Final Coup

At the same time, he wondered what had gone wrong.

As it always did in times of grave danger, the Executioner’s mind geared into overdrive, working at the speed of light, and outdistancing even the most sophisticated computers. His brain took in the information provided by his senses, processed it all in a thousandth of a second and began kicking out potential answers to the assault.

Bolan saw a small movement in a second-story window of the terminal, and at the same time a flash of light. The sun had just bounced off what had to be the lens of a rifle scope.

The target was beyond the distance for point shooting, so Bolan rose into a classic isosceles stance and lined up the Desert Eagle’s sights. He squeezed the trigger, sending his first .44 Magnum jacketed lead round toward the flash of light, while his mind continued to process the information it was receiving.

Who were the shooters? The sniper rifle scope and the rapid autofire didn’t go together. That told him there was at least one more man shooting at them.

But why had the onslaught begun in the first place? Bolan didn’t know. But one thing was certain: they knew what they were doing.

They had waited until all of the men who’d accompanied him had walked down the steps of the jet before opening fire. That, in turn, told the Executioner two more things.

Word of their coming had preceded their arrival.

And the enemy knew exactly how many men were on board.

Somewhere there was a deadly leak in security. But finding it would have to take a backseat to what was happening at the moment. Before he even thought about the mole, the Executioner and the other men had to survive this surprise attack.

Another rifle barrel poked out of a second-floor window of the terminal, roughly a hundred yards away. With both hands gripping the Desert Eagle, Bolan took careful aim once more and gently squeezed the trigger. As all distant and precisely aimed shots should, his second Magnum round came as a slight surprise. He had aimed at the top of the window, but the bullet drop at that distance sent the lethal, fragmenting hollowpoint round into a blurry headlike shape just above the rifle. Almost exactly like the first sniper had done a second earlier, whoever held this weapon fell backward, out of sight. But not before he had dropped his long gun from the window, and sent a shot of residual blood and brain tissue after it.

One down. But how many to go? The soldier had no way of knowing.

Bolan looked quickly around him. Most of the men who had accompanied him were from the U.S. Secret Service, and their hands had found Glocks, SIG-Sauers or Berettas. Dr. John Lareby—an expert in counterterrorism, guerrilla warfare, survival and executive protection—and the only representative of the CIA within the group—held a modest little Walther PPK .380 in his fist.

More shots rang out, and one of them ripped the shoulder out of Bolan’s jacket. Beneath its path, the soldier felt the heat and a slight sting. It had been ability and training, but also a good deal of luck, that he had spotted either of the two shooters. Although he could hear more gunfire and feel other bullets whizzing past to make loud clinks in the body of the plane, it was impossible to determine the exact points of origin.

Bolan knew they had only two choices: they could sprint toward the terminal and try to get below the line of fire, or they could retreat into, or behind, the plane.

It didn’t take long for him to determine which option made more sense. There was still a football field between them and the terminal, and the chances of him, Lareby and the Secret Service agents all running into the fire without getting killed was slim to say the least.

“Get back!” Bolan yelled, and a moment later he and the rest of the Americans had hit the ground and were rolling beneath the plane. By the time they were on the other side, a few shots continued coming at them, hitting the tarmac next to the Concorde and ricocheting past their feet.

The Executioner moved toward the rear of the aircraft. Peering around one of the tail fins he stared toward the terminal. A pause had come in the shooting, and Bolan suspected the gunmen were planning their next strategy. As Lareby and the Secret Service agents crowded around him, the Executioner waited, thinking, taking in received data and combining it with what was happening, his thoughts racing through his brain at the speed of light.

But then the gunfire, which had disappeared for a few minutes, suddenly returned with a vengeance. Bolan, Lareby and the Secret Service agents who had again crowded around him, ducked back away from the tail of the plane and waited. A few random shots skidded beneath the jet, but the majority of fire just punched more holes in the fuselage.

Bolan’s mind flashed to the man who had piloted them to Cameroon. Jack Grimaldi was an old friend, fellow warrior and arguably the best pilot in the world. He was the only man who had not exited the plane, and he would have taken refuge behind the cockpit, where shields of bullet-resistant Kevlar and steel plating had been installed along the walls. The Executioner grinned slightly as he pictured the man in his mind’s eye. At this moment, Grimaldi would have his beloved Smith & Wesson Model 66 out of its holster and gripped in his right hand. In his left would be a pair of .38/357 speedloaders.

Both would be loaded with RBCD total fragmentation .357 rounds.

Should everything else go south, and Bolan, Lareby and the Secret Service agents were killed, Grimaldi would take out as many of the assailants as he could before the jet was rushed and he, too, was shot. Like the captain of a seagoing vessel, Grimaldi would go down with his “ship.”

Grimaldi’s primary contribution to America and the rest of the free world were his aviation skills. He could fly everything from a kite to a space shuttle. But he was as much a warrior at heart as any of the other men accompanying Bolan.

And he’d die like one if he had to.

As the gunfire continued, the Executioner decided to wait them out. Sometimes doing nothing was doing something, and the best course of action. Sooner or later, the shooters were going to run out of ammo. Or perhaps the local police or the military would arrive to send them scattering back to whatever rocks they’d crawled out from under.

For the time being, however, the best plan of action was no plan of action. And that was the hardest thing a true soldier ever had to do.

The Executioner’s mind raced back once more over what had happened during the past few days. The Cameroonian president, Robert Menye, was on the run, having abandoned his position of leadership the same day the International Criminal Court—ICC—issued arrest warrants for his war crimes. An emergency election had been called for under the Cameroon constitution, and the suddenly growing Cameroon People’s Union had continued to combine with a whole new lot of men awakening to nationalism amid the turbulence. In short the Cameroon People’s Union and the Kamerun National Democratic Party had both named candidates.

Cameroon’s prime minister—the only man left with any power during the chaos—had frantically called upon the U.S. President for help. The man in the White House had sent Secret Service agents to spearhead the protection of both candidates. The CIA, for its part, had sent Lareby, who was being billed as a so-called observer.

And Bolan. Who wasn’t on the grid as anything except a Department of Justice agent named Matt Cooper. Not even the Secret Service agents or CIA field operative John Lareby knew any more about him.

Except that he was in charge. And that his orders were not to be questioned.

The pungent odor of jet fuel began to fill the Executioner’s nostrils, and suddenly the new tack the shooters were taking became clear to him. They had shot hundreds of rounds that had dented but bounced off the reinforced sides of the plane. But somewhere along the way the fuel storage walls— despite being reinforced with Kevlar and steel—had been penetrated.

The Executioner was reminded that the proper adjective for items such as Kevlar and steel plates was “bullet-resistant” not “bulletproof.” One or more of the snipers either had a tremendously powerful rifle, or a multitude of lesser calibers had all hit in the same area, eventually wearing down the protective shielding.

As he stared at the ground beneath the wing, the Executioner heard more rounds explode. A small flame started beneath the plane. At almost the same time, Lareby shouted out, “We’ve got to get out of here! This thing’s going up in about half a minute!”

Bolan ignored the warning. But in his peripheral vision he saw several of the Secret Service agents sprinting away from the plane, farther from the snipers in the terminal. Hurrying toward the cabin, the soldier pulled himself up and in through the opened window.

Grimaldi was not in the pilot’s seat, but Bolan hadn’t expected him to be. As he started to enter the still-open doorway into the plane, a pair of strong arms reached up and grabbed him, surprising the Executioner, and tugged him back to the ground.

The soldier turned toward the man who had just pulled him back and saw it was a young blond-haired Secret Service agent. He couldn’t remember the man’s name.

“Forget the pilot!” the young man screamed. “He’s toast!”

Before he even realized what he was doing, Bolan slammed a right cross into the Secret Service man’s chin, which sent him into dreamland on the tarmac. Then he looked at the nearer of the other Secret Service agents. “I may have to carry the pilot out of here,” he shouted above the continuing roar of rifle-fire. “Which means that if I have to knock you out, too, there won’t be anyone left to carry the two of you. Do you get my drift?”

“We get it,” one of the agents said, then stooped to begin trying to lift the unconscious man into his arms.

“Good,” Bolan said. He holstered the Desert Eagle, turned back toward the plane and climbed aboard once more.

Grimaldi was exactly where Bolan knew he’d be. His back rested against the side of the fuselage. Blood was splattered all over the cabin, and dark red stains dripped down behind the pilot. “Whoever said this was bullet-resistant,” the pilot said in dry humor, “might have been stretching the truth a little.”

Bolan hurried toward him. “How bad are you hit, Jack?” he asked.

“Not all that bad, I don’t think. One round in the chest. High above the heart. The other one’s in my leg. Dangerously close to the femoral artery. But like they say, a miss is as good as a mile.” He coughed. “It tore through my pants, barely missing a part of my anatomy that I’d just as soon die as lose.”

“Then let’s get you out of here so you can use it again,” Bolan responded.

Grimaldi shook his head. “Uh-uh, Sarge. I can smell the gas and I know there’s fire. This thing’s going to blow any second. You’ll never make it carrying me. Take off. On your own. There’s no point in both of us dying.”

“Neither one of us is going to die,” Bolan said as he reached down, grabbed Grimaldi’s hand, pulled him up and threw him over his shoulder in a classic fireman’s carry.

“Well, if we both get vaporized in the next two seconds, don’t blame me,” the pilot said.

But Bolan wasn’t listening. He made his way to the doorway, opened it and looked down, surprised to see the Secret Service agents waiting. The man with the blond brush cut was awake again. He had a swollen chin, which had turned red and promised to be black and blue by tomorrow. But he didn’t seem angry.

The soldier dropped down to the tarmac and yelled over the continuing gunfire, “Go! Get out of here. Do it!”

The men turned and took off away from the plane. The Executioner—with Grimaldi still over his shoulder—followed. He was well aware of the fact that the farther they got behind the plane, the better targets they provided for the snipers. But taking the chance of being hit by a bullet at that range was far smarter than awaiting certain death when the fire finally reached the aircraft’s fuel tanks.