Agent Of Peril. Don Pendleton

up his left hand and hammered it into Crybaby’s face, feeling cartilage crunch and collapse under the impact. It seemed the complaining Lebanese was made of stern stuff, as he kept up his fight, bringing his knee into Kalid’s shin to knock his balance from under him. The curved knife arced up, but Kalid braced his forearm against the knife fighter’s forearm, the impact jangling nerves in both arms. Still, the fighting knife didn’t fall from numbed fingers, and Kalid had to wrap his hand around the bigger man’s wrist.

      There was no time for a wrestling match, not when the guy could roll onto him and drive that foot-long tusk of curved steel into his chest. With a surge of strength, the ex-black-suit launched his forehead into his enemy’s nose. This time, the impact stunned Crybaby, his head rolling back onto his shoulders. Kalid hurt from the hit too, but it was minor in comparison. He slapped the knife away and pulled his own wrist free, punching forward with both fists to slam into the man’s rib cage.

      The big terrorist rocked backward. Kalid scrambled to his feet and out of reach. No more wrestling against someone who had a weight and leverage advantage. It was time to employ some sharpened steel in the fight.

      Kalid lunged and lashed out hard, blade poking from the bottom of his fist. The blow was a little short, the tip of the Tanto only parting skin, not muscle and bone as the slash connected with the upper torso of the guy. Crybaby grunted and brought his blade down, but Kalid had moved enough that the downward swing only nicked his shoulder, instead of plunging into his clavicle. He brought back his knife and turned away, luring the Lebanese terrorist in closer.

      As soon as the first boot stomp sounded, Kalid continued with his pivot, bringing up one heel hard and fast, connecting with the knife man’s groin. As Crybaby grunted, Kalid finished his total 360, slashing savagely with the Tanto across the exposed neck and shoulder of the enemy knife fighter.

      The Lebanese grunted as he clutched his wounded shoulder. The knife dropped from his numbed fingers and Kalid stepped in, carving a fatal slash across his adversary’s face and throat.

      Kalid stepped back, and watched the dead man hit the floor.

      He looked up. The doorway was suddenly crowded with a throng of angry-faced men, their fists filled with automatic weapons. Kalid set his jaw tight, clenched his knife tighter and glared back at them.

      “My life will not be sold cheap!” he shouted.

      Suddenly, the gunmen in the hall began jerking, going into what seemed to be epileptic fits as puffs of gore burst into the air all around them. Automatic weapons fire chattered in the hallway. One by one, the dead gunmen tumbled to the floor, their perforated corpses stacking atop one another in a bloody heap.

      Kalid felt a moment of terror as he realized how close he’d come to death, and looked to see if he could find the lost pistol on the floor when a large form filled the doorway.

      Mack Bolan dumped the empty magazine from his Uzi and fed it a fresh one. Kalid saw an array of fresh bruises and cuts on his face, but he still managed to have a smile on his face at seeing a comrade in arms.

      “Grab Rust. We’re leaving the laptop behind,” he told Kalid.

      “The chase is on,” Kalid said under his breath.

      4

      Bolan recuperated from his concussion on the flight from Afghanistan to Lebanon. What with a two-hour helicopter ride, and arranging an airplane from Kandahar to Beirut burning another three hours, the Executioner had enough time to feel the throbbing in his head come back down to a manageable level. With more hours of sleep on the plane, and years of athletic endeavor tuning his body’s recuperative powers, he felt almost healthy. None of this counted the couple hours where he was X-rayed and given a tetanus booster at a field hospital. He still ached from head to toe, and his multiple stitches tugged and pinched if he moved too quickly.

      Bolan supplemented the stitches on the gunshot wounds on his arm and legs with duct tape to pin everything in place. It was a cheap way to make sure the skin wouldn’t flex and pop the stitching open, and it reinforced the closing power of the nylon loops. He couldn’t do anything about the sewjob at the back of his scalp, however. He was just glad that there was no skull fracture. The original brain swelling from the concussion was also not evident on the X rays.

      Good news all around, he thought sardonically.

      But now J. R. Rust was among the walking wounded, though he seemed to be getting better.

      “Can you hear me, J.R.?” Bolan asked as he and Kalid loaded him into the back seat of a Toyota 4Runner in an awkward balance of speed and gentleness, neither of which was completely accomplished. The Executioner still kept his Uzi by his leg, just in case, looking up and down the alley.

      “How’d you know we’d be in trouble?” Kalid asked.

      “I took a look at how dead this street got when the two goons at either end of the road cleared it out.”

      “What goons?” Kalid asked.

      “The ones who threw the grenades and caught some 9 mm bullets,” Bolan explained.

      “Ah. That’s what kept you.”

      “I only cleared this side of the alley. We’re going to have to run a gauntlet,” Bolan told him.

      “I’ll drive, you shoot,” Kalid said.

      Bolan nodded, the desire to chuckle driven away by the dull pain in his head. He admired Alex Kalid’s acceptance of life with the Executioner at his elbow. They’d only worked together for one day some months ago, but the young agent proved he had the blood of a soldier running in his veins.

      Bolan slipped into the shotgun seat next to Kalid. “Drive.”

      Kalid gunned the engine and swung the 4Runner onto the street. Almost instantly, a shout went out, and gunfire popped downrange. Rust gave a loud grunt and tucked himself tight into a ball in the back seat as something hammered the side of the 4Runner. Bolan spared a glance to see if Rust was all right, and confirming his party was still unharmed, whipped up the Uzi and tapped out a short burst at the gunner sending fire at the SUV as it whirled.

      The gunner wasn’t hit. Bolan knew he didn’t make the connection on instinct, but the short burst did drive the terrorist to ground, sending him out of their path. Dust kicked up on the dry street as Bolan kept watch for more gunners, but the terrorists were clearing out. The soldier knew that sticking around when the Beirut police were in the area was idiotic for both sides.

      In the time since the Executioner’s last visit, the country had cobbled together again. The discord and chaos in the streets was under control, a nation unified and ready to tolerate no dissent. Sure, terrorist organizations hid among the country’s nooks and crannies, but Lebanon knew that if they didn’t control violence in its territory, Israel once more would surge across the border to do some cleaning.

      And Bolan knew that cleaning didn’t involve feather dusters and furniture wax.

      “Keep moving. We’ll drive around for a while,” Bolan told Kalid.

      “No destination, Colonel?” the ex-blacksuit asked, using Bolan’s Brandon Stone identity.

      “Yeah, but I want to check for tails first,” the Executioner explained. “Looks like Hezbollah knew about J.R.’s cover identity.”

      “And they only acted when there was a big signal marker that someone was coming to see him,” Kalid replied.

      “Not necessarily,” Bolan countered. “You okay, J.R.?”

      “I’ll live. I’m just now getting my hearing back,” Rust answered. “Which code name are we using, Striker?”

      “Striker or Colonel Brandon Stone,” Bolan answered.

      Rust nodded, holding his head. His vision was still unfocused, and Bolan knew that Rust was suffering from a concussion. He sympathized with the CIA man; he’d just been there. But he still needed