Agent of Peril

by Don Pendleton

  “Just hold down the fort. There’s some Coke in the fridge, and a machine gun propped against the sofa.”

  The motorcycle kicked to life. It was time to get down to business.

  THE KAWASAKI RUMBLED to a halt behind a boulder and Mack Bolan turned off the engine. He still had a hike to get to the old farm equipment factory where Rust had initially spotted the Hezbollah hellions loading up the three boxcars to send to the coast. It was no secret that the factory was used by the Lebanese-based Palestinian fighters to store their rickety old T-72 tanks. Israel had visited hell upon the compound several times in the past, and Bolan could see signs of fresh reconstruction, only made possible by Lebanon suing for peace against further Israeli air force assaults.

  Bolan pulled some camouflage netting across the Kawasaki and wrapped it around the vehicle, not wanting to lose his transport back to the safehouse. He paused for a moment and evaluated what he should take along, and knew that the sound-suppressed Uzi was the head weapon for this night. He wished he had more familiar hardware, but unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to get his usual war bag. Instead, he had relied on the kindness of Captain Hofflower’s armory. The Peshawar customized Taurus 92 was replaced with a brand-new Marine-issue Beretta M-9 pistol, complete with several 15- and 20-round magazines and a Gemtech suppressor. A .45-caliber Heckler and Koch SOCOM pistol was also given to the Executioner as his “heavy hitter.” Hofflower had informed Bolan that the big .45 was loaded with MagSafe rounds—capable of punching through a windshield, but they wouldn’t punch clean through a terrorist and hit a hostage if Bolan was stuck in a hostage situation. Hofflower gave the soldier a big stack of MagSafe ammo in 9 mm as well.

  “If you’re going to shoot a 9 mm, you might as well shoot something that’ll tear the insides up on someone,” Hofflower admitted. “And this does the trick.”

  Bolan put the SOCOM where he normally kept his Desert Eagle and the M-9 with its 20-round magazine where his 93-R usually went. He felt almost balanced—thunder and whisper together.

  There was a Robinson Armament VEPR in the Kawasaki’s storage trunk. The Executioner debated overburdening himself with too much firepower when he was only moving in on a stealth assault. But he had been on too many soft probes that had gone hard, and the VEPR was made of enough polymer to make it light enough to carry as a backup to his suppressed Uzi. Besides, there was also the chance that Bolan wouldn’t be able to get back to the bike. The American-built AK and its ammo would come along.

  Taking to the high brush, Bolan scurried to where he could get a good view of the factory and withdrew a pair of minibinoculars. Sweeping the compound, he could tell that there was some serious activity on hand.

  Mobilization, perhaps, in the wake of discovery?

  Bolan went over the layout of the place, running it against the digital photographs that Rust had taken and transmitted to the Executioner. It was Rust’s discovery of strange cargo that drew the Executioner in the first place. This was the first time Bolan was viewing the compound personally, and the fencing alone—two kinds of barbed wire and “flycatcher” barbs—told him all he needed to know. The perimeter was only the first part. Bolan could see a second, shorter fence, and this was on the other side of a dog run. Even now, a pair of Dobermans were racing along the channel between the two fences.

  Bolan respected any guard animal.

  Usually they were trained to a frenzy point through abuse and just enough malnutrition to cause blood lust, but not to impair the killing power of the predators.

  It wasn’t the first time Bolan would face jackals who cowered behind wolves.

  Darkness descended as the soldier advanced across the scrub-and-stone-covered terrain around the perimeter fence. By the time he reached the compound, the countryside was a murky dusk. The compound’s lights were slow in activating, allowing Bolan a chance to slip into their shadows before they burst into blue-white brilliance. Dropping to a crouch, he brought up the binoculars again and swept the compound. Activity was concentrated at the far end of the facility.

  Bolan hoped that the constant motion and sound would draw the attention of the patrol dogs. Sweeping to his left, he realized he had no such luck as they came racing toward him. The Executioner lowered the binoculars and brought his hand to the silenced Beretta, drawing it swiftly. The sleek pistol came up to firing position in a reflexive heartbeat.

  As much as the soldier hated hurting animals, the dogs would raise too much alarm. These were trained missiles of flesh, rocketing at him at nearly twenty-five miles an hour, and would slash him to ribbons the moment he tried to breach the fence. They would never allow him a moment’s peace. As it was, Bolan planted his first shot in the lower jaw of the first dog. The Doberman folded over, tumbling like a soccer ball and slamming into the fence.

  The fence shattered where the dog slammed into it, and the Executioner and the remaining dog were both taken off guard, turning to see tinkling chain link come apart like delicate crystal. Both soldier and guard dog returned their gazes to each other then broke for the gap in the fence. Someone had started to make a hole to get into the base themselves.

  Now, the Executioner and the animal were in a race to see who would get to the hole first. Bolan tapped off single rounds at the dog, but it was moving too quickly. The Doberman leaped and twisted, and finally, it was at the hole, hopping and doing a twist in midair. With a single push of its powerful legs, it would be through the hole and at the Executioner’s throat in mere heartbeats. Bolan dropped to the ground, elbows striking the dirt and he fired three fast rounds. The Doberman bounced through the hole, charging, but an explosion of crimson slowed the dog by a couple steps. Bolan triggered another round, this one striking the center of the sleek, black-furred mass, and the dog crumpled.

  Bolan slipped through the fence and into the dog run, pausing to look at a piece of the chain link. It was as he’d suspected—someone had weakened the fence. With a quick scan of the area he saw a spray can under a shrub. He slipped back and picked it up.

  Still full. He tried a test squirt at the branch of the plant it was under and watched as the wood and leaf whitened and snapped as a breeze blew past it.

  Liquid nitrogen. It made sense—after years in the heat, suddenly supercooled metal would snap apart. Balancing the weight of the spray can in his palm, Bolan realized its owner had to be inside the compound somewhere. He squeezed through the hole in the fence again, taking the liquid nitrogen with him. It was a tight squeeze. The original user had to have had a smaller frame than Bolan.

  The soldier moved to the other side of the dog run and sprayed a larger circle of brittle chain link for himself. He pushed it through, watching the fence part before him, grabbing the falling section and pulling it back through the hole before it could clatter on asphalt and alert his enemy. A quick crawl, and he was on the other side, crouched and scanning.

  His brief conflict with the dogs, and the breaking of the fence hadn’t sent enough sound to alert anyone at the far end of the compound. Nearby, presumably empty trailers and boxcars sat on their jacks. The Executioner kept to the shadows, crawled under a trailer and brought up his binoculars again.

  A cab for an eighteen-wheeler was rolling out of a warehouse and making a crawl toward the trailers. He saw it was a Mack truck. A small smile crossed his face as he figured out the way to get closer. Turning away from the truck with his name on it, as Bolan swept the compound some more, he saw a small commotion. Two men were pulling along a woman toward a loading dock.

  Focusing the binoculars tighter, he managed to make out her features. Her hair was dark, either auburn or having a tint of some red keeping it from being otherwise black. She was also compact. Not tiny and fragile, but small and toughly built, yet still maintaining a decidedly feminine form. Her eyes were covered by the checkerboard pattern of a kaffiyeh, her wrists knotted together. Even with the binoculars, he couldn’t make out what language she was cursing in, but she was talking up a storm.

  Bol
an knew this had to have been the person who used the liquid nitrogen. She was the right size.

  The Mack truck finally rolled up and made its hairpin turn to start backing into one of the trailers. Bolan knew it was now or never to try to get the woman out in one piece.

  Bursting from his hiding spot, he surged forward, Beretta leading the charge this time. The driver paused, looking over and starting to cry out, but Bolan was up on the running board, gripping the door handle and shoving his suppressed Beretta through the window.

  Suddenly a second, shadowy figure in the tractor-trailer’s cab surged toward the Executioner, framed in the driver’s window. The barrel of an AK jabbed at Bolan, the spoon-shaped muzzle brake stabbing him through his blacksuit. Instinct twisted the soldier as he slammed the butt of his pistol across the barrel. The rubber magazine floor plate smacked metal, deflecting it aside. Bolan stiff-armed the gun again. As he cut loose with the Beretta, pumping 9 mm rounds through the window, the AK went off, spitting out a blossom of heat that sizzled his skin. He cursed himself for not anticipating a shotgun rider to be literally riding shotgun. The Kalashnikov ripped off a burst, bullets tearing through the air, but cutting off as the shooter and driver both died with 9 mm bombs spreading copper shrapnel and buckshot through their heads and necks.

  Stealth was gone now as the Mack continued rolling back, slamming the trailer behind it and knocking it off balance. Metal screamed and groaned, and at the other end of the compound, bodies were in motion.

  Bolan hung desperately to the door, boots not jarred from the running board. He pulled the door open and let the driver’s corpse slide to the ground. The Executioner reached in and hauled out the dead shotgun rider as well, grabbing the noisy AK for extra firepower.

  Then, slipping behind the wheel, he rammed the big truck into Drive.

  The cab was hurtling forward as fast as Bolan could rev the engine, enemy gunfire already pinging off the steel grille and punching into the safety glass.

  5

  Tera Geren could feel her cheek swelling where one of the Hezbollah Neanderthals had given her a crack with the butt of his rifle. She counted herself lucky that her cheekbone hadn’t been snapped thanks to a generous wrapping of burlap around the butt, but with her eyes squeezed shut by a harshly tied blindfold, she could feel the bruise being aggravated. She pulled when she could get some leverage, but the two gorillas weren’t going to let her go anywhere.

  At least until she heard the distant, brief chatter of an AK going off. The goons holding on to her paused briefly and she managed to get her feet planted. Her hands were tied in front of her, so she knew she had that much going for her. And from her constant jostling, she felt the butt of one of the terrorist’s handguns poking her in her ribs.

  Just a little more distraction was all she needed.

  Suddenly the air around her broke with gunfire, and she reflexively jerked out of the grip of one of the Hezbollah gunners. Almost breathless with surprise and excitement, she heard a handgun barking close to her. Somehow one of her captors managed to keep his hand on his weapon and her at the same time.

  It didn’t matter. Geren had her feet planted wide, giving her the extra leverage to resist his pull. She popped loose and moved toward where she heard the other gunman, grabbing where she figured his belt would be. Fingers raked cloth until they snagged his waistband, and she grabbed on tight, swinging her body with all her might, pivoting. There was a cry of dismay, then the head-banging crack of close-range handgun fire thundering at her.

  Nothing hit, though. Bullets went wide after a sickly impact jerked the form in her grasp. The guy she grabbed wailed in Arabic at the insanity of the shooter. Geren cut him off with a sharp shoulder-butt to his back, and then reached up, tearing away the blindfold.

  People all around were reacting in a mixed storm of fury and panic, and her captor was torn between shooting an unarmed woman and reacting to the headlights of a truck barreling down on them. Geren took advantage of that moment of indecision to pluck the side arm from the injured man and kick the back of his knee to send him tumbling away from his dropped long arm.

  The Hezbollah man had carried a Glock, and she hoped that it had a live round in the chamber, or else her escape attempt was going to be pretty damn short. She brought up the gun as the hardguy suddenly realized the equation was changing.

  Geren pulled the trigger and caught the terrorist between a Mack truck, a 9 mm slug and four of its closest friends. The line of bullets she punched into the terrorist spun him lifelessly away, and she crouched low, swinging the barrel in an arc as she backed away from the path of the truck. The big vehicle swerved away from her, but swung around, smashing into bodies as they got in the driver’s path. The truck swerved hard and fishtailed, an awesome roaring sound ripping through the air during the maneuver.

  The door on the passenger side flew open, the driver glaring at her.

  “Get in!”

  English. Not an instant guarantee of him being a good guy, but considering how many dazed and confused Hezbollah gunmen were around her, she’d take a gamble that he wasn’t interested in punching a good Israeli girl’s ticket. She reached up, ditching the Glock into the seat well of the truck so she could grab a handhold and yank herself into the vehicle. As soon as she got a good hold, the truck started moving again, tires squealing and air brakes shrieking. A bullet bounced off the running board just below her booted foot as she finally yanked herself inside, curling up and pivoting on the seat.

  She caught the flash of mirrored steel as she started to seat herself, and hesitated. A microsecond later, recognition kicked in and she held out her bound wrists, feeling the sharp blade slash through her bonds. Hands freed, she grabbed a handle on the dashboard, leaned out and yanked the door shut just moments before a peppering rain of bullets crashed into it.

  “Have they moved anything out yet?” the driver asked, pumping the gas and turning the wheel, accelerating.

  “Four oversized cargo containers,” Geren answered immediately. “I saw that much.”

  “Uzi or AK?” the man asked.

  Geren grabbed at the Uzi and hauled it across the space between them, twisting to the window. Outside the spider-webbed morass of broken glass that used to be a windshield, she could see small lights flickering and big lights blazing.

  “Watch your eyes!”

  “Blow it,” the driver agreed.

  Geren hammered off a half magazine, 9 mm rounds smashing fist-sized holes in the broken glass, allowing them to see better as more and more broken diamonds rained inside and outside the cab.

  Now the big man behind the wheel could see buildings. He swerved to avoid one warehouse, the truck bucking as it crunched its way over more bodies.

  “I hope you know how to drive a car better than this.”

  “It’s been a while since I’ve driven a truck this size, and in such tight maneuvering quarters,” the stranger admitted.

  “Roll on,” Geren answered, squirting a short burst from her Uzi into a group of gunners.

  The gearshift snarled and bellowed like a wounded beast as the brawny arm of the driver worked it. She took a look across the dashboard. “Something wrong?” Geren asked.

  “We took hits to the gas tanks. We’ll run out of gas in a bit, but I’m more worried about them sparking and setting a fire after us.”

  Geren looked in the mirror and spotted men racing into the wake of the truck, shooting at the ground. One man screamed as a bouncing bullet leaped back into his gut, but sparks flew from the impacts. Flames licked to life.

  “They just figured that out too,” she answered. “I need a fresh magazine.”

  “Grab the Glock,” the driver admonished. “We’re not sticking around here.”

  He swung the wheel, aiming for the loading dock that Geren had been watching all day, oblivious to the two trucks trying to get out of the way.

  BOLAN GUNNED THE TRUCK toward the loading dock, counting on the relatively low velocity of the two enemy t
rucks to work in his favor. He glanced to see the Uzi-packing woman strapping on her seat belt at the last second. Bolan had his blade jammed into the side of the seat, ready to slash open his and her seat belts should they get stuck.

  At just under thirty miles per hour, the truck cab, stained with blood and gore, clipped one advancing truck, tearing off its bumper before hitting the second truck at an angle. The driver screamed in horror as his cab was suddenly whipped around sideways, velocity bleeding off as metal mangled metal. Bolan felt a sledgehammer smash into his chest where the seat belt caught him, and he spit blood from where he bit into his lip. His head was swimming, and he didn’t even have the manual dexterity to grope at the seat-belt release latch. Instead, he shoved on the nylon strap, brought up his knife and sliced. The strap parted, and the automatic winding winch for the belt slurped it out of his way like a piece of black fettuccine. He looked to the woman who simply clenched her hand on her seat-belt release. She had never let go of the thing before impact and surged forward, scooping up both the Uzi and the Glock as quick as she could.

  Bolan appreciated her preparedness and brought up the AK, swinging it butt-first through what little remained of the windshield, opening an exit to escape from. In the bullet cracked side mirror, he caught a flash of light as flames leaped up from where the burning line of fuel caught up with the truck. Fortunately, diesel was not as explosive as gasoline, and they still had time to get free.

  “Go!” Bolan ordered.

  The woman slid down the hood of the truck in a blur, and Bolan was right after her, leaping off the hood of the doomed vehicle. In the alcove formed by the three trucks, they paused for a moment, regathering their senses.

  “What do I call you?”

  “Tera. Tera Geren,” she answered. “And you are?”

  “Brandon Stone. Get up there, Tera.” He waved her at the stairs leading up into the loading dock. She didn’t waste a single moment, hotfooting it up the steps with the Executioner in pursuit. Flames leaped higher on the truck they’d just left. Geren dived to the ground as a wild burst sparked off the steel pipe railing of the stairwell.