Interception. Don Pendleton

housing materials were shredded under the onslaught. Vasili’s black attaché case was ripped apart, and papers exploded into the air like ragged confetti. The furniture disintegrated as more heavy-caliber main battle rifles joined the barrage.

      The RPK cut loose in long, distinct braps of fire as the machine gunner dragged the weapon along the length of the one-story house. A mildew-stained refrigerator was blown apart as rounds punched through the outside wall and bored into it like lead-jacketed sledgehammers. Bolan’s own carry-all, still resting on the kitchen table, was ravaged in a relentless cross fire, and his expensive electronics were pounded into useless, unrecognizable pieces. The machine gun severed the door from its hinges and the perforated structure blew inward.

      A green tracer round struck a cushion, igniting a small fire on the ratty couch. A cheap clay vase, empty of flowers, was shattered and another ComBloc tracer round sliced through the flimsy window curtains and set them on fire.

      In the hall Bolan scrambled to his knees as Vasili reached up and opened the back door. The big American’s ears were ringing from the furious din, and he knew it would only be moments before another gunman in the death squad retrieved the fallen RPG-7 antitank weapon and turned it on the single-story home.

      Vasili pushed open the back door and jumped out of the house over the short porch steps and onto the ground. Bolan leaped up after the man and followed him out the door. What happened next unfolded too quickly for Bolan to consider; he merely reacted on instincts so finely honed by continuous exposure to violence that they were evolved to nearly preternatural levels of capability.

      The leader of the death squad had placed a security gunner on the rear door in a textbook setup. Bolan spotted the muzzle-flash from the weapon of an Asian killer lying in a shallow depression beside an old metal trash barrel. The man’s bare arms were alive with brightly colored tattoos, indicating his affiliation with either the Japanese Yakuza or one of the Hong Kong triads. Bolan had an impression of a burst hitting Vasili and the Croatian criminal shuddering under the impact. As he heard the sound of the gunfire, the Executioner was already twisting in midair. His feet hit the ground, and he sank into a crouch to absorb the impact, his pistol firing a triburst on the fly.

      The sniper’s head jerked back and his green head-band lifted off with a Frisbee-like section of skull and went spinning away into the bushes by a low stone wall. The man’s ruined head slumped into the dirt, and Bolan sprang forward out of his crouch. His feet pounded hard against the brown grass of the tiny back lawn as he sprinted the fifteen yards to the downed enemy gunner.

      Bolan slid into place beside the corpse and from behind him the house rocked on its ancient foundations as the RPG-7 warhead exploded inside. Jets of flame erupted from shattered windows and the open door. Within seconds, oily smoke poured into the night sky, and a wash of heat rolled into Bolan like a furnace blast. He felt a sting of piercing impact on the big muscles of his shoulder and a distant part of his mind cataloged the shrapnel wound.

      Reaching down with his left hand, he grabbed the bloody hit man’s limp arm. He rolled the dead man over as he slid the still smoking Beretta 93-R into the waistband at the small of his back. The barrel was warm on his skin. He snatched the AKM used to gun down Vasili and then pulled a Croatian army grenade from the ammo pouch on the fanny pack belt cinched around the dead man’s waist. The canister-shaped device was an RG-42 antipersonnel hand grenade, 4.6 inches long and it weighed 436 gms. The deadly little bomb had a blast radius of 75 feet and had come from Soviet stocks when Split had still been Yugoslavia. Bolan thought it felt damn good in his hand.

      The Executioner rested the AKM assault rifle across his knee and jerked the pin from the hand grenade. He grabbed the Kalashnikov and rose, the fingers on his left hand holding down the safety lever on the grenade. He felt the blood from his shoulder wound roll down his back, sticking his shirt to his skin.

      Bolan realized speed and aggression were his only allies now. He jogged toward the corner of the smoldering house. As he reached the front of the structure, he released the lever on the hand grenade and the tightly depressed spring shot the metal strip out into the air away from him. Bolan slowed to a walk and peered around the final corner, the grenade cooking off in his fist.

      He saw the death squad approaching the door of the smoke-filled house, arrayed in an inverted V formation like geese flying south for the winter. The driver of the Stobart pickup remained behind the wheel of the running vehicle. Bolan tossed the grenade underarm toward the mysterious Asian death squad. It bounced once and rolled toward the team like a can of soda spinning off a desk and across the floor. One of the gunmen caught the motion and turned, his AKM coming up.

      Bolan snapped his hand onto the front stock of his own AKM as he pulled the weapon’s trigger. He scythed the man to the ground, then peeled back around the corner of the little house, feeling the heat from the fire burning inside against his back. He heard men scream in warning then the grenade blast silenced them.

      Angry hornets of shrapnel rattled into the ruined building and buzzed through the smoky air. Bolan rolled back around the corner of the house, snuggling the AKM into the crook of his shoulder like a man hugging an old friend.

      The hit team lay on the ground. Some men tried to sit up while others reached frantically for weapons knocked clear by the blast. Bolan raced forward and opened up with controlled sweeps of the AKM muzzle, hosing them down. Spent shell casings arced out of his weapon until it ran dry.

      Bolan threw aside the hot, smoking assault rifle and reached for the Beretta 93-R secured behind his back. He spun toward the pickup, falling into a modified, two-fisted Weaver stance with the machine pistol.

      The driver had already thrown open his door and jumped from behind the wheel. But, like the rest of the hit squad, the man had brought an AKM assault rifle for the attack and the long weapon banged against the steering wheel and the side of the cab as he tried to yank it free and bring it into play.

      Bolan put four rounds through the gap of open vehicle door and windshield in less than a second. All four 9 mm Parabellum rounds found their mark and the man staggered back, dropping the rifle so that it clattered off the truck and onto the ground. Blood rushed in a river from the gunner’s ruined throat and jaw as he spun. His feet tangled up in themselves and he went down without a word to bounce hard off the blood-splattered cobblestone.

      Senses amped to a peak level by adrenaline, Bolan heard a moan at his feet, turned, dropped his pistol muzzle and put a bullet in the man lying there. Then he started toward the still running Stobart pickup. He dropped the 93-R pistol’s magazine from the butt grip and slammed home one of his two backups. His finger found the catch release and the handgun shuddered in his hand as the bolt slid home and chambered a round.

      Bolan climbed into the pickup and slammed the door closed. He stood on the gas and cranked the wheel hard, turning the vehicle in a tight circle and leaving rubber skid marks across the pavement. As he straightened the nose of the European pickup back toward the road, his front tire rolled over the body of the driver he’d killed with the 9 mm pistol.

      The steering wheel shuddered in his grip as first his front and then his rear tires rolled over the body. Without a backward glance, Bolan sped away into the night.

      JACK GRIMALDI had the sleek Saber jet running flat-out over the Atlantic Ocean.

      In the back of the private, executive-class plane Mack Bolan had dressed his wounds, then cleaned up and changed clothes. Immediately upon takeoff he’d dumped the contents of the flash drive he’d purchased from Vasili into an Epsilon Protocol Encryption laptop provided to him by Stony Man Farm’s mission controller, Barbara Price.

      The powerful little computer had downloaded, security checked, encrypted and sent the information contents of the flash drive to Stony Man’s mainframes via Keyhole satellite. Now, an hour later, Bolan had just popped the top on a cold beer to wash down a fistful of ibuprofen tablets when the call came in.

      “It’s Barb at the Farm,” Grimaldi called through the open cockpit door. “There’s been an update from that Croatian information you passed on.”

      Bolan placed his beer on a nearby table after swallowing his antiinflammatory