Final Judgment

“SWAT! SWAT!” Bolan bellowed. “They’re everywhere! Blow the mines!” He pointed his Desert Eagle around the corner and pumped several rounds into the concealed doorway. The .44 Magnum hand cannon was deafening in the enclosed space.

The shouts of alarm from within the judge’s chambers were cut short by the splintering of wood and the scream of hot metal shrapnel. The claymore at the doorway had been triggered, shattering the barrier itself. Bolan’s ears began ringing from the concussion, but as with so many things, he would simply have to endure it. It was, he knew, nothing short of a miracle that he didn’t suffer significant and permanent hearing loss after so many years of firefights.

He thrust his pistols back in their holsters and brought up the M-4, charging the smoking crater where the chambers door had been. Blood stained the ragged opening and coated the floor beyond; the claymore had caught at least one of the terrorists inside. Bolan triggered a short burst of 5.56 mm rounds before vaulting through the doorway.

He almost took a bayonet in the face.

As he entered the room, his senses registered a flash picture of the terrain he faced. The judge’s desk was flanked by heavy upholstered chairs, one of which had been overturned. The desk itself was pocked from shrapnel, and everything on top had been shredded. Opposite this were smaller chairs, obviously intended for guests conferring in chambers. They had been knocked over and one was split in two, near the body of the sentry whose blood decorated the blown door. Another corpse was lying, broken and still, near what Bolan knew was the entrance to the courtroom. This door was bolted from within.

The Executioner processed all of this in an instant, from long habit. As the AK bayonet—a heavy, clip-point blade, like a sturdy bowie knife—sliced through the air toward his eyes, he brought up the barrel of the M-4 and sidestepped. He was able to catch and guide the blade around and to the side, ducking it neatly, placing himself on the outside of the knifer’s swing. Bolan immediately reversed his weapon and slammed the retractable butt into the bridge of the attacker’s nose.

The neo-Nazi was wild-eyed and bleeding from several deep gouges in his scalp and neck. The neck wound pulsed. The sentry was dying on his feet but didn’t know it. Pale with shock and blood loss, he screamed as he tried for another blind, overhand stab. There was no technique here; there was only desperation and rage.

Bolan didn’t try to meet the knife. He sidestepped again, crossing the opponent’s body, moving out of range. As he went, he brought up his opposite leg in a soccer-style kick. The sole of his combat boot crushed the neo-Nazi’s knee joint and the man collapsed, screaming.

The soldier let his rifle fall to the end of its sling. He grabbed the attacker’s knife arm, twisted, and torqued the man to the left, tying him up. In the same fluid motion he drove the captured arm in and down.

The bayonet buried itself in the neo-Nazi’s stomach.

Bolan dropped to one knee as he shoved in the blade, using his enemy’s arm as a lever. His eyes locked with the terrorist’s.

“You bastard…” the man said.

“‘And then some,’” Bolan told him, ripping the knife across the neo-Nazi’s gut. Blood splashed from his abdomen as it erupted from his mouth. Bolan finished him with a tight elbow across the face, snapping his head back, knocking him flat.

Covered in gore, the soldier pushed himself to his feet and sprinted to the courtroom door. Screams and shouts came from the other side. Some were those of hostages, voicing their fear. Others were the terrorists, throwing confused orders to one another, terrified that the moment had come and the police outside were storming the building.

That’s when Bolan heard the chopper.

“Sarge!” Grimaldi’s voice sounded in his earbud transceiver. “We’ve got a problem!”

“Jack?” Bolan asked. “Is that you?”

“Negative, Sarge, negative,” Grimaldi responded. “The locals have—”

The hollow, metallic clatter of Kalashnikovs on full automatic cut off Grimaldi’s words. The commotion had drawn more of the sentries. Evidently Bolan’s trick with the mines hadn’t caught them all, nor had he realistically expected it would.

They came on without caution, without a plan, without apparent fear. Bolan raised the M-4 and ripped off several measured bursts, meeting the charge. Several of the neo-Nazis who attempted to breach the judge’s chambers were already bloody. They might have caught shrapnel from the claymores or simply have been nearby when their comrades did. The suicidal charge they now mounted was a symptom of Bolan’s turnabout. He had transformed the predators into prey, so swiftly and unexpectedly that they had reacted with ferocity.

Bolan shot out one man’s knees, dropping him to the floor, then pumped a burst of fire into the chest of the next terrorist. Two more gunners appeared hard on the heels of their comrades, and Bolan drilled each in the head with well-placed fire as he aimed through his carbine’s optics.

“Say again, Jack, say again,” Bolan said. He didn’t have time to hear Grimaldi’s reply before the courtroom door behind him was thrown open. The gunmen leaning through the opening held micro-Uzi submachine guns.

Bolan hit the deck.

The swarm of 9 mm rounds scorched the air where he had been standing. With nowhere to go, the soldier rolled sideways, out of the line of fire, until he slammed into the shrapnel-riddled wooden desk. He almost didn’t fit with his web gear, but he managed to shove himself under it and through to the other side.

The gunmen were on the move now, pushing into the room and looking for a better angle. They immediately lined up the desk and started firing on it. The heavy oak, which had already suffered extensively, groaned under the onslaught. A round tore the floor near Bolan’s left boot. Another burned a furrow in his calf, lightly grazing him. His teeth clenched as the pain bore into him.

Under the gunfire and the ever-louder sound of the chopper, he could feel vibrations in the floor. Footsteps―a lot of them. The occupants of the courtroom were being moved. The helicopter overhead sounded as if it was practically on top of the roof…which it would be, if it were to serve as Nitzche’s means of escape.

“—something screwed up out here, Sarge,” Grimaldi’s voice said into his ear, dotted with static and almost drowned out by the nearby gunfire.

“I need an ID on that chopper!” Bolan shouted. “Jack, intercept! Intercept!”

The desk stopped shaking for a moment.

A grenade skittered across the floor and brushed Bolan’s boot.

He would never clear the desk and get beyond the blast radius in time. Instead, Bolan stretched for all he was worth, wrenching something in his shoulder. His fingers found the bomb and he whipped his arm up at the elbow, tossing the deadly steel egg over the desk and back at his attackers.

The explosion had enough force to shove the desk against the wall, pinning him under it. His ears, already ringing, were rattled by the blast. He bit his lip and tasted the coppery tang of blood.

“Sarge, do you read me?” Grimaldi was saying. “Sarge! The locals are telling me to hold at a one-mile perimeter. They’ve got some FBI hostage negotiator on-site who’s cleared a cargo chopper for the terrorists.”

“That wasn’t the play,” Bolan said. He checked his M-4 while crouched under the desk. “Who cleared that?”

“I can’t get confirmation,” Grimaldi said. “Sarge, you want me to take out the chopper?”

“Who’s flying it?”

“No official word,” the pilot replied, “but my guess would be either law enforcement or civilian volunteers.”

“Innocents, in other words.”

“Yeah.”

Bolan swore under his breath. “Break the airspace cordon. Block that chopper. Threaten to shoot it down if you have to, but don’t fire on it. We’ve got to cut off Nitzche’s escape route.”

“You got it, Sarge.”

On his back, Bolan got his legs under the desk, then heaved, shoving the heavy piece of furniture across the floor. He wasted no time as he used the desk to cover his move back to his feet. He moved toward the doorway to the courthouse, the M-4 leading the way.

He met no resistance, which told him the courthouse had already been emptied. When Bolan began the dive to the doorway, he went low, extending his arms to keep the M-4 in firing position as he landed painfully on his stomach.

At the last minute he pushed right and slammed into the wall next to the door. He’d caught a glimpse of another remote claymore mine sitting in the opening, a trap set by the gunmen he’d taken down. They had fought a delaying action, giving their leader and his hostages time to get to the roof, and they had left a little explosive package behind just to be sure.

Bolan got to his feet and raced back to the entrance opposite the formerly concealed door. Using the wall as cover, he aimed around the corner and simply shot the mine.

The explosion rocked the room, decimating the books and knickknacks on the shelves in the judge’s chambers. The smoke was still swirling as Bolan burst through it.

The court was a shambles. The explosion at the chambers’ door had done only minor damage, but the terrorists had trashed the place while waiting with the hostages. Whatever wasn’t nailed down had been turned over and even shredded. Law books and court records were strewed everywhere. The American flag had been torn to rags, its pole thrust through the seal on the wall behind the judge’s bench.

There were several bodies.

A couple were bailiffs, their guns missing from their holsters. One had been shot. The other had been stabbed repeatedly by someone who obviously enjoyed his work.

No one opposed Bolan. The courtroom was empty. The entire building vibrated under the buffeting of the helicopter overhead, which would be only a couple yards above his position right now. He felt it as much as heard it.