Agent of Peril

by Don Pendleton

  “There!” another gunman called out. He brought up his FAMAS and held down the trigger, its muzzle-flashes ripping the night as the little Beetle came around the truck, aiming right at the hurtling Peugeot. Behind the Beetle, other trucks were trying to catch up to the scene of the mayhem, having overshot in the confusion.

  Suddenly a massive boom sounded from within the Volkswagen, and the rifleman laying down the blistering fusillade jerked. A fist-sized hole punched out of the back of his skull, and the soldier flopped lifelessly at Kazan’s feet in the pickup’s bed, his rifle clattering out of the truck. The Syrians struggled as one of their own gave his final thrashing in the back of the vehicle.

  “Sweet prophet,” Kazan breathed as the mystery cannon continued to roar. His arm suddenly went numb, and he looked over, seeing that the joint had been shorn away, only threads of muscle and sinew holding his arm to his body.

  Mohammed Kazan screamed as blood geysered from his gory wound.

  BOLAN RETURNED his Desert Eagle to its holster as he gunned the Beetle past the Peugeot, its engine snarling. The pickup swerved to one side, and he kept his foot on the accelerator, bracing the MP-5 across his thighs to feed it a fresh magazine of Parabellum rounds, then tossed it on the seat next to him.

  More fire came sizzling after him, but the two pickups were too far back.

  Bolan hit the brake, then worked the transmission into Reverse. The Beetle swerved back in between the trucks that jerked to avoid getting wrecked. Bolan hit the brake again, sweeping up his MP-5 and holding down the trigger. Bullets pumped off into the bed of the first Peugeot, and riflemen in the back screamed and shuddered. Perforated corpses went tumbling lifelessly into and out of the back of the swerving vehicle.

  The other pickup was swinging around trying to catch up to him, and Bolan tromped the gas again, steering with one hand while his free hand groped in the back seat for a replacement for the emptied submachine gun.

  Fenders glanced off each other, and Bolan had to grab the wheel again with both hands to keep from flipping over. He looked back over his shoulder and spotted three trucks, two seriously depleted of gunmen, hot on his trail. One troop truck was chugging along after picking up the Syrian mercenaries from the big transport jammed atop the other pickup.

  “Bring it,” he whispered as he gunned the VW and sent it vaulting off the road, moving so fast it leaped the roadside ditch and landed twenty feet beyond, in dirt and scrub. Officially gone off-road, he had an opportunity to slow down and lean back, pulling up a SPAS-12 shotgun loaded with anti-terrorist grenades.

  The Executioner brought up the shotgun and triggered the first round at the leading pickup. The grenade shot like a rocket into the windshield of the truck and the cab suddenly detonated, ball bearings hurtling out in a cloud of flesh-slashing devastation that would have killed people in a tenfoot diameter on open ground. Inside the cab, though, it reduced the driver and the gunman in the shotgun seat to pulp. Driverless and out of control, the truck went sailing into the ditch, grille crumpling and men tumbling out of the back, bodies flying and bouncing off the earth. Several of the gunners’ bodies were bent and smashed at impossible angles. The other two Peugeots tried to leap the ditch, but Bolan ignored them for the moment, taking aim at the troop truck racing up behind them, emptying five more rounds out of the grenade-spitting shotgun.

  Bolan ducked as bullets came slamming into the hood and doors of the VW, and he gunned the engine again, steering away from the road without exposing his head to the streams of incoming autofire. He reached into his holster again and pulled the Desert Eagle and Beretta, letting the shotgun drop to the seat beside him.

  Kicking the door open, he hit a crouch using the entirety of the little car as a shield. Engines roared as the pickups orbited the VW in a hard drive, looking for Bolan in the shadows. Rifle fire stitched the ground trying to seek him out, but Bolan cut loose with both handguns, pumping 9 mm Parabellum rounds and Magnum manglers at the truckful of angry fighters trying to tag him. The Peugeot peeled away, trying to accelerate and Bolan swung around the back of the VW as a second truck came shooting toward him.

  Bolan fed the Desert Eagle a fresh mag as it had locked empty. The Peugeot slashed past, again fenders scraping and crunching against each other. The rush of wind of the passing truck ripped the breath from Bolan’s lungs and he swiveled, the .44 Magnum pistol in his hands as he acted like a turret. Eight slamming .44 Magnum shells tore into the truck toward its rear wheel well, and the Peugeot suddenly jerked. The rear wheel tore off its axle, and the driver struggled to keep control of the speeding vehicle. Instead, the pickup did a flip, bouncing and smashing onto its top. Anyone inside was dead or trapped, so Bolan popped his empty magazine, slamming home a fresh stick of eight heavy caliber slugs, sliding around to the passenger side, and then doing a belly dive down the curved hood of the VW as FAMAS rifle slugs rained down on the stuck little vehicle.

  Shoulder crashing into the dirt, he felt bullets pumping into the ground around him where the shadow of the Beetle didn’t protect him from autofire. Curled up, Bolan swiveled on one hip. More slugs tore at him and the Peugeot screeched to a halt right next to the rear of the shot-up VW. Bolan popped up and pegged a Syrian gunner with his Beretta, spraying his brains out with a 9 mm mangler. In his other hand, the Executioner unleashed the thunder of his Desert Eagle, putting four slamming missiles into the windshield where he figured the driver and shotgun rider would be.

  Returning his focus to his Beretta, he swung the front sight onto another FAMAS-toting gunman, punching a pair of hot 9 mm slugs into his gut and knocking him backward. The killer struggled to bring his black, bugle-shaped rifle up again, and Bolan adjusted his aim, punching a slug into the rifleman’s groin. The shooter folded up, and Bolan swept his Desert Eagle along the bed of the stalled pickup.

  Gunfire crackled from the road, slugs tearing again into the shell of the Beetle, and Bolan charged, taking cover behind the Peugeot. No line of slugs chased him yet.

  Breathless, Bolan reached up into the truck bed and felt his forearm grabbed by an iron claw.

  A blood-spattered face leaned over the truck bed, teeth bared in agony. Bolan tried to tear his arm free, keeping his free hand ready to fend off his enemy’s strike. Pulling back hard, the Syrian in the truck bed suddenly showed why he wasn’t using his other hand to pound on the Executioner. His shoulder had a chunk the size of a grapefruit blown out of it.

  “You bastard!” Mohammed Kazan spit.

  Bolan dropped his hand to his knife, drawing it in a single fluid motion. The blade swung up and creased under the jaw of the one-armed Syrian, but the blade bounced off the hard, stringy cartilage of the terror master’s windpipe. Swinging the blade’s handle, so the heavy knife was in an ice-pick grip, the Executioner jammed the point between Kazan’s neck and shoulder.

  The grip loosened some, but wild eyes still promised that Kazan wouldn’t let go until he and Bolan both were riddled with bullets.

  The Syrian didn’t count on twelve inches of razor-sharp steel jammed between his head and his body. With a brutal wrenching motion, the Executioner finished off Kazan.

  Bolan let the knife drop and he lunged in, grabbing a .223-caliber FAMAS rifle and a couple bandoliers of ammo that had been thrown into the bed in haste.

  Diving over the tailgate, Bolan aimed the rifle with one hand, the T-shaped bullpup design allowing him to use the rifle with one hand easily. The muzzle lit up his section of the desert, and tracer rounds in the magazine showed the autofire walking across the front of the troop truck, tearing through the windshield. Bodies were still pouring out of the truck, return fire flashing at him.

  Bolan hit the ground behind the wheelbase of the truck and fired under the frame of the vehicle. Bullets were now chasing him, and the soldier saw several pairs of legs. Feeding in a fresh magazine, he targeted them. A long burst and Bolan slashed through the legs of the Syrian murderers with a scythe of .223-caliber Remington death. Bodies dropped to the gr
ound and the air was laden with banshee wails of agony in addition to the staccato rattle of autofire.

  Bolan rolled along the back of the truck, dragging the bandoliers of FAMAS ammo with him, reaching the front of the Peugeot just as a hail of withering fire made the back of the truck lurch. The tires were blown to shreds, and the axle broke under the hammer storm. Bolan caught sight of the gunners focusing on the rear of the truck and swept them with a figure eight of his own. Three gunmen slammed into the ground as two more dived for cover. Hot slugs impacted the dirt near Bolan’s face, making him duck back farther behind cover.

  At least three more shooters were on the other side of the pickup, and Bolan was pressed hard. He’d been in this position before, and he wasn’t about to panic.

  He drew back from the Peugeot, putting ten yards between himself and the truck to get a better view of what was going on. Four gunners were advancing slowly. They were concentrating on the truck, and not beyond it. Bolan unleathered the Beretta, ramming home a fresh magazine. He was going to get as many of them off guard as he could, and the sound-suppressed pistol, though at the extreme of its range, was the only tool for this bloody trade.

  Front sight obscuring the torso of one gunman, Bolan had his first target and he opened up with some quick shots, two to the chest and one to the head. The rifleman twisted and fell over, his partner spinning, looking in shock at the dead man. Before he could open his mouth to cry out, Bolan popped a pair of rounds into the other rifleman’s head, brains exploding into crimson mist that drifted in the glow of headlights. The other two gunmen opened fire, raking the night in a wild panic.

  Huddled to the ground, Bolan waited out the panic storm of autofire, then drew the Desert Eagle and slammed a single round through the armored vest of one of the last remaining gunmen.

  The last rifleman, his weapon empty, screamed in horror, beating on his inactive weapon as he tried to get it to work again.

  Bolan instead rose to his feet, walking slowly toward the man. Tears were streaming down the rifleman’s face as he fought to somehow get his weapon to work.

  “Stay away!” he cried in English, hands waving at the tall man in black, slipping toward him like a razor blade descending on a wrist.

  “You speak English?”

  The man finally dropped his rifle, crossing his arms before his face.

  “Do you speak English?” Bolan repeated, grabbing a fistful of the Syrian soldier’s armored vest.

  “Yes! Yes, dammit, I speak English,” the Syrian sobbed.

  “I have a message for Damascus,” Bolan growled. “Al Askari didn’t approve of Kazan’s operation.”

  “Al…al Askari…The Soldier?” the Syrian asked, his throat clenching on each word.

  “Yes.”

  “Please!” the Syrian screeched. “Please…do not send me to hell.”

  Bolan yanked the smaller man nose to nose with him.

  “I want you to tell your masters in Damascus that I will visit them soon. Tell them to kiss their families goodbye as soon as they can, for their blood will flow in an unstoppable torrent. Do you remember my message?”

  The squirming soldier repeated it.

  “Run! Go back to the base and pray I never see you again!”

  Silence descended on the battleground as the remaining gunman fled.

  This mission wasn’t finished, but the Executioner was back on the road to seeing justice served.

  He wouldn’t feel fully redeemed until he finally destroyed the mystery devil and his tools.

  12

  The flights from Beirut to Cairo were uneventful, because all three members of Bolan’s advance team had the wisdom to go completely unarmed.

  Alex Kalid didn’t like the feeling of nakedness when he traveled unarmed. He was on the job, and there were people out there ready to kill him and his friends. Sure, he could probably handle a single threat, but he couldn’t protect the others if they were ambushed with automatic weapons.

  This weighed on him as he got off the plane. They had all traveled separately, arriving in Cairo International Airport on different flights. It was a safety precaution, so they wouldn’t be seen as a single unit. Meeting later would entail checking into a four-star hotel only 10 miles from the center of the city.

  Kalid decided to get to the hotel before the others and scout it out, before entering and checking in last. This way he had some control over the situation. Forewarned was forearmed, the cliché went.

  Clichés, however, have enough truth to them to make them worth paying some heed.

  Cairo, being on one of the largest rivers in the world, had plenty of trees and beautiful greenery for a tourist to sit among. Kalid placed himself on a park bench, stretching out to enjoy the sun that hadn’t risen far enough yet to make the city cook. He paid attention to the Egyptian soldiers who were sitting at the entrance to the hotel. Their presence didn’t set off Kalid’s danger sense. Egypt stationed soldiers at all of its hotels, as a means of protecting tourists, or at least tourist revenue.

  With pitchers of hotel-supplied ice water, and a plate of snacks, the soldiers sat and chatted, keeping their eyes on the people coming and going. They were lions at the watering hole, Kalid thought. They watched to make sure that the water hole wasn’t disrupted, even by their own kind.

  Pulling out a paperback novel, he pretended to read, all the while his eyes scanning beyond the pages of pulp action and lurid sex.

  Tera Geren showed up, dressed in a checkered blouse, a baggy denim jacket and jeans. The doorman took her backpack and nodded. She slipped him a tip, then scanned the area.

  Her eyes met Kalid’s for a moment, and he tried to fight down the stirrings under his belt.

  She was a beautiful woman, cute and cherubic especially given her height, if you hadn’t seen her in action. Even with that, there was a sense of innocence about her. She wasn’t a brutal killing machine, and Kalid did his best to dismiss his association between her and recent Israeli policies in the occupation of Palestinian buffers.

  He didn’t blame the country or its people. Still, fifty years of resentment smoldered in the ashes of the Arab world’s defeats.

  Even Egypt, whose leader Anwar Sadat had given his all toward achieving peace with Israel, had elements still within its government, and without, who desired nothing but a cleansing bloodletting that would push the hated Jews into the sea. Kalid knew that Muslim extremists were a problem. The fact that they now had someone operating with some of the power of the Egyptian military behind him was bowel-tighteningly terrifying.

  That fear was only pushed aside by the gut-churning rage that he was suckered into gunning down fellow terrorist fighters. The same kind of men who would have fought to shut down the operation if they knew exactly what it was about.

  Sudden realization hit.

  Tera Geren.

  He felt a strange sickly realization that he was somehow linked to her. Kalid knew that such things happened, and his queasy fear was that he might compromise the mission because of a stupid action. Even worse, he thought of the sudden, brutal possibility that Geren would be torn from his life. He didn’t like it. He’d only just met her, and yet he had bonded with her. They didn’t agree politically, but there was a deep, abiding trust between them.

  Kalid watched as Anwar Fesjad finally showed up. There were enemies out there, and by the fact that the enemy was hidden, yet in authority, they were unknown. A simple police officer, given Kalid’s description as a potential terrorist, would be in his full rights to pull his gun and burn Kalid to the ground.

  Would he have the will to shoot an honest lawman or soldier?

  Curses burned deep within his heart of hearts as he got up, collected his bag and prepared to check in.

  The only way Kalid would find out what he would do was to step into the future and do it.

  TERA GEREN OPENED the door to her room and threw her backpack in the corner. She kept her mouth shut, looking around. It was no secret that most hotel rooms held su
rveillance devices, especially in the capital cities of each nation. She’d even discovered, on a trip to Washington, D.C., a fiber-optic camera in the showerhead of her bathroom.

  Needless to say, she was glad she was posing as a French-woman and spent a lot of her time over the bathroom sink, not exposing herself to whoever was snooping on her. Just because the United States and Israel were allies didn’t mean that an agent of the Mossad was going to willingly show her naked body to an American Peeping Tom.

  Geren leaned against the sink and looked at herself in the mirror. Under her eyes were dark circles from too little sleep and too much stress. She felt as if she were a hundred years old and she’d been slapped for every year she was alive. Closing her eyes, she mentally flashed on the image of Alex, his smiling face, his skin the color of creamed coffee spread across tight, firm muscles. Outside, when she saw him watching the hotel, she felt something hit her in her belly, an emotional firecracker that spiraled around inside her when their eyes met.

  This wasn’t some cheap paperback or spy movie.

  This was real work.

  People were dying, and she had a bullet wound along her rib cage to prove it.

  But Alex…

  She had to admit to getting into discussions with him just to talk to him, to hear his warm soft blend of accents playing in her ears. While Colonel Stone was spending his time sleeping and recovering from sudden violence, they’d had a chance to talk and become familiar.

  A familiarity that swept aside their initial contempt.

  There was a knock at the door, and she went to it, seeing Kalid’s smiling face.

  “Oh, sorry, wrong room,” he said, then slipped in through the door.

  Geren shook her head to indicate that she hadn’t had a chance to scan for bugs or cameras.

  Kalid pulled out a field meter from his bag and held it up. He nodded to her. They were being snooped upon.

  Geren hated that his deep, dark eyes drew her in so easily. She was supposed to be a professional, on a top-secret mission, with no time for such shenanigans.