HELL ROAD [066-066-5.0]

By Don Pendleton

Synopsis:

One of the Middle East's most dangerous terrorists has been captured and
is being held in a desert prison compound awaiting extradition to the
United States when a ex-CIA operative-turnedterrorist breaks him out in
an extremely violent and costly gun battle. Mack Bolan, inadvertently
involved in the battle at the prison, must track down the escapees and
the rogue CIA agent before more acts of terrorism are committed.
Violence. 205th novel in the "Executioner" series, 1996.

A GOLD EAGLE BOOK From Worldwide Library TORONTO - NEW YORK - LONDON
AMSTERDAM - PARIS - SYDNEY - HAMBURG STOCKHOLM - ATHENS - TOKYO - MILAN
MADRID - WARSAW - BUDAPEST - AUCKLAND

Copyright (C) 1996 by Worldwide Library

All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or
utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any
electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented,
including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information
storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission
of the publisher, Worldwide Library, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills,
Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.

First edition January 1996

ISBN 0-373-64205-9

(G) and TM are trademarks of the publisher. Trademarks indicated with
(G) are registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office, the
Canadian Trade Marks Office and in other countries.

Printed In U.S.A.

If you purchased this book without a cover you should be aware that this
book is stolen property. It was reported as "unsold and destroyed" to
the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any
payment for this "stripped book."

All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of
the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same
name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual
known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

MACK BOLAN The Executioner

#118 Warrior's Revenge #119 Line of Fire #120 Border Sweep #121 Twisted
Path #122 Desert Strike #123 War Born #124 Night Kill #125 Dead Man's
Tale #126 Death Wind #127 Kill Zone #128 Sudan Slaughter #129 Haitian
Hit #130 Dead Line #131 Ice Wolf #132 THE Big Kill #133 Blood Run #134
White Line War #135 Devil Force #136 Down and Dirty #137 Battle Lines
#138 Kill Trap #139 Cutting Edge #140 Wild Card #141 Direct Hit #142
Fatal Error #143 Helldust Cruise #144 Whipsaw #145 Chacago Payoff #146
Deadly Tactics #147 Payback Game #148 Deep and Swift #149 Blood Rules
#150 Death Load #151 Message to Medellin #152 Combat Stretch #153
Firebase Florida #154 Night Hit #155 Hawaiian Heat #156 Phantom Force
#157 Cayman Strike #158 Firing Line #159 Steel and Flame #160 Storm
Warning #161 Eye of the Storm #162 Colors of Hell #163 Warrior's Edge
#164 Death Trail #165 Fire Sweep #166 Assassin's Creed #167 Double
Action #168 Blood Price #169 White Heat #170 Baja Blitz #171 Deadly
Force #172 Fast Strike #173 Capitol Hit #174 Battle Plan #175 Battle
Ground #176 Ransom Run #177 Evil Code #178 Black Hand #179 War Hammer
#180 Force Down #181 Shifting Target #182 Lethal Agent #183 Clean Sweep
#184 Death Warrant #185 Sudden Fury #186 Fire Burst #187 Cleansing Flame
#188 war Paint #189 Wellfire #190 Killing Range #191 Extreme Force #192
Maximum Impact #193 Hostile Action #194 Deadly Contest #195 Select Fire
#196 Triburst #197 Armed Force #198 Shoot Down #199 Rogue Agent #200
Crisis Point #201 Prime Target #202 Combat Zone #203 Hard Contact #204
Rescue Run #205 Hell Road ACKNOWLEDGMENT Special thanks and

acknowledgment

to Dan Schmidt for his contribution to this work.

Justice is truth in action. -Benjamin Disraeli 1804-1881

I've been resolute in the pursuit of justice for those who prey on
society. I will not swerve from my chosen path until my skills are no
longer needed. -Mack Bolan

THE MACK BOLAN LEGEND

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PROLOGUE

Colonel Sam Yoraam of the Israeli Defense Forces was walking toward the
prison compound in the Sinai Desert when he stopped suddenly, put his
hands on his hips and scoured the burning blue sky, then the vast
surrounding wasteland. Yoraam couldn't put his finger on why, but he was
worried. Something bad was going to happen; he was sure of it. The
colonel wasn't a man who suffered from bad nerves or was prone to
superstition.

He was a veteran of the 1967 Six Day War and the famous Entebbe raid,
and had organized and led countless commando raids against terrorist
strongholds in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. Yoraam had had a long and
much-decorated career in the IDF. He was considered a national hero and
he was affectionately known as "the Old Man" among his troops. Indeed,
as the commanding officer of a hastily constructed prison compound that
held the world's foremost terrorist--who was awaiting extradition to the
United States--Colonel Yoraam felt every bit his fifty-four years of age
and then some.

He gave the compound a thorough inspection, his hard blue eyes taking in
every detail as if he expected his portent of doom to come true any
second. Two dozen Galil- or Uzi-toting soldiers patrolled the perimeter
of the one-story cinder-block prison with its row of iron-barred
windows. Six CH-53 helicopters were grounded near the C-130 that had
flown in the thirty-three murdering Arabs who had been cornered and
snatched up out of the Gaza Strip by Yoraam's strike company less than
two weeks earlier. Olive-drab tents now bivouacked Yoraam's sixty-strong
company, which had successfully completed that daring raid and snagged
Aziz Kamal and his Iraqi butchers.

Yoraam searched the east end of the compound. Beyond the dozen Land
Rovers and the gigantic fuel bin that held twenty-thousand gallons of
fuel, there was nothing but vast and empty desert. The Sinai, Yoraam
thought, twenty-four thousand square miles of nothingness, seemed the
perfect corner of hell to hold the terrorists. It was land easy to
monitor, but every time Yoraam spotted the distant shapes of dark-clad
bedouin and their camels, he became suspicious. At that moment there was
a clan of bedouin to the east, the nomadic caravan now angling toward
the compound. Were they just curious? he wondered. Or were they
something else? Yoraam watched as soldiers jumped into a Land Rover,
fired up the engine and sped off to direct the tribesmen away from the
compound.

Out of the corner of his eye, Yoraam caught Eziel Baumstein striding
toward him. A scowl began to tighten Yoraam's face. He ran a hand over
his balding pate, agitated that he had to deal with Baumstein at all.
But the Mossad agent had been given clearance by the IDF to interrogate
the terrorists. Still, he didn't like the Mossad man. Yoraam sensed
Baumstein had some hidden agenda. Or was he being paranoid?

The colonel waited as Baumstein strode toward him. The agent was short
and lean, had piercing dark eyes, a crew cut and no chin. Yoraam
wondered why the man never sweated in the blistering heat of the Sinai;
Baumstein certainly had all the personality of a block of ice, he
decided. In a tan shirt, tan pants and wearing black combat boots, the
man carried two mini-Uzis in shoulder holsters, a dozen clips and a
commando dagger in the webbing around his middle. There was something
not only unorthodox and unmilitary about Baumstein, but also something
untrustworthy, Yoraam thought, something that was ... what? Deadly?
Predatory?

The agent pulled up in front of Yoraam and gave the colonel a cold eye.
He hooked his thumbs inside his mini-Uzis and stood, splay legged.

"I understand the Americans are en route," Baumstein said in a tone that
suggested he was used to giving orders instead of receiving them. "I
wish to interrogate Kamal again before they arrive."

"The Americans will be here in about fifteen hours. You will have plenty
of time to interrogate the prisoner again, Mr. Baumstein. Later."

Baumstein stiffened with anger. "Later may be too late. Once the
Americans pick them up, Mossad will lose its last chance to get the
information it needs regarding other terrorist activities inside our
nation's borders. Colonel, need I remind you that I have been given full
and complete authority on this base of yours to do as I see fit to-"

"You have reminded me the entire week you have been here," the colonel
interrupted. "If you have not learned any more by now about other
possible terrorists inside Israel, then I suggest you return to Tel
Aviv, or even better, the West Bank, to learn the truth. You are merely
chasing ghosts here."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means that I believe someone has betrayed Israel. Someone with
authority helped to infiltrate enough of those terrorists inside the
borders of Israel and arm them with enough explosives to be able to
murder close to a hundred of our citizens. Someone who was not Arab."

Baumstein hesitated. "Preposterous."

"Is it?"

The Mossad agent gave Yoraam a penetrating stare. "Doesn't it bother
you, Colonel, that the Americans are claiming extradition rights to the
world's most notorious terrorists over Israel's right to prosecute
them?"

Yoraam heaved a breath, biting down his mounting irritation. "Kamal and
his butchers bombed the United Nations and set off a series of
explosions in New York City immediately after that, which claimed the
lives of not only 113 Americans, but also wiped out an entire Israeli
diplomatic envoy in that city. Why are YOU SO determined to keep them on
Israeli soil? It is far too dangerous to keep those mad dogs on a leash
in Israel when you know full well our nation is surrounded by enemies
who would destroy us just to free them."

Baumstein smiled coldly. "Of course, Colonel, I understand. YOU feel
some allegiance to the Americans, especially their CIA, which helped you
get Kamal in the first place, or so the CIA wants to think. Without
Mossad intelligence, though, you and your men would never have caught
Kamal and his thugs in Gaza."

"I believe I know where you are headed with this, Mr. Baumstein. You
wish to tell me next that we captured most of them, not all of them."

"Precisely. Do not forget the Israeli soldier and his family who were
murdered last week. Remember what the terrorists scrawled in their blood
on the walls of his home? "Kamal will be freed or he will be crushed.
Death to Israel and America.'"

"Well, that is why I am here, Mr. Baumstein, to make sure Kamal is sent
to stand trial in America, where he will no longer be Israel's problem."

"it is my whole point entirely, Colonel. The ones who are still free
have openly pledged to either break Kamal out or make sure he never
leaves the Middle East alive. We still have terrorists inside Israel.
Kamal has the information Mossad needs."

"Kamal is going to tell you nothing. If you will excuse me."

As Yoraam walked off, Baumstein called, "I Will expect to see the
prisoner one last time, Colonel."

Yoraam stopped cold in his tracks. "I will allow you to speak with the
man one last time. I will have one of my men present, and you will speak
in English, not Arabic."

Baumstein looked offended. "You are overstepping your bounds, Colonel.
How dare you imply you do not trust me."

The colonel walked on, ignoring the Mossad man, who was talking about a
written report to the IDF about the lack of cooperation he was getting.
Baumstein might as well have been talking to the desert. Yoraam felt
himself become cold and single-minded.

As the colonel closed on the prison, he felt Kamal's eyes on him before
he saw the eyes watching him. He kept walking, but he locked stares with
the terrorist. A swarthy, bearded face with a beaked nose and dark eyes
watched the colonel from behind the barred window with that irrational
centuries-old hate that Yoraam had seen countless times in his life.
Kamal was a mass murderer, nothing more than a butcher of innocent men,
women and children. The man's very existence in the world was an
abomination to all life.

A white-hot rage began to boil in the colonel. He had witnessed Kamal's
work firsthand. In his mind, against his will, he saw the bodies of
victims, strewed all over streets and marketplaces in Israel, saw some
of the children who had survived, whisked away in ambulances but who
would have to spend the rest of their lives without an arm or a leg or
an eye. For just a moment Yoraam had the fleeting idea to walk into the
man's cage, draw his 9 mm Beretta and hand the Iraqi butcher the
ultimate sentence. Maybe he would do just that. It seemed unjust to let
the Americans have Kamal, to merely put him away for life without
parole, when the bastard would have been sentenced to hang in Israel.
Surely there was a better way.

Robert Gorman suspected he was going to have to make an example of two
malcontents in the worst way. The former Special Forces major and ex-CIA
paramilitary operative salved his conscience by telling himself that
what he was about to do was completely and absolutely necessary. If he
didn't follow through now, he could lose control of his men, risk a
potential mutiny and jeopardize the entire operation. Not to mention the
loss of twenty million dollars. It was time to set some matters to rest.
Permanently.

Gorman moved out of his tent, squinting against the blazing sun that
burned like a furnace over this remote corner of southern Jordan. He
stopped and clenched his jaw. The tension in his belly was so tight with
a poison to kill that it felt as if he had a coiled viper down there.
Two unhappy bastards, he thought, trying to throw a monkey wrench into
things at the eleventh hour. For a long moment, steeling himself for
what he must do, Gorman peered at the giant sand-colored tent, just
beyond the fuel drums, where his men were bivouacked. He wondered if any
of the others felt the same as the two Germans. there was only one way
to find out.

Dressed in buff-colored camouflage fatigues, Gorman was a six-foot-four,
220-pound block of chiseled granite. He had one big sinewy hand draped
over the butt of a holstered stainless-steel Colt .45, and the other
hand rubbed the engraved death's-head on the gold hilt of a
Fairbairn-Sykes commando dagger. With the fierce heat, beads of sweat
broke out on Gorman's long, lean, broad face, his crew cut and the old
knife scar on his cheek making his face appear every bit as ominous as
the death's-head on his dagger.

He touched the scar. It was an old wound from Vietnam, but one he'd
earned in a bar fight in Saigon with four CIA goons who thought they
were a little tougher, deserved a little more respect than some "Special
Forces prima donna," as they had so unfortunately, for them, put it.
Well, four broken and bloodied goons later, two of them damn near
shipped home in body bags, Gorman was heading out the door with a bottle
of whiskey and his own Miss Saigon, who had stitched up his face and
given him one long night of much-earned loving care. So much for prima
donnas.

Gorman turned and looked at his right-hand man. Paul Reuter was
ex-Recces, a former member of one of the toughest commando units in the
world. The blond, blue-eyed south African weighed two hundred pounds,
which was spread over a broad, short-legged, six-foot-tall body. At
first glance it would appear that Reuter wasn't much, but just because
the man liked his beer, cigars, red meat and women didn't make him any
less tough. One look at the steely determination in Reuter's eyes, the
iron set to his square jaw and Gorman could well imagine this South
African commando not having much trouble enduring the forty-two weeks of
murderous training in Zululand that broke ninety percent of all
"wannabe" Recces.

Gorman and Reuter went back years, fighting the bush wars in Angola and
Rhodesia, killing guerrillas, Russians and Cuban terrorists in the hopes
of saving the lower Africa from communism, tribal warfare and barbaric
dictatorship that had torn apart and decimated so much of the continent.
Gorman trusted Reuter with his life.

"You sure you want to do this?"

Gorman returned Reuter's deadpan expression with a hint of ice in his
eyes. "It's not a question of what I want to do. Let's get it over
with."

The two men crossed the compound, which had been hastily constructed at
dawn. The GAZ-66 transport truck and the seven Russian-made attack
helicopters were hidden beneath a sand-colored tarp that blended in
perfectly with the hills just north of the compound. Those hills, and
the surrounding desert, were watched by six sentries around the clock.
Gorman knew if they stayed in the area more than a day they risked
detection by roving Israeli F-16S or U.S. satellite recon. But D day was
only twenty-four hours ahead, and more often than not, getting lucky was
simply a matter of good planning.

Walking inside his troops' tent, Gorman announced, "Listen up. I've got
a couple of problems I need to take care of."

Gorman's mercenary army of fifty men was scattered around the sprawling
tent cover. The head merc raked a hard eye over the sea of grizzled and
determined faces. With a couple of exceptions, they were all tough
combat veterans of many wars, both overt and covert. Most of them Gorman
knew personally; some he didn't. It was those men whose loyalty he had
to challenge in order to figure out just where it lay. There were Recces
Reuter had brought with him, Gurkhas and legionnaires, three commandos
from the British SAS and a half-dozen assassins from the CINS Special
Operations Division that Gorman had signed on from the glory days in the
lower Americas and West Africa. All of them were disillusioned but
hungry soldiers for hire who knew the deal and would go all the way for
one last shot at the big time. The men were tough and reliable.

And then there were the two malcontents, sitting apart from the others,
in the far corner of the tent, smoking over a hand of cards.

Fortunately Gorman had with him fifteen hardmen from the old Special
Forces unit in Vietnam. The head merc had entrusted his life to five of
those soldiers many times over the years. He turned his attention to
those men, softening his look. Crocker, Collins, Benson, Judd and
Hammersmith had been cleaning their assault rifles but now gave their
commander the kind of full and instant attention that told Gorman they
knew something was very wrong. They were the strong link in the chain,
and what they did or said carried weight with the rest of the group.

Gorman put his hands on his hips and pinned the two troublemakers with a
hard stare. "Put the cards down. I want everybody front and center."

He waited while his men put out cigarettes, laid down assault rifles and
machine guns and formed a semicircle around him. Gorman had to wait a
few more moments for Tiel and Mauser. His gaze never left the two
Germans, and it didn't escape the big man that Tiel and Mauser kept
their Uzi subguns by their sides.

Gorman had never trusted the Germans. Tiel was a former terrorist with
the Red Army Faction, but he'd had the necessary contacts in the Arab
world that Gorman had needed and used to put together and nail down the
final details for D day. Mauser was a former GSG-9 counterterrorist
commando who had jumped the wall to join the Red Army for the most basic
of human failings: greed. Both Germans had shifty blue eyes almost
always hidden behind slit-eyed gazes. Tiel was lean and had a face like
a ferret, while Mauser was stocky and short with a face like a bulldog.

With Reuter standing behind him, Gorman addressed his army with casual
iciness in his voice. "One thing I cannot and will not tolerate is
disloyalty or disharmony. Those two things are the death of any fighting
unit. In other words, I won't tolerate a man among my ranks who talks in
my shadow out of both sides of his mouth. From the beginning I was
straight with each and every one of you men. You knew why you were
hired, what you were getting paid and what you could expect. I don't
need to tell you that in life there are no guarantees. Meaning, we'll
take some casualties. And that, people, is the only guarantee I can give
you. If someone goes down, he'll stay down. He won't be coming back. If
you are wounded and cannot carry or drag yourself for evacuation, you'll
be executed on the spot--and that includes myself. That is also the only
other guarantee I can give you."

Tiel and Mauser fidgeted. A sheen of sweat broke out on Mauser's
forehead. Gorman felt the tightness in the air, read the anxiety and the
fear on several faces in the group. One of the SAS commandos, Peter
Miller, glanced at Tiel, who was suddenly staring down at his boots.
Miller cracked a mean grin, then watched Gorman.

"Now," Gorman said, "about those problems." Slowly he turned his head
and fixed Tiel and Manser with hard eyes. The tension among the troops
thickened.

Tiel looked up from his boots and found himself the center of either
everyone's contempt or fear. Mauser looked to Tiel as if seeking
assurance. But Tiel broke his companion's stare, looking as if he wished
he could disappear.

The mercenaries watched Gorman as he strode over to the Germans. Reuter
held his ground. Dead silence reigned as the ex-Special Forces major
loomed over the two men, until Reuter flicked his lighter and torched a
foot-long Havana cigar.

"I understand you two are unhappy with our arrangement. I understand
that you think I don't deserve what I'm getting for putting this
operation together. I also understand you two are even telling the
others that maybe now they don't even need me to pull off this
operation."

Mauser became defiant. He looked at the rest of the group, searching for
the traitor. "Bastards."

Miller chuckled, a grim sound. "Go on, mate, you've got the floor. Tell
the major just how unhappy you are."

Tiel and Mauser sat like cornered animals, but there was hatred in their
eyes for the rest of them as both men knew they were on their own.

"Well?" Gorman prodded. "Is it true? Or have I just been hearing stories
because maybe some of the others don't like your attitudes?" Silence,
then Gorman boomed, "Talk to me!"

Mauser nodded. "All right, I will tell you," he snarled, his accent
thick. "Yes, both myself and Tiel, we do not like the fact you come to
us, use our contacts to get what you need. There is twenty million
dollars at stake, and you are taking twenty percent for yourself."

"You agreed to the terms, mister," Gorman said. "Fact is, each man is
getting well over a hundred thousand in cash. That's more money than you
and your buddy will ever see at one time in your whole miserable lives
by building bombs to blow up innocent women and children."

Tiel cleared his throat. "Ja, we agreed to those terms, but we have been
thinking our percentage is only one percent. Not much for all we have
done for you. We got you what you want. Do not forget that, without us,
what is at the end for you would have been impossible."

Gorman nodded, appearing amused. "So, what you're saying is you deserve
more?"

"Of course," Mauser barked, then folded his arms, his face tight with
defiance.

Gorman clenched his jaw. "You can always feel free to leave."

Mauser shook his head. "No. We will see this through. I believe that
once our man at the end of this mission discovers how you have given us
mere dog scraps for delivery of the merchandise ...  Well, I do not
think he will be pleased over your stinginess."

The change in Gorman's expression was instant and terrifying. A veil of
demonic fury dropped over his face, but his voice was tightly controlled
as he told the Germans, "Maybe you won't see this through. Maybe I don't
even need you anymore."

Some of the defiance withered from Mauser's eyes. Now he was afraid.

Gorman lashed a lightning open-handed slap across Tiel's face and drove
the German to the ground.

Now Mauser was terrified. "What are you doing?"

"I just slapped your comrade like a woman," Gorman growled. "Doesn't
that piss you off enough to want to kill me with your bare hands?"

Mauser didn't move. Tiel touched the trickle Of blood at the corner of
his mouth, staring up at Gorman with pure hatred.

Gorman cracked a kick off Mauser's jaw, flipping the German over the
chair. As Mauser hammered to the hard-packed earth on his back, grunting
in pain, the head merc stepped away, removed and dropped his .45 on the
ground.

"There, if that'll make it easier for you," he said. "Tell you what. If
you can kill me, you can take my twenty percent and be Reuter's right
hands. He's already agreed," Gorman lied, then bellowed, "Come on!"

Tiel seemed to think about it for a moment, then leaped to his feet,
sweeping up his Uzi. Gorman clamped his fists over the weapon as the
subgun stuttered a 3-round burst, punching holes in the tent ceiling.
Some of the mercenaries flinched, obviously fearing a wild sweeping
burst, but Gorman ended the struggle in the next heartbeat.

With a head butt he crushed Tiel's nose in a blood-spraying pulp while
Mauser lifted his bulk, drawing his knife and charging. As Tiel
staggered and dropped the Uzi, Gorman spun him. With the superhuman
strength of combined adrenaline and rage, the big American hurled him
sideways at Mauser, who couldn't stop his rampage in time. His knife
plunged into his countryman's belly.

Mauser vented a berserk howl and swept his blade toward Gorman's throat.
The head merc grabbed the knife arm, went under and came up behind his
adversary, twisting the German's arm up and back. Mauser roared in pain
before Gorman grabbed the man's hand and thrust down. As Mauser screamed
at the snap of bone, the big American fisted a handful of the German's
hair, wrenching his head back. In one blur of movement, the dagger
streaked from Gorman's sheath and sliced open Mauser's throat. The
German dropped facedown in a spreading pool of blood.

It had taken less than thirty seconds for Gorman to dispose of Tiel and
Mauser with such swift brutality, but the ensuing stunned silence seemed
to last for a full minute. Now came the moment of truth as Gorman looked
at his troops. Two of the Gurkhas, Sarjir and Maktar, had risen from
their seats. They looked appalled, seemed to want to say something but
thought better of it. None of the others had moved. In fact, they didn't
seem to give a damn about what Gorman had done. Reuter was puffing on
his cigar, watching the others, waiting for some reaction.

Gorman wiped his dagger on Mauser's pant leg, then sheathed the blade.

"We were getting tired of their whining anyway, Major," Crocker said. "I
think I speak for everyone here, sir."

Gorman holstered his .45. He nodded, searching the faces of his troops.
He allowed a tight smile. For the most part, he agreed with Crocker. But
he still wasn't sure about some of them.

"Kindly dispose of that garbage," Gorman said, moving past his men.
"I'll give the final briefing at 0300."

Tel Aviv, Israel It was going to be a massacre, and Mack Bolan, a.k.a.
the Executioner, feared there wasn't a thing he could do to stop it from
happening.

Swinging his rental car off Ben Gurion Boulevard and onto Ben Yehudah
Street, Bolan spotted the two bearded Iraqi terrorists, more than a
block away. Farouk and Habib were already on the move, hustling through
bumper-to-bumper traffic that was Crawling along at a snail's pace. He
saw the terrorists had gotten lucky enough to park their white van
illegally in front of a string of pubs, restaurants and outdoor cafes, a
perfect killing ground for the carnage the pair was about to wreak. It
was happy hour, and this part of Tel Aviv was packed with Israelis in
search of an evening of wining and dining, the entire street was one
long moving cluster of unaware human targets. Hordes Of Young people
were everywhere, a sea of happy faces doing the cocktail circuit in
crowded sidewalk cafes.

Forced to stop in the stalled line of vehicles, Bolan silently cursed
the traffic congestion, grimly aware that he could never reach the
terrorists in time to stop them from detonating their deadly payload.

But it seemed to the Executioner that he'd been unlucky since his
arrival in Tel Aviv two days earlier. First he hadn't exactly been
greeted with open arms by Mossad. The Israeli Intelligence agency didn't
want any more involvement or interference by Americans at a time when
they were reluctantly handing over the world's most notorious terrorist
and most of his murdering army to Uncle Sam. Not to mention their nation
was practically under siege by roving bands of Aziz Kamal's butchers,
who were proving themselves hell-bent on vengeance at any cost.

But Bolan had been given clearance by the Justice Department to operate
on Israeli turf, thanks to Hal Brognola. And the Israelis had once
again, with reluctance, pledged to cooperate with "Mike Belasko," an
alias the Executioner sometimes used when working with the U.S.
Department of Justice. So Bolan had gone terrorist hunting to the
fringes of Tel Aviv, skipping his rendezvous with his Mossad escort, Ben
Yerzim, once Bolan believed he was onto the scent of the suspected
terrorist safehouse on the outskirts of the city.

When the big American had seen Farouk and Habib load their van with
three crates, their long, loose-fitting tunics concealing the noticeable
bulges of submachine guns, he had tracked them to this oasis of Pleasure
by the Mediterranean Sea.

Bolan suspected his luck wasn't about to improve. He jerked his vehicle
ahead when traffic began to move, then swerved curbside to a
hard-braking stop behind a taxi. The warrior was out and running,
weaving his way through traffic, his death sights set on the two Iraqis
who hit the sidewalk on the other side of the street, stopped, turned
and looked back.

The Executioner was three car lengths away from the van, reaching for
the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle riding on his hip beneath his tan
windbreaker, when he made eye contact with the terrorists. Even from
that distance, Bolan saw cold smiles slide over the faces of the
terrorists. They had known all along Bolan had been tailing them, and
had managed to lose the Executioner in heavy traffic back on Jabotinsky
Street.

Bolan saw the triumphant smile on Habib's face vanish as the terrorist
pulled a small black box from his Pocket. Adrenaline racing, the big
American grabbed the first innocent he saw, fully and painfully aware
that he would be able to save only one life. Maybe.

The woman screamed in surprise and outrage as Bolan grabbed her by the
arm and hauled her away from the white van. With the strength of rage
and fear propelling him, Bolan moved fast and furious, shouting what he
knew to be a futile warning, scooping the woman into his arms and
weaving through the rolling maze of cars. Out of the corner of his eye,
he saw the terrorist aim the box at the van.

Bolan vaulted over the trunk of a car, clutching the woman to his chest,
as the white van was vaporized by a tremendous ear-shattering fireball.
A huge tongue of flame roared over the traffic, hurling vehicles into
the air and catapulting countless bodies in all directions. The warrior
shielded his charge as twisted sheets of metal whooshed over them. The
ground shook with the force of an earthquake, and he felt the scorching
heat of the killer explosion on his face as fire shot overhead. Then
there was a second and third blast, both of which seemed more powerful
than the first as boiling waves of volcanic fire vomited wreckage and
mangled bodies into the sky. Vehicles were thrown through the windows of
restaurants, or whipped as if they weighed nothing more than a child's
toy, through crowded cafes. Through the screams of terror and agony,
Bolan made out sirens wailing in the distance. He stared down at the
woman whose life he had saved. She was a black-haired beauty with dark
eyes and a full, voluptuous body, not much more than twenty years old,
Bolan decided. There was now pure shock and horror in her eyes, her body
trembling, as she stared up at him.

"Are you all right?" Bolan asked.

"Who ...  how did you know?"

"Stay down," he told her, seeing then she was badly shaken but otherwise
unharmed.

He rose, catching a glimpse of Farouk and Habib as they moved swiftly
down the sidewalk.

Bolan took in the carnage and felt the rage rise from deep in his belly.
Dozens of cars were engulfed in flames. Bodies and bloody severed limbs
were strewed everywhere. Horribly wounded Israelis were rolling on the
sidewalk, clutching their faces or shattered limbs, screaming in agony.
The Executioner broke into a run, oily black smoke from crackling
bonfires of twisted wreckage nearly blotting out the mid-afternoon
sunlight. He quickly closed the gap to the terrorists as he rounded the
corner on Frischmann Street. Farouk and Habib plowed through
pedestrians, bowling over people in their rampage to escape. Bolan had
the tunnel vision of anger and retribution, seeing nothing but the two
murdering terrorists, his hand unleathering the big .44 Magnum Desert
Eagle.

The Executioner saw the terrorists dart down an alley. Reaching the
alleyway, Bolan exposed his silhouette for a second, caught sight of the
terrorists, then threw himself against the corner, crouching behind
cover as autofire chattered and stone chips blasted over his head. A
moment later, as the firing stopped, he chanced a look around the
corner. Farouk and Habib were brandishing mini-Uzis but seemed more
concerned with a hasty retreat than holding their ground and fighting.
Still, trying to catch one of the terrorists in the leg, Bolan returned
fire, the hand cannon thundering but only striking stone as the
terrorists burst through a doorway.

Bolan raced after them, pumped on a fresh burst of adrenaline. He wanted
them alive, but he didn't think he'd get the chance to interrogate them
about other suspected terrorist hideouts in Israel. He needed
information about a rumor he'd gotten wind of--the reason he'd come to
Israel in the first place.

As Bolan charged into a narrow, gloomily lit corridor, he heard shrill
female screams ahead, heard the commotion of breaking glass and saw
shadows diving to the floor. A moment later he discovered he was in a
fashionable restaurant.

The warrior burst into the dining room and found instant and utter
chaos. He made a beeline for the cover of a stone pillar just as the
terrorists turned and opened fire. Twin streams of 9 mm slugs whined off
the pillar above Bolan's head. Staying low and moving to the other side
of the column, the Executioner glimpsed the terrorists backpedaling for
the front door. Men and women scurried for cover, throwing tables into
the air. A waiter with a full tray of food was run over by Farouk,
glasses, carafes and dinner plates flying through the air as the waiter
did a somersault over a table of screaming guests. Bolan moved out,
determined to end it there if only to prevent the deaths of any more
innocents.

Farouk seemed more determined to reach the front door and flee, but
Habib did something Bolan was already anticipating. Habib reached down
to snatch a woman off the floor to use her as a human shield, but the
.44 hand cannon in Bolan's fist roared. The massive hollowpoint tunneled
open a gaping hole in the terrorist's chest. An even bigger and bloodier
hole blew out the Iraqi's back as he was launched, behind a crimson
cloud, through a plate-glass window and dumped on the sidewalk beyond in
a shower of glass shards.

Seconds later Bolan was out the door, hitting the sidewalk. He spotted
Farouk dashing through the traffic at a full sprint. A crowd had
gathered around the Executioner, but no one was moving; faces of pure
shock and terror stared at the big man with the .44 Magnum pistol.

Bolan watched as the Iraqi turned back, spotting the warrior before
racing down an alley on the other side of the street. The shriek of
sirens grew louder with each Passing second, but Bolan didn't see anyone
that looked like an Israeli soldier as he took off in pursuit of Farouk.

Moments later Bolan was in the alley. As the terrorist turned to fire,
he stumbled, then toppled to the alley floor. Bolan closed the gap.

"Drop the weapon!" the warrior growled, slowing his stride, lifting the
big pistol.

Farouk leaped to his feet, triggering the mini-Uzi, but Bolan's Desert
Eagle was already thundering. The warrior's aim was true but not meant
to kill as the .44 hollowpoint sheared off a small piece of Farouk's
flesh at the shoulder. The peal of Magnum thunder washed down the narrow
alley, drowning out the terrorist's roar of pain. Then Farouk began to
fire wildly, the mini-Uzi flaming and stuttering, forcing Bolan to hug
the wall as a line of slugs sparked and ricocheted off the ground
nearby. Suddenly the terrorist pitched out of sight.

Swift but cautious, Bolan surged ahead, arriving at a doorway in time to
see Farouk tumbling down a short flight of stone steps. As the terrorist
landed in a heap at the foot of the stairs, the Executioner descended.
The man was soaked in blood, his eyes glazed.

The Executioner sighted down the barrel of the .44 and said, "It's over
for you."

The heavy pounding of bootsteps sounded behind him. Turning, Bolan
spotted the Mossad man he had ditched leading a dozen or so Uzi-wielding
soldiers down the stairs.

"Freeze," Yerzim shouted at Bolan.

Farouk sat up, his bloody face twisted with feral rage.

Out of the corner of his eye, Bolan saw the terrorist clawing at his
ankle for a hideaway weapon, the miniuzi lost somewhere during his fall.
Bolan wheeled, the .44 sweeping into target acquisition as Farouk pulled
a small-caliber pistol from his ankle holster. Reacting, Bolan fired and
drilled the Iraqi through the head.

"Drop the weapon!" Yerzim bellowed as Israeli soldiers cocked the bolts
on Uzis and drew down on the big American.

Bolan turned Slowly to face Yerzim. A long moment of tension elapsed,
fury clouding the Mossad agent's face. The Executioner held the Desert
Eagle by his side.

"Just who do you think you are?" Yerzim snarled, stepping forward to
snatch the .44 pistol out of Bolan's hand. The Israeli dug out the
Beretta from Bolan's shoulder holster. "You have a lot of explaining to
do, Mr. Belasko."

When Yerzim told Bolan that he was very unhappy with him, the big
American thought that was the understatement of the century. They were
in Bolan's room at the Gordon's Hostel, and three hours had passed since
the bombing on Ben Yehudah Street. The room overlooked the
Mediterranean, and long shadows were stretching over the white sandy
beach as dusk fell over the city. The soft lapping of waves breaking on
the beach was overpowered by the air rasping out of Yerzim's flared
nostrils as the Israeli fought to control his anger and frustration.

Bolan sat in a chair by the nightstand, waiting for whatever the Mossad
man was going to lay on him. With obvious reluctance, Yerzim had
returned Bolan's weapons, which told him he wasn't going to be deported.

The soldier studied Yerzim as the man paced around the spartanly
furnished room like a caged tiger. Yerzim was a slightly built,
gray-haired agent in his late forties. He was dressed in a white sport
shirt, gray slacks and wing tips, and carried a shoulder-holstered
Walther PPK/S. The Israeli seemed to be wondering how to proceed as he
smoked his fourth cigarette in twenty minutes and poured himself another
drink from the bar. He checked his watch for the third time in ten
minutes, obviously impatient about something or waiting for someone,
Bolan decided.

On the double bed was the Mossad agent's briefcase, which Bolan knew
contained photos, maps and other Intel on suspected terrorists in
Israel. He judged Yerzim as a tough and reliable fighting man, an agent
who was committed to the job of maintaining the security of his country.
But he was on edge, which Bolan decided was very understandable. He
found himself liking the guy, and had always been fully intent on
cooperating with the Mossad agent. There was a determined set to the
Israeli's jaw, the fire of conviction in his blue eyes. He had the look
of an honest fighting man who would go all the way to defend what was
right and good. The fact that Yerzim had given Bolan back his guns and
had somehow managed to cut off a tongue-lashing before he knew the facts
told Bolan the Israeli agent was a fair and reasonable man.

Yerzim, his back turned to Bolan as he stared out to sea, killed his
drink. The man seemed to be wrestling with the awful truth of the
moment.

"More than forty dead," the Israeli said, then heaved a sigh, setting
the empty glass on the bar top with a hard thud. "Dozens more wounded,
most of them critically. The murdering bastards. If I could bring them
back from the dead, I would surely be more than glad to kill them
again." He turned and looked at Bolan with a world-weary expression.
Indeed, the Mossad man seemed to have aged ten years in the two days
Bolan had known him.

"Why did you desert me, Mr. Belasko? I am responsible for you while you
are in my country. Why? And do not tell me it is because you work better
on your own. I do not appreciate this, uh, American cowboy game you
played on me."

Bolan put some steel into his eyes, but kept his voice level as he told
Yerzim, "I didn't desert you--let's get that straight--and I'm not one
to play games. The fact is, I work better on my own."

Yerzim gave him a hard look. "Israel is under a state of siege by
terrorists. This is the third such attack in the last two weeks by these
Iraqi butchers. This is no laughing matter."

"You see me laughing? Look, Yerzim, my mission here is every bit the
same and every bit as important as yours."

"That may be so, but I told you to stay put here and wait for me to
return."

"You left, saying you had some urgent business to attend to, left me
with maps, names, photos of and possible locations of terrorist
safehouses. Time was running out. If you had known where Farouk and
Habib had been hiding, you would have already taken them down. I didn't
come here to sit around on my hands or have my every move shadowed by
people I don't know and have never worked with. That isn't to say I
don't trust you. But I had to make a move."

Yerzim drew hard on his cigarette, peered at Bolan and blew a thick
cloud of smoke toward him. "And you knew exactly where to go to find
Farouk and Ha bib?"

"I got lucky. I had already checked most of those locations in your
file, and they were dead leads. I chose one that was closest to the
city. When I got there, those two had the van loaded with what I
believed was either dynamite or plastic explosives. I could tell they
were at least carrying submachine guns beneath their tunics."

"And you said they spotted you and ran. They also managed to elude you"

"Traffic was heavy. Unfortunately they got lucky. I wasn't about to run
down Israeli citizens."

"You had my pager number. You could've contacted me. We could have had
soldiers on them, had them surrounded and taken down within minutes. Ah,
Yes, I forgot. Time was running out, according to you."

"What happened is over, and I regret what happened. Believe me, I didn't
want to see innocent people die, and I was doing everything I could to
keep that from happening. Even if you had gotten to the van, I can tell
you with complete certainty they would have gone out in a suicide blast
in the name of God. You'd still have dozens of dead and wounded on your
hands."

Yerzim looked away from Bolan. The agent's expression softened as he
nodded. Obviously Yerzim knew Bolan was right.

"Meaning we lost a battle but not the war."

"Exactly." Bolan paused. "Look, my country is sending a military convoy
to pick up Kamal and his murderers and take them back to the States.
When that escort will be arriving, I'm not exactly sure. But I needed
Farouk and Habib alive. I needed them to tell me who is going to attempt
to break Kamal out of your holding compound in the desert. I need to
know where the rest of Kamal's terrorists are hiding and when the attack
is going to happen."

Yerzim folded his hands behind his back and smiled grimly. "That, Mr.
Belasko, was part of my urgent business. As we speak, your country has
en route a Special Forces team that is due to land on the Sinai just
before dawn tomorrow. Not only that, but Mossad believes that if there
is an attempt to free Kamal, it won't be done by his fellow Iraqi
murderers."

Bolan tensed. That the escort was on the way was news to him, but he
hadn't spoken with Hal Brognola in more than a day. And the rumored
impending attack to free Kamal was not going to be done by Kamal's own
people? Then who were the other players? More importantly, when was the
attack going to happen? There was a lot Bolan had to know, and he had to
learn it quickly. With his contacts and connections within and beyond
the Justice Department, Brognola would have gotten Bolan that critical
information about the Special Forces task force. Bolan needed an update
from Brognola.

"Not only that, but Mossad has also learned of something that, if also
true, could prove to be the worst-case scenario since the Iraqi madman
dropped his Scuds on Israel during the Gulf War."

Bolan stood. "I need you to get me transport to the Sinai right away. If
there's going to be an attack, it'll happen at any time."

Yerzim waved a hand at Bolan. "Please, Mr. Belasko, allow us the dignity
and your confidence that we can do our job. We have a national hero,
Colonel Sam Yoraam, in charge of a rather sizable force of Israel's
finest commandos. They are holding Kamal and his Iraqi murderers until
the Americans arrive."

Bolan nodded. "I've heard of Colonel Yoraam, and I understand he's a
good man. But the fact is I haven't learned any more about this rumored
attack on the compound. A surprise attack might not free Kamal, but it
would surely cost more lives. We've come to a dead end here. I need to
be at that compound."

"We have not reached a dead end. This is what I'm trying to tell you.
Patience, please. There's more than just the threat of an attack on the
compound, Mr. Belasko. Once you leave my country and this Special Forces
escort takes Kamal back to the United States, our troubles here in
Israel might only just have started." Yerzim checked his watch again.

"Are you going to get me to that compound or not?" Bolan asked.

"It can probably be arranged, if you insist."

"I insist."

"First there's someone I want you to meet."

"Come on, Yerzim, we're wasting time."

Suddenly there was a knock on the door. The Israeli looked at Bolan.
"That would be the special agent who is in charge of counterterrorism
intelligence. As you might say, Agent Weisskopf outranks me. I suggest
you listen to what she is going to tell you. Come in," Yerzim called
out.

Bolan turned. The door opened and Bolan froze.

"This is Special Agent Elena Weisskopf, Mr. Belasko," Yerzim said.
"Agent Weisskopf, meet Mike Belasko of the U.S. Justice Department."

Bolan was riveted, but not because Agent Elena Weisskopf was a stunning
dark-haired woman in her early thirties. No, right away something else
began nagging the Executioner about the beautiful Israeli agent in
charge of counterterrorism.

Weisskopf closed the door and looked Bolan straight in the eye, holding
his gaze with a penetrating stare. Bolan sensed he was being judged and
about to receive more rebuke, but the trace of a warm smile flickered
over the woman's face. It was a face that Bolan would have sworn he'd
seen before. Bolan wondered why she was looking at him with ... what?
Gratitude?

She was dressed in light tan slacks, windbreaker jacket and soft-soled
black shoes, but the nondescript garb didn't detract from her beauty and
a presence that could freeze an entire room of men. She was long legged
with a full-figured body that would stand out in a crowd. Why did she
look so familiar? he wondered. The long dark hair, the dark eyes, the
high cheekbones accentuating a sculpted, striking face made her look so
familiar to Bolan that he had an uncanny feeling of deja vu.

"Yes, Mr. Belasko," the woman said. As she took a step toward Bolan, the
jacket opened a little, and the Executioner glimpsed a
shoulder-holstered pistol. "I, too, feel like we've already met. I
wanted to personally thank the man who saved my younger sister's life."

The warm smile danced over Weisskopf's lips again. As much as he hated
what had happened earlier on Ben Yehudah Street, Bolan returned her
smile and nodded.

Agent Weisskopf drove her Peugeot through the streets of Tel Aviv. Bolan
sat beside the woman, feeling his impatience mounting as he waited for
her to tell him where they were going and why. Night had fallen over the
city. Bolan filled the tense silence by surveying the streets and the
sidewalks. There was far less traffic and pedestrian congestion now that
word of the murderous bomb attack on Ben Yehudah had spread. Bolan was
informed by Yerzim that a curfew was in effect. Groups of armed soldiers
were now out in force, and roadblocks had been set up on street corners.
An eerie quiet had settled over the city.

When they Came to a roadblock, a soldier poked his head into the
vehicle. Promptly Agent Weisskopf produced identification. She told the
soldier, "these men are with me," and they were allowed to go on their
way.

When they were moving again, Bolan turned, looked over his shoulder at
Yerzim, who peered back at Bolan. The Mossad man seemed content to sit
behind Bolan and chain-smoke.

"You want to tell me where we're going?" Bolan asked Yerzim.

The Israeli drew on his cigarette. "Early this afternoon Mossad captured
one of Kamal's top henchmen near the Gaza Strip."

Yerzim paused, meeting Agent Weisskopf's gaze in the rearview mirror.

"His name is Yarbin Kaballah," Weisskopf told Bolan. "We believe this
man is responsible for the recent bombing attacks in Israel. Interpol
has also linked him to two such other car-bomb attacks in Western
Europe. Aside from the fact that he's been very busy murdering innocent
people, it would appear he was instrumental in setting up an arms deal
between Kamal and a former CIA paramilitary operative who could buy what
Kamal wanted from a rogue Russian agent. The Russian is dealing weapons
on the black market, selling to any and everyone who could produce the
money." Weisskopf turned and gave Bolan a somber stare. "Kaballah has
hinted that he's not just talking about AK-47s and RPGS."

Bolan detected an ominous note in Weisskopf's voice. "Then what?"

"We're not exactly sure, Mr. Belasko," Weisskopf said. "I was attempting
to interrogate Kaballah. He began to tell us a very interesting but very
frightening story. One that involves a large, well-trained and
well-financed mercenary force that is going to attempt to break Kamal
out of prison with, I am very sad and afraid to say, the help of a
traitor inside Mossad who has also been aiding and arming the Iraqi
terrorists in Israel. Kaballah hasn't given us names or details--yet.
Before he told us any more, he had the gall to demand complete immunity
from his crimes, protection by the very people he has helped to attack
and kill, and he wants the guarantee of safe passage to an unspecified
country of his choosing."

"Can you believe that?" Yerzim asked quietly. "Guaranteed safe passage
to a country of his choosing." The Mossad man grunted, shaking his head.
"Where he can probably form another terrorist faction and try his luck
on us again. He'll probably even ask for a sizable cash donation from
Israel so he can get comfortably resituated."

"I take it you told him no," Bolan said.

"I told him I would check with my superiors," Weisskopf replied. "Of
course, we have no intention of giving him what he wants. I was about to
proceed with another line of interrogation when I received word of the
bomb attack. My sister--her name is Suzanne--goes to the Tel Aviv
University. I know she frequents the pubs and the cafes in the afternoon
to meet her friends. I know this because our parents, both of them older
Israelis who cling to the stricter and more fundamental beliefs of our
religion, disapprove of her gallivanting around the city in search of a
good time. I immediately went to find her." She looked at Bolan. "She
described the man who saved her life. Perfectly, I might add." She
paused. "Yes, I am painfully aware that many Israelis were killed and
wounded," she said, as if reading Bolan's thoughts, "But I am very
grateful to you, Mr. Belasko, for saving my sister's life. I don't quite
believe that you are an agent of the Justice Department. I sense you are
something far more, but what, I am not certain. Perhaps it really
doesn't matter. We're all working on the same side for the same goal.

"I will pledge you full and complete cooperation on the part of Mossad
from here on. If you wish to go to the Sinai, I can arrange that. But
first I think it would be beneficial to both of us if I interrogated
this Kaballah one last time."

"What you've got is a scared man willing to turn snitch," Bolan said. "A
snitch will say anything to save himself."

"I don't think so," Weisskopf replied. "We've checked his background. We
believe he's well connected to various terrorist factions in the Middle
East and Europe and has access to the money in certain known terrorist
countries, such as Iraq and Syria, who finance these butchers. We
believe he can provide the information we need to track down the other
murderers inside Israel. Especially when we find out who is helping to
get these terrorists inside Israel and who is planning to break Kamal
out."

"You hope," Bolan said. "After you tell Kaballah you're not going to
deal with him on his terms, what makes you think he's going to talk?"

As they rode under a streetlight, Bolan caught something dangerous flash
through the woman's eyes.

"Mr. Belasko," Weisskopf said, "Mossad has been sanctioned to do
whatever it takes to end the attacks on Israel. Believe me when I tell
you I will get him to talk."

"They've invaded our borders," Yerzim added, "like cockroaches. What is
it one does when one sees a cockroach in his home? He steps on it and
crushes it."

Weisskopf smiled grimly, and Bolan nodded. Yeah, he understood, all
right. He wasn't about to come right out and say it, but his purpose and
his mission were the same as Mossad's. Flush out the cockroaches and
crush them before they invaded American soil again.

As Bolan climbed the steps to the second floor of the apartment building
beside Weisskopf, the woman said, "I already know how this is going to
go. I fear it will go badly. For Kaballah, that is."

Trailing the pair up the stairs, wood creaking under his weight, Yerzim
shattered the tense quiet with his three-pack-a-day cough, then added,
"What Agent Weisskopf is saying, Mr. Belasko, is to let her do the
interrogating. Believe me, she'll get us the information we need. One
way or another."

Bolan gave both Mossad agents a steady look, then studied the grimly
determined set to Weisskopf's face a moment longer. A savage glint shone
in the woman's eyes, and he sensed a tightly controlled fury about her,
firmly believing she would get the information they needed. He had a
feeling this was going to be an interesting, and perhaps brutal,
encounter. Bolan had no intention of interfering. Weisskopf was owed her
pound of flesh. With more than forty Israelis dead and countless more
seriously wounded on Ben Yehudah, Bolan knew the agent was going to play
hardball.

As they topped the steps, Bolan saw the two Galil-toting Israeli
soldiers at the end of the hallway. Those soldiers looked every bit as
grim as the apartment complex, he decided, which had all the look and
feel of a mausoleum. From the outside the building was dark, had
appeared deserted to the Executioner except for the soldiers on the
front stoop. Since they were holding Kamal's right-hand man, Bolan
suspected the building was either a Mossad safehouse or had been cleared
of all tenants for security purposes.

Bolan watched as the soldiers, looking more like apparitions than living
beings in the shadowy fringes of the glow of a naked light bulb, nodded
at Agent Weisskopf. One of the soldiers opened the door to the last room
at the end of the hallway.

"Do not come inside, no matter what," she told the soldiers, both of
whom nodded.

Moments later Bolan followed the woman through the doorway. Inside the
room another soldier with a Galil assault rifle nodded at Weisskopf,
gave Bolan a quick look, then left the room, closing the door behind
him.

It was a drab and dingy room, with nothing but a coffee table, divan,
three chairs and a small barren kitchen off to one side. The stench of
cigarette smoke assaulted the big American's senses. He spotted the
ashtray, heaped with butts, on the coffee table in front of Yarbin
Kaballah.

Right away Bolan sized the Iraqi as scared but belligerent. Sitting on
the divan, the man looked at Weisskopf with contempt and hatred. He
stood, placing his hands on his hips. The Iraqi terrorist was a big man,
thick through the middle, with broad shoulders, short, curly black hair
and stubble on his face. Bolan saw the same irrational hatred in
Kaballah's narrowed gaze he had seen countless times in the eyes of
fanatics. The man could prove very dangerous, Bolan knew, but on his own
terms.

"Well?" Kaballah growled.

Bolan moved to the corner of the room, waiting, watching. He fixed a
steely gaze on Kaballah, who was looking the three of them over with
unwavering hate. Yerzim took a chair beside the divan and fired up a
cigarette.

"Well what?" Weisskopf asked, holding the Iraqi's stare.

"You have left me here alone for hours. I've had nothing to eat or
drink, I am even made to feel as if I should beg your soldiers for a
cigarette. You tell me nothing and leave suddenly. Now you return with
these two, who look as if they wish to rip me to pieces and feed me to
wild dogs. Is this how you treat a man who has agreed to cooperate with
you?"

Weisskopf stripped off her jacket and threw it on the divan. Anxiety
flickered through Kaballah's gaze as he looked at the woman's holstered
Walther.

The Iraqi jerked a nod at Bolan. "Is this your superior who will give me
what it was I asked for?"

Slowly Weisskopf walked to the coffee table to stand almost nose to nose
with the Iraqi terrorist. Bolan observed her as she pinned the Iraqi
with a cold look, sensing there was something deadly about the woman.
"The gentleman behind me is neither my superior, nor am I prepared to
give you what you want," she stated.

"What are you telling me? We had a deal."

"The only thing I am prepared to grant you," Weisskopf said, "is life
over certain death."

"You stupid Jew bitch," Kaballah snarled, "we had a deal."

Suddenly Weisskopf lashed a backhand across the Iraqi's face, rifling
the air with a loud crack of flesh on flesh. He hit the divan like a
felled tree. Touching the trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth,
Kaballah looked at Weisskopf, stunned for a moment, then bellowed in
rage and leaped to his feet.

Weisskopf moved to one side of the coffee table, holding her ground,
leaving herself exposed, her hands by her side as Kaballah charged her.
The Iraqi threw a wild looping right at the woman's head, a blow meant
to shatter her face. Weisskopf ducked the roundhouse with catlike grace,
then pounded a fist into the Iraqi's kidney. With the wind belching from
Kaballah's mouth, she clipped a kick into the back of the Iraqi's leg,
dropping him on his back.

"Now, do you talk or Would you like me to continue?" Weisskopf rasped
down to Kaballah before taking a step back. "I can do this to You all
night."

Bolan believed that she could, but he wasn't convinced the fight was
knocked out of the terrorist. Rage and hate still burned in the man's
eyes. The Executioner looked at Yerzim, who was sitting comfortably in
his chair, smoking, looking as if he didn't have a care in the world.
Then Yerzim fixed Bolan with a narrow gaze, shaking his head, silently
telling the Executioner not to interfere.

Without warning, the terrorist sprung at Weisskopf, clawed hands going
for her throat. The woman exploded through Kaballah's arms, knocking
them aside, then head-butted the terrorist. There was a sickening
squelch of bone, and blood sprayed from Kaballah's pulped nose like a
burst faucet. The Iraqi slumped to the floor.

Weisskopf descended on the terrorist, locking her arm around his throat,
grabbing one arm an wrenching it up behind his back, giving the
terrorist all the lift he needed to stand. The Iraqi struggled, his eyes
bulging in pain and fear, but Weisskopf wrenched on his arm and Kaballah
froze in her grasp.

"Do you talk?" the woman grated in Kaballah's ear. "We can start by
breaking your arm--Your neck would be next."

"Okay, okay," the Iraqi sputtered, "I will talk-"

HWEISSKOPF Put more Pressure on the terrorist's arm, raising a cry of
pain, then whirled and pushed the man onto the couch. For long moments
Kaballah hacked, rubbing his throat, his eyes glazed as he tried to
compose himself.

"This gentleman behind me," Weisskopf told the Iraqi, jerking a nod at
Bolan, "is an American. You and your animals have killed many of his
people on their own soil. I'm sure you remember the attack just outside
the United Nations Building in New York City by your brother Iraqis now
imprisoned by us. Should you not talk to me, I will turn you over to
him. Since I know he has not forgotten the attacks that killed many of
his people, I have a feeling he will show you far less mercy than I
have."

Bolan watched Kaballah as the terrorist looked up at him. Fear shadowed
the Iraqi's face before he quickly broke the Executioner's steely gaze.

"I said I would talk," Kaballah growled. "You are three, you have the
guns. But your day will come and-"

Suddenly Weisskopf whipped out her Walther. Kaballah shrieked as the
Walther cracked a round that drilled into the divan. Stuffing exploded
from between Kaballah's legs.

"Start with the Mossad agent you claimed has helped you," Weisskopf
demanded.

Kaballah hesitated, then, as the woman aimed the Walther at his groin,
the terrorist blurted, "Baumstein. His name is Baumstein. Yes, one of
your own has betrayed you."

Bolan saw the instant change on the faces of both Mossad agents as
Yerzim and Weisskopf locked eyes. It was as if the life were being
sucked right out of them.

"Damn," Yerzim breathed. "Baumstein."

Kaballah coughed, wincing as he tried to gather composure. "Yes, your
Mossad man, Baumstein. He gave us all the necessary papers--passports,
identification. He gave us safehouses and even kept Mossad off our
backs, steering your people in other directions. It was just our bad
luck that he couldn't protect Aziz and the others."

An expression of murder hardened Weisskopf's face when Kaballah
announced that piece of bad luck with obvious regret. Her eyes started
to close with this knowledge of betrayal, then she laid full and savage
attention on the terrorist.

Bolan asked Yerzim, "Where is this Baumstein? How important is he?"

"Baumstein was sent by Mossad to interrogate Kamal at the prison
compound," Yerzim stated. "He is a top man in Mossad. He is a very
important counter-terrorist agent."

"The traitorous bastard," Weisskopf snarled under her breath.

"Yeah, well, this counterterrorist agent is holding Kamal's hand," Bolan
said. "We can be sure now there'll be an attack. This Baumstein is
keeping whoever will attack the compound informed. He probably has
access to long-range radio communication with whoever is going to try
and break Kamal out. Meaning they'll know my country is on the way to
get Kamal and when they'll be landing on the Sinai."

"Why?" Yerzim barked at Kaballah. "Why did Baumstein do it?"

"For money, what else?" Kaballah said, as if Yerzim had asked a stupid
question. Then the terrorist laughed strangely. "Six months ago I was in
Berlin. That is where this nightmare of you Jews all started."

"We already know that," Weisskopf said. "You exploded a car that killed
more than twenty people."

Kaballah shrugged, then smiled, smug.

"You already told us about Tiel and Mauser," Weisskopf added, then
turned to Bolan. "One was Red Army trash, the other was a former GSG-9
man who turned on his own People and joined the Red Army. Again, I
suspect he did it for the money. Both were being sought by Interpol
after the attack in Berlin but both have disappeared. This one told us
they joined Aziz and his people, worked an arms deal through various
Russian contacts the former GSG-9 man had, but this GSG-9 man didn't
have the money, apparently. That, Kaballah has informed us, is when
another man entered the deal."

The woman returned grim attention to the terrorist. "Tell us about this
merchandise, that is going to be delivered to you and your friends,"
Weisskopf demanded. "Tell us who is in charge of the strike force that
is going to attempt to free Kamal."

Kaballah looked pointedly at Bolan and laughed. "The man who will free
Aziz, he is one of your own. He is a former CIA man. His name is Robert
Gorman." The Iraqi paused to let it sink in. "I have seen this man and I
can tell you he is completely insane. He is a vision of the devil in
human skin, and he has much money. Gorman is well armed and well
equipped. Yes, he will free Aziz."

Bolan felt the stares of the Mossad agents boring into him.

"You know this man, Mr. Belasko?" Yerzim asked. "This Robert Gorman of
the CIA?"

"I've heard of him," Bolan admitted. "When I was in Vietnam, it was
rumored he was a black-market profiteer running guns and drugs. He ran
clandestine operations for the CIA into Cambodia and Laos. Had a team of
dirty soldiers under his command that called themselves Phantom Force.
Gorman was never caught doing his dirty work, but he hurt and killed a
lot of people on both sides."

"He worked for the CIA," Weisskopf reminded.

"A lot of people worked for the CIA. Gorman would have been what the
Company calls one of their 'animals,' a paramilitary operative. He was a
mercenary, an assassin, doing the wet work, all the dirty jobs the CIA
has done but no one ever reads about in the papers. If Gorman's behind
the impending breakout of Kamal-"

"He is," Kaballah interrupted.

"Then we've got problems," Bolan said. "Gorman would have the money, the
contacts and the firepower to pull it off."

"The merchandise," Weisskopf asked Kaballah.

"That was something that was done between Tiel, Mauser, Aziz and
Gorman," the Iraqi answered. "I was never part of the arms deal. I only
know it involved some sort of missiles."

"Could be anything," Yerzim said. "Air to air, surface to air,
antitank."

"They could also be nuclear-armed missiles," Weisskopf added.

"I know that Gorman got what Aziz wanted," Kaballah said. "The deal went
down in Syria. Gorman took Tiel and Mauser and several of our own people
to meet with the Russian agents. There was a good deal of money
involved, tens of millions, I understand. The Russians apparently wanted
more money, but Gorman did not have it. Gorman killed the Russians and
took what he wanted."

Bolan felt his blood run hot with anger. One thing he couldn't tolerate
in any situation was a traitor.

"I need to get in touch with Colonel Yoraam, warn him about Baumstein
and have him arrested," Yerzim stated.

"No," Bolan said. "Play it like we don't know anything. Get us to the
Sinai compound. You can handle Baumstein there. Any advanced warning of
what we know--well, there could be others working with Baumstein. If
Gorman is tipped off, he could move sooner than I'd like."

Yerzim didn't seem to like the idea of Bolan taking charge. "You seem to
place great confidence in yourself to be able to handle this entire
situation, Mr. Belasko."

"My country wouldn't have sent me otherwise, Mr. Yerzim. How long would
it take to arrange a flight for me to the Sinai compound?"

"I can have it done within the hour," Weisskopf replied. "It may take a
little longer, but I can have you there within four hours tops."

"Let's get moving," Bolan said.

"I will escort you two back to Mossad headquarters," Weisskopf said.
"But my business here is not finished."

She looked coldly at Kaballah. "You and I still have a lot to talk
about. Alone."

Kaballah laughed. "You three are fools if you think you can stop what
has already been set in motion."

"I will tell you this much," Weisskopf said. "If one more Israeli dies
while you are in my custody, I will personally kill you on the spot."

The Iraqi didn't look so smug anymore. Okay, Bolan thought, Mossad still
had cockroaches in Israel to flush out and crush, and the Iraqi had just
tasted firsthand the deadly serious business that the lady agent was all
about.

As he led the Israelis to the door, a grim and foreboding feeling nagged
him. If what the terrorist had told them was true, and Bolan had no
reason to doubt what he'd heard, the Executioner suspected all hell was
going to break loose in the Sinai Desert.

United States Special Forces Colonel Mike Marlin was tired, worried and
felt every bit his fifty-two years of age. Feeling the vibrations of the
C-130's turboprop engines rattling through him, the hum of those
Powerful engines filling his ears with an eerie muting, Marlin knew he
was in danger of remembering that time in Vietnam. The colonel clenched
his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut and felt the hate boil up deep from in
his belly.

For long moments he seethed in silence. Then somehow he steeled himself,
fought off those visions of his past hell, knowing he could lose all
perspective on his present mission if he thought about the past and
focused himself solely on vengeance. But if the man who had shattered
his life so long ago was somewhere in the Middle East, Marlin would
fight the forces of heaven, hell and earth to find and to kill him. With
sheer willpower he resisted the temptation of reaching into his pocket
and pulling out their photo.

The colonel stood and looked at the force of thirty young soldiers he
commanded. They were sitting aft in the gunship, hard, determined faces
sheened by the ghostly glow of overhead lights. Some of them were
asleep; some were cleaning their M-16s; others smoked or drank coffee.
Three of those soldiers were killing time by playing cards. The colonel
knew all of them were anxious to land in the Sinai Desert and pick up
the Iraqi terrorists, whisk them back to the States where they would
stand trial and most certainly be thrown away for a lifetime in prison,
courtesy of Uncle Sam.

Suddenly, as was happening more lately, Colonel Marlin felt the pain in
his stomach rip through him like hot, twisting knives, making him wince.
Again he dredged up the strength of pure will, this time to keep from
doubling over.

As he stood beneath the soft glow of light, Marlin's gaunt face looked
ghostly, and the intense pain he felt contorted his face into a mask of
agony. A moment later he found himself looking at his soldiers, hoping
none of them noticed how much pain he was in. For damn sure, he knew he
looked like walking death, but there was good reason for that. Colonel
Mike Marlin was dying.

In just one year the colonel's hair had turned from iron gray to stock
white. What fire that used to burn in his bright blue eyes was now
doused by the look of dull anger, the eyes now sunken pools in a sharp
but shriveled face that looked like a death's-head. His weight was down
from one-eighty to one-fifty, and there were moments when the 9 mm
Beretta holstered on his hip felt like a great weight.

The doctors had told him the cancer in his stomach was too far along,
and they had given him about six months. What seemed strange to the
colonel was that the top brass knew all about his terminal condition,
which made him wonder why he'd been given command of this mission in the
first place. Was it out of respect for one of America's most decorated
war heroes, or was it sympathy? Whichever it was, he was determined to
insure the world's most notorious terrorist was picked up and turned
over to the appropriate authorities to face justice. But that didn't
mean Marlin was going back to the States. Yeah, there was another, more
personal reason why he wanted to go to the Middle East.

The colonel stared past his troops at the three men hunched over maps to
the rear of the gunship. They were the three CIA goons, Crueller,
Thomson and Jackel. Marlin detested having the CIA leeched onto this
mission, but the top brass had ordered him to cooperate. Supposedly
those three were going to the Sinai to interrogate Kamal in the
interests of national security. Since leaving Andrews Air Force Base,
the three agents hadn't said a word to him, but he now needed to have a
talk with one of them in the worst way. When Marlin had earlier glimpsed
their maps of the Middle East, he had also seen a photo of his most
hated enemy.

Fighting the terrible pain in his stomach, holding his expression into a
stony mask of grim determination, the colonel felt the eyes of his
troops locked on to him as he walked up to the CIA men.

Crueller looked up from Marlin's shadow on his intelligence files, a
flicker of irritation crossing the man's face. Marlin ran a hard stare
over the three agents, silently letting them know he was in a
no-nonsense mood. He wondered for a moment why the three agents seemed
to look the same. It was as if their physical appearance and garb were
some sort of prerequisite for the job. All three men were lean
six-footers in their late thirties, with chiseled-granite faces. They
were dressed in black, toting 9 mm Glock pistols in shoulder holsters.
All had closely cropped hair and the same sort of dead stare in their
eyes where the only life that shone was a hint of anger, or perhaps
cunning, once in a while.

Marlin had seen their ilk too many times during and after Vietnam. They
were the grim reapers harvesting more death in the guise of freedom and
democracy, the shadow players who fomented turmoil and unrest and
profited from the suffering of others. No, Colonel Marlin didn't like
them, not one damn bit.

"Can I help you, Colonel?" Crueller asked.

"I want to talk to you. Alone."

The colonel ran his hard stare over the three agents again, then wheeled
and strode past his troops. Glancing back over his shoulder, Marlin saw
Crueller throw Thomson and Jackel a weary look. Finally the CIA man
stood and followed the colonel amidships.

When he knew they were far enough away from all ears, Marlin told
Crueller, "I want to know if your people have found him. And if you
have, what it is you intend to do with him."

Crueller cleared his throat. "Colonel, I know all about what happened to
you in Vietnam. When you say 'him,' I assume you're speaking of Robert
Gorman?"

"Who the hell else would I be talking about, mister?"

"Look, I know all about the allegations you made against Gorman, how you
suspected him of murdering your family and of almost killing you. It's
all in my files."

"Your files don't tell you that it was always more than just suspicion
with me," Marlin said. "If you knew this man like I did, you wouldn't be
so, uh, cavalier about my past. What you don't know about Gorman and me
you'll never read in your files."

Crueller stiffened with sudden anger. "Colonel, we have an extremely
important mission to perform for our country. Your vengeance isn't part
of our agenda. For your information, my files on you and on Gorman are a
whole lot more detailed and complete than you think. For instance, I
know you went after this man in Vietnam, on your own. You played the
crusader role once and lost. Fact is, you made a lot of noise to the top
brass back then about Gorman and his so-called Phantom Force. What they
found back then, a hundred years ago in a war no one but guys like you
remember anymore, was a bunch of Vietcong across the border in Cambodia,
running the guns-and-drugs operation you claimed Gorman was directing.
Need I go on?"

The colonel had ice in his voice as he said, "let me tell you something
that you won't find in your files, and that is that certain factions
within the CIA created men like Robert Gorman in Vietnam. Both to
prolong the war and make a profit from the illicit drugs-and-arms trade.
I could never prove it, no, but I am one hundred percent certain that it
was Robert Gorman who pumped a half-dozen slugs into me from a safe
distance in the dead of a rainy night in the jungles of Cambodia, and I
am just as certain he either killed or gave the orders for murders of my
wife and son in Saigon.

"Further, I also believe the CIA covered his ass and helped Gorman to
disappear after the war. Meaning I neither like nor trust you or
anything that stinks of the CIA. And if you don't give me the answers I
want, straight answers, I'll toss you and your lackeys off this plane
from twenty thousand feet up with no parachute. I need your help like I
need the pain I've got in my stomach."

Crueller peered at the cold fury in Marlin's eyes, then nodded,
appearing unphazed by the man's threat. "Okay, Colonel. Fire away. What
do you want to know?"

"We both know that there is the possibility of an attack to free Kamal.
I don't give a damn if it is just a rumor by some wild-ass terrorist
thugs. During my briefing at the Pentagon, when your people from Langley
were present, the name Gorman came up four times. Rumor--Gorman has put
together a mercenary army that may or may not attempt to free Kamal.
Rumor--no one knows where the guy is or what exactly he's planned. MY
suspicion--somebody knows something they're not telling me. Since I'm
the commanding officer of this convoy, I want You to tell me what you
know."

Crueller's thin lips parted in a smile that looked as if it belonged
more on a reptile than a human being.

"Here it is, Colonel, point-blank. We have people in that part of the
world who have both spotted Gorman and have worked undercover to bring
him in. Gorman, as you well know, is one tough, smart bastard, well
armed, well informed. Our agents were compromised, but not before we
learned of an arms deal that turned sour in Syria, a deal between Kamal,
Gorman and some former KGB agents, the old-line guard, hard-core
Stalinists who were none too happy with the new Russia. Our sources in
Syria informed us the arms deal went off, but Gorman got what he wanted
by the barrel of his gun. And I'm not talking about a crate of grenades
or AKS. I'm talking serious high-tech hardware, nuclear hardware, in
fact. What and where this hardware is, we don't know at this point.

"Yes, we do believe Gorman has put together a strike force that may or
may not attempt to free Kamal. My mission is to interrogate Kamal about
Gorman's whereabouts or the whereabouts of any of Kamal's flunkies who
are still running around with Gorman.

"I don't care if I have to slap Kamal silly or attach electrodes to his
balls and fire him up with enough juice to fry him clear into hell. I
want the rest of Kamal's thugs who are still out there, I want Gorman
and I want what Gorman is sitting on. That's my mission--that's both
straight from Langley and the Pentagon. And you, Colonel, are expected
to cooperate with me fully."

"You still haven't answered my original question."

"When I find Gorman, Colonel, I intend to terminate him with extreme
prejudice."

"What if you don't get to him first?"

"Just what is that supposed to mean?"

When Marlin didn't answer, Crueller continued, "Colonel, I am warning
you, this mission isn't about something that happened between you and
Gorman more than twenty years ago. Your superiors wouldn't take kindly
to any interference with my mission."

"Believe me, I don't intend to interfere."

Crueller peered at Marlin for several stretched seconds as if searching
for some way to enhance his threat.

"If you'll excuse me, Colonel, I've got work to do. I suggest you get
some rest. You don't look so good."

Marlin allowed the guy his parting shot, watched Crueller spin on his
heel and head back to his maps and files. The colonel then saw some of
his troops watching him. They were aware something was wrong, he knew,
but they didn't know how wrong things were.

And something was very seriously wrong. The CIA man wasn't telling the
colonel everything he knew, nor would he. Whatever the agents decided to
do had to be right and just--because it was done in the name of freedom.
It was the same way his personal vengeance hunt against Gorman had been
handled by the CIA and his superiors so long ago. Colonel Marlin had
seen a little too much in his life to fall for that double-standard
crap, the "us-and-them syndrome," he had come to call it.

A strange, haunted feeling suddenly descended over Marlin. He took a
seat in the shadows, alone. He told himself not to do it, started to
reach into his pocket, then froze. Suddenly he felt disembodied, beyond
and above it all. The images exploded in his mind against his will, a
jumbled maze of horrible memories that had been tormenting him for more
than twenty years. He saw six soldiers under his command, all of them
acting on their own, shot to hell, lying in the mud on the jungle floor,
their eyes wide in death. The ambush had come out of nowhere, it seemed.

Lightning was flashing, illuminating the jungle around him, but through
the downpour Marlin couldn't see who it was who had sniped them off.
There was a hooch at the end of the trail, and Marlin was retreating for
the cover it provided. Marlin then saw himself falling. He recalled the
pain, that fire racing through his body, which told him he was being
shot up.

Then, as he lay in the mud, he saw the figure step out of the brush. He
couldn't be certain it was Gorman, because the figure had painted his
face black, and the haze of mind-numbing agony was fading to a dark
curtain of impending shock. But Marlin would never forget those eyes.
They were blue eyes that looked inhuman, eyes that seemed to burn with
hate and anger.

Marlin saw the M-16 lift in the demon's hand, then sputter its lead
flame. Then everything turned black. And there he was, in a hospital
bed, floating on a cloud of morphine. Doctors told him they had dug out
six bullets, all of them just missing vital parts. A Special Forces
recon team had found him less than an hour after the ambush.

The image faded. Marlin fought to keep himself from seeing it, but he
couldn't help it. It lived in his mind, so fresh, so vivid it was as if
it had only happened yesterday. He shuddered, felt the cry of anguish
rip from deep in his belly as he saw Chan Li and their son, Peter, lying
in their villa six months later. Their faces were shattered from the
bullets that had been pumped through their bead, and the note on his
wife's chest had been scrawled in her blood.

Marlin squeezed his eyes shut, holding back the flood of tears he felt
building from deep within him. He had loved her and their son more than
anything in life. No, they had been his life. All those years since, he
had felt like a living dead man, detached and unattached from everything
and everyone except for his work as an officer. He'd never been able to
prove his suspicions. There'd been no answers from anybody, no help. No
leads. The damn guy seemed to have just disappeared off the face of the
earth.

Until now.

Marlin opened his eyes and looked at the CIA goons. They weren't about
to tell him a damn thing more about Gorman. But if the bastard who had
destroyed his LIFE was in the Middle East  ... The colonel thought the
unthinkable. With only six months to live, he wasn't going back to the
States. Life had kicked the crap out of him, handed him a raw deal, but
he was going out like a lion. Colonel Mike Marlin was going to find and
kill Robert Gorman even if it was the last thing he did on earth.
Vengeance was all he had left.

"That's it, people--lock and load. We're airborne in five minutes,"
Gorman announced. "Our pigeons are about to land. And let me tell you,
you had damn well better have your heads right for this. Now, listen up.
I have one last thing to say to you."

Except for his two six-man ground-assault teams, one led by Collins, the
other by Crocker, Gorman's army was gathered in the main tent for the
final briefing. The Mil Mi-6 helicopter had just returned from
off-loading his ground-assault force, so Gorman knew those strike teams
were in place, his best men out there in the desert less than four
klicks from the prison compound. One team was to move in under the cover
of darkness, waiting until exactly 0430 to begin the assault while the
"trailer team" waited at a distance for the air assault to begin. Then
they would go in and add to what would hopefully only be a mop-up
operation.

Gorman stood before his troops, hands on his hips, giving his men a
long, hard look, sizing them up, unable to keep from wondering who would
live and who would die. For damn sure, he knew there would be those who
wouldn't collect on a one-hundred-grand payday, which meant just a
little more cash in his pocket. D day, Death day, had arrived.

Mentally he did a quick assessment of his fire and manpower. First he
had a small army of some of the best-trained ex-military men in the
world, now battle-hardened mercenaries driven by blood-lust and
propelled by greed to live. Second, and most important, he had a
half-dozen of the most formidable attack helicopters ever produced, six
Mil Mi-24s and the lone Mi-6, which would peel off and wait in the
desert until the strike was over before ordered to land on the
compound's perimeter and load their principals.

Each Mi-24 carried a 12.7 mm machine gun in the nose, with 32-round
packs of 57 mm rockets. Add four "Swatter" homing antitank missiles on
the wingtip launchers, and he knew he had the finest scourge of death
from above. As the Soviets had proved in their war against the mujahadin
in Afghanistan, those gunships were invulnerable against small-arms
fire, thanks to the gunship's steel-and-titanium hull. Once again Gorman
owed his old KGB buddies a debt of gratitude for getting him the
aircraft. Too bad they would never collect what they were owed.

His gaze swept over his men, and he had to wonder whether Julius Caesar
felt as pumped up before addressing his Roman legions on the eve of
battle. Hell, he thought, when this was over, he would be a veritable
twentieth-century conqueror. Either way, he was going to make history.
Fortune was sweeter when it also had fame attached to it.

The mercenary leader looked ghoulish and menacing as he stood in the
soft yellow light that flickered from a kerosene lamp. Reuter sat behind
him, puffing on a foot-long cigar, studying the hard crew with the same
grim stare as his boss.

"Gorman's Law is now in effect," the big man told his troops, "and
Gorman's Law is this--if something will go wrong, take care of it by
wearing Godzilla-sized balls. Kill any and all of the enemy. Show no
mercy, take no prisoners. I do not intend to leave anyone breathing
other than us. When we leave this compound, I want everything dead. I
want to see everything destroyed and burned to the ground. I want it to
be a vision of hell, and I want it to put the fear of God into anyone
who thinks they've got the stones to come after us. D day stands for
Death day, people."

He let that sink in as he scoured their faces. Gorman spotted the usual
prebattle jitters in their eyes. Fear. But fear was good, if channeled
into action. He was getting more pumped by the minute, imagined he could
almost smell the adrenaline in the air.

"You people are seasoned pros, you know the drill. Get in hard, fuck 'em
up harder, and out hardest, last and only. Now, you know that some of
you might not be coming back to collect your hundred grand. But if you
take Gorman's Law to heart, you'll live and you'll earn more money in
one day than you'll ever see again working for some shitty clandestine
government-sanctioned operation in a no-name Third World, third-rate
country no one gives a damn about anyway.

"Now, one final matter. I've touched on this, but I will go into greater
detail later. All I'm prepared to say at this point is once we leave
that compound behind, with our principals in tow, phase two begins.
Phase two is our main goal. I will continue to need your services in
order to complete phase two. Those who cooperate and help me complete
phase two will get an additional twenty-thousand-dollar bonus."

Gorman gave them one last penetrating stare. "Get your gear. And
remember Gorman's law. Dismissed. Good luck and good killing."

Feeling like a proud father, Gorman watched them stand and gather their
weapons. As they filed out of the tent, he liked what he saw on their
faces. Each and every one of them looked grim with determination, ready
to kill. Yeah, they knew the drill and they looked ready to take his
instructions to heart.

When they were alone, Gorman looked at Reuter as his right-hand man
stood. A flicker of concern in the man's eyes soured his mood a little.

"Something bothering you?"

"If our man in place doesn't take care of radar and radio communication,
well, then Murphy's law will be in effect."

"I gave him the most-sophisticated high-tech electronic radar and
radio-jamming device available," Gorman stated, noticing that Reuter was
now puffing a little nervously on his stogie. "Another gift, straight
from my Russian buddies who dropped a twenty-million-dollar payday in
our laps. That Russian Sphinx box will work. All he has to do is turn it
on. It'll cut off the entire compound from any communication to the
outside world. It'll be like the lights have been turned off just before
the sky falls on their heads. Just before we trample them into the dirt.
Look, if their radar was working, our Mi-6 wouldn't have returned.
Right?"

"Maybe. But what if he gets cold feet or they've found him out?"

"Then Gorman's Law is still in effect. If it happens we come under fire
because he didn't do his job, I'll leave him a broken, bloody corpse for
the buzzards before we evacuate. And if you're worried about those
bedouin being there in the wadi to meet Crocker and the others, don't. I
made a deal with the Arab myself. Ten grand will buy that desert rat a
whole lot of good times in Cairo. Guy believes in old Ben Franklin a
whole lot more than he does Allah. That's why he hasn't been paid until
he gives our people what I'm paying for. Anything else?"

Reuter shook his head, dropped the stogie and ground it out beneath his
heel. He showed Gorman a mean smile, then chuckled. "I especially like
the part about Godzilla-sized balls."

"Well, I wasn't looking for laughs," Gorman said coldly.

Reuter paused, seeming to choose his next words carefully. "I didn't see
anyone laughing."

"Lett's go earn twenty million bucks," Gorman said. "Then we can laugh
all the way to a Swiss bank." He cast Reuter one last piercing look,
then blew out the light.

Colonel Yoraam was striding across the compound to find out just what
had happened to their radar and communications system when he heard a
faint rumbling in the distance. He stopped cold, searching the black
sky. A moment later he pinpointed the rumble to the north, the sound of
thunder growing louder with each passing second.

Sergeant Eitan, right on the colonel's heels, stopped abruptly, worry
etching his face.

"I don't understand it, Colonel. Our entire radar and radio systems just
shut down. There's no apparent malfunction that we can find. I've got a
crew on it now, sir, we'll find the problem and have everything working
again."

"Is there a problem, Colonel?" another voice asked.

Yoraam saw Baumstein striding toward him from the direction of the Land
Rovers. He ignored the Mossad man, searching the compound then the
surrounding desert. Everything felt terribly wrong, and Yoraam began to
fear the worst. Klieg lights washed the entire compound and perimeter.
light burned out into the desert in all directions, but began to fade
before hitting total darkness at about a hundred meters. Another string
of klieg lights lit up a stretch of desert to the east where the
Americans would land.

Yoraam believed the rumble he heard was the thunder of the American
C-130. But now he wasn't sure of anything. The desert seemed ominously
still and quiet beyond the light. It always felt like that right before
it hit the fan. Perhaps an hour ago, just about the time when their
radar had mysteriously shut down, the colonel had been informed by one
of his men that he thought he had heard a helicopter in the distance.
Without radar, it was impossible to tell what, if anything, was out
there. Yoraam couldn't spare the time or manpower right now for a recon
of the desert.

As Baumstein halted in front of Yoraam, the colonel, looking skyward
with an intense gaze, said, "I strongly suspect someone has sabotaged
our radar and communications. We are now, in effect, cut off from the
world."

"Sabotage?" Eitan said. "But who? How?"

"You have proof of this, Colonel?" Baumstein asked.

Yoraam looked the Mossad agent dead in the eye. In that moment he caught
just enough of something dangerous flickering through Baumstein's eyes
that warned him to watch his back.

"No, Mr. Baumstein, I do not have proof. When I do, you will be the
first to know."

Baumstein kept up his hard front. "What does that mean, Colonel?"

"It means what it means," Yoraam stated, then returned his attention
skyward.

A finger of white light traced the sky as the thunder rolled over the
compound. Moments later, as Yoraam watched the searching beam, the dark
shape of the behemoth C-130 was hit by the light. He saw his soldiers
racing to secure the landing strip, the row of lights flashing out on
the desert floor. The transport began angling for the runway.

"Sergeant," Yoraam said, "secure the perimeter with four four-man
fire-teams, north, south, east and west. Break out the Stingers and the
RPGS."

Eitan looked confused. "Sir, that would be the Americans coming in."

"Yes, it would, Sergeant, and, no, I don't intend to blow them out of
the sky. It isn't the Americans I'm worried about."

Eitan moved out. Yoraam watched as the C-130 landed, then rolled down
the runway, kicking up a huge funnel of dust in its thundering wake.
Suddenly Eitan was back.

"Sir, we've got movement to the northwest. Looks like another clan of
bedouin."

Yoraam peered in that direction. Indeed, moving slowly from the veil of
darkness and into the outer reaches of light, the colonel spotted six
figures on camelback. Suddenly there was too much movement, too much
mystery, too much happening at one time, all of it now coming in on the
wings of weeks of rumor and speculation. Yoraam felt prebattle
adrenaline burst through his veins.

"So, send someone out there," he told Eitan. "If he gives you any
trouble, have him detained. Get moving!"

"Sir, I don't have anyone available at the moment. They're either
putting shackles on the prisoners, working to get the radar and radio
working again or securing the-"

"Then do it yourself, Sergeant. After you've secured the perimeter with
the fireteams, take two men and go out there."

"Yes, sir," Eitan said, spinning on his heel and marching off.

"Colonel, I demand to know what is going on," Baumstein said. "You act
as if we are about to be attacked."

Yoraam headed for the runway. Again he ignored the Mossad man but felt
Baumstein's stare boring into the back of his head.

"Colonel?"

"I didn't say we're going to be attacked, Mr. Baumstein, did I?"

Yoraam closed on the C-130, saw figures wearing berets and toting M-16s
disembark from the aircraft. His paranoia mounting, he felt compelled to
strike out at something, anything, but there was no visible or known
threat at the moment.

With his intense gaze focused solely on his men scrambling around the
compound to carry out his orders, the Israeli was aware of nothing else
until he heard, "You must be Colonel Yoraam. I'm Colonel Mike Marlin,
United States Special Forces. Pleased to meet you, Colonel."

Yoraam returned the American officer's salute. He thought he saw Marlin
wince, then wondered if maybe the look wasn't an expression of anger.
Either way, the man appeared ill, as pale as a ghost in the lights of
the runway. The Israeli felt embarrassed that he thought Marlin didn't
look fit for duty.

"Colonel Yoraam, is something wrong with your communications system
here?

We've been trying to radio you for the past twenty minutes."

Bolan knew something was wrong. He sat alone in the belly of the CH-53,
with rotor wash whipping through the open fuselage doorway, listening to
Yerzim again order the pilot to try to raise the compound by radio.

"It's no use, sir," the pilot replied. "Nothing but static."

"Keep trying."

Bolan read the fear on Yerzim's face as the man moved from the cockpit
to stand in the doorway and stare at the desert floor, five hundred feet
below the chopper. He gave the Israeli a few moments to digest what the
Executioner already knew--the attack to free Kamal was either underway
or it was going to happen at any time.

The big American used the silence to chew over his recent talk with
Brognola. The big Fed's update still rang with ominous overtones. He had
informed Bolan that a decorated Vietnam War hero, Colonel Mike Marlin on
Special Forces, was in command of the team sent to pick up Kamal. Bolan
didn't know the man personally, but he'd heard of Marlin. And from what
he had heard about the man, he suspected there weren't too many finer
fighting men to come out of that war.

Bolan had also been told about the past between Marlin and Gorman, from
the ambush in Cambodia, where Marlin had survived six bullets, right up
to when the man had found his Vietnamese wife and their son shot to
death in their Saigon villa. It had happened only months after Marlin
had gotten out of the hospital and was about to be shipped back to the
States. It was on record, Brognola had informed Bolan, that Marlin
always believed Gorman was responsible for the attempt on his life and
the murders of his wife and son. It was also on record that Marlin
always suspected a faction of the CIA of running a black-market
drugs-and-guns operation in Laos and Cambodia and that Gorman had run
that operation. Except for the rumor of a CIA connection, there was
nothing Brognola could dig up about Gorman after the Vietnam War. It was
as if the guy had vanished into thin air.

There it was, Bolan thought. Nothing had ever been proved about Gorman's
activities during the war. In fact, top brass had appeared to sweep any
rumors or suspicions about Gorman under the rug, which told the
Executioner that someone high up had been protecting him. As for Marlin,
well, he had returned home--with a chest full of medals and ribbons,
with bitter memories and nights full of bad dreams--to apparently live a
quiet if not tormented life, Bolan believed. That Marlin had been chosen
to command this convoy was somewhat strange to Bolan, since Brognola
seemed to think the man was retired.

Further, Brognola had told Bolan the CIA was in on the act, tagging
along with Marlin to interrogate Kamal and his brothers in terrorism.
Bolan was both puzzled and troubled by this new information. Supposedly
Gorman had been a CIA paramilitary operative gone renegade for reasons
unknown, greed most likely. It was believed the man had more money than
most Third World countries, and had allegedly made that fortune off
guns, drugs and murder. And finally Gorman had a suspicious past in
Special Forces in Vietnam, where he had honed his cutthroat blade before
allegedly moving on to other things while working for the CIA.

The only clear fact Bolan could put into the scenario was that Gorman
and Marlin could be on the verge of crossing paths. Most certainly only
one of them would walk away. Coincidence? Or was someone jerking the
strings on Marlin for reasons unknown? Was Gorman getting help from
someone in the CIA to put together this breakout and the impending arms
deal? Or did the CIA want Gorman terminated with extreme prejudice to
cover its own sins, to eliminate a national embarrassment?

Whatever was going on with the other players, whatever was ahead for any
of them, Bolan knew his mission was unchanged.

It was still open season on any of Kamal's terrorists who were out there
and might attempt to reset foot on American soil.

Still, Robert Gorman was bad news. The man was a predator Bolan intended
to put to sleep forever if and when their paths crossed.

Yerzim laid a grim eye on Bolan. "I don't know how he did it, but I'd
bet my last bullet Baumstein somehow sabotaged their radar and
communications network. He belongs to me."

"I don't have any problem with that. How long before we reach the
compound?"

"We're almost there," Yerzim answered, picking up an Uzi subgun,
ejecting the clip, checking its load, then slapping the clip home. "Less
than five minutes, according to our pilot."

Like the Israeli, Bolan was now dressed in combat black. His Beretta
93-R was holstered in shoulder leather, with the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle
riding on his hip. The Uzi submachine gun he had requested earlier lay
on the bench beside him. Six spare clips for the Uzi, with an equal
number of clips for both the Beretta and the big .44, hung on his
military webbing.

Suddenly the pilot turned toward Yerzim. "Sir, I've got something on
radar on the ground. one o'clock, about two klicks ahead."

Bolan and Yerzim were no sooner at the door than the Mossad agent was
handing the Executioner one of two infrared binoculars. A moment later
Bolan spotted an object at the exact point where the pilot had
mentioned. In a gulley that spined through a low chain of hills, the
transport truck was clearly outlined in the greenish red tunnel vision
of Bolan's binoculars.

"If I didn't know better, that looks like a Russian transport truck to
me," Yerzim stated. "Swing it south, mister," Yerzim ordered the pilot.
"I'll tell you when to hover."

"I'm not so sure that's a good idea, Yerzim," Bolan said, lowering the
binoculars, then moving to the bench to grab his Uzi. "If that's Gorman
or some of his men and they've got rocket firepower, the Sinai could end
up our graveyard."

Both the pilot and the copilot were looking over their shoulders at
Bolan and Yerzim, obviously having heard the exchange and waiting to see
if the Mossad agent changed his orders. Yerzim looked through the
binoculars again.

"They're heading out of the wadi, and it looks to me like they're going
straight toward the compound. Fly us to the end of that gulley," Yerzim
ordered the pilot, "then set it down. I want them cut off."

Bolan didn't like it. His combat senses were on full alert as the
chopper veered south, then began sweeping over the southern run of
jagged peaks. Again Bolan took in the gully through his binoculars as
they passed the transport truck. He spotted a man poking his head out of
the passenger's side and glimpsed the muzzle of an assault rifle. Those
guys down there were the enemy, Bolan knew, and they were hell-bent on
fighting it out. But this play wasn't his call. Bolan braced himself for
the worst, prepared to move in an eye blink with lethal intent.

"Hit that truck with a searchlight," Yerzim ordered the pilot. "We'll
make the approach on foot. If they open fire, you lift off and blow them
out of this wadi."

Bolan tensed as the chopper lowered into the mouth of the gulley. A huge
cloud of dust was kicked up by rotor wash, the searchlight stabbing
through the swirling wall of grit and pinning the transport truck, which
suddenly stopped.

"Come on," Yerzim told Bolan, leaping out of the doorway as the chopper
touched down.

Just as Bolan hit the ground, he saw the first flashes of weapons fire,
heard the tracking line of slugs whining off the chopper's fuselage.
Knowing they were exposed to the enemy, Bolan grabbed Yerzim and dragged
him to cover behind a boulder. As autofire chattered and the hellstorm
of lead pounded their Position, the Executioner looked back and saw the
chopper start to lift off to get out of the line of fire. The Israeli
chopper's searchlight raked the sky, and Bolan spotted the dark shapes
of seven helicopter gunships bearing down on the gulley, coming in
nose-down from the west. He knew the Israeli flyboys were doomed.

Crocker pulled the kaffiyeh tight to his face. Even from a hundred yards
out, he could feel the tension at the compound, saw a dozen soldiers
scrambling to take up defensive positions around the perimeter, toting
what appeared to be rocket launchers. Did they know about the attack? he
wondered. Hell, they sure looked as if they were on full alert.

He took in the scene with mounting fear and anger. It looked as though
the American convoy was already there, just as Gorman had told them it
would be. Green Berets and Israeli soldiers were either gathered around
the C-130 or heading straight for a building that Crocker knew from his
final briefing was the prison holding their principals. But what was
really happening? he wondered, then looked at Hammersmith, who sat atop
the camel next to him, the man's dark eyes burning with the same fear
and anger just above the kaffiyeh drawn across his face.

Damn, Crocker thought, checking the illuminated dial of his watch. It
was 0430 hours. He strained his ears for the sound of rotor blades.
Gorman and his gunship armada were supposed to be coming in from the
west at that very moment, and Collins and his team would be on the way,
coming in for the attack on the compound from the north side. Everything
was supposed to be synchronized for a simultaneous ground and air
assault.

Crocker saw the Land Rover breaking from the compound, heading their
way. Nothing to do but wait, he told himself, nothing to do but hold on
and put his faith in Gorman's Law.

So far Gorman's Law had worked. It had been a good hour's hard ride from
the wadi where the bedouin had been paid for the camels, robes and
headgear the team now wore. The bedouin had done well, his Intel to
Gorman about the compound accurate and complete. Most importantly, aside
from numbers and layout, the bedouin had said someone would ride out and
tell them to get away from the secured area.

Crocker drew a deep breath, slid his arm up the sleeve of his robe and
clamped a fist over his Uzi subgun. He knew he couldn't wait much
longer.

"They're late," Hammersmith stated.

"They'll be here." Crocker watched the Land Rover head straight for
them, pinning the six of them in the glare of the headlights as it
quickly cut the distance.

Bolan returned fire with his Uzi, his tracking line of 9 mm slugs
shattering the windshield of the transport truck. Behind the implosion
of glass, the Executioner caught a glimpse of the driver clutching his
bloodied and tattered chest before tumbling from the door. A heartbeat
later the enemy again pounded Bolan and Yerzim's position with another
relentless leadstorm.

Ducking behind the boulder with Yerzim right beside him, Bolan checked
the sky and spotted the staggered line of gunships sweeping low over the
gorge for a map-of-the-earth attack. The gunmen around the transport
truck suddenly ceased fire as walls of dust billowed down the gorge and
the whine of rotor blades filled the air.

Bolan looked back as the Israeli chopper was swinging around, nose
toward the attacking gunships, but it never got off a shot from its
miniguns.

Three of the enemy aircraft unleashed a lightning barrage of rocket
fire. Zigzag tails of flames seemed to mesh, knifing through the
darkness, streaking on target as if the hellbombs were magnets drawn to
the Israeli chopper. Yerzim cursed as the helicopter was consumed a
millisecond later by a tremendous ball of fire that screamed up the
sides of the gorge, hurling twisted wreckage in every direction.

Out of the corner of his eye, Bolan caught the gunships, moving so fast
and so low that they swept on, just feet over the climbing roar of the
mushrooming fireball. He watched them surge past his position,
recognizing the attack choppers as Mi-24 Hinds before they vanished
beyond the eastern hills.

The Executioner returned grim attention to the battle. As fate would
have it, Bolan saw a sheet of wreckage pound the earth just feet from
the transport truck, showering sparks and hurling other pieces of
flaming scrap over the enemy. It was enough to cause the gunmen to fear
being crushed more than being killed by a bullet.

As they scrambled to pick themselves up, another flaming scrap dropped
behind the gunners, illuminating them clearly in both Bolan and Yerzim's
death sights. Sustained bursts from both men took down four of the
enemy, their black uniforms holed by blistering lead. Bolan moved in,
leapfrogging two boulders with catlike grace, Uzi poised to fire. Yerzim
continued to pour it on, apparently venting his rage with clear
overkill, scything through the enemy, his subgun sweeping back and forth
until the clip ran dry.

Bodies all around were pitching to the hard-packed earth when Bolan
spotted a gunman swing around the rear of the transport and unleash a
chattering spray from his assault rifle. The warrior took cover behind a
low, jagged wall of rock as he rammed a fresh clip into his Uzi. Yerzim
loaded another 30-round magazine into his own weapon, then turned his
attention to the lone survivor, quickly forcing the guy to retreat to
the other side of the truck.

In the next moment, using the lull in enemy fire, Bolan rolled over the
boulder, angled in for the truck, then nose-dived to the ground. In the
firelight the Executioner made out the lower half of a pair of legs on
the other side of the truck. He cut loose with his Uzi, nearly
amputating the guy's legs at the knees.

A hideous shriek knifed the air. Bolan was up and running, circling the
front of the truck, sliding toward the passenger's side. Crouched, he
looked around the side, found the guy on his back but swinging the
assault rifle up and toward him. The enemy's face was a twisted mask of
agony. Bolan put the gunman out of his misery with a 3-round burst to
his chest.

Cautious, having had no time to take an enemy head count before the
battle erupted, Bolan moved down the side of the truck. Working
perfectly in tandem, as if Yerzim could read his mind, he met the Mossad
agent at the back of the truck. He gave the Israeli a nod, brought up
his Uzi, then threw the flap up but found nothing in the back of the
transport.

"I'll drive," Yerzim said. "God only knows what we're going to find when
we hit that compound."

"We'll be walking straight into hell--that's what we'll find," Bolan
stated as he opened the passenger's door and hopped in.

The faint sound of rotors was music to Crocker's ears. The mercenary
smiled. He didn't have to turn around to know what was coming in behind
them. D day was in progress.

The soldier who had identified himself to the six of them as Sergeant
Eitan was standing in the headlights of the Land Rover. Two other
Galil-toting Israelis flanked Eitan. The soldiers looked confused and
impatient. One of the men looked past Crocker, his expression tight with
sudden alarm as the sound of rotors grew louder.

"Damn it, say something. I told you this is a secured area and you are
to leave immediately," Eitan said.

When Crocker and the others didn't budge, the Israeli growled, "All
right, get off those camels."

It was the last thing Sergeant Eitan ever said. Just as suddenly as the
Israelis started to step away from the Land Rover, they froze at the
sound of helicopters shrieking toward them from out of the darkness.
Just as quickly Crocker and his strike team leaped off their camels,
threw off their robes and unleashed their Uzis with relentless streams
of death.

The three Israelis died with shock etched on their faces, six Uzis
flaming and stitching them with sweeping bursts that lifted them off
their feet and hurled them into the Land Rover. The camels, crying out
in panic at the din of autofire, scattered in all directions. headlights
shattered under the hurricane of lead before the Uzis fell silent.

The gunships streaked over the carnage.

Dust sweeping over him, Crocker smiled grimly as he watched the Mi-24s
sweep in low for the strafing run that would produce instant hell on
earth.

Something had gone wrong. Even though Gorman didn't have time to waste
pondering how the Israelis knew they were going to be attacked, he still
couldn't help but wonder whether it was just a recon team sent out due
to suspicion and paranoia on the part of the Israelis. Or had the
Israeli's gotten to their man in place in the compound. Whatever, back
at the gorge they had been forced to blow that Israeli chopper out of
the sky.

Unfortunately Gorman had to leave Collins and his team behind to take
care of the two soldiers Gorman had seen engaged in a firefight with his
troops. They'd link up shortly. But the fact that the chopper with the
Star of David was even there indicated that the Israelis suspected they
were going to be attacked. Worse, the explosion and firefight in the
gorge was close enough to the compound that if anyone was listening, the
Israelis would have put the base on full alert. Gorman's Law was now
going to be tested to the limit, he suspected as he stood behind the
pilot and copilot.

The compound came into full view, everything growing rapidly before the
bulletproof cockpit Plexiglas, the entire target area bathed in the
white glow coming from the klieg lights: the American C-130; the huge
fuel bin; Israeli choppers and ground vehicles; another grounded C-130
in the middle of the target area; soldiers all over the place, some
scrambling, but most looking to Gorman like stick figures, frozen in
shock and disbelief on the ground.

Over his headset Gorman bellowed, "Fire away, hit 'em with everything
you've got!"

Gorman, an M-16 with an attached M-203 grenade launcher gripped tightly
in his fists, a SPAS-12 slung across a shoulder, watched through the
cockpit glass, adrenaline racing through his blood like wildfire,
knowing this was the moment where they either won or lost it. Dozens of
rockets streaked ahead, and the deafening roar of machine-gun fire from
his gunships echoed through the open fuselage doorway.

Reuter stood behind Gorman, both men watching the sky fall on the
compound with grim stares, almost laughing with morbid fascination.

Dead ahead Gorman saw the American C-130 erupt in a huge ball of fire,
the behemoth aircraft blown apart in a series of titanic explosions that
sent warped pieces of the hull razoring everywhere. The explosions and
wreckage seemed to mesh as they swept up the bulk of the forces near the
obliterated plane. Then Gorman felt his Mi-24 rock with the volcanic
force of the eruption as they flew over the climbing fireclouds. Next he
saw a line of explosions to the right and left flanks march over the
compound, hurling dozens of those stick figures skyward.

The merc leader braced himself as the gunship went into a hairpin turn
at the east end of the compound. In the next moment, as his helicopter
began another strafing run over the compound, Gorman witnessed his worst
fear come to life. In the far east and west corners of the compound,
rockets streaked from the ground, and he cursed as two of his gunships
became boiling fireballs.

"Take out those fireteams, east and west corners!" Gorman raged over his
headset. "Condors Three and Four, I want my troops on the ground now!

Somebody take out that fuel bin in the east corner! I want this whole
fucking place on fire! I want a team dropped off at the southern end of
the prison!

Lion's Head is our top priority. Frag the door and go in! I want our
principals and my people out of here in five minutes!"

"I got those bastards!" Rogers, Gorman's pilot, snarled, and unleashed a
stream of rockets that obliterated the east rocket fireteam in a
whooshing fireball.

It had sounded like distant thunder. All of them looked toward the
C-130, scoured the desert beyond, then glanced at one another with what
Colonel Yoraam thought was suspicion and alarm. No one said a word.

Colonel Yoraam was striding toward the prisoner holding area when that
sound of thunder seemed to linger and echo in the desert. Warning bells
started to sound in his head, telling him what he heard was the sound of
an explosion in the distance. Then he consciously pushed his fear aside,
wanting to believe that his suspicion and paranoia were undermining his
judgment. It was best to round up the prisoners and turn them over to
the Americans. Yoraam's mission in the desert was just about finished.

Yoraam was walking beside Colonel Marlin, followed by two dozen
soldiers, half of them Israeli, half of them Green Berets. Three men
flanked Marlin, grim-faced silent guys in black whom the American
colonel hadn't introduced. Yoraam suspected they were CIA and he sensed
that Marlin didn't care for them in the least. Marlin didn't look at
them and didn't acknowledge their presence.

A moment later Yoraam noticed the American colonel giving his compound a
scathing eye and saw him begin to scowl. Or was he making that face of
pain again? Was he judging in a critical manner the layout, the openness
of the compound? Still wondering what the hell was going on here? No
radar, no radio, no antiaircraft batteries, just four teams with rocket
launchers, everyone tense, but the night offering nothing that anyone
should be afraid of.

Yes, Yoraam was suspicious, but he couldn't confirm his suspicions, and
the American colonel hadn't asked again if something was wrong here.
Still, there was that haunted look--no, a look of rage--buried deep in
the colonel's eyes that made Yoraam wonder about Marlin. Both of them
were older men, and both knew they were most likely given command over
this mission out of respect by their respective countries when younger,
maybe hungrier officers were probably saying behind their backs that the
old men should be put out to pasture.

Yoraam and the Israeli-American contingent had just reached the prison's
south face when he clearly heard the unmistakable chatter of autofire
ring over the compound. And in that moment Yoraam knew he was right in
suspecting they were going to be attacked, but feared it was too late.
He caught Marlin's eye as the American colonel came alive with an alert
and angry look. The two colonels whirled just as the gunships swooped
for the C-130 and blew the aircraft off the runway in a series of
volcanic fireballs that all but wiped out any nearby soldiers. In the
few frozen moments of this grim reality, Yoraam could only watch as
enemy gunships turned his compound into a sea of raging fire and flying
shredded human beings.

Klieg lights were blown apart in balls of showering flames, stitching
lines of machine-gun and rocket fire raking the entire compound. Yoraam
couldn't believe his eyes. Soldiers were screaming and dying everywhere,
chopped up by machine-gun fire or blown clear into the night sky on
roaring balls of fire.

As the earth-shaking blasts marched toward them, Yoraam was forced to
hit the ground and cover his head. The concussive blasts were so close
the Israeli colonel couldn't hear anything for what seemed like an
eternity. In fact, the world began to turn dark as his senses were
pounded again and again by the close and tenacious blasts, the heat of
scorching fire feeling like invisible claws tearing at his face.

The blasts seemed far away in the next moment, as they erupted, on and
on, and a nauseous feeling welled in his stomach. Yoraam recognized the
whoosh of shrapnel and debris, felt them rake his body, forcing him to
stay planted, facedown in the dirt. Somehow he found the strength and
resolve to look up and out over the compound just as two of the enemy
gunships became roiling clouds of fire.

Then Yoraam witnessed the apocalyptic blow to any hopes of possibly
defeating this sudden and shocking attack. A barrage of rocket fire blew
the fuel bin. Waves of ignited fuel swept up dozens of ground troops,
turning some of those soldiers into shrieking demons being burned alive.
More explosions rocked the night from the direction of the fuel bin, and
more soldiers were catapulted into the sky on screaming tongues of fire.

Suddenly Yoraam felt hands digging into his shoulders. A moment later he
realized it was the American colonel who had hauled him upright. The man
might have looked like a scarecrow, but he had the strength of Hercules.
Colonel Marlin held an M-16, and his face was streaked with blood. He
scoured the compound with wild eyes, obviously hell-bent on becoming
part of the action.

Stunned, Yoraam chanced a look behind. The night had become as bright as
day, illuminated by the mountain of explosions to the east, bathing the
living, the dead and the dying in a glowing white light. What struck
Yoraam the most was all the dead American and Israeli soldiers strewed
about like torn rag dolls. There was little left to do but try to
survive.

Then Yoraam witnessed another incredible sight, but one that confirmed
his worst suspicions.

Moving with grim purpose across the compound, Baumstein was cutting
loose with his mini-Uzis. Yet he wasn't firing at the gunships or the
enemy disembarking from those choppers. No, the traitor was mowing down
scattered groups of Israelis, adding to the murderous chaos.

Yoraam snatched up a discarded Galil assault rifle. If he was going to
die, he would see Agent Baumstein on his way to hell first.

Colonel Marlin spotted the tall broad figure in the distance and froze.
Firelight outlined the shape with the blazing M-16, and as the figure
turned, the intense wavering glow from the sea of flames shone like a
beacon on the hideous scar on that death's-head face. It was a face
Marlin hadn't seen in years, but a face he would recognize anywhere.

Through the glaring wall of firelight, Marlin locked stares with the man
he so desperately had wanted to kill all those years. Everything--the
scattered but fierce firefights, the strafing gunships, the roaring
balls of fire, the wreckage and bodies launched airborne on every point
of the compass--was like some slow-motion movie sequence in the vision
of Marlin's pulse-pounding sudden rage. At that moment nothing else
seemed to matter to him.

With his young and very dead soldiers strewed in his wake, Marlin
started to lift his M-16. Right away Gorman reacted to the threat,
swinging his assault rifle around as another explosion thundered over
the compound.

Neither Marlin nor Gorman got off a shot.

The colonel felt himself grabbed from behind and pulled to the ground.
In the next instant he heard the brief stutter of weapons fire, a line
of slugs belching puffs of dust beside him. A heartbeat later he looked
up and saw a giant piece of flaming wreckage falling from the black sky.
He covered his head as the wreckage hammered the earth just yards away,
showering fire and sparks and dust in all directions.

When Marlin jumped to his feet, Gorman was a retreating shadow, sliding
toward the north end of the prison. The colonel was about to go after
the guy but autofire raked his position. Next thing Marlin knew, he was
beating a fiery retreat across the compound, fighting for his life
beside Yoraam and the three CIA agents as the enemy's fire pushed them
toward the prison. Even as he retreated, firing at the distant shadows
of Gorman and his men, Marlin was already searching for some way to get
in close to his most hated enemy. It seemed impossible right then, but
if he had to, Marlin would make a suicide charge if it looked as if
Gorman was going to evacuate.

Bolan took in the hellzone as the transport truck bore down on the
battle. Even from a half mile away, he could see clearly the gunships
had paved the way for potential enemy victory. Everything appeared
destroyed and on fire. It was exactly what the Executioner had
predicted.

Grim, Bolan looked at Yerzim. They were only two men, out in the middle
of nowhere, cut off from the world, prepared to take on a greater enemy
force that had seized the night by a shock attack. The Mossad man
gripped the steering wheel so tight his knuckles were white. They both
knew this was the worst-case nightmare scenario. They were about to move
into a battle where they were taking their chances against not only
enemy bullets, but by being mistaken for the enemy by their own people.

"If we draw fire from our own," Yerzim said, reading Bolan's look, "all
I can do is try to tell them we're on their side."

Bolan, having no intention of firing on Americans, or Israelis even, to
save his own skin, hoped that would be enough. The best way to take the
fight to the enemy was to secure some sort of cover right away, pinpoint
the enemy and take them out as they showed. There was so much confusion
and terror in that compound, with what numbers were left of their side
concentrating solely on killing the enemy or maybe just surviving at
this point, Bolan knew they stood a good chance of joining the fight and
not drawing fire from Israelis or Americans. At least not right away. If
Bolan and Yerzim could notch an enemy body count as they linked up with
what remained of their side, it should be proof enough of who they were
to the surviving Israeli-American force.

As they closed on the flaming debris of the C-130, bodies and fiery or
smoking wreckage scattered in all directions, Bolan picked out a spot
where they could most likely close in on the enemy. He saw the bulk of
the ground fighting was adjacent to a low-lying building on his left
flank, and he suspected that structure was the prison holding Kamal.

Yerzim confirmed Bolan's suspicion. "That's the prison over there.
They're taking it down!"

"Stop over there by the ground vehicles," Bolan told Yerzim, nodding at
the line of vehicles dead ahead. "We'll take cover and close in from
behind."

Yerzim grunted. The only possible cover left intact was indeed the Land
Rovers, the Israeli choppers and the second C-130, which was grounded in
the middle of the compound. Only moments earlier Bolan had seen the sky
lit up by a volcanic eruption and knew the gunships had most likely
blown the fuel bin to create even more chaos.

Bolan braced himself, Uzi in hand as the GAZ-66 broke the perimeter and
Yerzim angled the vehicle toward the Land Rovers. The remaining Israeli
and American soldiers were engaged in a firefight to the truck's far
left flank, at the prison complex. Gunships continued to sweep over the
compound, strafing the soldiers with flaming miniguns. Without any sort
of cover, Bolan knew the soldiers were doomed.

He hopped out of the GAZ-66, the stench of burning gasoline and roasting
flesh stinging his senses. Screams of agony knifed the air. A delayed
explosion roared from somewhere on the compound, ringing Bolan's ears as
he ran beside Yerzim for the shelter of the trucks. Then, as the two men
secured cover behind the line of vehicles, Bolan knew they'd been
spotted by one of the gunships.

A millisecond later the GAZ-66 was turned into flaming scrap by a
tremendous fireball. Bolan saw the gunship hover directly over the
middle of the compound, roughly two dozen yards away, then it began to
spray the Land Rovers with a blazing storm of minigun fire. For long
moments a hurricane of glass blew over Bolan and Yerzim, a stream of
bullets whining off the ground behind them.

Bolan looked up through narrowed eyes and saw the gunship, still
hovering, its miniguns suddenly and strangely silent, as if the pilot
was either deciding what to do, had lost sight of his targets or was
awaiting orders. Whichever, it gave Bolan precious seconds to look
around for additional and heavier firepower. Behind him the Executioner
spotted a discarded but armed RPG-7 near the battered body of an Israeli
soldier.

Even as the Israelis viciously shoved them to the floor, shouting for
all of them to be still and quiet, Aziz Kamal couldn't resist smiling.
It was happening. The thunder of explosions beyond the walls of the
prison, the screams of men in agony, the whine of rotor blades and the
blister of machine-gun fire almost made him laugh.

But he wasn't free yet. He and his brothers in the holy war against the
Jews and the Great Satan had just been chained together when the first
of a seemingly endless series of explosions sounded from across the
compound and rocked the prison. Gorman and his men had arrived, just as
Baumstein had told him they would. Surely God, the compassionate and
merciful, was on his side. Freedom was just minutes away.

Kamal looked up and saw the panic and confusion on the faces of the
Israeli soldiers. He knew Gorman, and he was certain the soldiers were
doomed. For the Israelis there was only death.

The Iraqi kept craning his neck, searching for the soldier who had the
keys to his chains. He saw the man striding for the far door at the end
of the cell block, heard that soldier barking orders for his men to
cover the prisoners. The door suddenly exploded in his face. Dust and
debris blew down the cell block on a screaming ball of fire, forcing
Kamal to hug the floor. Then he heard the merciless chatter of autofire
and looked back to see Israelis dropping to the ground, their uniforms
chopped into bloody rags.

As the flaming muzzles of automatic weapons ceased firing and some of
the dust cleared, Kamal recognized one of the freedom fighters as the
Briton, Miller. He and a half dozen of Gorman's finest burst through the
opening, their weapons blazing again. The few Israelis who had survived
the grenade blast were dispatched within moments. But another group of
soldiers stood at the other end of the corridor.

Kamal saw them whirl toward Miller, prepared to fire, when a grenade
blast erupted within feet of their position. The Iraqi watched with grim
anticipation and burning anxiety. It was strange, he thought, that it
had all happened so fast, but it felt like an eternity.

The first grenade explosion at the north end of the corridor had been
meant to blow the door in; the second blast was intended to take out the
soldiers grouped there. Survivors began scrabbling for discarded
weapons, coughing, staggering to their feet. Then, through the churning
dust and cordite, Kamal instantly recognized a pair of burning eyes that
looked as if they belonged more to the devil than a human.

As wounded Israelis kept groaning and struggling to stand, Gorman rolled
through the jagged hole in the wall, then parted the dust with his
SPAS-12 thundering away with flaming bursts of instant and gory death.
It was a beautiful sight to Kamal as the big merc calmly fired his
automatic shotgun, point-blank, into Israelis. The roaring blasts kicked
two soldiers off their feet, nearly cutting them in two.

When the last Israeli soldier in the corridor had been taken down by
Gorman, Kamal shouted, "The keys! At the other end!"

Gorman nodded at Reuter, who ran past the line of outstretched
prisoners. A moment later Kamal found himself looking up at his savior,
who grinned down at him as if he didn't have a care in the world.
Gorman, Kamal decided, was indeed a devil in human skin. The man was
insane.

"How ya doin', Aziz? You ready to do some business?"

Kamal marveled at the man's ice-cold acceptance of all the murder and
mayhem, as he himself was starting to feel some panic. "Just get these
chains off us and get us out of here!"

"I'll take that response as affirmative, mister." The smile on Gorman's
face vanished as the radio handset on the mercenary leader's webbing
crackled. "Condor One to Lion's Head, come in."

"Yeah," Gorman barked into his radio handset.

"We've got a problem, Major. We've neutralized most of the ground
forces, but those two we saw back at the wadi just arrived in our
transport truck. I neutralized the truck, but it looks like they've
secured cover. I lost sight of them."

Kamal spotted a flicker of confusion and fear in Gorman's eyes.

"I don't give a damn what you have to do, but take them out. Radio
Tripps first. We're evacuating now!" Gorman growled. "You got that?"

"Roger."

Gorman held the radio handset by his side and shouted to his troops at
the north end. "Cover the door. We're out of here!"

Kamal stood as Reuter began unlocking the chains. The radio crackled
again.

"Tripps is on the way, sir," the pilot stated. Then, a second later, he
screamed, "He's got an RPG! Gorman froze, a look of disbelief on his
face.

"He's locking on to us, goddamn it!" the copilot screamed.

Kamal found himself staring into Gorman's burning eyes as the mercenary
leader listened intently. There was the sound of machine-gun fire over
the handset, then a tremendous explosion, followed by utter silence.

No one said anything. The mercenaries and the Iraqi terrorists all
looked expectantly at Gorman, but before he could respond, two of
Gorman's men toppled through the blown opening at the north end, their
chests riddled with bloody holes. Kamal dived to the floor as gunfire
erupted from behind him and bullets pounded the interior of the cells
and the ceiling.

Bolan raised the RPG-7. As Yerzim fired on the group of enemy soldiers
who had secured the north side of the prison, the Executioner sighted on
the MI24, triggering the 40 mm warhead just as the gunship's miniguns
began to cut loose again. The tracking line of slugs danced past Bolan,
who had flung himself against the side of a Land Rover.

The warhead streaked toward the helicopter and detonated on impact, the
force of the explosion spewing wreckage in all directions.

Bolan cast the spent rocket launcher aside. As the fiery remains of the
obliterated gunship rained to the ground, the Executioner saw a group of
five black-garbed figures break from the prison. They either had orders
from Gorman to seek out Bolan and Yerzim, or they were acting on their
own. Whichever it was, the hardmen opened fire with assault rifles,
fanning out.

With autofire peppering the Land Rovers, Bolan and Yerzim sought cover
behind the last vehicle. Another gunship hovered in the area, pouring a
steady stream of fire at the Land Rovers. As tires blew and glass
exploded, the two men dived to the ground. A quick look into the
compound moments later revealed to Bolan that the gunship had swung
around and was streaking toward the prison.

The Executioner stood and moved forward in a crouch, grimly intent on
taking the fight to the advancing enemy. But yet another gunship entered
the fray, sweeping over the C-130 ruins, then landing at the prison's
north end. As enemy bullets peppered their cover, Bolan was forced to
put the firefight at the prison out of his mind.

Gorman saw four of his men go down during the initial attack from the
south end of the corridor. He had forgotten all about Marlin and the
Israeli colonel, believing Miller and his team would have eliminated
that threat before initiating their part of the assault.

Evacuation wasn't guaranteed. They were in danger of being trapped in
the prison corridor, or worse, like his downed gunships, blown out of
the sky when they lifted off. Gorman didn't have time to think about
casualties. He was concerned only with getting out of there with his
principals.

The merc leader fired his M-16 at Marlin, the Israeli colonel and the
three men in black who were triggering pistols. It had been the wall of
flesh of his own men, Gorman saw, that had saved his own life. Sarjir,
two of the ex-CIA operatives and a few of his other fighters were now
motionless in pools of blood.

"Move it out! Move, move!" Gorman bellowed. Through the dust and the
cordite, he saw the raw hatred and savage determination On the face of
Marlin, who stood at the far end of the corridor, and opened fire.

The two men locked eyes, and Gorman felt frozen for a long moment in a
time warp of bad memories. Yesterday's trials had become today's
obstacles. The guy whose family he had killed in Vietnam, the soldier he
had believed he had killed in Cambodia, wanted him dead.

Retreating, Gorman poured it on with his M-16, firing past Reuter and
Miller, the ex-SAS commando and South African soldier covering the evac
from the corridor with tenacious twin streams of lead. Gorman saw Marlin
and his team whirl around the corner of the hole in the southern end.
Suddenly one of the guys in black was dancing a jig of death as a line
of slugs from the barking assault rifles marched up his chest, flinging
him beyond the doorway.

With the sound of crackling flames and the din of autofire in his ears,
Gorman moved outside. As he backed toward the gunship's open fuselage
doorway, he searched the entire compound. Just about everything had been
destroyed. Dead men were strewed in torn and twisted heaps everywhere,
both his and the enemy's. Still, there was so much black smoke wafting
across the compound that it was difficult for Gorman to make out anyone
who might be advancing on them from out there. But the firestorm clearly
outlined the immediate vicinity around his evac chopper, and nothing
appeared to be moving.

He had enjoyed about as complete a success as he had hoped for. But were
the two soldiers who had brought down one of his choppers and had
apparently eliminated Collins and his team in the night out there? It
didn't matter, Gorman decided, knowing they had to get out of there if
he wanted to collect on a twenty-million-dollar payday.

Gorman grabbed his radio handset, cursing the fact that he had only
three attack choppers left. Those choppers were now grounded by the
prison face, the pilots awaiting further orders. He saw the Israeli
C-130 and choppers were still intact and knew what had to be done in
order to cover the evacuation and hopefully take out the rest of the
enemy.

Then Gorman spotted Baumstein running toward him through the swirling
dust. The merc leader had the urge to kill the Israeli right there, but
good judgment told him to interrogate the man to find out just what had
gone wrong.

"Get the fuck in the chopper!" Gorman roared at Baumstein.

Teeth gritted, Gorman shoved two Iraqis, who were taking in the carnage
with a grim eye of approval, into the Mi-6. "Get your ass in the
chopper!"

Then he raised his radio handset to give his pilots the final order as
their principals scrambled aboard the evac chopper. A moment later
autofire sparked off the tail of the Mi-6. Gorman flinched as slugs
grazed his face, then saw two of the Iraqis tumble to the dirt, their
blood spraying through the air. Once again, as fate would have it,
someone else had bought a bullet for him. Gorman chuckled.

Bolan's gun churned out a relentless stream of 9 mm slugs. Still
crouched by the flaming hull of the downed gunship, he knew the unarmed
shadows fleeing the prison and attempting to board the evac chopper were
Kamal and his terrorist brothers.

Together with Yerzim, Bolan managed to cut down more than a half dozen
of the terrorists, all of whom he knew were hungry for freedom so they
could again kill innocents. He saw the surviving escapees pick up the
pace in blind panic, some of them trampling their own wounded to secure
cover in the gunship's hull.

Three of the gunships lifted off. Even though their position was
blanketed by drifting sheets of thick black smoke, making it difficult
for the enemy to pinpoint their exact position, Bolan knew even a wildly
placed salvo of rocket fire would rip them to pieces.

The gunships swung around and began pounding out a barrage of rockets.
Fireballs erupted around the compound, churning up the earth, scattering
flaming debris in all directions.

The concussive blast of a nearby explosion knocked Bolan and Yerzim to
the ground. Not wasting a precious second, the Executioner was up and
running, yanking the Israeli to his feet. Out of the corner of his eye,
he saw the C-130 in the middle of the compound go up in flames. Strafing
rounds from the minigun drilled into the Israeli choppers. Bolan,
sprinting for the deepest corner of the compound, looked over his
shoulder.

The NE-24 gunships pounded the prison with rocket fire, giant slabs of
rubble hurling into the sky. The entire compound became a blinding white
light of massive explosions. A line of minigun fire suddenly swept over
the Land Rovers, Bolan and Yerzim sprinting in a zigzag as several of
the vehicles were turned into roiling balls of fiery scrap. It seemed as
if the gunships were unleashing everything they had left.

Bolan kept pumping his legs, straining to reach cover. But it wasn't
enough. In the next instant, as he began to dive over a scrap of
wreckage, Bolan felt himself propelled by one final ear-shattering,
earth-shaking explosion. He was aware of being airborne, felt the heat
of the blast clawing at his backside.

When the Executioner hit the earth, he saw a supernova of white light
explode in his sight. Then everything went black.

Gorman stood in the doorway of the Mi-6. The compound and its perimeter
were engulfed in fire, just as he had planned. It was a fearsome sight
to behold. Even as his gunships quickly put distance to the killing
field, the firestorm burned bright and fierce, lighting the desert world
for hundreds of yards in every direction. With the sea of flames and the
roiling clouds of black smoke consuming every inch of the compound, it
was impossible to tell if anyone was moving among the carnage. Gorman
was mesmerized by the sight. Phase one had been a costly
success--costly, that was, for any of his men who had died there.

As he heard the groans and the cries of pain behind him, Gorman put his
mind on the next step. Turning, he saw Kamal holding one of the Iraqis
in his arms.

"Youssef, hold on, you will make it, my brother," Kamal told the man.

He'd been gut shot, and Gorman knew he was dying quickly. The guy was
bleeding all over the floor of the chopper, holding in his guts, and
Kamal was coddling the guy like some newborn infant with measles. Gorman
felt a mounting anger. It was a disgusting sight.

Kamal looked up at the big American. "We need to get him help."

Gorman looked away and saw Baumstein sitting in the shadows of the
gunship. As the merc leader walked toward the cockpit, he said, "I'll
deal with you shortly. Give you time to think up some line of bullshit."

He joined the pilot and copilot. "I want a head count of my men. Get me
a list of names. Stay on course for our base. We'll refuel there, then
we'll fly into Jordan. Our antiradar shields still operative?"

As his pilots gave him an affirmative, Gorman took a step down the
fuselage. He suspected his casualties were severe. First guesstimate was
that his force had been cut by half. Hammersmith, Judd, Reuter and
Miller were the only ones in the gunship he could count on. There were
the ex-CIA assassins, eight others in his force, and maybe twenty-five
Iraqis gathered in the evac chopper. Gorman hadn't seen any sign of
Collins and Crocker. He knew he'd left behind seriously wounded, but
everyone had known the deal going in. It wasn't as if he called the
shots from the safety of a command post far away from the battle. So he
wasn't about to listen to any squawking about wounded being left where
they fell.

"You must help him!" Kamal pleaded.

Gorman didn't have time for that. Without hesitation, he walked up to
the dying Iraqi, drew his .45 and pumped three rounds into the man's
chest. The body thudded to the floor.

Kamal was stunned as he stared at the blood on his hands. The other
Iraqis looked at Gorman in fear and horror.

As he lowered the .45 to his side, Gorman pinned Kamal with an icy look.
"You ready to give praise to the real Allah and talk business now?"

Bolan was aware of someone shaking him, then heard, "Mr. Belasko? Mr.
Belasko?"

Yerzim's voice seemed to reach Bolan from miles away. For what seemed
like an eternity, he saw nothing but total blackness and felt unable to
move. Then slowly pain began to knife through every nerve ending,
finally pulling his being into one central core of fire. At least he
knew he was alive. The last thing he could remember was the shockingly
loud rush of fireballs, launched on the pounding force of the blasts,
hammering the ground on his head.

"This him? The Justice guy, Belasko? Hell, he doesn't look so tough now,
does he? He alive?"

The second voice was cold and edged with anger and a hint of suspicion.
Maybe contempt.

"Yes, he's alive. If I didn't know better, I would think you're
disappointed."

"A lot of Americans died here, pal. I'm hardly disappointed."

"Do not forget, sir, that an awful lot of Israelis died here also."

Somehow Bolan pried his eyes open. Light speared in, forcing him to
retreat into darkness. When he opened his eyes again, he coughed for a
long moment as his senses were assaulted by the pungent smoke. While he
lay there on his back, the world a fractured haze of bright and burning
light, he moved an arm, stifling a groan, then tried his legs. Nothing
was broken. Lady luck had chosen to smile on him.

"Easy, Mr. Belasko. Here, let me help you stand."

"That's okay," Bolan said, as he dredged up the strength and stood. His
legs were rubbery, the world spinning in his eyes for long moments
before slowly coming to a stop.

As his vision cleared, Bolan saw the first rays of dawn had broken over
the Sinai. The carnage Bolan saw was mind-boggling. Gorman had
succeeded. There was nothing left but smoke, fire and death everywhere.

Bolan flexed his hands, then rolled his head to shake out the cobwebs.

"Look, I don't know what business this is of the Justice Department,
pal, but I've got a huge problem on my hands. I sincerely hope you won't
become part of it."

Bolan's gaze narrowed as he stared at the sharp face and the angry eyes
burning back at him.

"Uh, this is Crueller," Yerzim told Bolan. "He's apparently CIA."

"CIA? You come here to clean up a mess or start a new one?"

Crueller tensed and gritted his teeth, looking as if he wanted to take a
swing at him. Bolan waited, but the guy didn't make a move or say
anything. Then the Executioner looked at Yerzim. The Mossad man had
taken some cuts and abrasions to his face during that last series of
explosions. Blood and soot covered the man's grim visage.

"I was knocked unconscious myself, Mr. Belasko," Yerzim said. "We were
both very fortunate. I have to believe those gunships expended every
last round."

"How many survivors?" Bolan asked.

"With the exception of another CIA man, who is checking to see if any of
the choppers are operational, that's it," Yerzim said, then nodded past
Bolan.

Bolan turned, looking in the direction Yerzim indicated. Two men stood
at the far eastern end of the runway, beyond the smoldering, twisted
heaps of wreckage. He recognized the uniforms and respective berets of
the IDF and U.S. Special Forces. A dozen bodies were stretched out
beside the two men. The wounded had been covered in blankets, some of
the soldiers hooked up to IV bottles.

"Colonel Yoraam of the IDF and Colonel Marlin of Special Forces," Yerzim
informed Bolan.

The Executioner heard the distinctive and familiar sound of a death
rattle and watched as the Israeli colonel pulled a blanket over the face
of a soldier.

"And a handful of seriously wounded," Yerzim went on. "I doubt that any
of them will make it. We are not fully equipped to treat this many
casualties."

"Doesn't seem like you were equipped for much more, either," Crueller
growled. "How the hell was it you people didn't know about this attack?
How the hell could an armada of Russian attack helicopters slip through
your radar and blow this compound up so badly it looks like the day
after the Apocalypse?

A full-frontal air assault, and not a damn thing here that looks like an
antiaircraft battery. Un-fucking-believable. I think it's time you
stepped aside and let the CIA take charge from here on out."

"I believe the CIA did take charge here, Crueller," Bolan said. "One of
your former employees is responsible for what you see. My question to
you would be if this Gorman is such a terror and such a thorn in the
CIA's side, how was it that you forgot about him all these years until
now?"

Crueller stiffened with anger. "I can tell already you and me are going
to have a problem, Mr. Justice."

Bolan put some steel into his eyes and voice. "Trust me. There won't be
any problem between us."

He ignored the CIA agent's scowl and headed toward the two colonels,
Yerzim on his heels.

"He has a point, I'm afraid," Yerzim stated. "Unfortunately what this
attack tells us is that Gorman's resources are far and wide. Perhaps he
got help from the Syrians or the Jordanians. Obviously he was allowed to
fly through their airspace unmolested."

"It could be the Jordanians and Syrians are helping him, but I doubt it.
I think he either just got lucky, or he's stone-cold insane. He'll take
out anything and anybody who gets in his way. It doesn't matter if
they're Jordanians, Syrians or anybody else."

"I believe you are right, Mr. Belasko. This Gorman is obviously very
much insane--to the point where he is willing to commit suicide to
achieve whatever his aim is. Be that as it may, this was a well-planned
and well-financed assault. If it turns out Syria or any extreme
fundamentalist factions in Jordan that are unhappy with the new peace
accord between our countries helped him, this entire mess could have
devastating results. You can forget about any lasting peace in this part
of the world."

"Nothing's changed," Bolan said. "Kamal and his people are free. Gorman
is out there. Our people are all but wiped out here."

"Meaning you intend to go after Gorman."

"Yeah, I do."

"If you go after Gorman, I must insist that I come along. It has now
become personal. Baumstein, I believe, escaped with Gorman."

"Unless he's shot down by Israeli F-16s, Gorman's going to disappear,
probably into Syria, maybe Iraq. I think your boy, Kaballah, knows more
than he's telling us. May I make a suggestion?"

"You want to talk to Kaballah again."

"Right. But I've also got a plan that could help lead us right to
Gorman. I'll tell you about it later."

Bolan came face-to-face with the two colonels. Both Yoraam and Marlin
looked angry enough to kill someone with their bare hands. Yoraam pulled
the blanket over yet another soldier who breathed his last.

"You must be Mr. Belasko of the Justice Department," Colonel Marlin
stated.

At first Bolan was a little surprised. Marlin looked incredibly frail,
withered almost to a human shell, as if he might be suffering from some
terminal illness. But Bolan focused on the determination and strength in
the man's eyes, the kind of strength born from the endurance of
suffering, of seeing and knowing the horrors that the world could
inflict.

"Yes, sir, that's right."

"I understand from Agent Yerzim that the two of you inflicted some
serious casualties on our opposition before Gorman nearly blew you two
out of existence. You can see for yourself your help wasn't enough, but
I'll welcome any extra guns with me." The colonel paused, and Bolan read
his message of vengeance loud and clear. "Mr. Belasko, I'm not sure you
know exactly what is going on here."

"I know enough," Bolan said, a flicker of compassion showing in his eyes
as he gazed into the colonel's face. "I was briefed about you and
Gorman."

"Then you know how badly I want this bastard."

"Just as badly as I want the son of a bitch who helped them," Colonel
Yoraam said, shutting the eyelids on one of his dead troops, then
standing and staring at Bolan and Yerzim.

Suddenly Bolan heard one of the choppers' rotors whir to life. Pivoting,
he found Crueller walking toward them.

"Two other choppers are still intact," the agent barked. "You've got
full fuel tanks in both. I'm out of here. You people are on your own."

"It would look like we've always been on our own," Marlin snarled.

"What was that, Colonel?"

Marlin laid a sharp stare on the CIA man. "I said I've been on my own
for twenty years. What's so different now?"

"Look, you people, this is CIA business from here on. If you're thinking
about going after Gorman, forget it. What you need to do is get your
wounded back to Israel. I'll contact my people in Israel, do some damage
control. What I'm going to do is try and keep what happened here out of
the world's headlines as long as possible. Go home."

"Just like that, you're going to take off after him," Marlin growled.

"That's right, just like that. I've got a special task force on standby.
You already knew my mission, Colonel. I was supposed to interrogate
Kamal and find out where the rest of his people were, then go after
them. Because of this entirely fucked-up mess here, it looks like my
game plan's been altered a little. Do the smart thing, people, and stay
out of my way."

Crueller ran a hard gaze over the four men, then wheeled and headed for
his chopper. Bolan watched, feeling the tension mount among the group.
He suspected how the rest of them wanted to proceed.

As the helicopter lifted off, Yoraam told the group, "Help me get our
wounded into one of those choppers. We can talk on the way back to
Israel."

THEY AGREED ON ONE THING--Gorman, Kamal and the others had to be hunted
down, and the four of them had to be the ones who did it. The problem
was how to go about doing that.

Bolan stood near the cockpit as Yerzim guided the chopper over the Sinai
Desert, the wasteland beyond the cockpit window now bathed in the first
full rays of morning sunlight. In grim silence Bolan watched as Yoraam
and Marlin checked their wounded. It had been a complete disaster for
the Israeli-American force. For now the dead had to be left behind, and
the two colonels could only make the wounded as comfortable as possible.
And hope for the best.

The hunt for Gorman had to get underway immediately. Every second that
passed meant the enemy was getting that much farther away. They had to
go after Gorman and the others soon after they touched down in Israel to
unload the wounded, but there could be complications with the Israeli
and American governments. He just hoped international red tape didn't
hinder them. Everyone would now want a piece of Gorman. Politicians
would want answers, Bolan knew, and there would be people screaming for
heads to roll over this fiasco. Yoraam and Marlin were the likely
scapegoats, but if they were worried about the fallout or their futures,
they hadn't said a word regarding either.

What had happened at the prison compound was only the beginning. The
worst, Bolan suspected, was yet to come. The mission had now, indeed,
become intensely personal. He clearly read the hunger for vengeance in
the eyes of the two colonels. At least they all had the same objective.
But with Marlin, there was more than twenty years of hate stored up for
Gorman, itching for release. Hate was dangerous. It could blind a man to
all reason, especially when a man's family had been murdered and the
scent of that murderer's blood was in his nose. Bolan understood that
all too well. He didn't have any problem with the colonel wanting his
revenge, but he decided he'd have to be careful when they collided with
Gorman again. And one way or another, Bolan knew they'd find Gorman.
None of them would be able to rest until they did.

Yoraam addressed Bolan. "The only way my country will sanction us to go
after Gorman and the others is for me to assemble a commando unit."

"Okay," Bolan said. "How quickly could you have that done?"

"Within an hour after we land."

"I can have the proper authorities contacted in Jordan to let them know
what has happened and what we're doing," Yerzim told the group. "I'll
handle getting us passports and identification. I don't see any problem
with us being able to move freely through Jordan. But if Gorman and
Kamal slip into Syria, or worse, Iraq, that would be a major obstacle.
If that happens, we would be completely on our own."

"You understand," Yoraam told Bolan, "that the families of the
casualties from both our countries have to be informed. I can only keep
what happened back there from becoming public knowledge for only so
long. A day, two at the most."

"That'll give us enough time to at least pick up their trail," Bolan
said.

"It better. The U.S. Embassy in Israel will have to be informed of
American casualties," Marlin said. "This whole mess is going to have
international repercussions. I don't so much care about what the world
thinks. I don't even care at this point how much of my ass gets chewed
off when word of this gets out. I just don't want us hindered in any way
from going after Gorman."

There was grim conviction in Yerzim's voice as he said, "There will not
be any hindrance. I assure you."

"My country will want to send in their own, uh, hunting expedition,"
Marlin said. "But by the time they've assembled a force and flown them
here, I damn well intend to have Gorman's head in my hand. And I intend
to get to Gorman before those CIA clowns do."

"I think we need to address another potential problem," Bolan told the
group. "The Russians."

"What about the Russians?" Marlin asked.

Bolan told the colonels about Kaballah and what the Iraqi had related
about the arms deal.

"So, you think the Russians may send people after Gorman, too?" Yoraam
said.

Bolan nodded. "It's possible, if they're not looking for him already. I
can't see the Russians sitting around doing nothing."

"The fact that this soured arms deal between Gorman and rogue Russian
agents has been kept quiet leads me to believe that the Russians will do
something about it," Yerzim stated.

We'll deal with the Russians if and when we cross their paths," Bolan
said.

A wounded soldier suddenly groaned. Marlin went to the young Special
Forces soldier and took his hand.

"Easy, son, take it easy. Just hold on. We're going to get you help."

Yerzim turned and addressed Bolan. "You want to tell me now how it is
you intend to pick up Gorman's trail?"

"We're going to turn Kaballah loose," Bolan answered.

Yerzim stared at Bolan as if he were crazy.

They had refueled and were now deep into Jordanian airspace. Gorman
checked the rugged desert terrain. Nothing but sand and rock for as far
as the eye could see. If they stayed away from major Jordanian cities
and towns, they should have no problem reaching the Syrian border. If
they were stopped by Jordanian authorities, Gorman would handle them one
of two ways: with a cash contribution or blazing lead. He wasn't about
to stop until he had the twenty million in hand and was safely on his
way to Southeast Asia. So far, so good.

Gorman decided it was time to deal with Baumstein. He walked over to the
Mossad man and pinned him with an icy stare. He felt the eyes of Kamal
and his own men boring into the back of his head. With Baumstein clearly
on the hot seat, Gorman let the silence drag. He watched the guy sweat
for a few moments, then told him, "I don't see where you're going to do
me any good from here on."

"We had a deal."

The merc leader almost laughed at the guy's boldness and hoped he would
go for those mini-Uzis so he could finish him off with a couple of
rounds from his .45. He was just about to tell the Mossad man that deals
were made to be broken, when he caught himself, thinking ahead. Just
maybe Baumstein could be used down the road. The guy was a traitor, and
the Israelis would want him back. If nothing else, Gorman could use
Baumstein as a hostage, a bargaining chip in the event the Israelis
somehow caught up to them. Besides, it would look better to Kamal if he
dealt straight with Baumstein, a show of good intent.

"What the hell, huh?" Gorman said, softening his tone. "Okay. We had a
deal. Problem is, you're going to have to ride this out with us until I
get paid."

"Do I have any choice?" Baumstein asked.

"None of us has a choice," Gorman replied. "That's both the beauty and
the horror of it."

Gorman turned his attention to Kamal. The Iraqi didn't look happy. After
shooting the wounded man, Gorman had tossed him off the gunship from a
thousand feet up. If there was vengeance or hatred in Kamal's heart
toward him, Gorman would find out soon enough. The slightly cold look
Kamal gave the merc leader was enough to warn him to be careful of the
Iraqi and his brothers in terror. They weren't about to forgive him so
easily.

"Until you can get into Iraq and make it back with my money, where's the
safest place we can hold out?" Gorman asked.

"The place where we originally negotiated the deal," Kamal said.
"al-Shuraq."

Gorman smiled. "Exact same place I had in mind. Perfect. Close enough to
the Iraqi border and close enough to where I stashed the merchandise.
Only problem is, you'll be home among your brothers in this town. You've
got what, maybe fifty brothers in Hamas and other groups holed up in
al-Shuraq, armed to the teeth?"

"What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I don't want any surprises, Aziz. I want my twenty million
in cash. Just like we talked about before you went and got yourself
caught in Gaza."

"You are asking for quite a lot of money."

"The Russians wanted thirty million. I'm cutting you a sweet deal. Let's
not squabble over a few million. I know you've got contacts inside
Iraq--hell, you know Saddam personally. That guy still has access to
huge amounts of cash, all the oil money I'm sure he plundered and is
saving for a rainy day. Well, it's raining now. You tell him I've got
the kind of firepower that can make him more than just some dangerous
clown. If he doesn't want it, I'll take it somewhere else."

"Speaking of this twenty-million-dollar merchandise," Aziz said, his
gaze narrowing, "do you think it would be too much trouble to let me see
it first?"

Okay, the guy didn't trust him. Gorman knew right then how it was all
going to play. He put on an easy smile. "No problem, Aziz."

Bolan, agent Weisskopf, Yerzim and Colonel Marlin had gathered at the
Israeli-Jordanian border. All of them were watching Kaballah, who was
looking at the four-wheel-drive jeep with confusion.

Bolan waited, sweating a little under the blaze of the late-morning sun.
Time was wasting, and he wanted to get on with the hunt. But Kaballah
was looking the vehicle over as if he expected it to blow up in his
face. The jeep was rigged, all right, but not with dynamite or
plastique. Just before they had landed by helicopter on the border, a
Mossad agent had planted a homing device in the vehicle. Bolan had the
backup homing device on him.

"The keys are in it," Yerzim said. "There's plenty of gas and water to
get you far away from here."

"Get going before I change my mind," Weisskopf told the Iraqi.

The confusion in Kaballah's eyes changed to suspicion. The Iraqi looked
past the foursome, staring at the Arab village just beyond the low-lying
hills, a half mile or so west.

Weisskopf glanced over her shoulder at the village, then told the man,
"There's nothing and no one there, or in any part of this country for
you. Ever again. Should you return here, I will hunt you down and kill
you."

Kaballah chuckled. "You think I am stupid? I know why you are setting-"

"Do not say another word, Kaballah!" Yerzim snarled. "Get in and leave,
or I will shoot you dead right here and right now myself."

"One last thing," Bolan said, stepping up to the Iraqi, who tensed with
fear. "I think this is the least I owe you."

Bolan cracked a right off the Iraqi's jaw that dropped Kaballah on his
back. He toed the Iraqi and saw he was out cold. None of the others had
reacted to the sudden attack. They had already discussed this part of
the plan. Bolan attached the small, flat homing device to the inside of
Kaballah's belt. If the Iraqi ditched the jeep, the homing device on his
belt had a two-hundred-mile range.

The Executioner looked beyond the Arab village, listening for the whir
of rotor blades that would tell him Yoraam was landing with his commando
unit.

"How long?" Bolan asked Yerzim.

"We'll wait in the village," the agent replied as the group began
walking together. "The colonel should arrive within thirty minutes."

"Good. That will give us time to iron out some final details."

A few moments later Bolan heard Kaballah groan. He turned and saw the
Iraqi stagger to his feet, rubbing his jaw. The terrorist wasted no more
time. He hopped in the Jeep and in the next few moments was moving
quickly across the Jordanian wasteland.

"There goes our pigeon," Yerzim said, tight-lipped. "One, we hope, that
will lead us right to his master."

As soon as they set foot in the narrow dirt streets of alshuraq, two
things became quickly apparent to Gorman. First Kamal was greeted by a
small army of his Islamic brothers as if he were a conquering hero
returning home. Second the Islamic extremists were all toting AK-47s or
RPG rocket launchers. The first thing was an annoying spectacle. The
second matter put Gorman on alert, since he was down to twenty-six men.

At first head count, he figured the terrorists hiding in al-Shuraq
numbered forty, maybe fifty strong. Yet more could be inside the
countless yellow stone dwellings that made up the town at the very edge
of northeast Jordan. Put them together with Kamal's two dozen thugs ...
well, Gorman knew he could have a serious problem on his hands. Top it
all off with the fact that Kamal could still be angry about his blowing
away his wounded buddy and dumping him off his gunship. All hell could
break loose any time. But Gorman was stuck. Unfortunately, at least for
the moment, he needed Kamal, who had the necessary contacts inside Iraq
to land him the deal of a lifetime.

It got worse, but in another way. What Gorman had neglected to tell his
own men was that he couldn't pay them until the deal Was nailed down and
he had the twenty million in hand. Kamal, Gorman knew, could get the
money--not, he would get the money, or the Iraqi was going to suffer a
fate worse than anything he would have experienced had he been
extradited to the U.S. Gorman had done enough clandestine work for the
CIA and had worked for and against enough terrorist groups to know that
major terrorists had access to huge amounts of money or they wouldn't be
able to operate freely and successfully. It was now just a question of
convincing Kamal to do straight business, then getting the Iraqi to put
his hands on that money. And Saddam had the money. Before the Gulf War,
oil accounted for more than one-third of the Iraqi gross domestic
product.

Gorman knew the economic data, but better yet he knew the real deal, and
the real deal was knowing human nature, finding its weaknesses and
exploiting them. Before Saddam's disaster at Kuwait, the Iraqis were
pumping out almost two million barrels per day, their oil revenue
estimated at nearly twelve billion U.S. dollars a year. It was criminal
but believable that Saddam had siphoned off a whole lot of U.S. dollars
during the fat years to either fund his war machine or build a cash
reserve for himself, or both. That, Gorman had seen repeatedly, was the
method to a tyrant's madness. Go for broke, kick some ass, but if it all
started to crumble, make sure you could get away with what you had
plundered from the people you claimed to support and defend. It all
boiled down to greed.

Feeling the situation in al-Shuraq could blow up in his face, Gorman
gave Reuter and Miller a quick look that silently told them to be alert
and on guard.

Trailing Kamal down a narrow street that was choked with goats, camels,
Japanese pickup trucks and half-naked kids, Gorman kept his guard up. If
nothing else he was a realist, and that meant trusting no one on the
other side. Despite the fact he and his men had freed Kamal, they were
still unknown and distrusted factors on enemy turf, fifty miles from the
Iraqi border and twenty miles from the Syrian border, outnumbered and
outgunned in an armed haven for Islamic fanatics.

Gorman watched with a mix of anxiety and some contempt as Kamal was
swarmed by an ever-growing number of Islamic rebels. They clapped one
another on the shoulders, hugged, kissed cheeks, laughed. You'd think
the guy was the Second Coming, Gorman thought, trying to hide what he
felt since Kamal's associates were looking at the mercenaries with some
suspicion. Okay, they were the infidels, tools of the Great Satan.
Gorman could live with that. What he couldn't stomach much longer was
that bitter-sweet stink of dung, tobacco smoke and spice cloying his
nose. Al-Shuraq smelled like an open sewer.

Grimly aware of potential trouble, Gorman's men fanned out, taking both
sides of the street. The merc leader looked his men over, trying to
appear as indifferent as possible until he noticed Baumstein was hanging
back the most, looking as if he were trying to decide something. Gorman
threw the Mossad man a quick, menacing glare, then turned his grim
attention back to the wildly cheering throngs. From down the street,
near some market stalls, more Arab men in kaffiyehs were running to
greet Kamal.

Gorman glanced at Miller and couldn't resist grumbling to the Briton,
"Spare me, I know."

"What are we, chopped liver?" Miller muttered.

Suddenly the crowd of Arabs around Kamal parted. A moment later Gorman
spotted a slightly built man in a red-and-white-checkered kaffiyeh, an
AK-47 slung across his shoulder, striding toward Kamal. The Arab's eyes
were wide in disbelief. "Abdullah," Kamal said in greeting.

"Aziz. Is it really you, or do my old eyes deceive me?"

Gorman watched with mounting irritation as the two Arabs embraced,
kissed each other on the cheeks, then stared with beaming eyes at each
other.

"You are free? How?" Abdullah said, his face still frozen in disbelief.
Then, as he noticed Gorman and his men, the crowd on the street suddenly
became very stiff and quiet. Gorman found himself looking at a sea of
suspicious and hostile faces.

Only the bleat of goats and sheep broke the tight silence. Gorman tensed
as Kamal looked at him over his shoulder.

"Do you remember this man?" Kamal asked. "Major Gorman?"

"The one you said killed the Russians? Yes, I remember him," Abdullah
replied, the Arab's tone of voice leaving Gorman more uncertain and on
edge than ever, even though he didn't understand what was said.

"He and his men, they freed us, and at great cost to his own people,"
Kamal said, and showed Gorman a strange smile. "He has something for us
that will help us defeat our enemies once and for all."

"You trust this man?"

"I owe him, Abdullah. I intend to give him what he wants. We will
cooperate."

The older man smiled, seeming to accept what Kamal said. Abdullah
clasped Kamal by the shoulders. "Come, we will eat and drink. This calls
for a celebration. I have been in mortal fear, thinking I would never
again see you."

Gorman took charge, weary to the point of murder at this spectacle.
"Look, Aziz, let's hurry this up. You want to see that merchandise so we
can get this show on the road? let's do it. I can't leave my choppers
out in the hills like that, either. I need to find them cover."

"I understand," Kamal replied in English, then looked at Abdullah and
added, "We need weapons."

Gorman felt ice go down his spine. There it was. They needed weapons.

"Come," Abdullah said, leading Kamal down the street.

Gorman and his men followed Abdullah and Kamal to a house at the end of
the street. Gorman nodded at Miller, who held back a dozen mercs at the
door. Then Gorman and Reuter and the rest of his mercs piled into the
large, spartanly furnished room behind the Islamic rebels.

Halfway across the room, Kamal looked back at Gorman, his gaze narrowed.
"You understand, of course, my men and I will need weapons. We are, how
do you say in America, all for one and one for all now?"

Some of the Arabs chuckled, but Gorman and his men weren't laughing.

"That we are, Aziz," Gorman said, standing inside the doorway, the harsh
sunlight making the ex-CIA man's skeletal death's-head more stark and
ominous looking than ever. ""Till death do us part."

"That's another piece of American brilliance, my friend."

Now Gorman chuckled, and it was Kamal's turn to look uncertain. The mood
in the room thickened with tension before Kamal nodded and smiled at
Gorman, as if the Iraqi understood something no one else did.

"Why are we all so tense?" Kamal asked. "This is business, Major. I am
quite frank when I say I am prepared to extend you my hand and work out
our deal. I owe you, after all. You freed me. I consider you my friend,
my brother in blood."

"So untense me, 'my brother in blood,'" Gorman said. "Get the money,
I'll give you the merch and we can all live happily ever after."

"It will be done."

"It better be done," Gorman said, putting an edge into his voice,
drawing a look from Kamal before the man nodded at Abdullah.

As Abdullah threw back a large Persian rug and lifted the double wooden
doors on the floor, Gorman walked forward and stared down into the hole.
He figured there were enough AKS and RPGS in that hole to take on ten
armies of Allah's finest.

As if reading Gorman's thought, Abdullah stated in English, "There are
also twelve crates of fragmentation grenades. Plus one hundred and fifty
pounds of dynamite and plastique. And enough extra clips for the AKS to
keep them barking out death for days."

Kamal plucked an AK out of the hole, rammed home a clip and cocked the
bolt. He looked at Gorman and again smiled with an expression that the
big American thought would be more fitting on a reptile. He felt his
adrenaline race and was prepared to start blasting away with his SPAS
and M-16 if Kamal so much as began to lift that AK in a threatening
manner.

"Now we can go check out your merchandise," Kamal said.

Gorman smiled, chuckled and slapped the Iraqi on the back. "You know,
Aziz, I've never considered myself a people-loving-people kind of guy.
Even still, I've got a compassionate nature and I'm starting to kind of
like you. I think we're going to take this all the way."

Kamal was still smiling, but Gorman read something else in the Iraqi's
eyes. Betrayal.

"We're only playing a hunch, hoping for the best while fighting time,"
Yerzim said, guiding the Land Rover in a northeast direction down the
desert tracks, an endless barren wasteland stretching out beyond the
vehicle in all directions, the sun of high noon blazing like a furnace
from a cloudless blue sky.

Seated beside the Mossad man, Bolan said, "But from everything we know,
it's a strong hunch. For starters you told me that when Gorman escaped,
he was flying in a due northeast direction. Second the arms deal most
likely, if you believed Kaballah, went down in Syria. If it's missiles
Gorman has, then they aren't easily moved without being detected. I
suspect he stashed them. If he's going to sell what he has to the
Iraqis, then we have to believe he stashed it close to the Iraqi
border."

Bolan looked over his shoulder to check on the rest of the team.
Weisskopf and Marlin were in the back, facing each other, both the woman
and the Special Forces colonel keeping them updated on Kaballah's
course. Weisskopf was poring over her maps of Jordan, Syria and Iraq.
Marlin had a grim gaze fixed on the homing console and hadn't taken his
eyes off the small blinking light since they had broken the Jordanian
border a little more than an hour earlier.

A radio console beside Weisskopf kept their team in contact with Yoraam,
who was now on aerial recon with his team of twelve commandos. If and
when they found something, Yoraam would contact the ground force
immediately, and they would coordinate a simultaneous ground-air attack.
And Bolan knew they were ready for battle. Behind Weisskopf and Marlin
the rest of the hardware was laid out. Everyone had an Uzi subgun, and
there was a crate with plenty of spare 9 mm clips in the back. There was
also three RPGS with a crate of 40 mm warheads, meant to blow enemy
aircraft out of the sky or decimate large numbers quickly. Add one last
crate that held two dozen MK-2 frag grenades, and the four of them,
Bolan knew, were ready to tackle whatever enemy numbers showed.

When the time came for battle, each one of them would attach a
half-dozen grenades to their webbing. But would they have enough time to
catch up to their quarry? Bolan wondered. Mossad had given them
twenty-four hours to hunt down Gorman, Kamal and the others who had
escaped the Israeli prison compound on the Sinai, or the Israelis had
vowed to pull all the stops, maybe even send their army marching across
the borders of Syria and Iraq. That, Bolan recalled, had come straight
from Yerzim, who had received his orders from the Mossad director
himself.

And it had surely helped that Mossad had quickly convinced top Israeli
government officials to sanction an all-out hunt for Gorman and Kamal.
The fact that both their respective governments had managed to keep the
original extradition of Kamal to the United States out of the world's
headlines proved now to be a plus. But it wouldn't be long before the
disaster on the Sinai became world knowledge. When that happened, there
would be an international demand to spare nothing in the pursuit of
Gorman and Kamal.

"Colonel," Bolan said, "is he moving again?"

"Just started. Same direction. Due northeast." Weisskopf looked at the
console, frowning. "I don't like it."

"Why's that?" Bolan asked.

"Kaballah stopped for a good twenty minutes. According to my map, the
spot was an Arab village." Weisskopf turned somber. "Mossad believes
that there are many such villages in Jordan, as there are in Lebanon and
Syria. These villages provide safe haven for terrorists who cross our
border, inflict their damage or plot future terrorist acts then escape
back over the border."

"Kaballah was clearly suspicious," Yerzim stated. "He has driven hard
and fast since he crossed the border."

"Meaning, as we suspected, that he had a specific place to go," Bolan
said.

"Or places," Weisskopf added.

Bolan fell silent, checking the rugged desert terrain. North, the
wasteland was broken by jagged chains of hills. Bolan spotted stone
dwellings, then movement of head-clothed and robed figures. Camels,
goats and sheep milled around the dwellings, and two Arab men were
pulling a bucket from an artesian well. It all looked harmless enough,
but Bolan kept his guard up. Weisskopf confirmed that was the village
where Kaballah had stopped.

"He's stopped again," Marlin announced.

Bolan turned and saw Weisskopf checking the homing console against her
maps.

"He's maybe fifteen minutes ahead now, due north," she stated.

Bolan met the woman's suspicious gaze. "He smells something," he said,
then broke Weisskopf's gaze to survey the desert, looking for anything
that would warn him they were being led into a trap.

No one spoke as Yerzim guided the Land Rover north, closing on a chain
of low hills. The ground became broken, and Bolan jounced in his seat as
the vehicle rolled over the uneven terrain. They began to head up the
steep incline for the ridge when Marlin turned on the homing console's
audio. The loud beep warned them they were almost right on top of
Kaballah.

Bolan checked the ridge in both directions, his combat senses on full
alert as he gripped the Uzi. When they topped the ridge, the Executioner
found himself staring down at the crumbled ruins of an ancient temple.

"There," Yerzim said.

Bolan followed the Mossad man's intense gaze. In the distance, just
beyond the rubble of long-since-toppled pillars, Bolan spotted
Kaballah's Jeep. The driver's door was open, and the vehicle appeared
abandoned. Something felt terribly wrong to Bolan. As he turned to check
the ridge to the east, he saw the figure pop over the rise. And that
figure was armed with an AK-47, the assault rifle suddenly blazing.

Bolan ducked a millisecond before the windshield was raked by lead and
glass shards exploded past his face.

After his men had cleared the mines and unhooked the trip wires attached
to grenades, Gorman led his mercs, Kamal, Abdullah and the other Iraqis
deep into the cave. Behind Gorman the M-6 was shut down, grounded in the
mouth of the cave, its searchlight bathing the tracked carrier at the
very deepest corner in this hole in the wadi in a brilliant wash of
light.

Gorman held back, watching as Kamal and his Islamic brothers stared in
awe at the five missiles in the carrier. Then Kamal stopped, checking
the ground and the cave's jagged walls, his narrowed gaze dark with
suspicion.

"Relax, there aren't any more mines," Gorman assured the Iraqi, then
tapped his head. "I've got the world's greatest computer right here. I
know how many and where they were laid. Hell, I'm the next best thing to
Allah, Aziz. See all, hear all and know all."

"You are also very lucky," Kamal said.

"Luck is for guys with no balls. I'll have to explain Gorman's Law to
you sometime, Aziz."

"Weren't you worried about someone, even an animal, wandering in here
and setting off the mines?" Kamal asked. "An explosion would have sealed
the cave, possibly even alerted a Syrian army patrol."

Gorman shrugged. "What's to worry? I didn't plan on being gone that long
from my merchandise. Besides, maybe I've got friends in the Syrian
army." Gorman paused, irritated by the lingering suspicion in Kamal's
eyes. "Look, we're at the edge of the Syrian desert. Nothing and no one,
except maybe some bedouin, come this way. Come on, Aziz, I had to
protect my investment. It's all here. I've delivered on everything I've
promised you."

The merc leader ran a hard stare over the faces of his troops. He looked
to the mouth of the cave and saw four of his men, bright, faceless
figures in the harsh sunlight, standing guard. He felt the tension, knew
his men were ready just in case the Iraqis decided to be martyrs for the
cause.

Abdullah cleared his throat, tugging the AK-47 a little higher on his
shoulder. "Only five missiles," he said to Gorman, his voice flat but
edged with contempt. "And they are worth twenty million dollars?"

"let me tell you people something about these missiles," Gorman said.
"These are SS-20s. They're specials, Abdullah, meaning they are nuclear
tipped. Let me tell you what kind of firepower you've got here. Each
missile has a yield--or explosive punch, to put it more simply--of one
hundred and fifty kilotons. Now, one kiloton equals one thousand tons of
TNT going off in your face. I think you can figure out for yourself the
kind of damage just one of these babies can produce. They've got a range
of 3417 miles. If a man knows how to operate these, he can hit Tel Aviv
blindfolded.

"Think about it before you question just how much they might be worth to
Saddam. So far, my men and me have been the ones to take all the risk,
not to mention the fact I've lost a lot of good people. I feel I'm
entitled to name my own price. If I want fifty million, that's what I'll
ask. But I'll settle for twenty."

Abdullah didn't look impressed. "And you want us to go to Iraq and bring
back twenty million dollars. Just like that. What makes you think Saddam
does not already have SS-20s?"

Kamal lifted a restraining hand. "Please, Abdullah, let me handle this.
This is my deal."

"This is our deal, Aziz," Gorman retorted.

"And speaking of Saddam," he said to Abdullah, "if he had this kind of
firepower, he would have already dropped it on Israel during the Gulf
War. Not even the Russians are crazy enough to hand him something like
this. Next thing you know, Saddam gets a wild hair and he's wiping
Moscow off the map."

Gorman had center stage, so he grabbed the moment, wanting to jerk their
strings and let them all know just how smart and just how crazy he was.
"Hey, the Russians have gone democratic. There's no more revolution for
them, that is, if you believe the hype. They want peace and stability in
this part of the world more than anybody. Your country, Aziz, is down
but it isn't out. Hell, at twenty million, with all the oil money you've
got, I'm giving you people a bargain. I can put you on the map with this
suitcase from Allah. Forget car bombs, forget suicide attacks on a bunch
of unsuspecting Marines. You want to give glory to Allah, this is the
ticket."

"So what you are saying is that you are crazy enough to deal with Iraq,"
Kamal said, showing Gorman that strange smile again.

"You had damn well better believe it. I've already staked my life on
this deal--that's how crazy I am. I've got nothing to lose and
everything to gain."

Kamal pursed his lips and nodded. "Very well. We need to talk. Alone."

Gorman gave Miller and Reuter a curt nod, then led Kamal away from the
missiles. With his two men right on their heels, the big American took
Kamal outside and headed down the gorge. Suddenly Gorman felt the snake
in his belly, which demanded violent release for all the pent-up rage
and tension that had accumulated since freeing Kamal and his people.
Worried, he scoured the ridges of the wadi, a half dozen of his men high
above him, on both sides, watching the sky and the surrounding desert.
But most importantly, they kept vigilance on the Iraqis.

Gorman looked Kamal dead in the eye. "Are we going to do this or not?"

Kamal smiled. "You are crazy. Crazy enough, I believe, to lead even your
own men into suicide in order to get what you want. That, I can
respect--a man who wants something bad enough and is willing to die for
it. What I want to know is, are you crazy enough to trust me to go to
Baghdad, in good faith, and return here with twenty million of Saddam's
money?"

"I would be crazy, Aziz, to trust you out of my sight." There. He'd said
it, letting the Iraqi know just where things stood. "What I do trust is
that your heart is in the Islamic revolution. I trust that Saddam will
want what I have. I trust that Saddam would be very pissed off if he
didn't have the opportunity to buy what it is I risked my life to get."

Kamal stiffened with anger. "I told you when we discussed getting the
missiles from the Russians that I could get the money you wanted.
Nothing has changed. However, it will take maybe three or four days for
me to contact the necessary people. Whether I will speak to Saddam
personally--I cannot guarantee that. Time, my friend, is not money here.
Time is-"

"As we speak, I am sure that there is a very large, well-armed and very
pissed-off force of Americans and Israelis looking for us. You've got
twenty-four hours. I'll wait in al-Shuraq for your return. Twenty-four
hours. If I don't hear from you by then, I'm pulling out."

"And where will you go? How will you transport the missiles safely,
without being detected and blown out of the sky?"

Gorman chuckled. "I've come this far. That tells me somebody somewhere
kind of likes me. You can call it luck, you can call it fate, but I get
the feeling I've been blessed. Another thing. Don't bring a bunch of
Saddam's lackeys back here to inspect my missiles or tell me they need
more time to come up with the twenty. All I want is a suitcase full of
cash. Then I'll hand you over your suitcase from Allah."

"How will we move the missiles?"

"You let me worry about that. I can disassemble them in a moment's
notice, both the missiles and the carrier." He paused, then added, "What
you also might like to know is that only my men and myself know how to
activate and launch those missiles."

"Is that some sort of threat?"

"No. It's fact. Meaning I'm going to have to teach you people everything
you'll need to know in order to operate those SS-20s. Meaning I'll also
be charging a small instructor's fee."

Kamal gave Gorman a long hard stare. "Well, since I only have
twenty-four hours, I suppose I should be going."

"I suggest you take some of the vehicles back at the village. Take as
many of your people you feel you need. I can't fly you. Sorry about
that, but I can't risk much more air movement right now. We're close
enough to the Iraqi border that I don't think you should have any
problem getting back to me within twenty-four hours. I can have a
two-way radio set up at the village. When you're on your way back,
contact me and let me know something. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like a
moment alone."

Kamal gave Gorman one last hard look, then turned and headed back for
the cave. Miller and Reuter joined Gorman.

"I don't like it, Major," Miller said. "All of a sudden I get the
feeling our boy has got another agenda."

"Well, we didn't break him out for him to have another agenda. The guy
swears to me he can get me that twenty million, and I'm going all the
way with him."

"That was before he got caught by the Israelis," Reuter said. "And that
was before you blew away one of his people."

Gorman smiled ruthlessly at his men. "But we've still got the missiles.
In fact, just in case Aziz decides to get squirrelly on me, I want to be
able to haul those SS-20s out here in the blink of an eye. I want them
pointed east, and I want two of them activated and ready to fly."

Miller looked uneasy. "You have any particular target in mind?"

The smile stayed frozen on Gorman's lips. "How about Baghdad?"

Crouched beneath the dashboard, his Uzi in hand, Bolan gave the team a
quick check for wounded or worse. As wave after wave of slugs pounded
the Land Rover and drilled the canvas canopy with holes, Bolan found
Weisskopf and Marlin hugging the floor, covering their heads. Yerzim
flinched beneath the wheel as the hurricane of glass razored through the
interior. At first glance the three of them appeared unharmed.

"Anybody hit?" Bolan shouted over the din of autofire and the heavy thud
of slugs against the bodywork.

"Just pull out and get us some cover!" Marlin said. "I'm fine,"
Weisskopf stated. "Hold on!" Yerzim roared.

As the hellstorm blew out the window beside him, Bolan felt the vehicle
lurch forward and glimpsed Yerzim with gritted teeth and savage
determination hurl the vehicle over the edge. The Mossad man kept his
face angled low against the steering wheel as slugs tattooed the hood in
ricocheting lines that told Bolan there were more than a few enemy guns
out there.

The Executioner kept himself braced low against the dash as Yerzim sent
the vehicle in a bone-jarring run down the hill toward the ruins.
Moments later the autofire began to fade, but slugs still punched holes
in the canvas and whined off the bodywork.

"Here!" Weisskopf said, handing Marlin and Bolan two grenades before
attaching two of the frag bombs to her webbing. "That should even the
odds some!"

Yerzim directed the Land Rover into a long sliding skid before the
vehicle came to a jerky halt behind a low stone wall. As bursts of
sporadic autofire raked the air, Bolan was out and taking cover.
Crouching behind the wall as Yerzim, Weisskopf and Marlin piled out of
the Land Rover, Bolan scoured the ridge. He saw why the terrorists had
been able to ambush them. Deep natural grooves were cut into the
hillside, some of the gulleys snaking together to form shadowy pockets.
And all around him Bolan found enough rubble and crumbled pillars to
hide determined ambushers. From the ridge a lookout could have monitored
the desert and alerted the others. All Kaballah and his cronies had to
do was wait until they rolled up the hill then cut loose.

With the suspicious lull in enemy fire, Bolan searched the hills. This
time he spotted five shadows scurrying from one of the pockets and
moving down the hill. The enemy was bunched tight together. Perfect.
Bolan plucked a grenade, pulled the pin and gave Yerzim, Weisskopf and
Marlin a curt nod.

"Dead ahead, twelve o'clock. Give me some cover fire," Bolan ordered,
releasing the spoon and gauging the distance to the target as roughly
forty yards.

Together Weisskopf, Yerzim and Marlin began spraying the hills with
sustained bursts from their Uzis. Brief return fire from AK-47s peppered
the stone wall, but the combined and deadly accurate Uzi lead-storm
found two terrorist targets and forced the rest of the enemy force to
secure cover in the gulley. As Bolan heard the sharp cries of pain
through the chattering Uzi barrage, he pitched the grenade.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he spotted three more figures with
AK-47s surging down the hill to the east. The Executioner cut loose with
a burst in that direction a heartbeat before the grenade blew, taking
out the new arrivals before their brothers were decimated by the ensuing
blasts.

Bolan glanced at his teammates, gesturing for Weisskopf and Marlin to
take the fight to the west as he saw three more terrorists with AK-47s
slipping into the ruins from that direction. Since they were
combat-blooded professionals, Bolan was sure the others knew the drill.
They had to take the fight to the enemy or risk getting pinned down and
hemmed in by an obvious pincers attack. Yerzim followed Bolan down the
wall as Weisskopf and Marlin peeled off to the west.

The Executioner darted behind a pile of rubble as Yerzim's Uzi blazed.
He checked the terrain around his enemy targets as slugs whined off
stone around him. Ahead the ground rose in a broken layer of boulders
and jagged edges of tabletop rock. If he could gain higher ground, Bolan
could seize the advantage as the enemy advanced.

"Cover me," he told Yerzim, who nodded and rammed a fresh clip into his
Uzi. He began to spray the gulley where the three enemy gunners were
moving toward them.

Slinging the Uzi and unleathering the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle, Bolan
broke cover. Behind him the warrior heard the merciless chatter of
autofire as Weisskopf and Marlin engaged the enemy to the west. Swiftly,
as a line of bullets tracked him, he vaulted for the lip of a broken
table of rock. Enemy fire from the hillside briefly ceased as Yerzim's
Uzi kept stuttering and pinned them in the gulley. Swinging his legs
over the edge of the rock, Bolan came up from behind a boulder. He
spotted the enemy, dead ahead and below.

Having gained the upper hand, Bolan triggered the .44 Desert Eagle.
Three peals of thunder rolled over the gulley, and three terrorists had
their chests ruined by large-caliber slugs. As the corpses toppled to
the ground, Bolan scoured the gulley then the ridge. Nothing. Where was
Kaballah? Bolan scoured the faces of the dead below him, finding none of
the three Arabs was their pigeon.

Turning in the direction of the firefight to the west, the Executioner
watched as Weisskopf and Marlin leapfrogged ahead, using the rubble and
the pillars for cover. The enemy had secured their own cover behind a
low stone wall near the crumbled archway of the temple. Marlin and
Weisskopf took turns covering each other while one of them advanced.

Weisskopf lobbed a grenade toward one end of the wall. As the bomb blew,
taking out one of the terrorists and kicking him over the wall, she
hurled her second toward the far end. As the second blast produced a
bone-chilling shriek of agony, Marlin was leading her toward the temple.

From the higher ground, Bolan gave the hillside and the ruins a hard
search. Suddenly he spotted a familiar face in the distance. With an
AK-47 poised to fire, Kaballah bounded over the wall by the Land Rover.

"Kaballah!" Yerzim shouted.

Whirling, the man triggered his AK-47. Yerzim dived to the ground as a
line of slugs ricocheted off the pillar beside him.

"Let me handle him," Bolan said, then leaped off the ledge, hitting the
ground with catlike grace as Kaballah, firing on the run, raced for his
Jeep.

"We still need him alive," Yerzim told the Executioner, but Bolan was on
the move, not giving the Mossad man a second look.

With wild sweeping bursts, Kaballah kept firing his AK-47. A blanket of
slugs sparked off the rubble around Bolan. Not breaking stride, he
angled away from the Jeep. Knowing Kaballah was going for the vehicle,
the warrior was determined to cut the terrorist off. He gave the ruins a
hard sweeping glance, formulating a plan to thwart the Iraqi's flight.

Kaballah fired one last burst before jumping into the Jeep. As the
engine gunned to life, Bolan leathered the Desert Eagle, grabbed a
grenade and pulled the pin. Trailing a cloud of dust, the Jeep raced
ahead but was forced to cut a path directly in front of Bolan because of
the maze of rubble.

The Executioner picked his spot, tossing the grenade several yards in
front of and to the passenger's side of the careening vehicle. A
heartbeat later the blast upended the Jeep and slammed it to the ground
on the driver's side, then flipped it on its roof.

Desert Eagle in hand, Bolan sprinted to the vehicle and cautiously
approached the driver's side. He heard a sharp groan, then saw
Kaballah's battered face poking out of the window. He reached down and
grabbed a handful of Kaballah's curly hair, hauling him out of the
vehicle. The man cried out in pain and broke away, falling to the
ground.

"I'm done playing with you," Bolan said, lifting the big pistol and
aiming it at Kaballah's face. "You had your chance."

Kaballah spit out blood and dirt, then chuckled. "What, are you just
going to kill me?"

The .44 Desert Eagle thundered in Bolan's hand.

"We might have a serious problem, Major," Reuter said, handing the field
glasses to Gorman. "The kind of problem we don't need right now."

Gorman crouched beside his right-hand man. Looking through the field
glasses, he gave the desert to the south a hard search. Hell, Gorman
thought, it seemed all they had left were problems.

He and Reuter were alone atop the ridge that overlooked the Arab
village. Black jagged hills ringed alshuraq east, west and north,
providing some line of defense against any ground strike force. And
there were enough deep depressions in the hills for Gorman to hide the
NE-6 and two of his three Mi-24s unless, of course, the hills were given
a hard aerial recon. What bothered him was the open no-man's-land to the
south. From there any armored ground force could easily advance on the
village, make a frontal feint while another ground force moved in from
the hills.

Gorman didn't have enough men left to hold off any pincers attack, and
he damn sure wasn't going to count on Abdullah and his cronies to help
defeat an all-out assault. Luckily his other Hind was back with the
missiles with the force he'd posted to guard the SS20 stash. Miller, he
knew, wasn't far from a radio, waiting for the order to launch the two
SS-20s in the direction of Baghdad. The threat of wiping Baghdad off the
map would be used only as a last resort. Spent missiles meant a serious
cut in cash.

Then Gorman saw it. It was a shadowy but bulky shape, cutting low
through the distant, shimmering heat haze. A gunship, light brown
camouflage, maybe a Bell or an Apache. Gorman couldn't tell, but knew
the IDF used both types of attack choppers. Finally the gunship flew off
to the west before vanishing altogether moments later. Not good. Yeah,
Gorman thought, they had problems, all right. Someone was hunting for
them.

He lowered the field glasses and stared down at the village. There was a
lazy but tense feel down there. Villagers ambled around the village,
trading goods, hawking wares. It was just another normal day. Gorman was
already thinking ahead. He stared at the minaret on the domed mosque at
the east edge of the village and smiled. He needed another trump card,
and he believed he had one--al-Shuraq.

"Well, Major? Twenty-four hours is an eternity to stay put in this
hellhole and wait for Kamal to come back. I've got a very bad feeling
about all this."

"So do I. That's why we're going to go talk to Abdullah."

"What's the plan?"

"First we need to find if there's some way out of this place. I'm
betting, with all the hardware they've got stashed, knowing they're not
exactly upstanding citizens of Jordan, they've got some contingency plan
in case someone unexpectedly pops in."

"A tunnel maybe."

"Maybe. But what I really want to know is just how much Abdullah cares
about these people. Maybe he's got a woman or kids in the village. You
know, a soft spot for the little people." Gorman smiled coldly.

Reuter looked concerned. "We've got thirteen men, fourteen if you want
to include Baumstein, and that guy looks ready to crack. About forty of
them left with Kamal. Still leaves us outnumbered, at least four to
one."

"Tell our people to be ready if I so much as give them a nod."

Reuter paused, then said, "Major, there's something I've been meaning to
ask you."

Gorman peered at Reuter and didn't think he cared for the ex-Recces
distrustful tone. "So ask me."

"You don't have our money, do you?"

"No. I've got maybe two hundred grand in a Swiss bank account. I spent
all available funds arranging this entire deal. Paying people off.
Buying the hardware. Buying a Hind, here and there, piecemeal. Throwing
some advance money to you and the others."

Gorman stared hard and deep into Reuter's eyes. "Look, we both know what
we're doing now was set up and in the planning months ago, Reuter. We
both agreed to go all the way, go for broke. We're in the bottom of the
ninth inning, down by three, two outs with the bases loaded. Two strikes
and needing a grand salami. I need this deal. Without it, we are some
truly fucked SOBS."

"You'll blow Baghdad back into the Stone Age, won't you?"

"You had damn well better believe it. Then we'll fly right over the
smoking glowing rubble and sell those SS-20s to the Iranians. Hey, what
are you so worried about? As long as we've got the guns and we're
breathing, we'll make it. We've been in worse jams than this. You with
me, soldier?"

Reuter broke Gorman's piercing stare. "I'm with you, Major. I didn't
come this far with you to leave with nothing."

"Good. Then let's go find out how sentimental Abdullah is."

Bolan stood with grim determination on his face, waiting as the rolling
thunder from the Desert Eagle faded over the ruins. Weisskopf, Marlin
and Yerzim gathered around the Executioner and stared over his shoulder.
Bolan got the expected result from the first .44 round as Kaballah began
to scream in pain.

Bolan watched as the Iraqi squirmed on the ground, clutching the side of
his head. Blood poured through Kaballah's fingers, and as he stared at
his bloody hand, he cried, "You bastard. You shot part of my ear off!"

"The rest of it goes next. Then I'll work my way down to your arms, then
your knees."

"I knew it. I knew you were following me," Kaballah growled. "Something
is wrong. Something has happened, or you would not have let me go."

"Something has happened, pal," Bolan told the Iraqi. "For you it could
mean sudden death if I don't get some answers. There was a jailbreak.
Your buddy Kamal is free."

Kaballah looked stunned, then sputtered. "Gorman. I knew he would do it.
Did I not tell you? He is the devil in human skin."

"And for you it could be the fires of hell if you don't start talking,"
Bolan said in an icy voice.

The Iraqi froze, staring at the .44's muzzle, just inches from his face,
before slowly putting his trembling hand back over the side of his head,
checking his wound. The blood pouring freely down the side of his face,
Kaballah looked at his crimson-soaked hand. He laughed as if the joke
was on Bolan and the others.

The man stopped laughing a second later when Bolan triggered the .44
Desert Eagle again. He screamed as the slug exploded rock beside him,
spraying stone chips against his face.

Bolan thought about the massacre in Tel Aviv and he strongly suspected
the Iraqi knew more about Kamal and the arms deal than he had let on.
One way or another the Executioner would get the information so
desperately needed if Gorman and Kamal were going to be found.

"What do you want with me?" Kaballah rasped.

"You had some destination in mind," Bolan said. "I'm betting with your
life it's the same destination your buddy Kamal would have at this time.
Where would he go?"

Kaballah looked at Bolan with defiance.

"You've got three seconds, then I'll send you on your way," Bolan
warned. "For murderers like you, getting into Paradise is a real long
shot."

The Iraqi seemed to think about something, then smiled. "I know exactly
where Aziz would go. The same place where he and Gorman made the deal
with the Russians. What I want to know is, what is in it for me if I
tell you?"

"A stay of execution, Kaballah," Bolan replied. "I think I speak for the
others when I say we're no longer making you any promises. Where?"

Kaballah ran a hate-filled stare over Bolan and the others. "Al-Shuraq.
It's a village on the Syrian border. Close to Iraq."

Bolan looked at Weisskopf then Yerzim. "Is it on Mossad's list of
suspected terrorist havens?"

Weisskopf nodded, grim. "We believe it is. If it's where he says it is,
we're close. Less than a hundred miles."

"It is a home for maybe sixty of my brothers in the Islamic revolution,"
Kaballah said in a triumphant voice, then laughed. "If you're asking me
to take you there  ..."

"We're not asking," Bolan said. "We're telling you."

"Of course you are. I have no problem with that. For you, my friends, I
will gladly take you down your own road to hell."

Bolan told Yerzim, "Put him aboard. I'll find something to tie him up
with."

As Bolan walked away from the group, he heard Yerzim say, "We need to
contact Colonel Yoraam immediately. Mr. Belasko, do you have a plan?"

Bolan looked back. "Yeah. And I don't think it includes taking any
prisoners."

Bolan moved swiftly toward the temple, Marlin right on his heels. He
spotted that haunted look in the colonel's eyes again and knew the man
was going back to some distant time in hell. The colonel grabbed a
headcloth off a nearby corpse and tossed it to the Executioner.

"Why don't you clean that scum's blood off your hand," Marlin suggested.

Bolan nodded, locking stares with the colonel for another moment. He
cleaned his hand as best he could while Marlin went and snatched a
kaffiyeh off a second corpse.

"We'll tie him up with this," Marlin stated, walking up to Bolan and
staring the warrior dead in the eye.

"You want to say something, Colonel?"

There was a long moment of tight silence before the haunted look in
Marlin's eyes hardened with steely resolve.

"I don't know who you are," Marlin began. "I look into your eyes and I
don't see any agent from the Justice Department."

Bolan cocked a wry grin. "Don't worry, Colonel. I'm not CIA, either."

"Then what are you?"

"Let's just call me a concerned citizen of the free world."

Marlin nodded. "Somehow I can buy that. For one thing you don't talk out
of both sides of your mouth like some CIA goon. When you walk with
somebody in battle, you go all the way, for him and yourself. I look
into your eyes and I see a man who has seen and known and dealt out
plenty of death. I get the feeling your road, whatever started it, is
something similar to mine. But you've still got that look I used to see
in the mirror a long, long time ago. A look that says you still believe
in what's good and right in the world and that it's worth fighting and
even dying for." Marlin paused. "You said you knew about Gorman and me.
I want to show you something." He reached into his pocket and pulled out
what Bolan suspected was a photograph. The colonel stared at the
picture, then handed it to Bolan. "She was my wife. That was our son."

Bolan found himself looking at a picture of a stunningly beautiful Asian
woman. Long raven black hair, smooth almond skin, full lips and sculpted
cheekbones made her a woman who would be admired and desired by any man
anywhere.

"That's the only picture I have left of my wife and my son," Marlin
stated. "It was taken in the living room of our villa in Saigon. Right
before they found her and my boy murdered. I've carried that with me
wherever I've gone for more than twenty years."

She was sitting in a wicker chair, holding a smiling Amer-Asian boy in
her lap. She was dressed in a white silk kimono with gold brocades. The
woman's smile was radiant, reaching her eyes, and made her expression
glow with warmth.

"She's beautiful, Colonel," Bolan said, handing the photo back.

"Yeah," he agreed, a trace of bitterness in his voice. "And my wife and
son look very happy."

"Why did you show me that?"

"You have to ask?"

"Gorman."

"I showed you that picture just so you know where things stand with me.
I don't want any sympathy, I don't want anybody cutting me any slack. I
was semiretired when the top brass gave me the assignment to come over
here and round up those bastards and take them back to the U.S. I
smelled something. I had Langley holding hands with the Pentagon. I
strongly suspect I was sent here as a scapegoat or a target. Or both.

Gorman came out of hiding, and the CIA wants him all of a sudden. The
CIA goons who tagged along with me obviously had a contingency plan.
That's why Crueller went tramping off on his own. That tells me they
either suspected or hoped Gorman would pull off the breakout. Don't know
what it means, and I'm not sure I care, unless they get in my way. What
I'm saying is, I want Gorman. I want to be the one who puts a bullet in
him.

I've got cancer. They gave me less than six months to live. I won't be
going home, and I can't go to my grave knowing Gorman is still in the
world. Do you understand?"

Bolan held Marlin's grim stare, then nodded. "I understand, Colonel.
More than you think I might. But how can any of us make you promises we
might not be able to keep? If Gorman's in my line of fire when the time
comes, I can't pledge myself to your vengeance. If you get him, well,
then you get him. I sincerely wish you luck."

"Fair enough."

Bolan again looked deep into the colonel's eyes. The warrior found
himself liking the man. Marlin, he thought, was the last of a dying
breed, a dinosaur in a world gone mad, where greed, power and corruption
seemed more important than honor, loyalty and human decency. Yeah, Bolan
liked the man intensely.

For a fleeting moment he thought about his own genesis, Pittsfield, the
horror his family had suffered at the hands of the Mafia. It seemed a
hundred lifetimes ago. Bolan shook the past out of his head.

"Now I get the feeling you'd like to say something to me."

"Another time, another place, I just might, Colonel," Bolan said
quietly.

"Mr. Belasko, Colonel Marlin, we've got a problem."

Bolan found Yerzim striding his way, disgust and agitation almost
visible on the Mossad man's face.

"Our radio was shot to hell during the ambush," the Israeli stated.

Moments later Bolan was back at the Land Rover, tying the Iraqi's hands
behind his back. Giving the vehicle's interior a quick check, he found
that the radio and the homing console were in smoking ruins. They were
on their own, at least for the moment. But it could have been worse. A
wild bullet could have set off the grenades.

Bolan addressed his fellow hunters. "Nothing's changed. Our pigeon here
is going to take us, as he put it, down the road to hell."

"Four against how many?" Yerzim asked. "Sixty? A hundred?"

"I have to believe Colonel Yoraam will look for us when he can't radio
us," Bolan said.

"So, we hope he links up with us at al-Shuraq," Weisskopf said,
concerned.

"I don't see any other way." Weisskopf had steel in her voice as she
said, "Mr. Belasko, let me say for the record, and I think I speak for
the three of us, that we don't go home until either Gorman and Kamal and
the others are accounted for or we are dead."

Suddenly Bolan heard the familiar whir of rotor blades, then two black
Huey gunships rose over the ridge. The gunships hovered over the hill,
kicking up a wall of dust. Bolan watched, waited, his combat senses
still on alert. Finally the gunships broke through the dust storm and
lowered to the ruins. There was a death's-head on the fuselage of both
gunships, and as the warbirds closed on their position, Bolan saw
dark-garbed figures with aviator shades standing beside M60 machine guns
in the doorways.

"They aren't our people," Yerzim said.

When the gunships touched down in the ruins, Bolan and the others found
themselves face-to-face with Crueller.

An M-16 with an attached M-203 grenade launcher slung across his
shoulder, Crueller disembarked. Scowling, he approached the group.

"You people are really starting to piss me off," the CIA man growled. "I
think it's time we had a serious heart-to-heart."

"I couldn't agree more," Bolan replied.

Gorman watched as Abdullah pushed back the Persian rug, then opened the
doors to the arms cache.

Gorman's men, including Baumstein, and Abdullah's forty-strong force
were gathered in the room. The merc leader got the distinct impression
that the Arabs hated his guts, but they knew that they had made their
own pact with the devil and they were stuck. Gorman always loved it when
the other guy didn't have a choice.

He looked at Reuter, who was puffing on a stogie. At the first sign that
Abdullah might turn on him, a nod was all it would take for Gorman's men
to cut loose with their weapons. Gorman broke Reuter's grim gaze,
watching Abdullah carefully.

"I am afraid there is no tunnel, as you asked," Abdullah said. "However,
there is enough room down there to hide fifty, possibly sixty men. Do
you care to look?"

"I'll take your word on that."

"There is another such hiding spot in the mosque," Abdullah informed
Gorman.

"What about vehicles? I see a lot of pickups around town, but do you
have anything you've stashed in the hills?"

"Yes. There are three vehicles in the hills to the north, just outside
of the village. They are hidden in a wadi but are for an emergency
escape only."

"What about gas for the vehicles?" Gorman asked. "Any reserve fuel?"

"We have maybe two hundred gallons of gasoline in the hiding place in
the mosque. Why all the questions?"

"Because it just could happen that some very pissed-off and well-armed
commandos might come looking for us. I need to know what I'm dealing
with here in case it hits the fan. Bear with me, huh? You guys have
family in this village? The reason I ask, is that I need to know if I
can count on you people to go all the way in a fight and not have to
worry about guys getting weepy eyed about loved ones on me."

Abdullah's gaze narrowed with suspicion. "Most of us are Iraqis. We came
with Aziz after the Americans and the Israelis ruined our country in
what you would call the Gulf War. We found many sympathetic Jordanian
brothers in the revolution here. Of course they have family in
al-Shuraq. Some of my men, when it became obvious we were going to need
this village as a base of operations for the revolution, they brought
their wives and children from Iraq. You do not have to worry about our
courage."

Hell, it was perfect, Gorman thought, just what he needed to know.
Concerned family men. A mosque with a couple hundred gallons of gas.
Things were looking up all of a sudden.

"As for my family," Abdullah bitterly told Gorman, "they were killed
when the Americans bombed Baghdad in a treacherous and cowardly attack
on innocents."

"Hey, we've all got our own heartache," Gorman said, thinking the guy
might be stupid enough to take a swing at him as Abdullah tensed.

Then Gorman saw an Arab suddenly burst through the doorway.

"Abdullah," the man said, "there is a helicopter coming this way."

Alarmed, Abdullah looked at Gorman, who cursed. The merc leader saw his
men tense with combat readiness, but he sensed some panic on the part of
the Islamic terrorists.

"You and your men, you must get into the hole," Abdullah said.

Gorman hesitated. "You and your men put your guns down there first."

"There is no time to waste. They could be Israelis or Jordanians."

"Do it," Gorman said.

Abdullah snapped a nod at his men. As the Arabs tossed their weapons
into the hole, Gorman said, "If they find us down there ..."

"They will not!"

"Just the same, you make damn sure no one--not one of your women, not a
ten-year-old kid--points a finger this way. I will not hesitate to start
killing people. You understand what I'm saying?"

"Perfectly."

Waiting as the CIA man looked over Kaballah with seeming contempt then
scoured the carnage among the ruins, Bolan counted at least nine
black-garbed commandos in each gunship. There could be more commandos in
the bellies of the warbirds, he knew, and with the dust kicked up by
rotors it was next to impossible to get an actual head count. But they
were well-armed, determined-looking pros: grenades attached to webbing,
commando daggers sheathed on lower legs, hip-holstered pistols, plenty
of spare clips for their M-16s. With some very bad gut instinct in his
belly, the Executioner couldn't help but wonder just what the CIA's real
angle was in all this.

Crueller addressed the foursome. "Looks like you people managed a nice
little victory here. Not too shabby. So notch some terrorist blood on
your belts and pack it up. I've already told you this is CIA business.
No more Mossad, no Israeli storm troopers and definitely no Justice
guys."

"Looks to me like you expected Gorman to break Kamal free," Bolan said,
nodding at the gunships.

"I think I know what you're trying to imply, Mr. Justice," Crueller
growled. "First of all, no, I didn't expect him to free Kamal, as you
put it. And I resent the fact you just implied I could be on Gorman's
payroll."

"Did I?" Bolan said in a flat tone, controlling his mounting anger and
suspicion.

"That Gorman could do it, yeah, that was always a distinct possibility,"
Crueller said. "Besides, this is a special CIA counterterrorist strike
force behind me. They've been in place in Israel for nearly a month now.
In fact, they helped with the capture of Kamal. I believe agents Yerzim
and Weisskopf can vouch for that."

Yerzim frowned, looked at Bolan and gave the warrior a weary nod. "That
much is true."

"Well, here's some more truth," Crueller rasped. "I just got my orders,
straight from Langley. Gorman is going back to the States, alive."

"What?" Marlin asked, a dangerous rage building in his eyes. Bolan
couldn't believe what he'd just heard, either.

"Yeah, I know, I maybe lied to you about that, Colonel, with my
terminate-with-extreme-prejudice rhetoric. Things have a way of
changing."

"Makes me wonder what else you might be lying about," Marlin said.

Crueler put his hands on his hips. "I should have said, going back alive
if at all possible, and I'm to make damn sure it is possible. You need
to understand, Colonel, Gorman has been all over the globe for almost
twenty years. The man has made countless invaluable contacts, from the
KGB all the way to Communist terrorist groups in Southeast Asia. He has
made major drug deals with both the cocaine cartels in South America and
the opium warlords in the Golden Triangle. He has done intelligence,
counterintelligence and paramilitary work for Uncle Sam on just about
every continent. He has worked for, but unfortunately used, the Company
to make himself rich and to obviously now finance his own private
mercenary army. There's no telling how many operations he might have
compromised over the years. We need to know what he knows. In the
interests of national, possibly even global security we need to know how
much damage he has done."

"Why is it the CIA is so determined not to work with either the IDF or
Mossad?" Weisskopf asked. "Or even your own people right here?"

"Because there's nothing you can do any longer, that's why," Crueller
said. "Gorman's our problem."

"You're wrong about that," Bolan stated. "Gorman and Kamal are
everyone's problem. We're supposed to be on the same side. If you're not
helping us, then it would seem you're here to either hurt or hinder."

"What are you telling me, Mr. Justice?"

"I'm telling you that if you want to play it your way, you want to be
the Lone Ranger who goes home with the trophy, then the way I see it,
first come, first served on Gorman and the others."

Crueller heaved a breath, shaking his head in disgust. Then he gritted
his teeth, drew in a deep breath and said, "This isn't about glory, Mr.
Justice. This isn't about careers, trophies or vengeance. Let me lay
some more cold, hard facts on you people. For several weeks now we have
known Gorman is sitting on five--count 'em, five--nuclear-tipped SS-20s.
He doesn't give a damn if Kamal lives or dies. The only reason he broke
the man out was so he could sell those SS-20s to Saddam, using Kamal as
a middleman. We know for a fact Kamal and his Islamic revolution are
financed by Saddam's plundered off money and that Kamal is Saddam's
fair-haired revolutionary martyr and all that Islamic extreme
fundamentalist shit. For all we know, Saddam could be sitting on
billions, but whatever he has, it would be plenty enough to buy what
Gorman is selling.

"Can you imagine what a hero this murdering bastard Kamal would be in
the eyes of that madman if he rolled into Baghdad with those SS-20s?
Worse, can you imagine those missiles in the hands of a lunatic like
Saddam? One SS-20 alone could vaporize Tel Aviv. I don't think I need to
tell you what five would do if they landed on Israel."

Bolan felt an ice berg lodge in his guts. That kind of firepower in the
hands of a madman like Saddam could create the worst-case scenario in
the Middle East. But perhaps even worse still, there was no telling what
a desperate maniac like Gorman would do if his back was pressed to the
wall. He might even launch one of those missiles himself. Bolan
exchanged looks with Yerzim and Weisskopf, reading the grim concern on
their faces.

"What's more and just as important, the Russians want their missiles
back," Crueller said. "They're a little embarrassed, not to mention more
than a little pissed off. They're holding the CIA personally responsible
for the return of their missiles. I'm not going into a lot of details
about the arrangement we worked out with them. All I'm going to say is
if the Russians don't get their missiles back and we can't show them
Gorman has been brought in, well, they might just send in a team of
Spetsnaz killers to comb the Syrian or Iraqi countryside. And you'd
better believe they would start killing anything and everything that
moves to get their missiles back. Forget the new Russian society of free
enterprise. There's still a lot of old hard-liners who don't give a damn
what the rest of the world thinks."

"So what you're saying is the Russians are giving you your chance to
patch up any damage Gorman might have done to international relations,"
Bolan said, his voice cold but tinged with wryness.

"You got it."

There was a long moment of taut silence as Crueller stared at the four
of them from behind his shades, looking as if he were trying to decide
how to wrap up this encounter.

"I'm out of here," Crueller said. "But I'm going to tell you this. If
you carry on with your crusade, even though you might have been
sanctioned by the Israelis and you get in my line of fire, I can't be
responsible for what happens."

Bolan knew it wouldn't advance their cause to argue or bother coming
back at the guy with a parting shot. The CIA man had just made a veiled
threat. So be it. It was both too strange and too suspicious that
Crueller didn't want to work with them. What was the man's real agenda?

Crueller hopped back into his gunship. He stood in the doorway, watching
as the helicopters lifted off. Kaballah laughed. "What the hell is so
funny?" Yerzim rasped.

The Iraqi seemed to be enjoying himself immensely. "It would appear your
road to hell is going to be paved with many demons. What has the world
come to when you cannot even trust the CIA?"

Bolan pushed Kaballah toward the Land Rover. Get in."

Sitting in the darkness of the hole, his men huddled around him, Gorman
kept a tight grip on his M-16. With nothing to do but ride it out and
hope for the best, the merc leader listened to the voices, barking and
shouting at one another out in the street just beyond the safehouse. He
recognized the voice of Abdullah, shrill and pleading. Then heard
someone, most likely a soldier, addressing a man named Colonel Yoraam.
Israeli.

"If they've found our choppers  ..." Reuter began.

"Just be ready," Gorman whispered. "If that door opens and you see any
face other than Abdullah's open fire."

It sounded easy enough, but Gorman knew it wasn't. They were rats in a
barrel. It was tight and hot, and he could smell the fear all around
him. There they were, he thought, the world's toughest mercs, and they
could all be killed in the next moment, gunned down in a dark hole in a
remote corner of Jordan. And just when he was about to turn maybe the
biggest black-market arms deal in history.

Funny how life worked. All the good things he'd done for his country,
Gorman thought: crushing brutal regimes in Third World countries to give
the poor and the downtrodden a shot at democracy and a better way of
life; all the thugs and dictators and criminals he'd terminated at the
orders of the Company; arming and training the poor in countries where
their voices were unheard and their lives were seen as insignificant by
brutal warlords or dictators. Now he was a hunted animal, just because
he had smartened up long ago and seen how useless, how senseless, it was
to try to change things when most of the people he had tried to help
really didn't want to change anything for the better. It was just one
revolution replacing another revolution, out with one dirt bag, in with
another. Just because he now figured it was his turn to make a buck,
finish out his days in relative peace and quiet, that made him an
international criminal? Hell, almost everything he'd done had either
been known by or sanctioned by Langley, at least up until a few years
ago. The ungrateful bastards.

Suddenly Gorman heard the rap of boot heels directly above them.

There was a heated conversation in what Gorman took to be Arabic, with
Abdullah sounding both outraged and pleading.

An Israeli barked something, then the sound of boots faded but sounded
in the far end of the safehouse. If the Israelis so much as found a
scimitar hidden in a drawer, Gorman knew they'd tear the village apart.
If they got to interrogating some of the villagers, putting on some
pressure in the form of a little torture, then Gorman knew his deal
would be finished. With the grim awareness that they might all very well
die in that hole, Gorman felt the sweat run, ice-cold, down his back.
Every man in that hole held his breath.

They were directly overhead again. There was the rap of boot heels, then
the sound was muffled a moment later. They stood on the rug over the
doors, Gorman knew. That grenade of explosive violence in his belly was
ready to blow as the silence became nearly unbearable. Any second he
expected the doors to open and all hell to break loose. This was it. He
knew the Israeli colonel was looking at the rug. Or was he?

Finally the Israelis moved out.

Still Gorman didn't move a muscle for a full minute. He listened
intently, finally heard the voices out in the street fade maybe five
minutes later.

"They know we're here. Someone in the village must have talked. They
must have spotted the choppers. Baumstein."

"Keep your mouth shut," Gorman snarled quietly.

Another few minutes passed, then Gorman heard the rap of boot heels
again and the sound of the rug being pulled back.

Gorman aimed his M-16 at the doors, the assault rifle set on full-auto.

The doors opened, light bursting into the hole. Squinting, the merc
leader looked up and saw Abdullah grinning down at him, enjoying the
moment.

"They have left," the Iraqi stated. "You can come out now."

Somehow Gorman killed the urge to wipe that grin off Abdullah's face
with a quick burst of 5.56 mm lead. When the time came, though, he
wouldn't forget this moment.

Kamal sat in the front seat of the Jeep as they drove toward the remote
outpost. They were now maybe twenty miles into Iraqi territory. It had
taken a good four hours, driving a half-dozen vehicles from alshuraq,
crossing the rugged, trackless wasteland of northeastern Jordan while
fearing an attack from anybody at any time. Outside his brothers in the
Islamic revolution, Kamal knew that everyone was the enemy. Especially
the devil, Gorman.

But Aziz Kamal had a plan.

Darkness now blanketed the outpost and the surrounding desert like a
veil of death. It was ominously quiet. At first the outpost, which was
little more than a large tin dwelling with several GAZ-66 transport
trucks and maybe a dozen tents strewed at the base of some hills, looked
deserted.

Kamal saw the door to the tin structure open, light from kerosene
lanterns spilling onto the ground. Twenty men of the Republican Guard,
all of them armed with AK-47s, headed toward the oncoming vehicles.
Kamal stuck his head out the window and identified himself.

The terrorist got out, his men gathering around him. The reception he
received was warm but not nearly as wildly enthusiastic as the one he
had gotten in alshuraq. He could understand why.

There was a sullen anger about these Republican Guards. They had been
beaten badly by the infidels, watched their families and friends die by
bombings or starve to death when the war was over. Iraq was in ruins. No
money, no food, nothing but anger and hope. Yes, like these soldiers of
the Republican Guard, Kamal knew the fighting men of Iraq were
regrouping now, waiting for the day when they could strike again, but
strike bigger and harder. Gorman had just what the revolution needed to
put Iraq back into world power.

Kamal waited as Colonel Hamil Diab slowly walked up to him. The sight of
their squalid camp and the mutilated face of Diab made Kamal sick with
anger and hungry for vengeance. The colonel wore a black patch over his
ruined left eye, lost during the Republican Guard's fighting retreat
from Kuwait. An explosion had also burned the left side of his face, the
skin a blotchy purple mass of scars and lumps.

Kamal embraced the man he considered a hero.

Diab stepped back, smiling. "Somehow, Aziz, I knew the Israeli dogs
would not be able to hold you. You have been in my prayers since your
capture. God answered my prayers."

The way the colonel looked at him, with admiration and respect, Kamal
gained confidence. He was about to ask the colonel to risk his very life
and the lives of his men.

"We need to have a serious talk, Colonel. There is something we must do
together, something that will make us heroes in our country for all
time. Or something that will make us martyrs for the revolution."

Diab's lone eye narrowed with the glow of intrigue as he stared at
Kamal. "I know about the deal you struck with Gorman. I know what he
has. Let me say now, Aziz, my brother, whatever it is you have in mind,
I will gladly go along with it."

"Good. We can talk as we drive."

"The CIA is going to make a deal with that bastard," Colonel Marlin
said. "Mark my words, you heard it here. Gorman will be dead, by my
hand, before dawn."

Bolan looked at the Special Forces colonel and saw something in Marlin's
eyes that warned him the man could prove a liability in their hunt.
There was a burning gaze of pure rage and hate in the colonel's eyes,
unlike anything Bolan had spotted up to that point.

No one challenged Marlin's right to vengeance. In fact, everyone in the
Land Rover seemed to freeze for a long moment, stare at the colonel as
if he were something alien, deadly and scary. Yerzim, taking his eyes
off the desert tracks, looked into the rear-view mirror. Bolan and
Weisskopf, flanking the colonel, both gave Marlin a long look.

Hard silence followed for the next few miles as Yerzim kept guiding the
Land Rover skillfully over the rugged terrain. Bolan raised the infrared
binoculars and gave the desert to the north a hard surveillance. Nothing
but broken plateau and some low chains of hills. It was an empty black
graveyard out there, with the ancient ruins of the temples and crumbled
forts of long-dead conquering armies dotting the landscape every few
miles or so.

Agent Weisskopf cleared her throat. "Colonel, I'm not sure why you wish
to kill Gorman so badly."

"The man murdered my wife and son more than twenty years ago in Vietnam.
And to this day I strongly suspect the CIA was involved in covering for
that animal. That's why."

The two Israelis looked stunned for a moment. "I see," Weisskopf said,
catching Bolan's eye.

The Executioner nodded. "I believe him."

"Then, Colonel, you have our blessing," Weisskopf said. "But please, we
need to work as a team from here on out, It could well be just the four
of us when we hit al-Shuraq."

Marlin didn't say a word. In fact, he seemed to Bolan to retreat deeper
into his world of vengeance and hate.

"There's something else I must say," Weisskopf told Bolan. "Baumstein,
much like Crueller said about Gorman, must be taken alive. If at all
possible. Baumstein is a traitor to Israel, there is no telling how much
damage he has done to the security of our country."

"Yeah, you're telling me we've got another asshole out there who might
have compromised sensitive operations," Marlin said.

"Exactly, Colonel."

"Those are our orders," Yerzim added.

"I have no problem with that," Bolan said.

"Colonel?" Weisskopf prodded.

"I don't give a damn about Baumstein," Marlin said, and Bolan could tell
the colonel didn't.

Suddenly Bolan sensed Marlin, now that they were close to the enemy,
didn't care about anything or anyone other than Gorman. The colonel was
a man very close to the edge, wound so tight it looked to the
Executioner that he could snap at any moment.

They rode in silence for another few miles before Weisskopf voiced what
was on everyone's mind. "You realize that if we don't link up with
Colonel Yoraam we will be completely on our own."

"At this point, we know that taking Gorman and Kamal will most certainly
save more than just one innocent life. If it's just the four of us, then
that's the way it has to be," Bolan declared.

Yerzim questioned Kaballah about their direction, and the Iraqi smiled,
assuring them all they were on the right road to al-Shuraq. Then,
without warning, a searchlight swept over the Land Rover. Bolan was out
of his seat, checking the sky, squinting against the blinding glare. The
loud whir of rotors descended over them in the next moment.

Yerzim hit the brakes. Then, with the searchlight pinning the vehicle,
Bolan saw the Huey gunship touch down dead ahead. Uzi in hand, Bolan
shoved Kaballah out the door, the rest of the team disembarking behind
the warrior a heartbeat later.

Bolan watched as a figure hopped out of the gunship, standing for a long
moment in the wash of light.

"At ease, people."

The Executioner held his fire as he recognized Colonel Yoraam.

Gorman bounded into the belly of the gunship, taking the radio headset
from Hammersmith, who said, "It's him." In the soft glare of the
overhead lights, Gorman's mercs gathered around him.

"You got the money?" Gorman said into the handset.

Kamal's voice crackled back, "Yes."

Gorman didn't like it. He thought he heard engine noise in the
background but couldn't be sure. Something wasn't right.

"That was pretty damn quick, Aziz. Don't bullshit me. Have you got the
money?"

"I told you I have it. But we need to talk."

"What's there to talk about? We stick to the original plan. You get back
here, hand me the money and we go get the merchandise. Real simple."

"I would like to go directly to the site. We can make the exchange
there."

"No deal, pal," Gorman barked. "Get your ass back here, hand me the
money, then we'll go. And it better be American dollars. I don't have
any use for dinars."

When Kamal didn't answer right away, Gorman knew the deal was off.

"All right," Kamal said. "I can be back there in maybe four hours."

"Make it three. I get the feeling you're not that far away."

Breaking radio contact, Gorman ran his death's stare over the faces of
his men.

"He's going to stick it to us." Gorman paused, then slammed the radio
with his fist. "Looks like we're pulling out and heading for Iran,
fellas."

Reuter spoke up. "We don't have enough fuel to get to Iran."

"I'll think of something."

"What if he really does have the money, Major?" Hammersmith asked.

"I seriously doubt that he does. In fact, I'm betting our lives he
doesn't. I gave him twenty-four hours, knowing it would take him that
long to at least get to Baghdad and pry the money out of Saddam's hands.
No way. I've done enough deals like this to know it's over. He's coming
back here to try and take what we've worked so hard to get."

Baumstein cursed, his face etched in despair.

"Okay, people," Gorman said, smiling grimly. "Looks like we're going to
have to get ready a little surprise welcome-home party for our Iraqi
friends. Hammersmith, in a few minutes I want you to go round up
Abdullah and his revolutionary brothers. Tell them I need to speak to
them in front of their stash house."

As Hammersmith nodded, Gorman told his mercs, "By the time I'm through
with Abdullah, he won't be bowing to the east, he'll be groveling toward
the west."

Right away Bolan could tell Colonel Yoraam didn't like the latest news
regarding al-Shuraq and the SS-20s. He rubbed his jaw and seemed to
ponder the intelligence, looking uncertain to Bolan for a moment, as if
he were deciding how to proceed. There was no question in Bolan's mind
what had to be done.

As he stood in the rotor wash and the glare of the gunship's
searchlight, Bolan counted twelve commandos gathered around the Israeli
colonel, all of them in olive fatigues and toting Galil assault rifles.

Everyone looked grim, but Bolan could fully understand and appreciate
their concern. When they hit al-Shuraq they would be greatly
outnumbered, and Bolan sensed Yoraam didn't like the odds. But Yoraam
was a fighter, and his eyes betrayed he was as enraged and burning with
a desire for revenge as the rest of them. Even still, Bolan knew the
colonel felt responsible for the lives of his men, and he'd lost too
many good soldiers back in the desert to just go into al-Shuraq with
guns blazing.

Yoraam laid a steely eye on Bolan. "You know anything about this CIA guy
Crueller? Any chance we've got another Gorman on our hands?"

"I don't know a thing about the man," Bolan answered. "But I can tell
you he could be a problem. What his real agenda is is anybody's guess.
I'd watch my back when it comes to him."

"I don't have time to call in reinforcements. What do you suggest we
do?"

The Executioner felt their stares fixed on him. He wasn't sure if Yoraam
was testing him, or if the Israeli colonel, like Marlin had sensed he
was in the presence of a warrior who had plenty of combat experience and
was asking for a battle plan.

"Fly in low, then set down maybe a klick from the village," Bolan said.
"Approach on foot. Lock and load. If we don't catch Gorman and the
others now, we could miss our chance."

"I can't believe I could have missed them during our search," Yoraam
said. "That is, if Gorman and Kamal are even there."

"They're there," Bolan stated. "If it's a terrorist haven, then they'll
have plenty of places to hide. Don't take it so hard that you didn't
find them."

"And they'll be well armed," Yoraam said.

"What's the layout of the village, Colonel?" Bolan asked.

Yoraam gave it to Bolan. From the air the colonel had counted roughly
seventy homes and as many vehicles, more pickup trucks and Jeeps than
any other kind of vehicle, which had originally made him suspicious, but
even more suspicious after he had been told by an Arab man during their
sweep they were all merely poor bedouin. The village was set in a wadi,
surrounded by hills except to the south, where there was open land.

Yoraam said they could advance on the village from the west hills
without being spotted, unless, of course, there were sentries. If
sentries happened to sound the alarm, Bolan said they could pour on fire
support with the gunship.

"Finding those missiles has to take top priority," Yoraam declared.

"With what we know up to this point, my hunch is they're stashed close,"
Bolan stated. "Get to Gorman, and we'll get the missiles."

Yoraam nodded at Kaballah. "What about him?"

"As far as I'm concerned, he's just along for the ride. Do what you want
with him."

"Let's get in the chopper," Yoraam said. "Bring that terrorist bastard.
If any more of my men die, well, there's a possibility he might end up
with a bullet in his head."

Gorman paced the gunship like a caged tiger. He knew what had to be
done, but that didn't mean he had to like it. The deal now with Kamal
seemed like wasted time, but perhaps it wasn't, Gorman thought. He had
to leave a strange message behind, let whoever might be involved in a
future deal know he wasn't someone to stab in the back. Damn, there was
no way out of this current crisis other than to clean up the mess with
Kamal. They'd rely on the full letter of Gorman's Law, then move on.
Finally, aware his men were watching him, Gorman stopped and looked at
Reuter, who flicked his lighter and torched a stogie.

"I checked their explosives like you wanted," Reuter stated. "Just like
Abdullah said. Dynamite sticks look to have twenty-, and thirty-second
fuses. Found detonators and remote boxes for the plastique. Should be no
problem with the plastique. I can have it ready in two minutes. The old
bastard saw me checking what they had and gave me a look, but didn't say
anything. Get the feeling, though, he knows something's wrong." Reuter
paused. "You going to do it, Major?"

The twenty-million-dollar question. "The way I see it, there may be no
choice." Gorman ran a hard stare over the faces of his mercs. They were
ready; Gorman spotted the resolve to get on with the plan.

Reuter, blowing a cloud of smoke, said, "Oh, well. Maybe we can get
thirty million out of the Iranians."

Gorman walked to the radio in the cockpit. He was thinking, at that
point, thirty million wasn't enough. If the Iranians didn't want to do
business, well, he would still have three missiles.

Miller listened to the wind howling through the gorge, felt the chill of
cold air as it lashed through the belly of the Hind. He was thinking how
dark it was in the desert at night, how eerily quiet it could be when a
man knew he might not live to see the next sunrise. Like the others, he
wanted his payday, and he was determined to go all the way with Gorman.
Whether or not he could launch those missiles  ... The radio crackled
with Gorman's voice. "Cobra's Nest to Lion's Den."

"Lion's Den here, Major," Miller said into the headset.

Gorman's voice filled the Hind like a voice from the bottom of a tomb.
"Activate two missiles. Next time you hear from me, you fire away. You
got that? Two missiles."

"That's affirmative, Major," Miller said, his stomach tightening, his
heart skipping a beat.

Then there was dead silence as Gorman ended the radio communication.
Something had gone wrong, terribly wrong, Miller knew, feeling the night
close in on him with a crushing weight. He hoped his voice hadn't
betrayed any disappointment or frustration to Gorman. The guy was
insane, but so were the rest of them. Hell, they'd come this far ...
well, there was no turning back now.

The wind howled with sudden and ominous strength through the gorge
outside. The former SAS commando had never felt more alone in all of his
LIFE.

Miller looked at the ex-CIA specialist, Cronin, who was standing in the
doorway. "Man says be ready to nuke Baghdad when he calls back."

Surrounded by his men, all of them armed to the teeth, Gorman walked,
bold and defiant, into alshuraq.

He spotted Abdullah and his forty-strong force standing on the sidewalk
of the main street. The Arabs were tightly packed together. Nice. And
Hammersmith, who had gone ahead to tell the Arab leader and his Islamic
brothers to meet him outside the safehouse, stood beside a Nissan
pickup, the truck's headlights on, bathing the entire group clearly in
Gorman's sight.

With the M-16 slung across a shoulder and the SPAS-12 canted against his
chest, Gorman gave the street a narrow-eyed surveillance. All of the
box-shaped dwellings were dark and silent, with the exception of three
homes where doorways were open and light from kerosene lamps spilled out
into the street. Shadowy figures stood in the doorways, watching, but
they were unarmed. Abdullah and his men were all holding AK-47s. They
looked tense and scared to the big American.

Gorman's mercs spread out but kept their weapons low by their sides.

"What is wrong?" Abdullah said.

"Everyone here?" Gorman asked.

"Yes. You wake us up in the middle of the night-"

"Shut up and pay attention."

Gorman approached Abdullah and stopped six feet short of him. Clenching
his jaw, the merc leader gave his men a quick look. Baumstein, Gorman
noted, again stood outside his group. The Mossad man looked nervous and
agitated.

Gorman steeled himself. He had already rehearsed his dialogue with his
men. They would know when to do it. What Baumstein would do was
anybody's guess, but he had chosen to leave the Mossad man with his twin
mini-Uzis, hoping the guy tried something. Yeah, there were plenty of
messes to clean up before moving on to Iran.

"Oh, there's plenty wrong, my Arab friend," Gorman told Abdullah.

Hammersmith, cradling his M-16, moved slowly out of the headlights,
became a shadow as he stepped into the middle of the street.

Abdullah licked his lips, looking around with all the fear of a cornered
animal in his eyes.

"First order of business, don't ever laugh at a man who can crush the
life out of you in the blink of an eye," Gorman growled, then let the
silence hang for a moment, drilling a burning, hate-filled gaze into
Abdullah. He saw the Arab stiffen with defiant anger, but knew he had
the guy frozen with fear and confusion. Gorman's Law did work. "Second,
but worst of all for you, your friend Aziz is coming back here to break
it off in my ass."

Abdullah stared at Gorman with utter bewilderment. "What?"

"Aziz, the ungrateful bastard, is going to stick it to me," Gorman
rasped. "Meaning the deal is off and the party is over."

The SPAS-12 came down in Gorman's hand. Abdullah's eyes bulged in shock
and terror. "What are you doing?"

Gorman's autoshotgun pealed its deadly flame, signaling the beginning of
the massacre. With the SPAS-12 exploding its load into Abdullah's
stomach At point-blank range, Gorman's mercs cut loose with a merciless
barrage from their M-16s. During the next heartbeat, Gorman couldn't
help but enjoy the sight of the bloody hole tunneled open in Abdullah's
stomach, his back exploding in an even larger burst of gore. As if he'd
just stepped on a land mine, Abdullah was viciously kicked into the
front wall of the safehouse by the blast.

Then Gorman turned his murderous sights on the other Arabs, all of whom
froze for a critical moment in utter horror, long enough for the
thundering SPAS to disembowel or decapitate three more of the Islamic
extremists while the relentlessly chattering M-16s swept the Arabs with
blistering lead and decimated their numbers within moments.

Gorman didn't flinch as the Arabs were scythed apart, spinning, dancing
jigs of death. The Iraqis who survived the initial burst of autofire did
what Gorman expected. They ran. But Gorman unslung his M-16 and began to
mow down fleeing men with steady bursts. Still, some of the Islamic
extremists, even as 5.56 mm lead tore into them, tried to fire their
AK-47s on the run or seek immediate and desperate cover behind the
vehicles lining the sidewalk.

Gorman stepped back and triggered his M-203 grenade launcher. A moment
later the hellbomb turned a pickup truck into a fireball. Then Gorman
heard the familiar chug of three more M-203s as his men quickly joined
the fiery burial of the surviving Arabs. With shredded bodies
cart-wheeling on the fiery crest of the first blast, three more vehicles
erupted into flaming wreckage a heartbeat later. While torn bodies
skidded across the street or thudded to the earth, Gorman and his mercs
put any wounded out of their misery for good with long bursts from their
M-16s.

For long moments Gorman raked a grim eye over the carnage, the crackling
of flames filling his ears. Then he heard Abdullah groan. He couldn't
believe it. The guy was still alive, struggling to sit up, holding in
his guts.

Down the street panic had broken out among the villagers, the bedouin
scattering in all directions.

"Round them up," Gorman barked at his men. "Put them all in the mosque.
Kill anybody who gives you any crap."

Gorman walked up to Abdullah, who stared up at him with pure hate.

Reuter fired a fresh Havanna, joining Gorman as the other mercs ran down
the villagers, firing bursts into the air.

Blood poured from Abdullah's mouth. "You ...  bastard ... why ... ?"

Gorman liked that Why? He leveled the SPAS-12 at Abdullah's face.

As a bleating goat ran past him, Gorman smiled coldly at Abdullah. "I
decided it would be too dangerous to hand those missiles over to a nut
like Aziz." The SPAS-12 roared.

Bolan moved up the back face of the west hills with the Israelis and
Marlin. Beyond the jagged teeth of the ridge above them, he heard the
brief stutter of autofire and distant voices screaming. Then he heard
men barking orders and cursing in clear English. Sound traveled great
distances out on the empty wastes of the desert, Bolan knew, meaning
they had to be just as cautious in their advance on al-Shuraq. That they
hadn't been fired on by sentries told Bolan that either Gorman couldn't
spare the men or the enemy was occupied with something else in the
village.

But the enemy was definitely in al-Shuraq, and there was no telling what
they would find when they topped the ridge.

Bolan looked behind and saw Colonel Martin struggling to keep up, his
breathing raspy and labored. The Special Forces colonel gave Bolan a
look that said he wouldn't welcome an offer of help. Sick and dying,
Marlin was keeping himself propelled on the energy of pure hate and
rage.

A good fifteen minutes later, when he topped the ridge and crouched
among the commandos, Bolan took in the scene below. Black-garbed mercs
moved with a frenzy up and down the main street. They were planting
something near the east end of the village. Explosives, Bolan suspected.
Fire from twisted wreckage outlined the enemy movements. Bodies were
strewed all over the main street, marking the massacre that had taken
place, making the Executioner wonder what had happened here and why.

"It's Gorman, all right. It looks like they've taken the village
hostage," Colonel Yoraam said, looking through infrared binoculars.
"Why?"

"I don't know. Could be Gorman's deal with Kamal went sour," Bolan
replied, watching as two men shoved a man into a mosque.

The village was laid out just as Yoraam had said. Bolan figured the best
way to move in would be to split up, put a pincers attack on the enemy
from the north and south ends of the village where the streets met and
joined the main dirt stretch the enemy controlled. Bolan told Yoraam the
plan of attack. The Israeli colonel agreed.

Just as they were about to move out, the two CIA gunships with their
death's-head insignia flew in from the south, the gunships descending to
the main street.

"What the hell's going on?" Yoraam growled. Along with the others, Bolan
watched intently.

Gorman flung himself into a doorway as the gunships descended. He
squinted as rotor wash whipped up whirlwinds of dust and grit, watching
as Reuter and the others quickly took cover behind the vehicles down the
street. Reuter had an RPG-7 in hand.

A voice from one of the gunships boomed over a loudspeaker.

"Gorman, listen up, this is Special Operative Jack Crueller of the CIA."

"Never heard of you!"

"I'm prepared to offer you a deal. It's over, Gorman. Throw down your
weapons. There's no way out. Do it my way, at least you'll live."

Gorman laughed. "In a ten-by-ten cell the rest of my life with guys
picking my brains twenty-four hours a day. Kiss my ass!"

Gorman caught Reuter's eye and barked, "Get rid of these assholes!"

Where was Crueler's gunship that was vaporized inside a roiling
firecloud, Bolan didn't know, but he could only watch as the flaming
hull crashed into a row of stone dwellings, a volcanic blast of flame,
sand and debris blowing over the street. Instantly the other gunship
veered away but came under fire. Muzzle-flashes lit up the street, the
gunship's hull sparking with the furious onslaught of autofire.

"There's our cover," Bolan told Yoraam as the hellish din of autofire
raked the air.

"Let's do it," the Israeli replied.

Bolan watched for another moment as the gunship slid away from the
village, then went into a tailspin. The aircraft vanished moments later
into the blackness of the desert beyond al-Shuraq. Then Bolan heard the
crash from the distance.

"Marlin's gone!"

Bolan locked grim stares with Yerzim. Searching the ridge, the warrior
found no sign of Colonel Marlin.

Bolan led Yerzim and Weisskopf down the gulley that twisted down into
the northwest edge of al-Shuraq. Uzi in hand, searching for targets,
Bolan was near the foot of the hills when he lost sight of the shadow he
knew was Marlin. He'd seen the Special Forces colonel only moments
earlier move with swift purpose up a dark back alley that ran parallel
with the main street. Marlin had crossed the edge, Bolan knew. The
colonel was on his own.

Hitting a combat crouch, Bolan checked the streets as he neared the foot
of the hills, giving Yerzim and Weisskopf a quick wave to stop.

He was at the last point on the hills from where he could give the
entire village one last surveillance before moving in. South, less than
a hundred yards away, he spotted four M-16-toting mercs guarding the
entrance to the mosque. In the firelight that wavered over the main
street, striking the mosque in an eerie glowing band, Bolan strongly
suspected the bulky bundles he saw the enemy had tucked in their
waistbands were dynamite. Then he caught a whiff of gasoline.

He suspected the whole village was rigged to blow. If that was true,
then it warned Bolan that Gorman and his men were completely insane,
hell-bent on dying in this village if they had to while taking out as
many people as they could.

Bolan was prepared to move out when he saw the convoy of vehicles roll
into the village from the east. A half-dozen pickups and Jeeps and two
GAZ-66 transport trucks halted near the carnage that was strewed on the
sidewalk. A force of roughly fifty men, some of them wearing kaffiyehs
but all of them toting either AK-47s or RPGS, piled out of the vehicles.

A slight figure with an AK-47 strode away from one of the GAZ-66
transports. Bolan watched as the Arab inspected the slaughter all around
him. Because of the intense firelight, the Executioner clearly made out
the face of Aziz Kamal, and Yerzim confirmed that the man in the middle
of the street was indeed the world's foremost terrorist. Even from a
distance Bolan could tell Kamal was enraged. Whatever had gone wrong
between Gorman and Kamal, Bolan knew it was all about to hit the fan.

The Executioner moved out, quickly hitting the northwest end of
al-Shuraq, leading Yerzim and Weisskopf into the killing zone.

Kamal saw his murdered brothers on the sidewalk and was filled with
instant blind fury.

"Gorman!" Kamal screamed.

A moment later the terrorist saw the former CIA man he had come to think
of as the devil roll right out of the flames and the smoke.

"I understand some of your brothers have family here," Gorman said,
moving past the flaming wreckage, flanked by six of his mercs.

Kamal saw the M-16 in Gorman's hand start to swing up. There was
something else in the American's hand, something small enough to fit in
his palm.

"Looks like you brought reinforcements, Aziz. Thought I told you not to
bring back any of Saddam's flunkies."

Out of the corner of his eye, Kamal saw Colonel Diab stiffen with anger.

"Throw your weapons down, girls, I might renegotiate the deal," Gorman
said. "Unless, of course, you do have my money. In that case, hand it
over. We can walk away, and everyone lives happily ever after. If you
don't, I've got that mosque filled with everyone I left living. My men
are prepared to blow it and everyone inside straight to Paradise."

Kamal couldn't restrain himself any longer. Screaming in rage, he cut
loose with his AK-47. Then Kamal saw something streak toward him from
out of the firelight, heard it whoosh right past him. Next thing he knew
he was diving to the ground, covering his head, as the ear-shattering
blast rocked the night. A heartbeat later the buildings on both sides of
the street erupted in a mountain of fire, and the world turned black on
Kamal as he was pounded by rubble.

The stinch of gasoline grew stronger with each step they took. As Bolan
led the advance on the enemy, a series of tremendous explosions split
the night asunder, creating an umbrella of brilliant light that
momentarily, and very dangerously, turned night into day.

The four mercs at the foot of the mosque's steps spotted Bolan and his
team. A split second before the enemy opened fire, Bolan kicked into
something. Glancing down, he found that the entire sidewalk was soaked
with gas and saw that the dynamite bundles ahead of him were placed at
staggered intervals intended to obliterate the entire west side of the
street.

"Head for the other side!" Bolan shouted at Yerzim and Weisskopf, firing
his Uzi on the run. He caught one of the mercs with a 3-round burst to
the chest, but not before the man dropped a flaming Zippo lighter into
the puddle of gas. A line of fire whooshed instantly to life, racing
down the street in front of the west-side stone dwellings.

Bolan and his two companions poured it on with their Uzis as they angled
for the houses on the other side of the street, veering away from the
tracking lines of enemy fire. From the south end of the street, Bolan
saw muzzle-flashes suddenly stabbing the Stygian gloom. Yoraam and his
commandos had arrived, their combined autofire kicking another two mercs
off their feet. The last hardman at the mosque lit the fuse on a
dynamite bundle and hurled it at Yoraam and his commandos.

The Executioner hit the dark doorway of an empty house as the first
bundle of gas-soaked dynamite blew. With rubble and flames shooting
across the street, Bolan shoved Weisskopf inside the door, then piled
into the home behind Yerzim. The deafening roar of ensuing dynamite
blasts seemed to last for an eternity.

After the last bundle erupted, Bolan swung into the doorway. Through the
smoke and dust, he caught sight of several figures rounding the corner
and moving his way, their weapons barking and slugs pounding the
sidewalk and doorjamb. Bolan ducked back, plucked a grenade off his
webbing and pulled the pin. As he tossed the grenade down the walk,
Bolan swung around the corner of the door, firing his Uzi. The enemy
bolted off the sidewalk, vanishing from sight.

Not hearing any screams of pain as the shrapnel blast rang out, Bolan
armed and let fly another grenade, knowing the enemy had retreated deep
into the houses, escaping the kill radius of the grenade.

Bolan cracked a fresh clip into his Uzi, then broke cover. With Yerzim
and Weisskopf on his heels, the Executioner sprinted down the sidewalk,
hurling one then another grenade ahead just as the second grenade he had
pitched erupted in a doorway. There was so much smoke and dust drifting
around him, Bolan couldn't tell how Yoraam and his commandos were
faring, but the relentless chatter of autofire kept sounding from the
steps of the mosque.

As the grenades blew in the doorways, Bolan heard a shrill scream of
agony. One, then two mercs popped out of a doorway, their M-16s
stuttering. With slugs whining off the stone above his head, Bolan
drilled the two mercs into the doorjambs with long bursts to their
chests.

Combat senses on full alert, Bolan moved on, watching the doorways
beside him. Suddenly he heard autofire and a sharp cry of pain from
behind. Whirling, the Executioner saw Yerzim pitch to the street.

A man with a mini-Uzi had grabbed Weisskopf from behind and jammed the
muzzle against her head.

Gut instinct told Bolan he had come face-to-face with the Mossad
traitor. Weisskopf confirmed it in the next moment as she cursed the
rogue agent.

"Drop the Uzi!" Baumstein snarled. "Do it, or I'll blow her brains out.
I've got nothing to lose."

Bolan glanced down at Yerzim. Holding his hands over the bloody hole in
his stomach, the Mossad man groaned. Suddenly faced with this new
crisis, the autofire from raging battles in the village became distant
sounds to Bolan.

"You shot him in the back, you coward!" Weisskopf grated.

"Shut up. I could have killed all three of you, but I need you to get
out of here. You, drop the Uzi!"

Bolan hesitated, then let the subgun slip from his hand, giving
Weisskopf a grim look he hoped she acted on. Both of them knew there was
no way out, that a desperate traitor like Baumstein would say and do
anything to save himself.

The Executioner pulled the .44 Desert Eagle as Weisskopf suddenly threw
a hand up, knocking the mini-Uzi away from her head before she speared
an elbow into Baumstein's stomach. As Baumstein belched air, the wind
knocked out of him, Weisskopf ripped herself free from his grasp.

The slug from the big .44 drilled into Baumstein's shoulder, shearing
off a piece of flesh. As the Israeli slammed to the ground, Weisskopf
descended on him, kicking the mini-Uzi from his hand, then pulling the
other mini-Uzi from its shoulder holster. There was pure loathing on the
woman's face as she drew a bead on Baumstein, who froze in fear. "You
wanted him alive, Weisskopf," Bolan warned.

"The man's right, Baumstein. I think living will prove a fate worse than
death for you. But if Agent Yerzim dies, I will surely see you hang in
Israel. If you get up and go for a weapon, believe me, I will kill you."

Yerzim coughed blood. Weisskopf moved to him and knelt at his side. She
checked his wounds, then looked at Bolan. "I'll stay with him."

Nodding, Bolan moved out. Autofire still raked the air from the south
and the east ends of the village, but it was becoming more sporadic from
the east.

Bolan saw the merc on the steps of the mosque was keeping Yoraam and his
commandos pinned down. The warrior took care of that problem with a
thundering round from the .44 Desert Eagle and punched the man backward
several feet before depositing him on the ground.

As Bolan rounded the corner, he took in the fresh carnage. Fiery
wreckage was strewed all over the street, and the billowing smoke made
picking out targets nearly impossible.

But he counted five shadows, all of them running hard past the flaming
ruins of the convoy to escape the hellzone.

"Gorman!"

Recognizing the voice, Bolan spotted Colonel Marlin in the distance,
leaping over the rubble and charging straight at his most hated enemy.
In the firelight Bolan saw the mindless rage in Marlin's eyes. Something
told the warrior Marlin was doomed and it was over in the next blink of
an eye.

Marlin's Uzi flamed for a brief moment, but Gorman was more accurate,
his M-16 stammering out a 3-round burst that kicked the colonel off his
feet.

Bolan sprinted down the street, but Gorman and his hardmen were fleeing
in a flat-out run. The enemy slipped out of the village, vanishing into
the darkness and out of the Executioner's range. A moment later, closing
on Marlin, Bolan found Yoraam and his commandos approaching on his
flank.

"Call in the chopper!" Bolan shouted.

"Where's Gorman?"

"He's gone. My hunch is he's headed for his gunships. No time to waste,
Colonel. I'm going after him to try and keep him from flying out of
here."

Yoraam gave Bolan a steely look but nodded.

His senses choked with smoke, Bolan moved toward the flaming wreckage to
check on Marlin, fearing the worst.

He gave the devastation a hard stare, looking for any sign of wounded.
But there was nothing other than the sight and the utter silence of
death. The explosives planted by Gorman had done their deadly work. Once
again the merc leader had won a victory. With the explosives having been
planted so close to the vehicles on both sides of the street, nothing
could have survived those tremendous blasts.

In the next moment Bolan discovered he was wrong. He heard a groan and
saw something stir among the wreckage.

As Bolan closed on the flaming hulls of the Iraqi convoy, Bolan found
Aziz Kamal struggling to sit up. Kamal stared back at the Executioner
with hate in his eyes. The Iraqi cursed, stood and swept an AK-47 toward
Bolan in shaking hands.

The Executioner put one .44 Magnum round through Kamal's chest,
launching the Iraqi back into the fiery wreckage. For a moment Bolan
kept his grim stare fixed on the man. Even though the terrorist was
crushed, the warrior couldn't help but wonder how many more Kamals were
out there.

Bolan continued on and found Marlin stretched out in the rubble. The
colonel was gut-shot and dying fast. Still there was enough angry life
left in the soldier for him to grab Bolan by the arm.

"Is Gorman dead?"

"Hold on, Colonel. I'll get you on that chopper."

Despair clouded Marlin's eyes. "I didn't get him."

Marlin's head lolled to one side as the death rattle escaped his lips.
For a long moment Bolan knelt there. The colonel had been denied his
justice, had felt the sting of one final slap in the face. Bolan felt
great sorrow for this good man whose world had been shattered so long
ago. Gently Bolan closed Marlin's eyelids.

The Executioner stood. Tugging the RPG-7 higher up on his shoulder,
Bolan went hunting for Gorman.

Since leaving the village behind a good twenty minutes ago, Bolan had
tracked the mercenaries hard and fast into the hills. In the distance,
just beyond the rise above him, he heard the hard breathing of men on
the run, heard the sound of rocks tumbling. He was close.

Minutes later, topping the rise, Bolan heard the whir of rotor blades.
Below he spotted two gunships in the gorge. He lifted the RPG-7 and
sighted on the familiar shape of the Hind. He could take out only one
gunship, and he hoped Gorman would be inside.

Bolan triggered the warhead.

The explosion rocked the gunship and nearly tossed Gorman out of the
fuselage. Enraged, he moved into the doorway, the roar of the explosion
filling his ears. His other Hind, engulfed in flames, was crashing into
the wall of the gorge.

Wild-eyed, the ex-CIA agent looked up at the ridge, spotting the
muzzle-flash a second before bullets began whining through the fuselage.
Everything had gone suddenly terribly wrong.

"Get us out of here!" Gorman shouted at Reuter, who was piloting the
Mi-6.

Gorman flinched as more slugs ricocheted through the hull. He fought
down the sinking feeling of defeat and steeled himself with rage and
grim determination. If he wasn't going to get what he wanted, then
Gorman determined to take out as many Iraqis as he could. Kamal had
obviously all along intended to stick it to him. Well, Gorman's law
would prevail.

Gorman was moving for the radio to raise Miller and tell him to launch
the missiles when the console suddenly sparked from the impact of a wild
ricocheting bullet.

Gorman cursed, then flinched as more bullets ripped through the
fuselage. Who the hell was firing on him?

Bolan stood in the doorway of the Huey. In the distance he saw the dark
shape of the Mi-6, flying hard and low to the north over the desert
wasteland.

The Executioner looked at Yoraam, who informed him they were in Syrian
territory but that the NE-6 was out of range for his rockets.

Bolan was grateful to the Israeli colonel, who had gotten the chopper to
evacuate himself and the others with surprising speed. In fact, Bolan
had been picked up not more then a few minutes after the Mi-6 had lifted
out of the gorge. If not for Yoraam's quick reaction, the enemy could
well have gotten away.

He gave Weisskopf a long look. The woman was sitting beside Yerzim, who
was hooked up to an IV. She gave Bolan a solemn look, then she turned
her murderous stare on the source of her fury. Both Kaballah and
Baumstein had their hands bound with rope and wouldn't meet Weisskopf's
burning stare.

Bolan kept a hard eye on the fleeing Mi-6. To the east the warrior saw
the first rays of dawn breaking over the Syrian desert. A line of jagged
hills suddenly dotted the desert to the north. Moments later the Mi-6
hovered over those hills, then began to lower.

The pilot informed Yoraam that the Mi-6 was landing.

"Drop me off, Colonel," Bolan said. "I'll go in on foot."

Grim, Yoraam nodded.

As soon As Bolan hopped out of the belly of the Huey, Uzi in hand, he
came under fire from roughly twelve of Gorman's mercs in the gorge.

But Bolan's death sights were set on the Mi-6. He watched as three
figures rushed from the transport chopper and surged into the gorge,
their M-16s blazing. As slugs whined off the stone around him, he ducked
for cover.

The Huey lifted off. Bolan waited for air firepower and got it a moment
later.

As the rocket pods on the Huey flamed and its miniguns blazed, the
Executioner moved down the side of the hill. Picking targets below, he
triggered his Uzi and took out two dark-garbed figures a heartbeat
before the MI-6 was blown out of the gorge in a thundering ball of fire.

In the flames of the wreckage, Bolan caught sight of Gorman. And Gorman,
the warrior saw, was running for a tracked carrier, two missiles already
elevated and pointed east.

Firing on the run, Bolan was halfway down the hill when the relentless
enemy fire forced him to take cover in a gulley.

A moment later he saw Gorman's mercs get a lethal dose of the poison
they had inflicted on the Sinai prison compound.

As the miniguns on the Huey flamed, mowing down the hardmen at the base
of the hills, Bolan came up firing his Uzi.

The Executioner's tracking line of 9 mm slugs ripped into Gorman's legs.
Screaming, the merc leader dived to the gorge.

Bolan figured he was less than fifty yards from Gorman, who rolled onto
his side, firing his M-16. Slugs shrieking off the earth around him,
Bolan vaulted over a boulder, angling ahead of Gorman to cut him off,
fearing the man was making a last-ditch attempt to launch the missiles.
The Huey lowered into the gorge.

All around him Bolan saw the enemy ripped apart by merciless minigun
fire.

As Gorman hurled himself at the carrier, Bolan fixed a long sustained
burst. A bloody line of holes marched up Gorman's side, but the man
somehow dragged himself to the carrier. Bolan drew the .44 Desert Eagle.

The ex-CIA agent hauled himself to his feet, baring a bloodstained grin
at his nemesis.

With minigun fire streaking through the gorge beside him, Bolan drew a
bead on his adversary.

"Who the hell are you?" Gorman sputtered.

"Death," Bolan said, "and I've got a message for you from Colonel
Marlin."

As Gorman clawed for his side arm, thunder pealed from the Executioner's
big .44.