Don Pendleton - Path To War

Dexter was drawing a bead for a shot between the eyes when Smithson suddenly went limp. He stood, watching as they checked his pulse. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”

One of the whitecoats nodded, a defeated look on his face. “Cardiac arrest would be my best guess, but we’ll need an autopsy.”

“Forget that. You failed.”

“No, we haven’t.”

Dexter wheeled, found Teetel on his back. “You haven’t, huh? I suppose you have a good explanation.”

“We injected him with too large of a dosage. Our mistake.”

“Your mistake? You didn’t know the risks?”

“We did, and he did, too. Understand, too, this man came to us, a lifelong alcoholic. His kidneys were weak, he had cirrhosis of the liver, two previous heart attacks, and there were indications he was in the first stages of lung cancer.”

“And still you went ahead?”

“He insisted. He needed the money. Or perhaps…”

“Perhaps what? That he was looking to commit suicide?”

Teetel shrugged. “Well, a man with his…lifestyle…that’s a distinct possibility.”

Dexter stowed his weapon. He gave what Teetel told him consideration; decided what the good doctor told him could well be true. For the most part, the soldiers he knew who pledged allegiance to the Consortium were young, figure in prime physical condition, and with a smaller dosage…

Without a word, Dexter brushed past Teetel, anxious to give his report to the shadow men overseas.

TWO POSSIBILITIES for enemy lightning response flashed through Bolan’s mind. One—the shooter had simply been standing post near the door. Two—the enemy had known he was coming. Either way, the Executioner knew there was only one option available.

Bulldoze and blast.

Spoon released, he pitched the steel egg, a sideways whipping motion that sent it flying through the smoking hole. Another thunderous retort all but obliterated what remained of the door. Bolan pulled farther back down the hall, covering his ears as the flash-bang erupted. A million candlepower going off like a supernova along with noise that could match an artillery barrage would have all but shattered the shooter’s senses, but Bolan needed his human barrier waxed, deaf, dumb and blind or not.

The soldier was up, bell slightly rung by the concussive retort, another flash-bang filling one hand as he went low around the corner, Uzi poking through the smoke. He found his man in jig step, backpedaling down the foyer, a big figure swathed in smoke, a massive SPAS-12 auto-shotgun coming up to draw blind aim. Holding back on the trigger, Bolan hit him with a rising burst, crotch to sternum, the SPAS-12 roaring one more time as he toppled back, a section of the ceiling coming down in a rain of dust and plaster.

That left four, if intel was on the money.

Combat senses torqued to maximum overdrive, Bolan bulled through the jagged teeth, caught the commotion around the corner. He hugged the wall, spotted an AK-74 swinging around the corner, flaming away. A short burst of autofire from a snarling figure in a katfiyeh, lead wasps zipping past the soldier’s ear, and the soldier drove the hardman to cover with an extended Uzi burst, lobbing the flash-bang grenade in what he assumed was the general direction of the living room. Bolan dropped back into the hall, autofire chasing him around the corner. They were shouting and screaming for all of two seconds when number two brain-cleaver sounded off, sure to knock them around every which way, senses on the verge of winking out.

There was no choice but to end it quick and hard. The soldier charged back in, tagged the howling demon with the AK-74 as he hopped around the corner, firing a brief spray and pray. The Executioner hit the edge low, peered around the corner to find the living room a smoking whirlwind of debris, three targets reeling around the couch. A live one would be nice, but the Asians were going for broke, firing deaf and blind with machine pistols, the corner above Bolan’s head shaved off with wild rounds. The Executioner dropped them both with a quick burst of 9-mm Parabellum rounds, left to right, hot lead eating up their fancy threads. They were falling when the last one brought an AKM to bear, hollering something in Arabic. Bolan chopped him off at the knees, a hideous shriek flaying the smoke-choked air.

Time for all due haste, he knew, as he kicked all weapons away from the Arab stretched out on the floor, one eye on both bedroom doors. As good fortune had it, he was looking at Mousuami. A one-two sweep next, kicking in both doors, and he found both bedrooms clear. He went back to the moaner, who was clutching at his mangled knees. It would have been a small coup, as he glanced at the mauled remnants of a laptop, but even still there might be a way for some cyberwizard to access the hard drive. Then he spotted the briefcase, pocked with shrapnel, but since it had been hidden behind the couch, settled on the floor, it had been spared the brunt of the blast. The Uzi stowed, he hauled out the Desert Eagle, opened the briefcase and found stacks of U.S. currency. Figure somewhere in the neighborhood of a million dollars, and it was a safe bet he had interrupted a nasty deal.

Bolan crouched beside Mousuami. A viselike grip to the throat, squeezing hard, and as the extremist’s mouth opened, eyes going wide, the warrior rammed the hand cannon’s muzzle into the man’s mouth. “Nod if you can read lips and speak English.”

Gagging, Mousuami nodded.

“Who were your guests?” Bolan asked, likewise mouthing the words, removing the weapon from the Arab’s mouth, releasing some pressure on his throat.

Mousuami choked, then sputtered, “North Koreans.”

“What was the deal here?”

A feral hatred, defiance cleared the glaze in Mousuami’s eyes. “It does not matter now. You are too late.”

Bolan placed the muzzled between the fanatic’s eyes. “Last chance. The deal.”

Mousuami was bleeding out, lapsing into shock. Bolan slapped his face.

“A dream for us. A nightmare for you.” Mousuami laughed, eyes bulging with fanatic hatred. “The Suitcase from God.”

“Is it here in Casablanca?”

“We have it.”

Bolan felt his blood race hot. Beyond a biological attack, a backpack nuke with a wallop of anywhere from five to eight kilotons would prove the Western world the worst nightmare. Say anywhere from five to eight city blocks wiped out, and with fallout, or a strong wind blowing radiation…

“Where is Al-Jassaca? And don’t tell me you don’t know who they are.”

Mousuami grinned, eyes rolling up in his head. “Try…Pakistan…if you know so much.”

The game here was dead, Bolan knew. Before he left he would take the briefcase and laptop, the bundle of cash at least destined to fatten covert coffers for the war on terror if any information on the computer couldn’t be retrieved.

The Executioner stood, sensing he would get no more information out of Mousuami who was retching and moaning, set to pass out. Cold-blooded killing normally wasn’t part of his SOP, but the enemy was proving itself more vicious and savage with every attack, every abduction, showing not a scintilla of mercy or compassion, especially when it came to noncombatants. Besides, if he let Mousuami live he could reach out and warn his comrades in Casablanca, perhaps see yet another day where he could plot mass murder.

Bolan gathered in the briefcase and laptop, tucked them under one arm. Then the Executioner drew a bead between Mousuami’s eyes, his finger taking up slack on the trigger to remove one more scourge from the planet.

RON BARAKA CAUGHT a bird’s-eye view of the Gulf of Naples along the Amalfi Coast as he was escorted to the villa by two men in black wielding HK MP 5 subguns. After his report on the Madrid incident, he had been summoned to Italy by the men of the Phoenix Consortium. He had a few hours’ downtime in the Learjet from Madrid to the private airfield they controlled outside Naples, the local authorities greased, he was sure, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t enjoy a few moments of the breathtaking view following the long ride in the van along the winding, treacherous cliffside roads. He figured they were several hundred feet in the air, high above blue-green waters sprinkled with fishing boats and pleasure craft, the compound perched on the edge of a cliff, ringed by native vegetation. It was a fleeting sensation, the sudden longing he felt to be in a cabin cruiser, stretched out in a chaise longue, drink in hand, the lassies at his beck and call.