Don Pendleton - Death Gamble

Peeling paint, rusting roofs, sagging walls and roaming livestock contrasted sharply with the signs of prosperity littering the property.

A half-dozen Toyotas, Mercedes and BMWs, caked in dirt, but otherwise brand-new, were parked around the compound. A satellite dish was perched on the roof of the compound’s largest building.

Moreover, the weapons carried by Talisman’s gunners nagged at Bolan. He had expected to face down AK-47 copies, the Saturday-night Special of developing nations. But of the men carried new Beretta 92-F pistols, M-4 assault rifles with grenade launchers and Remington shotguns. Several of the men, including Talisman, wore headsets for communication.

Talisman had either bought the toys with blood money from the diamonds he sold, or someone was bankrolling him. This begged the question whom? But Bolan dismissed it from his mind as quickly as it had entered. If there was more to this than met the eye—and he was sure there was—he’d unearth it after he grabbed the scientist and returned the man to safety.

If he could get the scientist. A sinking feeling told him the mission had been compromised from the start, that he might be walking straight into a death trap.

Over his protests and those of Hal Brognola, head of the Justice Department’s Sensitive Operations Group, a team from the State Department’s Diplomatic Security Services had been drafted to participate in the raid. Bolan preferred to work alone. Failing that, he wanted the warriors of Phoenix Force or Able Team covering his back. Unfortunately, both teams had been on missions elsewhere. The President had insisted that Bolan have someone waiting in the wings as a contingency plan, in case he took a bullet and couldn’t pull off the rescue.

The State Department team had gone MIA, and so had Bolan’s confidence in the mission. But the clock was ticking, and he couldn’t wait for a better time to make his play.

Bolan inventoried his weapons. The Beretta 93-R with its attached custom sound suppressor was holstered in his left armpit. A .44 Magnum Desert Eagle rode on his right hip. He cradled a sound-suppressed Heckler & Koch MP-5 SO-3, the lead weapon on this assault. A .357 Colt Python with a 2.5-inch barrel was snug in the small of his back, standing by as a last-chance weapon if everything else went to hell. He carried ammunition for the various weapons, a Ka-Bar fighting knife and an assortment of grenades on his combat harness and in the various pockets of his black combat suit. He unloaded his rifle, pocketed the cartridges and left the empty weapon on the roof. The rifle was great for distance, but its size and mule’s kick recoil made it impractical for the up close and personal war he was about to wage.

Descending from his vantage point like a silent wraith, Bolan hit the ground and moved toward the compound, crouching in the shadows of a small shed, twenty-five yards from the knot of hardmen. He watched as Talisman laughed and cuffed one of his men on the temple. The man spun away while the others howled in delight. Talisman turned and disappeared inside the sagging house.

There were two guards outside.

Or so Bolan hoped.

Like a sleek jungle cat, the warrior bore down on his prey with deadly efficiency, using shadows and car bodies to shroud his approach.

Bolan crept up on his target, a man smoking a cigarette and scanning the surrounding vegetation with infrared binoculars. As he closed the gap between himself and the hardman, he heard the guy’s headset crackle to life.

Spotters.

In a single fluid motion, the man wheeled toward Bolan and raised his weapon. The M-4’s barrel was ablaze as the stubby assault rifle churned out 5.56 mm rounds that flew high and wide to Bolan’s right. Without a doubt, the guy was fast; but Bolan was faster and he had the drop.

Bolan loosed a burst that hammered the man’s center mass, knocking him off his feet as though he’d just been struck by a thirty-foot tidal wave.

Suddenly gunfire flared toward Bolan from the surrounding jungle, chewing into the ground and kicking up geysers of dirt around his feet. He dropped into a crouch and darted left. He stroked the MP-5’s trigger on the run and sprayed the jungle with a torrent of 9 mm rippers. The hail of gunfire bought him a couple of seconds and he started for the house.

Another guard stepped across his path, a Beretta 92-F extended in a two-handed grip, the muzzle locked on Bolan’s head. The man hesitated for a moment, giving the big American a chance to squeeze off another burst from his weapon. The slugs slammed into his target, striking the hip and continuing diagonally across the man’s abdomen, chest and shoulder. The guard crashed to the ground in a dead heap.

Cracking a fresh clip into the H&K, Bolan continued toward the house. He’d hoped to take out the men with knives and silenced weapons. But that idea was shot to hell, thanks to the army of unseen spotters tracking his movements.

Where the hell had they come from? Bolan wondered. He had scoured the area for backup troops and had found nothing. He’d even made a second sweep when the State Department men had failed to show. Had he missed something?

He didn’t have time to second-guess himself.

Several men spilled from the doorway of Talisman’s stronghold, firing assault rifles and automatic pistols in Bolan’s direction. The warrior plucked a fragmentation grenade from his web gear. Pulling the pin, he lobbed the bomb toward his attackers and threw himself behind a nearby Mercedes. The weapon exploded, causing thunder, orange yellow flames and screams to pierce the compound.

Bolan peered around the Mercedes’ front end and surveyed the damage wrought by the grenade. Some hardmen were dead; others, soaked in their own blood, fire chewing through garments and flesh as they screamed, shook or gasped for breath. Bolan plowed through the dead and dying, plugging an occasional mercy round into the wounded as he closed in on the house.

More gunfire streamed out of the jungle, whipping around Bolan, passing just inches from his body. He wheeled and spotted a pair of men simultaneously sprinting from the brush and converging on him from opposite directions. Caressing the H&K’s trigger, Bolan laid down a sustained burst and hosed the men down.

A dull thud sounded behind him. Anyone else would have missed the sound amid the sounds of battle, but not Bolan. He had senses, combat instincts, honed to a keen edge from countless battles. Turning, he saw a grenade in the dirt just a few yards from where he stood. If lucky, he had three seconds or so before the numbers dropped to zero and he found himself in the heart of a deadly firestorm.

A door, Bolan’s only hope of refuge, yawned open before him. A gunner with blood in his eyes folded himself around the doorframe and drew down on Bolan with an assault rifle.

Caught in a no-win situation, Bolan did the only thing he could.

Legs pumping, heart slamming into overdrive, he closed in on the house and hurled himself forward into what seemed a certain death.

RYTOVA WATCHED the big soldier fighting it out with Talisman’s men while also taking fire from behind, and decided she’d seen enough.

Cradling an Uzi tricked out with a sound suppressor, she pushed her way through the tangles of trees and vegetation surrounding Talisman’s compound and closed in on the fence surrounding the property. Autofire crackled ahead of her, a din occasionally interrupted by screams or a pistol’s lone bark.

Rytova stepped into a morass of mud, a leftover from the rainy season, and felt her foot sink up to the ankle. She grimaced and cursed under her breath. If indeed there was a hell on Earth, this African sinkhole qualified. Pulling her leg free, she continued on. Perspiration slicked her palms, and she worried it might cause the Uzi to slip from her hands at a critical moment. Moisture-laden air and sweat-soaked clothing clung to her trim form like a second skin, at times seemingly suffocating her. Her ash-blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail and hidden under a black baseball cap, but loose wet strands clung to the back of her neck. What the hell was she doing here?