Don Pendleton - Black Death Reprise

“We can open the roof, and I’ll fire at them as soon as we come out of the tunnel,” Zagorski said, shifting the P-90 she held at an angle between her knees.

“Not good odds,” Bolan replied. “Not with a Bell. There’s too much plate on the belly for your rounds.”

Spotting a pair of taillights ahead, he accelerated to catch up. As he got close, he saw it was a pickup truck at least ten years old, the faded paint dented and scratched in numerous places.

“We just got lucky,” Bolan said as he steered into the passing lane and tapped his gas pedal to pull even with the pickup. One of the hubcaps on the driver’s side was missing, and the metal sides around the open cargo area were pocked with large sections of maroon rust. The rocker panels had rusted completely through in so many places they appeared to be made of red lace.

“Get him to stop,” Bolan said, pressing the switch to lower Zagorski’s window.

She shouted in French to the driver, a man who looked to be in his midsixties, who first stared at her, shook his head, then stared straight forward, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly enough to turn his gnarled knuckles white.

Bolan moved forward until the Porsche was halfway beyond the truck before he inched the steering wheel to the right, easing the car’s back fender panel into the pickup’s front bumper.

The old man started shouting and gesturing with universally understood hand signals, but with sparks flying from where the two vehicles were rubbing together, and with the vast superiority the Porsche held over the old pickup, he was forced out of the lane onto a narrow breakdown shoulder barely wide enough for a car to sit beyond the traffic’s flow.

When they had come to a complete halt with the Porsche blocking the pickup’s path, Bolan said, “Come with me,” threw his door open and jumped out. Upon reaching the truck, he reached up and pulled the driver’s door open.

The old man continued shouting and gesturing wildly until his eyes glanced at the Desert Eagle in Bolan’s left hand. Under the bright tungsten lighting, the huge handgun gleamed with evil purpose.

Zagorski stared at the gun with eyes as large as saucers, apparently as apprehensive as the truck driver that Bolan was about to shoot him.

“Tell him not to be afraid.”

Zagorski translated quickly, but her voice as well as the old man’s face belied their belief in Bolan’s words. It was obvious they were both terrified.

“Buy his truck. Fifty thousand euros,” Bolan stated in a voice that held no room for negotiation. “The cash is in the glove compartment.”

Zagorski related the message, which, because it amounted to approximately one hundred thousand U.S. dollars, was not believed. The man’s bottom lip was trembling, and his hands shook as if he was afflicted with palsy. His eyes remained glued to the Desert Eagle.

“Get the money. Hurry,” Bolan said.

Zagorski ran the few steps back to the car, reached in through her open window and came back with a wad of high-denomination bills.

“Tell him again. Fifty thousand euros.”

The sight of the money brought a smile to the old man’s face. In this part of the world, populated along an international border with a culture bred of an interesting combination including ancient Christianity, Islam and Basque, men did not pass judgment on the business of others. Within the local value system, a smuggler or drug dealer could conduct legitimate transactions as subsets of an overall illicit plan without necessarily involving a third party in anything illegal or immoral. Regardless of Bolan’s business, he was offering a transaction the old man found very easy to view as legitimate.

The old man asked for the Porsche as well.

Zagorski couldn’t help but smile as she translated the request.

“No,” Bolan answered. “It’s not mine. Someone will come by to pick it up.”

A slight smile touched at the corners of his mouth for a second as he imagined Hal Brognola explaining to the President that one of the CIA’s high-technology special mission models complete with armor plating, bulletproof glass, and a 5.56 mm machine gun concealed above the tailpipe, was being used to run errands into town by an old hay farmer in Southern France.

“No,” he said again.

The man nodded, and, with his smile exposing a mouthful of crowded, crooked teeth, took the stack of bills from Zagorski and shoved them into his pocket. Despite the fact he was bareheaded, he made a motion of tipping his cap to both Zagorski and Bolan, and set off walking back the way they had come in.

“You drive,” Bolan said, pointing to the truck as he returned to the Porsche.

Zagorski climbed into the pickup and backed it away, allowing Bolan to ease the Porsche against the wall of the tunnel to keep it as far as possible out of the traffic lane until someone could retrieve it.

After shutting down the engine, Bolan released the latch to open the car’s front trunk compartment revealing the LAW.

“Who are you?” Zagorski asked again as Bolan grabbed the LAW and pulled on both ends to expand the weapon. The inner tube telescoped outward to the rear, guided by a channel assembly that housed the firing pin and detent lever. Once the detent was aligned under the trigger bar locking the inner tube in its extended position, the LAW was cocked and ready.

“A man with options,” Bolan answered while wrapping his free hand around the driver’s door handle to activate the car’s sophisticated antitampering system. The Porsche’s passenger window slid closed as Bolan hopped into the back of the pickup and settled himself into a kneeling position.

There were half a dozen holes in the cargo bed’s floor through which he could see the pavement moving by as Zagorski pulled out of the breakdown shoulder into the travel lane. As he visualized the helicopter awaiting their exit from the tunnel, Bolan shifted his position so he would be facing the rear, making sure he left adequate space between himself and the back of the cab for the missile’s backblast.

Bolan reasoned that the chopper would be hovering on top of the tunnel’s opening, its position placing it behind and above an exiting vehicle. The gunsights would be properly aligned with the highway, waiting for the target to appear. To his advantage, Bolan didn’t think his enemies would be expecting his getaway vehicle to be a dilapidated old truck. He figured he’d have two or three seconds to position the LAW’s front reticle sight onto the aircraft and press the rubber-enclosed trigger bar on top of the outer tube to fire the missile. Three seconds after exit was the best he could hope for—by then, the pilot and gunman would realize a man was kneeling in the back of a pickup with the business end of a shoulder-fired rocket launcher pointed their way. They would have but one response for that.

Zagorski pressed the truck’s gas pedal to the floor. The vehicle gained speed, gradually reaching its top velocity of slightly less than forty miles per hour. Ahead, the mouth of the tunnel appeared as a pitch black circle leading into the night.

As they drew close, Bolan flipped the reticle sight into its upright position, positioned the LAW on his right shoulder and lightly placed his fingers over the rubber-encased bar.

The LAW’s reticle sight was a piece of Plexiglas with an image resembling a V etched into the heavy plastic. The weapon was designed to assign the correct distance and elevation to the missile if the operator was able to place his target exactly within the lines of the V. If parts of the target extended outside the V reticle, which was graduated in twenty-five meter range increments, the missile would launch long and usually strike above the intended impact point. Too much space between the target and the walls of the V would result in a short shot.