up the interview anyway.”

  “So it would seem. A pity, that. Before we conclude our transaction, there is one thing I must know. Why did you do all of this? I cannot possibly see what gain there was for you…” De Cavallos’s expression turned thoughtful, and he stroked his chin. “Unless you are one of that rarest of American citizens…the true patriot. Ready, able, and willing to risk his life in the pursuit of liberty, justice and the American way, is that not how the saying goes?”

  The helicopter passed overhead again, the draft from its rotor blades kicking up dust on the street. Bolan allowed himself a tiny nod at the other man’s words. “Something like that.”

  De Cavallos motioned his son to come to him. The younger De Cavallos slunk away like a beaten dog. His father grabbed him by the chin and lifted his face up to examine it, then released it, turning his attention back to Bolan. “People like you are a vanishing breed.”

  “I’ve heard that before. The funny thing is, there are more of us around than you might imagine.”

  Again De Cavallos glanced around at the empty street, the deserted stores. “Perhaps, but you seem to be the only one here. And in the next few seconds, America will have one less hero.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.” Bolan raised his left hand to emphasize his point, and the two men guarding De Cavallos aimed their weapons at him. The Executioner heard the actions of the other guns around him being readied, and then it happened.

  On every rooftop of every building along the Main Street of Quincyville, men and women popped up, at least thirty on each side of the street, every one armed with a rifle that they pointed down at the men below. One of them reared up so fast that the black blanket he’d been hiding under slipped off and fell to the sidewalk below.

  De Cavallos and his men looked around uncertainly as two pairs of camouflaged Humvees appeared from side streets on the far sides of the pair of Escalades at either end, blocking in the SUVs. Each vehicle had a pintle-mounted M-249 SAW machine gun mounted on it, manned by a helmeted soldier. In seconds, the cartel men had gone from being in complete control of the situation to being hopelessly outnumbered.