Black Death Reprise

Most of the smoke from the M-18 canisters had dissipated, but the residual tendrils, in combination with the inky black night, severely limited visibility as the soldier ran down the curvy road. Pulling his goggles over his eyes and switching into IR mode, he was able to quickly pick out Dr. Zagorski as she zigzagged like a running back sprinting toward the goal line.

Approximately twenty yards behind her, two guards were firing their submachine guns in her direction, their hot barrels glowing incandescently through Bolan’s IR-enriched lenses. With the hand holding his Beretta, he thumbed the selector switch, aligning the arrow with the three white dots. Without breaking stride, he sent a triburst of 9 mm rounds into the head and neck of one guard while simultaneously firing his Desert Eagle at the other. His action drew reciprocal gunfire from a guard ten yards or so farther down the road, causing Bolan to immediately adopt a zigzagging pattern similar to Zagorski while he engaged the gunners.

With both hands dispatching death, Bolan sprinted through an IR-illuminated shooting gallery, the deep-voiced roar of his hefty Desert Eagle drowning out the lighter patter of the Order of Raphael’s weapons.

By the time Bolan caught up to Zagorski, they were close to the bottom of the hill. The only concealment available was from the flimsy cloak of darkness.

Holstering his weapons, the Executioner jumped onto the wired all-terrain vehicle, yelling for Zagorski to get on behind him. While she was climbing onto the wide seat, they came under fire from a position close to the stairs leading up the hill to the monastery. When Bolan flipped the ignition switch and the ATV leaped to life, Zagorski returned fire, hosing the area at the base of the hill with a steady stream of rounds until her magazine ran dry.

Her rounds found their mark, causing the guard to dance and jerk. She released the spent clip, replacing it with the final one she had taken from the fallen guard in the lab. Bolan plied the throttle, propelling them at breakneck speed through the vineyard between two rows of vines, leaving the noise of battle behind.

Bolan gunned the ATV’s engine while keeping his eyes on the skyline where the darker density of the woods bordering the vineyard converged with the night sky. He was searching for a specific spot along the top of the trees where the peaks of four centuries-old maples came together, pointing inward to form an easily recognizable pyramid pattern. They were drawing close, and he eased up on the throttle.

“What?” Zagorski yelled, her eyes probing the darkness for enemies.

“We’re close to the car.”

His eyes scanned the intersection of sky and trees as they proceeded forward.

“Here!”

He braked to an abrupt stop, flipped the power toggle switch to its off position and dismounted.

“Come on,” he shouted over his shoulder as he began crossing through the rows of vines. “Watch the wire,” he added, referring to the zinc cable running the entire length of each row.

When they passed through the final set of vines and reached a paved road between the vineyard and woods, Bolan ran directly across to a small stand of scrub pines where a silver Porsche 911 Turbo gleamed dully in the night. Zagorski was steps behind, carrying her submachine gun at port arms as she ran to the passenger door.

The instant Bolan’s fingers wrapped around the driver’s door handle, the car’s rear-mounted engine came to life, purring powerfully under the curved frame. He increased his pressure on the handle, and Zagorski’s door unlocked and swung open. She jumped in, holding her gun at an angle between her legs, with the hot barrel inches from the window.

“Who are you?” she asked as her door closed and Bolan pressed the accelerator to the floor.

The Porsche fishtailed out of the woods onto the paved highway, leaping forward like a pouncing panther when its tires met the tar surface. Bolan upshifted quickly through the powerful automobile’s second and third gears, swiftly accelerating to a speed in excess of 120 miles an hour as they zipped on a path as straight as an arrow down the highway, leaving the ancient L’Abbaye de Raphael in the rearview mirror.

“We’ll be at the tunnel in less than five minutes,” was all Bolan said.

Zagorski nodded, knowing he was referring to a mile-long tunnel under a section of foothills that rose to become the Pyrenees Mountains separating France from Spain. The customs checkpoint, where according to Brognola, Bolan’s vehicle would already be cleared for a direct nonstop drive through, was another five miles down the road.

“Thank you, whoever you are. They were going to kill me.” Zagorski paused, swallowed hard and added in a voice more appropriate for a confessional than the interior of a sports car, “The work they made me do is evil. I tried to go as slowly as I could.”

“You did okay,” Bolan replied, keeping his eyes glued to the front. “There’s a plane waiting for us in San Sebastian.”

The road was wide and smooth, with two lanes in each direction separated by a center median in which a row of red maples had been planted at intervals of approximately twenty feet. At the speed they were traveling, the small trees whizzing past in Bolan’s peripheral vision took on the appearance of a continuous hedge.

When they reached an area in the foothills where the road turned curvy, Bolan downshifted into the first S-curve while checking the rearview mirror.

“You think they’re coming after us?” Zagorski asked. “You keep looking into the mirror.”

“We don’t want to be surprised,” he answered as he accelerated into the curve, then quickly downshifted as they raced into the next bend. Displaying the timing and reflexes of a race car driver, Bolan alternated between downshifting and accelerating, negotiating one hairpin turn after another at speeds that caused the vehicles’s high-performance tires to smoke and squeal in protest. When he entered the last S-turn ending in a straightaway that covered the final half mile leading into the tunnel, two lights characteristic in size and shape of those designed on the front fuselage of a Bell 206 helicopter jumped into his rearview mirror.

The chopper was incoming fast, at close to twice Bolan’s speed, closing the gap between them at a rate that would place the aircraft on top of the Porsche before it reached the tunnel.

Bolan slammed his foot onto the brake and jerked the steering wheel to the left, causing the sports car to slide into a tire-smoking sideways skid that painted wide rubber stripes down the center of the highway.

The helicopter pilot was not anticipating Bolan’s maneuver, and he whizzed straight past, strafing the road inches in front of the Porsche’s reinforced bumper. The .20-caliber machine-gun rounds blazing from the helicopter’s underside left deep pockmarks in the highway’s smooth surface.

As Bolan straightened his car and accelerated toward the tunnel’s entrance, the pilot pulled the nose of his aircraft upward, attempting to perform a complete reverse turn before his prey was able to reach the safety of the passageway. The pilot’s desire to align his chopper with the highway told Bolan that the machine gun was on a fixed mount. The configuration required the pilot to work with his gunner in order to get the barrel pointed generally in the right direction, a fact Bolan used to his advantage. He stomped the accelerator, and the silver sports car took off like a rocket, pressing both passengers into the plush leather seats as it sped into the safety of the mile-long tunnel.

Coming in from the dark, the brightness of the tungsten lights mounted into the ceiling made Bolan squint. There were no other vehicles in sight, and he eased off the gas pedal to give himself a few extra seconds of safety to consider his next move.

“They’ll send someone in to chase us out,” Zagorski said in a low quavering voice that made Bolan wonder if she had reached her point of exhaustion. After her performance at the monastery, he wouldn’t fault her if she had. “And the helicopter will be waiting.”

Unbeknown to her, an M-72 66 mm Light Antitank Weapon was sitting ready for use in the vehicle’s front trunk. The problem Bolan pondered was how to deploy the weapon in this particular situation. The tube in which the LAW’s missile was assembled was open at both ends, which meant the user had to account for a backblast. When the missile ignited, it sent a dangerous tongue of flame and hot gases six feet to the rear.

“We can open the roof, and I’ll fire at them as soon as we come out of the tunnel,” Zagorski said, shifting the P-90 she held at an angle between her knees.

“Not good odds,” Bolan replied. “Not with a Bell. There’s too much plate on the belly for your rounds.”

Spotting a pair of taillights ahead, he accelerated to catch up. As he got close, he saw it was a pickup truck at least ten years old, the faded paint dented and scratched in numerous places.

“We just got lucky,” Bolan said as he steered into the passing lane and tapped his gas pedal to pull even with the pickup. One of the hubcaps on the driver’s side was missing, and the metal sides around the open cargo area were pocked with large sections of maroon rust. The rocker panels had rusted completely through in so many places they appeared to be made of red lace.

“Get him to stop,” Bolan said, pressing the switch to lower Zagorski’s window.

She shouted in French to the driver, a man who looked to be in his midsixties, who first stared at her, shook his head, then stared straight forward, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly enough to turn his gnarled knuckles white.

Bolan moved forward until the Porsche was halfway beyond the truck before he inched the steering wheel to the right, easing the car’s back fender panel into the pickup’s front bumper.

The old man started shouting and gesturing with universally understood hand signals, but with sparks flying from where the two vehicles were rubbing together, and with the vast superiority the Porsche held over the old pickup, he was forced out of the lane onto a narrow breakdown shoulder barely wide enough for a car to sit beyond the traffic’s flow.

When they had come to a complete halt with the Porsche blocking the pickup’s path, Bolan said, “Come with me,” threw his door open and jumped out. Upon reaching the truck, he reached up and pulled the driver’s door open.

The old man continued shouting and gesturing wildly until his eyes glanced at the Desert Eagle in Bolan’s left hand. Under the bright tungsten lighting, the huge handgun gleamed with evil purpose.

Zagorski stared at the gun with eyes as large as saucers, apparently as apprehensive as the truck driver that Bolan was about to shoot him.

“Tell him not to be afraid.”

Zagorski translated quickly, but her voice as well as the old man’s face belied their belief in Bolan’s words. It was obvious they were both terrified.

“Buy his truck. Fifty thousand euros,” Bolan stated in a voice that held no room for negotiation. “The cash is in the glove compartment.”

Zagorski related the message, which, because it amounted to approximately one hundred thousand U.S. dollars, was not believed. The man’s bottom lip was trembling, and his hands shook as if he was afflicted with palsy. His eyes remained glued to the Desert Eagle.

“Get the money. Hurry,” Bolan said.

Zagorski ran the few steps back to the car, reached in through her open window and came back with a wad of high-denomination bills.

“Tell him again. Fifty thousand euros.”