Aftershock. Don Pendleton

chased after him, but bullets deflected off the sides of the truck.

      The driver, his skull dented by a point-blank burst, blocked the Executioner from getting fully inside the pickup. The vehicle rolled out of control toward the gate of the Kongra-Gel facility. Bolan let the emptied AK drop to the pickup’s bed so he could use both hands to steer for the center of the wooden doors. He pushed hard against the corpse’s knee, using the lifeless leg to stomp on the accelerator. The truck raced faster and Bolan held on, white-knuckled, to the steering wheel.

      The front fender met the barrier, and two tons of steel defeated the heavy wooden doors. The impact jolted Bolan farther into the cab, and he twisted like a serpent. His legs slipped through the rear window and he dropped into the leg well of the shotgun seat as a fresh storm of autofire tore through the cab. The lifeless driver jerked spasmodically as 7.62 mm ComBloc rounds burst gory exit wounds from his chest, the heavy-caliber bullets smashing the steering column into useless metal and plastic.

      The Executioner realized that he didn’t have much longer and pried open the passenger-side door. His long legs extended fully, like steel coil springs, and launched him out the door and into a thicket of bushes as the bullet-riddled pickup truck tumbled onward. The Toyota’s grille collapsed as it hit a tree. Where the unbraced doors had proved vulnerable, the old, deep-rooted tree was an immovable object. The driver’s corpse vaulted through the windshield and slid down the hood, leaving a gory smear.

      Bolan drew his Jericho pistol and checked its load, then headed deeper into the roadside foliage. The spectacular crash of the pickup truck had bought him a few precious moments to reach cover, and he took it. The Jericho was a stand-in for Bolan’s usual Desert Eagle. Getting across the border hadn’t given the soldier much of an opportunity to shop for weapons, but he was able to get the gun, in .40 S&W, and several hundred rounds of ammunition for it. Even though it wasn’t the full-sized .44 Magnum he was used to, the “baby Desert Eagle” would give any pursuer pause, and give the soldier an opportunity to acquire a longer range weapon. And if he couldn’t, he’d improvise.

      The soft probe of the Kongra-Gel camp had proved disastrous, an example of bad luck as a guard had been able to get off a shot before the Executioner could silence him. Bolan hadn’t had an opportunity to lay the explosives he needed to destroy the training area and the barracks of the Turkish narcoterrorists responsible for the deaths of almost two hundred American and British relief workers, and more than three hundred Turkish citizens in the Van bombing.

      He’d only just finished a mission in Azerbaijan, taking out a ring of arms smugglers when he’d heard about the brutal attack in Turkey. Bolan was too late to protect the victims of the Kongra-Gel, an amalgamation of various Turkish Communist insurgent groups. However, a quick conference call with Aaron Kurtzman and Hal Brognola at Stony Man Farm had indicated that the hellish murders were simply a diversion to cover the theft of millions of dollars’ worth of relief supplies, including medications and painkillers meant for the displaced refugees from the incessant civil war waged by these very thieves.

      It was a small step up from heroin and opium dealing to flooding the black market with drugs meant for their own countrymen. Bolan hoped to find the missing drugs and supplies before the savage thugs sold them off, and perhaps get them back to work in helping the Turkish refugees. It was the least that the Executioner could do to further the cause of the MOREST lifesavers.

      They had been slain in the course of their work to make the world a better place.

      Bolan wasn’t going to let their murderers profit from their savagery.

      The Executioner paused at the base of the hill and spotted a half-dozen gunmen making their way around the bend. They were out of breath from taking the road and had slowed down, eyes wide and wary against the lethal black shadow who had torn through twenty of their brethren. Rifle muzzles swept the roadside, bodies reacting to the rustle of leaves in the breeze. Bolan frowned as he recognized that they were maintaining their calm. They were alert, not panicked, and weren’t going to waste their ammunition on an uncertain target.

      Bolan was running low on major gear and supplies. It had taken him six hours to smuggle himself into Turkey, pick up a couple of handguns along with a smattering of plastic explosives and a battle harness. He’d used up his grenades in a savage firefight against the Azerbaijani gunrunners. That was why he’d made the soft probe against the Kongra-Gel training camp, to scrounge for supplies and intel, and to give the organization’s leadership something to sweat over.

      The Executioner knew he’d come in behind the eight ball, but he wouldn’t allow that to hobble him. He wadded up a cube of C-4 and rolled it in a stash of stones and pebbles that an ant colony had built up to secure their nest. The insects fled from the slowly rolling ball as their rocky pile was imbedded into the soft, pliant explosive. Bolan pressed a pencil-sized radio detonator into the round, rocky blob, and let fly with the improvised grenade.

      The Turkish rebels spotted Bolan’s movement and one of them fired a short burst toward the tree that he’d been huddled against. Bark splintered as the incongruous bomb landed in the midst of the gunmen. They looked down at it, an ersatz, gray candy apple with a blinking stick poking out of it. Because it didn’t look like a grenade, they were confused by its presence. More of the riflemen opened up, but the Executioner thumbed the firing stud on his detonator.

      The explosion tore one of the terrorist thugs in two, a sheet of force pushing a guillotine of rock through the centerline of his body. Another man died as a quarter-inch-wide pebble tore through his right eye and whipped through his brain like a bullet. Another one wailed as his left arm was stripped of flesh all the way to the bone.

      It wasn’t much of an advantage, but it would have to do, Bolan figured as he burst from cover, the big Jericho bucking in his fist. The Executioner’s first shot caught a Turkish terrorist on the bridge of his nose and blew a flap of scalp and skull off the back of his head. A second killer leaped wildly for the cover of a ditch, but Bolan caught him with a bullet through his left thigh. Muscle and bone were mangled by the heavy-caliber slug and the rifleman disappeared out of sight, screaming in pain.

      The last able gunman, his right side bloodied, uniform torn by shrapnel, snarled angrily and milked the trigger of his AK-47 in an effort to avenge his injuries. Bolan pivoted and leaped forward beneath the stream of autofire, pumping out four shots. One missed, sailing into the distance over the wounded Turk’s shoulder, but his other shots connected with the Kongra-Gel killer’s torso, zipping him from throat to groin.

      The wounded rifleman struggled to grab his AK’s pistol grip with his left hand, determined to protect himself when Bolan somersaulted onto the road. The Executioner lashed out with one of his stovepipe legs, his heel catching the rifle. The kick launched the weapon into the roadside ditch, and Bolan leveled his Jericho at the Turk.

      “Don’t even try it,” the soldier warned.

      The Kongra-Gel fighter froze as he looked down the hole in the end of the massive pistol.

      “Run away,” Bolan said, jerking the muzzle slightly. “Live to fight another day.”

      The Turk looked over his shoulder, then back at the huge handgun aimed at him.

      If he didn’t understand Bolan’s words, he at least understood the intent of his gestures. The Turk cradled his mangled arm and raced off down the road, not looking back.

      Bolan scrambled to his feet and dumped the partially empty magazine, reloading with a fully loaded stick of twelve more hollowpoint rounds. He pocketed the half-empty clip and slowly advanced toward the gunman cowering in the ditch.

      A burst of automatic fire was the Executioner’s welcome, the swarm of bullets burning hotly, too close for comfort. Bolan dived to the bottom of the ditch and punched two more rounds into the hobbled rifleman before the Turk could adjust his aim. The rounds were fatal, one plowing through the gunman’s groin and smashing his spine, the second tearing into his heart.

      The Executioner holstered his pistol and picked up the AK-47 and the dead man’s spare ammo. He walked into the road and pulled more ammunition off the other dead men, inspecting the banana-shaped magazines for