Oceans Of Fire. Don Pendleton

      “This is Phoenix Four. I’m taking out lead vehicle.” Manning put his crosshairs on the grille of the oncoming SUV. The .50-caliber round had been designed in the latter days of WWI with the specification of being able to attack observation balloons, aircraft and the tanks of the day. It had defeated such targets with grotesque ease, and a hundred years later it was still the most powerful round that one man could reasonably operate in a weapon.

      The Canadian master rifleman squeezed the trigger.

      The huge .50-caliber round shot forth a four-foot blast of flame from the muzzle and Manning grimaced as the rubber recoil pad behind the magazine kicked him like a mule. Steam blasted out of the lead vehicle’s grille as the .50-caliber armor-piercing round punched through the armored box surrounding the engine. Manning yanked his muzzle down and fired again. The engine shrieked and clanked as the engine block cracked and the vehicle lost power.

      Manning put his third shot through the driver’s side of the windshield.

      The armored windshield cratered around the .50-caliber hole and the interior went red in a spray of arterial blood. The SUV fishtailed out of control as the dead driver collapsed against the wheel. The vehicle veered onto the wrong side of the road and rammed into a parked bread truck at forty miles per hour. The side of the panel van folded around the front of the armored car.

      The bumper of the last SUV was aimed straight at Manning and appeared to have no intention of stopping. Shooting into the last vehicle wasn’t the preferred action. Calvin James was inside, along with two, ten-kiloton nuclear demolition charges. Sending armor-piercing bullets sailing through the car body or shaped charges sheeting the interior with superheated gas and molten metal was a last option.

      The driver had no such reservations.

      He accelerated straight for Manning where he knelt in the middle of the intersection. Manning dropped the big Barrett on its sling and clicked the brake on his repelling harness. “Phoenix Four requesting immediate extraction!”

      “Extracting!” Grimaldi said.

      The radial engine in the helicopter overhead roared into emergency war power. Manning’s harness cinched against him as the helicopter’s rotors hammered the sky and clawed for altitude. The Land Cruiser bore down on him like a juggernaut. Manning’s feet left the ground as the helicopter pounded straight up into the sky like an elevator.

      The vehicle tore past less than a yard beneath Manning’s boots. “Phoenix Flight, Phoenix Four redeploying!”

      “Affirmative, Phoenix Four!”

      Manning released the brake and repelled to the ground, releasing the rope from his harness. “Phoenix Four deployed and clear!”

      “Roger, Phoenix Four.” Grimaldi took his helicopter back above the rooftops and resumed the chase.

      The doors of the crashed Land Cruiser flew open.

      The big Barrett was too unwieldy for a close-range fire-fight. Manning shrugged out of the sling and drew his pistol. The Para-Ordinance P16-40 barked in his hands as he began double-tapping the enemy. The range was twenty-five yards and the big Canadian could see the bulge of body armor beneath their jackets. At that distance he could reliably put every shot into a dinner plate in rapid fire. His first double-tap shot away one hardguy’s jaw, and his second neatly put out another man’s eye and brain as he went for head shots.

      Manning moved toward cover as men deployed from the opposite side of the Land Cruiser. He dived behind a white Sputnik 4×4 sedan and rolled up, slamming his pistol across the hood. The .40-caliber weapon barked twice, cracking the skull of one of the Russian hardmen behind the SUV. Manning dropped low as the other two men opened up, their compact assault rifles spewing flame like buzz saws in their hands.

      “Shit!” The Phoenix Force commando flinched as bullets zinged straight through the car he was using for cover. He jammed himself as low as possible between the curb and the tires. The Sputnik shuddered above him as it was riddled by automatic fire. The bullets zipped through and blasted on into the hairdresser’s shop behind him. A bullet plucked at the shoulder of his jacket and sparks flashed inches over his eyes as the car body tore like cheesecloth. “Phoenix Four requesting immediate backup!”

      “Phoenix Four, this is Phoenix One, I’m on your twelve!”

      A man screamed as McCarter opened up from behind. Manning leaped to his feet as the remaining Russian dived over the hood of the Land Cruiser to avoid McCarter. Manning whipped up his pistol. His first two rounds hit the killer in the chest, standing him up and pushing him back against the vehicle’s fender. The Russian raised his rifle even as he took hits.

      His forehead geysered jellied brain as McCarter’s bullet transversed his skull from behind. Manning holstered his pistol and sprinted forward, confiscating the dead man’s rifle and his bandolier of spare magazines.

      McCarter came up at the run. “Phoenix Flight, sitrep!”

      “We have third vehicle directly beneath us,” Grimaldi reported.

      “Phoenix Two, what’s your position?”

      “Parallel course,” Encizo replied.

      “Step on it! Pull ahead three blocks and Phoenix Flight will vector you in.” Manning fell into step with McCarter, scooping up his Barrett .50 as they charged up the street. McCarter broke into a dead run. “Take them out.”

      “Affirmative, Phoenix One.” McCarter could hear the roar of Encizo’s engine over the link as he accelerated. “Taking them down now.”

      CHAPTER SIX

      “We’re getting goddamn hammered!” Forbes thrust his finger angrily over the driver’s shoulder and pointed at Manning where he knelt in the middle of the intersection. “Run his ass down, Gurza! Do you hear me? Run his ass down!”

      Gurza stood on the accelerator. Manning made no attempt to move. Calvin James cradled his rifle, prepared to blow out Gurza’s brains. Zhol rode shotgun next to Gurza, and Forbes was next to James on the seat. Sharkov and one of his hardmen were in the back, sitting on the nuclear devices. James doubted he could get all six, but that was his last option. Ideally, Phoenix Force would force the vehicle to a halt and convince Sharkov and Zhol to surrender. If that succeeded, then James would go along and surrender, also, continuing his cover and hopefully getting Forbes to drop information about the who and the where the nuclear demolition charges were headed.

      If Sharkov and Zhol decided to go down fighting, James would be the Trojan horse and blindside their attack. His other duty was to make sure no one in the vehicle decided to go down in a blaze of glory and detonate the devices in downtown Dushanbe.

      However, James wasn’t about to let Gary Manning get turned into applesauce across the armored car’s grille. The muzzle of his weapon drifted to the back of the driver’s head.

      Gurza swore. James watched through the armored glass as Manning was sky-craned into the air like a jumping jack up and over their vehicle. Forbes flipped his assault rifle to automatic fire as he swiveled. Manning had already repelled back down and was engaging the crashed car.

      “God…damn it!” Forbes’s face was a mask of rage. “Who are these guys!”

      “Clay, that mother had a Barrett .50. These guys, they aren’t mafiya. They’re operators.” James stared at Forbes grimly. “Brother, we’re in trouble.”

      Sharkov snarled from the back of the truck. “Gotron! He was captured! Compromised! He betrayed us! I told you not to trust that goddamn hill bandit!”

      “Gotron Khan did not know enough to betray us.” Zhol produced a Russian R-92 revolver like a magic trick. The muzzle of the snubnose gaped only inches from James’s eyebrows. “But he did.”

      Forbes spoke in a very low, very professional voice. “Mr. Zhol, we checked the man. His bonafides are real. We checked his room and everything he owns