Bolan kept the carrier's pedal to the metal, giving the deuce-and-a-half everything she had but knowing it would not be enough to outdistance those snapping hounds of hell closing in too damn fast.
Also Bolan played out his only option. He downshifted, pumping the brake at the same time.
When he had the decreased speed he wanted, still moving fast, he wheeled the supply carrier into a bone-rattling sideways skid, gripping the steering wheel to hold himself steady. Lansdale held onto the frame of the truck's cab for dear life.
The truck slewed to a shuddering halt across the narrow street, where it would effectively block the pursuers at least long enough to give Bolan and Lansdale a good start on foot.
Bolan ejected himself from the cab while the vehicle was still sliding, landing in a combat crouch to fan the escape route with Big Thunder. Wary combat senses were on alert, probing the night.
The dark street appeared deserted. For now.
8
Lansdale trotted up.
"Good play, big guy. If it works."
Bolan took off in a rapid, surefooted trot along the road, away from the truck and the rapidly approaching clamor of Soviet pursuers. Lansdale kept pace.
"You're good at ad-libbing a script," Bolan told the guy. The Texan chuckled as they covered distance.
"You oughta hear my one-liners. What have you got in mind now? There's a woman, Katrina... a friend."
"I met her. She's the one who told me where to find you."
"She's a good woman, Bolan. You must know that if you met her. The KGB and the GRU... they found out about her association with me. Damn, I shouldn't have messed with her."
They had gone several hundred yards when they heard the Russian chase vehicles screech to a halt. Shouts in Russian reached Bolan and Lansdale at the far end of the block where a side street intersected. The Executioner and the CIA man dodged around that corner with microseconds to spare before a volley of automatic gunfire blistered the night.
"We can reach Katrina in time to warn her before we leave Kabul," Bolan assured the guy. "Does she have transportation?"
Their jogging picked up. Lansdale kept the pace set by Bolan. "She does," Lansdale acknowledged. "The tough part's gonna be shaking those yahoos back there. That truck won't stop those cowboys but a minute or two. What do you reckon, pard?"
"I reckon you were easier to take when you were from Boston," Bolan said. Then he froze in his tracks and held up his hand. "Hold it!"
Lansdale stopped and tossed a nod in the direction of engines accelerating in the near distance.
"I hope you've got a miracle handy in your back pocket, big guy," he said.
Bolan tracked his Ingram on shadows up ahead where his NVD had outlined a parked automobile, a battered Czech Tatra, a stubby four-cylinder job not unlike the old VW bug.
The Tatra's engine started; its headlights blazed to life. Lansdale shouted in surprise.
"That's Katrina's car!" Then Bolan saw the woman herself move hurriedly from her side of the vehicle. She waved them toward her.
"Let's go," Bolan growled to Lansdale, not lowering his guard or the AutoMag. "Be careful."
They advanced.
The cacophony of approaching vehicles from the street a block away told Bolan the Russian troops had negotiated the barrier of the supply carrier and were racing to close the gap, "We don't have to be careful with Katrina," Lansdale whispered to Bolan as they approached the woman who held open the passenger door. "Katrina's all right. You've got to trust some people."
"Be careful," Bolan repeated low enough for the Russian woman not to hear. He and Lansdale reached the car.
"Bolan, you take the wheel, okay?" Lansdale called. He moved to the passenger side where Katrina waited. "If you drive like you shoot, we're already home."
"With pleasure," Bolan grunted.
He angled in behind the steering wheel of the Tatra, popping the clutch to get them out of there while Katrina and Lansdale bustled to climb in the passenger side.
At the corner of the cross street, the first of the Russian pursuit vehicles screamed into the intersection, a BTR-40 armored job, its turret machine gunner blazing wide open in a full arc that riddled the night.
Projectiles zinged and clipped around the Tatra.
Then Bolan heard the ugly sound of a 7.62mm slug impacting with living flesh.
He swung his head sideways as Lansdale gurgled out a sharp cry of pain and surprise and tumbled against the car, bracing himself against the roof, while Katrina Mozzhechkov reacted with no wasted movement to reach in and position Lansdale into the back seat. Lansdale continued to make gurgling, pain-racked sounds as he collapsed into the Tatra. The machine gunner aboard the armored car at the intersection tracked his line of fire back toward the Tatra, the heavy hammering of his weapon piercing the night. More Soviet troops rounded the corner and commenced rushing after the little bucket of bolts that had already goosed forward like a bat out of hell. Lansdale was bleeding over everything; the guy could only have seconds left, Bolan realized when he saw the wound; the slug had caught Lansdale in the back and cored right on through. Lansdale was hemorrhaging badly from the nose and mouth. Katrina had tumbled into the car from the momentum of their takeoff with a practiced grip on the M-16. She unleashed a burst at the pursuers, but before she or Bolan could see if it did any good, Bolan executed a two-wheeled turn out of that street in the direction they had come, one block over.
He palmed the wheel again, playing the gears, the Tatra fishtailing madly, tires shrieking across pavement to almost drown out the tumult of Soviets continuing to close in much too damn fast. He angled out of the turn along a passageway between private residences, a walkway not meant for vehicles. He knew the pursuing military vehicles would not fit through.
The little car whizzed between a row of darkened houses, across a courtyard deserted at this hour, and shot into the next parallel street over. Bolan veered into the street without slowing, then accelerated more in another shift of direction-right into the path of an eight-wheeled BTR-6 armored personnel carrier.
The troop transport vehicle was lumbering along, prepared to intercept at the next street if Bolan had kept to the roadway. The driver of the personnel carrier had not expected the quarry to come rocketing past him at this point. His reflexes came a heartbeat too slow and the personnel carrier lurched to the curb, jarring the raydoviki being carried, hindering their reaction at the sight of the speeding automobile.
Bolan coaxed a round from Big Thunder out the Tatra's window and saw the head of the personnel carrier's driver explode as the car streaked by.
Katrina harnmered off a burst from the passenger seat beside Bolan, keeping heads of Soviet troopers down behind the armor of the personnel carrier. She rode the recoil of the M-16 until the magazine ran dry and by that time they had passed the personnel carrier. The small car squealed into another almost ninety-degree turn as Bolan angled ever steadily away from the ruckus that already spread outward from the Soviet HQ base.
He piloted the car along somewhat the same route of his penetration into the nighttime city. After they crossed Huzkisar Way he risked a look back at Lansdale, already knowing what he would find.
From the sound of the impacting bullet and the silence from the back seat since Katrina had piled Lansdale into the car, Bolan knew the brave CIA agent was dead.