Nuclear Reaction

Bolan supposed Pahlavi’s comrade might’ve rammed the lead jeep—if he’d lived that long. Instead, the rifle bullets found him when his charger and the jeep were still some twenty yards apart. Maybe his foot slipped off the clutch and let the engine stall, or maybe other rounds had ripped in through the grille and hood. In any case, his vehicle veered off the pavement, coasting to a smoky halt with its blunt nose and front tires in a ditch.

“We’re on our own,” Bolan advised Pahlavi. “How much farther to those woods?”

“Not far,” Pahlavi said, speaking as if he had something caught inside his throat.

“I hope you’re right. “Either way,” the Executioner informed him, “we’ll be running out of time within the next few minutes.”

“We can fight them, yes?” Pahlavi asked. “For Adi and Sanjiv!”

“They’re done,” Bolan reminded his grief-stricken passenger. “Try fighting for yourself.”

“Of course. We must survive to finish what we’ve started.”

“Right,” Bolan replied. “And maybe if we do, you’ll tell me what that is.”

“Fight first, talk later,” Pahlavi said. “Yes?”

“I’ve heard that song before.”

Flicking his eyes between the highway and his rearview mirror, Bolan searched the roadside for a hint of woods. An endless ninety seconds later, he saw shadows on the roadside ahead, and recognized them as a mass of trees.

One smallish forest, coming up.

And thirty-two trained riflemen to make it one more patch of Hell on Earth.

3

The first round from the lead jeep’s shooter ricocheted from Bolan’s trunk and chipped the frame of his rear window prior to hurtling off through space. Instead of weaving crazily across the road, he poured on all the speed he had to offer, hunching lower in his seat to give the rifleman a smaller target.

Beside him, Darius Pahlavi had regained enough control to draw his pistol, swivel in his seat and return fire from his side window. It was awkward, but at least it let him shoot right-handed without smashing out their back window.

Bolan supposed incoming rounds would do that soon enough, unless he reached the woods before the soldiers on his tail improved their aim.

He had a quarter mile to go, and then he had to hope there was some kind of access road into the forest, or he’d wind up parking on the berm and leaping from the car in full view of the soldiers who were primed to kill him. Bolan hoped Pahlavi had more sense than that, but their acquaintance was too brief for him to judge the man’s state of mind.

Rattled was one term that immediately came to mind, but now that he was fighting back, Pahlavi seemed to have a better grip, reaching inside himself somewhere to find his nerve.

After his third shot, Bolan’s passenger gave out a whoop of triumph. Bolan checked the rearview mirror and made out a spiderweb of cracks covering half of the jeep’s windshield. It hadn’t stopped them, but it slowed the soldiers a little. They fell back to blast at Bolan’s car from a position out of pistol range.

It gave Bolan the edge he needed, while his enemies were putting on their brakes, maybe a little shaky in their haste and from the shock of a near-miss. He took advantage of it, burning up the road and gaining back some of the ground he’d lost in the pursuit. It was two hundred yards or so until they reached the first trees, and he was looking for a turnoff, any place where he could leave the two-lane blacktop for a while.

“There, on your left!” Pahlavi urged him, pointing, and the road appeared almost by magic, cut for the convenience of emerging eastbound traffic, but still good enough for Bolan’s exit, heading west.

“Hang on!” he said, and swung the steering wheel to make it, rocking with the vehicle as the tires complained, then found their grip again and powered over gravel, onto rutted, hard-packed soil.

The road would be muddy, miserable in the rainy season, but the day was bright and dry. Bolan hung on as they shuddered along the washboard surface, barely one lane wide. It was too much to hope the army truck might find the road impassable, but maybe its progress would be retarded. Let it fall behind the jeeps a bit, spread out the hunting party, and it might work out to Bolan’s benefit.

“They’re after us!” Pahlavi warned.

“That’s no surprise. Is there another turnoff anywhere ahead?”

“Half a mile, I think. The road begins to circle back, but there’s a branch off to the left.”

Even alert, Bolan almost missed it, braking at the last instant and swerving hard into a narrow access road that cut off to the south-southwest. The surface was rougher, punished by the elements for years without repair or even simple maintenance. Still, Bolan held his steady speed as best he could, praying the shock absorbers and the ball joints wouldn’t fail him.

After roughly a hundred yards, they reached a clearing in the woods, with room enough for five or six pup tents around a campfire. Bolan used the space to turn, tires spitting dirt and gravel, until he was facing the direction of the access road. He killed the engine and sat a moment, listening to the hot metal ticking as it cooled.

“What are you doing?” Pahlavi asked with a nervous tremor in his voice.

“No way they missed our turnoff,” Bolan said. “No way we can get past them, going back the way we came. That only leaves one option.” He was reaching for the duffel bag behind him as he spoke. “We fight.”

“So many of them?”

“That, or let them take you down.”

Pahlavi didn’t have to think about it. “No,” he said.

“Then I suggest you get out of the car and find some cover while you can.”

Matching his words to action, Bolan stepped out of the vehicle, taking the keys, and started running hard in the direction of the tree line, thirty feet away.

SACHI CHANDAKA WORRIED that he might be following his prey into a trap. It seemed bizarre that bandits would deliberately sacrifice two men, but if he thought about it in another way, it did seem possible that he had stumbled on some small conspiracy, put them to flight, and only now would they attempt to kill him with an ambush.

This was bandit territory, beyond any doubt. Why shouldn’t one gang or another have a stronghold somewhere in the woods around him. Maybe those he was pursuing had a cell phone or a two-way radio, allowing them to call ahead to set the trap.

“Slow down a bit,” he ordered Lahti. “Keep the car in sight, but don’t be hasty.”

“Yes, sir.”

Chandaka couldn’t tell if Lahti was relieved or not, and he did not particularly care. Glancing behind him, the lieutenant saw the second jeep and open truck behind it keeping pace, jerking with every rut and pothole in the miserable unpaved road. There would be aching bladders in the truck, he guessed, but they would have to wait.

Ahead, he saw the car they were pursuing leave the main track, veering left onto another narrow road, its surface even rougher than the one they traveled. Chandaka held his rifle, finger on the trigger, peering through the windshield veined with cracks that radiated from a central bullet hole.

“Sir, shall I follow them?” his driver asked.

“Of course, but cautiously.”

“Yes, sir.”

Lahti slowed a little more, the vehicles behind them doing likewise. By the time they cleared the turn, Chandaka couldn’t see their quarry anymore. He nearly panicked, fearing he had lost the bastards after all this effort and would have to back out of the woods, exposed to hidden riflemen on every side.

“Hurry!” he ordered, contradicting his original instruction. “Find them!”

“Yes, sir.” No enthusiasm whatsoever sounded in the sergeant’s voice.

They jounced along the narrow track, tree branches almost meeting overhead, casting the roadway into shadows that seemed sinister under the present circumstances. Lahti kept his eyes fixed on the road ahead, leaving Chandaka to watch out for snipers, booby traps, and any other rude surprises that their enemies might have in store for them.

The clearing took Chandaka by surprise. One moment, they were running through a narrow corridor of trees, the next, they nosed into an open space some sixty feet across, walled in by forest on all sides. He saw the bandit car ahead, its grille aimed toward his jeep, but with the doors open and no one left inside. Which had to mean—