Plains Of Fire

“Fuck you,” the Thunder Lion responded. “He’d just shoot me while playing possum.”

The Russian chuckled. “But then we’d know where he was.”

Bolan held back a sigh that would have lamented his opponents’ lack of radio discipline. Rather, he hauled the corpse of the Russian in the shotgun seat to the ground, then triggered a burst of AK fire from the dead man’s rifle.

That brought a salvo of concentrated autofire down on the front seat of the jeep. The corpse of the driver jerked violently under the combined storm of lead that hammered him. Bolan shouted, approximating the Russian’s voice, to stop shooting. He grabbed the dead mobster by the back of the neck and pushed his head above the jeep, using his other hand to wave the corpse’s arm.

“It’s me!” Bolan shouted.

“Fuck. Boris! I could have killed you!” one of the Russians called. “What happened?”

“I was hit pretty hard when we crashed. Where is everybody?”

The quartet of gunmen broke from cover, moving low and quickly toward the jeep. Their intent was to hook up with their surviving ally, as he was behind some of the best cover on the street.

Instead, Bolan tossed the dead man aside and fired his AK across the front seat. The Russian at the front of the pack screamed as his belly burst open under the onslaught of rifle bullets. Intestines boiled from his savaged abdomen, thick loops of entrails sagging down to his knees. Somehow, the gangster had the strength to continue standing as the rifle rounds zipped through his ruined guts and out his back, tearing into the trio behind him.

One of the Thunder Lions whipped around in a circle as the high-velocity devastators pulverized his pelvis. As his finger was on the trigger as he was hit, his FAMAS rifle spoke, snarling a violent death song in response to his crippling. Rather than hit Bolan, his muzzle had swung around and jammed into the groin of his fellow African. The front sight snagged on the pants of his partner, holding the barrel there as thirteen rounds burned away the rifleman’s crotch and upper thighs. In blind anger and rage, the wounded victim stuffed his own rifle under the crippled Thunder Lion’s chin and pulled the trigger, bullets pulling trails of brain out of his murderer’s skull in a volcano of gooey tissue. Both African militiamen flopped to the street, one with his brains blown out, the other rapidly bleeding to death as his femoral arteries jetted streams of thick crimson onto the concrete.

The last of the Russian smugglers whirled and ran as Bolan’s borrowed AK cycled dry. The Executioner let the empty rifle fall to the ground as he vaulted past the dead driver and the dying remnants of the flanking force. The mobster’s fighting discipline had disappeared at the sight of his allies chopped to ribbons by one man. The way he ran, clutching one uselessly dangling arm, had also indicated that the Russian had taken a bullet.

Bolan knew that the gangster’s first instinct would be to get back to his closest allies.

Settling into a ground-eating pace and sticking to the shadows, the Executioner tailed his quarry, knowing that he’d have a chance to finish off the last of the mobsters who’d thrown in their lot with the Thunder Lions.

It was a simple message, Bolan mused.

Seek profit from helping in the Sudanese slaughter, and your only wages will be the wrath of the Executioner’s cleansing flame.

CAPTAIN AFLAQ LISTENED to the rattle of distant gunfire and dying screams, then glanced over to Yuri Grigorei, his brow furrowed in disdain.

“I thought the mafiya had the services of Russia’s finest warriors.” Venom dripped from Aflaq’s every word.

Grigorei sneered at the African militiaman. “What would a scumbag like you know about anything Russian?”

Aflaq’s nose wrinkled, but he shook off the insult. “Now is not the time for us to be at each other’s throats. Someone stumbled onto us, and they have done an excellent job at turning this deal to shit.”

“Your enemies?” Grigorei asked.

Aflaq shook his head. “The goat-fucking primitives and their Ethiopian defenders don’t have enough brain cells combined to even spell Alexandria, let alone send a covert operations team here.”

“Setting off a bomb in an Egyptian harbor isn’t the style of the CIA,” Grigorei noted. “And there isn’t another crime organization with the kind of reach to touch us here.”

The Russian’s eyes narrowed as he saw a shadow in the distance. “That idiot.”

Aflaq followed the Russian’s line of sight and saw a man running down the street toward their position. His arm hung uselessly at his side and his pale features were twisted into a mask of terror and pain.

“He’s leading the enemy to us!” Grigorei snapped. “Everyone! Harden up!”

Aflaq’s hand tightened around the pistol grip of his rifle. “You’ll frighten off our adversaries, yelling like that.”

Grigorei glared at the African. “If we do, then we’ll live another day.”

Aflaq shook his head in disbelief at such a naked display of cowardice on the Russian’s part. Still, there was the evidence of nine men shredded into lifeless sacks of meat in the length of a minute. It was possible that it could have only been three-to-one odds, but none of his men had survived long enough to estimate the size of the force that had killed them.

Could it have been one man, utilizing psychology and stealth to strike at the forces who outnumbered him when they were at their weakest and most underprepared?

If so, then Aflaq counted the men around him. Adding in Grigorei and himself, he had twelve gunmen total. Thirteen if the bewildered, wounded fool jogging frantically toward their position recovered his wits long enough to utilize the handgun he wore on his belt. For someone who’d snuffed out nine men in under sixty seconds, it wouldn’t be much of a challenge.

“Flashlights!” Aflaq ordered. “Get some lights on the shadows! A herd of elephants could walk by in this murk!”

He received a nod of approval from the surviving leader of the Russian smugglers. Cones of light splayed out, slicking apart the darkness, seeking out the lone opponent who’d turned their arms deal into a wash of carnage.

Yuri Grigorei swung his rifle, following the diameter of light thrown off by one of his men. He wanted to be on the spot to take out the bane of this evening.

Aflaq watched in disbelief as three explosions erupted on the side of Grigorei’s head, geysers of gore vomiting out and spraying his face as he looked at the Russian’s dying shudders. More bullets flew, striking only at the Russians, all except for the wounded, terrified man who simply folded into a fetal position when he saw his friends shriek and die under a hail of silent, brutal death.

Aflaq’s own Thunder Lions were untouched.

“Captain Aflaq,” a voice said from Grigorei’s radio.

Aflaq looked down at the corpse, the small electronic device speaking his name.

Bolan’s voice cut over the airwaves. “Pick up his radio. He won’t have any use for it.”

Aflaq picked up the radio. “Hello?”

“Captain. I’m giving you a courtesy call. Tell General Bitturumba that if he was trying to seek my disapproval, he found it,” Bolan said. “The predatory scum among you who call yourselves Muslim militiamen know who I am. I am God’s wrath for your twisting of the path he laid out for you. Surrender and retirement will save your life, once you send my message to Bitturumba.”

“He would surely kill me,” Aflaq answered.

“Then phone him. And hide,” Bolan retorted.

Aflaq looked around. “Are you…?”

A bullet smacked violently into Grigorei’s slack face, the round exploding through flesh and bone.

“Small talk is over. You have my message,” Bolan said.

Aflaq listened to the static on the other end of the line, feeling the darkness of the dock grow deeper and colder as he waited for another act of wrath.

But the Executioner had moved on.

There were other matters to attend to before the sun rose.

CHAPTER FOUR

Alexandria, Egypt