when there was a buck to be made.
Twelve-thirty p.m., which was what the Executioner’s watch read at the moment, was also a strange time of day for a drug transaction. Both the terrorists and the mafiosi had to have figured that all of the local lawmen had met someplace for lunch.
Bolan twisted the steering wheel and kicked up reddish-brown dust clouds beneath the Hummer’s tires. He leaned onto the accelerator again, driving along the packed-dirt county road only slightly slower than he had on the pavement. His eyes searched the horizon ahead, and he saw Jessup lift a pair of binoculars.
“This ground isn’t as flat as it looks,” the DEA man said. “It looks like you ought to be able to see all the way to Canada. But you can’t.”
“We’re only a few miles south of the Kansas state line and we can’t even see that,” the Executioner replied. “The terrain rises and falls so slowly and gently that it just looks flat. It can still block the view.”
Jessup nodded and dropped the binoculars to his lap. Bolan drove on.
Two and a half miles later, the Hummer topped one of the gentle rises the Executioner had mentioned and suddenly they could see a group of vehicles parked in the middle of a cow pasture. One Jeep and five pickups were parked in a circle roughly a half mile in front of them and a quarter mile or so off the road. Bolan hit the brakes and slowed to a speed that wouldn’t draw so much attention.
After all, the bright yellow Hummer was enough.
“Don’t you think we ought to hurry on in?” Jessup asked, turning toward the Executioner.
Bolan slowed even further and shook his head. “They’ve seen us,” he said. “Right about now, they’re all looking this way and speculating on who we are. Wealthy farmers with more money than good sense who bought a big yellow play toy? Or the law? The law would swoop in fast. But it wouldn’t be fast enough to keep most of them from getting away across the prairie.”
“Not to mention the fact that they’re going to start shooting as soon as it’s obvious the law is after them.” Jessup paused for a low chuckle, deep in his chest. “At least I’m the law,” he said. “I still haven’t figured out exactly who or what you are.”
The Executioner chuckled himself. All Jessup knew was that he had been assigned to work with Bolan—whom he knew as Matt Cooper—for a series of drug deals to which his snitch was privy. He had already seen Cooper bend conventional law so far as to break it. But it was always for a final good, and the end really did always justify the means.
“You’re right about the shooting,” Bolan finally said. “As soon as I turn this baby their way, it’s going to start. So the longer I can stay on the county road, the more it’ll appear that we’re just headed for someplace past them.” He paused and took in a breath. “That means I’m going to wait until we’re right across from them and then cut a hard right their way.”
“Short of bringing in air support, that’s about as good a plan as I can think of,” Jessup said. He leaned forward and slid an AR-15 from beneath the Hummer’s passenger’s seat. Pulling back the bolt of the semiautomatic version of the military’s M-16, he chambered a round, all the time keeping the weapon below the windows of the vehicle.
The Executioner knew he would need both hands on the wheel for the breakneck turn he had planned in the next few seconds, so he left his 9 mm Heckler & Koch MP-5 submachine gun where it lay near his feet. Then, as soon as he was perpendicular to the cars parked out in the cow pasture, he whipped the Hummer their way.
The Hummer fishtailed slightly as it descended into a deep bar ditch. Then it straightened again as it climbed up the other side. The sturdy personnel vehicle punched through the barbed-wire fence between two wooden posts as if it were snapping a dry rubber band. The razor-sharp barbs on the strands dragged across the Hummer’s sides, scratching deeply into the yellow paint job. A second later, they were creating another dust storm behind them. But this time, the clouds flying up through the air from the Hummer’s tires included not only dirt but long blades of wild grass.
Bolan and Jessup had been right in their assessment of the drug dealers’ reaction.
The shooting started immediately.
The Executioner heard several engines roar to life, and then the Jeep and two of the pickups fled from the oncoming Hummer. The loud, frightened mooing of several dozen cattle, who had gathered together deeper into the pasture, rose up between the other noises as the escaping vehicles headed toward them, forcing the animals to part, and causing them to stampede in opposite directions.
The men escaping, Bolan knew, had to be the sellers, who already had their money. The buyers of the cocaine were still loading cardboard boxes into the backs of their vehicles from piles on the ground. But now they were forced to postpone that task and turn toward Bolan and Jessup.
“We can go after the guys with the money,” Bolan said. “Or we can get the guys with the dope right here.” He paused for a second, then added, “But we may not be able to get them both.”
“Let’s go for the dope,” Jessup said without hesitation. “At least we can keep it from getting onto the streets.”
“You’re right,” Bolan agreed. Reaching inside his light jacket, he drew the sound-suppressed Beretta 93-R. In the corner of his eye, he saw Jessup kneel his right leg on the seat, then wrap the seat belt tightly around his calf. As Bolan extended the Beretta out the window with his left hand, Jessup leaned out with his entire torso.
Both men began firing simultaneously.
As the Hummer crested a short rise in the pasture, it went momentarily airborne. Both the Executioner and the DEA agent waited for it to settle on flatter ground, then pulled their respective triggers.
A trio of subsonic, nearly inaudible 9 mm hollowpoint rounds rocketed from Bolan’s Beretta. One round struck the shoulder of a man wearing a charcoal-gray suit and striped tie. Bolan frowned slightly, then nodded. The pickups the Mafia gunners had chosen fit right in with the landscape, but their clothing made them stand out.
Next to him, the Executioner heard Jessup pop off three semiauto rounds from his AR-15. They were still at least an eighth of a mile away, and none of the .223-caliber rounds seemed to find a target.
By now, the mafiosi in the field had taken cover around their pickups—three almost identical Toyota Tundras. One was burgundy colored, another green and the third one blue. All were parked with their beds facing the oncoming Hummer, the tailgates were down and the cargo areas roughly half-filled with cardboard boxes.
Cardboard boxes that, the Executioner knew, had to contain kilo after kilo of white powdered cocaine.
A rifle round struck the Hummer’s windshield, then skimmed up off the bullet-resistant material. Only a tiny speck appeared on the glass to show where it had hit. Bolan drove on, squeezing the trigger of his Beretta yet again. This time all three rounds of automatic fire struck the right front fender of the green pickup as the same man he’d hit in the shoulder a little earlier ducked back behind the engine block.
Jessup fired again, and Bolan saw the rear windshield of the blue pickup shatter into thousands of tiny pieces.
“Dammit!” the DEA man shouted as he pulled his rifle back inside the Hummer.
Bolan glanced his way as he sped on toward the pickups. The still-smoking brass
