Throw Down

“Our new man here says he always wears a red-and-white-checkered scarf tied around his neck.”

“Well, that’s something at least,” Bolan said. He had reached the bottom of the stairs and saw the red button glowing in the semidarkness. If he was lucky, the men he was about to face would be so intent on firing their weapons out the back that they wouldn’t notice him immediately. He’d have to scan them as quickly as he could, find the one in the red-and-white scarf and kill the others before taking out the one with the dead man’s switch.

Not to mention getting to the remote within three seconds.

“Okay, Hal,” the Executioner said. “I’m ending this call now.”

“Good luck,” Brognola said. “Not that you’ve ever depended on luck.”

Bolan didn’t bother answering. He switched off the sat phone, stuck it back in his blacksuit, then reached up and pressed the red, glowing button with his index and middle fingers.

* * *

SURVIVAL OFTEN HINGED on decisions made at lightning speed and at the last possible second. Some men credited training for honing such decision-making. Others argued that nothing but real live experience—and luck in staying alive until that experience was obtained—was the key to success in life-and-death situations.

But a warrior such as the Executioner knew that neither school of thought was completely right or completely wrong. And while it would be unlike Bolan to ever put such an idea into words, in his mind he knew that he fought out of instinct.

Vincent Van Gogh had been born a painter. Charles Dickens had been born a writer.

And in his very soul, Samuel Mack Bolan knew God had put him on this earth to be a fighter. His inborn talent was in taking up the slack when strong but vicious men of the world attempted to take advantage of their good but weaker brethren.

The wall creaked slightly, then began to move as Bolan made one of those last-minute decisions. This next step in saving Saint Michael’s Chapel and the police officers surrounding it called for stealth. So before the panel had opened even an inch, he had set the M-16 down and drawn the sound-suppressed Beretta 93-R. Forgoing the use of the folding front grip on the machine pistol—Bolan knew his other hand had a far more important task to fulfill—he thumbed the selector switch from safety to semiautomatic.

The escape door had swung out another two inches when Bolan saw the first of the Hezbollah at the rear of the chapel, and snaked the Beretta through the opening to aim it at him. The man was wearing the same OD green BDUs as the terrorists he’d seen on the roof and at the front of the chapel. On his head was a dirty white turban that jerked slightly with each shot the man fired from his AK-47. There was no red-and-white scarf around his neck.

The panel had opened roughly four inches when Bolan depressed the Beretta’s trigger and sent a subsonic 9 mm hollowpoint bullet from the barrel. The ignition made a soft, hissing sound, with the clank of the slide moving back and forth across the frame actually louder than the explosion itself. A thousandth of a second later, in addition to the BDUs and turban, the Hezbollah man wore something new.

A 9 mm hole in the back of his head.

The hidden staircase’s panel continued to swing wider and Bolan thrust his arm through the opening. The man next to the one he had just killed wore a scarf around his neck, but instead of red-and-white it was solid black.

Had there been a mix-up in communication? Had the alleged Hezbollah-terrorist-turned-Christian gotten the color wrong? Bolan knew it was often little mistakes like this that determined the success or failure of a mission. But when he turned his focus to the man’s hands, he saw they were wrapped around the pistol grip and fore end of another AK-47. And that sight caused him to pull the trigger once again, downing the man in the same fashion he had the first.

By this point, the door to the chapel was half open, and Bolan thrust his head around the still-moving panel. With a 180-degree view of the rear of the chapel, he spotted another terrorist to his far right—who did have on a red-and-white scarf. The man had noticed when his two comrades fell.

Bolan noted that in one hand, the terrorist held an old Soviet Makarov 9 mm pistol. But in the other was a device that looked little different than the remote control box for a television or a DVD player.

The Executioner had identified the bomber.

But there was a problem. There were still two Hezbollah firing out the broken windows at the other end of the room. And as quiet as the Beretta 93-R might be, they, too, had seen their brothers fall. The one nearest Bolan had begun to turn his way.

Bolan knew that as soon as he shot the man in the red-and-white scarf, he would have to dive forward to get to the dead man’s switch. Such a task would leave him in no position to return fire. But if he shot the others first, the man with the Makarov would have more than enough time to sight him in and kill him with the Soviet pistol.

Either way, Bolan would be unable to get to the detonator. He’d likely be dead even before the bomb went off, killing everyone else inside the chapel, as well as many of the cops surrounding the structure.

His decision was made faster than he could measure. Bolan had two gunners about to shoot at him from the far windows, and only one—the man with the Makarov and detonator—at the other. Two men with assault rifles had a better chance of killing him than one with a pistol, so he turned the Beretta to his left. As he fired another quiet round from the 93-R, Bolan heard the Makarov explode, and felt a 9 mm round sear past his ear. With the nerves of steel for which he was famous, he stuck with his plan as that first round from the Beretta sent a hollowpoint slug through the temple of the man he’d aimed at.

The Makarov exploded again, and this time Bolan felt heat on his forehead as the bullet passed within millimeters of his face. Every survival instinct he had screamed for him to alter his plan of attack and spin toward the man with the detonator. But years of hard-core battle experience trumped those instincts, and the old adage Never change horses in midstream crossed his mind.

Bolan took careful aim and sent a 9 mm twisting through the brain stem of the man next to the one who had just fallen. Behind the terrorist, splatters of blood and gray brain matter flew out of the fist-size exit wound to splatter against the wall and out through the chapel’s broken windows.

Another Makarov round caught the shoulder of Bolan’s blacksuit, ripping it open. The skin beneath felt as if someone had held a lit kitchen match to it, but Bolan could tell no real damage had been done.

Finally swinging toward the terrorist in the red-and-white-checkered scarf, he found that the man had turned to face him. The Executioner could see his frustration. He had missed three shots at reasonably close range, and was trying to line up his sights to keep from missing again.

The Hezbollah’s arm stopped in place just as Bolan swung the Beretta toward the red-and-white scarf. But the Executioner’s finely focused brain told him it was of no use. He was a microsecond behind the terrorist, who was carefully using the sights and this time would not miss.

A split second later, the man squeezed the trigger.

And Bolan heard a metallic clink as the hammer fell on an empty pistol.

The Executioner wasted no time. The Hezbollah bomber had run his weapon dry shooting from the windows, and had used his final three 9 mms trying to get Bolan. That was his bad luck. And Bolan was determined to make sure that bad luck stayed on the terrorist’s side.

Flipping the selector switch to 3-round burst, he sent a trio of rounds at the man’s chin and eyes. The Hezbollah terrorist flopped back against a shattered church window like a spineless rag doll as blood, gray matter and bits and pieces of skull flew out the back of his head.

All the terrorists at the rear of the chapel were dead.

But the danger was far from over.

Bolan watched as the detonator was jarred from the bomber’s lifeless fingers. It hit the floor, skidding several feet across the slick tile before hitting the wall and bouncing back a few inches.

Bolan kept the Beretta in his right hand as he dived across the room like a wide receiver going after a pass with too much lead from the quarterback. As he flew through the air, he counted off the seconds in his mind.

One thousand one...

The Executioner hit the floor and snatched the detonator off the tile in one swift motion, turning it face-up in order to read it.

One thousand two...

As he lifted the instrument to his eyes, he saw a series of numbers, with only one illuminated. Bolan had no idea if the light meant that button would halt the detonator or not. But he had to make another lightning-fast decision, and take a chance.

He pressed the button with his thumb and continued to count.

One thousand three...one thousand four...

He counted all the way to ten before allowing himself to feel certain the bomb would not go off. For most men, it would have been the longest ten seconds of their lives. Bolan had faced similar danger more times than he could recall, so it wasn’t the longest ten seconds, but it had to be close.

Finally looking up from the detonator, he saw the bomb itself for the first time. The Hezbollah had made no attempt to hide it; it had been placed against the back of the staircase, where Bolan had been unable to see it, coming out of the secret passageway. From where he presently sat, with his back against the wall, he could tell it was a relatively simple device constructed of Semtex, as he’d guessed it would be. He shook his head slightly, realizing he had passed within inches of it when he’d emerged from the hidden door.

Bolan stared at the bomb. He suspected he could disarm it himself if he had time. But he didn’t have time. He could still hear rifle fire from the front of the chapel, which reminded him that the battle was not yet over. There were still five men out there, doing their best to kill the SWAT officers and other cops on the street. Since he had control of the detonator, it made more sense to eliminate all the Hezbollah terrorists and leave the bomb neutralization to the Detroit PD bomb squad.

He paused a moment, listening and thinking. Luckily, there was no indication that the terrorists out front had taken notice of what happened behind them.

Bolan’s eyes rose slightly and he saw yet another crucifix on the wall, just above the body of the last man he had shot before going after the terrorist with the red-and-white scarf and the detonator. Was it truly luck that had kept the other men from noticing as he took out the bomber and the rest of the gunners at the back? Or was there indeed something more powerful working for him, here in Saint Michael’s Chapel?

Bolan didn’t know the answer to that. But he did know—deep in his soul—that if a force greater than he was guiding him, that force expected him to utilize the talents he’d been given to neutralize this situation.

The Executioner picked the Beretta up off the floor, dropped the partially spent magazine and replaced it with a full box mag from one of the carriers on the shoulder holster beneath his right arm. He had more work cut out for him. And it would have to be done one-handed if he wanted to keep the detonator depressed. He reached up and felt the torn cloth of the blacksuit on his shoulder. The skin beneath it still burned, but no real damage had been done. He thought of the three rounds the man in the red-and-white scarf had fired at him. He had missed all three times—at relatively close range. Most rookie cops could have put those rounds into the X ring of a silhouette target their first time at the shooting range.