thugs race onto the stage. One of them spotted the sniper and pulled his sidearm from a holster.
The crowd exploded in wild panic.
The Beretta, switched to full-auto, snarled, and a salvo of rifle slugs stitched through the bodyguard’s rib cage, throwing him across the speaker’s corpse. Other security guards spotted the flaring muzzle-flash of the full-auto rifle, and their hands dropped to their guns. The marksman shifted his aim, tapping off a short burst that ripped the head off a second auditorium gunman. He whirled and raced several feet, pistol-caliber bullets ringing and clanging on the metal railing and grating at his feet.
The rifleman paused and spun, firing back at the stage, short precision bursts raking two more uniformed shooters. The sniper turned and raced away.
He sped down the catwalk and kicked open an access door to the roof.
The blaze of the sun lanced down on him, and he felt as if he’d dived through the jet of a flamethrower, but he didn’t allow himself a moment’s respite. The uniformed shock troopers would call in helicopters and backup vehicles to contain him. One did not blow the head off one of the radical government’s beloved own without incurring the wrath of a highly motivated police force.
He closed the folding stock on the rifle and slid down a roof access ladder. It was sixty feet to the ground, and the descent, sliding on the rails, would take several seconds. Gravity pulled him as he glanced around, the battle computer in his mind counting down doomsday numbers as he anticipated the arrival of armed guards.
He reached the ground after ten seconds that felt like an eternity, landed in a crouch and pulled the pistol from its holster. A quick dash through the shadows behind the auditorium would bring him closer to his wheels and escape. His deeply tanned features and a pair of sunglasses would mark him as just another driver in this land.
He charged full-out, racing toward the vehicle. Normally on an operation like this, the marksman would have his pilot, a good man who had been working along-side him for years, sitting behind the wheel. Unfortunately, the wingman was otherwise occupied. The crusader was on his own, and that was okay. Cameron Richards had fought alone before, and he was good at it.
As he closed on his car, another vehicle pulled in front of him. A pair of terrified eyes locked on him, catching full sight of him before he’d pulled on his glasses to disguise his features. There was a brief moment of uncomfortable uncertainty, the vehicle’s engine rumbling.
Richards aimed at the driver, a woman whose brown eyes widened at the arrival of the gun-toting commando. She’d seen him, could identify him, could link him to the assassination and possibly to the U.S. government, making a messy political disaster. He pulled the trigger on the Beretta and punched a 9 mm bullet through the open window and into her face.
Richards vaulted across the hood of the dead woman’s car and raced to his getaway car. He climbed behind the wheel and fired up the engine.
Tires screeched as he tromped the gas, darting out of the alley and toward a main street. Even as he crossed two lanes, he spotted the shock troopers hot on his heels. Richards hefted the Beretta 59 and leveled it as an LAPD squad car wheeled toward his rear bumper. With a pull of the trigger, the window disappeared in a spray of glass. High-powered rounds tore through the policemen’s Kevlar vests, killing the driver and rendering the cop riding shotgun close enough to dead that he didn’t feel the impact as his out of control car slammed a parked van.
Richards grimaced, but he had anticipated such a response to his escape route. One police car down and his own wheels had lost their anonymity with the shattered rear window. He ran his car up onto the curb. Civilians scattered in panic. He burst out of the driver’s seat, leaving his Berettas behind and charging down into the subway. He discarded the cotter pin he’d yanked from the grenade he’d stuffed under his car’s seat.
At the top of the steps, the detonating automobile sprayed violence and horror into downtown Los Angeles. No one would be able to cut through the carnage left at the subway entrance.
The explosion also parted the crowd ahead of him. He had free sailing down to the platform and he vaulted the turnstiles. With the apocalypse detonating above him, the ticket agents weren’t interested in harassing him for his fare. Richards raced to the edge of the platform and jumped off, racing into the tunnels.
He’d stored a cache of clothes. It would take only thirty minutes to reach it and fade into the crowd.
One more enemy of the United States was dead, and the message was sent.
1
Mack Bolan looked over the reports Hal Brognola had assembled. The Executioner had been wrapping up business in San Francisco when Los Angeles became ground zero of an assault.
Bolan paused, looking at the photograph of the automobile where Rosa Trujillo had been murdered. The crime scene photos had been taken before the coroner had removed the body, and Bolan felt a knot of disgust form in his gut.
“Amanijad was a lawyer for the ACLU. He’d just achieved a court hearing for two Arab-Americans who were being held without charges,” Brognola explained.
Bolan glanced over to the lawyer’s photographs spread on the conference table. His frown deepened as he saw a photograph of a slain police officer, also murdered by the mystery assassin.
“He was sending a message,” Bolan stated.
“About what?” Brognola grumbled.
“This speech was in direct response to finally letting two men have their day in court,” Bolan said. “Someone didn’t want the particulars of that case heard.”
“I looked at the files on those arrests,” Brognola said. “It was sloppy, speculative work all around. Circumstantial evidence at best.”
Bolan nodded. “I heard about the case too. Three years without seeing a lawyer or even knowing what they were being charged with. They even spent some time in Camp X-Ray.”
“Interrogation results were inconclusive,” Brognola said.
Bolan picked up the photo detailing the carnage caused by the grenade in the assassin’s car. The shootings were acts of efficiency. Minimum firepower for maximum effect. The grenade itself provided a barrier of fire and catastrophe between police pursuit and the escaping killer. The cops would pause to help the dying and wounded, and be slowed with the hunk of burning metal barring the subway entrance.
It was a coldly efficient means of stopping the law.
He stacked the photos and inserted them back into the file folder. The images and information within were burned into his memory. He fought down his anger, cramming it into his reserves of strength to keep his mind clear and analytical. When the time came, the Executioner would take the death dealer down.
CARLO ADMUSSEN LIT UP a cigarette and caught a fierce glare from his partner, Maurice Einhard.
“Do you fucking see everything around you?” Einhard asked.
Admussen glanced around at the crates of rifles and grenades stacked around their warehouse. “Yup.”
“So the problem with starting a fire in the midst of all this fucking firepower doesn’t ring a bell?” Einhard snapped.
Admussen
