Serpent's Lair

The old man continued walking toward the tableau.

Machida switched to Japanese. “I told you, old man, stand still.”

Hogan looked at the walker’s eyes. They were glazed and unfocused, hard black marbles that looked everywhere and nowhere at once. It was an odd, disconcerting visage, like the world was completely beneath him. The walker didn’t stop his movement, despite the command in Japanese.

“Kill him,” Hogan said.

Machida regarded Hogan coldly.

BOLAN CLOSED IN ON the first sniper he’d seen, hoping to cut the distance the bullet from his Walther flew. The shorter the flight path of the bullet, the less disturbed air. The sonic crack from the 9 mm slug wouldn’t draw as much attention. He glanced to his right, and saw that the snipers at the tree line were all keeping their eyes focused on Hogan’s mercenaries.

Machida had just been challenged to kill the intruder on the scene, and Bolan wanted to give the old man a chance to get out of this alive.

At three feet away, Bolan stood over the gunman with the hunting rifle. The sniper sensed the Executioner’s presence and swung the rifle around quickly. Bolan squeezed the trigger, and the gunman toppled lifelessly to the forest floor. Bolan’s hand snagged the rifle before it clattered to the ground.

The Executioner dropped to his knees and quickly slid into the dead Yakuza soldier’s place. In the shadows of the foliage around him, none of the other gunners reacted to his sudden action. The bolt-action rifle would be worth a lot in a gunfight. Ten spare rounds for the magazine were stuck into a saddle on the stock of the rifle.

The Executioner turned his attention back to the stand off in the clearing. The walker passed by Rebecca Anthony as she stood in the middle of the gravel. The spindly figure stopped, looking her over.

“Dammit… I just want to get away from all of this,” she said, voice trembling and soft, but full of angry resolve.

Bolan shouldered the hunting rifle. He’d have five, maybe six shots before he had to reload or switch to the Walther, but he refused to let the girl be harmed.

The walker grabbed her wrist and sneered, flipping aside his robes.

That’s when everything that Bolan knew about the situation turned upside down. The old man was suddenly sporting a fistful of Uzi.

3

When the walker pulled out his gun and yanked the girl in close to his body, several things happened at once.

The fleeing hostage screamed in terror. Her black-lipstick-smeared mouth opened wide, and she clutched a wiry arm of the walker.

The Yakuza head soldier, leveled one Beretta at Hogan and quickly drew a second pistol to aim at the walker. He shouted for his men to remain calm, but even from where he sat, Bolan could see that there was a tremor as he aimed unsteadily at the old man with the Uzi.

Hogan shouldered his MP-5, ready to spray either the Yakuza leader or the stranger who’d grabbed the girl. His bulletlike head lowered over the sights, deep-set eyes squinting.

The Executioner tightened his grip on the hunting rifle in his hands, brain racing to evaluate which was the greatest threat to the hostage.

The walker laughed as he pressed the Uzi to the girl’s temple. She closed her mouth but still looked around, the muzzle sliding all over her greasy, slicked hair.

Bolan couldn’t risk a head shot on the goon, in case he pulled the trigger on the girl. He swept the meeting ground. Mercenaries and mobsters alike were taking cover behind vehicles, and to either side of him, along the tree line, gunmen were communicating from their hiding spots. Everyone was trying to figure out what to do.

“Kojo,” someone said. A trail of Japanese followed that was too quick for Bolan to understand, but he knew it was directed at him.

“Hai,” Bolan whispered in response. He hoped to hell he hadn’t blown it.

There was a sudden movement to his left. A harsh sentence was uttered, and Bolan brought up his Walther, pumping out a single bullet into the darkness. The 9 mm slug quietly hit its target, but the gunman gave a scream as he tumbled from the tree line.

The walker spun, and the Uzi came away from the girl’s head. The dying Yakuza shooter crashed into a clump of tall grass, and the old man twisted, looking around for more enemies in the trees.

The Goth girl seized the opportunity, bent double and broke away from the man. She charged madly toward the path, paying no heed to the sharp stones digging into her feet. Fear drove her onward.

Bolan shouldered his rifle, targeting Hogan, who was in midswing to shoot down the Anthony girl. Bolan squeezed the trigger. He felt the hot splash of a stray shotgun pellet slice across his shoulder midshot. The Executioner’s round was off target.

Machida blasted the walker full in the chest with his Beretta, while others opened up on the man, throwing him to the ground.

Hogan grunted, his weapon getting off two shots, then stopping short as a .30-caliber rifle bullet smashed into the frame of his machine pistol and drove him onto his back. Bolan adjusted his aim and threw the bolt on the rifle, hurriedly chambering another shot.

“Hogan! There’s someone else in the tree line!” Machida warned. The gangster opened fire with his other Beretta. The Yakuza men swung their weapons to open fire on the Executioner’s position, but by that time, Bolan was already hot-footing it out of the way.

The mercenaries held their fire, looking on in disbelief as the Japanese mobsters ignored them, turning their attention on some mystery threat.

“Dammit! Shoot the trees!” Hogan roared at his men. He was aching from being slammed in the chest by his own gun. His hand hurt, but he pulled his Colt and opened fire on the spot where the single rifle shot had come from.

THE EXECUTIONER CHARGED through the woods, heading in the direction of the path where Rebecca Anthony intended to make her escape. While on the run, he threw the bolt on the hunting rifle to chamber another round and fired into the shadowed mass of a gunman blazing away with his handgun. The shooter screamed, and his body tumbled away. The number of bullets slicing through the forest hadn’t decreased; they were still out for his blood. Bolan cut hard to the right, charging to where he estimated the young woman would be on the path.

HONEY’S FEET HURT as she made the run along the path. She expected one of the bullets behind her to thunder into her flesh and drop her any minute. She felt completely helpless as she pumped her legs, striving to survive for just a few more yards, to get around the bend and into the foliage.

The prospect of getting shot while escaping filled her with dread. The plan to run for her life and strike out for her freedom seemed like the scatterbrained plot of a woman doomed to die.

Then two hundred pounds of muscle rammed into her in a blindsiding crash. One strong arm scooped her off her cut and bloody feet and carried her into the heavy bushes and trees on the opposite side of the path, as gunfire crackled all around.

“Stop shooting! Stop shooting! He has the girl!” Machida shouted.

“Fuck!” Hogan screamed. “Get into the woods!”

Honey stared up at the man carrying her. He was craggy faced, and intense. However, the way he held her, putting both arms around her to support her, told her something.

This black-haired stranger had no business with either the Yakuza or the mercenaries who showed up to retrieve her for her father.

THE WALKER STIRRED. He sat up with a sudden lurch and aimed at Machida, holding down the trigger of his Uzi. Despite a blood-spattered face, the slender old man was still in fighting form, and if the Yakuza boss hadn’t spotted the motion out of the corner of his eye, he would have been cut down where he stood. As it was, the limousine was peppered with 9 mm holes.

Hogan swung around the back of the car and pulled the trigger on his Colt .45, snapping two shots into the head of the walker, blowing off a huge chunk of skull in the process.

This time, the Uzi-toting old man slumped for good.

Machida and Hogan walked slowly to the lifeless man. Both reloaded their pistols on the slow, uncertain journey over, and saw that the wisps of mustache and beard were glued-on fakes, half-washed away by the spray of blood from the first salvo of fire the combined forces launched at him.

Machida bent and pulled at the ratty gray robes of the old man and saw the black Kevlar armor underneath. “What the hell is this?” he asked.

“You tell me, Hoss,” Hogan said. He raised and leveled his Colt at the Japanese mobster. Machida looked at him but kept his pistol aimed at the ground.

“You think I wanted this fool to let the girl get away?” Machida asked. “She’s running into the woods.”

“This is your country, man. You had men in the tree line,” Hogan grumbled.

Machida shook his head. “We’ll help you find the girl. Under one condition.”