Don Pendleton - Battle Cry

Behind him, he heard his two other men priming their weapons, an Uzi for Ferguson and an Armalite AR-18 assault rifle for Whishart. Their driver, Duncan Nilsen, had an Ingram MAC-10 machine pistol in his lap, but he was staying with the Focus when they made their move, to have it ready when the hit went down.

“Remember,” Tennant said, “go for the targets first and leave the copper be unless he makes a run at you. We know he’ll use the radio. Don’t sweat it. Hit the Yank and anyone who’s fawning over him, then get back to the car. Hear me?”

They heard him, and they’d heard it all before, at least a dozen times during their planning sessions for the strike. It was a relatively simple job, but still important to the cause. Outsiders had to know they couldn’t make a fortune on the backs of honest Scots, even if they had ancient roots in local soil.

“Here comes a limo,” Nilsen warned them.

Tennant turned in his seat to eye the limousine, a black Rolls-Royce Ghost. The license plate on its front bumper showed the Scottish government’s royal coat of arms. Dark tinted windows hid its passengers from view, but Tennant recognized the car and knew who was inside.

“Take him or leave him,” he advised the others. “Tag the Yank for sure, then drop his lackeys if it doesn’t slow you down.”

“Another limo,” Nilsen said. “And two more coming up behind it.”

“Council members, maybe some MPs,” Tennant suggested. “Careful with them, when it starts. We have some friends there, and it wouldn’t do to mess them up.”

“They take their chances, kissing Lockhart’s arse,” said Ferguson.

“Just follow orders,” Tennant cautioned him. “Don’t feck this up by thinkin’ for yourself.”

“ALL READY, from the looks of it,” Craig Stewart said.

The politicians had arrived ahead of schedule, jockeying for face time with the television cameras, grabbing their sound bytes before all eyes and lenses focused on the American whose symbolic homecoming meant jobs and a boost for the city’s flagging economy. Every politician who turned out for the ground breaking would be claiming credit for it, getting in another bid for votes.

“You brought the shovel, right?” Lockhart asked. “Christ, I never thought of it till now.”

“It’s in the trunk,” Stewart assured him. “Sterling silver, bright and shiny new.”

The spade was silver-plated, and had cost a pretty guinea, even so. Once jabbed into the dirt, it would be mounted on a placard and retired. A souvenir for someone, probably the Lord Provost, to join the case of eighteen-year-old single-malt Glenlivet whisky he’d received as Lockhart’s token of appreciation for a quarter of an hour on the dais.

Moments later, they were out and moving toward the stage, with Stewart carrying the shovel. Lockhart had his short speech memorized, the usual spiel about returning to his roots and honoring his heritage. He thought to himself that if anyone was dumb enough to think of SenDane as a philanthropic charity, more power to them.

On the dais, shaking hands, Lockhart could feel his hangover trying to reassert itself, but he suppressed it, plastered on a smile to match Stewart’s and stepped up to the microphone.

The turnout wasn’t large and didn’t have to be. The cameras were what counted, catching every second of the show.

“My friends and fellow Scots—”

A ripple in the small crowd caught his eye, distracting Lockhart as he saw three men advancing, rudely shoving past the others who’d arrived before them, pressing toward the stage. He didn’t recognize the guns at first, until the nearest one was pointed at his face.

“Look out!” somebody shouted from below. Too late.

Lockhart began to turn, raising the spade as if it could protect him, hearing screams and curses from the crowd. Then, all he heard was thunder.

All he felt was pain.

Chapter 1

Glasgow: 10:05 a.m.

Mack Bolan’s flight from New York City landed more or less on time. The jumbo jet had lifted off from JFK eleven minutes late yet somehow beat the captain’s own best estimate for crossing the Atlantic. They’d traveled more than thirty-two hundred miles overnight, across five time zones, and Bolan had done it in coach.

It was good to stretch his legs again, to work the kinks out of his neck and lower back.

He took his time passing along the jetway, following the signs to Immigration and Passport Control. Upon arrival at their destination, Bolan’s fellow travelers formed lines, according to their nationality. The fast lanes were for British subjects, residents of nations in the European Economic Area, and the Swiss. All others joined the lines requiring more detailed interrogation by authorities.

Bolan was ready with his landing card and passport, this one in the name of Matt Cooper from Los Angeles. Mr. Cooper was on holiday with nothing to declare.

The immigration officer who beckoned Bolan forward was a woman, pale and red-haired, with just the barest hint of freckles on her nose. He would’ve had to guess about her figure, since she was wearing body armor underneath her uniform, and her gunbelt had numerous black, bulky pouches.

She checked his face against the passport’s photo, inquired as to the purpose of his visit even though it was already indicated on his landing card, and asked for an address where he’d be staying while in Scotland.

Serving up the truth for once, Bolan replied, “No address. I’ll be traveling and stopping where the spirit moves me, hoping there’s a room available.”

She frowned, then said, “Good luck with that” and slammed a stamp into his passport.

“Next!”

Glasgow International Airport, located eight miles southwest of the city’s center, served more than seven million travelers per year. Most international arrivals passed through the main terminal, where two al Qaeda wannabes crashed a flaming Jeep Cherokee into the main pedestrian entrance on June 30, 2007. The Jeep failed to explode, but one of the men set himself afire and subsequently died in agony. His sidekick was arrested near the scene and pulled a thirty-two-year sentence for attempted murder.

So, security was tighter in the terminal these days. En route to claim his check-through suitcase, Bolan passed by teams of uniformed police in jaunty caps, with H&K MP-5 submachine guns slung across their chests. None of them paid particular attention to him, and he felt no sense of apprehension as he followed more signs to the baggage carousels on a lower level.

It wasn’t cops who posed the main threat to his life from this point on.

His black, generic suitcase took another thirteen minutes to appear, but no one checked his luggage tag as Bolan headed for the kiosk where a hired car should be waiting for him. There, another woman with red hair—younger and more cheerful than the officer who’d stamped his passport—welcomed Bolan, found his reservation and received his California driver’s license with a Platinum Visa, both once again in the name of Matt Cooper.

Bolan replied to the obligatory questions, lying where he needed to and staying vague about the rest. He took the lady up on her insurance offer—Bolan’s rentals sometimes took a beating on the road—and opted for the prepaid “discount” refill of his gas tank when, or if, he managed to return the car.

There was, he thought, no reason why the rental company should eat the cost if something happened to their car while in his possession. The Visa card was solid, false name notwithstanding, and his debts were always paid on time, in full.

The ride selected for him was a gray Toyota Camry with a five-speed manual transmission, front-wheel drive, with a two-liter inline-four engine. Bolan put his suitcase in the spacious trunk and remembered that the driver’s seat was on the right, the stick shift on his left.