Assault

by Don Pendleton

  That made it easier for now. He could assume that Bolan's "friend inside" was somewhere in the house, and anybody moving on the grounds was playing in a free-fire zone. He took the chopper down and made a quick run past the swimming pool, a short burst from the 20 mm Gatling wreaking havoc with a squad of riflemen who made the grave mistake of stopping in the open.

  Two of the survivors headed for the wall, their weapons lost along the way, and Grimaldi pursued them far enough to meet another team of gunners moving toward the house. He hit them with the chopper's floodlight and the Gatling simultaneously. Grimaldi left them where they fell and circled back in the direction of the villa.

  He spotted several vehicles lined up along one side, and froze them in his sights. The starboard rocket pod belched twice, three times, and the expensive cars were swallowed in a rolling tidal wave of flame. The shock wave jarred his chopper, and Grimaldi lifted off to give himself some breathing room. He wasn't quick enough to miss the human torch that staggered from the wreckage, trailing sparks from arms that beat in vain against the hungry flames.

  So much for quick and clean.

  He circled back around the house, reversing his direction, and surprised another group of riflemen advancing on the source of the explosions. Two or three of them were quick enough to open fire before he pressed the Gatling's trigger, blowing them apart. One round cracked the windscreen to his left, a quick reminder that the birdman wasn't bulletproof.

  He took the helicopter up and spied a rooftop gunner on the way. The guy was pegging shots in his direction, firing wide — so far. Grimaldi let him have a quick two-second burst and watched the target dive for cover as his sixty rounds tore up the roof. The guy had gone to ground behind an air-conditioning compressor, and Grimaldi didn't feel like playing cat and mouse. Instead he closed the gap between them with a rocket, and the hulk of the compressor went to pieces, spewing shrapnel for a radius of twenty yards.

  No point in looking for the gunner after that. His mother wouldn't know him on the undertaker's slab, and there were other targets begging for attention on the ground. Grimaldi couldn't do a thing for Bolan in the house, but he could thin the ranks outside, and he would concentrate on that.

  It felt like shooting tethered ducks, but he rejected the analogy. The targets were predatory animals, responsible for countless murders, untold suffering through export of their poison to the States and Europe. Judgment day had been a long time coming, but it was upon them now.

  Grimaldi swept across the floodlighted grounds in search of targets, carrying the cleansing fire.

  * * *

  As soon as they had crossed the threshold, Joseph Chamoun turned back to scatter their pursuers with a burst of automatic fire. He saw one runner stumble, sprawling on the grass, and two more peel away in opposite directions, seeking cover. One of them slid home behind a piece of statuary, but the other had no luck at all. Chamoun could almost feel the gunman's desperation as he fired another burst and brought his target down.

  A bullet smacked the wall beside the rebel leader, and he spun to find the American dueling with a pair of gunners crouching on a marble staircase. Chamoun fired off a burst that pinned them down, while Bolan unclipped a frag grenade and pitched it overhand, a toss that dropped the lethal egg three steps above his targets, letting gravity take over.

  The explosion loosed a rain of plaster from the ceiling, shrapnel gouging into walls and shattering a fortune in expensive glasswork. Neither of the gunmen was in fighting shape as Bolan rushed the stairs, Chamoun falling in behind him and hesitating as he recognized the chopping noises of a helicopter engine. Close upon that sound, another: gunfire, fast and furious, much like the droning of a giant wasp.

  "The cavalry," Bolan informed him. "He's on our side."

  Chamoun drew some relief from that, until he took the measure of their task. Moheden's house was huge, gargantuan. It might take hours to locate Mara in the maze of rooms and corridors. Instinctively he knew they were running out of time.

  "Which way?" he blurted, praying that Belasko would somehow be right the first time.

  Then, before the tall American could answer, other gunmen found them, bursting through a massive pair of double doors that granted access to a formal dining room. Chamoun reacted swiftly, flattening himself behind a padded couch as bullets sliced the air above his head. He heard the American's weapon answering the challenge, and he wriggled backward, looking for an opening from which to join the fight.

  In fact the battle came to him. Six inches from his face, the hand grenade bounced once and spun around before it stopped. With no time left for conscious thought, Chamoun kicked backward, rolling, scuttling away on hands and knees. Beyond a certain range, the bulk of shrapnel would go upward, but if he was trapped inside the point-blank killing zone…

  The shock wave lifted Chamoun completely off all fours and flattened him against the nearest wall. He couldn't muster fear, and so he settled for surprise as darkness carried him away.

  * * *

  Bashir Moheden was approaching Mara's room when an explosion on the roof sent tremors through the house. He panicked and rushed forward, bursting through the door. She recoiled from what she read in his face. He felt an urge to kill the woman where she sat, her back against the wall, but she might still be useful if he could negotiate with the attackers.

  Somehow he would have to make his way outside. The vehicles were there, and if they were disabled, he might still escape on foot. It was not hopeless yet.

  "Get up."

  She hesitated, and Moheden crossed the room to drag her out of the room. Mara twisted in his grasp and landed one swift kick against his shin before he pressed the automatic to her skull.

  "Enough!" he snapped. "My patience is exhausted. Life or death — the choice is in your hands."

  She glared at him with hatred in her eyes, but ceased her struggles. Prodding her ahead of him, the dealer reached the corridor and pointed Mara toward the left, in the direction of the secondary stairs. He recognized the sounds of combat and knew his enemies had breached the house, but there was no escape from any of the upper floors without a leap that might have left him incapacitated. He would have to brave the killing ground and try to make his way by stealth.

  They reached the stairs a moment later, Mara hesitating until she was prodded with the pistol at her back. She started down reluctantly, Moheden close behind her. So far it seemed as if his enemies were concentrated on the far side of the house, toward the veranda, and the dealer hoped to slip away before they gained a greater foothold.

  "Hurry!"

  Mara staggered as he shoved her and nearly lost her footing, cursing as she caught herself. She bolted, but Moheden was on her in an instant, fingers tangled in her hair to drag her back. She spun and aimed a kick in the direction of his groin, but he avoided her and whipped an open palm across her face. The scream that pierced his brain seemed equally comprised of fear and rage.

  Moheden stepped in close before she could retreat and cracked the automatic hard across her skull. She crumpled at his feet, and he bent down to grasp the cuffs that pinned her wrists behind her back. Employing them as handles, he began to drag her prostrate form across the polished floor.

  * * *

  The frag grenade drove Bolan under cover, but it caught a couple of his adversaries by surprise. The warrior came up firing in the aftermath of the explosion, finishing both men before they had a chance to fall, and catching one more as he tried to duck behind an easy chair. The AK-47 nailed his target broadside, dropping him before he reached his meager sanctuary. Only one more adversary was on the field — the man responsible for lobbing the grenade. He broke from cover now, a submachine gun stuttering before he found a target, and the Executioner was waiting for him, lining up the shot and squeezing off from thirty feet away. The 3-round burst was dead on target, stitching crimson blooms across the gunner's chest and blowing him away. Bolan had barely glimpsed his face, but it had been enough. Ahmad Halaby would
be leading no more raids across the border.

  Bolan doubled back and found Chamoun where he lay. His shoulder wound had opened, and his nose was bleeding, but there seemed to be no other further damage. The warrior shook the prostrate form and gently slapped his cheeks, rewarded with a groan before the dark eyes fluttered open, swimming in and out of focus.

  "Can you hear me?" Bolan asked.

  "I… yes."

  "We're short on time," he said. "I'll have to leave you here." He found the rebel's weapon, placed it in his hands and waited for the grip to tighten. "You'll be needing this."

  "Where are you going?"

  "Upstairs, first."

  "I'm coming with you."

  Halfway to his feet, Chamoun collapsed, one hand thrown out to catch himself, a dazed expression on his face.

  "No time," the soldier said again, rising. "Take care."

  And he was on the stairs, stepping over one dead gunner when he heard a woman scream behind him, somewhere to his left. Retreating, Bolan risked a glance around the nearest corner, peering down a hallway that appeared to pass by other stairs. He saw two figures struggling and recognized them, as Bashir Moheden reached out and brought his pistol down on Mara's skull.

  The woman dropped to the floor, and Moheden was dragging her in the direction of a nearby exit when the warrior made his move. A shot was risky with the figures hunched together, so he took a chance and showed himself.

  "That's far enough," he said.

  Moheden froze, immediately dropping to a crouch and pulling Mara upright, propping her before him as a human shield. "Stop there," he called, "or I'll kill the woman."

  "I don't think so," Bolan countered. "She's your ticket. Cash it in and you've got nowhere left to go."

  "It seems that I have no alternative."

  Moheden's tone was fatalistic. Bolan hesitated, waiting to discover which way this one would decide to play his final scene.

  "A question," the dealer said.

  "Fair enough."

  "Who are you?"

  "Someone who resents you pushing poison in the streets."

  "Who sent you? Interpol? The CIA?"

  "What difference does it make?"

  Moheden shrugged. "No difference. It's enough that I have beaten you."

  "I think you've got that backward," Bolan told him, edging closer. "You're a little short of men, from where I stand."

  "No matter." There was cunning in the dealer's voice. "You want the woman. I'll never let you have her."

  Bolan tried to keep his tone indifferent. "Suit yourself. If that's the way you want to play it."

  "I don't seem to have much choice."

  Moheden straightened slightly, offering a portion of himself to Bolan as he raised the automatic, aiming it at Mara's skull. It was a tricky shot, but there would be no second chance. Bolan snapped the AK-47 to his shoulder, stroking off a burst, deliberately firing high.

  Several rounds were off the mark completely, slicing empty air instead of boring into Mara's flesh. The first was all it took, however. It ripped through Moheden's shoulder, flinging him away from Mara, with his own shot angled somewhere overhead. Released from her restraint, the woman toppled sideways, clearing Bolan's field of fire before the dealer could recover from his stunning wound.

  Moheden tried to rise, and Bolan let him make it to his knees before he said, "That's all." From twenty feet, he held the AK-47's trigger down. In the sudden, ringing silence that followed, something like a wistful sigh escaped Moheden's lips. Then he was still.

  The Executioner whirled at a shuffling sound behind him, the Beretta in his fist. Joseph Chamoun limped past Bolan, knelt by his sister's side and took her in his arms. Another moment passed before she stirred, eyes coming into focus on her brother's face.

  Outside, the chopping sound of rotor blades was closer, reaching Bolan through a door that had been blasted from its frame. Grimaldi was outside, and he was waiting.

  "Time to go," he told the pair. "We've got a flight to catch."