Masudi scrambled backward like a scurrying spider toward the archway, dragging the startled young terrorist with him.
Bolan triggered a 3-shot stutter from the 93-R. A row of slugs sizzled into the terrorist in front of Masudi and the human shield went from startled to dead. But that did not stop the Iranian officer.
He tossed the body aside and disappeared in a rush down the corridor out of sight of Bolan, who still had his hands full.
The two remaining Disciples toting AK-47'S separated to opposite sides of the room. Both terrorists opened fire on Bolan, the blazing weapons spitting heavy projectiles at him.
The penetrator in blacksuit hit the floor in a forward sprawl and took both of the creeps out before they could adjust their aim.
The terrorist on the left caught a 3-shot burst of 9mms in the heart area and tumbled over sideways, crushing the prayer table on the way down. The other opened his mouth to yell but a .44-caliber headbuster cored the man's eye socket like hot metal through butter, spraying the wall behind bright crimson.
Bolan thought for an instant that he had finished there and started to get up, when he saw a flurry of movement from a far corner of the room.
The ancient mullah flipped away the folds of his holy robe and lifted a Czech Model 23 submachine gun. He screeched something about Allah and kept on screeching, but the words were drowned out by the chatter of the killer song in his hands. The wily old-timer rode the recoil like a pro, but Bolan had already hit the floor again. A pulverizing volley of screaming lead tattooed the wall where The Executioner had been only seconds before. Bolan stroked the AutoMag's trigger once more, blowing away the holy man. His prayers were answered, all right. But the wrong people had died.
The combat outside increased in intensity.
Screams from the wounded rose above the roar of weapons. Bolan heard more explosions. Another one rocked the building.
He had to get Masudi.
The Iranian commander could be the next link in the chain leading to Strakhov, though Bolan had a hunch it could be Strakhov's Syrian force attacking the base.
Only seconds had passed since the Iranian general had disappeared around the archway.
Bolan moved over to the mullah's body, reloading and holstering the Beretta and AutoMag. He picked up the mullah's SMG and fished three extra clips from inside the old man's robe.
The Executioner stepped over the corpse and moved toward the hallway. He could hear running footfalls and the clunking of military gear outside this room. He paused at the smashed table where the men had stood when Bolan first appeared.
Bolan stooped without slowing and grabbed the blueprints that had been the obvious subject of this briefing.
A blessing from the mullah before these Disciples of Allah left Biskinta for... what?
The nightwarrior paused and looked around. He spotted the object someone had pushed behind some chairs.
A suitcase.
With a timer attached to it, ready to be set.
He had no time to further consider suitcases with explosives. He had to get Masudi.
He crumpled the blueprints against his chest and stuffed them beneath the blacksuit. Then he grabbed the suitcase in his left hand.
The archway filled with Iranian Revolutionary Guards, three of them toting AK'S ready for action. They charged in, but only one man got off a shot that plowed into the ceiling. A burst from the Czech machine gun in Bolan's right fist stuttered like an angry jackhammer, making the IRG invaders perform a death dance like marionettes gone wild in an epileptic puppeteer's hand.
Bolan charged over their bodies after Masudi.
All of the activity since the general slipped the scene had taken less than a minute. But Bolan knew his numbers were almost gone if he hoped to nail Masudi for what he knew and still pull out of this action intact.
He fed a fresh clip into the machine gun and peered into the hallway.
No one.
The house seemed deserted.
The battle continued outside the building. A tank rumbled again. Crumbling plaster rained from the ceiling.
Bolan dashed toward the stairs. He thought it was the only route Masudi could have taken unless the Iranian had not left the building at all, which Bolan doubted. He made the landing and started down.
Masudi had looked like a man on the run to save his ass. Sacrificing that terrorist's life to give himself cover proved that.
Bolan doubted Masudi would wait around.
The front door of the house was swinging back shut, indicating the general had just gone through.
Bolan hit the bottom step and paused before leaving cover of the doorway for outside.
Three figures charged in through the back door behind Bolan at the other end of the hall downstairs: Syrian uniforms.
The instant they saw him, the trigger-happy Syrians opened fire on Bolan, their assault rifles on full-auto. Dodging the onslaught, Bolan shoved the suitcase safely away and aimed the Model 23.
Hot lead scorched the air near him, one projectile zinging close enough past Bolan's ear for him to feel the heat.
Then the SMG bucked in his fists, spitting flame and bullets.
The two Syrians in front screamed and jitterbugged under the hail that shredded flesh and sprayed blood onto the third soldier. Panicking, he started to turn and scream even as pursuing slugs pureed his brains from behind. The three dead tumbled into a heap in the back doorway and Bolan returned his attention to the front, hoping he hadn't been diverted long enough for Masudi to escape.
The Executioner crouched back at the doorway, paused to slam another magazine into the Model 23, then peered out at the turmoil.
The presence of the Syrians he'd just killed prepared the nightscorcher for what he saw.
The Iranian base was now brilliantly illuminated by piercing spotlights and headlights of Syrian tanks and personnel carriers that had already penetrated into the center of the compound. Orange-red flames licked the night sky from the area of tents where the main fighting was taking place.
Syrian and Iranian soldiers ran shooting at each other everywhere Bolan looked.
Bolan saw General Masudi.
Six Syrian soldiers stood around the Iranian officer. The soldiers to a man had their rifles aimed at Masudi's head.
The commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards stood with head bowed, his hands handcuffed behind his back. His uniform looked scuffed and dirty.
The general and his guards walked toward three men who stood waiting next to a limo that Bolan knew would be armor plated.
Syrian army markings designated it a staff car.
Two Iranian regulars wearing only the trousers of their uniforms with civilian tunics came running around the corner of the headquarters building in Bolan's direction, their rifles ready but not ready enough.
The Executioner diverted his attention from Masudi and the others for an instant and triggered a short burst from the Czech Model 23. The volley stitched the two Iranians, stopping them forever.
The fighting had begun to taper off in the compound.
The Iranian Revolutionary Guards who were not strewn in lifeless disarray all over the base could be seen throwing down their weapons, raising arms in surrender to the Syrian troops who closed in.
Not far from the main house, at least forty surrendering Iranians were being herded together by rival cannibals.
Masudi and his guards reached the Syrian staff car.
One of the three men waiting there stepped into the light and Bolan felt a cold fist clench his gut.
The man could be none other than Major General Greb Strakhov of the KGB.
In person.
Bolan pedigreed the two with Strakhov as the local operatives of the Glavnoye Razvedyvatelnoye Upravleniye — GRU — the chief intelligence directorate of the Soviet military that shares overseas assignments with the KGB. The other man was a Syrian officer.
Jackpot.
Except that Bolan would have to move damn fast or t
his jackpot would slip through his fingers.
The Syrian troopers shoved General Masudi into the limo. Strakhov and the other two also climbed into the car.
Bolan turned and darted back down the hallway. He exited the house into the night via the back door, not slowing for the obstacle course of scattered corpses.
As he passed, Bolan snatched the suitcase with the attached timer device he'd left in the hallway. He charged from the house in the direction of the hole in the fence where he'd entered.
He had considered a direct hit on the group by the limo, but it had been too far from the house for accuracy with the machine gun and he still did not have the big picture.
Okay, review time. They were about to whisk Masudi away. Had the Iranian commander set up this hit on his own troops? From what Bolan had seen and heard of Hook Nose, it could go down that way.
Bolan had to determine where Strakhov intended to take Masudi, and why.
The Executioner had to fit this piece of the puzzle in with the others to make sure their whole scheme collapsed, and not only part of Strakhov's Lebanon scenario. He could hit Strakhov and Masudi now and terminate them, sure, but Bolan knew when the odds were against him.
Uh-uh. The way he saw it, any move now would needlessly endanger his life and that definitely did not fit in the picture for the night.
He had to follow that Syrian staff car when it left the base.
The limo could only take one route out of Biskinta and the Iranians' temporary compound to get to the main roads to either Zahle or Beirut: the same road off which Bolan had left Zoraya and little Selim waiting in the concealed Volvo. The chauffeured car with Strakhov and Masudi would have to pass the spot where Bolan had left the Druse woman and the little Arab boy.
He could make the distance to the Volvo on foot if nothing slowed him. Then he could take a chance on following the limo with his lights off.
Bolan was halfway to the fenced perimeter of the compound, angling away from the opposite side of the house from the limo when he heard a shout to halt. It came from the Syrian soldiers herding IRG prisoners near the house.
Bolan paused, set the timer device on the suitcase for five seconds, then heaved the suitcase. Even as the container left his hand, the Executioner put on a burst of speed, continuing his withdrawal.
The terrorist package from the Disciples of Allah zeroed right into that crowd of Iranians, who had protected and supplied terrorists, and anti-American Syrians who thought it fun to shoot down U.S. reconnaissance planes, to kill and capture U.S. pilots.
The incredible blast of the dynamite-loaded suitcase sent shock waves that pushed the warrior along from behind like a huge hot hand. It started drizzling blood and dull thumps sounded in the night as body parts fell all around him.
Something hollow sounding landed in Bolan's path and he jogged past the wide-eyed, openmouthed features of a bearded man's freshly decapitated head.
He reached the fenced perimeter and on through the hole. He almost made the track that led to the car when he heard movement in the darkness to his left, just before the trail began. He swung sideways low and loose, fanning that flank with the machine gun.
In the starlight, combat-honed night vision discerned two crouched figures: disheveled young men in IRG uniforms, their AK assault rifles tossed to the ground. Bolan judged them to be not much past their teens.
When the Executioner stopped they shook their heads and waved their hands frantically, beseeching Bolan in a language he did not understand. But he read it clear enough; these two sought refuge there from the slaughter in the camp.
That was okay with Bolan.
The Executioner granted them a "white flag." Sergeant Mercy continued on his withdrawal.
He covered a dozen paces before warning tremors that had never let him down started battling for acknowledgment at the base of his spine.
It only took the teenage soldiers a moment to consider wasting the blacksuiter, to turn their cowardice into heroism for dropping the penetrator.
Before the AK-47'S even left the ground Bolan spun, brought up the Model 23 and triggered the SMG.
Nothing happened.
The damn thing had jammed!
The IRG punks tracked on Bolan, who tossed away the useless weapon and dived for cover.
Each soldier got off one round. One projectile splintered the trunk of the tree Bolan dived behind. The other 7.62mm projectile screamed off harmlessly into the night.
Then Big Thunder spoke loud and deadly and both Revolutionary Guards flew backward with faces transformed into smears as black as the night.
"Idiots," Bolan grumbled.
He jogged back onto the trail with one last glance at the Iranian base.
The fighting down there had ceased, all of Masudi's command either dead or captured.
The chauffeur-driven Syrian staff car left the compound, traveling the rutted road leading from Biskinta, and disappeared from Bolan's view around the far side of the mountain.
It would be a matter of three to four minutes before it would pass the point where Bolan had left Zoraya and the child in the hidden Volvo.
Bolan jogged faster, not bolstering the AutoMag.
He met no further interference.
Too many people had died already this night — good people like Chaim Herzi and uncounted, anonymous innocents and others caught in the cross fire of rampant savagery — for Bolan to let this vital thread slip through his fingers.
His view of this mission had altered in the hours he'd been in the country.
He had originally come with the sole objective of locating and terminating Greb Strakhov. He now realized he could not leave Beirut without doing something decisive to attempt to restore some course of stability in Lebanon.
It could be done. Bolan wasn't sure just how yet. That's why he could not afford to let the staff car escape.
He reached the darkness alongside the road where the Volvo had been parked just as the headlights of the limo pierced the night, Strakhov's driver making good speed despite the road's poor condition.
Bolan crouched.
The headlights missed him as the limo roared past.
The nightfighter glanced around.
Zoraya, the child and the Volvo were gone.
7
The staff car that raced by Bolan's hidden position had company: a camou-painted, tarp-covered two-and-a-half-ton truck with Syrian army markings rumbled along to catch up. Protection.
The troop carrier could not take the battle-rutted road as fast as the limo. Strakhov must be impatient to get Masudi to their destination.
All right.
Another chance.
The staff car disappeared again around another bend of the mountain road.
Bolan approached one of the trees, the shadows of which had hidden the Volvo from view of the road. He willed himself not to worry about Zoraya and Selim. Emotion dulled the combat edge. He reached up on the run and grabbed a sturdy branch well off the ground and hoisted himself up.
The truck upshifted as the road straightened itself out until the next bend. Good, thought Bolan, who was perched on the branch well above the line of headlights or vision from those in the cab of the truck. The noise of the acceleration would cover any noise resulting from what Bolan had in mind.
As the vehicle lumbered by beneath him, he swung gracefully from the branch to gain a footing on the step under the passenger-side door.
The nightscorcher opened the door so swiftly that the first thing the Syrian soldier riding shotgun knew of it was when Bolan used his left hand to snap him back hard while his combat knife sliced down. A fountain of blood sprayed the interior of the cab and dotted the windshield. Bolan heaved the body into the gloom.
The driver, who broke his concentration from the tortuous mountain road, reacted too late. Bolan killed him and also tossed the body into the darkness.
The slight jar when the steering wheel changed hands went unnoticed by the soldiers jouncing around in th
e back of the truck.
The tumbling bodies were swallowed from view in the vegetation to either side of the road before Bolan's passengers could see them.
He coaxed more power from the heap and that did get curses and shouts from the back, but nothing more. He rounded another turn in the road into a valley, and the taillights of the limo popped into view. And Bolan knew he still had a hold on this tiger of a night.
* * *
General Abdel tried not to let his fear show. The Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander felt himself shaking, felt shriveled in his uniform. They had not removed his handcuffs.
Masudi rode in one of the pull-down seats in the spacious tonneau of the Syrian staff car.
Three men sat across from him: a broad, bearlike man whom Masudi did not know and who was flanked by two others he recognized: the Syrian officer, General Abdel, and the GRU pig farmer, Major Kleb, who both had reputations for ambitious brutality.
Masudi eyed the stranger in the middle.
Russian, thought the IRG warlord, probably KGB.
Masudi made his appeal in his own language to the Syrian, inwardly cursing the telltale tremor he heard in his own voice.
"Am I to receive no explanation of what has happened, General Abdel? Why were my men attacked? What..." Abdel leaned forward and punched Masudi in the mouth with enough force to knock the Iranian to the floor of the jouncing car.
Masudi felt shattered teeth gouge flesh from the inside of his mouth.
"You will speak English," the Syrian snarled, "the only language known to all of us." Masudi spat chips of tooth and struggled with the language he had learned in Iran before the revolution.
"Yes, yes, of course... of course... I only wish to know..." Masudi saw Kleb glance to the man in the middle. The stranger barely nodded, and the GRU officer glared back at the bleeding Iranian.
"We are the ones to be informed, desertjackal"
"But... I do not understand..."
"Then it will all be made clear to you in Zahle," Kleb intoned with a trace of smugness. He nodded to the Syrian.
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