The grenade unleashed a white flash of light and a disorienting peal of thunder. The soldier went around the doorway in a crouch. One of Dumond’s hardmen had been knocked to the ground by the device’s concussive force. The other man was aiming his submachine gun at an angle, well past Bolan.
The Executioner swept the MP-5 in a wide horizontal arc as the weapon churned through the contents of its magazine. When he let off the trigger, the hardmen were sprawled on the floor in their own blood.
The soldier reloaded as he moved along the hallway. All the doors were locked. The soldier rolled one of the guards onto his back and searched through the pockets of the guy’s expensive suit. When he came away empty, he searched the second man and found a set of keys.
Bolan knocked once on the nearest door.
“Jennifer Rodriguez, are you in there? My name’s Matt Cooper. I’m from the Justice Department. I’m here to get you out.”
“Yes, I’m here,” the FBI agent replied.
The soldier tried a few keys and finally one unlocked the door. He pushed it inward.
Rodriguez had stepped back from the door and stood in the center of the room, staring at Bolan. The soldier was struck by her height first. Even at a distance, he could tell she was just under six feet tall and she still had a trim, athletic build. Her eyes were dark brown and Bolan could see the distrust beaming from them. After what she’d been through the past several days, he could hardly blame her.
She looked over Bolan’s shoulder. “Where’s the rest of the team?”
“The other half is upstairs.”
“Other half? There are two of you?”
Bolan nodded. As she moved to the door, he stepped back from the room and started walking toward the elevator. “Are you okay?”
“I haven’t eaten or showered in forever. But otherwise, I’m okay, yes.”
“Good,” Bolan said. “Let’s get you out of here.”
Bolan ushered her into the elevator, then followed her inside and they returned to the first floor. When the doors opened, Bolan gestured for her to remain inside and he left the car.
A ragged line of hardmen was scrambling to head Bolan off. The soldier scythed them down with a barrage of 9 mm rounds just as the MP-5 clicked dry. Ejecting the magazine, he slipped his last fresh one into the weapon and called for Rodriguez to come out of the elevator.
They made a beeline for the front door with Bolan still in the lead. As they stepped into the warm evening, the soldier heard sirens screaming. Keying the throat mike, he called for Turrin.
“Yeah?”
“Meet me at the Jag,” Bolan said.
“Roger that,” the retired Fed replied.
“Jag?” Rodriguez asked. “You have a Jaguar? What department are you with again?”
“It’s complicated,” Bolan said.
When they reached the car, Turrin was already there, tossing some of his gear into the trunk.
The Stony Man warriors claimed the front seats, with Bolan behind the wheel. Rodriguez slipped into the backseat as Bolan stomped on the Jaguar’s accelerator. The car’s engine responded with a growl and the vehicle lurched ahead, barreling toward the gates of Dumond’s estate. Rodriguez twisted at the waist and stared through the rear window.
Bolan looked into the rearview mirror and saw a couple of muzzle-flashes wink in the darkness. A bullet struck the trunk lid, sparked against the steel and angled off into the darkness.
As the Jaguar neared the gate, another of Dumond’s shooters ran into the vehicle’s path, a machine pistol tucked in close to his body.
Turrin stuck an arm through his side window to fire on the guy. Even over the roar of the engine, Bolan heard the dry crackle of autofire and saw jagged flames lash out from the shooter’s weapon. The bullet went low. The Executioner heard something thunk against the vehicle and he guessed the round had hammered into the vehicle’s engine block.
Turrin’s Beretta roared twice, just as the Jaguar rolled over a speed bump. The car shuddered. Bolan clenched his teeth and fought to keep control of the steering wheel, which wanted to jerk to the right.
The bullets from Turrin’s weapon went wild, leaving the guard untouched.
Headlights bathed the hardman in their white glow, making his face look deathly pale.
His mouth dropped open and he threw up an arm to protect himself. The vehicle’s right front fender smacked into the shooter, the force spinning his body and heaving it into the air all at once.
“Bull’s-eye,” Turrin muttered.
* * *
THEY’D DRIVEN LESS than a half mile when Bolan caught a whiff of the distinctive odor from a busted radiator. The needle on the temperature gauge was rising to the red quickly. The vehicle probably would overheat in a matter of minutes. Bolan knew they needed to do something.
He glanced at Turrin. “We’re going to have to ditch,” he said.
Turrin nodded.
“Ditch?” the woman said. “If Dumond sends his people after us, we can’t outrun them on foot.”
Bolan looked up into the rearview mirror and saw a reflection of her staring at him.
“We also can’t outrun them in a dead car,” he said. “Trust me. We’ll get you out of here.”
She opened her mouth to reply, but hesitated, seeming to consider his words. “Okay,” she said with a nod.
“Up there,” Turrin said, pointing at something beyond the windshield. Bolan followed where he was pointing and saw the mouth of an alley up ahead. The smell of antifreeze intermingled with overheated plastic, metal and oil had grown stronger. The soldier acknowledged Turrin with a nod.
A couple of seconds later when they reached their destination, he cut the wheel to the right and guided the car into the narrow alley. He killed the engine but left the headlights burning. “Wait here,” he growled.
Popping open the door, he stepped from the vehicle and walked up to the front end and checked the damage. Bullet holes pockmarked the grille in a ragged line.
Another slug had taken out one of the running lights. White plumes of steam curled up from around the edges of the hood. The car definitely was damaged goods.
Moving back to the driver’s door, Bolan leaned inside, pulled up on a floor switch that opened the trunk and switched off the headlights.
“Let’s go,” he said.
Turrin nodded and exited the car. The woman climbed from the backseat and, eyeing the two men cautiously, approached them. She stopped several feet away from them.
“We need another car,” she said.
“We’ll
