A grenade bounced down the alley toward them

Without hesitating, Rosli stepped forward and planted a firm toe-kick with impeccable accuracy. The grenade whipped back the way it had come.

“Down!” Bolan ordered.

They hit the deck. The grenade exploded in the alley mouth. Bolan counted to three, his ears ringing from the blast, then surged up with the Beretta 93-R in both hands.

He advanced on the alley mouth. The bodies of the shooters he and Rosli had already killed were splayed in gruesome wreckage, torn by the explosion. Bolan had seen enough carnage in his lengthy personal war that the sight did not unnerve him, but he would never truly be used to it; no sane human being ever became completely inured to death and destruction. The Executioner simply did what he had to do, and took in measured stride the dead men he left in his wake—men who tried to take his life, or the lives of good men, women and children. If at some time Mack Bolan was held to account, if his tally were to be judged, he would stand unafraid before whatever power that might be.

But that day of judgment would not be this day.

Raw Fury

The Executioner®

Don Pendleton

www.mirabooks.co.uk

They have not wanted peace at all; they have wanted to be spared war—as though the absence of war was the same as peace.

—Dorothy Thompson

1893–1961

It has been said that if you want peace, you must prepare for war. To be prepared for armed conflict is not enough, however. To live in peace, we must have the will to fight.

—Mack Bolan

THE MACK BOLAN LEGEND

Nothing less than a war could have fashioned the destiny of the man called Mack Bolan. Bolan earned the Executioner title in the jungle hell of Vietnam.

But this soldier also wore another name—Sergeant Mercy. He was so tagged because of the compassion he showed to wounded comrades-in-arms and Vietnamese civilians.

Mack Bolan’s second tour of duty ended prematurely when he was given emergency leave to return home and bury his family, victims of the Mob. Then he declared a one-man war against the Mafia.

He confronted the Families head-on from coast to coast, and soon a hope of victory began to appear. But Bolan had broken society’s every rule. That same society started gunning for this elusive warrior—to no avail.

So Bolan was offered amnesty to work within the system against terrorism. This time, as an employee of Uncle Sam, Bolan became Colonel John Phoenix. With a command center at Stony Man Farm in Virginia, he and his new allies—Able Team and Phoenix Force—waged relentless war on a new adversary: the KGB.

But when his one true love, April Rose, died at the hands of the Soviet terror machine, Bolan severed all ties with Establishment authority.

Now, after a lengthy lone-wolf struggle and much soul-searching, the Executioner has agreed to enter an “arm’s-length” alliance with his government once more, reserving the right to pursue personal missions in his Everlasting War.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

1

Mack Bolan felt sweat bead on his chest and under his arms as the tropical heat of Kuala Lumpur struck him with palpable force. Temperatures were up slightly, according to the canned news reports televised in the main terminal, but while Bolan found the high nineties a bit on the warm side, it wasn’t unbearable. The change was a shock after the air-conditioning of the airport, but the day’s highs would not vary much in the city’s year-round equatorial climate. If the operation went as planned, for that matter, he wouldn’t be in Malaysia long enough to care.

He was glad to leave the frustrating congestion of the airport and picked up his pace accordingly. Glancing at his watch, he verified that he was still on schedule. The operation was tight, because it had to be. He had been aware of the numbers falling for the entire flight from the United States.

Bolan was dressed for the climate in a pair of tan cargo pants, lightweight hiking boots and a loose, short-sleeved khaki shirt that billowed about him in the humid breeze. It was bright outside the terminal; he took a pair of mirrored, aviator-framed sunglasses from his shirt pocket and put them on.

The man known to some as the Executioner ignored the insistent clerks behind the taxi counter, knowing that other arrangements had already been made for him. Bolan allowed himself a small, tight smile as he imagined their dismay. He was no stranger to the taxi scams outside Kuala Lumpur’s International Airport, or outside the airports in dozens of other countries around the globe. Had he been left to his own devices, the Express Rail Link might have been an option, but he’d been warned to avoid that, too.

Outside the terminal, a line of taxis waited. Bolan glanced at his watch again. It was exactly two in the afternoon.

As if on cue, a battered, livery-marked Hyundai separated itself from the queue and roared around the lead vehicle to stop directly in front of Bolan. The car was dragging its muffler behind it, but the driver seemed not to notice. Behind him, the cabbie whose fare had just been stolen leaned on his horn, shouting a stream of what were probably profanities. Bolan did not speak the language but assumed it was Malay. Then the driver switched to English, leaving no doubt in the soldier’s mind as to the man’s intentions. Bolan remembered something from the tourism pamphlets on the flight; English was taught commonly in Malaysian schools.

“Get in, get in,” the driver said, leaning toward the open passenger window. “Your friend Hal says hello.”

Bolan got into the passenger seat. The taxi growled as the driver put the accelerator to the floor, causing the little car to shudder and buck as it pulled away from the outraged cabbie in the rearview mirror.

“And you are?” Bolan raised an eyebrow as his driver pushed the Hyundai through the dense city traffic, cutting off other drivers with reckless abandon.

“You may call me Rosli,” he said. His English was excellent, with just a hint of an accent. “You are Mr. Cooper, yes?”

“Yes,” Bolan nodded. Matt Cooper was a cover identity he frequently used.

Rosli was of slight build, with a shaved head and a dark complexion. Deep laugh lines made him look older than he probably was. He wore a pair of lightly tinted, round sunglasses, a loose, beige, short-sleeved shirt and a pair of knee-length shorts. Bolan caught a glimpse of his sandaled feet as the man tromped the accelerator for all he was worth.

They drove in silence for a while, Bolan taking in the cityscape. He could see the glass-shelled Petronas Towers in the distance, at one time the tallest buildings in the world. The city was a mix of modern and post-modern architecture, with a healthy dose of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Colonial mixed in.

“I am surprised,” Rosli said finally, “that you are so trusting. I was led to believe you were…a dangerous man. How do you know I am not sent to, what is the word…waylay you?”

“If you were,” Bolan said casually, “I’d kill you, take the wheel and use the curb to bring the car to a stop.”

Rosli opened his mouth to say something, caught something in Bolan’s expression and thought better of it. Finally, he laughed. “Fair enough, Mr. Cooper,” he chuckled. “Fair enough. I do believe you would, too.”

Bolan did not comment.

“We will be at the school within ten minutes, depending on the traffic,” Rosli said, darting around a small panel truck. “There is no time to waste. Your airdrop could not have come too soon.”

“I wouldn’t call a commercial flight an air drop,” Bolan said.

“First class,” Rosli said, “and faster than we could have arranged a charter.”

“Luck,” Bolan said.

“Providence,” Rosli said with a grin. “And therefore the same thing. Regardless, we shall have you in place as quickly as possible, which is not soon enough. You will find what you requested under your seat. You will be pleased to see that everything is there. It was not easy. Your request was very specific. Very difficult.”

Bolan nodded. He reached under the passenger seat to retrieve the olive-drab canvas messenger bag hidden there. He put it on his lap, below the level of the passenger-side windowsill, and inspected the contents.

The bag contained a Beretta 93-R machine pistol. There was also a stainless steel .44 Magnum Desert Eagle. A sound-suppressor and a leather shoulder-harness rig for the Beretta, several loaded magazines and a KYDEX inside-the-waistband holster for the Desert Eagle rounded out the bag’s contents. The Executioner checked the action of one pistol, then the other, before loading both weapons and chambering live rounds. He set both guns on his lap.

In one of the outer pockets of the bag, Bolan found a locking stiletto with a six-inch blade. He pocketed the knife and shrugged into the shoulder harness under his shirt, holstering the Beretta and clipping the Desert Eagle in its holster behind his right hip. He slung the bag across his body, where it could hang on his left side.

Rosli had watched all this activity with interest. “You are impressively armed, Mr. Cooper,” he said. “I am told the weapons were test-fired yesterday, and all is in order.”

Bolan again made no comment. Either the guns would work or they wouldn’t. He didn’t like fielding gear untested by him or the Farm’s armorer, John “Cowboy” Kissinger, but there was nothing to be done about it and no time not to do it. Mentally shrugging, he looked at Rosli and inclined his chin. When the Malaysian operative offered nothing, Bolan said, “And you?”

“A revolver, by my belt buckle,” Rosli said, shrugging. “It is enough.”

“It might be,” Bolan said grudgingly. “It might not. That’s going to depend.”

“On what?” Rosli asked.

“Your proximity to me,” the soldier said frankly.

“Ah.” Rosli nodded, grinning widely through crooked but bright, white teeth. “Yes, that is as your friend Hal warned me it would be.”

Bolan could imagine the exchange the big Fed might have had with Rosli, whom Brognola had described as a CIA asset of some sort, a local boy in long-distance employ of Central Intelligence. Bolan’s own hurried conversation with Hal Brognola had taken place by phone only scant hours before, most of it occurring as Bolan was racing to make the international flight that was, simply by good fortune, scheduled to leave within the half hour. Had Bolan not been concluding some…business…in New York City that put him within a breakneck cab ride to JFK, he’d never have made it. As it was, the hundred dollars he’d tipped the cabbie before the ride had gotten him to the airport with no time to spare despite his near-suicidal driver’s most earnest efforts.

“Striker,” Brognola had said, using Bolan’s code name, “you’re needed in Malaysia. Are you still in New York?”

When Bolan had acknowledged that, yes, he was, Brognola had asked him to catch the nearest cab as fast as he could for the airport, telling the soldier he would explain on the way.

“Okay, you’ve got my attention, Hal,” Bolan had told him, hanging on for all he was worth as his taxi driver burned rubber while weaving in and out of traffic. “I’m on my way.”

“There’s a hostage situation in Kuala Lumpur,” Brognola had explained. “An exclusive private school. It was seized by guerillas today.”

“That sounds bad, Hal—” Bolan nodded, even though the big Fed couldn’t see him and the very focused cabbie couldn’t hear him and wouldn’t care “—but that also sounds like a local problem.”

“It would be,” Brognola said, sounding tired. “But nothing is ever that simple, these days. Have you heard of—” Brognola paused, then recited as if reading from something “—Dato Seri Aswan Fahzal bin Abdul Tuan?”

Bolan blinked. To Brognola, he said, “I can’t say I have.”

“He’s the prime minister of Malaysia,” Brognola said. “Dato Seri is his title. Abdul Tuan was his father, if it matters.”

“So this…Aswan Fahzal, is it?” Bolan said. “What’s his connection?”

“He’s referred to as just Fahzal, usually,” Brognola said. “He swept into power last year amid a flurry of jingoistic fervor, as the media like to call it. His Nationalist Party has some pretty nasty overtones. ‘Malaysia for Malaysians,’ that kind of thing.”

“Understood,” Bolan said, his jaw clenching slightly.

“Well, Fahzal’s government has been putting pressure on Malaysia’s ethnic Indian and Chinese populations, of which there are significant numbers,” Brognola continued. “It started slowly and was initially dismissed as caste-system politics or simple government favoritism. When it got worse, people started to complain, in the United Nations and on the international grassroots scene. I know the folks involved tried to get the attention of Amnesty International, among others.”

“Did they?” Bolan asked.

“Not to the satisfaction of a very vicious few, apparently,” Brognola said. “A new and violent Malaysian rebel group has risen up over the last, oh, six months. The members call themselves what translates roughly to something like, ‘Birth Rights.’ The Farm tagged the group ‘BR’ for simplicity’s sake, because a few of the international terrorist-tracking groups call it that. The Malaysian government has taken to calling it that, too, for the sake of convenience, if nothing else, at least when they refer to it in English. I couldn’t say about the Malay translation.”

“I’m with you so far,” Bolan said.

“BR has claimed responsibility for taking and holding the school,” Brognola said. “If history is any guide, this will not end well. BR may claim to have noble goals, but its members have shown themselves to be terrorists. They’ve staged dozens of actions over the past few months, and in each case, innocents have died, and died hard. Lots of those have been children. BR likes to target young people to make the parents pay. It hasn’t hit the international news because Fahzal’s government has covered it up, suppressed it in the local media, but word has filtered out through other channels.”

“You said BR has taken a school.”

“I did. Among the VIPs who have children in that school is the prime minister himself. His son, Jawan, was the explicit target of the rebel action. They’ve threatened to kill him, not to mention the other students, if Fahzal does not publicly repudiate the Nationalist Party’s agenda and then publicly step down. The crisis has been dragging on, with the terrorists periodically issuing demands. But, while the threat against Fahzal’s son is in force, the government won’t send anyone in to break the stalemate. The terrorists are dug in but good and there’s no telling what defenses they’ve rigged on-site. The longer the standoff goes, the greater the chances that it will end with something deadly on a massive scale. Something’s got to be done to break it.”

“You know I don’t like to see that kind of thing,” Bolan acknowledged, “but I still don’t see what our involvement is. It still sounds like something for the locals to work out for themselves.”

“As I said, it would be,” Brognola told him, “if not for Malaysia’s somewhat delicate diplomatic involvement in Southeast Asia.”

“And that is?” Bolan asked.

“For all its faults internally,” Brognola said, “Fahzal’s government has been a very strong one. Malaysia is doing well economically and, until now, the nation has been very stable. Malaysia’s neighbors are anything but stable at the moment. Border tensions between Thailand and Cambodia are threatening to spill over into Burma and further destabilize that country, which is having its own problems getting along with its rival and neighbor, Bangladesh. Fahzal’s government has extended feelers to both Burma and Bangladesh to see if it can help mediate the dispute, and they’ve been asked, not for the first time, to play diplomatic go-between for the Thais and Cambodians. As far as we can tell, it’s working, too. Fahzal’s diplomatic corps has managed to get all the parties to their respective tables for a series of premeeting confabs, ironing out the ground rules for the eventual peace talks.”

“What does Fahzal get from all of that?” Bolan asked.

“It makes him look like a big wheel on the international scene,” Brognola said. “If Malaysia can orchestrate a lessening of tensions among its neighbors, it can stabilize the entire area. That’s good for its economy, good for Fahzal’s reputation, good for the nation’s status around the globe and good for Fahzal’s chances of reelection. Plus he gets invited to all of the best UN parties.”

“I can imagine,” Bolan said without humor.

“There’s a Chinese and Indian ethnic ghetto, of sorts, that has sprung up over the last year roughly equidistant from Petaling Jaya and Kuala Lumpur,” Brognola said. “It’s not pretty—conditions are terrible, and the residents have been deliberately herded there by pressure exerted through Fahzal’s government and his internal security forces. Those forces are hired thugs who answer only to Fahzal and a control hierarchy loyal to him. They’re colloquially referred to as the Padan Muka. I’m told it translates to something like, ‘Serves you right.’”

“Charming,” Bolan said.

“Fahzal has dispatched the Padan Muka to roust ethnic Chinese and Indian Malays throughout Kuala Lumpur and its satellite urban areas,” Brognola said. “It’s getting bad, and it’s going to get worse. If Jawan bin Aswan Fahzal is not returned unharmed Fahzal and the Padan Muka are threatening to raze that ghetto. Specifically, they’re going to firebomb it out of existence and murder everyone within it. Padan Muka forces and Malaysian firefighters are being stationed around the perimeter of the ghetto. Nobody’s being let in or out.”

“I think I see where you’re going with this,” Bolan said. “Fahzal and his government are the linchpin.”

“Exactly right,” Brognola said. “Bad as he is, the stability of Fahzal’s government is vital to the stability of Southeast Asia. If Fahzal gives the order to kill those people, it’s going to touch off an ethnic civil war in Malaysia. That could spread to the neighboring nations, but even if it doesn’t, Malaysia’s inability to mediate the border disputes between its neighbors will probably lead to Thailand, Cambodia, Burma and Bangladesh falling to each other’s throats again. The entire region will destabilize, and I don’t have to tell you that it could have a far-reaching impact for the rest of the world.”

Bolan lowered his voice, to be certain the cabbie would not overhear—though this did not seem likely over the road noise, the howl of the cab’s much-abused engine and the cabbie’s own stream-of-consciousness swearing, intent as he was on earning his lavish tip. “So I just have to stop BR from destabilizing the country, rescue Fahzal’s son so Fahzal won’t commit mass murder and prop up a potentially genocidal regime because to do otherwise would lead to widespread economic and political unrest throughout the entire region.”

“And you have to do it,” Brognola said without missing a beat, “while dealing with Fahzal’s people, who will be trying to kill you the whole time.”

“And that is because?”

“The CIA has certain networks and assets in Malaysia,” Brognola said. “One of them will act as your guide when you hit the ground. We believe we can trust him. But chances are that Fahzal’s people know about him and will, by extension, know about you as soon as your plane hits the tarmac. We’ve got no official standing in Malaysia, Striker. They tolerate our involvement only grudgingly, and then only because Fahzal isn’t quite ready to earn the enmity of the United States directly.”

“Then he should stay out of my way,” Bolan commented.

“The CIA’s network in Malaysia is…porous…at best,” Brognola said. “They’ll know why you’re there, and they won’t give a damn that you’re trying to help. Fahzal’s out to prove his country can compete with the big boys. He won’t want you there. We suspect he’s got plenty to hide that he doesn’t want us to know. We believe he’s concerned about what a random element—you—might be able to uncover. He’ll be looking to put you in an unmarked grave somewhere in the countryside just as fast as he can make and take you.”

“The Man must know that it’s going to get bloody, if that’s the playing field,” Bolan said. “I may have to work around Fahzal’s government in order for the country to remain stable, but I’m not going to pull any punches if his people are trying to kill me.”

“Nor should you,” the big Fed said. “Make no mistake, Striker. We want you to do what you do. Just make sure at the end of the day that the country doesn’t explode. Stop BR. Stop Fahzal without taking him down completely. I’ll be working from here to handle the rest, behind the scenes. Just keep the peace, however you have to do it. That’s the goal.”

“All right, then, Hal,” Bolan had said. “Just get me there.”

“Your tickets will be waiting at the counter,” Brognola said. “Good hunting, Striker.”

And that had been that.

Now, Bolan was in another cab, a world away from the streets of New York, in the middle of a bustling city that was no less vibrant—and far more dangerous, for him.

“Mr. Cooper,” Rosli said, breaking Bolan from his reverie, “I believe we have a problem.”

“The two taxis following us?” Bolan asked. He had been watching through the side mirror. The two cars had been trailing them since they left the airport.

“Yes,” Rosli said, grinning. “You do not disappoint me, Mr. Cooper. They are moving up.”

The two trailing car increased their speed, suddenly, horns bleating to clear other traffic as the twin vehicles moved up on either side of Rosli’s cab. Bolan glanced left, then right, and had just enough time to see the muzzles of the submachine guns poking from the open windows of the two cars.

“Break left, now!” Bolan ordered.

Rosli shot him a glance, not understanding.

Bolan reached out and grabbed the steering wheel.

As the cab’s tires squealed in protest and the vehicle careened toward the fender of the leading enemy, the submachine gunners in the trailing cars opened up, spraying Rosli’s cab with gunfire.

The crash was deafening.

2

The sound of rending metal and shattering glass was nothing the Executioner hadn’t heard before. As Rosli’s cab ground its nose into the side of the closest of the pursuing cars, Bolan kicked at his door savagely. It took three kicks to force the tortured passenger-side door open, but then he was hitting the pavement rolling as the two crippled vehicles shed their momentum, limped across the street and collided with the far-side curb. Bolan’s .44 Magnum Desert Eagle was in his fist as he rounded on the wrecked enemy vehicle.

He caught sight of movement from inside the taxi and began triggering 240-grain hollow points into the passenger compartment. The heavy rounds tore through the vehicle with merciless efficiency, pulping the gunners who were struggling to bring their automatic weapons to bear.

Bolan advanced. As he neared the taxi, now a tomb, he heard Rosli shout.

“Cooper! Down!”

He hit the ground without hesitation. A burst of automatic fire burned the air where he had been standing. The second taxi was coming around for another pass, the shooters inside spraying and praying as their driver cut across traffic with reckless abandon.

The Executioner was only too aware of the civilian traffic filling the busy city street. This was no place for a firefight. They were near an alley, the space between two large colonial-style buildings. He ran and reached into the open passenger door, grabbed Rosli—who was still behind the steering wheel crouched as low as he could get—and dragged him by his shirt through the opening, to the street.

“Back! Back!” Bolan shouted. Rosli got the idea fast enough and, with his revolver in his fist, traded fire with the drive-by gunners while Bolan dragged him into the alley.

“It will not take them long to—”

“No, it won’t,” Bolan said, cutting the man off. He was already holstering the Desert Eagle and drawing his Beretta 93-R machine pistol. He slapped the 20-round magazine to be sure of its fit and extended the weapon’s small forward grip, flicking the selector switch to three-round burst.

Bolan brought the Beretta up. The gunners weren’t terribly smart. Their unsuccessful vehicular assault had told him that much. The enemy cars had outnumbered Rosli’s taxi and were of at least equal power and weight. It should have been a lot harder to defeat them than it had been. The shooters inside the car had been too slow on the mark, as well, or he’d never have been able to stop them all before they could effectively return or preempt his fire. He didn’t know who the enemy was, though Brognola’s warning about the Padan Muka kept rolling around in his brain. If these were the best Prime Minister Fahzal could field for brownshirts, the Executioner wasn’t very impressed so far.

He raised his mental estimation of them a moment later when the first of the gunners entered the alley, one high, one low, already shooting. He realized they were armed with mini-Uzis. The deadly automatic weapons spat tongues of flame in the relative shadow of the alley. The sound of the brass spilling onto the pavement was lost in the roar of the guns.

Pressing himself against the wall of the alley, Bolan gave Rosli a helpful shove to push the man against the opposite wall. Rosli was smart enough to crouch low and take careful aim with his revolver. He picked off one of the shooters as Bolan extended his right arm, back against the wall, and took aim at another of them, feeling the automatic gunfire whistle past his face mere inches from his flesh.

The Executioner triggered a tri-burst that stitched the second man center-of-mass. The gunner fell without a sound, dead before he hit the ground. Bolan began to back up, sliding along the wall, aware that his movement would give him away and that he would have to be ready for that.

Two more gunners ducked into the alley, first firing blindly around the corner with their Uzis, then following the guns and rounding the corner. Rosli fired but missed. Bolan caught one man in the face with a three-round burst, then tracked and shot the next man. A grenade pinged off the far wall, thrown from the alley mouth, and bounced down the narrow space toward them.

Rosli was closer. He saw the grenade and, without hesitating, stepped forward and planted a firm toe-kick with impeccable accuracy. The grenade whipped back the way it came.

“Down!” Bolan ordered.

The grenade exploded in the alley mouth. Bolan counted to three, his ears ringing from the blast, and popped up with the Beretta 93-R in both hands.

He was concerned about shrapnel, about any civilians nearby who might have caught that grenade blast. He couldn’t fault Rosli for his fast action; the man had saved their lives. Had Bolan been closer he would have tried to direct the grenade farther up the alley rather than toward the open street, but he would not criticize the CIA operative; there was no point in second-guessing life-or-death combat decisions made in the heat of battle, done and over.

He advanced on the alley mouth. The bodies of the shooters he and Rosli had already killed were splayed in gruesome wreckage, torn by the explosion. Bolan had seen enough carnage in his lengthy personal war that the sight did not unnerve him, but he would never truly be used to it. The Executioner simply did what he had to do, and took in measured stride the dead men he left in his wake—men who had tried to take his life, or the lives of good men, women and even children.

He saw the third car before its occupants saw him. The four men within carried more submachine guns, Uzis all. Bolan braced himself against one wall of the alley, leveling the Beretta and letting his eyes flick left, then right, to check the immediate area for civilians. The streets of Kuala Lumpur were densely traveled and much traffic still sped by, but he saw no pedestrians nearby. There were only the shooters, still unidentified.

Bolan figured they were agents of Fahzal’s unfriendly government, determined to prevent an outside interest from interfering in the nation’s affairs.

He tracked the first man, pressed the Beretta’s trigger and rode out the muzzle rise as the three-round burst knocked the man to the pavement. The other three shooters scattered, spraying bullets in his direction. The soldier backed off, letting the mouth of the alley shield him. Slugs chipped the concrete and sprayed him with a fine, abrasive dust. He squinted against the grit, leaned and returned fire.

He knew the Beretta’s 20-round magazine was starting to run low. He pulled in his elbow to cant the weapon, ripped the magazine free and slapped home a loaded spare from his messenger bag. The deadly snout of the weapon pushed forward once more as he extended his arms, ready for all comers.

The shooters repeated the suicidal charge the men before them had made, plunging into the alley with their guns blazing. They were firing wild, without a real idea of just where their target was, and that was the difference between them and the Executioner. Bolan didn’t fire blindly. Crouching on one knee, he aimed carefully and put a three-round burst into the center of the leading shooter.

The Beretta jammed open.

Bolan did not hesitate. He simply let gravity take the now-useless machine pistol as he dropped the gun and went for the Desert Eagle, drawing the big .44 Magnum hand-cannon in one smooth, fluid motion. The triangular muzzle of the big gun bucked as he triggered a pair of heavy slugs, taking one man in the throat and the other in the chest.

The second man kept coming.

Bolan fired again, aiming for the head. At the same moment, the wounded shooter, a giant of a man, lowered his head and charged. The slug furrowed the would-be killer’s scalp—and then he and Bolan collided.

Bolan pulled the Desert Eagle in against his side, prepared to fire from retention, to shoot the big man off of him, as they hit the pavement and the breath was squeezed from his lungs. He triggered one blast, to no visible effect, and as he did so, he felt his attacker’s arms encircle his chest. The seemingly implacable foe began to crush the life from him.

Bolan tried to shoot again, but something had jammed the Desert Eagle’s action, most likely his clothing with the gun pressed against his body. He was able to get his gun arm free and started beating the man in the head with the .44 Magnum pistol, clubbing him in the skull with all his strength.

There were shots. Though the growing gray haze encroached on his vision, Bolan registered the sound of shots. He began to feel himself losing consciousness, and some part of him understood that he was still hitting his foe in the head with his jammed weapon.

The pressure was suddenly gone. The attacker’s arms went slack, and Bolan drew in a deep, haggard breath. Then the body on top of him was rolled off and Rosli’s face appeared in the center of his field of vision. He blinked past the floating spots of light.

“There are none left,” Rosli said, offering a hand. “We must go, and go quickly. They will be here very soon.”

“Who?”

“Royal Malaysian Police,” Rosli explained. “Someone will have called them.” He looked around, as if expecting witnesses to appear by magic in the alley. They wouldn’t have to; there had been plenty of civilians on the street, and Bolan could hear screams as alarmed pedestrians came upon the carnage.

“Do you have any contacts in the police?” he asked.

“None, I am afraid,” Rosli said as he shook his head. “Most are paid off by Fahzal’s people, and those that are not are corrupt enough in other ways. We dare not be caught. It will be as if these—” he jerked his chin at the dead men littering the alley “—caught us and took us away. It would be to our deaths.”

“Who are they?” Bolan asked.

“This one,” Rosli answered, pointing with the revolver to one of the dead men. “I do not know the others, but this one I recognize. I have seen him often enough, where Fahzal’s dirty work is to be done. I think he is a lieutenant of some kind.” He pointed to the other men. All were dressed in civilian clothes—loose-fitting tunics and light slacks similar to Rosli’s own. “Many times they wear the black-and-brown uniform. Not so now, but I recognize that one all the same. These men are Padan Muka, Fahzal’s private army. I can but assume they were sent to kill me, and, of course, anyone with me.”

The Executioner paused to scoop up the jammed Beretta, throwing it into his shoulder bag. He put the Desert Eagle in there, as well. He made as if to search the closest of the dead men.

“There is no time,” Rosli urged, grabbing his shoulder. “Come.” He released Bolan’s arm and they started walking quickly.

“There is little we can do in Malaysia without the government knowing. There are many spies within our ranks. I trust a few, but not many. Too many of those I don’t are well aware of everything that occurs within the intelligence network here,” Bolan’s contact said.

They were moving swiftly to the opposite end of the alley, and Bolan could hear the distinctive horns of what could only be police vehicles approaching in the distance. Rosli tucked away his revolver, arranging his shirt to cover the weapon in his waistband.

“I’ve got to get to the school,” Bolan said. “We’re already burning time those kids don’t have.”

“I know,” Rosli agreed and nodded. “It is not much farther. We go.”

They emerged at the opposite end of the alley. The police sirens were growing louder, echoing after them. Rosli went to a line of small cars parked nearby and, without hesitation, smashed the window of the nearest one with the butt of his revolver. He reached in, hit the door locks and beckoned for Bolan to join him. The soldier slid into the passenger seat.

Rosli wasted no words. He hammered the steering-column collar loose and began muttering to himself as he reached inside with both hands. The engine began to stutter and then finally caught. Rosli shook one hand absently as if he had been cut or shocked. He hit the accelerator and pushed them out into the traffic that was moving past. It had seemed to Bolan that no one passing by had given them a second glance as the CIA operative stole the car in broad daylight.

“They will be calling the police,” Rosli said, as if reading his mind. “But they would not risk confronting us directly. Why do you think I used the gun? People are not anxious to be heroes here, Mr. Cooper, but neither do they tolerate wanton crime. We will not be able to use this car for long. The police will be given the license plate and description, I have no doubt. It does not matter. We need not go far.”

Bolan nodded.

As Rosli drove, Bolan opened the messenger bag over his shoulder and removed the Desert Eagle. The slide had not gone fully into battery; a round was half in and half out of the chamber. He yanked the big magazine, shucked the unfired round and put the loose round in his pocket, not trusting that it might not be deformed in some way. He racked the slide a few times, making sure nothing was amiss. Then he inserted a fresh magazine and chambered a cartridge before holstering the big pistol.

He was more concerned about the Beretta. There had been no time to get a package to him before he reached the school. Brognola had transmitted to his secure satellite phone several files breaking down the details of the operation, which Bolan had read on the flight to Kuala Lumpur. In those files, he had noted that a care package full of special toys from Stony Man Farm was on its way.

If things went down as they should, it wouldn’t matter for the incursion at the school. The action would be long over before the Farm’s courier reached Bolan in Malaysia.

The slide of the Beretta was jammed. He removed the magazine and discovered that the feed lips were bent, something he hadn’t noticed in the very brief time he’d had to inspect the gear. He tested the top round in the magazine while he was looking, and decided that the spring felt weak, too. He dropped the magazine to the floor of the car. His prints weren’t on file anywhere, and the weapons Rosli had provided would not be traceable to any operation run by the Farm; if some overzealous Royal Malaysian Police officer decided to claim the magazine as evidence, he was free to do so and feel good about himself.

He quickly removed the slide of the 93-R. This was harder to do than normal because Rosli was sliding in and out of traffic like a man possessed. The smell of abused brake pads filled the compact car’s cabin and the engine screamed in protest.

He’d been able to travel with a small tactical flashlight. He took it from the pocket of his cargo pants and used its bright beam to illuminate the barrel and chamber from the muzzle end of the weapon. All seemed to be in order. He was intimately familiar with how the machine pistol should look and operate when properly functional. The finish had been badly scuffed by impact with the pavement, but nothing seemed damaged.

He reassembled the weapon, worked the slide a few times and, satisfied, started checking magazines. When he checked the spring tension and the feed lips of all of them, carefully, he inserted one and chambered the first round, setting the weapon’s safety and holstering it in his shoulder rig.

“It is my fault,” Rosli said. “I obtained the weaponry specified at your request. I should have been more meticulous.”

“It happens,” the Executioner said. “If gear has flaws, combat exposes them, without fail. And at the worst possible time.”

“Yes, this is true. Your philosophy is wise.”

“Not mine,” Bolan said. “Murphy’s Law.”

“Just so. You are ready?”

“Yeah,” Bolan said. “How long?”

“Now,” Rosli said. “We are here.”

Rosli guided the little car to a halt a block away from where the action was, from what the soldier could see. The two men stepped out of the vehicle.

“Where will you be?” Bolan asked Rosli.

“I thought I would be coming with you.”

“No,” Bolan said, shaking his head. “I work alone for this part. Stay out of sight, but stay close. I may need what or who you know before this is over.”

Without another word, the Executioner strode forward, toward the danger.

3

The school reflected the fact that it catered to the progeny of the wealthy and powerful. The building was an impressive neocolonial structure, four stories, with an elaborate entranceway and a sizable property around it—especially by the standards of a densely packed city like Kuala Lumpur. A parking lot, with a ramp leading to further underground parking, was located at the west side of the building. The cars parked in it were almost all very expensive.

Uniformed Royal Malaysian Police had set up a cordon half a block from the school. From what Bolan could see, coupled with the intelligence data Brognola had provided, every road leading to the school was blocked off. Wooden barricades had been erected and there were plenty of weapons in evidence, mostly Kalashnikov rifles. The intelligence files had included the fact that Fahzal’s regime was a regular purchaser of the Russian surplus arms, and that the first thing the Nationalist Party had done after sweeping to power was to authorize heavy expenditures upgrading or simply multiplying the weaponry used by both the military and law enforcement in the nation.

Fahzal’s internal security thugs would be among those so armed, though apparently the prime minister’s tastes ran to Israeli submachine guns as much as to Russian assault rifles. Bolan saw several knots of men in brown-and-black uniforms that could only be Padan Muka, based on what Rosli had told him. They had the dull, contemptuous look that he associated with goons of that type—people who enjoyed hurting others and who didn’t do much thinking about that, or anything. They weren’t soldiers and they certainly weren’t patriots, not in the righteous sense; they were hired muscle, and they were predators. The nearest Padan Muka triggermen eyed him hard as he passed them, giving him a cold look.

He’d dealt with their kind before, and taught more than a few of them very painful lessons. There was no time to indulge his sense of justice on nonpriority targets, however.

Brognola’s slim dossier had included the layout of the building he was now encountering. On the plane, he had formulated the most basic of plans, which left a lot to chance. He’d made his earliest incursions in his war against society’s predators perfecting his abilities at role camouflage, and what he was about to do was an aspect of that. Fixing his gaze on a point far ahead of him, he looked past everyone who noticed him, as if he were irritated, rushed and focused on getting to some point beyond each of the glaring Padan Muka fighters and police officers. He got past the first set of barriers simply by acting as if he belonged there.

He was counting on complacency. The barricade of the school, and the hostage crisis within, was in its second day. The guards outside, perhaps expecting fireworks early on, would have had plenty of reasons to get bored by this time. They’d have gone from expecting anything to expecting nothing; the human mind sought routine and pattern even when there was no rational reason to expect either.

More significantly, they’d be expecting either violent enemy action or deadly subterfuge. They were focused on the school and on stopping that enemy action from within. They would not be expecting an incursion from outside, nor would they automatically think they should prevent someone outside from going in. After all, how crazy would a man have to be to want to enter a building held by dangerous, armed terrorists willing to threaten the lives of children?

The hard part, therefore, was not getting past the cordon outside the school. As the Executioner nodded and brushed past the barricades, brazenly walking through them as if he belonged there, nobody challenged him directly. He had known it would probably work, but in the back of his mind he had been prepared to shoot his way through if necessary. There was no time to do otherwise, and no viable alternative.

When he reached the front doors of the school, a few of the Royal Malaysian Police officers began to shout at him. It was possible they hadn’t thought he’d do something so direct; perhaps they’d assumed he was simply moving toward the foremost barriers. Whatever they were shouting, he couldn’t understand it, anyway. He figured they probably wouldn’t shoot him for fear of touching off something inside the school.

Probably.

There were three sets of double doors within the front entrance. Each door was heavy, polished wood with brass fittings. The fogged glass of the doors has been starred with bullet holes, probably during the initial stage of the BR capture of the building. Bolan simply put his hand out and, ignoring the shouted protests from the men at the barricades, threw the doors open and stepped inside.

There were two men dressed in camouflage fatigues standing inside the doorway. They turned as he entered, but were apparently too baffled by his sudden appearance even to bother shooting him. They both held well-worn Kalashnikov clones, which they pointed at him.

“Hello there,” Bolan said cheerfully. “Do either of you speak English?”

The door slid shut on well-oiled hinges behind him. The click of the mechanism engaging echoed through the suddenly very quiet hallway.

The two BR men turned to look at each other, their expressions almost comical. They looked back at Bolan.

“I do,” the one on Bolan’s left said. “Who are you? How did you get in here?” His accent was heavy, but his English was excellent. He punctuated his words by jabbing the muzzle of his rifle at Bolan.

“Door was open,” Bolan answered, shrugging. “I’m the negotiator,” he said.

“Negotiator?”

“I was sent to hear your demands, make arrangements for their fulfillment,” Bolan said. “What, they didn’t tell you?”

The two men glanced at each other again, then back to Bolan. “You two are with the group called the, uh, the BR, right? Fighting for freedom for your oppressed ethnic group?”

“We fight the oppression of Fahzal!” the English speaker said proudly. His companion either knew enough English to agree, or recognized the tone; he smiled and nodded with equal pride.

“Yes, by threatening to kill children,” Bolan said. “But thanks. It would have been irresponsible of me not to check.”

As he said the words, Bolan knew both men’s brains would be focused on the dialogue he had created with them, and not immediately on his actions. They had already, thanks to his assertion, formed an opinion in their minds as to his purpose there.

The six-inch blade of the stiletto snapped open in his hand. He swung the knife up and slashed out across both of their throats in turn. Bolan sidestepped to his right, his right hand completing the arc. He elbowed the closest man in the back of the head to drive him to the floor. The other terrorist, the man who had spoken, fell to his knees clutching at his throat. He died with his eyes wide, trying and failing to say something with his last breath.

Bolan bent, picked up the better-looking of the two assault rifles and checked it. He grabbed the spare magazines the terrorists had carried, then took a moment to pop open the second rifle, pull the bolt and drop that bolt into his bag. There was no point in leaving functioning weapons behind him if he could help it.

It was time to get down to business, before those two were missed.

Neither man appeared to have a wireless phone or a walkie-talkie. That meant that either the terrorists were operating according to a preset plan, or they were using runners to transmit messages to the different teams securing the building. Either way, Bolan had just opened a gaping hole in their perimeter at the school’s front door. He had to make sure they were too busy with him to realize that fact. And he’d have to hope that the forces outside didn’t discover it, blunder in and make everything a lot more complicated. They were already going to be agitated, knowing that an unknown quantity had waltzed right past their roadblocks.

He considered the situation as he assessed his immediate environment for more threats. Brognola’s briefing had included some notes on the political climate surrounding the events of the past day and a half in Kuala Lumpur. Ostensibly, Fahzal’s government wasn’t mounting a counterterrorist operation to retake the school for fear of what would happen to Fahzal’s son, Jawan, and to the other hostages. Realistically, if Fahzal was the sort of man who was willing to use his son’s kidnapping as an excuse to carry out a genocide, it wouldn’t be out of the question that he might be prolonging the episode deliberately. Every moment of bad press the BR got was a nail in the coffin of both that group and the Chinese-Indian ghetto between Kuala Lumpur and Petaling Jaya.

Bolan knew it was a standard policy of such regimes. First, you used a common enemy to generate support for your cause, even if that enemy was contrived. Then, you herded all of your supposed enemies into a centralized location, where you could control and monitor them. And finally, you solved the contrived problem by killing the enemies you’d rounded up.

Bolan couldn’t help but think that was the real motive here. Fahzal may not have anticipated his own boy being caught in the cross fire, but the soldier figured the Malaysian prime minister would have found another excuse to raze the ghetto if this one hadn’t come up. If the BR’s brutal activities could be used to paint all of the members of that ghetto neighborhood with the label of child-killing terrorists, it was likely Fahzal would be able to justify his actions with at least some of the international community. He most certainly would be able to use it as an excuse, a rationale, for his brutal tactics at home.

The Executioner didn’t intend to let him get that far.

The foyer, opening up from the double doors, had a small door set at the far end. Bolan cautiously checked this and found a storage closet with a floor buffer inside. He dragged the two bodies into the closet, throwing the now useless Kalashnikov in after them. He paused a moment, then placed the functional Kalashnikov with its magazines in a corner of the storage room, under the mop and bucket standing next to the buffer. Much as the firepower might be needed, he could not risk going full-auto, and he needed to be able to travel fast and light. He eased the door shut. Then he paused and simply listened.

It was eerily quiet inside. He could hear voices amplified through bullhorns outside, probably the police or Padan Muka throwing demands at the terrorists or at the Westerner who had just blundered into their midst. Given that Fahzal’s people, or at least those at the upper levels, knew the CIA had brought in a troubleshooter they didn’t want, the soldier was a little surprised no one had taken a shot at him at some point. Bureaucracy seemed to be working in his favor; even a despotic regime like Fahzal’s had many tentacles, and the dozens or hundreds of right hands didn’t know what the dozens or hundreds of left hands were doing at any given moment.

The sound of the bullhorns was faint through the heavy front doors. Even if they had no reason to want to shoot him on sight, Bolan knew that walking so boldly into the midst of this hostage crisis might prompt a reaction from the police and troops outside. He was, however, gambling hard that it wouldn’t. He could smell politics here. He was going to bet his life that the armed men outside would stay right where they were until Fahzal was ready to move—and not before.

Bolan consulted the intelligence files in his secure satellite phone. On the small color screen he called up the floor plan of the building. It might or might not be completely accurate; the plans were those originally filed for the construction of the structure a few years before. Had those plans been altered during construction, or had the building been renovated subsequently, the information in the soldier’s phone could be flawed. That did not matter. He would work with what he had. This was why Brognola and the Man had chosen him for a seat-of-the-pants, near-suicidal mission of this type. Bolan gave the Justice Department’s Sensitive Operations Group plausible deniability if things got ugly. He could be dismissed as a rogue operative for whom the United States would claim no responsibility. Much more important, he was the type of flexible, veteran combat operative who could roll with a fluid situation and come out on top, trusting his guts, his guns and his sense of intuition to get the job done.

According to the floor plan, the classrooms were located on the second and third floors. The main floor was used for administrative facilities and consisted of small offices. The fourth floor boasted a large auditorium with skylights and roof access.

Bolan put himself in the position of Fahzal’s forces. That roof would almost certainly be covered by snipers, and unless the skylights could be blocked somehow, there would be a clear line of sight to anyone in the auditorium. That would mean the BR terrorists wouldn’t set up in the auditorium, despite the convenience of having a large, open space to keep their hostages corralled. That is, they wouldn’t set up in the auditorium unless they were profoundly stupid. Bolan had no reason to think they would be.

He was left, then, with the classrooms on the middle two floors, and that would make things more difficult. He would have to search room by room, eliminating resistance as we he went, doing it as quietly as he could to avoid alerting the others. The closer he got to the BR troops and their hostages, the more danger there was that he could tip off all of them to his presence. To succeed, he had to retain the element of surprise, but each guard, each terrorist he eliminated along the way, increased the odds of his detection.

Attaching the sound-suppressor to the Beretta 93-R, he made a cursory, hurried sweep of the ground floor, moving quietly heel-and-toe with the weapon held in both hands before him.

There was, according to the plans, another ground-floor entrance ahead and to the right, at the side of the building. Bolan made his way to the middle of the hallway, his civilian hiking boots quiet enough on the polished marble floor. Some part of his brain took note of the extensively carved moldings and ceiling art that decorated the interior of the school. No expense had been spared. The elaborately worked and padded benches that occasionally dotted the walls, outside of the administration offices, appeared to be very expensive, too, though Bolan was no expert on furniture.

He found the access hallway to the side entrance, opposite the metal doors of an elevator that he ignored. Approaching the access hallway, he risked a glance around the corner. There was a fatigue-clad man standing there with his back to Bolan. The Executioner thought it odd that the noise of his conversation with the guards at the front entrance had not brought this one to investigate. Then he heard the tinny sound of music, coming faintly from the guard’s head.

The man was wearing a portable music player. An AK-47 was slung over his shoulder. While he did seem intent on the view through the windows set on either side of the doorway, as if expecting a police raid at any moment, he certainly wasn’t listening for trouble.

Wondering if this really was amateur night after all, Bolan raised his Beretta and pointed the sound-suppressor at the back of the sentry’s head.

“Hey,” he said softly, as he nudged the man with the barrel.

The sentry’s head whipped around. He gasped, sucked in a breath to scream and grabbed for his rifle.

Bolan put a single round quietly through the man’s face. The terrorist folded in on himself and was still.

That was another hole in the perimeter security. Bolan could hear the ticking of the clock deep in his mind, constantly aware of the mission’s time constraints.

He kept going, finishing his sweep, quickly checking for stragglers or hidden shooters among the offices. As he neared the door at the far end of the corridor, which led to the stairwell, he caught a glimpse of movement through the small reinforced glass window set within the fire door.

He crouched low and pressed himself against the wall next to the door. The heavy door prevented him from hearing whomever was on the other side, but it could only be a sentry. Transferring the machine pistol to his left hand, he used the knuckles of his right to rap on the metal door. He knocked quietly but insistently.

The dark-skinned man who pushed the door open was wearing camouflage fatigues and aiming a Makarov pistol. Bolan fired, putting a single 9-mm round through the man’s head. He dropped like a stone.

The Executioner scooped up the Makarov and tucked it into his belt behind his left hip. He had to move; there was no time to worry about the sentry’s body. He had to keep up his pace in order to take the second, then the third floors.

Things had already gotten bloody. They were, he knew, about to get much, much worse.

4

Bolan crept up to the second floor and cautiously opened the fire door leading to the corridor beyond. There was no one waiting. The hallway was as impressive as the ground floor in its furnishings and decoration, but there were subtle differences. Bulletin boards lined the walls, and artwork obviously made by the students was on display. Brognola’s files had said the school catered to children aged roughly seven to twelve; Fahzal’s boy Jawan was twelve years old. The art on the walls was the usual fare produced by children in that age range the world over. Seeing it there, and knowing that BR was threatening those children with death, brought a hard gleam to the Executioner’s eyes. He’d seen far too many innocents caught in the cross fire of power plays like these.

He began working his way down the hall. The layout was simple: there were half a dozen classrooms on each side, spaced exactly opposite each other, with more of the benches he had seen downstairs to break up the monotony. At the center of the hallway was an elevator on one side and a pair of doors leading to the boys’ and girls’ bathrooms opposite that.

He checked each classroom in turn. Each was empty. Satisfied that the second floor was all but deserted, he went back to the stairwell.

On the third floor, there were two guards waiting in the hallway. They were Indian Malaysians, from the look of them, and they wore the same camouflage uniforms Bolan had seen on the BR terrorists to this point. Both men had assault rifles. They were engaged in a heated conversation that Bolan could just barely hear from his side of the fire door. It sounded like Manglish, the curious version of English that the locals spoke.

One of the men turned and apparently caught a glimpse of Bolan peering out through the small reinforced window of the fire door.

Bolan didn’t hesitate. As their weapons came up, he was already throwing open the door. The two were close enough that the heavy metal door slammed into the first of the pair, knocking him into his partner and sending them both sprawling. Bolan stomped, hard, pinning one of them to the floor with a heel to his groin. The man doubled over, still clutching his rifle.

The other sentry was recovering and the muzzle of his weapon was tracking up to Bolan as if in slow motion.

The Executioner was faster. The sound-suppressed Beretta clapped once, punching a single slug through the center of the man’s forehead. He fell back and was still. Bolan turned his weapon on the other sentry, who was looking up at him in wild-eyed terror mixed with pain.

Bolan put his finger to his lips, gesturing for quiet.

A snarl of defiance was the sentry’s response. He jerked his rifle, ready to fire from his back.

Bolan’s Beretta silenced him forever.

He left the bodies. He repeated the sweep pattern he used on the floor below, checking each room in turn, expecting at any moment to find a huddled group of students surrounded by armed BR thugs.

He found nothing.

Once again he checked each room directly, looking for anyone who might be hidden. There was no one. That meant that, in defiance of any logical, rational tactical analysis, the students would be on the fourth floor, almost certainly in the auditorium that dominated that floor. But why? It made no sense.

Bolan reentered the stairwell, careful to check for trip wires or other booby traps. Something wasn’t right.

He emerged from the stairs to the fourth floor. The corridor there was wide and included an outlet for the elevator. Ahead of him, the doors to the auditorium waited. They were stained wood, very tall, with the most elaborate carvings he’d yet seen in this ornate building.

There were no guards. Bolan moved quietly to the doorway, performing a tactical magazine change in the Beretta, dropping the partial in an outer pocket of his messenger bag and inserting a fresh one. There was a very slight gap between the two doors. Mindful that he would be visible from the other side as a sudden shadow if he were at all back-lit, he peered through the gap with one eye, the Beretta held low against his body.

What he saw explained a great deal, and made the situation that much more complicated.

The BR terrorists were indeed gathered in the auditorium. He couldn’t see the skylights from his vantage point, but he now understood why Fahzal’s men weren’t using snipers to shoot the killers inside.

What looked like a dozen adults—probably the school’s faculty and support staff, anyone who was caught in the building when the BR took control—were grouped in a section of the auditorium seating at the center of the room. On the stage, maybe forty students representing every age range of the school’s student body were seated cross-legged on the polished wooden platform. There were plenty of students and teachers not accounted for, because the BR had—again, according to Brognola’s files—hit the school early in the morning, before everyone was scheduled to arrive. It made good tactical sense; they had plenty of hostages and had nabbed Jawan, their primary target, but didn’t have scores of extraneous students and teachers getting in their way.

The BR terrorists moved up and down the aisles, walking off nervous energy, or they loitered about in what were probably assigned sections of the auditorium. Bolan counted at least ten of them, though he knew there might be more he couldn’t see from where he stood.

Several of the BR terrorists wore devices strapped to their chests.

Too small to be suicide bombs, the packages on each man’s chest were just large enough to be transmitters. Bolan eased his secure satellite phone out of his pocket, positioned the lens of the camera built into the phone and snapped a silent photograph of one of the men. He transmitted the image to Stony Man Farm with a single line of text: Urgent, ID.

What concerned Bolan more than anything, and what made the devices on the terrorists’ chests so important, was that several of the huddled faculty members wore what looked like explosive belts.

He did not have to wait long. His phone began to vibrate quietly and he hit the answer button, placing the phone to his ear.

“Striker, this is Price,” Barbara Price said without waiting for him to speak. Stony Man Farm’s honey-blonde, model-beautiful mission controller would be fully aware of just what Bolan was doing, and she would know he was not necessarily free to speak aloud. “I’m transferring you to Akira now.” The voice of Akira Tokaido, the Farm’s resident electronics and computer genius, came on the line.

“Striker, Akira,” he said. He, too, knew not to waste time, or expect an answer verbally. “I enhanced the image you sent us and I believe I have an identification. Those are Iranian-made dead-man’s switches. They’re designed to monitor heartbeat. It is very likely that if one of those men is killed, his transmitter will activate. Effective range is not far, perhaps fifty yards. Are there explosives nearby? If so, they are very likely to be rigged to those transmitters. One other thing—that particular model is very primitive. It is not fail-safe. It can be jammed easily enough, and if it is damaged, it does not transmit. In its normal state it is off, unlike some suicide switches that transmit until the wearer dies or the mechanism is damaged, with the signal loss being the trigger.”

Price came back on the line. “That’s all there is, Striker. We stand ready to assist you.”

Bolan mashed the keys and sent a quick string of text gibberish by way of acknowledgment; Price and the team at the Farm would know what he meant. He closed the connection and put his phone away.

Well, that was that, then. Obviously the terrorists had informed Fahzal’s government of just what would happen if any of their people in the auditorium died. No doubt the transmitters were connected to the explosive belts on the teachers. It was a particularly cowardly act, using innocent men and women as human shields, threatening to blow them apart if the BR came under attack.

Tokaido had obviously known what Bolan would have in mind, to have mentioned the vulnerability of the transmitters. He was hindered only by logistics. He was one man, facing many, and he would have to be very, very precise. Fortunately for those trapped within, there were very few men more skilled with a firearm than Mack Bolan.

This would not be the first time he had done something of this type, testing his marksmanship against multiple targets that required exact placement of his shots. There were far more targets this time, though. Those targets might be in motion and shooting back at him the entire time, and some might be hidden. He would need to identify the transmitter-wearing terrorists while in the heat of battle, and he would have to be very careful to miss none of them.

What he was about to do would require all of his skill and all of his concentration. He would have to rely on years of experience assessing threats, identifying and differentiating targets. He would need every ounce of ability he possessed in terms of his reflexes, his speed, his resolve.

He was ready.

Bolan removed the suppressor from the 93-R. He did not need the added factor of firing through the device, which could cause shots to angle in unpredictable ways. As it was, he knew this particular Beretta fired high low and left; he could compensate for that. Flicking the weapon’s selector to single shot, he drew the Desert Eagle and made sure it was cocked, safety off.

He placed his fingers against the door and tested it. It gave slightly; it wasn’t locked. He backed up, braced himself and drew a deep breath.

His foot pistoned forward and he smashed the door inward with a powerful front kick.

The Executioner threw himself into the auditorium, already picking his targets. He fired the Beretta in his right hand. The slug punched through the transmitter of the nearest terrorist, boring through the device and the heart of the man who wore it.

With his left hand he pressed the trigger of the Desert Eagle, tracking a different terrorist. He fired the big hand-cannon, and the .44 Magnum slug blew the transmitter apart as it punched a massive exit would out the man’s back.

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