Stand Down

by Don Pendleton

  Despite the gravity of Bolan’s situation—next to the drug runners, he was the most vulnerable, standing right in the thick of the huge Mexican standoff that had just developed—the Executioner still savored the look of disbelief and shock that appeared on De Cavallos’s face.

  “There’s still plenty of Americans willing to stand up and fight for what they believe in, whether it’s their country, their neighbors, or simply their way of life. And they’re more than willing to stand up to scum like you, coming into our country to spread your drugs.”

  De Cavallos recovered fast, his expression changing from surprise to anger to resignation in the span of a few seconds. “Once again it seems that I have underestimated you, Mr. Cooper.”

  “Then you see the folly of trying to continue this confrontation, don’t you, Mr. De Cavallos?”

  The Mexican nodded. “I most certainly do, however, I’m not about to let myself be arrested and extradited back to my own country.” He twitched his wrist, and suddenly he was holding a small black box in his right hand. “This is a radio-controlled detonator to the charges that have been planted in the Cristobal factory. The toxic cloud resulting from the mixing of the chemicals there would certainly wipe out this town and everyone in a one-hundred-mile radius.”

  Bolan kept his voice even as he replied, “Even you wouldn’t destroy what had to cost the cartel millions of dollars to build.” He felt dozens of eyes upon him from above, everyone waiting for one of two signals to be given—either stand down, or open fire.

  De Cavallos’s face hardened, and Bolan saw the true, ruthless drug dealer that lurked beneath his civilized veneer. “You will let us drive out of town unharmed, or else I will unleash a chemical nightmare upon your precious little town.”

  In answer, Bolan licked his finger and held it up as he turned slightly away from his opponent. “I’d be a lot more worried about that if the wind wasn’t blowing south-south-east. The only people you’d catch in that cloud is yourselves. The next town is thirty miles to the east. There’s only a hundred miles of empty prairie to the south.”

  That wasn’t entirely true. If De Cavallos did unleash the chemicals, there still was a chance the town could be caught in the fallout. But Bolan’s words had the desired effect. They made the other man pause as he also checked the direction the wind was blowing.

  He returned his attention to the man in front of him. “Only one way to find out…”

  But Bolan was already moving. His right hand, which had been slowly creeping up toward his belt, now flashed to the Beretta hidden under his jacket. Drawing it in a single fluid motion, he snap aimed and fired at the box in De Cavallos’s hand. The 9 mm bullet exploded the box into a spray of plastic and electronics, slashing the man’s hand open and making him shout in surprise and pain.

  Bolan didn’t stop to see what effect his shot had on the man, but moved his pistol ten degrees left and put a bullet right between Rojas Quintanar’s eyes before the man could perfectly aim his rifle. As the deputy fell, Bolan sent two more bullets toward the second guard as he dived to the ground, knowing all hell was about to break loose around him. Rolling onto his back, he fired at the nearest guard’s feet, more to make him take cover than in hopes of actually hitting him. But as he triggered his Beretta, he heard a sound that made his blood run cold.

  The moment before everyone opened fire, the roof of the extended, armored Escalade split open to reveal a six barreled minigun. It popped out and unloaded on the nearest building with an ear-splitting roar. The front of the shop disintegrated in a shower of glass and brick, making the townspeople on the roof duck for cover.

  The M-249 SAWs on the Humvees opened up from both ends of the street, shredding the men running for cover either to or from the Escalades. One managed to get inside a vehicle and try to drive away, but sustained bursts of 5.56 mm rounds into the engine and tires brought him to a halt after only going a few yards.

  Then it was as if the heavens had opened up, and lead poured from the sky instead of rain.

  Bolan’s calculated risk—that De Cavallos would surrender when faced with what should have been overwhelming odds—had gone terribly wrong. He ran for the nearest cover, which happened to be the underside of the armored Escalade. Its chain gun was still pouring a firestorm of destruction into the rooftops at a rate of 4,000 rounds per minute. The tops of the roofs were pulverized under the machine gun’s onslaught. While it raked the left side of the street, the shooters on the opposite side tried to take it out by concentrating their fire, but the lighter rifle shells, even the .30-06 and .300 Winchester Magnum bullets, ricocheted off the body. Bolan thought about trying to contact Rollins, but wasn’t sure the man would be able to hear him. The deafening thunder all around him was an almost physical force that battered at his ears and skull.

  All around him, the gunmen on the ground dropped like flies, cut down by a variable hail of bullets. The Escalades at both ends of the street sagged on blown tires, their windows shattering, one hood flying up, only to be perforated by several more rounds. Thick clouds of burned cordite filled the street, its familiar, acrid odor filling Bolan’s nose.

  Then Bolan heard an even louder racket above the ear-splitting thunder of rifle fire as a shadow passed overhead. The helicopter came in low and out of the south, a pair of gunmen wielding M-16s shooting at the remaining riflemen on the roof. One of the M-249s swiveled and opened up as the helicopter approached, the 5.56 mm rounds spitting out to star the helicopter’s windshield.

  The pitch of the aircraft’s engine changed suddenly, its smooth roar turning choppy. The aircraft’s shadow began whirling around on the street as the pilot fought for control. Bolan watched the M-249 gunner pour more fire into the aircraft, then heard a small explosion. The chopper reared up, then accelerated right into a storefront, where its blades shattered into shards of deadly shrapnel flying in every direction. Bolan ducked behind a heavy-duty tire as he heard the thunks from pieces hitting the side of the SUV. What was left of the fuselage crashed to the ground about fifteen yards from Bolan’s position. One man managed to stagger out of the crumpled, smoking wreck, only to be cut down in a hail of bullets. The chain gun above was still spraying out ragged bursts every few seconds, as if the gunner inside was picking his targets with more care.

  The engine of the Escalade started, and Bolan flattened himself against the ground as the SUV lurched backward. Although both front tires had been shot several times, that didn’t seem to impede the driver’s handling of the big vehicle. Bolan was left lying in the middle of the road, as the Escalade barreled into the two wrecked Escalades to the south, shoving the bullet-ridden hulks aside as if they were toys. One of the Humvees tried to challenge it, while the other one backed away. The M-249 opened up on the approaching SUV, which gained speed as it backed up.

  Then its cannon finally finished its traverse and opened fire on the National Guard vehicle from less than ten yards away. The 20 mm rounds didn’t so much puncture the vehicle as penetrate it from one side to the other, destroying the front of the Humvee and everyone inside. The M-249 fell silent after one final, futile burst. Still moving, the Escalade slammed into the smoking wreck and pushed it aside, then swerved into a wild U-turn and accelerated away from the battle zone, heading south.

  Bolan was on his feet in a flash, running for the last undamaged Humvee. The driver rolled down his window. “What’s your plan?”

  The soldier leaped into the rear of the Humvee and pulled back the cocking lever of the M-249. “We’ve got to stop him before he gets back to the factory! He’s going to blow it up!”

  16

  The driver popped the clutch and hit the gas, making the Humvee’s tires smoke on the pavement as they took off after the Escalade, shrinking in the distance.

  The driver glanced back at Bolan, who was blinking the tears out of his eyes from the stinging wind. “You realize we’re chasing a minigun mounted on a truck that’s as heavily armored as a tank, right?”

  “Ther
e’s only so many bullets that thing can hold. I’m guessing he blew through most of his ammo back on Main Street.”

  “You mean when they were laying waste to the heart of town, right?”

  Bolan tried not to wince at the comment. “I think you’ll have no trouble getting some assistance from the government to rebuild.” At the very least they’ll want to keep the fact that a commercial-size meth lab funded by a drug cartel had set up shop right in the middle of America, he thought.

  The one advantage they had over the vehicle they were chasing was speed. Cresting the hill outside of town, they saw the Escalade laboring up the next small grade. The driver stomped on the gas, making the Humvee surge forward. “Think they’ve seen us?”

  As if answering his question, a brief burst of fire erupted from the minigun, the bullets chewing up the road and shoulder, sending up large plumes of dust. The driver wrenched the wheel to the right, swerving onto the opposite shoulder before straightening the Humvee. “Guess so.”

  “Let’s see if I can even the odds a bit.” Bolan lined up sights of the M-249 with the chain gun and let loose three bursts. At least one of them hit the gun itself, making sparks fly from the housing, but whatever damage it had sustained hadn’t seemed to impair the weapon system. It answered back with another burst that chopped the Humvee’s right front fender into scrap metal, making the driver swerve so far over that they nearly went into the ditch.

  Seeing the weapon system with its barrels canted down to try to hit them gave Bolan an idea. “Closer! Get closer!”

  “You want to do what?”

  “He’ll shoot us to pieces back here! Get beside him. The gun can’t decline far enough to hit us!”

  “And how am I supposed to get us that close in one piece?”

  “I’ll do my best to keep it off balance. Go, go, go!”

  The driver put the pedal to the metal as Bolan squeezed the trigger on the machine gun again, doing everything in his power to keep the muzzle aimed at the cannon. The recoil of the M-249 shook his hands and arms all the way up to his shoulders, but he gritted his teeth and kept the top of the fleeing Escalade in his sights. Bullets bounced off the housing and mechanism of the chain gun, and Bolan was rewarded with a large burst of sparks and spurt of smoke. It spit one last short burst that chewed up the road in front of the Humvee, then stopped all together, the barrels grinding to a halt and smoke rising from the system.

  The driver had been doing his part as well, bringing the Humvee alongside the Escalade, the cloud of dust being kicked up by both vehicles obscuring their vision. “Holy shit, you did it! Now how do we stop the rest of it?”

  The Escalade driver chose that moment to swerve his heavier vehicle into the squat Humvee’s side, grinding against it in a squeal of metal. The Humvee lurched right, then came back just as hard, slamming into the side of the Cadillac, but hardly budging it.

  Bolan squinted through the dust, haze and sunlight to see the Cristobal compound appear in the distance. “Don’t let them get to the factory!”

  “I’m fuckin’ trying!” The driver twisted the wheel hard left again, doing his best to force the Escalade off the road. The SUV and its driver resisted all efforts to divert it from its intended course, and pushed back against the Humvee with implacable power.

  Bolan had been letting the machine gun cool down from his previous firing, but he finally shoved the barrel as far down as it could go, then let loose at the Caddy’s right front wheel. Although it was a run-flat, there was a limit to the amount of abuse it could take, and several bursts of 5.56 mm rounds far exceeded its capability. The tire shredded apart in a shower of rubber, the whole vehicle lurching down as the rim bit into the road in a spray of sparks. The Escalade just kept on rolling forward, turning onto the short driveway leading to the company grounds.

  The driver yanked the wheel over in another futile effort to stop the rolling armored vehicle. “Damn it, man, bust a window open or something!”

  “Can’t find a weak spot!” Bolan aimed and loosed a long burst at the passenger-side window, seeing it star into opaqueness under the impact of the bullets, but not break. “Damn it! Stay on them!”

  But the driver of the Escalade went on the offensive again, smashing his vehicle into the side of the Humvee. The two engines strained against each other, but the Humvee was losing, as the Escalade slowly forced it over to the right, aiming it right at a small, cinder-block building.

  “Turn, turn right!” Bolan shouted as he ducked into the rear passenger seat. The driver hauled on the wheel, but they were going too fast. The Humvee had just started to angle away from the building when it slammed into the wall with its right fender—the one already weakened from the burst of machine-gun fire—taking the brunt of the impact.

  The entire right front quarter crumpled like tinfoil. The engine backfired and died, leaving an eerie silence in Bolan’s ears. The impact had thrown him against the back of the front seats, painfully bruising his left shoulder and ribs and banging his head against the frame of the door hard enough to make him see stars for a few moments. When his vision cleared, Bolan raised his head just high enough to see the motionless form of the driver in the front seat. Checking the man’s pulse, Bolan found it steady and strong.

  “Good thing you wore your seat belt,” he muttered as he wrestled the man out of the straps. Beretta in hand, he was able to push open the passenger’s back door, and after checking for hostiles, he slipped out and tried to open the driver’s door, to no avail—it was wedged shut. The passenger’s door was relatively undamaged, so he was able to go in and haul the man out. He dragged him to the far side of the building, away from the Humvee, which didn’t seem to be in danger of catching fire or exploding at the moment. Checking the man over for any obvious injuries, Bolan found none. He left him on the ground and went hunting for De Cavallos.

  The grounds of the facility were silent, with none of the previous bustle of people at work. De Cavallos must have let his people go, Bolan thought, trying to scan in all directions for shooters while moving toward the big building he had broken into earlier that morning. While he didn’t see the Escalade anywhere, it was the logical destination for both of the De Cavallos men.

  Bolan reached the main doors without incident, then realized the key-card reader was flashing red. The entrance had been security locked. He jogged back to the Humvee, removed the SAW from its pintle-mount and carried it back to the entryway. Standing about fifteen yards away, he steadied the weapon on his hip and squeezed the trigger.

  The long burst of bullets chopped the thick glass into hundreds of tiny pieces. Bolan kept the carnage going, letting the machine gun spray lead death into the main room as well, in case anyone had gotten the bright idea to try to ambush him as he was coming inside. Only when the gun clicked dry did he let up on the trigger.

  The entrance to the building was demolished, with no sign that the glass doors had even existed, save for the scattered fragments of glass on the floor. As he watched, a piece of metal framing broke loose from the top and fell to the ground. Bolan tossed the empty, smoking gun aside, drew his Beretta and strode toward the doorway.

  Bits of glass crunched beneath his feet with every step. His hearing battered from the slaughter on Main Street, followed by the run-and-gun back to the Cristobal compound, Bolan felt as if he were listening to the world through ears stuffed with cotton. Everything sounded far away, which could be fatal when hearing a safety click off or a shotgun slide rack meant the difference between life and death.

  He kept most of his attention focused on the high, L-shaped desk at the back of the big room, which would provide perfect cover for a person waiting in ambush. Normally he could hear someone breathing or shifting his weight from yards away, but all he could sense at this moment was the blood rushing through his ears. He walked farther into the room, watching the desk, the double doors and the foyer that contained the elevator.

  Bolan was almost at the desk when he felt more than heard the ping
of the elevator signaling a car had just arrived. Glancing over, he saw the arrival light glowing, which meant the doors were moments away from opening. Quickly he threw himself forward into a shoulder roll that took him to the side of the desk farthest from the elevator. Coming up on his feet again, he flattened his back against the dark hardwood and waited for someone to come out.

  The doors cycled open and closed, yet Bolan sensed no one else in the room with him. But he was still hesitant to move any farther—if felt like someone was still in or around there—he just had to figure out where.

  Steeling himself, Bolan rolled right, behind the desk, his pistol aimed and ready to shoot anyone behind it.

  The space was empty. He crawled forward until he was at the inside corner, where the desk made the ninety-degree turn toward the wall. Bolan peeked up at the room, aware that precious seconds were ticking away. For all he knew, De Cavallos could be moments away from resetting the bomb to destroy the building. He saw the elevator light come on again and stood up, realizing that the mechanism had to have been on a timer that cycled it between the floors.

  So when the doors opened and Everado De Cavallos emerged carrying a long, sleek, futuristic-looking gun with a thick drum magazine in the middle, Bolan was caught in the open for a second.

  Just long enough for Everado to level the gun and open fire.

  Bolan fell backward as the heavy panels of the desk buckled and splinted under the impact of the buckshot from the AA-12 automatic shotgun. He sent up a silent thanks to the powers that be that the young man hadn’t loaded the weapon with slugs. The thick hardwood of the desk had barely resisted the lead onslaught, but it couldn’t take another full-auto beating without being destroyed.

  Quickly Bolan scooted backward on the polished marble floor, heading for the far end of the desk. The piece of furniture shook as it was pounded by more double-ought buck shot.