Bolan fisted the Desert Eagle, rode out the grenade’s blast

With the killzone secure, the Executioner sprinted toward the alley, ready to back up an old friend with whom he’d spilled more blood during his War Everlasting than he cared to remember.

A moment of eerie silence had fallen, followed by a chorus of anguished cries. Damn!

Before Bolan could take another step, a roar reverberated throughout the canyon of buildings, followed by the tortured sound of grinding metal and a loud crash. A massive front of singeing heat whooshed out, forcing him to involuntarily cover his face.

What the hell had happened to Jack?

Other titles available in this series:

Rampage

Takedown

Death’s Head

Hellground

Inferno

Ambush

Blood Strike

Killpoint

Vendetta

Stalk Line

Omega Game

Shock Tactic

Showdown

Precision Kill

Jungle Law

Dead Center

Tooth and Claw

Thermal Strike

Day of the Vulture

Flames of Wrath

High Aggression

Code of Bushido

Terror Spin

Judgment in Stone

Rage for Justice

Rebels and Hostiles

Ultimate Game

Blood Feud

Renegade Force

Retribution

Initiation

Cloud of Death

Termination Point

Hellfire Strike

Code of Conflict

Vengeance

Executive Action

Killsport

Conflagration

Storm Front

War Season

Evil Alliance

Scorched Earth

Deception

Destiny’s Hour

Power of the Lance

A Dying Evil

Deep Treachery

War Load

Sworn Enemies

Dark Truth

Breakaway

Blood and Sand

Caged

Sleepers

Strike and Retrieve

Age of War

Line of Control

Breached

Retaliation

Pressure Point

Silent Running

Stolen Arrows

Zero Option

Predator Paradise

Circle of Deception

Devil’s Bargain

False Front

Lethal Tribute

Season of Slaughter

Point of Betrayal

Mack Bolan®

Don Pendleton

Rapidity is the essence of war; take advantage of the enemy’s unreadiness, make your way by unexpected routes, and attack unguarded spots.

—Sun Tzu,

The Art of War

The rules of engagement are simple. Hit hard. Hit fast. Don’t give killers time to think or to counter. Strike them with the only things they understand and deserve—lethal force.

—Mack Bolan

To the men and women of America’s security and intelligence services, who put it on the line every day to keep us safe.

CONTENTS

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

PROLOGUE

Baghdad, Iraq, April 2000

Tariq Riyadh stared into the face of a madman and felt rage building. Everywhere he turned in the city, his birthplace, his home, it was the same. Saddam Hussein’s damnable face, his arrogant smile following Riyadh and his fellow countrymen as they went about their lives, trying to coexist with a murderous dictator who cared more about power than people. For years, Riyadh had watched as Saddam ground Iraq, a resource-rich, well-educated society, under his boot heel, killed its people with impunity, made Riyadh’s homeland a polarizing force on the geopolitical landscape.

All that changed this night.

The still-warm desert breeze blew over Riyadh’s face, tousled his salt-and-pepper hair. He stared at the painting of Saddam erected on a neighboring building and smiled at his enemy. The paintings, monolithic testaments to Saddam’s arrogance and narcissism, dotted the country, as innumerable as grains of sand in the desert. Like his fellow countrymen, Riyadh suffered daily under Saddam’s mocking glare, through the ever-present paintings, through the eyes of the Republican Guard, through Saddam’s network of spies, all ready to kill for the slightest treachery, real or perceived.

Riyadh knew his first order come morning would be to tear down the paintings, bring them together in a pile and burn them in a huge funeral pyre marking the passing of an oppressive regime.

He squeezed his left arm against his rib cage, grateful for the reassuring bulk of the Beretta 92-F he carried in a shoulder holster. If all went according to plan, he’d use the weapon only once, a single shot into the dictator’s face, watch fear replace Hussein’s smugness. Change history with a single squeeze of the trigger.

Riyadh smiled and excitement tickled his insides. He stood on the balcony of his apartment, watched as troop carriers, soldiers and citizens milled about him ten stories below. If he shut his eyes and listened, Baghdad sounded like any other teeming metropolis at night. Honking horns, sirens, relentless footsteps, voices—all were audible even at this height. Perched several stories above it all, he couldn’t feel the fear, the repressed anger that gripped the country, gnawed at it like a cancer. It was the righteous anger of an oppressed people, a people with no voice because it had been stolen by a despot.

Riyadh wanted to rule Iraq, to transform it into a progressive state that other countries would marvel at, perhaps even mimic. And he would get his chance to do just that. The Americans’ promise had been explicit—with Saddam gone, Riyadh would step in as Iraq’s president, run the government until Iraq stabilized and then the people would choose their own leader in democratic elections. Pride surged through Riyadh as he realized he’d bring freedom to his people and they would love him for it. He had no doubt they would do the right thing, elect him as president. Over and over.

The impending revolution also would make him a rich man. Unbeknownst to the Americans, Riyadh had been in contact with the Russians and the French, via their intelligence agents, and they had agreed to secretly buy oil from him. He’d undercut the OPEC countries, reduce their clout in world affairs, give rise to a new power in the Middle East. And if he lined his pockets in the meantime, then who was to complain?

Riyadh heard footsteps from behind and turned. A tall man with close-cropped, blond hair and a ruddy complexion stepped from Riyadh’s well-appointed penthouse onto the terrace. Obviously a Westerner, the man had been traveling as a journalist, had even filed stories under the byline Daniel Gibbons for Liberty News Service. Riyadh knew better. Liberty News Service was a ruse, a part of the Central Intelligence Agency’s massive overseas propaganda machine. And Daniel Gibbons was really Jon Stone, a CIA agent.

“It’s almost time,” Stone said. “Come inside. We need to talk.”

Riyadh nodded. Lighting a cigarette as he moved, he stepped inside the apartment, closed the sliding-glass door behind him. A rush of air-conditioned air hit him, cooling the sweat that had formed on his brow and down his spine. He loved his country’s dry, hot climate. But as a member of Iraq’s parliament and the son of a wealthy oil family, he also enjoyed the comforts of air-conditioning. Another man stood in the room with Stone, a mirror image of Riyadh, minus his graying hair, the crow’s feet etched into the corners of his eyes, the soft middle from too many dinners with Iraq’s political elite.

“My brother,” Riyadh said, “it is so good to see you.”

“And you,” Abdullah Riyadh stated.

Stone fell heavily into a chair, causing it to slide back a few inches. Riyadh stared at him and, with great effort, kept his expression neutral. He found Stone boorish, overbearing. Stone, though well educated, lumped all Arabs into a single pile and regarded it as he would dung. In Riyadh’s mind, Stone had seemed an unlikely man to coordinate a coup in the Middle East. Despite the man’s shortcomings, though, he had pulled together the operation with an attention to detail, an efficiency that elicited a grudging respect from Riyadh. Indeed, he was a social clod, but a strategic genius.

Stone’s upper lip curled into a sneer as he spoke. “You two done having old home week, or do I have to waste more time before we can get down to business?”

Angry heat radiated from Riyadh’s face, but he gave Stone a curt nod and sat in a chair opposite the bulky American. Moving with a grace that Riyadh no longer possessed, his brother stepped between them, settled into a nearby couch.

“Our boy is staying at the royal palace tonight,” Stone said. “He’ll arrive in a caravan, probably the third car from the front. My sources place him there between 0100 and 0200. He has a late meeting with the foreign minister. Then he’ll go to one of his other houses, stay for two hours, then head to the palace.”

“You’re sure it will be him, not one of his doubles?” Riyadh asked.

Stone’s face turned a deeper shade of scarlet. He leaned forward as he spoke, underscoring his words by pounding an index finger against the table.

“As a matter of fact, Riyadh, I’m not sure. I can’t guarantee anything. But I am giving you the best information I have. We’ve been dropping wads of cash all over Baghdad trying to find this bastard. I’ve got the best intelligence possible. But if you want a sure thing, walk away now because I can’t give it to you and neither can anyone else.”

“I understand,” Riyadh said.

“It’s real easy,” Stone said. “The target will be most vulnerable while he’s on the street. They’re going to try to sneak him inside, so he’ll forgo the full motorcade. Instead it will be one Hummer in front, the presidential Mercedes in the middle and another Hummer in the middle. My source told me there are going to be helicopters nearby. If something happens to your boss, they’re going to swoop in and blast everything in sight. That’s why I gave you the rocket launchers. Incinerate the Hummers, trap the Mercedes in the middle. Take out Saddam’s car. My people will deal with the air support. Got it?”

“Yes,” Riyadh said, “of course.”

“Do not deviate from the plan.”

“I understand. But what about us?”

“Hide. I’m going to have my hands full getting my own people out of Baghdad. You just have to last a few hours and it’s cool. By morning, the United States and Britain will step in and offer troops to help stabilize the country—all by your country’s invitation, of course. We’ve got others inside your government and military to keep things solid after he goes down.”

“And I will be appointed interim president?”

“None other,” Stone said. He slipped an envelope to Riyadh, who picked it up and started to open it. “Later,” Stone said. “It’s coded instructions to make clear any details we didn’t cover here. You just have your people in position when it all goes down. We’re counting on you. Understood?”

“Clearly.”

Stone came to his feet and Riyadh did likewise. “I thank you for your help,” Riyadh said. “More importantly, my country thanks you.”

He held out his hand and Stone ignored it.

“Look,“ Stone said, “let’s get one thing straight—as long as I walk away alive and Saddam goes out horizontal, I don’t give two shits what happens to you or your country. Washington cares. I don’t. The way I see it, I’ll probably be back here in five years, helping someone else overthrow you because you can’t handle the power, either. So take your olive branch and shove it.”

Stone turned and let himself out. As the door slammed shut, a smile tugged at the corners of Riyadh’s mouth. Stone was insufferable, but a necessary evil. Just like Riyadh’s alliance with the United States. Let Stone shoot off his mouth so long as he helped Riyadh attain his goals.

“We should kill him.”

Riyadh turned, regarded his brother. The elder man dismissed the notion with a shake of his head.

“No,” Riyadh said. “We need him and his people. To kill them would kill our cause.”

“We’ve made a pact with the devil, Tariq,” Abdullah said. “These people are not our friends, they are puppet masters. And once we have done the hard work, they will cut the strings, leave us to die. Please do not tell me otherwise.”

“Have vision, my young brother,” Riyadh replied. “We do not need friends, we need allies. Our goals and America’s are the same. That makes us allies. In politics, you learn that sometimes you must work with those you do not like if you are to achieve what you want.

“Stone’s a killer. You and I, we are freedom fighters. Stone’s friends are soldiers, good men. But he’s a murderer. He knows tonight blood will spill and it fills him with joy. Hopefully, he will not be disappointed.”

CHRIS DOYLE GUNNED the Jeep Cherokee’s engine, wheeled the vehicle through the military checkpoint and breathed a sigh of relief. The soldiers had given him and his vehicle a cursory look, checking under seats and sifting through his camera bag. They hadn’t looked hard enough to find the compartment hidden in the rear of his vehicle, the one containing weapons, radio equipment, black clothes and camou paint. Doyle had made small talk with the men, a pair of foot soldiers, and slipped each of them an impressive amount of Iraqi dinars, enough to expedite the search without arousing suspicion. After all, he had a deadline to meet.

Doyle had told the soldiers he was a French photojournalist for a nature magazine, in the country shooting photos of Iraq’s deserts and the swamplands feeding off the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. He had the forged papers, a dozen digital memory Archers filled with pictures, and a murderous sunburn to back up his claim. Because he’d spent most of his time in undeveloped areas, he’d been allowed to travel without a government monitor.

Goosing the Jeep’s accelerator a little harder, he settled into the leather bucket seats, checked the rearview mirror. A pair of stationary headlights glared back at him, and he caught glimpses of the guards’ silhouettes as they busied themselves with a new search. They seemed disinterested in him, which was exactly how Doyle wanted it.

Hopefully, in a few hours when all hell broke loose, they’d forget they ever met him, not an unlikely scenario. Doyle was nondescript and grateful for it. Average height and weight. Mouse-brown hair cut to an average length. Soft chin. Dull hazel eyes that masked an oceans-deep intelligence that had earned him full-ride scholarship offers to three Ivy League universities. His dull appearance had made him effective first as a Force Recon soldier and later as a CIA assassin and paramilitary operative.

Motoring deeper into Baghdad, Doyle drummed the balls of his thumbs against the steering wheel, began humming an old blues tune. In his mind, he traced the song’s rhythm pattern, thought longingly of his electric guitar stored in his apartment in Langley, Virginia. When was the last time he’d been home? Six months. Eight? He usually lost count after three. By then he’d sunk deep enough undercover that Chris Doyle had ceased to exist, resurrected only for occasional phone calls to his handlers back at Langley. Otherwise he lived someone else’s life. Today a photojournalist. Last year, posing as a United Nations translator so he could kill two Russian diplomats stealing American secrets to sell to rogue nations.

Each time, a perfect kill. Each time, three more stepped up to replace his slain targets. It was as though he was helping thugs and terrorists become upwardly mobile.

Doyle ground his teeth together, felt acid bubble up in his stomach. Face it, he thought, you’re pissing in the ocean and drowning at the same time. He checked the rearview mirror again. Rather than look for pursuers, though, he studied his drawn, haggard face. Bottom line, he was losing his edge. He’d seen his work undone one too many times, either by enemies or friends, to believe he was making a difference. After tonight, he may say to hell with all of it.

Assuming, of course, that he survived tonight.

Twenty-five minutes later he reached a small bank of three-story buildings, the ground floor occupied by retail and the upper floors by apartments. Doyle parked the Jeep curbside, doused the lights and waited. Five minutes passed and Doyle became increasingly nervous. His contact was three minutes late, the man’s apartment sat dark and Doyle was sitting in the open, alone and unarmed. Doyle had decided against carrying weapons on his person, in case soldiers decided to search him.

Five minutes turned to ten and the sinking feeling in his gut continued to deepen as he sat in his vehicle, exposed and waiting. He started to feel as inconspicuous as a man jogging naked through Times Square in New York.

The digital phone resting on the seat next to him trilled once. Keeping his eyes trained on his surroundings, Doyle grabbed the phone and activated it.

“Bonjour.”

“Hey, Frog boy, what’s the word?” Great, it was Stone. Doyle switched to English but maintained his French accent.

“Monsieur Gibbons, how good to hear from you.”

“You get the picture?”

“I have many pictures, but not the one you want.”

“Where the hell is it?”

“I could not find the right subject. Perhaps I was mistaken in my approach?”

A pause. “Maybe. You think you should try again?”

Doyle shrugged as though Stone could see him. “I can take a few more minutes, scan through my images. Perhaps I have something else that might meet with your approval. This picture, it is critical?”

“Damn straight it’s critical. I’ve got a deadline to meet. We need this exclusive picture to make a memorable package. You know what I mean?”

“Of course. But I must tell you, there also are issues with this particular subject. You realize that, don’t you?”

Stone paused, his breath coming in audible, angry rasps at the phone. Doyle imagined Stone’s tiny, ratlike eyes skittering back and forth as he processed the news.

“Okay. That is a problem.”

“Perhaps we should meet for coffee to discuss the issue.”

“Usual place?”

“I look forward to it.”

Stone killed the connection and Doyle deactivated his own phone. He scanned the streets once again, saw no one. A cold fist of fear buried itself in his gut, stole his breath. “The picture” had referred to Brahim Azar, a soldier assigned to Saddam’s security detail. Azar was supposed to give final confirmation about Saddam’s intention to sleep at the royal palace. The plan had been simple—Azar would watch for Doyle’s vehicle and come down to the street when he saw it. If the mission was a go, he’d light a cigarette and then buy a newspaper from a nearby vending box. If not, he’d buy a newspaper and disappear back inside.

As it was, their source was a no-show and Doyle couldn’t help but fear the worst.

Maybe the guy had been conscripted to work late.

Or maybe the mission had been compromised. Regardless, it looked bad. Resting his left hand on the steering wheel, he reached for the ignition key with his right hand.

An engine hummed from behind, growing louder as it closed in on the SUV. He looked up, saw a large vehicle pulling in behind his own, brakes groaning as the heavy vehicle ground to a halt. Doyle muttered a curse as halogen floodlights exploded to life, bathing his SUV with a white glow. Moments later a helicopter hovered overhead, pinning the SUV under a pair of searchlights.

A voice amplified by a loudspeaker boomed from behind. “This is the Republican Guard. Do not attempt to start your vehicle or you will be killed.”

Doyle reached for the best option at hand.

Langley, Virginia, CIA headquarters

“DO YOU THINK the mission’s been compromised?”

“My best source misses an appointment, even though he just has to walk down one flight of stairs,” Jon Stone said. “You do the math, Simmons. He’s been made. We’re compromised.”

“Calm down, Stone,” said David Simmons, a retired Marine officer and mission controller for the Iraq insurgency group. “What does Doyle say about all this?”

“Not sure,” Stone replied. “We just got off the phone a few minutes ago. He’s en route to my position. He was on an unsecured portable phone so we couldn’t talk freely. Besides, who gives a shit what Doyle says? I’m the field commander on this little op, not him.”

Because you’re a damn psycho, Simmons thought. But he said, “At ease. I just wanted to hear his field report since he was at the rendezvous site. Are you getting any other signs that the mission has gone south?”

“One of Riyadh’s crew also failed to show up. Doesn’t answer his phone, either. He may have lost his nerve or he may have turned on us. Hard to know for sure.”

“But you’re checking?”

“Stephen Archer and one of Riyadh’s people are en route now. I expect a report soon.”

“What about the others?”

“Ready to go. They’re just waiting for the word. So what is it?”

“Hang tight. I need to go up a level for this one.”

“I won’t wait long.”

“Ten minutes.”

Killing the connection, Simmons hauled himself to his feet, wincing as he stood erect. Pain seared his midsection, reminding him of the cancer eating away his insides. The oncologist had diagnosed it earlier that month, declared it inoperable. In the best-case scenario, Simmons had two months to live, perhaps three. Within a month, he guessed, he’d be admitted to a hospice where he could quietly wait to die. Setting his jaw, he walked past the banks of computers, the hurried workers that populated the control center. He kept his face stoic as he went. He’d decided to keep his illness a secret as long as he possibly could. If his superiors knew of its extent, he’d probably be put out to pasture within a matter of days. He could sit on the sidelines and watch as someone else within the Agency oversaw Saddam’s downfall; he could watch as they took the credit.

Like hell.

Glass doors hissed as they parted in front of Simmons. He moved quickly down the corridor, stepped into a secure elevator at the end of the hall and within seconds was silently ascending to another level of the CIA’s sprawling complex.

Slipping off his glasses and squeezing his eyes shut, Simmons rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. As he did, his mind wandered to the Gulf War. He’d led a team of Marines into southern Iraq to pinpoint artillery batteries for coalition bombers. Getting past the ersatz soldiers had been easy enough. Most had looked too scared to wipe their nose let alone take on a group of heavily armed Marines, especially a group backed by the thunder and hellfire of coalition fighter jets. Within an hour the group had reached the batteries and prepared to pinpoint them with handheld laser-targeting instruments.

After that, it all had gone to hell. A Republican Guard unit had caught them on their rear flank, taking out two Marines before the American fighters could respond in kind, cutting down the Iraqi soldiers in an unrelenting storm of gunfire. Sixteen Iraqi soldiers had died in the encounter, two Marines. It had been two too many, as far as Simmons was concerned.

He clenched his jaw. Simmons had never lost a man in the field, ever. After that night, war had become intensely personal.

Stepping from the elevator, he walked down a corridor, following it as it jogged left then right. He passed through another pair of bulletproof glass doors, into a control room similar to the one he’d left behind downstairs. After the requisite security checks, he crossed the room and slipped into another, smaller room where several men and women in business suits sat at a large mahogany table with polished brass inlaid trim.

Simmons ignored the other six and focused on a big bear of a man seated at the head of the table. CIA director James Lee returned the stare.

“Good news, David?”

“No, sir.”

“Tell me what’s wrong. And for God’s sake, pull the rod out of your ass and stand like a normal person.”

It was only then that Simmons realized he stood at attention, legs and back bolt upright, arms and hands stabbing toward the floor. Old training died hard, he thought. And he’d caught himself in more than one stressful moment falling back on the order and discipline of the military.

“It’s the operation, sir. We need to talk.”

He paused while Lee dismissed the others in the room.

“Sit down, David.”

“I prefer to stand, sir.”

“Fine. Just tell me what’s wrong.”

“You told me to inform you of any irregularities, right?”

A worried look passed over Lee’s features. Leaning forward in his chair, he rested his elbows on the table and stared intently at Simmons. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

“One of the informants failed to make a rendezvous.”

“His whereabouts?”

“Unknown.”

“So we may have been compromised?” Lee asked.

Simmons shrugged. “It’s possible. But I can’t say that with certainty.”

Looking up from the table, Lee met Simmons’s gaze. “Well, what can you say with certainty?”

“That the informant missed the rendezvous.”

“You already told me that. But what the hell does it mean?”

“Hard to say. The guy might have gotten cold feet. He might be waiting at his girlfriend’s house, hoping the whole thing just blows over. It’s hard to find people in Iraq willing to cross Saddam.”

“Can we track him down?’

Simmons shook his head. “Not a good idea. If we make too big a stink, we raise everyone’s suspicions. Whole thing goes to hell after that.”

“Well, give me something I can work with here. Can we accomplish this mission without him?”

“Possibly. He had the itinerary information. He could place Saddam within a five-minute window. Without that, we may have to expose ourselves for longer periods, probably forty-five minutes to an hour.”

“What’s your comfort level with this?”

Simmons pondered this for a moment. In an operation such as this, with a paranoid target like Hussein, any deviation from the plan was cause for alarm. “Stone, Archer and Doyle are three of our best operatives. They adapt quickly to adversity. We’ve been training the Iraqis for six months. They’re good to go.”

Lee’s eyes narrowed. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m comfortable. As long as my men get the air support they need, they can pull off this mission.”

Lee leaned back in his chair. Lacing his fingers together into a double fist, he stared at his thumbnails, as though lost in thought.

“You bearing a grudge?”

“Sir?”

“I know about the op in ’91. You lost men, good ones. Is that clouding your judgment?”

Anger colored Simmons face and heated the skin of his shoulders and arms. His hands clenched into fists. Lee’s bluntness took him by surprise. “Of course not. I won’t put my men in harm’s way just to settle a score.”

Lee came to his full six-foot, four-inch height and stared down at Simmons. “You’re right,” he said. “You won’t.”

A lurch that had nothing to do with the cancer passed through Simmons’s belly. “Excuse me?”

“No mission. Not tonight, anyway. My orders from the President were explicit—a surgical strike. Quick and deadly. No hint of American involvement in this, period. The Middle East is a goddamn tinderbox as it is. We don’t need to put a blow torch to it by creating another Bay of Pigs. My gut says to abort the mission. If you were using your damn head, you’d see the same thing.”

“Sir—”

“I want those people out of there. Tonight. End of conversation. Don’t get greedy. You’ll have plenty of other opportunities to plug this bastard before retirement rolls around.”

“Jim—”

Lee held up a hand to silence Simmons. “Make the call. I want our people out of Iraq within twelve hours. If you hand me a problem, I’ll hand you back more trouble than you can handle.”

Squelching an impulse to punch Lee in the solar plexus, Simmons snapped ramrod-straight to attention and fixed his gaze on an invisible spot on the wall. “Yes, sir,” he said.

“I knew I could count on you, David.”

From his peripheral vision, Simmons saw Lee smile and more rage bubbled up from within.

Lee ignored his subordinate. Hooking his jacket with two fingers, he hefted the garment and slung it over a narrow shoulder. A moment later he was gone and Simmons was alone, numb.

His stomach burning as he exited the meeting room, Simmons reached into his shirt pocket and extracted two painkillers. He’d been warned not to exceed the dose, that it might impair his coordination, his judgment. So what? According to Lee, his judgment was already flawed and Simmons’s body hurt like hell.

Returning to his own command center, Simmons considered Lee’s words. Lee was a flaming jerk, but he made a good point. A botched coup attempt in Iraq only would solidify support for Saddam Hussein, make him a sympathetic figure on the Arab street. And the coup’s backer, America, would walk away with egg on its face, a superpower unable to topple a two-bit dictator.

You’ll have plenty of other opportunities to plug this bastard before retirement rolls around.

Smug bastard. Lee had no idea what it was like to face death, to feel your heart slam so fast, so hard, that it felt as though it might explode at any moment. He pushed paper all day, moved agents and paramilitary operatives around like chess pieces on the board, one eye on his strategic plan, the other on the next promotion. Not all CIA directors had been that way, but this guy was and Simmons hated him for it.

He picked up the satellite phone and set it in his lap. With the diagnosis of cancer, he thought constantly about death, realized he’d leave nothing behind. His career had been heroic, but shrouded in secrecy and bereft of recognition. His ex-wives hated him and had trained his daughters accordingly. He’d lost contact with most of his military buddies, and only occasionally socialized with the other CIA employees outside of work.

During the last decade or so, the closest thing he had to family had been his Force Recon team. Those men had admired and trusted him, following him into hell time and again. He’d repaid them with death, leading them into a deadly mission and returning home with a handful of survivors.

“Sir, are you okay?”

Simmons looked up and saw a young woman, her amber hair pulled into a ponytail, a wireless headset wrapped around her head. She was one of six technicians and intelligence analysts in the room.

He waved her away. “I’m fine, Dana. Head just feels a little light, is all.”

“If I may say so, you look tired, a bit pale.”

“I said, I’m fine. Dammit, leave me alone.”

The volume of his voice surprised him. The woman stiffened, jerked back a bit as though burned, her pretty features hardening into a cold stare.

“Yes, sir. Jon Stone called two minutes ago, just before you returned.”

“I’ll deal with Stone.”

In his mind, his voice dripped with disdain, like venom trickling the length of a cobra’s fang. Stone was an undisciplined killer, a wild cannon. Maybe he dazzled the brass with his dual master’s degrees and his record of successful missions. Simmons knew better. He knew that every time Stone walked into a mission, he drew innocent blood. Women. Children. Stone cared little as long as he got results. Same went for his buddy, Stephen Archer.

If Simmons’s voice betrayed his hatred, the woman in front of him showed no signs of it. And what if she did? To hell with her and everyone else. Simmons was dying. And the way he saw it, a dying man ought to be able to say whatever the hell he wants.

“Sir, did you hear what it I said?”

The room came back into focus for a moment. “Huh?”

“They lost contact with Doyle, sir. He was supposed to check in with Stone and they lost contact with him.”

Simmons sat upright in his chair. Doyle not checking in? Something about that bothered him, though he couldn’t place what. Why was it so damn hard to think?

“Get out.”

“Sir?”

“Get out. All of you. I need to speak with Stone.”

The analysts and technicians filed from the room, leaving Simmons alone.

Raising the satellite phone, he began to punch in Stone’s code. Knowing he might need to dial it at a critical moment, he’d burned the code into his memory, doing so until he could recite it in his sleep. Still, he had trouble bringing the numbers on the keypad into focus. They blinked and blurred as he tried to pin them down under his index finger.

Finishing the number sequence, he leaned back in his chair, waited for Stone to pick up.

The agent’s voice sounded far away, angry in Simmons’s ear.

“Where the hell you been, man?”

“Do it,” Simmons said.

“What?”

“You heard me. Lee says it’s a go. So, go”

IHMAD JUMA STEPPED from the room and wrinkled his nose, a vain attempt to expel the stenches of vomit, blood and human excrement that clung inside his nostrils. He shut the door behind him, hoping to seal behind it the memory of an old friend who still lay inside, mangled and dying.

Correction: an old friend who had turned traitor. That made the man an enemy, and his impending death a cause for celebration. Perhaps if Juma told himself that long enough, eventually he’d believe it.

Juma moved with clipped, precise strides that belied his twenty years as an Iraqi military officer. As he continued down the hall, he realized the air felt irritatingly cool against his forehead and armpits. He extracted a handkerchief from his fatigue pants. Wiping the cloth over his forehead, he traced the edge of his severe widow’s peak and scrubbed away the sheen of perspiration that lay below it.

The screams and pleadings of Brahim Azar echoed in his mind, as unrelenting as the desert sun. He shook his head violently to shoo them away, then caught himself and looked around self-consciously. None of the passing soldiers seemed to notice his momentary distress, eliciting a silent prayer of gratitude. He’d witnessed more tortures, beatings, rapes than he could recall. The memories of these events flashed past his mind’s eye like a high-speed kaleidoscope, one blurring into the next with almost blinding speed. Years ago the images had disturbed him, yanking him from sleep, prompting violent outbursts against his family. But now he prided himself on his aloofness in the face of others’ agony.

Still something about watching an old friend suffer had disturbed him deeply, wrenching his guts and searing his soul with the unwelcome fires of guilt, self-hatred.

Several minutes later he stood in front of the great leader, in one of the man’s numerous private offices. Silence and cigar smoke hung heavily in the air, the latter stinging Juma’s eyes. His stomach continued churning, this time because of nerves. He’d been close to the leader many, many times, but never the focus of the meeting. The news was grim, and Juma couldn’t help but wonder whether delivering it might cost him his life.

The great leader sat in a high-backed chair, facing a wall. Waiting for an invitation to speak, Juma eyed his surroundings. Bookcases lined the walls, ornate brass lamps shone brightly and a television carrying Iraqi state news reports blinked in the background.

“You bring me information?”

“Yes, sir. Of utmost importance.”

“Speak.”

“A small group of men, including some within the government, have conspired to kill you. They planned to do it tonight.”

“Who are these men?”

“I have their names here, sir.” Juma pulled a manila folder from under his left arm and handed it to one of the guards, who, in turn, set in on the great leader’s desk. “They planned to kill you tonight at the royal palace. Tariq Riyadh is among them.”

“The Americans?”

“The infidels also are part of the plan, yes. They have operatives within the country, all of them posing as foreign journalists, even as we speak. As for our own countrymen, I have dispatched teams to hunt them down, arrest them.”

“No.”

“Sir?”

“Let them come en masse. We’ll kill them together, like a pack of wild dogs. Make an example of them.”

“Yes, sir. Their families?”

“Kill them, too, of course.”

CHRIS DOYLE STEPPED from the SUV, walked into the lights of the Iraqi jeep. He squinted to block out the white glare. Clutching his identification papers in his left hand, he held both hands overhead and wore a grin he didn’t feel.

An Iraqi soldier, one hand clutching the pistol grip of his submachine gun, approached Doyle and snatched the papers from his hands. Releasing the submachine gun, the soldier grabbed Doyle’s arm, spun him and shoved him hard against the vehicle. Over the rumble of the jeep’s engine, Doyle heard the rustle of paper as the soldier pored over the American’s identification documents. Doyle’s heart speeded up and he forced himself to take deep, even pulls of the exhaust-tinged air to keep his thinking clear.

“You are French?” the soldier asked.

“Oui. I mean, yes,” Doyle said, switching to Arabic.

“It says here you are a journalist. Where is your monitor?”

Doyle shrugged, smiled. “I am a nature photographer. The information ministry decided I didn’t need an escort in the swamplands. I am unimportant.”

The soldier grunted, continued poring over the forged papers. “The information ministry obviously erred,” he said without looking. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

“I was supposed to meet with my monitor tonight before I return to my hotel. He was going to check my pictures. I cannot take my film from the country without his approval. Please, I do not want problems.”

“When are you leaving?”

“One week,” Doyle lied.

The soldier’s machine gun hung loose on its strap from his right shoulder. Spare clips were sheathed on his belt. Doyle watched as the soldier, a stout man in camouflage fatigues and a beret, traced a stubby finger across the paper until he reached the line bearing Doyle’s departure date. A moment later the soldier refolded the papers, stuck them in his shirt pocket.

The stout man locked eyes with Doyle. “Why are you here?” he asked.

“I told you—”

“I mean, in this neighborhood. After dark. According to your papers, you’re staying at the Continental Hotel, which is nowhere near this place. Why are you here?”

Doyle felt his palms moisten, his mind begin to race. Crossing his arms over his chest, the American agent leaned down toward the soldier. He gave the man a conspiratorial wink, hushed his voice as though sharing with an old friend. “I‘ve been away from civilization for a while,” he said. “I’m here looking for a little companionship. I was supposed to meet someone.”

Prostitutes frequented the area. Doyle expected the man to understand, perhaps cut him some slack. Instead the man shot him a look that screamed disapproval.

Great, Doyle thought, three hundred, fifty thousand soldiers in Iraq. I get the one puritan.

“I thought you were going to meet your monitor.”

Doyle grinned. “There’s always time for this, my friend. You know?”

“Whom are you freelancing for?”

“Liberty News Service.”

The man opened his mouth to reply, stopped when the door of the white Toyota Land Cruiser opened. A tall, lanky soldier armed with an AK-47 stepped from the vehicle and approached them. With the headlight glare at his back, the man’s face was black as night until he came to within a few feet of Doyle. At the same time, the Soviet-made chopper, which had been cruising overhead in wide, lazy circles, gunned its engine and disappeared into the night, the beating rotors diminishing to a distant hum.

“Who is he?” the tall soldier asked. Doyle recognized the Republican Guard insignia on the man’s tunic and felt a cold splash of fear roll down his spine.

“A journalist,” the first Iraqi replied. “He should not have stopped here unaccompanied. He was told to report directly to his monitor.”

Giving Doyle an appraising look, the soldier spoke over his shoulder to his comrade. “A journalist? For whom?”

“I’m freelance.”

“He’s with Liberty News Service. He told me that.”

A glint of understanding sparked in the Republican Guard soldier’s otherwise impassive stare before snuffing itself out. His lips curled into a smile that didn’t reach his eyes.

“Let him go,” he said.

The first soldier started to protest, but the other man held up a hand to stop him. “His papers. Give them to him and let him go. We must not delay him any longer.”

In less than a minute Doyle was back in his car, stuffing his forged papers back inside his pants’ pocket and watching the Toyota Land Cruiser roar down the road. Doyle’s heart hammered against his rib cage and adrenaline caused his hands to shake. He puffed on a cigarette to help calm his nerves.

Something was wrong. Let him go, the man had said. No looking at the papers, no shaking Doyle down for a bribe, nothing. Doyle knew he should have felt relieved. He didn’t. He felt like a condemned man taking the first step on his last mile.

Keying the SUV to life, he piloted the vehicle to his rendezvous with Stone.

FORTY-FIVE MINUTES later Chris Doyle met Jon Stone and Stephen Archer at an abandoned factory, poorly lit with boarded-up windows. The place stank of machine oil, dust and Archer’s wintergreen chewing tobacco. Doyle had armed himself back at the hotel. A .40-caliber Glock pistol rode in the small of his back, obscured by his shirttails.

“You sure no one followed you here?” Stone asked as he shut the door behind Doyle and locked it.

Doyle shrugged. “Reasonably so. I changed clothes, walked several blocks and took one of our standby cars. Switched papers so I look like a Russian national. That’s why it took me so long to get here.”

Stone nodded, apparently satisfied.

Doyle turned and uttered a curt greeting to Archer, a small, bald man whose skin bunched in heavy folds at the base of his skull. Archer grunted, tamped down his tobacco with the tip of his tongue. The little man stood off to one side, splattering the floor with thin, brown streams of tobacco juice and swirling them with the toe of his boot so they made odd patterns in the dirt. At first, Doyle had considered Archer disengaged, perhaps even stupid. Just like everything else Doyle seemed to encounter, it all was an act. Archer could read and explain complex research reports issued by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or defuse a nuclear warhead without taxing his mind.

Doyle carried his equipment bag on his shoulder. Slipping it off, he set it on the floor carefully. An uneasy feeling in his gut told him something was wrong.

“What’s the extraction plan?” he asked.

“Washington says it’s a go,” Stone said.

“What the hell?”

Doyle whirled toward Stone, found him standing less than eighteen inches away, arms crossed over his chest. Stone coiled and uncoiled his steroid-enhanced pectorals, biceps and triceps, causing them to writhe under his shirt like a bag of snakes. Consciously or unconsciously, it was his way of telegraphing his physical power, an intimidation tactic he employed regularly.

“Simmons says it’s a go,” Stone said. His expression seemed to dare an argument and Doyle was only too happy to comply.

“Is he crazy? We’ve been compromised. We’re as good as dead if we go through with this.”

Stone shrugged. “We don’t know we’ve been compromised. There could be a logical explanation as to why he pulled a no-show.”

“Like what?”

Stone grinned. “He likes the ladies. Maybe he was getting laid.”

“I planned to hand him thirty thousand in Iraqi dinars. I think he could keep it in his pants until he got the money.”

“Calm down, Doyle. You sound like a damn old woman.”

Anger burned hot in Doyle’s cheeks and forehead, but he kept his voice even. “You tell Riyadh that our contact disappeared?”

Popping his gum, Stone stared at Doyle for a minute. “I don’t talk to Riyadh about anything unless I think it’s a good idea. These people are spooked enough without me scaring them some more. They’re about ready to overthrow their leader, upend their country. A handful of guys against a man with an army at his disposal. You know what Saddam does to traitors?”

“I know.”

“He kills their whole family. Wife, kids, parents, even distant relatives. He tortures them, rapes the women. Scorches their skin with branding irons. Like cattle. Cuts off their—”

“Goddammit, I said I know.”

Doyle suppressed a shudder. Maybe it had been a trick of the light, but he swore a glazed look settled over Stone’s eyes as he’d discussed Saddam’s atrocities. Doyle never had trusted Stone, had balked at the notion of working with him. Stone was as unstable as hell. He always made missions happen, nearly always got results. That seemed good enough for Simmons and James Lee, the CIA director.

Stone continued. “We spent a year building up these guys. They hate Saddam and that’s good. But they used to fear him too much to do anything about it. Half these guys figured he was invincible. That any move against the man would cost them their families. We finally got them over that. Now you want me to scare them again just because one guy disappears?”

“Yes.”

“Forget it,” Stone said with a gesture. “I want these people to have their heads where it should be. Same goes for you.”

Doyle scowled, clenched his jaw until it hurt. He stepped a couple of inches closer to Stone and spoke through clenched teeth. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “I’m here because I believe in this mission. If Washington says ‘go,’ I’ll go. But if you want blind obedience, forget it. I’m loyal, but I’m not stupid.”

Deep creases formed in Stone’s forehead and anger glinted in his eyes, but he nodded. “Suits me. I don’t give a shit why you do it, as long as you do.”

“We go to our second alternative,” Doyle said.

Stone’s face flushed red. “We can’t change now,” he said, his voice a growl.

“They may know what we have planned. The alternative is audacious enough that it might work.”

Archer spoke up. “He’s right, Stone. If we’re going to do it, we might as well stick it up their ass. Hit ’em where they least expect it.”

Stone whipped his head toward Archer. “You just stick to your motherboards and let me handle the strategy,” Stone said.

Archer held up his hands in appeasement, flashed a gap-toothed grin. “Just sticking my two cents’ worth in, okay? You’re the strategy genius. I mean, hell, look at where we are so far.”

Doyle sensed the tension crackling between Stone and Archer, watched it with morbid interest. The two men, equally deadly, always seemed a step away from killing each other. Doyle often prayed for that day, but didn’t want to be there when it happened.

Stone turned back to Doyle. “Make these girls get their damn gear on. Let’s make this shit happen.”

“THERE’S BEEN a change of plans,” Jon Stone said.

The words caused a film of perspiration to break out on Tariq Riyadh’s forehead and a cold splash of fear to roll down his spine. A change? At this point? It was unthinkable. What the hell were the Americans trying to pull so close to the moment of success? Perhaps it had been a trick to expose Riyadh and his people. Perhaps Stone and his crew were double agents and the whole plan, the promises of American cooperation, an elaborate ruse to flush out traitors. Saddam was just paranoid enough to try such a thing.

“Did you hear me?” Jon Stone asked. “There’s been a change.”

“Yes, of course I heard you. Tell me more.”

“Forget it. Just send your little brother and his people over here. We need to go to Plan B.”

“Why?”

“Dammit. Just do as I say. It’s not safe to talk.”

“You said these phones were secure.”

“They are.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“You think I owe you an explanation? I don’t owe you shit.”

Though he did his best to control it, Riyadh’s fear had turned to anger. He’d tried being diplomatic with this bastard, but to no avail. He wanted his country to be free, wanted to enjoy the power that came along with it. But every man had his limits. He leaned against the bar, lit up a cigarette and waited.

Stone broke the silence. “Riyadh, when this is all over, you and I are going to go round and round.”

“When this is all over, I will eject you from the country.”

To Riyadh’s surprise, Stone laughed. “Well, you little bastard,” Stone said, “you really do have a spine underneath those expensive suits. Look, it’s like this. We lost a source tonight.”

“Lost how?”

“Didn’t show up.”

“We’ve been discovered.”

“Settle down. We don’t know that. Stop jumping at shadows, for God’s sake.”

Sandwiching the phone between his shoulder and his ear, Riyadh reached under his jacket, withdrew his pistol from its holster and checked the load. A glance at the door told him the dead bolt and the chain were in place. Not that either would do much good against Saddam’s Feyadeen soldiers or his secret police.

Stone continued. “Our source didn’t know all the specifics of the plan, but he gave us Saddam’s itinerary and the motorcade information. That might be enough to put them on to us.”

“Might,” Riyadh said sarcastically.

“Yeah, smart-ass, ‘might.’ You want to push the panic button? Go ahead. I’ll have my people out of here and in Jordan in a few hours. And you bastards can find your own way out.”

“I’m listening.”

“We figure the target will hang in his bunker tonight. We can’t get him once he’s inside the main underground complex, but there are a couple of weak spots in the tunnel system. We ambush him and his people there. Kill the whole lot of them and we’re golden. Don’t worry. We drilled for this contingency.”

“Why not just bomb the bunker if you know he’s going to be there?”

“And attribute it to who? God? Officially we’re out of the assassination business.”

“I see your point.”

“I don’t care what you see. Just send your people to the rendezvous. And you get underground. Once this goes down, we’ll need you to step in.”

“Fine.”

“And one other thing, Riyadh.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m on to you. I did some checking, found out you’re looking to make a little cash on the side selling Saddam’s chemical and biological agents to the Russian mafia and the Libyan government.”

Riyadh smiled. The spy had been spying on him. The man was boorish, but smart, resourceful. Riyadh couldn’t help but feel a grudging respect for the man.

“And what will it cost to buy your silence?”

“We’ll discuss that later. After we finish this op. Who knows? Maybe you’ll get lucky and someone will kill me before it’s all said and done.”

“I should hope not,” Riyadh said, not meaning it.

The phone clicked as Stone terminated the call. Riyadh holstered his pistol and went to get his brother.

DRESSED HEAD TO TOE in a black khaki bodysuit and combat boots, Abdullah Riyadh smeared black combat cosmetics to his cheeks and forehead in tight, circular strokes. Then he picked up the Heckler & Koch MP-5, slammed in a magazine and charged the weapon, realizing how it had become an extension of himself. He could field strip it, reassemble it, blindfolded, just as he could countless other weapons. He had learned to enjoy the feel of the weapon, the sense of power it gave him. The American, Chris Doyle, had trained him to handle it, to fight empty-handed. It had taken more than a year, but Doyle and the other Americans had turned Abdullah and his forty-nine comrades, a mixture of defectors and angry patriots, into a tightly knit band of warriors. Unlike Stone, Doyle had taught the men not just to fight, but to survive, to live long enough to enjoy their freedom. Though outwardly tired and cynical, Doyle seemed to care about the men he was teaching.

Hearing footsteps from behind, he whirled and saw the three Americans approaching. Other men, all outfitted in attire similar to Abdullah’s, stopped their preparations and also stared at the trio.

“Okay,” Stone said, “you girls ready to save the world, or what?”

Abdullah ignored him. Instead he looked at Doyle, who flashed a tight smile.

“We are ready to move?” Abdullah asked.

Doyle nodded. “It’s a go.”

ABDULLAH RIYADH CROUCHED beside the tire of a large troop carrier as he lay in wait for the Republican Guard soldier. Fear constricted his lungs, causing them to ache for oxygen as though he’d just run a marathon. He pressed his knees together to keep them from shaking and gripped the knife clutched in his right hand so hard that it caused his knuckles to throb.

Twenty yards away lay a critical target for the mission. Abdullah knew all too well that Saddam’s network of tunnels and bunkers was almost legendary, both inside and outside Iraq. Fewer people knew of the dozen or so well-guarded emergency exits connecting the tunnels to the surface, all of which led into innocuous structures such as small groceries or apartment buildings. If it ever struck Iraqi civilians as odd that Republican Guard soldiers might fortify such seemingly useless structures, Abdullah knew they swallowed their curiosity. Their very survival depended on such compliance.

At his back lay a one-story structure, a former restaurant apparently sagging under its own neglect. The windows and doors were boarded-over and parts of the red-brick exterior had been scorched black by fire. In stark contrast, the structure bristled with security cameras and halogen spotlights, rated the attention and protection of a handful of elite guards.

During the past thirty seconds, another portion of the crew had successfully killed power for the surrounding four blocks, including the target building. According to intelligence and best guesses by the Americans, Abdullah and his group had ninety seconds once the lights went out to cover the open ground surrounding the building and breach its defenses before backup generators restored power, resurrecting alarm systems, security cameras and lights.

Abdullah knew he and his crew were living on borrowed time. During the past five minutes, his teammates, using a lethal mix of knives, garrotes and poisonous darts, had slain ten Iraqi soldiers, each identified as Republican Guard by the red triangle on his shoulder patch. With the area pitched into darkness, Abdullah had donned a pair of night-vision goggles, plunging his world into green. Four more soldiers closing in on the building, all of them Egyptian mercenaries recruited for the job by Jon Stone, were similarly equipped and considerably more dangerous than Abdullah could hope to be.

The soldier cleared his throat. The sound snapped Abdullah from his thoughts, caused his shoulders to tense. Using a handheld television with a tubular camera lens protruding from it, he snaked the lens around the carrier’s front end, caught a glimpse of the soldier. The man stood, staring straight ahead, apparently fixated on a grove of date palms situated fifty yards ahead. The soldier held a wicked-looking SMG in his left hand, its barrel canted at a forty-five-degree angle as he scanned the area.

Abdullah watched as the soldier pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt, raised it to his mouth. Setting down the television, the young Arab rose up in a crouch, trying hard not to jostle his MP-5 or other equipment as he did. Blood thundered in his ears, making it harder to hear the soldier’s transmission.

“Position ten,” the soldier said.

A pause, followed by a muffled response reached Abdullah’s ears.

“All clear,” the soldier said.

Relief washing over him, Abdullah snatched up the television, secured it on his belt, listened. The soldier had turned and was moving back toward the main building. Rounding the carrier’s front end, Abdullah fell in behind the soldier, closed the distance between them with just a few steps. Reaching around, digging fingers into the man’s fleshy jowls, he gave his adversary’s head a twist and dragged the knife blade across the man’s throat, severing muscles, tendons and arteries.

Blood spurted from the gash and he went limp, dead before he hit the ground.

Sheathing his knife, Abdullah let the soldier fall into a heap. Folding the man’s arms and legs in on his torso, the young Arab stuffed the soldier underneath the armored troop carrier, bunching his remains behind the tires so he’d be less visible.

Returning to his feet, Abdullah stared at his hands. The warm blood glistened bright green on his palms. His stomach rolled with nausea and his head momentarily grew light as the enormity of his actions struck him. He’d killed a man, willingly, mechanically. For a moment the realization and the physical sensations overshadowed everything else around him.

A voice exploded in his earpiece. “Abdullah! Left!”

The young man whipped around, bringing up the sound-suppressed weapon as he did. He spotted a pair of shadows approaching. Each brandished an assault rifle, the barrel tracking in on Abdullah. Without thinking, he triggered the MP-5, drilled the man closer to him with quick burst to the abdomen. Even as he did, his second attacker fired his own weapon, the muzzle-flash tearing a hole in the darkness, the report shattering the silence. Even as Abdullah tried to process the sounds, recognize them as gunshots, he whirled toward the second attacker. He cut loose with another burst from his weapon, simultaneously felt something grab hold of him, stop him cold. Pain seared through his right arm even as the gunshot registered in his mind. His knees buckled, slammed hard against the concrete.

The soldier, face obscured by night-vision goggles, readjusted his aim. Abdullah willed his arm to rise, realized it no longer responded to his commands. Streams of gunfire ripped through the air overhead, causing him to flinch. A storm of bullets ripped into the Iraqi soldier, pounding him back several steps, burrowing into the man’s body armor, but stopping short of his flesh. Although not mortally injured, Abdullah saw the man whipsawed about by the bullets’ force. Another burst smacked into the man’s face, knocking him backward as though tackled from behind.

A pair of Abdullah’s comrades, both Egyptian mercenaries, raced from the shadows and helped him to his feet while a third stayed behind the troop carrier and laid down cover fire. Weapons chatter and muzzle-flashes erupted around Abdullah. Bullets sizzled just past his head, chewing through concrete and ricocheting off the armored hide of the vehicle at his back.

He felt fingers slip into his shirt collar. Someone dragged him to his feet, roughly.

“Go,” said one of the mercenaries.

Abdullah nodded, backpedaled toward cover. Even as he did, he used his good hand to snatch the Beretta 92-F from his hip, snapped off three shots at another soldier. The first two rounds flew wild, screaming past the man’s head. The third, fueled by sheer luck, drilled into the man’s mouth, tunneled through his spinal cord before exploding from the back of his head.

His arm throbbing, his head lightening with blood loss, Abdullah continued moving. God had smiled on him with that last shot, that much he knew. He triggered the pistol again, watched muzzle-flashes pop lighter green in his field of vision. With the Egyptians’ guidance, he made it behind the large troop carrier.

“You’re okay?” the mercenary asked.

Abdullah nodded. “I can treat this myself.”

“You’re lucky,” the man said. “The bullet came out the other side. But you’re losing a great deal of blood.”

Abdullah waved him away. “Fight. We came here to fight.”

The mercenary grinned. “Yes, we did. And I came here for a paycheck. Unfortunately we find ourselves at odds.”

The man jabbed the barrel of his pistol into Abdullah’s forehead. Abdullah raised a hand to swat it away but never connected. Then his world went black.

Amman, Jordan

TARIQ RIYADH SAT at a table in the corner of the hotel bar, nursed his third whiskey. The hotel catered mostly to Westerners and a pianist tapped out an old jazz standard, the melody competing with the dull din of collective conversation, broken only by an occasional burst of laughter. Riyadh watched as the cigarette pinched between the first two fingers of his right hand, burned down to the filter. Discarding it, he lit another. What the hell? he thought. I have plenty of time.

A big man dressed in a summer-weight navy-blue suit, eyes obscured by a pair of mirrored aviator shades, drifting through the crowd. Clutching a glass mug of amber beer, he approached Riyadh’s table, dropped into a chair without invitation. Anger burned in Riyadh’s face, knotted his stomach, as he stared at the man, who was looking past him at a wall. With his eyes hidden and his mouth set in a neutral line, Jon Stone was as inscrutable as ever.

“They’ve killed more than three hundred,” Riyadh said. “The entire team, except for the mercenaries, are dead. They’ve also been hunting down members of their families, killing the men. I’ve lost four cousins and two nephews within the last week. One of them was twelve”

“Sorry,” Stone said, not meaning it.

“Sorry? Sorry gets me nothing.”

Stone shrugged and swallowed more beer. “It happens, man. You knew the risks going in. You don’t like how it worked out? Tough shit.”

“You knew the mission had been compromised.”

“We suspected. There’s a difference.”

“Without distinction.”

“Did you know the Egyptian mercenaries had gone rogue?”

“Maybe.”

“But you went anyway. Why?”

“Orders.”

“Whose?”

“None of your damn business.”

Riyadh thought for a moment of the 9 mm Smith & Wesson hidden under his light jacket, discarded the notion. He couldn’t shoot Stone, not here, not now. Even if he could best the man in combat, he knew he’d never make it out of the lobby without being arrested or shot by the armed guards protecting the hotel. Neither was an acceptable option. He had too much to accomplish.

“I’m making it my business,” Riyadh said.

Stone had shifted in his seat, sitting sideways so Riyadh faced his profile. He cupped the rim of the mug with his fingertips, swirled it around the table in long, lazy circles.

“Take it somewhere else, asshole. You made your bed, now lie in it. You don’t like how things worked out, tough. Truth be told, I don’t care what you think.”

“Perhaps you should start caring,” Riyadh said. Apparently, Stone caught the change of tone in Riyadh’s voice and fixed him with a hollow-eyed gaze.

“Really?” Stone said. “And why is that?”

“We both know about my little transgression with Saddam’s weapons. We also know you shook me down for a percentage of the money. I believe your country would consider that treason.”

“No one would believe you.”

“I have proof.”

“What kind.”

“None of your damn business,” Riyadh said, a smile ghosting his lips.

His hand still clasped around his drink, Stone unfurled his index finger and pointed it at Riyadh as he spoke. “If you report me,” Stone said, “you go down, too.”

Riyadh shrugged and ground out his cigarette. Setting both elbows on the table, he stacked his forearms atop each other and leaned in close to Stone.

“There’s a difference, Stone. I have nothing to live for, nothing to lose. Thanks to your bungling, I have no family, no home, no country. And if you think you can solve this problem by killing me, you’d better reconsider.”

“And why is that?”

“I have an audio copy of our previous conversation in Iraq attached to more than four dozen e-mails addressed to everyone from the CIA director to the White House to the managing editor of the New York Times,” Riyadh explained. “If I don’t check in every twenty-four hours, my people send out those e-mails. There are more than a dozen people spread out all over the globe, each with the same information, each with the same orders to distribute the information should something happen to me. You’d never stop them all.”

Stone drained his glass, shoved it away. His lips curled into a snarl as he spoke. “You little bastard. You could bury me with that stuff.”

Riyadh knew the admission cost Stone, and he made no attempt to hide his pleasure. “There are few things I’d enjoy more. Who approved the mission?”

“James Lee, the director.”

“As I thought.”

“Okay. So are we even? Are we done?”

Riyadh shook his head, grinned. “Done? Hardly, my friend. I’m just getting started.”

CHAPTER ONE

Islamabad, Pakistan, the present

His hooded head bowed, his body shrouded in heavy robes, the big man shuffled down the street, arms crossed over his midsection, apparently trying to preserve what little heat he could. He stuck close to shadows cast by nearby buildings, stumbled and limped along as though physical pain accompanied every movement. A frigid January wind whipped down the street, carrying with it discarded scraps of paper and the smells of meat, vegetables and spices simmering in neighborhood kitchens.

In furtive glances, the man’s eyes, like chipped blue ice, scanned the cityscape as he closed in on his destination.

A pair of hard-eyed men, each brandishing an AK-47, blocked his path, but the man continued on. As he approached, they stepped aside, each staring at their feet as he passed. From his peripheral vision, the hooded figure saw one of them shiver as though touched by Death itself.

Mack Bolan’s face remained impassive as he moved. Though his life was steeped in violence, he took no pleasure in intimidating others, experienced no intoxicating rushes of power or pride. That was the province of the men he sought, men who abused others simply because they could.

Besides, Bolan knew that in war—particularly his War Everlasting—things never were as they seemed. Only fools declared victory prematurely.

Case in point.

A pair of shadows fell in behind Bolan, grew larger as their owners closed in. With his peripheral vision, the Executioner glanced into a nearby storefront window, saw the two men he’d just passed move in on him. Neither had unlimbered his assault rifle, but one of the men had produced a long knife from under his heavy coat.

Unbidden, Bolan’s heart sped up and his senses came alive. His pursuers’ gaits remained steady as they came up from behind, but maintained some distance. In this case, Bolan neither wanted nor needed any combat stretch. He planned to take out both men in short order, disable them before they could unleash their firepower on him, or, more particularly, on an innocent bystander.

At the request of an acquaintance, Bolan had come to Pakistan for revenge, but not a bloodbath. If even one innocent fell during his campaign, it would be deemed a failure.

Bolan’s pursuers accelerated their approach. The soldier counted down the microseconds, waited for them to pass the point of no return. The hairs stood on the back of his neck as one of them came within grabbing distance. Simultaneously whirling and folding at the knees, Bolan’s hands came into view, clutching the Beretta 93-R and the .44-caliber Desert Eagle. One of his attackers lurched forward, grabbing handfuls of empty air and stumbling under his own momentum. Bolan moved from his path and the man crashed to the ground.

A glint of steel caught the Executioner’s eye as the other attacker brought down his blade, the razor-sharp edge slashing a collision course with Bolan’s flesh. He fell backward, rolled and came up off to his adversary’s side. The silenced Beretta coughed once, spitting a thin line of flame. The 9 mm Parabellum round slammed into the man’s face, hitting the soft area at the bridge of his nose and driving him backward. Bolan’s opponent dropped his knife.

A scream sounded from somewhere, but a burst of autofire from Bolan’s other attacker quickly drowned it out. The man still lay on the ground and was aiming the Kalashnikov rifle in haste. The bullets passed overhead as shell casings flew from the weapon, littering the ground around the man.

Bolan cursed inside. The wide-eyed man’s rifle was spitting rounds everywhere, instantly raising the odds of innocent casualties. Bolan had hoped to take one of the men alive, to turn him into an intel source. With his erratic counterattack, the man had taken that option off the table.

The big American raised the Desert Eagle and fired two rounds. Even as the thunder from the big-bore handgun shattered the afternoon, reverberating off cars and buildings, the hollowpoint rounds tunneled into the other man’s midsection, pinning his lifeless body against the wall.

The soldier rose to his full height and slipped his weapons back into the special holsters built into the sleeves of his robe.

Sirens wailed in the distance, heralding the arrival of police and emergency crews. He heard more screams from down the street, coupled with angry voices. He recognized both men from his briefing with Hal Brognola, head of the Justice Department’s Sensitive Operations Group, a day ago. They were foot soldiers, toadies for Bolan’s real quarry, international terrorist Ramsi al-Shoud.

But this was their neighborhood and they likely had friends and family here, people who loved them and would be only too happy to put a bullet in Bolan’s brain in retribution for his actions. He could understand their grief and anger all too well. And he wasn’t simple-minded enough to believe that just because the dead men in front of him were terrorists that their whole lineage had been tainted. Bolan no more wanted to shoot a grieving family member on the offensive than he would a police officer.

That didn’t mean he planned to stand here with a bull’s-eye painted on his back.

He had important work to do in Pakistan, and he needed to get on with it.

Holstering his weapons, he slipped his hood back over his head and left the killzone, navigating his way through a series of side streets and alleys. Passing a small tearoom, he heard a group of men speaking loudly, trying to drown out one another as they sipped hot beverages and smoked tobacco from water pipes. The Executioner continued at a dead run, feet barely making a sound, body hardly sagging under the weight of the robes and the weapons he carried underneath.

He had one other place to try. Al-Shoud’s money man, Pervez Shallallab, lived in an upscale neighborhood only a few blocks distant. The man employed a heavy guard and Bolan likely would have to eliminate the foot soldiers protecting him, slowing his progress and forcing him to raise more of a ruckus than he’d hoped before hitting the head man.

When circumstances dictated it, Bolan didn’t mind unleashing a boisterous campaign of hellfire and confusion. But al-Shoud was slippery, a survivor who would sacrifice his own mother before allowing an assailant to get within striking distance. In other words, a nauseating coward. The Executioner knew he was racing the clock to get to al-Shoud before he disappeared, living to terrorize another day. Making a lot of noise would only confound those efforts.

Minutes later, as dusk began to settle over Pakistan’s capital, causing the temperature to plummet, Bolan reached his quarry’s home. Ensconced in nearby shadows, the soldier scanned the ornate home and the reinforced iron gates that secured it. A trio of black Mercedes, engines running, headlight beams knifing through the wintry gray, waited in the driveway. Was the man coming or going? There was no way for Bolan to know for sure.

A well-lit street separated Bolan from Shallallab’s estate, making a stealthy approach that much more difficult. He knew he’d have to ditch the hooded robe, switch to the combat black-suit hidden underneath and sneak into the grounds. It could add several minutes onto his approach, but Bolan knew it couldn’t be helped. If these men knew about their dead comrades, they’d be on the lookout for an intruder.

A pair of fighter jets flew over low enough that Bolan almost could read their markings. The jet engines’ whine momentarily drowned out all noise and set Bolan’s teeth on edge. As the sounds echoed for another moment in his ears, he smelled cologne, heard the faint scrape of a shoe sole disturbing gravel.

Unleathering the Desert Eagle, Bolan whirled. A bulky man stood behind him, a pistol clutched in a two-handed grip.

“Your mistake,” the man said, grinning.

Fire and sound exploded from the pistol. Bullets pounded against Bolan’s chest like a sledgehammer, the blunt force stealing his breath, causing white flashes of pain to erupt in his vision. His mind raced as an overloaded nervous system tried to assimilate the fiery sensation spreading through his chest. The soldier reeled back, his legs rubbery, and fell to the ground. His skull hit the pocked asphalt, but the pain seemed little more than a distant echo of the pain created by the impact of the bullets.

The man closed in, sighted down the pistol. Bolan knew the kill shot was a heartbeat away.

Stony Man Farm, Virginia

FORTY-EIGHT HOURS EARLIER, Mack Bolan, sitting in Stony Man Farm’s War Room, studied a photo of former CIA director James Lee. From the chin up, Lee looked as if he were sleeping, eyes shut, but not squeezed tight, mouth parted an inch or so, as though snoring. From the chin down, he looked as though a bear had clawed out his throat, leaving behind a shiny mess or ragged flesh and spilled blood. Bolan stared at the close-up digital image of Lee’s face and felt his stomach knot at the sight.

The Executioner already had seen accounts of Lee’s death in both the Washington Post and the New York Times. He had a cursory knowledge of the situation. Lee, the former CIA director, had been gunned down in an alley in Islamabad less than twenty-four hours earlier. A four-man squad of Diplomatic Security Service officers, all highly skilled with weapons, had also been killed. An unidentified woman had been rescued by local police.

Surrounded by Stony Man chief Hal Brognola, mission controller Barbara Price, pilot Jack Grimaldi and armorer John “Cowboy” Kissinger, Bolan clenched and unclenched his jaws as he memorized the image down to the smallest detail. The fallen man’s left hand rested next to his head, a smooth, gold band encircling the third finger.

“He had a family,” Bolan said.

Brognola cleared his throat, nodded. “Wife, two kids. The kids came later in life, and the youngest is still in high school. I knew Jim. He was a good guy. Bit of a politician, but he believed in what he did, cared about his country. He didn’t deserve this.”

“No,” Bolan agreed, “he didn’t. What do we know?”

“You’re staring at the exit wound from a 9 mm hollowpoint round,” Brognola said. “Judging from the powder burns on the back of his neck and the path of the bullet, someone stood over him, put the barrel against his neck and fired. Jim knew it was coming.”

“He was dead instantly.” It wasn’t a question; Bolan was trying to piece together the facts, picture things just as they went down. What he saw in his mind’s eye thus far made his blood boil. “Who found him?”

“Pakistani state police. Since he was an American citizen, they called in the local FBI team to help investigate. They recovered the round that took out Lee, along with a few dozen stray slugs and shell casings. It was a damn bloodbath, Striker.”

Bolan nodded, but kept his icy blue gaze locked on the picture. “How many nut job extremist groups are claiming responsibility?”

Brognola leaned forward, pushed a folder Bolan’s direction. The soldier trapped it under his big hand and dragged it toward him, found it to be about the thickness of a rural community’s telephone book. Setting the dossier on his lap, he fanned it open and gave its contents—stacks of paper, several with photos held to them with a paper clip—a cursory glance. He knew he’d have plenty of time later to pore through it. He shut it and returned his attention to Brognola, the head of the Sensitive Operations Group.

“To answer your question,” Brognola said, “five extremist groups have taken credit.”

“How many are credible?”

“That’s the real question,” Brognola said. “Four of them are little home-grown groups. Got some AK-47s, some whacked-out ideals and plenty of bad intentions, but not the expertise to pull off something like this. Forget about them.” To punctuate his point, the big Fed waved his right hand dismissively. With practiced ease, he snatched up his cigar from his ashtray, clenched it between his teeth and started chewing.

“You said four don’t have what it takes. What about the fifth?”

“That’s where things get more plausible,” Brognola said. “Barb?”

Using a nearby laptop, Price changed the image on the screen. “This is Ramsi al-Shoud.” A brown-skinned man with raven-black hair and an unruly beard and mustache of the same color stared at the assembled group. The man’s hair had receded well off his forehead, but he’d let it grow down to his shoulders.

Price continued. “Al-Shoud is a former Pakistani army officer. More recently, he was an officer with Pakistan’s intelligence service where he spent a lot of time arming, funding and training extremists so they could terrorize India. It’s estimated that he’s directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of more than two hundred Indian citizens. He also helped give aid and comfort to the Taliban before we went to war with them.”

“You spoke of his affiliation with the Pakistani government in the past tense,” Bolan said.

“Right,” Price said. “The CIA knew about his behavior and had for years. Once Pakistan allied itself with us after September 11, we strongly encouraged them to fire him. They grudgingly complied and retired him four years ago.”

“I take it he hasn’t been puttering around the house, playing with the grandkids,” Bolan said.

Price smiled. “Hardly, Striker. He’s just taken his hate show on the road, but without official sanction, of course. He hates Americans, wants them expelled from the country. We believe he’s behind a recent car-bomb attack on our embassy in Islamabad.”

“Kill anyone?”

“Twelve Pakistanis, no Americans.”

“I assume that’s our fault, too,” Bolan said. He caught the bitterness in his tone and scowled. He’d seen so much innocent slaughter in the name of religion and nationalism that his anger toward extremists groups sometimes spilled over.

“The Pakistani government fired him,” Price stated. “But won’t take it any further. Al-Shoud still has lots of powerful friends and the president’s office worries that arresting or killing the guy might incite the extremists and lead to a coup.”

“Is he even still in the country?” Bolan asked.

Price nodded. “He splits his time between Islamabad and Waziristan, a territory located near the border of Afghanistan. The U.S. has sent CIA paramilitary teams after him, but he always gets away, probably because his contacts keep dropping a dime on us. The Company also has tried bribing various Pashtun leaders in Waziristan into turning him over. Apparently he has enough money or power to counter us.

“Or both,” Barbara said. “With his intelligence contacts, he’s been able to get everything short of nuclear missiles. That and the embassy bombing already had made him a priority target, putting him in the Agency’s top twenty-five covert targets.”

“That all changed,” Brognola said.

Leaning back in his chair, the Executioner clasped his hands behind his head and studied al-Shoud’s features, memorizing even the most minor details.

“What about the woman?” he asked. “The newspapers said she’d been rescued, but that she’d been whisked off to a U.S. Army base for a debriefing. Has she told us anything of any value?”

Price tapped another key on the laptop. An image of a pretty woman with pale blue eyes, an athlete’s tan and shoulder-length blond hair popped up on the screen.

“This is Jennifer Kinsey,” Price said. “She was Lee’s assistant and traveling companion. She’s a former CIA agent, but more recently has been assisting Lee with his diplomatic work. During the last year, they’ve traveled through Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. She speaks four languages and has a law degree from Stanford. She’s supposed to be a rising star in foreign-service circles. Most people don’t know of her CIA ties.”

Bolan nodded. “But her background as an agent should be a good thing. With her training, she must have remembered something. Has she given us any good details?”

Brognola plucked the cold cigar from his mouth, tapped an end against the table. His cheeks flushed red and a scowl spread over his features. He jabbed the stogie back into the corner of his mouth, spoke around it.

“Her rescue was a little creative storytelling on the CIA’s part,” Brognola said. “Actually, Kinsey’s MIA. The evidence techs found some stray hairs, a woman’s shoe, a ripped gold chain and a torn piece of fabric from an expensive suit. They also found some of her blood, but only in small patches.”

“So you don’t know whether she was kidnapped—”

“Or she escaped,” Brognola finished. “That’s right, Striker. If I was a betting man, though, I’d say she escaped. These guys weren’t taking any prisoners.”

“So you’re asking me to find her?”

“We’re asking, is all. Alive or dead, we want to know what happened to her.”

“Okay.”

“But that’s just a small part of the mission.”

“Lay it on me, Hal.”

“The President is very concerned about this. When a terrorist can kill the former CIA director, in broad daylight, on a busy street, and take four federal agents out with him, it sends a bad message to the perpetrators and any copycats.”

“I assume the Man wants me to deliver a message of my own.”

“Yes,” Brognola said. “A very nasty one.”

Islamabad, Pakistan

HIS CHEST RIDDLED with pain, Mack Bolan summoned his strength, rolled to one side and took himself off the firing line. The robe, heavy with ballistic plating, slowed his movements just enough to dull combat-hardened reflexes.

A bullet chewed into the concrete near him. Bolan fisted the Desert Eagle and was bringing it around to fire as the other man readjusted his own aim. The warrior knew in his heart he’d never make the shot, but he had to try anyway.

Even as his gun hand whipped around, Bolan heard a staccato whisper from behind the shooter. The man stiffened and, an instant later, a swarm of bullets burst through his chest, leaving a trail of blood and bone fragments in their wake as they buzzed into the darkness.

A male silhouette, distinguished by a ball cap and submachine gun, emerged from the darkness. Bolan trained the weapon on the man, but held his fire.

“Easy, Sarge,” Jack Grimaldi said. “Just me.”

Relief washed over Bolan and a smile ghosted his lips. Using his free hand, Bolan hugged his ribs as he rolled onto his side, climbed to his feet. Pain seared his muscles, bones and joints as he rose to his full height, melting away the grin.

“You okay?”

Bolan shrugged. “As well as can be expected. I thought you were going to stay with the airplane.”

“The hell with that,” the pilot said. “You stopped answering your radio, and that made the airplane seem kind of insignificant.”

“Thanks. The radio took a bullet earlier.”

“Forget about it,” Grimaldi said. “Did Cowboy’s ballistic robe work okay?”

Bolan nodded. “The thing’s heavy as hell, but it stops bullets.”

“So, who’s this clown?” Grimaldi asked, nodding toward the shooter’s crumpled remains.

Bolan walked to the man and, using the toe of his boot, rolled him onto his back. The man was Caucasian, with hair blacker than the Executioner’s, his bloodless lips locked open in shock. Bolan didn’t recognize the man, and said as much.

“He sounded American, though,” the soldier said. “His accent sounded east coast, from what little I heard.”

Kneeling next to the man, Bolan pulled a small digital camera from the pocket of his combat suit and snapped a couple of pictures of the man’s face.

“I’ll send these back to the Farm later,” he said. “When we get back to my laptop.”

“Couple of pinups for Barb,” Grimaldi said. “I’m sure she’ll enjoy that.”

Before Bolan could reply, he heard a flurry of activity coming from the financier’s compound. The sounds of a facility heading into lockdown reached his ears. Slamming car doors, voices, engines coming to life. Not surprisingly, the gunshots had announced his approach. He’d hated to waste the time shooting the man’s picture, but finding an American running interference for an Islamic extremist group sent up a massive red flag to Bolan, one that he couldn’t ignore.

Cursing to himself, Bolan turned to Grimaldi, flashed a series of hand signals. The ace pilot nodded and was already separating himself from Bolan so they didn’t present a concentrated target. The soldier dragged the heavy robe over his head, revealing his black combat suit and web gear. He grabbed the Beretta 93-R from its sleeve holster, slipped it into his shoulder leather. He discarded the robe and moved into the shadows cast by a nearby building. Holstering the Desert Eagle, he filled his hand with an Ingram Model 10, minus the sound suppressor.

Gliding along a brick wall, he peered around the corner and saw a trio of men, each toting an AK-47, coming his way. Bolan couldn’t help but be impressed. From what he saw, each man wore a headset and two of the men hung back, using nearby cars for cover as the third closed in on the alley. Hardly Special Forces tactics, but definitely better than anything he’d encountered thus far.

Bolan momentarily wished his own radio hadn’t been damaged, but purged the recriminations. Make the best with what you have, he thought. Adapt. He had to think like the enemy. He knew Grimaldi, a battle-hardened veteran, would do likewise. He turned to the pilot, signaled him to watch their backs. The pilot nodded and turned his attention toward their rear flank.

Just as he did, a car screeched to a stop at the other end of the alley, effectively blocking them in. Electric windows hissed down and the black muzzles of assault rifles popped out, the weapons spitting flame and lead.

A thrill of adrenaline passed through Bolan. He focused on the gunners in front of him, left the other threat for Grimaldi to handle.

Caressing the Ingram’s trigger, he cut loose with a salvo that blistered the air just next to the approaching terrorist. Acting with surprising presence of mind under fire, the man shifted positions and shot back at Bolan. The rounds pounded into the bricks just behind the soldier, peppering his face with reddish grit and slivers of mortar.

The bits of debris tore at Bolan’s cheeks, opening the skin and drawing trickles of blood, but thankfully sparing his eyes. He fired again, this time dragging the weapon in a wider arc, as though dousing a raging fire. Rounds smacked into nearby cars, perforating metal, puncturing windshields. A string of bullets pounded into the shoulders and chest of the shooter, who was approaching in a crouch. The man stopped cold, then jerked for a moment under the Executioner’s merciless onslaught.

Bolan’s combat sense screamed for him to look up. Even as he did, he was on the move, crossing the trash-strewed alley with long strides. Another shooter, a heavyset man with a long, unkempt beard and a lion’s mane of black hair, was drawing down on the warrior from a fire-escape landing. Even as he came into the crosshairs of the man’s AK-47, Bolan raised his own weapon, tapped out a pair of bursts that tore into the man’s girth, knocking him back against the wall, killing him.

Reloading on the run, Bolan drew down on another of his attackers, drove the man undercover with a quick burst. At the same time Bolan heard an engine roar, saw a small caravan of cars exit the building. Bolan’s heart sank for a moment.

Target lost. Game over.

Like hell.

He’d just adapt again.

Scanning the streets for bystanders, Bolan saw none. He could at least be thankful for that much, he decided. With the streets apparently clear, he decided to unleash a little controlled chaos.

Laying down his own cover fire, Bolan pinned his attackers under a withering hail. Shell casings fell around his feet and the popping of autofire in such a small space rang in his ears. At the same time, the warrior yanked a flash-bang grenade from his web gear, pulled the pin, but held the lever.

Breaking cover, he sprinted from the confines of the alley to grab a little combat stretch. At his back, he heard the rattle of subgun fire and thought fleetingly of Grimaldi, vowed to get back to him as soon as he defused the immediate threat.

Bolan’s sudden shift in position apparently threw off his attackers, gained him precious seconds. As his own gun locked dry, he tossed the grenade into a space roughly between the two men. In the meantime, the hardened fighters had already begun to recover from the change and were shooting in their adversary’s direction. The Executioner hurled himself to the ground in between a pair of parked cars. Knee and elbow pads absorbed much of the shattering impact of flesh and bone against concrete, but Bolan still felt flesh rip away from his open palm as he used it to help break his fall.

Letting the Ingram fall loose on its strap, Bolan fisted the Desert Eagle, rode out the stun grenade’s sting and then hauled himself to his feet. Cocking back the big Israeli pistol’s hammer to ease the trigger pull, the soldier stepped from between the cars, weapon leveled in front of him in a two-handed grip. One of the men, face buried in a V created by bending his left arm, fired wildly with a stubby black handgun. The Desert Eagle cracked once, the muzzle-flash illuminating Bolan’s hardened features. The Magnum slug chewed through the air, caught the man in the forehead and knocked him back.

One down.

Bolan saw the other shooter, dazed by the white flash, trying to find a lost weapon. He triggered the Desert Eagle, its shattering report again splitting the night, and the round sliced a crimson line along the man’s shoulder, eliciting a cry and causing him to settle back on his rump.

The Executioner stepped up close to the man, kicked away his AK-47. “You speak English?”

The man looked terrified. “Yes. I studied in America.”

“You and I are going to talk,” Bolan said.

“Yes, yes,” the man said. “Talk.”

Bolan pushed the man to the ground and rolled him onto his stomach, bound his hands behind his back with plastic handcuffs. The warrior came up in a crouch, started for the alley, ready to back up an old friend with whom he spilled more blood than he cared to consider during his War Everlasting.

Moving along a building, he stopped just a few feet from Grimaldi’s combat zone. A moment of eerie silence had fallen, followed by a sudden chorus of anguished cries. Damn!

Before he could take another step, a roar reverberated throughout the canyon of buildings, followed by the tortured sound of grinding metal and a loud crash. A massive front of singeing heat whooshed out, smacked Bolan front-on forcing him to involuntarily cover his face.

What the hell had happened to Jack?

JACK GRIMALDI RAISED his silenced Ingram, unloaded a quick burst at the car blocking his path. Bullets skittered and sparked off its black metal skin, smacking into nearby walls.

Shit, he thought, armored to the teeth.

Orange-yellow muzzle-flashes flared from a pair of assault rifles protruding from the car. Grimaldi dropped into a crouch, caressed the Ingram’s trigger. The hellstorm of bullets thudded against the car and gave the shooters pause, buying him precious seconds in which to maneuver.

Judging by the open windows, the car had no gunports and for that, at least, Grimaldi counted himself lucky. Considering the odds, he’d take any advantage he could get. His first hastily placed burst drilled into a fortified car door, just below the window rim. The bullets bounced away, but threw the shooter off balance, prompting him to withdraw inside the vehicle. Firing on the run, Grimaldi tapped out two more bursts that sailed inside the car. An anguish scream sounded from within the vehicle, indicating he’d injured or killed one opponent. That left three more shooters, one in the driver’s seat, two more positioned outside and behind the car, using it for cover.

With quick, sure steps, the pilot crossed the killzone, acquiring a new target on the run. One man, crouched behind the car’s front bumper, was drawing a bead on Grimaldi. A quick burst caught the enemy in the shoulder, chewing through fabric and flesh before knocking him backward. Grimaldi knew the man was down, but probably not out, particularly if he had a backup piece that he could fire with his one good hand.

Reaching a small alcove created by a doorway, the Stony Man pilot inserted his slender frame inside the cramped space, riding out a concentrated barrage of autofire as he did. Unzipping his leather bomber jacket, Grimaldi reached inside, snagged a fresh clip, reloaded his weapon. He inventoried his personal armory—one remaining clip for the Ingram, a .40-caliber Glock in a shoulder holster and a .44-caliber Charter Arms Bulldog snugged in an ankle holster, a last-minute gift from John Kissinger before leaving for the mission.

He was loaded for bear, sure, but so were the two men, and perhaps a third, trying to kill him. Death, Grimaldi could handle, but he was the barrier standing between these men and his old friend. If they wanted to get to Striker, they’d have to do it over the ace pilot’s dead body.

It sure as hell wasn’t the first time someone had tried.

Peals of gunfire echoed throughout the alley, intensified, telling Grimaldi that the men had seized on his pause to reload. Whipping the Ingram around the corner, he fired blind, emptying one-third of a clip in his attackers’ direction. Chew on that, you bastards, he thought. He followed up with a second, more intense burst. Judging by the pause in return fire, he’d driven them under cover, at least for a moment.

A slight shift in the building’s shadow caught his attention. Even before it clicked in his mind, instinct warned him of immediate danger. Still crouching, Grimaldi folded his body around the corner, saw a gunman slipping along the length of the building toward him. He triggered the Ingram. The stubby weapon roared to life, spitting jagged columns of flame, a cloud of acrid smoke. Rounds drilled into the approaching man’s chest and throat, stopping him cold and pushing him backward. The man’s assault rifle clattered to the ground as he crumpled in a dead heap.

Even as the dead shooter fell, Grimaldi was turning his attention to the hardman situated behind the car. A hand popped up over the trunk and Grimaldi saw that it clutched something.

Grenade!

Firing low, Grimaldi swept the Ingram in a tight arc, dispatching a swarm of .45-caliber rounds underneath the car. The way he saw it, this was his best bet. If he gunned for the hand, he had a better than average chance of hitting it. If he tried for the man’s crouching body, and more specifically, his legs, the pilot improved his own odds of survival.

He hoped.

As the Ingram clicked dry, he heard the man scream. Shifting back into the doorway, Grimaldi folded in on himself. If he was lucky, the guy had dropped the grenade, releasing the spoon and activating the explosive. The man and the armored vehicle would absorb most of the explosion and shrapnel.

If he was lucky. If not…

The weapon exploded, sending waves of heat and shrapnel buzzing through the alley. A grinding noise, metal on concrete, followed and Grimaldi had to assume the explosion had knocked the car up on its side.

Grimaldi reloaded his weapon and got to his feet. He peered furtively around the wall, trying to present as small a target as possible. He saw the vehicle on its side, corpses spread around it.

He felt something behind him, turned, his muscles tensing for another confrontation.

“Easy, Jack,” Bolan said.

Grimaldi relaxed, grinned. “Easy? Easy my ass. This is some of my best work.”

MINUTES LATER Mack Bolan shoved his POW hard into a chair, causing it to creak and slide back several inches. The man, a Pakistani dressed in jeans and a gray athletic sweatshirt, glowered at his captors. A few extra minutes of drawing breath apparently had emboldened him into thinking he was in the clear.

Bolan was about to show him the error of his ways.

“Shallallab. Where was he going?” Bolan asked.

The man sat mute.

“Was he going to see Ramsi al-Shoud?”

A flicker of recognition lighted the man’s eyes before fear doused it back out. He remained silent.

“Where is al-Shoud?”

Nothing.

Grimaldi spoke. “The problem with you, Striker, is, you give people too damn much leeway.”

“Shut up, Ace,” Bolan growled.

“I’m just saying—”

“I’m just saying shut up. So shut up.”

“Maybe he doesn’t speak English.”

“He speaks English.”

Grimaldi turned back to the man. Raising his voice, he asked, “You speekie English?”

The man looked insulted, but said nothing. “I think you’re wrong,” Grimaldi said. “He doesn’t speak English. Hell, he doesn’t seem smart enough to speak his own language.”

“Bullshit,” Bolan said. “He spoke English like a pro ten minutes ago. He’s just playing stupid.”

“Doing a good job of it, too,” Grimaldi said. “So I suppose we’re going to sit here all night, coddling this dumb-ass until he decides to talk. Him. A guy that doesn’t speak English. I’m telling you, you’re wasting your damn time with this.”

Bolan made a grim face, turned away from the prisoner. “So what the hell do you suggest?”

“Remember Kabul?”

“Don’t even go there with me, Jack.”

“See that’s what I’m talking about. You’re too soft on these people.”

“And you’re mental.”

“I’m just saying it worked in Kabul. It’ll work here. That guy suddenly remembered his English really good after we did that to him.”

“I’m not letting you cut this guy’s balls off, Ace. It’s not going to happen.”

Bolan glanced over his shoulder, saw the man sitting stiff, eyes about to pop out of their sockets.

“What about his ears?” Grimaldi asked. “Can I cut them off?”

Bolan thought about it for a moment. Finally he nodded. “Okay,” he said. “That’s not so bad. You know, you can’t just go around cutting off a guy’s privates. Not right out of the gate, anyway. You gotta at least give him a chance to cooperate. It’s only fair.”

Grimaldi pulled a switchblade from his jacket pocket. He clicked it open with a metallic snick, held it up to the light so it glinted.

“But the ear’s okay?”

Bolan shrugged. “Knock yourself out.”

An evil grin twisted at Grimaldi’s lips. “Righteous,” he said.

The words practically exploded from the man’s lips. “Please,” he said. “I will talk about Shallallab and al-Shoud. I want to tell everything.”

And he did.

BOLAN AND GRIMALDI climbed aboard a Black Hawk helicopter and slipped into the front seats. Each man carried a heavy gear bag packed with weapons and equipment, Bolan had laid his next to his seat, allowing him to perform a last-minute weapons check during the flight.

His right foot positioned on the gear bag to keep it from shifting in flight, Bolan loaded his Heckler & Koch with a sound suppressor and attached extra clips to his web gear. Grimaldi ran a preflight check on the craft.

“I’m glad that guy talked,” Grimaldi said.

“Me, too,” Bolan said. “I was afraid he’d call our bluff.”

“Who said I was bluffing?” Grimaldi joked.

Bolan shook his head. “Forget it. An old tomcat like you could never do that.”

“Your buddy didn’t tell us a lot,” Grimaldi said.

Bolan nodded. “Foot soldier,” he said. “Probably doesn’t know a whole lot.”

Fifteen minutes later, the Black Hawk was aloft with Grimaldi guiding it expertly toward Waziristan, a Pakistani territory.

Straining against the harness holding him in place, Bolan reached into his equipment bag and withdrew a laptop. The pressure of the straps against his recently bruised skin, even through the Kevlar vest, kicked up jolts of pain. He winced, ground his teeth and ignored it. During his War Everlasting, the soldier had suffered much worse, and had the scarred flesh to prove it.

Setting the laptop on his thighs, Bolan popped it open and powered it up. Within minutes he’d lock into a Stony Man computer dump system via an encrypted wireless connection. A digital camera would eventually carry his and Grimaldi’s images electronically to the Computer Room. After a few more keystrokes, Aaron “The Bear” Kurtzman appeared on the screen.

“Striker,” Kurtzman said.

“You get the coordinates I sent earlier?” Bolan asked.

“Right,” Kurtzman replied. “I ran them through the National Security Agency’s database and liberated a few things for our use. I’ll send you the satellite pics while we talk. But your guy told the truth. There’s something there, an encampment of some sort, right on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. It was an al Qaeda camp at one time before a CIA paramilitary team shut it down a few years ago. After the team arrested the inhabitants, seized all their computers and documents, a couple of F-18s bombed the buildings to rubble.”

“Our boy told us they’ve been setting up the place for months,” Bolan said. “On the surface it looks like an agriculture operation, with animals and the whole thing. They do all their training inside a series of nearby caves to help avoid satellite scrutiny. No outdoor firing ranges, or anything like that. They do a lot of hand-to-hand combat training, classroom work, that sort of thing. There’s also a large concrete building that houses their command functions.”

Kurtzman nodded. “That tracks with what I found out. The intelligence community had tagged the site as suspicious because of its history. But without any hard intel, they had to knock it pretty far down on the priority list. Plus, it’s a crappy target.”

“What do you mean?”

“Guess al-Shoud and his people brought their families along with them. Women, kids, elderly.”

Bolan’s brow furrowed, his lips formed a tight line as he considered the implications. “Lots of innocents on the firing line,” he said finally.

“Right,” Kurtzman said.

“We don’t have much of a choice in this one,” Bolan said.

“Just laying out the facts,” Kurtzman replied. “Hey, Hal wants to speak with you.”

“Go.”

Kurtzman disappeared from view. An instant later Brognola’s weary features appeared on the screen. Since Bolan had last seen him, the big Fed had lost his necktie, but judging by the coffee stain on his right breast, he still wore the same shirt, now unbuttoned at the collar.

“Striker,” Brognola said, “what’s the word on Jennifer Kinsey?”

“Nothing yet,” Bolan stated. “The man we spoke with knew nothing about her.”

“Could he have been lying?”

Grimaldi cut in. “He was pretty motivated to be honest.”

Brognola drank some coffee from a foam cup. “I don’t even want to know what that means.”

“That’s why we wanted to find Shallallab,” Bolan said, “the finance guy. He’s high enough up that he’d know whether she was there. Al-Shoud considers him a confidant.”

“But you’ve got a good fix on al-Shoud?”

“Yeah,” Bolan said. “Bear says we’ve got apparent innocents in the way. I plan to make this a soft probe until I learn more.”

“Keep Barb and Aaron posted,” Brognola said. “I won’t be around.”

“Why?”

“We have an antiterrorism summit at an undisclosed location,” Brognola replied. “Heads of state from Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia are expected to be there. So are their intelligence chiefs. We’re going to share information, try to expand cooperation, all that sort of thing.”

“Hal the politician,” Grimaldi said.

Brognola smiled around his stogie. “Yeah, I’m loving it, too,” he said. “I’d stand naked in Times Square, but it’s a command performance. The Man wants me there, so I’m going.”

“Barb’ll take good care of us,” Bolan said.

“I have no doubt,” Brognola said. “Look, the minute you get a line on Jennifer Kinsey, let us know. If she’s still among the living, we’d very much like to bring her home.”

Bolan nodded. “Feeling’s mutual. We’ll do what we can.”

“No doubt, Striker,” Brognola said. “Just watch your ass. Al-Shoud’s operation may be small, but he’s not small-time. Most of his men are former intelligence agents who’ve pulled some serious black ops in India. Badasses all. If this turns nasty, do your best—hell, do your worst—and come home.”

“We’re on it,” Bolan said. Killing the connection, he and Grimaldi began scanning the satellite images and other intel provided by Stony Man’s cyberteam, preparing themselves for what needed to be a short, precise confrontation.

CHAPTER TWO

Jennifer Kinsey saw the U.S. Embassy compound from about two blocks away. Another block ahead of her, state police armed with automatic weapons had blocked all roads leading to the embassy with wooden sawhorses and officers. She guessed the Marines and Diplomatic Security Service agents also had doubled up their efforts since James Lee’s murder.

A shudder that had nothing to do with the biting cold seized her. Unconsciously she pulled the burqa’s heavy fabric tighter around her, as if doing so would protect her from homicidal bastard that had pursued her now for how long? Three days? Four days?

Underneath the thick black robes, she still wore her navy-blue business suit and white silk blouse, both stained dark crimson by James Lee’s blood. She chewed at her lower lip for a moment as unbidden memories of Lee’s death flooded her consciousness.

Almost immediately, she shook her head to purge the memories. Stay strong, she told herself. If you want to fall apart, that’s fine. God knows you deserve it. But do it after you’ve gotten inside the embassy. Not before. You’ve been through worse and you’ll survive this, too. Just stay strong.

Kinsey bowed her head and started walking. She had bought the burqa from a young woman. It had cost her all the two hundred dollars in emergency cash that she carried in a small belt under the waist of her skirt, but had been a worthwhile purchase. In her right hand, she clutched a .25-caliber pistol that she normally kept strapped to her thigh. She could handle much more substantial ordnance. But the State Department frowned on their people carrying weapons, regardless of what hellhole they sent you to. So, from her way of thinking, carrying a smaller weapon was a compromise of sorts. The stubby weapon was no good at distances, but she knew she could jam it into an attacker’s throat or eye and inflict plenty of damage.

She hoped it didn’t have to go that far.

She began threading through the sea of people gathered outside the embassy. It took a conscious effort to not push past people, particularly men who’d stand in a woman’s way on principle. It rankled her to be so passive, to walk seemingly without a purpose, to yield to anyone. Jennifer Kinsey hadn’t climbed the ranks of the CIA or the State Department by being submissive. She’d fought tooth and nail for every promotion, every letter of commendation.

Now she was fighting for her life.

A man bumped into her, knocking her off her feet. She fell to the ground, banging her knees and skinning her hands. Her cheeks grew hot with anger as she stayed on all fours a moment. The man continued on, not bothering to offer a hand or to apologize. She chewed her lip and took a deep breath to clear her head. Let it go, she told herself. Get to the embassy and tell them what you saw.

Of course, she didn’t expect them to believe it. She hardly believed it herself. That a group of Islamic extremists would attack her and Lee—or any American, for that matter—came as little surprise to Kinsey. Any U.S. diplomat who stepped into the country and expected a warm welcome, needed her head examined. Or at least needed to read a damn newspaper.

But Lee had been slain by a comrade. Not a friend, but one of his own.

Several of his own, in fact.

Hugging her arms tightly around her midsection, Kinsey found herself within forty yards of the nearest police checkpoint. She hurried toward it.

Again she could smell the smoke, hear the voices.

See the face.

It had been sheer pandemonium. The limousine’s front end pinned against the wall, shoved there by another car. When Kinsey first felt the impact, heard the grind of metal on metal, the explosion of radio traffic from the security team, she wondered if they’d been the target of a car bomb.

In some ways it might have been better that way, she thought.

The DSS agents had put up a valiant fight, of course. Stay in the car, they’d said. We’ll call for help, fight these guys off.

A swarm of militants, all dressed in civilian clothes, most armed with AK-47s, faces obscured by hoods, had set upon Lee’s vehicle almost immediately. The DSS agents had given little ground, burning down half a dozen of the bastards in the first few seconds of the fight. They were well trained, well armed, quite simply, the best.

But Kinsey was convinced that a person couldn’t be trained to survive a live frag grenade dropped just out of reach, particularly when an opponent was willing to sacrifice a few of his own men to kill you.

Grabbing an abandoned 9 mm SIG-Sauer, Kinsey had stepped from the vehicle, staking herself as the last line of defense between Lee and his attackers. Old habits died hard, she supposed. And she’d fought like the damn devil to nail a few of the guys, hoping against hope that help would arrive. Her life for Lee’s. It had seemed like a fair trade at the time.

She’d exhausted the SIG-Sauer’s fifteen rounds in no time. With those gone, the remaining militants had set upon her, beating her with rifle butts, fists and feet.

“She goes alive,” a voice had called out. “She’s mine.”

The words had caused Kinsey to freeze, a sensation she was unaccustomed to. Turning her head, she saw a big man standing near the shattered limo. He looked at her as he aimed a Browning Hi-Power at the back of a kneeling Lee’s neck.

“I said, she’s mine.”

Jon Stone. Here, in Islamabad. Killing his former boss.

Why?

She had shuddered at the words then and did so now. He turned his attention to Lee. She kicked one man in the balls, crushed a second’s windpipe and fled. The gunshot that murdered Lee rang in her ears as she’d run away.

She still wondered—no, obsessed was more like it—about whether she’d done enough to save Lee. What she knew for sure was that Stone, a former teammate, had assassinated a government official and probably wanted to do likewise to her.

So she could second-guess the hell out of herself all she wanted—later. After she took care of the job at hand.

The closer she came to the police checkpoint, the less regard she had for maintaining her disguise. Maybe it was fatigue or hunger. She hadn’t slept at all and had only eaten a few scraps of food along the way. Maybe she just wanted the sweet relief of her home territory.

Regardless, she almost missed the warning signs.

A Pakistani man came in close, a blade clutched in his right hand. He grabbed her arm and stepped just a few inches away. He kept the blade pointed into her stomach.

“Come with me,” he snarled.

In response she shoved the stubby pistol into his groin and fired it. Blood spurted over her hand, hot against her cold, chapped skin. With the muzzle shoved hard against him, his body and his clothing absorbed most of the sound. A shocked look overtook his features and he stumbled back.

A glint of steel flashed to Kinsey’s right. Taking a step back, Kinsey caught the faint impression of a man stepping in on her, knife cutting its way to her. She brought her arm down hard, letting her wrist collide with her opponent’s and knocking the jab off course.

The man pressed his attack, swinging the knife blade at her in wide slashes. By now, people had begun to see the altercation and were clearing away, most looking elsewhere. Kinsey sidestepped the knife thrust, bringing her almost face-to-face with the man. Bringing up the pistol, she jabbed it into the soft flesh under the man’s chin and fired it.

As the man folded, she heard a screech of tires as a car came around the corner in a skidding turn. Hooded men stepped from the vehicle and began to rake the air with autofire. People screamed and scattered or dived for cover.

Kinsey tried to use the pandemonium to her advantage, melting into a wave of fleeing people. Looking up, she saw a big Caucasian threading his way through the oncoming throngs of people toward her.

She raised the small handgun to fire. As she did, something struck her skull, causing a white flash of light to explode behind her eyes. She stumbled forward and a swimmy feeling overtook her. She whirled to retaliate and found herself looking into Stone’s dead-eyed stare.

“Hi, Jen,” he said. A massive fist struck her once more in the temple and she sank to her knees. A moment later everything went black.

CHAPTER THREE

Waziristan territory, Pakistan

Crouched behind a line of boulders, Bolan panned his binoculars over the village of mud huts and sized up his adversaries. His breath escaped in white wisps and needles of cold plunged through the fabric of his combat black-suit and into the skin underneath. Three men, two carrying AK-47s, the third an Uzi, acted as sentries for the gateway leading into the walled village.

Craters and shattered stone from past wars dotted the landscape that lay between Bolan and al-Shoud’s stronghold. Bolan watched as one of the men fired up a cigarette, the lighter washing his face in a flickering orange glow. Another sentry, apparently the ranking member, cursed his comrade and swatted him on the arm. The stricken man groused but dropped the cigarette, stomped it under a booted heel and stalked off into the darkness.

A handful of tattered tents stood next to the mud huts and behind it all stood a large, featureless building of concrete brick. No fires for cooking or warmth burned. All the structures, except for the brick building, stood dark. Like Bolan, the three men clung to shadows, occasionally glancing at a dirt road that wound its way into the camp, as if they expected someone.

Bolan had kept the camp under surveillance for hours, but hadn’t yet found anything of substance. If Kinsey was alive—and Bolan wanted to believe she was—it was going to take an intense search to find her.

The Executioner felt the hairs on the back of his neck prickle. Deepening his crouch, he turned and cast a wary glance. A fourth sentry, this man a good three inches taller than Bolan, walked the road heading to the camp. As he marched, the man scanned the area around him, his gun muzzle following the line of his gaze. Bolan’s breath caught in his throat as the sentry’s eyes settled on his darkened form.

The gaze lingered for a moment. The warrior felt his grip on the Beretta harden and his finger curl around the trigger. The man’s next move would determine his fate. To Bolan’s relief, the guard turned his gaze back on the camp and kept moving toward it.

During his hike up the mountain, Bolan had counted three guards and had left all three standing. That had been by design. He knew the events earlier in Islamabad would have al-Shoud’s fighters on edge as it was, ready to strike at the slightest provocation. And leaving a trail of dead bodies in his wake would only prematurely alarm the Executioner’s opponents and give them time to fortify their positions. However, the strategy also forced him to watch his back more carefully than usual.

The guard hurried up the trail and stopped when he reached the others. Bolan heard the muffled tones of the man’s voice but couldn’t distinguish his words. The terrorist warriors nodded their heads as the man spoke, and at least two broke into smiles and clapped one another on the shoulder.

“Striker?” It was Jack Grimaldi.

Bolan keyed his headset. “Go.”

“Spotters caught a chopper coming your way. ETA is seven minutes.”

“You sure it’s coming here?”

“Anything’s possible, but it’s a safe bet. The craft has no visible markings and only minimal exterior lighting. I checked and it’s definitely not one of ours. It could be weapons smugglers or terrorists not associated with al-Shoud. But my gut says you’re about to get visitors.”

“Clear,” Bolan said. “May be the break we’ve been looking for.”

“Understood. What have you got there?”

“Four guards, all armed,” Bolan said. “Three more roaming the grounds. Unknown on how many inside. You ready to swoop if I need you?”

“Right. You said you wanted a fast taxi ride, so here I sit. Just me, a combat chopper, and a strike team of two dozen special ops soldiers who, by the way, are getting a little impatient.”

“Tell them to stand fast,” Bolan said. “They’re here for mop-up, nothing else. This is a situation where the fewer guns we have, the better off we’ll be.”

Grimaldi whistled. “I’m sure that message will play well. If you hear gunshots, you’ll know what happened. Any sign of our lady fair yet?”

“Negative.”

“Al-Shoud?”

“Same.”

“Think she’s still alive?”

“Hard to say. If she is, al-Shoud knows where to find her. Regardless, he and I are going to have a heart-to-heart.”

“My guess is he’s going to do most of the talking.”

“Most likely.”

“Stay hard, Striker.”

“Always.”

Bolan heard the thrumming of helicopter blades in the distance. The guards returned to view and began turning on halogen spotlights, illuminating a flat area that Bolan guessed served as a landing pad.

Within less than a minute the helicopter, a Russian-made Mi-17, swooped in overhead. The whine of its engines pierced the silence. As it settled to earth, rotor wash seized snow, dirt and small stones, and flung them into the guards’ eyes, forcing them to wrap their forearms over their faces. White cones of light emanated from the craft’s bottom as it lit up the makeshift helipad. Bolan slipped deeper under cover to avoid detection and waited for the chopper to land.

A side door slid open and a big Caucasian with thick blond hair stepped from the craft. His booted feet sank several inches into the snow, but he still covered the ground in confident, graceful strides. Camouflage battle fatigues and a rumpled field jacket covered his bulky frame. A Colt Commando hung from a strap looped over his right shoulder.

He turned and his big hands reached inside the aircraft and almost immediately connected with something. Grinning, the man pulled Jennifer Kinsey, an olive-drab field jacket draped over her designer suit, hands bound in front of her by steel handcuffs, out of the craft. As she kicked out to get her footing, the man dropped her into the snow. As she glared at him, he shook his head and laughed.

Bolan studied her through the binoculars. A bruise swelled under her left eye, and she wore a couple of small cuts on her cheeks. But she was alive. For now, Bolan considered that enough.

For now. Soon she’d be free. Or Bolan would be dead. He wasn’t going home empty-handed.

The large man reached down, gathered the fabric of her coat collar in his hand and yanked her to her feet. Bolan saw a satisfied grin play on the man’s lips as he brought her erect and shoved her forward, causing her to stumble. The guards neither laughed nor made a move to stop the rough treatment. Four men all dressed similarly to the big man and brandishing assault rifles stepped from the chopper. They followed Kinsey and her tormenter inside.

Bolan keyed the headset. “Ace?”

“Go, Striker.”

“She’s here.”

“Roger that. You going in?”

“Right. Standby. I’ll call for a pickup.”

Grimaldi acknowledged the radio traffic. Bolan killed the connection. The warrior sheathed the Beretta and unlimbered the sound-suppressed Heckler & Koch MP-5. Bolan came to his feet and, using rocks strewed about the terrain for cover, closed in on the village.

The crunch of hard-packed snow crushed underfoot reached Bolan’s ears. He whirled, spotted a fifth gunner crouched next to a boulder. The man already had locked Bolan in his sights. The Executioner lunged left and crashed into the ground, the icy snow yielding under his weight. Flame blossomed from the sentry’s weapon and bullets pounded the area around Bolan. Small geysers of snow erupted from the ground as rounds chewed a path toward Bolan.

Taking aim, Bolan stroked the H&K’s trigger. The initial burst sailed inches past his target’s head. The guard held his ground and laid down another withering hail of gunfire. Correcting his own aim, Bolan fired two more bursts from the SMG. The rounds drilled into the man’s belly, causing him to stiffen and stagger back before he collapsed to the ground.

Shadows loomed behind Bolan and in the absence of gunfire, he heard more assailants crossing the snow toward him. The Executioner rolled into a prone position, propping himself up on his elbows and clutching the MP-5 in both hands. He tapped out a short burst that chewed into the man’s chest and stomach. Caught by the 9 mm stingers, the man staggered back and his body went limp. Dropping his weapon, he fell to his knees, pitched face-first into the snow.

More autofire flashed around Bolan. Bullets tore at the smooth, snowy surfaces and sparked off exposed rocks. He was on his feet and running for another position. He switched his weapon to full-auto and laid down a sustained salvo for cover as he ran.

He caught motion to his right, whirled and spied a pair of shooters trying to acquire him as a target. Orange muzzle-flashes burst from their weapons and lead sizzled the air around Bolan, lancing between his legs and passing close to his ears and shoulders.

As grim as hell, the warrior brought around his MP-5 and unloaded a burst at the nearest man. The leaden storm ripped ragged holes in the man’s chest, shaking him like a leaf in the wind. As the first shooter fell, Bolan whirled toward the second. Having seen his comrade fall, the man redoubled his own efforts, emptying his rifle in a sustained assault on Bolan.

The Executioner snap-aimed the subgun and loosed a murderous gale of autofire. The onslaught pounded the man’s center mass and drove his battered corpse to the ground. Smoke curled from the MP-5’s barrel, mixing with the clouds formed by Bolan’s frozen breath.

The big American snapped a new magazine into the weapon. Legs pumping, he surged toward the encampment, dropping two more gunners as he continued his death march. More gunfire blazed a trail toward him, forcing the warrior to thrust himself beneath a wooden donkey cart. A shower of hellfire pounded into the ancient vehicle, creating a spray of splinters. Bullets tunneled into the ground around him.

The warrior plucked a frag grenade from his web gear and rolled from under the cart. Popping up from behind it, he spotted two of the shooters—a pair of Caucasians in camouflage fatigues—laying down a relentless hail of lead. Yanking the grenade’s pin, Bolan heaved the weapon toward the shooters and dropped back under cover.

An orange blast erupted, punctuated with a hellish chorus of agonized screams. Bolan was up and running again, this time beating a path for the helicopter.

A pilot stepped into view, pistol raised in front of him. Bolan’s subgun came to life, stitching the guy from left hip to right shoulder. The bullets’ impact thrust the man back into the chopper, knocking him from view. Grabbing a thermite grenade from his gear, Bolan activated the bomb and tossed it inside the craft. As a second followed in right after the first, Bolan wheeled and put some distance between him and the chopper. Reaching a line of rocks, he vaulted, hit the ground hard and launched into a side roll.

The dual grenades ignited one right after the other. Roiling clouds of flame erupted and ripped through the craft. Within a heartbeat, the fire ignited the craft’s fuel tanks and blew it into a supernova of flame, glass shards and twisted metal.

Bolan took the blitz up a notch and beat a path for the brick building. The MP-5 held in front of him at shoulder level, he weaved a path through the cluster of huts. He detected no signs of life from within, no cooking odors or fires, no noise.

The source had claimed the place was filled with innocents, but Bolan had seen no evidence to support this. He considered that a stroke of luck.

He flattened himself against one of the huts and peered inside. He saw blankets, dishes, utensils, radios and a laptop scattered around, but no people. He checked two more structures and found the same.

Bolan edged along another of the small houses, bringing himself within a few yards of the concrete-block building where he’d seen Stone take the woman.

A shadow from above overtook the Executioner. Raising his weapon, he spun just in time to see a large, robed man—apparently one of al-Shoud’s fighters—leap from a roof and fall toward him.

The man dropped into Bolan, wrapped his arms around the warrior’s midsection and took him to the ground. The attacker straddled him and sent a fist rocketing for Bolan’s face. The soldier rolled with the blow, letting it graze his cheek but mitigating the damage. Bolan tried to swing the MP-5 around so he could drill his adversary, but found his arm held fast in the other man’s grip.

Bolan’s left arm struck out hard, burying a fist into the guy’s soft belly, once, then twice, each blow driven hard into the man’s diaphragm. Breath exploded from the man’s lungs and his grip on Bolan’s wrist loosened. The soldier pressed his wrist against his opponent’s thumb until the Executioner’s gun hand slipped free. With lightning-fast movements, he cracked the man in the jaw with the MP-5 and sent him sprawling.

His appetite for hand-to-hand combat spoiled, the man grabbed for a pistol. Bolan’s MP-5 coughed out a trio of bullets that struck the man in the throat and robbed him of any remaining fight.

Bolan reached the brick structure and flattened himself against the wall, taking a moment to familiarize himself with the single-story structure layout. Kurtzman had told him that it had popped up within the last year, supposedly as part of an aid project for the village. The cover story was that it was to serve as a school and a community shelter.

Bolan dropped the MP-5 and fisted the Beretta and the Desert Eagle. He glided along the building’s edge until he came within yards of a door. He heard the click of a door latch and, a moment later, the steel door opened. A woman half walked, half stumbled out, a baby clutched to her. A bearded man, his red hair trimmed into a crew cut, stood behind her, his forearm wrapped around her throat as he used her for a human shield. She clutched a bundle to her bosom—a baby.

From behind his human shield, the man aimed an autoloading pistol at Bolan. The soldier’s eyes darted around as he sought a decent shot with Beretta.

He saw nothing.

JENNIFER KINSEY WINCED as Jon Stone hit her square between the shoulder blades. The blow launched her into a room that resembled a makeshift command center, with a bank of television monitors, computers and other high-tech equipment.

Kinsey felt Stone behind her before he touched her. When he did make contact, it was painful. He drove a fist into her kidneys, driving her to her knees. Grabbing a fistful of her hair, he forced her back to her feet.

Stone took a few steps forward, wheeled and pinned her under his cold stare. He nodded over his shoulder at the security monitors as they conveyed the carnage unfolding outside. A big man had waded into the middle of Stone and al-Shoud’s gunners and, from what Kinsey saw, had unleashed hell on them.

“Friend of yours?” Stone asked.

Kinsey shrugged. “Maybe. Does he scare you?”

Stone’s lip curled into a sneer. “Nobody scares me, honey. You should know that.”

“James Lee must have scared you. Or you wouldn’t have killed him.”

“Lee was a paper pusher. Killing him was just business.”

“Business for who?”

“Get it straight—I ask the questions, you answer.”

Kinsey’s eyes narrowed. “Simple rules for a simple man.”

“You know, for a lady, you got some real clangers. Who knows you saw me?”

“Everyone.”

“Care to elaborate?”

“No.”

Stone stepped forward, crowding Kinsey. She felt her heart slam in her chest and her lips go dry as he did. He pressed his Glock to her forehead, used it to sweep aside a lock of her hair. The muzzle left a cold trail on the skin it touched. Despite her bravado, Kinsey was scared. Stone was a sociopath and he’d kill her without remorse. Her only lever, the only thing keeping her alive, was information.

That and Stone’s propensity toward underestimating women.

Kinsey was a trained agent. She could hold her own against any man. Stone knew this about her but chose to bind her hands in front of her, leaving her in a position to strike out at him.

More motion flashed on the television monitors. A glance told Kinsey that the lone warrior had blazed through the exterior guards and was making his way through al-Shoud’s compound.

“You tried to contact someone. Who was it?”

Kinsey shook her head. “No one.”

His moves a blur, he cracked her once in the jaw. Her head snapped back hard and a coppery taste filled her mouth.

Blood.

Son of a bitch.

Конец ознакомительного фрагмента.

Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес».

Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес.

Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.