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  It would take a miracle to save Hahmir and his smaller force.

  “They’ve been hit over and over again,” Bolan said. “They’ll be thinking defensive. For one thing, if they draw off too many personnel, they run the risk of providing a hole that Hahmir’s men can get through. So they’ll stay close to the palace, which means you’ll probably have only one or two snipers or scouts to deal with. Once you’ve used up your mortar shells, there’s no reason to stick around here. Move your ass out of here, take cover, and I’ll do the rest.”

  “This puts the burden on you,” Yenni said.

  Bolan glanced at his watch. “Trust me. It really doesn’t. We’re running out of time. I need to move.”

  “When should I fire?” Yenni asked. “Will the hell break open again?”

  “Yeah,” Bolan said. “I’d say that’s a safe bet.” He marched down the hill toward the palace, but not too quickly.

  He looked at his watch one last time.

  “Four,” he said. “Three. Two. One.”

  He hit the dirt.

  The suborbital missiles came singing through the air, falling from the heavens like so many avenging angels. The precise coordinates of each and every one of Fafniyal’s vehicles, calculated to within inches using secure GPS technology, had allowed Bolan to choose the most effective configuration of missile strikes.

  On the hill above the palace, he dropped to one knee, readied his M16/M203 and closed his eyes.

  The first missile vaporized an armored personnel carrier. The blast knocked over the next two and set the surrounding four on fire. The missile dug a crater the size of an indoor swimming pool in the soil of the palace grounds, erasing the men who’d been stationed there. A dust cloud rolled back toward the Executioner and washed over him, ruffling his hair with warm wind and gritty debris.

  Bolan waited for the concussion to pass. He did not open his eyes yet.

  The second missile struck, strategically placed to cause maximum damage, building on the destruction of the first. More vehicles were ripped apart. More enemy troops were burned to cinders, blown to pieces, sent flying through the air.

  And still the missiles came.

  Bolan waited, counting. Each rocket descended from its suborbital holding pattern to rain destruction on and around the palace grounds. The troops guarding Hahmir’s men were now in complete disarray. Their lines had been shattered, their equipment destroyed.

  It was going to get worse.

  Hahmir’s men started shooting into the ranks of the burning, smoking, running, screaming gunmen who’d held them captive. It didn’t take long for new civil war to break out, as the Wolf’s troops and Hahmir’s men started fighting for what was left of the palace. The president’s main force began to concentrate on the steps of the palace, near a pair of mighty brass-gilded doors. Bolan briefly opened his eyes to survey the carnage, noting the position of Hahmir’s men. Their lines had broken, too, as the Wolf’s more vicious troops fought to push them back and gain distance from the outer perimeter. The grounds of the palace looked like something out of a disaster movie. Debris and fire were everywhere.

  Fafniyal’s troops were desperately trying to regroup, but now it was Yenni’s turn. Bolan could hear, over the crackling of flames and the calls of the dying, the thumping of the mortar tubes. She had watched him and was emulating his technique, firing one and then the other, alternating between the two to send a constant hail of explosives down on the grounds.

  More craters erupted. More men were torn in half, torn apart, torn limb from limb. Those few vehicles not already destroyed were hit. It didn’t happen all at once, but Yenni eventually struck them all. She kept on firing until she’d exhausted the supply of mortar shells.

  Fafniyal’s reserve troops had been smashed. If any of them survived, they’d scattered and fled. Now only Hahmir’s guards remained.

  Bolan stood. He pulled back the plunger of his M16. It was time to take the fight straight into the heart of the enemy.

  The Executioner moved down the hill, half crouching, staying low and ready. He reached the first line of destruction, at the outer edge of what had been Fafniyal’s cordon. Finding a suitable piece of scorched armored personnel carrier to hide behind, he checked his watch one last time.

  The final rocket, the last of those he had programmed, descended. This one hadn’t been set to pinpoint the palace grounds or Fafniyal’s men.

  It was intended for the main doorway of the palace.

  Too late, Hahmir’s men, still massed at the palace entrance, saw their mistake.

  Every last one of them was a member of a totalitarian regime. The fact that they were currently fighting among themselves to see who got to be in charge of that regime didn’t really matter. Any one of them would have killed Bolan, given the chance. He wasn’t going to let them stand in his way. He wasn’t going to let them protect Fafniyal or Hahmir, both of whom had proved to be enemies of the United States.

  No, Bolan was simply going to remove these pawns from the chessboard.

  The missile detonated, and the explosion tore the columns from the front of the presidential palace. Hahmir’s military forces were scattered and set afire. Debris and flames flew through the air, propelled at deadly velocities. Rubble struck Bolan’s APC cover but did not penetrate.

  In the next moments, the chaos would be greatest. The soldier pushed himself up again, rifle ready, and walked into the bloody, fiery, smoking mist. Dead and dying men were all around him, puppets of this monstrous regime. He stepped over them, except for those whose suffering he could end with a mercy round.

  Footsteps behind him made him spin on his heel. He brought the barrel of the M16 up to cover the threat.

  It was Yenni.

  She carried her Krinkov and wore a brilliant smile, framed by the scarf around her head. “I have come to help,” she told him.

  “I told you to get to cover when your part was done,” Bolan said.

  “I am not going to let you have all the fun. You are not good with plans and you have a swollen brain.”

  “Don’t you mean a swollen head?”

  “No,” Yenni said. “Your head is the same size. It is your brain that worries me.”

  “Me, too,” Bolan said. “Well, come on if you’re coming.”

  They entered the wreckage of the presidential palace.

  They didn’t get far beyond what had been the doorway. Some of Hahmir’s men were dug in here. They opened up as soon as Bolan and Yenni walked into view. The soldier shoved his partner aside and dropped to the ground next to her. Bullets blew chips from the walls and the marble floors all around them.

  Bolan snapped off a shot with his 40-mm grenade launcher. The explosion temporarily silenced the enemy guns, giving Yenni and him a chance to move farther into the palace.

  They now faced an open doorway leading to an access corridor. The walls, the floors, even the ceiling were incredibly ornate. Their boots had rung on the exquisite marble. Bolan was no judge of art, but he imagined the paintings in gilded frames were probably expensive.

  Then there was that doorway. Bolan didn’t like the look of it. It was a choke point and he’d bet there were armed men beyond it. He thought about firing another grenade round, but if he collapsed the corridor at this end, he would cut off their only means of getting in there. He reached into his war bag.

  “Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice,” Yenni said.

  “What?” Bolan looked at her. Was she battle-mad? Had something hit her on the head?

  “Classical education, Cooper. A poem about ice and fire. We need one of your incendiary grenades.”

  “Great minds…” he said, removing one from his bag. He pulled the pin and rolled the grenade down the hallway. The innocent-looking metal cylinder traveled easily down the corridor and past the open doorway.

  Shouts from the men hidden there told Bolan he’d been right to be cautious. The grenade detonated. Now the shouts of alarm were screams of agony. The
fifteen ounces of white phosphorous—Willy Pete, in military jargon—burned at a temperature of 5,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Once embedded in a man’s skin, particles of Willy Pete would continue to burn until denied oxygen. You could stop them by submerging them in water, but they would reignite as soon as they dried out again. It was vicious stuff.

  It was also nothing less than these troops deserved.

  Bolan and Yenni used the cover of the flames to charge the choke-point doorway. In the corridor beyond, men burned and struggled. Bolan did not have to offer them the mercy of a bullet. Yenni beat him to it, swinging her Krinkov left and right, spending no more than one round each for the dying.

  “You kill well,” Yenni told him. “I like this about you.”

  “You’re not so bad yourself. Come on. Hahmir is hiding somewhere. We find him and we put an end to all of this. Syria will have a chance at a better government. Or at the very least, not a worse one.”

  “I will follow you,” she said.

  They passed through another set of double doors, which were hanging open on blown hinges, and entered an ornate ballroom. This had already been the scene of a firefight. Bullet holes pockmarked the walls. A grenade had gone off, causing a crater in the marble.

  “Someone has snuck inside the palace,” Yenni said. “Someone has battled with Hahmir’s guards.”

  “Who could that have been?” Bolan wondered aloud. “Who would have the ability to skirt the outer cordon and make their way inside the palace, past most of Hahmir’s men?”

  “Fafniyal,” Yenni said. “When he fled the field of battle he came here, perhaps for a final confrontation with Hahmir. Perhaps to fulfill his plan of making Hahmir his puppet.”

  “It makes sense. So where is he now?”

  “Hiding somewhere in this building?” Yenni said.

  “No doubt. Let’s go find him.”

  The next few rooms were deserted. There was more evidence of battle, and there were bodies. These wore the blue of Hahmir’s forces. Finally, they reached a metal door bearing a sign in Arabic. Bolan turned to his partner.

  “It says that below this level, only Hahmir’s elite guards are permitted,” Yenni said.

  “Then that’s where we want to go. That looks like a computerized lock. Do you have any Semtex left?”

  “No,” Yenni said, shaking her head.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Bolan said, checking his war bag. “I’ve got two charges.” He took out one and affixed it to the metal barrier. “Back. Let’s use the other doorway, get behind the corners.”

  Once they were behind cover, Bolan detonated the charge. The noise of the explosion rattled his teeth.

  The metal barrier slammed to the floor.

  Automatic gunfire immediately welled up from below, striking the wall opposite the door, punching scores of holes in the expensive works of art. Bolan wondered just how many thousands of dollars’ worth of damage was being done. A luxury palace like this one, in a nation whose people were impoverished and suffering…why, there was no more fitting way for it to come tumbling down—shot apart from within by the very people who’d built it.

  But he still needed to get down those steps.

  Yenni reached into his war bag. Bolan looked at her with one raised eyebrow. She winked back at him and lifted two baseball-size HE grenades. The high-explosive bombs were just the ticket.

  “I think you have no more of these left,” she said. “But I have no more grenades. You will be happy to share with me, I hope. We can make smears.”

  “Do you mean s’mores?”

  “No, Cooper,” Yenni said. “This time I mean smears.”

  “Just throw them.”

  This reinforced “safe zone”—as evidenced by the thick steel security door—was constructed to withstand such weapons. That was the whole point of a redoubt within your stronghold. Bolan didn’t think they risked collapsing the passage downward.

  Yenni popped the pins and tossed the grenades down the steps.

  “Three,” Bolan said.

  “Two,” Yenni said.

  Someone called out an alarm below.

  The grenades detonated, annihilating the soldiers and clearing the way. Bolan raised his assault rifle and stepped forward. Yenni came eagerly behind, Krinkov at the ready.

  “Hahmir!” Mack Bolan called out. “Hahmir! We’re coming for you!”

  His foot hit the floor at the bottom of the now twisted, warped staircase. The sound of a dozen Kalashnikov bolts being pulled back greeted them.

  “You say you have come for Hahmir,” Fafniyal said. “But instead you have found only me.”

  Yenni and Bolan exchanged glances.

  “You’ll do,” Bolan said, turning back to meet his gaze.

  “Kill them!” the Wolf said.

  18

  The bomb-shelter redoubt ahead of them bore a series of alcoves in the walls. These were likely designed to provide cover and concealment for gunners engaged in last-ditch defense of the safe zone. At Fafniyal’s command, Bolan threw himself at Yenni. Bullets filled the air as he knocked her to the ground and pushed her into an alcove. Kalashnikov rounds chipped away at their cover like angry hornets. Yenni returned fire with her Krinkov, braving the storm, ducking out just enough to point and shoot the chopped-down weapon.

  “Now what?” she asked him.

  “Now we improvise.” Bolan looked up. The ceiling of the safe zone was low. A 40-mm explosive grenade in these close quarters could very well kill them. There would be no telling just what pressures might develop down here. The grenades they’d rolled down the steps had not appreciably diminished Fafniyal’s forces; they had only given Bolan and Yenni enough time to get downstairs without being killed. There had to be another option.

  Bolan searched his war bag. He had several shotgun rounds, essentially ball-bearing loads that turned the M203 into a massive smoothbore shotgun. He reloaded the assault rifle with a fresh 30-round magazine.

  But he was running low on the shotgun rounds. Before long he’d have to start scavenging AKs from fallen adversaries.

  He wondered how many truckloads of Kalashnikovs he might own if he’d saved every one that he’d picked up and used in the heat of battle.

  There was a lull in the shooting as the gunmen paused to reload. There was no discipline here. The Wolf’s shock troops should have known better. You staggered your reloads when you wanted to keep the pressure on. Bolan risked a glance from around the corner of the alcove and saw the Wolf retreating through another metal security door at the far end of the hall.

  “We’re losing him,” the soldier said. “We’ve got to find a way to get through these guards.”

  “Then we must do something decisive, yes?”

  “Nothing crazy,” Bolan said.

  “You dropped a helicopter on your head and you lecture me about crazy?”

  “You really need to let that go,” he told her. The Kalashnikov gunfire picked up again, raising a cloud of marble dust around them. “All right, here’s what we’re going to do. I’m going to charge them.”

  “That is a bad plan.”

  “It’s the best we’ve got,” Bolan said. “Cover me from here. Once I charge, pick off anybody who sticks his head out to try to take a shot at me. I’ll get behind them and we’ll catch them in a cross fire. Our angle up here is all wrong. But if I can get to the opposite end of this hall, I can get a better bead on them. And then I can bring this into play.” He patted the grenade launcher.

  “All right, Cooper,” Yenni said. She checked her Krinkov. The action was almost a nervous tic, something she did without thinking. “I am ready.”

  The gunfire began to fall off. The enemy’s magazines were running low again.

  “Now!” Bolan said. He dived from the alcove and ran straight for the Wolf’s troops, his M16 firing burst after burst with practiced presses of his index finger. Trigger control was a part of Mack Bolan. He could fire an automatic weapon like a concert violinist could squeeze beauty from an
instrument.

  The only notes played by the instrument he now held, however, were notes of death.

  He managed to make his run, strafing the enemy positions, and in passing he triggered the 40-mm launcher. The oversize blast of man-killing ball bearings shredded the closest gunman and spread him all over his nearest comrades. The act had a chilling effect, immediately demoralizing the Wolf’s supposedly crack fighters, driving them undercover.

  “Stay there!” Bolan said. “Stay there!”

  “I am coming to you!” Yenni vowed.

  “Stay there!”

  Yenni ran. Bolan shouldered his rifle, switching left and right, acquiring targets as fast as he could. He took down one man, then another, then a third. Bullets struck the floor all around Yenni, causing her to duck, to jump back, to zigzag from side to side. She scrambled for all she was worth until she, too, was abreast of the alcoves where the Wolf’s men were sheltering. Bolan did his best to cover her, to kill anyone who tried to draw on her, as she pumped her Krinkov’s contents into the men she passed.

  Pools of blood began to form in the alcoves. The sound of automatic gunfire had his ears ringing and had brought back the ache behind Bolan’s eyes, pressing on his skull. He shook his head, trying to clear it.

  The enemy gunmen were dead.

  Yenni stood among them, breathing heavily. She dropped her magazine and grabbed the last of her reloads. Reloading a Kalashnikov was not like reloading an M16 or AR15 rifle. The magazines had to be angled in, and roughly. Yenni swapped her old magazine out with the fresh one like a pro, then hammered the new one up and in, rotating it to lock it.

  “You are slow,” she said. “If I wait for you, we will never be finished.”

  “Right.” Bolan waited while she tried to scavenge some AK magazines from the dead men. She came up empty.

  “They are out of ammo,” she said. “And I, very nearly so.” She joined him at the door where the Wolf had disappeared.

  It was unlocked.

  “It is a trap,” Yenni said.