Armed Response

by Don Pendleton

  “Shit, we’re too late.”

  “Get my bag out of the trunk. We may need it.”

  Douglas automatically crouched but not before noticing the massive dents in the roof of the Hyundai sedan. He cursed. He had bought the car only hours ago, yet already it was a near write-off. He retrieved the heavy bag, not bothering to close the trunk in case it made some noise. Seeing that the fake spoiler had been ripped off, he cursed again. He rejoined Bolan at the side of the car.

  “What now?”

  “Follow me. Try to act normal.”

  “What, in a hood that doesn’t know what a white man is? Act normal, he says.”

  Bolan was already walking nonchalantly toward the first of the two pickups, holding his Beretta pistol by his side, releasing the safety with a flick of his thumb. Douglas saw that and decided that he should do the same, falling in behind his comrade.

  There was one man in each pickup cab, both behind the wheel, both keeping watch. A very loose watch. They were too relaxed, felt too safe in their own territory. Kings of the heap.

  The Executioner moved slowly toward the first pickup, knowing the driver only had to look in his rearview mirror to spot Death approaching. The gunmen were too lazy to even notice that the street had cleared of people. Or maybe they were just used to that reaction when they showed up. Bolan was glad there were no civilians present. A gunfight in a busy street was something that he always tried to avoid. Now he could eliminate the two drivers without anybody else getting injured.

  It never got that far.

  A small alley separated the target building and the house next to it. There were muffled shouts, fired shots, a scream and the tinny roar of an engine.

  A white Vespa moped shot out of the alley, a terrified African astride it. The Djiboutian twisted the handlebars over to the left, almost losing control. He skidded several feet before regaining his balance. Eyes wide, the man pulled the throttle back and sped down the street, burning rubber, moving as fast as the moped allowed him to.

  The Toyota drivers came alive, twisting the ignition keys and starting the heavy engines. Bolan closed the distance to the first driver, poked the pistol in through the open window and shot the man through the head, the bullet exiting through the passenger’s open window, taking a good portion of the man’s skull with it. The guy died without even knowing he was in trouble. The engine of the pickup stalled. A group of shouting gunmen poured out of the house, four killers who jumped into the open bed of the first Toyota. The driver gunned the engine and pulled a U-turn, giving chase to the fleeing moped before the last man was safely in.

  All of them were too excited to even notice Bolan, Douglas or their dead companion.

  A second group of gunmen ran out of the alley and did notice Bolan, but it was too late for them. They plunged straight into Bolan’s gun sights. The Executioner had swung his right arm around, extending it, the Beretta pistol pointing at a gunman’s forehead. The killer opened his mouth to shout, but a Parabellum round beat him to it, coring through his head and splattering his friends with blood and brain matter. The remaining three men staggered to a halt, trying to bring their diverse collection of sidearms to bear. Shocked by the appearance of an adversary and the sudden death of their cohort, their reactions were fatally delayed.

  Bolan already had target acquisition on the second man and fired the Beretta pistol repeatedly. Two more gunners collapsed to the dusty sidewalk, all life already gone. The fourth man tried his best, managed to fire a single shot from a scratched revolver before succumbing to Bolan’s superior marksmanship. He fell on top of his buddies, twitching. He was dead before the sound of the shot had finished echoing around the street.

  Bolan swung his head around, looking for Douglas. The CIA agent was standing where the soldier had last seen him, frozen, a look of stunned disbelief on his face. His own Beretta pistol was still pointing at the ground; he hadn’t even had the time to raise it to defend himself. Bolan cursed, worrying that Douglas would become a liability in a serious gunfight. He yanked the door of the Toyota pickup open, pulling the corpse of the driver out. Douglas just stood there.

  “Hey!” Bolan used his best drill instructor’s voice. “Snap out of it. Get over here, now! Bag in the back! Move it!”

  Douglas looked blank for a second, then joined Bolan, a dumbfounded expression on his face. He heaved the sports bag into the pickup bed. “You shot them all. Just like that. It was so fast.”

  “I’ll give you an autograph later. Right now you need to drive. We need to get to that scooter guy before the other team does. Get in and drive.”

  “Shouldn’t we check the house first?”

  “The chances are the guy on the scooter is one of the guides. He’ll be dead if we don’t move it. Drive.” Bolan climbed into the back of the pickup.

  “What about our car?” Douglas asked as he scrambled into the cab.

  “This one has more horses. And has side mirrors. And the seat is more comfortable. Why are we still here?”

  “I’m sitting in blood! Some of that guy’s head is stuck to the windshield! That’s so gross!” Douglas twisted the key, started the powerful engine and spun the power steering over. The pickup turned smoothly and shot off down the street in pursuit, with the soldier tightly holding on to the roll bar in the back.

  It wasn’t hard to follow the first Toyota pickup. It was already several blocks ahead, having left a trail of destruction behind it as the gunmen tried to shoot the moped rider. The road conditions made accurate shooting impossible. Bullets flew in all directions, striking other vehicles, buildings and fleeing civilians. The moped zipped in and out of the traffic; the pickup plunged through it. Bolan could just make out the scooter as it dodged around a taxi. The pickup approached the vehicle, the killers firing into it. The taxi, its driver either dead or dying, spun right and crashed nose first into a building. Cars skidded to a stop, and others smashed into them. The killers poured murderous fire into those as well, not caring who died. Bolan hammered on the roof of the cab.

  “Go faster! We need to catch them!” he yelled.

  “I’m trying!” Douglas yelled back. He jerked the vehicle over to one side, throwing the soldier off-balance. A pedestrian lay in the road, broken and twisted, where he had been flung over the roof of the gunmen’s pickup. Bolan growled in anger as he hung on tightly. Douglas spun the wheel back just as a donkey and cart began to cross the road, its owner oblivious to the sounds of chaos around him. There was no avoiding them. Their pickup clipped the rear of the cart, smashing it, knocking the wreckage over onto its side, nearly taking the braying donkey with it. The owner screamed obscenities at them as Douglas regained control of the pickup.

  Bolan was aware of pedestrians on the side of the road, wailing, crying and shaking fists. There was nothing he could do for them other than halt the killers in their tracks. Douglas kept his hand on the horn, wanting people to get off the road. They shrieked past the shot-up taxi, its driver unmoving. Bolan wanted the killers more than ever.

  They were gaining, no more than half a block behind. The moped turned hard right, its rider almost pulled off from the forces exerted on him, the side of the bike scraping the ground in a shower of sparks. He regained control a second before disaster struck, the edge of a building only inches away, the moped’s rear tire gaining traction and burning rubber. The enemy’s vehicle followed, skidding around the corner too fast. The squeal was audible to Bolan, as was the terrified scream of one of the gunmen as the ruffian lost his grip on the roll bar, momentum taking over and flinging him at sixty miles per hour against the building that the moped had narrowly missed. The scream was abruptly cut off on impact, the broken corpse bouncing into the street.

  And then there were four, Bolan thought. He braced himself against the pickup’s side, hunkering down as Douglas imitated the maneuver of spinning the vehicle. Their pickup slid around the bend sideways in a cloud of burning rubber, crushing the corpse lying in the road, slamming into the side of
the building. Metal crumpled, the wing mirror disintegrated and there was a terrible, sharp scraping noise as Douglas changed gear and pulled away, scouring the black paint from the left side of the pickup, driving half on, half off the sidewalk.

  “Didn’t Langley teach you how to drive?” Bolan asked.

  “Shut up! I’m trying to drive,” Douglas yelled.

  Bolan regained his feet, clutching the roll bar tightly. They were gaining on the hunters and their human prey. He made out the moped making a left turn at the end of the road. The gunmen continued to take potshots, but it seemed they were beginning to conserve their ammunition. Either that or they were shaken by the death of their comrade in arms and were too busy holding on to do much shooting. They still were not aware that they in turn were being pursued.

  But somebody else was. The wail of a police siren sounded behind them. Bolan glanced back to see a Dacia police sedan join the pursuit, its lights flashing.

  Douglas must have seen the lights in his rearview mirror. “Shit! Can you do something about them?” he shouted as he drove back into the middle of the road, dodging a stalled minibus.

  “I don’t shoot cops,” Bolan shouted back. “Try to lose them, but don’t lose the Vespa.”

  “Try to lose them, he says!” Douglas spun the wheel to the right to avoid a foolish man stepping into the street to see what all the commotion was. The man jumped out of the way as the Toyota pickup banged into a parked taxi. The right wing mirror was now ripped away, and the steering wheel spun through Douglas’s hands. He quickly regained control of the slaloming vehicle, apparently realizing the police car was gaining, that he was losing ground to the moped. Bolan felt him floor the accelerator. The pickup’s tires spun, and the vehicle shot forward, the pursuing police car close behind.

  “Left! Left here!” Bolan thumped hard on the roof. Douglas complied, pulling the steering wheel hard over. They fishtailed, Bolan fighting to hold on. The enemy’s pickup was up ahead, accelerating away. They hadn’t caught the moped rider yet. It was the police car’s turn to crash into the side of a building as the underpowered Romanian-French car failed to take the corner at high speed. Bolan saw the right side of the car crumple, its headlight exploding in a shower of glass. Their engine stalled, delaying them, but he knew that they were not out of the game. He could see the officer in the passenger seat speaking into a radio. More police would be on the way, maybe even the army. They had to catch the moped driver and quickly disappear.

  They came upon another right turn, then they shot out onto a main road. Horns blared as angry drivers braked to a sudden halt. The moped rider was on the left side of the road, driving into the traffic, causing minibuses and a large truck to swerve out of the way. The scooter mounted the sidewalk, where two screaming children were yanked back by a protective mother. The gunmen’s vehicle stayed to the right, swerving around traffic. They drew level with the buzzing moped, deciding to resume shooting at it. Bullets flew in all directions, striking cars, walls and shattering grimy windows. Douglas narrowly avoided the swerving truck, its protesting horn drowning out almost all noise.

  Above the din Bolan could just make out the siren of the police car as the damaged Dacia barreled out of the side street looking to take up the pursuit again. The police failed spectacularly as they crashed head-on into the truck. The Dacia lost the argument, spinning like a top as the fender and hood crumpled, one front wheel flying off. Bolan could only hope that the police officers were not too badly injured. His attention returned to the pursuit as he heard Douglas yell, “Shit!”

  Up ahead a large passenger train was crossing over the road junction on its long journey down to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, the blue diesel locomotive belching fumes. It was directly in front of them, blocking the road. Cars came to a stop, waiting for the train to move away. The gunmen had seen the obstacle, as well, the driver making the decision to follow behind the moped. The gunmen’s vehicle shot across the road unmindful of oncoming traffic, mounting the curb just behind the terrified moped rider. The gunmen were laughing at him, wanting to see him run over instead of shot, banging on the roof, encouraging the driver to speed up. Maybe the moped would crash into the side of the train.

  “Follow them!” Bolan ordered. The sidewalk would be clear; people would be avoiding the first two vehicles. Douglas kept his hand on the horn, drove across the road and up onto the sidewalk. They drove over the remains of somebody’s wooden chair, gaining on the first Toyota pickup, which had now slowed, its crew wanting to torment the moped rider before they killed him.

  The scooter turned left, onto another main road, which paralleled the railway. The two Toyota pickups followed, white smoke from their tires creating a screen that blocked the view from other drivers. There were several crashes as cars came to a sudden halt, the sound of crunching metal and exploding glass adding to the cacophony. The noise dramatically increased as, a mile down the road, a Boeing 747 took off, flying barely a hundred feet above the highway. Bolan could easily read the Air France Cargo slogan on the aircraft’s side.

  “We’re approaching Ambouli Airport! And Camp Lemonnier!” Douglas yelled.

  Would that help or hinder them? Bolan wondered. There would be US soldiers stationed at the gates to Lemonnier, but they wouldn’t interfere in anything off base. However, at the airport, there would be more police, who would. He had no time to think about it. The moped shot across the road, getting closer to the train until it was parallel to the last carriage. The rider kept glancing at the carriage, as if trying to make a decision. Between the train tracks and the road was a brown strip of earth and sand about ten feet wide. The gunmen’s pickup joined the scooter on the strip, creating a dust storm that all but obscured Bolan’s view.

  Narrowing his eyes and raising a hand to protect them as Douglas joined chase over the dirt, the soldier could just make out the moped driver reaching toward the passenger car. A brown arm shot out from inside, someone stretching out to grip the rider’s hand. In one quick movement, the rider placed both feet on the saddle of the Vespa moped, then leaped onto the train. The moped fell to the ground, spinning, and the lead Toyota pickup crashed into it, knocking it away, back onto the road.

  The killers in the pickup bed were agitated, banging on the roof, urging the driver to increase speed. Bolan realized what they were intending to do and banged on the roof himself.

  “Catch up with them! They’re trying to board the train!”

  “I’m trying!” Douglas yelled back.

  The buildings of the city were now behind them, the massive complex of buildings that belonged to the airport and the military to the left.

  “I’ve got to get on board that train before the gunmen kill everybody! We need to catch up quickly!”

  “Tell me something I don’t know!”

  “The police won’t be far behind!”

  Their pickup left the ground for a second as they hit a rut. Bolan gripped the bar hard, eyes squinting against the dust cloud. Small stones peppered the 4x4, some cutting the Executioner’s face. He ignored the stinging wounds. Up ahead he could make out the lead pickup coming level with the passenger car. One man was poised to jump, the driver holding the pickup as steady as possible. After several seconds, the gunman leaped and disappeared inside.

  The rear door had to be open, Bolan realized. The second man, encouraged by the success of his comrade, also made the jump. The final man was more hesitant, and Bolan knew this was his opportunity to act. A plan of action formulated in his mind. He banged on the roof of the Toyota pickup again.

  “Hit their rear fender!”

  “What!”

  “Hit their rear fender! Hold it for a couple of seconds!”

  “Why?”

  “Just do it!”

  They were not far behind the enemy’s vehicle. A few more beats and Bolan could implement his idea. He could clearly see the side of the train carriage now. It had originally been painted dark green and cream, but the colors had been bleached away by the h
ard African sun. The paint was peeling from the old wooden sides, revealing the SNCF letters, which told Bolan the carriage had originated in France and been imported. He could also see that not only was the door gaping but also the windows were either fully open or completely removed. There would be no air-conditioning on the passenger cars, so the Djiboutians had created their own.

  Frightened faces peered out of the windows, nervously watching the pursuing vehicles. Douglas brought their pickup right up behind the enemy’s transport. He was finding it difficult to keep the bouncing pickup under control; the strip was getting rockier and bumpier. There was another huge roar as a massive, unidentifiable aircraft took off from the airport, flying right above them. As he was preparing to ram the lead Toyota, Douglas saw the remaining gunman look up, then look directly at him. A nervous grin covered the man’s face; he seemed to be looking for encouragement from his fellow anarchists. What he found was encouragement from Death.

  Even as he struck the leading Toyota pickup, the CIA agent heard Bolan on the move. There was a thump on the roof the cab. The next moment he saw Bolan catapult himself onto the bed of the vehicle. The gunman opened his mouth to scream or to shout a warning, but he never made it that far. Bolan’s right fist lashed out in a powerful undercut. The gunman’s head snapped back and his body lifted over the roof of the vehicle. He landed on the hood of the pickup, and Douglas lost sight of him. The driver was looking into his mirror in disbelief at the apparition that had appeared from nowhere.

  Bolan whipped out his Beretta pistol, giving the driver a double tap of Parabellum rounds. The soldier thrust the handgun into the waistband at the small of his back, twisted and leaped away from the now out-of-control vehicle, reaching for the doorway of the passenger car. Douglas briefly saw his partner hanging on by one hand but had no time to observe more. He slammed on the brakes as the driverless Toyota pickup spun onto its side, then flipped over onto its roof. A body flew from the tumbling pickup, presumably that of the gunman Bolan had punched. Douglas’s own car fishtailed and spun 180 degrees before finally coming to a stop.