Grimaldi came up next to Bolan and studied the scene, as well.
“How’s it look?”
“There’s a sniper on the roof.” Bolan turned to Mustapha. “You know exactly where in the building that the hostages are being held?”
The Syrian shook his head and gestured toward the building. “That they are there is all that I know.”
The more Bolan found out, the less he liked it. The less he liked Mustapha, too. The man’s nervous twitches made Bolan wary. He glanced at his watch. Eight minutes had passed since their last communication when Redmond had warned of the armor’s imminent approach. There was no time to waste, yet rushing into a kill zone wasn’t going to end well.
“Okay, here’s the plan,” Bolan said. “McMahon and I are going around the block, and he’s going to drop me in back of the building. I’ll get to the roof and take out the sentry while the rest of you work your way toward the front of the building. When I give the signal, we hit them hard. I’ll come in the back end. We get the hostages and evac as fast as we can. McMahon, you bring the trucks around on my signal to pick everybody up.”
“What am I supposed to do after I drop you?” McMahon asked.
“Swing back around here and lead the other truck over. Miller, you’re driving that one. Go replace Washington now and send him here.” Miller turned and left. “Jack, you lead the team straight across to the target. Work your way over using those mounds of debris for cover and concealment. I’ll signal once I’ve taken out the sentry on the roof.”
“Aw, hell,” Grimaldi said with a wry grin. “And I thought this was gonna be hard.”
“You are going to attack now?” Mustapha asked, his eyes narrowing.
“It’s as good a time as any,” Grimaldi said.
Mustapha took out his phone and turned to McMahon. “Where shall I meet you afterward?”
“You’re going to be with my partner here.” Bolan pointed to Grimaldi. “Just in case. After all, we don’t want to hit the wrong building, do we? And we might need someone with your bilingual abilities.”
The Arab’s face twitched and he looked at McMahon again, who said, “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of you afterward. Real good care.”
Mustapha’s mouth twitched, and then he nodded. “Inshallah. Give me a weapon, if you please.”
“We don’t please,” Grimaldi said. “I never kiss on the first date.”
The Syrian’s brow furrowed.
“We don’t have any to spare,” Bolan said. “Just stay with the group and you’ll be all right.”
Mustapha said nothing, his dark eyes filled with distrust.
“Don’t worry,” McMahon said, “I’ll make it worth your while.”
When Washington approached, Bolan repeated the plan to the team. “Close-quarter combat. Be sure of your targets. Double-tap each one. And remember, when it comes to the hostages, they’re civilians, and the French nationals may not understand English. So choose your words carefully, and speak clearly. One person speaking at a time. Identify yourselves as Americans. Direct them in the simplest terms what you want them to do, and that’s to stay low and move in unison out to the trucks. Use gestures if you have to. When they’re all in the vehicles, we leave.”
“You got that right,” Grimaldi said. The tension in his voice was evident. “I’m ready to blow this pop stand already.”
“Let’s go,” the Executioner said.
Grimaldi and the rest of the team remained in the alley between the two buildings as Bolan and McMahon made their way back to the truck. The Executioner adjusted the rifle sling so it hung down vertically in front of him, and he wrapped his loose-fitting BDU blouse over it. He touched the Beretta on his leg in the tactical holster and the KA-BAR fighting knife in the sheath on the opposite side of his belt. Both were partially concealed by his blouse. When they got to the truck, McMahon gestured toward his MP5.
“You’re welcome to use that if you want. It’s real good for close quarters.”
Bolan shook his head. He didn’t borrow other men’s weapons unless he had the opportunity to familiarize himself with them first.
They got to the truck, and Bolan hopped into the rear bed and pulled a tarp over the lower portion of his body.
“When you get directly behind the building, if things are clear, stop signal me by kicking the door. I’ll roll out. Then you leave and circle back here to lead Miller in the other truck for the pickup when we call you,” the Executioner told McMahon.
“Roger that. Sure wish I was going to get some shooting time in, though.”
“Be careful what you wish for. You still might.”
Bolan pulled the tarp over his head and remained still. The stiff canvas material smelled of mold, dust and dried blood. He felt the vehicle surge forward and begin its treacherous ride over the bumpy street. After what seemed like an eternity, but was less than a minute, Bolan felt the vehicle slow and heard the accompanying grind of the brakes. He had to hope the path was clear, or as clear as it could be in a situation like this. The truck came to a stop, and he heard McMahon’s signaling kick.
Bolan tore the canvas away, grateful for the brief seconds of relatively fresh air that swept over his face. He threw his left arm and leg over the side of the truck bed and did a quick departure from the vehicle, landing in a crouch on the stone-covered alleyway. The worn and bullet-riddled tan stones loomed in front of him. Bolan moved with a panther-like grace, flattening himself to the rear wall of the building as McMahon released the clutch and took off.
The Executioner glanced in both directions and picked up a door to his right. No one was around, and he moved forward while withdrawing his KA-BAR. The door was solid metal but being an exit door, it was out-swinging and the hinges were on the outside. He placed the heavy steel blade on the top hinge and pried the pin upward. It initially refused to budge so Bolan worked the bottom part loose. The round spindle protruded from the metallic rings. He proceeded to remove the other pins, then eased the tip of the KA-BAR between the metal edge of the door and the jamb. He worked the blade back and forth, wiggling the door away from the frame. When he had one side out, he did a quick peek inside. It looked dark and unoccupied.
So far, so good, Bolan thought and slipped through the opening and into what turned out to be a stairwell. A set of metal stairs was to his right. He drew his Beretta 93R, threaded a sound suppressor onto the barrel and began a cautious but rapid ascent.
“Jack, I’m in,” he whispered into his mic.
Grimaldi replied with a slight keying of his own mic in acknowledgment. That meant they were on their move across the street. Bolan could hear a woman’s screams, as he moved upward. He quickened his pace to the second floor, and the screams grew a tad fainter. Whatever was going on was now happening below him. Bolan wanted to stop whatever abuse was ongoing immediately, but he knew he couldn’t lose his focus and leave that sentry-sniper alive on the roof. Not with the rest of the team about to move through a kill zone. That would not only mean certain death for them, but seal the fate of whatever hostages were still alive.
He moved upward through another set of stairs. The screams could barely be heard now.
Out of earshot, but not out of mind.
The final set of stairs leading to the roof was now in sight. Bolan took them as noiselessly and as rapidly as he could. When he reached the top, he saw a rickety metal canopy and another door that led to the roof. The door was propped open and the blue sky was visible. Bolan worked his way to the edge and did another quick peek.
A solitary man in a grayish-white head cloth sat on three wooden boxes smoking a cigarette, looking through one of the spaces along the crenulated edge of the roof. Empty plastic water bottles were strewed around the man’s feet, and he held a full container in his hand. An AK-47 leaned against the wall ahead of him.
Bolan knew he needed to take the man out with a quick shot before he noticed Grimaldi and the others below, but it was also imperative not to alert anyone else in
the building or perhaps on the other side of the roof. He’d only seen one man’s brief silhouette earlier, but it didn’t preclude the possibility that they had two sentries posted. As he was bringing the sentry into target acquisition, he heard another voice call out in Arabic. The smoking sentry turned and in doing so, his eyes swept past Bolan’s position. The hint of a smile was gracing the man’s lips, but suddenly his expression changed and he muttered something and reached for his AK-47.
Bolan fired a single round, hitting the man in the upper chest. A second round drilled into the sentry’s forehead. The man crumpled to the rooftop as Bolan moved on. He curled around the side of the canopy, his weapon held in front of him at chest level. The other sentry sprang into view, running toward his fallen partner, his head bobbling back and forth toward the other intact buildings across the street, apparently looking for counter snipers.
Bad move, Bolan thought. He should have looked for the immediate threat rather than assuming it was far away.
He squeezed the trigger again. Twice, putting one round in the second sentry’s left temple and another into the man’s chest. His momentum propelled him forward with a stutter-step before he collapsed facedown on the pebbled rooftop. Bolan cleared the roof in seconds and radioed Grimaldi.
“Topside’s clear. It sounded like the hostages were in distress. I’m going back down.”
“Roger that.”
Bolan took the stairs quickly, but with as little noise as he could manage. The screams he’d heard before became audible once more, but now had been reduced to little more than a periodic whimper... A woman crying, saying something...
“Non, non, non, s’il vous plaît.” Her voice sounded breathless.
One of the French nationals was in trouble. Bolan could easily infer what was happening and felt a surge of anger well up within him, but his years of combat and being in harm’s way kept his emotions in check. He continued toward the sounds in a controlled manner, waiting for the proper time and place to strike.
More pleading in French drifted upward from one of the rooms just below him now. Bolan had one more stairway to negotiate and slowed his pace, not wanting to advertise his approach with the sounds of reckless footfalls. He came to another door. This one was also metal but had a small window in the upper center portion. The door appeared to be an emergency exit, or at least the remnants of one. It had a locking mechanism above the doorknob, but two diagonal bands of duct tape crisscrossed the area where the latch-bolt assembly would be. They’d taped it open, probably to facilitate the roof sentries coming back down and not getting locked out. Sloppy work, and the Executioner was determined to make them pay for it.
Glancing through the window, Bolan saw a long hallway with doorless rooms lining both sides of the walls. Farther ahead, perhaps fifty yards away, another group of men sat bunched together smoking and engaged in conversation.
Another scream and more pleading words in French echoed into the corridor, accompanied by the sound of male laughter. Bolan figured the best course was to act nonchalant and move to the room where the abuse was occurring. He was dressed in the camouflage of the local militia, and the jihadist up front had obviously let their guard down and weren’t counting on intervention.
Keeping his Beretta down by his leg, the Executioner opened the door and walked with an easy stride down the hallway toward the source of the screaming woman. The moaning started again, then stopped. Bolan was almost there now. He turned right into the archway that once held a door and saw two swarthy men holding down a brown-haired woman on a table. She was naked, and one of the men had dropped his pants around his knees. The other held the woman’s arms. Another female, this one with blond hair, lay crumpled in a corner of the room, her hands apparently tied behind her back. The man holding the nude woman’s arms looked up, his lips curling back in a brutal smile, just as Bolan brought the Beretta up and squeezed the trigger once, twice, both rounds penetrating the sinister grin. The Executioner shifted his aim and shot the half-naked man between the eyes.
The woman screamed as both of her captors, the one in front and the man behind her, fell forward, expelling gussets of blood over her upper back. Bolan stepped forward and peeled both of the dead men off the woman’s torso and pushed their bodies to the floor. Two long knives lay on the floor next to the table, but he saw no firearms.
Bolan held the index finger of his left hand to his lips in the universal gesture for silence.
“I’m here to help you,” he said. “But you must be quiet.”
“You...are...American?” the woman asked halting in English. She was obviously drifting in and out of shock.
The blonde woman on the floor sat up and whispered to the other woman. Then she looked at Bolan.
“You’re here to rescue us?” Her words had a British inflection to them.
The Executioner nodded. He stepped over to her and turned her body. Her hands had been secured with several twists of rope, but she had a fragment of glass clutched in bloody fingers trying to saw through the bindings.
“You won’t need this,” Bolan said, carefully removing the glass shard.
He withdrew his KA-BAR and began slicing through the ropes securing her wrists, periodically checking the door.
“Suzette,” the blonde woman said, “keep screaming. We don’t want any of his friends coming down to investigate.”
The woman nodded and let out another wail, but this one had less terror imbued in its tone.
“You have to sound scared!” the blonde advised her.
This woman had some pluck. Bolan finished sawing through the ropes and her hands were free. She began rubbing her wrists.
“I’m Leza Dean,” she said. “Reporter. Thank you for saving us. I was to be next.”
“Where are the other hostages?” Bolan reached over and began pulling off the dusty gray shirt from the half-naked man. It was large and had a red-coated hole in the left side under the arm, but it would do.
“They’re in a room in the basement,” Leza Dean said.
“How many?”
“Eight more down below. They brought us up here for their...amusement.” She practically spat out the last word.
“They’re not amused anymore,” Bolan said. “How many are guarding them?”
“I’m not certain,” she said. “Perhaps one or two.”
He stood and pointed to Suzette. “Help her get dressed. And stay here until another American comes back for you.”
Bolan went to the archway and did another quick peek. The group in front seemed oblivious.
He keyed his mic and asked Grimaldi for a sitrep.
“Closing in on the last rubbish pile. About thirty yards to goal.”
“Okay. Give me about thirty seconds. Two secured female hostages in a room on the first floor, down the hallway. Seven to ten hostiles up front. I’m moving in on them now. Then I’ll come back up and hit them from the rear. Move when you hear the bang. When the area is secure, have one of the team retrieve the women and take them to safety.”
“Roger that,” Grimaldi said. “See you on the flip side.”
Bolan holstered his Beretta and slipped on the jihadist’s dirty gray shirt. The garment smelled gnarly, but he ignored that as he adjusted the garment over his BDU blouse. Feeling that he might just pass a distant inspection, he adjusted his head scarf and flipped the select lever of his M4 to full-auto, but left the rifle hanging in front of him. The last thing he did was to remove a fragmentation grenade from his blouse pocket and remove the pin, keeping it on his left little finger. He clutched the grenade’s safety lever tightly in his right hand, and began walking with the same earlier nonchalance toward the group in the front of the building, keeping his head downward, and shooting quick glances to his right and to his left as he passed each room.
When he was halfway down the hallway, one of the men up front perked up and said something in Arabic. The man pointed, and another straightened and reached for his AK-47. A third terrorist turned towa
rd Bolan and shouted something at him.
The Executioner released pressure on the safety lever and began his count.
With two seconds to go, he cocked his arm and threw the grenade like he was pitching a fast ball. It whistled down the hallway as Bolan ducked into one of the adjacent archways. A flash of light and the deafening explosion a second later burst by him. He raised his rifle and slid around the corner, sending a series of short bursts into the men strewed about the room.
Satisfied that all were taken out of play, the warrior keyed his mic and told Grimaldi he’d taken care of the entryway and that he was going for the hostages in the basement. Bolan’s ears were ringing too much to hear if there was an acknowledgment.
He moved toward a door on his left, and as he opened it, he caught sight of a man rushing up the stairs holding an AK-47 at port arms. Bolan leveled his M4 and stitched a quick burst across the man’s torso. As the gunner twisted and started to fall, the Executioner grabbed the man and held him in front of his own body. The AK-47 tumbled from the dead man’s fingers and bounced down the stairs as Bolan descended, still holding the dead jihadist as a shield.
The basement area was dark, but several bursts of light flashed from across the room. Bolan felt the body twitch from the rounds and hoped none of them would fully penetrate just as one round zipped across his shoulder like a red-hot blade. He stuck the barrel of his own weapon outward and squeezed the trigger, sending a fusillade of bullets toward the muzzle-flashes.
Something slumped in the darkness. Bolan continued down the stairs, spotting the outline of what he now could distinguish as a prone figure. The figure twitched slightly but didn’t make another play. Bolan got to the bottom of the stairs and threw the dead man shield aside. He reached in his pocket and removed a mini-flashlight and shone it around the room.
The beam settled on a face with a pair of sightless eyes, and a cascade of blood dribbling from both mouth and nose. One of the rounds had struck the man just under his left eye. Bolan took a moment to switch out box magazines in his M4.
Stealth Assassin Page 5