Survival Mission. Don Pendleton

cold if it became a matter of survival.

      One more muzzle-flash from the pursuit car, just as Bolan swerved into a side street on his left. Again, the shot went wild, buzzing away to who knew where. With any luck, the slug would strike a tree trunk or an empty vehicle. The flip side was a bedroom wall or window pierced, a sleeper shocked awake by sudden agony—or never waking up at all.

      The hunters didn’t give a damn about potential bystanders. They had a job to do and they were focused on it to the exclusion of all else. Professionals. Nothing but victory or death would stop them.

      Bolan was determined that they would not win.

      Which left one option.

      First, he had to find a killing ground that minimized the prospects of collateral damage. There, if he could locate such a place before a bullet found one of the Volvo’s tires, its fuel tank or its engine block, he’d make a stand and see what came of it.

      Back to the map he’d memorized from the internet. Off to the east, three-quarters of a mile or so, the Vltava River surged against its banks, the waterfront including warehouses for cargo shipped by barge from Germany and Austria. Deliveries might be ongoing at this hour, but the traffic should be relatively light, and there would be no tourists loitering around the docks to serve as targets in a shooting gallery.

      The chase car lost a little ground to Bolan on the turn but soon began to make it up again. He gave the driver credit, wishing at the same time that he’d blow a gasket, have a heart attack, whatever might truncate the chase without a battle to attract police.

      Too late, he thought.

      Some neighborhoods of Prague might tolerate a shot or two around midnight, but Kunratice did not strike him as one of those. If someone—make that several someones—hadn’t called the cops already, Bolan would be very much surprised. That thought turned up the ticktock volume of the numbers falling in his mind, but Bolan dialed it back again and focused on his half-formed plan.

      If he could—

      Hold on, what was this? Another pair of headlights coming up behind the chase car, not dawdling like a local coming home after a night out on the town. He couldn’t call it a pursuit, at least not yet. There were no flashing lights, no siren to suggest an officer behind the wheel.

      A second chase car? Reinforcements summoned via cell phone or some other means to help the first team close their trap? If that were true, there might be anywhere from two to five or six guns in the second vehicle. The odds against survival may have doubled.

      And what difference did it make?

      Bolan had never been a quitter, knew the meaning of surrender but had never practiced it. Eight guns—or even ten—made life more difficult, definitely. But he had beaten worse odds in the past and walked away from the situation. The bottom line: even if death was certain for himself and his companion, he would fight until his last round had been fired, then take it hand to hand. Unless they dropped him with a lucky shot, the hunting party’s scarred survivors would not soon forget their meeting with The Executioner.

      He might even return to haunt them in their dreams.

      “WE HAVE A TAIL,” Durych announced to no one in particular.

      Kostka spun in his seat so quickly that he strained his neck and almost yelped at the onslaught of sudden, piercing pain. He saw headlights behind them, clearly following the Citroën.

      “Who is it?” he demanded.

      “Do prdele! How should I know?” Durych answered sharply.

      “Not the policajti,” Vojan offered. “They’d have lit their Christmas tree by now.”

      “Friends of the one we’re chasing, maybe,” Lobkovic suggested, sounding worried.

      “Only joining in just now?” Kostka replied, half speaking to himself. “Where have they been?”

      “Who cares?” Vojan retorted. “Do you want me to get rid of them?”

      “Not yet. The one we want’s still in the car ahead. But watch them and be ready if they try to overtake us.”

      Kostka wondered if he ought to call for help, but how would he explain the situation? Truth be told, he couldn’t say exactly where they were, so asking for a backup team would be superfluous. He wished they’d come prepared with more than pistols—automatic rifles, maybe shotguns—but it didn’t help.

      What was the old saying? “Bez pen z do hospody nelez.”

      Without money do not go to the pub.

      Translation: Be prepared. You have to pay to play.

      And who thought up this stuff? Likely someone who’d bitten off more than he could chew but lived to tell about it afterward.

      Kostka could only hope he’d have the same good luck. One thing was certain, though. If he broke off the chase from fear of being trapped, his end was certain. When he took the story back to Lida Werich he would find no mercy waiting for him. Failure was not tolerated. It would certainly not be tolerated, much less favored with an amnesty.

      And if survival was not one of Kostka’s options, he would choose the quick death of a bullet over anything that Werich might devise to punish him. No contest there. Be sure to save a bullet for himself, in case it all went wrong.

      “They’re heading for the river,” Durych said.

      “The river? Why?”

      “I’m not a zasranej mind reader, am I?”

      Kostka nearly pistol-whipped him then, but that would be the same as suicide, the speed at which they were traveling. Instead, he satisfied himself with muttered curses, leaning from his open window to attempt another shot.

      And missed, of course. Just as he squeezed the CZ’s trigger, his intended target made another sharp turn, this one to the right, and Kostka’s bullet screamed away downrange to find some unknown point of impact in the night. As Durych made the turn, Kostka could see the waterfront ahead of them. He smelled the river, with its scent of dead fish, diesel fuel and dreams vanished downstream.

      “Maybe he has a boat,” Durych said.

      “Then we have to stop him now,” Kostka replied, “before he gets aboard and goes somewhere that we can’t follow.”

      “Jo, jo. I’m working on it!”

      “So, work harder!”

      “Seru na tvojí matku!” Durych snapped, but stood on the accelerator, somehow wringing more speed from the growling Citroën. “Unless that crate can fly, we have them now!”

      WITH SOMETHING LIKE a hundred yards of pavement left before he hit the water, Bolan made his move. It wasn’t complex, but it still required precision timing, with coordination of the Volvo’s brake and its accelerator. If he did it properly, the car would make a sharp one-eighty, wind up facing back in the direction they’d just come from, stopping with its high beams aimed into the chase-car driver’s face. And if he blew it, they’d go tumbling ass-over-teakettle down the dock, hammered unconscious—maybe dead—before they plunged into the water.

      One chance. But that was all a soldier could expect.

      “Hang on!” he warned his backseat rider, hoping Murton had the sense and strength to brace himself. A wrong move, and it wouldn’t matter if he picked up any more new bruises.

      But it worked. The Volvo nosed down, slowing sharply, and began to fishtail just as Bolan cranked the steering wheel hard left and stamped on the accelerator. By the time it came to rest again, four heartbeats later, he was facing toward the chase car with the ALFA in his left hand, out the open driver’s window, while his right hand gripped the wheel. Behind him, Murton mumbled something like a curse, and Bolan let it pass.

      He watched the two