Don Pendleton - Suicide Highway

Bolan’s hand had dropped to his thigh, grabbing for the holstered .44 Magnum Taurus when, over the ringing in his ears, he heard the metallic thunk of a canister bouncing off wood. Looking up, he saw the unmistakable shape of a fragmentation grenade thumping toward him.

The sound of AK-47s going off was Rosenberg’s signal to get up and charge toward the squat hovel that the Taliban suspects had chosen to call home. She recognized one of the two men making the assault on the thugs inside, and even though she had watched him battle a mine complex full of heavily armed killers, she couldn’t sit idly by and watch him risk a chestful of rifle fire in conflict with a room full of hashed-up terrorists.

On her heels Sergeant Wesley was grunting and huffing as he tried to match his long strides with her short, pumping legs. Over her LASH headset, she listened to Montenegro shouting about rules of engagement and Captain Blake.

There was a time to play by the rules, she thought.

And there was a time to play it like the man she knew as Striker.

Usually, that time came the moment the big mystery soldier strode onto the scene, making his presence felt like a herd of bison crashing across a plain.

A firefight was blazing inside, but nobody was making a break for it. She reached the front in time to see a figure fly backward out the door, his rifle blazing as the canvas draping the entrance fluttered closed. She struck the wall beneath the window, crouching. She watched as Wesley, not even pausing, bent and scooped up the lithe young form with the rifle and dragged him away from the doorway in time to avoid a hail of gunfire punching through the curtains.

“What?” she heard the fighter say as he realized he was being handled like a rag doll.

The thunderous sound of gunshots filled the air from the other side of the opening. A heartbeat later, a tall lean figure burst through the curtain, pistols in each hand. The compression wave and its subsequent debris cloud chased the diving form of the man as he somersaulted away from the doorway.

He came up, almost like a snake in his speed and agility, leveling two long-barreled guns at her, but only for a heartbeat before raising the muzzles skyward.

“I figure at least two gunners are making a break for it out the back,” he said. “We need someone to interrogate in case nobody survived the explosion.”

Rosenberg watched him in amazement for a moment, then pressed her throat mike tighter to her voice box. “Sergeant Montenegro, we need suppression fire. No fatalities.”

The Special Forces weapons officer had quit complaining about rules of engagement and answered with a terse “Affirmative.”

The night lit up as in the distance, Montenegro’s Squad Automatic Weapon spewed a line of heavy fire across the darkness. Rosenberg looked back and saw that the warrior was gone, vanished like a shadow.

“Go get ’em Striker,” she whispered.

MACK BOLAN’S EYES FOCUSED on the grenade in an instant, the bouncing hellbomb grabbing his attention in an almost fatal stranglehold.

Almost.

The grenade’s pull ring and spoon were still locked in place, despite the rolling jumps it was making toward him. Bolan had used a similar tactic many times in the past, throwing a grenade with the pin still in it to flush out an enemy into shooting range.

Instead, Bolan held his ground. He fisted the Taurus as he got up from all fours, and lowered his hand to scoop the RPG-1 grenade as it came to him. Throwing himself against the near wall, he thumbed the pin loose from the miniblaster and launched it back where it came from.

Gunfire erupted wildly in the main room, and the Executioner caught a glimpse of Laith in full retreat, blasting away. His voice, almost smothered by the roar of his rifle blazing in full fury, was shouting warnings. The body of one Taliban supporter jerked violently under a salvo of savage strikes, fatal impacts driving the dead man’s corpse into two of his allies.

The Executioner straight-armed the Taurus. He drew the NP228 with his free hand and pumped the triggers of both handguns to lay down a wall of bullets that crashed into the disorganized gunmen while their backs were still to him. He plunged through the room, the mighty .44 Magnum empty but still clicking as he pulled the trigger, the 9 mm weapon still spitting its quiet payloads of death. He was out the door just as the grenade went off. The fatal blast radius of the grenade was ten yards, and Bolan wasn’t sticking around to be sliced to ribbons by hurtling shrapnel.

The whole event took moments, and Bolan dived into a shoulder roll, tumbling so as to reverse himself and not present his back to the enemies he knew were behind him.

What he didn’t expect was the sight of two soldiers out front. A lightning quick assessment showed one as a U.S. special operations trooper of some sort, and the other was a woman, dressed to keep up with the American soldier. As he raised the muzzles of both pistols to defuse any thought of a standoff, he made out the face. Even partially shaded by her helmet, he picked up some recognizable features, though it was too dark for him to be certain. His gut instinct told him that she was a friend, and he went with it.

“I figure at least two gunners making a break for it out the back,” he told her. “We need someone to interrogate in case nobody survived the explosion.”

She touched her throat mike, and as he heard her voice, he confirmed who she was.

Tera Geren, a gutsy Israeli agent Bolan had worked with before.

He didn’t stick around to hear what she was saying, and he guessed that the machine gun fire in the distance was more American special operations ordinance, a SAW by the sound of it.

Long legs eating up the ground in effortless strides, Bolan swung around the building and spotted a quartet of men racing in the distance. They dropped to the ground, cowering from the sizzling onslaught of autofire raking all around them, but the gunner wasn’t firing for effect. Bolan paused, fed a fresh speedloader into the Taurus, slapped a fresh clip into the NP228, then continued his charge.

The SAW fire let up, and the Taliban lackeys slowly got to their feet, looking to where the onslaught came from, firing wildly from their AKs. Marksmanship was an illusory skill that the gunmen thought they possessed, and having fully automatic weapons instilled in them the delusion that they didn’t have to aim. Whoever the gunner was, he was safe. The pathetic riflery skill of the Taliban killers was barely enough to spray the broadside of a street cafe. Against real soldiers who took cover, conserved ammo, and watched the front sight, they were standing sacks of meat ready to be plucked by a short burst.

The distraction of the Taliban fighters bought the Executioner a few seconds, enough time to close to hand-to-hand range. With a savage snap, he hammered the butt of the Brazilian revolver hard across the jaw of the first man he ran into. The punch, backed by four pounds of stainless steel, felled the thug.

The second man was turning, but not nearly fast enough to avoid Bolan’s boot rocketing into his groin. The mercenary for the former occupational government folded over, head dropping to where the Executioner slashed his elbow down mercilessly like his namesake’s ubiquitous ax.

Two down, one to go, and Mack Bolan’s free rein over his enemies ended.

Too close to bring up his rifle and fire, the last man merely swung the barrel hard at the Executioner. The front sight hooked Bolan’s wrist, wrenching the revolver from his grasp. Bolan brought his NP228 around to shoot the guy and be done with him, but the fighter wasn’t finished swinging. The pistol grip of the AK crashed off Bolan’s cheek and left his head reeling.