had a sadistic streak beneath the logic.
“Fine,” Ackroyd said.
“Good. You may leave. I wish to talk to Mr. Sparrow now.”
Sparrow gestured and Alexi stepped in, hooked the old man’s arm and jerked him to his feet. Once Sparrow had watched them go he said, “He’s gone.”
“You have the tickets?”
Annoyed, Sparrow bit back a retort. “Yes,” he said. “What’ll I do about Horst and Bridges? Their bodies...”
“They are dead and in no position to complain. Forget them. All that matters is getting Ackroyd to Anchorage on schedule. Can you do that, Mr. Sparrow?”
“Of course,” Sparrow said, harsher than he’d intended.
“Good. I would hate to see you meet the same fate as Horst and Bridges.”
Sparrow licked his lips, suddenly nervous, and asked, “What—ah—what about the interference?”
“What about him? If he tries again, kill him. If not, then it does not matter. All that matters is getting Ackroyd to Anchorage, Mr. Sparrow. That is all you should be concerned with.” There was a click. Sparrow stared at the phone for a moment.
“Vril-YA, motherfucker,” he grunted.
The warehouse sat just outside the central business district of Reno. It was surrounded by several blocks of nothing in particular save more warehouses. Being a Sunday, those warehouses were empty and the surrounding area was quiet. From the Executioner’s point of view, that was perfect. No one around meant little in the way of potential collateral damage. He hefted the Heckler & Koch and examined it one last time. Such meticulous attention to his equipment had saved his life on more than one occasion.
The address Brognola had run down was gold. Bolan’s opponents were either lazy and overconfident, or they didn’t plan on staying long after grabbing Ackroyd. The warehouse was registered to SunCo Industries. Bolan had never heard of it. Nonetheless, as he examined the warehouse from the roof of its closest neighbor, he wondered if the address had been chosen at random, or whether there was a connection between these men and where they’d chosen to fort up. But that was a consideration for another time. Better to concentrate on the matter at hand.
A quick scouting foray had revealed a number of cars parked behind the warehouse. Bolan had efficiently disabled all of the vehicles, removing spark plugs or puncturing tires. After that, it had been a simple matter to break into a nearby warehouse and get up to the roof via the HVAC access hatch. Bolan looked up at the sky. It was getting dark, or as dark as it got in Reno.
The Executioner let the UMP dangle from its sling and hefted his Plumett AL-52. The air-launcher was capable of throwing a grappling hook attached to a rope around one hundred meters. Taking aim, he fired. The Plumett gave a soft pop, and the grappling hook sailed over the gap between the two warehouses. The hooks dug into the opposite roof. Bolan gave the rope an experimental tug and then set the Plumett down on its weighted stand. The line would bear his weight long enough for him to get across the gap.
Bolan gripped the line with his gloved hands and swung off the warehouse roof, quickly interlacing his ankles over the rope. He hung suspended over the gap, his back to the ground, his face pointed at the sky. Then, hand over hand, he pulled himself toward his destination.
When Bolan was halfway across, he heard the squeal of hinges from below. He froze, risking a swift, upside-down glance at the ground. A shape moved out of a side door and stepped into the alley between the two warehouses. Bolan’s keen gaze caught a spark of light and he smelled the tang of a newly lit cigarette. He waited for a moment. Then, certain the figure below wasn’t looking up, Bolan continued to pull himself across the line. When he reached the edge of the roof, he hauled himself over and dropped to his feet, UMP ready. Satisfied that his arrival hadn’t been noticed, Bolan located the access hatch and entered the warehouse.
Lowering himself onto the gantry, he scanned the warehouse below. Bolan was well above the fluorescent lights that illuminated the mostly empty building. He could see a delivery truck at the loading dock and the serpentine coil of a conveyer belt that stretched across the interior of the building from one set of loading docks to the other. A few picnic tables and benches were off to the side, near a pair of soda machines and an office. Several men sat or stood nearby, including Ackroyd, who was steadily adding to a small pyramid of smoked-down and stubbed-out cigarette butts on the concrete floor between his feet. Ackroyd looked frightened. Bolan couldn’t blame him.
The men were a hard-looking lot. All white, all dressed like tourists... But tourists didn’t carry AR-15s and what appeared to be SIG-Pro semi-automatic pistols. There were six of them. Seven, if he counted the one who’d gone outside. Carefully, Bolan picked his way across the gantry, trying to get a view of the office. He could hear a raised voice coming from within.
Bolan set the UMP on the gantry rail, bracing it. Then he slowly unclipped several smoke grenades and two M84 stun grenades and set them down beside him, in a line. Five grenades would help to even the odds, if used correctly. But his targets were too clumped together. Normally, that wouldn’t be a problem, but Ackroyd was in the line of fire. Bolan needed to separate Ackroyd from his watchdogs. The Executioner swept his gaze across the warehouse, hunting. When he found what he was looking for, he crouch-walked across the gantry and removed one of a trio of throwing knives sheathed on his combat harness.
The flat, balanced blades were heavy enough not to result in bounce-back, but light enough that a man of Bolan’s strength could send them hurtling a great distance. The knives had been crafted by Stony Man’s own weaponsmith, John “Cowboy” Kissinger, according to Bolan’s specifications. While Bolan preferred his KA-BAR combat knife, there were times the lighter knives came in handy.
He took aim at the control panel for the conveyor belt. Then, with a whip-crack motion of one arm, the Executioner sent the blade spinning at the panel. It struck a wide button and with a grinding squeal, the conveyer belt rumbled into motion. Bolan quickly made his way back to his grenades. He stuck earplugs into his ears and placed a mouth guard between his teeth. Then he pulled a pair of tinted safety glasses from a pocket and put them on. Between the plugs and the glasses, he would be protected from his own handiwork.
Down below, the sudden activation of the conveyer had startled Ackroyd’s guards into motion. Sparrow peered out of the office, a cell phone in one hand. The three men who headed for the belt held their weapons loosely. An overconfident bunch, they clearly weren’t expecting an attack. Bolan clucked his tongue and gently lobbed a smoke grenade at the far-loading dock. Pulling the pin on a second, he dropped it from the gantry onto the moving conveyer belt. A second later, he sent the last wobbling through the air straight for the picnic tables. Then, snatching up the stun grenades in one hand, he dropped from the gantry to the top of the conveyer belt. He landed hard and bent his knees, propelling himself forward onto his belly. Lying flat, Bolan slid down the incline of the conveyer belt as the warehouse filled with smoke.
It was a risky maneuver, but it was the best one available to him. As the old maxim said, “when in doubt, attack.”
Bolan rode the belt between the two spreading clouds of smoke, his UMP at the ready. As he caught sight of the confused guards hurrying away from the picnic tables, he popped the pin on one of the M84s and sent the bomb hurtling at the small group.
The stun grenade emitted a blinding flash and a bang of 170 decibels—loud
