He was patient, giving his connection time to reach the restaurant and go inside, when Bolan saw two men emerge from London Mews, the stinking alley paved with trash. Both moved to intercept his contact, and the young man saw them, blinking once before he thought about retreat—and found himself cut off behind by two more men.
It wasn’t Bolan’s fault, but self-recrimination still flashed through his mind. He hadn’t seen the followers, because they got lost in the teeming sidewalk crowd, but he could easily have checked the alley one more time, or even waited there himself to watch his contact pass.
Now the young man was ringed by hostile faces, and the four men who’d surrounded him were armed with knives.
Damn it!
Their first maneuver barely caused an eddy in the flow of foot traffic, then someone saw the blades and started shouting in a high-pitched voice. Bolan didn’t speak the shouter’s language, but he got the drift.
He knew only one way to trump four blades, and that was with a gun. It wasn’t how he’d meant to hook up with his contact, but the circumstances had been forced upon him by third parties. Bolan could do nothing but react, as swiftly and effectively as possible.
He palmed the Glock, holding it against his thigh as he proceeded, none too gently, through the sidewalk crowd. After retreating to a distance safe from random slashes, most of the immediate bystanders had decided they should watch the unexpected scene play out, rather than running for a cop or for their lives. The police might have been summoned, even so—Calcutta had its share of cell phones, just like any other city on the planet—and whatever Bolan meant to do, he knew he’d have to do it soon.
His first concern was no careless shooting in the crowd. His weapon didn’t have the penetration power of a Magnum, but a hot 9 mm load might still go through one man and strike another, if he wasn’t careful. Even warning shots were dangerous—they had to come down somewhere—and the very sound of gunfire might provoke a stampede that would force him away from his contact, instead of allowing him access.
Rather than firepower, therefore, Bolan first relied on muscle power, charging through the crowd and bulling human obstacles aside. Some snapped at him, presumably cursing, but he paid no heed. His contact was about to be filleted, and Bolan meant to stop it if he could.
If he wasn’t too late.
The four blade men were circling when he reached them by bursting through the final row of onlookers. One of the goons, directly opposite, saw Bolan coming in a rush and tried to warn his comrades, but the nearest didn’t get the word in time. The slicer’s first inkling of trouble was the tight grip of a strong hand on his shoulder, spinning him, before the Glock’s butt smashed into his face.
Some of the gawkers saw the pistol and withdrew from the epicenter of the action, but they still made no attempt to flee en masse. They seemed addicted to the show and would stay to see its end unless he started firing, forcing them to run for cover.
The attackers, still in fighting form, were torn between two targets and mindful of the gun in Bolan’s hand. They couldn’t read him yet, beyond a safe guess that he wasn’t a policeman, but they had no time to think about the riddle. Bolan, for his part, already wondered if the street attack had anything to do with him, but there was no way he could find out at that moment.
Fight now, instinct told him, and ask questions later. If you’re still alive.
The thug farthest from Bolan lunged at the Executioner’s contact with his knife. The young man turned rapidly to meet the thrust and blocked it with one hand, while the other lashed out toward his adversary’s face. It was a fair blow, staggering the hoodlum, but it failed to drop him, and a second lightning jab was required to put him on the ground.
That still left two, and one of them apparently decided it was safe to charge Bolan, pitting a six-inch blade against his pistol. The soldier could’ve double-tapped his enemy with ease, but there were too many civilians ranged behind the target for a guaranteed clean shot. Instead, he braced himself, prepared to meet his would-be killer hand to hand.
The youngster wasn’t bad, slashing at Bolan with a move that could’ve split his face or throat, but in the end he wound up cleaving only air. Bolan had ducked and sidestepped, lashed a kick into his young opponent’s groin, and watched the fight bleed out of him as he collapsed onto all fours. It was a simple thing, from there, to whip the Glock across his skull and leave him stretched out on the pavement.
One blade left, and Bolan’s contact had it more or less in hand, grappling with his opponent chest-to-chest, arms raised well overhead, the knife’s long blade reflecting glints of neon from surrounding signs. With all hands occupied, the two combatants waltzed and waddled, lurching back and forth across the sidewalk, ringed by spectators.
Bolan was moving in to break the standoff, when a gunshot cracked somewhere behind him and the young knife-wielder’s head exploded, spattering his adversary with a spray of blood and tissue. Bolan’s contact violently recoiled, shoving the corpse away from him, and thereby saved himself from the next shot.
“Get down!” Bolan cried, rushing even as he spoke to grab one of his contact’s arms and drag him into London Mews. The young man struggled, fought him, until Bolan shoved him hard against a filthy wall.
“We don’t have time for this!” he snapped. “No saffron on the menu, get it? Someone wants you dead. We need to get the hell away from here.”
His contact registered the password, blinked at Bolan in surprise, then nodded. “Yes,” he said. “I understand. This way!”
The next gunshot was well off target, fired from somewhere on the street into the alley’s mouth. It ricocheted off dirty bricks and burrowed into garbage, while the Executioner followed his contact through London Mews. A clutch of beggars tried to intercept them, then fell supine at the sight of Bolan’s gun.
They burst from the alley into another crowded street. Calcutta had no other kind, it seemed, and Bolan had mixed feelings for the crush of soiled humanity. Bodies provided cover, but they also clogged his field of fire. Pedestrians might shield him from his unknown enemies—or there might be assassins in the crowd, ready to slip a blade between his ribs.
Without a vehicle or ready options, Bolan trailed his contact south along a street he soon identified as Churchill Boulevard. The street was lined with panhandlers and prostitutes, with a snake charmer performing on the corner just ahead. As they approached the intersection, yet another thug appeared in front of Bolan’s guide, this one clutching a stubby pistol in both hands.
Before Bolan could aim and fire, his contact stooped beside the snake charmer, plucked up a startled cobra from the old man’s wicker basket, spun and pitched it straight into the shooter’s face. Their adversary squealed and dropped his weapon, flailing at the reptile draped around his shoulders.
Bolan left him to it, racing past and following his contact through a hard right turn into another carbon-copy street. They found a recessed doorway, ducked into its shadow, Bolan’s contact peering out to check the street behind them.
“That was pretty slick,” Bolan said, “with the snake. I didn’t catch your name in the excitement.”
“Abhaya Takeri,” the young man replied. “And yours?”
“Matt Cooper,” Bolan said. Today, at least.
“I don’t believe we should
