"Дон Пендлтон. Continental Contract ("Палач" #5) " - читать интересную книгу автора

had built for himself, Bolan kept remembering; it was the only one available
to him now.
He reached the small van truck which only moments before had been
receiving looted pharmaceutical supplies from a darkened warehouse, the
object of Bolan's earlier surveillance and once hopefully the lever into the
Family's Washington area operations. The lever had become a boomerang, and
now Bolan had more of a bite into the Family than he'd anticipated.
The cab door of the truck stood open and the driver was gaping at him
across the hood; two men who had been loading the van stood indecisively
just inside the warehouse, uncertainly poised between fight and flight. With
the ominous appearance of Bolan's .32, they opted for flight and moved
hastily into the interior of the building. Bolan waved the pistol in a tight
circle encompassing the driver and said, "You too, beat it."
Wordlessly, the driver went into the warehouse and closed the door
behind him. Bolan swung in behind the steering wheel of the truck, meshed
the gears, and spun about in a rapid acceleration just as the regrouped
remnants of the gun crew pounded into the vehicle lane and again opened
fire. He dropped low in the seat and swerved into their midst, scattering
them and momentarily disrupting their attack, then he was grinding past and
careening into a power turn at the corner of the warehouse and the van was
taking hits like puncturing hail. He felt a wheel tremor, then vibrate into
a wallowing rumble. The clumsy vehicle lunged out of control, scraped the
side of the building, rebounded, and plowed into a raised loading ramp an
instant after Bolan had leapt clear. The truck partially climbed the ramp
then overturned and fell to its side in a screech of grinding metal.
Bolan's own vehicle was parked just beyond the next warehouse, spotted
into an escape corridor, and this was his goal. He was running along in the
shadows as the Mafia gun crew carefully explored the wreckage of the van,
and as he cleared the corner he heard an excited command: "He's not here!
Spread out! Al, you take the north side; Benny, the south. Rest of you
guys..."
Bolan was in his MG and cranking away in a full power run when a fast
moving figure darted out of a shadow and began futilely pumping away at him
with a handgun. At the far end of the building another began unloading on
him. He took no hits and was settling down with a sigh of relief as he
hurtled into the leading from the freight area, then he noted the flare of
headlamps as two vehicles swung onto the road to his right. Bolan took the
left leg, powering into the turn that would take him toward the main air
terminal. His first suspicion had proven correct; he had blundered into a
massive mantrap, the end of which he had not yet seen. Another pair of
vehicles were swinging in above him; there would be at least one more
gauntlet to run.
Bolan was weary, and his belly was just about full of open warfare. For
a split second he debated ending it here and now. It would be simple and
relatively painless - a quiet matter of stopping the MG at the barricade
ahead, the final shootout, then blissful oblivion. Already, however, he was
there, the trap cars were see-sawed across the narrow roadway, and Bolan's
intellectual centers stood aside for survivalist instincts. He was powering
into the barricade at full throttle. Men with startled faces were flinging
themselves clear of the certain collision, and Bolan's hands and feet were