Blood Tide Read online

  Modifications had been made.

  It was freshly painted a bright red, including the six 106 mm recoilless rifles. A .30-caliber Browning medium machine gun had been reinstalled in the commander’s cupola. Squares of reactive armor blocks had been bolted across the frontal armor. The most intriguing change was that the Ontos was no longer chalked in place by its road wheels.

  The little tank was sitting on treads.

  Bolan was grinned. “Tell me we have an engine.”

  “Oh, indeed.” Ming sighed happily at his monstrosity. “She has been brought back to full operating specifications. Except for the color. That was my idea. Do you like it?”

  “Very dashing,” Bolan said. “How’d you manage it?”

  “You couldn’t even begin to imagine.” Ming leered slightly. “And you might not want to.”

  Bolan left that one where it lay. “I need a phone.”

  “Do use mine.” Ming handed Bolan a satellite telephone. Bolan punched in the number and codes. He waited a moment as the Farm’s computers digested his codes and where the signal was being bounced from. Kurtzman picked up on the first ring.

  “Striker!”

  Bolan quickly gave Kurtzman his coordinates. “Bear, what assets do we have on hand? All I’ve got are Ming’s crew and two chosen men.”

  “Chosen men?”

  “It’s a long story, but we need backup.”

  “The Australians have a flight of F-111 strike bombers hot on the tarmac in Darwin. They can be there in an hour and fifteen minutes.”

  “Not good enough, and we can’t afford a bomb hitting any of those boats. If they go up, the prevailing winds will take the radiation cloud to the coast of Sumatra. Have them launch and then track anyone who gets past us. What else have you got?”

  “How about Calvin and Pol? Will they do?”

  “Where are they?”

  “In a helicopter on the coast of Sumatra and not far from your position. “I’ll vector them in.”

  “Good. Ming and I are assaulting in thirty minutes.”

  The island

  MEGAWATTI’S YACHT WAS missing.

  Bolan sat in the cupola of the Ontos and scanned the objective with his binoculars. He could see the enemy on the shore. There were dozens of them, and the way they were scurrying around it was plain the enemy had seen Flawless Victory, as well. The island was much like the one Bolan had just left, a cove, a beach and a pier. Except rather than a crumbling Spanish-style villa, the manor on this island was built like a medieval fortress with stone walls and a crenellated roof.

  The dock was lined with speedboats and fishing trawlers. Bolan’s yacht and the shrimper were there, but an open berth gaped where Rustam Megawatti’s motor yacht should have been.

  Bolan spoke into his radio. “One got away, Ming.”

  “One is missing. It shall be found,” Ming said from the bridge. “In the meantime, let us give them a volley.”

  Bolan trained his recoilless rifles on the manor. Given its apparent age, the walls actually had been designed to stop the iron cannonballs of eighteenth-century pirates.

  The long dead architect had not envisioned 106 mm high-explosive shells.

  Bolan fired his spotting rifles, and the two .50-caliber tracers streaked across the water and hit the wall in a spray of dust and stone chips. “Ming! Tell your men to clear the decks.”

  Ming’s men slid down the ladders below deck or ran behind the bridge.

  “Clear!” Ming called.

  Bolan pumped the electrical trigger. “Firing One! Firing Two! Firing Three! Firing Four!” The four recoilless rifles belched fire from both ends in rapid succession. A ten-foot section of the wall erupted in shattered rock and flashing orange fire.

  “Firing Five! Firing Six!” Bolan hit his trigger, and two rounds streaked through the gap in the wall and impacted the manor. “Hsuan! Chang! Reload!”

  Fung’s loading team leapt out of the back hatch bearing fresh rounds for the rifles. A pair of ragged black holes oozed smoke from the second floor of the manor, and fires flickered and burned within. Armed men were spilling out of the building like ants from a broken nest. Fung’s team slid fresh shells into the breaches of the rifles and slammed them shut. Hsuan and Chang slapped the sides of the Ontos to signal the rifles were loaded and leapt back through the hatch.

  Bolan flipped his selector switch and fired all six guns at once.

  The six high-explosive shells hit the manor in a single, simultaneous explosion. The entire front of the manor vanished in black smoke and fire.

  “Magnificent,” Ming said.

  Fire rose into the sky. The front third of the manor collapsed in a landslide of rock and rubble.

  Bolan shouted down into the hull. “Fung, tell them to reload One, Two and Three with beehive, Four through Six HE!”

  Fung shouted in Mandarin, and Hsuan and Chang leaped out again to swing open the red-hot rifle breeches and reload. The Mahdi’s men swarmed toward the pier.

  Bolan fired his spotting rifles and the tracers ripped wood from the dock. “Firing One! Firing Two! Firing Three!”

  The pier collapsed in ruptured pilings and shattered planks. Smoldering speedboats drifted away from the carnage of the decimated dock. A blackened fishing trawler began burning in earnest and joined the drifting fleet. The other end of the pier remained standing. Bolan’s yacht and the shrimper lay at dock untouched. He couldn’t afford to lob explosive shells in their direction. The Madhi’s men swarmed toward the death ships armed with rifles and RPG-7 antitank rockets. Bolan traversed his guns and pumped the trigger. “Firing Four! Firing Five! Firing Six!”

  Three hundred steel needles expanded out of the muzzles at over twice the speed of sound. The mob rippled like wheat as the invisible clouds of fléchettes passed through them like a deadly wind.

  “Fung! All six HE!”

  Fung gave the order, and his men responded quickly. The pier was littered with bodies. The mob was falling back on the manor.

  “Ming! We need to secure those boats, storm the manor and find out where the other ship went!”

  “My men are ready.”

  “The pier isn’t big enough for Flawless Victory.”

  “Then we shall make an amphibious landing.”

  Ming was going to run them aground.

  Bolan could feel the throb of Flawless Victory’s engines as Ming took her to full steam. “Fung! Get Chang and Hsuan inside and button up!”

  The little engineer snarled at his men. The burning fishing trawler snapped in two beneath Flawless Victory’s prow as the freighter surged forward like a juggernaut.

  Ming spoke happily across the radio, “Brace for impact.”

  The Ontos lurched on its steel pallet as Flawless Victory rammed sand. The hull groaned and steel screeched as the freighter ran aground. The freighter creaked and with a horrible moan began to tilt to starboard. Bolan’s stomach dropped, and Hsuan and Chang screamed as the Ontos and its pallet slid six feet across the deck.

  Rifle and machine-gun fire began slamming into Flawless Victory from the manor.

  Ming’s men ran onto the deck. Some hurled cargo nets over the side, while others returned fire. The freighter’s crane swung around, and a squad of men ran to attach the Ontos’s pallet cables to the massive hook. One of the men pounded his fist on the hull and gave Bolan the thumbs-up before jumping away and grabbing a rifle.

  “Winching,” Ming announced. The cables went tight. Bolan’s stomach lurched again as the tank lifted up off the deck and swung out over the surf. “Lowering.”

  “Brace yourself!” Bolan shouted to his crew.

  Fung grabbed his steering wheel. Hsuan and Chang grabbed each other. The Ontos rocked on its tracks as the pallet hit the soft sand. Water splashed up into the open cupola. The Ontos was in four feet of surf.

  “Hit it!” Bolan commanded.

  The engine roared like a beast as Fung hit the ignition button. The Ontos slid as her tracks tried to grip the wet ste
el of the pallet. The tank slewed about sideways, and the chassis rocked as her treads suddenly bit into sand. Fung turned the wheel, and the tank crawled toward shore. Ming’s men swarmed down the cargo netting and jumped into the surf. They held their rifles over their heads as they waded forward and followed the tank onto the beach.

  It was D-day on Mahdi Island.

  Bolan shouted into his radio over the sound of gunfire. “Ming! Tell your men to clear the back of the tank!”

  Ming stood on the prow of his grounded ship with Mei and Du by his side and shouted through a megaphone. His men naturally clustered behind the tank to put its metal hull between themselves and the incoming fire, but all of them had seen the back blast of the recoilless rifles firing, and they didn’t have to be told to clear the area twice. They fanned out to either side at Ming’s order.

  The Ontos clanked up onto the beach, and Bolan swiveled his guns onto the manor. “Firing One! Firing Two!”

  The rest of the manor’s front wall crumbled under the onslaught. Bolan raised his aim slightly. He flipped his selector switch and hit the burning manor with all four barrels at once.

  Ming strode out of the surf with Mei and Du beside him. He raised his sword high as he shouted through the megaphone. “Fix bayonets!”

  The hard end of forty M-16 rifles rattled as cold steel was fixed.

  “Charge!”

  Ming’s men answered with shouts of their own. They followed their master’s sword and charged the burning manor with their rifles blazing. Bolan fired long bursts from the commander’s machine gun to cover the attack. “Fung! One through Four beehive! Five and Six HE!”

  Hsuan and Chang jumped out. The Ontos’s Achilles’ heel was that the guns had to be reloaded from outside the vehicle. Sporadic gunfire answered back from the manor and the surrounding grounds. The single tank on the beach attracted their attention like a magnet.

  Hsuan screamed as a bullet struck him. He spun from the half-loaded guns and fell as he was hit again. Chang slammed his last breech shut and slapped the side of the hull before running to finish Hsuan’s loading. Bolan spied Isah and Pedoy on the left flank of the tank. They knelt and fired their rifles to cover Ming’s advance. “Chosen men! To me!”

  Bolan’s remaining two riflemen jumped up and ran to the tank. “Isah! Pedoy! Watch what Chang does! Do it!”

  Chang didn’t speak English, but loading the recoilless rifles was mechanically very simple. Doing it with incoming fire sparking off the hull was what took a steady hand. Isah and Pedoy slung their rifles and watched Chang reload with utmost concentration. The last rifle breech slammed shut on a loaded round.

  “Get in!”

  The three-man loading team jammed themselves into the cramped hull as the Ontos began crawling forward. The hull of tank rattled and pinged with bullet strikes. Bolan traversed his rifles, giving any enemy strong point a barrel. “Reload! All beehive!”

  Chang, Isah and Pedoy leaped out.

  The Mahdi’s remaining men rose from their positions in the rubble. The Mahdi had summoned the faithful to the island, and whoever was in command had kept a reserve in the bowels of the manor. Even with all the casualties, well over a hundred men rose with guns and blades to take the fight hand-to-hand.

  “Fung!” Bolan shouted. “Forward!”

  The Ontos’s rifle was empty, but Bolan held down the trigger of the Browning .30 and fired into the advancing horde. Fung ground the gears, and the Ontos pushed on. Bullets screamed off the hull of the tank. Ming’s men stood their ground and shot as the mob roared forward. It wasn’t going to be enough.

  They were going to be overrun.

  “Sarge,” Jack Grimaldi said suddenly in Bolan’s earpiece. “Be advised, button up. Ming, have your men fall back.”

  A green Huey helicopter swept around the far side of the cove. It swooped over the grounded Flawless Victory and then higher over the battlefield. Calvin James and Rosario Blancanales hung out of the open cabin doors on chicken straps with M-60 E 4 light machine guns in their hands.

  Bolan fired the Browning dry, dropped inside the tank and slammed the hatch. James and Blancanales opened for business. Their machine guns ripped vertical smoking lines of tracers down into the rubble, sweeping the risen enemy like scythes. The Ontos guns were empty, but Fung kept the tank rumbling forward. Men screamed as they went down under the treads. Bullet strikes, rifle butts and stone struck the Ontos as the fanatics physically assaulted it. The tiny tank lurched as men leaped on top of the vehicle and tried to tear their way inside.

  “Jesus, Sarge,” Grimaldi’s voice spoke across the radio in mock disapproval. “You’re infested.”

  The top of the tank rattled as the Stony Man gunners swept the attackers off Bolan’s hull with their machine guns. The armor of the Ontos was thin to begin with, and the armor on top was the thinnest. Bolan cocked an eyebrow at the roof of the tank. The steel dimpled and bubbled under the machine-gun fire as if it had been heated to a boil. Chips of paint flew off violently. Bolan thumbed his throat mike. “If you guys don’t ease up we’re going to be Spam in a can.”

  The hammering suddenly stopped. “You’re clear, Striker,” Grimaldi came back. “Consider yourself deloused.”

  Bolan popped the hatch with his Beretta 93-R drawn. The rubble around the manor was strewed with the dead and wounded. He gazed up at the orbiting Huey. James hung out of the helicopter behind his gun and gave Bolan the thumbs-up.

  Bolan saluted and scanned the grounds. “JG, what kind of movement do you have?”

  “Looks all clear,” Grimaldi came back. “I have no enemy movement around the manor or the surrounding grounds. Will continue to orbit.”

  Bolan surveyed his vehicle. The top of the turret was cratered like the surface of the moon. The new red paint was stripped and scored and covered in blood and gore. Rifles One and Five had been yanked out of alignment.

  “Fung! Reload! Forget One and Five! Half HE! Half beehive!”

  Fung shouted at the crew, and Chang led Isah and Pedoy out of the tank and began reloading. The Browning .30 needed reloading, as well.

  “Fung, pass me up a fresh belt.”

  Fung handed up a 100-round belt of ammo. Bolan opened the Browning while Chang slapped the side of the Ontos that rifle three was ready.

  “Ming, how are we doing?”

  “I have seven men down, thirty-three effectives.”

  “All right.” Bolan laid the belt in the feed. “Advance your men. I want to search the grounds for—”

  “Sarge!” Grimaldi shouted.

  A man appeared in the last doorway standing in the manor. The man had an RPG-7 antitank rocket across his shoulder. The rocket tube blew fire back into the manor as the weapon launched. There was no time to rack the action on the Browning and bring it to bear.

  Bolan hit the trigger for rifle Three. “Down!” he shouted.

  Chang, Isah and Pedoy hit the deck as Bolan and the rocketeer exchanged fire. The distance was twenty yards. The beehive munition had no time to expand. The one hundred darts passed through the rocket operator as if he were tissue and left him in collapsed scarlet rags.

  The rocket hissed as it accelerated out of its tube. Bolan dropped into the tank as the 82 mm warhead hit. The shaped-charge warhead detonated, and the reactive armor Ming had fitted on the frontal arc of the Ontos’s armor exploded in response. The little tank bucked like a bronco under the double detonations. Fung jerked back as the steel in front of his face blackened and threw off heat, but the reactive armor had done its job by exploding into the path of the RPG’s shaped charge. The lethal jet of molten metal and superheated gas that would have cooked everyone inside the Ontos had been dispersed and diverted.

  “Sarge!” Grimaldi called out.

  Bolan drew his Beretta. “We’re all right.”

  “Sarge, I saw two men. You still have another hostile in there.”

  Calvin James spoke. “Yeah, I saw him too, through a hole in the roof. He’s a white boy. We’ve g
ot him pinned down.”

  Bolan considered that bit of information as he popped the hatch. The entire front of the Ontos was black, and radiated heat in waves. Isah, Pedoy and Chang dusted themselves off and got back to loading. Ming’s men arrayed themselves in an arc facing the front of the manor.

  “Hey!” The Executioner used his limited Bosnian. “Come out!”

  The fire rose higher in the remaining corner of the manor. Rubble shifted as supporting beams cracked.

  “I killed Dragicevic!” Bolan called. “Come out! Or I kill you!”

  Nothing moved except fire and smoke and the helicopter orbiting overhead. Bolan switched to English.

  “You’ve got five seconds to come out or I’m going to drop that burning hellhole down on your head! Fung! High Explosive! All six barrels!”

  Chang began reloading the barrels to HE.

  “One!” Bolan counted. “Two!”

  A white cloth waved around the corner of the blackened door.

  “Three! Move it!”

  The man stepped out and stared down the six 106 mm muzzles facing him. He was short and thickly built. His shaved head and his face were covered with several days’ worth of stubble.

  “You speak English?” Bolan called out.

  The man nodded. “Yeah.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Vaclav.”

  “Isah, Pedoy.” Bolan jerked his head. “Bring him!”

  Bolan’s remaining riflemen grabbed the Bosnian and dragged him to the tank. They shoved him to his knees beneath Bolan’s unforgiving gaze.

  “Where’s the Madhi?”

  “He…” The man swallowed with difficulty and looked away.

  “He took the boat,” Bolan stated. “Where?”

  Vaclav chewed his lip and started sweating. The Bosnian was a Muslim, and a terrorist, but Bolan suspected he was technical assistance like Dragicevic, not part of the martyr brigade.

  “I’m going to ask you one last time.”

  “I…I am not afraid to die,” Vaclav announced without much conviction. He began shaking like a leaf.

  “Good.” Bolan nodded to Isah and Pedoy. “Put him under the treads! Fung! Hit it!”

  Vaclav screamed as the chosen men knocked him to the ground and held him down by his arms and legs. Fung gleefully gunned the engine, and the Ontos clanked forward several tread-lengths toward the Bosnian’s feet.