Warrior's Edge

by Don Pendleton

  "As I was saying," the officer continued, "we're looking for an armed man we've tracked through this neighborhood. We believe he's one of the saboteurs plaguing our city. If so, he's a most dangerous man."

  "Not to us," Braun replied. "Believe me, we damned well know how to look after ourselves in here."

  The officer glanced around the inside of the compound as if he could see the armed meres hiding in the darkness. "Perhaps you can take care of yourselves," he agreed, "but even so, if you do find an intruder, let us know first before you take care of him." Braun nodded and started backing away from the gate.

  Just then another ZIS car pulled up, its bubble-top lights flickering all along the fence and riveting the attention of every gunman inside the compound.

  The car stopped near the senior officer, and one of the uniformed men stepped out of the vehicle. He spoke rapidly with him, then climbed back into his car and drove off.

  "We've got him," the officer said to Braun. "Thanks for your help."

  "Anytime," Braun responded in a sour voice.

  But as he walked back toward the office building, he couldn't help smiling, thinking of the poor innocent bastard just picked up by the ZIS. "Better him than us," he muttered.

  * * *

  On the eastern side of the compound, Mack Bolan went into action as soon as the lights of the ZIS car diverted the attention of the mercenary night workers.

  He pulled back the fence where the wire cutters had done their job, then slipped his satchel onto the grass on the other side. He climbed through, then slowly released his grip on the fence, replacing the chain links.

  Bolan studied the ridge beyond the fence, fixing it into his memory. He'd have to pass this way again to get out. He picked up the satchel and headed downhill to a long line of railcars.

  He reached the middle of the cars, far away from the lights at the end of the buildings, then scrambled across the splintered tracks, heavy with the scent of oil, rust and rotting wood.

  The clearance between railcar and clock was about two feet. Carefully placing his hand on the crumbling concrete dock, he pulled himself up and sprinted to the side of the building.

  There under the eaves he was swallowed in shadow.

  He worked his way down the dock until he came to one of the fire doors. He passed up the first one. It was newly painted, and there was fresh mason work around the lock and hinge.

  The warrior kept going until he reached a door with faded red paint. Just as Molembe's contacts on the dayshift had promised, the doorknob and lock were new, but the hinged side of the door was in poor shape.

  Bolan reached into a side pocket of his combat vest and removed a sharp spear-point pick that unfolded from a rubber-coated handgrip. He punched the pick into the crumbling concrete, then twisted sharply. Bits brick and corroded masonry tumbled to the ground. With another push of his hand he widened the gap. More broken brick and rubble rained down onto the dock. In half a minute he removed enough concrete from around the hinges to pull them out of the wall. Opening the door from the hinge side, he slipped into the dark cavernous warehouse.

  It wasn't totally black. Light spilled from an office at the end of the warehouse, and slabs of moonlight filtered through the oval windows at the top of the warehouse. Some of the light was blocked by towering stacks of cartons on wooden pallets that reached up to the ceiling, but Bolan had enough light to see where he was going.

  He waited until his eyes were adjusted to the darkness, then, staying close to the wall, he headed forward the office. As he neared, he heard snatches of voices and tinny music playing from a radio.

  The mercenaries were returning to their posts now that the alert was over.

  And they were returning to their card game.

  The sound of curses and laughter came from the room as the warrior approached. One man raised his opponent, who cursed his ancestors, his creator and every bloody night he'd signed up to stay in Zandesi. And then he tossed in his ante.

  Bolan knew the type. Card-carrying, card-playing meres killing time between killing people.

  The Executioner moved away from the wall and worked his way down the rows, sliding between the tall stacks of freight until he could get a closer look at the men in the room.

  They were armed to the teeth, automatic rifles and subguns lining the walls.

  Most of the men were sitting around a huge grey metal desk that was covered with cards, ashtrays and bottles.

  There were seven men in the room, guards whose main job was to protect the materiel that had been so carefully smuggled into the warehouse. And in their eyes they were doing a good job of it. Since the complex was packed with other hardmen just like them in other offices, they couldn't imagine the place being infiltrated by one man.

  An army they'd expect. But a lone intruder?

  Out of the question.

  The lone intruder listened a bit more, then moved away from the lighted of flee toward a forklift area on the left-hand corner of the bay.

  Yellow slots marked off spaces on the floor for a number of different-sized fork and barrel-clamp lifts parked side by side.

  Bolan studied the propane tanks perched atop the back of the lifts, stepped softly to the forklift closest to the wall and unthreaded the fuel hose from the tank. Then he slowly turned the gas-control knob until he heard a small hiss of released pressure.

  A cold mist of gas sprayed into the air.

  The Executioner moved down the row of lifts, repeating the maneuver several times.

  Then he melted back into the darkness.

  Bolan made his way to the opposite end of the warehouse, searching for the recently constructed room described by Molembe's informants. The room was guarded during the day by two men who supervised the special crews.

  He found what he was looking for in the second last bay. Plywood walls reaching halfway to the ceiling cordoned off one side of the bay from the rest of the storage areas. The makeshift room had an opening large enough and wide enough to accommodate the booms of the forklifts that moved freight in and out.

  Two of the forklifts had been left inside the room. One of them was parked in the corner while another sat close to the entrance. Its heavy, flat tines rested on the floor, still holding a stack of long, heavy wooden crates raised three feet above the ground.

  The room was divided into two sections, one with cardboard cartons stacked on wooden pallets, and one with wooden crates piled on top of one another.

  Like a doctor making house calls, Bolan stepped inside the room and set down the satchel. This was the operating room, and soon it would be time for radical surgery.

  He sprinted to the forklift. Taking out his pick, he pried off the lid of the top crate and shone the light of the small palm-sized flashlight inside.

  The oval beam revealed a crate full of AK-47'S, and a quick inspection of several other crates revealed a large cache of the Soviet-made weapons.

  Moving to another row and prying open more crates, Bolan discovered RPG-7 rocket launchers and cases of muzzle-loaded rocket charges. The HEAT rounds could knock out armored vehicles and bunkers, and no doubt were brought in to use against the ZIS machine-gun emplacements throughout the city.

  The Executioner went over to one of the cardboard-covered pallets and tested the weight of one of the cartons. He hoisted it over his shoulder, then set it quietly on top of the crates on the forklift.

  He made a few quick slashes with his knife, then raised the jagged lid to see the blue uniforms of the ZIS. This was where Fowler had outfitted his counterfeit ZIS death squads.

  Then the warrior opened his satchel and took out adhesive-backed strips of C-4 plastic explosive, affixed them to the crates, wired them and set the timer prepared by Molembe's technical crew.

  He gave himself five minutes to get out.

  Bolan backed out of the room quietly and headed for the western side of the warehouse then froze as a clicking sound echoed down the bay.

  Several switches were flicked o
n simultaneously as a bank of overhead lights flooded the bay with light.

  Bolan was caught dead in the open.

  He looked over his shoulder and saw one of the former cardplayers staring back at him, openmouthed and speechless until his training took over.

  The man shouted an alarm and reached for his side arm.

  The Executioner yanked the silenced Beretta free of the Velcro harness on his chest as his eyes searched for the man's heart. There was no time to aim, only time for gut reaction.

  The mere's automatic cleared leather, the arc of the barrel rising as the gunman went by his instincts.

  The silenced 3-round burst that flew from Bolan's weapon appeared to have no effect on the man. At first. But then he jerked back like a swan about to take flight, his arms flapping at his sides.

  He took three steps backward before collapsing on the floor, his automatic clattering beside him.

  Was the man alone, checking out the armory bay on a whim?

  A voice called out in French.

  The man's partner was coming from the right side of the warehouse. Still in the next bay, he sounded calm at first. But when there was no response, his voice grew louder. The man swore and called out his partner's name one last time.

  "Gilles!"

  Bolan muffled his voice and said a few words in French.

  The man laughed and swore at Gilles for almost getting himself shot by not responding sooner. Then, gun in hand, he walked around a stack of pallets, stopping dead when he saw the Executioner.

  "So long," Bolan said, firing off a 3-round burst.

  But the newcomer had thrown himself out of the way at the last moment. The bullets struck him in the left shoulder and flung him to the ground, but he managed to hold on to his weapon and squeeze off a shot.

  The crack of gunfire echoed through the bays as the man pulled the trigger repeatedly, firing wildly in Bolan's direction. The bullets drilled into the walls and crashed through one of the skylights. The gunner seemed more interested in making noise then in nailing Bolan, yelling to his comrades that they were under attack.

  Answering shouts erupted from the far end of the warehouse as the hardmen poured out of the office.

  Their loud, confused voices suddenly dropped off as they gathered their wits and planned a course of action.

  Bolan knew how it would go down. They had the manpower and they had the time. The mercenaries would move bay by bay until they had him cornered.

  Simple for them, fatal for Bolan.

  At the moment there were too many of them for him to stay and fight it out especially since reinforcements could surround the warehouse and too many of them to evade.

  He had to even the odds.

  A quick burst from the Beretta shattered most of the overhead lights, sending a hard rain of popping glass onto the stacks.

  Then the warrior raced back into the makeshift shelter, acutely aware of the numbers ticking down to Doomsday.

  He picked up an RPG-7 and a torpedo-shaped rocket, and, pushing the spring-loaded fins of the HEAT rocket into the launcher tube, he returned to the warehouse.

  When he reached the aisle where the dead man lay, he knelt, steadied the rocket launcher on his shoulder and sighted at the far end of the warehouse where several men were grouped around the forklifts.

  Half of the search party was about to go after him.

  To save them the trouble, the Executioner fired the rocket. The warhead shot straight at its target, detonating against the brick wall behind the lifts and showering the area with fast-flying rubble.

  The thunderous explosion ignited the propane Bolan had leaked from the tanks, propelling a shock wave down the corridor.

  The airborne meres didn't have a chance as the molten blast punched them onto the concrete floor and kicked them into the afterlife.

  Bolan didn't waste time congratulating himself. Even now the other half of the search party would be sealing off the exits while they waited for reinforcements.

  The Executioner decided it was time to make his own exit.

  Slapping a fresh dip into the Beretta on the run, he returned to the armory, hopped onto the forklift and turned the ignition key. While he shifted the lift into reverse, he pulled the lever to the right of the steering wheel and tilted the boom backward. Then, still carrying the load of crates and cardboard, he raised the forks off the floor.

  Bolan wheeled out of the armory room in reverse and backed up all the way to the corridor. Shifting into forward gear, he stomped on the gas pedal and careered into the last bay.

  As the forklift rattled and rewed, Bolan moved on autopilot, trusting his memory of the layout to get him out. He remembered there was a huge corrugated door at the end of the warehouse, but it was on the eastern side of the building, where the rest of the search party was located.

  Still, he had no choice the bullets whining overhead drilled that point home.

  When he reached the last row, the Executioner spun the steering wheel to the left, racing for the eastern side of the warehouse. As the forklift barreled down the row, Bolan pulled up on the lever and raised the wooden crates until they shielded him at eye level.

  He took the corner on two wheels, and as the forklift touched down again, he wheeled right and fired left, unloading 3-round bursts at his pursuers. The enemy dived for cover, giving him a few precious seconds.

  The end of the warehouse was just ten feet away.

  The forks speared the corrugated-metal door a split second before the wooden crates added their mass to the crash. Then the huge forklift barreled through.

  The hardmen raced to the wrecked doorway and opened up with everything they had.

  Bolan came up firing. He'd jumped off the lift at the last moment, rolling on his shoulders into the darkness. Now he was right beside them, the Beretta 93-R spitting flame.

  He swept the doorway with rapid bursts, lifting the meres into a bloody dance of death that eventually punched them to the ground.

  The warrior dived over the low, slanting wall of an access ramp that led up to the outside dock. A split second later a pair of headlights stabbed the air.

  Tires screeched and car doors slammed.

  Gunther Braun leaped from his car and scanned the dead hardmen.

  More cars pulled up as reinforcements arrived. Still in his shirt and tie, like an executive gone berserk, Braun ran from man to man bellowing orders.

  He sent most of his forces into the breached door, while he stayed outside and waited for their report. Two of his men were sent down to the outside dock, creeping in the shadows formed by a line of railcars.

  Their quarry watched from the ridge as he slowly backed away toward the fence where he'd infiltrated the compound.

  Then he sat back to watch the fireworks.

  It wasn't long in coming.

  Volcanic fire mushroomed into the sky as the blast took off the roof of the warehouse, which exploded in a thunderous spray of wood, metal, concrete and human flesh.

  The detonated C-4 took out the armory and a good part of Fowler's army at the same time, casting a fiery glow above the shattered building.

  Sirens split the night as Molembe's ZIS units came in on cue. Fire engines, police cars and truckloads of ZIS commandos raced toward the gates, smashing through the barriers.

  The surviving hardmen were subdued without resistance.

  When the compound was secure, Molembe brought in one of his most formidable weapons a video crew.

  Sweeping through the compound, the cameramen recorded the stolen uniforms scattered on the ground, the weapons spilled from their cases and the large number of slain mercenaries.

  "Over here!" Molembe shouted, drawing the attention of one of the cameramen.

  The cameraman approached one side of the warehouse where Molembe had positioned Gunther Braun. The captured mercenary was standing in front of a brick wall.

  "Tape this," Molembe ordered.

  The cameraman warily approached, the video camera resting
on his shoulder.

  "An execution?"

  "No, a confession. He has much to say to us." Molembe's eyes hardened as he stared at the mercenary. "Unless you've changed your mind?"

  Braun shook his head. "I'm most grateful for your offer of leniency."

  "That's good," Molembe said. "Because it's a limited offer. Good for the next ten seconds only."

  The mere nodded. Then he began to say the magic words. "My name is Gunther Braun.

  I'm a mercenary in the employ of Heinrich Fowler. I was smuggling weapons in to the export company to complement Fowler's store of stolen government uniforms. His plan was to unleash a counterfeit army on the capital…"

  After Braun was finished, several other captured mercenaries said their piece in front of the cameras. They, too, were talkative, aware that their stay in Zandesi would be cut short in a most unpleasant way unless they told the truth.

  That was the danger in relying on mercenaries. When all seemed lost, they were quick to jump to the winning side. Not that Molembe was complaining.

  The operation was a success. Rather than risk losing a lot of men in a direct assault on the warehouse complex, they'd done it without a single fatality.

  The mercenaries had been attacked from the inside. And by one of their own kind, Molembe thought. No, he amended, by one of ours.

  13

  Hoofbeats thundered over the cold, hard ground as the Maskarai warriors rode into the night-shadowed camp of Fowler's Desert Knights.

  It was at a cul-de-sac in one of the endlessly ribboning canyons that lined Mont Bataille.

  Slivers of candlelight flickered from the mouths of caves as some of the mercenaries pushed back the dark blankets hanging over the entrances to watch the return of the tribesmen.

  Several more hardmen sat around drinking or sleeping inside the caves that honeycombed the walls of the canyon. They were relaxed and off guard for a simple reason.

  In recent nights the Maskarai warriors had assumed a greater role in scouting for the enemy and defending the camp against surprise attack.

  With so many of Fowler's men assigned to operations in Zandeville, the desert meres welcomed the tribesmen who were willing to take on the more dangerous assignments while they savored the luxuries of their cliffside lairs.