Death Gamble

The soldier had dropped the MP-5 during his tumble. As the explosion’s reverberations died and his senses returned, Bolan fisted the Desert Eagle and came to his feet. Staring down the pistol’s snout, he saw two doors to the right and one to the left. The end of the hallway opened into what appeared to be a large kitchen.

Glass shards from broken beer bottles, spent shell casings and smears of mud and dried blood littered the floor. A gas-powered generator rumbled somewhere in the distance, and the air reeked of stale beer and vomit.

Bolan processed the sounds like a human computer, his mind catching and identifying bits of information, looking for the one that might mean the difference between life and death.

Then it hit.

A grunt of exertion. The whisper of steel slicing through air.

Bolan folded at the knees, plummeting as though a trapdoor had opened beneath him. Metal sparked against concrete as an ax cut through the airspace above Bolan and then collided with a wall.

The Executioner spun and brought up the Desert Eagle. The big-bore pistol unleashed twin peals of thunder and a pair of .44 manglers tunneled at an upward angle into Bolan’s opponent, boring through his torso before exploding from his back in a bloody spray. The ax slid from the man’s grasp as he crumpled in a heap at Bolan’s feet.

Footsteps sounded behind him. Grabbing the ax as he hauled himself to his feet, the warrior turned and spotted a pair of gunners bearing down on him. Cocking his left arm, he thrust the ax forward in an overhead toss. Spiraling end over end as it flew through air, the weapon buried itself into the chest of one of the gunners. A blast from the Desert Eagle finished off the second attacker.

Retrieving the MP-5, Bolan slung the subgun and kept the Desert Eagle locked in his grip. He cleared the room to his left, found it filled with ragged furniture, plates of half-eaten rice and chicken, pornographic magazines and a few stray rounds of ammunition.

No Trevor Dade.

No Talisman.

He continued toward the kitchen, again encountering no resistance. Clearing another room, he began to wonder whether he’d been duped. As he returned to the hallway, a big shadow crossed his path and drove the butt of an AK-47 against his temple. Bolan jerked his head to the side, rolled with the impact and let the force push him back into the room he’d just exited. A vague impression of Talisman’s enraged face registered in Bolan’s mind as he found himself out of harm’s way.

A direct hit from the rifle butt would have been deadly, but even the glancing blow had caused his head and neck to hurt like hell. He felt as though his brain had been disconnected from his body, and he’d lost all sense of time and place. Gathering his senses, Bolan checked to make sure his assailant had retreated and took a moment to collect himself.

Multiple footsteps sounded in the hallway. With the Desert Eagle leading the way, Bolan moved into the main corridor, starting for the front door. A gunner stepped into the doorway as Bolan beat a path to it. The Desert Eagle exploded, hurling a pair of .44 slugs into the man. The soldier ejected the mostly spent clip and cracked a fresh one home as he ran.

Bolan crossed the killing field outside the house. Weaving his way through the mangled human remains littering the yard, he heard an engine roar to life and found himself bathed in the white glare of headlights. Engine growling, tires chewing through dirt and rocks, the vehicle bore straight down on Bolan.

The Desert Eagle cracked twice as the Executioner snapped off rounds at the charging vehicle’s front end. As he’d suspected during his initial recon, the vehicle—a Mercedes sedan—was armored and the shots ricocheted off the hood.

With lightning-fast reflexes, the soldier threw himself from the vehicle’s path, rolling and coming back up in a crouch. Staccato bursts of machine-gun fire flared from the passing vehicle’s gun ports as it raced past. Bolan watched ruby taillights shrink and eventually fade completely in the darkness.

Looking around, Bolan weighed his options. If Talisman had fled, he likely would have taken Dade with him. Dade was the only bargaining chip that the Sierra Leone tough guy had—if he had Dade at all. Bolan sensed there had been more than one person in the corridor when he’d been struck. But whether the scientist was among them remained to be seen.

Bolan took a quick inventory of the vehicles around him. He tried the doors on two of them and found them locked. On the third try, he hit a red Jeep Cherokee with the driver’s door unlocked and a key hanging in the ignition. Climbing in, he turned over the engine, slammed the vehicle into reverse and maneuvered it out from between its neighbors. Cutting the wheel left, he gunned the engine and the Jeep lurched forward.

Flipping on the headlights as he went, Bolan saw a silhouette stumble into view. The slender shadow stopped in the middle of the dirt path leading from the compound and shouted, “Stop.”

Walled in by trees and buildings, Bolan had two choices: comply or mow them down.

He had a moment to decide.

If it was one of Talisman’s men and he struck them, so be it. Such were the fortunes of war.

But if it was an innocent person…

The decision clear, the Executioner did the only thing he could.

Paris, France

ONE DAY EARLIER Mack Bolan had sat in the den of a Justice Department safehouse in Paris. Hal Brognola had paced the floor and ground an unlit cigar between his teeth with the vigor of a German shepherd gnawing on a rawhide bone.

Worry creased the older man’s features and weighed on his shoulders, causing them to slope, as he stayed silent, apparently gathering his thoughts. He rolled up the sleeves of his white dress shirt and ran his fingers through his hair.

Bolan sipped tepid coffee that was sweet and fragrant. He grimaced. “Chocolate raspberry coffee? You going soft on me?”

Brognola jerked his head toward Bolan and gave him a confused look that slowly morphed into a smile.

“Hey, I don’t do the shopping,” Brognola said. “I just pay the bills.”

Bolan smiled. “Are you going sit and tell me why you called me here? Or just let me die a slow death from drinking this swill?”

Brognola crossed the room and seated himself at the table with Bolan. The Executioner was just winding up a two-day mission, cutting the heart from an extremist group that had planned to dispatch suicide bombers in major cities throughout the European Union for a synchronized terror campaign. The mission had been short and bloody, but Bolan had walked away unhurt.

Brognola, who’d been traveling in Europe on unrelated business, had asked his old friend to hang tight at the safehouse for an impromptu meeting to discuss an urgent problem. That had left Bolan with enough time for a shower, a meal and a few hours’ sleep. Brognola had declined to discuss the urgent matter via secure satellite telephone, insisting instead on a face-to-face meeting. The big Fed wasn’t given to panic, but his tension had touched Bolan like a tangible force. The Executioner had agreed to the meet, no questions asked.

Brognola pulled the unlit cigar from his mouth and rolled it between his thumb and forefinger. “Striker, what do you know about airborne laser fighters?”

Bolan shrugged. “We’ve got a handful of 747s fitted with lasers capable of shooting down enemy missiles. They fire at the fuel tank, weaken the metal until the pressure causes an outward explosion and downs the missile. It’s hardly a Death Star, but it seems like a step in the right direction.”

Brognola nodded. “The ABL program is a good one. Hell, I thought it was state-of-the-art. Turns out I was wrong.”

A dark look crossed Bolan’s hawkish features. “Explain,” he said.

“The ABL is already old technology,” Brognola replied. “We’re telling the world it’s the best we’ve got. But we’ve moved well beyond that and we have Trevor Dade to thank for it.”

“Trevor who?” Bolan asked.

“Trevor Dade. He’s a scientist. He’s missing.”

“Disappeared? You know I don’t do missing persons cases, Hal. Hire a detective.”

“Not disappeared, kidnapped and possibly murdered. And his loss could do irreparable damage to our national security.”

Bolan took another sip of the coffee. Brognola had his full attention. “Sorry. I’m listening.”

“You ever heard of the Nightwind program?”

Bolan shook his head.

“I hadn’t either until about twelve hours ago, shortly after Dade went missing.”

Bolan was growing impatient. “You’re being too mysterious, Hal. Get to the point.”

“Sorry, Striker. I’m still trying to digest this myself. The Nightwind is about the size and shape of a B-2 bomber, but it’s fitted with a solid-state laser system and some of the most advanced optics ever developed. No big vats of chemicals, no refraction from clouds and atmospheric disturbances. The lasers are more portable and more concentrated than anyone in the world—including our own allies—thinks that we have.”

“And Trevor Dade developed the technology,” Bolan concluded.