Altered State. Don Pendleton

HE FIRST BLAST from Matt Cooper’s automatic rifle sounded like one of those 20 mm Gatling guns, inside the narrow confines of the vehicle. Deirdre Falk wished for earplugs but had none at hand, so she focused on driving the Ford like a bat out of hell.

      She checked the rearview, trying to see if Cooper had scored any hits, but the chase cars were weaving as much as they could between vehicles parked on each side of the street, while the point car’s shotgun rider tried to aim a weapon through his open window.

      Cooper fired again, but Falk had to focus her gaze on the roadway ahead. She felt more than saw Barialy crouch in his seat to her right, his hideout revolver now clutched in his lap.

      “Don’t shoot yourself with that,” she chided. “And for God’s sake, don’t shoot me .”

      “I won’t,” he promised, and forced a nervous laugh that could have been incipient hysteria.

      Another burst from Cooper, as she made a sharp right turn and watched startled pedestrians scramble for safety. They would soon be leaving the Old City, roaring into the Chindawol district one of Kabul’s poorest neighborhoods, where overcrowding and horrendous sanitation made cholera outbreaks a daily fact of life.

      “Where are we going?” she asked Cooper, speaking to the rearview between bursts of autofire from the back window.

      “You tell me,” he countered.

      “Not the office,” she replied, thinking aloud. “And sure as hell not to the Ministry of Justice.”

      “No,” he granted, and unleashed another short burst from his stolen SMG.

      “We need to lose these guys and ditch this car, then find another one,” she said.

      “And pick up mine,” he added. “All my gear is in the trunk.”

      “We’re rolling into Chindawol,” she told him. “That’s a big-time slum, and Rika Khana is another one, just over Jadayi Maiwand. We won’t find any decent rides there, but if we can dump these turkeys without winding up on foot, I know where we can make the switch.”

      “I’ll do my best,” Cooper replied, and fired another 4- or 5-round burst at their pursuers.

      “Listen, Edris,” Falk said to the man huddled beside her. “If we have to leave the car and separate, don’t go back to your flat. Hear me? Somebody may be watching it.”

      “I hear you,” Barialy said.

      “And don’t go wandering around the streets with that thing in your hand,” she added.

      “I am not a fool,” he answered.

      “Who told you to bring it with you, anyway?”

      “Perhaps I had a premonition that we would be killed,” the slim Afghan replied.

      “Hilarious. You doing stand-up now?”

      “Excuse me?”

      “Never mind. Forget it. Just be careful where you’re pointing that antique.”

      The city’s odor changed as they drove into Chindawol, from market stalls and roasting meat to sewage and despair. The streets and sidewalks were as crowded as before, but not with vehicles, since virtually no one in the district could afford to buy a car or keep it running.

      “What I need,” Bolan announced, “is combat stretch.”

      “Say what?” Falk asked.

      “Some room to move,” he said. “At least to turn the car around, instead of leading a parade all over town.”

      “We’ve got some waste ground coming up,” Falk said. “If we drive into it, I can’t swear we’ll get out again.”

      Bolan considered that for something like a second and a half, then told her, “Try it, anyway.”

      “Okay. It’s a half mile up ahead.”

      The rearview showed her Cooper switching auto weapons as the first ran out of ammunition. Thirty rounds left, she surmised, and they were back to pistols. Against six or eight Kalashnikovs.

      Better to end it while they had a chance.

      If they still had a chance.

      One last stand, coming up.

      Falk focused on the road again, watching for vacant lots ahead and praying that she hadn’t missed her turn.

      S CANLON HAD TRIED a long shot through his open window, knowing it was risky, but he couldn’t pull it off. It wasn’t shooting with his left hand that defeated him—he’d trained himself to become nearly ambidextrous with weapons—but the weaving, rocking motion of his car and the obstruction of the Camry traveling in front of him.

      Last thing I freaking need, he thought, is shooting Eddie or one of his people.

      Scanlon ducked back inside the Prius, spitting road grit or some kind of garbage that was thrown up by the two cars running hot and fast ahead of him. He didn’t even want to think about the garbage that was dumped in Kabul’s gutters every day, or how a person actually inhaled tiny particles of everything he smelled.

      It was enough to make him envy the people who lived in plastic bubbles, isolated from the outside world until something broke down and they died like fish out of water, gasping for air.

      Another burst of AK fire erupted from the DEA Ford, and this time Scanlon nearly mastered the involuntary flinch that came with it. They’re not shooting at me, he reminded himself. It’s on Eddie.

      But still…

      The bastards would be shooting at him, if they had a chance, and if anything happened to Eddie, Scanlon’s ass was next on the line.

      “I need a better angle,” he announced, already knowing that his driver couldn’t manage it. The streets of Chindawol were so damned narrow, shops and housing crowded on both sides, that vehicles could only pass each other by mounting the sidewalk and threatening lives.

      And even then, he knew it wouldn’t be enough. There’d still be people in his way—at least, until the Prius flattened them—and he’d still have a moving target.

      Need to stop that, he decided.

      Scanlon palmed his cell phone, hit Eddie’s number on speed dial, waited through two agonizing rings, then started barking orders as soon as he made the connection.

      “Take out the driver!” he snapped. “If you can’t do that, blow the tires!”

      He cut the link before Eddie could answer or object that he was trying. Trying was a lame excuse that losers used to cover up inadequacy. So far, it hadn’t lodged in his vocabulary.

      A woman chose that moment, God knew why, to dart in front of the Toyota. Scanlon felt a surge of panic as her clothing fanned across the windshield, momentarily blinding him and his driver. Farid Humerya dealt with it efficiently, giving the wheel a little twist that jigged the car from left to right and dumped her at the curb.

      It seemed to energize the driver, somehow, and Humerya put his full weight on the gas pedal, running up close behind the Camry.

      If the lead car crashed now, could they stop in time?

      Scanlon clutched the AKSU in his lap and offered silent prayers to a long-forgotten God.

      T HE PROBLEM WITH A RUNNING firefight was, of course, the running. Moving while you fired shots at a target that was also moving, maybe even shooting back, could spoil the most experienced marksman’s aim. Throw in civilians by the dozen, ambling around downrange, and it became a soldier’s nightmare.

      “How much longer to that waste ground?” Bolan asked his driver.

      “One block,” Falk replied. “I see it now.”

      “Pull off, if you can, and turn around. We’ll make them come to