He was in a watery hell. He thrashed to the surface and saw the big white cruiser was already being swallowed by the gray light of morning.
The Syrian couldn’t swim. He tried to scream at the boat, but instead he heaved up salt water and he went under heaving again, so that the spasm channeled another quart of water into his lungs.
He watched the gray surface recede.
BOLAN CROSSED the long rear deck to the boathouse and found a small utility door leading into the mechanical area of the cruiser. He descended the tight steel stairs quickly. There was a single man below, and he had just finished some maintenance chore when he found himself face-to-face with the Executioner.
Bolan spun him and put the crewman down on the steel stairs, face first. The man grunted and when he tried to turn his face the barrel of the Beretta 93-R nudged his forehead into a steel stair edge again.
“Speak English?” Bolan demanded as he patted the crewman down with one hand, finding him unarmed other than a deep pants pocket full of screwdrivers.
“Some English.”
“Who are you?”
“I am Jasim’s boat engineer man. I was told to come get boat ready for a trip. Now they brought me with them, and my wife does not know where I am.”
Bolan made a quick visual check of the compact, spotless engine room. No weapons. His instincts said the man was telling the truth.
“How many other crew?”
“No crew,” the man said.
“There were at least two people aboard before Jasim arrived.”
“Yes, yes, two of Jasim’s men, and me, and then Jasim came.”
“Did the first two men have weapons?”
“Yes, yes. Big guns tonight, too, not just little pistols.”
Bolan used plastic disposable cuffs on the engineer’s hands and ankles, looping the leg ties around a generator mounting bolt. That would keep him out of the way.
The man was dumb with terror. Bolan relieved the engineer of his belt and tightened it around his head, splitting his mouth in a sturdy gag.
“Don’t worry, friend,” Bolan said. “I’ll try to have you home to your wife in time for lunch.”
The engineer nodded, and maybe the fright in his eyes faded a little. Bolan hoped the man did not take it as a promise.
There was no certainty in the War Everlasting. Every battle could be the final fight. Bolan intended that he and the engineer would survive to leave the big pleasure cruiser—but there were no guarantees. Maybe everybody on this ship was doomed, Bolan included.
Then so be it.
BOLAN CREPT OUT onto the open deck once more, scaling a narrow set of stairs to the topside sundeck. He went flat when the fore guard strolled into view, carelessly letting his AK-74 assault rifle dangle by the stock from one fist.
The guard stood along the front rail and tucked the rifle between his legs, then fumbled in his pockets. Bolan crept up on him, his bare feet as silent as a stalking lion. But the water was still dripping from his clothing, and maybe it was the tiny drops that alerted the guard. He spun as Bolan closed the last two paces, and in surprise he allowed the cigarette to tumble from his lips. He flung the orange plastic lighter at Bolan’s face, but the warrior ignored it and struck hard at the only unprotected flesh he could find. The combat knife slashed across the guard’s throat. The man grabbed his neck and didn’t put up a fight when Bolan launched him into the ocean with a quick shove. He snatched up the Kalashnikov and disposed of it over the side as well, then moved back into a less exposed position on the upper sundeck.
Two down. Two more gunmen, plus the Hummer driver, plus Jasim and al-Douri. He was going to have to get inside unless they decided to cooperate by coming outside themselves.
He heard the door slide open almost directly under his feet. One man walked casually to the middle of the front deck and, after the sound of the door sliding closed, another man emerged. They were in the white uniforms of a hired yacht crew, but this pair toted AK-74s, aimed at the deck but clearly at the ready. They were conversing in unhurried murmurs for just a moment before one of them interrupted the other with a question. They had noticed the missing guard. A moment later one of them strode to the rail and peered at a dark spot on the deck beneath his feet.
The man cursed in Arabic and both of them were instantly in full alert mode, but they were too late. Bolan found his moment and squeezed the trigger on the HK MP-5 SD-3 submachine gun. The morning breeze was disturbed by the coughing sound of the gunshots from the factory-installed sound suppressor.
A 9 mm burst brought down the first gunner. His companion made a mad dash toward the cover of the deckhouse, but Bolan cut him down from above with a burst to the chest.
No more enemy gunners were likely to present themselves now. He heard the shouts inside, beneath his feet, and he raced toward the rear, slipping down the stairs and moving under the overhang alongside the rear deck entrance to the interior.
The door burst open with a kick and the man inside spun out of it like a whirlwind, sweeping the deck with his assault rifle. He was extremely fast, and Bolan had a muzzle in his gut before he could dodge it, but it took a microsecond for the Hummer driver to realize he had the enemy right where he wanted him. The driver squeezed the trigger but Bolan twisted and swept the gun barrel aside, then delivered a powerful jab with the barrel of the MP-5 that almost penetrated the driver’s skin. The driver had removed his body armor if he had ever worn any. The gun barrel crushed some internal organ.
The driver staggered and tried to run, but Bolan targeted him with a quick burst that left him sprawled lifeless on the deck.
SUPPRESSED MACHINE-GUN fire came from just above their heads, and Maysaloun Jasim watched his two best men, both with military special forces training, collapse in bloody piles.
Al-Douri was propped on a nearby chair, barely holding himself upright, but he managed to curse violently. The driver grabbed his Kalashnikov and went out the rear.
Jasim snapped out of it. The horror of those sudden, violent deaths sent a fresh supply of adrenaline into his veins. He strode across the room and opened up a hand-carved wall shelf. It was designed to serve as an elegant buffet when he hosted large dinner parties on the yacht and turned this parlor into a dining room. He reached up into the wall and withdrew a 12-gauge, sawed-off shotgun, then a box of shells. He cracked the shotgun open and inserted shells in both barrels, then pocketed the box.
“Anything else useful stashed up there?” al-Douri asked.
“Here.” Jasim handed him an AK-74. Al-Douri made quick work of checking the magazine, and he smacked it back into place with his palm as another burst of machine-gun fire came from the rear. It was definitely suppressed, definitely not the retort of the driver’s Kalashnikov.
Al-Douri was shaking his head dourly. “It’s him.”
Jasim knew who he meant. Al-Douri had been insisting all along that they were under attack from just one man—the same American who attacked him in the ministry building just twelve hours before.
“I will believe it when I see him,” Jasim retorted confidently, feeling self-assurance welling up in him. He’d been in a stupor of what? Fear? Whatever. He was himself again. Supremely confident. Al-Douri called him arrogant. Well, he was a Jasim. Anyone who was a Jasim had the right to be arrogant. No American cowboy was going to take down a patriarch of one of the premier families of Kuwait.
They silently watched the door at the rear of the parlor, where the driver had disappeared. They heard nothing now except the thrum of the engines, carrying them at a leisurely eight knots into the Persian Gulf.
Then the engines stopped. Someone had to be on the bridge, above them at the rear of the sundeck. Where would he come down? Jasim wondered. Fore or aft? He backed away to the far side of the parlor, eyes flitting between the two entrances.
The rush of the water traveling under the hull silenced as the big pleasure cruiser came to a halt and rode the waves gently. The door at the back of the room creaked on it
s hinges, opening slowly. The bottom of the door was obscured by a chair. Had the door latched when the driver went through it?
Al-Douri was shaking his head—he had a clearer view of the rear door. No one was there.
Jasim turned his attention to the fore end. The sun-reflecting drapes over the huge picture windows were closed, but through the glass door he could see enough of the deck. Nobody was coming in without his knowing about it.
He liked the heavy feel of his father’s old sawed-off. It was the kind of weapon nobody would mess around with. In any sort of a confined space it was a no-miss weapon.
Then the boat bobbed and Jasim saw movement. He triggered the shotgun at the door, shattering the glass and shredding the curtains. The big picture windows had only begun to disintegrate when he triggered again, and the windows smashed onto the deck with a crashing noise that went on and on. The morning sun was peaking over the horizon and came through the tattered drapes to create bright jagged shapes on the walls of the parlor.
Then he saw the same movement again and realized he was seeing the limp lolling head of his dead guard. The bobbing of the boat was moving his skull. The face rolled over and looked directly at Jasim with mocking dead eyes.
“Fool!” Al-Douri was covered in glass and was trying to wipe the blood out of his vision, but there were so many splinters imbedded in his flesh that he created only more blood.
Then Jasim saw more movement, behind him this time. A dark shape was coming through the open door at the rear. The tall figure swept down on al-Douri, snatched the Kalashnikov from his hands, then backed away covering both of them with a suppressed submachine gun.
It was al-Douri’s attacker, the one-man American army.
“Damn you!” Jasim blurted.
“Don’t move.”
“Go to hell!” Jasim cracked open the shotgun and fumbled in his pockets for more shells.
Bolan raised his weapon and sent a 3-round burst into the ceiling tiles. Flakes of them sprinkled onto the Kuwaiti millionaire. Jasim froze, finally understanding the danger, and when Bolan gestured at the floor he dropped the shells, then the shotgun.
“No, shoot him!” al-Douri screamed, trying to smear the blood out of his vision.
Bolan snatched the Iraqi spy by the wrist and quickly bound his hands in front of him. Then he ordered Jasim to the carpet on his face, trussing him up like some elaborate roast about to go in the oven. He searched them both, removing three blades and a small handgun from al-Douri, along with a bottle of pills.
“Kill me,” Jasim pleaded.
“That would be way too easy,” Bolan said. “You’re going to get all the publicity you deserve, Jasim. I’m going to see to it. By sundown you’re going to be famous worldwide as the Kuwaiti millionaire who sold out his country to the hated Iraqis.”
“I’ll be ruined.”
“You’ll be more than ruined, you’ll be shamed,” Bolan replied. “Your family will become pariahs, and your money will be taken away from you. The name Jasim will be used like the word ‘shit.’”
Jasim was sobbing. He rolled onto his side, struggling to get to his feet. Bolan knew he wanted to throw himself over the rail, but he wasn’t going anywhere with his wrists bound to his feet.
“What about me?” al-Douri demanded.
“You’re the whole reason I’m here,” Bolan said, backing into an antique chair in the corner of the room, where he could keep an eye on his prisoners. “You would have saved us both a lot of trouble if you’d simply answered my questions yesterday.”
“And if I don’t talk? What will you do? Kill me? You’ve already done that. I’ll be dead soon enough.”
“I don’t think so,” Bolan said. “You’ll pull through if you get some medical attention. The Kuwaiti prisons have good medical facilities, I’m told.”
“I’d rather be dead than tell you what you want to know.”
“I think you’ll feel differently in about an hour,” Bolan said. “You’ve taken two of the pills in that bottle. Your breath stinks like bad booze, so I assume you’re deadening the pain with alcohol. Whatever is keeping the pain at bay, it will be wearing off soon enough.”
“So what?”
“So then we negotiate.” Bolan glanced at his watch. It was just after six in the morning.
“Never.”
By 7:30 a.m., al-Douri was pleading for the pills and telling Bolan everything he wanted to know.
13
The young Ranger emerged into the bay of the Chinook CH-47D helicopter. When he was close enough he spoke loudly to be heard over the steady thrum of the twin rotors.
“Sir!”
Bolan opened his eyes. He’d used their flying time for a quick nap. He was tired. He couldn’t afford the slowed reflexes that came from sleep deprivation. On the other hand, there was every chance the someone in Iraq would soon learn about the secrets al-Douri had spilled and make haste to change the facts of those secrets. There had been no time for real rest.
“ETA ten minutes, sir,” the young man said, not quite sure how to address this maybe-civilian.
“Thanks.”
“Sure you want to do this?”
“I’m sure.”
The Ranger looked like he wanted to say more, but what the hell did you say to some guy who had the wherewithal to get himself air-dropped into the middle of nowhere in Iraq by the freaking U.S. military?
Besides, this guy looked like he knew what he was doing. He even looked like he might have the ability to pull it off—whatever it was. The young Ranger had seen some very scary dudes during his half-dozen years in the military, but this guy looked lethal in his sleep. The Ranger was glad the guy was on the American side.
“What can I do to help you out?” the young Ranger said finally.
“I’m fully prepped.”
The Ranger nodded. “Good luck, then, sir. Stay frosty.”
It sounded stupid, saying it to a guy like this, but the dark figure grimaced in what had to have been a smile of appreciation.
“Thanks. I will.”
THE CARGO RAMP OPENED on the bleak vastness of a remote section of Iraqi desert. Kurtzman had found recent Homeland Security intelligence reports hinting at the recent failure of the Iraqi air-traffic monitoring radar over the area. Defense technology failures inside Iraq were an everyday occurrence, and the U.S. military was correcting them when it could. This particular event was just a blip on the screen at the DOD, without much urgency, but Kurtzman saw the opportunity it offered—and the danger. When he suggested it to Bolan, the warrior had not hesitated.
“Sounds ideal, Bear, so long as it is safe enough for the insertion crew.”
“They can fly in low to avoid commercial air-traffic radar, so they’ll be unseen, unless the Iraqis get their equipment repaired within the next eight hours.”
“Not likely,” Bolan said. Technology parts and expertise were rare commodities in Iraq. “But what if?”
“They’ll scramble up an air defense. I’ll know about it. So will the entire air command in the Middle East. You’ll have to turn tail and get an ASAF escort back home.”
Bolan grunted. “Hal won’t like it.”
Kurtzman laughed. “Striker, Hal’s not going to like any of this.” Bolan considered that. “Sorry to put your ass in a sling, Bear.”
“But it’s worth it.”
“Yeah.”
“Besides, this is my pet project, remember?” Kurtzman added. “I’m the one who called you in. You’re just my subcontractor.”
Bolan really did grin at that.
IF HE HAD BEEN SMILING now, the climate would have scoured it right off his face the moment the doors opened to the blast of gritty wind coming off the surface of the desert. The Chinook wasn’t fully settled on the baked, cracked earth, the pilot reluctant even to put her full weight down on this stretch of dangerous ground. Bolan understood his caution. Resistance fighters could be holed up anywhere. He waved to the Ranger as the ramp touched the earth, and h
e rolled the old Lada SUV out onto the craggy flats of what had once been the bottom of a thriving inland sea.
The Chinook was ascending again so soon the ramp almost snagged the rear fender, and by the time Bolan had steered out of the billowing dust clouds of the downdraft, the Chinook was heading for home.
They had every reason to move fast, and so did Bolan. He pushed the SUV hard, picking his way over the cracked and rutted surface of the salt desert like a stunt driver on an extended obstacle course. He wanted to put as many miles between himself and the landing spot as he could, and do it as fast as possible.
Then he saw the flatbed truck emerge from a small outcropping in a rocky ridge. Barely slowing the SUV he snapped up his field glasses and examined the truck. It was miles away, and with proper time for reconnaissance the Chinook crew would have spotted him and landed elsewhere. By chance, this section in no-man’s land was not deserted at all. In the widest corner of the teardrop-shaped desert, where the land was mostly flat, the helicopter insertion could have been witnessed clearly.
Who knew who was in the flatbed? Probably Iraqis searching for scrap metal. The big rusty tank for liquid that was lashed on the flatbed suggested they might be poppy farmers with a verdant swath of arable land hidden in a desert ravine.
Bolan had one option, and that was to get the hell out fast. The flatbed truck may or may not be radio equipped. The occupants may or may not be inclined to report what they had just witnessed. He grabbed his radio as he edged the Lada’s speed up to and above what he had previously judged his safe speed. He raised the Chinook, quickly explaining what he had seen.
“Understood,” the Chinook pilot replied. “We’re haulin’ ass already but we’ll haul faster. Good luck.”
The pilot signed off. The Chinook would be okay. Within minutes she would be back on her regular flight path, and no one would take special notice of her. Bolan was the one who was at real risk. The pilot had said as much in his sign-off. As far as the Chinook crew was concerned, Bolan was as good as dead.
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