Agent Of Peril

Price turned. “Hunt, I need a way to dispose of three M1 tanks without bringing the entirety of the Pakistani military down on whoever’s blowing it. They might think it’s India.”

“A Force Recon off the USS Stennis is stationed in Tora Bora. They can chopper in hot and fast, set daisy cutters on each vehicle and be out before anyone knows what’s going on,” Hunt Wethers stated. He managed a grin. “I’ve got Captain Hofflower on speed dial.”

“Send them on in,” the Executioner said.

Price heard a wet sniff on the other end of the phone. “What’s wrong? You sound…sick.”

“Got too close to an improvised Claymore mine I made. Or rather, didn’t get far enough away from it,” Bolan answered. “The shock wave broke blood vessels in my nose and I’m bleeding all over.”

“Why can’t you get nasal drip like most people?” Price asked.

“Just get the team here quick. I’ve got a live prisoner, and he’s Hezbollah.”

“Striker, you’re going to hand over a member of Hezbollah to a Marine?” Price asked.

“This animal’s buddies killed a few hundred people. Including children. I don’t care what the Marines decide to do with him.”

With that, the phone went dead.

PUSHING HIS TONGUE between his upper and lower molars, General Nahd Idel forced his lower jaw to relax, but the clenching muscles were relentless. His personal physician had tried all manner of muscle relaxants and therapy, but that didn’t help. A mixture of stress and old rooted pain from a botched wisdom tooth removal had given him a case of lock-jaw that he couldn’t kick.

Idel jammed several sticks of gum into one cheek and looked at the aide who was finishing his report about the “terrorist raid” on Nitzana.

“They’re saying that at least a quarter of the dead were Egyptian or Palestinian,” Major Pedal Tofo concluded. “Hezbollah won’t be so darling with some of their friends because of this.”

“No concern,” Idel replied. “Why did they only attack with three tanks? Didn’t we give them a dozen?”

Tofo shook his head. “We have people who are in Lebanon. They were watching Sinbal and his men leave Beirut on a cargo freighter with six oversize boxcars. He only left three in Alexandria, and stayed with the freighter. Records list the ship en route to Gwadar, Pakistan.”

Idel bit his tongue, muscles swelling and straining. Outwardly, his face remained impassive, but inside, he was strung as tight as a bear trap. He sat up and squared off a stack of paperwork on his desk, making sure the corners were sharp on the pile. Come to think of it, the jaw clenching could have just been another symptom of the obsessive-compulsive disorder that drove him to be the perfect officer, and kicked him through the ranks of the Egyptian military.

“Sinbal took three of our fucking tanks out of the country?” Idel asked.

“We gave him the tanks. Any money he’d get selling them would be pure profit,” Tofo answered.

Idel stood and walked to the window. Sunlight burned outside, flaring off the almost white sands surrounding his base’s compound. He took a deep breath, then spit out his gum, lighting a cigar to chew on. Grinding his teeth into the fat tobacco roll made him feel better, the sponginess cushioning his aching jaw muscles.

“Do we have anyone who can do a wet operation on Sinbal when he returns to Lebanon?” Idel asked.

“Affirmative,” Tofo stated.

“Make sure Sinbal doesn’t spend an evening more in Beirut without a bullet in a major part of his anatomy.”

“A pleasure.”

“That said, how did the three tanks do?” Idel asked.

“Reports have 375 dead so far, 250 missing, and thirteen hundred injured,” Tofo reported. “The border between Egypt and Israel has been locked down, and the Gaza Strip and West Bank are under heavy military patrols at this time. Combat aircraft are on constant patrol, too.”

“Their armored divisions?”

“They’ve brought up two divisions, in the north and the south to cut off access to their coastal settlements.”

“Only two?”

“Others are in motion, and a third is passing by Nitzana and has set up temporary camp across the Nitzala River.”

Idel smirked. “They’re wondering if Cairo had anything to do with an attack on their stolen territories.”

“Or they’re simply not taking chances. Israel might be outgunned by her enemies, but she makes up for it by not fucking around.”

“Good. Good.”

“Have we been given any green light by Cairo, sir?” Tofo asked.

Idel looked over his shoulder, pulling the cigar from between his lips and stretching out his jaw. He let his ears pop before continuing. “Would it make you feel better if we had our benighted leaders’ support?”

“I’m already dedicated to the cause of getting back Egypt’s lands from the Israeli thieves. I merely worry that…”

“We will be seen as traitors and thieves if we are caught. I understand, Pedal,” Idel said, clapping his aide on the shoulder. “We won’t be tied to the events that turn the cold peace between Egypt and Israel into a hot war. But we will be there at the forefront when it is time to be heroes and take back what is rightfully ours.”

Tofo nodded. “I do not doubt you, or this plan.”

Idel smiled and took a drag on his cigar.

But if Tofo truly didn’t doubt the success of the plan, he was the only one in that room.

THE STRAPPED FOR COMBAT SH-60 Seahawks tore over the landscape, penetrating deep into Pakistani airspace. Captain Carlton Hofflower perched in the doorway of the lead chopper, eyes sweeping the horizon for an angry response coming over the horizon. Nothing, however, was turning its attention toward the quintet of helicopters this day.

The message from HQ was quick, simple and terse.

“Retrieve Colonel Stone. Bring lots of explosives. Coordinates to follow.”

“Captain. We have smoke,” Lieutenant Charles Ellis, the pilot, reported.

Hofflower’s hazel eyes focused like lasers on the spiraling rub of charcoal smearing upward into the blue over the rolling hills. He didn’t need a map to equate the billowing smoke to the location of Colonel Stone. “That’s our guy, GPS be damned.”

Ellis glanced back at Hofflower, and then returned his attention to guiding the Seahawk.

In moments, the sharklike chopper was splitting the sky over the smoldering battlefield, and Hofflower could see a conflagration. Two major blast craters, and a half dozen minor smoking pits plumed smoke skyward, while one man stood with an old-fashioned bolt-action rifle over an injured man.

“That’s Stone?” Ellis asked.

Hofflower nodded.

“Who’s the wounded?”

“I don’t know, but he doesn’t look like a friendly. Tell the other choppers to land in a diamond around this airfield,” Hofflower said.