Don Pendleton - False Front

Taboada looked hesitant for a moment, but Subing suspected the new man was merely nervous because of his presence. Subing’s duties took him away from this operation often and he had met Taboada only a few times before. In any case, after a moment’s delay, the man walked along the line jerking the dirty feed sacks from the heads of the prisoners.

All twelve of the infidels’s eyes blinked furiously as the unaccustomed light hit them. A few more tears rolled down three of the faces as they stared at the mud in front of them. The husband and wife team leaned closer to each other and began, once more, to pray.

But the Reverend James A. Worden turned his eyes immediately upward to Subing, and the same infuriating smile the Tigers’s leader had known would be there beamed out at him.

“Jesus loves you,” Worden said from his spot in the mud. “He will forgive you for all of this. All you have to do is ask Him.”

One of the guards stepped in to bring the stock of his AK-47 down on Worden’s shoulder and a loud crunching sound echoed off the rafters. Worden winced and, for a moment, the smile disappeared. But a second later it was back and Subing felt an almost uncontrollable urge to behead the man immediately.

It took all of his self-control to turn toward the cameraman instead. He saw that the video was now ready, clasped his hands behind his back and turned full toward the lens. The cameraman nodded. Subing nodded back. He heard the click as the start button was depressed. “We have done our best,” he said into the camera. “To reach an agreement with your leaders in America. For ten months now we have spared you, and we have not asked so very much in return. We have asked only that the United States release our brother patriots they keep captive and remove all troops from the Philippine Islands and the Mideast.” He paused, turning sideways now and addressing the missionaries themselves. “Our pleas have fallen on deaf ears. Your President does not care about you—he does not care if you live or die.” Pausing dramatically he said, “Or perhaps he does not believe we are serious.”

Turning once more to the camera, he scowled into the lens. “If the American President does not care about his people, there is little I can do. But if he does not believe I will carry through with my promises…” He let his voice trail off, took a deep breath, then said, “Then I must prove to him that I will.”

Twisting slightly, Subing nodded to two of the guards. They moved in next to the Reverend James Worden and hauled the man to his feet, dragging his bound legs through the mud to a spot directly in front of the video camera. One of the guards kicked Worden’s legs out from under him and the missionary fell facedown into the soggy earth. The other guard knelt, grabbed the man by the back of his hair and jerked him up to his hands and knees.

Worden’s mud-splattered face looked directly into the camera. And smiled.

Again pure rage and hatred rushed through Candido Subing’s body like a disease. He yearned to kill the insolent infidel now, without further delay. But he had carefully scripted his next moves to make the most lasting impression possible on the news agencies to which copies of the video would be sent. Improvisation would be counterproductive. He wanted the American people to see what he was about to do and to know that it had been done with little, if any, emotion.

America had become a nation of cowards who coddled the weak and took pride in being victims. His killing without emotion would frighten them far more than anger.

So, biting back the indignation in his breast, Subing gave the camera his own smile. He forced himself to speak calmly, “I am giving this man—this American Reverend James A. Worden—one final chance to renounce his false belief and embrace the true faith.” As he spoke, he pulled the barong from its scabbard. Then, raising it to his eyes, he glanced at the inscription on the blade: there is no god but Allah.

“James Worden,” Subing said, looking down at the still-smiling face beneath him, “I ask you now to repeat after me.” After a short pause he said, “There is only one god.”

To Subing’s surprise, the smiling face below him said, “There is only one god.”

“And Mohammed is his prophet,” Subing said.

“And Jesus Christ is His son,” Worden said.

Anger and hatred shot once more though Subing’s veins. And this time he couldn’t hold it back. Grasping the barong with both hands, he brought it up over his head, then down toward the back of the Reverend James A. Worden’s neck.

A geyser of blood shot out from the severed arteries to the brain, spotting the camera lens with crimson dots. Worden’s body stayed frozen on all fours for a second, then collapsed into the mud.

Subing saw the cameraman frantically wipe at the lens with a rag as he stooped forward to retrieve the bloody mass of flesh and bone from the ground. Grasping it by the tufts of hair at the front hairline, he held it up to the camera. Vanished now were his hopes of showing no emotion and he screamed, “America must release our brethren! American must remove all soldiers from our islands and all Muslim nations!” With a dramatic sweep of his free hand he indicated the shocked hostages behind him. “Or I will kill each and every one of them! Allah be praised!”

As Subing had ordered him to do, the cameraman panned the faces of the missionaries, pausing long enough to register each one’s dismay and horror before moving on to the next. Then he pressed the stop button and ended the recording.

Subing realized he had been holding his breath since speaking and finally let it out with a sigh. But when he looked down at the head dangling from his fingers, the sight caused him to suck in another sudden breath and hold it.

Reverend James A. Worden might be dead, but the smile was still on his lips. And it looked wider and more peaceful than it ever had in life.

The plane in the distance grew smaller, gradually becoming a mere speck in the sky before vanishing from sight altogether. Mack Bolan was alone, but such was almost always the case with the man also known as the Executioner.

Bolan looked down as he free-fell through the sky. Below he could see the deep blue waters of the Sulu Sea. Farther east lay the island of Mindanao, in the Philippines. In a moment he would open his parachute, but it would still be some time before he reached land. The Executioner had chosen a HAHO—High Altitude High Opening—dive both to avoid detection and to give himself room to maneuver the treacherous winds just north of the Sulu Archipelago. If all went as planned, it would take him approximately twenty minutes to reach the arranged landing zone where two already-on-the-ground contacts would be waiting for him. One was a CIA agent who had been trying to infiltrate the Liberty Tigers for several weeks. The other was a retired Delta Force special operations soldier who was also an old friend of another counterterrorist operative who worked out of Stony Man Farm.

Wind whipped at his face as the Executioner free-fell toward the white-capped waves below. Finally he grabbed the ripcord with his right hand, jerked, and the chute shot out over his head. Bolan watched as the canopy hit the end of the lines and saw that there was a problem.

It hadn’t opened.

As he continued to plummet, Bolan stared at the flat chute that some jumpers called a “Roman Candle.” Other parachutists referred to them as “streamers.” But no matter what you called it, the bottom line was that the canopy had failed. It looked like a long, limp dishrag or the tail on a child’s homemade kite as it followed him down through the sky toward certain death.

The Executioner’s jaw set tightly as he reviewed the pre-jump equipment check in his memory. Everything had been in place. Everything in order. Everything had checked out. So why hadn’t the canopy opened properly? He didn’t know. And probably never would.