Patriot Strike

by Don Pendleton

  The fourth member of their surveillance team was Otto Franks. He’d drawn the short straw when they’d picked a man to stake out the apartment from inside. The locks were nothing special, barely took a minute, and he would be waiting for the Ranger, if and when she finally came home. Surprise her and attempt to chill her out while Mattox and the others rolled in for support.

  And if she gave him any trouble, put her down.

  That was the latest word from Simon Coetzee since two prior attempts had failed to bag the Ranger and some guy she’d picked up in San Antonio, an unknown quantity who’d done his share of ass-kicking since midnight. There were big things happening, important things, and now these wild cards had come along, trying to screw it up. Coetzee had wanted them alive, for questioning, but after two snafus on that end, he had changed the game plan.

  The Ranger and her boyfriend were no longer wanted dead or alive.

  Just dead.

  That made it easier for Mattox and his crew, although a hit in downtown Waco still required a certain measure of finesse. Police headquarters was only nine blocks away, on North Fourth Street, so they couldn’t afford any kind of Wild West shoot-’em-up action. All four carried silencer-equipped semiautomatic pistols, and Colin had a Heckler & Koch MP5SD6 in the backseat, also fitted with a factory-standard sound suppressor, in case they needed heavier firepower.

  Mattox hoped it wouldn’t come to that. He figured if they had to use the submachine gun, it meant something had gone wrong. Four trained professionals should have no problem taking down a hick cop and her pal without a major firefight in the street.

  He hoped.

  Simon was running out of patience, with the Big Man riding him, and neither of them would look kindly on another failure. Not that it would matter, since the last six guys who’d washed out on the job were dead.

  Something to think about.

  They couldn’t take the Ranger and her pal for granted as a pair of easy marks. Even discounting Crockett’s rednecks on the first attempt, Mattox had known the boys who had blown up in Arlington as tried-and-true professionals. And they’d been airborne—believe it or not—but they’d fumbled the job all the same.

  Not this time.

  Mattox knew his life and reputation were riding on this job, and he planned to do it right.

  “Who’s this?” asked Godwin, from the driver’s seat.

  A tall man coming toward the target address, walking south along Clay Avenue. He stopped in front of the apartment house, passed through its little open gate and went up to the porch.

  “Could be the sidekick,” Page suggested, though they had no physical description of the man.

  “Otto will take him, if it is,” said Mattox.

  “No sign of the cop.”

  “Not yet,” Mattox agreed. “Just keep your eyes peeled and be ready when I give the word.”

  * * *

  BOLAN HAD MADE one pass along Clay Avenue, not wanting to be obvious, with Granger lying out of sight in the RAV4’s backseat. He made the three guys in the Jeep Grand Cherokee, relieved to note the SUV’s civilian license plate. They weren’t lawmen. When they tried to close the trap, Bolan could use whatever force he thought was necessary, with no worries about violating any aspect of his private code.

  Three men. But were they on their own?

  He spotted no more lookouts on the street, no other pairs or individuals idling suspiciously in cars parked at the curb. There was a possibility of watchers in some residence along Clay Avenue—impossible to check out unless he started going door to door. Ridiculous. If he were setting up the trap, Bolan supposed he would try to get inside Granger’s apartment, or at least one of the others in her building, where he’d have quick access if she showed.

  He drove around the block and parked on Webster Avenue, just down from the Fort House Museum. “Give me a minute,” he told Granger, still concealed, “then switch up to the driver’s seat. I’ll keep in touch remotely as I go.”

  “Okay,” she said, invisible to Bolan in the SUV’s rearview.

  They’d picked up a pair of Cobra CXR925 walkie-talkies with a thirty-five-mile range, plus two Cobra GA-EBM2 earbuds with compact microphones that left hands free for other business in a crunch. The walkies featured twenty-two channels and 142 privacy codes, and a digital voice recorder, just in case one of them missed a message in the heat of action. As it was, they’d have no trouble maintaining contact over two blocks in the heart of downtown Waco.

  Leaving the Toyota, Bolan reversed direction and walked against one-way traffic on South Fourth Street, then turned right, heading southwestward, on Clay Avenue. Down range, he saw the Stripes store and the Jeep Grand Cherokee, ignoring both as he moved on toward Granger’s home address, at midblock on his right.

  She’d sketched the layout for him, and he had committed it to memory, palming the key to her front door. No one appeared to notice Bolan as he turned in through the open knee-high gate between the sidewalk and a small but neatly tended lawn. He climbed three concrete steps, passed through the front door that was left unlocked during daylight hours, as Granger had informed him. Past a bank of six mailboxes, up a flight of stairs to reach the second floor, key in his left hand, right hand ready for a dive inside his open jacket if he had to reach one of the Glocks.

  “I’m in,” he said into the walkie-talkie.

  “Copy that,” Granger replied, her voice small in his ear.

  The stairs creaked slightly under Bolan’s weight, an older house making its normal sounds. No one had tried to intercept him on the ground floor, and he took his time ascending to the second-story landing. Once there Bolan paused and listened, heard nothing, assumed the other tenants were off at their daily jobs.

  In fact the place was quiet as a tomb.

  “Upstairs now,” Bolan said.

  No answer from the earpiece, but he pictured Granger at the RAV4’s wheel, biding her time. He moved along the hallway to his left, one door on either side. He reached the door to Granger’s, stopped to listen once again, then used the key she’d given him.

  The flat smelled neutral, no lingering scent of candles or perfume that would have marked it on arrival as a woman’s home. The living room was tidy, with a kitchen visible across a breakfast counter straight ahead, bedrooms and bathroom down a hall to Bolan’s left as he came in. Standing in her space, he felt like an intruder, even though he had permission to be here.

  Bolan was just about to tell her that the place was empty, when the toilet flushed and heavy footsteps sounded, coming toward him down the hall.

  * * *

  ROY MATTOX WASN’T sure if he should use the two-way radio or not. On one hand, he wanted to know if the stranger they’d seen on the street was their second target; on the other, if he was the guy, squawking at Otto on the walkie-talkie might alert their man before Otto could bag him.

  Choices. Mattox hated them.

  Just wait another minute, he decided, feeling clammy sweat break out under his arms.

  A minute couldn’t hurt, right? Give the stranger time to get upstairs and find the Ranger’s pad, then...what? That was the point where Mattox hit a snag and couldn’t figure out what to expect.

  They’d seen the guy go in alone. The Ranger wasn’t with him, obviously, and she hadn’t gone inside while they were staked out in the parking lot, with Otto waiting in her digs. Assuming that the tall pedestrian was headed up to her apartment, did that prove he was their mark?

  The Ranger was a woman. She could have a boyfriend, maybe more than one. No one had favored Mattox with a list of her acquaintances, much less their photographs. He knew the guy they’d seen wasn’t another Ranger, since they all dressed cowboy-style, with big white Stetsons, pointy boots, the whole nine yards. Somebody else then. But he didn’t want to kill the wrong guy and come out of this thing looking
like an idiot.

  He checked his watch. Still thirty seconds running on that minute he’d decided they should wait.

  Now Mattox started wondering how Otto would react if somebody came knocking on the Ranger’s door. His orders were to bag whoever entered. A simple visitor was something else, and popping out to deal with one could ruin everything. Some guy comes up to see the Ranger, maybe get a little action, and he finds a stranger in her flat. Next thing you know, he’s phoning her—or worse, the cops—complaining there’s a prowler on the premises.

  Stay cool. He beamed the thought to Otto down the block, a waste of effort since he had no faith in ESP or much of anything, aside from firepower.

  Another watch-check showed him seven seconds still remained on that minute. To hell with it. He picked up the radio and pressed the red send button with his thumb.

  “Otto. You read me?”

  Nothing.

  “Otto! Do you copy?”

  “He prob’ly turned the damn thing off,” said Colin Page.

  That made no sense to Mattox. Otto had checked in after he’d beat the Ranger’s locks and gone inside. Trying the walkie one last time, he growled into its microphone, “Otto! Pick up, goddamn it!”

  Still nothing.

  “Let’s roll,” he told Ben Godwin, at the wheel. “No melodrama. Just pull up and park across the street.”

  Thinking, if he’s asleep up there, I’ll kick his ass from here to Sunday week.

  And if he wasn’t sleeping? Then what?

  Mattox started adding two and two. Stranger goes in, and Otto loses contact. What was that, but trouble, pure and simple?

  He could feel the setup starting to unravel, wondering if this was how the other teams had felt, in San Antonio and Arlington. Had they been confident at first, then seen the whole thing slipping through their fingers, realizing there was nothing they could do about it, no way they could save it? Had they realized their time was up, that they were dead men driving, flying or whatever?

  Rotten thoughts. He tried to push them out of mind, but they were stubborn.

  As it happened, there was no place on the west side of Clay Avenue to park the Jeep, but Mattox saw a slot across the street, two doors down from the Ranger’s place, and pointed Godwin to it. Cursing, Godwin cranked them through an awkward three-point turn here in the middle of the block. Illegal, but there wasn’t any cop around to make an issue of it as they doubled back and parked.

  “Don’t pull your guns until we get inside,” Mattox reminded his two soldiers.

  “What about my baby?” Page asked, holding up the submachine gun in its shopping bag.

  Mattox hesitated for a heartbeat, then said, “Bring it.”

  * * *

  “ONE DOWN.”

  As soon as Adlene Granger heard those words, she twisted the RAV4’s ignition key and put the SUV in motion, rolling south on Webster Avenue, then turning left to join the one-way flow of traffic on South Fifth Avenue, driving one block before she made another left-hand turn onto Clay. First thing, she saw the Jeep Grand Cherokee was missing from its place outside the Stripes store on the corner, then she saw it parked near her apartment building.

  Empty now.

  There had been three men in the Jeep when Cooper had marked it on their first pass. Granger had not seen the vehicle, but pictured it from his description, relayed as she lay concealed in the Toyota. Cooper’s report of one down told her that he’d found someone inside her flat when he had arrived, and he had handled it.

  Whether the prowler was alive or dead, she wouldn’t know until she went upstairs.

  It made her skin crawl, thinking of a stranger prowling through her rooms, intent on killing her or worse. There was a sense of violation, but she had no time to focus on it now, with three more shooters headed up to join the party that had started in her absence.

  There were no more parking spaces open on Clay Avenue, so Granger double-parked, blocking the Jeep Grand Cherokee from pulling out. Whatever happened in the next few minutes, even if the hit team slaughtered her and Cooper, they would be going home without their ride.

  Granger thought briefly of her neighbors, all of whom should be at work. She took the big Benelli M4 Super 90 with her as she stepped out of the RAV4, taking care to lock it as she moved around the Jeep and hurried up the sidewalk, northbound. Through the little gate and along the walkway she had trod a thousand times, up the concrete steps, and then she was inside.

  No movement on the ground floor but a sound of voices muttering reached Granger’s ears from somewhere on the second. She knew the stairs from long experience—which ones would always creak under her weight unless she placed her feet close to the wall. Climbing the staircase, Granger raised the shotgun to her shoulder, index finger of her right hand just outside the trigger guard in case she stumbled, since the safety was off, with a double-O round ready in the chamber.

  Easy now.

  When she confronted them, if they were in the hallway, it would be an easy shot. She’d give them a chance to drop their weapons, and when they refused—as she imagined they were bound to do—she’d squeeze off and keep on firing until all of them were down and dying.

  There goes my security deposit, Granger thought, and swallowed back a laugh that came unwanted to her throat. More nerves than humor to it, in the present circumstances, as she climbed the next-to-last step and prepared to face her enemies.

  The men who’d come to kidnap or to kill her.

  “I’m here,” she told the Cobra’s compact microphone, almost a whisper, hoping Cooper could hear her. Either way, the time had come to make her move.

  She stepped around the corner, shotgun leveled at three men standing outside the door to her apartment. Two were holding pistols, one a submachine gun, all fitted with silencers. The man nearest her door was leaning forward, as if listening, deciding what to do next, when she shouted out the only thing that she could think of.

  “Texas Rangers! Drop your weapons! Now!”

  * * *

  BOLAN HAD DUCKED into the kitchen when he heard the toilet flush, down at the far end of the hall in Granger’s flat. The guy who’d left his post to take a bathroom break came plodding back with no idea that anyone had entered while he dealt with nature’s call, surprised as all get-out when Bolan pressed the Glock against his skull, behind his left ear.

  “Do you want to live?” he’d asked.

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Discard your weapons. Very carefully.”

  The guy had reached inside his blazer, pulling out a Springfield Armory XD autoloader with a suppressor attached to its muzzle. At Bolan’s direction, he tossed it toward a nearby sofa, where it landed with a solid thud.

  “What else?”

  “That’s it.”

  There’d been no point in asking him a second time, so Bolan clubbed him to the carpet, knocking him out cold. He used a pair of Granger’s handcuffs to secure the shooter’s wrists behind his back, then searched him, found a sap in his hip pocket and a short but wicked dagger in a boot sheath. Only then had he reported back to Granger, waiting on the street.

  “One down.”

  A minute passed before a walkie-talkie sputtered on the fallen shooter’s belt. “Otto. You read me?” Bolan let them wonder, and the caller came back: “Otto! Do you copy?” Finally, in something close to desperation, the voice ordered, “Otto! Pick up, goddamn it!”

  Otto slept through it, and the little radio went dead. Bolan imagined the Grand Cherokee in motion, rolling toward him on Clay Avenue, its driver looking for a place to park. Granger would be approaching at the same time, in the RAV4, making an allowance for the hit team as they had agreed. Give them some lead time, so that they could enter the house and make their way upstairs. No showdown in the street if they could possibly avoid it. Keep the Hig
h Noon action to a minimum.

  Bolan retrieved the silenced pistol from the sofa and examined it. The XD—for X-treme Duty—was also known as the HS2000, manufactured in Croatia and imported for domestic sales by Springfield Armory in Illinois. Otto What’s-his-name had picked the XD Service model, chambered in .45 ACP, thirteen rounds in the magazine and one more in the chamber. Bolan put his Glock away and held the borrowed pistol loosely in his hand, waiting for company that he was sure must be approaching, even now.

  It didn’t take them long, all things considered. Bolan wasn’t sure if they would have to drive around the block, seeking a parking spot, or if they’d leave their Jeep out in the street and rush the place. Bolan was listening, beside the door, when footsteps sounded on the stairs. He heard no conversation as the shooters closed in for the kill, uncertain what to make of the ongoing silence from their inside man.

  With company outside the door, Bolan retreated, crouching down behind the sofa in the living room for cover, if they started firing through the older lath-and-plaster wall. The shooter he had knocked unconscious lay beyond the line of fire and relatively safe, at least until the door was breached. Bolan wished he could see how his opponents in the corridor were armed, but he would do his best to cope with whatever they threw at him.

  In Bolan’s ear, the lady Ranger’s voice announced, “I’m here.”

  Inside, at least—but where, exactly?

  As if she had heard his silent question, Granger shouted down the hallway outside her apartment, “Texas Rangers! Drop your weapons! Now!”

  Somebody made a move, Bolan could almost picture it, and then he heard the big Benelli twelve-gauge. Bam! Bam! Bam! A man cried out in pain, as someone else burst through the door to Granger’s flat, clutching a pistol in his hand. Wild-eyed, the new arrival spotted Bolan rising from behind the sofa, tried for target acquisition, was nowhere close to it when Bolan cut him down with two quick, nearly silent rounds.

  Outside the open doorway, two more bodies sprawled, blood leaking into well-worn carpet. Neither one was moving as Bolan rose fully and called out through the door, “Adlene?”