Plains Of Fire. Don Pendleton

seat. They cracked open the skull of the Russian mobster sitting beside the slain driver and burrowed through his brain to turn his central nervous system into whipped froth. The jeep rocketed along, an African militiaman in the back of the vehicle lunging wildly to grab at the steering wheel.

      No amount of turning could have saved the three men in the back as the driver’s heavy, dead foot was jammed into the gas pedal, speeding them into a confrontation with the back wall of a warehouse. The hood crumpled violently, and the Thunder Lion who had striven to reach the steering wheel was launched head-first through the remnants of the windshield, his face torn free by the jagged wrinkles of the collapsed nose of the jeep. Fortunately for the mutilated gunman, his suffering at the loss of his face was measured in nanoseconds. The top of his skull met the stone wall of the warehouse, and his vertebrae burst and collapsed. A spear of bone shoved deep into the socket of the man’s brain, killing him before his neurons could even register the pain of his nose and cheeks torn from his facial structure.

      “He’s onto us!” a voice yelled over Anatoly’s radio. Bolan heard the echo of the Russian’s voice emanating from an alley off to his right, informing him that the flanking maneuver he’d anticipated was in motion. Had they tried it against any other man, they might have had a chance, but the Executioner’s years of experience and his ability to improvise had given him a killing edge. Bolan rushed toward the crushed jeep, the two surviving gunmen crawling out of its backseat, oblivious to his presence. He spared the briefest of moments, his boot lashing out to render the survivors insensate with well-placed kicks. They were both unarmed, the force of the crash ripping the rifles out of their hands, and the onset of shock helped the remaining Russian to forget about the handgun in his hip holster. Rather than slaughter helpless opponents, Bolan put them out of commission, preferring to save his ammo for the alternate force coming up behind him.

      The strike team arrived only a second after Bolan’s estimate, which was to the warrior’s advantage. He had the drop on the enemy force, and had put the wreckage of the jeep between himself and their rifles. Firing from a position of cover and knowing his enemy’s angle of approach, Bolan had put all the cards in his favor. He gave the members of the African and Russian team time to expose themselves as they exited the alley, then triggered the MP-5 and Beretta. The suppressors on the weapons swallowed the muzzle-flash and bark, which would have betrayed the Executioner’s position, while the rear frame of the jeep provided him with a solid rest position to assist him in controlling the two weapons he fired simultaneously.

      The Russian mafiya leader screamed as a stream of bullets from the MP-5 drilled into his heart, multiple tungsten-cored slugs burrowing through the tough muscle and smashing his spine on the way out. An African militiaman to his left vomited blood as a Beretta round crushed his windpipe.

      With two of their number down in a heartbeat, the remaining quartet of smugglers and troopers panicked, their rifles spitting out wild streams, fanning the shadows. The jeep’s wreckage shook as bullets were stopped by its massive bulk, protecting the Executioner.

      “Any movement?” one of the African militiamen asked as Bolan listened on the Russians’ party line.

      “Negative,” a smuggler responded. “Step out and have a look.”

      “Fuck you,” the Thunder Lion responded. “He’d just shoot me while playing possum.”

      The Russian chuckled. “But then we’d know where he was.”

      Bolan held back a sigh that would have lamented his opponents’ lack of radio discipline. Rather, he hauled the corpse of the Russian in the shotgun seat to the ground, then triggered a burst of AK fire from the dead man’s rifle.

      That brought a salvo of concentrated autofire down on the front seat of the jeep. The corpse of the driver jerked violently under the combined storm of lead that hammered him. Bolan shouted, approximating the Russian’s voice, to stop shooting. He grabbed the dead mobster by the back of the neck and pushed his head above the jeep, using his other hand to wave the corpse’s arm.

      “It’s me!” Bolan shouted.

      “Fuck. Boris! I could have killed you!” one of the Russians called. “What happened?”

      “I was hit pretty hard when we crashed. Where is everybody?”

      The quartet of gunmen broke from cover, moving low and quickly toward the jeep. Their intent was to hook up with their surviving ally, as he was behind some of the best cover on the street.

      Instead, Bolan tossed the dead man aside and fired his AK across the front seat. The Russian at the front of the pack screamed as his belly burst open under the onslaught of rifle bullets. Intestines boiled from his savaged abdomen, thick loops of entrails sagging down to his knees. Somehow, the gangster had the strength to continue standing as the rifle rounds zipped through his ruined guts and out his back, tearing into the trio behind him.

      One of the Thunder Lions whipped around in a circle as the high-velocity devastators pulverized his pelvis. As his finger was on the trigger as he was hit, his FAMAS rifle spoke, snarling a violent death song in response to his crippling. Rather than hit Bolan, his muzzle had swung around and jammed into the groin of his fellow African. The front sight snagged on the pants of his partner, holding the barrel there as thirteen rounds burned away the rifleman’s crotch and upper thighs. In blind anger and rage, the wounded victim stuffed his own rifle under the crippled Thunder Lion’s chin and pulled the trigger, bullets pulling trails of brain out of his murderer’s skull in a volcano of gooey tissue. Both African militiamen flopped to the street, one with his brains blown out, the other rapidly bleeding to death as his femoral arteries jetted streams of thick crimson onto the concrete.

      The last of the Russian smugglers whirled and ran as Bolan’s borrowed AK cycled dry. The Executioner let the empty rifle fall to the ground as he vaulted past the dead driver and the dying remnants of the flanking force. The mobster’s fighting discipline had disappeared at the sight of his allies chopped to ribbons by one man. The way he ran, clutching one uselessly dangling arm, had also indicated that the Russian had taken a bullet.

      Bolan knew that the gangster’s first instinct would be to get back to his closest allies.

      Settling into a ground-eating pace and sticking to the shadows, the Executioner tailed his quarry, knowing that he’d have a chance to finish off the last of the mobsters who’d thrown in their lot with the Thunder Lions.

      It was a simple message, Bolan mused.

      Seek profit from helping in the Sudanese slaughter, and your only wages will be the wrath of the Executioner’s cleansing flame.

      CAPTAIN AFLAQ LISTENED to the rattle of distant gunfire and dying screams, then glanced over to Yuri Grigorei, his brow furrowed in disdain.

      “I thought the mafiya had the services of Russia’s finest warriors.” Venom dripped from Aflaq’s every word.

      Grigorei sneered at the African militiaman. “What would a scumbag like you know about anything Russian?”

      Aflaq’s nose wrinkled, but he shook off the insult. “Now is not the time for us to be at each other’s throats. Someone stumbled onto us, and they have done an excellent job at turning this deal to shit.”

      “Your enemies?” Grigorei asked.

      Aflaq shook his head. “The goat-fucking primitives and their Ethiopian defenders don’t have enough brain cells combined to even spell Alexandria, let alone send a covert operations team here.”

      “Setting off a bomb in an Egyptian harbor isn’t the style of the CIA,” Grigorei noted. “And there isn’t another crime organization with the kind of reach to touch us here.”

      The Russian’s eyes narrowed as he saw a shadow in the distance. “That idiot.”

      Aflaq followed the Russian’s line of sight and saw a man running down the street toward their position. His arm hung uselessly at his side and his pale features were twisted into a mask of terror and pain.

      “He’s leading the enemy to us!” Grigorei snapped.