Don Pendleton - Pressure Point

Weakened from underneath, the promontory collapsed, slamming down hard on another, larger outcropping directly below it. The second shelf gave way as well, splintering into sections and sliding into the trough. As they began to tumble down the side of the mountain, the monstrous stone slabs dislodged still more loose rock, quickly widening the slide’s path. As Bolan and Grimaldi watched, three of the snipers were swallowed up by the avalanche. Several others, hoping to avoid a similar fate, scrambled out into the open and found themselves easy targets for Kissinger and the surviving KOPASSUS troops on the ground. The tide of the battle was quickly turning.

“Nice shot,” Bolan told Grimaldi.

Grimaldi shrugged. “I just wish we’d pulled it off before we lost the other bird.”

Bolan stared at the ravine, where smoke and flames issued from the charred remains of the second Black Hawk. It had landed a little over fifty yards upstream from the fallen bus, which also continued to smolder. There was no way anyone could have survived.

Grimaldi kept his eyes on the enemy and fired a steady stream of .50-caliber rounds from the Black Hawk’s front-mounted machine gun, bringing down yet another of the snipers. He then banked the chopper, changing course so that he was flying parallel to the mountain instead of toward it.

“I want to help Cowboy with a few quick flybys,” he told Bolan. “Go ahead and check on the major.”

Bolan returned to the rear cabin. “How are we doing?” he asked Raki Mochtar.

“Better than expected,” Mochtar reported. “I’ve got the bleeding in his legs under control. The neck’s still a problem, but he’s got a chance.”

“Good. How’s the chest?”

“Smarts a little,” Mochtar said with a grimace as he tapped the area where he’d been hit. “I can live with it.”

“That’s the spirit,” Bolan said, grinning.

The Executioner was pulling off his HAZMAT gloves when there was a sudden drumming against the side of the chopper. He cursed and grabbed the nearest carbine, then lurched to the doorway and yanked the door open.

Down below, he saw a sniper firing at the chopper from a rock ledge twenty yards to the right of the avalanche. Bolan quickly returned fire, even as a stream of rounds zipped past his head, thunking into the cabin’s interior. The sniper reeled to one side, dropping his weapon. He clawed at the mountainside for support but lost his balance and was soon tumbling down the steep incline.

Down on the ground, meanwhile, Kissinger and the others had taken up positions and stayed put rather than advancing within range of the rock slide. It had been a smart decision. By the time the slide reached the roadway, its swath was nearly a hundred yards wide, and its forceful momentum was strong enough to sweep the delivery truck off the tarmac and carry it sideways to within a few inches of the guardrail. The railing creaked and listed under the slide’s weight, but held up and managed to keep the truck from going over the side with its deadly cargo.

The jostling, however, unleashed yet another cloud of poisonous gas. Kissinger, Latek and the others quickly moved out, putting as much distance as possible between themselves and the truck. As they moved, they kept their eyes on the mountainside and fired at the last few remaining snipers.

Soon, for the first time since the ambush had begun, there was no enemy gunfire to contend with.

Up in the Black Hawk, Grimaldi made two more quick passes as Bolan surveyed the mountainside, spotting three bodies but no sign of movement.

“I think that’s it,” he told Grimaldi. “Let’s get the major back to the base.”

“Let me just check in with Cowboy,” Grimaldi said. He was trying to reach Kissinger on his headset when he detected movement amid the rubble high up the mountainside. “I think we got a stray up at around two o’clock,” he told Bolan.

“Swing by and see if we can take him alive,” Bolan said.

Grimaldi changed course and drifted the Black Hawk closer to the mountain. Bolan spotted the figure in the debris and raised his rifle. Once he got a better look at his target, however, he slowly lowered the weapon and shook his head with disbelief.

“I don’t believe it,” he murmured.

“What?”

“It’s a woman,” Bolan said, grabbing for the binoculars. “A tourist, from the looks of it.”

“She must have wandered over from that textile place when the fireworks started going off,” Grimaldi speculated.

“Or maybe not,” Bolan said once he got a look at the woman through the binoculars. “She might not be a tourist after all.”

“What makes you say that?”

“I thought it was a camera she was carrying, but it’s not,” Bolan replied. “It’s a gun.”

Grimaldi was setting the Black Hawk on the road as Bolan finished fastening the seals on his gas mask and leaped down to the tarmac. Kissinger was leading Latek and the other surviving KOPASSUS commandos to the chopper. Two more soldiers had been wounded in the last few exchanges of gunfire. One was well enough to walk but the other was unconscious and had to be carried. They were upwind from the Bio-Tain truck. The cloud leaking from its cargo bay had dissipated, but the ground forces still wore their masks. Latek and another commando stood back from the others, assault rifles trained on the woman slowly making her way down the mountain. She’d tucked her gun back in the web holster strapped under her left arm.

“She keeps yelling that she’s an American,” Kissinger told Bolan.

“We’ll see,” Bolan said.

Grimaldi left the chopper idling and came over to help hoist the unconscious soldier into the cabin.

“He got caught up in that last billow of gas from the truck,” Kissinger explained. “I’m guessing the seals on his mask didn’t hold up.”

“I’ll get him back to the base so they can look him over,” Grimaldi stated.

Bolan looked past Kissinger at the battleground. “I think we should keep a couple men down here and make a sweep back to the compound.”

“I was going to suggest the same thing,” Kissinger said. “So far we’ve counted nineteen bushwhackers. None of them are in any shape to talk.”

“I was afraid of that,” Bolan said. From where he was standing he could see a few bodies scattered along the road and amid the piled debris from the landslide.

Further uphill, the woman continued to make her way down the steep slope. She’d lost her footing several times and was covered with dust, but she wasn’t wearing any HAZMAT gear and Bolan could see that she was in her early forties, lean and athletic, with dark, medium-length hair. She wore dark khaki cargo pants and a matching T-shirt under her holstered pistol. Staring down at the commandos covering her every move, she shouted angrily, “Point those popguns someplace else, would you? You’re making me nervous!”

Bolan frowned. “I know that voice from somewhere,” he said.

“You think so?” Kissinger replied.

When the soldiers ignored her command, the woman shouted again, “I keep telling you, I’m on your side! Doesn’t anybody here understand English?”

“I’ll be damned,” Bolan muttered, finally recognizing the voice.

He turned back to the chopper and called out to Sergeant Latek, “Go ahead and lower your rifles.”

Latek glanced at Bolan, then back at the woman. Slowly, he lowered his rifle while advising the other commando to do the same.

“Finally,” the woman called out cynically. “Thank you so much.”

Kissinger turned to Bolan. “So, who is she?”

“Take a good look,” Bolan told him. “It’s that bounty hunter we crossed paths with in Africa when we were going up against Khaddafi and the Interahamwe.”