Killing Ground. Don Pendleton

he’d reached a dead end.

      Eventually the flares were spent and darkness once again settled over the mountains. The sniper fire trailed off as the clouds fell back on themselves and wisped past Bolan, increasing his cover. He stayed put but shifted his weight until he felt secure enough to free his right hand. Unsnapping the clasp on his web holster, the Executioner unsheathed a 9 mm Beretta. Much as he loathed fighting battles on the defensive, there was little for him to do now but wait for the enemy to come to him. He stayed put, forcing himself to remain patient.

      Bolan’s eyes had readjusted to the darkness when a gust of wind swept across the ridgeline, stirring up loose dirt and showering it down on him. Forced to avert his gaze, the Executioner turned his head and glanced downward. Doing so, he caught a fortuitous glimpse of activity thirty yards past the rubble heap trailing down into the lake. Three men armed with assault rifles were stealing their way up the winding trail by which O’Brien and the Executioner had reached the ridgeline. Their backs were to Bolan, but he knew they had to be Taliban.

      The Executioner slowly torqued his body to give him more range with the Beretta. When one of the footholds gave way under his shifting weight, Bolan scrambled to keep his balance. Dislodged bits of rock clattered down the facing and thunked ominously off the larger rocks below.

      The gunmen down on the trail were about to make their way around a bend that would have carried them out of view when the last man in the column stopped and glanced over his shoulder, raised his AK-47 and shouted to the men in front of him. Bolan didn’t need a translator to realize he’d been spotted.

      The Executioner had secured himself enough that he was able to unleash a 3-round burst before the other man could fire. The shots were hurried, but one of them struck home and his would-be assailant crumpled to his knees, carbine slipping from his lifeless fingers. When the next closest Taliban dropped to a crouch and drew a bead on Bolan, the Executioner fired again. There were no kill shots this time, but he drew blood and the other man wailed as he staggered backward. The third gunman reached out and quickly pulled his colleague to cover behind an escarpment buttressing the bend in the trail.

      Overhead, far up near the top of the peak from which the original shots had been fired, Bolan heard more muffled shouts, followed by the rattle of falling stones he’d been listening for earlier. At least one of the snipers was coming down after him. When the clamor grew louder and small rocks began to tumble over the edge of the ridgeline, Bolan figured the attacker had bypassed trails and was sliding down the loose bed of choss. If that was the case, he’d reach the ridgeline in a matter of seconds.

      The Executioner hadn’t emptied his Beretta, but he quickly swapped out the semiautomatic’s half-spent magazine for a fresh one, certain he’d need all the firepower he could muster should he find himself locked in a cross fire. If it came to that, he knew his chances were slim. The clouds had moved on, leaving him splayed against the rock, every bit as vulnerable a target as O’Brien had been after the land mine had taken him down.

      There was no further activity on the trail below him, but overhead Bolan soon heard the tramp of footsteps. One of the snipers had already reached the ridge and was closing in on him.

      Bolan was weighing his next move when, about a mile to the north, staccato bursts from several AK-47s suddenly drowned out the sniper’s footsteps, followed by return fire from M-16s. The Executioner craned his neck and scanned the terrain where the shots were coming from. Through the drifting clouds, he saw blips of light punctuate the exchange of gunfire close to where one of the Special Ops forces had taken up position. There was only one likely explanation. More of the Taliban had somehow managed to slip past recon and turn the tables on their would-be ambushers.

      There was no time to mull over the turn of events. Bolan knew he had to act. It seemed likely that the distant firefight had distracted the enemy closing in on him, and he went with the odds. Holstering his Beretta, he coiled himself against the rock, then pushed off to his right, extending his arms toward the lone tree growing out from the cliff facing. As his fingers curled around the gnarly trunk, Bolan grabbed tight and swung forward, building momentum so that when he let go, he was able to clear the gap leading to the stretch where, as with the similar slope above, bombing had created a natural slide made up of pulverized gneiss and granite.

      Bolan landed hard on his back amid the loose stone, knocking the wind from his lungs. He struggled to remain conscious as he felt himself sliding feetfirst down the incline, dislodging enough rocks and other debris to create a full-scale avalanche. There was no way to tell if the enemy was firing at him. All he heard was the thunder of falling rock and the equally loud reverberation of blood pulsing through his head.

      Moments later, Bolan splashed into the lake. The icy water revived him instantly and as soon as his boots touched the shallow lake bottom, he bent at the knees and lunged forward, swimming clear of the larger boulders that had been brought crashing down behind him. Several rocks glanced off his legs and right thigh but their force was blunted by the water, and Bolan was able to stroke his way farther out into the lake.

      He remained submerged as long as he could, then, lungs burning, he angled his way upward and broke the surface. There he trod water as he gasped for air. He was halfway out into the lake. A ragged peninsula comprised of fallen trees and snagged debris stretched toward him from the far shore. Bolan swam quietly toward it, relying on leg kicks to keep his splashing to a minimum. Once he reached the trees and wriggled beneath a moss-covered branch, the Executioner stopped long enough to catch his breath.

      He could still hear gunfire to the north, but there were shots in the air around him, as well. Bolan wasn’t the target, however, and the most persistent firing came from almost directly overhead. Bolan peered up and saw a small AH-6J “Little Bird” combat chopper hovering in place just past the lake, directing blasts from a side-mounted .50-caliber machine gun at the Taliban gunmen on the path leading up to the ridgeline. Bolan couldn’t see the trail, but the ridgeline and distant peak were both within view, and there was no sign of fire being returned by the snipers.

      There was little Bolan could do to assist those in the chopper, which he recognized as part of the U.S. aerial force based out of Bagram. At the risk of being spotted and mistaken for the enemy, he pushed away from the half-submerged tree and circled around the peninsula, then slowly swam toward the far shore of the small lake. By the time he reached it, the Little Bird had let up on its offensive. The chopper was about to drift toward the precipice when it suddenly shifted course. Its halogen searchlight swept across the lake, falling on Bolan as he pulled himself from the water. The Executioner straggled ashore, half-numbed by the cold water but still able to feel countless bruises he’d sustained since first going over the side of the ridgeline.

      The chopper dropped to within a few yards of the embankment. The copilot reached out and helped Bolan up onto the skid.

      “Don’t think we can squeeze you in here,” the copilot shouted over the blare of the rotors.

      “I’m fine here,” Bolan replied, taking hold of the open door frame as the copter pulled away from the lake, listing at a slight angle to compensate for his added weight.

      “There were a couple snipers above the ridgeline,” he told the copilot, a Native American in his late twenties.

      “Didn’t see ’em,” the other man told him, “but they’ll have to wait. We’ve got an SOS from Team Five. Taliban popped up out of nowhere and have ’em pinned.”

      Bolan changed the subject. “You got a dry weapon in there?”

      “Sure thing.” The copilot reached behind his seat and handed Bolan a foot-long Heckler & Koch MP-5 K submachine gun. The H&K was larger than his Beretta but still fit snugly in his right palm. It packed a greater wallop, too. Bolan knew that if he kept the weapon close-bolted, he’d be able to fire from the skid with minimal kickback, ensuring better accuracy.

      “Where’s O’Brien?” the copilot asked.

      “Caught a land mine up on the ridge,” Bolan told him. “Snipers started in on us before I could call for help. He’s gone.”

      The copilot spit and readied one hand on the trigger