Path To War. Don Pendleton

transaction on behalf of the infidels completed, the North Koreans on their way out into the desert to deliver the package.

      “It is something I intend to discuss with the head mercenary when we meet,” Kairoush answered. “Where there can deliver one, they can deliver more. Our own sponsors in Saudi Arabia will be more than willing to finance such a venture. I understand your reservations about this strange arrangement with the Americans, but my contacts in Yemen have assured me they can be trusted.”

      “Americans building an army of freedom fighters,” Abibah said. “I do not like it, Nabhat. We have no idea what their agenda, why it is they are using us to do their dirty work.”

      “Are you suggesting we cut them loose?”

      Abibah hesitated, then said, “I believe it is too late for that. We’re being paid well, and I agree their money can build us our own army of freedom fighters here in Morocco. If they are, however, renegades, what if their own people are on to them? Say they are captured and talk? They would sing loud and long, point the authorities in our direction. The North Koreans would either be captured or flee the country in their private jet.”

      “Again, I have considered that possibility,” Kairoush answered. “But without risk, there is no reward. We need to set our sights on bigger, grander operations. And I am thinking the Americans can find a way to smuggle us into their country, with, I am hoping, one or two Suitcases from God. Picture Washington, D.C., brothers,” he said, watching them closely as their eyes lit up, “wiped off the face of the earth in a nuclear fire cloud. Their country would collapse into complete anarchy, what with their government infrastructure wiped out. Say we could detonate another package in New York at the same instant.”

      “Yes, yes,” Mohammed said, nodding vigorously. “It would be the greatest of all victories for Islam. Hundreds of thousands dead and dying in their streets. Riots sweeping the country. Military law. Their entire system would unravel.”

      “But for now it is merely a dream,” Kairoush said. “In short time we will have what we need to bring America to its knees.”

      “But for now we play second string to the mercenaries?” Fetouka said, an edge of annoyance to his voice.

      “As long as their cash keeps coming we do,” Kairoush said.

      Kairoush fell silent, allowing them to contemplate the future, the glory that could be theirs. It would be no small feat, smuggling an atomic device into America, but if it was hidden in a container ship, the crew handpicked and sworn to martyrdom if it came down to that, it could be done. He was always hearing how America’s borders were wide open, and with so much shipping traffic, the countless ports along its shores, he was feeling more confident they could pull it off the more he considered the operation. He had never seen, much less handled a Suitcase from God, but from his understanding it was fairly simple. A key that turned on the power pack, then punch in the access code, set the timer for doomsday countdown. Easy enough.

      Kairoush was smiling, envisioning in his mind’s eye the White House, their Capitol building heaved up into a blinding mushroom cloud when he heard a loud thud outside the door. It sounded like a body falling. Kairoush grabbed for his assault rifle, Toulajah’s name on his tongue, then the door crashed in, a big figure in a black overcoat holding a weapon in a two-fisted grip.

      Mohammed and Abibah jumped to their feet, AK-74s in their hands, but they never fired a shot. Kairoush felt a moment’s paralysis at the big invader’s brazen show of deadly force as the weapon chugged, blood and brain matter puking from the shattered skulls of Mohammed and Abibah. As they toppled, the gore splashing what was left of their feast—a Westerner, he believed, though he had a swarthy or sun-burnished look that could have made him Arab or Italian—swung his aim and drilled a third eye in Fetouka’s forehead. It was over as fast as lightning would streak the skies, Kairoush staring down the black eye of the sound suppressor.

      “Grab some air.”

      Kairoush stared into icy blue eyes that seemed to belong to something out of hell rather than anything human. He showed his hands.

      “You can come with me in peace and talk,” the big stranger said, “or join your comrades. Your choice.”

      “Who are you? Are you with the mercenaries?”

      “I’m with me. Your answer.”

      Kairoush barely heard the thundering rock and roll through the pounding of his heart in his ears. He nodded, waiting as the big invader came around the table, snatched him by the shoulder and shoved him toward Toulajah’s outstretched body.

      CHAPTER THREE

      Bolan understood the pros and cons where torture was concerned. Sleep deprivation, genitals hot-wired for electric shock, extreme forms of humiliation, even beating a prisoner senseless rarely produced viable information, and, more often than not, an enemy captive would say anything to stop the pain or shame. There were times, however, when the Executioner believed the right application of suffering could loosen the most obstinate tongue. It wasn’t part of his SOP to inflict pain, but under certain circumstances—such as the threat of WMD being loosed to wipe out thousands of innocent lives—the threat of torture could work as well, if not better, than the act itself.

      The soldier found the warehouse near the waterfront, northeast of Casa Port, near Mole du Commerce pier. With the sound-suppressed Beretta he shot the lock off the door. Bolan informed the FBI team about the backpack nuke, and Special Agent Dawkins had insisted he tag along for the grilling. Glock pistol in hand, Dawkins followed the soldier into the dark interior. Bolan slung Kairoush, the terrorist’s hands bound behind his back with plastic cuffs, to the floor. He waited while Dawkins, using his flashlight, fumbled around in the dark until he found and turned on the hanging ceiling lights to the warehouse. It was standard warehouse fare the soldier had seen the world over, crates and catwalks, forklifts, other machinery and tool benches, with a few offices packed against the back wall. As good a place as any, he figured, to conduct some hardball Q and A.

      Bolan fired two rounds from his Beretta, the 9-mm bullets whining off stone beside the terrorist’s head.

      “You’re insane!” Kairoush shouted.

      “I’ve never been more stone cold,” the Executioner told the terrorist, aiming the muzzle at the extremist’s crotch. “The next one’s for real.”

      Dawkins muttered a curse, Bolan glimpsing the big, crew-cut agent rubbing his face, dancing a little from foot to foot.

      “What do you want?”

      “Answers,” Bolan told the terrorist. “I want to know about the North Koreans. I want to know where the backpack nuke is, or how I can get to it. Two seconds before I shoot your family jewels off. One…”

      “I will talk!”

      And Kairoush did. Bolan listened to the strange and sordid deal that had come to the Moroccan by way of what he called American mercenaries, though he believed they were current or former CIA, but with plenty of leverage still in their intelligence circles. Bad news to him, but at least he’d found a starting point. The head merc Kairoush knew as Baraka was hiding out in the desert, the last he heard, east of Marrakech on a desert plateau near the High Atlas Mountains. This Baraka had handed off close to half a million dollars to his terror group in U.S. currency for refuge in Morocco. Along with the cash tribute, Kairoush had settled the mercs in with his own fundamentalist army in the desert, both to sit on the Americans and for the mercs to use them as fighters in the event of an attack by Moroccan authorities. Between Kairoush’s army and the Americans, there were close to a hundred men in the camp. Bolan heard how Baraka had set up the deal with the North Koreans, using Kairoush’s contacts and safehouses to get them into the country, negotiate the good-faith payment with the late Habib Mousuami. What their plans were for the Suitcase from Allah, Kairoush couldn’t say, but he was supposed to make a phone call to a number given to him by Baraka once Habib handed off the initial payment to the North Koreans. Bolan was turning toward Dawkins to tell him to give Kairoush his cell phone