Don Pendleton - Twisted Path

The corridors were similar to those he had traversed underground, relics of the ancient Incas.

This complex appeared to be primarily a storehouse for the town beyond, with lots of small rooms off a web of passages. The main difference was that the halls were lit by crude strings of electric lights powered by some hidden generator.

The next room had a wooden door, which immediately aroused the warrior's suspicions, as none of the others had been secured. Apparently the Incas and the Path usually didn't believe in doors. He opened it silently and found himself in a large, shadow-filled room, staring at the back of a man who was tending what looked to be a small forge. This would be an excellent opportunity to gather some intelligence.

The Executioner slipped inside, closing the door softly behind him. The terrorist by the fire was so intent on his work that it was easy for Bolan to creep up behind him unnoticed.

The warrior lashed out with his forearm, catching the hardguy around the neck. He squeezed, but not hard enough to cut off the air supply.

The man's hands clawed at Bolan's arm.

"Stop it," Bolan commanded in Spanish, his mouth near the guy's ear. "Any more trouble and I'll break your neck."

The resistance stopped instantly.

"Now tell me, where is Gonzalo? Is he here?"

The terrorist shook his head as hard as he was able.

The big man eased off a little at the throat.

"No, he is not here. He has never been here. I have never seen him. It is true!" As the warrior digested the words he admitted to himself that it jibed with what Brognola had told him. Gonzalo was more of a legend than a leader.

Unless this guy was completely ignorant or a better actor than Bolan gave him credit for the Executioner wouldn't be able to settle any score with the big boss in this valley.

As Bolan considered his next move, his gaze moved around the room and fastened on an object in a far-corner.

Someone was tied to a rack, the signs of torture visible even across the chamber. And now that Bolan looked more closely, what he had taken for a forge for working metal was a small furnace, with an array of irons and pincers glowing red-hot on the burning coals.

It reminded Bolan of some of the worst times in his Mafia hunts, the times when he had come across the tortured remnants of what had once been men and women.

Bolan's rage reached fever pitch and erupted, a fierce volcano that washed over the man in his grasp, a red tide of anger that flowed through his body. He jerked his muscled forearm, cutting off the hapless man's wind. When the warrior's wrath abated, he dropped the lifeless corpse to the ground. He wasn't going to get any more information from the guy, but at the moment Bolan didn't care.

He walked over to the rack, and with a shock, Bolan recognized its occupant as the radiant beauty who had approached and spoken to him in the restaurant, Carrillo's secretary.

His stomach churned as he looked at the damage, and he had to turn away, bile rising in his throat. His eyes fixed on an array of rusty, blood-stained knives and other implements heaped on a low table. He picked up the sharpest-looking one.

He would do what had to be done.

A Bolan left the chamber, a shiver of disgust running down his spine. People died, that was inevitable.

He had been behind the gun often enough himself. But the mentality that was required to perform such brutal acts, to do things to another human that were rooted in sick nightmares, was beyond his comprehension.

He didn't want to understand.

Bolan forced himself to become calm, to concentrate on staying alive, rather than on his revenge. Anything else risked disaster such as being gunned down by someone who had stayed frosty and had not let his emotions run wild.

The big man would have liked to ask Antonia some questions himself, since much of what he had endured since coming to Peru was the direct result of his visit to her boss's office. Now he might never know the answers.

Tough. He was just going to have to play out his hand the way it had been dealt to him. But that didn't mean that he couldn't try to stack the deck in his favor.

Bolan eased down the corridor, every sense attuned to his surroundings. Through an effort of will, he turned his mind from the bloody lump of flesh he had left, and tried to imagine where the best spot for a weapons depot would be.

He checked each room as he passed, not at all sure what he was looking for. Most were simply large empty squares.

The warrior was somewhat surprised that he hadn't seen much of the opposition so far. He guessed that the complex was probably lightly manned at the best of times, serving as a headquarters and a transit station for the terrorists.

Bolan kept moving forward. Since he didn't know where he was going, the safest route was straight ahead, making it easy for him to retrace his steps to the exit. As he moved farther into the complex, the fresh air and starlight of the outdoors seemed more like a distant and elusive memory.

A couple of doors down, he found a small man with a thin mustache scribbling at a desk made from boards piled on crates. This was definitely a low-budget revolution, Bolan thought. The man didn't notice the Executioner's stealthy approach until the big man's shadow eclipsed the terrorist's writing pad. The Peruvian looked up with a start and gaped at the stranger.

Bolan reached over the narrow desk, wrapped a callused hand around the other man's throat and jerked him out of his hard-backed chair.

"You've got two seconds to tell me where your leaders are before I crush your windpipe." He eased up the pressure a bit to let the other guy choke out an answer.

"Capitalist pig!" was all the response he listened to before he clamped down again.

"You don't hear very well, do you? I'll ask you one last time. Where are your leaders?"

"Yankee bastard! I will never tell..."

"You're right. You'll never tell anyone anything again." Bolan gripped the hardman's neck with both hands and pressed. The warrior released his hold and the dead man fell to the floor, his eyes glassing over, Bolan pulled the body behind the desk.

He was about to leave when an idea twigged in the back of his mind. The warrior paced across the room, picked up a small alarm clock and stuffed it in the sack he carried. He also stripped the dead terrorist of his cheap wristwatch.

Bolan continued his investigation, moving slowly and at all times trying to determine his location relative to the main exit. Getting lost in the rock-lined web would be all too easy and a potentially fatal mistake.

He wandered up and down corridors methodically, and passed more storerooms and an occasional empty office or bunk room before he found what he was searching for.

A large iron door signaled that something valuable was protected in the room behind.

Fortunately the terrorists didn't believe in locking doors. He pushed the heavy portal back and found himself in another storeroom.

The dim light from the bulb outside the entrance showed dozens of cases of dynamite piled floor to ceiling, leaving barely enough room to walk in the chamber.

Bolan gave a low whistle. It was hard to estimate the total stock kind of like guessing the number of jelly beans crammed into a jar but he figured there had to be at least a hundred thousand sticks jammed into the room.

Enough to reduce the fortress to smoking rubble.

He checked to make sure there were some blasting caps among the explosives, then went looking for more supplies. He had a plan in mind, but there were a couple of pieces that he still had to fit together.

Bolan padded along more dim corridors, avoiding those that were completely dark. He concentrated on constructing a mental map of the area, with the exit and the dynamite room firmly in mind.