Don Pendleton: The Libya Connection

Bolan could hear the dry rattle of the palm fronds in the breeze, and it was the only sound from that direction.

Inside the installation's outer perimeter fence, all shadows were dispelled by the merciless glare of powerful spotlights placed on tall steel posts.

Bolan read the north perimeter as their weakest point.

The base was a rectangle two hundred yards by one hundred and fifty yards. The main gate, at the southeast corner, was watched over by a gatehouse with, by Bolan's count, four military guards all armed with AK-47s. Bolan could see no other breaks in the barbed-wire-topped fence that surrounded the base.

A parade field in the center of the compound was squared off by the placement of three buildings (headquarters building to the north, motor-pool garages to the east and what must have been the CO's residence to the west) with the fourth side of the square being a broad tarmac crowded with what Bolan made as Soviet-manufactured implements of war, tarp-covered to avoid notice from passing aircraft.

From his angle on the ground, Bolan easily recognized the tell-tale outlines of twenty T-62 tanks armed with 115mm smoothbore cannons. He could make out the lines of another two dozen BMP armored personnel carriers, which he knew to be armed with 73mm antitank guns.

Too much damn equipment for a mere company of men, even a company of armored cavalry.

This confirms Lansdale's intel, thought Bolan. Colonel Shahkhia was fronting a Soviet-instigated coup against Khaddafi for sure. The remote base at Aujila was the rebels' arms depot, or one such depot, for the planned overthrow. All of the men soldiering the Aujila base would be rebels paid well for their loyalty by Shahkhia and the Russians.

Bolan saw a two-man patrol team by the cache of Soviet hardware, but no other activity in that area.

Most of the activity onbase was centered on the parade field that now doubled as a landing area for the two Hueys. One had carried Doyle here, away from the desert skirmish with Bolan and Hohlstrom.

The matching chopper could only belong to Leonard Jericho's party. They would all be in a rush here now, because of the actions in the desert that had upset the orderly progress of their terror.

The full company of base personnel appeared to be standing in formation, not far from the two choppers on the parade field. Every enlisted man, standing at parade rest, was armed with an AK-47.

Bolan could see Doyle's three mercs and pilot. No sign of Doyle himself.

But yeah, that was Doyle's chopper.

The cargo of Strain-7 was here.

Which meant Lenny Jericho — the real Lenny Jericho — was also here.

And Santos.

And Eve.

Bolan sensed vibrations of expectancy in the atmosphere of this Libyan base that were so strong as to be almost tangible. He could sense it through the Starlight scope at three hundred yards.

They were waiting down there.

Not for Bolan.

But, yeah... waiting.

Waiting for Colonel Shahkhia.

There could be some personnel in the barracks that backed the east perimeter who might spot a silent intruder. Another low, elongated structure running behind the barracks, the garage of the motor pool, could also have a crew on duty.

Bolan decided against penetrating the base from the west. There stood the commander's residence, of Moorish stone architecture, where Leonard Jericho and Doyle would be awaiting Shahkhia's arrival. The command house would be well guarded.

He must not tip his presence here at any cost until after he located Eve Aguilar.

If she was here.

If she was alive.

He also ruled out an approach from the south, since such a strategy could get him seen by the guards at the main entrance gatehouse, who would be especially alert tonight.

This left as his only real option an approach on the stretch of fence behind the two-story HQ building. It would be near-vacant, with all the base brass in parade field formation, awaiting Colonel Shahkhia's arrival. This was a big moment for the rebels. The building would be empty except for a skeletal crew on duty in the CQ room.

The headquarters building would have detention cells.

He would find Eve in that building.

In a windowless "interrogation room."

Bolan's throat constricted at the thought.

He tucked the Starlight scope into his belted pouch and moved out.

The detailed recon had consumed less than thirty seconds.

He sprinted the stony slope of the knoll toward the outer reaches of the oasis. He soundlessly covered the flat stretch of rock and shrub and pale grass. He paused when he reached the base of one of the many outlying palm trees.

The chain link perimeter fence was another two hundred yards across dense shrubs and a turf of healthier grass.

From his present position, the penetration specialist's initial impression confirmed that there was no activity around the back of the administration building, fifteen yards inside the fence.

Bolan spotted a three-man roving patrol just outside the fence, walking east to west away from him. He waited until they had rounded to the western perimeter of the base and were out of sight. Then he left the cover of the palm and darted through the night toward the fence.

He met no interference.

He reached the foot of another palm with its trunk a short two yards from the installation's perimeter.

Bolan climbed the palm tree, rope-climbing style, working his way up to where the trunk curved, fifteen feet off the ground.

One of the tall steel lightposts, accommodating two of the powerful lamps that illuminated the area, towered up from a point fifteen feet inside the fence.

Bolan propelled himself in a free-fall away from the trunk of the palm tree, reaching out as he became airborne.

Two heartbeats, and his fists wrapped around the crossbar of the lamp post, breaking his fall as he rode with the gravitational pull, swinging underneath the crossbar like a trapeze artist, releasing it at exactly the right instant as he flew, feet first, into this new hellground.

At the exact same beat of time, a roving three-man patrol, dispatched since Bolan's recon, came strolling around the corner of the headquarters building, less than ten paces to Bolan's left. All three Libyan regulars were toting AK assault rifles.

Bolan was still airborne.

The sighting was instantaneous on both sides.

The three Libyan soldiers had flaring moments to register some sort of reflex as the black-clad figure sailed in at them from out of the night sky.

It was all Mack Bolan gave them time for.

The Executioner twisted his body in flight at first glimpse of the guard patrol. He came in at the point man with a far-outreaching, stiff-legged kick to the guy's forehead that impacted skullbone into brain matter, ending that soldier's existence.

The two flank sentries fell away to the side, their eyes white and wide in the glare of the lamps as they fought time, slinging their AK-47s up and around on the invader who had already struck death and was now hitting ground with catlike grace.

Bolan executed a smooth roll that brought him up to face them in a low crouch, the silenced Beretta pulled and popping 9mm kisses of doom.

The sentry to Bolan's left caught a hot pill up his nose and out the back of his head. Bolan registered a death flop as the man pitched backward. Then his attention shifted, with the Beretta, to the second soldier. He could not afford any alarm raised at this time.

The Belle chugged again. Like the preceding sounds, the small handgun's husky sneeze was absorbed amid the steady hubbub of the army base around them.

The 9mm death round checked the rebel soldier's last move toward survival, a sidelong lunge as he tracked up his AK. The bullet cored in one ear and out the other, turning the survival dive into a final skid into Hell.