But the soldier was only human, after all, flesh and blood, and he’d been dumped square on the losing side.
Right then he was enrolled in CSW 101, front row, final exam. How in the hell it had come down to this…
After all, his gut instinct screamed at rock-concert decibels that Collins and Cobra were a pack of cutthroat liars with a hidden agenda. After telling himself time and again to watch his six, after every clue, hint and vibe they dropped, alluded to, gave off, after knowing damn good and well something horrific was going to hit the fan, the warrior’s instinct honed to a sixth sense and tuned to treachery on the table and ready to be thrown in his face…
After all that and here he was, sprawled on his face, the world fading away in a shimmering mist, stuck with tranquilizer needles, a human dartboard. He might have drawn the Beretta, moments ago, but it was the shot to his balls that sealed it, the white-hot, paralyzing agony floating away now to a distant horizon, telling him he was seconds away from going under.
Trussed up and finished.
From that horizon, shimmering further away by the second, Bolan heard Collins chuckle.
“That’ll keep you for about an hour, Colonel. Just in case you wake up before we’re done, I’ll leave someone here to baby-sit.”
He wanted to reach up and grab Collins by the throat, the nuts, anything he could get his hands on, but his limbs were swelling with numbness.
“I’ll be back, Colonel. Then your buddies Larry and Curly want to have a little chat with you. Seems they’re all bent out of shape you snuffed Gambler. I promised them your ass, and your ass they will have. I asked them to save me a piece, but, hey, we’ll see what happens, no guarantees in life, you know. Sweet dreams, asshole—your heartbeats are on a one-hour clock.”
Bolan saw the misty specter of Collins sweep out of the room, then the haze faded to black.
“DO NOT TALK.”
Dugula saw the hope rise in the defiant looks, heard the excitement in the whispering of his fellow Muslims all around. They were wondering if the infidels were speaking the truth, when would it happen, what was happening and why when the two Marines snapped at them to shut up or they would all be separated to solitary confinement.
In Arabic, Dugula, and what he suspected were the leading voices of the group, told the others to obey. They fell silent as a group, the Marines glowering, standing back when Dugula saw the Scar and One Eye surge into view, pistols with attached sound suppressors up and aimed at the Marines. Shock and confusion hardened the faces of the Marines, assault rifles shimmying up in their hands, uncertain what to do.
“You’re relieved of duty,” he heard the one-eyed demon say, then two soft chugs sounded, the killshots echoing through the pen, the Marines toppling into the wall, crimson smears and grisly patches of brain matter following their slide to the floor.
Dugula was off his mat, the tide of prisoners rushing for the fence.
“Hold up!” Scar yelled.
“Fall back!” Cyclops ordered.
They quieted down, Dugula watching as both white men snapped up the fallen M-16s.
“Listen up, we’re only going to say this once,” Scar said. “You are going to be freed, as we promised. You will be taken straight for the same plane that brought you here. You will not be chained down. If any one of you attempts to fight back at any time, we will shoot down every one of you. We already have what we want. We really don’t need you, but we made a promise to one of your leaders and we intend to keep it. Consider us the rapture and you the chosen.”
“Now,” Cyclops said, “if any of you have a problem with us sending your brothers on to Paradise and his nuts are itching for revenge, speak up now and you will forever hold your peace.”
Dugula knew no matter what would happen they were all still seething these men had so cold-bloodedly killed two of their own before their eyes. Beyond that, all of them, he knew, had lost scores of fellow fighters during various strikes on their independent groups. Whatever this madness was all about, Dugula could stifle his own questions, willing to accept—even, God help him—trust in the enemy. What else could be done? He could only hope the others held their tongues, kept their hands to themselves.
“Move out in twos. I will lead the way. No talking,” Cyclops said.
Three more infidels appeared by Scar’s side, their subguns out and ready to cut loose at the first sign of mutiny.
“Dugula,” Cyclops called out. “Front and center. Any of your people get froggy, you’re the first to go. You understand, Dugula?”
Dugula saw Scar key the door open, the others parting to let him pass.
“Perfectly.”
“Good boy.”
COLLINS SLIPPED on his gas mask, HK MP-5 in hand. He found Falconi, aka the Falcon, and two of his Predator commandos standing by the closed doors to the courtroom. Mamba, Python and Diamondback on his heels, Collins led the way down Hallway F, cocking and locking, blood racing, victory in sight.
The double doors were closed, twenty-plus Marines right now sitting in wooden chairs, backs turned to them, Collins knew, facing the American flag and the judge’s bench. He felt no pity, no remorse over what he was about to do, what had to be done. Ten were promised for delivery to the ayatollah, and ten live Marines he would get. Fuck America, he thought, this was about him, his money, and this was his time to shine. All that patriotic blubbering, the war-drumming nationalistic “us and them” nonsense didn’t wash, he believed. There were two sides to every conflict, every story, but he was only interested in one side.
His own.
After hearing about Cyclops’s quick dispatch of the two Marines aboard the Herc, he relayed the order again in no uncertain terms he needed ten breathing Marines. Another of Falconi’s Predators was right then en route to help lug unconscious and cuffed Marines to the plane. There was only one way in and out of the courtroom, and Collins had the key that would lock them in, sucking on gas, figure fifteen, twenty seconds tops until they were out there in la-la land.
A check of his watch, and he found they had about thirty minutes to wrap it up until the big shots touched down. There was still the Stone matter in the wings, a not so little moment Collins was craving every bit as much as Warlock and Cyclops. A real treat was in store for the big bastard.
Closing on Falconi, he found the Marines had lined their weapons against the wall, as ordered. He was plucking a NARCON-D canister off his webbing when Falconi said, “Once we’re in the air you and me need to have a talk.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
“So far, Mr. Falconi, everything is going along swimmingly.”
“Here, maybe.”
Collins didn’t much care for the sound of that, wondering if there was some problem with the money.
“Just finish the job,” he told Falconi, who took a canister, finger curled inside the ring.
“Mamba, pull one of these puppies.”
Mamba stepped up, shouldering his HK, sleeping bomb in hand.
“I go nine, Mamba twelve, Falcon three. Diamond-back take the door. Whenever you’re ready, Mr. Diamondback.”
Collins waited until Diamondback twisted the knobs, shoved the doors ahead, then pulled the pin, counting off the four-second time delay, allowing for a full second to pass.
Three lobs, perfect tosses halfway around the clock, Collins finding the Marines sitting ramrod stiff, facing front—until the canisters thumped and rolled and clouds of gas erupted.
They were shouting now, leaping to their feet, but Collins slammed the doors shut and locked them in.
“God bless America.” Collins laughed.
BOLAN THOUGHT he was coming around, but he couldn’t be certain what was real, what was drug-induced coma. His skull felt swollen, limbs numb, reality coming at him, in and out, gooey blackness. There were voices, he thought, drifting from the ceiling, men shouting—one or two?
He rolled onto his side, vomit stirring in his guts, the voices growing louder, the
sounds of men not in pain, but…
What? Panic? Terror? They were familiar voices, memory wanting to serve him…but…
He saw a specter looming over him, a ghoul grinning down.
“Just sit tight or I’ll clock you back into dreamland.”
His watchdog stepped back, weapon trained on him. Time, he thought, that was all he needed to get himself at least halfway together. Or would his time run out?
The sludge in his limbs grew heavier for some reason, the soldier figuring adrenaline was coursing the NARCON through his blood.
The haze wafted back, and whoever had been shouting in panic…
The voices carried, louder than ever, then there was only silence.
COLLINS, PAINFULLY AWARE of time, barked the orders for his commandos to slap cuffs on ten, start hauling them out, then swept into the dissipating cloud. A glance at Falconi, briefly wondering what the big talk was all about, and Collins thought the CIA man looked sick over the chore they had to perform. Whatever it was passed as Falconi began pumping one round each from his Beretta into the skulls of sleeping Marines. Collins shot three at point-blank range with his own pistol, looked over at Python, who flashed five fingers twice.
“Move, move! It’s going to take two trips!”
“Aye, aye, Major!”
One more head shot, Collins taking stock of the body count, but Falconi moved up beside him, said, “I think we’re finished here, Major.”
“Walk through it once more,” he ordered, checking the bodies, most of which were stacked near the doors where Marines had attempted to break out when the gas blew.
Out in the hall, Collins shed his mask, chucked it away. He rang up Warlock and Cyclops. “What’s your situation?”
“They’re loaded.”
“Everything under control?”
“I think we’ve made believers out of them. Must’ve been the tale of King Groethe and his snake-eaters that got their bowels all twisted. The load is now nothing but meek lambs.”
“Okay,” Collins said, swift strides hauling him south down Hallway F, “meet me, and hustle up. You two have ten minutes and no more.”
Collins cut off Warlock’s chuckle, hastening his strides.
It was Stone’s turn.
And it was going to be, Collins thought, unable to resist the chuckle, the sweetest thing next to payday.
LIFE WAS A CRAPSHOOT. Bad things happened to good people, and good things found a way to happen for bad people. Beyond that—perhaps nearly but not quite as mystifying—the mediocre prevailed, the world often falling at their feet, while the truly gifted, the worthy and the compassionate and the brave rarely shone, but were rather shunned, even cast aside, scoffed at, held in contempt. If there was justice in the world, it was the world’s justice. If there was richness in the world, it was the world’s riches.
It was a voice, floating somewhere in the darkness and jelly of Bolan’s thoughts, swirling, calling to him. The voice told him all of this was obvious to a warrior who believed in the sanctity of life, that whatever good one did was simply for the sake of doing good, but that there was an answer as to why the unjust and the unworthy, the savage and the sick of soul were often rewarded with fame, fortune, the adulation of men, which, more often than not, was envy. They killed, raped and stole, and got away with it. They grabbed up obscene riches at the expense and misery of many, laughed and kept on living while others suffered and died and they turned a blind eye, indulging in all the world had to offer, and what man of conscience could possibly fathom why it was allowed to be so. The voice carried upward from the blackness, reminded him he was a warrior, stay strong, he was not alone. But it made no sense, the other voice—or so it sounded—went on to respond. Why did evil triumph so often over good? Why did the greedy and the proud and the willful and the murderous own glory in the world? Why did they appear to be rewarded?
“Their time is short. Eternity is a long time.”
Two voices, or was it one?
Bolan couldn’t be sure of anything, felt himself at once sucked down into some black hole, wanting to simply float away. Minutes passed. Or was it hours?
He thought he was coming back to reality, mired in the dark sludge, but clawing—breath by breath—his way out, sheer will, fear and adrenaline reserves reviving him, some strength returning, as he felt life in his arms.
Bolan was looking up, the mist evaporating, when the boot speared him in the gut.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE
“This is for Gambler!”
Bolan suffered through a flurry of fists and feet, a hurricane of rights, uppercuts, straights, kicks to the ribs, legs, lower back. He felt each and every piledriving blow, whoofed and grunted as still more air was driven from already oxygen-starved lungs. They came at him, three snarling voices meshing as one, it sounded, the haze in his eyes bursting with stars. Each time he tried to stand, Bolan felt a fist pounding his jaw, eyes, skull, lights on the verge of winking out. The human body, especially one as finely tuned and superbly conditioned as Bolan’s, was tough, could endure ferocious physical abuse. It was also fragile, and a blow to the head could kill with a bone fragment to the brain, a series of kicks to the stomach unleashing hemorrhage, a slow, bad and painful way to go, eventually choking on blood. Unlike Hollywood, where two fully grown men could bang away at each other for thirty minutes, nary a scratch, in reality one well-placed punch to the jaw or the side of the head and the legs turned to jelly, gave out, and when a man was down on the ground the other guy had all the advantage. The awful reality now was that Bolan knew he was meant to take the mother of all beatings before they killed him. Payback for Gambler, for starters, then there was the simple fact he was expendable, and now in the way of whatever their twisted plan. He was on the ground, at their mercy, and he was messed up, with more to come.
A veil of blackness began to descend, as he heard himself wheeze, sucking air, but the blows kept coming.
“He doesn’t look so tough now, does he?”
“Bastard’s going to pass out.”
“Drag his ass over here!”
Collins, he heard, from the dark side of Pluto, barking orders. Instinctively, Bolan reached for his side arms, but found only empty holsters. He lifted his leg, then discovered they’d also taken his commando dagger.
Hands next, more like claws, dug into his shoulders, dragged him ahead. He tasted the bitter copper of his own blood, his face burning where deep gashes were already slashed open around his eyes and mouth.
If he was going to die, the soldier decided to die on his feet, fighting to the last bitter breath.
He craned his head, made out Collins standing by the cell door, the bastard grinning at him through the mist, chucking something up and down in his hand. A combination of fear, adrenaline, superb conditioning and raw willfulness cleared Bolan’s limbs of a good deal of sludge. They were laughing, cursing him still, when he galvanized to his feet.
“Jesus!”
Warlock was surprised as hell they hadn’t beaten him unconscious, as the soldier whiplashed an elbow over his mouth. He followed up with a hammerfist, cracking Cyclops in his good eye, staggering the bastard. A two-foot charge and Bolan buried his toe in Collins’s breadbasket, jackknifed the Cobra leader, nearly dropped him to his knees. The trouble was, Bolan knew he was too far gone, the world threatening to spin out from under him, double vision turning three attackers into six.
The punch to the back of his skull erupted another round of shooting stars, the fist to his kidney threatening to spew vomit as he felt the invisible knives tear clear to his sternum, back down to his toes. Hands dug into his shoulders, Collins cursing but sounding like some whiny kid as he sucked wind, and Bolan took the edge of the bars to the side of his face. It was a strange, sick feeling of disembodiment next, felt his legs moving in a sort of bike-pedal motion as he was run into the cell, then body-slammed through some heavy object with such force whatever they’d hammered him through splintered and collapsed. He was facedown
, pressed against cold concrete.
“Let me at him!”
It was Collins, alive and raging, the air back in his lungs.
Bolan faded, in and out, barely felt the punches.
“Come on, Major!”
“Give us some room!”
“Fuck off!”
There was no air in his lungs, no life in his limbs. With the NARCON still cruising through his system, with men who were probably just as skilled with their fists as he was but who were amped up with murder in their hearts, Bolan knew it was beyond hope.
“Go get it. We’re outta here.”
Somehow he held on, the world spinning off its axis, just the same. He shuddered up on an elbow, sharp objects digging into his side. He shimmied up, back against the wall, saw two misty specters outside the bars, the door slamming shut with a snick as it latched.
This was it.
Bolan waited for the bullet to end it for good, but it never came.
As he sucked air back into burning lungs, deep intakes that told him that somehow, miracle of miracles, no ribs were broken—though every inch of his side and back and stomach ached and burned—his vision cleared enough to find Cyclops at the bars. There was something in his hand—a black satchel? Bolan wondered what was coming next.
“I still say you let me at least pump one in his gut, Major.”
Collins shook his head. “Nah. He’ll be dead soon enough, and this will be sweeter than just letting him bleed to death. What are you waiting for? Toss it.”
Bolan would have sworn he saw the sack pulsing or thrashing with something inside fighting to get out, would have…
The soldier knew what was coming, and tensed. Cyclops unknotted the cord, grabbed the bottom of the sack. A flick of his wrist, and Cyclops sent the cobra airborne. They were laughing, as it coiled along on the floor, Bolan watching the serpent, but his vision was blurring from NARCON and the pummeling. He tried to stand, but there was no feeling in his legs, no strength anywhere. He watched the serpent as it wound a foot or so closer, then stopped, rising, as if thinking about something.
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