The Arab checked his watch and saw that it was time to make his evening rounds. He was not expecting trouble, but he liked to make a nightly appearance. It cemented Ali's friendship with his regulars and kept them coming back.
He left the camera running, just in case the captain found his second wind and made the tape into a double feature. Hassan left the hidden room adjacent to his private office, moving briskly down a narrow hallway toward the stairs. He was on the landing, starting down, when all hell broke loose below.
A thunderclap destroyed the giant double doors at the front of the building and filled the entryway with smoke. A dozen of his girls were screaming, a couple of his patrons cursing loudly. Behind him, the bedroom doors were springing open in a rapid-fire reaction to the downstairs blast.
Hassan recovered from his shock, and he was moving down the staircase when a man dressed in nightfighter black suddenly materialized below. The fighter had weapons dangling from a military belt and harness, and in his hands he held a weapon that reminded Ali of a cross between a cannon and a Thompson submachine gun — big and shiny, equipped with a circular drum magazine. When the weapon swung in his direction, Ali thought the muzzle looked about the size of a forty-gallon oil drum.
A wasted lifetime flashed before the Arab's eyes, and he was struggling with the words to a forgotten prayer when circumstance provided a reprieve. Two of his soldiers, responding to the blast, appeared below him, weapons drawn, searching for a target.
The intruder saw them coming and spun to face them. His impressive weapon bellowed, bucked, and downrange the charging gunmen were enveloped by a ball of fire. The concussions shattered glassware, flattened Ali on the stairs, and suddenly the air was full of singing shrapnel.
Hassan scrambled back up the stairs. The man in black was leveling his pleasure palace, firing off selected rounds of colored smoke and choking gas. Blind and gagging, Ali found the landing with his groping hands and pulled himself erect with the aid of the bannister.
Armand had caused this, brought this plague of violence on his house. He had offended someone, militants or Mafia, and now there was a war in old Algiers. Hassan would kill the Corsican... if he survived to get the chance.
A naked body slammed against him on the run, and Ali recognized the captain's cursing voice. The brothel keeper staggered and caught himself against the railing.
A new explosion punched a hole through the clouds, and for a second Ali saw the man in midnight black below him, awesome weapon angled skyward. Flame erupted from the muzzle, and Hassan could see the black projectile hurtling toward him.
Ali became airborne, plummeting, a screaming cartwheel terminated by his impact on a heavy wooden table. It collapsed beneath his weight, and then the sky fell, wood and stone and plaster raining down on top of him. Something landed with a crushing weight across his legs, and savage pain forced him to scream.
In a moment, the man in black was standing over him, a grim colossus with his silver weapon leveled at the Arab's face. His lips were moving, but it took another second for Ali to register his words and translate from English.
"I want the woman," he was snarling. "Somebody knows where she is. Spread the word."
Ali ibn-Hassan closed his eyes, half expecting fiery death to issue from the cannon and consume him. Nothing happened. He dared another glance and discovered his enemy had disappeared. He was alone.
The brothel keeper tried to move his legs and found them twisted, pinned against the floor. He started screaming for his houseman, anyone who could help him.
Ali had to find a doctor and relieve the agony that racked his lower body. Then, when he was patched together, he had a call to make — a score to settle with Armand.
* * *
Mack Bolan crouched on a sloping roof, his combat senses probing at the night. Middle-class Algiers was spread below him — lighted shops and homes, people going about their business in the streets, unaware of Grim Death poised above their heads.
The soldier was preparing for another strike, his third in less than two hours. Already he had trashed a fashionable brothel and destroyed a powder factory in the Casbah, keeping on the move and leaving word whenever he touched down. By now the message would be traveling like wildfire around the city. Someone would be squirming from the heat.
And the Executioner was far from finished.
Two floors below him, in a third-story suite of offices, were the local headquarters for an active terrorist group, the Palestinian People's Army. Pulled together from the ranks of PLO defectors and survivors of the Black September gang, the PPA lately had taken credit for a string of bombings on the Continent, a pair of bloody border raids on the Israeli frontier.
They were on the Bolan hit parade — especially since he discovered that their weapons and munitions were supplied by Armand Dusault.
Dusault was also on the warrior's list, but not until later. Any premature move he made against the top gun could rebound against him, against Smiley.
He preferred to touch the bases, keep the pressure building toward a flashpoint.
He secured the black nylon rope to a metal vent, tested it against his weight, and dropped the coil over the edge of the roof into freefall. Another moment to adjust his combat harness, double-check his weapons, and the warrior followed it down.
His target was a lighted window halfway down the building's stucco face. Inside, a group of Palestinian guerrillas were discussing strategy.
Bolan scrambled down the wall until he found a vantage point beside the target window. Craning to his right, he could observe the terrorist commandos, grouped around a table littered with assorted books and papers. All of them were armed, and he spied a pair of gunners seated by the doorway with automatic rifles in their laps.
Bolan eased the safety off his Uzi submachine gun and braced himself against the wall. If he used the slim advantage of surprise to balance out their numbers and their guns, he had a chance.
The nightfighter pushed off, springing away from the wall and swinging in on target like a human pendulum. Outstretched feet impacted on the glass and as the pane shattered, Bolan slipped the quick-release latch on his climbing rig, hurtled through the window and landed in a fighting crouch.
The Palestinians were turning, startled, gaping at him. The quicker men were scrambling for weapons when the soldier opened fire. He took the doorway gunners first, pinning them to the wall with a deadly figure eight, the parabellum manglers shredding flesh and bone, drilling through to stitch a bloody pattern on the plaster.
Sweeping on, he held the Uzi's trigger down and sprayed the table. Men were diving, dying. A headless figure sprawled across the tabletop. Bolan watched it flopping like a mackeral out of water.
On his flank, another pair of riflemen erupted from a hidden alcove, Kalashnikov assault rifles tracking onto target. Bolan met them with a pair of short, precision bursts that blew them both away.
At his back, a wooden chair overturned, clattering to the floor. Bolan pivoted to meet the final threat, prepared to kill, and found himself confronted by a slender figure with one arm held aloft, the bloody ruin of his other held against his side.
Bolan recognized the face from news reports and briefings at Stony Man Farm. A former aide to Yasser Arafat and crony of the Black Septemberists, this man was a radical, perpetually in pursuit of some group willing to espouse his own beliefs. Of late, he had found refuge in the army of his own creation.
Through his shock, the guy was struggling to speak. Bolan took the initiative away from him, crossing the room in four long strides, jamming the Uzi's muzzle between his moving lips. He let the Arab taste it, feel the heat against his lips and tongue before he spoke.
"Listen like your life depends on it," he snapped, watching the terrorist's eyes. "I'm looking for the woman. Anything that's going down with her better be called off, or there'll be hell to pay."
He did not expect an answer, and he did not wait around for one. Moving softly, cautiously, he put th
at place behind him, already thinking toward his next target zone.
The heat was rising in Algiers, and someone would be screaming soon. In time, the Corsican would hear those screams in el-Biar, and he would have to listen.
They would be among the final sounds he ever heard.
* * *
Armand Dusault cradled the telephone, released his breath in a weary sigh. A headache was throbbing just above his eyes, and he felt a sour burning in his stomach. Both were symptomatic of the tension that had plagued him since the afternoon, and there was no relief in sight.
By all accounts, Algiers was burning down around him, hungry flames endangering an empire that had taken years to build. Demands for aid were pouring in from every quarter, but Armand himself was groping in the dark, without a solid handle on the situation.
Someone had declared a shooting war on his preserve, but the Corsican was ignorant of motives and objectives, even the identity of his assailants. And their tactics...
Half a dozen lightning thrusts had taken place — at the brothel of Ali ibn-Hassan, a warehouse used for holding contraband, the transport Liberté at dockside. An excellent heroin-processing plant had been reduced to smoking ashes, and explosive charges had destroyed a fleet of trucks belonging to an influential mafioso.
The latest call for help had come from Jamal Haddad, fiery organizer of the Palestinian People's Army. Several of his men were dead, their office wrecked, and Jamal himself had been wounded in an armed invasion of the PPA's clandestine headquarters. Like the rest, Haddad was an associate — and he demanded action from Armand. Something, anything to ease the heat.
The Corsican was fresh out of solutions. In fact, he was still working on a definition of the problem.
Stories from the trenches were remarkably consistent: a single awesome warrior, dressed in black, appeared and disappeared at will, leaving death and ruin in his wake. Everywhere he struck there was a message left behind with the survivors, something cryptic and oblique... about a woman he was seeking.
It was eerie, frightening — and all the more infuriating since Armand had no idea what his enemy was talking about.
Logic told Dusault there must be other foes at large, a body of supporting troops, but they were hanging back, allowing one commando to spearhead their assault.
If it was a single man...
Armand was not convinced. The plague of violence was premeditated, well rehearsed. It had a military flavor reminiscent of the OAS and Legionnaires, as if a band of militants had chosen his Algiers to be their testing ground.
Except that Armand, a prime supplier of weapons and munitions, was friendly with the local militants. He had taken time to cultivate the terrorists for allies; they would not turn against him without a reason, on a whim.
He needed time to think, without the constant pressure and the nagging phone calls. Every moment that he wasted the faceless enemy was gaining ground.
Armand decided it was time to share the burden, just as he shared the profits from his empire. He would summon Mustaffa and the countess, force them each to shoulder part of the responsibility and risk.
It was time for the not-so-silent partners to express themselves. If necessary, they could take up arms to help defend the mutual investment.
That decision made, Armand felt a measure of the tension draining out of him. He snared the telephone receiver, started dialing. He would have them both in el-Biar within the hour, laying out a strategy.
And he could turn the lightning war around, with courage, systematic ruthlessness, determination. Armand was prepared to wrest the initiative from his opponents and ram it down their screaming throats.
In a struggle to the death, Armand Dusault would be victorious. He knew it.
It was his destiny.
15
On his second visit, Bolan scarcely recognized the Club Grandee. In place of crowds and joviality, the bar was shuttered, darkened, hours before closing time. A rapid recon of the neighborhood had put the soldier's mind at ease concerning traps.
From his vantage point across the street, the Executioner was watching as a pair of black Mercedes tanks pulled up in front. Doors opened, gunners scrambled out and formed a rough phalanx along the curb.
Bolan knew he was not looking at an honor guard. Somebody wanted Rani badly enough to send a double crew for him, and the way they were nourishing the hardware, he might not be scheduled to go back with them alive.
Someone — perhaps the Corsican, Armand — was burning bridges, settling with Rani for the Orient hotel debacle. Given the events of hours past, it was inevitable.
The drivers hung back, staying with their vehicles while the strike force, about seven guns in all, proceeded to the door of Rani's club. A stocky guy tried the doors and found them locked. He turned to hulking gunners on his flank and nodded curtly.
Three gorillas put their shoulders into it. When the latch gave way, they tumbled in on top of one another, second-rankers crowding close behind.
In another instant they were gone, the portals slamming shut behind them. Bolan made his move. He had come to speak with Rani, and he would not permit the enemy soldiers to divert him from his course.
Bolan crossed the narrow street, his silenced pistol drawn and set for semiautomatic fire. He was a gliding shadow, black death closing in across the open no-man's-land. Neither of the drivers saw him coming as he closed the gap.
There was no question of sparing them, of taking prisoners. They were gunbearers, plain and simple. By their presence, they had doomed themselves to die.
Twenty feet from target, Bolan took the nearer driver with a single, silent parabellum through the ear. The gunner had been talking, but he never finished his sentence. His partner caught a spray of blood and brains. The guncock was momentarily blinded, backpedaling and groping underneath his coat for a weapon he could not reach.
Another gentle squeeze and the Beretta coughed a second time, dispatching another shocker into flesh and bone. The gunner's face caved in, and he died without a sound.
Bolan vaulted over him, closing on the tavern. He bolstered the Beretta and dropped the Uzi off its shoulder sling, double-checking the safety. When he hit the double doors, the little chattergun was ready for all comers.
Inside, the soldiers were advancing on the corridor that led to Rani's office, overturning chairs and tables en route. Bolan's explosive entrance took them by surprise and brought them spinning into confrontation with the unexpected menace, several of them peeling off to either side and seeking cover. Hungry guns were tracking onto target acquisition, some of them already sending out probing fire in his direction.
Bolan caught a pair of gunners, hitting them with a rising spiral burst of parabellum manglers. Flesh and bone and fabric sprayed off in all directions, as the gunners fell in a crumpled heap.
Survivors were finding the range. Bolan threw himself into a diving shoulder roll. He scattered tables and came to rest behind one, the Uzi out and probing for another human target. The enemy was searching for him; bullets chewed up his meager shield. He could hold his ground another moment, then...
A soldier broke from cover on his right and rushed his position. The scum was armed with a Skorpion machine pistol, laying down a deadly cover fire, advancing on the run.
Bolan held the Uzi's trigger down and cut the gunner's legs from under him. A ragged scream was severed as he fell across the line of fire, and Bolan's parabellums punched him over in an awkward, lifeless sprawl. Momentum carried him another dozen paces, bodysurfing on a slick of blood.
The Uzi emptied and Bolan ditched the useless magazine, reloading on the move. He snaked across the grimy tile, sighting on the hostile muzzle-blasts and answering with short precision bursts. One of his enemies was silenced, then another and another, slowly whittling the odds against survival.
Behind the bar, a rifleman was sniping at him with a folding-stock Kalashnikov. Bolan snapped a burst at the bastard, but the heavy bar absorbed the parabellum rou
nds and left his enemy intact.
The Executioner sprang a frag grenade from his web belt, dodging as he freed the pin and dropped the spoon. A looping overhand sent the grenade behind the bar. A miniature volcano erupted, spewing out the rifleman in tattered bits and pieces. Bolan huddled underneath the rain of flesh and shrapnel, battered by the heavy-metal thunder of the blast.
A ringing stillness fell across the smoky killing ground. No one was firing on him; he had the field to himself.
There was no sign of Rani in the tavern. Bolan knew the tavern keeper would have gone to ground when the killing started... if he was inside the club at all. The Executioner knew he would have to rout him out quickly.
Bolan scrambled to his feet and cautiously made his way across the barroom, homing on the corridor to Rani's private office. There were rooms upstairs, perhaps another exit — too damn many hiding places.
He shouldered through a beaded curtain, let the Uzi lead him down a dimly lighted hallway. At the far end, Rani's office door was standing partly open, beckoning him in silent invitation. Bolan made it in a dozen strides, nudged the door open with a toe and stepped inside.
A sudden rush of air, a snarling, and the world collapsed on top of him.
A massive fist impacted on Bolan's temple, sending him sprawling, his Uzi skittering across the floor. A roaring, savage scream, scarcely human, drowned the ringing in his ears.
Bolan met the desk head-on, rebounded, fighting to regain his balance. He pivoted, recognized Rani's bodyguard, Amal, before the guy collided with him, driving him back against the desk. His one arm was pinned by the bear-hugging bastard, and he was unable to reach the Beretta. For an instant they were face to face. Bolan studied the enemy's pitted cheeks — a tiny lunar landscape carved in flesh — with the ugly scar slashed across one side.
The giant's grip was crushing him, and the Executioner felt his short ribs grating on each other, sending bolts of agony along his spine. The blood was roaring in his ears, and he remembered the warning signals of impending blackout. Another moment, and he would be helpless, at the Tuareg's mercy.
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