LITMIR.BIZ

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the personality he’d picked for this Matt Cooper was entirely different.

      After his rest, with hours left to kill, Bolan went shopping in Berdoo. He bought clothes suited to a former military man who’d fallen on hard times. Not living hand-to-mouth, but spending too much time alone and on the road from place to place.

      He’d found the Harley Nightster at a used-bike shop, spent some of the money from the dealer back in Maryland to make the buy, and he was good to go.

      Whatever happened next, Bolan had done his best to be prepared. If Fate stepped in to lend a hand—or strike him down—the Executioner would take it as he always had.

      Facing the enemy and fighting back.

      3

      The guy could take a punch, no doubt about it. Bolan hit him squarely in the face—no swing-and-miss stunt from the movies, pulling it just enough to keep from breaking anything—and felt the shock reverberate along his arm, into his shoulder socket.

      Anyone on the receiving end should have gone down, but not the biker-Fed. He staggered back a step, then shook it off and flashed a set of teeth resembling something from a Sasquatch horror film.

      “You wanna play?” he asked. “Awright!”

      The giant fired a roundhouse right toward Bolan’s head, immediately followed by a looping left that grazed his scalp while Bolan was backpedaling to give himself some combat stretch. The agents were supposed to lose this fight, but he guessed that they’d been told to make it realistic.

      Or the big guy might just be pissed off.

      In either case, Bolan had a fight on his hands.

      He flicked a glance toward Halsey, saw his target standing once again, looking confused as he watched Bolan with the pseudo-biker, doubtless wondering who Bolan was and what did he think he was doing.

      They were still light-years away from gratitude, which wouldn’t come unless they won the fight in any case.

      So Bolan buckled down to win it, let his shoulder block a heavy right that nearly numbed his arm and darted in below the swing to beat a tattoo on his adversary’s ribs. Right-left, right-left and out again.

      He wasn’t Rocky, working out on sides of beef, but Bolan put enough behind his blows to tell his sparring partner it was time to wrap the show. The big ox grunted, clutched one side for all of half-a-dozen seconds, then came back for more.

      Bolan obliged him, opening one hand to slash its knife edge down across the hulk’s collarbone. He couldn’t hear it snap, with all the uproar that surrounded him, but Bolan saw the giant dip to one side while his arm went limp.

      To follow up on that advantage, Bolan gave one knee a light kick and dropped the biker into prime position for his own roundhouse, using an elbow rather than his achy fist. Before his adversary hit the floor, Bolan was looking for another fight.

      No shortage there.

      The six remaining Diableros were taking their time, working over a couple of Halsey’s civilian commandos. Two of the others were already down—one puking on all fours, the other struggling to rise from a pool of spilt beer and gravy—while Halsey rushed to help his friends.

      One of the two-wheel terrors saw or heard him, caught him with an elbow coming in and put him down. Not good, if the milita man was out and missing the charade, but Bolan had no time to check on him.

      The Fed who’d just dropped Halsey turned back to the limp rag doll his shaggy fellow Fed was using as a punching bag. One arm came back, fist clenched—then froze as he released it for a crushing blow, stopped dead in Bolan’s grasp.

      The agent spun toward Bolan, twisting in a vain attempt to break his grip, then firing off a hard left toward the Executioner’s head. Bolan ducked, still clutching enemy’s arm, slamming a kick to the weak spot behind the tall Diablero’s right knee. Bolan put the guy on his back in two heartbeats, and kept him there with a rabbit punch between the eyes that bounced his thick skull off the floor.

      Two down, and five to go.

      But one of them was faster than anticipated, charging like a rhino to collide with Bolan from behind, clutching his belt and jacket, lifting him, propelling him in the direction of a booth packed with teenagers. One of the young women screamed as the soldier went airborne, launched toward her table like an old-time human canonball.

      Bolan didn’t know if the heavy who’d tossed him intended great bodily harm, or if he was simply swatting a large, pesky fly. The Executioner’s skull missed the edge of the table by inches, head and shoulders plowing through plates, spilling food and drink into four heaving laps. The young girl screamed again as he rolled, faced the ceiling, then slithered back to a firm fighting stance.

      They were making him work for it, right—and making him wonder how well they’d been briefed, going in. He guessed that none of them had heard from Washington or Stony Man Farm directly. Brognola would have left the briefing to a local supervisor—one who might resent his undercover agents being used as pawns in Bolan’s game, while crucial details were withheld from him.

      Maybe he’d told them to get in a few licks while they could, or something similar. It wouldn’t be the first time soldiers of the same side came to blows. Fair enough.

      Bolan had hoped for a realistic fight, and now he had one. Putting on a grin that would have scared a hungry shark, he waded back into the brawl.

      CLAY HALSEY, STUNNED and struggling to his feet, wasted no time trying to analyze how dinner with the boys had gone to hell so quickly. Shit happened, as he had good reason to know, and survivors dealt with it as best they were able.

      Anger put Halsey on his feet for the second time in less than two minutes. He saw bikers hammering Mosier and Doolan, while Webb puked his guts up and Gruber tried to get back in the game. Halsey was lurching to join them, get his piece of the action, when a total stranger came off the sidelines and took down one of the thugs who was working on Doolan.

      Halsey recognized this man as the stranger who had come in solo, minutes ahead of the one-percenters. He didn’t know why the lone wolf chose to mix in someone else’s trouble, but damn, he could fight!

      Halsey blinked as the newcomer clotheslined one of the bikers, took him down and booted his ribs before stooping to finish the job with his fists. It was pay-per-view cool, but Halsey wasn’t interested in spectator sports at the moment.

      He rushed the other Diablero, a two-hundred-pounder who held Doolan’s left arm extended and twisted, some kind of weird come-along grip, while he stomped on the shoulder and growled like an animal. Focused on what he was doing, the man missed Halsey’s approach, his first warning a punch to the side of his head from behind.

      Halsey regretted the punch, grimaced over the pain in his knuckles and wrist, but it had the desired effect. Doolan’s snarling assailant let go of his arm, spun to face the new threat and was still turning as Halsey let fly with a right to his gut.

      And cracked his other fist against a saucer-size belt buckle made out of brass, Harley-Davidson’s logo impressed on his flesh. Cursing bitterly, Halsey lashed out with a kick, but the biker was faster, grabbing his ankle and lifting, twisting, exposing his groin to a swift counterkick.

      Before the steel-toed motorcycle boot could find its mark, a fist sailed past Halsey’s face and into the biker’s. It glanced off one mutton-chopped cheek, failed to score a knockdown, but encouraged the punk to release Halsey’s foot. The militia leader hopped clear and found his proper footing as the Diablero and the stranger started trading blows.

      It wasn’t like a prizefight on the tube, no Marquess of Queensberry rules to protect either slugger. The grungy goon lunged at Halsey’s unexpected ally, reaching for his throat, while the stranger ducked and hooked a fist into the biker’s abdomen. He missed the buckle, found the solar plexus more or less and emptied out the shaggy snarler’s lungs.

      That made it easier but dropping him still took a

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