Don Pendleton - Day of Mourning

From where he lay on the ground, Gridell felt the hot flashes brought on by loss of blood. He swung his .38 around to track on the two hit men.

"Dave! Fall back!" Gridell shouted weakly.

The Ingrams opened up again.

A tight pattern of double-figure-eight automatic fire hammered Robbins. He twitched and jerked in a wild shudder of rupturing flesh and spraying blood.

"Dave!" screamed Bob Gridell even as he triggered off two fast rounds that thwacked into Ismet Kemal and blew away his face.

Then the wounded Company agent saw the second terrorist tracking his machine gun toward him. In that instant, the CIA man knew he was too old for this work when he saw Death aiming at him.

Then a totally stunned look appeared on Izmir's face as a mighty unseen force made the terrorist stop in his tracks, then stumble a few feet and drop.

The back of Izmir's head was a bloody pulp.

A black figure, which for one crazed moment Bob Gridell thought was Death himself, emerged from the loan-office building.

Gridell saw a big man gliding over the killground, moving across the parking lot like a suburbanite out for a late-night jog.

Phoenix.

"Phoenix! Wait!"

The wounded agent forced himself to stand. Pain ripped through him as he came up on one knee.

He kept a tight grip on his .38.

Four rounds left.

The shadowy specter did not stop.

The night swallowed the wraith that saved Bob Gridell's life.

Grimacing in agony, Gridell hobbled after the nightscorcher.

He averted his eyes from the butchered remains of Dave Robbins.

Bolan traveled soundlessly through the desolate backyards of suburbia.

The chatter of machine-gun fire in the neighborhood had naturally raised a furor.

The commotion brought frightened interest as night-robed suburbanites appeared on the front porches of the houses that faced the battle zone.

It was clear to the Executioner that he had followed the wrong trail, at least concerning the sabotage and probable imminent attack on Stony Man Farm.

The Armenian terrorists' arrival had been a coincidence.

There was nothing more for Bolan to do here.

Two Armenian enforcers were dead.

So were the Mafia killers who had come to ambush them.

Society would not miss them.

That was enough for Bolan.

A CIA agent died hard tonight. Another wounded, but not bad enough to keep the guy down.

Bolan sensed the wounded Company man on his trail even now, slow and painful, but sure.

This blitzer was withdrawing, rather than fire on an agent. And because this false trail had brought Bolan nothing but trouble, he needed answers.

Fast.

Who?

He was twenty meters from his parked Mustang, moving toward it fast when he saw the dark shape of the van across the intersection from his car. The van appeared not to have moved since following Bolan here.

The van.

The next step.

The nightfighter sensed rather than heard the rustle of movement from the darkness to his right and left.

The Executioner dived to the ground.

A twin barrage of automatic-weapons fire split the night from two directions, stitching the air around him with blistering fusillades of sudden death.

The ambushers were using flash suppressors.

Bolan could not tell from which direction the automatic fire issued, only that there were two gunners.

He hit the ground in a loose roll that took him out of their line of fire. Bolan did not return fire, but remained flat on the ground, knowing he would be an impossible target to find now.

There was a rustle of hurried movement somewhere in the night beyond Bolan's range of vision. He heard the slap of receding footfalls on the pavement.

The rental Mustang was now some forty feet away from Bolan's position.

From somewhere back in the vicinity of the Interstate Loan Association building, where the slaughter had just taken place, the wounded CIA agent would be closing in on him, Bolan was sure.

The sound of vehicle doors being pulled shut carried on the night breeze from the direction of the parked van.

Bolan started jogging toward the van.

As he silently glided past the Mustang, he reached down without slowing and picked up a fair sized rock from the garden of the corner residence.

In a crouch, the nightfighter angled closer toward the vehicle's occupants.

Bolan knew this play, a classic urban guerrilla hit tactic. If hewas right.

When he was far enough away from the Mustang, he tossed the rock over his shoulder.

The stone hit the side of the rental car, and in the night air it sounded like the sedan's door being pulled shut.

Bolan charged at the van full speed now, the .44 AutoMag gripped in his right hand, but the vehicle was still another ten meters away from the intersection.

The Executioner braced himself as he ran.

He heard the explosion behind him an instant after the rock hit the Mustang. The blast lit up the night with a silver flash that rocked the ground under Bolan's feet.

He was right.

The Mustang was wired to explode in case the ambush was not successful.

The night blitzer looked back to see the rental car go up in a fireball eruption.

The van roared to life and the vehicle shot forward.

At first Bolan thought he would not catch the van before it got away.

But the driver decided to withdraw on the same street that led back to the main avenue by which the vehicle had followed Bolan there.

They were too sure of themselves.

The van swung in a screeching U-turn that almost capsized the vehicle.

The driver stood on the gas as the bulky vehicle lurched forward, accelerating the hell out of there — on a course that would take it right past Bolan's position on the tree-lined street.

Without slacking pace, Bolan reholstered the AutoMag. He used his momentum to jump and grab a low-hanging branch.

He hoisted himself up into the lower branches as the van gunned by beneath him. Bolan dropped onto the vehicle as it sped by, spraddling himself on the roof. He knew that the occupants of the hurtling van would hear the thump of his landing but not have time to react.

He gripped the left bar of the roof rack to steady himself on the slippery surface. With his right hand, Bolan pointed the .44 AutoMag into the cab of the speeding vehicle. He opened fire blindly.

Someone screamed shrilly.

"Agh! My ear! He shot off my fucking ear!"

The van reached the intersection.

The driver yanked to the left in a wide arc that caused the wheels to ride the curb with enough impact to loosen Bolan's grip on the roof rack, pitching him to the ground.

He landed on the springy turf of a well-tended lawn, coming out of the roll in time to see the glow of the red taillights diminishing in the distance as the speeding van rocketed past the hulk of the flaming Mustang.

The sound of squealing tires filled the night air as the fleeing vehicle began a mad swerving pattern.

The wandering van presented an almost impossible target for the ace marksman. But Bolan decided not to risk a shot that could endanger innocent bystanders in this residential area.

He turned on his heel and jogged back along the street to where the CIA agents had parked their Ford near the Interstate offices.

Bolan saw no sign of the wounded CIA man who had started to follow him.

He reached through the driver's-side window of the Agency car and felt along the steering column. The keys were in it. He slapped the big AutoMag back into sideleather on his hip, then climbed into the Ford. The Executioner gunned the car to life and burned rubber in hot pursuit after the escaping van.

Bob Gridell's heart pounded against his rib cage like a jackhammer. The injured CIA man forced himself to walk along on the dark street in pursuit of the big gunman.