Don Pendleton - Desert Fallout

The first of the enemy gunners jerked violently, his skull smashed under the hammering force of 7.62 mm steel-cored slugs. A grisly, thick soup of brains and blood slashed from the remains of his head, smearing across the goggles of his compatriot. With a curse, the other rifleman wiped his bloodied lenses and spun. Bolan triggered a second triburst from the AK, this blast of autofire crashing through the man’s shoulder and upper chest. The gunner’s arm flopped limply at his side, but his body armor had prevented serious trauma to his torso. All that mattered was that the second gunman was temporarily out of the fight.

The Executioner scanned for fresh targets as he began a short retreat to a man-size column of stone. It was a calculated move that allowed Bolan to draw the attention of the marauders away from Kamau and Metit. The chatter of gunfire would hopefully give Metit a little more pep in her step, but Bolan was concerned that Kamau might double back and assist him. Bullets smashed clouds of pulverized stone off the column, and the big American knew he had to make certain that this engagement ended quickly. Four men were out of action, but nine trained fighters were still operating, and the torrent of gunfire that they threw at him was consistent. It wasn’t panic fire, it was concentrated autofire that would pin down any lesser man.

Bolan realized that the covering fire would only have been provided by a few of his opponents, alternating their bursts in order to keep up the pace while they reloaded. He reached under his cloak, grabbing a hand grenade hooked onto his harness. He jammed his thumb through the cotter pin’s ring, then flicked the safety out of the minibomb. Once the pin was pulled, the grenade was no longer a friend to anyone on the battlefield. Bolan loosened his fingers on the fragger so that its spoon lever would pop free, beginning the countdown on its fuse. It was a process called cooking the grenade, burning off a fraction of the bomb’s timer to make it less likely that the recipients could throw it away from them. With a powerful lob, Bolan sailed the grenade high over his cover.

Bolan had heard the cry of “Grenade!” in dozens of languages over his years of combat, so he knew that the enemy saw death drop from above. The concentrated autofire that held Bolan in place sputtered and died out. The subsequent detonation of several ounces of military-grade high explosives shook the ground and filled the air with thousands of pieces of notched wire and the grenade’s broken steel shell.

Bolan kicked into the open and charged toward the next position he’d picked to take cover behind. To his right, an assault rifle opened up, chewing at the ground and plucking at the camo-pattern blanket that had given the Executioner his concealment. The flowing cloak no longer provided a stealth function now that the enemy was aware of his presence, but the cloth obscured Bolan’s body. The enemy gunners had been trained to fire at center of mass, and the concealing cape altered that target, moving it away from Bolan’s body and saving his life by a matter of inches.

With a wild dive, the Executioner returned to the column he’d previously evacuated. Bullets slammed into the ground, chasing him.

The enemy was smart and fast. The gunners didn’t have a good angle on the Executioner yet, but it would only be a matter of moments before they could get him in their sights.

The doomsday numbers tumbled as Bolan looked for a way out of this trap.

Bullets slammed into the stone column Bolan crouched behind. The mystery commandos surrounded the veteran warrior. Alone and outnumbered, he scanned for an angle where the enemy’s rifles hadn’t filled the air with blazing-hot steel-cored slugs.

During his career, the Executioner had found himself backed into many corners by overwhelming enemy forces, so much so that one part of his mind always sought escape routes from any location or situation. Countless hours of practical experience had ingrained a situational awareness that would give him the means of evasion once an emergency presented itself.

The eruption of bullets against the face of one stone showed Bolan that there was a two-foot gap, close to the ground. Thought was action for the lone soldier, and he tucked his rifle flat to his chest. In another heartbeat, his long, muscular legs propelled him into that gap, his tattered cloak flapping behind him and jerking as rifle rounds tore through its fabric. Nothing struck Bolan’s back or lower limbs, and with serpentine agility and speed, he slithered along the ground and out of the path of enemy gunfire. He could hear shouts of communication among his Arabic-speaking opponents. They knew he’d moved out of the pocket they’d tried to sew him into with full-auto fire as their needle and thread.

Bolan didn’t spare their consternation another thought, seeing another furrow in the earth that would allow him to run while maintaining cover. He somersaulted into the crease and got his feet beneath him. After two long strides, he felt the air shake as a hand grenade detonated behind him. His improvised camouflage cape shuddered as it absorbed a wave of shrapnel that would have been deadly had Bolan not gotten enough distance between himself and the explosion. It was an uncomfortable set of factors that spared the soldier’s life for a few moments more, but he charged on, unhooking one of his own explosive eggs from his harness.

With a deft turn and a hard throw, Bolan sailed his grenade at the torso of an enemy gunman who scrambled into view. The baseball-size knot of steel and RDX crunched against the man’s goggles, cracking them and knocking him onto his back. Moments later, the fuse ticked down to zero and detonated. Arms and legs were thrown into the air in a grisly display of carnage. Shreds of human tissue vomited upward in a column of debris that would rain down once gravity overcame their initial acceleration.

Bolan knew he’d taken down one more of the enemy, but given the skills of the group, he wasn’t going to take that as a major victory. They were simply too good to take for granted. He skidded to a halt and dropped prone while facing the direction he’d just come from. The collapse to the dirt was swift, and his tattered blanket settled over his flat form. The crunch of racing boots sounded in the distance, and Bolan swung the barrel of his AK toward the noise. He had his weapon aimed, and one eye on the front sight, but his ears were open and his peripheral vision was peeled in order to keep from being flanked. He was still outnumbered and outgunned.

A crunch off to Bolan’s left spurred him to roll onto his side, transitioning from the rifle to one of his sidearms. Aside from the AK and the Beretta, Bolan liked to have a handgun with considerable penetration and power. Normally, that was the .44 Magnum Desert Eagle, but the rapid trip to the Sinai had left him needing a locally acquired alternative. His substitute was a Smith & Wesson .45 Military and Police with a 10-shot magazine. A hooded, goggle-wearing commando head appeared where Bolan had aimed the hand cannon, and he pulled the trigger, spearing a 230-grain round-nosed slug through his pursuer’s face. The goggles vaporized, along with the man’s eyes, and he flopped backward out of sight.

The bellow of the polymer handgun’s discharge slowed the approaching boot stomps. Unfortunately for the pair of mercenaries, their forward advance hadn’t halted soon enough to save both of them. Bolan had kept his AK trained on the spot he’d expected them to appear, and now that the enemy was in sight, he held down the trigger on the Kalashnikov. A snarl of full-auto fire raked across the upper thighs and groin of one of the mystery gunmen. Heavy, steel-cored slugs shattered the rifleman’s femurs and pelvis while other rounds tore through femoral arteries. The sputtering roar of the AK was a death sentence for the gunner, and he toppled into a thrashing heap.