Stealth Sweep

Thunder and light filled the interior of the warehouse, and Bolan heard the guards cursing in surprise. Then the screaming began, as they continued to blindly fire their weapons into one another. Charging through the gate in the wooden fence, Bolan noted that no professional soldier would have made such a classic mistake. These men were merely street muscle, thugs for hire.

Sprinting down the curving road, the soldier soon reached a wooden dock, and almost dived into the water when he saw a small speedboat lolling in the waves alongside the pier. He changed the dive into a jump, and landed on the moving deck of the boat in a crouch, alongside a large wooden crate.

“Thought I told you to stay out near the breakers,” he growled, his gun sweeping the shadows of the craft for any sign of intruders. But only Tsai Adina was on board.

“And I thought you might need a fast escape,” Tsai countered, tucking the pearl-handled S&W .38 revolver into a black nylon holster at her hip. She was wearing a black scuba suit, her long hair braided into a ponytail.

Just then, an explosion came from the direction of the warehouse, followed by the long chatter of a machine gun, and then another.

“What the hell did you do back there, start World War III?” she demanded, tilting her head.

“Damn near,” Bolan countered, going to the helm and shoving the throttle all the way. In a growl of controlled power, the speedboat moved away from the pier and headed toward the breakers and the harbor.

However, they got only halfway there when the lights returned to the warehouse and a searchlight exploded into operation on the roof, the brilliant beam sweeping across the water.

“Take the helm!” Bolan commanded, pulling out the Glock.

As Tsai grabbed the yoke, he cradled the weapon in a two-handed grip and fired. The Glock almost seemed to explode from the rapid-fire discharge, the continuous muzzle-flash extending for nearly three feet. With a crash, the searchlight died.

“That was close.” Tsai sighed in relief, relaxing her stance slightly.

“Too damn close,” Bolan replied, sliding in his last clip.

Then he saw the front door open and out stumbled a large man with a mustache, cradling what appeared to be a Carl Gustav multipurpose rocket launcher.

Instantly, Bolan aimed and fired in a single smooth motion.

Riddled with bullet holes, the man stumbled backward and the Carl Gustav flew straight upward. The fiery wash blew off the legs of the dying man, and a moment later the roof of the warehouse violently exploded. Windows were shattered on both levels, and roiling flames filled the interior, spilling over the assorted crates, barrels, boxes and pallets of military ordnance.

“Sweet Mother of God,” Tsai whispered, making the protective sign of the cross. “Do you think that the place is going to—”

“Down!” Bolan snarled, dragging her to the deck.

For an entire minute it seemed as if his caution was unnecessary. The boat was coasting past the breakers into the harbor when there came a flash of light from the shore, closely followed by a mind-numbing explosion.

A roiling fireball rose from behind the piles of junk cars, slowly forming the standard mushroom pattern of any sufficiently hot detonation. Black clouds laced with flame extended across the rock jetty as smoldering pieces of broken concrete, smashed weapons, busted machinery and human bodies rained across the landscape. The dark water of the harbor churned from the falling debris, and Bolan grabbed the yoke to steer the speedboat farther away from the dangerous shoreline.

Everywhere across the Kowloon District, lights appeared in windows, and somewhere a fire alarm began to clang, then an air raid siren cut loose with a long, pronounced howl.

Burning out of control, the destroyed warehouse continued to explode irregularly from the tons of military ordnance that had been stored there. Bullets crackled like strings of firecrackers, land mines thundered, and as the remains of the warehouse began to collapse in upon itself, something flared white-hot for a long moment in the heart of the inferno, then died away, making the rest of the blaze seem pale and inconsequential by comparison.

“Well, that certainly put Ortega out of business!” Tsai laughed, shakily rising to her feet.

“Almost certainly,” Bolan said, giving a half smile.

“Almost? Damn, you’re a hard man to please.” Tsai started to say something else when somewhere in the darkness ahead there came the warning siren from a Red Chinese gunboat. It was promptly joined by another, and then countless more. Then an aircraft rumbled by overhead, the hot wash buffeting them both and rocking the speedboat.

“How did a jet fighter get here so soon?” she asked with a frown.

“It doesn’t matter. Time to go,” Bolan said, angling away from the open harbor and heading back toward the rolling waves cresting nosily on the rocky shoreline.

“I’m ready,” she announced, tucking the mouthpiece of her rebreather into place.

“Change of plans,” Bolan said, lowering their speed to avoid attracting unwanted attention. “You’re not going crash the boat as a diversion so that I can hijack a gunboat.”

She yanked out the mouthpiece. “We’re going to charge across Victoria Harbour and into up the West River in this old thing?” she demanded askance. “We’ll be slaughtered!”

“True.” He glanced at the large wooden crate in the rear of the craft. “Which is why we’re going back to the boathouse. I’ll need some time to get ready.”

“Get ready for what?” Tsai asked, looking over the crate. It had been the first thing the big American had hauled out of the warehouse, and even though he had used a hand truck, judging from his expression at the time, it had to weigh a ton. There was no company logo, manufacturer name or even a description on the packing slip, only a string of numbers.

“Okay, what is it?” she demanded, loosening the ponytail to let her hair billow in the wind. “A miniature submarine or something?”

“Better, if it actually works,” Bolan answered, throttling down the engine to head for the shore.

CHAPTER SIX

Pushing open the swing doors, Sergeant Ming walked into the Ichi Ban restaurant radiating death the way a furnace radiated heat.

Instrumental jazz was playing over the wall speakers mounted in the corners of the sushi bar, nearly masking the steady sound of traffic from the busy street outside. A pretty waitress with a solemn expression was working the cash register, the punching of the keys and the rattle of the old machine sounding almost like music itself.

“We’re closed!” a short fat man announced from behind the counter, both hands busy washing crystal wine goblets.

“Not anymore,” Ming snarled, firing the Norinco from the hip.

Across the room, the waitress looked up just in time for her face to be removed, then the bartender jerked backward from the arrival of a .50-caliber hollowpoint slug, his brains blowing out the back of his head to splatter across a gilded mirror and the neat rows of imported liquors.

The noise of the shots echoed throughout the restaurant, and seconds later the wooden lattice of the pass-through was slammed aside and two Japanese men shoved out double-barrel shotguns.

Already safely behind a bubbling stone fountain, Ming fired a fast five times, and one of the sushi chefs staggered backward, blood everywhere, his face bristling with splinters from the ruined lattice.

The other chef bellowed in rage, spittle flying loosely from his distorted mouth. The double-barrel 12-gauge boomed like thunder inside the restaurant, and the stone fountain exploded into rubble.

Water gushed high from the shattered pipes, and Ming answered back with the Norinco, the big pistol blowing hellfire and doom from his scarred fist.