Bolan was on fire.
He could hear nothing but the wall of pressure building in his head, ringing through his brain, driving an iron spike through his skull. Angry, unseen ants crawled up his arms, burning him with their touch, tearing at his flesh with their phantom jaws. He tumbled in free-fall, unmoored from gravity. Blunt pain in his shoulder and hip, so different from the sharp, searing agony of his hands and forearms, told him he had crashed into a wall or the floor. He tried to force his eyes open and saw only a black-red miasma of exploding, interweaving Rorschach inkblots, tumbling and rolling through his vision.
Knife blades thrust through his palms in dozens of places. He fought the pain and found the stock of his
FN P90, fought the pain and found the broad, uneven surface of the torn floorboards, fought the pain and made himself put his legs beneath him. His thighs screamed as he stood, swaying and staggering, crashing into another barrier that could only have been the doorway.
From memory, from his flash-picture of the kitchen layout, he found the back door, careened off the frame, found the door again. Pushing, he plunged through, stumbling through the gravel, rolling, crawling, collapsing. The pain in his head worsened, crushing his skull, reaching a crescendo that threatened to burst his sightless eyes from within…and then slowly, tortuously receded, until the jet-engine whine became only the drumbeat of a sledgehammer crashing against his forehead. As the pain diminished, his hearing began to recover, and the blobs of painful light swimming across his vision began to resolve into shapes.
“Cooper. Cooper. Cooper.”
Why did he hear that name? Who was Cooper? What did Cooper want? Was Cooper—
“Agent Cooper!” shouted the mass of burning light that was Officer Jimmy. “Can you hear me? Can you hear me?”
The lines defining the cop slowed and then stopped crawling. Bolan still saw blooms of actinic afterimage as he blinked, but now he could see, could really see. Jimmy and Gray might have been shouting at him from the bottom of a swimming pool, but he could hear them, too, well enough. They were holding his arms by the elbows.
“Oh, man, Jimmy, look at his hands,” Gray said. Bolan’s vision cleared and he focused on the man’s nametag: Graham, P. The tag on Jimmy’s uniform read Hernandez, J.
“G-Force,” Bolan said. “G-Force. Striker to G-Force.”
“What’s he talking about?” Officer Graham asked.
“The g-forces, Agent Cooper?” Officer Hernandez suggested. “Is that it?”
Bolan reached up and fumbled at his ear. His earbud was gone, lost in the explosion. He patted himself down, searching for his secure satellite phone. He found it, and when he brought it to his face, he saw the ruggedized unit had been cracked almost in two by the force of the explosion. He tucked it back into his web gear without thinking.
Bolan’s hearing cleared further as the sound of squealing tires reached him. He rolled over and onto his hands and knees. As he did, automatic gunfire churned the gravel where he had been. Graham and Hernandez rolled in opposite directions.
The battered, primer-spotted Chevy Caprice swerved as if in slow motion. Bullets fired from the Uzi submachine gun in the hands of the unseen passenger ripped across the flank of the squad car, flattening both tires on the driver’s side. The car continued on, spraying gravel as it crossed the lawn at the far end. It could only have been concealed on that side of the house, between the bullet-riddled safe house and the residence next door.
Bolan didn’t speak. He left Graham and Hernandez to shout after him as he took off from his position on his hands and knees, a track-and-field athlete launching at the starter’s pistol. His target was the beat-to-hell Toyota Camry parked across the street. The car was so dented it looked as if it had been rolled down a hill. It was, however, pointed in the right way: aimed to pursue the Caprice.
The soldier then rolled his battered body over the hood of the car, ignoring the pain, and landed on the other side. He smashed out the driver’s window with the butt of the FN P90, popped the lock and wrenched the door open. Distant alarm signals were jangling in the back of his brain, jarring his awareness every time he used his hands. He ignored them.
Bolan didn’t believe in coincidences, nor did he believe “Matt Cooper” was such important a figure on the national scene as to warrant seemingly random assassination. The would-be killers in the Caprice were linked to whomever had assaulted the safe house and killed the skinheads. The gunner, or the man behind the wheel, could even be Shane Hyde. Stealing a car was the lesser of the possible evils. Bolan needed to catch that Chevy.
Once behind the wheel of the Camry, he was as brutal as he’d been gaining entry. The FN P90 was once again his hammer as he smashed, ripped and tore, gaining access to the wires he wanted. He twisted one pair together and was rewarded with dash lights. Using his Sting knife, he cut sections of insulation from the next pair, struck them and made the engine turn over. Dropping the knife on the seat next to him, he floored the accelerator. The beat-up Camry responded ably, leaving a six-inch length of rubber behind the front tires as he spurred it onward.
He drove straight, grateful that traffic was light. Pushing the car as fast as he dared, he trusted his instincts, following his nose, avoiding turns until he came to a fork. Traffic was heaviest to the left; he bore right, hoping the traffic pattern hadn’t altered in the last two minutes.
The light ahead of him changed. He ignored it, pressing the accelerator to the floor, veering around honking, outraged drivers who brought their vehicles to screeching stops to avoid him.
Bolan clenched the steering wheel, which felt like sandpaper beneath his bloody palms. Each minute turn of the wheel caused a stabbing pain, and when he glanced down he could see the ragged sleeves of his blacksuit and the livid flesh beneath. He was burned badly, maybe seriously.
He flexed his right hand, picturing the butt of the Beretta beneath it, feeling the FN against his body on its sling, the weight of his canvas war bag, the pressure of his web gear over his blacksuit. His body was screaming, racked with pain and vibration, coming alive again as the numbing effects of the explosion wore off.
Curling his hand into a fist hurt. He was ready for it, expected it, and still it hurt badly enough to surprise him. He would need medical attention.
Later.
Far ahead, at the end of the block, he saw the paint-spattered trunk of the Chevy Caprice. He had guessed correctly. His quarry was there and, for the moment, moving slowly enough that he was gaining ground.
The Chevy’s leisurely pace didn’t last when the occupants noticed the speeding Camry. The vehicle shot through a four-way stop and sideswiped a minivan, tearing off its bumper and speeding away. Bolan guided his stolen car around the damaged minivan, feeling the Camry threaten to pull up onto two wheels as it heeled past the obstacle.
As he got farther from the target zone, with Grimaldi well out of range, he realized his position was worsening. With both his transceiver and his secure phone lost or destroyed, he had no way to call for help except by conventional means—finding an increasingly rare pay phone, or even use a landline, which meant dialing a scrambled trunk line and waiting as the call was routed through a series of encrypted cutouts. He couldn’t do that until he dealt with the immediate threat, followed the immediate lead. He couldn’t risk losing the men in the Chevrolet.
Once he pinned down the killers in the Chevy, then he could call the Farm. They could route Grimaldi back to his location, wherever Bolan ended up. Hell, he would send smoke signals if he had to. It wouldn’t matter once he’d brought the two men down.
Both cars powered through a red light, the Chevy dodging a panel van. Bolan caught an opening created by terrified drivers, all of them pausing to wait out the adrenaline rush caused by witnessing an obvious and flagrant violation of traffic laws before their eyes. The idea almost made Bolan smile, despite the discomfort in his hands and arms. The average civilian would freeze at the sound and sight of gunfire, but run a red light before him and he was apoplectic with outrage.
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