be best if someone drove and someone shot.” She looked Bolan up and down with genuine appreciation. “I’m going to trust you on the shooting part.”
Bolan shrugged. “I’m thinking the airport is a death trap.”
“I agree.”
Bolan glanced eastward toward French Guiana. “It’s just under two hundred miles to Cayenne.”
“Have I shown you the embassy armory?” the station chief inquired. “It’s lovely.”
THE VOLVO FLEW through the rainforest. After passing Nieuw Amsterdam, the coastal highway had swung inland. They were about thirty miles from the Maroni River and the border with French Guiana. Lush jungle encroached on either side. It was high noon, and the heat was scorching. Sane people in South America spared themselves and their vehicles during this time of day. They passed few cars and saw even fewer people. It was a perfect place for an ambush, and if the enemy was going to do it, they would have to do it soon.
The outside temperature was more than one hundred degrees. It had rained buckets ten minutes earlier, but there was no sign of it save occasional steam rising out of the shelter of the jungle. The Volvo slid down the highway like a blissfully air-conditioned dream at a comfortable sixty-five miles per hour. Comfortable was the word. If Kiraly suddenly floored it, Bolan doubted much more would happen.
The car hit a pothole and the package tied to the luggage rack thumped on the roof, a metallic reminder.
Bolan watched the heat images shimmer on the road ahead. “I know the air-conditioning is on, but why don’t you open the windows?”
Kiraly hit the power windows and superheated air swept inside the car interior. The speed of the car did little to mitigate the heat. The sunroof slid open, and the sun blasted down like light through a magnifying glass.
“I see why you love this car,” Bolan said.
She shook her head decisively. “You’d better not get this car killed, or…” Her voice trailed off as she caught Bolan’s expression. “What?”
The soldier reached for his rucksack on the floor. “Here they come.”
In the side mirror Bolan could see a pickup truck pulling out of the heat mirages behind them. It was coming up very fast.
Four motorcycles fanned out around it like outriders of the Apocalypse.
“Drive,” Bolan commanded.
Kiraly put the pedal to the floor of her ten-year-old, four-cylinder station wagon. They weren’t going to drive their way out of this one.
The pickup was gaining steadily. The motorcycles flew forward like hornets. Each bike carried two men. One man drove; the man behind carried a gun.
They would be in range in seconds.
Bolan clicked down the folding metal foregrip on the Beretta 93-R. The detachable skeleton stock was already affixed. He flicked the machine pistol’s selector switch to 3-round-burst mode, grimacing as he turned in his seat. The gunners on the motorcycles were carrying FN-FAL rifles. The big battle rifles were easily capable of chewing a Volvo to pieces. Accuracy would be problematic, but the assassins probably weren’t worried about that.
They intended to drive right up and dump their weapons into the car on full-auto at point-blank range.
Bolan stood up through the sunroof, shouldered his weapon and braced himself in the frame. The wind ripped at him as Kiraly pushed the car for all it was worth. Bolan roared over the searing wind, “Keep it straight!”
One of the motorcycles suddenly shot forward like an arrow. The driver’s face was lost behind the mirrored visor of his helmet. The gunner’s leer of blood lust was openly visible. He struggled to aim his weapon at the rear tires of the Volvo. Bullets ripped divots out of the road surface as his weapon hammered on automatic. The range was too long and the rifle too powerful to control, and his burst climbed away from his target.
The driver gunned his engine and shot forward to close the distance.
Bolan grimaced. Trying to shoot out the tires meant the enemy was going for a capture.
The gunner steadied himself for another burst. Bolan ignored him. He peered along the barrel, then squeezed his trigger.
The driver jerked backward as the burst walked up his chest and neck and punched in the visor of his helmet. The scream of the gunner was lost as the motorcycle went up on its rear wheel and drove out from under the riders. Gunner and driver hit the road in a seventy-five-mile-per-hour pinwheel of breaking bones. The other three motorcycles swerved wildly to avoid the rolling carnage.
Behind them the pickup continued to close in.
Bolan steadied himself and aimed his weapon. The three rifles facing him ripped into life.
The only defense was offense. Bolan stood and shot.
A second motorcycle spun out of control as the soldier printed three 9 mm hollowpoints into the driver’s chest. Men and motorcycle rolled in an orgy of twisting metal and rending flesh. The other two gunmen continued to fire.
Bolan’s jaw slammed against the roof of the Volvo, and he nearly lost his weapon as one of the rear tires exploded with a lucky hit. He was nearly flung from the sunroof as Kiraly violently overcorrected to keep the car on the road. Bolan held on to the luggage rack for dear life, but the aluminum strut ripped free in his hand. Only his legs scissored around the headrest kept Bolan connected to the car as the vehicle fishtailed.
The Executioner squeezed his knees together with all of his strength as he took the Beretta in both hands. Kiraly could barely keep the car on the road. Bolan fired burst after burst trying to compensate for the slewing vehicle. The motorcycles came on with both rifles blazing. Bullets chewed into the rear bumper. The remains of the rear tire shredded away, and the Volvo dipped sickeningly to one side. Metal screamed as the wheel bit into the roadway. The roof of the car tore in a line beside Bolan’s elbow, and a whip cracked by Bolan’s ear as a bullet missed his head by inches.
The Beretta recoiled in Bolan’s hand and locked back on empty as he fired off his last burst. The driver of the closest motorcycle jerked as a bullet took him in the shoulder, and the gunner behind him rubbernecked as the second bullet of the burst took him in the face. The gunner fell off the back motorcycle with his rifle still firing.
The burst from his dead hand climbed up the back of his driver.
The motorcycle veered sharply as the driver collapsed and fell into the path of his wingman. Breaking humans and breaking motorcycles bounced and rolled in their death throes across the pavement.
The pickup came on, hitting a body and rolling right over it. Armed men stood in the truck bed clinging to the roll bar. Bolan recognized the shape of an RPG-7 rocket launcher. The truck was closing to within range.
Bolan dropped the Beretta and shoved himself backward to secure his footing in the car. He reached for the flopping remains of the luggage rack and pulled off the bungee cords that held his package.
The Executioner ripped the canvas cover off the M-60 general-purpose machine gun.
He racked the action of the M-60 and pulled open the legs of the bipod. He crouched
