dress himself, acutely conscious of the fact that they were wasting precious time. Whether his gunshots had been noted in the seedy neighborhood or not, there was a chance that reinforcements might arrive at any moment. If that happened…
Murton wobbled on his feet as Bolan held him upright, then took baby steps in the direction of the exit. “Godda go,” he said. “Somebud comin’.”
Bolan didn’t question that, assuming there’d been some form of communication with his captors during Murton’s ordeal, or that Murton had a rough idea of when new torturers arrived to spell the old. Whatever, it was time for them to hit the street.
The prisoner would need a medic, then they’d need to talk about the other prisoner whom Bolan had been sent to rescue, if that still was possible. In either case, his job was half-done, more or less.
If they could only make it back to Bolan’s car alive.
He helped Murton limp down three flights of stairs to the ground floor, led him to the main street exit and unlocked it from inside. The cool night air seemed to refresh Murton a little, helped him to pick up his lagging pace. They’d covered half a block when headlights washed across them, from behind. Doors slammed, and Murton turned back toward the sound.
“Shid!” he exclaimed. “Run now!”
Bolan glanced back in time to see four new arrivals on the sidewalk, staring after them and jabbering together, one of them already reaching underneath his jacket for a weapon.
Murton had it right.
Run now!
2
Half carrying the man he’d rescued moments earlier—one-ninety if he weighed an ounce—Bolan reached the nearest corner, ducked around it and stopped there. Propped Murton up against the rough brick wall and peered back toward the place they’d come from, gun in hand.
“Why stoppen?” Murton asked him, slurring.
“To see if I can end it here,” Bolan replied, his index finger on the ALFA’s trigger.
But it wasn’t meant to play that way, apparently. Instead of giving chase, the four goons from the car—it could have been a Citroën, maybe something manufactured locally—were piling back into their vehicle. It bought Bolan a little time, but precious little. And none to waste on conversation with a man who was barely conscious.
Bolan made his choice. He half crouched and drove his shoulder into Murton’s gut, already bruised and aching. With a whoof! the battered man slumped over Bolan’s shoulder, perfectly positioned for a fireman’s carry. Bolan flexed his legs and bore the weight, turned toward the nearby darkened side street where he’d left his Volvo S80 and broke into the fastest run that he could manage under the circumstances.
It reminded him of combat on another battlefield, retrieving wounded comrades under fire. He’d always done his best to keep faith with the Special Forces credo that no soldier stays behind. That wasn’t always possible, of course—sometimes you had to make the choice of dying with a corpse or moving on to fight another day—but his record was better than average.
And leaving Murton alive with the men who’d abducted him wasn’t an option.
Bolan heard an engine growling as he reached the Volvo, used its tab to pop the door locks from a distance, and upon reaching the vehicle he began the chore of putting Murton in a seat. He chose the rear, where Murton could lie down and be out of sight, though not entirely safe from any bullets slicing through the Volvo’s coachwork. At the very least, a backseat ride would keep him out of Bolan’s lap and clear from Bolan’s line of fire.
Murton cooperated to the best of his ability, huffing and groaning as he rolled onto the Volvo’s rear bench seat and drawing in his legs as Bolan slammed the door. A quick dash to the driver’s side, key twist, ignore the chime that warned him of a shoulder harness left unfastened, and they pulled out from the curb just as the other car found them with its headlights, closing in.
The Volvo’s five-speed automatic transmission left both of Bolan’s hands free for driving—or for fighting, if it came to that. The duffel bags containing most of his new weapons were concealed in the sedan’s trunk, out of reach for the moment, but he still had the ALFA autoloader with nine rounds remaining and four extra magazines secured in pockets. If he couldn’t stop the chase car and its occupants with fifty-three live rounds…well, then, what good was he?
But Bolan’s first choice was evasion and escape.
He’d killed three men already, in their lair at Oskar’s gym, but that was vastly different than a running firefight through the streets of Prague. Even at night, the city never really slept. A fair share of its approximately 1.2 million inhabitants had work to do at any hour of the day or night, including a municipal police department with fifteen district headquarters spotted around the 192-square-mile metro area. He could meet one of their silver Škoda Octavia prowl cars at any turn, and since his private code barred any use of deadly force against police, most of his options would be lost in that event.
He drove without a plan so far, aware that he was winding toward Old Town, the ancient heart of Prague where early settlers had put down roots nearly twelve hundred years ago. It was the last place where he wanted to be trapped, surrounded by the landmarks that drew tourists, with a greater likelihood of meeting the police, and so he scrolled a street map of the city that he’d memorized while he was airborne, seeking options.
If he had it right, they were about to exit Prague 5—one of Prague’s twenty-two administrative districts—and enter Prague 4, specifically a suburb known as Kunratice. If he could lose the Citroën in its winding streets, so much the better. And if not…
It would be time for drastic action.
JI
“Overtake them, will you? If you can’t do that, pull over now and let me drive!”
“This is a DS4,” Durych reminded him, keeping his eyes locked on the target. “Not a goddamned Maserati.”
“Can you get us within shooting distance, or is that too much to ask?” Kostka demanded.
“Don’t you think I’m trying?”
“Well, stop trying, then, and do it!”
Kostka realized his anger was misplaced, but he was known for his explosive temper, one of several qualities that had resulted in his elevation to the post of squad leader within the Werich syndicate. Unlike some blowhards he had met, Kostka’s bite was worse than his bark, a fact well recognized by everyone who knew him. He would strike without a second thought and kill without remorse.
So why, in God’s name, had he let the runners slip away from him outside Oskar’s gym?
Something about the tall man, when he turned to glare at Kostka on the sidewalk, had persuaded Kostka in a heartbeat that they would be wise to let him think he had escaped, then run him down and kill him while his back was turned, and either retrieve
