Don Pendleton - Run to Ground

"Fine." He did not seem inclined to argue with her. "You won't mind if I look through your stock, for something that could save our lives?"

The doctor blushed bright crimson, bit her tongue and handed him the key to her drug locker. Bolan turned his back on her, opening the whitewashed cabinet and scanning the contents of its shelves, selecting half a dozen bottles and arranging them along the countertop. She saw that one of them was hydrochloric acid, and she closed her eyes, refusing to participate by indirection in the grim perversion of her healing tools.

"You'll need to move the girl," he told her after several moments. "She's exposed right now. Pick out an inside room and get her moved while there's still time." Almost as an afterthought, he added, "She'll be safer on the floor."

"How so?"

The warrior frowned, reached out and rapped his knuckles on the nearest wall. "Too thin," he said. "A burst of automatic fire will cut through this like it was paper. On the floor, she'll have the added cover of your cabinets, baseboards, furniture. It isn't much, but it's the best we've got."

"I see."

"We haven't got a lot of time to waste."

"I'm going!"

She had finished moving Amy, settling her in a corner of the third examination room, when she was conscious of a rapping on the clinic door that fronted Main Street. Moving cautiously toward the reception room, she heard the Executioner fall in behind her. From the side of the waiting room, she saw two men outside the door and knew that they were members of the raiding party that was laying siege to Santa Rosa.

She half turned toward Mack Bolan. He had drawn the pistol from his shoulder holster, and he held it with its muzzle toward the ceiling, one hand cupped around the other, in an attitude of readiness. "What should I do?"

"Go on and let them in," he said, "then hit the deck as if your life depended on it."

She had no doubts whatsoever that her life depended on following his orders precisely, and she nodded dumbly, conscious of the fact that he was using her to kill these men whom she had never seen before today. She salved her conscience with the knowledge that these men were no doubt murderers themselves, that they would kill her, and her patient in the other room, if they were not prevented by brute force. She recognized the grim necessity of what the soldier was about to do... and still it was no easier.

Her hand was trembling as she gripped the doorknob, turned it, swung the door wide open to admit her uninvited visitors. They shouldered past her, brandishing their weapons in her face, the taller of them reaching out to slam the door behind. His companion was examining Rebecca with disturbing frankness, grinning like a hungry jackal. "Muy bonita," he informed his sidekick, reaching out to cup her breast through the material of her blouse and lab coat.

Sudden panic gripped her, and she batted at his hand, her nails raking at his face. He caught her by the jacket, but she brought her heel down on his instep, grinding with all the pressure she could manage, and he gasped in pain, released her with a violent shove that sent her sprawling to the floor.

It was the shove, she later realized, that saved her life. Behind her, Bolan had emerged from hiding, leveling his pistol at the human targets, and she would have been directly in his line of fire if she had not been thrust aside so violently. The Hispanic gunmen saw Death coming, tried to beat the Reaper's time, but they were still off balance from the scuffle on the threshold, tracking with their weapons while the soldier was already squeezing off. It was no contest, and Rebecca watched them die.

The first round drilled her attacker through the forehead, exiting in a crimson mist that etched a grisly pattern on her wall. The dead man tumbled backward, jarring his companion's aim and giving Bolan time to place another round on target, this one drilling through the taller gunman's chest and slamming against the doorframe, pinning him in place while Bolan put another slug between his eyes.

Rebecca felt her stomach heaving, casting up its meager contents, choking off a startled scream as number two collapsed across her legs and briefly pinned her to the floor. She kicked out, desperately, and freed herself before Mack Bolan had a chance to reach her. He was bending down to offer her his hand when they were mutually startled by the back door's sudden and explosive opening. It slammed against the wall, the doorknob buried deep in plaster, and a crouching figure sprang across the threshold, sweeping left and right with what appeared to be a submachine gun.

Bolan was already pivoting to face the unexpected enemy, releasing Becky's hand, his weapon rising into target acquisition much too late, when thunder seemed to rip the corridor apart. Their adversary was immediately airborne, hurtling toward Bolan, spinning into rough collision with a wall and toppling to the carpet. Smears of blood stained the plaster where his shoulders had made contact with the wall.

They waited, frozen — Bolan in his combat crouch, Dr. Kent still on her knees beside him. He was poised to fire as yet another silhouette blocked out the doorway's light... and then he recognized the lawman's uniform.

It was Grant Vickers, with a shotgun cradled in his arms.

"You two all right?" he asked, and tension underlay his normal drawl.

"We're fine," she answered, glancing up at Bolan, leaning on him as she scrambled to her feet. The soldier stood erect, but he kept his automatic pistol in his hand, prepared for anything.

"We're getting by," the Executioner agreed.

The radio had told him that it was a hundred in the shade, but Enoch Snyder could not find a patch of shade up on the roof of Bud's garage. Some of the other structures lining Main Street might be taller, and they might have offered better cover, but he had been limited in time as well as in mobility. The laundry sack that covered his Garand would not fool anyone, and so he had been forced to scuttle like a pack rat through the alleys, ducking out of sight whenever anybody showed their face along his route. He dared not cross the street to find a better vantage point, with all those hostiles on the prowl. And it struck Old Enoch as poetic justice that the wrath of God should fall upon Bud's killers from the rooftop of his own garage. It just felt right.

Before they spotted him, he might have time to crank a whole clip off. Once he was seen, his fate was a foregone conclusion, but they would not take him easily, not like they took his friend. By God, he meant to make them dance before they brought him down, and no mistake.

His sunglasses were old and scratched, providing some protection from the glare but hindering his aim. He took them off and tossed them back across his shoulder, knowing that he would not need them anymore. Old Enoch waited, squinting through his lashes until he had grown accustomed to the light, and then he poked his head above the cornice for a quick look.

Downrange, the hunters were already kicking doors, ransacking shops and homes in search of their elusive prey. Old Enoch didn't know who they were hunting, but he wished the man well. He hoped they never found the poor, doomed bastard, that he got away scot-free and left them running empty circles in the desert. In the meantime, Snyder had a present for them, and he did not plan to keep the sons of bitches waiting any longer.

Scooting forward, so that he could rest his elbows on the cornice of the roof, Old Enoch eased off the M-1's safety and raised it to his shoulder, nestling his cheek against the stock the way a man might rest his head against a woman's shoulder.

Two gunners were emerging from the Laundromat, disgusted after learning that the place contained nothing but dust. They were jawing back and forth, unmindful of the danger they were in, when Enoch sighted quickly, easily, and shot the taller man in the face. You didn't need a fancy telescopic sight to see his forehead blossom scarlet, scalp and brains exploding as if the guy were snorting cherry bombs.