Beirut Payback te-67

by Don Pendleton

  Syria, on Lebanon's border, backed the rebel factions in a bid to subordinate Lebanon without necessarily annexing it.

  Syria functioned as the Soviets' muscle in this struggle, though Soviet and Syrian interests were often at odds. The Kremlin preferred its clients to remain relatively weak and thus dependent on Moscow's patronage, but the will of Islam is strong. The Soviet terror machine's strongarms in the Mediterranean would never yield to state over religion, the basic tenet of communism to control the masses.

  The Syrian warlords in Damascus played the situation with a hope of making Syria the center of the Arab world. Real power, yeah, but not an easy task for a country with nearly no oil and only ten million people.

  Damascus already had the PLO under its thumb.

  Control over the terrorist network gave Syria sinister leverage over moderate pro-Western oil producers who were exceedingly vulnerable to terrorism.

  The Russian "advisors," of course, played for the big stakes. They wanted this corner of the world-a key to the world slave state their leaders had always envisioned.

  The Executioner had a shot tonight at cutting these savages off at the knees.

  But first he had to find Strakhov.

  Why had the KGB top cannibal risked it all to come to this hellground?

  Did the answer wait in Biskinta?

  Only one thing for sure, thought Bolan. The Disciples of Allah are next.

  The slimebags who sent a truck bomb to massacre sleeping peacekeepers.

  Bolan kept his combat-cool objectivity intact as he drove, but anger tightened his fists around the Volvo's steering wheel until his knuckles shone bone white.

  The Disciples of Allah.

  Craziest of the crazies, not giving a damn if they died, as long as they took plenty of the enemy with them.

  The Shiite fanatics were the most dangerous foe of all on the battlefield, because they believed they had nothing to lose.

  The desire for martyrdom is rooted deeply in Shiism, which in turn is rooted in Iran. The very word assassin comes from hashshashin after the gang of hashish-smoking hit men, directed by an eleventh century Persian cannibal named Hasan ibn al-Sabbah, who often sacrificed their own lives for his cause.

  Less than ten percent of the world's five hundred million Muslims are Shiites, their zeal for martyrdom fanned by their Ayatollah in Tehran, encouraged by the mullahs.

  During the Iranian revolution, anti-Shah marchers wore white burial clothes to indicate their willingness to die for the struggle.

  Thousands of Iranian youths wearing red "martyour" bandannas and small "keys to heaven" around their necks volunteered for certain death in the Iran-Iraq war. Children as young as six had been sent to the front with Korans in their hands to clear minefields for the Iranian army.

  To die in a Jihad offers a direct passport to Allah and Ali, the revered son-in-law and cousin of the prophet Mohammed.

  To kill large numbers of infidels in the process is only a greater glory.

  Some enemies, yeah, for one warrior to take on, but Bolan saw no other way.

  Some enemies are worth following into Hell.

  The Executioner would find Strakhov.

  Tonight.

  Assassination.

  Bolan would find the truth and destroy whatever the KGB terror merchant hoped to feed on from the suffering of this war-torn land.

  He glanced sideways and saw the little Arab boy again asleep in Zoraya's embrace.

  "Anything?"

  "Our little one's name is Selim. I do not think he knows where his parents are, if they are alive or dead. It is all too much for him to comprehend." Bolan grunted.

  "I know how he feels."

  "We must do everything we can to find his people when we return to Beirut," said Zoraya, "unless it is already too late." And a tear the size of a pearl appeared in the corner of one eye and rolled down her cheek. There were no more tears. But Bolan knew they were there inside for the man she had loved and lost to war and for the child in her arms. And if she felt anything like the icy-eyed warrior beside her, she shed a tear for the awful dark side of human beings.

  "How far to the town?" Bolan asked, to change the tone and keep the lady tough.

  They had driven for ten minutes since the checkpoint, climbing steadily as the road twisted into the hills.

  "Very soon," Zoraya replied. "In the next quarter mile there is a trail. It will take you to a promontory overlooking Biskinta." That suited Bolan just fine.

  6

  It was time for action.

  Time for The Executioner to strike.

  The provincial village was tiered across the slope of a mountain. The cluster of look-alike one-story structures was interrupted only by a minaret towering from the mosque from which the muezzins would call the villagers to prayer. The settlement nestled beneath the starlit bowl of the purple sky did not stir.

  At the southwestern edge of town was the barbedwire-enclosed force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

  From his position 250 yards to the higheaground from the eight-foot-high fence, Bolan could observe, with little chance of detection, the base where the Iranians hosted the Disciples of Allah.

  Before moving this close, the nightpenetrator had ascertained that the detachment of Iranians had no roving guard patrols beyond their perimeter.

  The base was a rectangle, 250 yards by 200 yards. A heavily guarded gate at the far corner of the compound from where Bolan sat appeared to be the only road in.

  The perimeter was well patrolled on the inside by three-man units toting assault rifles.

  A row of tents had to be the troops' sleeping quarters, mess and latrines.

  The big shots could only be quartered and operating out of the squat two-story building in the center of the compound.

  The Executioner knew that was where he would find the suicide commandos.

  He made a final check of his gear and weapons.

  He had applied a black facial goo that completed the blacksuit effect, making The Executioner all but invisible this moonless night.

  Time: 0300 hours.

  Bolan moved out, negotiating the descending terrain in a zigzag course from gnarled tree trunks to inky shadows of wild vegetation.

  Zoraya waited with Selim in the Volvo, parked hidden from sight of the main road a quarter mile behind Bolan.

  The lady hellgrounder had wanted to accompany him.

  "I may be of assistance if you are stopped and questioned," she had reasoned in a low whisper before they parted.

  "If I'm stopped, I'll be dead," Bolan had whispered back.

  According to Zoraya's intel, Strakhov was on the prowl tonight with an armored Syrian force, and Bolan had little doubt they were in the area, possibly waiting for him with the Iranians at the base.

  He would find out.

  Alone.

  "But I feel so helpless with nothing to do but wait," Zoraya had pressed. "If I am doing something, I... I will not dwell on Chaim... on the emptiness that tries to consume me."

  "Another reason I won't cake you along," Bolan had said. "You'd be killed in a firefight tonight, Zoraya. I don't need that kind of help. And there's Selim. That little character is every bit as important as anything I do tonight. We've got to get him home, and safe." She had considered that with a glance at the soundly sleeping boy in the back seat of the Volvo.

  "You're right, of course." She had appraised Bolan with a frankness he found vaguely disconcerting. "I have the feeling you are right about most things. You are... a very impressive man, Mack Bolan." He had started out of the car.

  "Thirty minutes," he had reminded her. "Unless you and Selim find yourselves in danger."

  "I will not run out on you."

  "Don't worry about me. I want the child safe, and you. Promise me, Zoraya. That kid needs us and I'm not going to let him down."

  "I understand. I promise. I shall keep the little one safe."

  "Then I'm gone." Zoraya had leaned over before he closed the
car door. She touched his arm.

  "Remember, Ib Masudi, the commander of the Iranian Guards... his cruelty... he is feared more than respected by those in his command. Do not give him quarter under any condition. You are one man taking on incredible odds this night."

  "That's the one advantage we've got," had been the soldier's grim parting shot.

  The Executioner had turned away and disappeared into the gloom.

  The nightfighter had not heard the lady's parting shot, whispered soft as a kiss after him.

  "May Allah guide you, angel of death. You deliver His vengeance."

  Bolan intended to play this penetration soft until he could isolate the commander, Masudi, and do all the damage possible before pulling out and leaving the Revolutionary Guards in total confusion. He had faith that such a hit by one man against such a sizable force had a damn good chance of succeeding, considering the hour.

  He could see lights on in the building, but except for the sentries at the gates and foot patrols along the perimeter, no one stirred at the base. The guards would not be at their best at this hour.

  And, of course, Bolan had faith in himself.

  He had been doing this type of thing for nearly twenty years in one capacity or another from Vietnam to the present.

  He understood the risks, the vagaries of such an audacious hit at the heart of the enemy. Talk about vagaries: the Disciples of Allah; an Iranian sadist; something about an assassination; and a KGB boss somewhere in the night with an armored column of Syrians.

  Nothing could be planned on a hit such as the one Bolan now contemplated.

  He clutched the silenced Beretta in his right fist and came in low at the wire fence, crouching to the base of it. He chose the darkest point between two of the nearest spotlights mounted atop a line of poles evenly spaced along the inside of the perimeter.

  He tapped the fence lightly, tentatively. It wasn't electrified. Good.

  From a pocket of the blacksuit he produced a miniature set of wire cutters made of a special alloy. He snipped a passage through the fence in seconds.

  During his recon he had timed the movement of the sentry patrols. He gave himself another ninety seconds to cross to the back wall of the building.

  He hustled the distance, taking his biggest chance, but he met no interference. Along the way he skirted a blacktop tarmac crowded with weaponry, armored personnel carriers, tanks, multiple rocket launchers mounted in the beds of camou — striped trucks — Russian hardware shipped from North Korea by way of Syria to Lebanon as "farm implements." He briefly considered the advisability of planting some plastique amid all this war machinery. But he could not discount the possibility that he might accomplish all he wanted and still withdraw undetected until his work was discovered in the morning. That would be ideal if Strakhov wasn't here and the track led somewhere else.

  He almost made the shadows at the back wall of the headquarters building when three bearded soldiers in Iranian Revolutionary Guard uniform of hooded parka, knit hat and camou fatigues stepped from the back door of the building toting assault rifles. The Executioner figured they were sentries on their way to relieve one of the foot patrols.

  Bolan saw them well before the Shiite fanatics saw his shadow emerge at them from the night. Then three sets of eyes widened in panicky reaction, and three mouths started to curse or shout something.

  But before their rifles could swing up, Bolan knelt in a two-handed shooting crouch and the Beretta quietly sneezed its 9mm death buzzers.

  The 3-round death burst sent the trio tumbling off their feet, piling lifelessly into one another.

  Bolan continued past without slowing, gaining the door the three men had just stepped from. As he opened the door he realized he could save the play if he moved fast enough.

  He found himself in a hallway leading to the front foyer of what appeared to have been a private home before the cannibals moved in and commandeered the building from its owners.

  An IRG member stepped into the hallway inquiringly, drawn by the sounds of the commotion outside in the early-morning silence.

  The soldier met Bolan eye to eye.

  Bolan didn't stop for this one, either. His left hand grabbed the guy's throat, and he rammed the man's head backward against the doorframe hard enough to kill him.

  The soldier collapsed, blood trickling from his ears and matted hair to the wood behind him.

  Bolan extended his right arm through the doorway of the Orderly Room. As he sailed past he drilled two sleepy-eyed soldiers who started to get up but plopped right back down with tunnels cored through their heads.

  The Executioner kept moving.

  He reached the foyer and started up some stairs he found there.

  The lights he'd seen from this house had come from both levels.

  He fed a fresh clip into the Beretta, taking the treaders three at a time.

  Survival depended solely on how fast he moved. His presence had only been detected by those he killed. But those bodies could be discovered anytime. And the patrolling sentries would soon begin to worry about their reliefs' delay.

  The hallway on the second level was lined with closed doors. Through an archway to Bolan's right dim light filtered into the corridor along with a male voice chanting something in Arabic.

  Bolan approached the archway, pressing himself to the wall. No one showed his face as Bolan stealthily breached the distance, the Beretta still in his fist.

  The men beyond that passageway must have felt secure with the guards outside and downstairs in the Orderly Room.

  The only way this thing played to Bolan was that something important had to be going down for 3:30 A.m. activity.

  He reached the archway and crouched well below eye level of anyone in the room around the entrance frame.

  The voice in Arabic took on a cadence like a prayer.

  Bolan stole a glance around the edge of the wall.

  His trained eye sized it all up with one sweep.

  Six men.

  Ib Masudi.

  The slight stature of the Iranian commander did nothing to lessen the cruelty that glittered from eyes like black marbles separated by a hook nose. The Shiite general was in full IRG uniform.

  That made this an official briefing.

  The four men across a table from General Masudi were in mufti but wore Disciples of Allah armbands. One of them was an older man with gray in his beard, most likely the Disciples' military liaison. The others were younger, with the wary body language of street fighters. The terrorists and the general all wore holstered pistols.

  They had unrolled and were studying large pieces of paper on the low table.

  Blueprints.

  Bolan took in the sixth man in the room, then the room itself, and he knew he had it.

  Prayer rugs on the floor.

  The sixth, a white-bearded old man doing the chanting and wearing traditional djellaba, was unarmed and clasped a Koran to his breast as he spoke fervently.

  The Disciples of Allah and Masudi listened intently with downcast eyes to their mullah giving the blessing before another suicide squad stole into the night to bring terror.

  Not this time.

  The Executioner straightened and stepped from concealment into the room, the Beretta tracking on Masudi, who first noticed the grim specter.

  The general's expression warned the others and they looked up, too. In the next heartbeat everyone scrambled for weapons, fanning away from each other with a flaring of survival instinct. The mullah faded back into a corner, wishing he could become invisible.

  Then an earsplitting explosion from outside disrupted the confrontation.

  Windows blew inward and the house shuddered to its foundations.

  The sounds of gunfire opened up outside before the rumbling of the first explosion ebbed, followed by a cacophony of slaughter that meant only one thing.

  The Iranian base had fallen under attack by someone other than The Executioner.

  With Bolan caught right in
the middle.

  The action in the room resumed even as flying shards of glass, blown inward from the windows by the first explosion, sliced through the air.

  Four Disciples of Allah terrorists.

  General Masudi.

  And their Executioner.

  The old white-bearded mullah crouched in a far corner of the room on the periphery of the action, shielding himself from exploding glass.

  The instant before, Bolan's Beretta 93-R had drawn a bead on the bridge of Masudi's hook nose, but with the attack from outside, everything changed.

  A sliver of glass gashed a razor-thin furrow above Bolan's brow. It was only a scratch but deep enough for warm blood to trickle into his eye at the moment everything shifted. He did not trigger the Beretta, knowing Masudi had managed to dodge in the time Bolan needed to think and clear his vision.

  The sounds of full-scale conflict emanated from all around the house, but Bolan's concentration centered on the crazies in the room.

  The Shiite terrorist graybeard ranked with Masudi as an equal threat to Bolan. Graybeard pointed his piece, tracking on Bolan.

  Masudi did the same. The three other Disciples of Allah weren't exactly discussing the weather, either.

  Bolan dived into a roll away from the archway as gunfire exploded, magnified in the confinement of the room, drowning out the battle roar from outside.

  Bolan came out of the roll.

  The religion-drugged fanatics were still trying to get a lead on him, firing as they did. But the rounds plinked into the walls and prayer table, missing Bolan.

  His first targets had to be Masudi and the graybeard. He shifted the Beretta to his left hand, flicking it to auto and unleathering Big Thunder in one continuous movement, raking death from both hands.

  The AutoMag sheared off Graybeard's skull from the eyes up, and below that the head became a beard of flowing red atop a collapsing corpse.

  Bolan tried to sight again on Masudi, but the hooknosed general moved deceptively fast, grabbing one of the Shiite terrorists and jerking the Disciple of Allah in front of him for cover.