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  One thing Bolan did know was the security guards weren’t typical security officers. This place was supposed to be a toy manufacturer, and the soldier found it hard to believe that guards with high-powered sniper rifles would need to guard the complex from towers. Or, for that matter, that the place would be lit up like a Christmas tree at this late hour, regardless of whether it was close to the holidays or not. That left nothing but the greatest evidence things weren’t as they seemed.

  Bolan started to move across the pavement of the lot when the truck suddenly reappeared. It stopped near the tower and a guard was looking toward Bolan. The Executioner dropped to one knee, raised the M-16 A-2 to his shoulder, and sighted down the rail on his target. He moved the selector to single shot, took a breath and let half out, and then squeezed the trigger. The 5.56 mm round left the muzzle of the weapon at 950 meters per second and drilled into the guard before he could take aim himself. The terrorist’s body landed in the back of the pickup with a crash.

  Bolan had the second guard in sight before the guy even knew what had happened. The look of surprise on his face disappeared when the Executioner took him with a round clean through the chest. Blood spurted from the wound as the man dropped his rifle and toppled out of the back of the pickup.

  The driver jumped from the cab, trying to figure out what all of the commotion was about. The Executioner took the shot, catching the terrorist in the spine and throwing his body to the pavement.

  Bolan got to his feet and stopped to listen. He waited for alarms, but he didn’t hear any. What he did hear were shouts of surprise and accented voices yelling at him. He turned to see a group of five armed terrorists running from a door at the side of the warehouse. It occurred to the Executioner that he might very well have just killed three security guards doing their job, but the men now rushing him and carrying a variety of machine pistols and assault rifles dispelled any such doubts. These men were responding with the training and fervor of fanatical terrorists, and Bolan knew that MO well.

  The Executioner wheeled and dashed for the cover of some fifty-five-gallon drums he hoped weren’t filled with anything combustible. Still, it was better than getting ventilated by the maelstrom of autofire now directed his way. The muzzles of machine pistols and automatic rifles winked with anger as the terrorists took up a combination of kneeling and standing positions and buzzed the air around him with 9 mm and 7.62 mm slugs.

  Bolan took his time, but hammered out his own defense with ferocity and courage. He now moved the selector to 3-round bursts and took his first target in the chest. The burst spun the terrorist gunner, ripping holes in tender flesh and dumping him to pavement. Pools of blood began to form beneath him as Bolan subjected a second terrorist to the same punishment. The air was alive with gunfire now, some of the rounds coming from the terrorists’ tracers that crisscrossed the area.

  The Executioner changed positions as too many of the rounds were coming close. One ricocheted off the pavement near his boot, a fragment lodging itself in the fleshy portion of his thigh. Bolan bit back the pain and continued returning fire, ignoring the burning in his leg. If he let a scratch like that break his concentration, he’d have much more to worry about—or maybe he’d have nothing to worry about. In either case, he couldn’t fail and this wasn’t really where he wanted his final showdown to be. Bolan wished he’d brought along some grenades, but he didn’t have a hell of a lot of time. What he needed against these kinds of numbers was higher ground.

  The Executioner left his lifesaving cover and rushed toward the truck. If he could get up that ladder and into the tower, he stood half a chance against the enemy troops, which now seemed to be appearing exponentially and converging on his position. Bolan slung his weapon as he reached the truck, leaped into the back of the bed and hit the sixth rung of the ladder from there. He scrambled up the ladder, wasting no time at all. He could hear the rounds sizzling past him, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he reached the circular tubing that surrounded the upper part of the ladder that probably served to protect it from rain or ice accumulation.

  Bolan reached the top of the tower and looked down in time to see a horde of terrorists approaching. It was now or never, and the Executioner hoped for a payoff. He wasn’t disappointed as he unleashed a furious storm of hot lead on the terrorists attempting to gather at the base of the tower. Bolan delivered volley after calculated volley, dropping the terrorists before they could reach the rungs of the ladder. When one or two managed to flank his position and tried to approach from the back side, Bolan would simply trade off positions and take them through the opening in the ladder well.

  Finally, after he had decimated a considerable number of the troops, the terrorists decided to forgo their enthusiasm for a more sensible approach, and they started taking covering positions that afforded them a half-decent field of fire but did not allow the Executioner such advantage. One terrorist made a beeline for the opposing tower, but Bolan got him with a 3-round burst before he’d made it two-thirds of the way.

  Victory was in his grasp, and he could almost taste it. There was no way they could take him out from this vantage point, unless they started bringing in heavy artillery. The very thought had to have crossed their minds as well, because Bolan saw two of them emerging and carrying a large tube into position behind some large crates. The Executioner couldn’t be positive, but it looked like an Israeli-made 82 mm B-300. The light antiarmor weapon was more than enough to take out a flimsy iron and prefab tower held together by commercial-grade rivets.

  The tower suddenly trembled violently. Bolan looked down through the well and watched as the pickup truck suddenly came into view, its tail ramming into the tower base. Bolan grabbed the railing in time to keep himself from being tossed down the ladder. And then he cursed himself for having been so stupid. He’d trapped himself on top of this tower, with half the NIF’s forces coming down on him from all directions.

  And he didn’t have a damn place to go!

  18

  Between the constant pounding against the base of the tower and the pair working fervently to set up their rocket launcher, Mack Bolan knew he had only a minute to formulate a plan.

  The Executioner realized an attempt to descend the ladder would be suicide; the NIF terrorists would fill him with holes before he’d gone five feet. The only option was to find another way out of the tower, and a quick look down and to the right provided the answer. There was a smaller building there, perhaps a boiler room or utility station of some kind, and it looked like a reasonable jump. Bolan judged the distance and did a quick calculation. It was about twenty-eight feet to that rooftop—easily more than four times his height—so he figured there was about a forty-eight percent chance of suffering significant injury.

  Still, the soldier considered it a better choice than dying in the collapse of the tower or getting blown to bits while still in it.

  Bolan had made his decision, when another idea came to him—he could lessen the risk of injury by decreasing the distance some. It was a risky gamble, but he would have to chance it. And the only way it would work is if he could keep the two terrorists with the rocket launcher busy long enough for the pickup truck to do its work. As if on cue, the tower shuddered under another jarring impact, and Bolan’s ears rang as the vibration went through his entire body.

  The Executioner quickly removed the sling from his rifle, then passed it through the metal framework bordering the viewing window and lashed it tight with a slipknot. The warrior then wrapped one end around his right fist twice while using his left hand to fire bursts at the terrorists trying to prepare the B-300. Bolan waited until the next jolt from the pickup truck before swinging one leg out of the tower, followed by the other. The warrior hoped the sling would hold his weight. He managed to get both feet onto the ledge of the open viewing window and then shimmied up the tower until reaching its roof.

  Rounds whizzed past his head as a few of the troops tried to take advantage of his precarious situation, but at t
hat distance and firing upward, they weren’t having a whole lot of luck. Bolan managed to get to the roof and went prone before any of the terrorists could claim their prize. The Executioner switched out clips and sent a few more volleys into the terrorists below. Their muzzles winked with return fire, but Bolan was in such a good position that it would have been almost impossible for them to hit him. He was able to pick them off singly and, in some cases, pairs.

  There was a sudden crackle in the headset he wore, and the voice of Jack Grimaldi broke through. “Striker, this is Eagle One. Do you copy?”

  “I copy, Eagle One.”

  “I am up and loaded for bear,” Grimaldi replied. “Two minute ETA to your location.”

  “Striker copies, Eagle One. I’m hot here and having a bit of trouble. Can you give me a low pass and pour on some rain before the big finale?”

  “Roger that, Striker. Eagle One is inbound,” Grimaldi replied with glee.

  Bolan didn’t hear anything at first, but that wasn’t surprising since Grimaldi would come in low and fast, and be on top of the NIF troops before they knew what had hit them. He had less than two minutes to get down and get out. He’d advised Grimaldi that he was to put the missile into the complex and trigger at the zero hour, regardless of whether he was out of the area. The Executioner knew that Grimaldi would never obey such an order, but there wasn’t much Bolan could do about it. If it got to the wire, he knew the Stony Man flier would do whatever was necessary to accomplish the mission—and he’d live with that decision for the rest of his life.

  The Executioner could not ask his friend to do that; it had to be Grimaldi’s decision and his decision alone.

  Bolan was changing out to his last magazine when the sound of the Learjet came from nowhere, and the night sky was suddenly lit with flame and noise. The 30 mm cannons made short work of the area as Grimaldi came in low and hard and poured on the heat.

  “Yeeeeee-haw!” Bolan heard through his headset. “Let’s rock ‘n’ roll!”

  In the lights of the tracer rounds from the cannons, Bolan could see the surprise on the faces of his enemies. Bodies were ripped apart by the heavy-caliber fire, the military-grade ammunition hitting hard and fast, and tearing away limbs and heads from torsos. Bolan turned to watch the pair with B-300 now trying to acquire this new target, but they stood a very small chance of taking out something with that kind of speed. Had they been deploying a Stinger or other missile of that type, it might have been another story, but in this case the Executioner wasn’t too worried. What Grimaldi’s maneuver had done was take the heat off of him, and Bolan knew—even as he felt another bone-jarring impact against the tower—that it was time to prepare.

  At first, the aftermath of the Learjet passing brought an unsettling quiet to the immediate area, and then there was the sound of creaking metal. Bolan could feel the tower start to sway. Another impact from the pickup truck caused the distressed wood and metal to crumble, and the tower started to fall, headed directly for the rooftop Bolan had spied earlier. The Executioner held on tightly to the sling of the M-16 A-2 and braced both feet against the roof as the tower began to fall. The movement seemed slow and controlled, and Bolan knew his timing would have to be perfect to avoid injury.

  The rooftop came toward him fast, but Bolan’s resolve remained firm, and at the precise moment he released his hold on the strap and jumped to the rooftop. The Executioner rolled out of the landing to his feet and headed for the edge of the roof. He jumped again, this time coming to the ground as a supporting frame caught the opposite side of the roof, and the smaller building collapsed under its weight. Bolan had barely avoided being crushed under the rubble, and it was only through some miracle he’d never be able to explain that he’d survived the incident unscathed.

  Bolan got wearily to his feet and headed for the warehouse.

  Grimaldi’s voice sounded in his ears. “Eagle One to Striker. You still in the game, Sarge?”

  “You bet, Eagle One,” Bolan replied. “I’m headed into the warehouse to make sure no innocents are there.”

  “You want to push out the timeline? You’ve only got about one-thirty left, Striker.”

  “Negative, Eagle One, you stay on the original timeline. Do you copy? I’m calling the ball on it, and in one minute, thirty seconds you bring it down.”

  “Eagle One copies, Striker. But what if you’re not out?”

  “Then that’s checkmate,” Bolan replied, and he clicked off his headset.

  He hoped those weren’t the last words he left with his long-time friend. Grimaldi had accompanied him on many missions, and recently he’d been subjected to some inhumane treatment and outright torture by the hands of their enemies. Still, the ace pilot knew better than anyone that this was why they had to stop the NIF at any sacrifice. While a number of the Stony Man warriors would have disagreed, Mack Bolan was as expendable as any of them. He’d chosen to pursue missions on his own, and while he was grateful for the support of the Stony Man crew, he’d kept the alliance tentative so that they wouldn’t lose sight of the goal. In Bolan’s mind, the minute one of them became more important than victory over animal predators like the NIF, all of their sacrifice, all of the bloodshed and tears and hard work, would be for naught.

  And that was simply not acceptable.

  The Executioner entered the warehouse through a side door and was immediately shocked by the sight. The satellite dish was monstrous, larger than any he had ever seen before, and he now understood why the area was so important to the success of Lenzini’s operations and, subsequently, the NIF’s ability to control American defense systems. The thing sat on a triangular framework of interconnected metal poles, and stood at least five stories off the ground. The dish itself was rectangular in shape, and it bristled with assemblies of sensory equipment. The satellite dish extended across the entire length of the warehouse, which measured at least one hundred yards or more, and there was a throbbing that seemed to emanate from the very ground on which the device stood.

  Bolan couldn’t see anyone inside the actual warehouse, which meant that it was probably being controlled by the source system back in Washington. The Executioner started to turn to leave the warehouse when a tall, muscular figure stepped from the shadows, a pistol clutched in its grasp. He had dark, intense eyes and a beard of black streaked with gray, and there was a crazed look in his eyes; it was a look the Executioner had seen a million times before. It emanated with hatred and bloodlust, and the man stared at Bolan with a murderous expression.

  “Cooper,” the man stated.

  “Who are you?” Bolan replied.

  “My name is Colonel Umar Abdalrahman,” he said. “And it is my destiny to kill you.”

  “Is that right?”

  “I would not take such an insolent tone, Cooper,” the terrorist said coldly. “It would appear I have the advantage.”

  “That’s what you think,” Bolan replied.

  The Executioner whipped his rifle around and tossed it at the man. It wasn’t much of a distraction, but it was enough to get Bolan out of the line of fire. A single shot rang out before the warrior tackled Abdalrahman at the knees and slammed his back to the ground. The terrorist recovered quickly, kicking at Bolan and trying to crush his skull with the heel of his boot. Bolan avoided the main thrust of the blow, but the side of the boot scraped against his face. The Executioner willed the pain away as he rolled and got to his feet.

  Abdalrahman searched for the gun he’d dropped, but it was no longer in sight. The terrorist reached behind his back and the sound of a knife rasping from a sheath was barely audible. The light playing through the windows from the security lights outside glinted off the large blade. Bolan reached to his boot and withdrew the Colt Combat Commander knife, which practically leaped into his hand as it was released from the spring-loaded sheath.

  The two men circled each other, Abdalrahman taking a very odd pose of readiness while the Executioner maintained a low center of gravity, the knife blade held para
llel to his forearm with the blade facing away from him. Abdalrahman screamed and charged suddenly, and Bolan easily sidestepped. The terrorist executed a feint of a forward thrust but quickly changed direction as he slid past Bolan and managed to catch the warrior off guard. The blade of his knife sliced through the stretch fabric of Bolan’s blacksuit and left a jagged laceration across his chest.

  Bolan stepped back quickly, resisting the urge to check the wound. He wasn’t dead, but one misstep could make it so he wouldn’t have to worry about how bad it was. Seconds ticked off in Bolan’s head, and he knew that perhaps thirty seconds remained before Grimaldi put a missile straight into the center of the warehouse and detonated it. The Executioner needed to end this quickly, and he wasn’t sure how to do that and still make it out in time. The best he could hope for, in this case, was to stall long enough for Grimaldi to finish the mission.

  And it looked to the Executioner like this was where the curtain fell on the final act.

  Washington, D.C.

  TYRA MACEWAN WAS JOLTED awake by something cold and wet splashed on her face.

  She inadvertently inhaled some of the water, and she choked and spit to regurgitate some of the water. This was followed by a fit of coughing before she finally calmed enough to take in her surroundings. The first thing she saw was Malcolm Shurish’s grinning visage, standing over her with a triumphant glare and an empty glass. She became conscious of the fact that her hands and feet were tied to a pair of upright columns, and those columns were supporting a low ceiling. There were windows scattered throughout the room at the level of the ceiling, but they were blackened with some type of thick tinting material. It didn’t take her long to determine she was in some type of basement.