Rogue Elements

“See ya!”

* * *

Viking Associates kept a couple of rooms in a crumbling Portuguese Colonial for employees in transition or on R & R in Salalah. Bolan did a perimeter check around the grounds and called Sifuentes. “Sitrep.”

“Clear in here.”

Bolan went around back and made a fairly risky rusty-drainpipe ascent to the third floor with his purchases from the suq. He spoke quietly at the open window. “Coming in.”

“Clear.”

Bolan rolled into the room.

Sifuentes was visibly relieved. “Oh, man. Tell me you got guns.”

“No, I couldn’t get any guns.”

“Oh, shit...”

“We’ll get guns.”

“Yeah? From where?”

Bolan reached into the doubled plastic bag he had brought from the suq. He drew a nine-inch, crescent-shaped blade of a khanjar dagger. He flipped the blade into his hand and held it out to Sifuentes. “From them.”

“Dude.” Sifuentes took the wickedly curved dagger. “You are so hard-core.”

“Did you call Viking?”

“Yeah, they’re sending a boat from the arsenal ship.”

“ETA?”

“Dawn. Or maybe noon. And they can’t bring any guns. And they gotta go through customs.” Sifuentes was an Army Ranger veteran of Afghanistan. He’d eaten a shit sandwich or two in his life. He got that “Rangers lead the way” look in his eyes. “They’ll let us know and pick us up at the pier.”

Bolan made his determination. “These guys are either going to hit us, or they’re not.”

Sifuentes nodded. “Sounds legit.”

“I think these guys are locals. I don’t think we got made for ship security, and the local chapter of the Arabian Sea Benevolent Pirate Association has a bounty on guys like us.”

“And?”

“They want to play pirate? Then quick’s the word and sharp’s the action. Repel all boarders.”

Sifuentes held up his blade. “With Port Salalah souvenir daggers?”

“It starts with that.” Bolan took out three more daggers and handed one more to Sifuentes. “Then it escalates.”

Sifuentes held a dagger in each hand. He laughed aloud. “Fuckin’ ay, Bubba! We got catapults and boiling oil?”

Bolan reached into his bag and took out four plastic squeeze bottles of French dish soap. “No, but this contains lanolin. Go pour one on both back windowsills and pour a bunch down the outside of the drainpipe I climbed up.”

Sifuentes smiled like it was Christmas and ran to lubricate all methods of third-floor rear access. Bolan did not share the young ex-Ranger’s enthusiasm. This was going to happen very fast or go south even faster. He took several moments to spritz out the second two bottles in ever-widening concentric circles on the tiles in front of the door. Sifuentes returned and was inordinately pleased by what he saw. “We can take these assholes! We can take ’em!”

Bolan tossed away the empty soap bottle. “With science.”

“Dude—” Sifuentes gazed at Bolan in awe. “You’re, like, Bill Nye the Assassin Guy.” He sniffed at the French aromatherapy filling the foyer. “Unless their Spidey senses detect lavender.”

“There is that. So I want you lurking in the door of the kitchenette. When they kick in the door, there’s going to be a puppy pile right here in front of me. It’s going to get all stabby. The first gun I reap I am kicking or throwing to you, and then it is all on you. If I still have a pulse, I’ll grab the next gun and we take them all down.” Bolan didn’t usually repeat himself, but he locked gazes with the young Ranger and held it. “This is going to happen real fast.”

“I hear you, brother.” Sifuentes held a nine-inch Omani hand-scythe in each fist. “If the guns don’t come, then it’s you and me against them, bro. It gets all stabby. Real fast.”

Bolan nodded his approval. “Let’s do it.”

“Lights on or off?”

“On, and put on some music. Something inviting.”

Sifuentes’s thumb rapidly roamed the screen of his smartphone. “Here, dig this. It’s dope.” Angry, Mexican heavy metal thundered and snarled out of the phone’s surprisingly powerful speaker. Sifuentes made the horns with his other hand. “Zombie Bullfighters of Death.”

“Well, if a couple of brother Vikings have to have theme music for a pirate ambush on the Arabian Peninsula...”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Sifuentes enthused.

“Take your position.”

The former Ranger took his position in the kitchen doorway. Somewhere along the line Sifuentes had forgotten that he was the senior Viking associate in charge, but Bolan had that effect on people. The Executioner pushed an ottoman to the left of the door and proceeded to wait. Less than five minutes later he saw shadows beneath the door. Bolan pointed a dagger toward the floor. Sifuentes nodded that he had seen.

Bolan estimated at least three targets in the hallway. Sifuentes’s head snapped back toward the kitchen. He rapidly pantomimed hand-over-hand.

Someone was climbing the drainpipe.

That someone screamed as his hands suddenly closed around the soaped pipe and he fell two stories to the cobblestones below. A fist punched through the door in front of Bolan. It was gloved and holding a hand grenade.

The Executioner lashed out. The crescent moon of Arabian steel just about took off the assassin’s hand at the wrist. The grenadier screamed, and the bomb fell in a spray of blood as its cotter lever pinged away. Bolan snagged the falling grenade and went for the double play as he flung it at Sifuentes. “Hot potato!”

The younger man didn’t blink. He snagged the live grenade and hurled it out the kitchen window. The lethal orb detonated two stories down, and the fallen drainpipe climber screamed as he ate steel rain. The door smashed open beneath a boot.

“Allahu akhbar!”

A man charged in redecorating the flat with a stubby machine pistol. Bolan reversed his blade in his hand and lunged as lead flew and brass sprayed.

The man caught Bolan too late out of the corner of his eye. “Allahu akh—”

Bolan felt flesh part as he drew his sickle of steel from the killer’s left collarbone to his right ear. The assassin went boneless in double arterial spray. Bolan got two fingers on the falling machine pistol, but it fell away from his grasp and hit the floor. He got the toe of his boot into it and sent the Mini-Uzi spinning across the tiles toward Sifuentes. “Now or not at all!”

He dived for the weapon.