Assassin's Tripwire

by Don Pendleton

  Stars danced across his vision. He did his best to ride out the impact, but jumping from a moving vehicle never got any more comfortable. Still, he managed not to take any additional injuries.

  Then the tank nearly crushed him.

  The Type 63A came through the dust cloud and clanked right past him, its tracks rolling over the dirt and rock just inches from his head. He waited for it to go past and then took up position behind it. He could hear the turret motors whine as the tank crew tried to line up the Mahindra for another blast from the main gun. The little truck was gaining ground fast. The tank crew was probably eager to hit it for fear of losing their quarry.

  Bolan pulled the retaining clip on the LAWS and yanked the tube open. The sights sprang up. He put the tube on his shoulder and aimed very carefully. He had only one shot. If he missed, if he made an error, Yenni might be blown apart.

  Bolan pressed the trigger.

  The armor-piercing round shot from the LAWS and streaked out to touch the right side of the tank. It blew the track apart, causing the tank to shudder and smoke. The war machine ground to a halt.

  One of the crew popped up and manned the machine gun mounted on the top. Swiveling the weapon Bolan’s way, he opened fire. There was no technique, no control. The gunner just held back the trigger and sprayed the landscape with as much firepower as his gun could throw.

  He never came close to Mack Bolan.

  The dust cloud from the tank’s passing shielded him adequately, even as it began to settle. Bolan drew his Desert Eagle, took careful aim and popped a single round through the smoked visor of the gunner’s helmet. He pitched forward on his machine gun and was still.

  The body was now blocking the top hatch.

  Bolan ran for it, still carrying the empty LAWS tube. He saw the corpse begin to jerk as the men below tried to push it out or drag it back in. He had to get to the tank before that happened.

  Bolan reached into his war bag, and the cylinder that came to hand was a white phosphorous grenade. He almost felt bad.

  Almost.

  He hit the edge of the tank, hoisted himself up and scrambled to the turret. He reached the hatch just as the corpse was shoved up and out. The dead body tumbled across the turret and into the dirt, but Bolan was shoving the LAWS into the gap before the tank crew could seal themselves off. He shoved his Desert Eagle into the hole and triggered two rounds. The .44 Magnum bullets clattered around inside the metal tank, drawing screams from the crew.

  “I want the Wolf!” Bolan shouted. “Give me the Wolf!”

  Bullets fired from a submachine gun one of the soldiers must be carrying rattled inside the war machine. The gunner had miscalculated the angle. No rounds actually left the turret. Instead, they ricocheted around within the vehicle. There were more screams and now angry cries of protest.

  “The Wolf!” Bolan shouted again.

  He couldn’t understand the soldiers’ words, but he knew their tone. The Wolf was either dead inside the tank, which he thought unlikely, or not there at all. That made much more sense to Bolan. Fafniyal had retreated to save himself, then sent his helicopters and his tank crew back in an attempt to find and neutralize the threat.

  The Executioner would catch up with the Wolf soon enough. He popped the pin on his white phosphorous grenade, let the spoon go and dropped the canister inside the tank. Only then did he pull the bent LAWS tube out of the gap and shove the hatch down hard, holding it there with his body.

  A dull thump signaled the bomb’s ignition inside the tank. The screams that came after were inhuman.

  Bolan climbed down off the tank and walked away, leaving the would-be killers inside to burn.

  He walked for a few minutes before Yenni managed to make it back with the Mahindra. Its engine was squealing and clanking. A fan belt was slipping and he smelled burned oil. The little truck had given a lot, but it didn’t have too much left. He hoped it would be enough to get them within striking distance of the presidential palace.

  Yenni moved over so he could drive. When he had them rolling again, she said, “Do you really mean to face the Wolf, and even Hahmir, where they are strongest?”

  “I do.”

  “These are sick men,” Yenni said. “The Wolf especially. He will want revenge for what you have done to him. He and Hahmir will be very angry.”

  “Doesn’t matter,” Bolan said. “Yeah, they’re sick. Individually and as groups like the loyalists and the Wolf’s patrols. But they’re just part of the world, and the world is undeniably sick. You can’t let yourself be overwhelmed by that sickness or you’ll go mad. You have to focus on what you can affect. You deal with that, and you deal with it directly. The rest sorts itself out.”

  “So we go to deal with them directly,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Cooper,” Yenni said. “I want to know you. You guard so much. Tell me what lies behind. You have heard my story. Now I would hear yours.”

  “Some things are better kept secret.”

  “You will lose much, going through life that way.”

  “I’ve lost a lot,” Bolan said. “I have no regrets.”

  “No. A man like you would not. But I wonder. I wonder if you need…”

  “Need what?”

  “A woman like me.”

  They drove together in silence after that. The presidential palace, and the end of this mission, lay ahead.

  16

  Basram Hahmir cursed himself for a fool.

  He sat in his lavishly appointed office, filled with the most expensive furniture from around the world. His desk cost twenty thousand American dollars and was one of a kind, an elaborate affair in expensive hardwoods and marbles. On his floor was a genuine lion-skin rug, from a magnificent animal he’d taken himself on a “canned hunt” in Africa.

  He had a Ferrari, a Lamborghini, a Bentley and several custom cars in the garage at his estate. Everything was limited edition. Everything was very expensive. Many of his most prized possessions were imported from Canada and the United States. He exemplified luxury. International magazines had profiled him, feted him and heralded him as the new, moderate face of government in a soon-to-be-enlightened Syria.

  On his wrist he wore a Rolex watch studded with diamonds. In the drawer of his desk was a gold-plated handgun, a wildly expensive revolver of an exotic make that few men had even heard of. He didn’t remember the name.

  His wine cellar was stocked with incredible vintages that cost hundreds of American dollars a bottle. And his personally siphoned treasury held millions of such United States dollars, to finance both his current lifestyle and what he hoped, eventually, would be a lavish retirement on a tropical island. He wanted, more than anything in the world, to travel to some tropical port, live quietly aboard a sailboat and pay twenty-year-old bronze-skinned prostitutes to serve his needs when he was an old man.

  He did not think this was too much to ask.

  Yet today his dream of a quiet retirement, after a long career as leader for life, seemed very distant indeed. He had the ambition of his longtime friend Sudhra Fafniyal to thank for that. Sudhra had made him a prisoner in his own palace.

  What had happened? How had he lost control of his own country?

  He knew what Fafniyal wanted. His old ally had been perfectly clear. Fafniyal was no longer content to be second in command, no longer satisfied by being Hahmir’s feared enforcer. Now the Wolf wanted the military to answer directly to him. He wanted it known that the true power was his.

  A figurehead. Did Hahmir truly wish to become a puppet leader with no real power?

  Why should he? Why should he voluntarily give up being a man?

  Still, he’d considered it. As long as he had all the luxuries, as long as people hailed him as leader, as long as he was able to siphon moneys for his own enrichment, what did it matter if Fafniyal was in charge? The thought was a comforting one. But Hahmir had not worked for so long to become another man’s slave. For that was what he’d been offered: slavery
under the Wolf.

  Hahmir began to wonder if Fafniyal had been using him all along. Was that even conceivable?

  He did not want to believe that. They had been friends. They had confided in one another. They’d worked to help each other. He didn’t want to think his whole life had been a lie.

  The sound of gunfire roused him from his reverie. He reached into his desk and withdrew the gold-plated revolver. Making sure it was loaded, he crouched behind his desk.

  Beyond his door, a firefight raged. That could be only one of two things. Either the American commandos looking for the stolen weapons had somehow decided Hahmir was to blame for the weapons systems’ disappearance… or the Wolf was here to force his hand.

  It was, he soon learned, the latter.

  Sudhra opened the door using his copy of the key. Hahmir hadn’t been able to change the lock and, truth be told, even with his own loyal men outside the palace, he had always been Fafniyal’s prisoner. The Wolf stepped inside and closed the door behind him. He held a smoking Tokarev pistol.

  “What is the meaning of this, brother?” Hahmir demanded.

  “Brother?” Fafniyal said. “We were never brothers. You are a fool, Hahmir. You always have been. And my patience has grown short. We no longer have time for ridiculous games between us.”

  “State your cause plainly.”

  The Wolf raised his pistol. “Unload that revolver and put it down,” he ordered. “Or I will kill you where you stand.”

  There was iron in his voice. And Hahmir had never known his old friend to shrink from violence of any kind.

  Hahmir obediently broke open the cylinder, dropped the brass cartridges on the desk and put the revolver back in the drawer. He waited several seconds before Fafniyal, satisfied, set the Tokarev on the desktop.

  “I’m out of ammunition anyway,” the Wolf said.

  “Would you really have killed me?” Hahmir asked.

  “I would have beaten you to death with the pistol, if necessary. Now, I want you to listen very carefully.”

  “What is going on?”

  “I have traveled far and fast,” Fafniyal said. “The Americans have neutralized the weapons emplacements.”

  “What? All of them? We need those weapons! The loyalists will usurp power once more if we don’t have the means to—”

  “None of that matters anymore,” Fafniyal said. “It does not matter that my men and yours will doubtless take to fighting among themselves in the outer cordon, either. You and I are here, deep in the safest part of the palace, and here we will remain. I will post my private guards around us, and what is left of my forces, those not detailed to the outer perimeter, will do their best to stop the American. But I’m telling you, Hahmir. If we’re going to survive this night, we must make a unified front.”

  “A unified front against what?”

  “The Americans did not send a search-and-rescue team,” Fafniyal said. “They sent some kind of death squad. That squad has massacred loyalist forces across northern Syria and also destroyed each of the weapons emplacements, no matter how well hidden. I tried to ensure the death of the Americans by helping the loyalists—”

  “You tried… But why would you deal with the loyalists? They are our enemies! They want us dead!”

  “They want you dead,” Fafniyal said. “You never did understand how to be practical, Basram. But none of that is relevant. Yes, I tried to take power from you. I am telling you now that we must unite if we both wish to live.”

  “You did worse than try to take power!” Hahmir said. “If you hadn’t diverted the weapons, the Americans would not have needed to send their death troops to our shores. Your ambitions have brought us to this! You and you alone will be responsible for destroying everything we have worked to build!”

  “Stop being dramatic,” Fafniyal said. “The American troops have done us a service. I have just received word that the loyalist leadership is smashed. My own troops can mop up what remains. The major opposition to your rule has been crushed.”

  “You are the major opposition to my rule!”

  “Listen to yourself,” Fafniyal said. “You sound like a bitter child. Can you not grasp that there are certain realities in play? I tried to take power. I deserve power. Syria deserves a leader who is strong.”

  “I am strong. I can rule as forcefully as you can. But I am capable of more than ruling through fear.”

  “Fear is the only true constant,” Fafniyal said. “That is why I was able to draw off military units to my own forces, eclipsing your own.”

  “Do you not care that your men have been dying in droves? Or mine? We are weakening each other in this conflict. Who benefits? Syria will fall again, and you and I will end up hanged in the public square by the very people who once cheered our names!”

  “Why can I not get through to you?” Fafniyal said. “Here. Perhaps this will help.” He reached into the desk drawer, took out the revolver and loaded it again. Then, before Hahmir could protest, he raised the gun and put the barrel to his old friend’s forehead.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I am making a point,” Fafniyal said. “The American commandos are coming here. The Americans are a gun to your head. If you and I do not act together, if we do not work as one, they will murder us. The threat is as real as a gun pointed in your face, for if the Americans determine that we cannot be trusted, that we tricked them into sending weapons, their wrath will be great. They will cut us off. They may even take military action against us. Their President will not like being tricked.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “It is possible I will fall this day. And if I do, it will be your task to persuade the Americans that you are still their ally.”

  “What?”

  “Listen to me, damn you,” Fafniyal said. “My men and I will be the last line of defense, here in the palace. This is where the Americans will come. They attacked my meeting with the loyalist leadership. They secured and neutralized the weapons. I sent my men to kill them, and my men failed. The Americans know they’ve been tricked, and they will come here to make us all pay. It’s what I would do in their position.”

  “What should I do?”

  “I will try to stop them,” Fafniyal said. “But if I can’t, you must lie to the Americans. Blame everything on me. Tell them I took you prisoner, I threatened to torture you, I was a rogue operative and you had no say in anything I did. Tell them you had no idea I used my brother to set up the assassination attempt. Persuade them, Basram. Make them believe it. You can live through this…and Allah help us, so can Syria, if you can make the Americans believe you were not part of the trap to fool their President.”

  “Why?” Hahmir said. “Why would you do this?”

  “Because this is the only way to get what I want,” Fafniyal said. “And if I fall, if I die trying to achieve this, there is very little point in being so spiteful that you and Syria fail as well, is there? I am the rightful leader of our country. I have the strength. I deserve the power. But in my absence, why should it not be you?”

  “I have never heard you talk like this. You’ve never known fear.”

  “The Americans have stymied us at every turn,” Fafniyal said. “I have never known a foe like this. I am reminded of that general, in a war long ago, who said the Americans are like a sleeping giant. We wake that giant at our own risk. And in tricking them into giving us the weapons systems, in using them to prop up our government, I fear we have made a mistake.”

  “That failure is as much my fault as it is yours,” Hahmir said. “It was my idea to capture their goodwill through deception.”

  Fafniyal sighed. “Do you not see, you fool? We are beyond all that. What good is blame now? What difference does my ambition make, or yours, if we all die?”

  “But…Sudhra… You are strong. You are the strongest fighter I have ever known. Why can you not kill these men?”

  “Damn you,” Fafniyal said. “Do not make this harder than it already i
s. I am leaving you your gun. Use it wisely.” He placed the revolver on Hahmir’s desk.

  “You will defeat the Americans,” Hahmir said. “We will…we will rule Syria as you wished. I will be the face of the nation. You will be its backbone. You will make the decisions.”

  “If we live, then yes. Of course that’s how it will be. It could be no other way.”

  “I hear defeat in your voice,” Hahmir said. “How is this possible?”

  “Shut up, Basram.” At the door to Hahmir’s private chambers, Fafniyal paused. Without turning to look at his old ally, he said, “I…did not mean what I said. About you being my brother. I, too, considered you that. Once.”

  “Sudhra—”

  “Goodbye, Basram,” Fafniyal said. He walked out and closed the door behind him.

  17

  Bolan was still checking his watch when they parked the smoking, creaking Mahindra just outside the presidential palace grounds, on an artificial, landscaped rise above the property. Sneaking into the city had been easy enough. Their truck was no more or less wrecked than many other vehicles on the streets. And this was the busiest city in the nation, so there was plenty of activity to provide cover.

  The Executioner surveyed his target. Yenni watched as he scanned from left to right and back again with his monocular. She was following his instructions and setting up the mortars. The remaining rounds would help pave the way for Bolan’s attack on the palace grounds.

  Fafniyal had arrayed his armored vehicles and jeeps in a cordon around the palace grounds. Inside that was another ring of vehicles, mostly jeeps with machine-gun mounts, not to mention sandbagged emplacements where soldiers crouched. A sort of uneasy cease-fire seemed to be in effect. Hahmir’s troops weren’t firing on the Wolf’s people, but the Wolf’s soldiers were preventing Hahmir’s from escaping the palace. The deadly stalemate would last for as long as the Wolf wanted it to. Hahmir’s men were outgunned and outnumbered.