Don Pendleton - Beirut Payback

Zakir punched Bolan in the shoulder from the back seat and brusquely gave an order in Arabic. He pointed to the building where Bolan knew he would find Greb Strakhov.

Bolan did not need a translation this time, either.

The Druse commander wanted his "militiaman" to accompany him inside. That made sense.

Bolan knew the factions Strakhov had called for a summit maintained an uneasy working alliance with each other, but no one confused it for trust.

The bloodspilling would continue between these groups after the imminent fall of the Arab Christian president's government to the insurgents. Unless Bolan hit them now; a head-shed hit to make sure. Then the Israeli Air Force could level what was left and Bolan would be sure.

First, though, he had to find Zoraya. If she was on this base; if she was held captive or... if she belonged there.

If. Maybe she wasn't there at all.

Bolan had to find out before he made his collective head hit and... no, that would not be easy at all, even to a master of role camouflage.

The "militiaman" stepped from the passenger side of the jeep without another glance at the driver. Bolan made sure to position himself toward the rear of the vehicle so he would be facing Zakir's back. The terrorist boss debarked, snapped an order at the driver, then turned to march directly into the Syrian headquarters.

The jeep pulled away.

Bolan followed Zakir.

The Arab did not notice the ill fit of Bolan's uniform or if he did he did not care. And that made sense, too. The insurgents were a barely organized, ragtag force at best.

Bolan quickly eyeballed the place in the moments before he and Zakir left the merciless midday sun for the relative coolness of the same headquarters building Bolan had penetrated in blacksuit a few hours ago.

None of the Syrian regulars or Russian officers that Bolan and Zakir passed made any connection between the Druse bodyguard and the hell-bringer who had delivered these terrorists a taste of real terror.

Bolan's olive complexion, the high cheekbones and firm, squarish jaw contributed to the effect.

The Syrians and Russians saw what Bolan the role-camouflage expert wanted them to see; they even expected a Druse gunman to wear an almost comically ill-fitting uniform. The Druse gunmen were considered bumpkins and worse by the comparatively well-disciplined Syrian army and their Soviet advisors.

Bolan's quick daylight scan of the inner compound around the building confirmed his first impressions from the predawn hit.

If they had a prisoner here, if they had Zoraya, she would be kept and interrogated in one of two places, since Strakhov would not have the HQ building to himself as he had when he brought Masudi here for questioning.

If they have Zoraya, she's in the HQ basement or over in that smaller building that looks like an office annex, Bolan thought. They won't question her in the ground or second level because Strakhov doesn't want the Syrians to know anything he could torture out of her. And they won't take her to the barracks buildings for the same reason, but to the low, sprawling building five hundred feet to the north of HQ. There would be more foot traffic in and out of a building like that, with its Syrian battalion emblem on the door, unless Strakhov has ordered the area cleared of Syrian personnel and has Zoraya in there.

Thoughts came to him of Eve Aguilar, a woman he cared for, who had fallen captive to his enemies during the Executioner's bustup of the Libya Connection when he had been John Phoenix.

He had come to rescue Eve.

And had not reached her in time.

The bastards had skinned her alive.

After a nod from a Syrian officer, Fouad Zakir stalked directly up the stairway to the second level, again with Bolan slightly behind him, toting the AK-47 over his shoulder by its strap in approved bodyguard style.

At the foot of the stairs Bolan noticed the stairwell continued down to the basement.

The corridor upstairs seemed crowded with soldiers armed with rifles that matched Bolan's, the uniforms and armbands running the full gamut of the Lebanese terrorist coalition.

They were all here: the PLO, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Amal... and now the Druse militia in the person of Fouad Zakir, who barely glanced at the corridor full of bodyguards.

The Arab terrorist crossed to the nearest door, grunted some guttural order at Bolan with a motion that indicated he should remain out there.

Then Zakir stepped inside and no one tried to stop him.

The meeting is already under way, Bolan deduced.

Strakhov would be in there now with the whole rotten bunch.

But first... Zoraya.

The men in the hallway barely glanced at the soldier who had accompanied Zakir as far as the door of the briefing room.

Bolan figured the various faction leaders would suggest facing each other across a table without being crowded by their bodyguards, yet the men in that room were not fools. At the first sound of trouble from within the summit meeting, that door would be burst inward under the power of these bodyguards, who would fall into place behind their leaders.

Some of the men in the corridor stood in small clusters, smoking cigarettes conversing in subdued Arabic while more soldiers leaned idly against walls of the passageway. But every one of them had his assault rifle inches from fingertips and the low murmur of voices could not conceal the tension.

Bolan leaned against a vacant space of hallway wall and lit a cigarette.

By the time he flicked out the match, the others had lost interest in him, accepting the image he projected.

After a couple puffs on the butt, Bolan casually ambled a few feet to the nearest stairwell leading downstairs — the same stairs he had used at dawn when his tracking of Strakhov and General Masudi brought him here. At that moment, Bolan gave the impression of the universal soldier in need of a latrine.

He rounded the corner from the others, and no one tried to stop him as he strolled down the stairs at the opposite end of the building from the Orderly Room. He touched the bottom landing and found what he remembered from his penetration of the place that morning; a side door leading out, flanked by a stairwell that led to the basement level.

Bolan continued down the stairs until he came around a turn into the well-lighted basement corridor. His brisk authoritative step only fooled the two Syrian soldiers at a desk long enough for them to see this was no officer of any of the factions upstairs but a mere Druse peasant who had somehow gotten lost.

They watched the "militiaman" approach as if he wanted to ask a question.

Then lightning-fast chops descended toward the unsuspecting troopers' necks. Both men died without a sound before they had even risen from their chairs. They sat back down with broken necks.

The absence of any other soldiers posted there told Bolan what to expect and he found it.

Nothing.

He raced from door to door of the basement, stopping to pick two of the four locks, but each room was unoccupied.

No Zoraya.

Bolan did not know whether to be encouraged or depressed, so he just kept looking, hustling back up those same stairs before anyone from above found the two dead men. That would happen before long, he knew, but so would the Israeli air strike. All that mattered now was getting to the office annex across from HQ, then hitting that meeting upstairs.

He came up the stairs and out of the building from the wing opposite the Orderly Room.

The atmosphere on the main floor hummed with activity, orderlies moving in and out of offices, Syrian field officers elbowing their way through clerks to deliver and receive vital intel on the heavy righting that could be heard like distant thunder echoing through the valleys of the Shouf.