LITMIR.BIZ

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McCarter and missed the dark sedan that rolled alongside the driver’s side of her coupe. They were traveling along a four-lane road that led to the Old Town part of the city.

      McCarter reached beneath his coat and quick-drew a Browning Hi-Power from shoulder leather. He aimed at the small window behind Mishka’s seat as the dark sedan swerved toward the coupe and tried to collide with them in an attempt to force her to crash into the cars parked along the road.

      Mishka saw McCarter’s reaction and smartly tromped the accelerator to bring the tail of the vehicle up enough to offer McCarter a clear shot at the vehicle.

      “Sorry ’bout the window, love!” he shouted before squeezing the trigger twice.

      The first bullet shattered the coupe’s window and the second took out the passenger-side window on the sedan. The outline of the man’s face was all McCarter could make out in the dark, but he didn’t have trouble discerning the surprised whites of his eyes. McCarter fired a third shot and the mask disappeared in a crimson spray. The sedan swerved off its intended course as the driver whipped the wheel hard left and put the sedan into a one-eighty.

      McCarter whipped a small walkie-talkie from his belt.

      “Gray One to team. You got that?”

      “Saw it all, Gray One.” Encizo’s voice came back immediately. “Should we pursue?”

      “Hell, yes,” McCarter muttered.

      McCarter checked the side mirror and saw the van slow suddenly and then begin to swing to the right so Carnes, the driver, could perform a U-turn.

      The next minute seemed to happen in slow motion as another sedan approaching from the oncoming lane swerved straight into their lane and picked up speed.

      “Shit!” Mishka double-clutched, popping the gearshift to neutral and then reverse as she put her vehicle into a power slide.

      The sedan brushed past them, missing by a margin so narrow it made McCarter shudder to think about it. Despite the ferocious attack, Mishka was performing admirably and McCarter felt staunch confidence with her behind the wheel even as his stomach rolled with the turn of the vehicle. In a car with a higher profile the maneuver would’ve caused them to roll but the low center of gravity kept all four wheels on the pavement. Mishka jerked something down and McCarter realized he’d not even noticed she’d managed to somehow engage her parking brake at some point.

      The Phoenix Force leader heard an interesting hiss as Mishka disengaged the air-powered brake. That didn’t come standard in any sports car he knew of, which meant she’d had it installed after market. Without being told, Mishka laid in a pursuit course of the sedan that had tried to ram them head-on but the effort proved futile. The sedan had continued on course and smashed into the back of the van carrying the remaining members of Phoenix Force. McCarter felt a ball of rage form in his gut and ordered her to stop short of the sedan on its right flank.

      As she braked to a screeching halt, McCarter bailed from the coupe and made a beeline for the van—it had bounced onto the sidewalk and come to a smashing end in one of the storefronts—while he fired at the sedan on the run.

      Four men exited the sedan, unaware McCarter had anticipated their moves. As a champion pistol marksman and veteran combatant, McCarter had never missed from that distance, which the first man out of the enemy sedan learned the hard way. Two 9 mm rounds caught McCarter’s target in the chest, puncturing his right lung and driving him backward. The man flopped against the sedan, bounced off and came to rest on the pavement.

      The front-seat passenger managed to get clear before McCarter could track him, and opened up with an MP-5K on the run. Bullets buzzed past McCarter’s head like angry hornets, but the gunner hadn’t led the Briton correctly and none of the shots landed.

      McCarter made the cover of the van just as Hawkins and Manning burst from the sliding door, both toting weapons from their equipment bags.

      “Anyone hurt?” McCarter inquired.

      “Bumps and bruises,” Hawkins replied even as Manning was already putting distance between him and his friends.

      The Canadian warrior leveled his MP-5 SD6 at the survivors from the sedan and triggered a few bursts from the hip. This variant of the Heckler & Koch SMG had built-in sound suppression so the reports were little more than pops in the muggy night air. Two more of their enemy numbers were reduced, one taking a trio of 9 mm Parabellum rounds to the chest.

      Hawkins joined the fray a moment later with his own weapon, identical to Manning’s, spraying a high sustained burst that swept across the hood and blew the driver’s head apart in a mess of blood, bone and gray matter.

      The lone survivor popped over the roof a few times and triggered hasty bursts from his assault rifle before jumping into the driver’s seat and tromping the accelerator. The sedan blasted from the scene in a concert of squealing tires and roaring engine accompanied by the smoky aftermath of scorched rubber.

      The sounds of battle died away, replaced by the distant two-tone wail of police sirens.

      Encizo popped his head out from the open van door. “Driver has a monitor for the secure police bands. He says we’re going to have company in short order.”

      McCarter’s expression soured as he looked over the now defunct van. Smoke wisped from the engine compartment and the odor of coolant and oil stung his nostrils. “Looks like your chariot isn’t going anywhere, mate.”

      Mishka’s car pulled up before anyone could say more. The young beauty jumped from her coupe. “Store your gear in my trunk. Then split up and rendezvous at the hotel. Carnes can tell you where it’s at. I’ll meet you there.”

      McCarter looked at his comrades, who all shrugged.

      It was James who said, “Sounds like our best option at this point.”

      McCarter nodded and his team went into action, daisy-chaining the gear into the open trunk of Mishka’s coupe. McCarter took the hotel information from Carnes, which he committed to memory before passing it on to Manning.

      Through SOP, they already knew how to split up the assignments. Hawkins with James, Encizo with McCarter, and Manning on his own since he spoke French and could easily pass as a tourist. Carnes would accompany James and Hawkins since McCarter had memorized the hotel info and then given the information to Manning.

      “We meet in two hours,” McCarter said. “No earlier. That should give all of us enough time to get there and scope it out before we check in. Get into trouble, send the pre-coded distress signal to the Farm. Questions?”

      Nobody had any and McCarter nodded. “Good luck, mates. Move out.”

      By the time the Minsk police arrived on scene, nobody but the dead remained to greet them.

      * * *

      NEARLY THREE HOURS passed before all the men of Phoenix Force were reunited in the small, comfortable hotel in the heart of Minsk’s Old Town. The light of dawn spilled around the corners of the heavy drapes drawn across the windows in the room shared by McCarter, Encizo and Hawkins. All team members had arrived without incident, but Mishka had been unexplainably detained—when McCarter questioned her about it she’d simply shrugged him off or changed the subject. McCarter finally gave it a rest and just accepted she’d had her reasons for being late. Mishka had already gone far and above proving her loyalty and McCarter knew he had no cause to mistrust her at this point.

      “You brought our weapons?” Encizo asked her.

      Mishka shook her head. “Too risky. I decided to leave them at a secure location. At least until the police patrols have thinned.”

      “We can’t be without that equipment, ma’am,” Hawkins said.

      Mishka blinked. “I promise you, all of your equipment is perfectly safe. The cops are out in force looking for you. It’s better to wait. Trust me, I’ve been here awhile now and I know how things work. You don’t. If any of us were caught with even the pistols we

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