False Front

Bolan swung the .44 left again, letting the front sight fall onto a burly, bare-chested Filipino wearing nothing but camouflage pants. His long, straight black hair was tied back from his face with a white cloth. The white made a perfect target. The Executioner let the sight fall on the bright strip across the man’s forehead then pulled the trigger. The would-be kidnapper lost the top half of his head the same way his friend had.

With four of the assailants on his side now down and out of the game, the Executioner rolled behind the Cherokee and came up onto his knees, his head just above the bumper. On Latham’s side of the vehicle he saw two men firing at the Cherokee. One .44 Magnum round took out a clean-shaven kidnapper wearing blue jeans and a BDU blouse. A second after he’d pulled the trigger, the Executioner saw a faint red dot appear on the black T-shirt of another man. The sun was too bright for Latham’s laser sight to be at its best, but at close range it could at least be seen. He heard a boom from beneath the car and the man in black went down.

Bolan smiled inwardly as he fought on. The red dot meant that both the Crimson Trace laser sight and Charlie Latham were still working.

Another massive Magnum round from the Desert Eagle took out a young Filipino with an acne-pocked face. Now, with both sides temporarily clear, the Executioner dropped the near-empty magazine from the Desert Eagle, jammed a fresh load between the grips and transferred the big gun to his left hand. As he drew the Beretta 93-R with his right, rounds continued to pepper the vehicle from the front.

Bolan took advantage of the short pause in the action to evaluate the situation as it now stood. He didn’t know how many men Latham had been able to take out. He did know if Latham was still alive. The man might well be wounded but he had to find out the Texan’s status before he went on. Latham’s condition would have a major effect on his next moves.

The Executioner leaned down under the bumper. “Charlie!” he yelled over the cacophony. “You all right?”

“I’m not hit if that’s what you mean!” Latham yelled from beneath the vehicle. “But ‘all right’ might be stretching it a bit. I’ve been—” Yet another barrage of rifle fire drowned out whatever else he had to say.

Bolan had ascertained Latham was unharmed, but that could change at any second. There were still two men with pistols in front of the Cherokee. Still a pair of AK-47s blasting away near the front on the Cherokee’s passenger’s side. To reexamine his battle plan, it was imperative that he find out exactly how many men were still in the fight.

Round after round continued to bombard the Cherokee. Jamming the Desert Eagle into his belt, the Executioner quickly unscrewed the sound suppressor from the Beretta. There were times when you needed a quiet weapon. Other times you wanted noise and confusion. This situation fell into the latter category.

Bolan’s arm snaked around the rear bumper, firing a blind burst of three 9 mm rounds toward the two men still on the passenger’s side. Then, without hesitation, he leaned the other way and triggered the Desert Eagle twice.

Then he stood.

In the fraction of a second during which he was forced to make himself a perfect target, the Executioner saw three bodies on the ground—one he remembered shooting himself, the others evidently fallen to Latham’s Browning. Two other men stood near the corpses. They started to swing their AKs his way as the Executioner’s eyes skirted to the other side of the vehicle.

The two men he had left standing on that side still fired away full-auto. More shots—slower, from pistols—came from behind the parked cars in front of the Cherokee.

Bolan nodded to himself. That had to be where the phony accident victims had taken cover.

Bolan hunkered down behind the Cherokee a half second ahead of a thunderstorm of 7.62 mm rounds that now sailed his way. Dropping to his belly, he saw Latham’s shadowy form still under the car. The Texan turned to look at him as the Executioner squirmed beneath the bumper toward the right rear tire well. Latham lay on his back, the Browning Hi-Power aimed toward the passenger side of the vehicle. As the Executioner moved beneath the Jeep, his head passed within a foot of the Texan’s.

Latham turned to face him in the shadows. “What I was trying to say earlier, before we were so rudely interrupted,” he said, “was that I’ve been better.”

Bolan grinned as he moved in farther beneath the Cherokee. T. J. Hawkins had been right. Latham could definitely keep his cool under fire.

When he’d come as close as he dared to the edge of the vehicle, the Executioner could see two sets of legs from the knees down. Without hesitation, he extended both hands. The man on the right caught a .44 Magnum round in the shin. The man on the left took a 3-round burst of 9 mm rounds in an ankle. Both men fell to the ground, screaming. Mercy rounds from the Beretta ended their suffering.

The Executioner crawled backward again.

“How many left?” Latham whispered as he passed.

“Two to the right,” Bolan whispered back. “And the two guys faking the accident. Behind their cars.”

“I hit one of them on my way down here to this hobbit hole,” Latham said, looking up at the Jeep’s undercarriage. “Don’t think it killed him, though.”

Bolan emerged from beneath the back bumper, his brain taking in the fact that the quantity of return fire from the kidnappers had withered considerably. Part of that, he knew, came from the fact that many of the riflemen had been killed. But there was more to it than just that.

The kidnappers—if that’s what they really were—had outnumbered the Executioner and Latham twelve to one when the gunfight had begun. They’d planned on an easy snatch of two unarmed foreigners if ransom was their game. Or an easy kill if Subing had sent them to assassinate him. But now, regardless of their motives, within sixty seconds or so, they had lost three-quarters of their manpower. That had a way of playing on the mind and they had to be wondering just what kind of men they’d run into. Which, in turn, was causing them to hesitate.

Bolan leaned down beneath the bumper once more. “Roll out on the driver’s side and cover me,” he ordered Latham. “On three. One, two—”

The Executioner rose up as he said, “Three!” stepping out to the side of the Cherokee. The final two men who had emerged from the jungle on his side of the car had indeed been hesitating. But they had obviously made their decision.

They were one step away from returning to the brush when Bolan shot them with a double tap from the Desert Eagle.

In his peripheral vision, Bolan saw Latham standing next to the open driver’s door. The Texan held his Browning in both hands, sending a slow but steady stream of .40-caliber hollowpoint rounds into the parked vehicles. At this distance, the laser sight was unusable in the bright sun, but Latham was proving he could shoot without it.

The Executioner turned away from the road, leaping over the body of a man he’d shot earlier and darting into the leaves and vines. Quickly, while the men behind the vehicles were concentrating on Latham, he made his away through the foliage until he had gone past the point where the cars were parked.

From there, it was easy.

The Executioner saw that Latham had indeed hit one of the men high in the arm. The man had ripped half his shirt off and tied it around the wound in an attempt to staunch the blood. But the makeshift bandage wasn’t working; crimson fluid drained past his elbow and along the limp limb before splattering onto the asphalt.

Bolan flipped the Beretta selector switch to single shot. With plenty of time to use the sight, he lined the weapon up on the injured man and squeezed the trigger.

A lone 9 mm round streaked from the 93-R into the injured man’s temple.

The other man behind the car whipped his face over his shoulder to stare at the Executioner in shock. The reality of what was happening suddenly spread across his face and he tried to turn farther, swinging his pistol around with him. He didn’t make it.

A second 9 mm round entered his open mouth and blew out the back of his skull.

Suddenly what had sounded like a Chinatown fireworks factory exploding became as quiet as a graveyard. Bolan stepped out of the trees and walked forward. Quickly he stopped by each man he passed to be sure none of the bodies would suddenly rise from the grave to shoot again. All were dead.

The Executioner met Latham between the kidnappers’s parked cars and the Cherokee. “We’ve got to clean this place up and hope one of the vehicles still works,” he said, glancing over his shoulder to see the Ford Fairlaine resting on its rims, all four tires blown out. The Chevy had lost only one tire but water dripped from the punctured radiator. When he stepped forward, the distinct odor of gasoline filled the air. Turning back to the Cherokee, he saw that while the body was riddled with holes, all four tires were still intact. Bolan nodded at the vehicle. “See if it still starts,” he ordered Latham. “And while you’re there, grab my sound suppressor off the ground behind the rear bumper.”

As the Texan walked toward the Cherokee, Bolan began to lift the bodies and drag them toward the jungle. Behind him, he heard Latham’s car cough to life. Or at least a half life. Something beneath the hood had been hit and the timing was off. And a periodic ping meant the half life wouldn’t be long, either.

The Executioner tossed another body into the brush, reached down and sent the AK-47 the man had wielded flying out of sight. In addition to no longer having any faith in the engine, the bullet-ridden Cherokee would be a mobile sign attracting attention they didn’t need. It was time for another change in plans. He’d just have to hope this vehicle would get them out of the immediate vicinity and back into town where they could appropriate a more reliable and less conspicuous mode of transportation.

With the engine still choking and coughing, Latham joined the Executioner in hiding the bodies. When all but two of the attackers had been hidden, they pushed first the Ford, then the Chevy off the road onto the shoulders. Setting a body behind both steering wheels, they turned the dead eyes to face each other across the highway.

To anyone passing, it would look as if two drivers had met on the road and pulled off to have a quick conversation. At least it would look that way as long as no one noticed the pools of blood spotting the asphalt.

Bolan glanced at the mutilated autobody as he hurried to the Cherokee again. Latham’s Jeep looked as if someone had methodically gone over it with an awl, punching holes every half inch into the body. He ducked inside as the Texan took his place behind the wheel again.

“This thing’s gonna stand out in Rio Hondo like an ex-husband at the bride’s second wedding,” Latham said.

The Executioner shook his head. “Change in plans,” he said. “Turn us back toward Zamboanga. We need some new wheels.”

Latham immediately saw the wisdom in the order and didn’t argue. He threw the Cherokee into drive, made a U-turn in the highway and started back toward the city. As soon as they were moving he stuck his tongue into his tobacco can. Twice.

Miraculously, there had been no traffic during the few minutes of the gunfight. But now, having gone less than a hundred yards, a rusty, primer-painted Datsun topped the hill, heading toward them. As the war-damaged Cherokee chugged on, Bolan adjusted the rearview mirror and watched the reaction of the elderly Filipino behind the wheel.

The old man passed the parked cars without giving either of the dead drivers a second look.

As they drove away from the scene, Latham frowned.

“You okay?” Bolan asked. The man had proved himself to be a more than adequate warrior, living up to what Hawkins had promised.

“Yeah, I’m okay,” Latham said. “Just trying to remember something.”