Unfortunately there had been no way of tipping off Chamoun's commandos to his plan. They saw the limousine escape, and then, just when they had returned to dueling with their scattered enemies, another vehicle erupted from the carport, racing off in hot pursuit. All things considered, there was only one response that made good sense.
Incoming fire began to strike the car from every side, exploding glass and driving Bolan under cover of the dashboard, forcing him to steer blind. Praying that he wouldn't miss the road, he kept his head down, crumbled safety glass rolling down his collar. Bullets hammered at the bodywork, but Bolan's luck was holding out.
Until the left front tire exploded.
The warrior felt the car begin to swerve and fought the wheel to keep the vehicle more or less on track. He risked a glance above the dash, in time to see a plume of smoke escape from somewhere underneath the hood.
He cursed silently. He was finished, and his prey was running free, with Mara. There was nothing he could do to stop Moheden.
A bullet splintered on the nearest window post and stung his face with bits of shrapnel. Cover was essential now, before the gunners found their mark. He aimed directly for the nearest row of poppies, bearing down on the accelerator. Flames were licking out, where only smoke had showed before, and he had moments left before the liberated vehicle became a rolling funeral pyre.
His charger reached the cultivated ground and lumbered on, its bare rim plowing brand-new furrows on the left. He felt the back tires losing traction and wondered whether he would make it far enough to gain some cover. But he had no other options. When he was twenty yards inside the field, the hood blew skyward, and he knew that it was time to try his luck on foot.
He left the car in motion, diving clear, and came up in a combat crouch. It wouldn't do for him to hike back the way that he had come. Chamoun's men would be quick to recognize his uniform, but in the darkness and the excitement, they might not be quick enough. Accordingly he set a course that led him toward the access road. From there, a short hike back would bring him to the courtyard battleground.
An explosion marked the end of the sedan, and flaming gasoline rained down on the upturned faces of the poppies. Soon another portion of the field was burning, one fire sweeping outward from its point of origin to join the other, merging in a single sheet of flame. The Executioner had time to reach safe footing on the road, but he could feel the heat behind him in the last few yards.
Emerging onto one-lane dirt and gravel, the Executioner started back in the direction of the house. It was in sight when Joseph Chamoun's reserves erupted from the poppy field ahead and to his right. They came in firing, easily distinguishing their own in uniform and the defenders who were taken absolutely by surprise.
It would be over quickly now, a victory despite the odds. And yet the unfamiliar bitter taste of failure stayed with Bolan. Mara and the dealer had eluded him, one still a prisoner, the other running for his wretched life. There might not be another chance to save the girl or to collect Moheden's debt of blood. Unless…
Hopeful, Bolan trudged back toward the house.
* * *
Chamoun had reached the carport moments after Bolan sped away, and he had nearly fired on the retreating vehicle before he glimpsed the crumpled form in front of him and recognized Mir Reza Bakhtiar. It struck him, then, but there was no way to communicate with his commandos in the courtyard, and he watched, crestfallen, as they shot the American's car to pieces.
Was the man alive? Despite his bitterness at losing Mara one more time, Chamoun was still concerned about Belasko. They had come this far — this close to saving her — because of the American, and if she still had any hope at all, Chamoun suspected that Belasko's strength, his cunning, would provide the key. It would be grievous irony indeed if one of the rebel leader's own soldiers crushed that fragile hope.
He was cautiously emerging from the carport when an explosion in the poppy field sent fiery streamers skyward. The sedan was finished, and a mushroom cloud of flame was rising in its place when Chamoun's expected reinforcements burst from cover on the eastern flank. A group of revolutionary guards were pinned between the new arrivals and a group of khaki gunners huddled near the APC, cut off from any hope of cover or survival. Even so, they died like men, and Chamoun admired their courage at the last.
More mopping up remained, inside the house and at the barracks building out in back, but for the most part it was over. Through surprise and perseverance, they had overcome a larger force, destroyed a major portion of the dealer's crop, and Bakhtiar was lying dead, not thirty feet away. It was a triumph to be celebrated, but the rebel leader couldn't find it in his heart to cheer. The cost had been too high.
A realistic man, Chamoun was ready to accept the fact that Mara might be lost forever. He would cling to hope, of course, but action was required to set her free, and so far he had failed at every turn. What did it matter if he killed a hundred soldiers? Or a thousand? While Moheden lived, with Mara in his clutches, victory would taste like ashes on his tongue.
A body count would take some time — and there was scattered killing to be finished yet — but from the evidence before his eyes, he estimated friendly losses in the rough vicinity of twenty-five percent. Of those who had set out that night to strike a blow against the common enemy, no less than one in four were dead or gravely wounded. Coupled with his losses of the afternoon, that meant Chamoun's commando force — his people — had been nearly cut by half. They couldn't chase Moheden back to Baalbek now, much less across the country to his coastal hideaway. It would be suicide.
Alone perhaps — or with Belasko if he lived — Chamoun might have a chance. He could pursue the dealer on his own, exact a toll of vengeance in his sister's name. Moheden might be momentarily triumphant, but he wouldn't live to gloat. From this day forward, he would have a shadow. Death would follow him until he paid the final price.
His reinforcements had moved on around the house and toward the barracks. Chamoun heard scattered gunfire as they finished mopping up, but his attention was commanded by a solitary figure on the access road. Emerging from the smoke, a tall man with a rifle in his hands was moving closer, making no attempt to hide himself.
At fifty yards the rebel leader recognized Belasko. From appearances, he hadn't suffered any lasting injury. Chamoun experienced a surge of hope and rushed forward to confront the grim American. One glance into Belasko's eyes and he could read the man's thoughts.
"We go together," Chamoun informed him.
"Fine. But first I need a radio."
* * *
It was a desperate plan, but Bolan had exhausted all his other options. Tracking Moheden along the highway was a waste of time, and they didn't have men enough to storm Hosseinieh or crack the Sheikh Abdullah barracks if their rabbit went to ground at either stronghold. They would have to bank on stealth, and hope the dealer had been spooked enough to quit the area completely. With his private plane and pilot waiting on the Baalbek airstrip, he could easily be home by dawn, inside his fortress villa on the coast.
It was a gamble, but it was the only hope they had. Chamoun had promised help with transportation, but the Executioner had one more detail to arrange, and he would have to do it on his own.
Grimaldi.
It would be a waste of precious time and fuel to have Jack pick them up. Instead the soldier hatched a backup plan. Grimaldi wouldn't like it and would grouse and grumble to himself, but he'd be there when they needed him. With bells on.
The rest of it amounted to a waiting game, with Chamoun on edge but bearing up, pretending that he wasn't worried sick about his sister. Bolan learned that he had seen the torture room, but they said nothing else about the subject. Mara had been breathing when she left the farm, or else Moheden would have run without her. There hadn't been time to formulate more subtle plans around a corpse.
So be it.
Mara was — had been — alive, and they would act on the presumption that Moheden needed her
to stay that way, however briefly. He would wait to see the outcome of the battle on the farm, then he would bluster, threaten, barter — anything at all to save himself. Above all else, the dealer would attempt to dupe his enemies and throw them off guard. He might suggest a meeting, for delivery of the woman, where his troops would lie in wait and bring the curtain down.
That is, he would if he had time.
But time was running out for Bashir Moheden as well as for his hostage. Either way it played, with Mara safe or dead, Bolan meant to take the dealer down. There would be no white flags or cease-fires for Moheden.
Their business at the farm was finished in another fifteen minutes. Bakhtiar retained no noncombatants on his staff, and members of the Shiite revolutionary guard were willing martyrs, fighting to the death against their enemies. A number of the Palestinians had attempted to surrender, but by that time there had been no mercy left in Chamoun's commandos. Bolan calculated that a few had likely slipped away to take their chances in the burning poppy fields, but it would make no difference now.
His mission lay in front of him, unfinished. The Executioner would have liked to leave Chamoun behind, but he couldn't deny a brother's right to see it through. And on the side, Chamoun might still be useful for his knowledge of the countryside, its people and their languages.
It would be two of them against the dragon in his lair, and Bolan understood the odds. If taking down the farm had been a risk, assaulting Moheden's retreat looked more like suicide.
The Executioner preferred to view it as a challenge. And he had a feeling it might be the challenge of his life.
* * *
Grimaldi took the call at half-past midnight, read between the lines of Bolan's guarded speech and signaled an immediate affirmative. He kept his reservations and his questions to himself, aware that Bolan would be running short on time, perhaps in danger of attack by hostile forces homing on the beacon through triangulation.
Still, the gutsy pilot had misgivings as he made the final takeoff preparations, and he ran them over in his mind as he was suiting up.
For openers, it bothered him that he wouldn't be picking Bolan up. It meant the Executioner was pressed for time, his quarry moving fast, and coded references to "dropping by the dealer's place" told Jack that they were chasing after Moheden. There had been briefings on the smuggler's hideout — photos, with a sketchy rundown on defenses — but Grimaldi figured there was no way on God's earth that their informants could have covered everything.
So he was looking at a crapshoot.
Bolan had obtained some other means of transportation to the coast, and he was going in as usual, against the odds, perhaps alone. Grimaldi would be there to help him crack the box, but there were further complications. Bolan's passing reference to a "friend inside" told Jack that he'd have to watch his step. Somewhere within the villa there was someone Bolan wanted to protect. Grimaldi had no way of knowing who that someone was, or if the «someone» might be plural. When the hit came down, he'd be forced to choose his targets carefully, with almost surgical precision — which, in turn, meant his effectiveness would be severely limited from the beginning.
It had to be the chopper, then. He would have opted for the Phantom on a simple hit-and-run maneuver, and Grimaldi could have guaranteed a wipe with rockets, bombs and napalm, but the "friends inside" would fry along with hostile personnel.
And at the same time, there was Bolan's safety to consider. Knowing the man the way he did, Grimaldi knew the guy wouldn't be satisfied to find himself a vantage point and drop Moheden's sentries from a distance. If the big guy had a "friend inside," that meant that he'd be inside, too.
Grimaldi cursed and muttered to himself, but he finished running down his preflight checklist in approximately half the normal length of time. A number of Israelis stood around the sidelines, watching, no doubt wondering what the American was up to. As he made his final takeoff preparations, Jack examined them, returned their stares and marveled at the kind of men who spend their lives forever on the edge.
Like Bolan.
And it would be Grimaldi's job to guarantee that the soldier didn't lose his edge when it was needed most. He didn't have to understand the details of the plan, or give it his endorsement. All he had to do was follow through and be on time.
So they were dropping in to see the dealer. The unwelcome wagon, loaded down with goodies no one in his right mind would be anxious to receive. A one-time-only special, just for Bashir Moheden.
It would be Bolan's show, Grimaldi flying backup, but if something happened…
Scowling into lift-off, knuckles white around the joystick, Jack Grimaldi took his chopper out to find a long-lost friend and slay a dragon.
Chapter Twenty-Six
The pilot was a friend of a friend, bound to Joseph Chamoun by politics and religion. His aircraft was a twenty-year-old single-engine job of European manufacture, from a firm that Bolan didn't recognize by name. Spot welding marked the fuselage in places, but the engine sounded healthy. It would only have to serve them for a short while, and Bolan hoped that it would hold.
He climbed aboard, with all of his misgivings, and buckled into a jump seat behind Chamoun, who rode in the copilot's place.
"There was another plane," Chamoun informed him, shouting to be heard above the engine noise. "A pilot and three passengers. Two men, one woman. They flew west."
So, they were on the scent at any rate. West meant the villa, and it ruled out an eleventh-hour change of plans, with Mara stashed somewhere in Baalbek. That meant sixty minutes, give or take, to touchdown on the coast. A vehicle was waiting for them — or it would be — and with a fair wind at their backs, they should be closing in on Moheden before the first full light of dawn betrayed them.
They had taken time to change en route to Baalbek, swapping bloody uniforms for dark civilian clothes. It was the best that they could do in an emergency, and Bolan would be forced to get along without the blacksuit, camouflage cosmetics and the other penetration gear that had supplied him with an edge on other raids.
At least, he thought, their weapons would suffice. Both men were packing AK-47s, with enough spare magazines between them for a full-scale war. Beneath a lightweight jacket, the warrior wore the Beretta's shoulder harness, while Chamoun's chosen side arm was the venerable Browning Hi-Power, manufactured by Fabrique Nationale. Both men carried fighting knives, and each had taken on the added weight of half a dozen frag grenades, retrieved from Bakhtiar's own private armory.
If they went down, it wouldn't be from lack of hardware. Bolan was concerned about Chamoun, his stamina and state of mind, but there was no denying him a piece of the attack on Moheden's estate. Whichever way it went, the guy had paid his dues. He had a vested interest in the raid, and one more gun could only help.
Brognola's briefing back at Stony Man hadn't included numbers for Moheden's household staff. A dozen sentries had been visible on Bolan's visit, but the force would have certainly been increased, with all that the dealer had suffered in the past few hours. Guessing numbers from a distance was a futile game, and Bolan didn't waste his time. He had enough to occupy his mind with the mechanics of the raid.
It would be rocky going in, but they would have to manage. Coming out was something else entirely, and he didn't bother trying to predict the game. Survival went down one step at a time, and they were in the starting gate.
* * *
Moheden stood outside his villa, waiting for the sun to rise. He had always found the pre-dawn hours peaceful and serene, but now the darkness filled him with foreboding, every shadow hiding unknown enemies. He longed for daylight, when the sun would burn his fears away.
His apprehension was irrational, the Lebanese realized. His enemies — if any still survived — were miles away, confined within the Bekaa Valley and environs. They would be hard-pressed to reach him here, unless…
An image of Belasko sprang to mind, implacable and unforgiving. Moheden wouldn't be satisfied until he saw h
is adversary dead, but in the meantime, he believed that he'd taken every possible precaution to protect himself. The normal complement of fifteen sentries had been doubled, using up the last of his reserves, and he'd placed Ahmad Halaby in command of the detachment, seeking to calm the Palestinian's nerves with busywork.
The dealer lighted a thin cigar and blew a cloud of smoke in the direction of the sea. He wished that he was on a ship, going anywhere at all, but he couldn't escape his problems with a cruise. They would be waiting for him when he came ashore, unless he dealt with them directly and eliminated his opponents in the ruthless style that had become his trademark. Weakness would jeopardize his empire by encouraging attacks from other quarters. Any peasant with a rifle and a dream would feel himself equipped to challenge his superiors and threaten the security of the established syndicate.
How much of that was left after tonight? Moheden didn't think that he would hear from Bakhtiar again, and he was already considering the best means of approaching a successor. The alternative was finding a completely new supplier. Not impossible, by any means, but it would take more time, and that meant money out of pocket while his customers went begging and, perhaps, found new suppliers of their own.
It would be easier, for all concerned, to make his peace with the Iranians and thus maintain the status quo. Moheden thought that he could pull it off, as long as he was first to speak with Bakhtiar's successor and describe the grim events that had transpired. A little sympathy, a little charm, the promise of revenge. The Shiites were like spiteful children in their view of the Americans. Belasko's name — and better yet, his head — would go a long way toward absolving Moheden of any guilt in the affair.
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