Don Pendleton: Ballistic Force

“Showtime,” Bolan muttered.

In unison, the Executioner and Kissinger charged from the alley and sprinted toward the condemned building. Bolan was armed with a .44 Magnum Desert Eagle. Kissinger’s M-16 carbine had a flash-bang grenade loaded in its submounted M-203 launcher. As Stony Man’s resident weaponsmith, Kissinger had further tinkered with the rifle, shortening the barrel by three inches and the stock by an inch and half, making it more maneuverable in close quarters without sacrificing performance or accuracy.

The Stony Man operatives were halfway to their target when the garbage truck’s hydraulic arms groaned to life, lifting its mawlike scoop out of the hold. As the scoop swept up toward one of the boarded windows on the second floor, the agent hiding inside rose into view. He had a MP-5 subgun slung over his left shoulder, leaving his hands free to use a crowbar on the slab of plywood. Once he’d started to loosen the plank, his colleague on the adjacent rooftop fired a tear gas round into the top floor. By then, the driver of the garbage truck had gotten out of the vehicle and was circling to the rear entrance of the target building, cradling his own MP-5 close to his chest.

When planning the raid, Bolan and Kissinger had taken dibs on the front entrance. As they expected, they found that the windowless, reinforced steel door was locked.

“I got it,” Kissinger said.

Bolan stepped back and quickly donned a gas mask as Kissinger chewed away at the lock and door frame with rounds from his M-16.

Once Kissinger had on his mask, the two men lunged forward, shouldering their combined four hundred pounds of weight against the door—which gave way. They jerked it to one side and charged inside.

The ground floor of the structure had been gutted years earlier and was empty except for loose debris and a few scraps of litter left behind by transients. There was no sign of the Killboys, however. The element of surprise had paid off, Bolan figured. Hopefully they could close in on the gangsters before they spread throughout the building.

“Take the elevator,” Bolan shouted to Kissinger through his gas mask. “I’ll get the stairs.”

The men split up. Bolan rushed through the beams of sunlight slanting in through gaps in the boarded windows. Once he reached the stairwell, he could hear gunshots being exchanged on the next floor up. He took the steps two at a time and hesitated a moment on the second-story landing, then charged into the hallway.

A cloud of tear gas filled the corridor, but through the haze Bolan was able to make out a pair of Koreans who’d just emerged from one of the rooms. They were cursing and gagging but still had their wits about them and had managed to gun down the DEA agent who’d pried open the far window to climb from the garbage scoop into the hall. Wounded, the agent returned fire before slumping to the floor. His shots were off the mark, but he’d held the gangsters’ attention long enough for Bolan to get the drop on them. By the time they turned to face the Executioner, both men had been clipped by rounds from the Desert Eagle.

Bolan then cautiously stalked down the hallway, pausing to check each room he passed. The rooms were all vacant. Once he reached the fallen agent, the soldier crouched and quickly fingered the man’s wrist. He couldn’t find a pulse.

“We’ll get them,” Bolan assured the dead man. “All of them.”

Bolan was rising to his feet when he heard someone enter the far end of the corridor. He whirled and took aim but held his fire when he recognized the DEA agent who’d been driving the garbage truck.

“Keep going!” Bolan shouted, gesturing to the floors above. The other man nodded and disappeared into the far stairwell.

Bolan reloaded his .44 as he sprinted to the other landing and made his way up to the third floor. He entered the hallway just in time to see Kissinger bail out of the elevator. That same instant a grenade went off inside the shaft, shaking the walls and stinging the weaponsmith with shrapnel as its concussive force knocked him to the floor and jarred loose his gas mask.

Bolan rushed forward and slipped his comrade’s mask back in place, then helped him to his feet. Kissinger winced when he put his weight on his right foot, and his left arm was bleeding where a chunk of flying debris had struck it. He ripped open his shirt sleeve and inspected the wound.

“Just a nick,” he said. His ears were ringing from the explosion and he could barely hear his own voice.

“What about your ankle?” Bolan asked.

Kissinger took a tentative step forward and clenched his teeth. “Feels like a sprain. I’ll live.”

Glancing upward, Bolan said, “My guess is they’re all up top, but let’s do a quick sweep here just in—”

Bolan fell silent as Kissinger put a finger to the mouthpiece of his gas mask and pointed to an open doorway two doors down from the ravaged elevator. Sunlight poured out through the opening, betraying the shadow of someone moving inside the room.

Both men dropped to a crouch. Favoring his bad ankle, Kissinger inched forward and took aim at the doorway, then fired the stun charge from his carbine’s grenade launcher. By the time the grenade went off inside the room, Bolan was already on his feet and rushing the doorway.

Just inside the room, one of the Killboys screamed and grabbed at his ears as he writhed on the floor. Bolan kicked away the automatic pistol the man had dropped, then swung around and fired at another two Koreans standing ten yards away next to an upended row of Army cots. Both men went down, but not before one of them had sent a 9 mm Parabelum round whizzing past Bolan’s ear. The shots just missed Kissinger as he hobbled his way through the doorway.

When he saw the first Korean grabbing for his fallen handgun, Kissinger lunged forward and knocked the man out with the stock of his carbine, then took aim at the gangster’s head. He stopped short of pulling the trigger, however, when he detected motion off to his right. He glanced over his shoulder and saw yet another Korean crawling out a far window onto the fire escape.

Bolan spotted the man at the same time and veered away from the toppled cots toward him.

“I got him!” Bolan called.

The Killboy paused halfway out the window and drove Bolan back with a quick shot, then disappeared from view. As the Executioner gave chase, he could hear a steady exchange of gunfire up on the fourth floor. Kissinger could hear it, too. He made sure the man he’d cold-cocked was still unconscious, then limped his way back to the doorway.

“I’ll help them finish things upstairs,” he shouted to Bolan.

The soldier nodded, then crawled out the window onto the fire escape. Glancing down, he spotted the fleeing Killboy. The Korean had already reached the second floor and was getting ready to jump to the ground. Bolan leaned out over the railing and took aim at the man.

“Freeze!” he ordered.

The gangster ignored the command and leaped down to the alley.

One of the renovation workers, wearing white coveralls and an oversize work cap, had wandered over from the adjacent building, and the Korean grabbed hold of him from behind, using him as a shield and pressing the barrel of his pistol to his captive’s skull.

“Damn it,” Bolan cursed as he yanked off his gas mask. There was no way he could get a shot off without risking the worker’s life.

Bolan was debating his next move when, to his amazement, the worker suddenly lashed out with an elbow, jabbing his captor squarely in the ribs. In the same motion, the would-be captive torqued free of the Korean’s grasp and stabbed at the man’s shins with a well-placed karate kick. The Killboy’s leg buckled and he let out a pained cry as he was struck by a second blow, this one to the base of his skull. His gun clattered to the asphalt and he soon followed suit.