Patriot Strike

Turning left on Bowie would propel them north to Fourth Street, back toward downtown San Antonio. A right-hand turn would lead south to Market Street, which then became South Bowie, just to keep drivers confused. South Bowie granted access to the interstate, but if Bolan stuck to surface streets, he would be leading his pursuers into residential neighborhoods.

No decent choices, either way.

Whichever way he chose, he risked having cops join the parade and putting bystanders in danger. If he made it to the freeway, it could add potential contact with the state’s highway patrol. The only law he likely wouldn’t see would be the Texas Rangers—and he had one of them riding in his shotgun seat.

With half a block to spare, he chose the right-hand turn. Given the hour, Bolan knew downtown would have more traffic on the streets, people returning home from restaurants, concerts and theaters, whatever. More police patrols, for sure, keeping an eye on high-rent stores and offices. If he could lead the hunters south, then west toward the San Antonio River, the street map he’d memorized during his flight told Bolan he would find dead ground, where they could stop and settle it.

The hunters hadn’t lost Bolan when he had turned onto South Bowie, but they hadn’t started shooting, either. That was good news, and he wasted no time trying to interpret it.

“Who’s likely to be tracking you?” he asked his passenger.

She answered with a question of her own. “What were you told about this deal?”

“The basics. Ridgway and the NTR.”

“Okay. It could be either one of them, assuming there’s a difference. Lamar won’t soil his hands, but he could give the order. Might demand a video, for his enjoyment over cocktails later.”

“Not police,” Bolan confirmed.

“No lights or sirens,” she replied. “No way.”

That made it easier. At the beginning of his one-man war against the Mafia, Bolan had drawn a line he would never cross. When dealing with police at any level, in any given situation, he would not use deadly force. Whether they qualified as heroes or were nothing more than thugs in uniform, he treated law enforcement officers as soldiers on the same side. Bolan would not spill their blood, even in self-defense.

He’d sent a few to prison, sure, but that was something else entirely.

Mercenary killers, on the other hand, were fair game whenever and wherever they crossed paths with the Executioner.

South Bowie reached East Commerce Street, and Bolan took a right there, racing west to catch South Alamo. The chase car hung in there, trying to ride his bumper, but the lighter RAV4 kept a few car lengths between them, weaving just enough to cut the hunters off from passing by on either side, where they could get a clean shot at the smaller SUV.

Not yet.

The farther they could go without a shot fired or a squad car joining in the chase, the better Bolan liked it. They would have their showdown soon enough, in true Wild West tradition, more or less.

South Alamo took Bolan and Granger on a long southwestern swing through tree-lined residential areas, rolling inexorably toward the river and a strip of warehouses that served its traffic. There were few pedestrians around as they passed by darkened homes, some with the flicker of a television screen behind drawn curtains, others with their occupants asleep before another workday in the city. Maybe roaring engines caused a ripple in their dreams, but Bolan was satisfied to spare them from a running firefight.

“Gaining,” Granger cautioned. Nothing that his rearview hadn’t shown him.

“Just a little longer,” he replied.

“Why aren’t they shooting?”

“Maybe someone wants to have a word with you.”

“That’s not going to happen.”

Not if I can help it, Bolan thought, and squeezed a bit more speed from the Toyota’s growling engine.

He could see a bridge across the river coming up, a strip mall to his left once they’d crossed it and a factory of some kind to his right, with giant stacks and at least a dozen semitrailers lined up outside, waiting for loads. A triple set of railroad tracks ran through the plant and disappeared beneath an elevated walkway. A sign atop the tallest portion of the factory read Pioneer. Another, set above the three tall stacks, read White Wings.

Bolan didn’t have a clue what was produced there, and he didn’t care. The place was obviously closed, no cars in the employees’ parking lot. Tapping the RAV4’s brake pedal, he swung in off the street and rolled across the lot, which was lit by bright halogen lights.

* * *

“HE’S STOPPING HERE? What the hell’s he thinkin’?” Jesse Folsom asked.

“How the hell should I know?” Bryar Haskin snapped. “Let’s take ’em while we can.”

“Some kinda trick,” suggested Jackson.

“Doesn’t matter.” Haskin jacked a round into his shotgun’s chamber. “Now he’s off the road, we got ’im.”

“Light ’em up!” said Jimmy Don Bodine.

“Hold off on that,” Haskin commanded. “Don’t forget Kent wants ’em both alive, if possible.”

“If possible.” The echo came from Jackson. “Leaves a lotta wiggle room.”

“You screw this up,” said Haskin, “you’ll be wigglin’ when he hooks your nuts up to that hand-crank generator with some alligator clips.”

Jackson had no response to that, and it was just as well. Folsom, at the Yukon’s wheel, swung in behind the black Toyota, chasing it across the mostly empty parking lot, back toward a row of semitrailers lined up closer to the factory. Haskin had no idea why their intended prey would trap himself that way, instead of staying on South Alamo, maybe trying to lose them on the Pan Am Expressway farther west, but he didn’t plan to look a gift horse in the mouth.

“C’mon!” he barked at Folsom. “Catch ’em, damn it!”

“Workin’ on it,” Jesse answered back, accelerating with a squeal of tires on asphalt.

Haskin had no clue who was driving the Toyota, but it stood to reason that the lady Ranger would be armed. A pistol only, since he’d seen her walking empty-handed at the Alamo, unlikely that she’d have some kind of tiny submachine gun underneath her leather jacket. Could be damn near anything inside the fleeing SUV, though, so they’d have to hit it hard and fast, before the stranger at the wheel could start unloading on them.

“Hey! You’re losin’ it,” warned Haskin, as the RAV4 swerved around behind semis, ducking out of sight.

“No place for ’em to go back there,” Folsom assured him. “Ain’t no exit from the lot on that side.”

“You’d better hope not. If they get away—”

“You worry too much,” Folsom answered, almost sneering.

Haskin fought an urge to punch him, the worst thing Haskin could do when they were doing close to sixty miles per hour. If Folsom crashed the Yukon, it would be Haskin’s ass when Kent heard how their targets had wriggled through the net.

Haskin had expected the Toyota’s driver to swing back around, upon discovering that he couldn’t escape the parking lot, but there was no sign of the RAV4 yet. It was a big lot, sure, but not that big. You couldn’t lose an SUV, unless—

“Hold up!” he ordered.

Folsom shot a sidelong glance his way.

“They’re layin’ for us!” Haskin blurted, but his driver didn’t get the message. They kept rolling, passed the nearest semitrailer, turning left to follow the Toyota. Haskin didn’t see the other car at first, imagined that its wheelman must have found an exit from the big lot after all or maybe plowed straight through the shrubbery that lined it on the west. He was about to say so, when a sudden blaze of high beams blinded him. He raised one hand to shield his eyes.

“Goddamn it!”

The words were barely out before a bullet drilled through their windshield, clipped the rearview mirror from its post and dropped it into Haskin’s lap. Folsom was cursing like a sailor with his pants on fire, spinning the Yukon’s wheel, as more slugs hit the SUV, pounding its body like the sharp blows of a sledgehammer.