Guzman didn’t sound convinced.
Two sets of headlights trailed the Fiat through its final turn. No, make that three. The final car in line was playing catch-up, running just a bit behind.
“Sooner is better,” Bolan told Guzman.
As if in answer to his words, a muzzle-flash erupted from the passenger’s side of the leading chase car. The initial burst was hasty, not well aimed, but Bolan knew they would improve with practice.
“Are they shooting at us?” Guzman asked, sounding surprised.
“Affirmative. We’re running out of time.”
“Hang on!”
With only that as warning, Guzman cranked hard on the Fiat’s wheel and put them through a rubber-squealing left-hand turn. At first, Bolan thought he was taking them into some kind of parking lot, but then he saw lights far ahead and realized it was a narrow access road between the leather plant and yet another factory, much like its neighbor in the darkness, when its lighted windows were the only things that showed.
Somewhere behind him, Bolan thought that he heard the hopeless cries of cattle being herded into slaughter pens. It seemed appropriate, but did nothing to lighten Bolan’s mood.
“We still need—”
Guzman interrupted him without a spoken word, spinning the wheel again, feet busy with the gas pedal, the clutch, the brake. He took them through a long bootlegger’s turn, tires crying out in protest as they whipped through a 180-degree rotation and wound up facing toward their pursuers.
“Is there ‘stretch’ enough?” Guzman asked.
Bolan glanced to either side, saw waste ground stretching off into the night. The hulks of cast-off vehicles and large machines waiting for someone to remove them sat like gargoyles, casting shadows darker than the night itself.
“We’ll find out in a second,” Bolan said. “Give them your brights and find some cover.”
Leaping from the vehicle, Bolan ran to his right and crouched behind a generator easily as tall as he was, eight or ten feet long. Approaching headlights framed the Fiat, glinting off its chrome, but the pursuers would’ve lost Bolan as soon as he was off the pavement.
As for Guzman…
Bolan heard the crack of a 9 mm Parabellum pistol, saw the muzzle-flash from Guzman’s side of the Fiat. Downrange, there came the sound of glass breaking, and one of the onrushing headlights suddenly blacked out.
Not bad, if that was Guzman’s aim, but would he do as well with human targets that returned fire, with intent to kill?
Bolan supposed he’d find out any moment, now, and in the meantime he was moving, looking for a vantage point that would surprise his enemies while still allowing him substantial cover.
He assumed that some of them, at least, had seen him breaking toward their left, his right. He couldn’t help that, but he didn’t have to make it easy for them, either, popping up where they’d expect a frightened man to stand and fight.
Fear was a part of what he felt. No soldier who was sane ever completely lost that feeling when the bullets started flying, but he’d never given in to fear, let it control or paralyze him.
Fear, if properly controlled, made soldiers smart, kept them from being reckless when it did no good. The mastery of fear prevented them from freezing up, permitted them to risk their lives selectively, when it was time to do or die.
Like now.
“HE’S TURNING! Watch it!”
Krieger realized that he was shouting at Pacheco, but the driver didn’t seem to hear or understand him. How could the pathetic creature not see what was happening two hundred yards in front of him?
After its left-hand turn down another dark and narrow access road between two factories, the target vehicle had first accelerated, then spun through a racing turn that left its headlights pointing toward Krieger’s two-car caravan. At first, he thought the crazy bastard was about to charge head-on, but then he realized the other car had stopped. Its headlights blazed to high beams, briefly blinding him, as doors flew open on both sides.
“They’re getting out! Watch—There! And there!
He pointed, but Pacheco and the idiots seated behind him didn’t seem to understand. Pacheco held the wheel steady, but he was slowing as he approached the stationary vehicle they had followed from the airport.
“Christ! Will you be careful?”
Even as he spoke, a shot rang out and Krieger raised an arm to shield his face. The bullet drilled his windshield, clipped the rearview mirror from its post, but missed all four of those who occupied the Volkswagen.
“Get out, damn you!” he snapped at no one in particular, and flung his own door open, using it for cover as he rolled out of the car.
It wasn’t perfect, granted. Anyone who took his time and aimed could probably hit Krieger in the feet or lower legs—even a ricochet could cripple him—but all he needed was a little time to find himself a better vantage point.
He could’ve fired the Walther blindly, made a run for it, but Krieger hated wasting any of the pistol’s sixteen rounds. He had two extra magazines but hadn’t come prepared for any kind of siege and wanted every shot to count.
Both of his riflemen were firing now, short bursts from their CZ2000 Czech assault rifles. They had the carbine version, eighteen inches overall with wire butts folded, each packing a drum magazine with seventy-five 5.56 mm NATO rounds. The little guns resembled sawed-off AK-47s, but in modern times had been retooled to readily accept box magazines from the American M-16 rifle, as well as their own standard loads.
The CZ2000 fired at a cyclic rate of 800 rounds per minute, but Krieger and Rauschman had drilled the mestizos on conserving ammunition, firing aimed and measured bursts in spite of any panic they might feel. So far, it seemed they were remembering their lessons, taking turns as they popped up behind the Volkswagen and stitched holes in the Fiat.
Krieger saw his chance and made his move, sprinting into the midnight darkness of a field directly to his right. He’d seen enough in the periphery of headlights to determine that the field was presently a dumping ground for out-of-date or broken-down equipment. Krieger reckoned he could use the obstacles for cover.
As he crept along through dusty darkness, eardrums echoing to gunfire, Krieger took stock of his advantages. He had eight men, himself included, against two. As far as he could tell, his weapons were superior to those his enemies possessed. He should be able to destroy them without difficulty.
Now, the disadvantages, which every canny soldier had to keep in mind. Krieger was unfamiliar with the battleground, and he could see no better in the darkness than his adversaries could. Night-vision goggles would’ve helped, but how was he to know that they’d be needed?
Another deficit: his men, with one exception—Arne Rauschman—were mestizos, capable of murder but indifferent as soldiers. They obeyed Krieger and his superiors from greed, fear, or a combination of the two. Still, if their nerve broke and their tiny peasant minds were gripped by fear, they might desert him.
Not
