Renegade

When he reached the other side of the house, the Executioner looked down to see that a trash receptacle had been turned over. And while grass covered much of the area below, it was still sparse enough to show footprints. Bolan followed them with his eyes, seeing that they doubled back in the direction from which they’d come. He looked behind him and saw the Iranian cops advancing. But slowly.

They didn’t want to find him any more than he wanted to be found.

A flock of pigeons took flight as the Executioner leaped to the next roof, still keeping his eyes on the tracks below. When the footprints finally led to a narrow sidewalk between the houses, he dropped to the ground and followed the muddy clods that had fallen from the Russian’s shoes. But each of Sobor’s steps helped clean the shoes, and when the sidewalk broadened and intersected with another walk, the trail disappeared altogether.

On a hunch, the Executioner followed the sidewalk, ignoring the turns as he made his way back toward the Hezbollah house. He stopped, his back against the wall of one of the dwellings, as the police crossed his path above. He could hear the blue-clad men whispering to one another as they walked slowly across the rooftops, doing their best to appear to be searching for him while at the same time making sure they didn’t find the man with the big .44 Magnum pistol.

Moving on, the Executioner finally saw the same street he had walked down in front of the terrorist’s house. Sliding the Desert Eagle back into his hip holster, he covered it with the tail of his overcoat, then exited through an open doorway in the brownstone wall. On the sidewalk two houses to his right, he saw the flashing lights of the police vehicles that had parked just outside the wall. At least a dozen officers stood behind the cars, their guns drawn and aimed at the entrance to the house behind the wall. One of the cops—a slender man with a receding hairline—turned to stare at him.

Bolan turned casually and began to walk the other way. It had been several minutes since the cops had first arrived, and assuming they were efficient they would have already searched the immediate area. At this point, even looking as he did, he hoped he wouldn’t attract much more than the second glance the balding officer had thrown his way.

The Executioner stared ahead of him as he walked, and a block farther down the street he caught a flash of red. Squinting into the distance, he saw that the color was that of a shirt, and that the shirt was bobbing slightly up and down as it moved away from him.

Sobor. And the Russian was still limping.

The Executioner was about to break into a run when a rough hand grabbed his shoulder from behind. Turning, he felt the cold steel of a pistol barrel jam into his face. He looked down to see the Iranian cop with the receding hairline staring up at him. The hand holding the gun was shaking as the officer began screaming at him in Farsi.

“I am sorry,” Bolan said in Russian, raising his hands over his head. “I do not speak the language.”

By now three more blue-uniformed Iranians had left their posts behind the flashing red lights and joined the balding officer. All began shouting, as if they believed a deafening volume would suddenly teach Bolan their language.

The Executioner glanced over his shoulder and saw his prey limping toward a taxicab parked on the curb. If he lost the man now, he knew he might never find the Russian again. He could escape into the underground of any of a dozen terrorist-hosting countries and be lost forever.

As he was so often forced to do, Bolan made his decision in a microsecond. Bringing both hands suddenly down from over his head, he turned his body away from the muzzle of the cop’s pistol and grabbed the wrist holding the gun with his left hand. His right came across his body and clasped onto the barrel of the pistol. Pushing one way with his left hand, the other with his right, he snapped the weapon away from the officer, turned and sprinted away.

Though he hadn’t thought it possible for the Iranians to shout louder, he now heard them do so.

Bolan dropped the gun as he ran, hoping the cops behind him would see it and resist firing. On the other hand, Iran was hardly a country where police were famous for respecting human rights, and he knew there was at least an even chance that he would be shot in the back. But as he ran on, no one fired.

Ahead, the Executioner saw Sobor get into the back seat of the cab and close the door. As the vehicle pulled away, Bolan had time to squint at the number stenciled in black just above the rear bumper: 2348796.

The Executioner stopped and turned around.

A second later he was tackled by a half-dozen Iranian police officers.

CHAPTER THREE

It was a miracle he hadn’t been shot already.

As the Iranian police officers dragged him to the ground, Bolan let himself go limp. But as he fell, he counted the men around him. Six.

Landing on his back, he felt hands roll him to his stomach as the men continued to yell at him. Turning his head, Bolan could see the parked police cars in front of the Hezbollah house. The cops around the vehicles still had their attention focused on the entrance in the brownstone wall. They were paying no attention to what was happening to him a half block away. Evidently, if they had even noticed his capture, they felt that six officers should be more than enough to handle one man.

Bolan felt his arms being pulled behind his back. He wondered what would happen next. Some police procedures dictated that the handcuffs go on first. If that happened, he would have trouble. But other departments taught their officers to pat down a suspect for weapons before cuffing him, especially when the man taken into custody was as vastly outnumbered as Bolan was now. But whichever way it went, the police were about to find a .44 Magnum pistol, a 9 mm machine pistol, a .45 ACP revolver and a knife.

More than enough to lock him away in an Iranian prison for the rest of eternity. Unless he acted fast.

Luckily, the Iranians had been trained to frisk first. While two of the excited men continued to hold his arms behind his back, a third started at his shoulders and began patting him down. Bolan waited, anticipating the split second of shock he knew would come when the searcher felt the shoulder rig beneath his overcoat. It would be slight and short-lived.

But it would be the only chance he’d have to turn the tables on his captors.

A second later, the searcher’s hand hit the holster under his left arm and froze. A shoulder rig was more than he had expected to find, and it took a second for the man to process the information. A quick gasp escaped the lips above the Executioner’s head, and as it did he felt the hands holding his arms lighten their grip slightly in their own surprise.

Bolan didn’t hesitate. With all the power in his shoulders and arms, he snapped his hands down and away from the cops holding him. As he rolled to his back, his right hand shot into the pocket of his overcoat and the Scandium .45 ACP revolver suddenly appeared in his fist. Still lying flat, he aimed the stubby revolver at the Iranian cops standing over him.

The men froze like statues.

“Somebody here understands Russian,” Bolan whispered in a menacing voice. “And they’d better speak up fast if you want to get home to your families tonight.”

Several frightened phrases in Farsi escaped the faces above the Executioner. All mentioned Allah. But they sounded more like prayers than curses.

“This is a 6-shot revolver,” the Executioner added, still in Russian. “And there are six of you. You do the math.” He had already fired one round into the Hezbollah man who’d met him on the garden sidewalk, but the cops looking down at him now had no way of knowing that. The empty brass casing was hidden behind the stubby barrel of the .45 and, even looking straight down at the exposed cylinder holes to the sides of the frame, the gun looked fully loaded. Bolan could see the frightened faces above him as their eyes froze on the round lead noses of the RBCD Performance Plus fragmenting bullets.

“I’m waiting,” the Executioner said. “But my patience is growing thin.”

The balding man who had originally spotted him finally spoke. “Russian,” he said. “I…speak a little…”

“You better hope it’s enough,” Bolan said. “Now, listen closely, then translate what I say to the others.”

“I w-will try,” stammered the cop with the receding hairline.

“Try hard. Your lives depend on it.” The Executioner gave his words time to sink in, then went on. “I want you to tell three of your men to stand directly between me and the other officers still back at the cars. Tell them to stand close together and block the view. If any of the other cops see what’s going on, I’ll kill every one of you. And I’ll start with you.” He paused again, then said, “Tell them. Tell them now.”

Bolan waited for the words to be translated, then watched the men nod as three of the six moved in behind him. Keeping the .45 aimed at the balding head, he said, “Now, you reach down and lift me to my feet by the left arm. Make a play for the gun and you’re dead. Got it?”

The cop with the thinning hair nodded nervously and bent slowly, tugging Bolan back to his feet with both hands. The Executioner kept the S&W tight against his coat, out of reach but still aimed at the man helping him. “Very good so far,” he said. “Now, instruct one of your men to go get a car and bring it back here.”

“Which man?” the slender cop asked, licking his lips.

“I don’t care,” the Executioner said. “Either of the ones not blocking the view.”

“Which car?” the cop asked, obviously stalling for time.

Bolan transferred the .45 to his left hand and in one smooth motion drew the mammoth Desert Eagle from under his coat. “I already warned you that you were trying my patience,” he growled through clenched teeth. “Keep asking stupid questions and I’ll shoot you just for that.” He had no intention of killing any of the cops. He was counting on bluff, and so far it had been working. “And be sure whoever you pick understands that if I get even the slightest impression that he’s tipping off the other cops, I’ll kill you and everybody else here.”

The balding cop licked his lips again and turned to the nearer man. He whispered several sentences in his native tongue. The man to whom he spoke—a short, stocky cop with a thick, bushy mustache—nodded and walked away.

Bolan holstered the Desert Eagle again, switched the wheel gun back to his right hand and held it up briefly so the men around him could see it. Then he jammed the revolver back into his overcoat pocket but kept his hand in the pocket, as well.

There was no need to explain, in Russian or Farsi, that he could still shoot any of them he chose with the mere pull of an index finger.

The Executioner instructed the balding cop to keep holding on to his left arm as the stocky man walked down the block, slid behind the wheel of one of the patrol cars and backed it away from the wall. None of the other uniformed men paid attention as he threw it into drive, then rolled it slowly up to where the Executioner and the other five men stood.

“Tell him to stay behind the wheel,” Bolan ordered the balding man. The man did as ordered. “Now, keep holding on to my arm and escort me to the back seat as if you’ve just arrested me.”

The man who spoke Russian saw another chance to stall for time and took it. Shaking his head, he said, “If the others see it, they will not believe it.” He nodded toward the cops still stationed around the whirling lights outside the wall. “You are not in handcuffs.”

“Just tell your men to move. We’re all going to pack ourselves into the car and go for a little ride.”