Don Pendleton - Desperate Passage

Once again she called out, and Bolan was able to hear the racing of the other two car engines as the vehicles sped toward the rendezvous site. He gritted his teeth then committed himself to his course.

“Home is where you hang your hat,” he snapped and rose from the shadow of the bushes.

“Thank God!” the woman said in heavily accented English. “Hurry! Those are Laskar Jihad!”

Bolan sprang forward as the woman ducked back behind the wheel of her vehicle. Bolan snatched open the rear door and threw his pack inside before slamming the door and jumping into the front passenger seat.

He had barely touched the leather seat before his contact floored the gas pedal of the SUV. The vehicle shot forward down the rough and potted secondary road, bouncing hard and rattling Bolan’s teeth. He fought his way around in the seat to look out the rear hatch window. The chase vehicles had closed a little bit of the distance.

“Laskar Jihad,” he said. “They aren’t supposed to be active in this area.”

“Your intelligence is wrong. They entered into an operational alliance with Jemaah Islamiyah. They undertake activities in the highlands around Jakarta, drawing resources while JI conducts attack in the city. Besides, I’m almost positive Zamira Loebis is running them through bribes,” the woman said.

Bolan didn’t know whether to believe her. It seemed too coincidental that his contact should arrive under fire, potentially killing his own mission before it had even begun. Still, the situation on the ground in Indonesia was extremely fluid, and half-a-dozen terror groups operated in the poverty stricken country. But it would have been easier to simply ambush him.

“Pop the hatch,” he ordered.

He crawled between the front two seats and into the back of the SUV, folding one of the seats down to sprawl out in the back.

“What are you doing?” The woman shrieked.

“Shut up!” Bolan snapped. “Do what I say and pop the hatch!”

The woman swore, then reached down and yanked on the plastic lever controlling the catch release. The rear hatch popped open and swung up, revealing the racing road just beyond the bumper. The two vehicles were following close behind.

Bolan was tossed to one side as the SUV dipped into a rut and bounced out on the other side. He grunted under the impact but maneuvered his M-4 into position. The hydraulic support struts caught, locking the hatch door open.

From the darkness next to the windshield of the first chase vehicle a sudden brilliant star-pattern burst erupted. Bolan heard the unmistakable sound of 9 mm rounds being burned off. The SUV lurched hard to the side as Sukarnoputri wrestled it around a corner.

Bolan used his thumb to click the fire selector switch on his carbine to the 3-round burst position. He spread his legs wide in the rear compartment to equalize his balance and dug in with his elbows to steady his weapon. The buttstock slapped into his cheek and opened a cut as the SUV drove over a jutting rock shuddering the vehicle on its frame.

Bolan ignored the stinging wound and crammed the stock back into the pocket of his shoulder. The headlights of the first vehicle appeared around the tree-choked turn of the road, and Bolan caught a brief flash of a human figure hanging outside the passenger window of a battered white truck.

Bolan squeezed his trigger and saw the left headlight on the truck wink out as one of the 5.56 mm rounds struck home.

The submachine gunner on the truck’s passenger side returned fire, burst for burst, but the effect of speed and road conditions on the two men’s aim made the duel nearly futile for several exchanges.

The Executioner rode out another jarring pothole and adjusted his fire. Suddenly the SUV hit a patch of gravel. He felt the rocking lurches of the road give way to an almost even vibration as the SUV slide across the gravel, and he squeezed the trigger on his M-4.

He put two 3-round bursts into the front windshield of the pickup, shattering it. The pickup swerved hard to the right and the front tire rolled up an embankment. It rolled onto its side as it half climbed the embankment, then slammed into the gnarled and twisted trunk of a squat jungle tree. The hood crumpled under the impact, then the truck flipped. It struck the broken road hard, the cab smashing flat with a crunch followed immediately by the thunderclap of metal on metal as the second chase vehicle slammed into the first. The overturned truck spun away from the contact like a child’s top while the second vehicle lost control and careened off into the heavy underbrush beside the road.

Bolan scrambled up and grabbed hold of the open rear hatch from the inside and yanked it closed.

“You killed them all!” Sukarnoputri shouted as Bolan shoved himself back into the front seat.

“I doubt it,” Bolan muttered. “And stop shouting.”

“Whatever you say!”

“How did you know that was Laskar Jihad?” Bolan asked, buckling his seat belt. He placed his still smoking M-4 carbine muzzle down between his legs.

“I know because I know. They tried to stop me at a roadblock where this access road starts off the main regional highway. Your people gave me very good car. I drove into the ditch and around them, no slowing down. But they caught up with me at the hangar. I got away.”

“Good job,” Bolan said.

“I want more money. This was a stupid place to pick you up.”

“I’m not the company accountant. And I needed to get to Jakarta in a hurry.”

“Why? What do you have to do?”

“You’re not getting paid to ask questions,” Bolan pointed out. “And slow down. No one’s chasing us anymore. You’re going to shake my teeth out of my head if you don’t wreck us first.”

“First I do good driving then you’re worried I’ll wreck you?”

Bolan turned to look at his driver. She was slim and pretty with raven hair. When she took her eyes off the road to meet his he saw a calculating intelligence.

Bolan turned his attention toward the road. A thick wall of tropical forest formed a shadowy corridor along the logging road. Vines, branches and rotted logs had fallen across the single lane, forcing Sukarnoputri to swerve the vehicle around the obstacles while navigating potholes, rain-wash trenches and protruding rocks.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“Offroad, back down to the regional highway, then the road into Jakarta. Forty-five minutes, maybe one hour.”

“Patrols? Roadblocks? More Laskar gunmen?” Bolan asked.

“Possible. There are Indonesian marines in the area to combat Laskar’s influence. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.”

They rounded the corner fast and Sukarnoputri screamed. Headlights filled the windshield as another car raced up the narrow road toward them. Sukarnoputri yanked the wheel hard to one side, swerving to avoid the onrushing vehicle. The SUV lurched to the left, and there was a horrendous screech as the two vehicles skidded off each other. A shower of sparks formed a rooster tail in the driver’s window, and Bolan had an impression of a battered jeep filled with figures.

Immediately behind the first vehicle was a second, and Bolan caught a glimpse of a third set of headlights beyond. Then the front of the SUV bucked up hard and came down, leaving the windshield filled with the leaves and branches of jungle foliage.

Sukarnoputri tried to turn the SUV back out of the jungle, but suddenly the massive trunk of a tree appeared in front of the out of control SUV. Bolan threw his arms up instinctively.

The impact was followed by the violent reversal of momentum. As the hood crumpled and the fender was bent inward, Bolan was thrown hard against his seat belt. He felt something smack his face, then heard the air bags deploying.