Silent Threat. Don Pendleton

screamed as she traded fire with Rieck. The Interpol agent’s shots were truer, clipping her in the arm and sending her screaming to the ground. Bolan scooped up the revolver she’d been carrying, turned and stood over her, the Beretta aimed at her head. “Do not move,” he ordered.

      Rieck, coming up to stand behind him, said something in German, which Bolan understood to be the same instructions. The young woman, pretty enough, with dark, naturally curly hair and fine-boned features, looked at them with such hatred that her face became a mask of ugly evil. She cursed in German. Bolan spared a glance at Rieck.

      “She says you will know everlasting peace,” Rieck said, nonplussed.

      “That’s a new one,” Bolan said. “Let’s get this mopped up.”

      Rieck proved his worth, barking orders, taking immediate charge of the chaotic scene. His Interpol credentials got a workout as he directed the customers to sit and calm down, while ordering the nearest shop attendant to call the appropriate authorities. Bolan, meanwhile, secured the two women with plastic zip-tie cuffs, searched them and then searched the corpse. He found nothing useful. There were only a few personal items like combs and brushes, a small folding knife in the dead man’s pocket, and extra ammunition for the weapons they carried. Bolan unloaded and set aside the Uzi, the dead man’s ancient Colt .380 automatic pistol, and the Smith & Wesson snub nose the wounded woman had tried to use.

      Flashing blue lights outside alerted the men to the approach of the local police. “There they are,” Rieck said, rising to look over the shell-shocked customers one last time. He nodded to Bolan. “I’ll make sure that ambulance is on the way.” There was no telling how many of the shop’s customers were suffering shock. Routine medical treatment was needed as part of containing the shooting and its aftermath.

      The front door of the coffee shop opened again.

      The men who entered, dressed in dark suits, carried Heckler & Koch MP-5 submachine guns. The man in the lead raised his weapon at Rieck. The killing intent in his eyes was unmistakable. This wasn’t backup.

      Rieck went for his gun, but there was no way he would make it in time. Death waited for him in the chamber of the lead shooter’s MP-5.

      Bolan’s Desert Eagle thundered.

      The .44 Magnum hollowpoint round took the gunner in the face, rocking him back. The gunner behind him faltered as he watched his partner suddenly go down, and Bolan shot him neatly through the neck. Yelling for Rieck to get down—the agent obligingly flattened himself—the big American emptied the Desert Eagle’s magazine through the doorway, targeting the silver Mercedes parked at the curb outside. The heavy rounds punched through the passenger-side front tire and fender, skimming across the hood and driving another gunner to cover behind the engine block.

      “Go, go!” Bolan directed. Rieck scrambled forward, snatched up the Uzi Bolan had taken from the blonde, and slammed its magazine home on the move. Unbidden, the Interpol agent broke right while Bolan broke left, both men pushing through the doors and into the nighttime hellstorm outside.

      The soldier quickly assessed the scenario. There were two vehicles, both silver Mercedes. He quickly counted targets. There were a half-dozen men, at least, moving in and around the cars, weapons at the ready. He ducked and dodged aside, Rieck mirroring his movements, as gunfire struck the windows behind them. There were more screams from within the coffee shop. Bolan snapped his gaze back long enough to confirm that the customers were on the floor, out of the direct line of fire. Grimly, he ripped the Beretta from its holster, both pistols in his fists now as he aimed first the Desert Eagle, then the Beretta, and pulled the triggers.

      The 3-round burst from the Beretta 93-R caught the nearest shooter as he bobbed up from behind the engine block of the shot-up Mercedes. The man went down with a burst through his throat. Then the Executioner was up and over, throwing himself across the hood of the car. He came down on the other side next to the dead man, surprising two shooters crouched in the open driver’s doors.

      One of the men got off a shot that went wide as Bolan triggered a .44 round through his face. At the same moment, the Beretta 93-R barked, punching a 3-round burst through the heart of the second man. Both gunners went slack in their seats.

      The unmistakable chatter of an Uzi, so familiar a sound to Bolen after years on international battlefields, erupted from behind the second vehicle. Rieck was crouched low and moving smoothly behind the rear of the car. He was canted slightly forward, leaning into the submachine gun, triggering short, controlled bursts. It was textbook mechanics for such a weapon. Bolan raised his mental estimation of the agent once more; the man thought clearly enough under fire to recover the terrorist weapon and use it to good effect, and he obviously had the training to do it properly. Rieck’s 9 mm bursts dropped two more of the suited shooters.

      The last two men—no, three, Bolan revised, as a third man came from around the corner of the coffee shop and ran for the street—began to withdraw, covering each other in turn with their weapons. The suppressing fire from first one, then the other MP-5 pushed Bolan and Rieck back down behind the two Mercedes sedans.

      Bolan went prone, rolling into position under the middle of his car. He placed the Beretta on the pavement and aimed the Desert Eagle with both hands, targeting the retreating, then running men. These would be difficult shots.

      There was no better marksman than the Executioner.

      The first .44 slug caught the trailing shooter in the ankle. He screamed and fell, rolling on the wet pavement. The MP-5 was still in his fists, so Bolan dealt him a shot to the head.

      The soldier’s third bullet caught the middle runner in mid-calf. He folded over without a sound, almost somersaulting as he lost his footing. Bolan could hear his skull crack on the pavement.

      Bolan’s fourth bullet took the farthest gunner in one thigh. He stumbled and nearly fell, but somehow managed to keep moving. The momentary crouch was all the Executioner needed. He snapped another long-distance shot into the man’s head. The body hit the sidewalk on the far side of the street, a crumpled heap beside a storm drain.

      Rieck popped up and brought the Uzi forward. He stalked ahead, just a few steps at a time, scanning the surrounding area. Bolan did the same, watching his side while the Interpol agent covered the other. They moved around the cars once, then again, checking to make sure all of the new shooters had been taken.

      “Clear!” Rieck called.

      “Clear,” Bolan stated. He checked once more, then reloaded and holstered the Desert Eagle. The Beretta 93-R he reloaded but kept at the ready.

      “Start checking bodies,” he instructed Rieck. “I’ll see if we’ve got any live ones.” Specifically, he was interested in the gunner who’d hit his head. It was possible he was still alive. Bolan checked the other two first, confirming they were dead, then knelt next to the man in question. He fingered the neck for a pulse and then rolled the body over.

      The man stared back, eyes lifeless and glassy. Bolan could tell from the angle the head lolled that the shooter had broken his neck in the fall. Bolan swore. He’d hoped for a live enemy to interrogate, but that couldn’t be helped. Searching through the man’s pockets, he found an extra magazine for the MP-5 in the suit jacket. There was also a fixed-blade fighting knife strapped inside the dead man’s waistband at the small of his back. He carried nothing else. No identification. Bolan left the knife where it was and stood. Rieck was quietly and efficiently going through the other dead men’s pockets.

      In the distance, the seesaw foghorn of German police sirens could be heard. The legitimate German authorities were responding, either to Rieck’s calls or to the sounds of gunfire. Bolan saw civilians, bystanders, poking their heads out from behind improvised cover: a man behind a kiosk here, a woman with two small children, out late, hiding in a doorway there. Keeping these people from the cross fire was the primary reason he had brought hell to the enemy, yet again.

      Rieck looked mildly wild-eyed. He shucked the empties from his Smith & Wesson—a .357 Magnum, Bolan noted—and popped in a speedloader of fresh rounds.

      “Did