Don Pendleton - Blood Sport

Both guards were armed and expecting an attack from Mako, only they did not know how or when it would come. By Bolan's estimate, it had taken Mako less than thirty seconds to vault the small wooden wall and disappear entirely from sight.

Everyone looked around for him, but he was nowhere to be seen. Thomas and Tanya exchanged nervous glances as if afraid he might have made a break for it.

Finally, Thomas looked at his watch, pulled out his Luger and walked briskly toward the cabin where the guards were waiting. He had taken no more than half a dozen steps when the front door of the cabin swung open and Mako stepped out with a bored expression on his face. "They should regain consciousness in about two hours," he said to Thomas, walking past him without looking at him. He rejoined the other athletes who stood in the middle of the campground.

"Time?" Thomas asked Rudi.

"Three minutes, thirty-eight seconds."

Thomas beamed a genuine smile.

"Excellent!" He turned to Clifford Barnes-Fenwick. "Now, Mr. Fenwick."

"Barnes-Fenwick," the Welshman corrected.

"Yes, of course. We have given you ample opportunity to prove your worth to us. Your particular skills are necessary, but not indispensable. We know that there are hidden metal detectors and X-ray machines at our military target, screening all personnel who enter for concealed weapons. Now, your little Oriental buddy here will knock out the two guards at the gatehouse and turn off the detectors. You will be able to pass through the metal detector with your wooden bow and cover Mako until he's deactivated the detectors. Because of the silent nature of your weapon, no one will hear anything. But you may be required to shoot several people with very little time in between." He snapped his fingers at one of his troops. "Now the only question that remains is whether you still are capable of making such precision shots."

The hardguy held snapped at brought a thick wooden bow with a plastic arrow rack attached to the bow's handle and handed them to Clifford. The Welshman hesitated a moment, his hand halfway outstretched but afraid to touch them, as if he feared they were charged with a fatal dose of electricity.

He looked over his shoulder at Bolan, looking deep into the big man's eyes. Bolan gave the slightest of nods with his eyes and Barnes-Fenwick suddenly snatched the bow and quiver out of the terrorists hands.

"I can make your bloody shots," he said with disgust. He studied the bow for a moment and shook his head unhappily. "This has only a fifty-pound pull. I should have preferred eighty to give me a little more distance."

"You won't need distance," Tanya said. "You have only a thirty-yard circumference to defend, and then only for a few minutes. After that the metal-detector alarm system will be off and our men will be there with their machine guns to take over." She placed her hands on her hips and addressed everyone around her. "I want to remind you all that this is our only opportunity to steal yellow rain. It is the only time the stuff will be outside the safety of high-security buildings. If you fail, the results will be tragic for all of us. Therefore, anyone who is not doing their best job today will'be shot immediately." She swung back to face the athletes, letting the threat hang in the air.

"Okay," Thomas said, clapping his hands as if to physically break his sister's spell. "Let's move on to the Pavlovski woman."

Babette stepped forward. Bolan was amazed at how startlingly attractive she was despite all the physical and mental hardships she had been through.

Her face had the hard expression of a survivor, yet with the soft edges of a beautiful woman. He noticed how carefully Tanya studied her as she leaped 'smoothly atop the narrow wooden wall and stood there balanced as gracefully as if she were on solid ground. An involuntary frown of jealousy tugged at Tanya's mouth.

"You will do just as you have practiced," Thomas said, picking up a green canvas knapsack; it reminded Bolan of the kind the boy scouts used to carry when he was a kid. "There are the same two bricks in here, approximating the weight of the cannister you will be carrying." He handed the knapsack to her, which she quickly slipped onto her back. "Now, there is a ten-foot-high wall that runs parallel to the surrounding fence for twenty feet before curving back around one of the buildings. Once the cannister has been handed to you by either my sister or myself, you are to climb that wall and run along it until you see Rudi waiting on the other side. When you spot him, you are to toss the entire pack over the fence to him. Clear?"

"Quite," Babette snapped.

"Good, now let me see you run this wall as fast as you can."

She glared at him with burning defiance, as if deciding whether or not to throw the knapsack in his face. But finally her shoulders sagged in acceptance and she nodded affirmatively.

"Go!" Thomas shouted.

Babette Pavlovski, once Czechoslovakia's prima donna gymnast, dashed across the rickety wooden wall like a sprinter. The fact that the wall was only four inches wide did not slow her in any way. She covered the distance in only a few seconds, her sneakered feet— slapping wood in a breathless rhythm. When she reached the end of the wall she leaped off and landed lightly on the ground.

"Yes," Thomas nodded happily. "Very good. I'm quite pleased."

"Well, that just makes my day,"" Babette said, shrugging off the knapsack and dropping it on the ground.

Thomas ignored her and turned to face his sister.

"That leaves only Mr. Barnes-Fenwick to display his ability," she reminded Thomas.

Tanya strolled up to the Welshman and stared into his battered face.

"This will be your final opportunity to live, Welshman. Your skills would give us the few extra seconds that could make a difference. But if you aren't there, we will just have to take our chances. You will never know how it all turns out, because you'll already be dead." She turned and walked away.

"It's up to Y." Clifford watched her with his sad, tired eyes, and Bolan feared that he might simply drop the bow and stroll away. If he did, Bolan had no doubt that Tanya would kill him right then and there. If he could not help in the assault, at least dead he would serve, as a warning to the others. But that was the Welshman's decision. Bolan could not help him if he chose to die. There were the others to consider. The archer took a deep breath and grasped the bow firmly in his left fist. He snapped the black wooden arrow from the plastic quiver and notched it into the string. It was a hunting arrow, with razor edges and barbs to keep the arrow from being pulled out once it penetrated flesh.

"We also have a glove for your right hand," Thomas said, "and rubber balls to silence the string when it's released."

"I don't need the glove," he said, tugging slightly on the string to get a feel for the tension. "As for the sound of the string, well, there'll be enough surface noise to cover that anyway. So let's get on with it. What are my targets?"

Thomas shot a self-satisfied grin at Tanya, who remained coolly aloof as she watched the proceedings.

"Those three cabin doors," he said, pointing at the cabins lined up on one side of the camp. The farthest was fifty yards, the closest twentyfive yards. "Let me see how quickly you can hit each door. If you can..."

But before he could finish his sentence, the Welsh archer was already moving. He pulled the string back to his cheek and released, sending the thin shaft whistling at the farthest door. It struck with a thud and twang. But by then he was already firing at the next target. And then the next. Each struck home, all within five seconds of the first shot.

"Amazing!" Thomas said. "Incredible." But while Thomas continued to praise the shot, Bolan noticed something else. A look in the Welshman's eye. It was a look not many people would recognize, it required a specialized kind of training and experience. It isn't everybody who can tell when a man is getting ready to kill. It's a flicker, really, a darkening of the iris, a grimness around the mouth that reveals that a heavy decision has been made, one that cannot be reversed. That was the look Bolan saw in Clifford as he watched the archer casually ease another arrow from the quiver as if to get ready for the next trick shot. Trick shot, yeah, one that would end up sticking out of Thomas Morganslicht's chest. And he would probably get another one into Tanya, too, before the surrounding hardguys pumped a couple hundred rounds into him. And into the rest of the athletes. And into Mack Bolan. The archer notched his arrow and tightened his three-fingered grip around the string. He started to raise the bow.