Don Pendleton - Pressure Point

“Are you kidding me?” Kissinger said. “Jayne Bahn?”

“That’s the one.”

“Great,” Kissinger muttered, “just what we need. It figures she’d show up. I mean, what’s the reward on Jahf-Al up to now? Twenty million?”

“Thirty, I think.”

“Hell, and here us poor chumps are tracking him down for free.” Kissinger shook his head. “What’s wrong with…Holy shit!”

Up on the hillside, a bloodied jihad warrior had suddenly materialized out of the debris and was charging Jayne Bahn, brandishing a long-bladed knife.

Bolan spotted the man, too, and started to call out a warning, but Bahn was already in motion, lurching to one side as the blade swept past, missing her by inches. Loose debris shifted under her feet, throwing her off balance. As she fell, she managed to grab hold of her attacker’s wrist. Together, they tumbled down the slope, fighting over the knife.

Bahn finally managed to knock the weapon from the man’s hand and, once they reached the level ground of the roadway, she fended off a right cross from her would-be assailant and countered with a fierce pair of karate blows. Both connected, one knocking the wind from the man’s lungs, the other striking him behind the ear with enough force to knock him unconscious.

Staggering to her feet, Bahn drew her pistol and trained it on the man’s face. When she heard Bolan and Kissinger jogging toward her, she turned to them. At first she didn’t recognize them, but once they were close enough for her to see past their masks, she smiled faintly.

“You guys,” she said. “Small world, eh?”

Kissinger yanked off his mask and stared hard at the woman. “What the hell are you doing here?”

“Crashing the party,” she wisecracked. Nudging the fallen terrorist, she added, “I brought you a little something, but I didn’t have time to wrap it.”

“No wonder I put him out of commission so fast,” Jayne Bahn said, crouching over the Lashkar Jihad warrior she’d felled. The man, it turned out, had been shot twice prior to being caught up in the landslide, which had broken his right leg in at least two places. “I can’t believe he was able to get up and take a swipe at me with that knife of his.”

“Adrenaline,” Kissinger surmised.

“I say we put the squeeze on him till he coughs up Jahf-Al,” Bahn said.

“He’s in no shape to talk right now,” Bolan said, inspecting the man’s wounds. “With the blood he’s lost, even if he comes to, he’s going to be in shock.”

“Well, excuse me for sounding like a hard-ass,” Bahn countered, “but we’re more likely to get something useful out of him if he’s in shock than when he’s thinking straight.”

“We won’t get anything out of him if he dies on us,” Bolan stated. “We need to patch him up and get him to a hospital.”

“Let me know which one so I can send flowers,” Bahn replied sarcastically. “Maybe I’ll come by and fluff his pillows, too.”

“Listen, sweetheart,” Kissinger interrupted. “When the time’s right, we’ll get him to talk, don’t worry. And you can bet your ass we won’t do it by pampering him. Got that?”

“Temper, temper,” Bahn replied with a shrug. “Fine, have it your way.”

Kissinger glowered at the woman, then jogged over to the chopper for a stretcher and Mochtar’s med-kit. By the time they returned, Bolan had managed to staunch the flow of blood from the prisoner’s wounds. Kissinger daubed the wounds with antiseptic, then quickly dressed them and kept pressure on the bandages as Bolan helped the soldiers load the man onto the stretcher. Grimaldi was waiting to help haul him up into the chopper.

“Go ahead and get these people to the base,” Bolan told him. “We’ll finish up here.”

Grimaldi nodded. “I’ll swing back later with reinforcements and some kind of morgue unit for all the bodies.”

“Before you go, hand me a couple two-ways,” Bolan said.

Grimaldi reached into a bin near the door and pulled out two high-powered two-way radios. “Good luck,” he said, handing them to Bolan.

The soldier nodded, then called past Grimaldi to Raki Mochtar. “You did good work, Rock.”

“Thanks,” the younger man replied gratefully.

“We’ll see you back in Samarinda.” Bolan saluted the medic, then stepped back from the chopper.

Grimaldi got back behind the controls and lifted off, then drifted back out over the valley. Bolan turned back to the roadway and sized up the situation.

“The truck’s not going anywhere,” he said, eyeing the bombed-out vehicle. “I say we leave it for now and spread out.” He handed Kissinger one of the radios, telling him, “I want to check out the compound. Why don’t you and Latek secure the area, then check around for more survivors.”

“Done,” Kissinger said, taking the two-way Bolan held out to him. “What about our friend here?”

“I’ll take Ms. Bahn with me,” Bolan said.

“Not so fast,” Bahn said. “No offense, but I didn’t sign up for a tour of duty here, okay? I call my own shots.”

Bolan sighed. “Fair enough.” He grabbed a stray assault rifle lying on the ground and held it out to the woman. “I could use your help, if you don’t mind.”

“That’s more like it,” Bahn said, taking the weapon.

Bolan exchanged a quick glance with Kissinger, who rolled his eyes, then gestured to Latek and the other commandos. They began to fan out in separate directions, giving a wide berth to the Bio-Tain truck, which continued to leak faintly visible clouds of toxic gas. Bolan, meanwhile, led Bahn the other way, up the road leading to the agricultural compound.

By now the Black Hawk was beyond earshot and the road was eerily quiet. For the first time since the firefight had begun, Bolan noticed a few signs of wildlife: birds, a few small gray squirrels, and a thin black monkey scrambling back and forth along the guardrail.

“I think you can take off that mask now,” Bahn told Bolan. “It’s not like we’re trapped in some kind of enclosed space.”

Bolan took off his mask. There was a faint odor of cordite in the air and he could smell smoke from the fires across the valley, but there was nothing that smelled like the chemical stench of the cloud that had nearly enveloped him a short time ago. Bolan also realized his cough had left him, as had the stinging sensation in his eyes. He’d gotten off lucky, he figured.

They walked silently for a short distance, then Bolan asked, “Are you here on your own or still working for Inter-Trieve?”

“I-T,” she replied.

Inter-Trieve was a Washington, D.C.-based bounty agency specializing in high-profile cases involving international fugitives. Bahn had joined them five years ago after stints with the Army Rangers and CIA.

“We’re on retainer with the insurance company representing that cruise liner Jahf-Al deep-sixed last spring,” she explained. “They figure the reward money’ll help offset the claims they’re paying out.”

“Provided you bring him in,” Bolan said.

“I’ll bring him in, all right.”

“You seem pretty sure of yourself.”

“Gotta be in this line of work,” Bahn responded calmly.

“I take it you’re aware that half the free world’s tried tracking down Jahf-Al with no luck.”

“Well, maybe they didn’t try hard enough,” Bahn suggested.

Bolan wasn’t about to waste his breath arguing with her. Instead, he asked the woman how she knew about the raid. Bahn shrugged, swatting away a cloud of gnats that had appeared on the roadway.

“I have my sources,” she said.

“You think you could you be a little more specific?” Bolan asked.

“Sorry,” Bahn said. “A girl needs her secrets.”