Nuclear Reaction

by Don Pendleton

  Two of the dead had fallen where Darius could likely see them, but Bolan still used caution when he peeked around the corner, waving for his comrades to proceed. They ran to join him, bunching up like amateurs in the process, but Bolan didn’t scold them once they were assembled under cover of the barracks building.

  “What we need to do, right now—”

  Pahlavi cut him off, pointing and crying out, “Darice! She’s there!”

  Turning, Bolan was just in time to see a woman in a white coat punch a man who held a pistol, swinging with all her might, as if she’d been collecting grievances for years and channeled all of them through her right arm. The man staggered and slumped, dropping to one knee, while the woman ran away. Bolan saw something awkward in her gait, as if she was unsteady on her feet—groggy, perhaps, or injured.

  Darius ran after her before Bolan could stop him, calling out her name amid the gunfire and explosions. If she heard him, it would be a miracle. Then Bolan saw her stunned escort, raising his eyes and pistol, both of them locked onto Darius.

  Cursing, Bolan rushed forward, fearing that he might already be too late.

  23

  Darius Pahlavi ran like one possessed, heedless of the danger to himself as bullets filled the smoky air around him. He cared nothing for the risk to himself, only for rescuing Darice and punishing—if possible—the people who had harmed her.

  One of them was kneeling right in front of him. Pahlavi recognized Kurush Gazsi from one of those rare functions where Darice had pointed to him, whispering about his attitude and temper. It had been a kind of joke in those days, but Pahlavi saw no humor in the present situation.

  Much less in the pistol Gazsi held, now pointed at himself.

  Pahlavi started firing from the hip at twenty yards. He was not expert with the CETME rifle yet, though he had improved in the past few hours. Even so, his first few rounds fell short, chipping the concrete just in front of Gazsi, stinging him with fragments as they ricocheted. It was enough to spoil his target’s aim, the first round out of Gazsi’s pistol sizzling past him, on his left.

  Pahlavi cursed the man who had done who knew what to his beloved sister, held her prisoner for days if nothing else, and this time when he fired, he brought the rifle to his shoulder. Not quite aiming, but directing it, the piece serving as an extension of his body and his rage.

  The last rounds from Pahlavi’s magazine ripped into Gazsi’s chest and throat, one drilling through his lower jaw and leaving it askew. The impact pitched his target over backward, sprawling with his legs folded beneath him in a position that would’ve caused agony to his knees if he was still alive.

  Reloading on the run, Pahlavi saw his sister far ahead of him, approaching Building A. Her lab coat billowed for a moment as she ran, and he was shocked to see a glimpse of naked buttocks underneath. Why would she be—?

  Seething, he turned back long enough to stamp on Gazsi’s lifeless face and spit on the dead man before he ran on in pursuit.

  “Darice!” he cried, straining his throat. “Darice, come back!”

  She either didn’t hear him, with the racket in the compound, or believed it had to be Gazsi chasing her. In any case, she ran as if a demon were behind her, breathing down her neck, making Pahlavi wonder if he had a prayer of catching her before she reached the gate and met more guards.

  They might not shoot her down on sight, and yet—

  As if his thoughts had been transformed to flesh, three soldiers chose that moment to emerge from Building A, directly in Darice’s path. They saw her coming, hesitated in surprise—Pahlavi thought perhaps the coat had gapped in front, as well—and then moved out to intercept her.

  Were they trying to be helpful?

  That notion vanished as two of the soldiers grabbed Darice’s arms. She struggled with them, kicking with bare feet until the third man gripped her ankles. Making faces, chattering among themselves, they started carrying Pahlavi’s sister toward the door from which they had emerged short seconds earlier.

  Pahlavi knew he could not let them go inside.

  He stopped and aimed. Darice’s life and his own depended on his aim, how true it was, the steadiness of hand and eye. He chose the soldier on his left, aimed for the center of his broad, square back and squeezed the CETME’s trigger almost lovingly.

  Downrange, the soldier lurched, released Darice and toppled forward on his face. Before the others could react, Pahlavi had the second target in his sights, half turned in profile now, and fired another single round. It wasn’t perfect, but it did the job, spinning the soldier on his heels and pitching him away, while Darice tumbled to the pavement.

  Only one soldier remained, still clinging to her ankles, with the lab coat splayed and riding up around her waist. Still, sudden death detracted from the treasures on display. The soldier dropped her legs, reached for the rifle slung across his shoulder—and collapsed without a whimper as Pahlavi’s bullet drilled him through the heart.

  Pahlavi ran, then, calling to his sister as she clutched the coat around her, struggling to her feet. She heard him this time, turning, sobbing as she ran into his arms.

  A moment later, she recoiled, arms tightly folded to prevent the coat from opening again. “You can’t see me like this,” she said. “It’s—”

  “Too late,” Pahlavi said. “Come on. We’re getting out of here.”

  “But, how?”

  Turning, Pahlavi saw Bolan and the remnants of Ohm’s fighting force approaching on the run.

  “Trust me,” he said.

  IT WAS THE END of everything, and still Dr. Jamsheed Mehran was anxious to survive. His project, years of research, might be up in smoke, but he could always start again, set up another lab, collect another team. If only he could slip out of the compound without being killed or maimed, the rest would follow in its own good time, he was sure.

  Huddled beside him in the shadow of the mess hall, watching men in uniform run back and forth across the compound, firing guns, Simrin Amira said, “I still don’t understand. Why are the soldiers killing one another?”

  “I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Mehran replied. “If we stay here much longer, they’ll be killing us. We have to reach the motor pool.”

  “Why not our own cars?” Amira asked.

  “Use your head! They’re twice as far away, up near the gate. We have to go in that direction, but I’d rather do it in a vehicle than try on foot.”

  “Well, then, what are we waiting for?”

  Mehran could feel the angry color in his face. He didn’t even want to think about his blood pressure. “Because you needed rest!” he snapped. “Have you forgotten that? It’s only been a minute since you said—”

  “All right!” she gritted at him. “I’m ready now. Can we just find a car and get away from here?”

  Mehran peered to his left and right, saw no one close enough to trouble them on either side. Without another word, he rose and sprinted toward the motor pool, directly opposite their hiding place and forty yards away. It seemed like miles when he was running in the open, waiting for a bullet in the back to bring him down, but nothing happened and he reached the open shed in one piece, ducking between two plain sedans.

  Amira tumbled in behind him, almost knocking him off balance until Mehran pushed her back. “Be careful there,” she whined at him.

  “Shut up and check for keys left in the cars,” he ordered, rising as he spoke to peer in through the driver’s window on his left.

  The first car with a set of keys in the ignition was a Land Rover, but neither one of them could drive stick shift, and it was not the time to learn by trial and error. Three cars later, the next to last, they found keys in a black Peugeot sedan and Mehran slid behind the steering wheel.

  He had the engine running when Amira started hammering the window on her side with frantic fists. Only the driver’s door had been unlocked, apparently, and Mehran took another frantic moment learning how to open hers. When she was fuming in the seat beside h
im, Mehran backed out of the shed into the battleground and swung the wheel in the direction of the gate.

  “Hang on,” he said. “We can’t afford to stop for anything.”

  “Just drive!” Amira said.

  He accelerated toward the gate, watching combatants dive out of his way. It seemed to be instinctive, and he made no effort to decipher who was on which side. Indeed, as he’d informed Amira, Mehran had no clue why sides existed, or what all the fighting was about.

  They’d covered nearly half the distance to the gate when someone fired a burst of automatic fire that strafed the car’s right side. Mehran cringed from the ringing sounds of impact on the doors and fenders, flinched as glass imploded, and he nearly lost control when Amira squealed in pain.

  “What is it?” he demanded, knowing what the answer had to be. She had either been cut by flying glass shards, or—

  “I’m shot, you idiot!” she gasped.

  Mehran hunched lower in his seat. If she was hit, it meant the slugs could find him, too. The vehicle could not protect them from incoming fire, but they might still escape if he drove fast and fearlessly.

  “I’ll get us out of here!” he said, speaking as much to his reflection in the rearview mirror as to the woman at his side.

  Mehran floored the accelerator, barreling across the compound. He clipped one and then another soldier when they proved too slow in leaping from his path. Those impacts made him smile, unconsciously, a fierce grin totally devoid of warmth or humor. By the Peugeot’s dashboard light, it made his face look like a leering skull.

  “We’re almost there!” he said, as they approached the bulk of the administration building. Just beyond it lay the gates and freedom, if he could negotiate—

  Mehran was suddenly distracted by a group of people moving in the same direction, walking toward a clutch of military vehicles. They all wore army uniforms except for one, whose white lab coat stood out among the rest. Slowing to peer through the windshield, Mehran was stunned to recognize Darice Pahlavi.

  Wasn’t she supposed to be in custody? Where were the soldiers taking her? He wondered, feeling his panic rising.

  As if she felt his gaze upon her, Darice turned to face Mehran. Their eyes met for an instant, then he noticed something strange about her lab coat. It was hanging open, and she seemed to be—

  Darice pointed, said something to the soldiers, and they swung their guns around. Mehran took one hand off the wheel, waving at them and calling out for them to hold their fire. Beside him, Amira jerked upright, out of a daze, demanding, “What on earth—?”

  The soldiers fired in unison, raking the car from end to end with automatic fire. Jamsheed Mehran shuddered as bullets ripped into his flesh, deaf now to Amira’s screams. He kept his foot on the accelerator, but he could not seem to grip the wheel. He couldn’t stop the car as it veered off and sped directly toward the nearest guard tower, was barely conscious of the shock as it collided with the tower’s base.

  Finished, he thought, and closed his eyes a beat before the crumbling tower buried him.

  THEY PILED INTO THE STAFF car, Bolan in the driver’s seat, two more beside him, while Pahlavi took the back seat, sandwiched between Janna and his sister. Bolan looked around for more of them and found two other Ohm members scrambling into the jeep—one at the wheel, one manning the machine gun.

  Where were the rest? If any more were still alive, they hadn’t made it back as planned.

  “We’re out of time,” he told Pahlavi. “If we wait, we stay for good.”

  It was a leader’s call. Pahlavi had to make it on his own. He craned his neck, then glanced at Janna and Darice. “The others must be lost,” he said. “I saw most of them fall, myself.”

  Janna began reciting names, a doleful litany, but Bolan found it hard to follow. They’d come in with seventeen from Ohm, but Bolan couldn’t wrap his mind around the dialect to count the names as she pronounced them.

  “All dead, then,” Pahlavi said a moment later. “We should go.”

  Bolan swung the staff car through a tight turn and saw the jeep do likewise in his wake. Behind them, scattered firing still peppered the compound, but he had to trust Pahlavi’s judgment that the in-house troops were fighting one another now.

  He hoped so, anyway.

  How long before a panic call from someone involved in Project X brought reinforcements to the lab? Judging their distance from the nearest town or military base, he guessed they had another hour, give or take, by which time he hoped they would have ditched the military vehicles and uniforms, returning to civilian garb.

  Returning to the house was a risk, but not as bad as starting fresh, stealing new vehicles and clothes. Once they were clear, Bolan would have one of Pahlavi’s people man the staff car’s radio and translate any bulletins suggesting that the house had been raided by their enemies.

  Once they were clear.

  A few soldiers were still clustered around the gate, and they began firing as Bolan’s two-car caravan approached. Behind him, Bolan heard the heavy machine gun open up, its tracers streaking past the staff car, ripping into bodies by the gate.

  The rebels in his car were firing, as well, one on each side from open windows as he steered them toward the gate. A bullet struck the staff car’s windshield, right of center, punching through and burrowing between the seats. Bolan aimed his vehicle at the shooter, even as the gunman started taking hits, and plowed him under on their stampede toward the gate.

  Another moment, and they blasted through it, running free and clear toward the highway with only scattered shots behind them and the heavy machine gun laying down a pyrotechnic screen of cover fire. Bolan continued for two miles at high speed, then backed off to a normal cruising pace and settled in for the long haul.

  Their target was destroyed, most of the brains behind its operation liquidated. They had plucked Pahlavi’s sister from the clutches of her captors, though recuperation was another matter, which doubtless would take some time.

  It had cost them fourteen friendly lives.

  How many dead men on the other side? Bolan had long since given up on notching guns and keeping score. It hardly mattered, anyway, since predators were perfectly expendable. Kill one, and there would always be a dozen more to take his place.

  The best the Executioner could do on any given day was thin the herd, and he had made a decent start on that in Pakistan. The rest was up to natives like Pahlavi and his sister, like the others who had risked their lives to step on Project X.

  Tomorrow was their territory, and they’d have to handle it without the Bolan touch.

  24

  The airport terminal was crowded, as it had been on the day Bolan arrived. He had the feeling it was always crowded, people taking off and coming back as if they couldn’t quite decide if it was worth the trouble to remain and see the story of their nation to its end.

  Bolan, for his part, would be glad to get away.

  He’d left Pahlavi and the others at the house, separated after saying their goodbyes and shaking hands around a circle that had shrunken perilously since their first meeting, less than twelve hours earlier. Pahlavi’s sister needed care, and it would not be safe for Darius to show his face in public for some time. Bolan couldn’t be sure that they had dealt with everyone who knew about Pahlavi’s link to Ohm, for instance, and the same regime was still in charge as when they started, likely to desire revenge at some point in the not-too-distant future.

  “You should leave,” Bolan had told them all, Pahlavi translating. He’d watched the youngsters shake their heads, some of them smiling, others seeming on the verge of tears.

  “This is our homeland,” Pahlavi said. “We belong here. Where else should we go?”

  “Someplace where you can live in peace until the wind shifts,” Bolan answered. “I imagine you could find a place in the United States, if it came down to that.”

  “I am a Pakistani,” Darius replied, “not Pakistani American. Your people do not want me. And,
with all respect, I don’t want them. We have a perfect right to live where we were born, raise children here, and live without a boot upon our necks or fear of being vaporized by warheads.”

  “Rights look good on paper,” Bolan told him, “but they don’t go far unless you’ve got the power to enforce them.”

  “We will have it yet, my friend. Come back and see us when that happens.”

  Bolan nodded, realized that he was talking to a stone. “Maybe I will,” he answered, neither one of them believing it.

  He’d driven to Lahore alone, ditching his surplus hardware on the way, a little at a time, until he only had his pistol and an extra magazine remaining when he reached the airport parking lot. He left them in a trash receptacle, ditched his rental car and checked in with a ticket agent for the airline that would carry him away in three short hours.

  After that, it was a waiting game.

  He watched soldiers as they patrolled the terminal in pairs, expecting them to question him, but none approached the tall man with his open magazine. He’d bought Le Match, although he couldn’t read much French, on the off chance that seeing it would keep the soldiers off his back, and it appeared to work.

  Or, maybe, none of them were hunting him at all.

  He hadn’t left a trail of any consequence in Pakistan, unless he counted the bodies scattered in his wake. His first encounter with the army had been accidental, and the second was in their effort to eliminate Pahlavi and his Ohm members, not to rub out an anonymous American. There was a possibility that soldiers or police would catch Pahlavi and his friends, would make them talk, but Bolan should be in the air by then, if not already safe in the U.S. They could describe him, blow the “Cooper” alias—and then, what?

  Nothing.

  He was clean, unless someone detained him at the airport for whatever reason, and he’d sanitized himself as much as possible before he’d reached the terminal. No weapons. Travel papers clean and very nearly genuine. No excess cash, no contraband, no souvenirs of any kind.