Splinter Cell. Don Pendleton

      The Executioner gauged the distance between him and the terrorist. If he had judged the design of the bomb correctly during the second or so he’d been allowed to view it, it should be easy enough to defuse. If he could get to it before the man in the black suit set it off.

      But that wasn’t likely. The same simplicity that made it easy to neutralize also made it easy and fast to detonate. The timer was electronic, and made no ticking sound. So it was impossible to determine if it had been set or not. But that made little difference, either. All it would take to override the timing device would be to touch two wires together, and Bolan could see by the way the terrorist’s hand was positioned that he held one of those wires inside the half-closed case even now.

      The man with the bomb had not replied to Bolan’s question, so the Executioner repeated it. “What do you want now?” he said in a louder voice.

      “I want you to sit down,” said the dark-featured man.

      “This has got to be a give-and-take negotiation,” Bolan said, speaking for all of the passengers. “What do we get in return?” Bolan asked, playing for time.

      He continued to stare the terrorist in the eye. If he was to have any chance at all of reaching the attaché case before the bomb went off, he needed the terrorist in the black suit to be distracted in as many ways as possible.

      He was about to speak again—simply to buy more time—when he felt a light tapping on his left hip. Slowly glancing down to his side, the Executioner saw a little girl who could have been no more than eight years old. She wore a frilly pink-and-white dress, white anklets rolled down and black buckled shoes. Her sandy-blond hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail.

      On the little girl’s face, Bolan saw terror. In her left hand was a Barbie doll with hair that matched her own.

      But in her right hand was the barrel of the Glock.

      Whoever had come into possession of the pistol after it had been thrown over the seats had determined that Bolan was on their side. The gun had been passed clandestinely to the passenger nearest Bolan, and that had been the little blond girl.

      Bolan felt the hard plastic Glock in his fist as the little girl released the barrel.

      “You saw what happened to the other men back here in coach,” the Executioner said to the terrorist. “But don’t you wonder about the man you had in first class?”

      Bolan wondered, too. But it appeared that Paxton had taken care of the terrorist who had first given himself away to the Executioner. At least there had been no shots fired from the front of the craft. And no explosions.

      As soon as the words had left the Executioner’s mouth, the man with the bomb glanced past him toward first class.

      Bolan knew it was the best distraction he could pull off.

      He brought the Glock out from behind the seat and snapped it up, pointing the barrel as if it were his finger and depressing the trigger at the same time. He saw the red hole appear in the forehead of the terrorist. At almost the same time the back of the man’s head blew out.

      The screams, cries and moans returned as Bolan sprinted forward. The attaché case had fallen to the middle of the aisle, and now he dropped to one knee to look inside. His heart fell to his stomach when he saw that what had looked like a simple device from a distance was actually somewhat more complex.

      At least a dozen wires—all in different colors—from the Semtex through the detonator to the timer. Most would be dummies that would have no effect at all if cut. But one would be an instant detonator that would override the timer and set off the plastic explosive immediately.

      None of which would have been a problem if the timer wasn’t set. Bolan could simply fold the attaché case back up, take it to his seat and turn it over to Dutch authorities when they landed in Amsterdam.

      But all hope of such a simple end to the problem flew from the Executioner’s thoughts as he looked at the timer. It had been set.

      And the bomb was going to explode in 43 seconds.

      THE EXECUTIONER REACHED down and lifted the kitchen timer in his hand, taking a long shot and simply pushing the start-stop button. As he’d suspected, it changed nothing. It had obviously been disconnected somewhere inside because the seconds continued ticking away.

      By now, many of the passengers had recovered from shock. Questions assaulted him from all sides. Several of the passengers had unbuckled their seat belts and were starting to rise, curious to see what was inside the attaché case and what the Executioner was doing.

      “Sit down! Everybody!” Bolan called out in a loud, authoritative voice that caused the men and women to drop immediately back down into their seats. As he turned back toward the front of the plane, he saw both Paxton and Margie running down the aisle to meet him. Paxton had another SIG-Sauer jammed into his belt, which could only mean that he’d successfully neutralized the first terrorist they’d spotted in first class.

      Margie looked puzzled. But Paxton took it all in immediately. “How long have we got?” he asked.

      The Executioner glanced back down to the timer. “Thirty-eight seconds,” he said. Turning his eyes quickly to Margie, he said, “Tell the captain to unlock the master lock to the main door in first class.” Margie started to turn.

      “And tell him to slow speed to the bare minimum,” the Executioner added.

      The woman nodded as she ran back in the direction from which she’d come.

      “You’re going to try to throw that thing out the door?” Paxton asked incredulously.

      “That’s the plan.”

      “You open that door at this speed and altitude and you’ll get sucked out of the plane,” Paxton warned.

      “That’s why I told her to have the pilot slow down,” Bolan said.

      Paxton and Bolan sprinted back through the coach cabin into first class.

      Bolan addressed the six men who were still seated there, their eyes wide in fear. “Quick! I need you to take off your belts and give them to me.”

      Immediately, the men unbuckled themselves and began sliding their belts out of their pants. While they were so engaged, the Executioner turned back to Margie. “Get on the phone and tell the captain to drop the oxygen masks. It’ll give the passengers something to do,” he explained.

      When the Executioner had gathered all six of the belts, he tossed three of them to Paxton. The Ranger had figured out what he had planned and he buckled one strip of leather through his own belt, then began linking the others together. Bolan did the same with the three belts in his hands, hoping the buckles and any other weak spots in the leather would hold.

      The Executioner linked his last belt to that of Paxton’s, then turned to the cabin door. He had just enough length in the makeshift retention straps to reach the handle. Swiftly twisting it, he heard the whir of a million bees’ wings as he slid the door open. At the same time, he felt himself suddenly pulled forward. His own belt, attached to the leather chain, threatened to cut him in two the waist. He swallowed hard, trying to equalize the pressure in his ears as the atmosphere suddenly changed. Glancing downward, he saw that he had eight seconds left on the timer. He swallowed hard again. Even if the bomb didn’t explode, it felt as if his eardrums would.

      Taking a final look down at the timer, the Executioner saw only the number 4. Before it could turn to 3, he leaned forward, assisted by the vacuum, and pushed the attaché case through the opening.

      A second later, a barely audible popping sound issued forth through the galelike wind outside the doorway. The sound was so small—so seemingly insignificant in the distance—that it was almost an anticlimax to the near destruction and deaths it had almost caused. Bolan closed the door.

      The threat was over. For now, at least.

      But as the Executioner walked back and dropped into his seat,