"Abdel."
"Wait!" screamed Masudi, not believing how terrifled he sounded. He had the briefest glimmer of what countless lost souls he had tortured over the years must have felt. He cowered in the corner of the tonneau.
With a snicker, General Abdel pounced, pistol drawn. The Syrian commenced pummeling the handcuffed man about the head, hitting him over and over again until Masudi lost consciousness.
Kleb watched, wishing he could see more in the dark.
Major General Strakhov appeared not to notice the beating. The KGB officer closed his eyes and leaned back against the staff car's plush upholstery. Sighing, he considered the report he must now make to the Kremlin regarding tonight's action.
Moscow would be pleased.
* * *
The thirty-minute journey to Zahle cut ever deeper into the Druse-held Shouf highlands. The terrain grew bleak, uninhabitable for miles at a time.
Bolan saw no activity amid the occasional clusters of houses they passed as he steered the Syrian deuce-and-a-half behind the taillights of the staff car. The country people had taken cover to await the dawn.
Zahle was cut from an identical mold to Biskinta, perched on the side of another mountain. But the Syrian base on the outskirts of this village showed a marked superiority to what had passed for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' security.
The Syrians had been in the country considerably longer than the Iranians and it showed in the three layers of concertina-wired perimeter and the heavily sandbagged defenses, permanent barracks and HQ buildings Bolan saw from the high ground as they approached the compound. The base was about four times the size of the one at Biskinta.
Dawn.
An hour away, maybe less.
Not much time, Bolan thought, looking at his watch.
The fighting would resume at dawn. He could feel it. The air crackled with it.
8
The gates in the fence opened. The captain of the guards saluted as the staff car sailed through without stopping.
Guard patrols and permanent machine-gun nests along the perimeter made the place five times tighter and harder than the one held by those Revolutionary Guard stumblebums, but the gate officer had already turned to step back into the guardhouse when the troop truck followed the limo into the base from fifty yards behind.
No one paid any attention to the indiscernible features of the driver high up in the cab.
Bolan eyeballed as much as he could from behind the wheel as he steered the troop carrier into the center of the compound past a cluster of parked Russianmade T-34 and T-55 tanks and orderly rows of Russian-made Katyusha rockets.
The limo stopped in front of the long, two-story headquarters building.
Bolan braked the vehicle to a halt some distance behind the staff car, directly in front of the end barrack of a row of similar squat structures twenty yards south of the HQ.
He reasoned that the Syrian command would have its own security in the head shed where Strakhov appeared to be taking Masudi. The men in the back of the truck would be weary from the fighting in Biskinta and, Bolan hoped, anxious to grab sack time on their return here. Their presence had only been required on the drive from Biskinta.
The blacksuit hustled away from the truck when it stopped, well before any of the Syrian troops debarked from beneath the tarp. Let them sort out the puzzle of the missing driver and his shotgun rider.
Bolan gained the far side of the headquarters building. He hurried along the back wall to a row of windows, all dark at this hour. He found one left open against the heat of the day, forgotten when the workday ended.
He used both hands to lift the window and it slid up soundlessly. Bolan moved over the sill.
He had been lucky so far not to be spotted by any of the two-man sentry patrols he had seen walking the base. Though what kind of luck was it was to be inside an enemy camp, about to lose cover of night was debatable.
He found himself in a deserted office. He unleathered the Beretta and padded stealthily between the inky forms of furniture to the door of the room. He turned the door handle and it emitted a soft squeak that sounded deafening to Bolan. He paused, motionless, but detected no response from the other side. The headquarters building reminded him of a massive tomb.
He hoped it wouldn't be his.
The hour: 0410 hours.
Tomorrow would be a big day for the battalions quartered here, if Bolan's gut instincts about this thing were right. The base would be coming to life within the next twenty minutes.
He cracked the office door inward and peered into an unlighted hallway.
He heard activity, the sounds of voices in Arabic down at the far end of the building: probably an officer giving orders to the night-duty staff.
Then footsteps headed upstairs to the second level of the building, leaving security tight on what they thought to be the only entrance in.
Bolan glanced in the other direction of the corridor and saw another unlighted stairway closer to his position. He moved swiftly, gaining those stairs and starting up without notice of the soldiers in their Orderly Room at the other end of the long corridor. He raced upstairs, the Beretta 93-R on 3-shot mode, ready to spit death. He reached the top landing and looked down this hallway just in time to see a door slam shut. The rest of this level felt more tomblike than downstairs.
The Syrian CO'S office would be up here.
That's where they took Masudi.
Bolan expected to find Strakhov here, too.
The target.
The execution.
And the job would be done.
He poised, ready, to make sure no one from below followed the party up here, then he eased around the corner, five quick paces to the door next to the one where they had taken the Iranian.
This door was locked and Bolan extracted a tiny tool from his penetration gear. He was almost through picking the lock when he heard footfalls on the stairs behind him. He finished his illegal entry, then slipped into the room, leaving the door slightly ajar.
A lone Syrian sentry made it to the landing where silent death waited ready for him. The guy didn't hear or see his executioner until this dark apparition confronted him. Before the man had time to react or scream, combat-hardened fingers were slicing the air toward his throat. The punishing thrust ruptured the guy's windpipe, and the man uttered only a muted gurgle before he stopped breathing forever.
Bolan grabbed the sentry before his dead fall could alert those downstairs or beyond the door through which they had taken Masudi.
The Executioner hauled the body and rifle over the threshold.
Bolan placed the dead man and his rifle on the floor and relocked the door.
Then he looked around.
An office.
Chances were good that no one would find this corpse until after it was too late.
Bolan moved to the window.
This side of the HQ building faced away from the barracks.
The first gray smudge of false dawn etched the mountains in the east in stark silhouette.
Bolan moved fast. He unlatched the office window and opened it. A narrow ledge ran beneath the window, around the building. He climbed out onto the lip.
A bloodcurdling scream emanated from behind a lighted window a few feet from Bolan.
He inched forward, pressing himself against the building, never relaxing his sense-probing of the night. He almost reached the window when two sentries strolled shoulder to shoulder around the far corner of the building and approached on a course directly below him.
Standing motionless on the ledge, Bolan did not even breathe, his heart thumping against his rib cage.
One of the sentries glanced up almost casually at the lighted square, the only illumination along the second level of the building. He saw nothing but shadows around the window. He and his companion continued on their rounds.
Bolan heard harsh voices coming from behind the glass. He inched the final distance along the parapet for a glimpse inside the room.
/> It made sense for Strakhov to bring Masudi here, Bolan mused. The Soviet embassy in Beirut would be buzzing, and for the most part the Soviet terror machine kept a low profile in the Middle East, according to Bolan's considerable intel gained from documents captured during The Executioner's hit in Russia.
The situation in Lebanon was far too fluid, changing minute by minute, for anyone's intel to be very accurate, but the KGB habitually avoided direct active presence here, letting their Syrian clients front for them.
Bolan had a suspicion that even the KGB'S Beirut control knew nothing of the events at Biskinta tonight, or even of Strakhov's mission to Lebanon.
Strakhov's activities since arriving had clandestine written all over them.
Bolan eyeballed the scene through the window.
They had Masudi in the office, sure enough.
Bolan pegged it as the Syrian CO'S office.
Masudi sat in a wooden chair, nursing his right hand, rocking back and forth. His handcuffs had been removed.
The Syrian general towered over Masudi, scornfully glaring at the Iranian prisoner.
The bulky, horse-faced guy in cheap East European threads — who Bolan had guessed to be the Syrians' GRU control — stood with his back to the door, observing what the Syrian had done to make Masudi scream. The GRU man idly worked crud from under his fingernails with a penknife and flipped the dirt onto the Syrian general's carpet.
The words they spoke sounded a bit clearer to Bolan this close to the window. They spoke English. Not unusual with so many nationalities warring throughout the region. Most of the participants in Lebanon's war spoke French or English, common languages often used for communication.
No sign of Strakhov.
"You have nine more fingers, General Masudi," the GRU man at the door growled without looking up from his nails. "Then I will have General Abdel begin on... more sensitive areas." Abdel did not budge from crowding Masudi.
"It would be my pleasure, Major Kleb. It has always been my opinion that Iranians are the issue of diseased camels mating with lepers." Abdel appraised Masudi like a butcher sizing up a slab of meat. "I would take my time with this one. He would scream so much..." The Iranian gulped and Bolan could see the terrified man's Adam's apple bobbing in his throat.
"But, Major," Masudi pleaded to the Russian around Abdel's bulk, "are we not allies? I beg of you."
"Beg all you want," snarled the Syrian. "The Iranian Revolutionary Guards fight beside the Druse, yes, but you have never been asked into this by either our government or..." and Abdel shot a quick glance to the GRU advisor "com'th of our friends. And so you will die. You will pay for your unwarranted intervention."
"We fight for the glory of Islam!" protested Masudi. "And who has asked Syria or the Soviet Union into this?"
"Impudent swine," Abdel snarled, backhanding Masudi hard enough to send the smaller man and the chair sprawling to the floor.
Abdel pulled a booted foot back for a kick at Masudi.
The Russian officer continued to work on his nails, but spoke.
"General Abdel, one moment, please." Kleb folded and pocketed the penknife and gazed coolly at Masudi. The Iranian wiped blood from his face. "The Disciples of Allah," Kleb said in a monotone. "Tell me what you know of them, General, and perhaps we will let you live."
"The Disciples? This... there is no such group," Masudi gasped, working to get his breath back. "It is a temporary name. Nothing more than a loose band. Shiites and Druse. I have only heard of them. They carry out raids, yes, suicide fighters... but the Disciples of Allah is but a name to give the impression of greater numbers, you understand?" Abdel eyed the Russian.
Kleb nodded.
The Syrian knelt across Masudi's chest and grabbed the Iranian's right hand.
Bolan, from his perch outside the window on the ledge, clearly heard something snap above Masudi's bleat as the Syrian broke another finger.
"He screams like a woman, this one," Abdel snickered, standing again.
"He will scream the truth."
"We know when you lie, you see, General Masudi," Kleb said, chuckling. "We know of the plot to assassinate the Lebanese president. We know of the Disciples part in this. We know of your role — that of sponsor and protector to these madmen. Now I want you to tell me the rest of it. All of it." Masudi forced himself to his knees. He looked utterly defeated, but Bolan discerned a fierce determination on the man's features.
"But I... I do not understand. The government befriends Israel and the devil nation, America... surely we fight on the same side, Muslim brothers... the Disciples strike for us!"
"You will be tortured until you tell us what we wish to know," Kleb continued in his monotone. "General Abdel, commence, and do not stop until he talks."
"With pleasure, Major." The Syrian bent to his task.
The bloodied Masudi got a new glint in his painclouded eyes and somehow, despite the oddly protruding broken digits of his right hand, he no longer looked defeated at all.
"You shall never stop us!" he screamed and rocketed to his feet before Abdel could reach him. "There are others. We are Shiites! We die for Islam! Allah be praised!" Abdel rushed forward, grabbing for Masudi.
The Iranian twisted away from the outstretched hands while his uninjured hand darted down inside his left boot.
The GRU man at the door lost all his cool then and dived for concealed hardware. But it all happened too fast.
The Syrian generai twisted around almost as fast as Masudi and clamped both hamlike hands around the Iranian's neck.
Abdel grunted a curse in Arabic and yanked the smaller man around.
The Iranian allowed himself to be swung. He used the momentum to plunge a stiletto to the hilt under Abdel's breastbone, into the heart.
Abdel froze, a surprised look on his face. Then his hands dropped and a fountain of blood burbled from his mouth. The Syrian commander fell, dead.
The Iranian whirled again and with a shriek charged the Russian major, who had his pistol only half way out of its shoulder holster.
Kleb's eyes widened with panic.
The Shiite attacked him with the flashing blade.
From his perch position on the ledge outside the window Bolan witnessed and reacted instantly to the eruption of violence.
But the most vital question remained unanswered.
Where the hell was Strakhov?
9
Greb Strakhov grasped the door handle, about to step into General Abdel's office, when shouts and scuffling noises from within made him halt. He had been to the communications room downstairs, coding his report to the Soviet Embassy in Beirut for immediate transmission to Moscow.
His recent tenure behind a desk had not dulled reflexes earned during twenty years of KGB fieldwork.
The spy master tugged out his pistol.
Something heavy thumped into the corridor wall alongside the door inside that office.
Strakhov opened that door and burst in fast, cautious, just in time.
He took it in at a glance: Abdel dead on the floor across the office like a gutted fish. The impact Strakhov heard on the wall had been General Masudi throwing himself at Kleb. They piled into the wall before tumbling to the carpeted floor, locked in combat. The Iranian was on top, one fist in an iron grip on the Russian officer's gun wrist, preventing Kleb from completing his draw. Masudi was trying to force a bloodied stiletto down into Kleb's heart. The GRU man only barely fended him off with a straight-armed grip around Masudi's wrist.
The closed window across the office showed the first glow of dawn. No one came in that way to help Masudi, thought Strakhov as he rushed to Kleb's aid. Masudi had hidden the dagger before they brought him into the room.
The Syrians had not searched him properly.
Strakhov detested all Arabs.
He hurried over and brought the butt of his pistol down hard behind Masudi's right ear, but not hard enough to kill.
The blade dropped from the Iranian's hand.
; Masudi collapsed sideways.
Kleb pushed him away and scrambled to his feet, yanking his gun out the rest of the way, too fast for Strakhov to stop him.
"Kleb! No!" Strakhov shouted.
The blast from Kleb's Walther PPK drowned out the command and brought death to Ib Masudi, the projectiles devouring the Iranian general's throat and part of his face.
Strakhov reached Kleb and angrily smashed the pistol from Kleb's fingers with his own Walther.
"You fool!" Strakhov snarled, lapsing into Russian.
"He... he was about to kill me," gasped Kleb.
"You were in no danger — you panicked. Now we will learn nothing from Masudi. I had the communications room monitor your interrogation in my absence. He said there are other plotters. He could have told us so much."
"I'm sorry, comrade Major General." The GRU man backed down. "I... I overreacted. But, if I may ask, after tomorrow... and dawn is only a few minutes from now... will the president's fate be of any concern to us?"
"I would not expect your peasant mind to grasp the finer points of my mission, Major," Strakhov snapped. "Do you think, if things go as we plan, that the Disciples of Allah and the other groups like them will simply disband and disappear? Or the Iranians? We must gain control of these factions now, while the power base is fluid. The ruling government in Beirut must not be slaughtered. We can only accomplish our goals away from world attention."
"I... I understand, comrade Major General."
Strakhov holstered his pistol.
"Retrieve your weapon then. What has been done cannot be undone." Kleb obeyed meekly.
"Thank you, comrade."
"I will be taking over General Abdel's office for my stay in this pit," Strakhov growled, striding briskly with barely a glance at the dead Syrian to a chair behind the desk. "He won't be needing it." He glared daggers at Kleb. "Contact ranking officers of the Druse, Syrian, PLO and Iranian forces in the area. Schedule an emergency briefing. Here, at noon today. "
"That, uh, may be difficult, comrade Major General, considering..."
"Tell them they will be here," Strakhov barked. "They will understand. And they will understand what I tell them at the briefing. Or they shall be replaced."
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