THE AIR ASSAULT was so orchestrated, so lightning and outrageous, meant to vaporize, eviscerate and blow away so many of them on the ground and in the palace right out of the gate, that it struck Collins as a page torn right out of his own bloody manual. He was so pumped up on fury and adrenaline he almost laughed.
Their own side—stabbed in the back—had found them, now pulling that blade out from between their shoulders, hitting the palace with everything they had. Sparrows and Sidewinders were plowing into the front facade of the structure, a few other flaming steel arrows of doom arcing out of the sky, detonating on the roof, minarets likewise disappearing under the barrage. Not his problem, Collins figured. Let the Muslim bastards inside the palace burn or get buried beneath the roof. There would be fewer fanatics he’d have to kill on the way out.
And where there was grim will, he figured, there would be a way out. No way was he dying now when his own cut of that nine hundred mil was growing by the second. Just the same, Seychelles was on hold, the flashing thought he might never see his tropical paradise stoking the fires of his rage. He saw the huge dome of the mosque that rose from the palace lost in a cloud of white fire that dazzled his eyes. He looked away, aware if he was blind for even a split second he was finished.
Collins knew he might just be dead in the next few moments anyway.
The HK was chattering in his hands, anything in a black hood fair game, three toppling as he heard the subgun fire from his own men open up on the fanatics. He felt hot stickiness spatter his face, tasted the coppery taint spraying his mouth as he bared his teeth, sweeping the subgun left to right, mowing down five black hoods, snarling, cursing them as they died on their feet. Sweeping his subgun fire on, he glimpsed blood spurting from the shattered skulls of Falconi, Bramble and Cooper, the trio unable or unwilling to arm themselves, he figured, too slow on the draw to tackle this onslaught of bullets being flung their way. Collins was pivoting, shouted for somebody, anybody who could hear over the din of weapons fire and the roar of missiles erupting throughout the palace, “Get the prisoners!”
BOLAN OPTED to go with the sound-suppressed Beretta 93-R, set down the SAW, then crouched at the edge of the stone hovel where the Marines and head shed were detained. Both warring factions were still grinding away with blazing weapons, shadows spinning and falling up the gently sloping incline. The yammering of the SAW might alert his adversaries to his presence, and he wasn’t quite ready to announce himself.
Three black hoods came running out the front door, AK-74s up and aimed toward the pitched battle along and beyond the rise. Framed in dancing firelight, the Executioner tapped the trigger three times, coring head shots through their hoods, kicking them off their feet, lights out before they even slammed to earth. He grabbed the SAW by the handle, stole a glance at the warring savages, found them too swept up in their own murderous fury to be aware of the newcomer. Closing on the doorway, light spilling through the opening, he heard the voice shouting in broken English at the prisoners. The Marines were being threatened to stay put or they would be shot.
Bolan rolled into the doorway, took in the scene, two eye blinks, busy killing in the next heartbeat. One fanatic was clubbing a Marine to his knees with the butt of his rifle. Another militant was dancing around like an angry chicken, waving his weapon, shouting.
The Executioner sighted down, drilled the clubber first with one 9 mm Parabellum subsonic shocker through the temple. The chicken hood went next, wheeling toward the big invader in the doorway. He managed to cap off two wild rounds that slashed the jamb before Bolan pumped a third eye in his hood.
“Move out!” Bolan shouted at the prisoners.
He read the snarls and angry eyes for what they were—Marines who wanted to be uncuffed, unchained, armed and bulling into the fight.
“Move it out! Now!”
“Uncuff us!”
“I want a piece of these bastards!”
“Aberdeen,” Bolan growled into the surging mass of prisoners shuffling in leg irons his way, finally picking out and pinning the Marine general whose face he had committed to memory from the intel package at Incirlik. “Get them under control! Out the door, to your three o’clock, down the back and to the airfield. Your ride is landing now! Go!”
HARIN SALAAN WAS simmering with grave doubts and gnawing fear. He led nine of his men into the great hall, waiting for Pavi Khalq to bring the infidels to him. He managed to keep up the calm and commanding appearance of the spiritual leader of global jihad, but the news he just received was coursing waves of anger and even panic through his body.
They had their own intelligence operatives inside Russia, namely Chechnya and Georgia. The word had just been radioed that General Gergus had been arrested by a joint FSK-American FBI team. And just as he was heading for his plane with his cache of VX briefcases. Was this the end of the dream of global jihad? Or was this merely a test of his faith, resolve and courage? Was God simply putting added pressure and stress on his faithful servant, making him work that much harder so the final rewards were that much sweeter?
Nonetheless, it was time to light a fire—figuratively and literally—under the feet of the infidels. They would be disarmed first, the standing order to shoot two of them if they resisted. With the numbers of fighters he sent to swarm them, the infidels both greedy and perhaps intimidated they were on foreign soil, no way out, no hope but to cooperate he believed—
He thought he heard the distant rattle of weapons fire first, balking at the sound, turning, his men freezing behind him. He was turning when the walls blew in, the dome overhead cleaved off by a blinding white fireball. He thought he heard himself scream as flying rubble pounded him onto the jeweled tiles with the force of a hurricane. He was sure of it next, the shriek driving nails of agony into his brain as he became aware he was on fire.
BOLAN WAITED until the last of the prisoners was around the corner, then unleashed the SAW. He chopped down a half-dozen along the rise off the starting block, bodies whirling this way and that, weapons flying from lifeless hands. Another five terrorists were ground up by the pounding 5.56 mm lead, gaping holes ripped up their spines, then the other combatants—maybe ten to twelve in all, staggered across the ridgeline—became aware they were being diced from the rear.
Holding back on the trigger, the Executioner moved out and up, sweeping the SAW back and forth, black-hooded fanatics flying away under the terrible driving force of the lead hellstorm.
WARLOCK WAS topping the rise, a fresh clip fed to his HK subgun. He cut loose, but he found the shattered remnants of fanatics being blown away right before his eyes, great patches of dark liquid looking oddly suspended in the air, then raining down over their toppling bodies. He figured a full-blown assault by at least a platoon of American Special Forces was under way. Which warned him, as he moved into the shimmering fire glow along the ridgeline, the prisoners were already freed. Still he had to try; he had to know for certain. The way it was shaping up none of them would leave Iran alive, anyway. No way in hell would he just lay down his arms, snapped up by a bunch of pissed-off American commandos, dumped in a cell the rest of his life. Better to die a lion than live a sheep.
Maybe five fanatics were left, scattering, shooting wild and blind at the force below them. With Cyclops on his three o’clock, Warlock eased off the trigger, searching his flanks.
“No fucking way!”
What the hell, he thought, jolted, freezing for a heartbeat at the shout of rage mingled with confusion, even panic he heard from Cyclops.
Warlock was swiveling his head toward Cyclops, his comrade drawing target acquisition, but whatever he saw had stymied his reflexes. He recognized the awful yammering of the M-249 Squad Automatic Weapon next, Cyclops shouting something unintelligible as he was kicked off his feet, a few subgun rounds blazing skyward before he crunched on his back.
Warlock felt his heart lurch, bent on spraying and praying as he topped the rise. He expected to find a couple dozen commandos, hit the trigger where
Cyclops had fired, but there was nothing dead ahead except a shimmying veil of firelight. It was nearly laughable, Cyclops gunned down by—what? A ghost?
“Looking for me, Warlock?”
Warlock felt his lips stretch in a taut grin even though he felt his heart leap into his mouth. He was turning toward the familiar voice of the ghost that had cut down Cyclops, but his gut warned him he was way too late.
He discovered he was right as the SAW flamed from the dark shadows, and he felt the first few rounds punch through his ribs.
“STRIKER TO White Eagle Leader!”
Bolan was up and over the rise, SAW leading the way as he spotted five armed shadows barreling for the wall that ran the length of a courtyard.
“White Eagle here, Striker. What do you have?”
The House of the Holy was engulfed in flames, but Bolan wanted to make sure nothing walked or crawled out of the fire and rubble. He didn’t need to see the ayatollah go down for the count, figured if he was somewhere in what was now most certainly the house of the damned, he was cooked meat. The fighter jets had unloaded a few warheads packed with enough thermite to set a couple of city blocks on fire. Whatever they didn’t get, the Spectre would make one last grinding strafe. Right then Bolan still had mop-up of his own to take care of.
And the Executioner had a good notion of who was on the run.
“Give me another hard run of the holy house. Raise Dragonship, but have my Spectre give me fifteen minutes to sweep the perimeter for stragglers.”
“Aye, aye, Striker.”
The Executioner gauged the range to his fleeing snakes, unslung the multiround projectile launcher, settled down on a knee.
THE HEAT from the fire roaring from the ruins of the palace was so intense it wanted to suck the air from his lungs. Collins figured there was no choice but to tough it, sweat it out, head for the area reserved for terror training. A vehicle or two should still be intact there, and he believed he had heard Warlock inform him there was a helipad out back. With Python, Mamba, Diamondback and the lone survivor of Predator Five on his heels, Collins wanted to believe the worst was over, that they would make it out of Iran. They were being chased—that much he knew, having seen Cyclops and Warlock shot down near the top of the ridgeline. Whatever cropped up in their path—Muslim or American commando—it was history.
He hugged the wall, moving swiftly ahead, the bitter stench of toasted flesh inside the ruins swelling his senses with nausea. He was almost afraid to look back, discover just how many commandos were gunning for them, but chanced it, waving his men ahead. He turned toward the slaughterground up the hill, spied the lone shadow crouched in a kneeling position, puzzled.
One commando? Impossible, he told himself, then heard the next wave of missiles screaming more fireballs through the ruins, making sure any live ones still writhing around in that mess were nailed for good. Hell, he would have done the same, but he didn’t much care for being on the receiving end of this shellacking from above.
Collins figured out next what the lone figure was wielding in his hands. He was up, grabbing the top of the wall to throw himself over and to cover, then realized he was too late as the blast ripped through the night. The shock wave hurled him into the wall, pinning him there like some bug under a microscope.
Collins saw the world shimmy, heard his groan lost somewhere in the thundering racket of the air assault. He toppled over, nearly succumbed to darkness, but sensed the lone shadow on the move, and knew he needed to find his weapon.
BOLAN SLOWED his pace as he advanced on the sprawled bodies. He held back until the last of the fighter jets had streaked on, then waded into the carnage. The 40 mm warhead had impacted near the head of the pack, sent them flying in all directions. He spotted movement in three bodies, recognized Python and Mamba. The SAW swinging up, Bolan nailed them to the ground with a long raking burst that left no doubt.
For whatever reason, Collins had lagged behind, but he was coming around.
“It’s me, Major,” Bolan said as Collins peered at him.
“Stone?”
He spoke his name like a dirty word.
“It’s over, Collins.”
“Look, Stone, there’s a lot of money…ten million, you let me walk away…”
Bolan wasn’t up for a tough-guy eulogy, but felt compelled to tell Collins, “Look around, Major. This is what happens when men love only money and themselves.”
Collins scrabbled ahead, teeth bared, hands clawing for his subgun. “Love? What’s love got to do with it? There’s only money, Stone. There’s only the world, you foolish asshole! There is only me—there is only you. What am I supposed to love anyway? Other people? God? Wake up and smell your own—”
Bolan remained silent as he hammered Collins with a long burst of SAW fire. Men like the major just didn’t get it.
THE SWEEP TOOK all of six minutes. Bolan found nothing but shell-shocked terrorists running toward a motor pool. The Executioner made quick work of the rabbits, reducing vehicles and savages alike to shredded ruins, expending the multiround projectile launcher, dumping a few more rounds into the fiery mess to make sure. When no lives turned up on his screen…
There was no way, he knew, anything could walk out of the inferno he was now putting behind.
He patched through to Rescue One, found the situation under control, he was on the way. It was all Bolan could do to retrace his path, stay on his feet. He didn’t give Collins or the others a glance as he moved past them.
He was putting distance to the house of the damned when the Spectre dropped from the sky to mop up.
EPILOGUE
“Colonel Stone? Sir?”
She looked real enough to reach out and touch, but his subconscious told him it was only a dream. Or was it? The sun sure seemed bright enough, waking up in his chaise longue after a lengthy dozing off, arms and chest bubbled up with the first signs of sun poisoning. It was time to get off the beach, as he saw himself sit up, ready to go…
Whoa! She was all of twenty, twenty-five tops, with long legs and buttocks framed with nothing more than a string bikini, the whole beautiful package aimed his way, for his viewing pleasure—he was sure of it. He didn’t want to be caught staring, feeling like a dirty old lecher, slipped on the sunglasses, turned away. His mind told him he was conscious of his age, the young woman making him feel the miles and the years, but stirring a fire of youth inside.
Time to get off the beach.
He was on his feet, gathering up his towel, when he heard the voice call out. He didn’t have to look to know it was her. He turned slowly, found her leaning on an elbow, looking at him.
“Do you have the time, sir?”
He held down the chuckle, managed a straight face, looked at his watch…
“Exactly when did I become a sir?”
He pried open his eyes, focused on the blacksuited pilot standing over him.
“Colonel Stone? Are you okay?”
Bolan clawed his way back to reality, a part of him wishing he could stay right where he’d been. Gradually it came back, the mission, from A to ugly Z. He reckoned they had landed at Reagan National, but for some reason he wasn’t sure of his surroundings, owed the fog to exhaustion, dehydration, the pulsing inside his skull. He recalled he had gotten a pass, thanks to Brognola, for any lengthy debrief at Incirlik. Beyond that everything was a blur, except for the long-legged young lass.
“You’re home, Colonel.”
“Home,” he said quietly, then groaned, every inch of his body bruised and battered.
“You need some help, Colonel?”
“I’ll manage.”
Bolan wasn’t sure if that was compassion or curiosity on the pilot’s face as he stepped past him, squinting at the harsh sunlight stabbing through the Gulfstream’s hatch. One slow step at a time, he moved down the ladder-ramp, spotted his longtime friend waiting at the bottom. He faced Brognola, too damn tired and hurting to speak, too drained to the core of his soul over the evil he had se
en, and survived.
“You eat anything lately, Striker?”
“I can’t remember.”
He was grateful Brognola didn’t make a point of scouring his battered face.
“But right now I feel like a couple of cold beers, then take me to the Farm. I feel like I could sleep for days.”
“Understood,” Brognola said. “Feel like some company when you get settled in? Watch a little cable, wake up the chef?”
“I don’t know, Hal,” Bolan told the man from Justice, a tired smile tugging at his lips. “For right now I’d rather be alone. This one was tough. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. I had doubts.”
“You’re only human, Striker, and I often worry about that myself. But I’m always glad when you come home.”
ISBN: 978-1-4603-7451-1
Special thanks and acknowledgment to Dan Schmidt for his contribution to this work.
PREDATOR PARADISE
Copyright © 2004 by Worldwide Library.
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