Blood Play

The man had nearly reached Cherkow when the Russian threw open his door and pointed the MP-446 Viking combat pistol he’d just yanked from his shoulder holster. He fired a single 9 mm round into the other man’s forehead, then slammed the door shut and threw the Nova into first gear. His rear bumper was still snagged to the Mercedes and when the Chevy screeched forward, the steel strip pulled loose and clanged to the asphalt a few feet from where the owner of the Mercedes had fallen, spilling his blood into a growing puddle of rainwater.

Cherkow sped toward the pay station, reaching it just as the parking attendant had charged out to inspect the damage caused by the panel truck. The man dived to one side to avoid being run down when Cherkow raced past the pay booth and quickly veered past the disabled Cadillac so that he could take up pursuit of the taxi. There were no cars between them, and as he eased down on the accelerator, Cherkow quickly began to gain ground. Given the rain-slicked surface, the mobster was forced to toss his gun on the seat beside him and keep both hands on the steering wheel.

“That’s all right,” Cherkow told himself, “I won’t need a gun to take care of them.”

ONE EXIT BEFORE INTERSTATE 25, the panel truck abruptly cut across two lanes of traffic and shot down the ramp leading to University Boulevard. Grimaldi followed suit in the taxi. It would have been a dangerous enough maneuver on dry ashpalt and both vehicles nearly hydroplaned off the road as they took the sharp turn. The taxi, its front hood already scarred by AK-47 rounds, took on more damage as it swerved onto the shoulder and brushed against a guardrail before Grimaldi corrected course and eased back onto the roadway.

“Nice save,” Kissinger told him.

“Yeah, well, I’d stay buckled up if I were you,” Grimaldi responded, keeping an eye on the truck. “I’m sure they’ll keep trying to shake us.”

Bolan was in the backseat, pensive, Beretta at the ready. He’d only fired at the truck once since getting into the taxi, but if Grimaldi could get within closer range, he hoped to get off a few more shots.

At the end of the ramp, the panel truck turned left, heading away from the city. By the time Grimaldi made the same turn, there was nearly a hundred-yard gap between the two vehicles. The rain had begun to pick up, forcing him to peer through the mad thrashing of the windshield wipers. A streak of lightning lit their way briefly as the pursuit continued southward, past an industrial park and the University of New Mexico’s Championship Golf Course. By the time they passed the Rio Bravo intersection, the center median had widened and there was no longer any other traffic to contend with. Grimaldi gave the taxi more gas, quickly gaining on the truck. A quick look in his rearview mirror revealed the flashing lights of a police cruiser turning onto University Boulevard far behind them.

“No guarantee they know we’re the good guys,” Kissinger said.

“Hopefully we’ll get to the truck before they catch up with us,” Grimaldi said. He’d reached an incline leading to a barren stretch of flatland and coaxed the speedometer another ten miles per hour. He was now pushing eighty, and once he crossed over a bridge spanning a railroad trestle he slowly began to close in on the panel truck. They were within thirty yards of it when a face appeared ahead in the rear window Bolan had shot out earlier. Once again, one of Franklin Colt’s abductors raised his assault rifle and pointed it through the opening.

“Incoming!” Kissinger shouted, ducking in the front seat.

Grimaldi eased off the accelerator and tapped his brakes, falling back a few yards. Behind him, Bolan powered down his window and leaned out, rattling off a diversionary burst. The ploy worked. The Stony Man warriors heard the faint throttle of the AK-47, but its rounds flew wide of their mark.

Kissinger righted himself and clenched his pistol, his eyes fixed on the rear of the truck before them. The shooter had pulled away from the shattered window.

“Looks like he’s reloading,” Grimaldi said, flooring the accelerator. “Hang on, I’m going to try to ram them.”

AS THE TAXI BORE down on the truck, another jagged shaft of lightning brightened the desolate terrain. Glancing behind him, Bolan, for the first time, caught a glimpse of Franklin Colt’s Chevy Nova. The muscle car had been traveling with its lights off and had managed to sneak up to within less than twenty yards of the taxi. The police cruiser, by contrast, was still more than a mile away.

“We’ve got company,” Bolan called out to Grimaldi. “Give it all you got!”

Grimaldi spied the Nova in his rearview mirror and cursed. His words were drowned out by the Executioner’s Beretta. Bolan fired through the rear windshield of the taxi, clearing the way for a better shot at the Nova’s driver. Before he could draw bead, however, Viktor Cherkow suddenly flashed on his brights. The raised beams half blinded Bolan and startled Grimaldi, as well. The Stony Man wheelman had closed in to within a few yards of the panel truck, but the Nova had already caught up with him.

There was a sickening crunch as Cherkow beat Grimaldi at his own game plan and slammed into the rear of the taxi. He’d made a point to strike at a slight angle, and the cab immediately began to swerve out of control despite Grimaldi’s best efforts to compensate.

“Not good,” he murmured.

CHAPTER FIVE

The taxi had spun completely by the time it left the road and crashed into a guardrail. Unlike earlier, this time the car didn’t merely glance off the barrier. Instead, it snapped the wooden supports and left the railing in twisted shards as it flipped and went briefly airborne before landing upright on a steep-pitched dirt incline leading to Tijeras Arroyo, a normally dry flood channel that was now swollen with runoff from the day’s rain. The taxi was still turned around and momentum carried it backward downhill into the raging current. For a moment the vehicle bobbed on the surface, surrounded by clots of tumbleweed and other brush dislodged by floodwaters. Then, as water surged through the opened windows and shattered windshield, the taxi slowly sank and had soon disappeared from view.

Back on the roadway the Chevy Nova had also spun completely before coming to a stop. Cherkow groaned in the driver’s seat, his rib cage throbbing from yet another collision with the steering wheel. His right knee had slammed into the dashboard and throbbed with pain, as well. The engine had died and the right front headlight had been crushed, leaving a single beam shining through the rain, illuminating the stretch of road Cherkow had sped along moments before. Far up the hill leading back to the airport, a police cruiser raced downhill toward him, its rooftop lights flashing.

Cherkow grimaced as he retrieved his MP-446 and staggered out into the rain. Behind him, the panel truck had stopped in the middle of the road and was backing up.

“Nice work!” one of his cohorts called out through the shattered rear window.

“It’s not over yet!” Cherkow shouted through the rain. Favoring his sore knee, he hobbled to the break in the guardrail. He was staring down into the arroyo when lightning shone on the brownish floodwaters. Cherkow watched intently as the cab slowly disappeared beneath the floodwaters. He took aim with his autopistol, on the lookout for any trace of the men who’d been inside the vehicle. When no one surfaced, he scanned the dirt slope to see if anyone had been thrown clear. All he could see were the taxi’s tire tracks and a few pieces of sodden litter bogged down in the mud.

Behind Cherkow, the police cruiser reached the flat stretch of the roadway, and its siren shrieked to life above the thunder and harsh patter of rain. The Russian crouched behind the mangled guardrail and waited for the squad car to draw closer. When it came to a stop twenty yards shy of the Chevy, he raised his gun and lined his sights on the officer riding shotgun in the front seat. Behind Cherkow, the gunman in the panel truck took aim as well and let loose with his Kalashnikov.

The cruiser’s front windshield disintegrated and a stream of 7.62 mm NATO rounds took out the cop behind the wheel, obliterating his neck and jaw. The officer riding alongside him, already bloodied by flying glass, was next to die, struck down by a volley from Cherkow’s Viking. The man had partially opened his door and tumbled out of the car, landing on the gleaming asphalt.

Cherkow made certain there was no one else inside the vehicle, then broke from cover and limped back toward the Chevy. Before he could reach the muscle car, the rear doors of the panel truck swung open and the gunman with the AK-47 shouted, “Get in!”

“I want to check for evidence!” Cherkow shouted back.

“There’s no time!” the other man retorted. “There’ll be more cops here any minute!”

Cherkow hesitated, then changed course and staggered to the truck. His comrade helped him aboard, then pulled the doors closed and yelled to the driver, “Let’s go!”

Slowly the truck began to pick up speed. Cherkow dropped to the floor and sat, wheezing slightly as he ran one hand along his right side, trying to pinpoint which of his ribs had been cracked. Franklin Colt lay nearby, still bound and hooded.

“Has he talked yet?” Cherkow asked.

“No,” one of the abductors responded, giving Colt a fierce shove. “But we’ll loosen his tongue once we get to the safe house.”

Cherkow grinned at Colt. “Nice job souping up that car of yours,” he told the prisoner. “You gave me a chance to catch up with your friends. Too bad they won’t be able to help you.”

MACK BOLAN WAS DISORIENTED when he first came to and found himself immersed in the cold, murky water of the flood channel. He was still in the rear of the taxi, secured by his seat belt, slouched at an odd angle. The taxi had tipped onto its side as it dropped below the waterline and, though it had come to a rest at the base of the culvert, the vehicle continued to wobble slightly, jostled by the swift-moving current.

Air, Bolan thought to himself, closing his mouth to keep from taking in any more water. Need more air.

Reaching for his waist, he clawed open his seat belt then let himself float upward to the driver’s side of the taxi, which now lay closest to the surface and had yet to fill with water. When he reached the air pocket, the Executioner gasped, spitting brackish fluid from his lungs. He drew in a few deep breaths and submerged himself once more. There was no partition between the front and back seat, and he was able to quickly reach his fellow commandos. Grimaldi was still out cold behind the steering wheel, but Kissinger had come to and was freeing himself from his seat belt. Bolan reached through the water and tapped him to get his attention, then gestured, first at the air pocket above him, then at Grimaldi. Kissinger nodded and lunged upward as Bolan reached around the Stony Man pilot and unclipped his seat belt, then pulled him clear of the steering wheel.

Kissinger was coughing when Bolan returned to the ever-shrinking pocket of air and hoisted Grimaldi’s head above the waterline. He turned the pilot’s head to one side and expelled water from his mouth, then gently clenched an arm around the other man’s chest and squeezed him, just below the diaphragm. Grimaldi convulsed slightly and sputtered, involuntarily ridding himself of still more ingested water.

“Where are we?” he gasped.

“I’d say hell, only it’s a little wet for that,” Kissinger said, slapping away a small clot of debris floating near his face.

“We’re in some kind of flood channel,” Bolan guessed.

“More like a river,” Kissinger said.

A flash of lightning gave the men a brief glimpse of the water’s surface, which lay only a few yards above them.

“We can get out through the back windshield,” Bolan said. He turned to Grimaldi. “Think you can manage it?”

“I’ll sure as hell try,” Grimaldi said, coughing out the words.

Bolan went first. He drew in another breath, then dropped below the waterline and twisted his body so that when he kicked against the driver’s headrest he could propel himself through the windshield he’d shot out earlier. Once clear of the taxi, he extended his arms and swam to the surface. There, surrounded by floating bits of tumbleweed, he treaded water and fought the current as he looked around him. Uphill to his right was a small bridge spanning the arroyo. He spotted the section of guardrail they’d crashed through and, beyond that, the roadway and the flashing lights of what he assumed was a patrol car. His ears were clogged and a faint din resonated through his skull, but he could also hear the incessant wailing of a siren. By the time Kissinger and Grimaldi had rejoined him, two more sirens were competing with the peals of thunder. Bolan saw a squad car speed across the bridge, heading southward, while yet another cruiser was making its way down the incline leading away from the airport.

“Cavalry to the rescue,” Kissinger muttered as he swam close to Bolan.

Rather than fight the current, the men conserved their strength and allowed the water to carry them away from the road. Slowly they made their way to the culvert’s edge. Bolan’s legs were going numb by the time he reached a point where he could touch bottom. He lumbered up out of the water and collapsed on the muddy embankment, exhausted. Kissinger and Grimaldi straggled ashore soon after, shivering in the rain.

“What now?” Grimaldi asked.