Agent of Peril

by Don Pendleton

  Idel’s jaw finally loosened. All of his tension leached from him at last.

  He didn’t know whether to feel free or to accept his coming doom.

  BOLAN AND KALID WERE laying down heavy fire against the gunmen who had their backs to the sealed entrance of the command-and-control center. Bodies were strewed on the floor of the hall.

  “Where did that girl go to?” Kalid asked impatiently.

  “To get us an equalizer,” Bolan answered.

  Geren came around the corner, keeping tight to the dips and crags in the mine tunnel walls. Kalid ducked as rounds chipped the stone near his face, and he tried to see what Geren was holding.

  She was busy stuffing a 40 mm round into the breech of a grenade launcher. It was the same grenade launcher that had nearly shredded the Executioner when he had made the mad dash that felt like an eternity before.

  “Say hello to my little friend,” Geren said to Kalid, racking the breech shut. “Fire in the hole!”

  Bolan swept the tunnel with a covering burst and Geren took a step out, triggering the grenade launcher. A hollow thump thundered through the enclosed tunnel, sputtering out like the sound of bees buzzing as a thousand steel pellets went storming toward the entrance to the command-and-control center.

  Geren yelped as a bullet clipped her, and Kalid reached out, grabbing her to him. He looked over his shoulder at the gory cloud of devastation wrought by her buckshot storm. He’d seen the round used in combat before, but never in such close quarters. The pellets didn’t merely penetrate flesh once. They sliced through meat and bounced off stone and steel, like homicidal pinballs, rebounding and racking up deadly scores through human bodies.

  What was left couldn’t be described as human, and he glanced away.

  “You were hit.”

  Geren looked down at her bicep, soaked with blood.

  “That the only place you were hit?” Kalid asked.

  She nodded.

  “Alex, the grenades,” Bolan said.

  Kalid unslung his pouch of grenades and tossed them to the big soldier, who then moved to the door of the command-and-control center. The ex-blacksuit quickly began wadding up torn strips of cloth that used to belong to his ragged pants and plugged the gunshot wound. He wrapped them with another couple of straps, tying them down in place. “There.”

  “Get ready,” Bolan warned.

  Kalid watched Bolan press a radio-controlled detonator, and he covered Geren’s head to protect her from the blast.

  NATEG LOOKED AS THE PREDATORS suddenly jerked in response to an invisible stimulus.

  “The nerve center’s been breached!” Ekan shouted. “We’ve got a chance yet!”

  “Israeli Air Defense to unidentified Egyptian helicopter, you are entering our sovereign airspace!” came the call that took the wind out of their momentary elation.

  Ekan looked and saw that the Predators were still in action, moving and swinging lower to the ground. He glanced at Nateg.

  “I’ve got two Israeli F-16s on radar, and they’ve got us lit up with their gunnery radar,” Nateg said.

  “This is Unit 777. We are in hot pursuit of unmanned drones entering your airspace,” Ekan replied. “We don’t have time to fool around!”

  To punctuate his point, Ekan swung around the M-230 chain gun and took out another Predator drone that had been eluding him for some time. The machine exploded in midair.

  “Cease fire and turn back to Egyptian airspace or be fired upon!” the F-16 pilot warned.

  “Did you not see me shoot down something that’s already in your airspace?” Ekan asked. “We’re trying to prevent a war here!”

  The F-16s came close, their engines roaring as they cut past the helicopter at a leisurely six hundred miles per hour. Nateg’s vocabulary dissolved into a spewing of primitive curses and grunts as he tried to right the Apache.

  “Remind me why we’re trying to save them again,” Nateg growled.

  “Because we’re all just trying to get along on this crazy little blue ball,” Ekan answered.

  The Apache shuddered and Nateg cried out. “Hydraulics are gone! We got clipped by a Predator!”

  The cockpit shook, every screen suddenly visible in a wild double vision. Ekan tried to brace himself. “We’ve got more incoming!”

  “I can’t steer to get them off of us!”

  “It was a long shot, Nateg.”

  “You aren’t giving up already, are you?” Nateg asked.

  The air shook again, two massive shapes cutting to the left and the right of the plummeting helicopter, 20 mm cannons splitting the air with lightning and thunder as they passed. None of the rounds came even close to the wounded Egyptian helicopter, and instants later, the cockpit stopped shaking enough for Ekan to see the drones vaporize from their radar.

  “Unit 777 combat helicopter! Try to set down 350 meters ahead. The sand should be soft enough,” the Israeli pilot called over the radio. “We’ll take over from here and send search and rescue for you!”

  “I see it!” Nateg growled, working the cyclic to keep the helicopter under control. “Ekan, what does damage control say? We’re getting better!”

  “The tail rotor took some damage. We lost one blade and another might have been bent, but is straightening out due to centrifugal force.”

  “Thank you Isaac Newton,” Nateg whispered. “Fuel’s gone!”

  Ekan looked up. “Momentum.”

  “That’s what I’m working on!” Nateg said. “Three fifty is going to be a long sail!”

  The Apache soared toward the ground, the rotor blades still spinning. Ekan knew, though, every rotation bled speed, and cost their ability to stay aloft.

  He braced for impact.

  BOLAN WAS FIRST AT THE DOOR. It had been blown apart by SLAM munitions, which sliced through the two-inch steel as if it were butter. Gunfire ripped from the entrance, but the Executioner was laying down a sheet of fire from his AK-47, driving the shooters on the other end to cover or to an early grave. At least two of the command-and-control center defenders stumbled lifelessly to the ground under his fusillade.

  Skidding to a halt, Bolan popped a grenade from his harness and lobbed it into the center, turning away, covering his ears and opening his mouth. The stun-shock bomb shook dust from the ceiling of the tunnel he was in, but the old rock continued to hold. He swung around as Kalid showed up on the other side of the doorway, M-4 probing the shadows.

  “Surrender now!” Kalid called out. “We’re just here for General Idel!”

  Kalid lunged forward as sporadic gunshots flew through the hole Bolan had blasted.

  “So much for surrender with honor,” Bolan answered. He swung around and pounced through the hole in a baseball slide, AK-47 abandoned for the more portable and maneuverable .44 Magnum Desert Eagle.

  An Egyptian renegade tried to track him as he dived behind a counter, but caught a single 240-grain hollowpoint above the bridge of his nose for his trouble. The defender tumbled to the cold hard floor.

  Tucking tight and aiming, Bolan caught a second gunman trying to come around his blind side. Before the soldier could fully depress his trigger, the renegade Egyptian was perforated by a stream of M-4 fire from Kalid. The gunner tumbled lifelessly as the ex-blacksuit, an M-4 in each fist, sidestepped into the command center, both weapons ripping out long bursts.

  “Down!” Bolan growled, popping up and sweeping for more targets.

  Kalid cut loose with both of the M-4 rifles until they locked empty. He let them drop and took a dive, bullets sizzling after him.

  Kalid cried out, but Bolan didn’t dare take his attention away from the enemy gunners. He dropped his Desert Eagle and pulled his Beretta as the big .44 Magnum ran empty.

  “Alex?”

  “Took one across the ribs!” Kalid called back.

  “Take cover,” Bolan ordered. He fed the hungry Beretta a fresh magazine now that no return fire was slamming into the communications console he was behind.

  Bolan loo
ked at the unit for a moment, then realized it had a U.S. Army Special Operations SATCOM phone on it. The shock of its appearance in the den of a madman distracted him.

  “Striker!” Kalid bellowed.

  Bolan whirled, bringing up his Beretta only to have it ripped from his hand, a rifle stock smashing his right hand with bone-breaking force.

  He drew his injured hand back to his chest and looked into the face of a madman. Thick black hair and a mustache framed a round face that would have implied fatness on any other human being. From the neck down this man was built like a fireplug. He scrambled sideways, holding his rifle ready to chop down again. The Executioner kept his injured hand between himself and the enemy, preferring not to lose any more of his fighting parts when he could block with a wounded limb. It would hurt the healing process, but Bolan needed to survive to heal.

  With a snarl, Kalid rose, launching himself at the goon, but the squat ape of a man pivoted, lashing out with a high kick catching Kalid in the jaw. The ex-blacksuit staggered, thrown to the floor in an unseemly tangle of uncontrolled limbs.

  “Alex!” Bolan called out. He caught the rise and fall of his ally’s chest. He was still breathing.

  Gunfire barked from the doorway, and the mystery man dived behind cover. Geren, holding a pistol in one hand, her other arm dangling, looked around.

  “I’ll watch Alex!” she called.

  Bolan gave her a nod and scooped up his Beretta in his left hand.

  Details from his quick observation of the enemy gave Bolan a clue as to the identity of the stocky soldier who had floored Kalid.

  General’s pips.

  General Nahd Idel was too vain to take them off, even in the face of an assault. He could have slipped away.

  “General Idel, your game is over. Make it easy on yourself!” Bolan called out.

  There was a sharp laugh. “I know your legend, al Askari. You do not arrest men such as me, warriors of true vision.”

  “Then you know I usually end up taking down your delusional kind,” Bolan answered.

  “Delusional? I have risen through the ranks of the Egyptian army. I have built my own network of allies. I am seated at the right hand of a genius who will take your nation and make it a seat of power that we will be able to coexist with,” Idel answered.

  Bolan stopped, spotting the rows of computers linked together on mess tables. He scanned them quickly and found power bars on the end of each. He began firing, sparks spraying as electricity shorted out.

  “What are you doing?” Idel yelled.

  “Your Predators have been defanged!” Bolan announced.

  MAJOR FESJAD LOOKED UP as the five drones sailed through the skies. Instead of swinging down toward the cliff face, they continued flying straight and true, unwavering in their course.

  “They broke through!” Fesjad announced. “Get in there now! I don’t care if Colonel Stone told us to hold back.”

  “On it!” Nomad called out. “We spotted a tunnel in from one of the nests on night vision.”

  “Go,” Fesjad ordered.

  He switched frequencies. “Nova to Deathbird. Nova to Deathbird. Are you still operating?”

  Static.

  Fesjad tried another frequency. “Nova to Deathbird. Come in.”

  Empty silence.

  Fesjad swallowed hard. “Ekan!”

  “We’re here.”

  Fesjad grinned. “And the Predators heading for Israeli airspace?”

  “Tell ’em, boys…” Ekan answered.

  “This is IADF, Major Rose. Once the craft stopped evasive maneuvers, it was a turkey shoot,” came the reply.

  “Had to be diplomatic-like and tell our neighbors about the pest problem,” Ekan cut in.

  “Naturally,” Fesjad answered. “We’ll talk about the breach in protocol back at the base.”

  “I think the Americans have a term that fits this,” Rose called over the radio.

  “What’s that?” Fesjad asked.

  “Peace out, y’awl,” Rose answered.

  Fesjad grinned from ear to ear. “Peace out, Major Rose.”

  THE AIR IN THE CAVE trembled for a moment, mostly from the echoes of the pistol shattering the surge protectors, but the Executioner could still imagine part of that tremor as the underlying rage set to explode from General Idel. He braced himself, Beretta at the ready as he moved slowly, tracking around the maze of the command center, muzzle following his icy eyes in the semidarkness.

  Movement flashed in the corner of his eye, and even before the gunshot roared, Bolan hit the floor, Beretta swinging up and seeking human flesh. Both bullets missed their mark, a curse in Arabic letting him know how close his own fire was. He scrambled on all fours, crawling under the computer tables, shoving aside chairs to get toward Idel in a straight line without exposing himself.

  Idel had other plans. Dropping down and spotting Bolan, he plowed along, burrowing his way past chairs and cables. Computers jerked and fell as he charged, then Bolan saw the flash of the rogue Egyptian’s pistol again. There was no time to avoid the gunshots, even though he threw himself to one side, triggering his own Beretta.

  Slugs bounced off the floor at oblique angles, dashing off behind the Executioner, tracking along the stony ground. Two bullets sliced Bolan’s right arm, and he went crashing onto his face, Beretta tumbling from his left hand. He clutched the bloodied arm, cursing the loss of his pistol.

  Idel gave a growl of satisfaction, his booted feet stomping toward the end of the row of tables.

  Bolan twisted, letting go of his injured arm and grabbing a rolling chair. He gave it a quick spin and side-kicked it hard. Idel sprinted around the corner, and the chair rammed into him, tripping him up. The fireplug frame of the Egyptian general went tumbling to the ground, the jarring impact popping his pistol free.

  Idel was faster and healthier, though. Bolan looked at him and realized that the general had all the advantages. The stocky renegade was on his feet just a few seconds faster than Bolan.

  Idel hadn’t suffered multiple concussions in the past week.

  Idel’s hand wasn’t shattered.

  Idel didn’t give any indication that he felt like lying down and closing his eyes forever.

  “This is al Askari? A bloody rag of a man? How could you think you could stop me?” Idel asked. He lashed out with a stabbing left. Bolan ducked it and got caught by a right cross, a stunning blow that rocked him. He stumbled hard against a computer station, the monitor spilling to the floor with a resounding crash.

  Idel was moving in quickly, not giving Bolan a chance to rest and recover. The soldier’s left hand groped for something and he came up with the cord of the computer’s mouse, swinging it hard. The lightweight plastic bounced off of Idel’s head. Shock more than pain made him step backward, and Bolan let the cord go. He bent his left arm to protect his chest, fist at the chin, ready to fight to the last, feet splayed.

  Idel lunged again, a sharp kick smashing Bolan in the bicep. The Executioner grunted, dropping to one knee.

  “You’re just a weak, bleeding man, so fallible that you murdered those who would be your allies,” Idel snarled.

  “That is no mere man!” a weak voice croaked.

  Idel looked to the source of the echoing voice of Alex Kalid, confused.

  Bolan snarled. “Unit 777 not only forgave me my mistake, they are risking their lives outside to make sure you don’t escape.”

  Idel lowered his head, eyes narrowed. “They’re fools.”

  Bolan lashed out with a kick, but the desperate attack missed. Sweat beaded on the forehead of the Egyptian madman as he shuffled his feet, keeping out of range of Bolan’s legs.

  The Egyptian lashed out with his own kick, but Bolan had retreated.

  The soldier feinted with his left foot, then dropped to it, spin-kicking hard with his right foot. His boot sole caught Idel in the chest, driving him backward.

  Idel lunged at him, fists flashing, but Bolan’s left forearm swatted them aside, def
lecting their force. Sweat was drenching the Executioner through and through. He snapped his right knee up at Idel who barely had the quickness to block the blow. Bolan instead settled for a left toe to the shin. He continued, unabated. He snapped out two quick left kicks, and when Idel finished reacting to them, he brought his left fist crashing in a backhand across Idel’s jaw.

  Idel charged, his shoulder ramming the Executioner in the chest. But Bolan slammed his elbow hard between the Egyptian’s shoulder blades, feeling bone dislocate. Idel screamed in piercing agony. Bolan grabbed him by his belt and pivoted, hurling him against the stone wall of the command center, his head bouncing off the wall.

  Bolan stepped toward the stunned Egyptian.

  “You fool…” Idel sputtered. “You think you’ve won, but I’m only the first wave.”

  Bolan brought down his boot on Idel’s throat with merciless force, crushing windpipe and smashing vertebrae in one savage stomp. The master of the devil’s tools was served the justice of the Executioner.

  Exactly three seconds later, exhaustion and blood loss had him staggering against the wall. “Alex?”

  “I’m here,” Kalid said.

  The ex-blacksuit and Geren limped to his side.

  The Executioner regarded them for a long, painful moment. “Let’s get out of this rat’s nest.”

  The Executioner, leaning on his friends, worked his way out of the darkness, all the while thinking about Idel’s promise of further madmen to follow.

  Bolan remembered the SATCOM radio. It was United States military issue, and it would be useless for backtracking Idel’s sponsors. The renegade general had put a 9 mm bullet through every single component that could hold a memory of transmissions.

  A new age of evil wanted to reform the world, and the plot to throw Egypt and Israel into bloody war was only one step in this overarching plan.

  But, if the true architects of terror wanted to continue their battle with him, Mack Bolan would not back down. They’d have to kill him first.

  Even if they did bring down the Executioner, he had his arms around a small sampling of the kind of allies who would continue to make sacrifices and fight to save the day. Men like Anwar Fesjad, Atef Fesjad, the pilots Nateg and Ekan and the rest of Unit 777.