Don Pendleton - The Libya Connection

Bolan admired the way Hohlstrom carried himself. The guy was a pro. Mack Bolan preferred working solo or with the trusted members of his Stony Man operation in backup. But since he and the "Swede" were in a situation where they had to work side by side, he was glad this unexpected partner was a man by all appearances exceedingly capable and tough.

As the men grouped together in the bay of the aircraft, Teckert looked at Hohlstrom with the attitude of someone about to shout above the constant, near deafening engine roar from over their head. But he did not speak.

Teckert moved.

So did Mack Bolan.

Bolan saw it coming. He dropped to his left, un-leathered the Browning, and stayed put.

Hohlstrom had leaned forward to give an ear to Teckert, expecting the guy to shout something as Teckert had appeared ready to do. But yeah, Hohlstrom saw it coming too. He jerked back, tugging his Beretta from its underarm holster in a lightning-fast cross draw. Exceedingly capable.

Except that it was two-to-one.

Bruner executed a fast downward judo chop with his right hand. The Beretta clattered to the deck from Hohlstrom's fist.

It was a fractured splinter of time. The steady throb from the chopper's machinery grumbled around the scene of violence.

Hohlstrom back-stepped in an attempt to unshoulder the AK-47.

Teckert closed in before Hohlstrom's action was complete. Teckert used both hands to heft the Beretta Model 70 he was toting in his right hand. He smashed the assault rifle, butt forward, full force into Hohlstrom's high forehead. The dull thwack carried even above the Huey's engine noise.

Hohlstrom's knees buckled. He slumped to the chopper's deck, at the other men's feet, blood streaming down his face and into his eyes.

Teckert stepped away, the butt of his rifle smeared with red.

Bruner, hoisting up Hohlstrom's Beretta, had swung around to cover Bolan. The German froze, staring into the bore of Bolan's Browning automatic.

It was a standoff.

Bolan shifted the Browning's aim between Bruner and Teckert. Bruner did not drop the Beretta. Teckert had reversed his rifle to take aim on Hohlstrom. Everyone had a gun except the fallen man.

The Israeli agent was stretched out facedown, holding his forehead but not making a sound. The guy was holding his pain inside. He appeared only semiconscious.

Bruner did not blink an eye at the handgun in Bolan's fist. "PUT THAT GUN AWAY, MY FRIEND," he yelled above the engine noise. "THESE ARE DOYLE'S ORDERS!"

Bolan gave a curt nod toward Hohlstrom. He did not holster the Browning. "I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THIS!"

"HOHLSTROM'S A GODDAMN SPY!" Teckert shouted at Bolan. "AN ISRAELI!"

Bolan retained his two-hand grip in a bent-knee stance, the Browning hi-power continuing to arc between the two standing mercs. Teckert and Bruner did not know how close they were...

But a squeeze of Teckert's trigger finger and Hohlstrom would be dead. Bolan was sizing his options.

"HOHLSTROM'S A BUDDY!" Bolan shouted at the other two. "WHAT PROOF DO YOU HAVE?"

"KENNEDY'S GOT PROOF!" yelled Teckert. At their feet, Hohlstrom was wiping the blood from his eyes.

Bolan moved around an iota, to keep tabs on the chopper pilot up front. The pilot did not turn from his flight controls. The big Huey continued rumbling through the desert night.

Bolan could almost smell the dramatic fuse burning inside this helicopter, getting ready to ignite an explosion.

Bruner stepped wide around Hohlstrom's fallen form, drawn up into a fetal ball a few feet inside the copter's side door.

Bruner unlatched the door and yanked it open. Freezing desert night air whistled in through the gaping hatchway. The Huey's engine roar and the sounds of the whirling rotor blades overhead pounded in.

"NOW WE FIND OUT ABOUT YOU, MR. RIDEOUT," screamed Bruner.

Teckert, standing next to Bruner, indicated the sprawling figure at their feet with the Beretta assault rifle that he still aimed at Hohlstrom's head. "DOYLE SAYS, YOU ICE THE KIKE!"

The German at Teckert's side was still aiming his Beretta pistol at Bolan's head, and he gave a nod at the desert night speeding by outside the open hatch.

"PUSH HOHLSTROM OUT," Bruner ordered Bolan. "RIGHT NOW."

Bolan had only one option.

His advantage was that the two mercs obviously expected "Rideout" to pass this loyalty test. They had no suspicions otherwise. These men just wanted someone else to do their dirty work in disposing of the spy, Hohlstrom.

Only one option: kill !

Bolan twisted with a fluid sideways movement, moving suddenly low and to the left of the 9mm Beretta that Bruner was aiming in his direction.

Meanwhile from his position at everyone's feet, Hohlstrom went unnoticed by Bruner and Teckert as both men swung their attention to Bolan's maneuver. They did not see Hohlstrom swiftly ease around the AK-47 that had dropped to the deck beside him.

From a low crouch, to the side of the action, the Executioner squeezed off a well-placed round from the Browning. The automatic barked from Bolan's right fist, stabbing out an orange red pencil of fire.

At the same instant Bruner pulled off a round from his Beretta. He fired at where Bolan had been one eye-blink before.

Bolan did not fire on Bruner. He first needed to take out Teckert, who stood closest to Hohlstrom and posed the most immediate threat to the fallen Mossad agent.

Bolan's 9mm round frothed apart most of merc Teckert's skull out the chopper's door into the Sahara night racing by directly behind him, followed by what remained of his corpse.

In the same flick of time, Hohlstrom had rolled onto his side and brought the AK tracking upward toward Bruner. A deadly chatter from Hohlstrom's grip spit a burst of shredders that lifted Bruner to the bulkhead of the helicopter and held him there for a moment, his torso bursting apart. Bruner slumped down to the deck. The bulkhead behind where his body had been pinned was riddled, marred with flesh and blood and smoking shreds of clothing.

Hohlstrom pushed himself to his knees, then wiped away the blood that still oozed down into his eyes from his forehead wound. The Mossad man was injured, but holding on. Staying hard.

Bolan swung his focus to the pilot of the chopper.

The pilot was responding to the action. He had punched into the tac net and was shouting into a hand-held mike something that Bolan could not hear. Now the merc pilot was swinging around in his cockpit, tracking toward Bolan with an old-fashioned army issue Colt .45.

Bolan's Browning again penciled death. The pilot pitched over, his near-lifeless body palpitating to final departure on the floor.

Bolan leaped forward and seated himself in the cockpit. He took control of the Huey, glancing out the Plexiglas for a reading of position on the other two choppers.

Quivers of a past life echoed in from his subconscious: soldiering in the hellgrounds of Vietnam those many years ago, learning all he could about everything involved with surviving in a hostile jungle combat zone; observing things like how to pilot the Hueys, those ever-present big birds of Nam.

The Huey with Doyle was pulling away south and there was nothing Bolan could do to halt it.

The other gunship was responding to the dead pilot's radioed SOS.

The heavily armed chopper was banking around for a kill shot. Bolan reacted quickly, pulling the cyclic control stick hard to his left.

"Hang on!" he shouted over his shoulder at Hohlstrom.

As he spoke, their aircraft was already lurching and dipping in an evasive maneuver.

The other Huey opened fire. Its turret-mounted miniguns rattled off a twin streak of 5.56mm armor-piercing rounds.

A direct raking of the fuselage of Bolan's copter was avoided by his fast evasive response. But the other gunship scored a hit.