Don Pendleton - China White

“You want to take them off?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

“But listen, if Jack—”

“Let’s just pretend Jack wasn’t here.”

Their intimate relationship was not a secret, in the strictest sense. They didn’t advertise it; tried to be discreet within the limits posed by their surroundings and the strict security imposed at Stony Man. The rooms weren’t monitored, but there were CCTV cameras in the corridors, as well as on the grounds outside. No one would question what went on between Bolan and Price, or try to second-guess them. They were warriors seeking solace, and if something more should come of it...

But nothing would.

Their lives were fixed in place, at least as far as Bolan was concerned. While Price might feel she’d had enough of Stony Man one day, might pull the pin and look for something else to do in government or in the private sector, Bolan could not walk away into a new career where everything was rosy and the storm clouds never gathered overhead.

That life was lost to him, a distant, faded memory. His father’s faulty choices had evoked disaster and determined Bolan’s path, an irredeemable diversion from what might have been. He’d never own a house, with or without a picket fence. Would never watch a child or two grow up, go off to school, get married, settle into a career. So what? A soldier learned that it was folly missing things that were denied him, things he’d never had.

What Bolan had, instead, was Stony Man and Barbara Price. He had a small but solid group of comrades who would never let him down—unless, of course, the good of many should outweigh the needs of one. That was a risk he had accepted willingly and would abide by to the bitter end.

And in the meantime, Bolan had a chance to make a difference. He’d made a difference in countless lives, nearly too often to recall. Someday his luck would turn, and he was ready for that, too.

Like the lady said, a happy ending was a story left unfinished.

Nobody got out of life alive.

“Sorry?” Bolan was aware of Price saying something, but he’d missed it.

“I said that you look like you’re a thousand miles away.”

“Nope,” he assured her. “I’m right here. With you.”

“Prove it,” she replied, pulling the zipper on her jumpsuit down around waist level.

“I aim to please,” he said.

“And since you’re a marksman, hit me with your best shot.”

Time enough to put the war on hold for one night and remember in the morning what he would be fighting for.

“I was about to take a shower,” Bolan told her.

“I could scrub your back or something.”

“It’s a deal.”

They moved together toward the bathroom, shedding clothes and apprehensions on the way. Tomorrow was as distant as forever and would take care of itself.

CHAPTER THREE

Canal Street, Lower Manhattan

“Keep going, damn it! Don’t stop here!” Louis Chao snapped.

“No choice,” John Lin answered back. “We’ve got a flat, in case you couldn’t tell.”

“Drive on the rim!”

“Too late. We’re bogging down.”

Those words were barely out before Chao felt the sharp edge of their left front wheel plow into grass and sod. The Focus shuddered, wallowed in the trough it was digging, then stalled as Lin kept bearing down on the accelerator.

“Stop! You’re flooding it!”

The engine coughed and died then, leaving Lin to pound his fist against the steering wheel, cursing in Cantonese.

“Stop it!” Chao snapped at him. “They’re coming! Everybody out!”

The car would be a death trap if the Afghans caught them in it and they couldn’t drive away. Chao didn’t plan on being caught inside with bullets ripping through the windows and the flimsy bodywork into his body. He’d already cocked the Bushmaster and held it ready as he rolled out of the car, crouching behind it with his door open, where it could serve him as a partial shield from either side. It wasn’t much, but better than if he was caught out in the open by his adversaries.

Martin Tang was last out of the Ford, clutching a pistol that seemed woefully inadequate under the circumstances. He was empty-handed, otherwise, and Chao snarled at him, “Get the bag!”

“But—”

“Get it! We’re not leaving it behind!”

Tang did as he was told, leaning inside the Ford to grab the suitcase filled with heroin and drag it out behind him. As he did so, Chao could hear the SUV approaching, fat tires ripping furrows in the grass someone had spent a fortune tending, and the men inside it had resumed their firing at the Ford. He wondered for a fleeting instant who the other man had been, glimpsed briefly in a car behind the Chevy Trailblazer and firing at it, then at Chao’s car. A policeman? Would he join the fight without the usual flashing lights and siren?

There was no more time to think about it then, as the Trailblazer passed their small sedan, two automatic weapons spitting deadly fire, their bullets hammering the Ford along its driver’s side. Chao cursed them and returned fire with his Bushmaster, the first time he’d been able to retaliate so far. He was pleased to see his bullets stitch a line of bright holes on the chase car’s left rear fender, even if they didn’t reach the men inside.

Lin was out and firing with his Uzi, ripping off what seemed like half a magazine in one long burst. Chao hoped that he had spares, firing like that, but didn’t take the time to chastise Lin for wasting ammunition. Time was better spent aiming his own shots more precisely, if he could, instead of yelling at his Wah Ching brothers in the middle of a firefight.

Do or die, he thought. If they went home without the heroin, no explanation he could fabricate would placate Paul Mei-Lun. Death from a bullet would be preferable to whatever Mei-Lun devised as punishment for losing merchandise worth three cool million. Bearing that in mind, Chao braced himself and tracked the Chevy as it turned, preparing for another strafing run, this time on his side of the crippled Ford.

“Watch out!” he warned the others, just in case their nerves had blinded them somehow. He saw Lin crouching with the Uzi held in front of him, while Tang was trying to crawl underneath the Focus, making little progress with its chassis low against the ground.

“Martin! Come out and fight!”

Tang obeyed, but seemed as if he were about to weep, a pitiful display that shamed him and his Wah Ching brothers. If they had not needed him just then, Chao thought he might have shot the whining little coward.

Chao dropped to one knee, shouldered the Bushmaster’s stock, and hoped that the sedan’s door would prevent the first few rounds from striking him. He craved a chance to kill one of his enemies, at least, before he died. Just one would be enough to prove that he had fought with courage, done his best, and he could face his triad ancestors without a trace of shame.

* * *

BOLAN COULD FEEL the Camry start to slide on the grass and turned his steering wheel into the skid, easing his foot off the gas pedal. The chase was ending, since a lucky shot had flayed one of the Ford’s front tires, and plowing over soft ground had it bogging down. The Chevy SUV was slowing, too, its front-seat shooter popping off rounds toward the Focus, while his partner in the backseat tried to keep an eye on Bolan’s progress.

The Executioner made it harder for him, cranking through a U-turn that maneuvered him away from the location where the Ford had stalled and left his Camry with its nose pointed uphill, back toward Canal Street. That way, if it started taking hits, the bullets ought to spend their force inside his trunk, or in the backseat, without doing any damage to the rental’s engine. He’d be able to evacuate the scene, at least—if he was still alive and fit to drive.