heads.” Bolan rose from the quivering mass that was Balthazar Gomez. “Better gear up. We’ve got about five minutes.”
Bolan went to a bag and began to pull weapons. The Chinese QBZ-95 assault rifles were black, stubby, ugly weapons and not one of his particular favorites, but beggars couldn’t be choosers. “Don’t suppose you’ve got grenades, Wang?”
The gunrunner finally had something to smile about. “This is Mexico, amigo. The wise man goes nowhere without something that goes boom.”
Bolan took in the duffel full of what looked like dull green, minifootballs on sticks with fins. They were PRC 70 mm rifle grenades. “How many you got?”
“Twelve.”
“How many rifles we got?”
“Six, one for each of us plus two spares,” Wang replied.
“You come prepared. What’s the range on these bad boys?” Bolan asked.
“Seventy-five meters, but I’d wait until sixty, fifty would be better.”
Bolan took out a grenade and clicked it onto the muzzle. “Load up every weapon, and keep handing them to me when I start firing.”
Wang was mildly outraged. “What, you’re gonna hog them all?”
“You ever fired a rifle grenade?”
“Hell, yes. I play with all my toys before I sell them.”
“Ever fired one in anger?”
Wang had no response to that.
Bolan nodded. “Load them all, and when I start firing keep handing them to me.”
He looked at Fausto and his M-1. “Is he any good with that Garand?”
“He can hit an ant in the ass at eight hundred meters,” Villaluz announced.
Fausto smiled shyly and patted his rifle. “Six hundred.” He took out a pair of wire-rimmed glasses and perched them on the end of his nose. “Seven-fifty?”
“Good man,” Bolan said. “I’m going to grenade them as they come in range. I want everyone else to hold fire except Fausto. Fausto, you just do what comes natural whenever you feel it.”
The old man took an ancient canvas bandolier full of clips off the back of his chair and walked to one of the slit windows. He shoved a handful of sunflower seeds into his mouth and began cracking seeds and spitting shells as he peered toward the mouth of the canyon. Bolan got the distinct impression this wasn’t the first time Fausto had defended Fort Goat.
“Bree, how about being my grenade wench?”
Smiley grinned, and despite the tan skin and black hair he could see the Irish smiling in her eyes. “I’m your girl!”
Bolan gave her the basic rundown, and Smiley started loading clips and clicking grenades on muzzles. Wang and Villaluz began emptying gear bags, laying spare clips, extra pistols and hand grenades on the table. Villaluz glanced down at Gomez and took the precaution of binding his ankles together. The gangster shuddered on the adobe floor. “La Bestia…La Bestia…he comes…for us all…”
“Shut him up,” Bolan ordered.
Gomez earned himself a strip of duct tape across the mouth. He blew snot over his gag and shook.
Villaluz shot Bolan a look. “This is not right.”
“No.” Bolan’s skin was crawling as it had the other night on the streets of Tijuana before the attack. “No, it’s not.” He stepped to the door with a grenade-mounted rifle in hand. “I’m going to step outside. I’ll need a bucket brigade. Keep them coming.”
Bolan stepped out of the pueblo and the Mexican sun hit him like a hammer. He gazed out at the canyon mouth. It was around 1:00 p.m., and heat baked everything. The salt flats in the distance were one vast kiln of shimmering mirages, a promise of the water that turned the plains into a lake in the good years. Bolan glanced at the enemy’s trajectory as they came in. The road was defensive, as well. It had wrecked the BMW, and it turned and twisted away from the main track a hundred yards from the entrance to the canyon. It would funnel the enemy straight in. Bolan started to suspect this little box canyon had fought off Aztecs, conquistadors and cowboys as well as federales and drug lords in its time.
Bolan lifted his binoculars. He made it eight vehicles, SUVs of various makes, 4x4s and all either black, dark blue or dark green with tinted windows. They were bee-lining for the hidden box canyon like the outriders of the apocalypse.
The soldier eyed the canyon mouth once more. “Fire at will, Fausto!”
“Sí, señor! I wait for the good shot! As you!”
Bolan’s heart sank at the sound of a turboprop engine somewhere out above the salt flats. “Bree! Take this!” Bolan tossed his weapon back.
“Fausto! Give me your gun!”
Smiley caught the grenade-loaded assault rifle. Fausto made an unhappy noise, but the Garand sailed out of the slit window like a harpoon at Bolan. He caught it and strode out to the goat corral. A red-and-white Beechcraft Twin Bonanza broke the canyon rim and soared over to take a good look at the pueblo. Bolan snapped the rifle to his shoulder, and the ancient weapon bucked in his hands as he tracked and fired. The Bonanza dived. The Garand spoke five more times, then pinged as it racked open on empty and spit out the empty 8-round clip. The aircraft sailed out of sight over the mountain rim.
Bolan tossed the empty Garand back behind him. “Feed me!” He caught the grenade-mounted assault rifle that came looping over his shoulder.
“Well, that was effective,” Smiley commented.
“The plane is their spotter, and all they spotted was one man with a rifle, and I want them to come in a rush.”
“Oh.”
Chickens squawked and scattered as he took over the shade of the low adobe wall. Vehicles filled the mouth of the box canyon. The lead was a black Hummer H3T pickup that filled the single lane dirt path. The other seven 4x4s bounced and bucked like broncos over the bumps and ruts to either side. Fausto’s rifle began cracking in slow, aimed semiauto fire. The Hummer slowed and stopped as the other seven vehicles surged on. No gunmen hung out the windows or the sunroofs. They came on as if they intended to ram the pueblo. Bolan had scoped the approach with the eyes of a trained sniper. A tumbleweed beyond Wang’s beleaguered BMW was Bolan’s marker. He waited for the enemy to reach the magic sixty-meter mark. A gunmetal Chevy Suburban was first across the finish line.
Bolan sent him the big payoff straight from the People’s Republic of China with love.
The stubby assault rifle slammed against Bolan’s shoulder as the 70 mm rifle grenade spigotted off the muzzle and spiraled in straight and true. The elongated green football of the warhead punched through the Suburban’s windshield and turned its interior into a blast furnace. Bolan flicked his selector switch to full-auto as he swept his assault weapon onto a Toyota Landcruiser and burned all thirty rounds from the magazine into the windshield. It cracked and raddled but didn’t break. Bolan tossed the smoking, empty weapon behind him as the Suburban
