Don Pendleton - Agent Of Peril

“The manual’s copyright page,” Rust spoke up after a moment. “There’s a user name and password for the laptop.”

Rust powered up the laptop after plugging it in to the modem and the wall outlet.

Kalid watched Rust type the access into the computer, then looked out the window.

More than the gauze curtains were moving. Traffic had cleared off the street, as had most of the women and children. Kalid’s brain went into overdrive as he saw two blurs flying through the air. On pure reflex, Kalid drew a shaken throwing star and flipped it at one blob, knocking it back, slowing it in midair enough to determine the identity of the object. It was a cylinder, with writing on the side, smoke spewing out the top in a gout. Somewhere in the distorted adrenaline overdrive of the moment, Alex Kalid recognized the tear gas projectile. One part of his brain wondered what the second object was. Reflex, however, threw his mouth wide open, screaming loudly to Rust.

The cry of alarm saved Kalid’s brain from a battering from the concussion grenade’s explosion. The second blurring minibomb had sailed through the window and landed under Rust’s chair. The thunderclap of pressure was brain numbing, shaking Kalid’s hyper-perception back to something resembling normal.

Rust was on the floor, his chair collapsed, eyes open and dazed, the laptop spilled across his chest.

“Yeah, your cover’s blown,” Kalid quipped, lips engaging on their own while his hand reached for his knife. He wondered where his gun was, the concussion knocking away the memory that his SIG-Sauer P-226 was back at his hotel, in a hidden compartment of his luggage. He snapped out his arms to each side, corded muscles bracing him against the disorientation.

His brain stopped sloshing in his head after a few heartbeats, his vision clearing. His gaze locked on the door, which shuddered under an impact. Dust and splinters fell from the door and its frame, and Kalid realized he had only one more smash before whoever was on the other side swarmed in and took them. He glanced around. Rust looked back at him, eyes unfocused from a point-blank concussion, then lifted one leg, trying to bring it up.

Kalid noticed the pistol in the CIA agent’s ankle holster. He lunged, grabbing it off the dazed man’s leg and swinging it up. No safeties, no bells, no whistles, even punch-drunk, Kalid knew it was a Glock of some kind and he opened fire, not even waiting for the door to crash open. The door splintered again, but the second impact didn’t have the force of the first after Kalid slammed four shots through it at chest level. A rent appeared in the top panel, a jagged shard bent out by whatever battering ram was being used. He could see the men in the hall scrambling and tending to their wounded.

Kalid opened fire again, sweeping the hallway for another eight shots before the 12-shot magazine on the Glock ran dry. With the little pistol at slide lock, the door was slammed again. This time, it buckled and burst inward. Two men rushed in and the ex-blacksuit spun the Glock in his hand and hurled it at the first one through the door. Despite being a lightweight gun with a polymer frame, the twenty ounces of steel in the gun still made a big impression on the forehead of the first thug through the door. The intruder went stumbling to the floor while the guy behind him leaped, snarling and bringing up a pistol, as if to stuff the gun in the American’s face.

Kalid grabbed his wrist and drove his palm into the guy’s elbow, leveraging him and tossing him against the wall with a bone crunching thud. The pistol went flying across the floor, but Kalid wasn’t going to give up any advantage over even a dazed enemy while he might still be able to stab him in the back. Instead, he brought up his knee hard, two quick pumps into the kidneys of the captive Lebanese, then dropped back and twisted.

The terrorist went sailing out the window, catching the half-open pane on his way out, as well as the gauzy curtains. Glass, wood and fabric enveloped the falling man as he went tumbling into the street twelve feet below. Kalid pivoted on his heel as he heard the scrape of steel on steel in the doorway.

A big, bearded man had a long curved fighting knife clenched in his fist. His face was drenched with blood, but there were no visible injuries on him. Kalid assumed he had to have been behind another guy who took a high velocity 9 mm pill.

“We were going to try to take both of you in alive, but Faswad only needs one prisoner,” the knife goon sputtered.

Kalid smirked and answered him in his own language. “Quit talking and bring it, crybaby. Papa doesn’t have all day to play with children.”

Crybaby gawked at the taunting response, and paused. That gave Kalid a half step to grab his knife from where he dropped it by Rust. Then the Lebanese knife fighter charged, swinging at chest level. Kalid dropped like lightning, first to scoop up the blade, and second to snap his foot out into the shin of the blade man. The minute his fingers met the handle of the Tanto, he brought the blade around in a fast arc, only to have his wrist trapped by the half-fallen Crybaby.

Bringing his weight to both feet in the crouch, Kalid swung up his left hand and hammered it into Crybaby’s face, feeling cartilage crunch and collapse under the impact. It seemed the complaining Lebanese was made of stern stuff, as he kept up his fight, bringing his knee into Kalid’s shin to knock his balance from under him. The curved knife arced up, but Kalid braced his forearm against the knife fighter’s forearm, the impact jangling nerves in both arms. Still, the fighting knife didn’t fall from numbed fingers, and Kalid had to wrap his hand around the bigger man’s wrist.

There was no time for a wrestling match, not when the guy could roll onto him and drive that foot-long tusk of curved steel into his chest. With a surge of strength, the ex-black-suit launched his forehead into his enemy’s nose. This time, the impact stunned Crybaby, his head rolling back onto his shoulders. Kalid hurt from the hit too, but it was minor in comparison. He slapped the knife away and pulled his own wrist free, punching forward with both fists to slam into the man’s rib cage.

The big terrorist rocked backward. Kalid scrambled to his feet and out of reach. No more wrestling against someone who had a weight and leverage advantage. It was time to employ some sharpened steel in the fight.

Kalid lunged and lashed out hard, blade poking from the bottom of his fist. The blow was a little short, the tip of the Tanto only parting skin, not muscle and bone as the slash connected with the upper torso of the guy. Crybaby grunted and brought his blade down, but Kalid had moved enough that the downward swing only nicked his shoulder, instead of plunging into his clavicle. He brought back his knife and turned away, luring the Lebanese terrorist in closer.

As soon as the first boot stomp sounded, Kalid continued with his pivot, bringing up one heel hard and fast, connecting with the knife man’s groin. As Crybaby grunted, Kalid finished his total 360, slashing savagely with the Tanto across the exposed neck and shoulder of the enemy knife fighter.

The Lebanese grunted as he clutched his wounded shoulder. The knife dropped from his numbed fingers and Kalid stepped in, carving a fatal slash across his adversary’s face and throat.

Kalid stepped back, and watched the dead man hit the floor.

He looked up. The doorway was suddenly crowded with a throng of angry-faced men, their fists filled with automatic weapons. Kalid set his jaw tight, clenched his knife tighter and glared back at them.

“My life will not be sold cheap!” he shouted.

Suddenly, the gunmen in the hall began jerking, going into what seemed to be epileptic fits as puffs of gore burst into the air all around them. Automatic weapons fire chattered in the hallway. One by one, the dead gunmen tumbled to the floor, their perforated corpses stacking atop one another in a bloody heap.