Hellfire Crusade (11 page)

Billy Joe Hooker, mad at having accepted the socalled Scarr at face value, was racing forward in the lead Jeep. When the lookout's body flopped on the roadway, the merc bumped right over top of it.

Bolan twisted to snatch a quick look back. They were being chased by slightly more overwhelming odds than he'd counted on — every truck, Jeep and even the armored cars were roaring through the main gates.

Stinging clouds of grit and gravel were thrown in the air by the wild group in pursuit of the magnificent steed.

A bullet zipped narrowly past Bolan's head. Malik was only so much horse meat to the angry mercs. They had no real idea of the prestigious bond between Sheikh Zayoud and his most highly prized stallion. They couldn't have cared less; they were in a mood to kill! The fleeing twosome had a fair lead, but this would evaporate when they stopped to transfer to the Hog. Ruark's gang would be on top of them in no time.

The horse thundered down onto the flat. It was all they could do to hang on. Bolan raced for the dip between the nearest dunes ahead. The strangely eroded rocks were less than six hundred yards beyond.

"Hold tight, Chip!" encouraged Bolan as another string of bullets spouted in the dirt.

Bill Keegan had got their range. The second burst would have struck home if the Arab next to him had not knocked the muzzle skyward, pleading for the stallion's safety. Keegan cuffed the man aside, cursing at his interference, and called for the driver to speed up. The chase vehicles had cleared the constricting ramp. The leaders were fanning out in line abreast, the drivers jockeying to see who would be first to catch up with the runaways.

The Jeep at the far left suddenly vanished in a shattering fireball, spitting out blazing tracers of burning wreckage. Three mercenaries were dead before their bodies hit the ground. An Arab was thrown clear from the back, stumbled upright on the sand and was mowed down by the truck behind.

Bolan and the boy were both spotted with flecks of sweat from the straining horse.

"Run, Malik, run!" The racing stallion found an extra ounce of effort. Kevin had become a better friend to the courageous animal than Zayoud could ever have guessed.

The skyline ahead of them unexpectedly changed configuration. The immediate horizon seemed to heave upward in the center as the ugly shadow of the Hog appeared menacingly, slewing broadside to a halt on top of the ridge.

Danica Jones leaped back from the driver's seat, waving at Bolan to ride clear of her line of fire. The M-60 opened up with a murderous clatter, spewing out an arc of death in small doses across the sands.

Bolan smiled, elated by her initiative. He had turned Malik to the left and was running flat out into a trough behind the nearest transverse dunes.

Danny's opening salvo caught Hooker's Jeep in the engine. The vehicle rocketed up the shoulder of a dune, seeming to suspend momentarily in midair before it slewed into the path of an oncoming Saracen. The armored car was knocked sideways by the blast of the disintegrating wreck.

The last few seconds ticked away on the preset timers in the ammo shed. The troopers remaining in the yard were caught unaware when the storage dump exploded with crushing force. Mines, grenades, mortars and ammunition touched off one another in an almost instantaneous chain reaction. The whole wall behind the shack cracked from top to bottom. The sentries, who thought themselves lucky to have a grandstand view of the wild chase, were tossed aside like broken toys by the concussive shock wave. The booming, grinding, shrieking thunderclap was deafening. In that last millisecond more than one man thought it was the end of the world.

Zayoud's driver skidded to a halt below the approach ramp. The sheikh stared in a daze at the dirty mushroom cloud roiling upward, a death's head shadow rearing over the tumbling battlements. The mercs were not sure what was happening. The castle was exploding behind them. A wildcat had pinned them down with machine-gun fire.

And the horse had bolted.

Danny fired another long burst to keep their heads down, jumped back behind the wheel and stamped on the accelerator. She wheeled around off the ridge and chased after Bolan. They were crossing a hard pan of barren rock. Bolan glanced back and saw the Hog gaining on the outside. He made no move to check the reins as Danny drew alongside.

"You're going to have to jump, Chip!" The youngster stretched out his arm, instinctively grabbing for the corner of the roll bar, and then — before he could think twice — Bolan heaved him aboard the Hog.

Keegan had collected his wits a lot quicker than his colleagues. "Don't let that bastard escape!" Billy Joe Hooker, bruised and battered by his forcible ejection from the Jeep, limped over to Ruark's vehicle and jumped aboard as the driver took off.

Zayoud was shouting for his own men to follow their lead.

Danny had snatched hold of Kevin's belt to steady the boy as lie completed the precarious leap from the galloping horse to the speeding Jeep. She got both hands back on the wheel a fraction before they hit the first bumps of rutted sand.

Bolan leaned sideways and threw himself onto the rear deck of the bouncing Hog.

The Arabian stallion, feeling himself suddenly lightened, slowed to a canter, veered off to the left, heaving for breath after the exhausting run. Kevin glanced back to make sure the riderless horse was all right. One of the Arab drivers turned off to round up his master's horse. Keegan was screaming in rage at being sidetracked. The other mercs paid it no mind, they pressed on after the smoking dust trail that marked the getaway vehicle. There was nothing Kevin could do about escaping; he could not jump out at this speed. But Bolan had no way of knowing which side the boy was on now. Before Kevin could protest, Bolan had slipped the cuffs over his wrist and snapped them shut around the roll bar. The Hog was in good hands.

Bolan left the driving to Danny, swung the M-60 around and fired a devastating burst into the convoy chasing after them.

A Jeep swerved in from behind the razor-edged ridge on their flank, bearing down on them fast.

Bolan grabbed a grenade and lobbed it in the path of the pursuers. The blast lifted the Jeep onto two wheels and the driver lost control.

A truck loaded with jeering Arabs was gaining ground behind. The driver saw the Jeep start to tilt over crazily in his path. He managed to swerve as the crippled Jeep plowed along on its side, but in avoiding this danger he ran straight over a rock with such a loud crack that even Bolan could hear the impact above the sounds of the furious chase. The wheels spun on independently, wobbling as they parted ways with the shattered axle. The front end dropped and bulldozed its way deeper into the sand, which curled outward in a cresting bow wave.

Scratch one truck. The men spilled out, but Bolan did not fire into the tumbling mass of Zayoud's troopers. They were being left well behind now as Danny flew over the knifeedged summit of a crescent dune.

The Executioner was pleased with Chandler's design, which was proving its worth. The Hog's fourwheel drive was most effective across this uneven terrain, the suspension holding firm over the roughest going.

"You're doing fine, Danny!" Bolan called out from the rear. "Anyone on our tail?"

"Uh-uh. You're leaving them standing." One of the armored cars got off a shot that went wide. A huge spout of sand erupted to their right.

Danny drove even faster, barreling the sturdy ATV down the tire tracks that they had followed in at such a snail's pace.

Bolan remained stationed at the mounted machine gun. He lost sight of Zayoud's dark Rover.

And soon even Ruark got left behind. The reddish-gold mounds of the great dunes parted, revealing a long bare stretch that the winds had flayed to the skeletal rock. The heat was sweltering. Danny glimpsed the faint yellow scar of the trail that climbed the humpback of the jebel ahead of them.

She raced on toward the distant target.

"Take the gully to the left," said Bolan, tapping her shoulder. There was still no sign of the opposition when they reached the far end of the barren pan.

"Once we're behind the cover of those next dunes, you can slow down, then I'll take the wheel."

First he unlocked the steel bracelet that kept Kevin manacled to the roll bar. Bolan decided that it was not safe to keep the youth tied to the Hog.

Kevin massaged his wrist. He had not complained when Bolan first snapped the cuffs on; he did not thank him now for being released. He stared off into the wasteland, still shocked by what had happened, still wondering what was to become of him.

Bolan and Danica Jones accomplished the switch within seconds and were on their way again. All three of them could breathe a little easier now. "There's a water flask under that seat," Bolan told the boy. "Take a swig and pass it around. I guess it's time we introduced ourselves..."

Bolan and Danny briefly explained who they were and assured Kevin that his safety and well-being were their chief concern. They did not lay a guilt trip on the youngster or even go so far as to paint a detailed portrait of Hassan Zayoud in the colors he deserved; just putting him in the picture and winning his confidence was their first goal. The conversation petered out as both of them could sense Kevin's resentment and resistance.

There was still a long dangerous trek ahead of them, but they had won the first round.

"We're making better time on the way back," joked Danny, trying to lighten the air.

It was true. It had taken nearly four hours of playing cat and mouse with the mere patrols to cover the final leg to Hagadan. Less than forty minutes had elapsed since they had escaped from the fortress and they had already reached the rust-streaked rock that Bolan had noted as a crucial marker.

Bolan wondered if the force of the exploding ammo dump had wrecked the radio tower — if not, then Zayoud could still prepare a warm welcome for the interlopers on the far side of the Jebel Kharg.

Or would the sheikh throw all his efforts into the carefully planned coup and risk letting Kevin's rescue crew slip through his fingers? The warrior doubted that Zayoud would be so charitable.

Kevin watched the sloping mass of the barricade rearing up in front of them.

"Where are you taking me?" he asked.

"Just trying to get us all out of Khurabi in one piece." Bolan became aware of a movement somewhere in that lifeless landscape. He had not been directly focused on it, but he spotted the warning sign.

He was sure it was not an animal, not a bird but a man waiting behind the ridge about five hundred yards ahead. It was the last of the transverse dunes before they reached the foothills trail. "Danny, take the M-60. Both of you, hang on tight!"

The last low trough was coming up on their left.

Bolan tapped on the brakes. They all braced themselves against the retrothrust of their suddenly reduced speed, as the Hog lurched sideways in a power slide.

It would have been a risky maneuver in a two-wheeldrive dune buggy; with a four-wheel system it was dicing with death. But that was better odds than he would get by staying on the track.

They were enveloped in a dark blanket of dust.

Bolan had downshifted, keeping up the compression.

The Jeep had already straightened out on its new course, charging parallel to the sandbank. Bolan let the revs build tight before he smoothly slotted back into fourth. The dune looked firm enough. They curved up it and shot the lip head-on.

Bolan trod on the gas until the rear wheels had cleared the pleated summit — this was to stop the Hog nosediving into an end-over-end roll-then he eased off the pedal the second they were airborne, so the revs would not, build too high. He kept the wheels straight as they soared more than thirty feet down the lee side.

The Hog landed perfectly and Bolan accelerated, the tachometer swinging wildly toward the red line.

Danny's heart was still stuck in her throat, but she managed to shout, "Over there... ambush!"

Craig Harrison and the patrol trucks that had left Hagadan earlier that morning were concealed on either side of the track they would have been on, if it weren't for Bolan's last-minute maneuver. The desperate detour had swept them safely around the flank of Harrison's death trap. The lookout, who had been fooled by Bolan's off-road expertise, was slip-sliding in giant bounds down the slope to jump aboard the merc's Jeep.

Danny triggered the M-60 and hit the rear truck, which wandered around in a half circle before blowing up.

The Hog crunched up the trail. Bolan was moving too fast over the bumpy track for Zayoud's scouts to get a bead on them. The other truck tried to keep up with Harrison but it was slowly being left behind. Danny decided not to waste any more ammo; she had her hands full hanging on to the roll bar as Bolan climbed the hill with all the speed he could muster. She kept her eye on the pursuit vehicles as the Hog reached the top of the ravine and began weaving through the scattered boulders.

From this higher elevation Danny had a clear view back over the desert floor — not all of the sheikh's forces had given up the chase.

The remaining trucks and Jeeps were spread out now, but the leaders had already reached that last dip where Harrison had planned his ambush.

"Heads down!" Bolan shouted over the noise of the Hog's screaming engine. Random shots were chipping at the rocks as they passed. Harrison was pressing hard on their tail.

Kevin Baker glanced with admiration at the big man driving the ATV. The youth was torn between the excitement of the chase and the pulse-racing fear of reallife danger. It seemed as if at any moment something might go terribly wrong, yet his courage was bolstered by the cool way Bolan reacted to each new threat.

Danny said nothing as they shot diagonally up the last slope leading to the very top of the Jebel Kharg, but she still wondered what on earth Bolan had in mind. To her, it looked as if they were on a one-way street to disaster... they would have to slow down once they topped the crest. Even if Bolan did remember the way through that mined gap, they surely couldn't negotiate it safely at this speed.