The Libya Connection te-48 Read online

  The night was responding with a hum of activity. The babble of awakened villagers merged with something else.

  Bolan heard two separate engines gunning to life. He heard voices raised in alarm. He heard the sound of men mobilizing.

  Bolan hurried to where Fahima knelt beside the body of her father.

  Bushir had caught one high in the chest. The old man had not been quite agile enough. He was sprawled onto his back with a gaping, pulpy hole above his heart that still pumped blood. His legs extended straight, his arms were flung out. He looked like a man crucified. He was dead.

  Fahima was wringing her father's hand. She was in anguish, wailing in Arabic.

  Bolan stooped, placed an arm around the young woman, and gently yet forcefully guided her to her feet.

  "Fahima. Listen to me. You must run. Get away from here."

  "My father!" she cried. Her features were twisted. "He's all I have... They've killed him..."

  He slapped her gently, but sharply.

  She snapped to attention, hysteria forgotten.

  "You can come back," he pressed. "But stay now and you'll be killed. Get away from here, Fahima. It's me they want. I'll engage them. You go. Now!"

  He did not wait for her response. He turned and stalked back toward the rear entrance of the inn. He held the Galil with a finger on the trigger, his eyes constantly probing.

  He heard soft words, carried on the night wind. Fahima's woman-child voice:

  "Thank you, American. May Allah protect you."

  He sensed Fahima moving off along the stone wall of the building, away from her father's body. Away from the killing ground.

  Bolan regained the doorway that he and the others had just left. He hustled swiftly into the hallway that cut through the building. The Executioner hurried on soundless feet.

  The merc terrorists over at Jericho's villa had undoubtedly heard the sounds of weapon fire out here in the bleak nowhere.

  How would they respond?

  As he hurried down the hallway and approached the stairs leading up to the main room, Bolan ran a quick review of what he had seen here so far.

  Kennedy has ideas of his own. He's got a market for the cargo he's supposed to be guarding. The buyers are here tonight. The computation lacked one answer: Where is Eve?

  Bolan heard raised voices as he approached the stairs to the main room. He paused and listened.

  Kennedy was shouting.

  "You can't do this, goddammit! We had a deal, you black bastards!"

  "Watch your tongue, Mr. Kennedy." A heavily accented African voice; silky but with cold steel in it. "I do not know what is happening outside. But I suggest we leave here at once."

  "You're damn right we'll leave here," snarled Kennedy. "And I'm taking my money with me." Then, over his shoulder, he called out: "Hymie — get in here fast!"

  Bolan figured Kennedy was calling to the merc who had been guarding Fahima and Bushir. Bolan was about to respond when a door across the hallway burst open and two more African soldiers leveled AK-47s at the Executioner.

  Bolan fell to one knee, pumped off two fast rounds from the Galil but not fast enough to stop one of the soldiers firing his own fast round.

  But accurate enough to nail both black troopers with head hits that sent them toppling back into the room in a deadfalling tangle.

  Bolan mounted the steps two at a time. He entered the inn's main room, Galil searching for targets.

  There were four men in the dining room. A bodyguard, in the same uniform as the men outside; two chunky blacks who looked uncomfortable in their Italian suits. And Kennedy.

  The gunfire from the corridor had interrupted their confrontation. All four men spun their attention to the doorway Bolan had burst through.

  The bodyguard was already pulling up his rifle.

  Bolan took the bodyguard first.

  The Galil bucked death as Bolan squeezed the trigger. The bodyguard was tagged out with a rupturing throat hit that tossed him tumbling back to the floor, taking a table and two chairs with him on the way down.

  Someone blew out the candle on the table where the principals of the meeting had been sitting. The room was pitched into darkness. There was a scuffling of movement. Mad and fast.

  Bolan sidestepped away from where he had stood, went into a deep crouch. He heard a door opening on the other side of the large room.

  He fired two rounds at where he determined the sound was. He heard a groan of pain, desperate in the dark.

  Bolan dodged again. A handgun opened up from the far corner of the room. He heard the hiss of a bullet slice past him.

  Bolan fired to the right of the pistol shot. He darted sideways himself a microsecond after triggering the round. He was not rewarded with the sound of a hit. Bolan's opponent knew how to handle a fire-fight in the dark, too. Bolan's target was constantly moving. On the offensive.

  Two heartbeats. The open doorway was now visible, a deep gray. And empty. Another pistol shot slammed through the darkness. Another tongue of dirty flame across the room.

  Bolan heard the darkness as if it were breathing, and divined through a mix of gambling and the intense will of the air itself that his opponent would choose to dodge to the right again. That is where he fired.

  He knew he was on the money when a wet rattle bubbled from a body with a sound that no man can fake. The sound of death.

  The noisy collapse was succeeded by a hushed stillness in the dining room.

  Bolan could hear sounds of assault from outside. Doors were thrown open, running men were entering the inn.

  Within seconds the lead invaders were silhouetted in the grayness of the open doorway. Bolan blew away three of them instantly, with three shots and unerring accuracy. His was an inexhaustible command of judgment. The remaining soldiers scampered out of sight for cover, back the way they had come. There were sounds of retreat in the darkness.

  Bolan utilized the fleeing seconds before more soldiers came. He moved to where the body of the handgun-wielder had fallen. He looked closely in the gloom.

  He was looking into the dead face of one of Kennedy's Italian-togged black customers.

  The other buyer was also dead, visibly crumpled near the door. So the first cry in the dark had been that one's last.

  And Kennedy was gone.

  Bolan moved through the doorway. He was into starlight.

  There was troop movement from several areas in and around the small village. The activity centered in the street fronting the inn. Bolan swiftly trotted around to the back of the ancient stone building, then cut off diagonally in a line toward the dunes. His senses were attuned to perceptions of the enemy, and informed him that the deployment numbered ten or twelve men at most, although they were widely scattered and dangerously answerable to no one.

  Kennedy could not backtrack through the tunnel to the villa. Bolan recalled meeting those black troopers as he was first helping Fahima and her father to escape. The soldiers had looked like they were on their way to where the girl and her father were hidden. The Africans therefore knew of the room with two doors and Kennedy's "secret" tunnel. Something had gone down here at the inn. Kennedy would know that they knew, because it had just happened.

  Kennedy's actions in his office earlier, when Bolan had been watching him, told Bolan that Kennedy was alone on this except for the merc Hymie, no doubt promised a slice of the action. Not even Doyle, Kennedy's second-in-command, knew about what Kennedy had been up to.

  Kennedy's probable course of action would be to cut across the open terrain and get back inside the villa, utilizing his knowledge of security of the Jericho property.

  Bolan had to make Kennedy talk.

  Kennedy knew where Evita Aguilar was.

  But Bolan had to find him first.

  11

  Kennedy jogged through the night, listening to the sounds of his own labored breathing.

  The village of Bishabia, and gunfire, receded to lower ground behind him. He was moving in a zigzag cours
e toward the walls of Leonard Jericho's villa a quarter mile away. He planned a slip back in via his office window. He would bluff his way out of this, whatever happened.

  Kennedy's main concern was Mike Rideout. Or whatever the guy's real name was. Kennedy had little doubt that "Rideout" would be hot on his trail, and closing fast, at this very moment.

  Kennedy paused when the ground suddenly angled downward. The village lights and activity dipped out of sight behind him.

  The merc swung around and crouched, listening. He was sure he could hear very light footfalls gaining on him, rapidly approaching from the direction of the village.

  Kennedy estimated his pursuer to be about one hundred yards away. Time enough to set a trap.

  He unhitched the compact transceiver from his belt. The radio was Kennedy's contact to Doyle and the other mercs in the villa. Kennedy knew Doyle would be going berserk trying to raise him on the radio the minute they heard the uproar from the village and couldn't find Kennedy. There would be plenty of squawking over the transceiver right now.

  Kennedy ran to a nearby ridge in the rock-and-sand terrain. He placed the transceiver in a shallow surface gully. He flicked a tiny switch, activating the unit. It started crackling.

  Kennedy ran back to his previous position. He bellied out prone. He swung the Largo-Star machine gun around by its leather strap into firing posture. Less than fifteen seconds had elapsed since he first paused and listened for the sounds of Rideout's approach.

  He would be waiting when the desert starlight silhouetted Rideout's approaching form.

  "Boss! What the hell's going on? Do you read me? Are you in the village?" The sounds from the transceiver crackled clearly in the night. "Come in, goddammit!"

  Enough time had passed, thought Kennedy. Where the hell is he?

  "Right behind you." A cool voice answered his thoughts. "Drop your gun. Turn over slowly."

  Kennedy swung around onto his back, the Largo-Star blazing.

  Mack Bolan had not expected a man like Kennedy to be taken alive. Bolan tried. But the main thing was Bolan staying alive. He had to find Eve.

  He leaped aside in the instant of time it took Kennedy to twist around.

  Kennedy's burst slashed across the space occupied by Rideout's voice. Except that the origin of the voice was moving as fast as a voice could carry across a still desert night, and had slipped out of target acquisition even as the words were sinking in.

  Bolan had slid in one process from a voice in the dark to a guy who was out of the picture.

  Now Kennedy's execution was fast work. The Galil in Bolan's grip thundered three times in rapid fire. For good measure. Three heavy slugs exploded through living matter, rendering it deceased, spinning Kennedy into a dead man's roll across the ground, leaving a glistening trail of bloodied sand in his wake.

  Bolan shoulder-slung his own rifle and picked up the dead man's chopper and an extra ammo clip. Then he hotfooted to the spot where Kennedy's transceiver was still crackling.

  Doyle's voice.

  "Does anyone read me? Is anyone there?"

  Bolan depressed the transmitting button, then started out of there.

  "Yeah, yeah," he growled irritably. "Hold on to your shirt!" He was already jogging away from Kennedy's body as he spoke to Doyle. "I'm all right."

  He was approximating Kennedy's speech pattern.

  He counted on the airwaves and tension of the moment to do the rest. It did.

  "Top, what the hell's going on down there?" came Doyle's voice. "Are you in the village? Do you need backup?"

  "Negative. Get ready to lift off. Ten minutes from now, whether I'm back or not. The pilots have the coordinates?"

  "I gave 'em the same ones you gave me. Whadaya mean, if you're not back?"

  "I'll catch up," snarled Bolan. "Don't disobey orders. I have something for Mr. Jericho."

  Which was true enough, figured Bolan. He arced around, back toward the village at a steady gallop, hoping like hell that ten minutes would be enough time.

  Bolan could not make out the type of markings of the truck that had been sent out of the village to investigate his shots. His hearing told him it was a heavy-duty personnel carrier.

  The machine was speeding in his direction, bumping across the rough ground.

  No headlights.

  That confirmed it for Bolan.

  The bulky shape of the truck emerged from the gloom, along a route predicted by the Executioner who was crouched off to the side and out of the truck's way. He could discern four men riding in the back of the truck. The vehicle was crashing along at fifty or more miles per.

  Bolan opened fire with the newly acquired Largo Star. He directed his initial stream of fire at the front cab of the racing truck. He could not see clearly into the cab. He didn't need to.

  He heard shattering glass.

  A scream.

  He kept on firing. The lightweight machine gun stuttered in his fists, illuminating the desert night with its muzzle flashes.

  The truck veered too sharply. The vehicle seemed to hang suspended in time and space for several moments in a sickening two-wheel tilt.

  Shouts from the falling men in the back.

  The lurching vehicle lost its battle with gravity. It flipped onto its side. Momentum still pushed the truck through the rock and sand in a grinding for ward plow.

  Bolan closed in. He discerned a guy's body trapped between the vehicle and hard dirt as the truck skidded along, mashing that particular attacker's torso into hamburger amid a barely human squealing that ended very abruptly.

  Bolan moved in on the remaining three hardguys. In the Terrorist Wars, it was shoot or be shot as soon as your cover was blown. That fact John Phoenix knew very well; its implacable message was carved in the flesh of the campaigns already, now, part of his history.

  History spoke again as a blistering fire track spat from the Largo-Star into the three-man night, turning it into a howling dark hole of damnation and wet, sticky, glistening desert sand. Bone shards exploded from body sacks in the trajectory of the Largo-Star's death spew — and the night became death for three non-notable terror creeps, a night of darkness as everlasting as would be the kind of war that brings such death. The Terrorist Wars. The War of Evolution. Here, in this damned desert of hellfire and moaning death.

  Bolan saw a man's open chest bubble in the starlight. Twenty feet away from him, the soldier had been opened from top to bottom.

  He veered away from the killing ground after that. He closed in on the village from a new direction. A stopwatch in his mind kept track of the passing seconds. He gave himself seven more minutes to fix this paramilitary force that had dared penetrate deep into Libya and secrete the sort of cargo about to be airlifted from the Jericho villa.

  The African force here might still try to rush the villa and acquire Kennedy's purloined cargo for themselves by force. The only way to avoid such a strategic misfortune would be to deal these troops a decisive blow now, while they were uncertain, before they had time to move right.

  Bolan would chew through all of these double-dealers until he found Eve.

  He would use the tunnel leading from the inn back to what had been Kennedy's office. There would be no one to guard that route. Not at the inn end, anyway. Those choppers were going to lift off and "Mike Rideout" wanted to be on board. Those aircraft and the cargo would be on their way to Lenny Jericho. And Santos. And Eve.

  He reached the back wall of a mud house in the desert on the outskirts of the village. There would be civilian faces at the front windows of the house, facing the activity of the remaining soldiers in the central street and dirt roads. But back here, nothing.

  He stayed close to the clay-hard, stonelike building and moved swiftly around its nearest corner. He was heading along one wall of the house for a look into the street. Bolan had let the sounds of the troops guide him. He judged the majority, or possibly all, of the surviving troops to be in a vicinity not far from this house.

  When Bola
n reached the corner of the hut that gave onto the narrow mud, street, he eyeballed the scene at the center of the village where two rutted roads intercepted. His night vision was attuned to the darkness. He was able to make a clean head count of the uniformed men who crowded around an unmarked desert vehicle that matched the truck already destroyed.

  Five soldiers stood around the vehicle. The Africans were heatedly debating among themselves in their own tongue.

  The Executioner did not hesitate. He stepped clear of the wall. He remained in shadow. "Live free or die," he called out to toll their fate. He triggered a chattering blast from the Largo-Star.

  The debate stopped and the soldiers went diving in all directions. Four of them moved under their own power, two dodging behind the truck, one making for the nearest building doorway, the other hitting the ground with rifle blazing in response to Bolan's fire.

  The fifth guard did a brief crazy dance as a stream of screaming slugs stitched him from right to left like the heavy metal scythe of Time itself.

  Bolan bent his knees into a low, low crouch and moved to the right. He heard bullets whisper near his ear; heard the ricochets of lead whine off the baked mud wall behind him.

  Bolan triggered another short burst from the chopper in his hands. Geysers of dirt erupted in a line across the ground from right to left. Then geysers of blood spurted up as the line of bullets skewered the running target's life and set it up to roast in hell.

  This was a major engagement.

  The other running man was almost making the safety of the nearest building when another stutter of the machine gun checked the run into a sideways kick. Another hit in a festival of death lapping up losers in the flaming game of mankind's survival.

  Bolan slapped a fresh clip into the weapon. He advanced toward the truck, remaining all the time in the shadows along the walls of the village huts.

  There remained but two troopers in retreat behind the personnel carrier parked at the intersection. They both leaned out from opposite ends of the truck and fired simultaneous rounds down the length of the street. They had no idea where Bolan was. He continued advancing.

  He was some seventy paces from a point where he estimated he would have a clear shot at both men — when a loud report sounded from the opposite side of the intersection.