Don Pendleton - Plains Of Fire

Bolan couldn’t help the feeling of gratitude that the two Phoenix Force commandos were willing to take his place directly in the line of fire. They stopped their complaints, seeing the wisdom of Bolan’s strategy. James and Encizo were skilled and capable and the Executioner couldn’t have asked for better backup, save the aforementioned Gary Manning, Phoenix Force’s sniper and a long-distance rifleman who rivaled Bolan’s own skills.

“We’ve got your back,” James said. “Put some boot to ass.”

Bolan remained silent. He was in the strike zone and had a sentry in his sights. Not literally, because right now Bolan had only a knife with a black phosphate blade in his hand, and the suppressed MP-5 machine pistol cinched over his shoulder. He was prepared for close-quarters combat, falling into the profile that his prey were told to expect. As long as he was only going against the Thunder Lion militia, James and Encizo were to hold their fire. Their guns were reserved for shattering the spine of the Muslim Brotherhood ambush.

Bolan lunged at the Thunder Lion sentry, his black-bladed Cold Steel Recon Bowie knife driving deep into the guard’s sternum, piercing the abdominal wall and spearing into his heart. The African’s dying cry of pain was strangled and trapped in his throat, cut off by Bolan’s forearm crushing into his windpipe. The kill was over in the space of a heartbeat, completed with no more noise than the rustle of a bird’s wings as it took flight. Bolan hauled the corpse into a set of decorative flower bushes, stowing him out of sight. He took the dead man’s rifle and his bandolier of ammunition to bolster his firepower for the coming battle.

There was a feeling in the air, and a more superstitious man would have attributed the eerie prickling at the back of his neck to some supernatural sense. The Executioner, however, was far more practical and realistic. It wasn’t a psychic awareness that he was being watched, but his subconscious mind picking up sensory data that his higher functions weren’t focused on. Bolan’s danger sense was an acute awareness of subliminal sensory data—a shadow in his peripheral vision, the silence of normally active rodents in their alley, or the whiff of hashish smoke still clinging to a Muslim Brotherhood warrior. Bolan’s subconscious mind processed all of this information with an uncanny ease, and the warrior’s experience and intellect were honed to pick up on these subliminal signals. The result was the Executioner’s almost omniscient understanding of any battlefield he found himself in, able to anticipate his enemy’s action even before they took it.

Forewarned was forearmed, he mentally repeated. That truly was the case for Bolan, and his arsenal of forewarning provided him with the firepower to obliterate twenty-to-one odds. He unslung the MP-5, then rushed to complete the sentry’s patrol path. Catching up to the dead African’s schedule, as observed from the night before, Bolan turned the corner and came face-to-face with a second Thunder Lion guard. Bolan expected the sentry, but the militiaman was thrown off balance by his partner’s replacement. Before the guard could react, Bolan fired a single suppressed round between his eyes, dropping the African in his tracks.

Two down and still eighteen Thunder Lions left to go, thanks to Kurtzman’s satellite reconnaissance of the hotel compound. That wasn’t counting the contingent of Muslim Brotherhood gunmen who’d been called in by Bitturumba. Bolan took the magazines of FAMAS ammo off the second corpse, adding it to his reservoir as he looped the bandolier of 25-round magazines over his neck and shoulder. He approached the back of the hotel compound, closing in on the service entrance. Bolan knew from the previous night’s recon that there were two Thunder Lions on post there, but as many as six could be on hand with a single cry of alarm. The soldier paused long enough to scoop up a rock and then hurled it with all his strength at the wrought-iron gate, raising a loud clang.

The heavy stone had accomplished its task, drawing the attention of one of the militiamen. The sentinel poked his head out around the corner, his face an easy target as he leaned off balance on the gate. Bolan fired a short burst of suppressed SMG fire, bullets tearing through the militiaman’s face. The second guard posted at the back let out a loud cry to alert the rest of the militia troopers as his partner convulsed, then collapsed in death, hanging halfway over the fence.

Everything was going according to Bolan’s plan, and the soldier turned and circled back around the way he’d come. While the Thunder Lions focused their attention on the service entrance, ready to repel the one-man assault, Bolan leaped up and grabbed the top of the eight-foot privacy wall. He powered himself to the top of the barrier and crouched. From his vantage point, he saw that a clot of six Africans were braced at the service entrance. Three of the militiamen were out of breath from racing to join their comrades in defending their post. He heard the scuff of boots in the distance as more of the African gunmen mobilized. Bolan pulled the stock of his MP-5 to his shoulder and triggered it.

Bolan’s nighttime camouflage made him into a barely visible ghost in the Thunder Lions’ peripheral vision, and their attention was directed forward, not to their flanks. The mighty warriors named for lions were more like sitting ducks as heavyweight 9 mm rounds ripped through the flank of braced gunmen, drilling tunnels through vital organs. Two of the riflemen dropped immediately, another staggering as his thighs were shredded by the salvo that had been slowed by the corpses of his partners. As the wounded guard had dropped his weapon, Bolan focused on the ones still standing as they reacted to the sudden deaths and injuries among their number. They whirled to face the Executioner, but he stepped off the privacy wall, dropping eight feet to the ground and landing in crouch. The move had dropped him beneath their focus as the riflemen fired, spearing 5.56 mm bullets through the air that Bolan had occupied a heartbeat earlier. The sudden drop had bought the big American an additional second of confusion among his foes, and he took full advantage of it by hosing down the last three Thunder Lions.

The trio convulsed as bullets punched into their faces and chests, bodies trembling under the onslaught as they tumbled dead to the ground. The injured gunman reached out for his fallen FAMAS rifle. It was a mistake, but not an immediately fatal one. Bolan triggered a burst of 9 mm bullets that forced the man to hastily withdraw his hand.

“You’ll want to bandage that,” Bolan said, gesturing to the man’s bloody thighs.

The gunman looked up at the Executioner, his eyes wide. He glanced to the FAMAS.

“I wouldn’t,” Bolan warned.

The guard lunged anyway, tugging the butt of his rifle to his left shoulder. Bolan was ready for the resulting firestorm, taking one step to the side to avoid the initial trigger pull. The FAMAS was a sturdy, reliable assault rifle, and its bullpup configuration kept the black weapon compact by placing the trigger guard and handle well forward of the firing mechanism. This way, a twenty-inch barrel could be put on a weapon that was only slightly longer than thirty inches, maintaining full power while improving maneuverability. Unfortunately for the African rifleman, the FAMAS was an older generation bullpup, which meant that the ejector port threw blistering-hot empty casings out of a breech right at the face of the shooter if he used it in the wrong hand.

While the FAMAS was great for a right-handed gunman, spitting its shells out over his shoulder, when the rifle was fired from a left-hander’s stance, as the guard tried to now, his head was right in the path of a stream of superheated cartridges. The brass tore at the rifleman’s left eye and cheek, slicing flesh. The guard screamed and dropped his rifle. Blinded and lacerated, the sentry curled up into a ball, harmless and whimpering in agony. Bolan reversed his MP-5 and slammed the steel stock into the side of the wounded man’s head, knocking him out cold.