Don Pendleton - Enemies Within

“Okay,” Bolan replied. “We had to ask.”

“Of course you did. And now I’ll ask you one,” Tanner said.

“Feel free. I’ll answer if I can,” Bolan told him.

“Now that you’ve eyeballed me, are you planning on leaving people here to watch me, backing on the taps and drones and whatever your people have eavesdropping on me as it is? Seems like a waste of time. My tax money at work, and all.”

Grimaldi chimed in, saying, “We came alone, sir.”

“Oh?”

“That’s right,” Bolan confirmed, feeling the short hairs bristling on his nape.

“No guys sitting on motorbikes among the trees, black visors on their helmets, covering their faces?”

“No, sir.”

Tanner quaffed his bourbon and reached out for the bottle, asking both of them at once, “So who in hell are those guys parked across the street right now?”

* * *

“Your old man look the same as you remember him?” Tyrone Moseley inquired.

“It’s been five or six years,” Tanner Jr. answered.

“Yeah, but you don’t forget your daddy, though.”

They sat astride a pair of matching Harley-Davidson Street 750s, both fitted with stolen license plates acquired from looting a supply house outside Baltimore. Both bikes were painted black, matching their leathers, helmets and their deeply tinted face shields. Underneath their jackets, they wore sidearms, knives, plus other weapons of offense and defense ready for deployment on a moment’s notice, if they were observed.

“More CID sniffing around, you think?” Moseley inquired.

“You’re full of questions, brother. How in hell would I know?”

“Well, for one thing, they’re coming outside.”

“Shit! We need to haul ass out of here.”

“Won’t be quiet.”

“Screw quiet,” Tanner snarled. “These 750s can outrun that Focus on the best day it ever had.”

“Or we could take ’em out.”

“That, too. Let’s try to lose them first, if we can swing it.”

“Roger that, Captain.”

They kicked their Harley-Davidsons to life as one, plowed through a screen of trees that should have hidden them but obviously hadn’t managed it, accelerating with a double roar like dirty thunder as they hit the pavement, rolling south on 313 and angling for the cutoff that would take them into Centreville. More traffic there, with forty-three hundred inhabitants plus summer visitors, and they could break from there to Grasonville or Chestertown, even split up if necessary to make sure that one of them escaped.

Tanner’s rearview mirror showed him the Focus with two passengers in close pursuit, gaining a bit before he cranked up his 750 and Moseley did likewise. His preference was evasion without contact, but he’d do whatever he considered necessary to escape, even if that included collateral damage among stray civilians.

It was bound to happen sooner or later, before their small team reached its goal.

A quarter mile from Centreville, they started running into traffic, dodging in and out among old farm trucks and minivans that had seen better days. Tanner eased back, let Moseley pull ahead of him to pass a vintage Dodge Ram pickup, while he retrieved an M-33 fragmentation grenade from under his leathers, dropped its pin into his bike’s slipstream and tossed the metal egg into the Dodge’s open bed before he powered out of there, leaving the startled sixty-something driver in his wake.

Tanner was grinning as he counted down the six-second delay fuse, waiting for the storm to break.

* * *

“Grenade!” Grimaldi snapped, already easing back his pressure on the Ford’s accelerator.

“Saw it,” Bolan said, bracing himself for the explosion that was sure to come in four...three...two...

The blast’s impact was physical, even inside their car. It must have scared a good year off the pickup driver’s life, then he was back to business, swerving left, then right, trying to get his ride under control while smoke poured from its open bed, the sides bowed out over its rear fenders, its tailgate flapping in the breeze. Something had happened to the rear axle, as well, but Bolan thought the real danger was fire now, with the pickup’s gas tank likely holed by shrapnel and inviting any spark to set its fumes alight.

“And there it goes,” Grimaldi said.

The Dodge Ram’s driver gave it up, swerved toward the highway’s grassy shoulder on his right, and bailed as soon as he slowed down enough to make it practical.

“Pretty spry for an old guy,” the Stony Man pilot commented.

“Concentrate on the youngsters,” Bolan replied.

“Bikers. Ten-four.”

The Dodge Ram detonated when they were a half block past it, following the Harley-Davidsons toward Centreville. The bikes were making tracks, topping the 90 mph mark without missing a beat. Bolan reached underneath his jacket, drew the black Berretta M-9 pistol from its shoulder rig, and thumbed its ambidextrous external safety lever from the Safe to Fire position with a red dot showing on each side.

“You want to take them off the road?” Grimaldi asked.

“Find out if we can catch them, first.”

“Good point,” the pilot granted as he trod the Ford’s accelerator to the floor.

* * *

“Still coming,” Moseley called to Tanner. “They’re not stopping for collaterals.”

“Not yet,” Tanner replied. “Maybe they need some more.”

“Say where and when, Captain.”

“We’re coming to the city limits now. I want to split up, left and right, when we’re in town, and make them choose.”

“Whichever one of us they pick should stand and fight?”

“Avoid that if possible,” Tanner replied. “Clutter the streets with more collateral, then regroup on the north side and head back to meet the others. There’s a seafood place they call the Bay Shore Steam Pot on East Water Street. Whoever gets there first, wait ten minutes, no longer, then get out and warn the rest.”

“Sounds good,” Moseley said. “You just tell me when and where to turn.”

“Block and a half, up on your right. I’ll take the left, same time. And don’t be shy about the locals.”

“Never have been, never will, Captain.”

The cross streets, each with different names, came rushing at them and they swerved apart without a backward glance.

* * *

“And there they go,” Grimaldi said. “Which one you want to chase?”

“I doubt it matters,” Bolan answered. “Left’s as good as anything.”

“Easier turn, at least,” Grimaldi said, putting a crooked smile on Bolan’s face by signaling his turn. Catching the look, the flyboy said, “Hey, I obey the law. Mostly.”

As if on cue, an ancient Chevy station wagon blew up on the right-hand side road, trailing smoke, expelling four towheaded children from its tailgate, while their parents leaped for daylight up front. The biker who had fed them a grenade soon vanished in a pall of smoke, with Bolan leaning into Jack Grimaldi’s sharp, tire-squealing turn.

It couldn’t be too long before their chase started attracting lawmen, most particularly if their quarry kept scattering grenades in their wake. Another one went off just then, under the front end of a newish Kia SUV just pulling out from its curb space outside a burger joint. Both airbags inflated instantly, obscuring Bolan’s vision of the driver, while another frag grenade took out a family sedan just signaling its turn into the parking lot of a dry cleaner’s.

“Damn!” Grimaldi swore. “How many of those eggs you think he’s carrying?”

“Too many for a confrontation in the heart of town,” Bolan replied. “Smart money also says he’ll have at least one gun, either a decent pistol or an automatic subgun.”

“You want to call it, then?”