Don Pendleton: Beirut Payback

The only difference was that these guys played for keeps.

"I have my orders to detain you here until further notice," Lenz barked, a hand on the butt of a revolver holstered at his hip.

Collins, the Company man who had done most of the questioning, snapped, "You don't think you get off that easy, Colonel. You may be big news in the States but here you're just a guy who used Mossad for your own ends. And I'll bet they've got something to say about that. Stay put."

They left Katz with a guard standing at the door and two more sentries outside the window.

Two Mossad agents then came in to question him for another hour. Katz stonewalled and gave them just enough to impress and interest them. But the Phoenix Force boss did not kid himself, either.

He had been one of their own kind for too long. They would consider torturing him for what he knew about Bolan, and quite likely with the blessing of Katz's own government.

The Mossad interrogators from Tel Aviv left Katz alone again. He knew they would be standing in the hallway on the other side of the door discussing, probably with a superior, the advisability of torture. Katz recalled spurts of electric current to the genitals as being a particular favorite in the Mideast with Mossad and everyone else.

He exploded into action.

He powerhoused from the chair in a blur of movement that belied the thickening waist of late middle age. He aimed at the guard by the door and before the man could shout any sort of warning, Katz crossarmed the sentry's rifle away with the powerfully swung prosthetic arm. The ex-Mossad agent caught the guard with a blow sharp enough to make the Israeli soldier unconscious for a while, but not to kill him.

Katz knelt and snatched the man's holstered pistol and rifle. Slinging the rifle across his shoulder, he took a running dive at the window of the room, his arms crossed over his face. He kept his body loose as he hurled himself through the panes, shattering the glass into a hundred fragments.

He landed smack into the two sentries posted outside the farmhouse. All three tumbled down in a tangled heap.

The guards were mere youngsters.

A seasoned fighter like Katz took them by the numbers, one elbow backward into a forehead, then the butt of the pistol snapped down to bop the other sentry on the temple.

Both men fell to the ground unconscious.

Katz hustled away toward a motorcycle parked alongside two unmarked vehicles behind the building. He figured the bike was there comfort running pieces of physical evidence gathered from interrogations at the Mossad house.

Katz heard shouts coming from the shattered window behind him — the Mossad men demanding him to halt.

The hell with them.

He ran past the unmarked cars first, glanced in hopefully, but saw no keys in the ignitions. He hit the jackpot with the motorcycle.

Katz leaped onto the bike from behind, heeled up the kickstand and kicked the machine to life. He turned around and triggered off three quick rounds at the guys in the window who had been about to fire on him.

He aimed purposely high, and the Mossad men ducked back inside long enough for Katz to do a wheelie out of there, feeding the bike so much power. He roared down the driveway before additional personnel around the "farmhouse" could be alerted to what was happening.

The motorbike whizzed along the smooth surface of the driveway.

Katz knew the difficult part would be when he hit that shell-destroyed stretch of road leading back into Beirut. Right now he had no trouble controlling the handlebar accelerator with the prosthetic device on his right hand.

He thought he had a good chance. He didn't need to use the hand brake on that same side. If he had to stop he'd use the foot brake. But if the ride was too rough.... He dismissed the thought. He only had to get around the first bend in the road. They would be after him within seconds and would easily overtake him in those cars.

But Katz only intended to clear the bend, then ditch the motorcycle and cut into the rugged terrain. He'd lose them on foot in the undulating hill region and find other transportation.

He had no intention of rotting away under Mossad interrogation while Mack Bolan fought alone less than two hours away.

Katz had gotten Mack into Beirut, and he would damn well give everything he had to help the big guy get out.

He heard car engines waking up in the distance behind him and the popping reports of gunfire after him. But no bullets from the direction of the house found their mark. He reached the end of the driveway and leaned into the turn, feeding the speeding machine more gas instead of less for the curve onto the main road.

He had to make it.

Bob Collins crouched out of sight.

A Syrian supply convoy lumbered onto the base at Zahle.

When the trucks had passed, the CIA man returned to his prone position on a knoll overlooking the base. He focused his binoculars, waiting for something to happen.

Collins had parked his vehicle in the brush off the road. He was armed with a Colt.45 automatic.

As he had feared, the interrogation of Yakov Katzenelenbogen had yielded nothing, so Collins and Randolph had decided to play a long shot on intel Mossad fed them for coming in to help on the Katz thing.

The two CIA men had left the clay house where Katz had been questioned and started north back into the hellzone, their Company authorization passing them through Israeli forces happy to be rid of them.

Collins and Randolph had started toward Zahle, but only Collins made it alive.

They had driven over a land mine planted in the road, left by withdrawing Druse forces. The right front tire had touched the explosive, which tossed the agents' vehicle onto its side.

Collins had rolled free through his open window and for a moment thought his partner had made it, too.

Randolph had not made it.

Collins had walked around to the other side of the car and had seen that the force had ripped away most of the right side of Also's body into an awful palpitating red gristle.

Collins had turned his eyes away, puked, then continued on until another means of transportation — a car he hotwired and drove — brought him to Zahle.

He raised the glasses and scanned the base again, shaking his head at the loss of his friend.

Also was dead, no rhyme or reason to it all, and Collins was surprised that he felt nothing yet but a kind of emptiness over the death of a guy who had become sort of a brother.

Collins had pushed on to Zahle where Mossad said a summit of terrorist insurgent factions had been called by none other than Major General Greb Strakhov of the KGB. It was probably taking place down there right now.

Collins had a hunch that Mack Bolan would not miss a chance like this to take on the eradication of the terrorist camp. The CIA agent also knew the air strike would descend on that base and would hit sometime within the next twenty minutes. And if Bolan is down there, he'll be caught right in the middle of it.

Collins in his tour of duty had seen what the Israeli Air Force could do to a target. And if the air strike did not get Bolan... Collins would.

Because a good agent named Also Randolph was dead and Collins was mad as hell about that.

And because those were Collins's orders.

Terminate Bolan on sight.

The CIA agent panned the base and the vehicles appearing with the principals of this emergency summit, like the jeep carrying Fouad Zakir, the Druse biggie and his militiamen bodyguards.

No sign of The Executioner.

Yet.

Come on, Bolan, thought Collins from his place of concealment overlooking the camp. Where the hell are you? Let's have some action.

The driver of Fouad Zakir's jeep stopped in front of the Syrian headquarters building.