Final Assault. Don Pendleton

a snake, but taking the mobster into custody would be just as effective.

      “Get up,” he said. “You have a gun?”

      Claricuzio made a face. “Do I have a gun? What do I look like?” he said.

      A shout from behind propelled Bolan into motion, and with instinct born from painful experience he hurled himself to the side. The soldier crashed into the wall and used the momentum to spin himself around as a flurry of bullets cracked through the air where he’d been standing.

      Claricuzio gave a shout and flung himself out of his chair. Bolan couldn’t take the time to track him. His trigger finger twitched, and he emptied the UMP’s clip into the first of the gunmen who’d entered the room behind him.

      The second, whether through desperation or simple instinct, lunged past his compatriot’s falling body and crashed into Bolan. The Executioner let the UMP drop and grabbed his opponent’s wrist, twisting the black shape of the automatic up and away from his face. The gunman cursed him in Italian and hammered a punch into his side. Bolan barely felt it, thanks to his body armor. He smashed his forearm into the guard’s face as he squeezed the man’s wrist, forcing him to release his pistol. As the gun clattered to the floor, he jerked the man’s arm up and drove his fist into the fleshy point where arm met shoulder. The guard’s arm dislocated with an audible pop and he stumbled back, his face white with pain. Bolan didn’t let him get far.

      He grabbed the guard’s shirt, whirled him about and snaked his arms around the man’s neck, snapping it. Bolan let the body topple forward and released a sharp breath.

      Something dug into Bolan’s side. It didn’t penetrate his body armor, but it took the wind out of him. If Bolan hadn’t been wearing the armor, he would have been dead. The soldier twisted about, clawing for his knife as Claricuzio came at him again. “You asked if I had a gun. I don’t, but I got a knife, and I know just where to put it,” he said as he slashed at Bolan with a thin, medieval-looking stiletto. “You think you can just show up and take me down?”

      “That was the plan,” Bolan said, backing away, one hand extended to block Claricuzio’s next blow. As he spoke, he drew his KA-BAR combat knife and held it low.

      “Who sent you, hey? Anthony? Salvatore?” Claricuzio licked his lips. “Little Sasha?”

      “None of the above,” Bolan said.

      Claricuzio shook his head irritably. “You’ll tell me,” he said. He lunged, moving with the grace of a man half his age, almost quicker than Bolan’s eye could follow. The tip of the stiletto scratched a red line across Bolan’s chin as he ducked his head to protect his throat. The soldier drove his own knife into Claricuzio’s side, angling the blade toward the heart. The old mafioso stumbled against him with a strangled wheeze. Bolan extricated himself and the other man slid off his knife and tumbled to the floor.

      He sank to his haunches beside Claricuzio but didn’t bother to check for a pulse. The old man was dead. Bolan’s knife had torn through his heart, and his blood was soaking into the floorboards, where it mingled with that of his guards. Bolan examined the withered features for a moment, then looked away. Claricuzio had deserved death, and he’d gotten it. The Executioner pushed himself to his feet and snatched up the UMP. It was time to go. The police likely wouldn’t arrive for some time, but there was no reason to tempt fate.

      Bolan’s sat phone rang.

      His mind considered and discarded possibilities in the millisecond between the second ring and the moment he accepted the call and raised the phone to his ear. “All finished, Striker?”

      “Yes.”

      “Good.” There was a brief hesitation. “Claricuzio—I don’t have to ask, I suppose.”

      Something in Hal Brognola’s tone caused Bolan to snap alert. “What is it?”

      “The usual,” Brognola said grimly.

      Bolan looked at the bodies at his feet and said, “Talk.”

3

       The Gulf of Aden

      “There he is,” Yacoub said softly. He made a surreptitious gesture toward the sky and the black shape moving through its wide, blue expanse.

      Garrand glanced up and then back at his watch. He, Yacoub and three of his men stood on the Demeter’s upper deck, between the control room and what Garrand thought of as the cabana—a sheltered wet bar and outdoor swimming pool.

      “Right on time,” he said. Ten hours had passed since they’d stormed the ship. The plan had gone off without a hitch, as he’d known it would. Though there were a few bodies to be disposed of, once they had time. He tapped his watch. “I’ll say this for him—he’s prompt.”

      “He better be. I’m getting tired of standing out here in the sun so the remoras can film us,” Yacoub said, jerking the barrel of his weapon toward the gaggle of hostages corralled in the cabana. They were mostly press, with a few others mixed in—whose names and faces Garrand found vaguely familiar. Celebrities with nothing better to do than ride around on a retrofitted cargo ship, including three reality show finalists, an advice columnist and one style blogger, none of whom seemed to really understand their predicament. Or if they did, they were hiding it well.

      Garrand smiled. He’d allowed the press to keep their cameras, and they had repaid him with a constant stream of camera flashes, equipment squawks and shouted questions. All part of the plan, he reminded himself as he watched the helicopter draw closer.

      “I wonder where he got a helicopter,” Yacoub murmured. “Sure as hell not Eyl,” he added after a minute.

      “Yemen,” Garrand said, shifting his rifle to a more comfortable position. “He has a finger in every pie.” He tugged at his keffiyeh, wanting a cigarette. Sweat rolled down under his collar. It was hot, and he was getting tired of playing pirate. He glanced at the hostages. They’d selected eight out of the twenty passengers—the most attractive and the most important. This was a photo opportunity, after all. The rest had been sealed below decks with the crew. Well, most of the crew, he thought with a satisfied sigh.

      The Demeter had a crew of sixty, thirty of whom were security personnel. Of the thirty, only five weren’t in on the plan. Those five had been confined with the others after judicious application of rifle butts, fists and boots. Garrand had hired most of the security men himself, specifically for this trip, before his very public firing. Who fires somebody on Twitter? he thought. He didn’t even have an account. But that was a silly question. Nicholas Alva Pierpoint was exactly the sort of man who’d fire someone via social media.

      “Helicopter’s not going to land,” Yacoub said.

      “The pilot’s no fool,” Garrand replied. “Would you land a chopper on the deck of a ship swarming with guys wearing these—” he tugged on his keffiyeh “—and carrying automatic weapons?”

      Yacoub laughed. “I suppose not.”

      “Besides, you remember how Pierpoint likes to make an entrance.” Garrand pointed at the helicopter, which was now passing overhead. “And there he is now—the sixth most powerful man on the planet.”

      As they watched, a tiny figure flung itself out of the helicopter and plummeted toward the Demeter. A rectangular parachute popped open and slowed the man’s descent. Yacoub whistled softly, and Garrand shook his head.

      As expected, the hostages were filming the new arrival. At least one of them had managed to maintain a live feed of the “unfolding situation,” thanks to Garrand ensuring that the onboard wireless network was functioning. Garrand had no doubt that every news agency—legitimate, tabloid or otherwise—was salivating over the whole affair in real time. When in doubt, make news,