Nuclear Reaction

Could they?

But even if there were a dozen shooters in the woods, Chandaka still had them outnumbered. Even with his losses, he could still attack—use “shock and awe,” as the Americans were fond of saying. He should storm the tree line with guns blazing and destroy the bastards who had bloodied and humiliated him.

In fact, there was no other choice. He could not simply lay beneath the truck and wait until his men had all been killed, then wriggle out to face the enemy alone. Nor could he wait and pray for reinforcements to arrive, since none of his superiors knew where he was, or even that he was in trouble.

Right, then, he told himself. He had to act, and swiftly, to redeem the situation and himself.

Groaning, Chandaka dragged himself from underneath the truck, pulling his rifle after him. Some of his soldiers seemed surprised to see him, as if they’d forgotten he was with them, or perhaps assumed that he’d been killed. They huddled under fire, some of them hammering long bursts into the tree line closest to them, seemingly without a hope of scoring any hits.

Chandaka started counting heads, got to fourteen and realized that there were no more left to count. He couldn’t do the simple calculation in his head, so rattled was he by the evidence before his eyes, but the lieutenant understood that more than half his soldiers had been lost.

All dead? Had some of them turned tail and run? he wondered. It made no difference now. He’d have to work with what he had.

Feigning a confidence he didn’t feel, Chandaka told his men, “We cannot stay here. They’ll murder all of us unless we seize the—”

“Who are they?” someone demanded, interrupting him.

“It doesn’t matter,” the lieutenant answered. “We must now seize the initiative. Carry the fight to them. I need you all to follow me and—”

Something dropped out of the sky and landed at Chandaka’s feet. He glanced down at it, blinking. It seemed ludicrous—a bright green apple or a ball, some kind of toy—but one of his men shouted, “Grenade!” and they began to scatter in a panic.

Whimpering, Chandaka turned to run. He managed two long strides before the antipersonnel grenade exploded. Its concussion plucked him off his feet and punched him through an airborne somersault, while shrapnel tore into his body with the lancing pain of countless razor blades. Chandaka landed on his back, rolled over once and wound up staring at a smoky sky.

Survival was beyond him now. He knew it. It had been too much to hope for. Chasing bandits and guerrillas was a game for better men. He’d failed the army and his soldiers and himself, but none of that seemed relevant. Instead, he focused on the pain and hoped that it would end soon.

There was only so much that a man could bear.

BOLAN WAS READY WHEN the soldiers broke from cover, sprinting to escape the frag grenade. His AKMS had a fully loaded magazine, and even though the weapon’s fire-selector switch didn’t allow for 3-round bursts, Bolan was deft enough to manage on his own.

He led the first runner by three feet, give or take, and stroked the rifle’s trigger lightly, sending three or four 7.62 mm rounds downrange to meet him, take him down and keep him there.

The second man heard firing away to his left and returned it without even looking to see where it had come from, still running, but blasting away with his weapon in hopes of distracting the sniper who’d just nailed his friend. With luck, it might’ve worked, but this one’s luck had run out.

Bolan squeezed off another burst and saw his target stumble, drop his rifle, throwing out both arms as if to catch himself, but they were limp before he hit the turf facedown and plowed it with his chin, doing a spastic little break-dance in the dirt before he died.

How many left?

Bolan could see five runners, guessed there had to be several others out of sight, beyond the truck, but he would have to take them as they came.

Incredibly, two of the soldiers were advancing toward his position at a dead run, high-stepping across uneven ground and making decent speed. He didn’t know if they had spotted him, or if they’d picked a point at random as their destination, but it made no difference.

He shot the nearer of the runners first, a quick burst to the chest that slammed him over backward, head and shoulders touching down before his heels made contact with the earth. That snapped the second soldier out of any trance that may have gripped him, and he started firing from the hip, still charging, mouthing challenges or curses in a language Bolan couldn’t understand.

Bullets were whipping over Bolan’s head when he tattooed the soldier’s chest with four rounds on the fly and spun him, autorifle still blazing away, through a pirouette. His legs started to buckle halfway through it, folding so that he appeared to screw himself into the ground.

Turning on his mark, Bolan lined up another target as the man glanced toward the source of gunfire, making eye contact. He was about to squeeze the rifle’s trigger when another shot rang out, somewhere ahead and to his left. It was a pistol, and the bullet caught his man in midstride, dropping him with an expression of immense surprise upon his face.

Pahlavi?

Bolan didn’t have the time to ponder it, with two soldiers still moving in his field of fire. The farthest from him was about to reach the tree line, all of sixty feet away, but that was nothing for the AKMS in a marksman’s hands. The rifle stuttered briefly, blasting spouts of blood from olive drab fatigues, and Bolan saw his man go down, sliding a few feet on his belly, arms outflung, before his head butted against a tree and stopped him short.

The last soldier Bolan could see was running for his life, his knees and elbows pumping, with the rifle in his fists clearly forgotten. Even with the echoes of the battle ringing in his ears, Bolan could hear the soldier panting, straining toward the finish line that offered momentary safety.

He could let the runner go, grant him the gift of life, but that would jeopardize the mission, Darius Pahlavi and himself. It was a risk Bolan was not prepared to take, this early in a brand-new game.

He fired and caught his target on the fly, a puff of crimson rising from the soldier’s head and shoulder as he tumbled, rolling over once, then shuddering a moment on the grass before his life ran out and left him hollow, still.

There could be others waiting for him on the far side of the truck, but Bolan had to take that chance. He didn’t want to waste another grenade on corpses, without checking first to see if there was any threat. That meant emerging from the trees with caution, making his advance one slow step at a time.

Halfway around the truck, the Executioner saw Pahlavi standing at the tree line opposite, exposed to any soldiers still alive behind the truck. No one was firing at him, which encouraged Bolan to advance more quickly. As he cleared the truck’s tailgate, he found that his second grenade had done its work effectively, if not cleanly. There were no more hostile survivors on the field.

Pahlavi wore a slightly dazed expression as he crossed the grass to stand at Bolan’s side. “All dead?” he asked.

“It looks that way,” Bolan replied.

“Now, what?”

“Now,” Bolan said, “we move this truck and see if we can get my rental out of here before the cavalry shows up. And while we’re on the road, we need to talk.”

5

Southwestern Pakistan

The open highway wasn’t safe, but it was all they had. They couldn’t fly, and even as they passed through wooded areas, Bolan knew they could not afford to hide and hope the storm would pass them by.

He didn’t spend much time watching network news broadcasts, but Bolan knew that a loss of thirty-odd soldiers in one firefight would rock Pakistan. Some would mourn the loss, others might cheer it, but the powers that be would most certainly seek to explain and avenge it.

This would be no minor gale. They were fleeing ahead of a full-fledged tornado, the kind of storm that could pluck them off the face of planet Earth and never let them go. The kind that could make them evaporate without a trace.

They have to find us first, Bolan thought.

After he had put two miles between them and the slaughter site, he asked Pahlavi, “So, where are we going?”

“To my village. It’s the only place we will be relatively safe.”

That “relatively” wasn’t very reassuring, but the Executioner would take what he could get, just now.

“How far?” he asked.

“About one hundred miles, due north,” Pahlavi answered.

Bolan checked his fuel gauge. They should make it with a bit of gas to spare, if there were no detours along the way, but any traveling beyond their destination would require a fill-up.

“Right,” he said. “Then we’ve got time to talk. You start, and take it from the top.”

“The top?”

“From the beginning,” Bolan translated.