Don Pendleton - Desert Fallout

The second of the killers managed to throw himself back toward cover. His reflexes had helped him to avoid the relentless, merciless slash of bullets that had taken down his partner. Bolan would have been tempted to go after the escaping gunman, but a hand grenade clanked on the stone furrow he was in, thrown by a third mercenary who hadn’t jolted out into the open. With his own reactions honed by countless battles, the Executioner hurled himself out of the gully, rolling on the flat ground as the fragger went off. In his tumble to escape the shrapnel and shock wave, the AK was torn from his grasp.

Bolan didn’t bother to retrieve the assault rifle, both hands clasping around the grip of the Smith & Wesson .45. He rolled to one knee, maintaining a low profile out in the open. Two more grenades sailed from the crack, and Bolan scrambled to the cover of a low mount of stone. Thunderous booms resounded from the double blast, jarring the soldier’s ears, but the concussive energy wasn’t strong enough to do more than momentarily disorient him. With practiced wisdom, Bolan lay still behind the mound, allowing the plumes of dust and smoke from the explosions to obscure his presence.

He heard the enemy conversing, wishing he had enough of a grasp of Arabic to pinpoint the style of speech. They could have been emissaries of any of a half-dozen governments, from Syria to Pakistan, and only their cold-blooded execution of hostages had dispelled any qualms Bolan would have had for gunning them down. Even if they were a “friendly” government’s death squad, Egypt or Saudi Arabia, they were heartless murderers, and as such had earned the cleansing flames of his wrath.

Bolan noticed the man he’d shot in the face, sprawled on the ground not far from him. To replace his fallen rifle, he made a crablike scurry on all fours toward the fallen assault weapon. With a quick scoop, he retrieved it, a Steyr AUG A-3. He tore the pouch holder off the dead man’s thigh. It felt half-empty, but it was still more ammunition than none at all. With the straps clattering on the stone, he made enough noise to draw the attention of the enemy riflemen, but by the time they focused on the sound, Bolan had reached the cover of the outcropping he’d initially hidden behind. Bullets speared into the ground where he’d been only seconds earlier.

The Executioner shouldered the rifle and tapped the trigger lightly. Unfortunately, the assault rifle he’d acquired had no selector switch; only the position of his finger on the trigger shifted the cyclic rate from semi-auto to full-auto. His tap on the trigger was to release a 5.56 mm round on a single shot. He needed to conserve ammunition, and at this close range, he was able to kill an opponent with a single shot, though he wasn’t going to stick around for long. He popped a round toward a standing figure, causing him to retreat. Another pair of quick taps induced a salvo of enemy rifles to erupt, spraying the area where they had seen his muzzle-flash.

Bolan faked an agonized cry. It was a convincing ploy, and the warrior slithered along the ground. The enemy commandos had unintentionally kicked up new, thicker clouds of debris and dust that concealed Bolan as he slithered back into the gully. The sun had descended lower in the sky, and the long shadows cast by the ridge to the west had given the battleground between the Executioner and his enemy plenty of places for Bolan to conceal himself. The patches of darkness and the obfuscating clouds worked both ways, unfortunately. He needed to keep his senses sharp in order to continue his retreat.

Bolan needed some information, which meant one more retrieval. He stayed low and rushed toward where he’d seen a specific part of a grenade-blasted corpse drop. While the enemy was busy making certain that the Executioner was down for the count, Bolan decided to give himself a hand. Specifically, he grabbed up the severed forearm of the commando he’d taken out with a high-explosive blast. The tattered remnant would give him some fingerprints in order to identify at least the origins of this enemy force. He didn’t need the whole limb, but for now, he’d carry it.

It was time to get back to Kamau and Metit, before the Somali giant’s sense of duty brought him back to pitch in on this fight. Bolan wasn’t a moment too soon as he spotted the tall, powerful form of Kamau crouched in the shadows, AK at the ready. The two men made eye contact, and Bolan hand-signaled his colleague to remain concealed. Kamau nodded.

Behind him, Bolan could hear the commandos as they conversed with one another. They had halted their advance on Bolan’s former position. The clouds had dissipated, and he could see them clearly, despite his presence in the shadows providing his own concealment. It wouldn’t last long.

Kamau looked anxious, but he held his ground. This was going to be a stealth extraction. Rotors thumped in the distance, indicating that the mystery commandos were about to extract. They had to make a choice between finishing off Bolan, or grabbing the weapon they had killed dozens for.

The enemy began an orderly retreat back to the camp, making their decision quickly apparent. From the shape of the helicopters in the sky, Bolan could tell that there was at least a transport as well as a smaller, more agile craft with lethal armament providing escort. The presence of the escort bird or birds would mean trouble for Bolan and Kamau if they had infrared optics on board, but it wasn’t an insurmountable problem.

Bolan rushed to Kamau’s side, holding his grisly prize. “Where’s Metit?”

“I dropped her off in a cave fifty yards that way,” Kamau said. “Those helicopters convinced me that I made the right choice.”

“Is it big enough for the three of us?” Bolan asked.

“And then some,” Kamau answered.

“Then let’s get out of sight of any eyes in the sky,” Bolan offered.

The two men didn’t have to debate it further. Already, both Bolan and Kamau could see the dark, bug-like forms of the enemy helicopters in the distance. The Executioner had been tempted to pull out his binoculars to get a better glimpse of the three aircraft, but to do so would be to court death. Even without advanced optics, the helicopters would be able to see him once they advanced, getting closer to the two men on the ground. Right now, their only saving grace was that they were out of naked eyesight range and in the shadows of the swift-flying specks in the sky.

What he did see, however, was disheartening. There was one transport helicopter and two smaller escorts. The smaller craft were undoubtedly armed or packing more commandos to replace the several that Bolan had eliminated. If they were of the same caliber as the ones the Executioner had battled, then there was no doubt that he would be pushed harder, especially with eyes in the sky assisting in tracking down the warrior and those he’d sworn to protect.

The difficulty of dealing with enemy aircraft was just too much to surmount with the firepower and numbers he had on his side. Right now, all he could do was hide, and hope that he could catch up with the opposition later. He had the hand and the fingerprints, which hopefully would give him an indication of who the enemy was.

Bolan and Kamau scurried into the cave, Metit watching them wide-eyed in shock as the two were in full retreat. She bit her upper lip and looked at Bolan.

“I hear helicopters,” she whispered.

“We’re staying out of sight,” Bolan said. “It doesn’t look as if we’ve got to worry about too much trouble sticking around.”

“The gunfight?” Metit asked.

“It was touch-and-go for a while. I did enough to convince them to evacuate as soon as possible,” Bolan explained.

Outside, the unmistakable thunder of a heavy machine-gun salvo slashed down from the sky. A storm of lead tore at the ground, eventually a line of bullets clawing up the ground in front of their cave. Bolan and Kamau shielded Metit from the flying debris kicked up by the bursts of heavy slugs striking the earth. Bolan gritted his teeth as rocks and pebbles bounced off his back, pelting him relentlessly. Kamau grimaced as the leaden rain ceased. “Fifties.”