Agent Of Peril

Faswad shook his head. “Resistance? I sent two dozen men after the American.”

The Hezbollah leader took a deep drag on his cigarette, and then blew smoke out of a corner of his mouth. “Two dozen men. How many came back?”

“Six,” Cabez answered. “They think they recognized one of the men involved.”

“Really?”

“He was over six feet tall, with black hair and cold blue eyes.”

Faswad paused for a moment. “Black hair and cold blue eyes?”

“Familiar to you?” Cabez asked. “That’s the description of al Askari.”

“Not only that,” Faswad answered, “it’s the description of the man who paved my way to leadership here.”

Cabez allowed himself a moment of surprise, but then relaxed. “The Soldier has rampaged several times through Lebanon, sir.”

“Perhaps this could be the time he comes for me,” Faswad stated. “Sinbal never reported in, did he?”

“No, but we have reports from our friends in Pakistan that something happened to the weapons auction. The place was utterly destroyed, and scores were mowed down like wheat before a thresher,” Cabez stated.

Faswad flicked ash off his cigarette to the floor and glowered. “I was too late in having Russel picked up for spying on us.”

He crushed out the cigarette in an ashtray, and then weighed the consequences of hurling the heavy crystal against the far wall. It would take forever to clean up, and it would only serve to make more of a mess when what he required was more order. Faswad breathed deeply and let out his tension. It was always good to think of the consequences—that’s how he methodically crawled his way up the organizational maze of Hezbollah splinter politics until he reached his position.

Cabez waited until Faswad broke out of his train of thought. “Do you think Russel knew of our deal for the dozen American tanks?”

“He spotted something moving, we have no idea what for sure, and from the destruction in Pakistan, we’re not sure if the tanks were even uncrated. Something destroyed everything, flattening any piece of materiel to component atoms,” Cabez answered.

Faswad fired up a fresh cigarette. “And al Askari is with Russel now.”

“Al Askari and another man. Dark-skinned, spoke Arabic, younger than the Americans, and athletic. They all got away in a gold-colored Toyota 4Runner.”

Faswad frowned. “Watch them. If they try to roust us, we roust them. Burn them down. We can find what we need from a dead body as easily as we can from a live one.”

Cabez nodded. “You’re right, sir.”

KALID FINALLY PULLED the 4Runner into Bolan’s safehouse, and the Executioner helped Rust up the stairs. He had regained much of his strength, but the CIA man wasn’t going to be running and jumping or shooting and looting in the near future. That was fine with the Executioner, who preferred to be the cat that walked by himself.

Bolan spared a glance back to Kalid, who was double-checking the streets for any signs of surveillance. His own icy blue eyes swept the perimeter and found little more than daily life. Still he didn’t let down his guard. Danger signals were not going off in his brain, but that didn’t mean he could relax.

“Alex, I want you to guard Rust,” Bolan told him. “I need both of your heads working on figuring out what we’re dealing with.”

“I’d be more useful on hand, translating and interrogating,” Kalid spoke up. “But I can understand. I’ll be your baby-sitter.”

“It’s not that you’re as fragile as a teacup, Alex. But you have just been through a fight, you might have a minor concussion, and you took a beating.”

“You’re not exactly the embodiment of health yourself,” Kalid retorted. “But I’ll rest up.”

Bolan gave Kalid’s hand a shake, then slipped into a battered old leather jacket and pulled on a motorcycle helmet. A slightly rusted, but otherwise workable Kawasaki was parked beside the Toyota. The Executioner had selected the battered, but serviceable, motorcycle because it was well designed for the narrow and uneven streets of Beirut and the back roads in the countryside. A large fiberglass storage trunk on the touring motorcycle also fit the soldier’s needs. It was sized perfectly for Bolan’s war bag, with its load of a rifle, grenades and spare ammo.

“You already have a target?” Kalid asked.

“Enough suspicion for a soft probe.”

Kalid gave a low whistle. “Poor bastards.”

“Just hold down the fort. There’s some Coke in the fridge, and a machine gun propped against the sofa.”

The motorcycle kicked to life. It was time to get down to business.

THE KAWASAKI RUMBLED to a halt behind a boulder and Mack Bolan turned off the engine. He still had a hike to get to the old farm equipment factory where Rust had initially spotted the Hezbollah hellions loading up the three boxcars to send to the coast. It was no secret that the factory was used by the Lebanese-based Palestinian fighters to store their rickety old T-72 tanks. Israel had visited hell upon the compound several times in the past, and Bolan could see signs of fresh reconstruction, only made possible by Lebanon suing for peace against further Israeli air force assaults.

Bolan pulled some camouflage netting across the Kawasaki and wrapped it around the vehicle, not wanting to lose his transport back to the safehouse. He paused for a moment and evaluated what he should take along, and knew that the sound-suppressed Uzi was the head weapon for this night. He wished he had more familiar hardware, but unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to get his usual war bag. Instead, he had relied on the kindness of Captain Hofflower’s armory. The Peshawar customized Taurus 92 was replaced with a brand-new Marine-issue Beretta M-9 pistol, complete with several 15- and 20-round magazines and a Gemtech suppressor. A .45-caliber Heckler and Koch SOCOM pistol was also given to the Executioner as his “heavy hitter.” Hofflower had informed Bolan that the big .45 was loaded with MagSafe rounds—capable of punching through a windshield, but they wouldn’t punch clean through a terrorist and hit a hostage if Bolan was stuck in a hostage situation. Hofflower gave the soldier a big stack of MagSafe ammo in 9 mm as well.

“If you’re going to shoot a 9 mm, you might as well shoot something that’ll tear the insides up on someone,” Hofflower admitted. “And this does the trick.”

Bolan put the SOCOM where he normally kept his Desert Eagle and the M-9 with its 20-round magazine where his 93-R usually went. He felt almost balanced—thunder and whisper together.

There was a Robinson Armament VEPR in the Kawasaki’s storage trunk. The Executioner debated overburdening himself with too much firepower when he was only moving in on a stealth assault. But he had been on too many soft probes that had gone hard, and the VEPR was made of enough polymer to make it light enough to carry as a backup to his suppressed Uzi. Besides, there was also the chance that Bolan wouldn’t be able to get back to the bike. The American-built AK and its ammo would come along.

Taking to the high brush, Bolan scurried to where he could get a good view of the factory and withdrew a pair of minibinoculars. Sweeping the compound, he could tell that there was some serious activity on hand.

Mobilization, perhaps, in the wake of discovery?

Bolan went over the layout of the place, running it against the digital photographs that Rust had taken and transmitted to the Executioner. It was Rust’s discovery of strange cargo that drew the Executioner in the first place. This was the first time Bolan was viewing the compound personally, and the fencing alone—two kinds of barbed wire and “flycatcher” barbs—told him all he needed to know. The perimeter was only the first part. Bolan could see a second, shorter fence, and this was on the other side of a dog run. Even now, a pair of Dobermans were racing along the channel between the two fences.

Bolan respected any guard animal.

Usually they were trained to a frenzy point through abuse and just enough malnutrition to cause blood lust, but not to impair the killing power of the predators.

It wasn’t the first time Bolan would face jackals who cowered behind wolves.

Darkness descended as the soldier advanced across the scrub-and-stone-covered terrain around the perimeter fence. By the time he reached the compound, the countryside was a murky dusk. The compound’s lights were slow in activating, allowing Bolan a chance to slip into their shadows before they burst into blue-white brilliance. Dropping to a crouch, he brought up the binoculars again and swept the compound. Activity was concentrated at the far end of the facility.

Bolan hoped that the constant motion and sound would draw the attention of the patrol dogs. Sweeping to his left, he realized he had no such luck as they came racing toward him. The Executioner lowered the binoculars and brought his hand to the silenced Beretta, drawing it swiftly. The sleek pistol came up to firing position in a reflexive heartbeat.

As much as the soldier hated hurting animals, the dogs would raise too much alarm. These were trained missiles of flesh, rocketing at him at nearly twenty-five miles an hour, and would slash him to ribbons the moment he tried to breach the fence. They would never allow him a moment’s peace. As it was, Bolan planted his first shot in the lower jaw of the first dog. The Doberman folded over, tumbling like a soccer ball and slamming into the fence.

The fence shattered where the dog slammed into it, and the Executioner and the remaining dog were both taken off guard, turning to see tinkling chain link come apart like delicate crystal. Both soldier and guard dog returned their gazes to each other then broke for the gap in the fence. Someone had started to make a hole to get into the base themselves.

Now, the Executioner and the animal were in a race to see who would get to the hole first. Bolan tapped off single rounds at the dog, but it was moving too quickly. The Doberman leaped and twisted, and finally, it was at the hole, hopping and doing a twist in midair. With a single push of its powerful legs, it would be through the hole and at the Executioner’s throat in mere heartbeats. Bolan dropped to the ground, elbows striking the dirt and he fired three fast rounds. The Doberman bounced through the hole, charging, but an explosion of crimson slowed the dog by a couple steps. Bolan triggered another round, this one striking the center of the sleek, black-furred mass, and the dog crumpled.

Bolan slipped through the fence and into the dog run, pausing to look at a piece of the chain link. It was as he’d suspected—someone had weakened the fence. With a quick scan of the area he saw a spray can under a shrub. He slipped back and picked it up.

Still full. He tried a test squirt at the branch of the plant it was under and watched as the wood and leaf whitened and snapped as a breeze blew past it.

Liquid nitrogen. It made sense—after years in the heat, suddenly supercooled metal would snap apart. Balancing the weight of the spray can in his palm, Bolan realized its owner had to be inside the compound somewhere. He squeezed through the hole in the fence again, taking the liquid nitrogen with him. It was a tight squeeze. The original user had to have had a smaller frame than Bolan.