Don Pendleton: Doomsday Disciples

There was something — a muffled sound, the suggestion of movement — at the farthest edge of sight. Bolan froze, eyes narrowing behind the Nitefinder lenses, scouring the darkness. His right hand fastened on the holstered Brigadier, chosen now for silence.

The movement was repeated, accompanied by muted sound. Voices. He saw a pair of human shapes drifting in and out of focus in the fog. Two sentries, making their rounds together, were coming his way.

Bolan moved, trusting the fog and darkness as he left the roving sentinels behind, and merged with a stand of trees. He waited there and watched them pass by at twenty feet, close enough to take them both with the Beretta. For Belle, too, was a magnificent piece, dead right for the right occasion.

The warrior let them go.

His mission was a soft probe and penetration, strictly on the safe side. Any premature exposure, any contact with the enemy could jeopardize his mission — and his life.

The Executioner was seeking information, confirmation. The weapons he carried were a form of life insurance. If his planning was successful, they would not be needed.

The big man in black was optimistic, but he was also realistic. He knew the kind of "accidents" that could occur, turning his soft probe deadly hard within the space of a heartbeat. And he was ready. At least as ready as a soldier living on the edge could ever be.

The sentries disappeared, and Bolan moved swiftly in the opposite direction. His destination was the manor house, set well back from the highway in the center of the grounds. Allowing for the fog and possibility of other sentries, he marked a mental ETA at ten minutes, maximum. The numbers were falling, and he had no time to waste.

Bolan made it in eight, approaching the house from its southern flank.

The house was a massive, rambling structure, vaguely Victorian in style. Most of the lights were out, darkness and fog conspiring to impart a haunted look. Bolan half expected swooping bats and howling wolves to make the scene complete.

He knew the layout of the house from briefings and a tour of the floor plans. Living quarters upstairs and on the side away from him, shrouded in the mist; kitchen and dining room, conference rooms and library on the ground floor front and back.

His destination was the second floor, a balcony supported by a wrought-iron trellis. Broad French doors shielded a suite of executive offices.

A command post and nerve center — one that Bolan had traveled more than two thousand miles to penetrate.

He scanned the grounds around the house, seeking lookouts, finding none. A last glance for caution's sake, then he made his move, breaking for the house at a dead run and sliding into shadow against the southern wall. Again he waited for alarms that never sounded, warning shouts that never came.

He would have to scale the trellis. It would take his weight, and he could not afford the noisy luxury of grappling hooks and climbing gear. He did not intend to wake the sleeping house.

Bolan reached the trellis. The vines scratched his face and hands, crackling beneath him as he climbed. If a sentry passed below him and heard the sound of his ascent, he was finished. Dangling on the trellis like a giant insect, there was little he could do to guard his flank.

Except to get the hell off there and be about his business.

Bolan gained the balcony and paused again, letting pulse and respiration stabilize. Catlike, he approached the giant French doors, ears straining to detect any sound of movement from within, any warning of an ambush.

Nothing.

He was on the numbers now, every heartbeat ticking off the odds against a safe and silent penetration. Every second wasted increased the danger of discovery.

Crouching, he withdrew a tiny limpet bug from a pocket of his skinsuit. No larger than a shirt button, the disk was backed with a powerful adhesive; fingertip pressure secured it in a corner of the French doors, out of sight unless the occupants were searching for it. The glass would act as an amplifier for the microphone, and Bolan would possess a one-way source of information from the inner sanctum of his target.

But there was more to accomplish yet.

Bending close, he examined the locking mechanism of the windows. No one expected callers on the second floor, and it was all interior, but maybe...

He selected a flexible jimmy, pausing with the tool in hand, eyes and fingers searching for the burglar alarm. There wasn't one, and he said a silent prayer of thanks for the overconfidence of enemies.

Bolan had his jimmy probing for the lock when a door banged open somewhere down below him. He froze, ears picking up the sound of scuffling feet and angry voices.

One of the voices sounded female.

The warrior scrubbed his mission in an instant, moving to protect his flank. As he reached the railing, an engine growled to life behind the house, revving and drawing closer.

The Nitefinders picked out a pair of figures grappling in the fog below. The larger one, a man, had his hands full, trying to control the woman struggling in his grasp. As Bolan watched, she kicked him in the shin and almost broke away before the heavy struck her with a stunning backhand.

The lady folded, whimpering, and the man had to work just to keep her on her feet. A Caddy pulled up, briefly framing them in the headlights, and then the driver scrambled around to help his partner with the woman.

Overhead, the Executioner had seen enough. His Nitefinders and the momentary flash of light told him everything he needed to know.

He recognized the woman as his secondary target. He knew he could not allow the men to carry her away.

Bolan was all out of numbers now. Split seconds separated recognition from decision, thought from action.

The soft probe was going hard, in spite of everything.

Bolan launched himself from the balcony, plummeting through space. He landed on the Caddy's roof, rebounding with a loud metallic bang, and kept on going, rolling out of sight behind the car.

The hardmen were stunned by his arrival, but they recovered quickly. Each of them had a gun in hand, the taller man clutching the woman like a shield. His partner ran around the Caddy's nose, pistol raised and probing at the foggy darkness, seeking targets.

Bolan left him to it, circling behind the car, keeping ahead of the hunter. Through his goggles he picked out the woman and her captor, huddled close together in the night.

It was a risky shot, certainly, but Bolan didn't have the time for second-guessing. The Beretta in his fist was sliding up and out to full extension, keen eyes making target acquisition through the Nitefinders even as he stroked the trigger.

The Belle coughed once, its quiet voice further muffled by the fog. The target staggered, reeling, head snapping back with the impact of a 9mm mangler in the face. Blood spattered over corpse and captive, showing up black in the vision field of Bolan's goggles.

And the woman, suddenly deprived of the supporting arm around her waist, tumbled to the ground. Bolan left her there, twisting in his crouch to face danger from another quarter.

The other gunner heard his partner drop, and he finished his circuit of the Caddy in a sprint. He was almost on top of Bolan when the man in black announced his presence, squeezing off another silent round to meet the charging enemy.

The little guy died knowing he had been suckered. Bolan read the fury and frustration on his face before the bullet wiped it all away and punched him backward in a lifeless sprawl. He was still twitching with the aftershocks of violent death when Bolan turned to see about the woman.

She was on her hands and knees when Bolan reached her. Still groggy from the punch she had absorbed, she was fading in and out as he helped her to her feet and steadied her against the car. A thread of scarlet at the corner of her mouth was the only outward sign of injury.