China White. Don Pendleton

between himself and the Wah Ching thugs who’d missed a chance to take him down.

      Stalemate?

      He couldn’t let it go at that, with precious seconds slipping through his fingers. Sirens would be coming at him any time now, closing off Bolan’s escape route from the battle that he’d never meant to fight in this location, with civilians in the way. He glanced around as best he could, saw no one raising cell phones yet to record the action as it happened, but the idea added one more level of concern.

      His face on YouTube? Not a great idea.

      Of course, it wasn’t his face. Not the one he had been born with, anyway. No one would look at him and think Mack Bolan? Someone told me he was dead! Still, going viral to the world at large would definitely cramp his style, and might require yet another session with the surgeon who had given him his battle mask.

      No, thanks.

      Before he made another move against the Wah Ching gangsters, Bolan pulled a roll of silky black material out of his left trouser pocket and slipped it over his head. It was a balaclava, black nylon and ultra-thin, that fit him like a second skin, with a “ninja” oval opening for eyes alone, masking the rest of Bolan’s face. Now he was ready for his close-up, if it came to that, switching out the MP5K’s nearly empty magazine for a fresh one, bracing for his move.

      First step: to take the triad hardmen by surprise within the limits of his present circumstance. They had to have seen where he had gone to ground, so Bolan crept along behind the Trailblazer until he reached its rear end, pausing there just long enough scout the landscape cautiously and choose his angle of attack. Behind him, twenty yards or so from where he crouched, the Camry waited for him, still had access to Canal Street if he finished his business soon enough and wasn’t cut off by police.

      Too many ifs.

      The way to do it, he decided, was a plain, straightforward rush, with cover fire as needed on the relatively short run to his destination. Short was relative, of course. Ten feet could feel like miles when a person was under hostile fire. The first step could turn out to be his last. Still, Bolan had to make the effort, or his intervention in the fight had been for nothing, a colossal—maybe catastrophic—waste of time.

      The best scenario would be a short dash, unopposed, to reach the Ford and— Then what? Killing at close quarters was an ugly business, where the outcome could go either way. One slip and he was done. There’d be no do-over, no second chance to get it right. End game.

      But if he got it right...

      His plan had changed, against his will, when the Afghans stepped in and made the hunt a firefight. Now, instead of following the Wah Ching thugs to their leader, Bolan had another end in mind, requiring him to face them and relieve them of the cargo they’d transported from New Jersey. Ten or twelve kilos of heroin that would become his lever for upsetting Paul Mei-Lun’s enclave in Chinatown, with any luck.

      And what about Wasef Kamran?

      Bolan planned to take it one step at a time. Survive this challenge, then move on.

      A final peek around the Chevy’s tailgate and he was just in time to see one of the Wah Ching gunners rise and fire a short burst from an automatic rifle toward the SUV’s front end. Trying to pin him down so they could make a run for it, perhaps? The last thing Bolan needed now was a pursuit on foot along Canal Street, running from the park and toward the Fifth Precinct.

      A distant siren got him up and moving toward the triad vehicle, clutching his little SMG and hoping that his time had not run out.

      * * *

      “WHO IS THAT crazy bastard?” Martin Tang asked.

      “It doesn’t matter who he is,” Louis Chao replied. “We need to get the hell away from here before we’ve got pigs crawling up our asses.”

      “What’s the plan?” John Lin demanded. “Are we just gonna walk away from here?”

      “Unless you get the damn car running,” Chao snarled back at him.

      “He’ll pick us off, first move we make,” Tang said.

      “You mean he’ll try to,” Chao replied, and rose to fire a short burst from his Bushmaster as punctuation, stitching holes across the broad hood of the Afghans’ SUV. “That lets us have another chance to drop him.”

      Chao didn’t have a clue about the round-eyed stranger’s motive or identity, was grateful that he’d taken out the triad goon, but that didn’t solve his problem. They were half a mile or something from the cop house, sirens in the air now, and he couldn’t lose the suitcase full of heroin. Not if he wanted to survive the day.

      “Get ready,” he commanded. “Switch your mags out if you’re running low. There’s no time for it once we start to run.”

      “Run where?” Lin challenged him.

      “Just run. We get a block or so away from here, split up and make it harder for whoever’s following. I’ll see you at the Lucky Dragon.”

      Neither Lin nor Tang replied to that, both staring at him as if Chao had lost his mind. Maybe he had, in fact, but he was dead certain of one thing: staying where they were right now was not an option.

      “Ready?”

      Tang bobbed his head while Lin glowered and muttered to himself.

      Maybe the plan was freaking stupid, but it was the best Chao could devise. He had a final thought, leaning in toward Tang and snatching the heavy suitcase from him.

      “I’ll take this,” Chao said, not giving Tang a choice.

      “Suits me.”

      The bag would slow him a bit, no question, but he couldn’t trust it to their younger Wah Ching brother with a madman breathing down their necks and cops converging on the battleground. Whatever happened to the skag, it would be Chao’s neck on the chopping block with Paul Mei-Lun. He might as well die running with it, as to show up empty-handed at the Lucky Dragon, pleading ignorance of where the dope had gone.

      “Okay,” Chao said. “Remember now—”

      He never had a chance to finish as running footsteps made him turn and then all hell broke loose. The round-eye was upon them, spraying death among them from his compact submachine gun. Chao gasped as the bullets struck him, punched him over backward, glimpsing Lin in a fighting stance, then falling through a cloud of crimson mist. Chao couldn’t see what had become of Tang and didn’t care.

      He’d failed his brothers and the Wah Ching Family. Whatever lay in store for him, if there was anything at all beyond this life, at least he wouldn’t have to answer for his last snafu to Paul Mei-Lun.

      The attacker stood above him now, face covered, bending to lift the suitcase Chao had tried to rescue, all in vain. Chao tried to curse him, nearly managed it, but felt his final breath escape as a gurgling whistle from his punctured lungs before he closed his eyes.

      * * *

      BOLAN HEFTED THE BAG—ten kilos by the feel of it—and turned back toward his waiting rental car. He sprinted past the Ford, beyond the SUV slumped on its side, and reached the Camry as the sirens sounded louder in his ears. He opened the driver’s door and pitched the suitcase right across into the footwell of the shotgun seat. Sliding in behind the wheel, the soldier dropped his MP5K on the empty seat beside him, leaving on the balaclava while he gunned the Camry’s engine into growling life and powered out of there.

      Careful!

      He had to hurry, but could not afford undue attention as he picked an escape route. Pulling out into the two-way traffic on Canal Street, Bolan had a choice to make immediately. Turning to his right, he could proceed directly toward the Fifth Precinct, the source of the sirens closing in on him even now, then turn north on Sixth Avenue, running one-way, or keep on for another block to West Broadway, another one-way street bearing him north. Beyond that, he’d be rolling past the cops and into Chinatown, a move that he was not prepared