The Continental was still in range, but Bolan lowered his weapon and ran toward the trees and Mrs. Eritrea, waiting there in the shadows.
It occurred to Bolan that he did not know her name, that they might die together, any moment now, barely knowing each other. Yet they knew each other as only fellow warriors could. They had shed blood together, risked their lives in tandem... and it was not over yet.
He caught up with her, pulled her into the cover of the trees. At his back, the stranded crew was fanning out across the wide lawn, some twenty feet apart, weapons drawn and ready. They would approach cautiously, remembering the Lincoln and the roaring of the AutoMag... but slowly they would gather enough confidence and speed to overtake the runners.
Bolan knew that he would have to kill enough of them to make the rest turn back. He looked for the right spot, preferably as far as possible from his hidden rental car. The point he finally selected was a wooded rise beyond a narrow gully, where the high ground gave him an expanded field of fire.
If his pursuers were familiar with the grounds, they would slow down as they approached the gully, to prevent themselves from stumbling and plummeting headlong down the slope. If they were strangers there, then some of them might plunge ahead and lose their balance — or their weapons — in a downhill tumble.
Either way he would be waiting for them on the opposite side, commanding the high ground and looking down their throats.
He paused atop the rise, the woman pushing on for several yards before she realized that she was all alone and swiftly doubled back.
"What's wrong?"
"They're right behind us," Bolan said, exaggerating slightly for effect. "We haven't got a chance unless I stop them. Here."
She scanned the gully, seeming to grasp his intention.
"All right. What should I do?"
"Keep moving," he replied, ignoring the surprise and hurt in her face. He pointed through the trees. "Due south, straight line. Another hundred yards or so, you'll come to a wall. Wait there."
She swallowed hard.
"How long?"
He listened to the night... and to the sound of the voices calling back and forth to one another, drawing closer.
"Make it ten. If I'm not there by then, I won't be coming."
Bolan passed over the car keys, quickly told her where to find the car. It was a risk, of course, but he believed he could read the woman well enough to know she wasn't going anywhere without him... if she had the choice. If not... well, there was no damn point in stranding her along the highway with killers on the loose.
He shrugged, and as she departed he prepared to face the death squad approaching through the trees.
Bolan was a savvy jungle fighter, schooled in every aspect of guerrilla warfare — and he knew that it was practically impossible to enter any battle zone prepared. You could collect intelligence, run recons night and day, employ psychologists or psychics to predict your enemy's reaction in a given situation — and still you entered battle every time with doubt perched on your shoulder like a vulture.
Bolan found a vantage point, half sheltered by an elm, and eased the 93-R from its shoulder harness. Keeping his eyes on the gully and the trees beyond, he unfolded the foregrip and thumbed the selector switch to the three-round mode.
There were a dozen rounds remaining in the magazine, and more magazines where that came from. Plenty, right, to pin a fire team down and hold them in their place... or to annihilate them at the outset, if he played his cards correctly.
They were closing on him now, the pointman visible as a shadow among the trees directly opposite. He counted off another and another, shapes fanning out amid the undergrowth, advancing cautiously, as if they knew precisely where the gully was.
They were not strangers to this terrain after all. The darkness and the slim advantage of surprise would have to suffice. The gunners would expect him to be running instead of lingering to ambush them on the trail. Their caution now was due more to the topography, a need to keep their footing, than to a fear of meeting hostile guns.
He waited.
Bolan's one-time private armorer, the late Andrzej Konzaki, had equipped the 93-R with its folding foregrip, which allowed a two-hand firing stance, the left thumb hooked inside the oversized trigger guard to provide stability in automatic mode. Another extra was the combination of a sound suppressor with the specially machined internal springs, which effectively silenced the weapon. Throw in a cyclic rate of 110 rounds per minute in the automatic mode, and you were looking at one very lethal piece of hardware.
The pointman broke his cover, easing down the far slope, digging in his heels to keep his balance. On either side, the flankers were emerging now, secure in the assumption that their quarry would be running for his life, perhaps already gaining on the outer fence.