Diplomacy Directive. Don Pendleton

target through the binoculars from his position a half block down. He didn’t take long to get the lay of the area. His vehicle stuck out like a sore thumb, and he knew if he stayed too long it would draw some unwanted attention, which he couldn’t afford. He would have to hit the place hard and fast.

      Only one problem. Nothing moved around the house. No sign of sentries or a roving patrol. There were no vehicles parked in the narrow drive or in front of the property on the street. The house looked utterly rundown, almost as if it had been unoccupied, and something in Bolan’s gut told him it was empty and had been for some time. The only thing he’d learned from his recon so far spoke of abandonment and disuse.

      Bolan considered his next move, deciding if a closer look on foot would be worth it, but he didn’t get the chance to act on that thought. A flash of light reflecting off metal winked in his side mirror and drew his attention. He spotted a quartet of motorcycles with black-clad riders as they rode up on his vehicle with the muzzles of wicked-looking machine pistols leveled in his direction. Bolan went horizontal in the seat in time to avoid a maelstrom of autofire. High-velocity rounds shattered the front and rear side windows and left shards of glass to rain down on Bolan in their wake. The soldier folded up the center console, slid over to the passenger door and went EVA.

      By the time he’d rolled to the relative safety of cover behind the SUV and gained his feet, the four motorcycles were making their turn for a second pass. Bolan reached into the glove box and came away with his Desert Eagle. The massive, stainless-steel pistol had become a faithful ally in moments such as these. Since Bolan didn’t have easy access or time to get to the heavier weaponry, the .44 Magnum hand-cannon would fill the void.

      Bolan took up position just forward of the A-frame post, leveled the weapon in a two-handed Weaver grip and sighted on the closest rider. He squeezed the trigger and the weapon thundered as a Cor-Bon 305-grain full-metal-jacket round left the barrel at 1,600 feet per second. The round struck the motorcyclist in the chest as he was triggering his own weapon. The motorcycle seemed to shimmy a moment beneath the rider before the impact drove him from the saddle. The motorcycle continued on an erratic path for another twenty yards or so before crashing to the pavement about the same time as did its rider.

      Bolan had already tracked on another rider and triggered his second round. The big weapon boomed again in the noonday air with equally satisfying results. The man’s head exploded inside his helmet, and a crimson spray washed over the face shield. The handlebars appeared to become wrenched from the rider’s grasp, and the bike made a sudden and awkward turn to the right before sliding against the pavement and dragging the deceased rider along with it for a fair distance.

      The remaining two motorcyclists were now even with the Executioner and opened up simultaneously. Bolan ducked behind the SUV, which protected him from the volley of fresh rounds. He heard them slap into the metal and fiberglass body of the SUV, absorbing the impact with a noisy chatter of protest as round after round chewed through the thin skin of the vehicle and lodged deep in its frame or pebbled the safety glass of the windshield.

      Bolan waited until they passed, then climbed inside the cab and cranked the engine. He whipped the steering wheel into a hard left as he gunned the engine. The vehicle left its spot at the curb, tires smoking as Bolan powered into an intercept course. Or at least that’s what he’d planned. But the riders no longer appeared interested in sticking around. With their numbers halved they seemed more concerned with escaping their enemy’s fury. Bolan meant to see to it they didn’t get off so easy with their hit-and-git; the Executioner wouldn’t be anybody’s target for a sucker play like that.

      The soldier put his foot to the floor and kept one eye on the motorcyclists, who were rapidly widening the gap between them. If they decided to split up, the entire pursuit might turn out to be for nothing, but he couldn’t worry about such petty details. As long as he could keep at least one of them in sight, he’d be in good shape. At the moment he wished he could get Grimaldi into the air. With air observation he could follow their course without having to keep them physically in sight at ground level.

      To his surprise, the riders slowed down—whether forced by the thickening traffic on San Juan’s busier streets or by simple design—which allowed him to keep them in sight. Bolan figured they probably planned to lead him into a trap. They could have killed him back there if they’d exercised a bit more caution in their approach, but instead they had chosen to come at him like gangbusters. Maybe their intent had been to lead him away from that neighborhood all the time, which meant either he’d come closer than they liked or they had been prepared for his arrival.

      A leak inside Fonseca’s office? Possible, but highly unlikely. Fonseca had told him when he first gave up the address it might not lead Bolan to much. Their intelligence on the Independents was sketchy, at best, and was practically nonexistent on the enemies of the political guerrillas and sworn enemies of the group. So if Bolan had barked up the wrong tree and wasn’t really presenting any sort of threat, why not simply let him go about his business until they had reason to interfere? No, Bolan’s arrival in Puerto Rico had obviously shaken up someone and the warrior meant to find out just who it was.

      The pursuit continued along the narrow backstreets, and as traffic increased it became a more perilous journey. Within ten minutes they were back in the heaviest urban sections and the chase hadn’t lost any intensity. It seemed almost surreal as other drivers who passed him looked at his bullet-riddled vehicle with expressions that ranged from mild curiosity to utter shock. A few more minutes elapsed and the motorcycles suddenly turned onto a side street that led south out of the city. Bolan continued following at a distance, now curious more than intent on catching the motorcyclists and dispensing some good old-fashioned street justice. Obviously they wanted him to tail them, and they were doing a good job of keeping far enough ahead so he could follow them, but not so close as to arouse his suspicions.

      More trouble seemed to appear out of nowhere as Bolan realized he’d picked up a tail. He wondered for a moment if they had put a car on him in the rear position, but then he dismissed it. This driver was no professional. If the enemy bothered to set up a way to box him in, they wouldn’t send anyone so sloppy. His pursuer had little to no experience in the fine art of inconspicuously tailing a vehicle. An amateur all the way, and that meant someone who could get in harm’s way.

      Bolan’s eyes alternated between the motorcyclists and the tail. Eventually they got off the highway exit and proceeded along a dusty road. The Executioner figured if he was headed into an ambush, this would be the perfect spot, and this time he meant to be prepared. He waited until the dust obscured his vehicle at both front and rear, then steered off the road and maneuvered into a thick stand of brush. Bolan bailed from the driver’s seat and scrambled over the rear seat to the storage area. He saw the trail of the vehicle that had been following him continue past without slowing—the driver hadn’t even spotted him.

      Yeah, definitely an amateur.

      Bolan retrieved several 30-round detachable box magazines loaded with 5.56 mm NATO rounds. They fit the next item he withdrew from the weapons bag, a carbine version of the Fabrique Nationale FNC. The weapon packed the versatility of a full-auto assault rifle in a virtual submachine gun profile. In fact, the FNC was often mistaken for the HK33 at first glance, but the two were quite different in a number of ways. Bolan had come to prefer this assault weapon above almost all others because of its reliability in close-quarters combat.

      The Executioner performed a final check on the weapon before locking and loading. Then he placed it on the seat, backed from cover and onto the road, and proceeded in the direction he’d been heading. Now he had both the enemy and the unknown tail in front of him; they would either be surprised to encounter each other or realize both of them had been duped. In any respect, they had made the mistake of putting the ball in play.

      And the Executioner was a veteran of this particular game.

      THE RED-CLAY ROAD, pockmarked with ruts and divots, terminated at a copse of tall pinnate palms that formed a natural canopy over it. From this point it appeared to end, but through the windshield Bolan observed the fresh tire tracks that seemed to pass into the dark, variegated brush beyond that point. The soldier put the SUV in Reverse, traveled roughly fifty feet, then downshifted to Drive