Don Pendleton - Appointment In Baghdad

“Go on,” Bolan said.

“I can tell you that none of the people involved in that enterprise have ever dealt with the men in that picture.”

“But they have dealt with Scimitar?”

Liu held his hands up as if to say “who can tell” and smiled. “So they say. I am told, and I’m quoting now,” he continued. “I am told ‘Scimitar is a lie.’”

Bolan pondered Liu’s words and their implications. He felt deeply dissatisfied. He looked away from Liu’s sneering mask of a face and tried to decide on a fresh avenue. His gaze drifted to the CCTV monitors and a flurry of motion caught his attention.

The guards outside Liu’s office door staggered backward, their bodies jerking in crazy, disjointed dances. Blood spurted from their blossoming wounds. One 426 sentry stumbled back against the door and simultaneously Bolan heard the thump from behind him.

Liu cursed at the interruption and turned to look at his CCTV displays. He nearly screamed at what he saw.

Three men with balaclava masks burst into the camera view. One wielded a cut-down Remington 870 pump-action shotgun. He was flanked by a man with a mini-Uzi machine pistol, the sound suppressor nearly as long as the weapon itself. This man was still firing, and he raked the downed bodies of Liu’s 426s with ruthless abandon.

Behind the two men a third stepped into view. He wielded twin Beretta 92-F pistols, and he fired one several times back down the hall toward the mahjong parlor and off camera.

Bolan was going for the Beretta 93-R under his shoulder when he saw the shotgun-wielding hit man level his weapon at the door to Liu’s office and begin pumping blasts into the wooden structure. Behind Bolan 12-gauge slugs slammed through the lock mechanism and he heard the booms of the Remington 870.

Hell had found the Executioner one more time.

Time seemed to unfold in slow motion. Bolan came up out of his wingback chair as the door to Liu’s office banged open, Beretta in his hand. Behind the desk Liu had grabbed a custom-engraved .45ACP pistol.

Bolan swept up the Beretta in a two-fisted grip. The shotgun-perforated door had swung wide and bounced off the inner wall of the office. The hit man wielding the mini-Uzi rushed into the room, his silenced subgun cycling fast, flame spitting from the muzzle.

Bullets sprayed the room. Liu’s computer exploded with a shower of sparks and his laptops were torn apart and swept to the floor. The twin CCTV screens caught a single 9 mm slug apiece and went dark as the glass cracked open like eggshells.

The fusillade continued unabated until the room was destroyed.

Jigsaw Liu went out like a warrior.

No matter how despicable his crimes, the triad Red Pole showed courage as he died. Bullets struck him in rapid-fire torrents. Blossoms of scarlet bloomed on his expensive dark suit, spilling blood in surging fountains across his wide desk. Liu shook under the impact, and the sound of lead slugs burning through his torso was clearly audible to Bolan.

Liu was rising as he caught the first burst, swinging around his .45ACP pistol. The six rounds that struck his chest and gut knocked him back into his seat as he leveled the pistol. The Hong Kong crime lord triggered his handgun twice, the reports sounding like a cannon in the confines of the room. The shots flew wide as more of the submachine-gun rounds drilled into him.

Liu’s jigsaw face disappeared in a splashing wave of crimson and flying bone chips as a 3-round burst smashed into his head. The force of the 9 mm bullets bounced him off the back of his seat and he pitched forward, a bloody ruined mess sprawled across his desk.

Blood gushed across the flat expanse of the table top and spilled over the edges to stain the thick carpet burgundy. As he tumbled forward, Liu’s hand jerked on the trigger and the pistol fired one last time.

The .45ACP round burned across the office and struck the submachine-gunner in the thigh, causing the man to crumple and almost fall. Blood spurted bright against the dark material of the hit man’s pants. He looked up from behind his balaclava mask and tried to bring the mini-Uzi back under control.

Bolan’s single pistol shot from off to the side and just behind the wingback chair took the assassin in the temple. The man’s head snapped sharply on his neck, and blood spurted from the wound as a red halo appeared behind his ruined skull.

As the first hit man fell, Bolan’s perception of time caught up with his adrenaline and everything began to unfold in fast forward. The gunman folded at the waist, his submachine-gun bouncing off the carpet. From behind him the shotgun-wielding killer charged into the room. The man moved in with the Remington 870 held out in front of him, the weapon’s stock tight against his shoulder.

The cavernous muzzle of the 12-gauge swept the room for a target. Bolan stepped forward and kicked his heavy chair across the room. The hit man tried to swivel as he caught the motion, and the barrel of the shotgun dipped as the shooter instinctively drew down on the object. The chair bounced off the floor and struck him in the shins, causing him to stagger, one hand slipping off the shotgun.

Bolan fired three times in rapid succession on semi-auto. His rounds burrowed through the flesh of the second hit man’s throat to pulverize his spine.

The gunner fell, and Bolan dropped to one knee as he shifted aim with the Beretta 93-R. The third hit man was already entering the room, his arms extended straight out in front of him and his hands filled with blazing automatic pistols. Bullets passed harmlessly through the space where Bolan had been standing, whizzing over his head.

The soldier’s pistol barked and the face showing in the balaclava mask became a gaping red gash. The dead man’s momentum carried him farther into the room until his feet tangled up with corpses of his crew and he pitched forward, his head rapping against the floor.

Through the ringing in his ears Bolan heard angry shouts from the hallway. He knew there was no way that members of the Shimmering Raindrop Triad would believe that he’d had nothing to do with the death of their warlord. They’d shoot first and ask questions later.

Bolan quickly crossed to the desk and grabbed the picture of the individual Stony Man had thought was Scimitar. Whether Liu’s reaction was an indication that his intelligence was wrong or that Scimitar was simply cagey, Bolan had no way of verifying at the moment.

He stuffed the picture into the pocket of his jacket, yanked open a desk drawer and plucked the envelope full of cash he’d given Liu for the information. He saw a little black address book and took that, as well.

As he shoved the book into his pants’ pocket, he heard a rush of movement outside of the door and dropped behind the desk. The slap of footsteps became muffled on the carpet, and he stood out of his crouch. A Chinese gangster with a ponytail and an M-4 carbine held at port arms stood in the doorway, stunned by the carnage. Bolan took him down with a single Parabellum round.

Hearing more shouts from the hall, the Executioner spun and tried the door set in the back of Liu’s office. It was locked. He shifted the fire selector switch to 3-round-burst mode.

Checking first to ensure that the hinges were on the other side of the door, Bolan fired two bursts into the wood around the polished silver handle. The knob burst apart, and the soldier kicked the door open before darting through the opening.

As he passed into a small antechamber at the foot of a short staircase, an automatic weapon cut loose behind him. A storm of bullets cracked into the door frame.

Bolan twisted in the cramped space of the stair landing and thrust his pistol around the corner of the door, triggering two bursts of blind harassing fire, hoping to drive back the triad gunmen. He pulled his hand back and sprinted up the stairs, taking them two at a time, soaking in his environment on the run. Liu’s private access stairs were plush and well lit. Bolan’s pounding footsteps were absorbed almost completely by the thick, luxurious weave of the carpet. He could see the top of the stairs just ahead and the teak door to the right of the next landing. Before going on, he dropped the clip from the Beretta and rammed home a fresh one.