Sunscream Read Online Free

nearer, perhaps no more than twenty yards away. Bolan ducked and rolled once more to a new position.
    There was a long burst, uncomfortably close.
    Bolan uttered a realistic cry of pain and sprawled, still in shadow, on his back. He snicked the Beretta to 3-shot mode. The Executioner was counting on the carelessness born of confidence, something he had seen happen to the enemy many times in Vietnam: not making sure of the kill. Suddenly, Bolan realized that he was dealing with a professional.
    Because the killer was running toward him. But it did not necessarily mean that the guy wanted to finish him off. Maybe they had orders to take Sondermann alive.
    No matter. The gunner was playing the Executioner’s kind of game.
    There was a clatter of loose stones and a sudden rush of feet as a dark silhouette materialized, dashing down the slope to leap on Bolan’s barely visible body.
    The guy was suddenly in mid-air, flailing the SMG like a club.
    Bolan drew up his knees. As the killer plummetted toward him, the Executioner impacted his heels in the man’s belly and kicked out ferociously.
    The guy emitted a yell of astonishment and fear as he flew up over Bolan’s head. While he was airborne, a cartwheeling target against the roaring flames, Bolan raised the Beretta and caressed the trigger.
    One of the shots drilled the hood’s shoulder, one screamed into the sky, the third took away the top of the man’s head.
    The impact of the 9 mm parabellum spun him sideways and he crashed into the branches behind Bolan.
    Still clutching the 93-R, Bolan stood and ran toward the candy store behind the raging fire.
    He had to leave fast. A couple of semis and several cars had already pulled up at the entrance to the rest area, and there was a small crowd of rubberneckers advancing toward the flags.
    He skirted the raging fire and approached the store. The lights had gone but the structure was intact. Bolan peered over the counter.
    The attendant lying there had been shot in the neck. The body of a second man, stripped of its coverall, had been dragged farther back, beneath the soft-drink dispensers. There was nothing Bolan could do for either of them.
    He figured his best plan would be to climb the fence sealing off the rest area and strike out cross-country until he came to a highway. It would be easier to find transport — and risk fewer questions — than a return to the expressway.
    He was hurrying away from the building when he heard a faint cry over the crackle of the flames.
    He looked over his shoulder and saw something moving between him and the fire. He moved closer. It was the man with the shattered ankle. Bolan had assumed he’d been incinerated when the gasoline ignited, but he had managed to drag himself fifty yards beyond the blaze.
    The guy was in a bad way. The flesh that showed through gaps in his charred clothing was puffed and blistered with third-degree burns.
    As Bolan stooped over him the eyes turned his way and the ruined mouth opened. “Finish it, please,” the injured man croaked.
    “Who sent you?” Bolan asked.
    “Screw you,” the hood whispered.
    Bolan was holding the Beretta in his right hand. He started to releather the weapon.
    “No!” the gunman said frantically. “Please... all right, damn you, Scotto sent us.”
    “Scotto’s dead,” Bolan said roughly.
    “Aren’t we all?” The voice was faint now, showing no curiosity. “We got our orders a week ago. Let you have it someplace between... Lyons and the... coast.”
    “Why?”
    The eyes looked up pleadingly. Bolan waited, his gun hand arrested halfway to the holster.
    “He was... afraid,” the burned man gasped. “He... figured you for... J-P’s answer to... splinter group...”
    J-P, Bolan knew, stood for Jean-Paul, the Unione Corse’s big wheel in Marseilles, and the man who had hired Sondermann. If he had a family name it was never used. “What splinter group? Where?” Bolan demanded.
    The blackened head rolled from side to side.