Executioner 055 - Paradine's Gauntlet

by Pendleton, Don

  He saw his target. Standing off to one side, watching the proceedings and sizing up his troops in action, Paradine was dressed exactly as he had been when the Executioner saw him last. In black. Mirrored aviator shades were in place. An AK-47 was suspended muzzle down from a leather strap across his shoulder.

  It would be an easy shot from Bolan's position. A single tumbler from the M-16 coulddo the job, or he could stroke the trigger of his M-203 and drop a high-explosive can on top of Paradine. So simple.

  Caution stayed his hand, and Bolan killed the temptation. If Paradine was hit, the hostages would be open game.

  As he watched, the prisoners came trooping through a barracks entrance to his right, flanked by riflemen who herded them in single file across open space. Bolan counted sixteen, with a stewardess and two men in airline uniforms bringing up the rear.

  The hostages were jostled and prodded by the terrorists into a huddled clutch at center stage. Spotlights pinned them, rifles with nervous fingers on the triggers surrounded them. Any sudden move would spark a firestorm.

  The Executioner was moving, circling, ducking in to place a charge against the fence and backing off again to the shelter of the darkness. He repeated the procedure every hundred feet, until his circuit of the preoccupied installation was complete and he was back where he had started.

  The plastic charges were implanted with time-delay detonators, keyed to Bolan's radio-remote control. With the box at his waist, he could blow them all together, or in opposing pairs, or in rapid-fire succession with two-second lag time between the blasts.

  He was here to teach them all to fear the Phoenix fire.

  Paradine stood before the hostages like a general preparing to address his troops.

  The gunners flanking Paradine carried Kalashnikovs.

  Out beyond the lights, Bolan prepared to make his move.

  SARAH SHEPHERD HAD JERKED ERECT, snapping out of a light sleep, momentarily forgetting where she was. She felt an urge to scream, but fought it, swallowing the sudden surge of panic. The pain inside her skull returned in nauseating waves, answered by a throbbing in her wounded side.

  Something had awakened her—a sound. She heard voices, and . . .

  The door burst open and a gang of Arab guards stormed into the barracks, jostling and prodding at the hostages, barking unintelligible orders in their native language. Ranging up and down the Quonset's barren length, they herded everyone together, striking out at stragglers with their rifle butts.

  A solitary figure filled the barracks door, and Sarah recognized the tall American as one of those who had accompanied the blond leader on the 747. He had changed from his business suit to mottled camouflage and pistol belt. The rifle in his hands was identical to those the Arabs carried.

  When he reached the center of the hut, the mercenary halted, standing in a circle of expectant, nervous hostages.

  "We're moving out," he said. "I want you all in the yard in single file. Paradine will give you your instructions there."

  Paradine. The name was unfamiliar to her, but fitting—cold and bloodless, like the man himself—and it cut across her nerves like a razor.

  Sarah braced against the corrugated-metal wall, then struggled to her feet, gasping at the sudden spasm of pain caused by injured ribs. A momentary wave of dizziness enveloped her, but quickly passed.

  The hostages were filing out, and Sarah fell in line.

  Outside, the compound was bright as day with every light ablaze. Mercenaries stood lacing the line of hostages. Sarah caught a fleeting glimpse of snipers in the towers overhead, their automatic weapons following the short procession.

  Ahead of her, the prisoners were stumbling to a halt, the line folding into a clump of dazed, helpless people. Sarah tried to find the center of the group to surround herself with people. She was desperate for a place to hide, a way to make herself invisible.

  The lady was no longer frightened. She was terrified.

  She knew instinctively that there was something wrong. Suddenly breathless with fear, she felt she might suffocate.

  The mercenary leader, Paradine, was watching from the sidelines, another pair of uniformed Americans behind him. His silvered glasses caught the light and reflected it like coals of fire, giving his face a grim, Satanic look.

  She was in the presence of the damned, and Sarah knew there was no escape.

  The man in black began to speak. His voice was a monotone that belied the menace of his words.

  "Your governments have chosen to ignore my terms," he said. "In view of their reluctance, I am left with no choice."

  Sarah heard the calm, hideous pronouncement of her death. Now she was ready to fight. Now Sarah Shepherd wanted to live.

  They were surrounded, pinned beneath the searchlights with nowhere to run.

  Paradine was backing off. His voice rose, reaching out to gunmen ranged around the camp's perimeter. He barked commands in Arabic, repeated them in German and Italian,watched as the mercenaries closed their ring around the hostages. Rifle bolts snapped back and forth. The sound was the gnashing teeth of savage machinery.

  Sarah Shepherd stood strong and prayed.

  "Ready!"Paradine glared at the huddled captives. "Aim!"

  The night erupted into thunder. The mercenary leader recoiled from the blast. Phoenix had struck.

  The western tower crumpled and collapsed in flaming ruins.

  A fiery comet streaked across the compound, impacting on the eastern tower at Paradine's back.

  A ball of fire devoured the observation deck of the tower, consuming startled troops before they had a chance to scream. Then the legs of the tower blew outward and the platform dropped heavily to earth, expelling smoke and cinders in a blinding cloud.

  Michael passed Paradine on the run, shouting at the troops and calling them to order. Some of them responded sluggishly, but most were busy scrambling to protect themselves, seeking any cover they could find. Along the fence, an automatic rifle opened up, the gunner firing into empty darkness, and another quickly joined the chorus.

  Paradine dismissed them from his mind. He did not care if they killed each other pursuing shadows. Phoenix was his only concern, and he was ready to receive the enemy.

  He primed the folding-stock Kalashnikov and released its safety. He was moving, looking for a safe position with a field of fire, when another rocket hurtled overhead, homing on the generator shack. Paradine saw the Quonset hut disintegrate. Cables snaked wildly off in all directions as the camp blacked out.

  Somewhere on his flank, a woman screamed. Male voices, frightened, angry, were cursing at the sudden darkness. Around the camp's perimeter, a score of weapons stuttered into life.

  There was still a chance, if he could reach the truck park. The vehicles could give him light and hope, bring order out of milling chaos. He veered hard left, running now at full speed.

  Navigating by the firelight, he made directly for the trucks, ignoring the running figures as they brushed past him. One of the Egyptian hostages stumbled to a halt in front of him, and Paradine swung his rifle barrel in a vicious arc, connecting with a startled face. Paradine charged on.

  He was thirty yards from target when ameteor descended on the truck park, detonating beneath the cab of a military eight-wheeler. The truck reared up, riding on a tongue of oily flame before it went to pieces. The truck park became a boiling lake of fire. Fuel tanks were going off in quick succession, a volcanic string of fireworks. The concussion slammed Paradine to the earth.

  He hugged the ground and felt the panic rising in him as it had in Turkey and in his nightmares. The trembling began in his stomach, radiated outward into his limbs. He gripped the AK-47 tighter, willing himself to rise and fight.

  The nightmares were over now for Paradine, replaced by grim reality, his second chance at Phoenix. The last chance for the terrorist mercenary to redeem himself, or die.

  "YOUR GOVERNMENTS HAVE CHOSEN to ignore my terms. In view of their reluctance, I am left with no choi
ce."

  Crouching on the edge of darkness, Bolan listened to the death sentence and saw the troops prepare to open fire upon hearing Paradine's command. It was a trap, the mercenary's last and most desperate ploy to draw him out, but for Bolan there was no time for weighing odds and angles.

  He found the radio-remote control bytouch and keyed the rocketry for single fire. Bolan counted down the heartbeats, reaching five before a hurtling comet filled his peripheral vision, homing on the western guard tower, slamming between the spindly legs. The lookout post disintegrated with a resounding thunderclap, propelling guards, guns and shattered lumber into a free-fall.

  Mass confusion broke out, hearts racing, pumping, guns pumping, the hostages forgotten as their captors turned to face the outer perimeters. Paradine was in a combat crouch, his flankers fanning out to cover him, but the rank and file were still groping toward a recognition of the true threat.

  Before the first retaliatory round was fired, Bolan had punched the key again and was watching a second firebird crackle in from downrange, taking out the second tower in a roaring ball of flame.

  The eruption splintered wood and turned shards into sleek missiles. Hot shock waves fractured the air and laid waste the earth. A driving fire rain of destruction ripped apart dreams as it tore open guts, broke heads, snapped limbs. Nearby survivors continued to pump weapons into the night, seeking non-existent targets. Distant troops scrambled away from whatever they thought would bethe next target; they fled from the carnage to come.

  Bolan launched another rocket, and in split seconds the hardsite's generator went to hell, blacking out the camp and pitching already terrified mercenaries into dark horror. Fire along the fence increased. Bolan hugged the earth, avoiding strays.

  In front of him, the midnight landscape had acquired a reddish hue, firelight casting mottled shadows on the huts and running figures.

  He saw the prisoners, led by a woman, breaking for freedom. Terrorists were firing in the darkness, wildly, aimlessly, at every phantom they thought they saw or heard.

  Bolan had to penetrate the enemy camp before the rattled troops recovered from their panic.

  He spotted Paradine, a dodging, weaving figure, in the fire-bright smoke, minus flankers now. He was running across the killing ground. Paradine was making for the truck park.

  Bolan saw the enemy's intention. He then stroked the radio-remote and dispatched his final fireball. Paradine was closing on his target when a blast obliterated the middle of the truck park, spewing fiery streamers of gasoline in all directions. The explosion toppled Paradine, and Bolan lost sight of him as secondary blasts devoured the trucks and jeeps, laying down a pall of oily smoke.

  It was time to move. Bolan was on his feet and leaping forward when he keyed the time-delay plastique for rapid-fire sequential detonation. Starting on his left and moving counter clockwise, a string of giant firecrackers tore the night apart, marching right around the compound and opening a dozen gaps in Paradine's defensive line.

  It would take a strong, coordinated force to close them all, and at the moment, Paradine was on his own.

  Bolan hit the trigger of his M-203, dropping a can of high explosive into the command hut. He saw the corrugated-metal structure ripple, bulge, before it went to pieces with a numbing roar. Disintegrating roofs and walls became jagged pieces of steel impacting flesh as mercenaries scrambled for another sanctuary.

  At the wire, Bolan found an opening and slipped into Paradine's defensive ring. Terrorists and prisoners were everywhere, charging through the fire and dust in a desperate search for exits.

  Few of the gunners held their posts, but a handful of stoic Germans stood at some ofthe smoking gaps to hold them and prevent troops or hostages breaking out.

  Two of these hardguys saw Bolan and accosted him, weapons swinging up and onto target. The Executioner responded with his M-16, hammering a figure eight that blew them both away. He was moving, seeking other targets, as their bodies hit the ground.

  Bolan was in, but the battle was far from over.

  He advanced across the killing ground, a lethal specter shielded by the drifting battle smoke. The Executioner was on a dragon hunt.

  The dragon was Paradine.

  19

  BOLAN FED A CANISTER OF GAS into his 40mm thunder-gun and sent it downrange to join the battle smoke. Tracking on, he swung the stubby launcher and released another gas round, spreading the hellish cloud over friend and foe. The choking fumes did not discriminate.

  Bolan had to keep the terrorists off guard, confused, reeling, jumping at their shadows. It was a risky game, especially for the milling hostages, but he had to play the cards as they were dealt.

  He saved the automatic rifle for precision work, spending single rounds and short, selective bursts when targets came into view. He toppled six terrorists without revealing his position. He kept moving, hunting Paradine.

  The mercenary had obviously found himself a hole.

  Bolan slipped an HE can into the launcher's breech and locked it down, pivoting in the direction of the nearest barracks. Firingfrom the hip, he dropped the round through the Quonset's open window, backing off before it detonated.

  The barracks seemed to swell, straining at the seams, before a blinding bubble of flame ripped it apart. The roof was sent skyward, riding on a tongue of fire, furniture and fixtures sucked along behind it. Smoking walls crumpled.

  Bolan reloaded on the run, moving toward the other barracks before the dust and ash had settled from the first blast. Thirty yards from his target, he stroked the launcher's trigger, riding out the recoil and watching as the installation's final standing structure rocked, disintegrated. A rising scream was muffled, snuffed out by the hungry crackle of the flames.

  Across the compound, Paradine's American terrorists were rallying survivors, desperately trying to collect a fighting force. A handful of men were responding.

  One of the guncocks spotted Bolan. The Americans were leading out, firing 7.62mm hornets as they came.

  Bolan hit a long shoulder roll, coming out of it a dozen yards west of his original position. Kneeling, he chambered a 40mm round of buckshot, placing a finger on the launcher's trigger as his opposition closed the gap.

  A rapid scan revealed an open field of fire, and Bolan spent a couple of precious seconds searching for the hostages. His eyes caught a young woman herding a group of them through the ruptured fence behind the motor pool, and the warrior wished them well. They were bound for life. The Executioner was occupied with death.

  A bullet smacked the earth beside his knee, another tugged at his sleeve. Bolan turned his full attention to the enemy. He met them at a range of forty yards with fire and lead, twenty of the deadly double-ought pellets slicing into flesh and vital organs. One of the Americans was disemboweled, a pair of Palestinians behind him ventilated, blown away.

  Bolan tracked them, scanning with his automatic rifle. He stitched a line of tumblers along the trailing flank, dropping half a dozen hardguys in thrashing, screaming agony. Another burst, and they were silent, deathly still.

  Two terror-mercs were left with Bolan on the hellgrounds. They were slick, professional, peeling off in opposite directions, laying down a covering barrage. Angry steel-jackets filled the air, snapping past Bolan's face and giving lethal substance to the night.

  Bolan took the soldier on his left, hanging a wreath of tumblers around his neck withsurgical precision. The mercenary's skull exploded, a bloody fountain pumping in the firelight, before his body toppled over into dusty death.

  The second trooper had his target marked and measured, squeezing off a burst that could have sectioned Bolan at the waist—but Bolan had moved. The Executioner was flat on the ground to one side, his rifle automatically swinging into bull's-eye acquisition. With a gentle squeeze, three rounds rattled off in automatic fire, and the mercenary sat down hard, dark blood soaking through his jacket just above the heart.

  Bolan scrambled to his feet, snapped another magazine
into the M-16 and moved out. He had a rendezvous to keep.

  PARADINE WAS TRAPPED inside a nightmare, overpowered by a numbing sense of deja vu. He roamed the killing ground in search of Phoenix, half afraid of finding him. The stench of death and burning rubble filled his nostrils.

  It was Turkey all over again, but worse. The mercenary's trap was being turned against him. He felt the jaws about to close around his throat.

  He passed the broken bodies of his soldiers as he prowled. Vacant, sightless eyes observed him with disdain. They were dead, finished, but the game went on for Paradine, and he was losing. If he did not find Phoenix soon, he was afraid his nerve might break.

  A German, one of his Baader-Meinhof rejects, stumbled into view, his pallid face streaked with blood. The shaken, dazed terrorist approached Paradine, moving like a zombie in the fire lit night.

  Paradine, feeling no pity for the beaten man, raised his AK-47, finger tensing on the trigger, and squeezed off a burst. The stream of bullets knocked his human target backward, mauling flesh and fabric, casting him away, a floppy rag-doll figure with its stuffing falling out.

  The sudden violence brought meager exhilaration to Paradine, releasing only a measure of the tension he was feeling. If he met the shadow warrior now, this minute....

  A tall figure, dressed in black and hung with weapons, was approaching through the battle haze. Paradine was jolted by the sight. Cold sweat beaded on his forehead. The shock of recognition was like a sharp blow to the heart.

  It was Phoenix, cold and grim as death—a specter straight from Paradine's recurring dreams. He could have sketched the figure from his memory, supplied the smallest detail with his eyes closed.

  A rifle stuttered on the dark perimeter, another chimed in, and Phoenix swivelled toward the sound. Without breaking stride, he launched a high-explosive shell in the direction of his enemies. The blast eclipsed the sniper fire and replaced it with ragged screams.

  Paradine's Kalashnikov shuddered in his shaking hand, roared, and a stream of empty casings rattled at the mercenary's feet. Down range, Phoenix staggered, stumbled, fell. In the blink of an eye he was down. He was on his back.