He hugged the graffiti-covered walls where the rotted floorboards would not creak, using a toe to clear the rubble of shattered glass and broken brick and mortar in his way.
He heard a rattle of gunfire in the night a few blocks away, then the rumble of a tank, its throaty blast fiercer than the others.
Inside the building, nothing but a tomblike silence.
And quivers of danger from all around. There would be no sanctuary from the hell storming Beirut tonight.
Not that Bolan wanted any.
He would play this one on the heartbeat. There could be room for planning when he had more to work with, but right now all he had was a target.
Strakhov.
For The Executioner, that was enough.
A low-watt bulb barely illuminated the second-floor corridor.
Bolan made his way to the apartment specified by Chaim Herzi and tapped lightly on the door with the barrel of the AutoMag. Then he stepped well back from the line of possible fire, pressing himself against the wall of the corridor, AutoMag up, ready to kill.
He glanced at the boy still slumbering away in his arms. Keep it up, kid, he thought. He had to be ready to move.
The door creaked inward a few inches.
An Arab woman stood there, a dusky, dark-tressed beauty dressed in a traditional floor-length caftan that did nothing to conceal a well-shaped figure.
She saw Bolan and started to speak in Arabic.
Bolan stopped her with a motion.
She stepped aside. He carried the boy into the apartment. She closed the door and turned to lean against it, studying the man and child with expressive, inquisitive eyes.
"Do you speak English?" Bolan asked.
"You are from Chaim?"
"Are you Zoraya?"
"Yes. Who are you, please?"
"I'd like to see some identification." The beauty flared.
"You dare to demand identification from me in my own home?" Then her eyes softened with concern as she seemed to set aside business for the moment. She stepped forward, instinctively it seemed to Bolan, and plucked the child from Bolan's grasp. "And who is this?" she asked Bolan.
The child and the woman considered each other for a few moments, and some of the distrust ebbed from the little guy's big eyes.
"He needs shelter," Bolan growled. "I don't know what happened to his parents. We've been through a lot getting here.
"He is hungry. He must be fed." The woman turned with the boy and walked into a kitchenette. The apartment contrasted sharply to the rest of the rubble-strewn building complex. The lady kept her home neat and clean, with Spartan furnishings.
Bolan did not holster Big Thunder. He cautiously checked the bathroom and bedroom while the woman prepared food for the child.
Then Bolan holstered the AutoMag. He crossed to a window, noting the apartment was sensibly lighted by a floor lamp that was across the living room from the window.
He parted the draperies a fraction of an inch and glanced up and down the street below Zoraya's window. A camouflage-painted truck with a rocket launcher mounted behind turned the corner past the flames of a trashed car, redeploying to some new position. The fighting would resume. The city trembled with expectation of the violence everyone knew had to come.
While the boy sat on a divan and ate, the woman stepped up to Bolan, extending Lebanese, photo ID for his inspection. The ID backed up her claim that this was her place.
Bolan accepted that.
For now.
"Captain Herzi gave me your address. What do you know about Major General Strakhov?" He sensed a sharp mind weighing it all behind deep eyes that dominated a high-cheekboned face.
"How... do I know I can trust you?" she asked. "Chaim was to come here tonight."
"Chaim is dead." Bolan expected her reaction. He had not missed her reference to the Israeli agent by his first name.
She took it like a bayonet in the gut, a gasp of shock. Bolan could tell by the fleeting look of pain on her face that part of the mind wanted to reject what it heard even as the hurt exploded through her. Then she pulled herself together in a visible effort, holding in everything that wanted to burst out.
"We were lovers," she told Bolan. Her voice quavered.
"I understand. I'm sorry." Bolan told her how Chaim died trying to cover Bolan as he rescued the boy.
"It... was an honorable way to die," Zoraya said softly when she heard it all. "I am no stranger to death."
"I'm moving fast," he told her. "You've sot to tell me. Chaim said you knew something about why Strakhov is in Beirut."
"Strakhov. We will all die because of him."
"Why were you informing to Chaim?" Bolan asked. "Because you loved him?"
"Not at first. Love... came later. I had two brothers. I am Druse. I can see by your eyes that you did not know this. My brothers volunteered for the militia to fight the Israelis and the Lebanese army. Do you know the injustices we Druse have suffered at the hands of this government, and yours?"
"And yet you inform for Mossad. You fell in love with one of their agents."
"Aziz and Adli were slain not by the Israelis or the army," the woman told him. "A Maronite spy was discovered in the squad in which my brothers fought. My brother's officers suspected someone in the squad had arranged it. A ridiculous charge. My brothers were devout servants of Allah and the Druse cause. They were summarily executed, as were the others in the squad. At first, I informed out of anger. Then I began to understand Chaim and what he believed. I understood there were other ways to bring peace. I do not inform to hinder the Druse cause, but to further it. I have never passed information that would result in the wholesale death of my people. I only want to help diffuse this tension. Chaim understood."
"I understand, too. But from what I've seen tonight, Zoraya, you're not doing too well."
"There is no hope," she said with quiet desperation. "Chaim is dead. The dogs of war run wild."
"Strakhov," Bolan prodded gently. "What have you learned about him?"
"Yes, of course. I'm sorry. It is something very high level. Security makes it all very vague. The major general is billeted with the Syrian army at Zahle, less than thirty miles from here. This knowledge in itself is enough to get one killed."
"Chaim mentioned an assassination."
"He told you that? I had not made the connection."
"Zoraya, if it's supposed to happen tonight, perhaps I can stop it."
"I know none of the details. It has all come to me in a very roundabout way, you understand. Something overheard in a crowd, repeated many times before it reached me. You know of the Disciples of Allah?"
"Shiite fanatics," Bolan growled.
"Broke off from the militia because the Amal weren't killing Christians fast enough." The Disciples had been one of two Shiite groups to claim responsibility for the truck-bomb massacre of U.S. Marines at the airport.
"The Disciples of Allah operate from Biskinta, about twenty miles northeast of Beirut," said Zoraya.
Bolan recalled intel from his briefing by an Israeli army officer at the airfield across the border five hours before Bolan penetrated Lebanon.
"Biskinta. The Iranians control that area."
Zoraya nodded.
"The Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Volunteers in the war against Israel. The Iranians are sworn to fight and die for their oppressed Shiite brethren around the world. Fanatics, yes. The Iranians supplied the Disciples with the explosives that killed your Marines."
The little Arab boy had finished wolfing down his meal.
Bolan crossed the room for another look out the window while Zoraya got a blanket from a closet and wrapped the child in it.
Nothing moved in the darkness of the street.
Bolan heard Zoraya ask the boy some questions in Arabic in a tender, motherly tone, but the little guy's eyelids drooped shut before his tousled head touched the arm of the couch.
Zoraya returned to the man in the blacksuit.
"I fear
our little one is still too afraid to speak. I cannot get him to tell me his name. But he should sleep for hours."
"Thanks for your help."
"I could not do otherwise. But now... there is your mission." Bolan found himself pacing, itching for action.
"I've got Shiite fanatics, Biskinta and an assassination. What else, Zoraya? Whose assassination? The president of Lebanon?"
"I do not know. I am sorry."
The warrior forced himself to stop pacing. He thought aloud, trying pieces of the puzzle for size.
"I can see why you didn't make a connection between Strakhov and the Disciples of Allah or the Revolutionary Guards. The Russians and the Iranians don't get along. But something big could change that. A common interest. An assassination. You said Strakhov is at Zahle now with the Syrians?"
"Yes, the major general left the base early this evening with a detachment of Syrian troops. My contact in Zahle is my sister, who cooks for the Syrians."
"It's happening tonight," Bolan decided, "and Strakhov has to be tied in one way or another, whatever it is. I've got to get to Biskinta. I'll need transportation. Can you help me again?"
"I have a car. May I come with you? I do not want to be like my neighbors, hiding with the lights off, waiting to die. I must be doing something. I know the way to Biskinta. I can drive."
"You're on," Bolan returned, and he looked at the sleeping child on the couch. "Is there a hospital on the way?"
"No, but it would not matter if there were. The hospitals, those that have not been destroyed... their personnel work around the clock. No one would have time to take in another lost soul."
"Then he's safer with us. Okay, lady. Let's take that drive."
She gathered car keys, tossed them into a purse and Bolan saw a 9mm Browning Hi-Power before she snapped the purse shut. Then she gently picked up the blanket-wrapped bundle without waking the little boy.
Bolan motioned her to the side when they were ready to leave her apartment.
He flicked off the light switch, drew the AutoMag and prepared to open the door a crack to check the hallway before they left.
Zoraya touched him on the arm in the darkness before he unlatched the door, her fingertips graceful, transmitting deep emotion.
"May I know your name?
"Does it matter?"
"To me, yes." He told her.
She repeated it in the stillness.
"Mack. It is a strong name. I know much about you, you see, from the short time we have spent together. You use your strength to build a better world, not to tear it down in ruin as those all about us tonight would. Chaim was like that. I could not bear to think of two such men dying in one night. Promise me, Mack, do not risk your life for me. Please."
He unlatched the door, pulled it inward a crack and peered out.
No one lurked in the hallway.
"Let's go!" said the Executioner.
The mission.
Strakhov.
And one word: assassination.
And a war about to blow wide open again at any second, engulfing them all.
5
They traveled a circuitous route out of Beirut. Bolan's blacksuit, weapons and gear were hidden beneath a blanket that covered him to the neck.
Zoraya steered her Volvo through the labyrinth of streets she knew so well. The Arab child snoozed in the back seat as the Volvo bumped along the crater-scarred road.
Bolan wished he could fully trust this woman.
Chaim had vouched for her, sure. Bolan had seen her ID, right. But The Executioner had kept breathing all these years, all these miles through blood, by not taking one damn thing as it appeared.
Especially in the heat of battle in a hostile, alien environment.
Especially not on a night like tonight.
The damn thing was, Bolan liked the human being who said she was Zoraya.
She had not faked the humane instinct that transformed the tough, gun-packing Zoraya to gentle protector of the Arab waif.
With the shelling of the city temporarily ceased, the streets funneled a surge of pedestrian and vehicular traffic trying to get out despite the pre-dawn hour. The mass exodus only served to blur already tenuous lines between Muslim and Lebanese Christian forces.
Lines that were impossible for even the militias themselves to determine.
No one slept in the war zone tonight.
The woman drove them from the city along the coast.
A sea breeze cooled the air.
The war seemed not so immediate out here.
They passed djellaba-robed Muslims standing before their homes, observing the noises of war from the direction of the city, ruminating camels tethered to trees.
Both sides of this stretch of the main road were littered with debris: the charred remains of trucks, tanks and human corpses.
Two miles north of Beirut, Zoraya turned onto a secondary road, taking them northeast.
"This leads to Biskinta."
"We've been damn lucky," Bolan noted, never taking his eyes from surveying the dangerous night.
"Twenty-four hours ago, we would not have gotten this far," Zoraya said. "Militia checkpoints were everywhere. But the new fighting has changed everything. The armies are busy with each other." As she spoke those words, the Volvo rounded a bend and Bolan saw the lights of a military checkpoint blockading the road a quarter of a mile ahead.
He positioned himself sideways in the seat, like a man taking a rest. He made a final check to ensure the blacksuit and drawn Beretta were fully concealed. Zoraya slowed the Volvo as they approached the lights.
"The instant it goes wrong," he told her, "get us out of here." The lady looked tough enough and competent behind the wheel.
Bolan kept his finger ready on the silenced 93-R's trigger beneath the blanket.
Zoraya braked to a stop at the checkpoint. A guard shack stood to one side and next to it three men, wearing the informal Druse militiaman's uniform of parka, knit hat, jeans and combat boots.
The three were armed with Russian AK-47 assault rifles.
Another soldier stood beside a jeep, near a radio in case anything went wrong.
Tension crackled in the night as one of the soldiers approached the car.
The others stood behind him, their AK'S leveled.
Bolan feigned sleep.
The Arab beauty would handle the soldier.
Bolan could not understand the dialogue, but the exchange did not need translation. He had briefed Zoraya on what to say.
She showed her papers to the militiaman.
"This is my husband and child. My husband was wounded in the fighting. We have been to the hospital in Beirut but had to leave after his surgery to make room for more wounded. He is heavily sedated, as you can see. We are Druse. We live in Biskinta."
"You are crazy to return," the soldier said gruffly, returning the ID with barely a glance at Bolan or the child. "The fighting in the hills is bad. You should not go back."
"It is our home. We return to get our belongings." At that moment, the little boy in the back seat let out a caterwaul that echoed off eardrums and did not stop.
Zoraya played it to the hilt.
"There, you see?" she bitched. "My child is awake. Do you want to nurse him back to sleep?" The soldier grunted something and stepped back from the car and waved her on through, already half forgetting the refugees and, like his companions, warily scanning the barren darkness around them for the enemy.
Bolan reached for the child, who continued to raise a hellish racket. He tried rocking the kid, making clucking noises that did no good. He became aware of a quiet chuckle from the woman behind the wheel.
"Perhaps we should trade places," Zoraya suggested.
When they made the first dip in the terrain that put them beyond sight of the checkpoint, she steered onto the shoulder.
Zoraya took the little one and when the kid's scared eyes saw her, the squawling diminished to a murmur.
By the time Bolan got b
ehind the wheel, Zoraya had the boy in her lap in the passenger seat, the boy transformed once again into a purring angel.
Bolan allowed a chuckle of his own as he steered the Volvo back onto the road.
"Thanks again." Bolan went back to scanning the night beyond the cone of headlights.
They passed a caravan of four civilian vehicles traveling in the other direction, huddling together for mutual protection.
Zoraya watched the darkness, too, and began crooning soft, soothing tones in Arabic to the child again.
Bolan noticed that the terrain began to incline from the coastal flat into the harsh, rocky foothills of the Shouf mountains.
They would soon be surrounded by Druse artillery, quiet for now, allowing civilian refugees to haunt the roads until the next barrage upon the city.
The Druse militiamen did not want to betray their positions to possible retaliatory air strikes.
The mess in Lebanon ranked in a class of its own, but the issues were simple enough.
The mess resulted from so many disparate Muslim factions forgetting their grievances and cross-purposes with each other and uniting — with considerable aid from the Soviet Union — under the banner of Islam in nothing less than a Jihad, a Holy War, against an opposing alliance of similarly disparate factions, in most cases pro-Western.
Bolan knew some history of the region.
In the eleventh century, a group of nonconformist Muslims infiltrated southern Lebanon, eventually coalescing into the Druse community. Unrest between Muslims and Arab Christians dated to the nineteenth century. Druse opposition to Christians was directed particularly against the Maronites, culminating in a series of bloody attacks.
After a massacre of twenty-five hundred Christians in 1860, France intervened and the Ottoman sultan was forced to appoint a Christian government, which still was in power.
The current trouble exploded when Israel's military invaded Lebanon to destroy once and for all the Palestine Liberation Organization. The Israelis succeeded only in driving out moderate PLO factions while diehard PLO terrorists strengthened themselves in an alliance with the Druse.
Druse and PLO fighters operated jointly against the pro-Israeli, pro-Western Lebanese government, joined by the Iranian crazies and the Syrians, in open civil war. Both sides were driven by real grievances, feeding a bloodlust as exploitable as ever by the cannibals who sat on the sidelines and pulled the strings.
Beirut Payback te-67 Page 3