Don Pendleton - Twisted Path

As he moved forward in the shadows, sound from an intersection up ahead stopped him in his tracks.

He listened more closely. To his left, he heard the crackle of static and snatches of conversation.

He followed the racket, and in moments he was outside a radio room. The operator was writing a transmitted message and was oblivious to the Executioner's entry.

The butt of the AK-47 rocketed down on the radioman's spine with killing force. The technician dropped over his pad as his pen rolled onto the floor. The deadly blow was the last message he would ever receive.

The radio gave an outraged squeal as Bolan drove the butt of the Kalashnikov into the delicate machinery, cutting off the monotonous voice coming from the speaker. Then the warrior picked up a powerful battery and some wire from among the wreckage and began to retrace his steps to the explosives.

After a few minutes, he began to think that he had missed a turn. The-empty rooms and featureless corridors suddenly all looked the same.

Bolan had had a lifetime dose of being lost underground already. He had no desire to repeat the experience.

He told himself resolutely that he knew where he was going. Soon, he believed, since the areas he passed began to look familiar. Bolan thought grimly that he might be falling victim to his own imagination, to his growing sense of unease at being stuck underground.

But those were emotions that had to take a back seat to what he had set out to accomplish. He didn't have time to lose his cool.

When Bolan finally reached the dynamite storerooms, he hurriedly assembled a bomb trigger with the wire and alarm clock. He hesitated over setting the timer. If he allowed himself only an hour, that wouldn't give him much time to find Stone. If he left it much longer, there was the danger that someone might find his surprise and disarm it. He compromised on a two-hour delay, noting the time as he set the clock.

Minutes were precious now, as the seconds ticked down to destruction.

Libertad couldn't sleep. He lay alone on his hard bed, his mind juggling various factors as he wondered how he could turn them to his advantage. The council, General Palma, Antonia, the missing arms cache... all of these tumbled through his mind in myriad combinations.

The fighters of the Shining Path were not supposed to have any personal ambition. That might be true for the distant and almost mythical Gonzalo, but it apparently didn't apply to the present council members. Even in prison rumors had reached Libertad of factions and struggles for control within the senior ranks. The penalty for being on the wrong side of these rivalries might be death when one group finally gained the upper hand and began to purge opponents of the new terrorist regime.

Power was the elusive goal of every man in the higher echelons. Not only did power bring a measure of safety from the periodic waves of suspicion-fueled purges within the organisation, but whoever ruled the Shining Path could rule all of Peru when the group finally gained control of the country.

Libertad believed that Gonzalo was dead and that the council used the fiction of their founder's continued existence as a convenient rallying point. And to justify their own actions, of course.

Libertad was young and ambitious. He had once been a rising star within the organisation, propelled upward by his competence and his ruthlessness. Then for two years he had rotted in prison, ever since he was wounded in a bloody assault on a police barracks. He had had a lot of time to think and plan for the day when he was free. Almost unexpectedly, that day had actually arrived.

Now that he had returned, he intended to gain a place in the hierarchy and, eventually, take control of the council. He could certainly be more effective than the useless old men who were now mishandling the Shining Path's campaign against the government.

In the meantime, he needed to distract himself.

Libertad decided to visit Antonia one more time.

He had left her in the company of the inquisitor, who was just finishing up in preparation for tomorrow's session. The terrorist didn't intend to brutalise the woman any further tonight. He planned only to disturb her sleep with stories of the exquisite tortures he had planned for the next day.

Psychological pain could be as frightful as physical pain, although in a very different way, and he would do his utmost to bring her any suffering he could.

Libertad opened the door to the interrogation room and snapped on a light. His eyes fixed on the shoes of the inquisitor, who looked as though he had fallen drunk in front of his furnace.

On closer inspection the squad leader was taken aback to discover that someone had beaten the man's head in, leaving only a seeping ruin flooding the ancient bricks.

Libertad rushed to the rack, wondering if Antonia could possibly have rallied and escaped her bonds. But she was still there, her feet bound and her arms stretched above her head, which was tilted to the side, resting on a shoulder.

The terrorist sensed that something was wrong. When he examined the scarred body, he could tell that his victim was no longer breathing. A small wound above the heart, hardly visible on her marred flesh, told him that a single thrust from a sharp blade had robbed him of any more pleasure from the former terrorist.

Libertad ran from the room, shouting an alarm at the top of his lungs. There was an intruder in the complex.

Bolan faded into the doorway as he heard the approaching men. He poked his head out slightly until he could see what was happening. Farther down the corridor four men were coming his way, carrying flashlights to supplement the dim bulbs strung intermittently throughout the gloom. Each man toted a rifle.

They were moving cautiously, shining their beams into each area they passed. From their wariness, Bolan guessed that this wasn't some routine security patrol making the rounds. Obviously someone had become aware of his presence.

He was faced with a difficult choice.

For thirty yards behind him there was nothing but a few more rooms similar to the one he was in right now, stone boxes that offered nowhere to hide.

And there was no way that he could leave his niche without risking a bullet in the back. Yet if he remained where he was, he would have to rely on not being spotted by the searchers a poor bet at best.

Since he couldn't hide and he couldn't run away, there was no option.

The Executioner slid the assault rifle from his shoulder, poked the barrel of the AK-47 through the doorway and squeezed off a series of 3-round bursts.

Two of the terrorists crumpled to the ground, cored by the tumbling slugs. The remaining two found cover in opposite rooms and returned fire, bullets chipping away at the stone near Bolan's face.

The warrior snapped at several bursts, conscious that he didn't have many spare clips. The hammering of the guns reverberated like nearby thunder in the confined space. He wondered how long it would be before the sounds of the firelight attracted reinforcements.

The Executioner had made up his mind to change position and zigzag toward the two gunners. That way he could force the action and improve his angle on the concealed men. He could also get himself killed, but there weren't any options. Time was against him. He glanced at his watch. In one hour and fifty-one minutes, the headquarters would be history.

As would Bolan unless he escaped by then.

The terrorists made their move first. One man charged Bolan, spraying a wall of flying metal ahead of him, while the second man sprinted in the opposite direction to summon more troops.

Bolan dropped the messenger first, then tracked onto the other rifleman and walked a line of parabellums from his chest up to his throat.